My Favorite Albums of 2016

What a crummy year. Lots of great musicians died and the world embraced fascism. I worry about the assault on art that may come in the next few years, but for now music remains a potent means of expression. There were a lot of good records released this year although due to a lack of funds, I’ve honestly only bought one of the albums on my list (my number one). I hope to remedy this soon. The good part about not owning any of the following is that it’s given me a novel way to rank them. I’ve ranked them based on which I am most excited to buy.
  

I don’t know if it was my gloomy mood, but much of what I liked was pretty dour. I don’t know if there was less “happy” music being released or if I only tuned into the dismal stuff. One positive trend I noticed was there seems to be a movement towards releasing shorter works. This was particularly noteworthy in some hip hop records, a genre which tends towards hour-plus releases. A lot of the records on my list are under 45 minutes. I’m all in favor of a return to artists releasing shorter (28-45 minutes) albums more frequently.

 

The further down the list you go, the more arbitrary the ranking and the greater the chance that on any given day one could rise or fall ten places. At the end I’ve alphabetically listed a bunch of records I enjoyed that are worth a mention and a listen (in some cases, I’d didn’t give these enough spins). As always, I’ve created a jukebox of favorite songs at the bottom, including worthy tunes from albums that didn’t make the cut.

1. David Bowie – Blackstar: I finally gained enough distance from the tragedy surrounding the release of this album to appreciate it for its merits alone. The record is a dark, moody record drenched in symbolism. It’s probably the weirdest, artiest album to go to Number 1. A cross between the occult Kabbalistic mysticism of Man Who Sold the World and Station to Station with some of his 90s output, it’s not a typical Bowie album. Then again, ever the chameleon, most new Bowie records were atypical of his other work as he constantly recast himself.

  

2. Wild Beasts – Boy King: The best art rock band working today returns from the land of cerebral subtlety to deliver a visceral hip shaker. The record is bathed in sultry distorted tones and swinging beats. No other record was as brawny, as brainy, or as horny. This is music of a throbbing virility, unabashedly masculine and unashamedly sensitive and sensual. The singles are good, but my favorites are the album tracks “Alpha Female,” “2BU,” “He The Colossus,” and “Eat Your Heart Out Adonis.” A couple of years ago I questioned if they would still be a band by now. Popularity be damned, this is a band that sound like they can continue for as long as they wish.

 

3. Blood Orange – Freetown Sound: This album has all the political import of the latest Kendrick Lamar and D’Angelo records, but it presents a softer, more emotionally sensitive voice. Resistance can be catchy and melodic, and it often is here. This is like the soundtrack to a great lost 80s movie about young black America that was never made. There’s a earning quality, like a romantic plea for love, that’s inspiring. It also sounds like it wouldn’t have come out at any other time than right now.

  

4. Shura – Nothing’s Real: This is a really nice patch of indie new wave. There’s an insular, personal feel to this album that’s comforting in a year where reading the news is so emotionally exhausting. This record actually offered some lighter moments which were all too rare this year. There is a bit of an unironic teenage earnestness to the album, but it manages to be charming rather than cloying. The little skits and the last track of arty nothingness are pretty forgettable, but the rest is so naively winning and fresh the pacing doesn’t really suffer.

  

5. Metallica – Hardwired… To Self-Destruct: Heralded as a comeback, it makes good on that claim, for the most part. It brings back the thrash tempos and complicated song structures of Death Magnetic, but this time there are actual songs. It’s the best record the band has made in 25 years, featuring some of the catchiest choruses of their career. James Hetfield hasn’t sung this well since ...And Justice for All. Lars hasn’t played this well perhaps ever (seriously, it sounds like he went to a drum clinic). There are NWOBHM-style guitar harmonies all over. It’s not Ride the Lightning or Master of Puppets-level good, but it’s the first album of theirs since the 80s that I feel I’d actually pull off the shelf and play.

