One of the best reasons for starting my own web site is to give myself a place to rant about the music I love! If anything here rings bells for you, I’d be glad to hear about it, and to take suggestions of things you think I should hear. If you want even more amateur music input, try my daughter Emma’s site too. Emma also runs a great music series in the straw bale Arts Centre Hastings.

December 30, 2011

As usual, I’ve come down with a case of post-list making should-haves… meaning that I’ve overlooked some incredible albums that simply must be added to this year’s best of tally.

The first thing I forgot was a completely unexpected “tribute” album to a pair of fairly obscure African bands. It’s a rare thing when a tribute album contains one decent song, but in this case there is an entire album’s worth of amazing songs and a second album’s worth of mostly amazing songs. The album is called Tradi-Mods Vs. Rockers. The bands being honoured are Konono No. 1 and the Kasai Allstars, two bands that employ thumb pianos played through all kinds of home-made and found electronics over top of fairly traditional drums and singing. If you want to check out the source material, it’s remarkable in its own right. I like Assume Crash Positions by Konono No. 1 and In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And Ate The Head Of His Enemy By Magic by the Kasai Allstars. But working from this amazing source material, a whole bunch of indie-rock bands cover, mix and mash-up songs by these two bands with incredible results. The original material is rhythmic, distorted, tuneful and compelling stuff, and leaves room for many different approaches. The electronic thumb pianos are sometimes sampled, sometimes mocked by guitars or electronics, and sometimes it’s impossible to tell what is original source material and what is original. The entire first album is a remarkably coherent whole, despite the wide range of contributors (Andrew Bird, Deerhoof, Megafaun, Juana Molina…) and a listen unlike anything else. It’s been a repeat favourite for a long time now.

Next on the forgotten list is Colin Stetson’s New History Warfare. In the 90s, I spent a lot of time listening to experimental music, including lots of extended technique playing of traditional instruments and unconventional recording methods. Now, in 2011, Canadian Colin Stetson puts out a solo saxophone album that makes use of both these approaches to create a work that is refreshing and compelling to hear. The saxophone, by being recorded at varying distances from the performer, creates sounds that range from clicking percussion to overtone-distorted electronics, and sometimes even sounds like a saxophone. Stetson employs circular breathing and throat singing to often play two distinct sax parts at the same time, and combined with the recording techniques this makes for a full and unique sound. Very hard to describe, but very amazing to hear. What is particularly engaging for me (and missing from lots of “experimental” music) is the sense of performance that is palpable in each cut. Though a listener who doesn’t know what is being played would have a very hard time identifying the music, what is clear is that it is being performed live. In some songs, he records his circular breathing and in others the clicks and snaps of the sax keys lend the urgency of live performance to sounds that might otherwise be distant or electronic-y.

Seek these out, and enjoy!

December 24, 2011

Best of 2011 List

Hooray… it’s nerd-out time yet again. I’ve been reading other people’s best of lists and slowly piecing my own together. There was certainly an abundance to choose from. If I think about the very first time I made one of these lists, it was generated by pulling the relevant albums out of their milk crates and sorting through them. Whether or not the vinyl sounded better (it didn’t), I got those records by going to record stores and hoping like crazy that the store would have one or two of the things on the list I had written out based on rumours, recommendations and reviews. I had to buy the damn thing in order to hear it, and the list of disappointments was often longer than the keepers. All the music on this list was accessible at my fingertips, and I could sample it before I bought (yes, I still pay for it!). It makes sorting through the riches all that much more rewarding. The fact that there is so much to sort through makes it harder than ever to narrow things down.

There are some old favourites on this list. I hope that’s not the onset of old-fartism. It made me happy that there are artists who have had 20+ year careers and who are still able to make challenging, remarkable music.

Here, in no particular order of favouriteness, are the things that made me oh-so glad to have a functional pair of ears this year:

Beirut – The Rip Tide

Beirut’s distinct sound has been a favourite of mine since his first album. And every time a new album is introduced, I have a moment of worry that it will sound too much like the last one, that he’ll do “the Beirut thing” again. And he does, but it hasn’t sounded repetitive yet. In fact, I’ve liked each album better than the previous ones after a few listens, and The Rip Tide is the same. Joyous and plaintive, inventive and accessible, this one has become a default go-to album every time I wonder what to put on.

 

Bjork – Biophilia

It’s been a while since I’ve really liked a Bjork album. I listen to all of them, and never fail to appreciate her particular genius, but they don’t always turn into repeat favourites. I almost didn’t check this one out, because all I heard about it at first was that it was “interactive” and came as an “app.” I’m not into that stuff. But then I heard a song on a radio show and was inspired to listen to the whole album. I’m glad I did. Some of Bjork’s more recent work has been a bit too pretty for my taste, but Biophilia takes the best of her quieter side and mixes it with a musical inventiveness that suits every song perfectly. She doesn’t rely on quiet/loud contrasts as much, but rather sounds and textures that lift each song into unique aural territory. It’s one of the few things that I’ve listened to with back-to-back repetitions.

 

The Bongolian – Bongos for Beatniks

This one is an odd pick, and I kept not wanting to include it except that I kept including it. It’s cheesy dance/lounge music, but so celebratory in its love of all things danceable and cheesy and loungey that it’s completely infectious. It dares you to not get down to its audacious organ hooks, and I for one can’t say no. If you decide to check this one out and you hate it, you’ll probably have a bit less respect for me next time we meet. But if you end up liking it, we’ll have a dance party at my place and we can love it together!

 

The Cave Singers – No Witch

The Cave Singers are the band that I most regret not going to see this year. Came this close… This time around they are rocking things out a bit more, with some tracks featuring bolder guitars and rock drums, and some with well used strings and horns. The vocalist has an amazingly affecting sound, and the songs are really solid.  Are they sensitive hillbillies, or edgy roots-rockers? Both? The quieter and the louder songs all have the kind of insistent rhythm that made their earlier albums so infectious, with the whole band getting behind whatever groove is going and driving it.

 

Cornershop – The Double-O Groove

This one was on the fringe of this list, but in the end I’m keeping it here. I love Cornershop, but I don’t think this one is here for purely sentimental reasons. Sure, it has lots of what I love about this band, like catchy beats and hooks sometimes played on rock instruments and sometimes on Indian ones. All the vocals on this one are sung by a female Indian singer, mostly in Punjabi. They are playful mixes of western and eastern, which would have been hugely revolutionary ten years ago, but in this case they are revolutionary in that the combination seems completely natural and almost ordinary, like these two musics are made to go together.

 

Devo – Something for Everybody

It has only been in the past couple of years that I’ve started to appreciate Devo. I used to think of them as the “Whip It” guys, and missed the fact that they had been making albums of the quirky punk-funk that I’ve always loved and somehow missed. And then just as I was starting to play catch up with their back catalogue, they release this new one. Which just happens to be their best ever, I think. “What We Do” is the song that sums up the thing with bands: “What we do is what we do, it’s all the same, there’s nothing new” is the chorus, and it’s delivered with all the enthusiasm and inventiveness that a band doing what they do best can bring to an album. The fact that synth-punk-funk has never sounded any better makes what they do fun and dumb, danceable and smart. A dance track that has me singing “Don’t tase me bro” can only be great.

 

Feist – Metals

I almost didn’t listen to this one, and it’s only in the past week that I’ve bought and listened to it. Her past albums have always sounded good to me when I first hear them, and then they don’t really stick around. But this one might have staying power. I’ve been repeating a lot and am only liking it more. It doesn’t have the radio friendly songs that made her famous, and it doesn’t have the somewhat limp songs that hinted at inventiveness but didn’t really deliver. It has songs that are really well written and delivered with conviction, and the kind of conviction that brings great singing, playing and production to bear on every song. Time will tell if it sticks, but I think it might…

 

Man Man – Life Fantastic

For me, the words “more accessible” are almost always a reason to run away from an album. But for Man Man’s latest, more accessible doesn’t mean toned down, it just means that every song is listenable even if you’re not in the mood for a screaming breakdown. These songs have the roaring vocals and weird marimba-synth arrangements of their past bests, and some of the best drumming ever, all put to use on songs that are top 40 hits in world where everybody’s on acid. I can’t wait to see these new songs added to their live shows, which are among the best I’ve ever seen in my life.

 

Shugo Tokumaru – Night Pieces

Okay, this isn’t a 2011 release, but this is the year I discovered this artist and it’s worth marking (Entropy, his 2011 album, is equally good, but it came second in my life). Fans of the Penguin Café Orchestra will understand when I say that Tokumaru plays simple songs that are completely accessible and yet somehow remarkably inventive at the same time. Sung in Japanese and played with ukelele and other acoustic instruments with splashes great electronics, each song is a perfect little world, delivered with a smile. I play this one just about every Sunday morning before anybody else wakes up.

 

Timber Timbre – Creep On Creepin On

These haunting, claustrophobic songs are a near-perfect listen. I like the previous Timber Timbre album, but on occasion found his vocals a bit affected. Here he put his voice to great use, inhabiting each song’s tight little world. If you put easy listening pop of the past five decades into a weirding machine, this is what might come out. The forms are all recognizable as pop, but without resorting to overblown production methods they are warped into something simultaneously menacing and beautiful.

 

Tom Waits – Bad As Me

Every time I hear this album, I get a mile-wide grin. Nobody stretches song forms as far from their original shape as Waits, but he never loses whatever it is at the core of a great song that makes me want to listen. Some might say he’s doing the same thing he’s been doing for a while, but I say big friggin deal. When you do something as outrageously perfect as this, you should keep doing it. Nothing on this album comes across as stale or repetitive. Waits is a pop musician, with an incredible handle on what makes a song work, from ballads to blues to rockers. He can take all of these forms and shape brilliant lyrics, his growl and great playing to them and then shake until they’re on the edge of being unrecognizable. Great stuff, especially the rockers.

 

TuneYards – Whokill

I’m not much for hyped-up, next-best-thing artists, unless like TuneYards the raves are completely deserved. At the centre of these songs are a strong, unique voice put to perfect use, sometimes as a rhythm instrument, a source of beat or to sing great lyrics. This is music that has lots of influences, but doesn’t ever play to any of them directly. I was excited listening to this. Here is music that sounds new and brilliant and original, but without resorting to being new, brilliant or original. The songs seem to demand the sounds being made, and nothing comes across as forced. Compelling listening!

 

Honourable Mentions

Other things grabbed my attention and got lots of listens this year, but they weren’t necessarily best-album material. The Berg Sans Nipple (worst name ever?) make an electronic dance music that I liked a lot, especially Change the Shape. The Cornelius album Fastasma has some amazing stuff on it, compelling cut-and-paste. Wanda Jackson’s new album rocks out in a way that a 70-something has no right to rock out. Hank 3’s Ghost to a Ghost has some of the best country songs ever penned, some of the most crass songs ever penned and some of the most inventive atmospherics. Strange combo? Yup. Kind of brilliant, really.

 

December 30, 2010

Hold the presses! I think I’ve just superseded the Top Ten list below…

A late-December music buying binge has uncovered at least two serious contenders for best of the year in my opinion. The first of these is Sir Lucious Left Foot by Big Boi. This is the kind of hip hop that I’ve always ached for, and so rarely seems to come along. It’s hilarious, it’s serious about its humour, it’s rich, dense and so beautifully well-timed and orchestrated that it fucks with the system by being everything the system asks for and then knocks the system out by doing things the system can’t comprehend. That’s a wordy way to say that Big Boi fucks over the dominant paradigm by having more fun than they do and letting them know it in no uncertain terms. With the exception of the clunker with Janelle Monae, every song takes the conventions, meets them, exceeds them and then shreds them. And makes the leap at each stage so much fun. This music is no thin joke. Make no mistake, Big Boi is a serious motherfucker. He’s serious about making songs that everybody has to like because they’re so good you have to like them. Listen to it, it’s amazing.

Ghostkeeper’s self titled album came out of nowhere and has been a real delight over repetitive listens this week. It’s hard to say what this band is up to… there are some folky things, some major fuzzy riffage, lots of quirky lyrics, mostly in nice short songs that don’t nod to convention in very many ways, except by using conventional structures sporadically.

