A Dairy Revelation: Dr. Spin's Best Albums 2018 pt. 2

My initial decision to avoid feeding my daughters milk wasn’t entirely a choice. Although my involvement in the CrossFit lifestyle when she was born opened my eyes to the benefits of a non-dairy, non-grain diet, my first daughter seemed to have a genuine intolerance. Once I was able to find alternative sources for calcium and natural fats in her diet, I did not make serious efforts to acclimatize her system to drink cow’s milk. I met a lot of resistance along the way, but by all accounts she and her sister (whose colic caused us to take a similar path), have grown up quite healthy and strong.

Shortly after EJ was born, life changed dramatically in more ways than I can easily summarize. You can go back and read about it starting here for the full story.  Not the least of these changes was the unexpected birth of our son just a year and a half later. Unlike his sisters, he did not show any significant intolerance for milk. My hardline stance on the paleo diet had softened since P was born six years before and inarguably, milk is a convenient source of nutrition. So he drank milk. Quite a bit of it, for a while.

Undoubtedly, he quickly grew big and strong, which could be attributed to his genes as much as his diet. I was a pretty big infant, as well. Also like me, and unlike his sisters, he seemed to suffer from eczema and allergies. I assumed that he was the unfortunate recipient of my more undesirable genes and began rolling future management options through my mind.

Recently, however, my wife began an anti-inflammatory diet that had a pretty significant crossover into paleo.  As we discussed her plan, I realized that all of our son’s maladies could be attributed to inflammation from the cow’s milk in his diet. We tapered off the milk and within two weeks, no more runny nose or dry, irritated cheeks. Incredible.

So I wonder, with the normalization of cow’s milk in an infant’s diet, how many other people may see their children suffering from similar problems and start medications to manage them. Possibly more than is necessary. In any case, this unintentional experiment brought back home the importance of a clean diet, something that I will dedicate myself to with renewed diligence in the coming year.



Finally, all exposition aside, below is the top 10 albums list from 2018. Any one of these albums were considered at one point in time or another for the top slot, but I feel satisfied with the final ordering (at least for today).  Relatively few proper 2018 releases this year, and many obscure entries.  If you are looking for some new music in 2019, however, these albums would be a great place to start.

10. George Clanton - Slide: During the years I lived in Austin I discovered the joys of synthwave and shoegaze. Slide hit the nostalgia buttons on two fronts this year by comfortably residing in the crossroads between these styles.

9. Death Grips - Year of the Snitch: I have followed Death Grips ever since The Money Store took 2012 by storm, but very few of their albums have come back off the shelf since their initial run. Year of the Snitch has come in and out of rotation several times as 2018 drew to a close and never failed to hold my attention.

8. Wei Zhongle - The Operators: Suggesting Wei Zhongle was one of the times in which my Facebook algorithm really nailed it. Their super-quirky brand of art rock is engaging both in the short and the long term.

7. Kite Base - Latent Whispers: Great songwriting anchors this incredible and unique album from two female bass players with a knack for clever programming. Fans of late 80s electronica who prefer a wash of gothy fuzz would find a lot to enjoy on Latent Whispers.

6. Andrew W.K. - You’re Not Alone: Andrew W.K. bursts through the speakers yelling “OH, YEAH” like some sort of feral white-clad rock Jesus on this album. While the Kool-Aid he is peddling seems like its pure sugar, it’s far more substantial than it might seem.

5. Midlake - The Tales of Van Occupanther: I still like to refer to Midlake as the “Agrarian Radiohead.” Tim Smith’s liquid vocal approach often recalls that of Thom Yorke, but their tales of giants and villages paint pictures of days long past.

4. Venetian Snares - Traditional Synthesizer Music: This impossibly complex experiment pushes the possibilities of classic synthesizers past any perceived limits. Aaron Funk is able to somehow integrate enough variants to give these compositions a live, improvised feel.

3. Low - Double Negative: Although this album came in very late in the Fall, I reflected very carefully upon whether or not to designate it Album of the Year. Its predecessor Ones and Sixes became a favorite in 2015, and Double Negative is an incredible quantum leap forward in terms of creativity and musicality.

2. Modular - Dan Phelps, Vickor Krauss, and Matt Chamberlain: The mythology surrounding Modular became my “Blair Witch” for 2018, a curious investigation that I documented earlier this year. Despite my embarrassing disappointment when I discovered the truth, the album is ultimately propelled by unbelievable and subtle musicianship that continues to reveal itself listen after listen.

 Album of the Year 2018

1. Soup - Remedies: If Modular was my “Blair Witch” for 2018, then Remedies was “Lord of the Rings.” It crosses progressive songwriting and melodic post rock in relatively well-trod ways, but in all the ways that work.  Walls of sound, compelling melodies, and gentle psychedelia overlapped to make this one a sustained favorite throughout the year.

