Couldn’t (or did) make it to our release party for ALARM #41? Relive the night in photos at Isle of Man Chicago.
At long last, ALARM unveils its 11 favorite albums of 2013 — a list of amazing music that you won’t find anywhere else.
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.
Vocalist and composer Mike Patton’s credits are a mile long, and all extremely different from one another. His tastes in food, culture, and obscure hangouts are just as diverse.
Como Asesinar a Felipes: Comenzará de Nuevo (Koolarrow, 4/9/13)
Chilean band Como Asesinar a Felipes is making its worldwide debut April 9. Comenzará de Nuevo, its fourth album, is dropping on Billy Gould’s (Faith No More) Koolarrow Records, and if the video for “Alto” is anything to go by, the band’s brand of jazzy hip-hop fusion is something on which to keep an eye.
Last winter, Secret Chiefs 3 — the East-meets-West super-group known for its mysteriously cloaked and ever-rotating lineup led by guitarist Trey Spruance of Mr. Bungle and Faith No More — took off for a European tour with some folks from the APATT Orchestra, a large-scale ensemble that seeks unusual settings for collaborations with other artists.
In a new hour-long tour film, you can catch all the on- and off-stage adventures of SC3 and APATT as they bring their wild instrumentation abroad. Adventures include, but are not limited to, parades with giant motorized elephants, steam-punk carousels, and unsuccessful rock-on-string fights.
On its 2009 album, Carboniferous, Italian sludge-jazz trio Zu manages to get even heavier with piles of effect pedals and Mike Patton‘s wild vocal gymnastics.