Byron Coley is a music critic, a poet, the editor of the Bull Tongue Review, and a proprietor of Feeding Tube Records in Florence, MA. His most recent books are Defense Against Squares (L’oie De Cravan, 2017) and 1979 Songbook, coauthored with Joanne Robertson (Tenderbooks, 2019).
1
YOKO ONO
While Ono released no music this year, she is still Number One. Why? Maybe it has to do with the boss commission she just finished for the newly renovated MoMA. Or maybe it’s just because.
2
THE FLESH EATERS, I USED TO BE PRETTY (Yep Roc)
This double album, recorded by the 1981 iteration of a long-lived LA band, is a masterwork of bruised punk beauty. The same lineup’s live tour—undertaken to perform the sole LP these particular Flesh Eaters cut back in the day—was similarly incredible.
3
KIM GORDON, STEVE GUNN, BILL NACE, AND JOHN TRUSCINSKI, SOUND FOR ANDY WARHOL’S KISS (Andy Warhol Museum)
The opening of Gordon’s “Lo-Fi Glamour” exhibition at the Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh was worth my seventeen-hour-long drive. Her live soundtrack to Warhol’s silent film Kiss, 1963–64, performed by an expanded lineup of her and Nace’s project Body/Head, was one of the year’s superlative squalls.
4
NEGRO TERROR, “VOICE OF MEMPHIS” (Chicken Ranch)
This single (a rewrite of Skrewdriver’s 1984 racist anthem “Voice of Britain”) is great, but the band hit hardest in concert, where the raw power of a black antifascist hardcore trio could really be felt. Sadly, their leader, Omar Higgins, died this past April. But the legend survives.
5
DESOLATION CENTER (Stuart Swezey)
A wonderful documentary illuminating less-explored corners of the sub-underground of mid-’80s LA. Swezey’s film focuses on a series of crazy ad hoc Happenings held without permits in the Mojave Desert with bands like Sonic Youth, the Minutemen, and Einstürzende Neubauten. A snapshot of a wild, acid-soaked party few were fortunate enough to attend.
6
METTE RASMUSSEN AND CHRIS CORSANO, A VIEW OF THE MOON (FROM THE SUN) (Clean Feed)
Some of the strongest free-jazz duo work lately has been the result of a five-year (and running) partnership between Corsano, by my estimation the best percussionist on the scene, and Danish saxophonist Rasmussen. Her alto is a beacon of twisting invention, and the rumble strips Corsano lays down are a pure sonic blast.
7
NOTS, 3 (Goner)
Though this Memphis quartet started off playing a very loud and straight version of garage punk, its sound has gone in unexpected directions. This new album and the live show I recently caught made me think of bands like Kleenex, This Heat, and the Red Krayola—all proponents of supremely powerful, avant-garde formal destruction.
8
BILL NACE AND CHIK WHITE, BILL NACE & CHIK WHITE (Open Mouth)
As there are not many recorded duets for guitar and jaw harp, I have a feeling this will remain one of the genre’s high points for a good long while.
9
THISTLE GROUP, THISTLE GROUP (Soft Abuse)
This solo project by New Zealand’s Claire Mahoney hit me like a ton of feathers. A mix of buried but floating vocals, electronics, guitar, and drums that is as mysterious as they come. What could be better?
10
MICHAEL HURLEY
Hurley did not have a new record this year. But the set he played at the last Cropped Out festival in Louisville, Kentucky, where the sound of peepers and crickets provided accompaniment for his surreal folk ballads, is not the sort of thing you ever forget.