My Decade in Music So Far: Winston Cook-Wilson

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.

Scott Walker: Bish Bosch [4AD]

At a time when most music feels like it can be broken down into three or less component parts, or even self-consciously foregrounds its pre-existing reference points, there’s something to be said for artists like Scott Walker: out there toiling in the field, attempting to make music that sounds and feels completely unlike anything that has come before it. Walker’s records chafe against musical comfort zones and inherent expectations, making us believe in the impossible idea that there is maybe there still some undiscovered sounds and forms somewhere out there in the ether.  The grotesque character sketching and nightmarish abstraction of Bish Bosch—with its sludge metal guitar flashes, sabre-scraping, fart noises and pregnant silences—is on par with any of his previous post-Nite Flights work.

Brian Fresco: "Steamer" [ft. Chance the Rapper, Vic Mensa, Kami de Chukwu & Preston San] [self-released]

Even if you don’t listen to a word that’s being said in this song, it’s fantastic—all loose rhythms and textures locking horns and then skittering away from one another. It all clarifies a simple, brittle groove, courtesy of “soultrap” mastermind Tree. If you subbed out the raps, beatboxing and chipmunk-ed vocal samples for trumpet, sax and blown-out Rhodes licks, you’d have a fusion record. Chance is good on his own, but tracks like this give credence to his “Save Money the new Wu-Tang” claim. “Steamer” is, on some level, just a tribute to the joys of riding around in a car with your friends—a Chicago rap equivalent of “Little Deuce Coupe” if Carl and Brian had stolen the hot rod. The song encapsulates so much of what excites me about rap, and also just all music: overall, it’s extremely minimal, focused and even slight—I’m sure it came together with minimal effort—but within that framework there’s endless, spontaneous details to be savored.

Musical Highlight of the Last Five Years: A little over two years ago, my uncle passed away very unexpectedly. I came into possession of some of his spectacularly varied LP collection—from Zimbabwean marimba music to Cajun fiddle tunes to ‘20s crooning to Dark Side of the Moon. Working my way through the records has been a gratifying experience for me; it felt like a way of getting to know him a bit better than I had. Among the group were two Mississippi John Hurt albums on Piedmont Records—from his rediscovery in the 60s during the folk revival. There is a subtlety, humor and self-effacingness to Hurt’s guitar playing which remains unmatched by those who imitate him technically: from Dave van Ronk to Bert Jansch to almost anyone who's attempted to make a fingerpicked acoustic guitar sound like a full band. This is not to mention the soft beauty of Hurt’s voice, which is lithe and gentle even when it comes out as a near-croak. On the original vinyl, his take on “Oh Mary, Don’t You Weep” from the Worried Blues album (recorded in a coffee shop in Cambridge not far from where my uncle would live a little over a decade later) is live and warm as any recording I’ve ever heard; it’s my favorite musical discovery of the past five years.

Favorite Albums of 2010-2014:

1. Scott Walker: Bish Bosch
2. Leonard Cohen: Old Ideas
3. Robert Ashley: Atalanta (Acts of God) Volume II
4. Oneohtrix Point Never: Rifts
5. Kendrick Lamar: good kid, m.A.A.d city
6. Julia Holter: Ekstasis
7. Tree: Sunday School
8. Destroyer: Kaputt
9. Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven
10. Future: Pluto
11. Bon Iver: Bon Iver
12. James Ferraro: Far Side Virtual
13. Sun Kil Moon: Benji
14. The Knife: Shaking the Habitual
15. Danny Brown: XXX
16. Joanna Newsom: Have One on Me
17. Waka Flocka Flame: Flockaveli
18. Julia Holter: Loud City Song
19. Starlito: Funerals & Court Dates
20. Ka: The Night's Gambit

Favorite Tracks of 2010-2014:

1. Leonard Cohen: "Going Home"
2. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: "Round and Round"
3. Scott Walker: "SDSS1416+13B (Zercon, A Flagpole Sitter)"
4. Kendrick Lamar: "Money Trees" [ft. Jay Rock]
5. Destroyer: "Suicide Demo for Kara Walker"
6. Future: "Turn on the Lights"
7. Oneohtrix Point Never: "I Only Have Eyes for You"
8. Julia Holter: "Marienbad"
9. Bon Iver: "Beth/Rest"
10. Van Dyke Parks: "Dreaming of Paris"
11. Here We Go Magic: "Collector"
12. Kendrick Lamar: "Cartoon & Cereal" [ft. Gunplay]
13. Young Thug: "Danny Glover"
14. Gunplay: "Bible on the Dash"
15. Brian Fresco: "Steamer" [ft. Chance the Rapper, Vic Mensa, Kami de Chukwu & Preston San]
16. Sun Kil Moon: "I Watched the Film the Song Remains the Same"
17. Tyler, the Creator: "Yonkers"
18. Lil Durk: "Dis Ain't What U Want"
19. Beyoncé: "Countdown"