You can stream and/or download the track below:

Weird World Record Company has 936 Remixed for sale here. Scope out the rest of the collection as well as other Peaking Lights remixes on the label’s SoundCloud page

10. Bridesmaids

9. Attack The Block
This is my kind of science fiction film. When monsters from the space drop into a south London neighborhood, a group of thugs busy themselves with dodging both these otherworldly wolves and the cops. When I say this is my kind of sci-fi flick, I mean that the previous sentence is almost the entirety of the set up. There aren’t any clunky scientists introduced to try to explain the situation, we don’t have some sort of surrogate for the audience to fill in all the expositional details, these street toughs are as clueless to the origins and intentions of these creatures as we are. We’re on the same learning curve. And by foregoing those hackneyed tirades, Attack the Block maintains a high level of energy. Even the discoveries these boys make about the beasts along the way have a real charge, a charge that would be lost if some nerd in a lab coat pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose while dryly explaining some factoid about the alien adversaries. Beyond that, Attack the Block boasts a half dozen great performances by unknown English youths, a couple of whom show off emotional range beyond their years and resumes. It’s an easy film to love.

8. Cave of Forgotten Dreams
Leave it to Werner Herzog to not only make a 3-D documentary, but to make one of the few films which doesn’t just beg to be seen in 3D, but downright demands that you see it that way because of the directors meticulous and intelligent use of the novelty. Cave of Forgotten Dreams would still be a compelling documentary–it’s Werner Herzog touring a cave with the oldest known cave paintings on Earth, but getting the illusion of the depth that these “primitive” artists took advantage of, when these paintings are so rarely seen by the public, is more than just beautiful and inspiring, it’s a public service. And, like I already said, it’s a Werner Herzog documentary. The German auteur has made a career out of being one of the more outrageous filmmakers of his generation, a good portion of that reputation is due to his unconventional documentaries. Cave of Forgotten Dreams would certainly fit that bill. Herzog is obviously interested with the basics that would be covered by the Discovery Channel, however, for the director, any subject rife for documenting is also a viable sounding board for his own philosophical outlook. For Herzog, venturing into the Chauvet Caves in south France, is also to venture into the history of human creativity, the history of the philosophy of human creativity, and his own personal searching and discovery through his filmmaking.

7. Four Lions
Chris Morris’ directorial debut, Four Lions, is one hell of a statement. The film concerns itself with the radicalization of a quartet disenfranchised Muslim youth in Sheffield, England. The catch: it’s a comedy. Unlike many of the portraits we’ve been given of blood-thirsty, democracy-hating radicals who were alienated by their adopted lands, the titular foursome are, at their finest, simply out of their element, but are, more often than not, bumbling and grossly incompetent. Four Lions is, through and through, a satirical farce; even the even-tempered leader, Omar, is responsible for firing a rocket launcher backwards into his own camp. But making a group of wanna-be jihadists funny without lampooning their faith or their motives, isn’t the only masterful feet pulled off by Morris. The tonal shift that occurs during the film’s climax is almost unfathomably successful for a first-time director. After over an hour of bumbling and ineptitude, to have the audience pulling for these guys and feeling for them goes beyond clever trickery. Morris spent the film quietly and subtly making these clowns loveable and suddenly, in the film’s closing minutes, Morris draws from that well he’s been digging and pulls an absolutely heart-wrenching series of events out of a British farce. Four Lions almost reaches Benny Hill levels of silliness before getting painfully real, and it doesn’t feel forced or manipulative.
[Was just informed that Four Lions got a limited US release in November of 2010. I'm not removing it from this list though. For one: I don't want to write another hundred or so words on Moneyball, Tabloid, or Uncle Boonmee and second: I really feel like more people should see it. And with the small voice I have, I'd rather steer people toward Four Lions.]

6. The Arbor
As much as people like to hate on documentaries as artsy or complicated, the genre can be just as staid and warmed-over as a rom-com or a Michael Bay explode-a-thon. Director Clio Barnard’s The Arbor could have been pretty successful with it’s complex subject–playwright and drunken mess Andrea Dunbar–without reinventing the wheel. However, Barnard took those classic interviews, conducted on suburban couches with grimaces and tented hands, and hired a stable of actors for staged lip-synced performances of those interviews. Barnard injects a layer of drama to the depressing tale of Dunbar and, by extension, the trials of her oldest daughter, Lorraine. The tragic figures in Barnard’s documentary are already primed to be as memorable and heart-breaking as characters like Maxon Crumb–R. Crumb’s brother as depicted in Crumb, but Terry Zwigoff’s conventional approach to the unconventional familial dynamics, just gives you that gut-check, Barnard gives you the same moving portraits and provides you stunning images to accompany them (just look at that still above).

5. Drive/Shame
Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive and Steve McQueen’s Shame aren’t so much tied in that I see them as equal films, on par with one another, but that they share a similar foundation. Both films focus on a man who has carved out a unique existence, one that is then complicated by a woman; both filmmakers provide a unique vision of a a city (LA for Drive and New York City for Shame) as a provocative backdrop for their characters, and both films also have mono-syllabic titles. Winding Refn created a day-glo version of Los Angeles for Ryan Gosling’s Eastwoodian turn as The Driver. An LA that shines brightly, one that is peopled with colorful characters with interesting and engaging mannerisms. Refn’s City of Angels is packed with people full of desires and big personalities, the nameless driver, with a zen-like detachment can easily hide in a sea of ME’s. McQueen’s version of New York City is meant to seep into the background. New York is always there, but McQueen reduces it as much as possible to accentuate a lot of the small ticks and looks from Michael Fassbender’s Brandon Sullivan as he battles with his sexual addiction. Drive presents an interesting world and is a movie I could probably watch over and over, where Shame gives me the kind of performance, full of intricate looks and huge, sweeping emotional arcs, that I eat up but will likely only sit through once more.

