Trumpy's Albums Of The Year 2008

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

So here we go with my annual look at some of my favourite albums of the year, with some notes about each where I prattle on about how lovely and brilliant everything is. Oh, and I say annual, but this is only the second year I’ve done it, so if I can’t be arsed next year then maybe it won’t be, or whatever.

Anyway here’s the list. I’ll put up a song from each album on my MST3K Social Network page so you can check some of this out if any of it tickles your fancy. Let’s start with 50 – 41:

50 – Bochum Welt – R. O. B. (Robotic Operating Buddy)



A little exercise in nostalgia this from Italian electronic musician and sound designer Gianluigi Di Costanzo. Not only is it nostalgic because it is named after the disk loading system that single-handedly saved the Nintendo Entertainment System in the States but the music contained on the two discs involves Di Constanzo moving away from the, pretty disappointing, chill-out stuff he has been doing and rediscovering what made his music so great in the first place. Bochum Welt was never the most original or groundbreaking of artists but his Kraftwerk via Aphex Twin sound was always enjoyable and well made. What R. O. B. is made up of is a new album on disc 1 that reworks a number of his old songs, along with a few new ones, while disc 2 collects everything he put out on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label, apart from the first 12” Sharlach Eingang shamefully. Hopefully this will provide Di Costanzo the spark he’s clearly needed for a good while now to create something truly great again.

49 – Noah And The Whale – Peaceful The World Lays Me Down



Noah And The Whale are one of those bands I should really despise. Twee music, literary band name that’s not very good and the inevitability that their stuff will soundtrack next year’s Oscar darling Indie blockbuster, Little Miss Juno or whatever, all adds up to punch in the face annoyingness. And yet there’s something intensely likable about this album. Maybe it’s the inner Belle And Sebastien fan that allowed me to actually enjoy it. Just be warned, the tunes are painfully catchy!

48 – Leila – Blood, Looms and Blooms



Leila Arab was pretty much seen as something of a musical Messiah when she released Like Weather on Rephlex in 1998. A couple of record labels and one album later here’s her third. As musical outputs go it’s hardly Residential, but there’s obviously a lot of care taken over her productions that epic spaces between albums are acceptable. The music is a strange hybrid of chilled, vocal led material hued by an array of guests and rougher electronica. It feels a bit like where Massive Attack might have went if half of them hadn’t left, they had continued actually releasing stuff and Robert Del Naja had turned into a woman. So not really like it at all.

47 – Gnarls Barkley – The Odd Couple



For producer Danger Mouse and the other bloke, you know the one that sings, following up St. Elsewhere shouldn’t have been too hard a job if it wasn’t for the monolithic shadow that lead-off single Crazy left hanging over everything they will do together. It led to many pooh-poohing their first album and so most people’s approach to the Odd Couple was more than likely sceptical. Thankfully they’ve actually turned in a pretty good album, but yet again there’s a song that hangs over everything else. Run (I’m A Natural Disaster) is so good that everything else kind of pales in comparison. It’s a shame because digging around finds some great musical ideas, it’s no shock that everyone and his neighbour’s dog wants to work with Danger Mouse, and the vocals from the other bloke, alright his name’s Thomas Callaway, are excellent. The best part, and one of the reasons why so many of the album’s target audience are left cold by it, is that it revels in the old. There’s a feel of hearing this music being performed in a music hall or bar in the 1930’s or 40’s, apart from the odd flourishes added in the mix. Ach well, the kids’ loss I suppose.

46 – The Gutter Twins – Saturnalia



The Gutter Twins are Grunge survivors, although only just, Mark Laneghan and Greg Dulli, of The Screaming Trees and The Afghan Whigs respectively. Both have been friends a long time and both are terrific singers with a penchant for the miserable. Both were also drug addicts. They state that they helped each other through their addictions and now they want to sing! Shamefully, and I say shamefully because it would have been the most subversive, brilliant thing ever, that doesn’t mean they’re performing a bunch of show tunes about the wonders of being alive. What we get is an album perfectly crystalised by its artwork. Look at that oppressive sky, ready to burst, look at that desolate landscape, look at the crappy living conditions. On other words it’s pretty much business as usual for these two, just now they’re together. And that’s no bad thing.

45 – Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes



Or the year’s mis-placed hyperbole award goes to… Fleet Foxes are a good wee band who has turned out a good wee album. It’s nothing original, indeed Grizzly Bear done this far better two years ago with Yellow House, and the lyrics are a bit rubbish at times, but it’s lovely in places and is a genuinely good listen. That’s all. Do you hear me Pitchfork? Eh?

44 – Hot Chip – Made In The Dark



The modern-day English Kraftwerk are back, after some inexplicable success with previous album The Warning. I say inexplicable only because an indie band that come off a bit like a slightly less artsy Hood or a Simian with better tunes probably shouldn’t have scored chart success. Especially when there’s songs in which some fey English twerps threaten to break your legs Hip-hop style over music that sounds like Aphex Twin’s cast offs. Of course that is why the album was great, it’s not in any way a criticism, rather just fact that that’s what it sounded like and yet the mass public, well some of them, bought it anyway. So to the follow-up, Made In The Dark. One of the reasons The Warning was such a surprisingly good listen was that Hot Chip’s first album was bloody awful, so there was no expectations going in. Now the situation is reversed meaning that Made In The Dark will more than likely underwhelm on first listen. Apart from Ready For The Floor there’s nothing as immediate as on The Warning. But after a few listens the gems appear. The first half of the album in particular is excellent, containing some of the band’s strongest songs. Shamefully the second half still fails somewhat, and the knowing humour can at times grate, Wrestlers, comparing love to a wrestling match is poor, plus you are at times left wondering what the actual point of all this is. Hot Chip are in many ways a pastiche of Kraftwerk and thus it feels a bit empty at times. Thankfully the great tunes go someway to allowing you to shrug off the angst and enjoy them.

43 – Fluorescent Grey – Improvised Electronic Music Volumes 1, 2 and 3



This is an interesting little oddity. Fluorescent Grey runs Record Label Records, an indie electronic imprint, and posted on a forum that he was offering up some music for free on the label’s website (http://www.recordlabelrecords.org/) every Monday. These releases are currently still up but I don’t think they’ll be there forever. A few stand out as works by genuinely talented musicians deserving a larger fanbase. Fluorescent Grey’s best offering was this three volume set. It does exactly what it says on the tin, electronic music that was improvised. Volume 3 is the most straight forward containing full songs, but 1 & 2 are a little more interesting. Basically you play both at the same time on random using Winamp and it creates a mashup, different every time you listen thanks to them all being performed with the same BPM. Here’s Fluorescent Grey’s explanation of what it’s all about: www.recordlabelrecords.org/rlr999.html

It works quite well, although things sometimes become a little cluttered. It sounds a lot like Autechre’s live stuff, and ironically enough craps all over Autechre’s offering this year Quaristice. It all works as stuff you can listen to individually, but the mashup stuff is an added bit of fun.

