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.
The Octopus Project: Whitby digital EP (Peek-A-Boo, 11/6/12)
The Octopus Project’s new album, untitled at this time, has been described by guitarist Josh Lambert as “equally the poppiest and the weirdest thing we’ve ever done.” The video for the first single, “Whitby,” does its best to live up to this assertion.
Cloaked in mystery with eerie music to match, Pittsburgh-based experimental electronic band Black Moth Super Rainbow asks the listener to fill in the blanks.
Among the thousands of under-appreciated or under-publicized albums that were released in 2010, hundreds became our favorites and were presented in ALARM and on AlarmPress.com. Of those, we pared down to 100 outstanding releases, leaving no genre unexplored in our list of this year’s overlooked gems.
The Octopus Project: “Fuguefat” (Hexadecagon, Polyvinyl, 10/26/10)
The Octopus Project: “Fuguefat” (Hexadecagon, Polyvinyl, 10/26/10)
Austin-based four-piece The Octopus Project has spent the fall co-headlining a US tour with Polyvinyl’s newest signing, STRFKR.
The band recently performed in Mexico City as part of the Sonorama Festival, and is now set to play two homecoming shows in Texas with the Hexadecagon set-up first debuted at SXSW.
Watch a trailer for the eight-speaker, eight-video-projection, surround-sound monster below.
Despite its history and charm, Asheville, North Carolina isn’t widely known as a destination for music and culture. Many associate the town with the Blue Ridge Parkway, hippie drumming, and maybe Black Mountain College, a progressive institution that closed in 1957 but once was a center for artists like Merce Cunningham and John Cage. But look deeper and you’ll also find a contemporary music scene, classy bars, and a population of locals that are culturally aware and proud of their town.
And they’re nice — like deep-South nice. Maybe that’s why Robert Moog decided to spend the last 25 years of his life there.