 

6. Kendrick Lamar – untitled unmastered.: This feels like it was intended as just a collection of TPAB cast-offs, but it sounds better, and more focused than most other artists carefully considered albums. It’s nice to hear new Kendrick tunes without the weight of a concept album. Dark and jazzy, in many ways it sounds of a piece with the new Bowie which is interesting since TPAB was said to be a big influence on Bowie’s album. This is a short, concise record that does what it needs to and gets out. His guest spots on other artists’ records have been great too.

  

7. Kristin Kontrol – X-Communicate: I had heard this record when it first came out, liked it, and then filed it away to check out further later. I kept forgetting about it, until recently. This is a bold, confident album. This is a pretty perfect synth pop record, and I don’t know it didn’t get more love. Kontrol’s voice is strong and the melodies are top shelf. In a few weeks this might rank in the top 5.

  

8. ZuluZuluu – What’s the Price?: This is a great future-funk record that gives me a Zapp meets Janelle Monae vibe. It’s hard to categorize, but that’s what’s great about it to me. The synths on here have a really fat, wobbly analog sound. It doesn’t feel like yesterday, so much as adding a new dimension to the Minneapolis sound. It’s smart, relevant, and musically cool. I hope that this just doesn’t end up being a one-off shot. Keep the group together, guys.

  

9. Michael Kiwanuka – Love & Hate: This record is a little overblown in terms of the production, but it’s really pretty and musically rich enough to be a film score. He still has a very Terry Callier meets Traffic kind of feel, which to my mind, is no bad thing. Kiwanuka may never have a hit or be anything other than a critical darling, but in the meantime, he’s making beautiful records in the present moment.

  

10. Underworld – Barbara Barbara, we face a shining future: Underworld made a Fall album which surprisingly makes a lot of sense. Less surprising, the results come off like an LCD Soundsystem record. This is a bit unfair since these guys have been at this a good long while and partially created the space that allowed James Murphy to do his thing in the first place. It’s not strictly as much of a dance record as their past work, but it’s propulsive and beautiful nonetheless.

  

11. William Tyler – Modern Country: This is a lush instrumental album along the lines of Eno’s work with Daniel Lanois or even Ry Cooder’s soundtrack work. Beautifully fingerpicked guitar licks branch out over rich accompaniment that sounds like Popol Vuh making a Fresh Aire album. It sounds like a desert sunset, languorous and beautiful. Sometimes music can offer solace where words can’t.

  

12. Kings of Leon – WALLS: This group is terminally uncool. They’re often accused of making hacky stadium rock, but they have too much talent to dismiss out of hand. They have a great ear for catchy melodies and this is packed full of them. “Waste A Moment” is a catchy single, but “Muchacho” actually has real heart. Caleb Followill has one of the best rock voices of the best two decades. They’re one of the few “real” rock bands now that still get played on pop radio, so I find myself pulling for them.

  

13. White Lung – Paradise: This new album is more hook-filled than Deep Fantasy, but it still has plenty of teeth. It’s a short burst (28 minutes) of breakneck rock that continues to reference Hole and Big Black guitar harmonics while adding a touch of Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I heard some protestations about it being too pretty-sounding, but this is still so much fiercer than most of the new rock music I hear now.

  

14. Danny Brown – Atrocity Exhibition: This is a really spooky, warped-sounding record. It’s packed with great guest spots from the likes of Kendrick Lamar, Ab-Soul, B-Real, Earl Sweatshirt, Kelela, and Petite Noir. Brown’s voice is a grotesque caricature of his usual delivery which sounds incredibly manic, even possessed. The mood is unrelentingly dark, but it’s really well done.

  

15. Weyes Blood – Front Row Seat to Earth: This is a great singer-songwriter record. Her voice sits in the same area as Laura Nyro, Mimi Parker (Low), and even Karen Carpenter. The production and arrangements are given the full 60s pop treatment, but not in a way that feels retro. Few songs build and swell anymore the way that “Do You Need My Love” does.

  

16. Gallant – Ology: This guy has a beautiful, high voice that serves this set of soulful tunes really well. “Bourbon” sounds like the best song Al B. Sure! never made. Even some of the production harkens back to late-New Jack stylings albeit with a more morose turn. I don’t mean to suggest this is your typical Massive Attack should put him on their next record.

