PSF's 2011 Writers' Poll
Our favorite things

Left to right: Gillian Welch, Darius Jones/Matthew Shipp, the War on Drugs, Lou Reed/Metallica, Beppe Crovella

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Just as we're getting used to the fact that it's another new year, we look back on the old one. Our rabid scribes (well, most of 'em) couldn't hold back with a mere 10 choices for their favorite records of 2011 so we let 'em chose 20 again, and allow them to pontificate a bit if they like. So, see if you agree with 'em or hate what we've chosen and maybe you'll get curious about a few titles that you didn't know about. Enjoy!

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5-Track

• Howling Hex Wilson Semiconductors
  
• Tom Waits Bad As Me
  
• Akron/Family The Cosmic Birth and Journey of Shinju TNT
  
• Garage A Trois Always Be Happy But Stay Evil
  
• Six Organs Of Admittance Asleep On The Floodplain
  
• The Master Musicians Of Bukkake Totem 3
  
• Lou Reed & Metallica Lulu
  
• Amon Tobin ISAM
  
• Royal Trux Thank You (reissue)
  
• Volita Pearl rocknroll dream
  

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Tim Broun

• The Vinyl District Record Store Locator app (The Vinyl District/Shoutem)
  
• Tom Waits Bad As Me
  
• Brian Olive Two of Everything
  
• Booker T. Jones The Road From Memphis
  
• Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues
  
• Black Keys Lonely Boy
  
• Justin Townes Earle Harlem River Blues (really 2010 but I'm counting it for this year)
  
• Mekons Ancient & Modern
  
• The Kills Blood Pressures
  
• Charles Bradley No Time For Dreaming
  
• Raphael Saadiq Stone Rollin'
  

Honorable mention:

• Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings Soul Time
  
• Beirut The Rip Tide
  

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Kevin Chesser

A note: though the following list represents my favorite albums that were actually released or reissued in 2011, I will say that this year I was also big on John Fahey, Hank Williams, Fiddlin’ Doc Roberts, Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, Smithsonian’s colossal Mountain Music of Kentucky compilation, Hasil Adkins, Gus Cannon, Desmond Dekker, Lee Scratch Perry, and basically anything put out on Mississippi Records, Sublime Frequencies, or the Static Cult Label. Also, The Natural Bridge by the Silver Jews is still my #1 favorite album, 8 years running. Some music has perennial relevance and vitality; I think 2011 has given us some music that will endure. Not a bad year.

• Ty Segall Goodbye Bread
  
• Dirty Beaches Badlands
  
• Widowspeak Widowspeak
  
• Times New Viking Dancer Equired
  
• Group Doueh Zayna Jumma
  
• Shannon & The Clams Sleep Talk
  
• Parton Kooper Planetarium Glass & Bone
  
• Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks Mirror Traffic
  
• Thee Oh Sees Castlemania
  
• Gang Gang Dance Eye Contact
  
• Dead Moon In The Graveyard (Reissue)
  
• Woods Sun & Shade
  
• Pure X Pleasure
  
• Lungfish The Unanimous Hour (Reissue)
  

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Robin Cook

• Adele 21
  
• Kate Bush 50 Words For Snow
  
• Maze A Thousand Heys
  
• White Denim D
  
• Wild Flag Wild Flag
  

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Michael Freerix

• Nels Cline ­ Dirty Baby
  
• Thurston Moore ­ Demolished Thoughts
  
• Vertex ­ Shapes & Pases
  
• Lou Anthem ­ Smart Flesh
  
• Darryl Jennifer ­In Search of a Black Judas
  
• Lobi Traore ­ Rainy Season Blues
  
• Felix Kubin & Ensemble Integrales ­Echohaus
  
• T-Model Ford ­ Taledagger
  
• Pontiak ­ Comecrudos
  
• Warpaint ­ Exquisite Corpse
  
• The Go-Team ­ Rolling Blackouts
  
• Tamikrest ­ Toumastin
  
• The Kills ­ Blood Pressures
  
• The Ex ­ Catch My Shoe
  
• Darius Jones/Matthew Shipp ­Cosmic Lieder
  
• Hassle Hound ­ Born in the Night
  
• The Dirtbombs ­ Party Store
  
• Wire ­ Red Barked Tree
  
• The Tandoori Knights ­ Curry Up
  
• Fujiya & Miyagi Ventriloquizzing
  

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Jack Gold-Molina

• Deep Dark Robot 8 Songs About A Girl
  
• Hawklords The Barney Bubbles Memorial Concert
  
• Motorhead The World Is Yours
  
• Alice Coltrane Universal Consciousness/Lord Of Lords
  
• (Reissue) Cellular Chaos Demo Live
  
• Halou Halou (Reissue)
  
