Here’s my Pazz & Jop list for Village Voice, annotated with expanded thoughts on my picks and accompanying YouTube content. Check it out.  

Mogwai, Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Sub Pop)

“The Scottish group’s heavy instrumentals can muddle as much as they throttle,” I wrote of Mogwai last April. “They can turn against you in an instant. “Luckily, on the newHardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, it’s easy enough to ignore the personal pronoun’s invective and enjoy the slicing angles of its cinematic scope. They hate us, but they love us. Maybe.”

Mogwai, “Mexican Grand Prix”

Tim Hecker, Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)

I kept returning to Tim Hecker this year. A tactful, intuitive artist who seems able to work the squiggles of string theory into musical forms, I found Hecker’s work acting as a concave mirror to the crazed shouts of our society in 2011. In both Ravedeath and Dropped Pianos, its accompanying EP, he was able to sweep sand across the face of an abandoned Wendy’s, or turn the rusting hulk of a big rig into a pipe organ. This is what his music evokes: both the stirring echoes and unclear future of our weird existence. 

Tim Hecker, “The Piano Drop”

Wild Flag, Wild Flag (Merge)

“Romance,” the jam included here, tore our faces off inside a hot and sweaty Subterranean this year. And sure, this is a Past Me pick, too: Helium, Mary Timony’s old band, was a mainstay of my WCKS radio show in college, as were Sleater-Kinney and even Quasi. But what Wild Flag did with their self-titled debut isn’t just about nostalgia. They built on their own experiences with 90s indie and fleshed those out with giddy nods to fuzz-pop, girl groups, and ace songwriting the whole damn way. Ultimately, this record is just great rock ‘n’ roll. And that’s good in any year.  

Wild Flag, “Romance”

IMPLODES, Black Earth (Kranky)

Black Earth is another album that wouldn’t stay off my turntable in 2011. Like a Sonic Youth haze gathering on the horizon, it bristled also with masked riffs and an appealingly warped take on the fractured remains of arch post-punk. Plus, that album cover. It also wins in 2011. Spookifying.

IMPLODES, “Meadowsland”

Bill Callahan, Apocalypse (Drag City)

Deserved as hell, but it was a little weird to gushing press in places like the New Yorker about a guy who used to put out lo-fi paeans to destroyed romances and brain-fried depression. But as he’s grown, Bill Callahan has left the smog and found solace in his keen sense of the world. The anger, hurt, and depression is still there, lurking in his baritone. But part of what makes Apocalypse so terrific is how he weaves plain old darkness in refreshing dark humor. Bill Callahan: America’s newest funnyman.

Bill Callahan, “Riding for the Feeling”

EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints (Soulterrain Transmissions)

Erika Anderson made minced meat of our Summer with a tear of shows that showcased wonderfully blistering guitar work as well as the steadfast trudge of this record, the feeling that youth is over only when it’s ritualistically murdered by its owner so that something new even more vigorous might rise up in its place. With “California” also making my singles-of-2011 list, I’m comfortable thinking about how EMA will make even more things be awesome in 2012. Watch out; she’s right behind you. 

EMA, “California”

Peaking Lights, 936 (Not Not Fun)

Is this the sound of falling through the triple canopy? Like a dub plate of someone’s experiences in some faraway land, the husband-and-wife duo makes tripped-out jams that access psychedelia, trance, and memory simultaneously. If I were to remake the Mad Max films, I’d have a jalopy powered by DIY solar panels, and these two would be driving, blasting music on a chain of jury-rigged boom boxes. It’s dance party music for the world after this. 

Peaking Lights, “Key Sparrow”

Liturgy, Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey)

Oh, the arguments over Liturgy. Dudes didn’t exactly help themselves with statements and even printed treatises that treated their black metal source material like some kind of cadaver to be examined and reanimated by the power of the indie rock dark arts. But when they played Empty Bottle in (I think it was) September, all that squabbling disintegrated in the face of a sheer rockface of sludgy and pinpoint accurate groove. This was heavy music, and it was here to slice open your brain.  

Liturgy, “Veins of God”

Wye Oak, Civlian (Merge)

A pristine (except for when it purposely isn’t) snapshot of gauzy folk, indie rock traditionalism, and finely-hewed coed harmonies, Civilian is the quiet record that could, a collection of songs kept working their way forward in the stack until they were just always right there in front, ready to make things steady when it all seemed kinda F’d. Thanks, Wye Oak. Let’s have some more. 

Wye Oak, “Civilian”

The Men, Leave Home (Sacred Bones)

And then there’s the band that makes things kinda F’d. There was a lot of great stuff put out on Sacred Bones this year, but this one kept kicking the door frame until it splintered. A greasy, loud and torn-leather testament to rock ‘n’ roll frazzle. And I don’t know if it’s just me, but every time I put this thing on, the next thing on the turntable was my old Nation of Ulysses 7“‘s. And there’s nothing wrong with that. 

The Men, “Bataille”