4. Cedar Rapids
Cedar Rapids is everything the trailer promised: wide-eyed, small-town boy experiencing his first taste of the (relatively) big city; along the way he meets some bawdy buddies, and dodges a few bullets. What the trailers didn’t cue you into, and what makes Cedar Rapids so special is the heart that these heavy drinking insurance sales people have. Ed Helmes’ turn at Ted Lippe goes so much deeper than backwoods rube, though a good amount of his humanity is earned as his naïveté erodes. The real heart of the film comes from the surprisingly funny and raunchy performance of Anne Heche as the firecracker Joan Ostrowski-Fox. Like many of the other tied-down sales people, Ostrowski-Fox treats Cedar Rapids like her Vegas vacation–too much booze, make-outs galore, but one scene in particular, after a regrettable entanglement, Ostrowski-Fox is on the phone with her husband, casually masking shame and embarrassment while discussing the logistics of getting one child to soccer practice, picking up something for dinner and getting another child from some other event; her lines are delivered with only the slightest hint of any issue, but her eyes are sadly scanning the Cedar Rapids hotel room and the ravages of the night before. Her performance could have been maudlin and ham-fisted, landing with a harsh thud as the final act of the film began; but Heche’s performance is just one more in a string of great, faceted performances that make Cedar Rapids not just another Apatovian-styled gag-reel featuring a  male in arrested development, but a story about people who transcend the caricatures they appear to be in the opening act.

3. Melancholia
Leave it to Lars von Trier to make a movie featuring a character so zonked and depressed out of her mind that the goddamned apocalypse is just one in a long line of events that she can barely wake up for. Kirstin Dunst has finally outgrown her cheerleader outfit, giving us a surprisingly deep depiction of crippling depression in Justine. Dunst flashes more than just dead-eyed disdain or disinterest. Though some of that depth surely comes from von Trier’s script. Yet, with such a successful, and maybe (hopefully) career-altering performance from Dunst, What keeps rattling around for me is the absolutely rapturous look of the film. To accompany Justine’s death-defying melancholy, von Trier has offered up some of the most striking images of his career–a career full of striking images. However, von Trier spends less time providing spare portraits of human pain and sadness, for Melancholia, he treats the audience to a little over two hours of tableaux which would feel right at home in Romantic or Raphaelite exhibition.

2. Certified Copy
Abbas Kiarostami’s Certified Copy is, in many ways, the romantic version of my number one below: much of what you take away from the fractured, refracted, and obscured love story depends on what you bring to the screening. Are Elle (Juliette Binoche) and James (William Shimell) finding love or are they in the final throes of a waning affair? There is no risk of spoilers here, because even if you haven’t seen it, you can answer with the same assurance that I can–I just have interpretations of scenes to back up my opinion. Kiarostami’s tale of a scholar and an antique dealer spending a day in Italy isn’t about whether they will or won’t, so much as it may be about have they or will they. But to reduce Certified Copy to questions about the nature of Elle and James’ relationship is to miss all the beauty of the film. Obviously since the backdrop is a small Italian tourist trap, the scenery is sumptuous; even a novice director of photography could make the statue-laden streets of Lucignano look gorgeous. But beyond that, Binoche and Shimell are putting on a master class. Their performances simultaneously make the questions above, about the nature of their relationship more interesting–giving the flutters which might be that of new love and the percolating exasperation which may hint at the last days of a marriage more weight without seeming too divergent–and pointless. With images and performances so compelling, do we really ee

1. Tree of Life
I can’t think of a year where my favorite film has been so clear for so long, but my thoughts around it have been so muddled. There’s a real fluidity in my interpretations and feelings surrounding Terrance Malick’s latest film, Tree of Life. Few films I’ve truly enjoyed or reveled in have been so affected and impacted by discussions with others or just by hearing critics. I’ve even had several discussion where another person and I merely repeat variations of “I don’t totally know what it was, but I really, really, really liked it;” and those have been as affecting as “going down the rabbit hole” with others who have more crystalline thoughts. Some times I think Tree of Life is like that college freshman who tears down his Grateful Dead poster after his first semester in favor of a Sex Pistols silkscreen–which’ll just get ripped down for a Rothko print in 10 weeks: open to whatever strong interpretation you throw at it. I’ve thought of this and Melancholia as companion pieces–one a film about a heavily personal and spiritual crisis which is almost apocalyptic and another explicitly about an apocalypse which is heavily personalized, however, they seem to veer away from one another so heavily in so many other ways, that it’s really only a lark to pair them so tenuously. I guess the cop out answer is that regardless of how I feel about this film in the years to come, it was still one of the most provocative films of the last few years. To have so many scratching their heads, wandering out of theaters in a daze, leaving the theater early even, to stir people into some feeling or thought is what art sets out to do, and no film on my list seems to have accomplished that more thoroughly in 2011.

Honorable Mentions: Bill Cunningham New York, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, Meek’s Cutoff, Midnight in Paris, Miss Representation, Moneyball, The Muppets, Tabloid, The Trip, Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives

I’ve already blown a couple hundred words on what a good year for music it has been. I had composed a little rant about how, despite the high quality to be found across wide-ranging genres, there really wasn’t a clear high-water mark, and then Stephen Hyden went and wrote a longer, better piece about that very phenomenon in the AV Club. So that sort of boned this introductory paragraph about how difficult it was to crown a number one without a cultural swing (whether generic or broader) to join or rally against. Enjoy this really great top 10 even if it is devoid of material which made Zeus quake or stirred fears of revolution in the late Kim Jong-Il.

10. Rene Hell - The Terminal Symphony (Type Records)
Listening to Rene Hell, Jeff Witscher‘s current nom de plum, always reminds me of catching the opening minutes of Doctor Who while scanning the channels on lonely Saturday nights in junior high. As Hell, Witscher’s compositions have found the more elegant elements of what our weird uncles thought was super futuristic music; teasing the symphonies out of synths.
Type Records made the whole thing available to stream through SoundCloud, you can check it out below:

9. A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP (RCA/Polo Grounds Music)
As a long-time advocate of Southern rap (my entre to Hip-Hop was OutKast’s Stankonia), I was not prepared to accept, let alone enjoy, or even embrace a New York MC taking all my favorite trappings of the regional sound and making it his own. But I’ll be damned if this kid from Harlem, with a gut full of syrup, didn’t win me over.
LIVELOVEA$AP is as purely indulgent and hedonistic as it is complex and contemplative–even if most of the contemplation lies in the production. LIVELOVEA$AP might also when the student became the master. It may be premature to start unseating kings, but with Lil’ Wayne off his syrup in over-indulgent messes–with only a handful of successful tracks per album, guys like Rocky might have the thirst and the drive to and the talent to actually match the dizzying heights of Tha Carters II and III.