• Earthless Live At The Casbah
  
• The Kills Blood Pressures
  
• Stripmall Architecture Albino Peacock
  
• Miles Davis LIVE In Europe 1967: The Bootleg Series Vol. 1
  
• Penny Rimbaud Oh Magick Kingdom/Oh America/Not They
  
• Soundgarden Live On I-5
  
• The Rolling Stones Some Girls (Reissue)
  
• Jimi Hendrix Winterland
  
• John Coltrane Impulse Albums 5
  
• John Coltrane Unissued Seattle Broadcast
  
• Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble Old/Quartet Sessions
  
• $.99 Dreams Spei Res
  
• $.99 Dreams Three Songs For Another Time
  
• Moraine Metamorphic Rock
  

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Gary Gomes

• Beppe Crovella What's Rattlin' on the Moon (Visionary work based on Mike Ratledge compositions)
  
• Captain Beefheart Bat Chain Puller (released on Zappa records)
  
• Moraine Manifest DenSity (Superb group; like an American Univers Zero)
  
• Soft Machine Legacy Live Adventures (fascinating new incarnation)
  
• Boris Salvodelli Insanology (reissue)
  
• DFA Kaleidoscope
  
• Olivier Messiaen Turangalila Symphonie, Myung-Whun Chung(amazing interpretation of one of he 20th century's greatest works)
  
• The Nice Live at the Fillmore East
  
• Ives Ruggles and Piston, Three Places in New England, Sun-Treader, etc. Tilson-Thomas, Michael (Get this for the Ruggles...a terrific piece!)
  
• Sonny Rollins Saxophone Colossus (my appreciation for Rollins grows)
  
• Roland Kirk Domino (ditto)
  

There are probably quite a few others I should mention....the Moon-in-June label is outstanding in almost all its releases--and I hate not mentioning Magma, but that's it for now.

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Jason Gross

• M.I.A. Vicki Leekx
  
• Wild Flag Wild Flag
  
• Black Keys El Camino
  
• British Sea Power Valhalla Dancehall
  
• T-Model Ford and GravelRoad Taledragger
  
• Hayes Carll KMAG YOYO (& other American stories)
  
• Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes
  
• Los Chicharrons Roots of Life
  
• tUnE-yArDs w h o k i l l
  
• Lupe Fiasco Lasers
  
• Portugal The Man In the Mountain In the Cloud
  
• Various Artists Air Texture Volume 1
  
• The Roots Undun
  
• Childish Gambino Camp
  
• Miranda Lambert Four the Record
  
• TV on the Radio Nine Types of Light
  
• The Limousines Get Sharp
  
• STS The Illustrious
  
• Mazes A Thousand Heys
  
• The Weeknd House of Balloons
  

FULL LIST AT http://yeweiblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/2011s-greatest-hits.html

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Brent Jensen

• Over The Rhine The Long Surrender
  
• My Morning Jacket Circuital
  
• Kurt Vile Smoke Ring For My Halo
  
• R.E.M. Part Lies, Part Heart, Part Truth, Part Garbage
  
• Alabama Shakes Alabama Shakes EP
  
• The Rolling Stones Some Girls (reissue)
  
• Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost
  
• Middle Brother Middle Brother
  
• TV On The Radio Nine Types of Light
  
• The Strokes Angles
  
• Band of Horses Infinite Arms
  
• Portugal. The Man In The Mountain, In The Cloud
  
• Ryan Adams Ashes and Fire
  
• The War On Drugs Slave Ambient
  
• Foo Fighters Wasting Light
  
• The Beastie Boys Hot Sauce Commitee Part Two
  
• Frank Turner England Keep My Bones
  
• Smith Westerns Dye It Blonde
  
• Anthrax Worship Music
  
• Wilco The Whole Love
  

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Dorian Lynskey

• PJ Harvey ­ Let England Shake
  
• The Horrors ­Skying
  
• Frank Ocean ­ Nostalgia, Ultra
  
• Gillian Welch ­ The Harrow & the Harvest
  
• Bon Iver ­ Bon Iver
  
• St Vincent ­ Strange Mercy
  
• James Blake ­ James Blake
  
• Shabazz Palaces ­ Black Up
  
• Nicolas Jaar ­ Space Is Only Noise
  
• Kate Bush ­ 50 Words for Snow
  
• Elbow ­ Build a Rocket, Boys!
  
• King Creosote & Jon Hopkins ­ Diamond Mine
  
• Gang Gang Dance ­ Eye Contact
  
• Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx ­ We're New Here
  
• Katy B ­ On a Mission
  
• Sons & Daughters ­ Mirror Mirror
  
• Metronomy ­ The English Riviera
  
• tUnE-yArDs ­ WHO KILL
  
• Fleet Foxes ­ Helplessness Blues
  
• Roots Manuva ­ 4everevolution
  

Left to right: Group Doueh, Madlib, Low, Colin Stetson, Extra Classic

Domenic Maltempi

• Pure X Pleasure
  (Year of the crepitating keepers. I dreamed of a lady Rain X that would come out of the car-spray stuff. But till then...)
  
• Slug Guts Howlin’ Gang
  (and your moms love sluggy to! Still blasting this gem since it came out in early '11)
  
• Rikki Ililonga & Musi-O-Tunya Dark Sunrise
  (easily best reissue of year...think it came out in 2011..close enough. A masterful collection of Zamrock at its best)
  
• The War On Drugs Slave Ambient
  (moving, original, with traces of peanuts, and poison, and a cold reassuring current of ferrous juice)
  
• Horrid Red Silent Party
  (combine this with their other EP put out by Soft Abuse earlier in year, and you have some killer simple dark-wave stuff that feels like that the party is over, and thank god the party’s over man)
  
• Sao Paulo Underground & Rob Mazurek Tres Cabecas Loucuras
  
• Tim Hecker Ravendeath, 1972
  (first track I heard off this in the air pt 1) was interrupted by a voice warning listeners about a flood warning)
  
• The Field Looping State of Mind
  (like the best thought of the day you have that you can’t really remember with great certainty or pointed need, but is still moving, something starling so)
  
• Crystal Stilts Radiant Door
  (Another EP...but like---really together and punchy, and the way the sky looks fucked up when it's just the regular sort of sky after a nasty virus has passed away through it)
  
• Beach Fossils What a Pleasure
  
• Belong Common Era
  
• Peaking Lights 936
  
• Bill Callahan Apocalypse
  
• King Creosote and Jon Hopkins Diamond Mine
  (And there is a digging in the sweet folksiness on display here--for more than just shiny things that cut well, or that grabs one and allows them to rise in a heavy air---some crestfallen gas maybe... well-fortified with a sound world courtesy of Hopkins, that compliment and strengthen it all.. a beautiful record)
  
• Thee Oh Sees Carrion Crawler/The Dream
  (Keep picking mother buzzard!)
  

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Martin Osborne

Nothing recorded grabbed my attention due to be being broke.but two live music events made me cry:

• An unnamed government department singing group offering up a Waiata of partially schooled singing of local classics. Beautiful music beyond sentimentality.

• William McDougall exploring the possibilities of lyricism and acoustic guitar solo and in conjunction with the lyrics of Scottt Ranson. The thrill of an authentic talent.
  

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Robert Pally

• Left Banke Walk Away Renee/Pretty Ballerina reissue
  
• Fountains Of Wayne Sky Full of Holes
  
• Fishbaugh, Fishbaugh and Zorn The Whole Story reissue
  
• Posies Blood/Candy
  
• Danko Jones Mouth to mouth
  
• Girls Father Son Holy Ghost
  
• Be Bop Deluxe Futurist Manifesto: Harvest Years 1974-1978 Reissue
  
• Jello Biafra Enhanced Methods of Questioning
  
• Jayhawks Mockingbird Time
  
• Sloan Double Cross
  
• James Blake James Blake
  
• Bon Iver Bon Iver
  
• Country Country Reissue
  
• Hudson Ford Nickelodeon Reissue
  
• Lighthouse Keepers Ode to Nothing Reissue
  
• This Mortal Coil This Mortal Coil Box Reissue
  
• Jonathan Wilson Gentle Spirit
  
• Thurston Moore Demolished Thoughts
  

There is no real order. That is why there are no numbers.