42 – Claro Intelecto – Metanarrative



After a number of EPs and a compilation album Claro Intelecto releases his first full album of all new material, a dubby, housey techno record full of 4/4 beats and chilled melodies. It’s refreshingly short (forty minutes) and is the perfect record to play on repeat in the wee, small hours.

Also worth checking is the EP When The Time Is Right/Round And Round.

41 – Boredoms – Super Roots Volume 9



A live recording of the Japanese three-drummer pronged attack unit that is Boredoms with extra choir added just to make proceedings that little more epic. Thus it’s tribal poly-rhythms, electronic tom-foolery and pseudo-religious choral music, all mashed together into one exhilarating forty minutes.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

Here’s 40 - 31

40 – MGMT – Oracular Spectacular



You know how sometimes an album’s opener is so good that it blows you away, but then nothing else on said album can quite live up to it so by the end you’re left a tad disappointed by the whole thing. Oracular Spectacular’s like that. Time To Pretend is an awesome piece of music, killer hook, Flaming Lips’ producer Dave Fridmann producing the hell out of it, lyrics about becoming a rock ‘n’ roll star that actually play up the falsity of the whole lifestyle, all it really needs is a cowbell. It means that gems like Electric Feel and Kids don’t quite register at first as Time To Pretend’s still resonating in your skull. The rest of the album’s actually an experimental, psychedelic little beauty made by a couple of guys who have more than likely debated whether Clouds Taste Metallic is better than Transmissions From The Satellite Heart while dropping what can only be described as “mood enhancers”. In the absence of a Flaming Lips record proper this year you could do worse than use this to fill that hole in your soul.

39 – Vibert/Simmonds – Rodulate



Another collaboration Vibert/Simmonds are Luke Vibert and Jeremy Simmonds. The former has produced more records under more aliases than I’ve had hot dinners, and I’ve had tons of those, while the latter has only ever made one album under the name Voafose, collaborated on one AFX Analord track and made a previous album with Vibert, 1993’s Weirs. This is supposedly a collection of stuff from about that time that didn’t make the album, a good reason probably being that Rodulate sounds nothing like Weirs. This makes sense as the music contained is “old skool”, YEAH, I’m down with the kids, IDM (Intelligent Dance Music, a term I personally loathe but it’s apt in this case) and there isn’t really a coherence to the album. Weirs was a pretty special work, and it felt like it. This feels more like a bunch of tracks put on the same disc. Hence the classic electronica of Space Mist, the faux-rapping of Simmonds on room 28 Rap, the seemingly endless loop of a little girl talking on Story, this track is very similar to the Voafose album, and so on. Then again the whole thing could have been recorded in February. Rephlex aren’t very forthcoming with information.

38 – Basic Channel – BCD2



To the casual listener it’ll just sound like 4/4 Techno, but Basic Channel are very highly regarded as one of the most innovative and influential of electronic acts, laying down a minimal blueprint that pretty much serves as a starting point for most modern dance movements. As someone who is personally new to Basic Channel I can’t comment on them from a historical context of hearing them in 1993 but having listened to this, the second instalment of Basic Channel tracks to be issued on CD for the first time, the first one came out in ’95 so don’t hold your breath for part three, I can say that it’s probably very true. Reading up on them reveals major shifts in musical approach towards a Reggae sound later on, but this CD focuses on the minimal dub-like Techno they produced at first. It is a music of hypnotism, one that changes gradually so as not to be noticed. The tracks tend to be very long and sound very repetitive and so you become lost in them, not realising that fourteen minutes have passed and that the thing you are listening to is radically different from what it was at the start. It’s also startling as to how timeless it all is. The songs on BCD2 were recorded in Germany in the early ‘90’s and yet could have come from the ‘80’s Detroit scene, or just as easily have been recorded last week. The influence of this music over some of the albums in this list even, Claro Intelecto, the Gas re-issues, is staggering.

37 – The Hold Steady – Stay Positive



What more is there to say about The Hold Steady? Replacements influence, bit of Springsteen in there, barroom rock, piano-fuelled, lead singer’s a Twins fan. What’s not to like? Stay positive got a bit of negative feedback on release after the band had found success with their previous album, but it was the inevitable reaction to an album that’s not as immediate as Boys And Girls In America. Stick with it and you’ll find an album as rich as that one.

36 – Hercules And Love Affair – Hercules And Love Affair



Did anyone ask for a Disco revival? Well Hercules And Love Affair have went and done it anyway. But it’s okay folks, it’s a revival of Disco’s finer points, on other words it’s less drunken karaoke massacre of I Will Survive and more melancholic and experimental in its approach. Reading the Amazon.co.uk comments on this album is very interesting. Many bemoan the fact that they bought it thinking it’d be an all-out Disco dance-fest, something along the lines of the Bee Gees or ABBA. Others seem to be getting uppity about the idea of labelling it disco at all, rather it should be seen as a tribute Visage and Soft Cell. The latter may have a point, although it isn’t quite as synth laden as those acts. Whatever, the fact remains that this is a glorious record, full of uplifting arrangements juxtaposed with melancholy vocals and lyrics from a whole host of guests, most prominent being Anthony of And The Johnsons fame.

35 – Neon Neon – Stainless Style



Like Gnarls Barkley the term “the odd couple” is very apt in describing this strange little collaboration. Neon Neon are Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, the Welsh Damon Albarn seems to be a title he’s chasing, hard, and Hip-hop/Electronica producer Boom Bip. And it sounds exactly as you’d expect. About half sounds like the Super Furries, just with a little more gloss and a little less creativity, while the other half is raunchy, hilarious Hip-hop with a slew of guest performers, including fat, white sex-funk genius Har Mar Superstar and, for no real reason than the cred that sh*te drummer from The Strokes drumming, Sh*teley. It’s utterly loopy, and often quite brilliant. Pretty much like everything else Rhys has ever done then.