8. Grand Tetons – They Do Move in Herds (Mission Freak Records/Sweat Power Tapes)
If you’d told me that a shaggy dog alt-country outfit from Iowa City would almost perfectly encapsulate my lost year–really about 5 months the winter before I turned 24–on their debut album, I would have been skeptical at best. But that’s exactly what this quartet did. They Do Move in Herds is an album for all those who didn’t have something lined up right after graduation–so, dropping the homework, picking up 30-40 hours per week, and soldering on with a herculean drink-load was the best option.
Herds perfectly documents an attitude, a time, a place (the back booth, near the juke box, just before bar close), right down to all the imperfections. The passionate grandeur, the delusion, the unchecked libido, it’s all there; Grand Tetons is so damn wrapped up in being so damn wrapped up that it won’t bother to trim a verse here, a guitar lick there, it all feels too important. And for about 5-12 months, it all really is fucking important.

7. Peaking Lights – 936 (Not Not Fun)
Super cool, laid back, DIY jams may have hit critical mass on Peaking Lights’ second LP, 936. Where other counter-culture movements seemed rooted in angrily or mopely lashing out at the status-quo, Peaking Lights and other reverb-drenched cohorts seem perfectly fine just cooling the status out of its quo.
As flippant as all that sounds, 936 is still a knockout. This husband and wife duo from Madison, WI has created something equally suited for cold, claustrophobic Midwestern nights, as for that vegan “BBQ” accompanied by 90 degree heat and a pleasant northwestern breeze.

6. Liturgy – Aesthetica (Thrill Jockey)
Back in June, Liturgy frontman Hunter Hunt-Hendrix wrote a wonderful essay about the power of black metal has as an expressive form, but artistically crippling limitations imposed on the genre from fans and the community. The essay was a response to the backlash in the metal sphere over the grave injustice that was Liturgy’s Aesthetica.
Aesthetica is certainly not a cookie-cutter black metal album. For the all the polyphonic rhythms, blast beats, and vocal chord-shredding wails, Liturgy’s latest album utilizes any means to convey Hunt-Hendrix’s vision. If that means fierce, tinny, synth arpeggios or freak/psych-folk chants and harmonies before breaking into a pummeling cacophony, then that’s what’s gonna happen.

Liturgy photo courtesy of Bull City Records

5. Tim Hecker – Ravendeath, 1972 (Kranky)
It almost goes without saying now: Tim Hecker releases a new album, therefore, Tim Hecker will appear on numerous best-of lists come December and January. From the pulsating attack and decay of the opener “Piano Drop” through chorus of cooing on album closer “In The Air III,” Hecker proves to be one of the finest ambient composers this side of Brian Eno. Hecker’s ability to not just create moods but to trigger subtle shifts in the listener is unrivaled.
At the core of Ravendeath, 1972 is a giant church organ. You can’t help but think of the religious services this organ must have enlivened, and the composer knows this. There is something massive and imposing about the size and scope of these pieces, the glacial drones seem to cut that much deeper into the crust, the wind coursing through the massive pipes has that much more bluster.

Photo of Tim Hecker from Anti-Gravity Bunny

4. Danny Brown – XXX (Fool’s Gold Records)
Danny Brown has been electrifying those who’ve been listening since he dropped Hybrid in 2010–plus some stunning guest turns on Black Milk LPs. But now we’re finally on board with Brown’s out-of-this world flow.
And Brown finally has a pack of producers and a purpose to back up his versatile micsmanship. XXX is a rare concept album that doesn’t need you to know the concept to absolutely love it to pieces. The day-in-the-life sojourn of XXX is freaking loaded story. Brown’s all over the place on loads of different substances, but between blunts, beers, and aderall, Brown also has moments for reflection and introspection. Tracks like “30,” “Party All The Time,” and “Fields” not only show off Brown’s keen observational skills but his deft hand at turning personal demons, negative familial dynamics, and socio-economic evils into interesting and entertaining songs.

3. Frank Ocean – Nostalgia, Ultra (self-released)
Frank Ocean was part of a sea change in indie and underground circles and R&B finding a middle ground. A more emotionally faceted brand of singer, one who is still keen on getting in them drawers, but may actually share a story or two over pancakes in the morning–maybe about a fatherless childhood, a romance from his youth, or maybe scare you out of his t-shirt with suicidal thoughts. Ocean’s Nostalgia, Ultra is a stunningly apt title. The Odd Future crooner’s debut mixtape reads like a diary. Beyond all the stories listed earlier, there are obviously ex-girlfriends, a one night stand, an annulled marriage, and the singer’s personal history with music and girls. With the confessional tone, there’s still poetry to be found, but Ocean doesn’t do a whole lot to obscure the heart on his sleeve.
Though Nostalgia can get a little clunky, and could use a bit more varnish here and there, it’s a refreshingly open album. It feels like it took more time to work up the guts to sing this stuff than it did to write it.

2. Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica (Software/Mexican Summer)
Daniel Lopatin was crowned the king of experimental ambient music sometime late 2009 or early 2010, and, under the moniker Oneohtrix Point Never, he may have finally released an album deserving of the throne. Lopatin’s sixth substantial Oneohtrix release–though through a logistical fluke, his first proper LP, Replica, is a sumptuous collage. So much of the magic in Replica seems to be from Lopatin’s expert editing, taking sounds (whether sampled or created) and finding the most exciting juxtapositions and transitions. Replica is a masterclass in editing as composition. It’s almost the aural equivalent of Man With A Movie Camera. Where Soviet filmmaker Dziga Vertov created vignettes with a semblance of narrative or cohesion by carefully editing and arranging disparate images, Lopatin finds beauty and cohesion in the sometimes violent collision of wildly different sounds. “Child Soldier,” toward the end of Replica, features a jarring snippet, like a cut off synth stab, for beat while lush strings ebb and flow and Lopatin loops a warped soul vocal track atop; two beautiful elements find harmony with this percussive jab with one foot always out the door.

1. The Weeknd – House of Balloons (self-released)
With House of Balloons, Abel Tesfaye (a/k/a The Weeknd) threw down a gauntlet. For all the Drake apostles out there, hell even the sap slinger himself, Tesfaye has released the emotionally complex, yet somehow-still-sexy album that they’ll spend their careers trying to top. Balloons is the record from an introverted extrovert–that dude alone in a crowd. Everything is mediated or medicated, no experiences are pure or in-the-moment; everything’s conducted through a marijuana fog or dipped in lean.
Even on a narcotic cocktail that’d keep most of us in the dark for a day or two, Tesfaye finds startling emotional depths. While many of the lyrics read just north of cliched trite, the crooner finds some heart-breaking specificity to elevate some of the flabbier platitutes. And maybe even more importantly, Tasfaye can flat out sing. Like how Marvin Gaye would still be a national treasure without complex records in the vein of What’s Going On, Tesfaye would still be one of the most exciting young singers around if House of Balloons wasn’t so well-rounded, so damn sexy, and so endlessly catchy.

20. Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
I’ve only been turned on to Julianna Barwick recently. Had I been privy to her captivating soundscapes earlier, I do believe The Magic Place would have easily found itself higher, if not in my top ten. That being said, Barwick has an amazing voice, and she uses the hell out of it. Barwick is a master of looping, layering, and overdubbing her vocals; some times it feels like every note of a piece is being made by her. Magic Place is probably the only appropriate way to describe where she transports you with her voice alone–she does a fine job arranging sparse instrumentation for her vocals too.

19. Wet Hair – In Vogue Spirit (De Stijl)

Wet Hair’s been moving, inch by inch, ever closer to the ever illusive accessability. However, with most cuts eclipsing five minutes and several delving into deep, kraut-covered dub workouts, this Iowa City trio is still plenty challenging. Just check out album opener, “Echo Lady,” or “Liquid Jesus” to get an earful of Wet Hair’s groovy verses and choruses before they break things down like Kraftwerk hyped on Jamaican rum and a duffel bag full of spliffs.

18. Wolves In The Throne Room – Celestial Lineage (Southern Lord)
Since entering the fray in the mid aughts, Wolves in the Throne Room has easily been one of the most consistent black metal acts around. Celestial Lineage is a practice in destroying beautiful things; “Thuja Magus Imperium” opens the album with a rapturous aria from a double-tracked soprano before the Wolves bust down the door and tear the shit to shreds. There’s a battle, throughout Lineage, between bucolic, nearly objective beauty, and the brutal, symphonic bombast of Wolves in the Throne Room’s pure black metal. It’s this push and pull that makes Celestial Lineage a near shoe-in for the band’s finest album to date.

17. Death Grips - Ex Military (Third Worlds)

Aside from Busta Rhymes beasting all over Chris Brown’s “Look At Me Now,”  nothing hip-hop-related in 2011 has sent more shivers through my spine than the first time I saw the video for “Full Moon (Death Cassic).” In a genre that places such a high primary on the polished, final product, to hear something so damn immediate and confrontational is almost frightening.

16. Colin Stetson – New History Warfare Vol. II: Judges (Constellation)
Colin Stetson’s second solo LP received a surprising amount press for a largely instrumental collection of minimalist, solo saxophone compositions. However, Stetson’s circular breathing techniques haven’t just made him the most sought after sax man in the last decade, it also means that he can layer his own playing like a magician. The first spin of Stetson’s second album will be spent in awe–dude did most of this without overdubs, then you begin to appreciate the depth of his compositions. Stetson’s not just one of the absolute best horn blowers around, he knows how to construct compelling minimalist works.

15. Richard Buckner - Our Blood (Merge)

Richard Buckner’s Our Blood, the long-awaited follow-up to his 2006 release, is dip back into more experimental waters for the singer/songwriter. From the opening electronic sequences of “Traitor” to the strobbing organ pulses in “Gang,” Buckner fills out his spare arrangements and accents his gruff, but warm vocals with some less organic flourishes and makes this passion project feel more epic where it could have been almost claustrophobic in its intimacy.

14. Tom Waits - Bad As Me (ANTI-)
Tom Waits seems to have an uncanny ability to churn out serviceable material that plays to his strengths even if he can’t replicate the dizzying heights of his best albums. Bad As Me is easily the best thing the eccentric troubadour’s released since Mule Variations (1999). Waits gives us a little showcase of all his finest talents: tear-soaked torche songs (“Back in the Crowd”), rust-bucket blues–with a 20th century twist (“Bad As Me” and “Raised Right Man”) as well as Wait’s carnival barker mode (“Hell Broke Luce”).

13. Edward Gray – Old Bending River (self-released)
Possibly Iowa’s finest song writer is back again, after a five-year break, with another great collection rust-bucket alt-country. Though Gray doesn’t appear to have changed his worldview, Old Bending River is more tightly arranged and cleanly recorded. Just check the easy shuffle of the downtrodden ballad “Away,” bolstered by a slinky, super catchy guitar refrain. Even when things get a bit untethered it seems more immediate. Both “Bone” and especially “Cold Cold Man” wade out into frantic waters, but the saxophone wails and sludgy rhythm guitar work still have a certain sheen.

12. Angel Olsen - Strange Cacti (Bathetic Records)
Angel Olsen’s Strange Cacti is the aural equivalent of frosted glass on a friend’s place: you know the people and the basic stories which are obscured, you may even know what’s happening as you peer in. However, the specifics are just blurry enough to leave you guessing. Olsen’s voice feels far away, her imagery is vague, but effective. Strange Cacti is, on the surface, nothing remarkable, but the trembling vibrato in Olsen’s voice and evocative content of her lyrics communicate a real depth that makes the whole thing hard to forget even if you never knew the specifics.

11. Big K.R.I.T. – ReturnOf4eva (self-released)
Big K.R.I.T. had another big year after debuting strong with his Wuz Here mixtape in 2010: On top of this exceptional follow-up “tape,” K.R.I.T. dropped a four-song EP with soul group Grillade and a third mixtape, Last King 2 (God’s Machine). Without a doubt ReturnOf4Eva is K.R.I.T.’s most assured effort to date. 4Eva is split almost evenly between K.R.I.T.’s beard-stroking contemplation and his desire to see you “shake it.” 4Eva is at its finest when the MC slams the two together, back-to-back, a hard juxtaposition between his two, seemingly at war, personas; the finest one-two-punch is the the hand-waving, crowd-stirring anthem “Sookie Now” leading into a diatribe on the perils of the rap industry on “American Rapstar.”

The Atlas Moth – An Ache For the Distance (Profound Lore)
Chicago’s The Atlas Moth have been honing a bluesy brand of sludge for a few years, it’s pretty much as polished as sludge gets on the band’s sophomore release, An Ache For the Distance. Atlas Moth reintroduces some of the bluesy swagger to metal–harkening back to Sabbath and Zeppelin, giving the sludge all over Ache a real pulse. Because of this bluesy bluster Atlas Moth never gets lost in bong-ripped breakdowns other stoner-metal acts can get bogged-down in.