Other things have cropped up via reading other people’s year end lists (thank you, music geeks, one and all!). Local Natives’ Gorilla Manor, Transference by Spoon, Beach House‘s Teen Dream and The Wild Hunt by The Tallest Man on Earth would have all been in the running for my list, if I’d found them more than a few days ago. It’s an unbelievably rich well…

December 16, 2010

Best of 2010 List

Once again, my list of the year’s best includes things that I found (or even rediscovered this year), and not just albums released this year. It’s a lot of fun to look back and be amazed at all the amazing new sonic discoveries from the past year. It makes me feel thankful to be alive at such a time in our musical history! It’s hard to imagine there has ever been a better moment for music lovers… the range of musics being pursued is immense, and in each genre and sub-genre there are remarkable artists working excellent magic and then making it available to us. There are a lot of reasons to be depressed about the world’s current state, but the state of music actually bodychecks me in the right direction.

Okay, here they are:

Tobacco – Maniac Meat

This one came my way quite recently, and from a favourite new source for new music: All Songs Considered on US National Public Radio. They played this song and suddenly my car was full of dense, fuzzy synthesizer noise that was menacing and catchy at the same time. The songs are packed with rhythmic synth thumping and buzzing, and then scattered with manipulated vocals. The whole thing could be completely over-the-top and pretentious, but there’s lots of humour and pop sensibility at work and it’s hard not to like it even if I’m simultaneously wondering why and feeling like I shouldn’t. Some of the mangled vocals are done by Beck, and maybe the best way to describe this music is to imagine Beck doing an all-synth album. I just keep putting it on.

Laurie Anderson – Homeland

Laurie Anderson was a transformative artist for me in my teens. Mister Heartbreak got me through high school and made me excited about art. I’ve continued to follow her music ever since, but I must admit that the last couple of albums have been a bit disappointing. So I almost didn’t listen to this one. But, it’s Laurie and I owed her the benefit of the doubt. And she earns it with Homeland. On this one, she combines the cleverness of concept and lyrics of her early work with the musicality of her more recent work, and it may be among the best she’s ever done in my opinion. The “song songs” are well crafted, and her singing really is singing. The talky “story songs” put together her wit and insight and flawless timing of delivery to remain listenable, even once I know what’s coming. And some of the tracks put song-songs and story-songs together. In the end, I feel the weight of everything she’s said over the course of the album, and soon enough want to hear it again.

Dan Mangan – Nice, Nice, Very Nice

You can always get me to listen to your album by titling it with a reference or a quote from Kurt Vonnegut. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to like it. And I wasn’t sure I was going to like this, but I’m glad I gave it a chance. Not that it took long to realize this was something I was going to return to repeatedly. This guy has the warmest, most charming voice and delivery, put to use on songs that are funny and touching, usually at the same time. If my best friend summed up the stories of our friendship in a best friend voice and with simple but well-considered sonic structures, he’d make this album. I feel like I could recommend this to everyone and pretty much guarantee good results.

Thee Oh Sees – HELP

One of the great joys to be found in the current state of genre-mashing is this album, which manages to combine stoopid garage rock with clever art rock. I can get up my best white man’s overbite and air guitar to this, while feeling somewhat elevated from full FUBAR status. I can’t always make out what they’re singing, but it comes across as muffled intelligence. You’ll either like this one at once, or not at all I think. If you like it, you’ll probably like it loud. I do.

Fionn Regan – The End of History

I really liked Fionn Regan’s first album, The Shadow of an Empire. Folky and largely acoustic, these were songs that were surprising, thoughtful, musically intriguing and immediately engaging, delivered in a voice that was confident in a rare and remarkable way. In all, it’s one of my all-time favourite acoustic albums, ranking with the best of Dylan and Co. He changed it up for this second album, making it a rock album. And it works as well as the first one. The comparisons to Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited are inevitable and unlike many similar comparisons, actually valid. Regan sounds like he’s discovering the power of plugging in with the same joy and freedom as Dylan. The sound isn’t derivative, but it’s infused with the same spirit. Tackling love and politics, Regan rhymes with the very best of them, phrases his lines with the best and sings at louder volumes with the same confidence as he displays in his acoustic songs. This album might sound a bit out of date, except it’s impossible to sound out of date when you’re at the top of your game like this.

Grasscut – 1 inch / 1/2 mile

In the past, I’ve gotten hooked on Tunng and The Books, both bands that put together electronic beats and computer twitches with acoustic instruments and song-like vocals. Grasscut is a happy new addition to that particular club. British folk vocals bring a charm and whimsy to songs that range from quite and almost fully acoustic to loud and dense congregations of sound. The discord stays just this side of off-putting, and the folk whimsy never gets too overbearing. There’s plenty of interesting sound and it’s often rhythmically compelling. It’s a tough one to describe, but worth checking out.