  

17. Childish Gambino – Awaken, My Love!: Donald Glover is a little too talented for his own good. This album has an almost haunted Haitian voodoo funk about it. “Have Some Love” and “Boogieman” sound like they could have come off of Maggot Brain. The influences are wide-ranging though. I can hear some Nilsson (“California”) and even Zappa in some corners.

  

18. Iggy Pop – Post-Pop Depression: Josh Homme makes records so perfect they have an almost annoyingly formulaic feel to them. As Iggy’s foil this time out, Homme crafts a solid backing for Iggy most consistent record since New Values. In some ways, there’s almost too much control. It sounds as much of a Homme record as an Iggy one. Iggy is really his best when he’s allowed some room for wild, extemporaneous expression. The only time it comes close is the very end of the last track.

  

19. Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker: His death was less surprising than David Bowie’s, but it’s a shame when someone passes who can still operate at this high of a level. Produced by his son, this album is more acoustic in its arrangements, foregoing the cheesy synths and back-up vocals of recent years. “Tapestry” is one of his best songs, and the rest of the record is a great goodbye.

  

20. Clark – The Last Panthers: This is beautifully atmospheric, electronically-rendered background music. That isn’t meant as an insult. Some music has a greater impact when you’re not exclusively focused on it. It could lazily be called ambient or soundtrack music. The individual pieces themselves are short, kind of like Another Green World, working cohesively as part of a larger whole. This album isn’t as much of a game-changer as that legendary record, but it works really well for its kind.

  

21. Terrace Martin – Velvet Portraits: Good g-funk meets jazz with help from Kamasi Washington, Thundercat, Lalah Hathaway, Robert Glasper, and more. I don’t think the vocal tracks work as well as the instrumental ones, but the whole record feels warm and connected. It plays like a great collective workshop project coming out of some of L.A.’s new jazz/hip hop/soul scene.

  

22. Trentemoller – Fixion: Trentemoller has always been dark, even when he made minimal techno. Now he makes expansive goth albums with chorus-pedal bass lines and ethereal female vocals. A lot of reviews have mentioned Joy Division, but those people don’t know what they’re talking about. There are definitely some Cure bits in there though.

  

23. D.D Dumbo – Utopia Defeated: This record is relentlessly quirky. The singer sounds like Police-era Sting and the music has a spring-loaded, African groove like the Talking Heads used to employ. The Dirty Projectors do this a bit. There’s a twitchy restlessness to these songs that I like and it stands as one of the few upbeat records I heard and liked.

  

24. Alex Smoke – Love Over Will: Alex Smoke’s Crowley-inspired album was released early in year and I kept going back to. It sounds like Matthew Dear trying to make a Current 93 record. It’s appropriately dark and groovy. At 34 minutes it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, giving you just enough spooky, magickal mojo.

 

25. Monica LaPlante – Noir: This is a dark little rocker of a record (an EP, actually) that I’ve only recently heard. I’m pretty much completely ignorant of the local scene nowadays, but I have a feeling LaPlante may break out soon. She has tremendous presence and the production, though bare bones, sounds great.

Worth A Listen

A Tribe Called Quest – We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service: Need more listens. What I’ve heard is surprisingly on top of its game.

Ab-Soul – Do What Thou Wilt.: This Crowley-inspired record is an immature mess, but it’s never boring and pretty original.

Alejandro Escovedo – Burn Something Beautiful: Great sunburned rock & roll.

Alexander Paak – Malibu: Very foggy hippie funk.

Andy Shauf – The Party: Early 70s, low-key Beatles-y songwriter/chamber pop vibe (think Elliott Smith meets Emitt Rhodes). I wonder what Phil Dougherty thinks.

Aphex Twin – CHEETAH EP: Typically great although not super complex. Fun futurism.

Brian Eno – Ship: Nice Velvets cover.

Classixx – Faraway Reach: A couple of nice feelgood dance tracks.

Common – Black America Again: Better than I expected. I think people slept on this.

DIIV – Is the Is Are: Very good dream pop - a little samey.

