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Top Albums of 2008: Battle Royale! (Alternative)

Friday, February 6th, 2009

The lines are drawn and the contestants are steeling themselves for auditory combat!

Seriously, 120 albums is a hell of an amount of albums to listen through and judge against those before and after.  So rather than make this an exercise in memory, or one with standards for that matter, I’m going to run this like an underground cock fight.  While it has all the appearances of being a free-for-all I’ll set up some basic boundaries, albums will compete intra-genre first then the victors will emerge to struggle against their peers.  What this is not is serious.  Like couples figure skating judgment will be capricious and on personal whim, whatever moves me at that moment will get the nod–come to think of it, this sounds like a Pitchfork review except without the literary torment and the rattling of Ivy League diplomas.

As my math skills are suspect, some of these brackets will have an album or two that do not fit nicely into a three-some (yes, I went there); those albums will wait on the sideline and get tossed into a sudden death with the finalist or be used to punt a pair into play.

Without further ad I bring you the first round of contestants: Genre Alternative!

Round One

  1. Calexico    Carried To Dust
    Cordero    De Donde Eres
    J*Davey    The Beauty In Distortion / The Land Of The Lost WINNER
  2. Dengue Fever    Venus on Earth
    Thao    We Brave Bee Stings and All
    Scott Reynolds    Adventure Boy WINNER
  3. The Gaslight Anthem    The ’59 Sound
    Hauschka    Ferndorf WINNER
    Hot Chip    Made In The Dark
  4. Grouper    Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
    BLK JKS    Mystery EP
    Santogold    Santogold WINNER
  5. Basia Bulat    Oh, My Darling*** WINNER
     Minus The Bear    Acoustics
    Lau Nau    Nukkuu
  6. Firewater    The Golden Hour WINNER
     The Hold Steady    Stay Positive
    Gang Gang Dance    Saint Dymphna
  7. Portishead    Third WINNER
    The Postmarks    By The Numbers
    Black Taj    Beyonder
  8. Faraquet    Anthology 1997-98
    Fall Out Boy    Folie à Deux
    Elbow    The Seldom Seen Kid WINNER
  9. Vampire Weekend    Vampire Weekend
    Plants and Animals    Parc Avenue     WINNER
    Jack Peñate    Matinée

Round Two

  1. J*Davey    The Beauty In Distortion / The Land Of The Lost WINNER
    Basia Bulat    Oh, My Darling
    Hauschka    Ferndorf
  2. Santogold    Santogold
    Scott Reynolds    Adventure Boy     WINNER
    Firewater    The Golden Hour
  3. Portishead    Third
    Elbow    The Seldom Seen Kid
    Plants and Animals    Parc Avenue WINNER

Round Three

  1. J*Davey    The Beauty In Distortion / The Land Of The Lost
  2. Scott Reynolds    Adventure Boy
  3. Plants and Animals    Parc Avenue

Read the other posts

Work In Progress: Top Albums From 2008

*** Wildcard initiated as eMusic had the wrong release date for Coptic Light encoded, and if I were a 1/3 as organized as Qyuen I wouldn’t be editing the fight list on the fly…

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Work In Progress: Top Albums from 2008

Thursday, February 5th, 2009

Last year I purchased 251 albums from eMusic and maybe another 50 or more from Amazon MP3 so by that count I was buying some 25 a month or nearly 1 a day.  That is one hell of a habit but what makes it harder is sifting through all those and tally the ones that hooked me because, while I’m and obsessive list maker it is always far in arrears.

My first step is to figure out what from those 300 or so purchases was released in 2008 and then of that group which of that set are not re-releases–it is usually that latter part where I give up.  In my first pass I’m left with 1399 tracks and no real way to parse that into albums with Amarok except maybe counting but I don’t have that many fingers and toes.  Thankfully, I set Amarok up to use MySQL as it’s engine so with a quick query, and a little clean up for the freebies, I have 120 albums* to work through.

Now, my more purest readers and friends might exclaim, “Not all of these albums are actually 2008 releases! Cull! Cull!”  While I agree with that in principle I really am an individual governed by sloth and am truly unmotivated to verify the true release date of each album.  Either way it is going to take me a long while to whittle things down to a Top 10.

This is my playlist…

  1. 2562–Aerial
  2. 3 Na Massa–3 Na Massa
  3. Al Kent Presents The Million Dollar Orchestra–Better Days
  4. Ananda Project–Night Blossom
  5. Aphex Twin–Classics
  6. Aziza Brahim–Mi Canto
  7. Baby Charles–Baby Charles
  8. Basia Bulat–Oh, My Darling
  9. Black Taj–Beyonder
  10. BLK JKS–Mystery EP
  11. Bombay Dub Orchestra–3 Cities
  12. Booka Shade–The Sun & The Neon Light
  13. Calexico–Carried To Dust
  14. Carl Craig–Sessions
  15. Cheb i Sabbah–Devotion
  16. Chin Chin–Chin Chin
  17. Coldplay–Viva La Vida Or Death And All
  18. Cordero–De Donde Eres
  19. Curtis Macomber–Asia: Sonata for Violin & Piano, Piano Trio
  20. Dan Zanes and Friends–¡Nueva York!
  21. Deastro–Keeper’s
  22. Debashish Bhattacharya–Calcutta Chronicles: Indian Slide-Guitar Odyssey
  23. Dengue Fever–Venus on Earth
  24. Derrick May–Innovator
  25. DJ /rupture–Uproot
  26. Dub Trio–Another Sound Is Dying
  27. Duffy–Rockferry
  28. Elbow–The Seldom Seen Kid
  29. El Guincho–Alegranza
  30. Eliot Lipp–The Outside
  31. Esperanza Spalding–Esperanza
  32. Etran Finatawa–Desert Crossroads
  33. Fall Out Boy–Folie à Deux
  34. Fanatix–This Thing of Ours
  35. Faraquet–Anthology 1997-98
  36. Fenin–Been Through
  37. Firewater–The Golden Hour
  38. Gang Gang Dance–Saint Dymphna
  39. Ghislain Poirier–No Ground Under
  40. Gnarls Barkley–The Odd Couple
  41. Grouper–Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
  42. Grupo Fantasma–Sonidos Gold
  43. Guillermo Klein–Filtros
  44. Hauschka–Ferndorf
  45. Headlights–Some Racing, Some Stopping
  46. Health–Disco (V3)
  47. