CHIRP: The Chicago Independent Radio Project

John Lombardo writes

CHIRP Radio Best of 2011 (John Lombardo)

Throughout December CHIRP Radio presents its members’ top albums of 2011. The next list is from DJ and Assistant Music Director John Lombardo.

(Click here to get the complete list of CHIRP Radio members’ picks.)

1. Cave – Neverendless (Drag City)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Since these guys have been hammering away in Chicago for years now, you wouldn’t have thought this album’s greatness would have taken anyone by surprise, but Neverendless felt like it came out of nowhere – slamming into your senses like the 2-ton flatbed truck that Cave commandeered to share its new songs with the city. Crisp and clear production with impossibly tight songs. Somehow these epic jams all seem to end too quickly!
2. Wugazi – 13 Chambers (self-released)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Mash-ups are by no means a new idea, but somehow these two non-DJ, diehard Fugazi fans managed to put together everything here perfectly. Everything from the pairing the tricky, unorthodox Fugazi riffs with b-sides of rare Gravediggaz outtakes down to the clever word play on song titles and the blended cover art, these guys nailed it!
3. Thank You – Golden Worry (Thrill Jockey)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The new 4-piece Thank You mix their jagged and jangly guitars, drums, and keys into an tight 6-song album that smoothly spills from one song to another, riding groove after groove through epic freak-outs.
4. Dead Luke – Meanwhile in the Midwest (Glymph)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Madison, WI’s noisy troubadour overhauls classic Americana with blankets of distortion and scratched-up magnetic tape. An album as beautiful as it is chaotic.
5. Fungi Girls – Some Easy Magic (HoZac)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Weeding their way through the recent wave of garage revivalists, this young Texan trio distill everything great about surf, psych, lo-fi, and pop through though the filter of a teenage mind.
6. Wooden Ships – West (Thrill Jockey)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Wooden Shjips have put together perhaps their masterpiece. Not quite completely shedding their skin of minimalist drone, they’ve tightened their song focus and re-worked their psych approach with heavy nods to Sabbath and Spacemen 3.
7. X-Ray Eyeballs – Not Nothing (Kanine)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   Twisted, dark, and eruptive. This album is bittersweet in its lyrics and saccharine sweet in its melodies.
8. Chad Vangaalen – Diaper Island (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The man who gave us those Women records with their fractured, lovely charm unleashes his fourth album, debuting the toys of his new studio – Yoko Eno. Undeniably catchy songs about love and life that seem to never resemble the album’s unsavory title.
9. Obits – Moody Standard Poor (Sub Pop)
   BUY: Insound / iTunes
   The next super-group in Rick Froberg’s growing arsenal, Obits have upped the ante with their second album. This album took a few listens to really embrace after fixating on I Blame You for about a year, but it is every bit as captivating
10. Heavy Times – Jacker (HoZac)
    BUY: Insound / iTunes
    Pure, relentless, sinewy rock and roll with big payoffs. Packaged in two-minute bursts, this record doesn’t calm down once until your needle is spent, exhausted, and pleading.