Year in Review
Friday, January 18, 2013
Year in Review Music Post No Bills My favorite albums of 2012, numbers ten through one
Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.18.13 at 08:32 AM
The final installment of the year-end countdown of my favorite albums from 2012.
10. Duane Pitre, Feel Free (Important) New Orleans composer Duane Pitre created a system/composition using a computer algorithm. At root, the computer holds various recordings of harmonic patterns played on guitars tuned in just intonation; the program randomly plays back various little snatches, which overlap and resonate in ever-changing combinations. The piece can function in that sparse mode, but it becomes more interesting when other players join in, as on this lovely recording with violinist Jim Altieri, hammer dulcimer player Shannon Fields, bassist James Ilgenfritz, cellist Jessie Marino, and harpist Jesse Sparhawk. Participants are free to play what they want, although Pitre established rules to prevent performances from veering into chaos or overload. These collaborators nail it, making it the most beautiful, gently accruing piece of strings vibrations I've heard all year.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Year in Review Music Post No Bills My favorite albums of 2012, numbers 20 through 11
Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.16.13 at 03:02 PM
Part three of this week's countdown:
20. Sharon Van Etten, Tramp (Secretly Canadian) On the stunning Tramp, Sharon Van Etten continues to transform herself: once a folk-inspired wallflower, she's now an emotional powerhouse with a sound too big for any one genre. Her voice brings solidity and grandeur to the lovely melodies—she shows impressive range in her overdubbed vocal harmonies, and her baroque embellishments never feel overdone.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Year in Review Music Post No Bills My favorite albums of 2012, numbers 30 through 21
Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.15.13 at 02:40 PM
The countdown continues.
30. Fay, Din (Time No Place) The solo debut from the former singer and keyboardist in Chicago's Pit er Pat is a head-rattling assemblage of stammering beats, vocal cut-ups, and twitchy, terse synthesizer licks. Now based in LA, Fay Davis-Jeffers collages the various fragments to construct hypnotic, almost tribal settings for her abstract vocal incantations—but she never lets the music glide or settle into anything predictable. A dozen listens in, the album still keeps me on glorious edge.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Year in Review Music Post No Bills My favorite albums of 2012, numbers 40 through 31
Posted by Peter Margasak on 01.14.13 at 03:01 PM
40. Mike Wexler, Dispossession (Mexican Summer) Another strong effort from this overlooked Brooklyn psych-rocker, who keeps his music modest and restrained. There's more than a touch of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd embedded in these delicate, slow-moving, slightly queasy grooves and subtly expansive arrangements, but their intimacy and beauty belongs solely to Wexler.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Year in Review Film A list of 20 notable classics and rediscoveries that screened in Chicago in 2012
Posted by Ben Sachs on 01.02.13 at 05:30 PM
Monday, December 31, 2012
Arts Year in Review News Visual Art 2012 was the year of the Cultural Plan—remember that?
Posted by Deanna Isaacs on 12.31.12 at 09:00 AM
All year long there were proclamations, slogans, logos, buttons, banners, brochures, and programmed talk, talk, talk at expansive town-hall meetings and cozy neighborhood "cultural conversations."
The head of the National Endowment for the Arts even came to town to tell us how visionary and wonderful it was going to be.
And all that time, it was huffed and puffed and stuffed with so much hot air about strategies and stakeholders and innovations and priorities and recommendations and global aspirations and hundreds of initiatives until, like a great big stretched balloon, on the morning of October 15, at an elementary school in Pilsen, when it was finally done, in front of the Mayor and a teeny-tiny, invited audience, it—POPPED AND DISAPPEARED!
So far as I know, it hasn't been seen since.
But the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events says there will be an announcement about implementation in late January.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Year in Review Music Frank Ocean and pop music's online identity in 2012
Posted by Leor Galil on 12.29.12 at 09:00 AM
- Aundre Larrow
- Frank Ocean at Lollapalooza
Ocean inspired plenty of great music writing, but that's not what I'm talking about—Ocean managed to put together some memorable writing work this year outside of penning the lyrics for Channel Orange. As Grantland's Steven Hyden wrote in his "Year in Music" article, "The year's most notable music writing came from non-music critics." Hyden focused on a couple pieces that sparked heated online discussions about the state of the industry: Emily White's NPR post about music ownership and Damon Krukowski's Pitchfork feature on music streaming. Those articles are certainly among the most notable pieces of music writing, but Ocean topped them with a short Tumblr post detailing the first time he fell in love with a man and the confusion and struggle surrounding those feelings.
Given Ocean's fame, that article went viral shortly after he posted it back in July, and it launched countless think pieces about sexuality in popular music—specifically hip-hop, which is confusing considering Ocean isn't a rapper. Notability aside, Ocean's writing is as touching and heartfelt as his music, and his post is worth a read. Many news stories about this particular post stuck to reporting the basic content of Ocean's announcement and glossed over certain other details, namely the writing program Ocean used for the piece—TextEdit.
Friday, December 28, 2012
Jazz Year in Review Music Post No Bills My favorite jazz albums of 2012
Posted by Peter Margasak on 12.28.12 at 02:00 PM
Books Arts Year in Review Film Thomas Mann, film critic
Posted by Ben Sachs on 12.28.12 at 01:38 PM
I look forward to revisiting this and to seeing what different critical responses emerge over the years. In the meantime, I'll let Thomas Mann have the final word; following the jump is a relevant quote from his story "A Man and His Dog":
Things I Love Year in Review Music My Best of 2012 Spotify playlist—five hours of the year's most pleasure-inducing music
Posted by Miles Raymer on 12.28.12 at 06:52 AM
At this point the list is as close to exactly how I want it as it's going to get. Spotify's library has a lot of pretty huge gaps. There aren't a lot of mixtapes on it, so I couldn't include anything from either of Action Bronson's extremely rewarding album-length releases of the year, or Charli XCX's "Forgiveness", and I had to put Jeremih's "773 Love" on there instead of the superior "Fuck U All the Time" because that's the only song from his amazing Late Nights with Jeremih mixtape that Spotify has. And, increasingly, the best hip-hop and dance music is being released straight to the Internet track by track without coming anywhere near an actual record label, so the mind-blowing amount of good music that came out via SoundCloud this year is almost entirely absent. But all in all I think it's a fair representation of my listening this year.
