I agree. Kim, as we can see, picked them too. To be fair, I haven't listened to
Green Blues or
Gettin' Gone from this year in their entirety, but of what I heard, I was turned off by yet another band that cannot (let's get real) really compose songs or play together and so on and so forth. The result is cacophony borne of laziness, or at the very least, a degree of transparent lack of musical focus.
In my view,
some of the material on
Trees Outside the Academy falls into this same category and much of the corresponding live material from the tour bears that out, especially with Mascis not present. But on the Thurston Moore's album (as compared to MV & EE w/the GR)
, you've got his vocal and lyrical abilty to form an interesting juxtaposition and better players and better music in general as a saving grace. And also,
some of the songs are, in fact, really, really good.
I actually like Be Your Own Pet's s/t from last year on Ecstatic Peace and ranked it highly, so try to distinguish my meaning, please. (I didn't listen to their ep this year; it appears the brothers Orrall are now out of the mix and focusing on their label.)
It's astonishing to me that every list that I read that ranks underground or experimental albums fairly highly does the reader the disservice to roundly ignore the 2005 The Original Silence concert released by Smalltown Superjazz this year.
The First Original Silence is entirely performed live improvisationally. Music that finds its way to a release just doesn't get much more underground or experimental than this recording. Moreover, there is a genuine spirit to this document-in-sound that the discerning ear instantly recognizes.
And so arises a case (although I would have awarded the album a 9.0 and not an 8.0) where I agree with a Pitchfork review:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...iginal-silence