Music Library: Otis Rush, Otis Taylor, OutKast, Overkill L.A., Owen Pallett, Buck Owens, Ozzy Osbourne

Otis Rush – “Double Trouble” (1958). Excellent and ominous blues.

Otis Taylor – White African (2001). Bluegrassy folk blues that has quite a bit of heart for blues made in the double-oughts.

Outkast – Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik (1994), ATLiens (1996), Aquemini (1998), Stankonia (2000), Speakerboxxx/The Love Below (2003). The progression from chicken-fried funk to psychedelia to the unbridled pop of the 2003 double album makes for a great afternoon of listening. What happened to these guys?

Overkill L.A. – Triumph of the Will (1985). SST put out some excellent metal with St. Vitus, but this is just turgid and dull.

Owen Pallett – Lewis Takes Off His Shirt EP (2010). Since retiring the Final Fantasy name, Pallett has put out an album that I hear is pretty great, but sadly, I have yet to pick it up. This EP, which mostly consists of remixes of the title cut, is only so-so.

Buck Owens – 21 #1 Hits: The Ultimate Collection (1963-1988). I picked up this at a bargain-basement price after I covered Owens a million years ago. This has most of his hits from the 60s in their original form, but substitutes a 1988 duet with Dwight Yoakam for the original “Streets of Bakersfield,” an astonishingly short-sighted attempt to rope in new fans who would be in their 40s or 50s now.

Ozzy Osbourne – Blizzard Of Ozz (1980) and Diary Of A Madman (1981). I’m awfully fond of these albums, although they are nothing but buttery cheese. I love Sabbath’s doom and gloom, but Ozzy on his own is not that far from David Lee Roth’s sense of schmaltz and showmanship.

And that's it for the Os. More coming soon.

Music Library: Oscar Peterson, Osvaldo Golijov, Otis Redding

Oscar Peterson – The Jazz Soul Of Oscar Peterson (1959) and Night Train (1962). Peterson’s piano graces many of my jazz albums, but these are the only two I have with his name on the cover. Both are excellent, although I don’t find either to be quite as transcendent as the best of the best. This is almost definitely a failing on my part, not Peterson's.

Osvaldo Golijov – Oceana (with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Kronos Quartet, and Dawn Upshaw, 2007). Like jazz, modern compositional music, especially opera, is another place where I lack a decent vocabulary. This is lovely, powerful music, though, although I like the instrumental Kronos Quartet piece “Tenebrae” best.

Otis Redding – Pain In My Heart (1964), The Great Otis Redding Sings Soul Ballads (1965), Otis Blue: Otis Redding Sings Soul (1965), The Soul Album (1966), The Dictionary Of Soul (1966), King And Queen (with Carla Thomas, 1967), Otis Redding At Monterey Pop (1967), The Dock Of The Bay (1968), The Immortal Otis Redding (1968), Love Man (1969), Tell The Truth (1970), The Otis Redding Story (released 1989). There is a reason that this man receives such reverence from R&B fans. It doesn’t hurt that he has Booker T. & The MGs backing him up (and a quick RIP to Donald Duck Dunn), but Otis Redding pours himself into these songs like whiskey into an old-fashioned. My favorite single is “Knock On Wood,” because I’m helpless before the building horns on the intro, but there’s no way to say that this one will still be my favorite in five minutes. They’re all as sweet and tangy as the best old-fashioned anyone ever made.

Music Library: Orthrelm, Os Brazões, Os Lobos, Os Mutantes

There are two parts to my listening project: (a) listening to everything in my iTunes library and (b) writing about it. There may be a third part: (c) deleting the things I dislike, but I have rarely taken that step. I write about it here, and while my last update was six months ago, but I have kept up the other side, the actual listening. Since we left off with Ornette Coleman, I plan to finish the Os and then do a little catch-up with albums that I either purchased after the point where I would have regularly reviewed them or just flat-out missed for some reason. Anyway, without any further ado, I’m going to try to update this thing more regularly.

