Top Ten Lists by KBOO DJs for 2015

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a variety of KBOO DJs and volunteers list their top ten records, and other things of 2015
JBJ- Back to the Egg (Every Other Sunday  Midnight -3am)

01 Mountain Goats - Beat The Champ. 
02 Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer
03 Laura Marling - Short Movie
04 Joanna Newsom - Divers
05 Jessica Pratt - On Your Own Love Again
06 Mount Eerie - Sauna
07 Django Django - Born Under Saturn
08 Girlpool - When The World Was Old Again
09 Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
10 Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool

Runnerups:
 Public Service Broadcasting - The Race For Space
Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit And Think
Low - Ones And Sixes
R. Stevie Moore & Jason Falkner - Make It Be
Mary Lou Lord - Backstreet Angels
Jose Gonzalez - Vestiges & Claws

Don Jacobson - Movin On (Fridays Noon-1:30pm)

In Alphabetical Order:
Anna & Elizabeth: ANNA & ELIZABETH [Self]
Archie Fisher: A SILENT SONG [Red House]
Erynn Marshall & Carl Jones: SWEET MOMENTS...NEVER LEAVE [Dittyville]
Happy Traum: JUST FOR THE LOVE OF IT [Lark's Nest]
Jayme Stone: ALAN LOMAX PROJECT [Self]
Joel Mabus: A BIRD IN THIS WORLD [Fossil]
John McCutcheon: JOE HILL'S LAST WILL [Appalseed]
John Roberts & Debra Cowan: BALLADS LONG & SHORT [Golden Hind]
Kathy Kallick:FOXHOUNDS [Live Oak]
Pharis & Jason Romero: A WANDERER I'LL STAY [Lula]
Rhiannon Giddens: TOMMORROW IS MY TURN [Nonesuch]
Sue Massen: PRECIOUS MEMORIES [Strictly Country]
Utah Phillips: MAKING SPEECH FREE [Free Dirt]
Various: JOY OF LIVING [Compass]

Erin Yanke - Life During Wartime (Every Other Wednesday 10pm - Midnight)
  1. Shopping – Consumer Complaints (Fat Cat)
WOW. This really blew my mind on first exposure, and continues to delight and amaze me. Danceable and smart, anticapitalist postpunk that doesn’t hold back on creativity. Whenever I play it at the record store someone buys the copy straight off the turntable. This is powerful art. Lively. Great.
  1. Lebenden Toten - Stagnation Fragmentation – (Whisper in Darkness)
This cassette only release will eventually be their new record.. I'm glad we got a sneak peak because its Amazing! They bring the noise and static and franticness and pulsing pace and paranoia and the cold edge of electronics in water. They are a Portland treasure!
  1. Spray Paint –  Punters on a Barge (Homeless) and  Dopers (Monofonus Press)
I love this band, and love how prolific they are! Two high quality full length records. A few years back I said they were everything good about punk, and now they’ve gone deeper. They’ve slowed down a little bit, added a bunch more instruments, but still manage to be npredictable while keeping it rockin!
  1. G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit) – (Total Negativity)
This made me so incredibly happy. To live in such a harsh world that wants the best people dead, and to hear the art that hate can be turned into, it just makes me proud of G.L.O.S.S. as a band and as people, and even a little bit proud of humans in general. This is perfect, so ragin and so alive. Such a gift to the world.
  1. Dead Moon – Live at Satyricon (Voodoo Doughnut Recordings)
The best band ever in the history of the world reminds us of their amazing live energy in the days when fewer folks cared. It’s also funny to me that Going South didn’t start out the set, but that’s total nerdcore from a super fan. Pure Love.
  1. CCTV – CCTV ep (Lumpy)
Treble heavy, frantic, and fun. The vocals are distanced and yet present, engaging and suspicious, laying just above the musical whirlpool. Plus the record has the personal touch that I love.What does CCTV stand for on your record?
  1. Vexx – Give and Take (Katorga Works)
I like this record mostly because it reminds me of their amazing live shows, the honesty and raw (really raw, not just a lot of distortion and effects style) possibility that Mary Jane brings to all moments. Live she is incredible, as is the band who rage along. But this record gives me time to slow down a little and take in what they are saying and doing, not just be swept up in it. Walking in the Rain is standout.
  1. Fleshworld - The Wild Animals In My Life (Iron Lung)
I save this record for certain moods, when you want to really sit and listen and go somewhere else. This record opens portals. Lots of fuzz and feedback to lull you, but underneath there are noise moments and other sharp barbs to keep you on your toes as the mind wanders to new worlds. This record is a soundtrack to longing: personal, political, artistic.
  1. Andy Human and the Reptoids – Andy Human and the Reptoids (SS Records)
The band that, when I’d DJ parties, or play on the radio, got the most head swivels the most “who’s THAT?!!” asked with excitement and curiosity. AHatR sure know how to get past the “I’ve heard it all” fortress and break into it with a 70’s Ohio sense of creativity, urgency, fun, and experimentation without sounding like anyone of those bands, and without sounding like retro hack. Modern sounds for modern times.
  1. Susan Vaslev - Music from Enchanted Forest  (Wyrd War)
You may have gotten a taste from last year’s comp WHIPSERS THROUGH THE BLACK VEIL, but here’s more of the soundtrack to the fantasy amusement park!  Not only a great record, but this calls to the higher purpose of making records, documenting our unique corners of the world and bringing them into new worlds. 

