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Eugene Goreshter
Autolux
Top Ten Albums of 2005
1. Broadcast: Tender Buttons - Any reference
to Gertrude Stein in pop music must not be overlooked.
2. Deerhoof: The Runners Four - These guys and
girl create beautiful ballads for bipolar people.
3. Autechre: Untilted - If DMT had a sonic equivalent,
this is it.
4. Bob Dylan: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack - The
type of shit that makes you want to quit playing music.
5. Mu: Out of Breach - This is what a soundtrack
for a headache tastes like.
6. M.I.A.: Arular - The muzak in a third world
robot factory.
7. Danger Doom: The Mouse and the Mask - What
Raymond Scott would be listening to if he was alive today.
8. Spoon: Gimme Fiction - Proof that making
intelligent rock, for what its worth, is still possible today.
Although it helps being from Texas.
9. M. Ward: Transistor Radio - This feller makes
timeless sounds in a dated age.
10. Gorillaz: Demon Days - Damon Albarn proves
once again that there is no such thing as a “side project.”
What was the highlight of 2005 for either you personally
or for the band?
A year-long touring schedule that precluded us from actually having
to be in Los Angeles.
What was the low point of 2005 for you?
Having to come home.
What are your hopes and plans for 2006?
Staying the course.
If you could drop a copy of one album in the mailbox
of every American citizen, what album would it be?
Anthony Robbins: Personal Power 2: The Driving Force!- How
To Shape Your Destiny Now
Will the iPod, and its ability to combine all genres and
its emphasis on individual songs, render the album format irrelevant?
Why is everyone so bent on taking the fun out of collecting records?
With Kate Bush, Gang of Four, Ray Davies, Scott Walker,
and others issuing new releases, what icon needs to return and
make another album?
Charles Manson.
With the mainstream success of artists like Modest Mouse,
Death Cab for Cutie, Bright Eyes, The White Stripes, and Franz
Ferdinand, has the meaning of “indie rock” shifted?
Has the term lost all meaning?
Even “indie rockers” deserve hot meals and a cot.
If you couldn't be a musician, what other profession do
you think that you'd enjoy and why?
Investigative reporting for the Weekly World News. Who
wouldn’t want to meet and interview new and exciting species?
If you could travel through time, where and when would
you go and why?
19th century England- so I could walk up to H.G. Wells and thumb
my nose at him.
Do you feel more or less optimistic (about music, about
your personal life, about the world in general) than you did a
year ago?
I feel boxed in by this question by the simple absence of a comma
after “more.”
Arcade Fire broke through in 2004. Clap Your Hands Say
Yeah and Wolf Parade broke through in 2005. Who will be the "it-band"
of 2006?
If I had any of the foresight, ingenuity, and market savvy requisite
to making such judgments, I would gladly give up playing music
and become an A&R person.
If you had/got to switch careers with another artist or band,
who would it be and why?
Stina Nordenstam. So I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody
ever again.
We are now over halfway through the '00 decade. What five
albums stand out from the last five years as the best?
Radiohead: Kid A
Blur: 13
Blonde Redhead: Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
Bjork: Vespertine
Kool Keith: Diesel Truckers
What, in your opinion, is the most pressing problem that
is affecting the world right now and if you had the power, what
would you do to address that problem?
File sharing is slowly eroding the moral fabric of our great nation.
Not since the threat of communism has there been such an insidious
scourge in our midst. Illegal downloading must be punishable by
death.
Do you have any other thoughts about the current state
of the world or the state of the music industry?
The current exhibit at the Natural History Museum is called “COLLAPSE?”
Its focus is on the adaptive capabilities, or lack thereof, of
societies through the ages. It would behoove record companies
to shuttle executives in by the busload for a glance.
www.autolux.net
1/2006
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