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Ten favorite 1993 indie-rock albums
Perhaps the greatest and most unexpected comeback of the ‘90s, as though a shoegaze band had listened to Comsat’s first three albums and translated their essence to the new decade.
Even if I weren’t friends with these guys I’d still love this album for its perfect songwriting and production.
Oh Liz, I love it when you talk dirty. Seriously, every track is compelling, and while it’s “Flower” and “Fuck and Run” that got the buzz, profanity-free tracks such as “Stratford-On-Guy” are equally brilliant.
There has been very little LaMonte Young music in general distribution. This two-CD album is one of the exceptions (though it’s long out of print and will cost you at least $80 if you can even find it). Two hours of “Young’s Dorian Blues in G,” with his synthesizer and the Catler brothers’ bass and guitar in just intonation, plus the juggernaut drumming of Jonathan Kane, prove that minimalism can truly rock.
Electronica with guitars, full of glinting pulsations and slowly undulating textures. The same year also brought Britain the estimable EPs More Like Space and Pure, Impure, combined over here the following year on Polyfusia.
Gorgeous jangle-pop with luscious vocals from a terribly underrated Minneapolis band. Look for their Comin’ Through EP (also ‘93), including a cover of “Eight Miles High” with many fine touches.
Few post-hardcore albums can match this one riff-for-riff. “Last of the Angels” and “Reason to Believe” are positively anthemic.
More structured than previous albums, this is the group’s masterpiece and shows Brotzmann as a skronk guitar master in brooding extended pieces.
Abandoning the parade of all-star vocalists, leader Anton Fier worked with just two here, poet Lori Carson and singer Lydia Kavanagh. The latter’s great moment comes on the lovely cover of “These Days,” a Jackson Browne song from his days with Nico. It’s a relatively soothing moment in an album of questioning and ambiguity and great throbbing basslines from Bill Laswell.
Very different from other Naked City albums, with a sustained mood that’s sometimes nearly ambient – but in the most unsettling way, like a quiet Einsturzende Neubauten. (Much more interesting than the other 1993 Naked City release, Radio, which is nearly mainstream.) For the second year in a row, leader John Zorn nods to the great French composer Olivier Messiaen with a lovely piece featuring Bill Frisell at his most ethereal.
