October brought us an onslaught, a cavalcade, a gold mine of quality releases, the most of any month this year. Multiple year-end contenders were unleashed, including stunning efforts by many of TSB’s favorite artists. This embarrassment of riches turned out to be a bonus for fans, who were left broke by Halloween. The fact that the TSB staff were only allowed to vote for one release was the source of much lamentation. How could so many amazing releases go uncelebrated? Thankfully, our site’s daily reviews would make sure that no worthy album would be left in the cold.
Three albums on this month’s list (Black to Comm, Ben Frost, Klimek) are pure October productions: sample-laden, disturbing, cinematic in scope. As the leaves fall from the trees in the Northern Hemisphere, these albums will continue to resonate. Two others (DMST, Russian Circles) are surprisingly accessible efforts from scene favorites, the source of much staff debate. And one – Fuck Buttons – is a techno/post-rock blend from a band who decided to stop singing but kept their abrasive name, guaranteeing their absence from prime-time television. This was perhaps the most surprising release of all, because the sonic change was a risk that paid big dividends – but it could have just as easily gone the other way.
As the year draws to a close, these albums will don their armor once more. October was a battle, but the end-of-year list will be a war. Will the winners stay on top? Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.
1) Ben Frost ~ By the Throat
Bedroom Community
What better month than October to release such a haunting effort as By the Throat? Collaborating with a handful of notable musicians, Ben Frost lets loose this fresh recording, unleashing some of the rawest sounds heard this year, a “re-mapping of sonic DNA.” Nightly terror surrounds the listener as the album swells with drone-filled noise and the potent imagery of fleeing through a deep, dark forest in the middle of a snowy winter while being chased by ferocious, blood-hungry beasts. Opening himself to various ideas of sonic foreplay, Ben Frost willfully weaves classical and minimal influences throughout his heavy web of eeriness. This album encapsulates his hard work in the electronic music libraries and redefines modern music.By the Throat is a “more than meets the eye” record that rises above the chasm of the normal. (Brett Hayes)
2) Fuck Buttons ~ Tarot Sport
ATP
Fuck Buttons are at the accessible end of the noise genre, and they have refined the approach of last year’s debut by recruiting their former remixer Andrew Weatherall as producer. So, out go the shouty bits that turned some people off and in come a touch more percussion and melody. The noise is still there, but the duo of Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power deal in pleasantly tempered waves of white noise rather than migraine-inducing squalls of feedback. If Tarot Sport lacks the abrasive edge of Street Horrsing, that loss is counterbalanced by the sheer joyous exhilaration of tracks like “The Lisbon Maru” and “Olympians.” A change for the better? We tend to agree. (Jeremy Bye)
3) Do Make Say Think ~ Other Truths
Constellation
Most post-rock groups never make it to a sixth album, but when one does, comparisons to earlier material are inevitable. And although such comparisons can certainly be made here, and even be instructive, a certain satisfaction comes from attempting to take Other Truths on its own merits. When DMST released an album with just four songs, each corresponding to one of the words of its name, many thought that this must be some sort of mission statement: screw the past, this is what DMST is now. Regardless of whether these four songs constitute some sort of new core identity for the Toronto collective, or just a further evolution of their famously subtle and jazzy take on post-rock, one indisputable fact remains: this is excellent music. Miss it at your peril. (Tom Butcher)
4) Klimek ~ Movies Is Magic
Anticipate
On Movies is Magic, Sebastien Meissner (better known as Klimek) composes score cues for films yet unmade. On these ten imagined soundtracks, Klimek spans a virtual cinescope of emotion, from the horrific to the euphoric to the heroic. Without images, these tracks become whirlpools, sucking listeners into the theater of the mind. But who knows, with this sort of talent on display, perhaps soon he’ll be Hollywood-bound. (Gabriel Bogart)
5) Russian Circles ~ Geneva
Suicide Squeeze
While it is obviously sensationalist to say, “Russian Circles have returned” (Where from?), it is only a suitable addendum to Geneva: old school post-metal’s spark has been reignited and given a new violent edge of somberly epic proportions. The limits of previous works have been pushed and overcome, settling at a very comfortable point in which the cinematic elements of the post-everything genre are explored with efficiency and restraint; gone are the long passages of nothingness and the awkward sense of narrative, now replaced by precision and accuracy. Therefore, as silly as it may sound, I can only say that Russian Circles have, indeed, returned. (David Murrieta)
6) Black to Comm ~ Alphabet 1968
Type
One could describe the experimental soundlayers on Black to Comm’s latest effort as krautrock for people who don’t like krautrock, people who don’t have long hair and scruffy looking beards, people who don’t own Motorpsycho t-shirts. Alphabet 1968 represents a seldom heard brand of experimental kraut: a darkened array of slow forming ambient, swelling drone, haunting soundscape, and acoustic-laced psychedelica. On Alphabet 1968, Black to Comm utilizes an obscured spectrum of avant garde sounds, forming a fluid yet complex vibe without losing focus on the composition. The album’s gradual crescendos are majestic, culminating in “Hotel Freund,” one of the year’s most stunning cinematic drones. It’s enough to make one want to stop shaving. (Jurgen Verhasselt)