Orthrelm – Iorxhscimtor (2001) and OV (2005). To my mind, this is approximately the same sort of skronk-metal that Hella plays, although friends more immersed in the two bands tell me that they are quite different in purpose and ambition. I forget exactly how, and the music itself offers no clues. The upshot: this is great stuff for clearing a room or befuddling your own mind, with millions of guitar notes matching the millions of beats per second in the tempo. Fast, loud, annoying, and somewhat dangerous.

Os Brazões - Os Brazões (1969). Trippy garage tropicalia with heavy fuzz.

Os Lobos – Os Lobos (1971). Poppier but less effective (because it is far more polite) tropicalia. No heavy fuzz.

Os Mutantes – Os Mutantes (1968), Mutantes (1969), A Divina Comedia Ou Ando Meio Desligado (1970), Jardim Eletrico (1971), Haih Or Amortecedor (2009), Everything Is Possible: The Best Of Os Mutantes (1968-1972). One of the most incredible things about tropicalia is how it takes the very familiar, in this case the psychedelic sides of The Beatles and the Beach Boys along with a smattering of Nugget-era garage rock, and turns it into something half-alien. It is easy to dismiss something that is utterly alien; without a roadmap, people have been dismissing and/or destroying unfamiliar culture since prehistoric times. The half-familiar/half-alien, though, is intriguing. Where Os Mutantes is concerned, they are at their best when the music sounds familiar enough to rope the listener in, but full of unexpected and delightful weirdness. The first three albums are all full of sudden left turns that the kids in Mutantes built from a combination of the indigenous music of Brazil and their own art-damaged big-city ideals. The first two, actually, are the best of the lot, leaping from fuzz-driven garage rock to chamber-pop to polyrhythmic chanting, sometimes in the same three-minute rock song. The third album is a more ambitious concept album (I think), but it also delivers with some of the most brilliantly bizarre Mutantes tracks. Jardim Eletrico, unfortunately, is trying hard to be both weird and poppy, and it only succeeds on a track or two. The best parts of that album appear on the well-named compilation Everything Is Possible, which also collects some of the greatest tracks of the first three and a middling track from a later album. Haih Or Amortecedor was hailed as a triumphant return for the band, but to my ears, it lacks the effortless fun of the first three albums without dropping to the lows of the fourth. It sounds like the work of an older, less spontaneous band, and while it is not exactly calculated, it doesn’t inspire.

Best of 2011 (and best of 2006 report card)

As recent as two years ago, back before I entered into this state of constant tedium and tension that is defined by my lack of employment, I used to enjoy making a list of my favorite albums and other artworks at the end of the year. I also used to spend more time working on this blog because, strangely, having less free time meant that I could manage it better. Now, every post that I write here is time that I should be spending doing things that seem more valuable: looking for a job, managing the house, watching my children, planning dinner, looking for a job, contemplating the pointlessness of my existence, pitching stories to outlets that may indeed pay me for said work, staring into space, and looking for a job. But I digress.

What I'm trying to say is that even though I have become a remarkably inessential human being, I still have opinions. Why anyone would care about those is beyond me, but if you've read this far, you're probably wondering when I'm going to cut to the chase or, more likely, whether you'll have the fortitude to reach the end of this sentence before bailing. For those of you still here, this is what I'm going to do: list my favorite albums of 2011. Then I will tell you about my favorite albums of five years previous and how it chalks up to the list I posted at the time.

