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This week, FACT will be counting down the 100 best albums of the 1980s – starting today, and concluding on Friday. As well as our writers’ blurbs, the list features guest contributions from some of our favourite musicians, including Fuck Buttons, Carl Craig, Zola Jesus and Oneohtrix Point Never.

When we counted down the 100 best albums of the 1990s last year, it was a similar story, with El-P, Regis, Jacques Greene, Raime and more vouching for some of the albums contained in the list. Here, we’ve collected some of our favourite guest contributions from that feature. 

 

El-P on Nas’s Illmatic:

“New York kinda has it tough. We are always the subject of film, music, art, etc. but rarely does the New York we know really get portrayed. It’s always some corny shit. Some half assed exaggeration or myth that doesn’t really match up to the truth or the feeling of NYC. Anyone who grew up in New York City can tell you there are things about New York City that cant really be explained directly. You have to talk around them. Show them. Paint the scenery around the details and hope that the intangible, gritty, beautiful things that we see and feel here can be invoked, not described. As New Yorkers we get very excited when anyone portrays New York and New Yorkers from the inside out. When the characters talk the way New Yorkers really talk. When the settings portrayed feel like New york feels. Smell like they smell. There have been a handful of pieces of art that have, in my life, made me feel like my city makes me feel. Henry Chalfant’s 1983 documentary Style Wars is one of them. Wild Style is another. Illmatic by Nas is another. Fitting that Nas chose to set off this amazing record with a sample of dialog and music from Wild Style. It immediately connected him to a spirit and intention born of legend, art and the truth of New York.

“Before Illmatic dropped everyone knew who Nas was, but no one knew what the kid who said “when I was twelve, I went to Hell for snuffing Jesus” was going to sound like when given his own album. The mystery surrounding the project was palpable and real. What was this going to to be?  Some story shit? Some dope but exaggerated shit? Punch lines? Gangster shit? Thoughtful shit? No one knew. Remember?

“I remember my friend Tom came through with the tape (yes, tape) and $25 worth of weed. I don’t know how he got it. It wasn’t out yet and The Internet basically didn’t exist. We listened to that shit for about four straight hours. Silently. Flip the tape again. And again. Again. Holy shit either I’m way too high or this motherfucker might the best rapper alive.

“A truth speaker. A historian. A bad and good kid. A smart, tough, slick kid, soaked in hip hop. Talented as all Hell and thinking his way out of a hard place. Flawed and fly and sharp witted and here to be nothing more than what the truth of the city is.

“Illmatic is one of the last great rap records attached directly to the lineage of the history of rap culture in our city. It was inhabited by the spirits of a just passed era and a radiant, moody and raw signifier of the next one. Nas earned his legend status immediately.”

 

“No man has ever looked as good, or ever will look as good, playing a Fender Jag.”

 


Regis on Rowland S. Howard’s Teenage Snuff Film:

Rowland S. Howard quite simply is beyond comparision. His guitar-laying could penetrate the soul in a way that no one else’s could. His stage presence was remarkable and for me unforgettable in every way and detail – no man has ever looked as good, or ever will look as good, playing a Fender Jag. Teenage Snuff Film is where, thanks to Mick Harvey, he was able to refine his sound and transform the film noir torment that he displayed with The Birthday Party and These Immortal Souls into glorious, widescreen.”


Raime on Earth’s Earth 2:

“Literally the sound of metal – in both senses – being melted down. It’s like someone physically manifesting their intentions in frequencies. Some metal guys weren’t into it, too simple or cosmic perhaps. But to us thats the point, it’s way out there but feels somehow innate and essential. Metal had always had sense of dynamism that made aggression cathartic through action, but this was the opposite, this just said fuck it, be swallowed by the void, let go…”


Zola Jesus on Autechre’s Incunabula:
 “I first listened to Autechre in high school, I don’t even know how I discovered it but I liked how for some reason it made sense to me, even as someone who mostly listened to punk and noise. Autechre have always had this unique sense of intuition and innovation in what they do. It feels very raw and revolutionary. The repetitions and movements move like a body would.

