Best of 2017: A Retrospection in Confusion

2017 proved musically unconventional for me. Through spring and summer, I wallowed in the past more than the present. Thanks to my friend and yours, Kelly Minnis, I discovered Chick Corea and Return to Forever around New Year's and subsequently spent months on the hunt for more jazz fusion - ie. Weather Report, Al Di Meola, Joe Farrell, George Benson’s CTI Recordings (not fusion, but solid elevator luxury), and even swankier Herbie Hancock. I still haven’t listened to all I acquired, which is more confession than boast.

At 2017’s onset, I also happened upon the deliciously essential Getz/Gilberto collaboration, which introduced me to both Stan Getz and Brazilian vocalist Astrud Gilberto, igniting a Bossa Nova kick that naturally bled into an appreciation for music from Mexico when I enrolled in a Spanish class this Fall. I listened incessantly to 2017 releases by Lila Downs, Carla Morrison, and Natalia Lafourcade for audible practice but soon fell genuinely in love with their voices and artistry - especially Lafourcade’s Musas, which is stunning.

Still, betwixt the sonic buzzing, I managed to find a few new releases I hope follow me into next year and beyond. For the list below, I attempted to curate seven titles -in honor of the year- recommendable with a personal referendum of merit. To my surprise, I landed on nine instead. Looking at this list, I’m realizing the year’s loudest track was my own ADD.

1. A Sundae Drive Versailles - I had the pleasure of reviewing Versailles for 979 back in March. The praise I sang then bodes repeating: these Houston garage-rock tyrannosauruses (and all around fine folk) prove the art of making an Album - a singular work of musical and tonal themes - need not be a thing of the past. This was the first record I fell in love with this year. I hope you will, too. Fave track: “Fly South”.

2. Joey McGee Terlingua Taproot - Nepotism alert! Joey McGee is my good friend. We’ve shared many plates at T Jinn’s. But, nepotism aside, when I first heard McGee’s “I’m Gone”, I went from friend to fan by the chorus’ end. Do yourself a favor: find Joey’s next live spot (he’s prolific!) and tip his tip jar, man. Also, request “Long Road Home”, another personal favorite. Those opening lines lay me open every time. Fave tracks: aforementioned.

3. Willie Nelson God's Problem Child - Willie needed a solid follow-up to 2016’s retread sleeper Summertime, but I didn’t expect Willie to deliver a goodbye letter. Damn! I’m not ready for that day. But, according to this record, Willie’s made his peace and, as GPC’s primary tone suggests, he’s as surprised as any of us he’s still around. Even the cover - Willie’s weathered profile washed in red - harkens back to 1974’s Phases and Stages, the concept album that proved “Shotgun Willie” was not some forgettable fairground spectacle. At 84, Willie sounds strong. Resolute even. Like he’s got several records still blazin’ up in him. But, as Tom Petty so boldly declared in October: no one knows the hour. I miss Willie already. Fave tracks: “Old Timer” and, Willie’s tribute to Merle, “He Won’t Ever Be Gone”.

4. John Mark McMillan Mercury and Lightning - No other album on this list commanded such a dance with my affections as this one. On one hand, McMillan infused a poppiness to M&L that recalls all the reasons Springsteen lost fans in the 80s. Still, when songs like “Wilderlove” and “Enemy, love” and “Death In Reverse” and “No Country” work in their talons, you’re stuck. These songs feel impenetrable: earworms that just won’t quit. And I’m glad. In these songs, McMillan reminds me of things I hope to never forget. Fave tracks: check above.

5. Mon Laferte La Trenza - Stop what you’re doing and cue up this Chilean rock goddess’ “Mi Buen Amor” or “Amarrame” or “No Te Fumes Mi Mariguana” and experience how Mon Laferte so easily absconded with my Spanish practice and replaced it with full-blown fanaticism. I’m driving around belting out lines I haven’t even translated yet! So be it. I’m just praying Laferte finds her way to these Estados Unidos soon. Fave tracks: you should be rocking them already.

6. Bell Witch Mirror Reaper - Now we’ve hit the bummer side of the list. I also reviewed Mirror Reaper for 979 in November. My primary note welcomes repeating: everything about this record appears to be a gimmick. One song. 83 minutes. Two distinct movements of slow, brooding, funeral doom guitars and drums and organs with vocals from a recently deceased former bandmate piped in for tributary reasons. It sounds almost corny, I admit. But sitting through the entirety of MR -as I have half a dozen times- is a beautiful experience. (“Beautiful” in the way Darren Aronofsky films used-to-be beautiful.) The second half, starting right at the 49 minute mark where it gets all ambient and drony, is hand-down my favorite record of 2017. I’d pay too many dollars to witness Bell Witch perform this album live. My bday is in September. Feel free to help me make that happen. Fave track: duh.