Alex Body – Cutting Down Camelot (self-released)

Alex Body’s latest, Cutting Down Camelot, is a phased-out wonder filled with some of the finest synth lines to come roaring out of a Midwestern basement in 2011. From the bubbly flow of “Easy Money” to the acid-dripping dirge of “The Light in the Mirror,” Body’s got a jam for just about any high your on.

Black Milk & Danny Brown – Black and Brown (Fat Beats)

Danny Brown went from best-kept-secret to everyone’s favorite rapper in 2011. While XXX is where you should go to get your pure, unfiltered Brown, the Detroit MC’s collaboration with his fellow Motor City DJ Black Milk is pretty darn good. Milk’s beats are a bit too basically banging and soul-looped to really encourage Brown’s vocal acrobatics, but basic Brown is still sweet.

James Blake – James Blake (Universal Republic)
I absolutely loved James Blake’s self-titled debut as snow still clung to the early edges of 2011, however, after about a dozen or so listens, the compositional holes really started to show on roughly half the album. The best stuff (“The Whilhelm Scream,” “Lindisfarme I & II,” “Limit to Your Love”) will probably swirl around in my head for years to come, but there’s far too much wasted space that feels flat and flabby.

Childish Gambino – EP (self-released)
Yeah, I found room in my heart for Donald Glover‘s horribly named rap alias, Childish Gambino. This transitional EP sits between the jokey stuff before and the self-serious mess–though not the travesty Pitchfork would have you think–debut LP Camp. Gambino takes hashtag rap to the damn hilt, but this is the first time in a while that a rapper’s set of references and worldview almost too neatly align with mine: no nagging homophobia or misogyny plus e.e. cummings and Freaks and Geeks references to boot.

Coppertone – Best of the First Six Months (Night-People)
Sasha Weisman (ex-Russian Tsarlag) has made such a beautiful collection of hissy, dreamy synth waves that I had to mention it despite the fact that this was released in late 2010. I rarely encourage piracy, but this wonderful tape is out of print and the youtube video below doesn’t do Weisman justice; downloads are all over the place.

Ryan Garbes – Sweet Hassle (Hello Sunshine)
When Ryan Garbes isn’t pounding skins for Wet Hair, dude makes some syrupy, shimmering gobs of psychedelic pop. Garbes’ Sweet Hassle is a wonderfully diverse collection, yet Garbes keeps the whole thing together nicely. The wound-up bounce of tracks like “Why” and “Whatever You Want” come equiped with the same wheezy synths and lo-fi veneer as the dopamine-dosed numbers like “Boys are Back” and “Slowing Down/The Walk.”

Jacaszek – Glimmer (Ghostly International)
Polish composer Michal Jacaszek isn’t charting new territory on Glimmer, but if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Glimmer is a sumptuous mix between acoustic and electronic instrumentation. Jacaszek relies on cellos just as much as synths for his deep, ominous drones, similarly, he’s just as apt to throw to a lute or a keyboard for the melodic leads. Jacaszek operates in the same sphere as other ambient electronic composers like Stars of the Lid: on the cusp between Brian Eno and Bach.

Zola Jesus - Conatus (Sacred Bones)
Though she’s lost some of the gritty, creepy intimacy of her earlier, lo-fi releases, Zola Jesus sounds at home in the heavily programmed–but a wee bit placid–soundscapes of Conatus. Her amazing, operatic vocals are now the only anchor, which is a mixed blessing. The voice shines through in the clean mix, but the same minimal arrangements do little to enhance the song. Not sure if it was better when it was all buried in lo-fi haze.

Glenn Jones – The Wanting (Thrill Jockey)

Since Jack Rose‘s untimely passing, there appears to be no more deserving or obvious heir apparent to John Fahey‘s throne than Glenn Jones. Jones’ fourth full-length is pure American Primitive. The guitarist takes complex chords and progressions and finds the simple beauty in breaking them down and then stretching them out wider than the horizon in Montana.

Sam Locke Ward/Toby Goodshank – Split 7″ EP (Slumber Party Records/Chthonic Records)

In 2011, Samuel Locke Ward teamed up with two odd-ball luminaries, first for a 7″ split with ex-Peaches guitarist Toby Goodshank. On his side, Locke Ward recruits Iowa City violinist Skye Carrasco and sax player Pete Balestreri for some of his most ornate tunes to date. Goodshank’s side is spare, lonely, and oddly beautiful

Samuel Locke Ward & The Boo Hoos/Joe Jack Talcum & The Powders – Just Add Tears (Grotto Records)

Second, Locke Ward got together with Dead Milkman leader Joe Jack Talcum for a split 12″. Locke Ward and his most recent outfit, The Boo Hoos, churn out seven barn burning power pop tunes including a recent live favorite “Do The Pinewood Box.” Talcum & The Powders (who are basically just Locke Ward & The Boo Hoos)

Locrian – The Clearing (Fan Death)

Calling Locrian’s latest album, The Clearing, metal is lazy. Sure, the Chicago troup definitely beats the hell out of their instruments, but the monastic bombast on “Chalk Point” or the rolling, five-minute ambient intro to the title track–which almost seamlessly leads into the torture-chamber of a song–says more than just metal. Locrian’s producing thick slabs of atmosphere to destroy your good mood.

Mandelbrot & Skyy – Od-Axis (Digitalis)

When I heard Jeff Witscher (Rene Hell) and Daren Ho (Driphouse, ex-Raccoo-oo-oon) were getting together to make beautiful music together, I nearly plotzed. While not quite the sum of the parts one may hope, this collaboration is a worthy entry into either one of these prolific composers catalogs. Seriously, if you spent even one night at an Iowa City basement show, you should just check this out.

Ela Orleans/Dirty Beaches – Double Feature (Night-People)

Ela Orleans’ A-side on this split 12″, Double Feature, is a wonder. If I didn’t dislike the Dirty Beaches’ B-side so much, this probably would have slid itself into the lower end of my top 20. The cloudy, hazy chamber-pop slathered on Orleans’ side is reminiscent of a lo-fi Nico; something slightly awkward and foreign yet strikingly beautiful.

The Roots – Undun (Def Jam)

I’m still tackling Undun, The Roots’ 10th studio LP, but I can say this one thing for certain: this is the first album from the Philadelphia hip-hop collective that is a must listen since 2002′s Phrenology. This is the group’s most exciting and experimental work since that 02 release. Beyond that, it’s also personal and moving. And, as a plus, it manages to avoid the clunky conventions of other story-based albums.

