Leftist Christian

Some of the best albums I heard this year are (not in any order): Deerhunter – Microcastle/Weird Era Cont. Somewhere between the pre-verbal psychedelia of Cryptograms and the airy pop of Atlas Sound comes this beautiful and surprisingly accessible album, which, unfortunately for them, was leaked long before its official release. TV on the Radio – Dear Science, In which the band continues toward becoming one of America's greatest offerings. I preferred Return to Cookie Mountain a bit more, but as someone said, this may be the best Peter Gabriel album in a number of years. Boris – Smile Somehow they channel the metal while working with Ghost's Michio Kurihara to make, well, airy psychedelia (twice in one post). Somehow in my first couple listens, I didn't realize that this was entirely in Japanese--the lyrics are sung in a way that doesn't matter. One of my fonder memories this year is the drummer shouting and leaping into the crowd at the Pitchfork Festival, then ...

Several times growing up, I joined the Columbia House Music Club. The first time, the choices were more driven by my parents (Billy Joel, Fleetwood Mac). The second time, my brother called the shots--this would be more in the metal phase, and we received our selections in vinyl format. (I should mention that the standard course of action at this point would be to reap the rewards of joining then never pay for anything, unfortunately. Oddly, though, they would make us the offer again after a couple of years). I made my own selections for a batch as a freshman in high school, coinciding with a decided shift in musical taste. I hadn't heard much of anything from the cassettes I was ordering, save from 120 Minutes, a weekly MTV program focusing on what was then unapologetically called alternative music. One of the selections was New Order's Substance. Immediately I liked it, leading to a friend's purchase of Joy Division's album by the same title (very different--pr...