34 – Sparks – Exotic Creatures Of The Deep



Exotic Creatures Of The Deep’s brilliance can be summed up with one, simple statement; it’s got a song called Lighten Up Morrissey on it. If you’re not familiar with Sparks’ twisted intelli-pop by now, where have you been? This is their (insert huge, actually quite unbelievable number here) album and the Mael still have that knack of knocking out catchy, yet very clever pop songs. The gems on this one are the aforementioned one about everyone’s favourite (or not) Edwyn Collins wannabe Smiths frontman and how he should change his ways because the narrator’s girlfriend keeps making comparisons between him and Mozza and he just doesn’t shape up, and Good Morning, a peon to the drunken one night stand that’s one of the funniest songs you’ll hear all year. The latter contains probably the line of the year; “I hope it’s just your laugh that’s infectious”. Genius.

33 – Twine – Violets



To describe the music that Twine make as haunting would be the biggest of understatements. It’s music at its most minimal and drawn out. Employing droning synths and beats that sound like tube lighting flickering, Twine then overlay sparse guitar work. Occasionally Cocteau Twins-like vocals or samples of conversations, overheard through thin walls are added. The key song here is Lightrain, a twelve minute epic that sounds like coming home from a job you hate to your crappy flat and thanks to a torrential downpour you’re stuck just listening to those in the houses around you living their own inane lives. Not exactly uplifting stuff, but astonishing none the less.

32 – Helios – Caesura



Helios is a guy called Keith Kenniff who also goes under the name Goldmund (more on that later). These are his two major projects, the latter consisting almost entirely of piano compositions, whilst Helios is his “full band” sound. Helios started out on the Merck imprint (sadly now defunct, meaning his debut Unomia is now out of print) and sounded very similar to Boards Of Canada, except the electronics weren’t as woozy and there was more use of guitar and piano. A move to Type records seemed to bring a shift in sound, one that fits more with that labels roster, on second album Eingya. This time the live instrumentation was pushed to the fore while the digital side began serving it as texture. A mis-guided attempt at singing over his compositions followed on Ayres meaning that I was apprehensive on entering Caesura. Thankfully Kenniff has dropped the singing, but this also means that for the first time his music has moved backwards. This is unfortunate but said music is still wonderful. It’s not anything particularly new but Kenniff is a clever performer who understands what he is making perfectly, and as such it stands as some of the best relaxing music you can hope to hear. Hopefully Kenniff’s next Helios project will take him to new, and hopefully good, places so that he doesn’t do an Air, stagnate while trying to relive past glories. For now though that hasn’t happened.

31 – The Residents – The Bunny Boy



In last year’s list I pointed out that The Residents have been on one hell of a tear since 2005’s Animal Lover, creating some of their finest work, not just in terms of the intellectual themes, but musically too. It sounds a bit like there may be some new blood in the Residential world. The Bunny Boy continues that trend with some fantastically dense music, and some tunes that are even verging on the catchy. As for the lyrical content it’s confusing as hell. The reason, it transpires, is that the album is based on a story of one of the bands’ friends and that the album only touches on some of the story. For the full Bunny Boy experience you had to turn to the website (http://residents.com/bunnyboy/) where the band have to this point posted over forty episodes charting Bunny’s tale. But that’s not all as fans have been included in deciding how the whole thing takes shape by the invitation to email Bunny to help in his quest. It’s a nice little feature, and he replies to every email no matter how pointless. It’s a clear continuation of The Residents’ explorations with the latest multimedia, they embraced CD-ROM and DVD like no other and they are one of the first to really use the music video. The tale itself is a deep, dark exploration of the destructive qualities of obsession, grief and isolation and looks set to be one of The Residents’ finest experiments. That said the album as a stand alone object doesn’t quite work as well as their last three efforts, but as more is revealed in the videos and what not many of the songs start to make sense. Fingers crossed they actually finish it (Mole Trilogy anyone?).

P.S. This was one of many Residents albums this year. The pattern for the past four years now has saw them release a main album through the Mute label and then a few other releases through their own channels. This year saw Animal Lover Instrumental, Smell My Picture and Posts From Patmos. The first is similar to the God In Three Persons Soundtrack disc, except that some of the music from 2005’s Animal Lover has either been redone, or more likely these are early instrumental versions of songs that would later appear on the finished album. It’s very good. Smell My Picture was another instrumental compilation, there’s been a few in recent years, but this one features the selections of Big Brother who runs the band’s Blog site. Posts From Patmos is an accompanying album to The Bunny Boy featuring music from the videos. It’s a dear pastime being a Residents fan.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

30 – 21

30 – Goldmund – The Malady Of Elegance



Keith Kenniff’s other album on the list. Goldmund allows him to flex his classical chops. The album is based almost entirely on Kenniff’s piano playing, with the odd moment of electronic shading employed. Like the Helios album it’s nothing particularly new, in fact there are many electronic/classical musicians doing the rounds at the moment, but Kenniff is an intelligent musician who seems to knock out wonderful tunes for fun placing him at the forefront of the genre, whether he employs a full sonic palette or simply tinkles the ivory.

29 – Pivot – O Soundtrack My Heart



The album art to O Soundtrack My Heart was done by the same guy who done Jean Michael Jarre’s album covers. This is an important point to note when describing the music of Pivot as the 60’s-80’s Prog Electronic sound looms large over this album of instrumental electronic rock. The band make a funky, proggy type of post-rock, reminiscent of bands such as Liars, !!! and even Red Hot Chilli Peppers at a stretch. They added electronica artist Dave Miller before recording this album. He has added a different perspective to the music and as such there are parts of this album that sound like Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundtrack and moments that are clearly influenced by the Musique Concrete of Xenakis and Stockhausen. Thankfully these never dominate, rather help to colour the music so far from this being an overblown exercise in electronic noise it remains a fun listen thanks to the band’s obvious ear for a tune. Many reviewers seemed to have overlooked Pivot in favour of the very overrated and quite poor Street Horrrsing by F*ck Buttons. Don’t make the same mistake. This is an interesting and quite refreshing instrumental album showing that there is more to Post-rock than Explosions In The Sky’s now quite tiresome revisionism.

28 – Lambchop – OH (ohio)



OH (ohio) sees Lambchop continue down the path first taken on Is A Woman. When they released their breakthrough album Nixon it appeared that Lambchop were a huge, melodic alt-country outfit. The music on the album was simply bursting with life, mainly thanks to the nineteen or so musicians and Kurt Wagner’s ear for a cracking tune. Is A Woman followed and was a complete u-turn, seeing Wagner mainly performing solo at his piano, the others adding the odd moment of shading. Fast forward half a decade and it transpires that Nixon was in fact the one off as opposed to the latter. OH (ohio) is nowhere near as stripped back as some of Lambchop’s recent work, discounting Aw, C’mon/No, You C’mon which flirted with the Nixon style arrangement, but rather finds the band shorn of members instead. As a result the sound of the album is more like an actual band, rather than Wagner and a bunch of guest players. The music contained is beautiful to say the least, Wagner’s voice is still one of the finest in music and for the first time in ages it has the right accompaniment. Things are still on the samey side, a problem with a few of the group’s albums, but a couple of listens reveals much to love on OH (ohio). Slipped, Dissolved And Loosed is gorgeous, and is the closest thing the band have done to a pop song since Up With People, while National Talk Like A Pirate Day not only has one of the best titles of the year but sees the band up the tempo for once. The second half may drag a wee bit but ultimately it’s a wonderful little album.

