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Year in Review: Top 10 Albums of 2015 Rated by Contributors
Danny Baraz
December 14, 2015
10 years from now, we might look back at the Top 10 Albums of 2015 as the year the “new music industry” became a viable business model. As the battle rages to fine tune some of the sticky points around streaming services, vinyl sales soar at the same time bands and artists offer free downloads, surrendering the traditional model and entrusting their legacy to future generations. With so many different ways to deliver musical products to consumers, our Top 10 Albums of 2015 list will include LP’s, EP’s and Mixtapes. We are not a hive mind at Janky Smooth so you will find albums we didn’t publish favorable reviews on in our contributors top 10 list. We here at Janky Smooth feel blessed to stand on the precipice with you and gaze upon the vast landscape of music that is exploding from all corners of the world. Top 10 Albums/EP’s/Mixtapes of 2015 Johnny Ramos- Photographer: Top 10 Albums of 2015 Tame Impala – Currents Beach House – Depression Cherry Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color Death Grips – The Powers That B Toro Y Moi – What For? Turnover – Peripheral Vision Unknown Mortal Orchestra – Multi-Love Hot Chip –
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Jaco Pastorius Doc Gets West Coast Premiere at The Ace Theater Los Angeles
Danny Baraz
November 24, 2015
No matter how much you practice, you’ll never, ever be able to play bass like Jaco Pastorius. Even if you break your thumbs to bend like Jaco’s, you’ll never be able to reach those notes because he pulled them from the sky. Jaco Pastorius was touched with a gift. A gift that can’t be found under a Xmas tree. A gift that made him super human, as far as the bass guitar was concerned and fragile in the ways that being “different” exposes one’s human frailty- drawing that fine line that is always associated with his type of genius. Sunday night at the opulent Ace Theater and Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles, the culmination of 6 years of filmmaking resulted in a packed house for a star-studded, west coast premiere of the film “Jaco”. The theater was filled with legendary musicians, even as the AMA’s were taking place up the street at The Microsoft Theater. Incredibly, even though Jaco Pastorius was nominated for two Grammy’s for his self titled debut solo album in 1977, Pastorius never won an industry wide award. So, as One Direction was winning their Artist of the Year accolades only a few blocks away, producer and
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Album Review: Yacht- I Thought The Future Would Be Cooler
Brent Smith
October 27, 2015
It really doesn’t matter where you find your music these days. Bargain bins, the end credits of some popular show, a comment thread on Youtube. With America’s recent (though probably not lasting) damnation of record stores and the lost art of collecting, you’re lucky just to find it. I’ll be the first to admit that the first time I heard Y▲CHT was off GTA V’s soundtrack. I was speeding down Vespucci Blvd. toward the beach in my purple Bravado Gauntlet when I flipped the dial to Radio Mirror Park and was hit with the hooky gem “Psychic City (Voodoo City)”. I was instantly reminded me of a Kim Wilde “Kids in America” declaration that had taken on some deeper, incorporeal aspect. You’ve definitely had your ear to the tracks if you’ve been following YACHT’s eleven year career, which spans six studio albums on four different labels. The new LP I Thought the Future Would Be Cooler (Released on October 16th through Downtown Records) is YACHT’s third as duo, comprised of founding member/laptop virtuoso Jona Bechtolt and vocalist/science journalist Claire L. Evans. It’s an album that echoes our collective, disappointed sentiments about the year 2015 (just in time for Back to
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Review: The Dead Weather- Dodge and Burn
Alfonso Contreras
October 1, 2015
I’m gonna be honest here, and you can take me to the chopping block for it if it makes you feel better. I’m not a big fan of every project that surrounds this cast – Now with that being said The Dead Weather has created a die hard, simple yet smart, banging record that is easily digested and sticks to the roof of your brain. No group of musicians work this well together without it being in tune and inspired by one another. For me, it is always an honor to write and share my opinions on the underrated. You might be saying to yourselves “but all four of these cats sit in the perfect seat for scootin’ on up the music biz ladder”. Maybe you think they don’t need the attention, or they’re privileged, if not more privileged than most other musicians. We’ve seen many talented collaborations of super-groups fail and fail badly. The truth is, The Dead Weather being a colab project of well known artists opens them up for more credibility to lose and more criticism to gain. For me, good music is good music, and bad music is…well, bad. My first reaction of the Dodge and
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Review: “House of the Rising Fuzz” Boston Psych Rock Compilation
Brent Smith
September 30, 2015
