December 1, 2023
Fester’s Lucky 13: 2023 Year-End SummaryIt’s that most wonderful time of the the year — list season! Plus Krampusnacht, where you get goodies from Fester’s Bucket O’ Nasties if you’re nice, and some light punishment from Krampus if you’re naughty.
Top 100 Albums of 2023 | Spotify Mix | 2023 Breakdown: Genre Lists | Reissues | New Old Discoveries | Videos | Movies | Television | Books | Fester’s Favorite Things
At a time with most everyone is stressed out by really major stuff — the pandemic, war, climate disaster, it’s sad to see that their access to the healing powers of music continues to be hindered by, let’s just say an extremely imperfect system for music discovery and consumption. On one hand, if my younger self saw the future of being able to access nearly everything via streaming, I’d have thought that was a utopia situation. Instead, the increasing amount of choices, compounded by the vastly increased amount of music released each year, affect people in different ways. Some have chosen to ignore digital altogether and find comfort in buying only records or CDs. Hoarding physical artifacts is something many of us can relate to and understand. Others are frozen by the vast choices, and default to consuming garbage fed to them by algorithms, A.I. and corporate media, kind of like symptoms of Prader-Willi syndrome. Fast ‘n’ Bulbous is 28 years old, but far from mainstream. But I firmly believe within at least the genre lists of the annual Lucky 13, there truly is something for everyone. You don’t have to take Fester’s clammy hand or even touch it, but let it guide you gently to your musical happy place.
Genre
New Age. After a lifetime of ridiculing New Age music, I started seriously dabbling with the genre when a certain rat bastard came into power in 2016 in order to subdue my rage (I’d alternate between that and Death Metal). The number of New Age and adjacent (ambient jazz/Americana/country/electronic) projects continued to populate my lists through the pandemic. Maybe not the top of my lists, but they’re nestled in there. Thanks to André 3000 dropping New Blue Sun on November 17, everyone’s talking about that “flute album.” His album is the real deal. There have been sightings of him playing flute going back nearly a decade, as he’s put serious time into the instrument after first trying the saxophone and bass clarinet, inspired by John Coltrane. He connected with the double flute, but for the recording, co-produced with Carlos Niño, he switched to a digital version. The collective of experimental L.A.-based musicians helped shape an artistically substantial fusion of New Age, Ambient and Spiritual Jazz influenced by Alice Coltrane, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, Laraaji and Yusef Lateef. There’s been some entertaining complaints about the Outkast member veering so far from hip hop, but he will also end up bringing over a new audience to this music, which can only benefit contemporaries like Julie Byrne, Mary Lattimore, North Americans, Matt LaJoie and Shabason, Krgovich & Harris.
All the people at RYM who approved of the label Slacker Rock should spend a night in jail to contemplate their crime. Talk about a meaningless label. They should reconsider my Psych Noir, which was rejected.
Comeback
Once upon a time, when a band did not release an album for seven years, it was assumed they were broken up and long gone, and a new album would genuinely be a surprise, even a shock. Imagine if the Beatles released a surprise album in 1977. One could count the release of “Now and Then” as a comeback, but I’m talking about fully active bands releasing albums. When I saw Blood Ceremony’s triumphant set at Roadburn Festival in 2016, I thought perhaps their flavor of witchy occult psych noir and psych prog was ready for some crossover success. Instead, they went quiet. When Alia O’Brien completed a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology and got a day job as an anthropologist, I was afraid that was it for the band. So it was truly exciting when they released their fifth album like it was no big deal, just a brief pause. But they truly are a big deal.
Also in Fester’s Lucky 13 with significant gaps since their last album were Graveyard (5 years), Baroness (4 years), Queens Of The Stone Age (6 years) and Royal Thunder (6 years). The longest gap in my top 100 is 38 YEARS, with celebrated Paisley Underground influencers Rain Parade, who’s last album was Crashing Dream (1985). Dang! Also releasing their third album, 30 years later, are relatively under the radar Boston shoegaze/noise pop band Drop Nineteens. Peter Gabriel of course is the biggest star here, not only releasing his first album in 21 years, but probably his best in 37 years. I don’t know why he hasn’t appeared on lists, the entire album has already been released throughout the year as singles. Bush Tetras released their first in 11 years, and just outside the top 100, Swedish heavy metal band Heavy Load released their fourth album 40 YEARS after their last!
Debut
Debut of the year is Tubs. This might be the most excited I’ve been for a new indie jangle pop band since Rolling Blackouts Coastal Thunder. Bubbling under are Egyptian Blue, Spiritual Cramp, The Keening, Do Nothing, Nemegata, Blood Lightning, Krypta, and Demons My Friends.
Memoriam
Of the many unpleasant surprises of beloved musicians dying too young, Tom Verlaine is a big loss. Marquee Moon (1977) got more spins in the Doom Cave than just about any other album. Years ago there were rumors of a fourth Television in the works, but sadly it never happened.
