2013: a year in music.

top/favourite albums of the year

01. Cold Spring Fault Less Youth, Mount Kimbie (Warp)

So I guess this marks the second year that my top LP of the year is claimed by Warp, which I can't say I didn't see coming. I've seen Mount Kimbie perform live three times since November of last year - opening for Squarepusher at New York's Terminal 5 alongside Bonobo and Holy Fuck in the fall of 2012, headlining Philadelphia's Union Transfer the night before The Roots Picnic in May of this year with Holy Other and Vinyl Williams as support, and playing at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh this past October - and every time they've offered a fresh, new experience of their music. "Home Recording" is a perfect opener, the drop in "Break Well" (at approximately 2:35) is one of the  most satisfying of the year, "Made to Stray" has one of the most gigantic and pleasurable build-ups, "So Many Times, So Many Ways" is a jam and when played live really showcases Dom and Kai's talent with their instruments - I could go on, but really, you should be listening to this album right now if you haven't.

02. Fade, Yo La Tengo (Matador)

This is one of the most cohesive albums of the year and an exacting distillation of Yo La Tengo's quieter, more contemplative sound. From Ira, Georgia, and James' anthemic chorus on "Ohm" to Georgia's cooing on "Cornelia and Jane," there is nary a moment in which the listener isn't engaged or a weak track to speak of.

03. Overgrown, James Blake (Republic)

James proves he's not averse to taking risks, and the new sonic territory compliments his delicate but forceful voice to positive results. Lines that will undoubtedly get stuck in your head: "Time passes in the constant state" (from the title track) and "So show me where you fit" (among others, from the first single "Retrograde") "His work with RZA on "Take a Fall for Me" and Brian Eno on "Digital Lion" is quite thrilling.

04. Hummingbird, Local Natives (Frenchkiss)

Borne out of loss, this is one of the most inspiring and life-affirming albums of the year. Soaring vocals and crushing instrumentals, if "Colombia" doesn't move you, I don't know what will.

05. Apocalypse, Thundercat (Brainfeeder)

With Apocalypse, Thundercat continues to cement his status of one of the best (and most adventurous) bass players working today, not to mention showing his adeptness at creating strong, catchy pop songs ("Heartbreaks + Setbacks" is one of the year's best) and club bangers ("Oh Sheit, It's X!" is just too much fun). Oh, and "Lotus and the Jondy" is a jam. Another record borne out of loss, Apocalypse is also a loving tribute to labelmate, frequent collaborator, and friend Austin Peralta.

06. Monomania, Deerhunter (4AD)

recommended: "The Missing," "Pensacola," "Back to the Middle"

07. Cupid Deluxe, Blood Orange (Domino)

recommended: "Chamakay," "You're Not Good Enough," "Time Will Tell"

08. Tomorrow's Harvest, Boards of Canada (Warp)

recommended: "Jacquard Causeway," "Palace Posy," "Nothing is Real"

09. Settle, Disclosure (Cherrytree/Interscope)

recommended: "When A Fire Starts to Burn," "Latch," "White Noise," "You & Me"

10. m b v, My Bloody Valentine (self-released)

recommended: "She Found Now," "Only Tomorrow," "Wonder 2"

11. The North Borders, Bonobo (Ninja Tune)

recommended: "First Fires," "Cirrus," "Towers"

12. No Better Time Than Now, Shigeto (Ghostly)

recommended: "Detroit Part 1," "Ringleader," "Olivia"

13. Matangi, M.I.A. (N.E.E.T./Interscope)

recommended: "MATANGI," "Come Walk With Me," "Y.A.L.A."

14. Anything in Return, Toro y Moi Carpark)

recommended: "Harm In Change," "Say That," "Never Matter"

15. Jai Paul, Jai Paul (self-released/leaked)

recommended: "Str8 Outta Mumbai," "Crush," "All Night"

16. BEYONCÉ, Beyoncé (Parkwood/Columbia)

recommended: "Drunk In Love," "Blow," "XO"

17. Yeezus, Kanye West (Roc-A-Fella/Def Jam)

recommended: "Black Skinhead," "New Slaves," "Blood on the Leaves," "Bound 2"

18. Mala, Devendra Banhart (Nonesuch)

recommended: "Daniel," "Für Hildegard von Binge," "Your Fine Petting Duck"