27 – Coldplay – Viva La Vida, Or Death And All His Friends



Coldplay are an easy band to knock. Chris Martin’s a bit of a tube, they’re middle-class English pretentiousness can be wearing and they’re not the most gifted of musicians. And yet for the most part people don’t tend to use the argument “they make rubbish songs”, rather complaining about children called Apple or that they’re Radiohead-lite, a tired argument employed to any band who make sad music with guitars that sound a bit like OK Computer. It’s fair to say that Coldplay are never going to change the musical landscape and that for the most part they have been a band who plays it safe, but on Viva La Vida there is at least an attempt to address this problem. First they have brought in Brian Eno to produce. It doesn’t mean a radical overhaul of their sound but it does mean that the flatness of previous albums has been replaced by a depth that only he can create. It’s a subtle thing but there’s now richness to the songs that had been previously missing. Secondly, and this is where the band have gambled slightly, there isn’t really much in the way of the big anthems you’d expect. Previous efforts played a lot like pop albums, four big singles, six to eight filler tracks. Here they’ve attempted to create a coherent album, with an interesting structure. Some of it doesn’t quite work and Martin is nowhere near the lyricist he thinks he is, but for the most part this is a cracking album and the band’s finest since Parachutes.

26 – The Cool Kids – The Bake Sale



When The Cool Kids rap that they’re “bringing ’88 back” they mean it. The Bake Sale is an Old Skool rap record harking back to a time when studio gloss and lyrics about Gangsta lifestyle were far off, in the commercial decline of the genre. But rather than this being similar to the approach employed by Jurassic 5 which takes it right back to the beginnings, something that has limited the group, The Cool Kids era of choice is the lo-fi late eighties period, meaning music that is created using basic drum machines and synths with only a smattering of sampling. Thankfully they are clever enough to stop this becoming as limiting as it could, and should, be. The album opener What Up Man is a great case in point as the beat is created by one of them saying what’s playing (tick, boom, clap). It’s a cute touch and suits the lyrical style perfectly. Chuck Inglish and Mikey Rocks rap about everyday life like going to the shops, make boasts about how good they are which they then back up, and how they’d rather spend Saturday nights playing Streetfighter than going to the club full with its posers. It’s funny, clever stuff and they show refreshing self-awareness, on One Two they sum themselves up better than I ever could; “Come check the noise/it’s the new black version of the Beastie Boys”.

25 – Pop Levi – Never Never Love



The Return To Form Black Magick Party was one of last year’s unexpected delights, an album of glam-rock pop music of the highest order. The former Super Numeri and Ladytron member has followed up quickly with Never Never Love, an album that still revels in the infectious melodic hook but moves into grander territories by focusing more on the pop than the glam. There are still great rock out moments such as Wannamama but for the most part the music now glistens with an electronic sheen. The title track and Mai’s Space are two of the best pop records that won’t trouble the top ten you’re likely to have heard all year, not only intelligent but bloody good fun to boot. Much like the album as a whole.

24 – Roots Manuva – Slime And Reason



The UK’s finest Hip Hop talent Roots Manuva, real name Rodney Smith, returns after a four year hiatus. Slime And Reason sees him infuse the influences of Reggae, Dancehall, Dub and add analogue synths and lazy drum patterns to his laid back verbal style and witty lyrics. It’s a refreshing mix that shows up the genre’s general malaise. The best thing about Roots is that he’s always strived for originality, shunning the American way of doing things to create a sound all of his own.

23 – Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago



So the story goes that For Emma, Forever Ago was recorded in a Wisconsin cabin in the middle of winter by one man with only a couple of deer for food. Even if this is a Residents’ style crock the album certainly sounds like the product of such a gestation period. What set this apart from all those other folk albums that seem to appear in their hundreds every year was the atmosphere. Justin Vernon sets about creating this by moving beyond the simple acoustic guitar that these songs obviously started out on and adds horns, woodwind and most strikingly his own falsetto, multi-layered to create a damn spooky chorus. The final result feels like we are merely being allowed to peer into a private little world that he has created for himself off the back of heartbreak.

22 – Spiritualized – Songs In A & E



Songs In A & E is a bit of a pun title not only referring to Jason Pierce’s brush with death while making the album but also Spiritualized’s own musical knack of never being able to find that third chord. It’s a way of writing music that worked great for the band while making their earlier drone rock. It works here too as it lends the music a simplicity that compliments the subject matter. After the over-blown orchestration and then stripped down garage rock of the band’s previous two efforts Songs In A & E finds them ditching the noise for the most part. It means that this is Spiritualized’s most gentle effort. Given the context it was created in this seems apt, and in Death Take Your Fiddle Pierce appears to confront his deadly situation. Musically the song is the most sombre here and throughout the sound of a respirator wheezes acting as percussion. Or that’s how it seems. The respirator is in fact an accordion and the song was actually written and performed before Pierce’s illness. It seems like Pierce was somehow aware of what was going to happen. Thankfully it’s not all doom and gloom, as the album features some triumphant moments, the kind of thing Spiritualized have come to do so well. Soul On Fire is the prototypical Spiritualized song, played on two or three chords, sweeping chorus and lyrical references to fire, religious imagery and heroin, and it’s a belter. Ultimately most people will read this album as Pierce trying to come to terms with his brush with death. That’s not entirely true, but thankfully he survived to complete the thing.

21 – Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra And Tra-laa-laa Band – 13 Blues For Thirteen Moons



The Godspeed You Black Emperor! Splinter group turned main attraction is back and this time they’ve brought the rawk! The album consists of four very long tracks, after twelve tracks that combine to make a one minute intro, it then starts at 13 you see. These play like the inevitable continuation of the path the band have been on since their first album, stripped back Godspeed-lite through to raucous Post-rock garage band. There’s something wonderfully ramshackle about everything here and I still maintain that The Arcade Fire, from the same city, owe this lot something, coming off like a more commercial version, a little too aware of their own quirkiness. Thankfully Silver Mt. Zion are neither commercial nor quirky, and all the more essential for it.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

20 – 11

20 – Mogwai – The Hawk Is Howling



If the album of the year was decided on tracklisting alone Mogwai would have produced the album of the decade;

I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
Batcat
Danphe And The Brain
Local Authority
The Sun Smells Too Loud
Kings Meadow
I Love You I’m, Going To Blow Up Your School
Scotland’s Shame
Thank You Space Expert
The Precipice

Thankfully they also produced some great music to go with these titles. The Hawk is Howling sees Mogwai in quieter territory than previous album Mr. Beast with only Batcat really delivering in the noise goods, although even that fails to actually explode. Instead the band are now looking at the other side of their music, the tense build up, it’s just that this time for the most part it doesn’t spill over into the expected violent burst of noise rather at the point of no return it seems to retreat instead. No better example is on Scotland’s Shame, which appears to be a reference to the blight of religious bigotry that infects the west coast of Scotland. The tension this song creates is almost unbearable but it never releases its fury. At first it may seem like a jip, but on subsequent listens comes the realisation that it’s all the better for it. It becomes even more striking when compared to the previous I Love You… which does explode in the way you’d expect from Mogwai. The title of the track means that this is apt, but there is a feeling that it only really happens because they felt they had to at some point, you know, for the fans. Far more interesting is The Sun Smells Too Loud, or the track on every Mogwai album that seems to suggest a new direction for the band that is then ignored meaning it becomes unique in their catalogue. This one is a strangely poppy affair with a sweet repeating melody and all manner of fuzziness going on. Sadly this apart the middle section of the album sags big time with some dull songs that seem to go nowhere. Mind you it wouldn’t be a Mogwai album without the duffers and the material at the start and end of the album proves so strong that you won’t mind in the end.

19 – Flight Of The Conchords – Flight Of The Conchords



Off the back of a brilliant TV series of the same name comes Flight Of The Conchords’ debut album. If you’ve followed the TV, live and radio appearances that these guys have done over the years there’ll be much you recognise on this. That still doesn’t take away from the fact that they are some of the sharpest, funniest songs you’ll hear. They’ve also given most of them meaty new arrangements that breathe new life into some of the older numbers. One of the problems with comedy albums tends to be the replay factor because once you know all the jokes they can become slightly stale, plus they’re not always that great of a musical listen. Flight Of The Conchords changes this. Musically it is fantastic, and the duo prove themselves to be very astute musicians who are very knowledgeable about the language of music. At the time of writing the album is still hilarious to me, about six months on from purchase, but even if the jokes do start to ware thin, the tunes are great.

18 – Brian E – Tech-noir



A disco funk record based on The Terminator? You know that’s got to be the best thing ever, right? Supposedly Tech-noir synchs up beautifully with the film, although I haven’t tried, and it’s just the most fun you’ll have with an album all year.

Another freebie from Record Label Records Tech-noir can be downloaded here; www.recordlabelrecords.org/rlr2029.html

17 – Peter Broderick – Float



A gorgeous little collection of piano pieces supplemented with orchestration and voice that show Broderick to be a very gifted songwriter indeed. Most of this sounds like it should be soundtracking movies or TV, and most no doubt will in the future.

16 – Another Electronic Musician – Five



Don’t let the tongue-in-cheek name fool you. Another Electronic Musician is a little bit more than just that. Jase Rex has been cutting about on the internet for a while now making the sort of electronic music that labels such as Warp and Rephlex used to specialise in until breakbeats, laptops and glitch came along and pretty much tore the melody out. Five, it’s his fifth album, shows Rex to be a very adept musician creating songs that are not only melodically brilliant but that sound absolutely beautiful too. Beyond his obvious ear for a tune he displays incredible talent in providing texture to his music, employing waves of warm synth washes at regular intervals in a way that makes you nostalgic for early Aphex and that era’s ilk.

15 – British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music?



Losing a member can be a tough thing for a lot of bands but British Sea Power seemed to take the loss of guitarist Eamon Hamilton to his other band Brakes in their stride delivering yet another cracking album. It’s business as usual on Do You Like Rock Music? as BSP continue to make angular rock music with a lyrical approach unlike anyone else. The main difference was an easing of their difficulty thanks to some genuine guitar pop songs such as No Lucifer and Waving Flags. Not that it was easy, album closer We Close Our Eyes is an eight minute noise piece while lyrical subjects include light pollution, the tragedy of Canvey Island and Eastern European immigration. There’s also an instrumental tribute to the skua and in Atom one of the most blistering rock songs of the year. As I said, business as usual.

14 – B12 – Last Days Of Silence



Electronic music hasn’t escaped the whole nostalgia trip thing dominating not only music but the entertainment industry as a whole. For the last couple of years now many a main player has released stuff that looks back to a personal heyday of electronic production (Aphex Twin’s Analord series, numerous Acid projects by Luke Vibert, Ceephax etc.). It’s a bit ironic really that a musical style that champions itself on forever moving forward should be now so hung up with the past. It could point to disillusionment with current techniques, not just for the artists but the listener too. Indeed some of this year’s best electronic releases have in some way been revisionist, whether it be a wholesale attempt to recapture the sound of the early 90’s British IDM (Another Electronic Musician), playing with analogue synths (Matmos) or starting with current fashionable sounds and then fusing them with the past (iTAL tEK). The thing about all of these projects is that they have had something new to say about these supposedly spent forms of musical production and thus felt fresh. So where does this leave B12? To hear their new album is to hear the music of the early 90’s, indeed it could have just as easily have been made then as now. The difference here is that B12 were one of the original big guns of that era, releasing two seminal albums on Warp, Electro Soma and Time Tourist. Apart from the odd release, usually under other names, the aptly named Last Days Of Silence marks their return and it’s as if they had never went away. The grooves, the beats, the synths are all decidedly retro but it’s a testament to how talented these guys are as musicians that this never feels like a retread of former glories. A glorious return.

13 – The Fun Years – Baby, It’s Cold Inside



The best way to describe The Fun Years is that they are pitched somewhere between Mogwai’s quieter stretches and Stars Of The Lids’ louder ones. They make hypnotic, repetitive music that isn’t by itself mould-breaking but is brilliant all the same. Baby, It’s Cold Inside plays like one track divided into movements and each one literally picking up where the last one finished, and that point has seen a small passage of music, usually played on guitar or piano, repeated to the point that it begins to distort and decay until it is nothing but noise. It’s here that the next melody comes in and the process repeats. It’s difficult, stunning and not for everyone as it tests the idea of what music actually is, but if you’re willing to be l bit adventurous The Fun Years could be for you.