Esperanza Spalding – Emily’s D+evolution: Not very much jazz, but very quirky and interesting. Strangely reminds me of an R&B Dagmar Krause.

Haley Bonar – Impossible Dream: The more rock and roll she gets, the better I like it.

Juan Atkins & Moritz von Oswald – Present Borderland: Transport: Techno. And more techno.

Kamaiyah – A Good Night in the Ghetto: Hip hop from a brassy and sassy lady.

Kate Bush – Before the Dawn: TBH I haven’t heard it, but I will buy it regardless.

Mitski – Puberty 2: This is a Jason Swanson kind of record, which means it sounds like Helium.

Preoccupations – Preoccupations: Better name, but I still question their motives. Good post-punk.

Rolling Stones – Blue & Lonesome: Mick is the weakest link here, but the band sounds great. The Wolf tune is tops.

Santigold – 99 Cents: A step down from the last one, but there are some good tunes here.

Sarah Neufeld – The Ridge: Good to hear her violin on her own, away from Arcade Fire and Colin Stetson. She should join King Crimson.

Shirley Collins – Lodestar: Her voice is lower now which makes her brand of trad British folk more palatable.

Solange – A Seat at the Table: I admire this record more than I like it. True was better for me, but this is nice.

Swans – The Glowing Man: There’s a stain on this, but sometimes creeps make good music.

Tegan & Sara – Love You to Death: Pro pop by real folks. Not as great as recent records, but good.

Yussef Kamal – Black Focus: A new direction in jazz.

Amoeba Music Report: What's in My Bag?

Last week I visited Amoeba Music Hollywood and put the legendary store's reputation as the greatest record in the land to the test. I visited the store twice over two days for about 90 - 100 minutes combined. To be fair, to truly test a store of its size I would have liked to have spent double that time, but an hour and a half would be more than enough for most people and it's what I had to work with so it will have to be enough. The metric I applied was to see how many records I could find on a list of things I was looking for, most fairly obscure, some I had been seeking for a while - personal holy grails. In some ways this was a challenge of how ridiculous my tastes have become as much as how well the store could satisfy those tastes.

So what did I find out? Amoeba is a great store. If I lived in L.A. and visited it a couple times a month I'd eventually find some of those holy grails. As it was, I didn't end up finding any of those records. I did find and buy seven things from my list that were less obscure, but which still speak to the quality of the collection. I also picked up four other spontaneous finds which also is a good measure of a record store. A really good record store should surprise you and inspire you to buy things you didn't necessarily intend.

Before I get into what I bought, I want to go over what they didn't have.

The record I most hoped to find, in any format, was one I've been trying to find for 25 years. Until recently, I didn't know who performed it. In 1990 I saw a skateboard video which I think was called Off the Richter. It documented the Resurrection Pro skate tour of Australia at the end of the 80s and featured Christian Hosoi, Chris Miller, and Tony Magnusson, among others. The soundtrack was filled with Australian punk songs, including one called "Car Crash." For years, I'd buy any punk record if it contained a song called "Car Crash" on it. There are more than you might imagine. That's how I first heard The Avengers. Even after the dawn of the internet I couldn't track this song down. Then earlier this summer I tried Googling the lyrics I could remember (I had tried this in the past to no avail) and ended up finding out the song was by a band called Ratcat from 1987. Some generous soul had even posted the video on YouTube.

Now in the years that I've looked for this song, my tastes have broadened and my music knowledge has expanded to include the groups that clearly influenced this band. They don't do anything that countless other pop punk band did just as well throughout the 80s. The reason this song has such pull for me is mainly nostalgia for the time of my life that I encountered it, and the mystery behind the identity of the band. There are a few CD compilations of the band, but they're hard to come by domestically or without paying quite a bit. The hunt continues.

Another record I didn't find was Das Letzte Einhorn, America's soundtrack to The Last Unicorn, so named because it was only original pressed in Germany. There was a bin card in both the LP and the CD soundtrack sections so at least I found out there was a CD pressing and that the store had it in stock at some point. Again, it probably seems like a silly trifle to seek out, but it is hands down the best moment of that band, and the songs were written by Jimmy Webb. It came out in 1982, the same year as their great hit "Magic."