House of the Rising Fuzz It’s good to know that if I ever had to move to Boston, I wouldn’t have to worry about any lack of an underground rock scene. If you’ve had your antennae up lately, you’ve noticed spooky rock n roll action-at-a-distance in virtually every city in America. It’s obvious. Today’s fuzz is one huge EXPLOSION of epic garage/surf/psych/punk proportions. It’s everywhere. Psych alone has its string of festivals all over the country, and now the world. We have our own L.A. Psych Fest scene here in the southland. What used to be Psych Fest Austin quickly morphed into Levitation Austin, Levitation Toronto, and Levitation France. Denver Psych Fest transmuted into Synesthesia. Seattle has two: North West Psych Fest and HYPNOTIKON. There are even Psych Nights in both Brisbane, Australia and Cape Town, South Africa. We’ve definitely felt the detonation in SoCal. DIY indie bands out here are playing so hard and so far underground they’re practically egging on The Big One (and once they do, we’ll have front row seats). In revelry of this recent rock revolution, Ben Semeta has curated House of the Rising Fuzz, a ten-track odyssey that effectively sounds off the fuzz
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New Album Review: Destruction Unit- Negative Feedback Resistor
Danny Baraz
September 10, 2015
There is nothing in the world like seeing Destruction Unit live, in concert. Nothing. The overpowering and overwhelming sonic assault staggers the senses and literally knocks you off balance. I really can’t explain it but the word literally is used literally. At last months show at Berserktown II at The Observatory, they played a song off their new album, Negative Feedback Resistor that made me feel really weird, physically. As I dug into this new album, I instantly recognized it as “Chemical Reaction/Chemical Delight”, track 4 off of Negative Feedback Resistor. Like a self-induced inner ear infection, the Destruction Unit live show is reminiscent of a drug psychosis. The chaotic six string arrangements aren’t just multiple guitars playing the same riffs. Octaves and detuned layers fit in each others jagged edges until a mountain of sound buries you in symbiotic harmony, as one lead guitar varies from the main arrangement with feedback and noise. With 8 LP’s under their belt, multiple EP’s and 7 “ releases, the Destruction Unit lineup whose original cast in 2000 included Jay Reatard and Alicia Trout has been steady with their last 2 releases. With an occasional curveball like throwing in Alex Zhang Hungtai from
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New Album Review: Radkey- Dark Black Makeup
Brent Smith
September 4, 2015
Radkey was always a young band with an old soul. Now, with a more-than-polished debut LP finally under their belts, becoming festival circuit regulars, and amassing a fan base that dates back five years, the three notoriously young Radke brothers from the Show-Me State aren’t so young anymore. Dark Black Makeup—recorded alongside producer Ross Orton (Artic Monkeys, The Fall, Jarvis Cocker)—is a testament to the work the three duders Dee (vocals/guitar), Isaiah (bass) and Solomon (drums) put into their first two EPs, Cat And Mouse and Devil Fruit. There’s definitely some mainstream appeal here, and I don’t mean that derogatorily. I want to hear these dudes on KROQ someday. (If they’re not already?! Clearly, I listen to KROQ). Dee’s baritone pipes makes him sound like a veteran rocker twice his age. He can also shred like one too; guitar isn’t soaked in reverb; void of any noisy effects (except for maybe the awesomely dirty track “Glore”); mainly good old fashioned distortion and clever riffs; lots of great twangy solo moments. It hit me in a sort of The Cramps meets (proto-punk) Death collision, with a sheen of gritty 60s pop. Simply put, it’s a solid rock album. I know we
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New Album Review: HEALTH- Death Magic
Danny Baraz
August 14, 2015
Los Angeles’s own, HEALTH and their new album, Death Magic released by Loma Vista on August 7th might very well be my top record of 2015, thus far. Even with a more polished, less noise influenced battery of songs, HEALTH manage to keep that dark edge that mixes beauty with taboo concepts of the human condition and is delivered to fans in their familiar package of abstract messaging. There seems to be a formula developing in the nebulous vacuum that was once the music industry. It’s really not all that different than what existed previously. The previewing of new singles in the months leading up to an album release isn’t an original concept. There is just a greater volume of them, which has allowed fans to hear more of an album before it’s official release. That is, if there isn’t a strategy to “leak” the album. There was a very calculated build up to the release of Death Magic and a real attempt to control the message of music critics, which is a departure from the typical, laissez faire vibe of HEALTH. Death Magic successfully manages to cut the chord in the eternal association between HEALTH and Crystal Castles, not just
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New Album Review: Tame Impala- Currents
Danny Baraz
July 28, 2015
