OK, so the year’s off to a weak start. The upcoming Grey Daturas disc on Neurot, Return to Disruption, is pretty hot—as in, I-just-scalded-my-face hot—and trumpeter Cuong Vu’s self-released Vu-tet disc should appeal to anyone who forked out for Miles’ The Complete On the Corner Sessions box set.

But that’s about it. The best thing I’ve heard in 2008 is a record I missed in 2007: Wolves in the Throne Room’s excellent Two Hunters.

As Erik Davis reported out in Slate, this Pacific NW black metal band has something of a D.C. connection. But don’t check ‘em out for that reason, or for the environmental stuff (that kind of conservativism has been present in black metal almost as long as there’s been black metal).

Check ‘em out because they made the most dynamic, melodic, and just straight-up serious black metal record of the past year. And sorry to all of my colleagues who fell in love with Watain’s Sworn to the Dark.

That record is a frightening blast or bad ‘tude, for sure, but, as with so much black metal, the nastiness wears thin after a few songs. It just can’t touch Two Hunters, which has me squeezing invisible oranges from start to finish.

On New Year’s Eve, Todd Savitch attended his last (official) free show at the 9:30 Club, going out in go-go style with Chuck Brown. As one of the winners of the club’s annual raffle for a full year of free shows, Savitch was legendary. According to the staff, no one who’d ever won the prize before had cashed in on it the way Savitch did.

After meeting Savitch, a marketing consultant and publicist for the District Fine Arts gallery at 1726 Wisconsin Ave., at the Chuck Brown show, I asked him if he’d do a Q&A with the Bag:

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As Michael Byrne noted recently, Charm City’s got one of the best music scenes in the country.

But will Baltimore–and especially its boho crowd–embrace new music of a different variety?

Alex Ross, a St. Albans grad, explores the issue in this review of the Baltimore Symphony and its new conductor, Marin Alsop.

(At $5 a pop for students, these concerts are cheaper than a night at Ottobar.)

And a Baltimore Sun article from October about composer John Adams‘ week in residence here.

It seems to happen every year: just when I’ve got the best-of lists put to bed, something comes along and gives me a big ole’ warm fuzzy and makes me glad my hearing isn’t totally kaput. Cherkis wrote about his “surprise reissue pleasure” last week, and here’s mine, a reissue that came out on Water in December: Michael Rother’s Sterntaler.

It’s a 1978 solo album, the second from the German guitarist, who can boast ex-membership in an unbelievable number of badass bands. Even if you’ve never heard of Neu! or Harmonia, you must know Kraftwerk, right?

Rother’s responsible for a huge chunk of modern rock’s DNA. And Sterntaler might—just might—be his finest moment. Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit provides the motorik pulse over which Rother does his typical Neu thing—chugging rhythm guitars; no vocals. He then tops it off with a seemingly endless stream of brain-searing single-finger melodies. This record has to have one of the best guitar sounds ever. Just gorgeous.

Dunlap brings us a fine take on the state of old-timey reissues. The man has done his job. He makes me want to go out and buy this right now.

This year, I confess I kind of dropped the ball on old-timey reissues. I spent a lot of dough on a lot of African jazz stuff, like this and this.

But mainly I held steady with my years-long obsession with South American psych. I returned over and over again to the El Kinto reissue and this Eduardo Mateo epic.

The big surprise reissue pleasure: Caetano Veloso’s 1972 album Araca Azul. First you have to get over the cover art: it shows the singer in a tight red Speedo, his tan belly hanging out, and his face buried in ’70s hair. The album itself is a reckless cut and paste of traditional drumming, chanting, found sound, and classic Veloso sweetness. And it all works. Especially if you’ve run out of Tom Ze records to buy.

Of course, the end of this year and next should produce some cool reissues. Dischord just announced it has reissued Rites of Spring and Scream records on vinyl. And Dust-to-Digital has a box of John Fahey unreleased stuff coming out (hopefully) soon.

I’m sure I’m missing some great reissues from this year. Tell the Bag what we’ve missed!

D.C. alt-country stalwarts Shortstack provide their top eleven records of 2007. It’s a list that’s at once dusty and esoteric (Daniel Higgs, Sir Richard Bishop) and contemporary (Spoon, Vic Chesnutt) and entirely befitting of the band–who hold the high honor of being the sole local group that former City Paper staffer John Metcalfe ever admitted to liking. Shortstack’s recently completed The Covers EP–which features excellent arrangements of tunes by John Fogerty, Daniel Higgs, and more–arrives February 5th on Gypsy Eyes.