Other things I hoped to find included John Cale's Helen of Troy or his Animal Instincts EP (with the original "Rosegarden Funeral of Sores"), Kate Bush's The Kick Inside (with the original UK kite cover), Aynsley Dunbar Rataliation's To Mum from Aynsley and the Boys, Graham Bond's Holy Magick, The Walker Brother's Nite Flights, Josephine Foster's I'm A Dreamer, Justin Hinds & the Dominos' Jezebel (on any format besides cassette, which I have), the Watership Down soundtrack, Magma's Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh on vinyl (I have the CD), Vincent Price's Witchcraft Magic: An Adventure In Demonology, something with Nolan Porter's "Keep On Keeping On" on it, Cockney Rebel's Psychomodo (UK cover) on vinyl and their Human Menagerie on CD, anything by on vinyl by Popol Vuh, Fad Gadget, or any of Dagmar Krause's projects (Art Bears, Henry Cow, Slapp Happy, News from Babel, etc.). There were some close calls: Josephine Foster had bin cards in both CD and LP, there was a nice selection of Northern Soul collections but no Nolan Porter, they had a lot of Magma reissues on vinyl but no M.D.K., they had a pretty cool Vintage Violence t-shirt, and they had Psychomodo on CD and Human Menagerie on wax (which I already have in those formats).

The idea that I might just happen to find all or even some of these records on one random visit is pretty unrealistic. However, the fact that I didn't get any of them was a little disappointing. Any one of those records  or some others would have validated the reputation of the store outright for me. On the other hand, if I was given the chance to raid the employee hold piles, my chances might have increased.

There were a lot of other things I couldn't find, even some that I didn't have time to check for, entire sections I didn't have time to explore, including the 7-inch singles because the section was packed with shoppers. I made it upstairs to the DVD section only for a quick glance. It looked great, but since I didn't have time to fully shop it I didn't want to waste non-music shopping time by checking it out. The book section wasn't huge, but it was filled with interesting things. I had hoped to snag a copy of Julian Cope's book, Krautrocksampler, but no dice.

There were some interesting decisions about how the store what organized in terms of genre that makes me think I might have been looking in the wrong section for some things. There were sub-sections for metal, punk, and the silliest non-genre "oldies." I looked in each for a couple of things, but I didn't dig in each sufficiently to get a bead on what kind of gatekeeping was done for each one. For instance, I think I saw Black Flag in punk, but I don't know if The Ramones or Sex Pistols would have been filed there (Wire were in rock).

So, what did I actually end up buying? Between two trips I bought eleven pieces, four LPs and seven CDs, all for $130 or just under $12 a piece. Here's the full list broken into which night and the order I found them, the format, and a brief description of why I wanted each.

Night the First

Hatfield and the North - Hatfield and the North used LP: I started with this album not because I wanted it more than anything else, but because I wanted to used it as a litmus test and I thought there was a fairly good chance of them having it. Even though I could probably track a copy down online pretty easily I wanted to build some buying momentum. I've seen it around occasionally, but not recently. For the uninitiated this is a self-aware, light debut by a group of Canterbury proggers out of Caravan, Matching Mole, and Gong featuring great back-up vocals by Robert Wyatt. This copy was a clean, DJ promo copy, so it was a no brainer.

Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4 CD reissue: This disc was just recently reissued, but the album goes back to 1981 (released in 1984). Gottsching was the leader of Krautrockers, Ash Ra Tempel. He recorded this album one night as a live, home demo after coming off tour with fellow Ash Ra founder, Klaus Schulze. This extemporaneous, hour-long piece of music was picked up by American house and techno DJs and was a major building block in what became modern electronic dance music. The title comes from a confluence as a tribute to both R2-D2 and nomenclature of BASIC programming subroutines, and is a reference for the algebraic notation for the most popular opening chess move as well as a guitar tuning Gottsching employed. I just got into this so this was really a new disc for me.

Chris Spedding - Hurt used LP: I already have this on CD, but I only have his self-titled on vinyl. It's his best album and the opening "Wild in the Streets" is the best version of that song. As I picked it out of the section a guy asked if he could quickly take a picture of the cover. He was a graphic designer and liked the look.

Michael Nyman - The Draughtsman’s Contract OST used CD: I only recently discovered Michael Nyman's music. I found him while combing through Dagmar Krause's discography online. She guested on Nyman's The Kiss and Other Movements. While I like that record, this soundtrack to the film of the same name by frequent collaborator, Peter Greenaway, really did it for me. I would have been happy to find this in any format. The CD is great for listening in the car. For those not in the know (like myself, recently), Nyman is a modern classical composer/pianist who occasionally slums it with 70s prog/art-jazz characters. He also did the soundtrack for The Piano. This might be the whitest music ever made. It's a cross between BBC bumper music and a Grey Poupon commercial. It also radiates joy. The opening track rips off Henry Purcell and has been sampled by the Pet Shop Boys. Highly recommended.

Robert Palmer - Pride used LP: A lot of people think back on Robert Palmer - if at all - as a kind of overbearing, British, yuppie Boz Scaggs. While not entirely inaccurate, there were two great records Palmer tucked in between his 70s FM success ("Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor Doctor)") and his 80s mega-hits of Power Station and solo chartbusters ("Addicted to Love," "Simply Irresistible"). Clues and Pride were comparatively sleek Ultravox-styled new wave records of restrained power. I would have bought both if they had them, but only Pride was in the racks. The best song on this is the dark "Want You More." The ghost of his white reggae-funk still haunts the album, but it doesn't grate here like it does on his other records. Palmer was the only artist that the Uber driver who took me to the airport knew when she asked what records I bought.

Francois Hardy - Mon Amie la Rose new CD: One of my unfound holy grails is the "rock & roll version" of Hardy's "Et Meme." It still is. The version on this album is not the one I've been searching for. I was pretty sure that it wasn't, but it was a risk I was willing to take as any version is rare. This version is still great; it just doesn't have the punch of the other. Luckily the rest of the record is top shelf.

Night the Second

Planningtorock - Have It All used LP: I grabbed this out of the recent arrivals towards the front of the store. This was an unplanned pick, but I've never seen it anywhere in any format so I scooped it up. Planningtorock is often associated with The Knife and this debut came out the same year as that group's Deep Cuts. It's not as good as W or All Love's Legal, but it has it's own slinky cabaret charm. At $15, this was the most expensive thing I bought. One side-note: Amoeba's record bins (front-to-back) are a little too deep for those of us who aren't tall and long-armed. I found Have It All at the back of the stack and it was hard to flip that far while on my toes.

Zola Jesus - Stridulum used CD; Valusia used CD: I never picked up either of these EPs when they came out although I've been meaning to for awhile. They were cheap and they're a perfect dosage size for this dramatic, vamp-y singer. I happened upon them in the rock section which made me wonder if there wasn't a goth section. Not that these would have necessarily been included in that section, but it made me second-guess if I wasn't overlooking a bunch of things.

Scott Walker - Scott 4 used CD: I found Scott Walker in the oldies section while looking for the Walker Brothers' Nite Flights. Both group and solo artist were filed under this dubious category which means that Amoeba houses The Drift and Bish Bosch in the same section as Elvis Presley and The Drifters. There's not a good reason why I don't own this already, so I bought it. They had multiple copies and it had been price-reduced.

Coil - Backwards new CD: This was released last year and I've wanted to pick it up since then. This was the unreleased follow-up to Love's Secret Domain. The album came out in recent years in an altered form, but this is the real document of that time. This was the only purchase I made on the second night that was premeditated. It too was found in the rock section, which confirmed that there wasn't a separate spooky section - at least not a good one. I got the feeling that the separate sections were a product of passionate staff members making a case for distinct curation.

