Top 10s for 2009: Max J Hansson (Cut City/Night Minutes)
If 2008 saw Cut City being two steps shy of dying then underachievers hum the satisfaction of progress halted when 2009 proved to sink all of our feet in the grave while trying to poke a tiny whole in the coffin to be able to (barely) breath. In 2010 Cut City will release their second album. It's entitled "Where's the harm in dreams disarmed". That's a fact. Night Minutes, a solo endeavor I initiated this year, will release a 7" on Deleted Art offshoot Psychic Malmö, as well as produce a full-length.
Here's 2009's healthy truism.
Debutante's Ball -- This is a tie between Florida's Cult Ritual and San Diego's Crocodiles. If we start with the latter; not since Pissed Jeans' debut album have I danced and pranced around with tears in my eyes. It's ugly and certainly very annoying when the first half of a 5-minute song consists of a "drum solo" (read: monotonous beat) and is then followed by the complete assault of dissonant wailing guitars. When I'm in love you best believe I'm in love – L.U.V.
Crocodiles on the other hand is somewhat on the other side of the spectrum. Or almost. Old hardcore veterans switch from screaming to dreaming; put Suicide, The Jesus and The Mary Chain and Phil Spector in the meatgrinder and out comes those pesky swamp creatures. Berated by some critics as merely rehashing bands that already rehashed the past but, hey, it's 2009: Nothing's new!
Sophomore Sensation -- When I heard Health for the first time I thought they were really good. Production was a bit off, but some of the best records I know have shitty production sound (The Phantom Pregnancies) so there's no correlation between good sound and good music (Coldplay). Well, on their second album, "Get color", they have addressed the issue of sound, but in no way does that stink up this recording. It's the perfect combination of noise and melodic ambiance.
Blast From The Past -- A couple of months I picked up this late eighties album by Richard Lloyd called "Real time". It's a live album recorded at CBGB's and every second of it oozes that sometimes foul production sound that everyone (then) constituted as "quality sound". Nevertheless, it holds some beautiful gems worth listening to. The one song that immediately grabbed my attention was the power-stomping "Lost child". As always, the guitar playing is phenomenal and there isn't a day I wish I could play the way he does.
Pointblank -- DOGS! They cost a lot of money, they're dirty, they're needy, they steal your time and they certainly don't help out with chores around the house. They stare at you while you're eating and sometimes they drool on the floor for no reason. They bark at the door when no one's there. They lick their genitals and then your face. When it rains outside they usually take half an hour until they pee. Sometimes they're retarded and run around in circles until you're able to catch them. So, what good are they? Very much so.
Attention-grabbers -- Now's the time to say "This year proved to be a great year for music/entertainment" but past years haven't been better nor worse. You just have to dig deeper to find true golden gems. Among many things this is the stuff I feel privileged to have had the chance to listen to/watch/read/visit the following stuff:
We Live In Trenches, Crystal Antlers, Animal Collective, Best Coast, Death, Black Dice, Children, White Shit, Growing, Zach Hill, Rangers, No Age, Filter Magasin (Sweden), Aquarium Drunkard, Mad Men, True Blood, District 9, Academy Records, Other Music.
2010 Prediction Game – As the world this year was polluted with big bowls of turd in the shape of Brokencyde, Attack Attack! and other teen/screamo/crabcore acts I'm sure that even if we think this really is the ultimate low, that we have hit rock bottom and started to dig, we will be witnessing new atrocities that will make these auto-tuned insults pale in comparison. I give you Twee-Death with a baroque "Who Let The Dogs Out"-jam. Add gutteral noise and Kanye West into the mix and we'll have something that will make half the world's population stop having kids and the other half commiting suicide.
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Cut City's most recent release was the excellent "Narcissus can wait" EP, available via . As speculated above, look for Cut City to release their sophomore full-length in 2010 along with new music from Max's solo project Night Minutes.
http://www.myspace.com/cutcity