For us, 2011 was another year of taking in as much as we could and sharing the best with you. Next year, however, will be a homecoming of sorts, a return to rock-'n'-roll roots. We'll soon be able to share the projects that we have in store — across multiple mediums — but for now, dig into this rock-focused list of must-own albums.

And for more, revisit (or simply visit) our lists from 2010 and 2009:

100 Unheralded Albums from 2010
50 Unheralded Albums from 2009

Steven Drozd: The Heart Is A Drum Machine (The Score) (Twinkle Cash Co., 1/18/11)

Steven Drozd: "Born"

A multi-instrumentalist and the third-most-tenured member of The Flaming Lips, Steven Drozd marked his first official solo release early this year with the nearly instrumental accompaniment to the documentary The Heart is a Drum Machine.

The music shares a lot of characteristics with the Flaming Lips of the past dozen years – synthesized grooves, big rock beats, fuzz bass, airy keyboards, and different instrumental flourishes weaving in and out. But listeners are unlikely to confuse the two, and the score succeeds as a standalone album as well as a film accompaniment.

…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: Tao of the Dead (Richter Scale Records / Superball Music, 2/8/11)

…And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead: "Weight of the Sun"

There has been no shortage of grand themes and allegories in the canon of Austin post-punk quintet …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. The band’s newest album, however, better matches its ambitious themes with its music, presenting an epic pair of pieces for Tao of the Dead.

The album recalls progressive albums of yore, from the likes of Rush and King Crimson, but channels them into easily digested movements. Stretches of heavy distortion and drum thrashing will appeal to the more metal-minded Trail of Dead fans, but there’s also plenty of hook-laden, radio-ready alternative rock.

Wires Under Tension: Light Science (Western Vinyl, 2/8/11)

Wires Under Tension: "Electricity Turns Them On"

Light Science is the exciting debut from Wires Under Tension, a duo comprised of violinist/multi-instrumentalist Christopher Tignor and drummer Theo Metz. With help from a few friends, including Jared Bell of Lymbyc Systym, the two combine live performance with electronic manipulation, sounding something like a progressive Dirty Three with horns, hip-hop beats, and post-rock guitar swells.

This seven-track release is a dense, fluid collection that retains consistency thanks to Metz’s steady rhythms. Electro-mechanical piano, clavinet, and synthesizers mesh with loops and samples to round out an impressive first release.

Pitom: Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes (Tzadik, 2/22/11)

Pitom: "Head in the Ground"

Combining heavy, fuzzy rock jams with Jewish melodies, Pitom is one of many projects from guitarist, bassist, and composer Yoshie Fruchter. Blasphemy and Other Serious Crimes, the quartet's second release on Tzadik, follows the same path as its predecessor, but it does so with a bit more cohesion and restraint.

Built from the ground up with distorted bass and violin, the band's music carries similarities to that of Skeletonbreath and Miasma & The Carousel of Headless Horses. Whether driving a song with an infectious melody, commingling with the violin in the high end, or simply taking over a track with raw ability, Fruchter knows when to go full throttle (the punk power of "An Epic Encounter") or pull back (the dark slow jam of "A Resentful Repentance").

The Psychic Paramount: II (No Quarter, 2/22/11)

The Psychic Paramount: "RW"

Though relatively silent for the past six years, New York noise-rock trio The Psychic Paramount returned in February to release its first full-length since 2005. Effected guitar loops, devastating low-end grooves, and bashing rhythms again form the core of the band's sound, but II is a direct yet dynamic rock explosion.

Between the guitar, the cymbals, and the effects, the mid-range gets a constant workout. Those who are turned off by this kind of music may find it to be an exercise in patience, but the lengthier durations are a testament to the trio's skills at climax and denouement.

DeVotchKa: 100 Lovers (Anti-, 3/1/11)

DeVotchKa: "100 Other Lovers"

Following the fame from its Oscar-winning soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine in 2006, Denver multi-instrumental quartet DeVotchKa has playfully tinkered with its sweeping, emotive sound. Though it already tossed together elements of folk, rock, Mexican, and Gypsy music, it remained united by the sullen croons and songwriting of frontman Nick Urata.

That unifying factor remains, but its newest album, 100 Lovers – its second post-Sunshine full-length – continues to expand the band’s scope. The material adds new and often subtle flavors to DeVotchKa’s repertoire. Uninitiated listeners might hear more of the same, but 100 Lovers is perfect for content fans – moving in new directions without a radical departure.

Stateless: Matilda (Ninja Tune, 3/1/11)

Stateless: "Ariel"

Matilda, Stateless' second full-length, showcases the British electro-rock group's continued maturity. Lead singer Chris James hits an impressive range of notes, from reverb-cloaked backing croons to soulful leads, atop an amalgamated mix of styles, sounds, and beats.

