Favorite 20 Albums of 2014

Wisdom for Debris, Eluvium

Ghost Trees is a blog with (apparently) 2 posts per year. Prolificacy has always been the specialty here.

I’ll cut the crap. Last year on my blog I wrote about lists. I still do not like them.

I was asked to contribute to Decoder Magazine’s end-of-year features again this year (Last year I wrote an ode to Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse and Jason Molina of Songs: Ohia. You can find the feature here: “More Yellow Birds and Lunch Box Blues“), which I did. And when my feature is posted, it will be clear that I again skirted the actual topic of commenting on a list for 2014. So here I go and post a list on my blog anyway. I don’t know. There is a sixteen-year-old in me still following through on some kind of silly tradition that I started.

Rank	Artist	Album	Label
1	Swans	To Be Kind	Young God Records
2	Grouper	Ruins	Kranky
3	Eluvium	Wisdom For Debris	(self)
4	The War on Drugs	Lost in the Dream	Secretly Canadian
5	Have a Nice Life	The Unnatural World	Enemies List Home Recordings
6	Fennesz	Bécs	Touch
7	Dads	I’ll Be The Tornado	6131 Records
8	Owls	Two	Polyvinyl
9	Maxwell August Croy and Sean McCann	I	Students of Decay
10	Horseback	Piedmont Apocrypha	Three Lobed Recordings
11	Fire! Orchestra	Enter!	Rune Grammofon
12	Adult Jazz	Gist Is	Spare Thought
13	Thee Silver Mount Zion	Hang On To Each Other	Constellation Records
14	Orcas	Yearling	Morr Music
15	Inventions	Inventions	Temporary Residence
16	Rivulets	I Remember Everything	Jellyfant Records
17	Christopher Willits	Opening	Ghostly International
18	Wolves of the Throne Room	Celestite	Artemesia Records
19	Alex Cobb	Marigold and Cable	Shelter Press
20	Sun Kil Moon	Benji	Caldo Verde

That Swans record is a monster. For other people who have read my blog before, you might see some familiar faces like Owls, Horsback, Fire! Orchestra, Rivulets, Grouper, etc.

The year was an interesting one in listening to music for me. I got hooked on a lot more older stuff, and did a good deal of traveling with the day job and on vacation. This meant fewer times with a computer or plugged in, limiting my music carrying capacity to a few old apple products and somewhere in the range of twelve GB. Great new musical seductions – that War on Drugs one surprised me!

I’ll look forward to doing more writing for Decoder Magazine in 2015. And the other news for me is that I’m leaving Berlin to move back to San Francisco, so my music access points will change again, and I’m sure my list(?) next year will be quite different.

Adam

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Top 20 Albums of 2012

It’s time for my end-of-year list. I really didn’t listen to as much new stuff this year as I did in 2011, so the list is cut to 20. Generally tried to limit to one album per label, but I didn’t really follow that rule (go 12k!?). Anyway, maybe I’ll add some comments at some point. Really beautiful stuff, and I look forward to diving into some other great albums based on other year-end recommendations soon.

Like I said last year, if you are struggling to find out more information about a specific release, let me know and I can possibly direct you in the correct direction. But for the most part, I would recommend searching for these fantastic labels and their online websites.

1	Swans	The Seer	Young God Records
2	Gareth Dickson	Quite A Way Away	12k
3	Nuojuva	Valot Kaukaa	Preservation Records
4	Deep Listening Band	Great Howl At Town Haul	Important Records
5	En	Already Gone	Students of Decay
6	Fire! With Oren Ambarchi	In The Mouth – A Hand	Rune Grammofon
7	Steve Peters + Steve Roden	Not A Leaf Remains As It Was	12k
8	Strategy	Strategy	Peak Oil
9	Hakobune	The Cowboy Across the River	Constellation Tatsu
10	From the Mouth of the Sun	Woven Tide	Experimedia
11	Gabriel Saloman	Adhere	Miasmah Recordings
12	Sujo + Sun Hammer	Fistula	Inam Records
13	Neptune	msg rcvd	Northern-Spy Records
14	Electric Bird Noise	Live at the Basement	Silber Records
15	Brian Eno	Lux	Warp Records
16	Mount Eerie	Ocean Roar	P. W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd.
17	Sharon Van Etten	Tramp	Jagjaguwar
18	Thee Oh Sees	Putrifiers II	In The Red Records
19	Gultskra Artikler	Abtu/Anet	Miasmah Recordings
20	White Hills	Frying On This Rock	Thrill Jockey Records

Maxwell August Croy Interview

Another Monday and another opportunity to interview a terrific Day of Noise performer and musician. Maxwell August Croy is co-operator and label runner of Root Strata, as well as multi-instrumentalist in the duo, En. Along with James Devane, Croy incorporates and processes acoustic sounds like koto, guitar, and vocals into dreamy washes of hazy bliss. The duo released their debut The Absent Coast on Root Strata in fall of 2010, and will be releasing Already Gone on Students of Decay in March. At the helm of Root Strata, Croy has helped establish the San Francisco-based label as the authority on gorgeous soundscapes, ambience, psychedelic hypnotism, and the beauty of warm blankets of fuzz. Root Strata has been home to creative artists like Grouper, Starving Weirdos, Richard Youngs, Yellow Swans, Tarentel, and Barn Owl to name very very few. With co-label head Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Maxwell August Croy organized the On-Land Music Festival, which ran in San Francisco most recently in 2010, as a platform for drone, psych, and experimental musicians as well as friends of Root Strata. It is a pleasure to welcome Maxwell August Croy to KZSU for the 2012 Day of Noise.

Today, Maxwell and I spoke about the origins of En, the personal nature of creating and releasing independent music, and his progression as a musician and artist. Once again, I have uploaded the interview. Many thanks to Maxwell for the conversation, images, preview track, and permission to make the interview available. Make sure to check out En’s website to keep up on tour dates and release information. And while you’re at it, set a bookmark at Root Strata’s webpage, you won’t regret it.

Maxwell August Croy

Another upcoming interview on Ghost Trees (Mondays from 9am – noon PST on KZSU Stanford 90.1FM and kzsulive.stanford.edu):

February 6th (10am): Mitch Greer and Rachel Smith of folky drone experimentalists, The Lickets.