My Decade in Music So Far: Brandon Stosuy

This week, Pitchfork shared lists featuring the best albums and tracks of the decade so far. We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share a favorite song and album that didn't make the list, along with a music highlight and their personal Top 10s or 20s. Check back for more installments of My Decade in Music So Far.

Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit [Profound Lore]

The Portland, Oregon dark metal band Agalloch's Marrow of the Spirit was my favorite album of 2010. I loved their previous record, 2006's Ashes Against the Grain, but Marrow gathered everything they do well, and crystallized it somehow. It's a sprawling, gorgeous take on progressive "black metal" that mixes field recordings of gurgling streams, bird songs, and crickets with strings, pianos, electro-acoustics, rabid and sometimes lulling ghost voices, and attack-mode guitars. It was also the band's first album with drummer Aesop Dekker (ex-Ludicra); he brought a punk feeling to it that I appreciated—it made them feel more grounded, even as they constantly pushed for these gigantic heights.

Also, I grew up in the rural Pine Barrens of New Jersey, and a lot of the naturalist moments on here reminded me of that. It's impossible to discount that 2010 was also the year my mother, who lived deep in the woods off a dirt road, died. I often listened to these vast soundscapes (four of the songs are over 10-minutes long, with one almost 20), when I was processing that loss. During that period, it felt like incredibly sad music to me, but it was beautiful, and you could forget about most of the world when it was on. Then, five weeks after my mother had passed, my first son, Henry, was born, and I was suddenly able to see the life in these tracks—and there's a lot of it here. Marrow of the Spirit shifted entirely for me after that. It's that kind of record, and I'm glad it exists.

J Mascis: Several Shades of Why [Sub Pop]

I initially thought of J Mascis' great 2011 acoustic album Several Shades of Why as one song, because for months straight, I'd put it on very early in the morning, and wake up slowly alongside it, not really thinking much about when one track ended or another began. I still very much hear it that way, even when I'm fully awake. (As far as a proper individual song, though, take a listen to Prurient's "Through The Window", then press repeat six or seven times.)

Musical Highlight of the Last Five Years: The interesting thing about the Half Decade List, for me at least, is that it covers the time period my two sons were born. Because of that, as we voted, I ended up thinking about them in tandem with what I listened to—we often listened together at 5am when I was letting their mother "sleep in." So, because of that, a lot of my highlights are connected with watching them discover music.

Henry's first real love was Swans, and then Drake (especially "Headlines"), but now he's solidly onto Deafheaven, and he often requests Beastie Boys' "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" and Pavement's "Cut Your Hair." (He also thinks the "I love you like a love song, baby" line in Selena Gomez's "Love You Like A Love Song" is "I love you like I love some babies," and about his kid brother, Jake.) Jake's almost three years younger, but as of today, he mostly wants to hear the new Iceage album, or to make music with his big brother, in a band Henry dubbed "Piglet Fight."

I've gone to, and put on, a bunch of shows these past few years (including Swans' 2010 Masonic Temple gig, their first NYC show in 14 years, which was a real honor; somehow convincing the New Museum to let me have Trash Talk play their "basement", while we had Grimes play for 150 people in the glass room upstairs; four seasons of Warm Up at MoMA PS1, including one day with Container and Vatican Shadow and another with Black Dice and Clams Casino; an extremely fun night of DJing at St Vitus bar with Björk, Robin from Tri Angle, Drew Daniel, and Daniel Lopatin that found me going Hot 97; and BasilicaSoundScape, the "anti-festival" I started with my friends Brian, Melissa, and Tony has really taken off), but honestly, my truest "highlights" are these quiet—or often very loud—times with my family.

Favorite Albums of 2010-2014:

1. Deafheaven: Sunbather
2. Swans: To Be Kind
3. Kanye West: Yeezus
4. Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit
5. Sun Kil Moon: Benji
6. Drake: Take Care
7. Pallbearer: Foundations of Burden
8. Crystal Castles: Crystal Castles
9. Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
10. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city
11. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual
12. Converge: All We Love We Leave Behind
13. Destroyer: Kaputt
14. Majical Cloudz: Impersonator
15. Death Grips: The Money Store
16. Thou: Heathen
17. Darkside: Psychic
18. Chromatics: Kill For Love
19. Prurient: Through the Window
20. Titus Andronicus: The Monitor

Favorite Tracks of 2010-2014:

1. Deafheaven: "Dream House"
2. Grimes: "Oblivion"
3. Robyn: "Call Your Girlfriend"
4. Kanye West: "I'm In It"
5. TNGHT: "Higher Ground"
6. Sky Ferreira: "Nobody Asked Me (If I Was OK)"
7. A$AP Ferg: "Shabba" [ft. A$AP Rocky]
8. Crystal Castles: "Not in Love" [ft. Robert Smith]"
9. Drake: "Worst Behavior"
10. Chromatics: "Kill for Love"
11. How to Dress Well: "Set It Right"
12. Japandroids: "The House That Heaven Built"
13. Usher: "Climax"
14. Kendrick Lamar: "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe"
15. Majical Cloudz: "Childhood's End"
16. Purity Ring: "Fineshrine"
17. FKA twigs: "Water Me"
18. Perfume Genius: "Mr. Peterson"
19. Caribou: "Odessa"
20. Perfect Pussy: "I"