Call Me Ishmael: Death Grips' "Exmilitary"

Driving in the semi-rural regions of Texas might seem like an incongruous setting for the rabid hip-hop stylings of Death Grips, but for the compulsive music listener, not all music has the good fortune to become connected to perfectly relevant experience. I recently took a solo drive up to visit a friend’s new lake house, which involved a bit of winding around in unexplored parts of the state. I knew that I could assault myself with whatever music I wanted for this drive. Death Grips immediately came to mind.

As I prepped for the trip, I got out The Money Store to put back in rotation, but I hesitated. A part of me still idealistically hopes that sooner or later, an official release of its follow-up No Love Deep Web will end up in my eager hands. Clearly, though, this white whale was not available at the time. I poked around online and could not even find any of its tracks in “soft” form from a reliable electronic source.

While I was initially OK with blasting The Money Store on my way to the lake, all this searching around gave me a hankering for some new Death Grips. I decided that their debut album Exmilitary, which is available in its entirety for free from the Death Grips soundcloud page, might do the trick. Against my usual listening practices, I downloaded the tracks, created a CD, printed off some passable cover art, and hit the road.

It did, indeed, do the trick. I listened to the album in its entirety about eight times in a row. Exmilitary packs the same abrasive, intellectual punch as its successor, but it is also a bit more eclectic and perhaps not quite as consistent. Some songs are structured with the traditional hip hop sample loop while others take a more cacophonous, unconventional approach.



With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that Death Grips was exploring a variety of approaches to investigate their potential as a band. Some of these experiments are more engaging than others, but in the long run this self-examination was smart. The best tracks on Exmilitary serve as the stylistic foundation for The Money Store, and in my opinion, the latter simply would not have been as successful without the research conducted in the former.



So it was that I found myself driving through the idyllic scenery of east Texas, blaring the primal rage of Exmilitary and pondering the possibility that it very well could make an appearance on this year’s top albums. There was, and is, caveat that has nothing to do with the quality of the album, though. Several of the tracks on the album segue, which, as an album listener, I really like. Because it was downloaded, compiled, and burned to CD, however, my listening experience suffered from the annoying gaps that most CD writing software puts between tracks. On this first copy, these were a full second, which resulted in a jarring listening experience. I have since made subsequent copies and have gotten it down to a blip, but a perceptible one, nonetheless. To really get the full feeling that I think Death Grips intended, I think that a first-generation copy is the way to go, but hardcopy of Exmilitary is not readily available  It seems that I have added yet another rare Death Grips album to my wish list.  Sigh.

"The Money Store" and Death Grips' Caustic Veneer

For the majority of 2012, there has been an indie buzz surrounding Death Grips, but it wasn’t until the recent surreptitious release of their third album No Love Deep Web that I took notice. I say surreptitious because this album was not printed on a CD, nor was its tracklist available on ITunes. It was, in actuality, to be postponed by their record company and released next year. Death Grips, however, had been promising their growing fanbase that the album would be released in 2012, so in response, they simply posted the entire album to the web (with a rather shocking album cover, I might add) without the consent of their record company. There were subsequent heated exchanges between the two entities, most of which the band made public, and in the end, their unapologetic act of defiance against the conventions of commodity got them dropped.

It seemed to me that record deals are hard to come by these days, and any group that was making that kind of sacrifice for their artistic integrity deserved at least more than a cursory glance. I wanted to take them seriously, though, and that would require hardcopy. Rather than download and burn No Love Deep Web (which I secretly hope will see CD release), I went on a search for their “other” 2012 album, The Money Store. As it turns out, it is incredibly compelling album that lays at the junctures of so many genres that it feels like something completely new.



A quick glance at Wikipedia describes Death Grips as an “experimental hip-hop group,” and in a broad sense, this is true. It goes on to say that the band consists of vocalist Stefan "MC Ride" Burnett with production team Zach Hill and Andy "Flatlander" Morin. This is also valid, but I think that the description pushes Hill's production skills to the forefront and suggests that his drumming skills are secondary. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Hill's production skills are formidable, his drumming is nothing short of phenomenal, which is plain to see when he performs live.



The potentials of electronic drumming often makes his work sound more like production craft, but a close examination of The Money Store's percussive aspects reveals a devastating virtuosity that blurs the line between technique and technology in the same way that Battles does.



Superficially, Death Grips is loud and angry – perhaps even caustic. They might not be for everyone. During our recent grout-sealing party at the new house, The Money Store was one of six CDs that was not packed in a box. I put it in just to see what would happen. Within five minutes, the volume was turned down to a barely audible level, and within ten, the angelic strains of Sigur Ros’ Valtari began wafting from the kitchen. Oh, well – experiment failed.

With a pedigree that runs in the same circles as noise bands like Hella and The Boredoms, It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that Death Grips has such a caustic veneer. The Money Store is an incendiary, confrontational assault that pounds on the boundaries between hip-hop, electronica, industrial, and punk. Listening to it in traffic with too much caffeine is a recipe for a dangerous case of road rage. It is also, however, tempered by intellect and substance, and because of this, The Money Store has become a 2012 favorite. It’s first really angry music that I have listened to in a long time that I genuinely believe in.