Even now there are things I realized should have been on my list. I neglected to check for Penguin Cafe Magic Orchestra while I was back in the new age section. I didn't get a chance to check for Kevin Coyne. I didn't explore the International sections beyond the well-stocked French section, and I missed the Hip Hop and R&B sections entirely. There just wasn't enough time. I could have spent a good hour in the disco section alone. Here's a pic to give you a sense of what I'm talking about.

Is Amoeba Hollywood the best record store I've ever been in? Probably. It reminded me of different qualities of all the different great record stores in Minneapolis around 2000 combined. It benefits from having a huge pool of local record nerds as well as tourists like me to take chance with what they bring in. I wasn't overwhelmed and found it pretty intuitive to navigate through, but then again, I spent 12 years as a record store clerk. I'd recommend it to anyone making a trip to L.A. Hopefully you'll have the time to shop at your leisure instead of running around the place like a maniac.

Amoeba Music... I'm Coming For You

I haven't bought any music since David Bowie died. Blackstar on CD and LP are the only things I've bought all year. While I could chalk it up to the grief, this was largely due to me buying a new house, moving, and carrying two mortgages for three months until we sold our old house. Money's been too tight to mention. Times have changed though and a new opportunity has presented itself.

Work is sending me to L.A. for a conference which means I will finally get the chance to visit Amoeba Music. Amoeba Hollywood is not the first location of this Californian chain, but it is the largest outlet and has become known as the Taj Mahal of record stores. It's not just big, but deep and well-curated. I've known people who have been there, worked there, and I've followed their excellent web series, "What's In My Bag." It's reputation is well-established.

As someone who's spent 12 years of their adult life working in music retail, visiting this store will be a little like making a pilgrimage. I figure I should go at least once in my life. And yet, I'm not looking forward to going there just to venerate the place like some temple which stands as a testament to an era long since past. I'm on a mission. It's been forever since I've bought records and I'm ready to pop. I'm treating this like a challenge. Come on, Amoeba. Let's see what you got. Let's see how good of a record store you really are.

I recently asked someone I know about their experience going to Amoeba a year ago. They told me they were overwhelmed and left after five or ten minutes without buying anything. This is someone who works at a record store. I'm worried that I will suffer the same fate. Nothing will depress me more than wasting the trip by being quelled under the pressure. This is a chance for me to find some of my holy grails, in person.

I've never been much of an online music shopper. There's something about buying something sight unseen (no matter how good the pictures are) that makes me nervous. It also feels like cheating. I realize I'm in the minority, but for me, there's no substitute to flipping through the stacks and coming across that record you've been looking for over the past 25 years. People also wrongly assume that if you want it badly enough you can just buy it or stream it online. While recent years have made thousands of rarities available online, there are plenty of records that are still inaccessible that way. These are the records I'm going to be looking for. And I'm bringing a list.

When I explain this to people they naturally ask me, "Well, what's on your list?" Lots of things, some things are truly obscure, some are just unpopular titles by popular artists that no one else cares about. I'm a little cagey about revealing the full list, partly because I'm superstitious that sharing it will somehow mean somebody else will check it out and find it before me. I'm also shy about exposing just how nerdy I am. To give you a taste of the specificity of my hunt, I'm looking for a particular version of Francoise Hardy's "Et Meme." One version was issued as a 45 with string arrangements that are a little syrup-y. The one I'm looking for has more of a rock & roll, Wrecking Crew vibe. I think it's on her album, Mon amie la rose, from '64, but I'm not sure if that's the right one. I first heard it on a one-off compilation released 15 years ago on a fly-by-night import label. I didn't buy it quickly enough and the store I worked at was never able to get it back in. I'd be happy finding it on any format. With my luck though it will only be found on a $70 box set. Even then, I'm not sure if the packaging will tell me what I need to know to differentiate between the two versions.

My list spans genres and formats which means I'll be running around the store like a chicken with my head cut off, panicked that I won't have enough time. I could probably spend three hours just shopping the 7" section alone. I'll have to be focused and efficient if I am to prevail. Ultimately, I'd love to find a handful of my holy grail records, discover some things I never knew existed, and pass on some of the more common titles out of satisfaction for the ones I did find. That would be the perfect scenario. As I mentioned, I don't want to get overwhelmed and walk out of there empty-handed. I also don't want to get distracted by cool new records, and not have enough time to look for the older things on my list.

