Alright, so we’re slowly getting there, folks. The anticlimactic end to this drawn out Best of feature is just around the corner, ready to put itself out of its misery. However, until that day of relief comes we have two more albums we’d like to present to you as official ‘First Half Album Picks’. If it’s any consolation, these aren’t just your normal everyday first half album picks. These albums have been hand selected by two of Invisible Limb’s most well respected and talented writers, John McGee and Tyler Schmittyburg. You may recognize both of them from their days as NYC DJ duo, Schmitty McGee. They played some great sets at Club Unicorn in August and September of 2005, before they were tragically fired for repeatedly playing a Jay Z/Sufjan Stevens mash-up called “So Fresh and So Casimir Pulaski”. Actually, never mind- that was just a terrible, terrible lie designed to waste 25 seconds of your time. Club Unicorn would never hire a DJ duo with a name like Schmitty McGee.  They have standards there, just like any other indie club.  Here are the real album picks by two actual Invisible Limb staff members.

Bob Ham
Staff Reviewer

Matmos
The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth of a Beast
Matador Records

Always one to take a good idea and make it great, this year saw the release of what could be the finest achievement in the career of M.C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel, the two men that comprise the group Matmos. The two decided to write ten songs each based on someone that they admired. Those ten people included philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, punk rock casualty Darby Crash, and even King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

What strikes me most about this album is the group’s ability to take outlandish ideas and turn them into song. If you read through the notes on the band’s website about this album, the whole project sounds like experimental twaddle (playing a cow’s reproductive tract like a saxophone, recording the sound of snails interrupting the pitch of a theremin) but they take those bits of sound and twist and turn them into integral pieces of songs that can be shaking disco breakdowns, noir soundtrack homages or even their version of a ’60s pop nugget.

The record can sometimes be exhausting to listen to (especially the 12 minute plus tribute to William S. Burroughs that sounds like the heady spin of a whirling dervish by the end), but it is also such a treat to hear something that is truly achieving the goal of producing electronic music with intelligent ideas behind it. Yes, there’s stuff here to make you shake your hips but Matmos wants you to do so much more with their music. I hope that you do.

http://www.brainwashed.com/matmos/

MP3: Roses and Teeth for Ludwig Wittgenstein

Reid Barber
Staff Reviewer

The OhSees (formerly OCS)
The Cool Death of Island Raiders
Narnack Records

Even though this is the 5th album out by John Dwyer and Patrick Mullins, I’m still blown away by the sound that they have.  It’s not that it’s terribly original, but how different it is from and of the bands that Dwyer has fronted before.  From the spazz noise rock of Pink and Brown to the destructive trio The Coachwhips.  The OhSees started out as nothing more then Dwyer’s experimental noodlings in his bedroom.   It has since grown into a full band.

The album starts with a bang and keeps the ball rolling throughout.  Dwyer knows how to write a catchy riff and this album shows just that on tracks like “The Guilded Cunt” and the 2 title tracks “Island Raiders” and “Cool Deaths.”  The vocals are a treat on all tracks, sounding as if they were using a megaphone in place of a microphone.  The album departs from itself on the aptly titled “Drone Number 1” and “Drone Number 2” with simple Drone style noise songs.  While I do enjoy Dwyer taking a few leaps on the album, I’d like it more if he kept that sort of thing with other projects of his.  All in all, it’s a great album by a great band. I hope to see more by them in the near future and beyond.

Catch up with the other installments: 
First Half Album Picks of 2006 part 1
First Half Album Picks of 2006 part 2