My Decade in Music So Far: Andy O'Connor

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.

Prurient: Bermuda Drain [Hydra Head]

Dominick Fernow has probably had the most impact on me as music listener and critic in the past few years. While I was aware of his music during my college years (2005-09), I was more of Wolf Eyes guy then and it wasn't until I moved to Chicago in 2010 and got into Cold Cave, for which he was a live musician at one point, when I really started to delve into his music. I became enthralled with all of his projects—the cathartic noise of Prurient, the militaristic techno of Vatican Shadow, his gnarly take on black metal with Ash Pool, the religious-oriented industrial of Christian Cosmos, and the subterranean ambient sounds of Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement.

Bermuda Death, released in 2011, remains his crowning achievement and a guideline for how extreme music can morph and grow in the new age. On the surface, it's a sharp departure from his previous work, focusing on synths and little of his amp-and-microphone havoc of yore. Listen closer, and Fernow's menace is still there, bending Bacchian dance lines into drug-coma nightmares. “A Meal Can Be Made” is the catchiest blackened punk jam made entirely without guitars, and the rapid fire of bright lights and bad decisions in “There Are Still Secrets” validates both why he was asked to join Cold Cave and why he may have been too dark for Wes Eisold. His darkness remains true, and with the contrast of the synths and beats, it only goes deeper. Drain is the seediness of every dance transaction, every motivation behind seemingly innocuous gestures laid bare. You can see the roots of this sound in “Cocaine Death” and “Apple Tree Victim,” the buried melodic strains that come full bore with this record. Drain came from a dissatisfaction with noise conventions, both in the music and the culture, and being a metalhead growing even more discontented with a group of stuffy conservatives that glorify themselves as rebels, this record has resonated with me like no other.

Prurient: “I Understand You” [Hydra Head]

It's unfortunate that Fernow's ascendency is tied with the fall of Hydra Head Records—just a year after Drain was released, the label announced they were no longer putting out new titles. Hydra Head's final release was a split between JK Flesh and Prurient, Worship Is the Cleansing of the Imagination. “I Understand You” closes the album, and effectively, Hydra Head's output. It's also the most beautiful song Fernow's ever made. There's a delicate melody being overtaken by static, eventually consuming it whole, without forgiveness, without compassion. Both climax in the middle, with the melody crying for life while the noise ignores ever so loudly. It's the totality that I crave in music now. Noise is brutal – and it should be! – but doesn't always give space for the full experience of life, which “Understand” does. Is it a song I often listen to? Not really – it's very difficult to go through, but sometimes you need to have yourself overwhelmed. 

Musical Highlight of the Last Five Years: 

Seeing Prurient at 35 Denton in 2012 was amazing, of course, but to break things up a bit, one of the most meaningful live shows happened this past June, when Planning For Burial played the Sect One house in Austin. I've been following Thom Wasluck's music since 2009, back when I mistakingly thought Planning For Burial was a full band. He admitted he used that bit of misinformation to generate more mystique, and as much as I hate being wrong, I was honored. The show couldn't have been at a better time—he had just released Desideratum, one of my favorite albums of this year that also contains my number one song of 2014 with “Where You Rest Your Head At Night.” Deafheaven had performed just the night before; perfect weekends like that are few and far between.

Planning For Burial defines the intimacy of loneliness, so a house show was the perfect setting for him. I had been waiting for years to see him, which made his performance feel so rushing. Yelling “WHERE YOU REST YOUR HEAD AT NIGHT” back at him was immensely gratifying, and we all lost ourselves as the ending drones of “Golden” rang out. It's rare to see online championing manifest itself in real life, but that happened at this show. Even something as little as giving him a shot of whiskey before he went on felt so noble. He was so gracious towards his audience, tearing up while thanking one girl in particular through helping him through tough times when he was in college. Even if I never meet Lemmy or Iommi, I'll always be happy that Wasluck was chilling in my living room one day before a show. One of my car windows got smashed when I got dinner after the show, but honestly, it didn't damper the night.

Favorite Albums of 2010-2014:

1. Prurient: Bermuda Drain
2. Thou: Heathen
3. Gridlink: Longhena
4. VHÖL: VHÖL
5. Deafheaven: Sunbather
6. Sun Kil Moon: Benji
7. Planning For Burial: Desideratum
8. Lil Ugly Mane: Mista Thug Isolation
9. Prurient: Through the Window
10. Pallbearer: Sorrow and Extinction
11. Death Grips: The Money Store
12. Impetuous Ritual: Unholy Congregation of Hypocritical Ambivalence
13. Agalloch: Marrow of the Spirit
14. Power Trip: Manifest Decimation
15. Dreamless: All This Sorrow, All These Knives
16. The Body: I Shall Die Here
17. Death Grips: Government Plates
18. Pig Destroyer: Book Burner
19. The Haxan Cloak: Excavation
20. Triptykon: Eparistera Daimones

Favorite Tracks of 2010-2014:

1. Prurient: "I Understand You”
2. Planning For Burial: "Where You Rest Your Head At Night"
3. Prurient: "A Meal Can Be Made"
4. Death Grips: "I've Seen Footage"
5. Lil Ugly Mane: "Slick Rick"
6. Gridlink: "Constant Autumn"
7. Prurient: "You Show Great Spirit"
8. Death Grips: "Whatever I Want (Fuck Who's Watching)"
9. Power Trip: "Crossbreaker"
10. Yob: "Prepare The Ground"
11. Planning For Burial: "Golden"
12. Waka Flocka Flame: "Hard in Da Paint"
13. Thou: "Ode to Physical Pain"
14. In Solitude: “Pallid Hands”
15. Tollund Men: “Fire”
16. No Gang Colors: "Money Screw Dead"
17. Deafheaven: "Sunbather"
18. Bill Callahan: "Small Plane"
19. A Pregnant Light: "Ringfinger"
20. VHÖL: "The Wall"