With contributions from The Balanescu Quartet, DJ Shadow, and Shara Worden (of My Brightest Diamond), Matilda is stylistically inventive, with familiar worldly touchstones reworked into new contexts.

Grails: Deep Politics (Temporary Residence, 3/8/11)

Grails: "I Led Three Lives"

With cinematic soundscapes, Westernized Indian melodies, film-noir mystique, 1960s psychedelia, and crushing heaviness, Grails is an instrumental rarity. The Portland band's newest offering, Deep Politics, is an engaging and epic mix of acoustic intonations, indigenous sounds and melodies, spaghetti-western motifs, somber piano balladry, and more doom-filled, Eastern-infused stylistic transcendence.

And thanks in part to arrangements by Timba Harris, the mighty violinist from unparalleled genre annihilators Estradasphere and Secret Chiefs 3, Deep Politics vies to be Grails’ best album yet.

Parts & Labor: Constant Future (Jagjaguwar, 3/8/11)

Parts & Labor: "Constant Future"

After establishing itself early last decade as an interesting new name in noise rock, Parts & Labor delivered a flurry of releases over the span of just a few years. Since then, the band has scaled back to a trio built around the fuzzed guitar, bass, keyboard hooks, and tight rock rhythms.

Featuring some of the band's sturdiest songs yet, Constant Future is direct, potent, and catchy. Behind Dan Friel and BJ Warshaw's echoing, harmonized vocals are dirty, thick grooves that power the overlaid electronic freak-outs.

Adebisi Shank: This is the Second Album from a Band Called Adebisi Shank (Sargent House, 3/15/11)

Adebisi Shank: "Micro Machines"

Released to European acclaim in 2010, the aptly titled second album from Irish electro/math rockers Adebisi Shank achieved North American release this year thanks to the peerless Sargent House.

The management company / record label describes the trio as a blend of Fang Island’s shredding riffs with Battles’ electronic quirkiness and rhythmic playfulness. That description isn’t off the mark, but readers won’t get a sense of the band’s real abilities until they hear its hyper-melodic, polyrhythmic, and — most importantly — jubilant songs in full.

Second Album delivers a maelstrom of zany electronics, unusual distortions, and triumphant, rapidly ascending scales mixed with vintage synths, marimba, horns, and other accoutrements. This is all packaged between and around gloriously catchy and powerful rock riffs, resulting in a manic and buoyant sophomore effort.

The Book of Knots: Garden of Fainting Stars (Ipecac)

The Book of Knots: "Microgravity"

Garden of Fainting Stars is the third installment in the "By Sea, By Land, By Air" trilogy of The Book of Knots, a collaborative studio project that's built around the quartet of producer/musician Joel Hamilton, bassist Tony Maimone, drummer Matthias Bossi, and violinist Carla Kihlstedt.

As on the previous two albums, the band delivers a dissonant yet melodic mix of pitch-bending, alien effects, and textured, metallic tones, and an all-star stable of guests again helps narrate the album's tales, this time relating to aeronautics.  Garden of Fainting Stars, however, feels the most cohesive of the three albums, as the core group comes closer to perfecting its brand of disconsolate rock experimentation.

But as expected, there's plenty of variety from track to track.  After the crunchy guitars and ascendant vocals of album opener "Microgravity," a brooding backdrop is set for "Drosophla Melanogaster," which includes narration by Blixa Bargeld of Einsturzende Neubauten.

The rest of the album's guests, consisting of extended musical family, include Mike Patton, Trey Spruance of Secret Chiefs 3, Mike Watt, Nils Frykdahl of Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and Dawn McCarthy of Faun Fables.  Patton's soft croons introduce "Planemo" before sonorous synthesizers darken the horizon, and shortly thereafter, potentially post-apocalyptic radio ramblings close the album on "Obituary for the Future."  It ends the trilogy in pessimism and mystery — fitting for an album that is self-described as a "wormless, rusty hook into the lifeless seas of the music industry, expecting to reap only sorrow."

Bosco Delrey: Everybody Wah (Mad Decent / Downtown)

Bosco Delrey: "Baby's Got a Blue Flame"

Bosco Delrey is one curious cat, one whose debut album is a Jon Spencer-esque roots-rock revival that incorporates strong elements of electronica and psychedelia.  Following a pair of seven-inch releases earlier this year, Everybody Wah is that debut, marking the arrival of a dynamic 21st Century songwriter.