Russian Circles – Empros (Sargent House)

Russian Circles could probably churn out fantastic collections of instru-metal with its eyes closed. On its fourth LP, Empros, the group follows up the awesome Geneva, with maybe its strongest offering. Empros manages to showcase both Russian Circles’ growth but also their abilities to make post-rock metal accessible.   

The Skull Defekts – Peer Amid (Thrill Jockey)
Another favorite from the first half of the year. That this collection of Swedes got post-hardcore legend and avant-folky Daniel Higgs to record his first “rock” record since Lungfish‘s 2005 hiatus is almost all the justification required for an Honorable Mention. However, with Higgs spewing his stream of consciousness poetry all over these circular, psychedelic riffs, Peer Amid is compelling and rewarding experience. Here’s hoping there’s more where this came from.

Street Gnar – Poking the World With a Stick (Night-People)

Chock full of reverb-laden pop somewhere between the ambling guitar work of ’90s slackers and slinking, acid drenched garage rock of the ’60s, Brooklyn’s Street Gnar has a lo-fi masterpiece in Poking the World With a Stick.

YOB – Atma (Profound Lore)

Man, the Pacific Northwest has to be going deaf with the glut of great metal happening up there. With vocals pitched between the banchy howls of ’80s English metal and the growls of more contemporary death and black metal–plus instrumentation to match, there’s a reason YOB has graced so many year-end lists: it’s hitting just about every metal head sweet spot.

10 (tie). Dylan Brody - A Twist of Wit (Stand Up! Records)
Dylan Brody, maybe more than anyone on this list, oddly enough, is an acquired taste. The first of several entries on my top ten who is definitely in the more vague performance art territory than specifically a stand up (though his third album was released by Stand Up! Records). Brody’s A Twist of Wit is in all actuality, a reading. The whole thing may need a humidifier, but there are plenty of laughs and a wonderful perspective to be found.

10 (tie). Melinda Hill - The Accidental Bi-Sexual (Stand Up! Records)
Melinda Hill’s second album, The Accidental Bi-Sexual, is a wonderful collection of essays about Hill’s journey through sexual awkwardness and misadventure. Like Brody above, it’s not stand-up in the classic sense, though Hill’s essays are still full of great beats and hilarious moments. I wasn’t able to find much of Hill’s material online and rather than misrepresent her with her older, still formative, stand-up, I’m posting this really silly video of Hill with Kristin Wiig performing at The Groundlings Theater in LA.

9. Pete Holmes - Impregnated With Wonder (Comedy Central Records)

Pete Holmes is kind of an odd man out here. Holmes seems least angry about the absurdities and injustices he sees around him. Most of the things are too ingrained in society to fix, so Holmes just leads you in laughing. Holmes really shines when he digs deep into laughing alone, Youtube comments, magicians, and how Google has destroyed our sense of wonder.

8. Jamie Kilstein - Libel, Slander & Sedition (Stand Up! Records)
Jamie Kilstein is not for everyone. Many comics like to make these claims, but few actually walk audience members during the taping of their albums. Kilstein is the radical kind of liberal who annoys many–including moderate Democrats–to almost no end, however, his grating rage is chased with a solid shot of self-loathing and biting humor. Between counting the departing audience members and questioning the liberal credentials of Obama, Kilstein also crams a really wonderful story about his relationship with his father

7. The Sklar Brothers - Hendersons and Daughters (Stand Up! Records)

In some ways the Skar Brother’s third album is the most conventional on the list, but even within the elongated observational pieces, the twins delve deeper into Google, the Kardashians, and Hoarders in four or five minutes per bit than most comics could get in a whole hour. Beyond that, their takes on kids’ jokes and fairy tales find the right balance between irreverent and warm.

6. Wyatt Cenac - Comedy Person (Comedy Central Records)
On the surface, Wyatt Cenac’s debut album looks like it’s about to be one long referential slog. Thankfully that is so far from the case. Cenac could coast on his Daily Show accolades, but he brings his A-game. Cenac’s 8 minutes on a cat video on Youtube is almost perfectly paced and manages to encompass so much of life; it’s an examination of the comic himself, society, technology, race, the president. Finding the world in a cat video is either the heart of comedy or academia, this is mostly the former but there’s a nice dose of the latter.

5. Tig Notaro - Good One (Secretly Canadian)

Good One is about the best foot forward a veteran comic could put forward on her debut album. Notaro’s epic Taylor Dane bit (posted below) is worth the price of the album alone. It’s comedy story telling 101. There are beats and jokes plugged in, but the bulk of the story’s success relies on Notaro’s impeccable timing, which is a constant throughout the aptly titled Good One.

4. Patton Oswalt – Finest Hour (Comedy Central Records)
Patton Oswalts’ fourth (or fifth album, depending on who you ask) album, Finest Hour, is the first that doesn’t find the comic on a significantly different level. That being said, Oswalt is still one of the best American comics who could churn out quality observations on sweat pants, stereotypical portraits of gays in Hollywood, Weight Watchers, New York City, and a very special screening of Jerry Maguire. Very few comics are as dependably great as Oswalt right now.

3. Marc Maron - This Has To Be Funny (Comedy Central Records)
Marc Maron’s fourth album could have been so many different kinds of catastrophe. With his newfound success in podcasting and an elevated profile he’s not had in years, Maron’s characteristic narcissism and self-destructive tendancies could have ruined This Has To Be Funny. However, Maron made them the anchors that grounded the whole affair–making his weaknesses his strengths and putting up the best hour of his career. With all his newly acquired cultural currency, Maron made a significant investment and reminded us that he’s not only a self-centered and brilliant interviewer, but a wonderful comic in rare form. 

2. Eddie Pepitone – A Great Stillness (self-released)
Eddie Pepitone might be the definition of a comic’s comic: thoughtful, acerbic, confrontational, and experimental. A Great Stillness, Pepitone’s sophomore album, is all the best parts of Pepitone. He showcases his rafter rattling anger, his search for a spiritual center, his conflicted relationship with new media (the stack of papers in his hand at right are his tweets), and his own personal demons (the end of the show is just north of 10 minutes of the comic heckling himself).

1. Mike Birbiglia – Sleepwalk With Me, Live (Comedy Central Records)
I already said that finding another comedy recording that I’d love more than Mike Birbiglia’s live recording of his off-Broadway show Sleepwalk With Me would be difficult, and low and behold, it still sits atop my favorite funny albums list. Sleepwalk With Me is more akin to Spalding Gray‘s shows than Richard Pryor on the Sunset Strip; it’s deeply emotional and confessional but while revealing so much about himself and his sleepwalking disorder, Birbiglia finds loads of laughs.