12 – AC/DC – Black Ice



The world’s second biggest band, only to The Beatles, return after an eight year hiatus with an album of mixed fortunes. On the one hand there’s many a killer Deece classic here and Brian Johnson’s voice has never been better, even on the almighty Back In Black. On the other hand it’s too long, a shaving of a couple of the fifteen songs would have helped, and Angus is on muted form. It’s a shame as for the most part this is electric stuff. The production’s sharp and the rest of the band are on some of their absolute best form, with drummer Phil Rudd sounding particularly brilliant. Personally I loved the bluesy rawness of Stiff Upper Lip so it’s a bit of a shame for them to have turned away from that back but there’s no denying that this is their best since Back In Black and pisses over everything they made in the ‘80’s and ‘90’s. Good to have them back, even if it proves to be their swansong.

11 – Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!



Rock’s scariest bastards are back in their Bad Seeds guise after last year’s Grinderman sideshow. What’s initially striking about Lazarus is how much that album has had an influence. Instead of this being a follow up to Abattoir Blues/The Lyre Of Orpheus it plays like the organic next step for Grinderman, adding more members and bringing the whole thing down a notch. It’s also clear that Warren Ellis is now Cave’s musical muse and he dominates proceedings with his electric violin playing. And what proceedings these are. Cave and his band of hairy rogues have produced another rollicking album that strips the gospel of the last BS outing to leave us with something all the more dirtier. The title track, in which Lazarus is re-born in modern day New York, More News From Nowhere and especially We Call Upon The Author all demonstrate that Cave has rediscovered the dark humour that was evident in his earlier works but disappeared post Murder Ballads for the most part. With this the best backing band in the business have rediscovered how to rock and now stand towering above all others who dare try to keep up. Long may it continue.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

Trumpets blaring as it’s the top ten!

10 – iTAL tEK – cYCLiCAL



Electronic music goes through its phases like any other genre. Just like there was a spate of angular guitar bands attempting to capitalise on The Strokes success or a wave of girl bands following the introduction of The Spice Girls dance music has a habit of cannibalising itself until it hits saturation point. The current trend is Dubstep, a deep, dark evolution of Two-step Garage most notable for its huge, wobbly basslines. It’s already dieing thanks to an abundance of middle rate copyists. In this climate then you’re going to have to produce something special to stand out. cYCLiCAL by iTAL tEK is just that. The reason is that Alan Myson mainly rejects Dubstep’s percussive bias and injects his songs with killer melodies. Not only that but the sounds he uses suggest that he’s just as enamoured with early-90’s IDM as he is with current trends. It means that even though there is a dark edge, and indeed huge, wobbly basslines, they never overbear the music. It’s an approach that others should take note of, and knowing the way electronic music works they no doubt will.

9 – Matmos – Supreme Balloon



Matmos are known for electronic music created using collage. Previously they made an album of dance music out of the sounds of plastic surgery (A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure). Supreme Balloon sees them embrace old synths in a big way as explained here: www.matadorrecords.com/matmos/biography.html Basically they use every old synth imaginable, the only rule; no microphones. Basically it still sounds Matmos-like as they take the sounds of all this equipment but then cut it up on computers. The first half is great fun, the second artsy-fartsy but in a good way.

8 – Portishead – Third



It opens with a sample of someone reading from the Wiccan Threefold Law in Portuguese and saying; “Be aware to the rule of thirds. What you give will return to you. You have to learn this lesson. You only receive what you deserve”. Third sees Portishead follow up their self-titled sophomore effort eleven years after the fact. Supposedly in that time main songwriter Geoff Barrow had become despairing over the fact that his band’s music was being used in massage sessions as some sort of background relaxation tool. To him this was a fallacy and demonstrated that most people had missed the darkness and dread simmering just under the surface. As a result we have Third which strips all of the Trip-hop bells and whistles and instead looks to German experimental music of the 70’s and John Carpenter soundtracks for its inspiration. As a result it’s a brutal, ugly record that only occasionally allows light in. It’s a suffocating experience, akin to being buried alive for fifty minutes. Opener Silence sounds like Krautrockers Faust and hints as to what Barrow had been listening to in the decade long hiatus. First single Machine Gun sounds a bit like Tackhead’s Hard Left minus the funk with its broken drum machine beat. On top of it Beth Gibbons proves she still has one of the most unique voices operating in music giving a haunted performance. Then about four minutes in a tune actually starts and it sounds like the Terminator theme being played by a teenager in his bedroom who’s been given his first Moog by his parents two weeks previously. Even the album’s less intense moments still chill you to the bone. Deep Water starts out sounding lovely, like a jaunty folk song, until the backing chorus of the undead chime in. Many fans of the band have complained that Third is a tuneless dirge (it is) and that they feel cheated. These are the people who hoped for another Dummy. What they got instead was a ragged, harsh album that was a million miles away from the signature Portishead sound, something that would really appeal to fans of music not readily associated with Trip-hop. Basically you won’t be putting this on at dinner parties and it’s all the better for it.

7 – Bob Dylan – Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Sessions Volume 8/Rare And Unreleased 1989 – 2006



Forget the pricing scandal associated with this release, even if it is a bloody disgrace, and just revel in the masterly works on show. As The Bootleg Sessions have shown for years now, the man’s cast-offs and rejected versions are up there with the material he does put out, and way beyond most others operating in music. Volume 8 covers a period of Bob that I am greatly fond of and thus this rates very highly with me indeed. The third, expensive, disc was mainly superfluous after the gems on the first two but is worth hearing. Don’t be too bothered about only getting the two-disc version though as that’s where the most worthwhile material, such as Red River Shore and ‘Cross The Green Mountain, are housed.

6 – TV On The Radio – Dear Science



Very possibly the world’s coolest band, but don’t let that put you off. Until now TV On The Radio didn’t quite do it for me personally. I got what they were doing, but somehow it all felt like it was a bit lacking. Dear Science changes that. First of all they’ve cut a lot of the fuzz that overshadowed previous efforts meaning that the sound is more organic and immediate. They’ve also added some horns to the mix which compliment the sound perfectly. But most important are the tunes. Whether it’s the blistering (Halfway Home, Shout Me Out), the funky (Red Dress) or some genuinely touching ballads (Family Tree) these are in abundance making for a brilliant, thrilling listen.