In addition to the traditional rock elements, the album uses a plethora of modern sounds, from fuzz bass to drum machines to synthesizers.  "Archebold Ivy" is one of more genre-blended songs on the album, combining a classically flavored harpsichord melody with dance-fueled synth lines and Delrey's throwback vocals.  That's immediately followed by "Afterlife," a soulful yet futuristic faux-string-tinged amalgamation.  "Cool Out" borrows some Venetian Snares-style drum and bass over a simple sweeping backdrop, and "Insta Love" follows with a romantic rock-and-roll ballad.

If you haven't heard Bosco Delrey's name yet, introduce yourself.  And if you have, prepare to hear more of it.

Arkona: Stenka na Stenku (Napalm)

Arkona: "Stenka na Stenku"

Based in Moscow, Arkona is a raucous Russian folk- and pagan-metal band led by the alternately harmonious and growling vocals of Maria "Scream" Arhipova.  The Stenka na Stenku EP, which follows five full-length studio releases, is a fun, brief blast of tunes that mix power metal with wind instruments such as bagpipes, flute, and ocarina.

The result, though jarring for the uninitiated, is a mix that doesn't grow tiresome over the six tracks.  "Valenki" has an upbeat yet blazing delivery, pairing speed picking with rapid bass kicks, wily accordion riffs, and guttural folk chants.  But Stenka na Stenku also reels it back, offering an acoustic rendition of "Goi, Rode, Goi!" — the title track from Arkona's 2009 album — for something haunting and wailing, anchored by cello strikes, throat singing, and layers of old-world vocals.

Erik Friedlander: Bonebridge (SkipStone)

Erik Friedlander: "Beaufain Street"

Cellist/composer Erik Friedlander long has been associated with John Zorn and the downtown New York City scene, but his considerable abilities have made him known as a bandleader as well as prolific sideman, counting collaborations with musicians as diverse as Kaki King, Ikue Mori, John Vanderslice, Vinicius Cantuaria, and Kelly Clarkson.

Bonebridge is Friedlander's latest as a leader, weaving a melodic blend of Americana and jazz with guitarist Doug Wamble, bassist Trevor Dunn, and drummer Mike Sarin.  This time around, Friedlander emphasizes pizzicato playing on his cello as he balances melody and feel with technical prowess.

This plus Wamble's Southern slide guitar are the defining characteristics of the album — yet the rhythm section is never lacking.  Dunn's upright-bass grooves root the album for leads from Friedlander and Wamble, although he is free to roam from time to time.  On occasion, Wamble's twangy tones nearly resemble a sitar; when less the focus, his guitar drifts in and out with soft murmurs.

Bonebridge actually began as material for Friedlander's Broken Arm Trio, which includes Dunn and Sarin.  But it quickly became more in Friedlander's mind, and Wamble was invited to expand the timbral possibilities.  The sonic destination is ground that Friedlander had yet to tread, which gets increasingly harder as his catalog grows ever larger.

Marissa Nadler: s/t (Box of Cedar)

Marissa Nadler: "Baby, I Will Leave You in the Morning"

After garnering a greater following with a pair of releases on Kemado Records,"dream folk" singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler has had to self-release her latest, self-titled album, made possible by a successful Kickstarter campaign.

The album being self-titled seems to signify a new starting point, which is reflected by her Box of Cedar label name and the fact that the album only features two players, Nadler and Carter Tanton.

As in the past, however, the music features healthy accompaniment to Nadler's airy, multi-tracked vocals and cavernous reverberations.  This time they come in the form of bells and glockenspiel, pedal-steel guitar, synthesizer, marimba, light drumming, and more.  Nadler calls the collection her "most honest and natural," and that's hard to dispute.  Each track offers a new direction without forcing it, and the entire album is unified by Nadler's idiosyncrasies and songwriting skills.

The Dear Hunter: The Color Spectrum condensed CD & 9-EP collection (Triple Crown)

The Dear Hunter: "Deny It All"

The Dear Hunter, begun as simply a side project, has since blossomed into a theatrical prog-pop band that now has multiple multi-album concept cycles. The group’s newest completion is a nine-EP project called The Color Spectrum, inspired by the colors of the rainbow (plus black and white).

Released as individual 10-inch records and as a single CD with limited selections, the music is as assorted as its inspirations. Black is sonorous, martial, deep, and reverberating; White is ethereal and hymn-like in places, but also doggedly cheerful. Blue is playful, youthful, and driven, churning and giddy; Green is ebullient, relaxed, and expansive; Red is sexy and insinuating as well as aggressive.

- Text by Summer Block. Read the full story in Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music.

Honorable Mentions

Aaron Goldberg & Guillermo Klein: Bienestan (Sunnyside)

Diskjokke: Sagara (Smalltown Supersound)

Elysian Fields: Last Night on Earth (Ojet)

Isis: Live II 03.19.03

John Shannon & Wings of Sound: Songs of the Desert River (Creek Valley)

The Mattson 2: Feeling Hands (Galaxia)

This Morn' Omina: L'Unification des Forces Opposantes (Ant-Zen)

Terakaft: Aratan N Azawad (World Village)

Vetiver: The Errant Charm (Sub Pop)

Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi: "Subsequently"

Oakland-based multi-instrumentalist Carla Kihlstedt has had a hand in upwards of 50 albums in less than 15 years. As a member of groups such as Tin Hat, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, and The Book of Knots, Kihlstedt sings and plays violin, organ, percussion, and just about everything else.

Currently, she's set to premiere Necessary Monsters, a song cycle based on Jorge Luis Borges’ The Book of Imaginary Beings, in San Francisco on July 29 and 30 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Read more about the project and the corresponding Kickstarter campaign on the Imaginary Beings Project website. We gave Kihlstedt the opportunity to write about her personal relationship with these monsters and how they unlocked a world of objectivity and imagination.

How Monsters Changed My Life
by Carla Kihlstedt

At first, they're all so cute. Even the one with only one arm, one leg, one wing, and half a tongue; the one who goes around with hatred in his heart stealing speech from animals; the one who weeps in the forest, and if she’s caught dissolves herself into a heap of bubbles and salt; the little one made of string, dust, and a broken spool of who-knows-what; the one with one eye and a maniacally monotonous, monocled perspective.

But then you let them in for long enough, and as the spectacle wears off, they start just looking like friends with foibles. OK…large foibles, exaggerated features, caricatures for sure…nonetheless familiar, and almost friendly. And that's when you're in trouble, but believe me, it's a necessary kind of trouble, a trouble that teaches you more about yourself than perhaps you were prepared for.

I'm referring, of course, to imaginary beings. My encounter with them begins with an innocuous moment when I was in college, home for vacation, looking at my parents' bookshelf for something to read. The Book of Imaginary Beings jumped out at me, both because of its title (scholarly yet full of fantasy) and because I had heard this fellow, Jorge Luis Borges, referred to with an equally compelling combination of reverence, amusement, and excitement.

There were those who had read Borges and those who had not. I had not. Having read Borges was a kind of a badge of intellectual hipness. He would laugh to hear such a thing, he who said, "I think that what I have read is far more important than what I have written. For one reads what one likes. And one writes not what one would like to write, but what one is able to write."

Now, I normally whinny, rear up, and gallop in the other direction when faced with a peer-pressure-inspired badge of anything! But in this case, my curiosity led the way, and since then, I have grown to love him as if he were my own grandfather. (Listen to his set of three lectures from Harvard's "Norton Lecture Series" here, here and here, and perhaps he’ll become your surrogate grandpa too!)

He is (I use the present tense because he seems so very present to me through his words) an incredibly intelligent and well-read (not to mention well-written) man with a generous heart and an unstoppably inquisitive mind. He writes what could arguably be called adult fairy tales — unmistakably adult, but full of whimsy and a very mercurial logic.

The Book of Imaginary Beings is a collection of Borges’ favorite fictional creatures from across the world and throughout history from a wide array of mythological, literary, and religious traditions. He didn’t so much write it as curate it. And still, it is both a portrait of Borges and of humans, as told to us by our own collective imagination.

This book lived in my bathroom in college and beyond. Most writers would take offense at such base placement of the evidence of their life’s work, but I think Borges would understand, and perhaps would even approve. He tells us in the preface that this book is meant to be read in bits and pieces, not in any particular order — a page here, a page there — so it is the perfect potty book. And so it was for me for several years.

Now, I’ll fast forward so that we can get to the fun part about revelation and transformation. More than a decade later, I was invited by the wonderful and brave folks at Alverno Presents and at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art to come up with a concept for a new project, and to apply for a development grant with them from the National Performance Network, and they would give me the opportunity to perform this new piece in their respective theaters. The Book of Imaginary Beings fairly jumped off of the shelf of my mind and wouldn’t let me look away. This was the beginning of my five-year (and counting) journey.

I asked my friend and favorite poet, Rafael Osés, if he’d join me in creating a set of songs after Borges’ book, and off we went. We picked nine of the beings, making a kind of an arc through which we could trace a human life (beginning with an animal dreamed by CS Lewis, who is the embodiment of expression): from a great and strange song-dog who lives in the woods and yelps and howls her joyous song for no one, to Odradek, a collection of odds and ends from our human activities, who will outlast us all. Odradek lives under our stairs and in our entrance halls and subtly reminds us every day of our own mortality.

The piece we created is called Necessary Monsters, again, a tribute to Borges. He states in the foreword to The Book of Imaginary Beings:

“We do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know the meaning of the universe, but there is something in the image of the dragon that is congenial to man’s imagination, and thus the dragon arises in many latitudes and ages. It is, one might say, a necessary monster, not some ephemeral and casual creature…”

It is scored for seven musicians and an actress, who tries in vain to corral these creatures into an orderly field guide as they parade out of her mind over the course of one sleepless night.

I have now lived with An Animal Dreamed by CS Lewis, Hochigan, the Squonk, the Nisna, the Double, the Ink Monkey, the Lamed Wufniks, the One-eyed Being, and our little, gently menacing friend, Odradek, for quite some time. They are my housemates. They take up no room at all, and yet they more than fill up every corner of my mind.

Here’s what they have taught me: They are all me. And some of them (I) are (am) not so cute. I’m sure the implication is not lost on you here: they are all you too. In fact, there is not a single one of us whom these little critters don’t inhabit. They live side by side within us, sometimes fighting, bickering, and clawing at each other, and other times oblivious to each other’s existence and utterly ambivalent towards the person we like to think we are.

Every creature that humans can possibly imagine is a just magnified reflection of one tiny aspect of our own thoughts and experiences. We have each simply chosen to let different beings take over at different times. For some of us, the menagerie is constantly rotating, taking turns with who gets to sit in the pole position, and for others, one particular being has hosied the steering wheel and won’t let go… for years, or even for a lifetime.

What this means, like it or not, is that we are all more the same than we are different. Yes, you and I, you and your obnoxious neighbor, you and your greedy boss, you and your credit-card collections agent, you and your favorite Hollywood heartthrob, you and your least favorite FOX News jockey…I could go on, because that’s actually really fun, but you get the point.

In case you haven’t gotten the point, here it is further explained: I’m sure that at the core of all of your favorite books or movies is a transformation of some sort. An average Joe becomes a superhero, the girl next door becomes a werewolf, a grumpy chef opens her heart and lets love in, a myopic divorcée goes on a solo voyage to Cuba and learns the meaning of family, love, and life… again, I could go on, because that’s also fun, but I won’t.

Even if you only watch documentaries and read science textbooks, it’s still always about transformation: a community learns to accept each other through fighting for a common good, a boy grows up and becomes a serial killer, a cell decides whether to be a brain cell or a heart cell. Even the nonlinear films of Stan Brakhage and the writings of Gertrude Stein are essentially about the transformation of our language and our perception. I went on. Sorry.

The point is that we are hard-wired for transformation because we are utterly teeming with these imaginary beings, these glimmers of potential. The ones that come to the forefront are the ones that we have nurtured. The rest may be silent or invisible, but they are still there, hiding, lurking, waiting for the right moment to spring. We harbor them in the deeper recesses of ourselves. This is not good versus evil, for they are all more complicated than that, and then even more so in cacophonous concert with one another. It’s like taking your life’s direction from a table of advisers all drawn by Dr. Seuss.

The gift of the imagination is the gift of objectivity. It’s much easier to look at these aspects of ourselves and our fragile, complicated humanness when they don’t look like us, or when they don’t even look human. They fool us into believing that we’re looking at something other, something foreign, and, dare I say, something exotic. But exotic only exists from afar. Exotic evaporates when you get up close to it. Exotic entices us to look, to gape, to gawk and point, and buy the postcard. But then, if you have the courage to get up close, you’ll find, rather sheepishly, that you are simply pointing at your own being…or one of them.

Download the podcast for This Week’s Best Albums: February 1, 2011 and subscribe to This Week’s Best Albums for free with iTunes.

Stream the podcast for This Week's Best Albums: February 1, 2011.
This Week\'s Best Albums: February 1, 2011

Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi: Still You Lay Dreaming – Tales for the Stage, II

Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi: "The Gyre"

Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi: "Wandering Secret"

Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi are two adventurous members of avant-metal band Sleepytime Gorilla Museum; each is involved in a plethora of projects, including Tin Hat (Trio), The Book of Knots, 2 Foot Yard, and Skeleton Key.  With Sleepytime bandmate Dan Rathbun, the two released an album a few years ago called Ravish, consisting of scores for dance and theater companies, and now the couple has self-released a sequel of sorts, called Still You Lay Dreaming — a download-only collection of tracks that were written for the Deborah Slater Dance Theater’s production of Men Think They Are Better Than Grass.

The music, though not as massively far-reaching as each musician’s career, is an eclectic assortment of unorthodox instruments, unusual melodies, and dynamic vocals.  Kihlstedt’s usual vocal power leads the way on half of the tracks, but her superlative violin skills take a back seat to duo’s “closet arsenal” of bass harmonica, pump organ, bathtub percussion, flour sifter, and other oddities.