If you’re wondering about the absence of Louis C.K.’s Hilarious, I covered the special in my films list from 2010 and I didn’t actually listen to the album.

Honorable Mentions (listed alphabetically): David Huntsberger – Humanitis (Stand Up! Records), Norm MacDonald – Me Doing Stand Up (Comedy Central Records), T.J. Miller – The Extended Play EP (Comedy Central Records), Patrice O’Neal – Elephant in the Room (Comedy Central Records) Tommy Ryman - Bath Time With Tommy Ryman (Stand Up! Records), Amy Schumer – Cutting (Comedy Central Records), Rory Scovel – Dilation (Stand Up! Records), Doug Stanhope – Oslo: Burning the Bridge to Nowhere (The All Blacks B.V.), “Weird Al” Yankovic - Alpocalypse (Volcano Records), Comedians You Should Know (The Red Bar Comedy Record Label)

*I have to give a shout out to Laughspin, many of the streaming tracks from Soundcloud were uploaded by those fine folks.

*Every album on the top 10, except Pepitone’s, can be found streaming on Spotify.

Chicago math rockers T’bone make complex grooves for the kids who just barely passed Algebra II. Mt. Trashmore tracks tend to fall into one of two categories: pulsating jams with fairly conventional structures and completely or largely instrumental exercises punctuated with bellowed non-sequiturs.  The trio–Ed Bornstein on drums, Pat McPartland on guitar, and Leland Meiners on bass–pack a lot of ideas into a song, time signature and key changes abound, but they went for the populist jugular on the lyrics. Just get an earfull of the cock-rock riffage and chanted insults in “Doored by a Cop.” The slippery swagger of the album’s second cut bolsters the silly anti-police rhetoric, gives the hollered, taunting lyrics a real strut and purpose, even if the vague details don’t really say what’s happening.

The real gem among gems on T’bone’s debut is the title track. “Mt. Trashmore” barrels down the road on a chugging riff that’d feel at home as the b-side to Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town.” It even features bass and guitar doubling a lick and sliding it up the scale. The reckless, silly abandon on the album never feels as immediately appealing, the band’s ode to it’s home town, Cedar Rapids, IA (repleate with shouts to the main drags), is so loving that if I’d had this blaring from my Plymoth Voyager as I cruised up 380 to the Wynsong for a movie, I might have more fond memories of my teen-aged angst in suburban Eastern Iowa.

(I predict, that in Cedar Rapids at least, “stuck in fifth season” will become the motto for those awaiting escape to college or the bright lights of a big city.) As much as T’bone have their tongues planted in cheek for most of their shouts and call and response lyrics, there is something poetic in the silliness of “Mt. Trashmore.” Despite how hard they may have tried to avoid saying something, and “Trashmore” isn’t a clear statement, there’s a real feeling, a sense of place and detail that even the effectively erie “Deerblood” doesn’t quite capture. There’s a reason beyond recognizing many of the cited places and landmarks, that I’ve listened to the title track at least two times more than any other cut on Mt. Trashmore. Like “Glory Days,” “The Boys Are Back in Town,” and other classic rock anthems our fathers hold up as real feeling and real music, I find a bit more here than just the rose-colored memories of wasted nights rolling down suburban streets. There’s an endless potential to being trapped in your hometown; high school graduation, college, all the insanity you’ll have as an adult, not to mention the fact that soul-crushing service industry jobs seem like a means to an end and less of an end. However, there’s a chance that I’ve imbued all of this with my own frustrations, but a song that allows the listener that kind of room to root around in is always greater than one which defers investment, solves problems for you, or denies your emotional attachment.
If Mt. Trashmore has any great failing, it’s the same one had on many of the albums I’ve heard from friends and peers lately, there are one or two songs on the album which so far outshine the rest of the material as to make them seem weak, pallid or even plain bad in comparison.

T’bone will hit the road for their Occupy Subaru Midwestern tour starting Wednesday. You can pick up one of the limited edition vinyl pressings of Mt. Trashmore at all of the band’s stops, so find ‘em in a Midwestern city near you (you can also score a digital copy here and order the cassette or vinyl here):

11/16: Chicago, IL – Crown Tap w/Christmas Bride, Unmanned Ship, King Tut’s Tomb
11/17: Milwaukee, WI – Quarter’s Rock Palace w/Temple, Sonic J, Living and Wrestling
11/18: Minneapolis, MN – Medusa w/ Miami Dolphins, TBA
11/19: Minneapolis, MN – Kitty Kat Club w/ Miami Dolphins, Tba
11/20: Omaha, NE – Sandboxxx w/ Yuppies, SSP, The Liz
11/21 Lawrence, KS – Location TBA w/ Major Games, Muscle Worship
11/23: Iowa City, IA – Little Village Live @ Public Space One (Tune into live feed at 5pm on 89.7 FM or get the stream from KRUI’s website.)
11/23: Cedar Rapids, IA – Tornados w/Michael-Sarah, DJs Marco Waller/Zac Naughton
11/25: Iowa City, IA – The Mill w/ Solid Attitude, Alex Body
11/26:  TBA (either Carbondale, IL or St. Louis, MO)