5 – David Byrne And Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today



The first collaboration between two of music’s finest performers in an age was one hell of an album. Eno did the music first then left Byrne to write the lyrics. As Byrne mentions himself in the album’s notes this was something that energised him as Eno’s approach to music and chord structure is different from his. What we get then is the finest album either has made in a couple of decades. Byrne sounds great, that voice is still one of the best in rock thanks to his odd singing style, and the music is a touch of class. Eno just has that ability to make wonderful things whether they be ambient, glam or what we get here. Many of the songs are based around traditional instrumentation, with the acoustic guitar featuring heavily at times, but then Eno does that thing he does and everything comes out sounding slightly different from how it should do. A fantastic work and an unexpected surprise.

4 – Johann Johannsson – Fordlandia



Johann Johannsson is an Icelandic composer who works with orchestration, choirs, guitars and electronics. Fordlandia is the second in a series about obsolete technology, the first being the peon to his Dad’s first computer and the music he made with it IBM 1401, A User’s Manual. Fordlandia deals with a more complex set of themes as Johannsson explains himself; www.johannjohannsson.com/fordlandia/ Basically there are a number of strands to the album. The first deals with Henry Ford’s failed Fordlandia experiment, the second looks at occultist scientist John Whiteside Parson’s failed attempts at building a rocket, the third with Burkhard Heim’s theory for travelling faster than the speed of light. There’s also stuff about Paganism and the god Pan in there. It’s an astonishing listen as Johannsson is a genuinely fantastic composer and the music is as complex as the ideas that serve as its context, yet never does it approach the unlistenable as so many projects like this do. Instead it is a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful suite. Highly recommended.

3 – Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid



Elbow came out of Manchester about the same time as Doves, and much like that band just seems to have found success without ever giving in to the zeitgeist. It would be easy to lump Elbow in with all those other post-OK Computer acts that tend to be summed up as Radiohead-lite but they’re a little more than that. Although they never go to Radiohead’s lengths with experimentation Elbow don’t exactly sound run of the mill either. There’s always something just ever so slightly off about everything that they make and in Guy Garvey they have an astonishing voice, vocally and lyrically. The Seldom Seen Kid sees them bounce back from Leaders Of The Free World’s more commercial approach that saw them turn in easily their worst album so far, although there were still some great moments. Nothing here is a massive leap forward from their first two albums (Asleep In The Back, Cast Of Thousands) but rather it sees them perfect the sound. Starlings is a phenomenal opener, in a tradition of phenomenal openers on their albums, starting with subtle electronic sounds before a crescendo of horns kick starts the album into life. It’s a beautiful piece of music, at once different yet familiar. And this is Elbow’s trick, making music that’s not really all that mainstream but then selling it to a mainstream audience. Garvey’s lyrics may be at their strongest too, not only in their heartbreaking look at the world (The Loneliness Of A Tower Crane Driver) but also reveal his romanticism (Mirrorball) and sense of humour (Grounds For Divorce). The album is loosely based on a friend of the band who died, a context that makes One Day Like This an incredibly moving piece. The Seldom Seen Kid won Britain’s Mercury Music Prize and for once I agree with the choice. The year’s classiest album.

2 – The Bug – London Zoo



Five years after The Bug set the bar for Ragga music with Pressure he finally returns with his finest work yet. Teaming with a group of legendary London and Jamaica based Dancehall vocalists London Zoo again tears in and shows up virtually everything being made in Dubstep, Ragga and Dancehall as the tired tripe they are. Not only does The Bug masterfully fuse these genres but he throws in Electronica, Dub, Reggae and even a little Banghra to make for one of the most exhilarating listens you’ll hear all decade. To put it simply London Zoo is ferocious, featuring some of the deepest basslines ever committed to tape and some absolutely incredible vocal performances from the likes of Ricky Ranking, Flowdan and Warrior Queen. It’s angry music made for dangerous times and puts everything produced in the Hip-hop genre to absolute shame. Vital music.

1 – Fennesz – Black Sea



Christian Fennesz is a towering presence in electronic music. His sound is entirely his, performing most of his music on guitar before filtering the sound through his laptop and creating an aural wash of sound quite unlike anything you’re likely to hear. He also tends to take his time making albums and after the disappointment for many of third album Venice Black Sea sees him hit the heights again of 2001’s Endless Summer, possibly even surpassing them. On this album his palette has widened to incorporate straight synths and some other players. What’s also interesting is that whereas before everything had that patented Fennesz fuzz there are a number of instances where he is happy just to let acoustic guitar play. The album starts with waves of harsh sound before the track settles and becomes a beautiful, drawn out ambient piece. The Colour Of Three shows Fennesz’s guitar manipulation in full effect as he strums one chord then bends and stretches it for infinity, the track slowly building layer upon layer until it sounds nothing like guitar music anymore. There are simply gorgeous ambient tracks like Vacuum and Saffron Revolution. Then there’s the album centrepiece Glide, a live collaboration with Rosy Parlane that is the ultimate exercise in building tension until about five minutes in the most glorious of releases bursts forth. In the past Fennesz has teetered between his two influences, guitar playing and the Musique Concrete of artists like Stockhausen and Xenakis. He likes to create noise, but the musician in him sometimes struggles to be heard amongst it. Black Sea sees him channelling both and finding the perfect balance, producing a masterful work in the process.

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

Some other stuff:

Re-issue(s) Of The Year

On The Hour Series 1 & 2: This Is The On The Hour News/Arise Sir News



At last On The hour is issued on CD. So what is it? It’s only the damn funniest spoof news show you’ll ever hear. On The Hour was the radio precursor to TV show The Day Today and marks some of the first appearances of Chris Morris (Brass Eye, Jam), Armando Iannucci (The Thick Of It, I’m Alan Partridge), Steve Coogan (Alan partridge himself), Peter Baynham (Borat writer) and Patrick Marber (he went on to write Closer and the screenplay for Notes On A Scandal). It also marks the start of one of the finest comic creations ever in Alan Partridge. The best thing about On The Hour is that it is more interested in the workings of news programmes rather than the content of the news itself. Most of the stories and headlines are stupid in a Python sort of way, revelling in balletic wordplay. But it’s how real news presented these stories, and how the presenters do their job that On The Hour is concerned with. In this sense it was revolutionary and TV follow ups The Day Today and Brass Eye continued this idea with TV news and current affairs programming respectively. David Quantick (who also wrote for On The Hour) goes as far to argue that thanks to the talent that came from this programme, writers and performers also included Lee and Herring and Rebecca Front) means that it is one of the most important British comedies ever made, a Monty Python for the modern era. I’m inclined to agree with him.