Incunabula really represents this. It feels like a body, every song has a heartbeat with the beat or hi-hats, and then everything around it moves and pushes and weaves and creates micropulses. Some sounds are stark and clinical and others are languid and thick like blood pushing through veins. It is singlehandedly the most organic and undeniably synthetic electronic music I have ever heard, and that’s what I think has made that duo one of the most seminal electronic acts of our time.”

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Pinch on Basic Channel’s BCD: “I’m a long-standing fan of Basic Channel and the lineage of music that followed from both Moritz [von Oswald] and Mark [Ernestus] – particularly their Rhythm & Sound project. Even though the BC records are 20 years old now, I still find them fresh and often more relevant than the majority of contemporary dub techno records.

“The textures in their music are not only deep and involving, sonically speaking, but the way the sounds actually move and develop throughout a given track create these endless, journey-like polyrhythms that can induce jaw-dropping, meditative states. I’ve often found myself drifting off into a headspace that sits somewhere just in front of the dream state – and not really coming out of it until the needle hits the centre run-out groove! Makes me sound like I’ve been partially lobotomised – but it’s true! BCD is music you have to interact with to fully experience; it’s music that tells a story but leaves you to paint your own picture to it.  You can keep finding new and interesting sub-plots with every listen!”


Neurosis’s Steve Von Till on Neurosis’s Through Silver in Blood:
 “The making of it is not negative. The making of it and the channelling of it is the positive part. It’s the shit behind it that’s negative. There’s negative shit in life. There’s negative shit in the universe. There’s negative shit preying on people’s minds and hearts all the time. And this probably more than any other record was a direct confrontation with that, as younger men, without the knowledge that we would survive it…It was punishing. It was furious. It was completely aggressive and destructive. If you want to subject yourself to this music, you are going to be subjected to this music. It used to make people sick, and that’s an appropriate response!

“I can’t get back into the mindset we were in back then, nor would I want to.”

 

“There’s negative shit preying on people’s minds and hearts all the time. And this probably more than any other record was a direct confrontation with that, as younger men, without the knowledge that we would survive it.”

 


Jacques Greene on Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s F#A# Infinity:
 “Godspeed You! Black Emperor have always had this sort of looming presence in my neighbourhood in Montreal. Though they were more or less over by the time I was going to shows, their ‘legacy’ or whatever you’d want to call it lived through studios and bars they had opened and their continued involvement in other bands. I came across their music through a friend in high school and proceeded to learn so much from all their records about pace, sound, the sense for restraint, but to also know when it’s time to go big and dense.”


Dominick Fernow on F.U.S.E.’s Dimension Intrustion:
 “The first time I heard F.U.S.E. was 19 years ago in rural Wisconsin. The last time I listened to F.U.S.E.’s Dimension Intrusion I was driving from the port of L.A. through downtown at night amidst the illuminated skyscrapers. A perfect chess piece balancing the morning drive through south central set to Godflesh’s Streetcleaner. I was in an aerodynamic futuristic white rental car convertible with degrading subwoofers, subconsciously applying the gas. Before I knew it I was slamming on the brakes. The true ‘nitedrive’.”


Clone Records’ Serge on Drexciya’s Neptune’s Lair
“Fortunately Drexciya still needs to be introduced to general music listeners, mainly due to their self chosen anonymity and their productions being made in the pre-internet and early internet era. I say fortunately because I think their music is special and should be discovered by the listener, rather than being pushed or promoted as a product. These guys have played such an important role in the development of techno and electronic music in general that I hope everyone will discover them at some point in their life.

“With no documented information about the producers, their thoughts and ideas, the lack of interviews, the mystery became bigger with each release. Who are these guys, why did they make music they made, how did they make it and actualy who did make it? Questions that are still not completely answered. From their first releases on Submerge and Underground Resistance to the later ones on Tresor and Clone they always managed to come with releases covered in mystery. And instead of having technology or “the future” as influence like so many techno producers they had their own unique approachs and imagination which – I assume – sprouted from their frustrations, experiences, interests and life in general being young (non-stereotype) afro-Americans in Detroit.

“Their later releases such as the great Neptune’s Lair and Grava4 stand on their own as concept and perfectly showcase the beauty and warmth, but also the rawness and non-conformist spirit of Drexciya.”

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