Test of the Boomerang – Top Ten of 2008

I will dispense with the usual bullshit “Let’s take a look back…” year-end review. USA Today will have that shit in spades for the next four to six weeks. Nothing is ever truly over. There is no true end. Nor is there a true beginning.

Dramatic music swells in the background

In these past twelve months I have seen horror and I have seen wonder. I have seen triumphs

Cymbals crash

and I have seen the agony of defeat

Trumpets

and no doubt we shall see more. The utter collapse of our financial institutions and increasing aggression and war. I have seen the naked face of evil…

photo montage now strikes up of Sarah Palin and Ashley Todd shooting at wolves from a helicopter, Dick Cheney strangling a rosy-cheeked orphan with a telephone cord, John McCain eating a big greasy cheeseburger while his wife does a line of coke off of a small mirror, George W. Bush with a jet pack…

and I have seen images of hope…

Barack Obama and Joe Biden riding on a soaring magical eagle over a beautiful stretch of California coastline as the music comes to a soaring peak…

But enough of all that. Let’s get to the music, shall we?

My Top Ten of 2008.

10. Sunn O))) – Dømkirke 2-LP (Southern Lord)

Say what you will about the mighty Sunn O))) — at their fundamental core, deep beneath the waves of feedback and within their black robes, O’Malley, Anderson and company are a live band. Part performance, part transcendental experience. This limited edition double-vinyl set documents a performance by the band at a Gothic cathedral in Bergen, Norway. If that wasn’t perfect already, the band composed an actual piece of music specifically for the performance. Church organs, horns, strange electronics, vocals both sublime and guttural, soar within the old cathedral like a  medieval plague. Haunting, intense, (beautifully packaged) and definitely my favorite Sunn O))) release thus far. (more…)