Hardcore Tame Impala fans, (like myself) could find it pretty easy to slam the new album Currents, released this month by Interscope Records on July 17th. There is little in this album that is reminiscent of anything fans fell in love with about Tame Impala in the first place, save for the sweet vocals of Kevin Parker. The fuzzed out guitars are difficult to place in most tracks and that, along with a more sequenced and produced drum track, remove the rock element from the album’s vibe, almost entirely. One of the most exciting things about Tame Impala’s music was the hard edged rock arrangements in tandem with Kevin Parker’s gentle, soothing, almost Barry Gibb-esque falsetto vocals. Currents is successful in almost entirely removing the bands hard edge. Currents takes a risky path. The magnitude of this path has not been seen since the likes of Radiohead releasing Kid A in 2000. But even Kid A had a segway named OK Computer, which hinted at a significant shift in their creative direction prior to dropping the hammer. This change of focus was not without it’s own warning, though. On March 11th of this year, the band released a song titled,
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New Album Review: Jacco Gardner- Hypnophobia
Brent Smith
June 30, 2015
I could talk about the baroque baroqueness of the Jacco Gardner electro-prog aesthetic. I could talk about how his sound puts you in Kubrick’s psychedelic record store scene from A Clockwork Orange. I could talk about how his near-prodigious use of retro, ornate, and esoteric instruments like Wurlitzer electric/Steinway upright pianos, harpsichords, Optigans, and Mellotrons would send anyone over 60 into a kaleidoscope time-warp back to the ‘Me Decade’ that flaunted things like paisley shirts, shag cuts, hip-huggers, mood rings, and bunk weed. Sure, I could talk about all that 10-Reasons-Why-Some-Particular-Decade-Is-Back drivel you read on popular sites, but truth be told, the Jacco Gardner sound is his own, and his time is now. His new LP Hypnophobia out on Polyvinyl Records is more than just a cool word about fear of sleeping. It’s a trip with anesthetic effect. I don’t mean anesthetic like physical numbing, I mean like what anesthesia does to the mind—puts you into a tripped-out state between waking and sleeping. Its 10-track reverie doesn’t veer off on tangents. Your mind may wander, but the sound stays true to its whimsical between-space. Don’t confuse that with the recent sleep paralysis horror that’s spreading across the internet. The first track
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Cayucas Record Release Party for “Dancing at the Blue Lagoon”
Janky Smooth Central Command
June 26, 2015
With the June 23rd release of their sophomore album, “Dancing at the Blue Lagoon,” Los Angeles natives, Cayucas, threw a private, invite-only album release party and Janky Smooth was fortunate enough to get the invite. Head North up Fairfax Avenue and there, sandwiched somewhere between the multiple bars and restaurants you will find a hidden venue. Or maybe you won’t find it because there is no name for the place. Literally meaning, your Instagram geotag will show up as “No Name.” Not that Instagram is actually relevant considering photographs were forbidden even though we got approval prior to our arrival at the venue. Fortunately for us, our stealthy and badass photographer, Taylor Wong, managed to snap some shots. This “No Name” venue contains exposed white brick walls and rugs that looked like they were directly imported from India — a hub for hipster elitists. It seemed as though the interior designer was devoted to purchasing anything that slightly resembled an avant-garde piece, and the hipsters are appeased with walls embellished with records by The Grateful Dead and The Beatles. The Edison bulb chandeliers and exposed piping that veined through high wooden ceiling was quite impressive, I must admit. However, as
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New Album Review: Deaf Rhino – Dirt, Rust, Chaos
Brent Smith
June 10, 2015
New Jersey bro rock band Deaf Rhino has released their debut LP Dirt, Rust, Chaos. If you’re an east-coaster, you may have caught them at Arlene’s Grocery or Webster Hall sharing bills with bands like The Ataris and Teenage Kicks. I say bro rock, but I mean inclusive bro rock with a little soul you can dance to, not self-masturbatory bro rock like Creed or Nickelback who ruined radio and were single-handedly responsible for every teen suicide when I was in high school. (Okay, maybe not, but radio is still trying to recover.) Also, unlike Creed or Nickelback, Deaf Rhino is rambunctious, they kick any moral authority to the curb, and they like to have fun. Rhino’s definitely the first likable bro rock band ever, or at least the first likable bro band since, like, Metallica (even though I don’t like them), and on par with mainstream acts like Queens of the Stone Age, Arctic Monkeys, and Eagles of Death Metal. An Ernest-Hemingway-staring-down-the-double-barrel- of-a-shotgun-at-a-charging-Rhino analogy is in there somewhere, but evoking Hemingway in any sense isn’t something I do lightly. Dirt, Rust, Chaos oscillates between whimsical and agro. There’s as much distortion as there is emotion, and it demonstrates Deaf
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