19. Hanging Gardens, Classixx (Innovative Leisure)

recommended: "Hanging Gardens," "All You're Waiting For" (feat. Nancy Whang), "Holding On"

20. Wakin on a Pretty Daze, Kurt Vile (Matador)

recommended: "Wakin on a Pretty Day," "KV Crimes," "Air Bud"

HMs. Hymnal, Benoît Pioulard (Kranky)

Immunity, Jon Hopkins (Domino)

Sing to the Moon, Laura Mvula (Columbia)

Run the Jewels, Run the Jewels (Fool's Gold)

Free Your Mind, Cut Copy (Modular)

A Quiet Darkness, Houses (Downtown)

Berberian Sound Studio OST, Broadcast (Warp)

Body Music, AlunaGeorge (Island)

Dynamics, Holy Ghost! (DFA)

Life After Defo, Deptford Goth (Cooperative/Merok)

Obsidian, Baths (Anticon)

Upstream Color OST, Shane Carruth (erbp)

Days Are Gone, Haim (Columbia)

Woman, Rhye (Polydor)

Acid Rap, Chance the Rapper (self-released)

top/favourite EPs of the year


01a. Rival Dealer, Burial (Hyperdub)

Another year, another Burial EP (so it goes...) - I'm not complaining.

01b. Dual, Sampha (Young Turks)

I must admit that I was a little disappointed when this EP was released over the summer. I was hoping for something a bit more substantial - those two tracks that clock in under a minute had me confused and let down, but I now find them quite moving, and the previously heard track ("Indecision") I now hear as coming off much stronger and affecting (with its polish) than the demo version. The new tracks - "Beneath the Tree," "Without," "Can't Get Close" - what can I say, really (I've been standing behind Sampha ever since I heard SBTRKT's self-titled in the summer of 2011), other than that they solidify Sampha as one of today's most potent and emotionally stirring vocalists.

02. Yugen, Koreless (Young Turks)

03. EP2, FKA twigs (Young Turks)

Lockjaw, Flume & Chet Faker (Future Classic)

05. London, Banks (Harvest)

HM. On The Way/Let It Go, Short Stories (Young Turks)

2012: a year in music.

top/favourite albums of the year

01. LUX, Brian Eno (Warp)

02. channel ORANGE, Frank Ocean (Island Def Jam)

03. Spooky Action at a Distance, Lotus Plaza (Kranky)

04. Devotion, Jessie Ware (Universal Island / PMR)

05. Until the Quiet Comes, Flying Lotus (Warp)

06. good kid, m.A.A.d city, Kendrick Lamar (Interscope / Aftermath / Top Dawg)

07. Home Again, Michael Kiwanuka (Polydor / Interscope)

08. Sun, Cat Power (Matador)

09. Celebration Rock, Japandroids (Polyvinyl)

10. A Thing Called Divine Fits, Divine Fits (Merge)

11. Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!, Godspeed You! Black Emperor (Constellation)

12. Lonerism, Tame Impala (Modular)

13. WIXIW, Liars (Mute)

14. Happy to You, Miike Snow (Downtown / Universal Republic)

15. Beams, Matthew Dear (Ghostly)

16. awE naturalE, THEESatisfaction (Sub Pop)

17. A Different Ship, Here We Go Magic (Secretly Canadian)

18. Attack on Memory, Cloud Nothings (Carpark)

19. Total Loss, How to Dress Well (Acéphale / Weird World)

20. New Memory, Arrange (self-released)

honourable mentions: 

Heaven, The Walkmen (Fat Possum / Bella Union)

R.I.P., Actress (Honest Jon's)

Time Capsules II, Oberhofer (Glassnote)

Master of My Make-Believe, Santigold (Atlantic / Downtown)

Valtari, Sigur Rós (XL)

Breakup Song, Deerhoof (Polyvinyl)

Ekstasis, Julia Holter (RVNG International)

Something, Chairlift (Columbia / Young Turks)

Mars, Sinkane (DFA)

Acousmatic Sorcery, Willis Earl Beal (XL / Hot Charity)

Tramp, Sharon Van Etten (Jagjaguwar)
Shields, Grizzly Bear (Warp)
The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, Fiona Apple (Epic)
The Haunted Man, Bat for Lashes (Parlophone)
Oshin, DIIV (Captured Tracks)
Fox, Karim Ouellet (Abuzive Muzik)
In Our Heads, Hot Chip (Domino)
Coexist, The xx (Young Turks)
Kaleidoscope Dream, Miguel (RCA)

top/favourite EPs of the year

1. Kindred & One/Two (Truant/Rough Sleeper), Burial (Hyperdub)

2. 1991, Azealia Banks (Interscope)

3. TNGHT, TNGHT (Warp / Luckyme)

4. Vacation, Shlohmo (Friends of Friends)

5. True, Solange (Terrible)

honorable mention:

Gallery, Craft Spells (Captured Tracks)

A Year in Film: 2011.