Alela Diane – The Pirate’s Gospel

I really shouldn’t like this. A quirky young songwriter delivers her quirky songs in a “unique” voice… could be a recipe for disaster. But I like these songs, and all the quirkiness doesn’t amount to precociousness. Put to use on really well formed songs, Alela Diane’s affectations don’t feel affected. Or at least not in a bad way. The guitar accompaniments are simple but interesting, and her phrasing is really good. The songs have an innocent feel to them, but not emptily so. There’s a depth that seems to lie under all of it, and that’s what makes it bear repeated listenings.

The Legendary Shack Shakers – Cockadoodledon’t

How did this band manage to escape me for so long? I think they’ve been doing this for a while. “This” is punked up rockabilly. Not exactly a new sound, but one that works for me when it’s done this well. These guys have awesomely dumb lyrics delivered over pogo-stick rockabilly rhythms and twangy guitars. If they played at my old high school in ’83, the rednecks would’ve loved them, and so would us art boys. They seem to know that there’s honour and artistic integrity in making twangy rock with rhyming couplets that make poetry out of dumb shit.

MIA – /\/\ /\ Y /\

I love MIA. She’s managed to take a sound that would have been completely at home on the far electronic fringe not very long ago and made it into music that’s wildly popular. She’s fiercely political, funny and unbelievably inventive in her use of sound. This album doesn’t really push beyond the kinds of songs that she’s done before, but that’s no criticism when you’ve created a field so rich and inventive. There’s one song that’s a bit pop for me (the single XXXO), but the rest assembles her catchy beats and disjointed synth sounds and samples with her rap/sing vocals (“They told me this was a free country, But now it feels like chicken factory” is but one of many favourite lines) into songs that have more going on than much more “serious” electronic music. It makes me so happy that she’s popular!

Low Anthem – Oh My God Charlie Darwin

The title track of this album also leads off the album, and it’s such an amazing song that it wouldn’t have been at all surprising if it had been all downhill from there. It says a lot that the rest of the songs hold up very well in comparison. The songs range from the delicate and falsetto’d title track to the Tom Waits-ish The Horizon is a Beltway. At every stop along that spectrum, this band delivers great songwriting expressed with the full emotional impact of the chosen medium. The vocalist (I think it’s one singer) has a remarkable range, and his voice works equally well in every setting.

Best Song: Fed From Her Hand, Demon’s Claws

I heard this on All Songs Considered, and have subsequently played it over and over. Mean and funny, this fuzzy rock song is my sing-along favourite of the year, and just so damn compelling I can’t get enough!

Runners Up

As always, there were more amazing albums this year than can fit in a top ten list. The ones that came close to appearing here include: Au – Verbs; The Books – The Way Out (The Books also gave the best live show I saw this year); Charlotte Gainsbourg – IRM (by programming out the French songs and one bad English one, I turned this into an album I really like); Gold Panda – Lucky Shiner; Colleen – Everyone Alive Wants Answers.

February 24, 2010

Loving Ivor Cutler

As a young teen, I’d listen to fuzzy radio broadcasts of the Dr. Demento show from a station in New York. With my trusty tape recorder, I’d record each episode and then edit them down to a personal “best of” novelty songs collection.

Topping the list was a very odd but incredibly compelling song by a Scot named Ivor Cutler, “I’ve Got No Common Sense.” The words to that ‘song’ have stuck in my head ever since, and it’s popped into my head and stayed there (sometimes too long) repeatedly over the last 30 years. Cutler doesn’t really sing, and in this song scratches a violin tunelessly as accompaniment. But his words came from such a strange place that they fire all kinds of connections that make them endlessly compelling. For a long time, that one song was all I knew of Cutler.

About ten years ago, I stumbled on an actual Ivor Cutler CD, A Wet Handle. I had reservations, figuring that the novelty might be pretty thin considering I’d formed my attachment to one of his songs at the age of 13 or so. However, the 80-odd short tracks on that CD were every bit as odd and wonderful as ‘No Common Sense.’ Each short poem is delivered in Cutler’s flat Scottish brogue, and takes a listener on wee vacations into the unexpected. Some are truly bizarre, near-nonsense poems, some make sharp personal or political observations. All of them make you want to stick around and listen to the next one.