My Favorite Albums of 2011:

1. Fucked Up - David Comes To Life

2. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake

3. Thee Oh Sees - Castlemania

4. The Alabama Shakes - Alabama Shakes EP
5. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost
6. Earth - Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light
7. Mastodon - The Hunter
8. Mike Watt - Hyphenated-Man
9. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
10. Tom Waits - Bad As Me

Honorable Mentions (alphabetically):

Boris - Attention Please, Heavy Rocks (2011), and New Album
Sally Crewe - Transmit/Receive EP

Deerhoof - Deerhoof Vs. Evil

The Fall - Ersatz GB

The Feelies - Here Before

Jens Lekman - An Argument With Myself
J. Mascis - Several Shades Of Why
Melvins - Sugar Daddy Live

My Education - Sound Mass

Thee Oh Sees - Carrion Crawler/The Dream
Wilco - The Whole Love
Wild Flag - Wild Flag

Yuck - Yuck

----

My best albums of 2006, as reported in The High Hat.

1. Joanna Newsom, Ys.
2. Yo La Tengo, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.
3. Mastodon, Blood Mountain.
4. Cat Power, The Greatest.
5. The Decemberists, The Crane Wife.
6. The Fiery Furnaces, Bitter Tea.
7. Mission of Burma, The Obliterati.
8. Belle & Sebastian, The Life Pursuit.
9. Isis & Aereogramme, In the Fishtank 14.
10. Boris, Pink (came out in 2005, but had wide release in 2006)
11. The Pipettes, We Are the Pipettes.
12. Bert Jansch, The Black Swan.
13. Destroyer, Destroyer's Rubies.
14. Ratatat, Classics.
15. M. Ward, Post-War.
16. Brightblack Morning Light, Brightblack Morning Light.
17. Six Organs of Admittance, Sun Awakens.
18. The Hold Steady, Boys & Girls in America.
19. Akron/Family, Meek Warrior.
20. Scott Walker, The Drift.

Here's my favorite albums of 2006 now:

1. Boris - Pink (up from #10!)

2. Fucked Up - Hidden World

3. Comets On Fire - Avatar

4. Mastodon - Blood Mountain

5. Espers - Espers II

6. Sparklehorse - Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain

7. Danielson - Ships

8. Scott Walker - The Drift (up from #20!)

9. Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (down from #2!)

10. TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain

Honorable Mentions (alphabetically):

Destroyer - Destroyer's Rubies

Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea (down from #6!)

Ghostface Killah - Fishscale

The Hold Steady - Boys & Girls In America

Isis - In The Absence Of Truth

Mission of Burma - The Obliterati (down from #7!)

Nina Nastasia - On Leaving

Joanna Newsom - Ys. (down from #1!)

Jay Reatard - Blood Visions

In short, the things I loved then are not the same albums I love now, although there's still some crossover. Many of my favorite albums of the year were ones I did not hear until later. But, man, what a good year for music!

Music Library: Only Ones, Opal, Opeth, Orchestra of St. Luke's, Ornette Coleman

The Only Ones - The Only Ones (1978). Utterly phenomenal slice of power pop-punk anchored by "Another Girl, Another Planet," one of the best songs of the punk era. The Only Ones had a lot of Rolling Stones and Big Star mixed in with their punk guitars and attitude, and it is only right and natural that they influenced both The Replacements and Yo La Tengo. This is a great album by any measure.

Opal - Happy Nightmare, Baby (1987) and Early Recordings (1989). With a guitarist from Rain Parade and a bassist/vocalist from The Dream Syndicate, Opal was a Paisley Underground supergroup of sorts. When bassist Kendra Smith left during their first tour, the band recruited singer Hope Sandoval to replace her and then changed their name to Mazzy Star, which was quite popular for a while during the 90s. These tracks sound like the work of a band halfway between Rain Parade and Mazzy Star, and that's not a bad thing. I like Rain Parade and The Dream Syndicate more than these songs, but I like these quite a bit, too. I'm indifferent to Mazzy Star, though.

Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001). Prog-metal! But while I love some prog and some metal, this is all the Opeth I need. I like this album, but my heart is not truly brutal enough to listen to this often, I'm afraid.

Orchestra of St. Luke's - Bach: Four Concerti For Various Instruments (1994). This Bach cat can swing!