Rolf Semprebon - Sound Unsound (Every Other Sunday morning Midnight - 3am)

1 Volcano the Bear – Commencing (Miasmah) Over 4 hours of previously unreleased music on 5 records culled from the 20 years of this band’s existence, and there’s hardly a weak moment. Very imaginative all-over-the-place music, from noise to weird folk to drone to improvisational craziness, and a lot more.  
 
2 Maja S. K. Ratkje, Jon Wesseltoft, Camille Norment, Per Gisle Galåen – Celadon (Important) Who knew that a drone record could be this intense and jarring? And Ratkje’s vocals are superbly demonic. This one is unique.     
 
3  Jenny Hval – Apocalypse, Girl (Sacred Bones)  Thought-provoking experimental pop deconstruction, maybe her best record yet.
 
4  Felicia Atkinson – A Readymade Ceremony (Shelter Press) Totally out there, even includes the reciting of a Georges Bataille short story. 
 
5  The “A” Trio + Alan Bishop – Burj Al Imam (Annihaya) Recorded in Beirut, Sun City Girls bassist/guitarist and some Lebanese musicians improvise to produce fascinating results.
 
6   The Pop Group – Citizen Zombie (Freaks R Us) Back after 30 years and as biting and tough as ever...
 
7  Lau Nau – Hem.Nagonstans (Fonal)   More experimental and ambient than earlier Lau Nau,.. ..
 
8  Natural Snow Buildings– Terror’s Horn (Ba Da Bing) One of their eeriest releases, and more focused and compact than a lot of their material. 
 
9  John Weise – Deviate From Balance (Helicopter) Recorded all over the world with different musicians, but the highlight is the side long track recorded in Portland with members of Smegma.
 
10  Pussy Riot – Won’t Get Fooled Again (Spite) Russia’s feminist punks cover British and American bands like The Who, Ramones, Bowie, Clash, Nirvana and more.
 
Runner ups:
CocoRosie – Heartache City
Steven Stapleton & Christoph Heemann – Painting With Priests
Olimpia Splendid – Olimpia Splendid
Scout Pare-Phillips – Heed the Call
Helen Money & Jarboe – self titled-
Tellavsion – The Third Eye
Hox – Duke of York
Ghost Harmonic – Codex
Fingers – Hide Before Dinner
Josefin Ohrn + The Liberation – Horse Dance


PUBLIC AFFAIRS STORIES
In a great addition to the Top Tens, we've also got some Public Affairs Producers to share their ideas of KBOOs best public affairs moments of 2015:

Kathleen Stephenson - AM News and Public Affairs Director

12/30 Political Perspectives - Roy Scranton on his new book, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene.  Roy Scranton draws on his experiences in Iraq to confront the grim realities of climate change. He responds to the existential problem of global warming by arguing that in order to survive, we must come to terms with our mortality. 
 
11/5 Between the Covers - Colum McCann on Thirteen Ways of Looking, a new short story collection – the first in 12 years –  from the National Book Award–winning author. In the title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life’s work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. 
 
10/30 Political Perspectives - Grahame Russell of Rights Action, a U.S. and Canadian based human rights organization, (www.rightsaction.org), that provides direct funds to and does solidarity work with grassroots indigenous and non-indigenous community organizations in Central America and Mexico.
 
9/30 Political Perspectives - Caroline Fredrickson on her new book, "Under the Bus: How Working Women Are Being Run Over." She explains how U.S. labor laws exclude certain workers from protection (mainly women and people of color), and the terrible reasons why those workers are excluded. 
 
9/23 Political Perspectives - Brad Evans on his book Disposable Futures: The Seduction of Violence in the Age of Spectacle, co-authored with Henry Giroux. Disposable Futures makes the case that we have not just become desensitized to violence, but rather, that we are being taught to desire it. http://kboo.fm/disposablefuturestheseductionofviolencei
 
9/14 Radiozine - writer Michael Helquist on his new biography Marie Equi: Radical Politics and Outlaw Passions, (Oregon State University Press), which explores the fiercely independent life of Marie Equi, who became one of the first practicing woman physicians in the Pacific Northwest. 
 
9/10 Between the Covers - local writer Patsy Kullberg on her new novel, Girl in the River, a portrait of the intimate lives of women during one of the most corrupt periods in Portland history. http://kboo.fm/patsykullbergonhernovelgirlintheriver
 
8/26 Political Perspectives - James W. Russell on the upcoming retirement crisis. He is the author of SOCIAL INSECURITY: 401(k)s and the Retirement Crisis.
 
5/29 Political Perspectives - activist Ai-jen Poo on her new book, The Age of Dignity: Preparing for the Elder Boom in a Changing America. http://kboo.fm/aijenpooontheageofdignitypreparingforthe
 
5/20 Political Perspectives - Per Espen Stoknes on his new book, "What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming: Toward a New Psychology of Climate Action." 
 


Sarika Mehta - Intersections Radio (First Fridays from 11-11:30 am)

Bhi Bhiman
ISLRTC Autonomy Now
Zara Husain (Deaf South Asian American story)
Richard Blanco

Per Fagereng - Fight The Empire (Every Other Thursday 9:30-10am)
 
Stephen Cohen, Dec 17 – US and Russia.
David Talbot, Dec 3 – The Devil’s Chessboard.
James Bradley, June 4 – The China Mirage.
Robert Parry, Feb 19 – Ukraine and the Neo-Cons,
Robert Parry, Oct 1 – Groupthink in DC.
Gareth Porter, April 16 – Iran