A general compositional diversity – in addition to distorted, pitch-shifted, and reverberated instruments and vocals – makes the collection a wonderful listen from start to finish.  Fans of the duo’s previous work won’t want to miss it either, as there’s little that resembles what has come before.

V/A: Generation Bass Presents Transnational Dubstep (Six Degrees)

Fleck & Fish Finger: “Rude Profile” (Pan Agnostix flamenco-step version)

Featuring 15 world-infused dubstep tunes, Generation Bass Presents Transnational Dubstep is a journey around the globe as filtered through the pulsing beats and whirring, mechanical sounds of a dance subgenre that continues to flourish.  Compiled by the co-founders and editors of the dance-music blog Generation Bass, in conjunction with Six Degrees Records, it’s a continent-hopping collection of thumping grooves alongside sounds from India, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, South America, and more.

The majority of the tracks, at some point, adhere to the key dubstep directive – blown-out bass lines in triplets – but they often begin or build in very un-dubstep ways.  This is best experienced on tracks such as “Kaliyuga,” which takes a sweeping string melody – possibly from a sarangi – and coalesces it around, sitar, veena, tabla, and a dirty synth line before a wobbling bass line and hip-hop beats break it down.  It’s one of the comp’s best tracks and a great fusion between East and West.

Jono El Grande: Phantom Stimulance (Rune Grammofon)

Jono El Grande: "Borrelia Boogie"

Known musically as Jono El Grande, Norwegian guitarist/composer Jon Andreas Håtun uses his nom de plume to combine theatrical, progressive, classical, jazz, and absurdist styles for performance-art and dada-inspired live shows.  Though you’ll find this on his Wikipedia entry, his music might be best described as a mix between his confessed influences: Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson, and Igor Stravinsky.

Following his outstanding and eclectic release Neo Dada in 2009, Jono has now released a collection of re-recorded stage songs and unreleased material.  It picks up where Neo Dada left oft, with fanciful, melodic meanderings that can sound like an acid-soaked version of countrymen Jaga Jazzist – only with strange, often nonsensical vocals in the mix.  Named Phantom Stimulance, the collection is a synchronized mélange of guitar, xylophone, harpsichord, organ, synthesizer, horns, singing saw, and more.

Buck 65: 20 Odd Years (Warner Music Canada)

Buck 65: "Who By Fire"

Last year, Canadian hip-hop artist Buck 65 released a series of digital mini-albums to commemorate 20 years of creating music.  Despite his recent connection to Warner Music, he’s always had an unusual and avant-garde style of rapping and lyricism, collaborating with a host of great artists with independent roots that include Sage Francis, Feist, Tanya Tagaq, Boom Bip, John Herndon of Tortoise, and more.

20 Odd Years is made in that daring, collaborative spirit, with a number of vocal and instrumental guests who take the music in copious directions.  Over the course of 13 tracks – four unreleased and the rest from the mini-albums – it moves through acoustic folk hop, piano-laced trip hop, synth rock, western cinematics, French pop, Eastern-tinged string melodies, and vocal balladry.  It’s often both dramatic and delicate – usually thanks the dynamic guest vocalists – but it also has a little fun, notably with a song about zombies. Ultimately, 20 Odd Years might be the best and most adventurous collection that Buck 65 has created.

Honorable Mentions

Abysmal Dawn: Leveling the Plane of Existence (Relapse)

Arthur's Landing: s/t (Strut)

Tommy Guerrero: Lifeboats and Follies (Galaxia)

Kotchy: Two (Done Right)

Fela Kuti: Vinyl Box Set 1, Compiled by ?uestlove of The Roots (Knitting Factory)

Noisear: Subvert the Dominant Paradigm (Relapse)

Rot in Hell: As Pearls Before Swine (Deathwish)

Seefeel: s/t (Warp)

Mike Patton: "Deep Down" (Ennio Morricone)

In 1994, the musical aberration known as Mike Patton prepared for a pair of life-altering experiences. The anomalous vocalist married Italy native Titi Zuccatosta, and the two purchased a home in Bologna — a city that Patton has since described as the “place where you want to die.”

Putting the personal ties aside, his infatuation with the city is easy to understand. At one time the “second city” of Italy, Bologna holds a rich and deep history. It is home to the oldest university in the West and an abundance of monuments that span the past two millennia. Visitors flock to Piazza Maggiore and the San Petronio Basilica, two symbols of a city renowned for its expansive porticos and the red roofs of its historic center. Its humid climate makes seasonal swings feel more extreme, but given Bologna’s location in Northern Italy, its inhabitants aren’t as hard hit by heat waves as the south of the country. And Bologna is, naturally, a culinary hotspot thanks to its famous Bolognese sauce.

Though the couple separated in 2001, Patton had, by that time, immersed himself in the country and its culture, refusing to speak English while abroad in order to become fluent in Italian. Every day was a learning experience, he says, and his most important education came in linguistics.

“Being ‘invisible’ or in disguise helped me learn the language,” Patton says. “The great thing about Italy [is that] if you just say two words, like ‘ciao bello,’ [they say], ‘Wow, that’s amazing! You sound just like an Italian!’ It really boosts your confidence. The whole attitude [in Italy is] toward acceptance and tolerance. The reason that I learned the language and did it so fast…is because the people were so amazing.”

"In the early stages [of working with the orchestra], I’d fly off the handle and go crazy, and it got me nowhere. Orchestra people don’t want to see that, don’t want to hear that. They already think you’re a freak for doing this."

The thought of Patton concealing himself, however, seems like a non sequitur. His voice, after all, is one of the preeminent and most recognizable in independent music. It has been involved in dozens of personal projects, invited on scores of guest spots, and heard on more than a hundred studio recordings. His malleable voice is known for any combination of dramatic cries, harrowing screams, smooth croons, lilting falsettos, and otherworldly chants.

Patton’s days fronting alt-rock favorites Faith No More were a gateway drug for many, leading first to the mind-altering, genre-demolishing tastes of Mr. Bungle. Then came dalliances with John Zorn, arrangements for Fantômas, time in Tomahawk, pop adventures as Peeping Tom, and copious collaborations. His time on the radio all but ended after Faith No More’s breakup, but his distinct sounds and diverse palette — coupled with a reputation for stage antics and off-the-cuff interviews — cemented his place in modern music lore.

So given these identifiable attributes, the words “Patton” and “incognito” don’t seem to follow each other. But his newest project, Mondo Cane, stems from just such a union — with Patton disguising his American accent and assimilating to a new culture.

“I did have a lot of friends there,” he says of Italy. “Most of them spoke English, but my whole deal was ‘don’t speak to me in English; I have to learn.’ I’m not doing any DVD Rosetta Stone bullshit. Trial by fire, you know?”

Yet Patton learned more than Italian. His interest in Italian counterculture led him to figures like Demetrio Stratos, a 1970s prog-rock revolutionary who explored the limits of the human voice. He later met, befriended, and collaborated with modern musicians, including Zu, a Roman avant-garde trio whose recent sludge-jazz album was released via Patton’s Ipecac Recordings.

But despite his affinity for these kindred artists, Patton found himself drawn to the lavish, layered Italian pop music of the 1960s that he had encountered through friends and the radio. (He is, in the end, an artist whose catalog appeals as much to casual listeners as to ardent experimentalists — an artist as likely to sing with Norah Jones as Melt-Banana.) At some point, it became obvious to him that he’d pay tribute to these expansive orchestrations, and the Mondo Cane project was born.

In the years after World War II, American pop influence began permeating the globe, and the Italian Republic quickly embraced bebop, big band, and rock and roll. By the late 1950s, Italian singer-songwriters — known as cantautori — had come to prominence, at first influenced by Italian folk but then drawing inspiration from traditional American pop singers. As the ’60s progressed, cantautori appropriated bits of rock, psychedelia, and film-score dramatics, culminating in a heavily layered style that just as readily embraced guitars as string sections.

It was this dense, intelligent take on pop that attracted Patton. Legendary composers of the time, both in Europe and the USA, had begun writing and arranging for singer-songwriters, either out of artistic interest or for financial gain (or both). Prominent cantautori such as Gianni Mecca, Gino Paoli, and Luigi Tenco were working with names like Ennio Morricone, Nino Rota, and Tony De Vita.

Others recorded their own Italian-language renditions of famous pieces by American or European composers such as Elmer Bernstein or Bert Kaempfert, who worked with some of the most recognized singers of the time.

One such tune, originally titled “The World We Knew (Over and Over),” exemplifies the cultural difference and the impact that it had on Patton. Renamed “Ore D’Amore,” this selection — which would be appropriated by Mondo Cane — was first sung by a vocal giant.

“Sinatra did that song!” Patton says. “But it’s completely different. It’s much more lush and big bandy and orchestral. For whatever reason, the Italian version was much more fuzzed out and ’70s and psychedelic — totally different words, totally different everything. Somehow, I feel, a lot of these [reinterpreted] tunes were given an Italian soul. They’re much more tragic, much more romantic, and much more exaggerated, and that’s definitely something that interested me.”

With a growing catalog of tunes in mind, Patton contemplated a few one-off cover performances with a quartet. However, when a festival promoter called and offered access to an orchestra for three concerts, he couldn’t say no. He began sifting through hundreds of pop songs — many that perched atop the charts but some with more obscure origins — and the wheels were in motion for Mondo Cane.