Musical mention: Nah Und Fern by Gas



A beautiful four CD box collecting Gas’ four albums, with slight changes. These albums are simply wonderful, and are constructed from the simplest of means. Each song features a very small sample, usually of classical music, but there are other types, that is then repeated, slowed down multi-tracked and so on and then a 4/4 bass drum is added over the top, or on some occasions not. It’s gorgeous, dark and at times suffocating music that cares more about the subtle shifts in sound than the almighty chord change wallops of “proper music”. To most it’ll sound like nothing happens at all, but then this isn’t for them. They go some way to reclaiming the term “ambient techno” from the dinner party crowd.

Great Songs From Albums Not On The List:

Planet Gear by Squarepusher from Just A Souvenir
Colours Move by F*ck Buttons from Street Horrrsing
All My Love by American Music Club from The Golden Age
New Year Storm by Clark from Turning Dragon
Kim And Jessie by M83 from Saturdays = Youth
Living Well Is The Best Revenge by R.E.M. from Accelerate
The PlclCpC by Autechre from Quaristice (Versions)
Blue Plastic Bags by Malcolm Middleton from Sleight Of Heart
Ruter by The Gasman from Superlife
Driving This Road ‘Til Death Sets You Free by Zombie Zombie from A Land For Renegades
Hexenringe by Wisp from Katabatic (EP)
Famous by Firebrand Boy from Songs For Cake (EP) available free at: www.8bitpeoples.com/discography
Mogwai Fear Satan (Live) by Mogwai from Mogwai Young Team Deluxe Edition

Letdown Of The Year:

In a way it’s 2008 itself. What do I mean by this? Well if you were to hand me a list of artists that were set to release material in 2008 that read;

British Sea Power
Clark
Autechre
Malcolm Middleton
Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds
Elbow
Silver Mt. Zion
R.E.M.
M83
Portishead
Spiritualized
B12
Coldplay
My Morning Jacket
Beck
Sigur Ros
The Verve
The Residents
Squarepusher
Mogwai
Bob Dylan
Mercury Rev
AC/DC
The Flaming Lips
Wisp
A new Gruff Rhys project
and
David Byrne And Brian Eno together again,

I’d have near shat myself in excitement! Add Tom Waits, Aphex Twin and Radiohead to that and I would have. Shamefully on said list is the caveat, for every good release by these artists you love, there will be a bad one. And not just bad, awful. Career worst in some respects. Worst offenders were My Morning Jacket, Squarepusher and Mercury Rev. All three in some way attempted to redefine their sound, no bad thing if done right, but sadly they all failed miserably. MMJ turned in an album at turns dreadfully dull and at other unintentionally hilarious thanks to vocalist Jim James trying to inject the band’s music with some sex. As it stood he sounded like a castrated rabbit yelping in pain. And the band seemed to reign themselves in even further than on previous effort Z, meaning virtually no extended guitar workouts, no grand drum moments, nothing. Tom Jenkinson (Squarepusher) followed up the pretty rubbish Hello Everything with Just A Souvenir, a loose concept album about some band playing live. The description read like an illiterate tripping balls trying to work out what he was experiencing by writing it down, and the album didn’t sound much better. Jenkinson has done the live instrumentation electronic album a couple of times before to varying degrees of success and jazz has always influenced his work but Just A Souvenir played like the laziest Acid-jazz toss you could imagine. Most of it just felt like he was taking the piss, and knowing Jenkinson he probably was. On the other hand Mercury Rev decided to go all electronic, a move that can serve a band well, no matter how basic their noodlings can be (Radiohead). Shamefully it sounds about five years out of date, which isn’t a time that’s “cool” to sound like yet, and there’s nothing approaching a good tune. It marks the point where the band’s steady decline since Deserter’s Songs sharply drops, cliff-like. In fact Snowflake Midnight was so bad that I haven’t even bothered to download the free accompanying album Strange Attractor from their website. It might be quite good but I can’t be bothered checking. It’s a sad state to be in since Deserter’s Songs is probably the most important album I have heard because it changed the way I thought about music and started me on the strange paths I now tread.

Of the rest Beck was cripplingly dull, M83 was way too 80’s in a bad way, Sigur Ros was more of the same and not the brave new sound promised and The Verve’s comeback was laughable by how half-finished it sounded. The Flaming Lips can be forgiven as their album is but a soundtrack to the film they made, Christmas On Mars. Shamefully that was for the most part painfully bad. And Wisp never actually released the album promised in Spring 2008. Looks like it’ll be Spring 2009 now. Instead all we got was the pretty good Katabatic 12”. Autechre shouldn’t be let off though. Quaristice wasn’t great and it wasn’t the return to easier listening pre-Confield Autechre neither. The fact that the bonus second disc was better than the album proper sums it up. The second disc, Quaristice (Versions), played like it was actually the main album while disc 1 featured all the little components that went into making the tracks. I suppose as an exercise in how Autechre create their music it’s interesting, but as a listen it just isn’t. Then to further add insult to injury was a series of downloads which presented further versions of the songs, none of which were particularly good, that culminated in a track that lasted for an hour but which was clearly the same small piece of music looped. Funnily enough as much as it felt like a con, it wasn’t actually that bad, playing a bit like Eno’s Thursday Afternoon.

Thankfully many of the other releases were very good indeed and there were quite a few little surprises and discoveries along the way to make up for the disappointments, but it doesn’t cover the fact that so many previously great artists released sub-par material. Hopefully they can all reverse the slide, but I fear a number are too far gone now to ever recapture the magic that made me love them so.

[Blue Raja]

(edit - sorry, wrong thread... )

[Trumpy's Magic Snout]

Sorry, forgot single/EP of the year:

Animal Collective - Water Curses



A slightly more organic sound than previous album Strawberry Jam or the rather brilliant new one . The title track and Seal Eyeing are two of the band's finest.

[malbouche]

Jan 11, 2009 19:58:53 GMT -5 Trumpy's Magic Snout said:

6 – TV On The Radio – Dear Science



Very possibly the world’s coolest band, but don’t let that put you off. Until now TV On The Radio didn’t quite do it for me personally. I got what they were doing, but somehow it all felt like it was a bit lacking. Dear Science changes that. First of all they’ve cut a lot of the fuzz that overshadowed previous efforts meaning that the sound is more organic and immediate. They’ve also added some horns to the mix which compliment the sound perfectly. But most important are the tunes. Whether it’s the blistering (Halfway Home, Shout Me Out), the funky (Red Dress) or some genuinely touching ballads (Family Tree) these are in abundance making for a brilliant, thrilling listen.

I understand what you mean about the songs sounding "fuzzy" but I like the grittiness of Young Liars and Return to Cookie Mt. "Staring at the Sun" really blew my mind the first time I heard it. I've heard this band is superior at their live shows...depending on my finances I might get a chance to see them firsthand at Bonnaroo.