9. Vivien Goldman, “Private Armies,” from Resolutionary (Staubgold) – From 1979 to 1982 the music journalist made dub music in London and Paris. None of it is ordinary, but nothing really touches this six-minute cultural travelogue, one of her first tracks, about how you can no longer walk down your own, suddenly racialized street. With Vicky Aspinall of the Raincoats on violin, Keith Levene of PiL on bass and guitar, John Lydon producing, and Goldman singing in a voice that can’t quite believe what it’s describing, snakes slither through the rhythms, then turn into rhythms; you can see the notes bend.
(Also in the September 2016 RLR Top 10: Samantha Bee, Eric Clapton, Donald Trump, Cyndi Lauper, Fantastic Negrito, and more.)
Pitchfork, September 29, 2016
GreilMarcus.net 