Life in the hive puckered up my night
The kiss of death, the embrace of life
Ooh, there I stand ‘neath the Marquee Moon
Hesitating
Well, the Cadillac
It pulled out of the graveyard
Pulled up to me
All they said, “get in, get in”
May they also rock in excelsis DIO and rest in pieces: Jeff Beck (Yardbirds), Yukihiro Takahashi (Yellow Magic Orchestra) Van Conner (Screaming Trees), David Crosby (Byrds, CSN&Y), Fuzzy Haskins (Funkadelic), Ryuichi Sakamoto (Yellow Magic Orchestra), Mark Stewart (The Pop Group), Harry Belafonte, Rita Lee (Os Mutantes), Algy Ward (Tank, The Damned, The Saints), Andy O’Rourke (The Smiths), Mark Adams (Saint Vitus), Tina Turner, Blackie Onassis (Urge Overkill), Teresa Taylor (Butthole Surfers), Sinéad O’Connor, Erkin Koray, Robbie Robertson (The Band), Sixto Rodgriguez, Gary Young (Pavement), John Kezdy (The Effigies), Gary Wright (Spooky Tooth), Dwight Twilley, Mars Williams (Psychedelic Furs, The Waitresses, Liquid Soul, Custard Flux), Geordie Walker (Killing Joke), Shane McGowan (The Nips, The Pogues, The Popes).
On a personal note, I said goodbye to my old friend Bria Clark-Toulemonde, who succumbed to cancer on October 19. She and her musician husband Matthew moved to Texas in the spring and tragically he suffered a massive stroke shortly after and is still on his long road to rehabilitation. Thanks to Health Alliance for Austin Musicians (HAAM), they both got top notch medical care.
Underrated
Of the million plus people who bought the latest Metallica and Foo Fighters that were left disappointed, they probably wouldn’t have been had they gotten Spirit Adrift. In terms of balancing artistry with accessibility, the Spirit Adrift album nails it. We’ll see if anyone notices. Nearly as accessible are Baroness, Royal Thunder and Spidergawd.
Disappointment
In recent years I’ve grown to accept the fact that few bands can maintain creative vitality beyond a fairly short period, and decline is inevitable. Thus, I wasn’t that bothered by Gorillaz, Teenage Fanclub, Blur, Smashing Pumpkins Rancid and Mudhoney not being on par with their best work. All those bands released albums that are not terrible, but inhabit the bottom half of my list of 1,000 albums of the year. The biggest disappointment has to be someone who I had greater expectations for who did make the top 100. While I’ve been unsatisfied to an extent by every album PJ Harvey has released since Uh Huh Her (2004) — both Let England Shake (2011) and The Hope Six Demolition Project (2016 ) seemed like dry, academic exercises, I felt she was building up to something special, tying her latest, I Inside the Old Year Dying with her poetry book Orlam, written in Dorset dialect. It is fairly haunting, and it’s doing well on year-end lists. And yet I still want more from her. It lacks that spark that had me in awe of Harvey from 1992-2000. Sorry Polly, you’ll always be a sister from another mister, growing up in a small town listening to Captain Beefheart, but I still think you’re holding back.
Worst
No other artist has fallen from such heights as U2. They were my favorite band in 1983-84, but gradually grew more and more grating. I didn’t think they could get any worse than on the horrific Songs of Experience, but completely out of any ideas, they decided to go back and ruin all their good songs too on Songs of Surrender. For fuck’s sake. Now they have a Vegas residency with the most audacious, overblown spectacle using state of the art technology at the Sphere, something they’ve been heading toward ever since Bono put on his oversized sunglasses in the early 90s and discovered irony. I am somewhat curious to see the Sphere, but fuck Bono.
Surprise
The Church have been steadily releasing albums for over 40 years, maintaining an impressively consistent quality. And yet I didn’t expect to be so taken with their 22nd album like I was, a sci-fi/occult concept album set in 2054 with a Ziggy-like character Eros Zeta to employ a machine developed by a North Korean scientist (The Hypnogogue) to pull music from dreams.
Fester’s Lucky 13 – The Best Albums of 2023
1. Large Plants – The Thorn (Ghost Box)
Quickly following up from last year’s The Carrier, former Wolf People’s Jack Sharp’s solo project ventures into more progressive psychedelic folk than the predecessor’s biker rock. It’s haunted and dreamy, with incredible guitar that references Turkish Anatolian psych, Tuareg desert rock, Captain Beefheart, Fairport Convention and Wishbone Ash. A prickly yet magical album that measure up against the best of Wolf People, and the best album of 2023. RIYL Fairport Convention, Trees, Pentangle, Lankum, Sam Burton, Lucid Sins, David Eugene Edwards, The Keening. | Full Review | Buy
(more…)November 17, 2023
Large Plants – The Thorn (Ghost Box)November 10, 2023
Spidergawd – VII (Crispin Glover)November 6, 2023
Autumn RundownNovember 2, 2023
Lucid Sins – Dancing in the Dark (Totem Cat)