40. Pigeons - Si Faustine
39. Ou Où - Baron Von Baron
38. Kemialliset Ystävät - Ullakkopalo
37. Forest Swords - Dagger Paths
36. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Love is a Stream
35. Avey Tare - Down There
34. Chris Schlarb - Psychic Temple
33. The Last Dog to Visit the Center of the Earth - Colossus Archosaur
32. Caballos y Entusiasmo - Hidropony
31. Sufjan Stevens - All Delighted People
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30. TOMO - Butterfly Dream and Other Guitar Works
If you scroll down a bit, you'll see that I just recently reviewed this one. An absolutely gorgeous instrumental guitar/drone album with magical healing qualities for the body and soul.
Swans My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky
(2010, Young God)
RIYL = Angels of Light, Evangelista
Oh Michael Gira, you dog! Resurrecting Swans, dehydrated, out of the apocalyptic dust. Can we not sit up straight and stare wet-eyed into the oncoming train lights, like a freshly noosed victim slung swinging in front of the tunnel entrance, dangling just feet above the tracks, choking and that blaring horn, that incessant chugga chugga, the rhythmic pulse growing louder, spelling out our ultimate end, as if the rope wasn’t tight enough around our necks? It spells a beautiful collision, for sure. And, as far as resurrected bands go (if Mr. Gira will allow me to describe Swans as such), this one’s a growling mess of doom and destruction – the way it should be. I’ve been a bit more of an Angels of Light fan myself, having mostly missed the heyday of Swans (unless we can rightfully describe today as that heyday, which is certainly arguable with My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky) but this here record is perhaps the album which tips the scales in the other direction with all the mussy tangles of Gira injected with an added umph of looming destruction (added, of course, to the already present destructive tendencies that Mr. Gira always maintains). What more can be said? This is dust-ridden doom-slop-country at its finest and most frighteningly angelic (albeit the angel of death). What a corrupted ride! What a fantastic execution! What a beautiful, soaring wall of grit and sand and wind and ghosts! Oh Michael Gira, you dog - one of the very best of the new decade!
At All Ends was a revelatory moment for me. It marked the first time I was ever able to describe the Yellow Swans’ music as beautiful. Of course, that’s pretty subjective. I’m positive there are plenty of people who would haughtily disagree with that assessment. But the transition was clear; At All Ends (in addition to all the cassettes and CDrs released around the same period from the band) was something different. A whole new direction for the band and, indeed, a high water mark. The industrial noisiness wasn’t gone, just honed into some lucid, beautiful sandstorm of sound. Perhaps it was this epiphany of evolution that led the band to pack up shop, knowing that they had finally achieved something of supremely transformative power.