7. Amenra Mass VI - Here’s some doomy, sludgey, post-something metal from Belgium that - like Bell Witch - perfectly assimilates all the things I take pills not to feel and then pieces that scattered grand suckery together into bizarrely beautiful chunks of meditative blister-gaze that I cannot get enough of. Crap. I love everything about this record, even that one dude’s off-putting razor-gargling squealy vocals. It’s a delightful piece of genuflect-able art that makes me want to be better person . . . someday. Fave track: “A Solitary Reign”.

8. Bison You Are Not The Ocean - After all those feelings culled and coddled by Bell Witch and Amenra, I need a swift kick to the groin to boot me out the door and back into the wild. So I appreciate an angry, nail-spitter of a record that reminds us that heavy metal is still a valuable daily resource. It’s like corn: we can utilize its energy more than we realize. Bison’s new record -sludging straight down from Vancouver- is all that beautiful corn for me. Fave tracks: yes. I even dig those weird little flutey bits at the end of “Tantrum”.

9. Power Trip Nightmare Logic - Same as Bison, but this groin kick portaled to us all the way from 1987. There’s not one bad thing about this record except that it ends. I recently saw Power Trip open for Cannibal Corpse. DO NOT MISS POWER TRIP LIVE! Or this record. Start with the single, “Executioner’s Tax”, and then sample a deeper cut like “Waiting Around to Die”, which opens with a bizarre synthy-esque digitized bass loop before ripping into lightning fast riffage - a total of 1.5 minutes of intro on a four and a half minute track. I like them odds. Fave tracks: all of Manifest Decimation, but Nightmare Logic is a solid follow-up.

A few artists released 2017 albums I wanted more time with - Enslaved, Converge, Wode, Cafe Tacuba, Lea Ann Womack, Filthy Friends come to mind - but two ears can travel only so far in a year. Better luck in 2018. See you there.

Bell Witch's MIRROR REAPER: An Album Review

Let’s get technicalities out of the way. Mirror Reaper marks the third full-length album from Seattle doom metal duo Bell Witch. Released October 20 from Profound Lore Records, Bell Witch delivers the entire 83 minutes of Mirror Reaper’s duration through a single track. (For fans of Sleep, that’s 20 minutes longer and one track less than 2003’s Dopesmoker - not that anyone’s suggesting a measuring contest here. I’m just offering context. Not to mention, veteran Sleep and Neurosis producer Billy Andersen captains the Mirror Reaper helm, putting this album into the realm of modern classics even at its inception.) The technicalities here are worth getting aside as they comprise the least interesting details about this record.

Mirror Reaper’s backstory as eulogy is key. Recorded in response to the passing of founding member and drummer Adrian Guerra, Mirror Reaper works as a single track split over two distinct movements: the agonized “As Above” and the resurgent “So Below”. Bell Witch’s current line-up, Dylan Desmond (bass, vocals) and Jesse Shreibman (drums, organ, vocals), confessed unique intentions for Mirror Reaper on their Bandcamp page: “In love and respect to [Guerra’s] memory, we reserved an important yet brief section in the song for him that features unused vocal tracks from our last album. This specific movement serves as a conceptual turn in the piece, or point of reflection.” From a band who traditionally focuses their narratives on ghosts - look to 2015’s beautifully epic Four Phantoms - in order to explore perplexing and uncomfortable boundary lines between life and death, Guerra’s posthumous vocals offer a turn - right at the 51 minute mark - that feel far more tangible than merely conceptual.

Those who commit to Mirror Reaper will find its uniqueness not bound to format. After repeated listens, Mirror Reaper, for me, becomes more compelling, more complex, even beautiful. Spending time here is not difficult. The album holds and demands attention, moving in places both unexpected but grossly familiar to anyone who’s experienced grief. Bell Witch musically recalls a painful truth: grief takes time. It requires process. It brings our entire spirit to a grinding halt and then kneads us into something new that we never imagined. Perhaps something stronger. Perhaps enlightened. We can’t know until we endure and emerge. In that context, Mirror Reaper - this 83 minute doom symphony - offers a snapshot of such endurance. Nothing on this record is rushed. No one is hurried. Music builds and falls. Vocals rise and fade. Single notes simmer, drifting slowly into larger, darker expanses of chasm deep echoes, and this beyond our awareness. We find ourselves suddenly in new territory - “a new shore” as Guerra sings. Meanwhile, cymbals crash like broken water while bass lines swim twisted through currents of, initially, anger and despair, until eventually giving way - prompted by hymn-like layered organ swells - to something lighter, something akin to peace, perhaps hope. How ironic that Mirror Reaper, a record about an actual death, ends at the opposite of doom.

Grief’s full portrait is here. A sun setting. A darkness ruling. But then a sun reappearing. Bell Witch reminds listeners - by closing and pulling back these curtains - that, sure, we can keep our eyes closed, but the sun will reappear. In that sense, Mirror Reaper is an 83 minute exercise in emerging.