
Top albums for 2012 as selected by our music editor include releases from Sigur Ros, Beach House, Tame Impala, and more.

“I like going to a show where everyone is into the music…Everyone’s on the same page for whatever, how long, twenty minutes. That feeling’s pretty cool.”
In 2011 my listening didn’t have much to do with new music that was coming out. The only cds in my car were the works in progress of my friends which have not yet come out officially.
Brand new video debut from the new collaboration between Sadistik and Kristoff Krane. The album is now available for pre-order (with limited edition T-shirt packages as well) at both www.sadistikmusic.com and www.micheallarsen.com

“If I was an actor, I would only ever play villains.” – Cody FosterInterview by Anna-Lynne WilliamsCody Foster (rap artist Sadistik) appeared at one of my concerts in Seattle about two years ago and gave me a copy of his debut album, The Balancing Act. He was young and his hair was shaved down and [...]

“For awhile I was like, ‘I’ll just make the most complicated thing that nobody else can do and then I’ll be the best.’ And now I’m kind of learning that sometimes the most difficult thing to make isn’t the best at all.”
1. Damien Jurado – Saint Bartlett2. Kent – En Plats i Solen3. Beach House – Teen Dream4. The National – High Violet5. Eels – End Times6. Sarah Jaffe – Suburban Nature7. Charlotte Gainsbourg – Irm8. John Grant – Queen of Denmark9. Breathe Owl Breathe – Magic Central10. CocoRosie – Grey Oceans- Anna-Lynne Williams, Music Editor
I end every year by making a list of my favorite albums. Some years there are as many as 30 albums that I couldn’t live without, but this year there were really only 10 for me. To be honest, the David Bazan and Fever Ray releases really monopolized a lot of my time. But there [...]
This past February, I spent a month in the mythologized town of Marfa, TX, recording an album with Robert Gomez for a project which has since been named Ormonde. I returned to Texas last Friday (this time to Denton, where Robert lives) to work on final mixes. Since it’s his home studio and he has [...]
Sergius Gregory has taken the musician-in-a-cabin experiment leaps farther than the likes of Bon Iver. After living in Hawaii, Oregon, New York, and Pennsylvania, he has spent the last few years in Homer, Alaska, holing away in the winters in his own cabin with an 8-track and a handful of instruments. And, finding Homer to [...]

“If I can make anything that another person would want, then I must give it away. Sometimes other musicians want to trade music, or collaborate with me after hearing one of my songs, so sharing my music freely has given some very rich experiences.”

"I could mention…Neneh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi, on vinyl from the local store, and Michael Jackson’s BAD, which I stole from my brother. You had to learn to dance really smoothly to it or the vinyl would skip. I’m sure someone could find traces of all of those early loves in my music, and not least in the way I dance."
“I like to listen to the arc of a record, like reading a book from start to finish. I make records that way.”
“With all your lies, you’re still very lovable.”
- “For Emma” by Bon Iver
“In the end it was all about finding a way to express something that you cannot express otherwise.”

"I was just out driving in my car, and five totally different things came on–an old New Order song… a track from the new Portishead record… a Brian Eno Music for Films song… ‘Touch and Go’ by the Cars… and then this campy ’70s disco song called ‘Let’s All Chant.’ I love how this weird mix put me in five different moods within twenty minutes or so."
“Even if there is tension in a collaboration, that frustration allows you to further define your own musical ideas, why you disagree or what it is that is important to you…”
“The things I go through, most people go through, so I think it communicates.”
“Sometimes I write in the voice of someone who I believe is trying to get through to me, sometimes. But I never really understood that Nick Cave style of ‘I am a murderer on this album’ kind of thing. It’s just not me. I’d rather just cover someone else’s song.”
“The whole idea of playing in a band as a way of paying the bills is a new concept to Rob and me. We come from a basement show, pass-the-hat-to-pay-for-gas mentality.”
“It’s strange to me that so many hands can have a part in someone’s self-expression. It puzzles me that what I think is so bad can be considered to be so good by so many, and something that is so good can go undiscovered.”