Chris Besinger of STNNNG: Favorite Albums of the Decade

Whittling 10 years of albums down to a measly five was a brutal task and I could have easily picked another 30 (and I, in fact did, sorry Country Teasers, Nina Nastasia, Jandek, Signal To Trust, Jemeel Moondoc, A Frames, etc., etc.). But here’s a list of five basically decent albums from the aughts.

Silkworm Italian Platinum
You can have it all, great songs, a seriously hot shit guitarist (“The Hebrew Hendrix” no kidding), a thundering rhythm section and two singers who make it nearly impossible to pick a favorite and still be resigned to “cult” status. The album’s title is a wry comment on the amount of records they’d sold up to that point, because for whatever reason Silkworm never seemed find the audience they deserved. But, whatever, that doesn’t really matter, what does is this record. Their third for Touch and Go and though its predecessor, Lifestyle, is a bit more accessible, Italian Platinum with its sort of lumpy and cryptic first side is the record I find myself reaching for the most. Singer/guitarist Andy Cohen lyrics are almost as stinging as his solos, “There are kike jokes and then there are street mimes/In times like these no one seems to mind” and “Tobacco’s a help because is clears the mind/But like all your friends it is vilified.” But it’s Tim Midgett’s heartbreaking “Bourbon Beard,” a duet with drummer Michael Dahlquist, one of the best boozer anthems of, like, all-time, where every note and every word is absolutely perfect—that’s the heart of the record. It’s a record that’s sweet and mean in equal measure. And if you ever figure out what the hell “The Ram” is about, let me know.

US Maple Acre Thrills
Al Johnson gets more mileage out of a few constricted gasps than most singers get out of the entire English language. While he creepy-crawls the whole scene cooing right into your ear about rice, the guitars rat-a-tat-tat away like dung beetles jockeying for position on the shit pile over an occasional bomb blast of frantic drumming only to have the entire song pull back and drift off into the ether. Plenty of albums get hyped as “weird” and “experimental,” but US Maple’s dogged pursuit of their own eccentric vision of rock-like-it-actually-means-something pissed everyone off, at least everyone who mattered. Acre Thrills was their high point, the most focused, the best sounding, the one that best laid out their thing. You could spend a lifetime decoding the ping-ponging riffs, the backwards drumming and still never get your head around all those “yeah, yeahs.” Favorite moment: “Open a Rose” where the band locks into a recognizable groove for a couple a minutes as if to prove they could be rocking like that all the time, if they really wanted.

The Thing Garage
This is probably the only album from this decade that features covers of both the Sonics and Peter Brotzmann. Wild Scandinavian jazz men playing free jazz with punk fury, this is the real crossover, the best mind-meld of rock and jazz since Funhouse. Covers of the White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs aren’t wink and nudge muso affairs; they’re platforms for gut-bucket wailing of the best sort, hot and raw.

Getachew Mekuria and the Ex & Guests Moa Anbessa
There’s been a flood of incredible underground music from Africa recently, Konono No.1 to Group Doueh to countless archival albums but this record, featuring Getachew Mekuria, an 80-year old Ethiopian saxophonist hooking up with long running Dutch punks the Ex is a definite highlight. The Ex (who have long championed great African music) prove to be flexible collaborators for such a distinctive player. Mekuria who translated Ethiopian battle cries into a sort of proto-free jazz in the 1950s is definitely the star of the show. Some of the music is atavistic, like a pre-rock & roll form and some it doesn’t even really have a name yet. A killer party record, trust me.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Matt Sweeney Superwolf
I had sort of lost track of Will Oldham a couple years before this album come out, the first time I heard it was in a record store and I had to go up to the front to ask what it was. Some of the tunes remind me of the mellow moments on the second half of Physical Graffiti with Oldham as the jolly pervert as usual. Sweeney supposedly wrote the songs to Oldham’s words, whatever the case it works perfectly. “I have often said/I would like to be dead/In a shark’s mouth.” The whole rides a kind of sweet/sad, lonely/horny axis, giving the music a sense of longing and ache that’s more affecting than most of Oldham’s work from this decade. If you’re going to be up until four in the morning listening to records toward the very end this will be the record you’re going to want to hear. Superwolf also spawned a ’70s hard rock-damaged double live record, which you should probably go get as well.

Also: STNNNG & Wereworm @ Turf Club