Rain's Top 10 Albums from 2018

1. Shannon & the Clams - Onion               

Yearning. The way the light plays off their hair. The taste of their cherry Chapstick still lingering about your lips on the long walk home. The exciting smell of their sweat. Feeling guilty/not guilty about stealing a their shirt and sleeping with it beneath your pillow. Yearning. Secret middle of the night phonecalls made at a prearranged time that takes forever to arrive so you never can get to sleep or back to sleep and it just doesn't matter. What would their dad do to you if he found out? The fear. The excitement. Yearning.

2. Hawthonn - Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing) 

Springtime roots stretch out to strangle. Summertime river plots your murder. Autumn reminds you of decline. Winter simply buries you.

3. Jonny Greenwood - Phantom Thread (OST)   

Amble without purpose or direction. Spend a day watching yesterday's cold rain transform into today's sunlit steam. Say "fuck it" and believe it since it's a goddamn miracle you're even alive to experience feelings of frustration, worry, and fear. Listen to this album. It was a mantra for a lighter disposition for me this year.

4. Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mundo       

Profile : strong hints of copal, palo santo, petrichor, musk, jasmine, leather, smoky mescal, and glitter.

5. Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

Burn the house down. Drive to the desert. Burn the car. Walk. Find a cave. Start another fire. Drink your bottle down. Shoot your bottle. Take a shard and kill a snake. Eat the snake. Be the snake. Crawl into the fire. Abyss.

6. A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Forest Bathing    

      

If I were a LARPer, I'd listen to nothing but these guys while my squire tended to my styrofoam sword and shield.

7. Otto Lindholm - Alter               

Every night I dream of a approaching wave, thousands of feet high. Sometimes I make the futile effort to get to higher ground. Sometimes, I turn my back to it and sit on the ground. Sometimes, I face it as it slowly approaches, rising above me. I always wake at the deafening moment of impact.

8. Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy (OST)    

His completed project before his death at an early age this year. Strong to the end.

9. Tom Yorke - Suspiria (OST)    

10. Alison Cotton - All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre  

Rain's 1st Quarter of 2018's Shining Gems

Jonny Greenwood's OST for Phantom Thread

"Onion" by Oakland's Shannon and the Clams is my pre-summer feel good album.

"The Hands" by Fire! sets a good dark jazz atmosphere. Don't know what it is about me lately but the "dark jazz" really gets me...

"Hades" by Constantine is some moody sit in the dark music.

As is "Alter" by Otto Lindholm (which is my favourite album of the year so far). Deep drone-y double bass haunted house shit...

The Various Artists compilation "In Death's Dream Kingdom" is just what you'd expect and I dig it...

...and GODDAMN, the new Yo La Tengo album "There's A Riot Going On" brings back the mellow Yo La Tengo that I fell in love with many years ago. Some banal lyric writing but that's forgivable...

...

On the cusp: Mount Eerie's "Now Only" but it's too much like Mount Eerie and not enough new and I find myself listening to it in the same way that I'll mindlessly eat an entire bag of Annie's cheddar bunnies without taking any pleasure from the act...

???

Big Disappointment: "All Nerve" by the Breeders. A few seconds of that old familiar hooky sound in an hour of chasing the ghost. Walk away, Kim. Walk away...

Shannon And The Clams - "Sleep Talk"

I picked up Shannon And The Clams debut, I Wanna Go Home, after a great set at last year's Bender. And now she is back with another slab of retro garage pop, and judging by the lead single, this album will be even better. However, judging from the album art, it could be a little creepier, which isn't too surprising since lately she's been playing with the wonderfully sleazy Hunx And His Punx. "Sleep Talk" (mp3) starts out a yearning stroll that slowly ratchets up the emotion until the vocals are up in red. The album come out April 5th on 1-2-3-4 Go! Records. In the meantime, if you are lucky, you can catch Shannon out on tour with the Hunx and Clams.

SMMR BMMR DMMR BMMR

SMMR BMMR DMMR BMMR is Portland's summer celebration of sloppy, loud, and scuzzy rock n' roll. I missed it last year and chances are I'll miss it again, but not because the talent. I've seen and loved a couple of the bands before (Shannon & The Clams, Pure Country Gold, Mean Jeans, Pity Fucks) and a few more are on my must see list (Bare Wires, White Fang). I'm sure I'll discover a couple new favorites if I can squeeze it in.