Ornette Coleman - Something Else!!!! (1958), Tomorrow Is The Question! (1959), The Shape Of Jazz To Come (1959), Change Of The Century (1960), This Is Our Music (1961), Free Jazz (1961), Ornette (1962), Ornette On Tenor (1962), Beauty Is A Rare Thing: The Complete Atlantic Recordings (1958-1962), At The Golden Circle In Stockholm, Vols. 1 and 2 (1965), New York Is Now (1968), The Complete Science Fiction Sessions (1971), Of Human Feelings (1982), and Sound Grammar (2006). I don't need to convince you of Ornette Coleman's brilliance, do I? In my opinion, he's one of the  greatest musicians/theoreticians that jazz produced (I'd put him in the top five along with Monk, Trane, Miles, and Mingus). Under his direction, his band tore into his knotty compositions and remade jazz into something far more unpredictable and exciting. The first eight of these albums were released on Atlantic, with a variable band that always included Don Cherry on cornet or pocket trumpet. The band often had Charlie Haden on bass and Billy Higgins on drums, too. And pretty much all of these albums are utterly breathtaking, even fifty years later. The Shape Of Jazz To Come and This Is Our Music are my favorites, but only by a hair. The Beauty Is A Rare Thing collection includes some outtakes that are equal to the greatness of the albums. The Golden Circle live albums are also phenomenal, practically bursting at the seams with great ideas. New York Is Now, recorded with Coltrane's former rhythm section of Jimmy Garrison and Elvin Jones, is an interesting attempt to recast traditional "modern jazz" into something new. Science Fiction is all over the map, with Stockhausenish noise and Sun Ra-ish vocalizing and elements of funk and soul. It is my least favorite of all of these Ornette albums, but please keep in mind that it is still an incredible album. Of Human Feelings is some pure 70s-style Miles afrobeat-funk with some dips and turns that actually remind me of Captain Beefheart. I love it. Sound Grammar is a two-bass quartet album that won Coleman the Pulitzer Prize. Uncharacteristically, most of the songs are reworking of older compositions, but the music still sounds amazingly fresh and vital for the work of a 76-year-old man. Here's Ornette on SNL playing a track from Of Human Feelings after being introduced by Milton Berle, of all people.

Music Library: Om and Oneida

Om - Variations On A Theme (2005), Conference Of The Birds (2006), Inerrant Rays Of Infallible Sun (Blackship Shrinebuilder) EP (split single with Current 93, 2006), OM/Six Organs Of Admittance split (2006), Pilgrimage (2007), Gebel Barkal 7" (2008), Live At Jerusalem (2008), Conference Live (2009), God Is Good (2009). After the extraordinary stoner metal band Sleep broke up in 1998, guitarist Matt Pike went on to form High On Fire while bassist Al Cisneros and drummer Chris Hakius formed Om, a two-man, all-rhythm section band that was part heavy stoner rock and part drone-oriented space rock. They are astonishing for what they can do with such minimalist power. Many of their songs are quite long, although they started to punctuate the longer songs with shorter interludes on more recent albums. Hakius left after Pilgrimage, but the new drummer Emil Amos is just as expressive. Most of these releases are quite similar, though, with every album being as much a variation on a theme as the first. I like Pilgrimage and God Is Good the most because they add in quite a bit more dynamic without losing the all-important focus on the mystical drone.

