Rain's Top 10 Albums from 2018

1. Shannon & the Clams - Onion               

Yearning. The way the light plays off their hair. The taste of their cherry Chapstick still lingering about your lips on the long walk home. The exciting smell of their sweat. Feeling guilty/not guilty about stealing a their shirt and sleeping with it beneath your pillow. Yearning. Secret middle of the night phonecalls made at a prearranged time that takes forever to arrive so you never can get to sleep or back to sleep and it just doesn't matter. What would their dad do to you if he found out? The fear. The excitement. Yearning.

2. Hawthonn - Red Goddess (Of This Men Shall Know Nothing) 

Springtime roots stretch out to strangle. Summertime river plots your murder. Autumn reminds you of decline. Winter simply buries you.

3. Jonny Greenwood - Phantom Thread (OST)   

Amble without purpose or direction. Spend a day watching yesterday's cold rain transform into today's sunlit steam. Say "fuck it" and believe it since it's a goddamn miracle you're even alive to experience feelings of frustration, worry, and fear. Listen to this album. It was a mantra for a lighter disposition for me this year.

4. Khruangbin - Con Todo El Mundo       

Profile : strong hints of copal, palo santo, petrichor, musk, jasmine, leather, smoky mescal, and glitter.

5. Dylan Carlson - Conquistador

Burn the house down. Drive to the desert. Burn the car. Walk. Find a cave. Start another fire. Drink your bottle down. Shoot your bottle. Take a shard and kill a snake. Eat the snake. Be the snake. Crawl into the fire. Abyss.

6. A Hawk and a Hacksaw - Forest Bathing    

      

If I were a LARPer, I'd listen to nothing but these guys while my squire tended to my styrofoam sword and shield.

7. Otto Lindholm - Alter               

Every night I dream of a approaching wave, thousands of feet high. Sometimes I make the futile effort to get to higher ground. Sometimes, I turn my back to it and sit on the ground. Sometimes, I face it as it slowly approaches, rising above me. I always wake at the deafening moment of impact.

8. Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy (OST)    

His completed project before his death at an early age this year. Strong to the end.

9. Tom Yorke - Suspiria (OST)    

10. Alison Cotton - All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre