2010's Best List of the Best of 2010

2010 had its moments, along with a few inevitable disappointments, the greatest disappointment being most publications' choices for what they deemed the best of the year.  It's always frustrating to read the year-end best-of lists, I know, thus I have compiled an elite best-of-the-best-of-2010 list, including selections from the year's music, film, and literature, as well my personal favorite art exhibits.  I also have refused to apply ordinal rankings to these, as such is a simplistic and cheap approach to the art of a best-of list.  It is important to note, as is always the case with this blog, that I only included what I personally experienced in 2010 and that ultimately the list is entirely subjective and somewhat autobiographical (as a few of my friends may appear in the list).  This list will be lengthy, so for the first time ever on The Esoterrorist, you must continue reading after the jump.

Holiday Tunes

A google search for "noise christmas" doesn't get you holiday classics performed by The Boredoms, but you may get a few "joyful noise" results.  Unfortunately there aren't a lot of cool records for fans of the out that are holiday-relevant, but I do know of a few that are somewhat unique concepts for Xmas albums, if you even care about being festive with your current tunes.

Working Stiff has been an open forum collective of outsider folk since 1985.  It mostly consisted of some like-minded artists meeting at the Springwater venue in Nashville, TN, some of the most recognizable acts involved being Lambchop, Dave Cloud, and one of my favorites, The Cherry Blossoms.  Cherry Blossoms bassist, Laura-Matter Fukushima, began a small label, Tiny Rig, which put out one of Nashville's proudest holiday records, The Working Stiff Christmas compilation, featuring holiday recordings (some live from Springwater) from all the best, and decorated with one of the many beautiful paintings of Blossoms' frontwoman, Peggy Snow.  The record still pops up at Nashville's most popular vinyl shop, Grimey's, every holiday, and it can still be ordered through Amazon and The Cherry Blossoms' official site.

If you've read this blog before, then you know about my fascination with christian alternative culture, especially religious metal.  Almost a decade ago, ROTD Records (and wouldn't you know it, christian metal labels have a significantly short lifespan, and this one's now kaput) put out their famous (and when I use this word, it often means famous amongst my friends and me) Brutal Christmas record, with epic metal covers of your holiday favorites.  Asian black metal group Kekal's cover of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is the highlight for me, with the chorus sung with elfin-esque  group vocals.  Now, metal christmas albums seem gimmicky and silly, I know, but what stands out about this one is the sincerity of the record, as these bands subscribe to the christian faith and thus all subsequent christmas narratives, advent and all.  This is way out of print.  WAY out of print, but you can find it.

Back in 2002, when music wasn't that bad, or at least not near as bad as now, German label Mobilé put out a storybook packaged compilation of christmas and winter songs.  Some are obvious picks, like Low's "Take the Long Way Around the Sea" and some terrible Badly Drawn Boy song.  Really the reason to grab this is for Domotic's "Smith, Klaus, and White" and Múm's "Nóttin Var Svo Ágæt Ein."  I think Boomkat still sells some copies.  Insound may have one or two left.  Not too scarce. 

Return Your Purchased Holiday Gifts, the Best Bet for Your Loved Ones Arrives

I actually have a lot of posts and reviews lined up, with the slump in blog productivity due to a great deal of testing I am currently undergoing.  However, something so fantastic, stunning, and limited has appeared within my scope that I must put down the books and relay the gospel of this event with the greatest of urgency.  Drum roll.


MERZBOW IS RELEASING A 12 DISC BOX SET OF AMBIENT NOISE.  And just in time for X-Mas!  As I have yet to hear this treasure, titled Merzbient (clever!), I can at LEAST show you images of the remarkable, beautiful packaging, and I can tell you that Boomkat recommends it to Kevin Drumm fans.  If you're an asshole and really need more motivation than that to blow the $150 or so on a box of noise, then might I mention its limitedness (only 555 copies made, amazon is sold out [it apparently came out October 26, and sneaked past me]).

Why None of You Know What You’re Talking About

Many western classical theorists draw a definitive line between music and noise.  There has been continuous debate on the exact location to which that line belongs, and the argument was only further complicated with the arrival of 20^th century composers who deliberately blurred said line with the innovation of noise as music.  What’s unique and intriguing about noise as a genre of music is, of course, the blatant oxymoron.   This explains why noise has been a less popular brand of composition, not simply because its dissonance is unappealing, as much popular music involves dissonance (to the extent now causing the jarring C chord in Beethoven’s Eroica to seem laughably tame), but because it is an extremely intellectual style requiring the understanding of multiple, simultaneous representations that are occurring.  This includes the acknowledgement of what is noise and what is music, as well as the comprehension of placing the concept of one into the paradigm of another.  

                To simplify, the general, broad notion of what constitutes noise as distinct from music is the absence of distinct pitch and perceivable patterns.  Sources of such could be interference, such as the static on a radio, audible distortion (an alteration of an original sound), and/or frequencies emitted from electronic devices (the low hum of a running refrigerator).   One can take from these sources, however, and manipulate their qualities within a traditional structure for composition, thus creating music out of noise, which would technically no longer be noise now that you’ve removed its randomness/undesirability.  In the digital age, however, noise is dying.  Computers run quieter, modems aren’t crying through a dial-up, televisions buzz less.  This may be why noise continues to become more acceptable: because of the loss of the association with undesirability and obnoxiousness.  The sounds are just otherworldly now.

                So then what constitutes noise as a distinct genre?  It’s kind of like how Potter Stewart can’t define pornography, but he knows it when he sees it.  But if we were to set regulations on the genre, which should probably be done, we could fashion those after the laws of winemaking in regard to pure varietals.  To be considered a true Cabarnet Sauvingon, and thus earn your right to proclaim such on your bottle’s label, you need somewhere between 80-85% of the wine to be derived from actual cab grapes.  Within these boundaries, noise would then need to be comprised of at least 80% of sounds which can be emitted from electronic devices going wrong.  That’s a fair standard, I believe.

                And so let’s apply this to how popular forms of music are being said to now include “noise.”  A particular target I would like to shoot at is the latest M.I.A. record, which in reviews has been said to “draw from influences such as noise.”  I’ve also seen the new album listed as pop/electronic/dance/noise.  No.  No.  You can’t do that.  You can’t refer to something as noise because it gets noisy.  M.I.A. has no noise influences; dance music is just getting more distorted and over-compressed these days.  That’s all.  M.I.A. isn’t mixing beats with Merzbow.  At best, she’s a cheap blend, a table wine in a box.  Okay, just wanted to address that briefly.  But it seems noisiness is indeed infecting all new popular forms of music and so the overlap is further complicating how we discuss noise and music, which means we could be very close to entering the utopia that Cage once dreamed of where all things to all people are very much a song.  This would further diminish the commodity fetishism of recorded sound art, devaluing music as property, and the music industry will collapse in a chaotic apocalypse.  Then former RIAA agents will turn to crime in their desperation, and the streets won’t be safe, and everything will be so damn NOISY!  Luckily that will never happen.  As stated before, it’s a genre for intellectuals who have graduated to the formal operations stage of Piaget’s development theory, which requires at least a high school education.  America’s too stupid to ever fully embrace something that you can’t dance to.