Domino

ALARM's 51 Favorite Albums of 2013

ALARM’s 51 Favorite Albums of 2013

Saving the best for last, we’ve chosen our 51 favorite albums of 2013, pulled from the acclaimed and the unsung — some of the best as well as most boundary-pushing releases from rock and beyond.

Interview: Animal Collective on the “alien rock-‘n’-roll” sounds of Centipede Hz

This interview appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!

Animal Collective: Centipede HzAnimal Collective: Centipede Hz (Domino, 9/4/12)

“Today’s Supernatural”

Animal_Collective_Today_s_Supernatural

What would it sound like if a band from another planet somehow heard early ’50s and ’60s rock and roll and covered it? This half-serious anecdote is how Animal Collective keyboardist Brian Weitz, better known as his stage name Geologist, frames his band’s ninth studio album, Centipede Hz. For as amusing as it is to imagine extraterrestrials clattering to The Hollies, Weitz’s rhetorical scenario points to the band’s creative motors at work, and how they manage to obscure influences beyond recognition.

Interview: Dirty Projectors songwriter David Longstreth achieves discovery in seclusion

This interview appears in ALARM #40. Subscribe here to get your copy!

Dirty Projectors: Swing Lo Magellan (Domino, 7/10/12)

“Gun Has No Trigger”

Dirty Projectors: “Gun Has No Trigger”

Dave Longstreth has one hell of a view. Slumping his lanky frame in a plush leather chair, the Dirty Projectors front-man has been given a room in Brooklyn’s Wythe Hotel that has a massive floor-to-ceiling window, displaying the island of Manhattan in stunning panorama. The funny thing, as Longstreth points out, is that the accommodations are a bit superfluous. “I live just a couple blocks that way,” he notes.

Despite the junketed overkill of the meeting place, Longstreth can attest that time away from home can really clear one’s head for answers. Last year after touring behind his band’s breakthrough 2009 album Bitte Orca, Longstreth hid himself away, renting a house in upstate New York for the sole purpose of writing and recording new songs. Narrowed from more than 50 demos to 12 final tracks, the resultant Swing Lo Magellan is Longstreth’s attempt at concentrated songcraft. “This album, for me, is just about the songs,” he says, “this idea of a verse and a chorus and lyrics and melody.”

ALARM's 50 Favorite Albums of 2012

ALARM’s 50 Favorite Albums of 2012

Another year, another torrential downpour of albums across our desks. As always, we encountered way too much amazing music, from Meshuggah to The Mars Volta, Converge, Killer Mike, P.O.S, and many more.

Dan Deacon

Review: Dan Deacon’s America

Dan Deacon: AmericaDan Deacon: America (Domino)

“Lots”

Dan Deacon: “Lots”

It takes a certain type of self-confidence to Sharpie tits on a map of the United States and call it album art, or loop the sliced-up laugh of Woody Woodpecker for three-and-a-half minutes and call it an opening track. It takes a very different type of self-confidence to craft something as complex, varied, and yet wholly likeable and listenable as “Prettyboy,” one of the most intrepid compositions on Dan Deacon’s newest release, America.

Dirty Projectors

Review: Dirty Projectors’ Swing Lo Magellan

Dirty Projectors: Swing Lo MagellanDirty Projectors: Swing Lo Magellan (Domino, 7/10/12)

“Gun Has No Trigger”

Dirty Projectors: “Gun Has No Trigger”

Earlier this year, when Dirty Projectors offered a stream of the new song “Gun Has No Trigger,” it felt like the band was fending off fans, critics, and music blogs with a stick — keeping them at bay, buying more time to wrap up more songs. Ever since the release of its schizo-indie breakthrough, Bitte Orca, in 2009, the band has become a bearer of the “most anticipated album” tag, as the expectations for follow-up Swing Lo Magellan have swelled to ridiculous proportions.