125. The Books - Thought for Food (2002)

First off, let's be perfectly honest: I have no clue what in the hell the Books are trying to do here (both on this record and its equally lauded followup, The Lemon of Pink). I have no clue what's going on, I have no clue why it's supposed to be any good, I have no clue why anyone would like it, I have no clue why I should like it, etc. So what this is is basically obscure spoken-word vocal samples taken from old advertisements, instructional videos and so forth set to calming, amelodic washes of acoustic guitar, rumbly-sounding percussion and dinging noises. The whole thing is aggressively quirky and weird and nothing is really allowed to stay around long enough to make much of an impression. I don't understand why this is any good at all. Occasionally a good melody will jump out of the murk (like on "All Our Base Are Belong to Them") but that's the exception more than a rule. I suppose this kind of stuff makes the most sense as an attempt to inject some interest into "ambient music", which is laudable I guess, but this isn't the way to do it. So 1. I've never heard anything else much like this and 2. that might be a good thing.

MY RATING: 4.4

The Books - "Enjoy Your Worries, You May Never Have Them Again"

165. Ricardo Villalobos - Alcachofa (2003)

Villalobos' 2003 record is so minimalist it seems to travel to a level beyond minimalism, where the only sounds coming off your computer are a series of repetitive bleeps and bloops that last 8+ minutes and seem to never, ever change. The first time you hear this album, you'll probably hate it. Villalobos steadfastly refuses to buff up his arrangements: listen closely to the few bloops you hear in the first minute of each track, because that's all you're going to hear, and the entire 80-minute album sounds so samey and minimal and without peak or valley that you're going to go nuts at about the hour mark. But there's a lot more going on here that only becomes apparent after several listens: the beats, though of course minimal, are weird and unsettling, especially on tracks like "Dexter", where the bizarre "thwa-CRACK" noise that comes in at about the minute mark takes the whole thing in a different direction. "Waiworinao" sounds like a bass guitar riff run through about a million effects filters and shoved out the other end flattened and distorted, and while the track itself changes little from beginning to end, the original noise is so weird and captivating that you want to listen to the thing over and over to discover that which you know isn't there. The whole record is like that. It may be long, it may be boring (there's hardly any other word for it) but it certainly isn't stupid or lazy, and Villalobos has done about as well as he can within the parameters he's created for himself. At the time, there simply was no other electronic music out there like this, and the years since have only solidified its importance. More significant then actually enjoyable, though.

MY RATING: 7.5

Ricardo Villalobos - "Dexter"

187. Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of (2001)

Stars of the Lid are drone. This album is basically a series of rising and falling tones which alternate between electronic, string and electric--that's drone. The problem with this is that aside from a strong introduction, it doesn't go anywhere. The whole thing is more than two hours long and it becomes a chore to listen to after about twenty minutes--the endless fading in and out is not particularly evocative of anything except maybe a huge blank sea, the tide pulling in and out, and I like a little bit more variation, even in my mood music. What's especially galling about this is that Stars of the Lid's next album And Their Refinement of the Decline is far superior in almost every way--yet doesn't appear on this list. Maybe 2007 was too recent to judge the merits of another gigantic double album? Basically this album seems like little more than a dry run for that one, and there's no point in buying a weaker version of something else. Aside from a few moments of real beauty, that thankfully come early, this is one of the most emotionally inert records I've ever heard.

MY RATING: 3.5

Stars of the Lid - "Requiem for Dying Mothers (part 2)"

(NOTE SEVERAL MONTHS LATER: I may have underrated this record. The problem is that it doesn't work when listened to directly. It works quite well, however, as background music.)

196. William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops I-IV (2001)

This one can't be reviewed quite like other albums; it's as much about the process of making the music as the music itself. This thing is nearly five hours, by far the longest album on this list, with the opening track alone lasting over an hour. And it's a five-second loop of an (admittedly gorgeous) electronic melody, repeated over and over again. The rest of the tracks follow the same pattern. Basinski was transferring these loops, most of which were close to fifteen years old, to tape when he realized the tape was disintegrating as he was making the transfer. The music itself is dying as you listen to it. Loops drop out and become distorted, change, fill with static, collapse to nothingness. This is a work of art in which music and concept are so utterly intertwined they could not be separated without killing both, like Siamese twins. It's profound, it's boring. It is not "music" in the conventional sense; its progression (or regression, I suppose) comes not from the aesthetics of any human being but from the randomness of a dying machine, the natural destructiveness of nature. It's half-music. But how much can any of us say we control ourselves? Perhaps Basinski is simply being more honest here, but coming right out and saying exactly how it was chance and nature, and not his own mind, that constructed this music. How strange that what is probably the simplest album on this list, musically, conceals the profoundest depths.

MY RATING: 9.6

William Basinski - "D | P 1.1 (excerpt)"
(note: of all the albums on this list, this one is probably the least effectively served by a sample. It really should be experienced in full, or it won't make much sense. Trust me, it's worth it.)

199. Deerhoof - Apple O' (2003)

What are Deerhoof? Well, Deerhoof are Deerhoof. Nobody sounds like they do. If you for even a second thought that the traditional rock lineup of drums - bass - guitar - keyboards - vocals was in danger of running out of new sounds, these guys will quickly disabuse you of that notion. It's hard to describe what Deerhoof sound like; the combination of squiggly keyboard lines, "angular" (sorry) guitars, pounding drums and highpitched Shonen Knife-y vocals adds up to something totally original. I thought Pitchfork, if they were going to put a Deerhoof album on this list (and I suppose you'd have to) would pick The Runners Four; it's the longest, the most "epic" and the most indebted to traditional song structures. But I'm glad they picked this one. It's pretty much the quintessential Deerhoof record, containing both their herky-jerky avantgarde side and their poppier side (which really isn't "pop" in any traditional sense of the term: it sounds like punk music from Mars). So, is it good? Well, it's Deerhoof. And in the words of Roger Ebert (and I think he stole them from somebody else): if you like this sort of thing, this will be the sort of thing you like.

MY RATING: 7.9

Deerhoof - "Apple Bomb"