when ATF Agent Joseph Keenen (John Goodman) is called about the shenanigans and general goings-on at Five Points Church. When that happens Smith just has to let us know it’s at 4:47 a.m. with an obnoxious intertitle, a technique not used before or any time again during the entire run of the film. Why is it so important to know when Agent Keenen is roused from sleep? Moreover, we’re given so much expository information from dialogue, why not have the character complain about the god awful hour? This kind of specificity actually raises more questions than it attempts to answer, and in a movie so carefully plotted out until this point, it seems odd to think that Smith wanted to pass along this specific information. And if it’s so damn important that we know about this, why does Keenen have a fairly leisurely breakfast, with lots and lots of natural light, indicating at least an hour has passed since he was stirred from sleep for an emergency of such gravity?
When Keenen and his agents finally arrive on the scene outside Five Points, at an unspecified time, we don’t get an establishing shot of the compound. The layout of the interior, which we get a tour of early on, is unclear, but the labyrinthine design is meant to heighten the confusion and panic of the boys trying to escape, however, outside, we are not treated to even a cursory run down of the compound. We don’t know where the agents are in relation to the church, we see various locales like a stable, large storage containers, gates, and haphazardly constructed barricades; but these pieces are never really put together. This is something a filmmaker can and should do. Where are we? When you’re dealing with the ATF and establishing their location over a series of exterior shots, there’s no reason we can’t be situated on the compound with one location relative to another; this is just sloppy and doesn’t serve the film or the audience in any way.
The primary stand off itself is even fairly confusing. A conflict like this, between only two opposing forces, is a lot like dialogue: shot-reverse-shot. It’s a simple back and forth.  Yet within this simple binary, Smith has trouble orienting all the players. Viewers have become more savvy as cinema has evolved, and many of the basic rules of cinema construction are understood, even if they aren’t dissected, however, with only a couple extra seconds of footage to establish relation and location, the viewer wouldn’t have to spend several extra seconds trying to decipher how two characters are conversing with one another. There’s a sequence fairly early in the standoff when Abin Cooper (Michael Parks) and his daughter Sara (Melissa Leo) dodge bullets and discuss how God will reward them for dying as martyrs. This should be laid out as carefully and thoughtfully as a back and forth over tea. Even though bullets are darting through the window, we should still KNOW where these two are, at least in relation to one another, if not actually place them in the compound somewhere specifically.
The first shot in the sequence of medium shots is of Cooper taking and returning fire with the ATF. After unloading one shot, we cut to Sara entering the frame.
We can make a lot of assumptions here. The lighting is similar, the room appears to be the same as the one Cooper is occupying in the previous shot, the stucco just outside the window looks very similar, she looks past the camera as though she’s acknowledging a human, however, we don’t know any of those things. Cut to Cooper dodging an ATF bullet.
And here, Cooper appears to acknowledge his daughter, but again, we don’t know any of this. As of now, these two things may be happening simultaneously, but we don’t even know that. Cut to Sara as she finally addresses her father.
Sara speaks fairly quietly, especially given all the gun fire and commotion, so once again, we can assume that she is close to her father. We can also assume that those familiar looks were to one another. Cut to the reverse shot which will give us our first real indication of the proximity between father and daughter.
In the bottom, left-hand corner of the shot, we can make out what appears to be Sara’s shoulder or elbow. After all of these assumptions, I think it’s safe to say, we understand where Smith has placed this pair in relation to one another, but it never gets clearer than this. We are never treated to a wide shot with both of them solidly in the frame so that we can understand that only the window and the frame are separating them. If Smith wanted to maintain the frantic pace of this scene (these shots are stuffed into a mere five seconds), one of these shots could have shown the whole tableaux instead of leaving this odd gray area where two people are most likely talking to one another from only a few feet away. We can still feel the frenetic and horrific violence and action without loosing this simple continuity.
But this sequence is minor compared to what comes a few minutes later. One of Cooper’s other daughters, Esther (Jennifer Shawlbach Smith), and her husband, Mordechai (James Parks), have an extended sequence where Smith can’t orient them within the compound to save his basic filmmaking sense.
We begin with a close up of an opaque head peering through a window:
In the name of confusion, Smith has a jump cut to a wider “establishing shot” of this same window being flecked with gun fire:
Thus far, we can assume we’re looking into the compound, what with the sign with “Condemn All” written on it and such; however, we don’t know where this window is or are we certain who’s head was peaking out in the previous shot. (Not a problem to have  a little confusion, it just gets worse as we go along.)
Classically, when you see bullets strike something or some one followed by a cut to a person firing a weapon, the audience is meant to interpret that as a causal chain of events: we saw bullets breaking that class, then a shot of Abin Cooper firing a rifle, therefore Cooper must have been shooting at that window. We can further infer that the opaque head we saw peering through the class earlier was that of an ATF agent who had snuck into the compound without the viewers or the Five Points believers knowing.
Cut to Mordechai breaking the glass and grid from the frame. Now we know who’s head we saw three shots back, but was Cooper really unloading on his son-in-law?
Cut to Cooper as he dodges glass or gun fire? He’s reacting to something, but it’s not totally clear what that something is and since we’ve just seen Mordechai break the glass, there’s a chance that he’s trying avoid being hit by that.
Cut to a medium shot of Esther unloading a few rounds. Again, we’ve established a bit of a shot-reverse-shot pattern here, Smith has opened up the possibility of a mutiny since there’s a safe assumption that Cooper was the one firing at the window.
Jump cut to Esther, now on the right third of the screen instead of the center, still in mid fire. By nature, this jump cut does nothing to clear up the confusion. Esther is still potentially spraying automatic rounds in her father’s direction.
Cut to Mordechai shooting in profile. Again, clarity alludes the viewer.
For good measure, Smith is going to get full coverage of Mordechai firing at something. Cut now to Mordechai shooting directly into the camera. This shot is followed by an almost imperceptalbe shot of Mordechai backing to the wall for cover from a rain of bullets. Five straight shots that have done nothing to assuage the viewer that there is a potential mutiny; even though the prevailing logic is that this is just a causally problematic spatial relation and Cooper’s family is still with him fighting the ATF. 10 seconds have ellapsed since Smith implicitly planted the idea of a mutiny in the viewers’ heads, we cut from Mordechai seeking cover behind the window frame to the first implication of clarity.
Cooper barks orders to off screen right, yelling to Mordachai to go to the “top of the Crown.” It’s an order that’s confusing to the audience because we don’t know what the crown is, but that at least lets us know that Cooper, his daughter, and son-in-law are still on the same side.
Cut to Mordechai and Esther receiving the orders and running off obediently. Maybe only Christopher Nolan and Michael Bay can cram more confusing, continuity defying shots into a shorter amount of time.
This head-scratching 15 seconds is followed by Mordechai and Esther arming up through a series of jump cuts. Seriously, a nearly 15-second series of nothing but jump cuts. A shot usually meant to convey some sort of emotional or mental slippage is used to create an odd sense of tension, but succeeds in being more baffling than unnerving. I’m not going to trot out stills, jump cuts don’t communicate very well in a series of stills. Plus, some of the shot lengths are so brief as to make it nearly impossible to get a screen grab of them. And to truly understand how baffling the sequence is, you need to see each and every shot in all of its baffling glory.
I could spend another couple thousand words on a few other lesser scenes, but that would be focusing more on aesthetic choices rather than actively bucking decades of cinematic linguistic tradition or the stupefying inclusion of one intertitle. There’s also a lot to recommend the film for. Red State offers as many solid arguments for why Smith should continue to make films as damning reasons for him to just stick to podcasting. In this case, dissecting the glaring failures in Red State were too interesting for me to spend much time heralding the 45-50 minutes he got right.