Oneida - Enemy Hogs (1999), Come On Everybody Let's Rock (2000), Anthem Of The Moon (2001), Steel Rod EP (2001), Atheists Reconsider (split EP with Liars, 2002), Each One Teach One (2002), Secret Wars (2004), The Wedding (2005), Happy New Year (2006), Nice/Splittin'? Peaches EP (2008), Preteen Weaponry (2008), Rated O (2009), Absolute II (2011). Oneida is just as experimental as Om, although all they share is a sense of drone. Oneida has a healthy interest in many other styles and sounds, including classic rock, krautrock, fingerstyle folk (strangely enough), and lots and lots of noise. The earlier albums feature songs that are more conventionally structured than the later ones. Each One Teach One, a major turning point, starts with two roughly 15-minute tracks that are both built are minimal riffs (the first, "Sheets Of Easter" is pretty much a single chord). Secret Wars, a truly great album, incorporates many of Oneida's interests into a coherent whole. The Wedding and Happy New Year are close behind, although both are more eclectic. Preteen Weaponry is pretty much an amazing, sprawling single track split into three parts. Rated O brings in some dancehall sounds from the third world, strangely enough, and spans a three-album length with not many stops between songs. Absolute II, unfortunately, is no fun at all, a four-song, mostly keyboard-dominated album that seems to be all about trying the patience of listeners as the band tosses out annoying sound after annoying sound. Sorry, I came to this party for some mind-melting eclectic psych jams, not the sounds that Kraftwork would reject as too inhumanly dull.

At The AV Club: lots of things

I have been absent for a little while. Among the things I have neglected to mention here are that I am writing about three shows for the AV Club now.

Prime Suspect: A show that's neither good nor bad nor just a kid like you. Sorry for the undeserved Leon Payne/Hank Williams reference.

The Simpsons: A show that has become defiantly not good. The commenters there remind me why I used to always avoid AV Club comments like the plague.

Avatar: The Last Airbender: I've resumed season two coverage here.

Music Library: Okkervil River, Ol' Dirty Bastard, Old 97's, Olivia Tremor Control

Okkervil River - Don't Fall In Love With Everyone You See (2002), Down The River Of Broken Dreams (2003), Sham Wedding/Hoax Funeral EP (with Shearwater, 2004), Black Sheep Boy (2005), The President's Dead (2006), and The Stage Names (2007). Okkervil River is a band that I like but do not love.  I wish it were otherwise, especially now that they have added the ultra-talented Lauren Gurgiolo to their line-up. Actually, that is unfair, as I have heard nothing from the new album, which the one she plays on. I might love it. These albums, unfortunately, have not given me much of an incentive. I really like Down The River of Broken Dreams, which sounds like a kaleidoscope version of some amalgam of The Band and Neutral Milk Hotel.  The next few albums and EPs, though, give me diminishing returns down to The Stage Names, which moves me not at all.

Ol' Dirty Bastard - Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (1995). Yeah, this is fun.

Old 97's - Wreck Your Life (1998), Fight Songs (1999),
Satellite Rides (2001), and Blame It On Gravity (2008). Like Wreckless Eric, The Old 97's are a power pop band masquerading as a flavor of country.  As a power pop band, they are pretty good if never hands-down great.  As an alt-country outfit, they're a bar band.  The best of these is Satellite Rides, which abandons most of the country for some pure pop hooks.

Olivia Tremor Control - Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle (1996), Explanation II: Instrumental Themes And Dream Sequences (1996), Pre-Cubist Castle Demos (1996), The Opera House EP (1997), John Peel Session 3/18/97, Live At Terrastock 4/27/97, Live in Chicago 5/1/97, Live In Atlanta 11/22/97, Live At The Emmaboda Festival (1998), Black Foliage: Animation Music (1999), Live In San Francisco 4/23/99, Live in Toronto 11/5/99, tracks from Smiling Pets (1999), "European Son," and Presents: Singles And Beyond (2000). As this list might indicate, I love the hell out of The Olivia Tremor Control. Dusk At Cubist Castle was a favorite way back in 1996, when I was just starting to figure out the greatness of the Beach Boys and quite into 60s psychedelia in general. I enjoy OTC's forays into electronic weirdness, too, although too much of it at once can tip it into boredom.  All of these live bootlegs are somewhere between fun and disposable, though.  The OTC is best at studio-level production.  If you're just looking for one or two albums, I think you will be plenty happy with Dusk At Cubist Castle and Singles And Beyond. Leave the rest for fanatics.