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Jack Partain

• Cheeseburger Another Big Night Down the Drain
  
• The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band Peyton on Patton
  
• State Champion Deep Shit
  
• Fucked Up David Comes to Life
  
• Tom Waits Bad As Me
  
• Hypocrite in a Hippy Crypt Tweaker in the Park
  
• Lou Reed and Metallica Lulu (the $119 "2 CD Poster Set" package only, not the regular release, because it's good to know that Lou still has a sense of humor)
  

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Jim Rader

• Times New Viking Dancer Equired
  
• Feelies Here Before
  

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Vaughan Smith

• Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1967 -Best Of The Bootlegs Vol. 1
  
• Jamie Saft Borscht Belt Studies
  
• Madlib Madlib Medicine Show #9: Channel 85 Presents Nittyville
  
• David Solid Gould Vs Bill Laswell Dub Of The Passover
  
• James Farm James Farm
  
• Berne, Black & Cline The Veil
  
• MF Doom Operation Doomsday
  
• Secret Chiefs 3 "Saptarshi/Radar" 7"
  
• The DC3 The Future Sound Of Nostalgia
  

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Mark S. Tucker

• Ancient Future World Without Walls (reissue)
  
• Berger Rond [{ }]
  
• The Chocolate Horse Beasts
  
• Copernicus Live in Prague (DVD reissue
  
• Copernicus Cipher and Decipher
  
• Bill Emerson Eclipse
  
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer A Time and a Place
  
• David Ian Vintage Christmas
  
• Kevin Kastning & Mark Wingfield I Walked into the Silver Darkness
  
• Steve Khan Parting Shot
  
• R. Andrew Lee An Hour for Piano
  
• Phil Manzanera (all the solo and 801 reissues)
  
• Lisa Mills Tempered in Fire
  
• Moody Bluegrass Two: Much Love
  
• Moraine Metamorphic Rock
  
• The Nice Diamond Hard Blue Apples of the Moon
  
• Marco Oppedisano Electroacoustic Compositions for Electric Guitar
  
• Bernie Pearl Sitting on the Right Side of the Blues
  
• Ana Popovic Unconditional
  
• Sigur Ros Innis
  

This is not really a Best Of but more a Goddamn But These Are Fucking Great 2011 Discs!!! list because I review way too much in my work as a critic, much of it at such a high caliber within various genres that picking and choosing the "best" is self-defeating labor. STILL, the above are some killer discs and oceanically return the attentions paid them. One question, though: Why isn't Ana Popovic being more roundly lionized here in the U.S.??? Christ but she's good! It appears we're still in a Boys' Club mentality. And, yes, I know the Nice and the ELP releases were late 2010, but, gawdammit, they still aren't being paid sufficient attention and are drop dead mouthwatering, so I'm doing my part to uplevel aesthetics in this sick culture. Good luck to me on that, hm? And I know I'll be thinking "Oh shit! I shoulda included [fill in blank]!!" about 100 times after I submit this, but the above gets ya started.