Loosely translating to “dog’s world,” Mondo Cane was a massive undertaking, consuming months and months just to prepare for the initial three performances. Patton had his selections transcribed and began working with a 10-piece band, while a conductor was put in charge of a 40-piece orchestra.

There were no initial plans for the dozens of concerts that would follow, nor plans to record an album — but at some point, Patton figured that this effort warranted documentation. Italian producer/composer Daniele Luppi came on board for arrangements, and over three new concerts in 2008, the group took part in live recordings that would be assembled into the first of two Mondo Cane albums, released in May of 2010.

“That led me down, let’s just say, another vortex of getting it perfect,” Patton says. “Hey, it’s a live concert, and I hate live-concert recordings. I just can’t listen to them; I can’t deal with it. It took me a long time to correct all the mistakes and redo the arrangements, maybe the way I really wanted them and heard them in my head from the beginning but didn’t have time to execute for the concerts.”

The performances, many of them in public squares, were a success by all accounts, but the entire process proved overwhelming at times.

”There were times when I wanted to tear my hair out,” Patton says, “because you feel like, ‘Who’s helping me? Who’s got my back?’ I thought of this [project]; Jesus Christ, I guess it’s all my responsibility! It was definitely a huge learning period for me, and you have to learn where to pick your battles, when to be a politician, and all that kind of stuff. In the early stages, I’d fly off the handle and go crazy, and it got me nowhere. Orchestra people don’t want to see that, don’t want to hear that. They already think you’re a freak for doing this.”

A few “offbeat” inclusions made Patton unsure of how the project would be received in Italy, particularly in front of mixed crowds at the piazza performances. But despite the unconventionality of the project, the selections on Mondo Cane are, by and large, approachable, appealing to Patton lovers as well as their parents.

“I remember one sound-checking [when] we were playing one of these gigs in an outdoor square,” Patton says. “We were sound checking between songs, and an old lady comes up toward the stage. [She said], ‘Excuse me; excuse me. You know, you have a fabulous voice, son. Is there anywhere that I can buy your cassette?’ I was just so touched. That was total validation for me.”

Heavy Trash: Midnight Soul Serenade (Fat Possum)

As Jon Spencer and Matt Verta-Ray unleash their third disc of old-school roots rock and rockabilly as Heavy Trash, the duo collaborates with a bona fide cast of contributors to create some of its finest tunes on a disc that expands its repertoire.

Accompanying organ is spread throughout Midnight Soul Serenade, an album that also contains splashes of piano on "Gee, I Really Love You," vocal gentleness and female vocal backings on "Good Man," vocal eccentricities on "Bumble Bee," Southwestern guitar and baritone harmonies on "Pimento," and low tones and acid flair on "The Pill," a tune evocative of Twin Peaks that tells its own psychedelic tale.

Top-end players Simon Chardiet, Sam Baker, Powersolo, Mickey Finn, Daniel Collas, and Those Darlins lend their good graces. If this kind of music piques your interest, pick this up.

Themselves: CrownsDown (Anticon)

After six years of silence (spent on countless other projects, many with each other), no-nonsense rap duo Themselves — Adam "Doseone" Drucker and Jeffrey "Jel" Logan — returned with a free "mixtape" earlier this year. Now the two have released their proper third album, CrownsDown, a sample-driven album that is both experimental and traditional.

The gritty, nasally intonation and rapid-fire delivery of Jel are slathered up and down the disc, which is based on hip-hop and dance beats and patchwork samples. Subtle founder Dax Pierson and 13 & God bandmates Jordan Dalrymple and Markus Acher make cameos.

Minamo: Kuroi Kawa: Black River (Tzadik)

Avant-violinist extraordinaire Carla Kihlstedt (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, 2 Foot Yard, The Book of Knots) and prolific classical pianist Satoko Fujii (Satoko Fujii Orchestra) spend much of their time on the outskirts of musical convention, combining their desired genres in whichever ways that they see fit.

Here the two create two worlds on two discs: one of dutifully recorded compositions and one of live, stream-of-conscious improvisations. Fans of experimental chamber music should dig this.

Honorable mentions:

Dave Douglas: A Single Sky (Greenleaf)
Jesu: Opiate Sun (Caldo Verde)
Mike Reed’s People, Places & Things: About Us (482 Music)
Jessica Pavone: Songs of Synastry & Solitude (Tzadik)
Pyramids with Nadja: s/t (Hydra Head)
Rupa & The April Fishes: Este Mundo (Cumbancha)
The Squirrel Nut Zippers: Lost at Sea
John Zorn: Femina (Tzadik)