01, a. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick; USA)

01, b. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr; Hungary | France | Germany | Switzerland | USA)

02. Almayer's Folly (Chantal Akerman; Belgium | France)

03. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn; USA)

04. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi; Iran)

05. The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar; Spain)

06. The Descendants (Alexander Payne; USA)

07. Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols; USA)

08. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson; France |UK | Germany)

09. Beginners (Mike Mills; USA)

10. Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh; Australia)

Best Director

Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life

Béla Tarr, The Turin Horse

Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive *

Mike Mills, Beginners

Jeff Nichols, Take Shelter

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Ryan Gosling, Drive

Ewan McGregor, Beginners

Michael Shannon, Take Shelter *

George Clooney, The Descendants

Gary Oldman, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Adepero Oduye, Pariah *

Emily Browning, Sleeping Beauty

Leila Hatami, A Separation

Aurora Marion, Almayer's Folly

Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Albert Brooks, Drive

Stellan Skarsgård, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Benedict Cumberbatch, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Christopher Plummer, Beginners *

Jan Cornet, The Skin I Live In

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Jessica Chastain, The Tree of Life *

Jessica Chastain, Take Shelter

Mélanie Laurent, Beginners

Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids

Shailene Woodley, The Descendants

Best Writing - Adapted Screenplay

The Descendants, Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash

Hugo, John Logan

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan *

Carnage, Yasmina Reza & Roman Polanski

Almayer's Folly, Chantal Akerman

Best Writing - Original Screenplay

Drive, Hossein Amini

Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen

Beginners, Mike Mills *

Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols

A Separation, Asghar Farhadi

Best Cinematography

The Tree of Life, Emmanuel Lebezki *

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Jeff Cronenweth

The Turin Horse, Fred Kelemen

Hugo, Robert Richardson

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Hoyte Van Hoytema

Best Original Score (tie)

The Tree of Life, Alexandre Desplat *

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Alberto Iglesias

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross *

Take Shelter, David Wingo

Hugo, Howard Shore

Abject Bodies and Gender Instability in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)

There’s Something Queer At Work Here

Abject Bodies and Gender Instability in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)

We Need to Talk About Norman

The way performance functions in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho reflects a deep, abiding preoccupation with gender roles and the truth economy that is generated therein. The oscillation between masculine and feminine, and the instability of gender is depicted in the construction of characters that do no satisfy ideal, conventional roles regarding sex and gender, but rather expose a profoundly unsettling inconsistency in respect to bodies, both abject and normalized. The gender role reversal in Psycho is blindingly obvious, particularly in the scene where Lila goes to explore the house and find Mrs. Bates, while Sam acts as a decoy to distract Norman. This scene and the following one, in which it is revealed that Norman has been preserving the skeleton of his mother and dressing up in her clothes, stress the transience of gender, and how it is not always in sync with biological sex. Sam's aggressive homosocial taunting of Norman in this sequence, and Lila's exploration of the house, leading up to the discovery of the skeleton and Norman's performance as his mother, all hint towards an inherent gender instability within the characters of the film and a masculine/feminine malaise that is developed throughout the course of the film.

Before Lila begins to look for Mrs. Bates and Sam distracts Norman, they search through cabin one for any clues. They find a slip of paper Marion wrote on regarding the stolen money (just numbers and equation signs) that missed the toilet when she flushed the rest down. Lila becomes desperate to search the house and speak to Mrs. Bates, and Sam fulfills the typical role of male protector by saying, “I don’t like you going into that house alone.” This dialogue is in line with the heterosexist ideology of the time, and an ideology that Sam’s character clearly held true. He sounds resigned when he says that he’ll find Bates and keep him occupied.