The worst scenario might be for me to "win," for me to beat Amoeba by having a list they couldn't fill. What if the greatest record store in the world still isn't good enough for me? I'll be depressed if they don't have any of my holy grails or if the more common records I'm looking for are grossly overpriced (over $30). I don't want to buy a record in L.A. for $50 that I could probably find at a VFW record show for half the price. If I can't find the real goodies on the list, there are still a half-dozen new records I want to get. I just don't want to resign myself to the realization that my tastes might be so specific and arcane for me to ever satisfyingly collect records anymore.

There's one record on my list that will make the trip worth it even if it's the only thing I find. It's a song that I've been looking for since I first heard it on an obscure late-80s skate video. I only discovered who did it three months ago. Amoeba is my best shot at getting it. Is the song really that good? At this point the question is moot. The hope inherent in the hunt is what it's really about.

Stay tuned for my post-Amoeba report.

Ghost Culture - Ghost Culture

Originality in art is always a tricky topic to nail down. Everyone has influences; almost nobody can claim to create in an absolute void. Originality is perhaps best understood through Harold Bloom's idea of creative misreading. You may not be able to escape Shakespeare (or The Beatles), but how you interpret that influence through your own personal prism leads to new avenues not envisioned or projected by the original artist.

Which brings us to the new eponymous, debut album by Ghost Culture. The cynic in me would say that this is a nice record to listen to while waiting for the next Matthew Dear comes out. Moody, house-influenced, post punk-derived synth pop is what's offered up here and it's done very well. Dear is only one of the more recent examples of a someone working in this vein. You could go back 10 years to Mount Sims' excellent Wild Light to find a similar sound. Or Colder's Again from 2003. Really it's a sound that's the embodiment of a post-techno/house nostalgia for New Order/Depeche Mode/Cabaret Voltaire's continuation of Joy Division, or Iggy's The Idiot, or Kraftwerk, or Nico, or hell, go back to Lotte Lenya. You see where I'm going with this? Thinking of James Greenwood (who is Ghost Culture) as a poor man's Matthew Dear isn't exactly fair, but nonetheless it's what I thought when I heard this album.

Ghost Culture is definitely in the same arena, but it doesn't move with the same funkiness that Dear's records do. You can hear Laid Back's "White Horse," Newcleus' "Jam On It," or Eddy Grant's "Time Warp" in Dear. Not so much in Ghost Culture. This gets to the critical standard of success for all dark, synth-driven dance music: how close (or far) does the music fall from the combination of European and African American music? Whether it's Africa Baambaataa's use of Kraftwerk for "Planet Rock," Detroit techno or Chicago House's appropriation of the same thing, Donna Summer's soul vocals over Moroder's robo-funk, or Can's Teutonic take on James Brown and the Velvet Underground - there needs to be a solid foundation in both musics for it to truly work. It's what separates Depeche Mode from someone like Covenant. David Gahan is by no means a soul singer, but he's practically Al Green compared to Eskil Simonsson.

One unique aspect of Ghost Culture is the singing. Although Greenwood uses the same monotone vocal style that this style requires, his delivery is breathier, and more approachable than many of the practitioners. Matthew Dear has a great vocal delivery, but it doesn't let you in as a listener. There's a distance in his blank intoning, which, although "cool," doesn't display very much vulnerability. Greenwood's voice, intentionally or not, sounds knowable and possible of doubt. The emotional range still doesn't extend much beyond wistful melancholy and wry rumination, but it's still a huge improvement over anything on Metropolis records. He even sounds a bit like a stoned Ray Davies on "Glaciers."

Despite the fact that it's not terribly original, this will likely make my top ten of the year. It's a good record and it grows on me with each listen. I'm interested to hear more from Greenwood, particularly his voice. I hope he broadens the palette a bit, maybe bring in some saxophones, steel drums, actual piano, back-up singers, etc. He mostly needs to trust himself a bit more wherever that takes him, whether someone like me agrees or not.