I was really involved in my own stuff this year so I didn’t get much time to listen to new music. I know for a fact there are some great records I just didn’t get a chance to listen to this year. So of the albums I actually listened to this year these are my favorites.

Knife Man – Andrew Jackson Jihad Andrew Jackson Jihad’s music has a way of getting straight to your heart and wrenching it around. Before this I had really only heard People That Can Eat People Are the Luckiest People in the World (or PTCEPATLPITW) so I wasn’t sure how their music would translate to electric guitars and drums, but I wasn’t disappointed. Also, the pitch shift in Back Pack is the best part of the whole album.

Empty Days & Sleepless Nights – Defeater I like this album for all the same reasons I liked Lost Ground and Travels before that. This one follows the life of the elder brother from Travels giving a much needed insight to that character. However, the best part of this album is the group of acoustic songs at the end. They are so full of emotion and power it’s almost difficult to listen to. Not fitting exactly into the chronology they more play on the themes and certain events within the story.

Hypersleep – VYGR I couldn’t stop listening to this album, there was a good two months of this year where VYGR was the only band I listened to. The album is incredibly heavy but still manages to be atmospheric and spacey. Everything sounds huge and it fits perfectly with their dark futuristic space travel concept.

Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light 1 – Earth, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming – m83, King of Limbs – Radiohead, Empros – Russian Circles Angles – The Strokes, Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me – Touché Amoré

I would also like to mention the bands Airs and Sun Devoured Earth, both are consistently putting out great music at a ridiculous pace, these guys have some serious work ethic. What I admire most is their DIY business model, they do everything themselves and ask for nothing in return, literally nothing you can get all their music for free here and here. However, if you really like them you can choose to throw some money their way in the form of bonus content or just the physical media of your favorite album.    

I built a clone of the Z. Vex Wooly Mammoth for a friend. Mimi hand painted the enclosure with acrylic paint. It looks and sounds awesome.

Really I didn’t actually go and listen to all these albums, but I feel pretty safe in assuming that Nickelback never rose above Nickelback.

Although I will admit, I really like the title track off Dark Horse!

Worked on the designs for all my pedals.

Reworked not only the design for the outside of the Tube Screamer (now Green Skreamer) but also the mods. I got rid of the 808 to 9 switches as they didn’t do much and replaced it with a starve control that starves the circuit of power, essentially simulating a dying battery. You can get some great sounds with that control. As well I put in a filter switch, apparently the Tube Screamer has a built in filter at 800Hz! By flipping the switch you can bring it down to 250Hz a much more reasonable frequency for guitar. These two switches drastically change the sound of the pedal and for the better in my opinion, where as the 808 to 9 switches were too subtle. Also rather than the confusing letters representing diodes I just simplified the sides to clean and distorted.

At the same time I started building guitar pedals I bought a bunch of toys with the intention of circuit bending them. Unfortunately I really haven’t gotten around to them, so they have just been sitting in my closet collecting dust. I have done a few simple little things though.

Mimi got me this little Casio PT-100 for 10 dollars at a thrift store. It sounds totally badass, but it doesn’t have any line outs and my tone shaping options are severely limited with only 8 different samples and a rhythm section.  So I did a quick little mod grabbing the connections to the internal speaker and wiring them to a 1/4″ jack. I made sure to connect them back to the speaker also, because it actually sounds pretty cool by itself. Where I was once limited I can now run the keyboard through my guitar pedals or even directly into my computer with a DI.

There are certainly a lot of more interesting modifications I could do to this, but I am a little hesitant as it is my only hardware synthesizer right now, and I broke the last keyboard on my first attempt at circuit bending.

This was my second attempt and circuit bending and my first successful one. It is a little steering wheel with various car noises. The two switches basically cause feedback loops, and are essentially the same. With only one or the other switched they sound exactly the same, and with both on everything gets just a little bit louder, with the exception of the red button on the left side, which makes a completely different, screeching noise. I don’t really know what I did, how or why it works, but that is part of the fun and mystery of circuit bending. Don’t let and nerds tell you different.

I plan to post some recordings later this week.

I just got two tape machines for free! Unfortunately neither of them are working, but hopefully fixing them shouldn’t be too much trouble. The larger one is a TEAC A-4010s and the other is an Ampex 800. I have already started on the TEAC, everything powers up and the transport works fine it just needs a new capstan belt, and a lot of cleaning up.

The Ampex on the other hand doesn’t power up at all, and needs a lot more work. It may have to be scrapped for parts, depending on the cost of fixing it.  It sure is classy though, if not a little gross.

- On the knuckles of my left hand the letters H.A.T.E., on my right H.A.T.E.

- A whole tribe

- On my lower back: “waiting for marriage”

- barbed wire around my nipples

- A to scale tattoo of my baby’s face, on my face

- “GOD BLESS AMERICA” in kanji

- clues to the identity of my wife’s murderer

- the letters H.A.R.D. C.O.R.E. written across my toe knuckles

- 16th notes EVERYWHERE

- large eyes on my back, to ward off predators

This is a modified Tube Screamer that I built for a guitarist I did a recording project with earlier in 2010.