It is important to note that Sam’s gender performance, like everyone’s inside the world of the film (and outside, according to feminist and queer theorist Judith Butler), is a failure. He cannot provide for Marion in the way that she wants and needs him to (as evident from the first scene); ironically, right after Norman watches the swamp swallow the car with Marion’s body in it, Sam is seen writing a letter to Marion professing that he doesn’t care if they are poor, cramped, or miserable – at least they’ll be happy (and alive). This could be why he overcompensates when in pursuit of the truth about what really happened to her, and this overcompensation comes on particularly strong throughout the scene in which he keeps Norman occupied. His hypermasculinity in this scene is almost to be expected, especially with someone as weak as Norman.

However, Sam’s hypermasculinity does not surface until after they enter the office. Norman is already suspicious of the couple, and Sam is clearly nervous, at first (before entering the office), to be diverting Norman’s attention. He knows that he is a potentially dangerous person, although he is not yet sure in what way. The sexual tension between the two is immediately felt in Norman’s body language. His confidence (both in body and speech) when he asks, “You looking for me?” slowly begins to dissipate shortly thereafter. His body then enters a visible state of unrest, and Sam’s teasing line, “I never can keep quiet enough for her, so I thought I’d look you up and talk”, with all its erotic undertones, hints towards a fluctuation between homosocial and homoerotic interaction – that also begins to dissipate after those few seconds.

Sam then begins to try to bully the truth out of Norman, which, although it does not work (in regard to what he wants to hear – about the money and Marion), puts him in a progressively more distressed state over the duration of their conversation. It seems that Hitchcock implies that when Sam says “Buy a new one, in a new town, where you won’t have to hide your mother,” when talking about the hotel and the money, that Norman is actually thinking about himself and his gender identity. Hitchcock is also suggesting the possibility of Norman thinking Sam is aware of his secret, which makes him noticeably tense up – his jaw muscle begins to contract faster, and his speech begins to tremble.

In the office scene, the frame is split perfectly in two. Sam inhabits one side (the left – customer), Norman the other (the right – owner): one proper body, one abject; one (normalized) heterosexual identity, one (shamed) queer; one searching for what he will not find, and one hiding something everyone is looking for – but also the opposite, something no one expected to find. Lila exploring the house while Sam distracts Norman also could be looked at as a gender role reversal – why is it Lila exploring the house while Sam distracts Norman? Shouldn’t they use Lila’s female sexuality to keep Norman’s attention while Sam (born explorer, essence of man) searches the house? Or were they already unsure about Norman’s sexuality? They certainly were not given any clues to his gender trouble at that point.

The revelation of Norman as Mrs. Bates is a different kind of performance when looked at against those outlined by Judith Butler. Butler offers drag as the ultimate portrayal of gender instability. However, almost always, drag offers some sort of comedic edge (whether it be inherent in the participants/the performance or reactionary from the audience) and her syllogism that if one understands drag as a portrayal of gender instability, then they must believe gender to be socially constructed, is reductive and unrealistic. With Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock offers his character's gender trouble in a less deductive and more effective/affective way: Norman is not a sideshow, a circus act for the people from within the film or the audience to laugh at (up until the end, when a feeling of camp arises). Hitchcock is not setting it up so that once the audience witnesses the wig falling off Norman's head in the big reveal that they will instantly be convinced of gender's contingent foundations. Hitchcock is, however, offering a deeply troubling ambiguity that confounds the characters within the film, and finds the audience feeling a deep unease in regards to what they have just seen. It's the slippage between masculine and feminine, the undeclared sexuality of Norman that is emphasized by Hitchcock and felt by the audience; it is that uncertainty which functions as the crux of the film and is the key to its understanding. With drag, you only get the performance. With Psycho, you get more: the visage of the boy next door and the spirit underneath the skin of Norman Bates – the creation of a monster a little too human for our liking.

"a free verse poem about [my] greatest fear", as requested by anon on Tumblr.

how absurd

the blameless absurdity

of the absurd

conditional healing

for a man

with hope

"for a better tomorrow"

but giving that up

for a neutral today

HOWEVER

today is helpless

(or hopeless?)

and so is he

feeling around

fooling around

fucking around

turning himself (and everything) AROUND

inside-out

which not everyone sees

but then again

not everyone's looking

painful explanations

he hates giving

positing understanding

against apathy

in this cruel, cruel world

(of his)

fruitless attempts

misunderstandings thrive

overcoming spatial

and mobile indifference

in flux

forever

or never

and ever