Having Ivor Cutler on my iPod is my favourite way to hear him. I’ve added A Flat Man to my Cutler collection, giving me over 150 tracks that pop up frequently between the regular songs on rotation, and insert a bit of well-needed weirdness into my day. It’s hard to not stop and listen to a Cutler poem or song. His voice is quiet, his delivery rarely changes its tone, and yet I can’t help but quiet down and hear him out. Even if I know all the words already.

If you’re a listener who aches for an occasional poke in the head from a kindly trickster, I can’t recommend Ivor Cutler strongly enough.

January 31, 2010

Rediscovering Tom Ze

As an ardent Talking Heads fan in the 80s, I was one of the many who followed David Byrne down his Luaka Bop track into the world of Brazilian music. The original Brazil Classics album was not a life-changer for me, but I do remember liking the quirkiness of the couple of Tom Ze tracks that were included.

I’m not sure what prompted me to check out Tom Ze again recently (I’ve never seen a review anywhere), but I did. And this time, it is as close to being a life changer as any music has ever been.

The first album I stumbled upon was Danç-Êh-Sá, from 2006. Tom Ze is now around 70 years old. In the 70s, he was popular and political and being arrested for his lyrics by the Brazilian government. I can’t think of a single American/Canadian/British artist who was famous in the 70s and is still making music that is as wonderful and adventurous as Tom Ze. Most artists take on their role of stately elder by either softening their edges and “maturing” or repeatedly doing the same thing they’ve always done.

Tom Ze gets his hands on some digital recording technology and completely re-imagines what a song can be. I don’t speak Portugese, but I don’t think he does on this album either. Instead, there are voices as instruments, sometimes his own winking croon and often choruses of harmonizing backup singers, all spouting perfect nonsense.

I described this album to my friend Jackson the other night as the sound of a playful and irreverent 10-year old boy inhabiting the body of a musical genius. I can’t think of a better way of putting it. Silly little vocal musings, almost-fart sounds, the kind of little riffs that a clever kid could pluck out on a guitar and find awesome… all of these find a home in songs put together by a master of rhythm and timing. And now that he can play with samples too, things get truly awesome. There is always the anchor of great Brazilian rhythm, but never in a predictable, repetitive way. And the goings-on over top of those shifting, irresistible rhythms twist and turn and provide constant surprise and delight. Not because he’s come up with great “one-liners” that are momentarily amusing, but because he can insert so many elements into a song that are both perfect and unexpected.

It’s nearly impossible to describe this album in words, but I’ve been playing it repeatedly for a couple of weeks now, and I continue to want to put it on again as soon as it’s done. There are many other Tom Ze albums (I’m still wading through them), and if you’d like a gentler introduction to his music, the Brazil Classics: Best of Tom Ze is a good place to start.

But if you want a full immersion into the world of a brilliant artist who continues to hit new creative peaks in his seventh decade, then you can’t do better than Danç-Êh-Sá.

January 18, 2010

Cover Songs Playlist

I just love a good cover song. One that creates something more than the original version offered. One that stands on it’s own, whether you know the source or not.

I’ve been building up a list of my favourite covers for a while now. Here they are…

Take Me To The River,  Talking Heads

The Fat Lady of Limbourg, Shivaree

This Must Be the Place, Arcade Fire

Moonage Daydream, Danny Michel

Shout Bama Lama,  The Detroit Cobras

Hard To Handle, The Black Crowes

Sweet Thing, The Waterboys

Lady Stardust,  Danny Michel

Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except for Me and My Monkey,  My Brightest Diamond

Burning Down the House, Tom Jones

The Man Who Sold The World, Nirvana

Brimful Of Asha, Fatboy Slim

Young Lust, Luther Wright & The Wrongs

Rock el Casbah, Rachid Taha

I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone, Paul Revere & The Raiders

Milkshake, pictures

Walt Whitman’s Niece, Billy Bragg & Wilco

Helter Skelter, Derwood Andrews

Hey Sailor, The Detroit Cobras

I’m a Believer, The Monkeys

I Heard It Through The Grapevine, The Slits

Norwegian Wood, Cornershop

Another Brick In The Wall-Part 2, Luther Wright & The Wrongs

Too Drunk To Fuck, Nouvelle Vague

Young Americans, Danny Michel

Yer Blues, Eugene McGuinness

Sinfonía Agridulce, Mexican Institute of Sound

Ashtray Heart, The White Stripes

Grown So Ugly, The Black Keys

I Wanna Be Like You, The Morning Benders

This Is Not A Love Song, Nouvelle Vague

Track ‘em down and let me know what you think. And I’m always, always open to suggestions for new additions to the list…

January 8, 2010

Best of 2009 List

Those of you who know me well know that I’m a list junkie. I love reading people’s rankings of things, and best of all I like end-of-the-year (or end of decade) lists of music.