So what is it? This is a Tube Screamer 808 clone with a set of simple mod switches. The 3 knobs on the left and the circuit inside are the same as a Tube Screamer 808. The middle two switches flip between the “vintage” ts808 circuit and the more modern ts9. Since the difference was only two resistors, I was excited to hear the difference, and switch between them. Unfortunately it turns out the main difference between the two circuits is the opamp used and not the circuit design. I spent a long time switching between the two settings and there is a difference, but it is very subtle. The 808 setting smooths the highs slightly the 9 has a tighter low end than the 808.

The 3 right most switches, change the diodes in the Tube Screamer’s clipping section, essentially changing the distortion. The “S” setting on the right of all the switches is the stock tube screamer silicon 1N914 diode, common in many other guitar pedals. The “G” setting on the top two switches replaces the 1N914 with a germanium 1N34A diode. Flipping the first switch filters out some of the low end, and can clear up the tone a little bit depending on your amp. The second switch filters out the low frequencies similar to the first switch and some top end leaving a more midrangey sound. At the same time this switch also changes the distortion tone, giving it a little more bite, and the way the sound decays, creating a slightly more clipped, gritty sound. The final switch, changes between a symmetrical and an asymmetrical clipping by completely removing a diode and replacing it with bare wire. This mellows out the high end and the distortion a little. Because the way diodes work there will be a pop and a volume difference when you flip any of the right 3 switches so they are not really good for switching while playing but, choosing the tone you like for the particular song/set you are playing.

The knobs and switches are labeled using small pieces of paper that are taped on with scotch tape. Originally I planned to use some classy slide off decals, the kind that are used on fancy models, but it was a total pain in the ass and didn’t work at all. First the ink printed poorly and didn’t dry very well into the paper, then when I dipped it in water all the ink dissipated. Even after that the decal peeled right off the pedal when it dried. I know people have done this with great success and I have some ideas as to where I messed up, but it is not something I want to revisit anytime soon.

Écailles De Lune – Alcest As with many albums that came out this year, this one shows Neige growing musically and really finding his sound. Where Souvenirs D’un Autre Monde seemed a little rough around the edges and Amesoeurs got it mostly right, Écailles De Lune really feels like it is a completion of the sound he was searching for accurately merging elements of shoegaze and black metal into one beautiful, dreamy medley. While mostly inseparably merged together, there will be occasional segments of blistering black metal that will break free from the songs, this may seem jarring but is necessary to break up the album where the dreamy effected wash can get tiresome.

The Monitor – Titus Andronicus My first play through of this album left me really unimpressed, however I kept coming back to this album for “No Future Part Three” and “A Pot in Which to Piss” where singer Patrick Stickles’ mournful crooning really shines. On second and third listens I found similarities to Neutral Milk Hotel in style, performance, and composition. Especially exciting was a guitar tone that I love from ITAOTS, sounding similar to grinding gravel across a speaker cone. Not to say that these guys really sound much like Neutral Milk Hotel, but I assume they know the works of the band well. They perform with an emotion and intelligence that you probably wouldn’t expect from a bunch of history nerds. You can check the music video for the first single off the record “A More Perfect Union” here.

Recitation – Envy I cannot believe that this album is the first I have heard of this band. Envy plays a very emotional hardcore where you can really feel the sentiment behind the song. They truly understand the power of dynamics and go from quiet subtle beauty to full on brutality and back again. I don’t know how much I can gush about this album before it starts to negate the effectiveness of my praise but I really can’t express how great this album is. Listen for yourself on the band’s website.

This Is Happening – LCD Soundsystem This album is so far from “Tribulations” and the much dancier self-titled album and yet actually very similar. James Murphy has grown so much since the first LCD release and this album really shows it. As you would expect from LCD lyrically the album is full of heartfelt lyrics expressed in a truthful and somewhat uncomfortably candid way. If you listen to one song from 2010 make it “Home”.

(II) – Toundra – just straight up awesome post-rock

Comadre/Glasses – Split EP – Comadre just keeps getting better and better, and Glasses is probably one of the best new hardcore bands of this year

Crystal Castles – Crystal Castles – bad-ass abrasive electronic destruction, I am one of the few that likes this album better than their first (I hated it)

A Determinism of Morality – Rosetta – an amazing emotional post-rock/hardcore hybrid

Failures – Millions of Them – brutal mathy hardcore with some great tones and grooves

Full of Hell – Howl – great metal, full of extra chunky riffs

Kvelertak – Kvelertak – at its base hard rock, but heavily influenced by hardcore and black metal

Push Pull – Punch – fast and brutal hardcore

Something For Everybody – Devo – Devo still has it, they never lost it! Devo tells us how stupid we all are and we love it

The Suburbs – Arcade Fire – Arcade Fire continues to impress everyone with their beautiful and frightening music

Maiestrit – Negură Bunget – great atmospheric black metal

Messy isn’t It? – Dangers – Dangers provides a fast paced chaotic hardcore, with mean spirited yet honest and concious lyrical content

To All My Friends – Atmosphere – Atmosphere continues to stay awesome with no signs of slowing