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Richie Unterberger

• The Beach Boys Smile Box Set
  
• The Poets Wooden Spoon: The Singles Anthology 1964-1967
  
• Kiki Dee I'm Kiki Dee: The Fontana Years 1963-1968
  
• The Hollies Clarke, Hicks & Nash Years
  
• The Who Quadrophenia Box Set
  
• The Sir Douglas Quintet The Mono Singles '68-'72
  
• Nana Mouskouri The Voice of Greece
  
• Neil Diamond The Bang Years
  
• The Lana Sisters Chantelly Lace
  
• Wes Montgomery Movin': The Complete Verve Recordings
  
• John Fahey Your Past Comes Back to Haunt You
  
• Michael Hurley Fatboy Spring
  
• Opika Pende Africa at 78 RPM
  
• Sandy Denny 19 Rupert Street
  
• James Burton The Early Years 1956-1969
  
• Johnny Cash Bootleg Vol. 3
  
• Various Artists The Golden Age of Rock'n'Roll Vol. 12
  
• Esther Ofarim Le Chant Des Chants
  
• Mississippi Fred McDowell The Alan Lomax Recordings
  
• Dino Valenti Get Together
  

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Kurt Wildermuth

• Laurie Anderson- live at Lincoln Center Out of Doors, 8/10
• Stephen Colbert- has the coolest job in the world
  
• kittens on covers - look very, very cute
  
• Low C'mon: Not their best but very, very beautiful
  
• Kate McGarrigle tribute- Rufus Wainwright, Martha Wainwright, Anna McGarrigle, Emmylou Harris, et al., live at Town Hall, 5/12
  
• Mission of Burma- live at Beekman Beer Garden, furiously fighting through the unbearable heat and humidity and humanity, 8/7
  
• Third (Big Star Third tribute)- Chris Stamey leading a cast of thousands (or at least a dozen, including Jody Harris), live at Baruch College, 3/26
  
• To Japan with Love- Japan benefit starring Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Cibo Matto, et al., live at Le Poisson Rouge, 3/29
  
• Lou Reed & Metallica Lulu: Is this the Dylan Christmas album of 2011? Like Dylan, Lou seems to delight in the confusion, horror, anger, and vitriol that arise when the media treats an outsider artist as a mainstream music-maker. So is Lulu Lou Reed's Berlin circa 2011? I'm betting that, sooner than forty years from now, it will it be seen as an equally uncompromising, visionary, unpleasant classic. I'm not saying it's all good.
  
• Marc Ribot in concert- part of The New School's first annual Noir Festival, 4/2
  
• The Scene Is Now Magpie Alarm: They returned--with charming melodies, trumpet, brains, and humor--but few listeners noticed.
  

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Mike Wood

• Various Artists This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45 RPM 1957-82
  
• The Drift Blue Hour
  
• Heart Failure Research Unit Young Animals
  
• Bill Orcutt How The Thing Sings
  
• The Cambodian Space Project 2011: A Space Odyssey
  
• Big Harp White Hat
  
• Various Artists The Power of the Riff
  
• inien favoriten
  
• The Red Plastic Buddha All Out Revolution
  
• Tarwater Inside the Ships
  
• Lou Reed/Metallica Lulu
  
• Sean Smith Huge Fluid Freedom
  
• Richard Buckner Our Blood
  
• Fourcolor As Pleat
  
• Le Scimmie Dromomania
  
• Tindersticks Claire Denis Film Scores 1996-2009
  
• Times New Viking Dancer Equired
  
• Ice, Sea, Dead People Teeth Union
  
• Eternal Tapestry and Sun Araw Night Gallery
  
• Extra Classic Your Light Like White Lightning, Your Light Like a Laser Beam
  

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Logan K. Young

Top 10 Albums of 2011

• Bon Iver Bon Iver
  
• Lou Reed & Metallica Lulu
  
• Demdike Stare Tryptych
  
• John Maus We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves
  
• Colin Stetson New History Warfare, Vol. 2: Judges
  
• Nicholas Szczepanik Please Stop Loving Me
  
• Tim Hecker Dropped Pianos
  
• Zomby Dedication
  
• Louis CK Live at the Beacon Theater
  
• The Fall Ersatz G.B.
  

Top 10 Reissues of 2011

• Can Tago Mago
  
• Angus MacLise Dreamweapon I
  
• Father's Children Father’s Children
  
• Granddaddy The Sophtware Slump
  
• Throbbing Gristle 20 Jazz Funk Greats
  
• Einstürzende Neubauten Silence Is Sexy
  
• Morton Feldman & Samuel Beckett Neither
  
• Crass Christ, The Album
  
• Harold Grosskopf Synthesist
  
• Bob Dylan In Concert: Brandeis University 1963
  

Left to right: Steve Khan, Hudson-Ford, Michael Hurley, Stripmall Architecture, Rikki Ililonga