I’ve threatened to make my own lists for years. Now, with my own website I have no reason not to finally do it.

So here’s my 2009 best music list. Because this is my own page, my own rules apply! Music on this list didn’t have to be released in 2009, but only had to come to my attention in 2009.

Without further ado (and in roughly alphabetical order):

The Acorn – Glory Hope Mountain

Lots of bands are doing the quiet-ish and quirky-ish folk thing these days, but nobody does it better than The Acorn. The songs have a drive that is often lost when the mood is quiet. Each song feels unique, is memorable and brings a palpable emotion with it. The vocals are “indie” but without the strain or intentional hiccups that come with less skilled singers. This group really seems to know when to change things up, from chants and handclaps to African guitar runs, everything works. A truly beautiful album. http://www.myspace.com/theacorn

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

Most of what I read about this album before I heard it celebrated its “accessibility.” As a real lover of the outrageous and tipsy Sung Tongs, this worried me. And at first listen, this effort was way too Beach Boys-ey for my liking. It was only when the songs would come up individually on my iPod’s shuffle that I would think that this was a really good song. A few such occasions made me go back and try it again as a whole. It’s pretty impressive. True, it’s no longer as off-kilter as their earlier stuff, but these guys can really pack a song with interesting stuff and take it almost to overload, but they sure can sing and keep it pretty and tuneful enough to pull me along. And I keep liking it more as I listen, so this one will continue into 2010. http://www.myspace.com/animalcollective

Bon Iver – Blood Bank EP

I typically don’t like EPs, being an old-fashioned album lover. And this one makes it clear why they bug me… if they’re really good, I want more. And that’s certainly the case with this one. An artist with a definitive sound like this (For Emma, Forever Ago) can easily fall into repetition, but that doesn’t happen here. The sound from the first album gets stretched, distorted and messed with, without losing whatever it was that worked the first time around. Bon Iver using the same vocal distortions as Cher? It works. http://www.boniver.org/

The Books – The Lemon of Pink (or Thought for Food, or Lost and Safe)

This is one of the picks that wasn’t new in 2009, but The Books were one of my best discoveries of the year, and I listened to all three albums a lot. The Lemon of Pink is my favourite, although I tend to skip the first two songs and go right to the remarkable “tokyo.” The Books blend acoustic instruments and skippy electronics and samples in the best possible way. The songs work as real songs, not as little wandering experiments, with the electronics contributing not just bits of ear candy but essential elements of the tune. I listened to them a lot, and it’s still working! www.thebooksmusic.com/

Brian Eno – Before and After Science

Another not-new pick. This was a big-time favourite of mine back in high school, and was responsible for a fair bit of “horizon-widening” at the time. I heard it playing in a store (!) this year and immediately went and re-listened. It’s still a damn fine record, and sounds surprisingly contemporary despite being released in 1977. The depth of the sound is impressive; it has none of that hollow feeling that older recordings sometimes have. The song writing is funny, sometimes indulgent and always engaging. Eno’s voice is affected, but it works in these settings. The album has moments of really rocking out, and lots of hints of the ambient Eno to come, and they all fit together well. If you remember this one, listen again. If you’ve never heard it, prepare to be amazed at what was going on in pop music over 30 years ago!  http://music.hyperreal.org/artists/brian_eno/

Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst

Ever since my friend Brent sent me a copy of I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning I’ve been amazed by Conor Oberst’s song writing. Lots of people write really good songs, very few write songs that sound like classics the very first time you hear them. He knows how to put all the “right” elements into a song, but doesn’t leave it at that. There’s always a quirk or two that defines the song, and that’s what makes a song last. You wait for the quirks, you memorize them, and the tune is what takes you on the ride past them. While not as consistently inventive and engaging as I’m Wide Awake, this one has enough great songs to put it on constant rotation. And I like it better than the Mystic Valley recording, which was a bit too just plain good for my liking. http://www.conoroberst.com/

