Rockaliser Radio: Rockcast V

For year five, Nathan and Aaron reconvene for the immense, 3.5 hour fifth installment of the Rockcast.

Who favors 19-minute noise epics more? What parts of the country might good rap music come from? Is Black Messiah the first great post-John Entwistle album?

Listen to find out the thrilling answers! You can stream above and download the podcast here.

And for good measure, here are Nathan and Aaron's lists:

Aaron's 2014 favorites:
1. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Piñata
2. YG, My Krazy Life
3. Damon Albarn, Everyday Robots
4. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
5. DJ Quik, The Midnight Life
6. Lee Fields & The Expressions, Emma Jean
7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Wig Out at Jagbags
8. Ex Hex, Rips
9. ILoveMakonnen, ILoveMakkonen
10. New Pornographers, Brill Bruisers

Nathan's 2014 favorites:
1. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
2. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Piñata
3. The Underachievers, The Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium
4. Kimbra, The Golden Echo
5. Schoolboy Q, Oxymoron
6. Boris, Noise
7. Goat, Commune
8. Sturgill Simpson, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
9. Big K.R.I.T., Cadillactica
10. Run the Jewels, RTJ2

Everyday Be Listening to Nathan's Favorite Records, 2014

1. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
Out of nowhere, D'Angelo and his appropriately-named backup group cast a spell of hypnotic jazz-funk-hard rock-flamenco-Great American Songbook-Beefheart-There's a Riot Goin' On jams so potent that they make up for 14 years of silence.

2. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Piñata
Culled from years of relaxed sessions between the Gary, Indiana emcee and former Stones Throw's vinyl virtuoso, Cocaine Piñata (the semi-official title) finds Gibbs smoking Madlib's best-laid rhythms like they were nickel bags. A soul sample lover's paradise.

3. The Underachievers, The Cellar Door: Terminus Ut Exordium
As the title suggests, this LP is all about linguistic beauty unrelated to meaning. Issa Gold and AK have the endless back-and-forth energy of a young OutKast, and like that group, their tightness reinforces each other's skills.

4. Kimbra, The Golden Echo
With her stunning musicianship, ace choice in collaborators, unlimited vocal range, and twin allegiances to the groove and the avant-garde, the New Zealand pop star is in a class with only one other artist: Janelle Monae.

5. Schoolboy Q, Oxymoron
Schoolboy is the edgiest, nerviest, most unpredictable rapper in the Top Dawg roster and perhaps on the entire West Coast.  Oxymoron is a gangsta/confessional record that is alternately a scary, hopeful, and thrilling window into the mind of a restless thinker.

6. Boris, Noise
Another year, another Boris album with a so-generic-it's-audacious title, another set of explosive churning stadium rockers that never go anywhere one expects. "Angel" is the 19-minute monster of the year.

7. Goat, Commune
Do I care about Goat's devotion to Swedish vodou traditions and communal mysticism? Not really. But their music is enveloped in pleasure, bursting with dozens of uncharacteristic influences (afrobeat, psychedelia, drone, Beatlesque melodies) that will dizzy the listener who attempts to identify them.

8. Sturgill Simpson, Metamodern Sounds in Country Music
The psychedelic qualities of this record are overstated--this is outlaw country-rock in the Kris Kristofferson, Gene Clark mode that is stronger because it demonstrates Simpson's authentic songwriting before lightly breaking the Nashville sonic mold (unforgettable album closer "It Ain't All Flowers").

9. Big K.R.I.T., Cadillactica
No one seems willing to anoint Big K.R.I.T. "king of the south," so he made this 15-song case. This time, he leaves the production to others and refines his songwriting and hooks. Is there a better rapper in America?

10. Run the Jewels, RTJ2
Best listened to divorced from thinkpieces on Ferguson, etc. (as if Killer Mike and El-P were the first rappers ever to protest police brutality), I prefer to think of RTJ2 as the best rap-rock record since the Judgment Night soundtrack.

On A Jape I'm Returning: Aaron's Favorites, 2014

1. Freddie Gibbs and Madlib, Piñata
Madlib paints with different colors than the rest of the game. He’s sui generis, way off the map. Gibbs, on the other hand, is a supremely gifted classicist. Their pairing shouldn’t work, but together they’ve produced the great lost blaxploitation soundtrack.

2. YG, My Krazy Life
Not the first Compton bildungsroman, but one of the very best. A workmanlike MC, YG fights through every bar--with some big assists from a certain producer friend. Praise Mustard.

3. Damon Albarn, Everyday Robots
Understated and stately, constructed on top of a heap of scrapped-together rhythms, Robots is Albarn’s missive from a monochrome planet. Not so gray, however, that it won’t let a quietly brilliant album slip through.

4. D’Angelo and the Vanguard, Black Messiah
The shapeshifter is back, meditating amid soul of such richness and complexity that it should last us another 14 years. If the album title was about him, would you really object?

5. DJ Quik, The Midnight Life
A tour through Quik’s ultra luxe LA rap, with a series of low-key legends riding shotgun. Too funky? Pretty much.

6. Lee Fields & The Expressions, Emma Jean
A soul footnote contends with life, love and mortality, makes case for his own legend.

7. Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Wig Out at Jagbags
Crooked melodies, golden jams: Jagbags dishes out a jambalaya of everything the guy’s been cooking. May he never stop.

8. Ex Hex, Rips
Sometimes you just wanna rock the fuck out. Mary Timony feels you: these twelve garage tracks are vicious.

9. ILoveMakonnen, ILoveMakkonen
Makkonen contorts his voice six ways from Tuesday, ends up somewhere between “stream-of-consciousness rapper” and “warbling R&B singer”. He seeks shelter in molly, the club, Brianna, Sarah and watches, doesn’t find it.

10. New Pornographers, Brill Bruisers
Slinging the hulked-out harmonies that hooked you in the first place, cutting them with a few new flourishes.