Sludgy alt-metal with free-jazz freakouts. Egyptian, Indian, and Arabic styles in Western structures. Absurdist progressive neoclassical. Playful orchestrations with big-band swing and foreboding soundtrack cues. Blood-curdling horror scores and reflective, introspective rhymes.
ALARM leaves no genre unloved in our round-up of 50 albums that didn’t receive enough attention in 2009.
Omar Rodriguez Lopez: Old Money (Stones Throw, 1/27/09)
The first of many releases in 2009 from prolific guitarist/composer Omar Rodriguez-Lopez. Accessible and centered on rock, sounding spacey, funky, progressive, psychedelic, a little jazzy, and a little Latin.
Kevin Hufnagel: Songs for the Disappeared (self-released, 2/3/09)
Musical themes come and go, covering swaths of Spanish and Gypsy guitar before reverting back to haunting rock melodies, on this solo acoustic album from highly technical Dysrhythmia guitarist Kevin Hufnagel.
Kevin Hufnagel: “Tres”
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P.O.S: Never Better (Rhymesayers, 2/3/09)
Likely the year’s best hip-hop album, Never Better draws on Stefon Alexander’s background in punk and rock music (he plays most of the live instrumentation on the record), making this is an album that categorically defines the indie in indie rap.
Zu: Carboniferous (Ipecac, 2/17/09)
Sludgy alt-metal with complex repeated rhythms and free-jazz freakouts. Features Mike Patton on two killer tracks.
The Andreas Kapsalis & Goran Ivanovic Guitar Duo: s/t (2/24/09)
A Balkan-influenced classical guitarist joins an ethically inspired finger-tapping guitarist for a disc of skill and beauty.
16: Bridges to Burn (Relapse, 2/24/09)
Dubbed the “Unsane of the West Coast” by ALARM’s Jamie Ludwig, 16 issued another hard-hitting riff fest in 2009 with Bridges to Burn, the band’s best album to date.
Umlaut: s/t (3/10/09)
Mr. Bungle’s Bär McKinnon, multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire, issued one hell of an album for this new project — one that filters meticulous melodies and asinine vocals through the lens of a whacked-out lounge group.
Jono El Grande: Neo Dada (Rune Grammofon, 3/16/09)
Fanciful music that’s different around every turn. Art rock that weaves through theatrical, progressive, classical, and absurdist styles with influences from Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, King Crimson and Igor Stravinsky.
Jono El Grande: “Oslo Coty Suite”
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Kylesa: Static Tensions (Prosthetic, 3/17/09)
Down-tuned dirge metal that rumbles with crust punk, sludge, metal, hardcore, and psychedelia, often laced with atmospheric samples. To date, Static Tensions is Kylesa’s most powerful album.
(MF) Doom: Born Like This (Lex, 3/23/09)
Dropping his “MF” prefix, the incomparable rapper and Marvel-inspired supervillain delivered another nearly impenetrable wall of rhymes and flow, dizzying listeners with his ever-shifting, slowly delivered lyrics.