Delta 5 – Singles and Sessions

As a fan of late 70s funk-punk, I was shocked when I heard Delta 5 for the first time this year. How could I have missed this? As a perennial Talking Heads fan, I’ve often wondered why nobody else seemed to do what they did as well as they did it. Well, Delta 5 did. I’ve pared the album down a bit, but the songs I really like are really good. Whitey-funk bass lines, shout-along female vocals, chittery guitars… this one made me laugh, sing along and shake my whitey butt!

Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca

I have no idea what the title means, but the album has really grown on me. It’s one of those ones that I listened to and then couldn’t quite figure out why I wanted to put it on again, but I did. And then I did it again. Etc. The mix of the two women singers and the male singer keeps the sound lively. There’s no definitive sound here, between songs or within individual songs. They nod to oddball folk, punk-funk, indie rock and lots more beside. But instead of sounding scattered like it so easily could have, something holds it all together. The fact that I can’t figure out what the glue that holds it together might be is probably what keeps me coming back. http://www.myspace.com/dirtyprojectors

ESG – A South Bronx Story

This one is similar to my discovery of Delta 5. How did I not know about this stuff when it came out? Three New York sisters, a drummer and a guitarist, these guys are sampled everywhere, and for good reason. They made very stark, beat based, proto-hip hop/funk with minimalist, repeated lyrics. At their best, they sound fresh and revolutionary today. Cool stuff.

Fire on Fire – The Orchard and Forest Fire – Survival

I’ve lumped these two together, because between them they’ve taking up a lot of listening time this year. For the longest time I’d have to check to see which one was playing (the fault of my bad memory more than the similarity musically). I like bands that take folk/pop songwriting conventions and twist them into something unstable yet recognizable. Both of these do that to perfection. Multi-instrumental attacks and a fair bit of chaos rule, but the majority of the songs are strong enough at the core that they end up being enhanced by the goings-on. Sort of a beauty in the beast thing. http://www.myspace.com/fireonfiremusic http://www.myspace.com/fuckforestfire

Grampall Jookabox – Ropechain

I’m not sure this is a great album. But it’s odd and compelling enough that I keep checking it out to see if I really do like it or not. Sometimes I do, sometimes not so much. But never not so much that I don’t go back again. This band is so post-everything it barely makes sense. Songs like You Will Love My Boom, I Will Save Young Michael (as in MJ) and We Know We Might Be Fucked are prog-rock/funk/rap meltdowns that only barely hang together as songs. And yet I put them on and am compelled to hear them through. Weird. http://www.myspace.com/jookabox

Juana Molina – Un Dia

This album was a compulsion for months… I couldn’t get enough of it. And it still works, even though I came dangerously close to overplaying it. I’m at a loss as to how to describe this music. It’s sung in Spanish, so I have no idea what she’s saying. Acoustic instruments and vocals layer over one another into something dense and otherworldly and the songs are fairly long and envelope you in a mood that’s quite ecstatic for something that’s quite low key. Just listen, and prepare to be hypnotized. http://www.juanamolina.com/

Nigeria Rock Special

You know when somebody’s doing something that takes a lot of talent, but it’s a bit corny? It can be embarrassing, right? But if they’re doing that something with all their formidable talent and it’s being done completely, absolutely sincerely, the corniness vanishes and becomes awesomeness. That pretty much describes the music on this album. These are Nigerian musicians in the 1970s, freaking out on James Brown, Sly Stone and crazy social changes in their own country. They take all their own formidable talents and musical traditions and apply them full bore to funking out like stone soul Americans, and the result gets endless play in my house! http://www.soundsoftheuniverse.com/releases/?id=11954

Mexican Institute of Sound – Soy Sauce

Lots of bands have taken traditional Mexican music and instruments and warped them into modern dance music (Nortec Collective etc), and lots of musicians have built new-world music by ignoring all borders of language and style (Manu Chao etc). The Mexican Institute of Sound does both on this record, and I love it. It’s excellent, it’s funny and I keep playing it. You should too! http://www.myspace.com/mexicaninstituteofsound