In no particular order..

Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
Vandaveer - Grace and Speed
Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments
Vic Chestnutt - North Star Deserter
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights
Daniel Higgs - Ancestral Songs
Iron and Wine - The Shepherd’s Dog
Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass
Various Artists/Dust-to-Digital Records - The Art of Field Recording, Vol. 1
Ted Leo - Living with the Living
Feist - The Reminder

As I was saying…

They debuted on the DC scene late last spring—but actually, Gypsy Eyes Records only released one recording in 2006. Two-thousand-and-seven was really the making of Gypsy Eyes: It was this year that they really swung into action, putting out splendid discs by Revival (Horses of War), Brandon Butler (Lucky Thumbs), Vandaveer (Grace and Speed), and John Bustine (Waltzes & Pleas). This, along with Federal Reserve Compilation, made five CDs for the year–not bad for a startup indie label, and damned good considering it meant one release for every artist they’d signed.

But then, in the fall, Gypsy Eyes signed another artist: The Apes, those beloved and long-suffering DC punk weirdos. It was undoubtedly the label’s major coup of the year.

Gypsy Eyes never rested on those laurels, though; co-owner and publicist Kalani Tifford was tireless in scheduling and sponsoring events, promotions, showcases (including a series of in-store performances at Olsson’s outlets), and a particularly exciting benefit show in October for the DC Public Libraries. This is one local establishment that insists on making a name for itself…and they’re succeeding.

Local singer/songwriter/guitar-shredder Carol Bui was kind enough to provide CP with a list of her top ten records of 2007. Bui’s sophomore record, Everyone Wore White, came out this year on the label 54º 40′ or Fight! You can read more about that here.

Here’s a list of ten albums I’ve listened to most this year, some are new releases, some aren’t.

In no particular order:

Kala, M.I.A

Harmonium, Glos

In Rainbows, Radiohead

Excellent Italian Greyhound, Shellac

First Take, Roberta Flack

Polemics EP, 31Knots

Places, Georgie James

Dizzy Spells, the Ex

The Best Gun, Pash

Ys, Joanna Newsom

Let in the Light, Shannon Wright

Placelessness, Alina Simone

Live at the Academy NYC 12.4.92, Television

Marry Me, St. Vincent

Boris at the Black Cat. I’m pretty sure they played at the Black Cat, but the whole night was a little fuzzy, you know? I’m positive it was in 2007, though. I think.

But yeah: Boris was, reportedly, awesome. I’ve been told that they fucking rocked. I don’t remember too much about the band’s actual set, but I do remember being excited about the show earlier in the day–and then, much later (while actually at the show), peering over at the stage from my perch at the bar and realizing that the extremely loud and colorful blur everyone was cheering for was more than likely the band I had paid money to see perform.

I asked the bleary-eyed bartender if the band performing was, in fact, Boris–then realized I was talking to my own blurry reflection in the mirror. Thinking I was clever, I asked my reflection for a drink on the house. Unfortunately, my reflection–which I later realized was actually the bartender all along–did not appreciate my drunken demeanor and asked me to settle my tab, which I did after fumbling around through my wallet for a couple of minutes.

So yeah, Boris was pretty great. At least, I think that was Boris.

There’s something special about seeing jazz at Bohemian Caverns.

The ambiance, for one: the basement club is windowless, candlelit, and relaxed, with couches and soft chairs on the side of the stage that are perfect for group drinking and chatting; on the stage, you’re as likely to see musicians informally jamming as playing elaborate arrangements. In other words, it’s an after-hours jazz club regardless of what time you arrive.

Then there’s the history: Opened 81 years ago, the Caverns have played host to Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, and Miles Davis, among others. In 1965, Ramsey Lewis recorded “The In Crowd,” one of the last jazz records to hit the US singles charts, there.

But this year, Bohemian Caverns has had some of the most exciting shows I’ve seen, too. Local mainstays Mark Mosley, the Jolley Brothers, and Nasar Abadey’s Supernova always kill, and Thad Wilson’s spectacular big band holds court every Monday night. But nationally and internationally known acts like Russell Malone, Anat Cohen, and Claudio Roditi did great work at Bohemian Caverns this year, too. Also, the collective Soul Con Timba this spring recorded the first live album at the venue in 40 years.

Twins seemed plagued by last-minute cancellations in 2007, while Blues Alley continued charging a king’s ransom in admission; Bohemian Caverns never let me down.