pazz and jop votes and comments 1995

ALBUMS
Tricky: Maxinquaye --- 30
Omni Trio: Music For the Next Millenium (Sm:)e Communications) --- 10
Techno-Animal: Re-Entry (Caroline) --- 10
Various Artists: Macro Dub Infection (Caroline) ---- 10
Wagon Christ: Throbbing Pouch (Rising High USA)--- 10
Mouse On Mars -- Iahora Tahiti (Too Pure/American) ... 10
Stereolab: Music for the Amorphous Body Study Center (Duophonic) --- 5
Pram: Sargasso Sea (Too Pure/American) --- 5
The 6ths: Wasps' Nests (London) --- 5
Labradford: A Stable Perspective (kranky) --- 5


SINGLES
1/ Tricky -- Ponderosa (4th & Broadway)
2/ Tortoise -- Gamera/Cliff Dweller Society (Duophonic)
3/ Dionne Farris -- I Know (?)
4/ DJ Shadow --- What Does Your Soul Look Like (Mo Wax)
5/ Elastica --- Connection (DGC)
6/ Bjork --- Isobel (Elektra)
7/ Method Man feat Mary J. Blige -- You're All I Need To Get By
8/ Bjork --- Army of Me
9/ Scarface -- I Seen A Man Die (4 Hero Remixes) (Virgin)
10/ Method Man/Redman -- How High

VIDEOS
1/ Skeelo -- I Wish
2/ Bjork -- Isobel
3/ Bjork -- Army of Me
4/ Method Man/Mary J. Blige -- You're All I Need
5/ Junior Mafia -- Player's Anthem
6/ Rentals -- Friends of P
7/ Aphex Twin -- Ventolin
8/ Madonna -- pervy rubber bondage one
9/ Hole --- Violet
10/ Dionne Farris -- I Know

COMPILATONS
1/ Macro Dub Infection (Caroline)
2/ Routes From the Jungle (Caroline)
3/ Jungle Heat (Virgin)
4/ Total Science (MCA)
5/ Battlegrounds: A Collection of Hardcore CyberPunk (Mokum)

REISSUES/RETROSPECTIVES
1/ Neu! 75 (Germanophon)
2/ 2 Bad Mice: Kaotic Kemistry (Sm:)e Communications)
3/ Creation Rebel -- Historic Moments Vol 2 (On U)
4/ Neu - #1 (Germanophon)
5/ Kraftwerk #2 (Germanophon)



COMMENTARIES --- SIMON REYNOLDS

As glad as I am that America's critics have taken "Timeless" to their collective bosom, I'll be sadder if the encounter with  jungle stops at Goldie. C.f. Moby with techno--a single figure cannot be made to stand in for this ever-evolving music. As with most dance musics, jungle's creativity operates at the macro level of the entire genre (a syndrome Brian Eno dubbed 'scenius' as opposed to genius). Certain producers have a signature sound--Dillinja, Droppin Science, Aphrodite, Roni Size, Hype, to name just a few--but even these engineer-poets are ultimately subsumed within jungle's anonymous, inexhaustible currents of  collective innovation. Home-listening albums are no way to get a grip on this music, either. Jungle's 'meaning' is made on the dancefloor. At massive volume, knowledge is visceral, something your body feels as it's seduced and ensnared by the music's paradoxes: the way the breaks combine rollin' flow and disruptive instability, nonchalance and vigilance; the way the bass is at once immersive and aggressive, wombing and menacing. Simultaneously a sonic sanctuary and a martial art, jungle feels like the modern world.
Simon Reynolds, New York

In 1995 rock seemed to come to terms with the fact that it is now a fundamentally conservative genre. From Pearl Jam and Neil Young crossing a 20 year divide to find themselves in perfect agreement, to Rancid's Clash and 2-Tone xeroxes, to lo-fi's curatorial pride in the proto-punk/post-punk underground canon,  American guitar-based music was dominated by reverence and referentiality. The best anyone seemed to hope for was that rock would abide, carry on much the same as it was. But maybe people can't be blamed for clinging to the tried-and-trusted. For there's no denying that the most formally advanced musics around are also the most inhospitable and comfortless: the paranoiac hip hop of the post-Wu Tang LP's, jungle's tales from the dark side, the bad-dreamscapes of Tricky's "Maxinquaye", the disquiet and perplexity of avant-techno and post-rock. Music too expansive and unfamiliar to offer the shelter and consolation that people craved this year. Music that's not so much anti-populist (the RZA's productions sold by the half-million) as unpopulated; ghost-towns of the mind's eye, psychic landscapes of exile and dread. The trouble with frontier music is that it's no place like home.
Simon Reynolds, New York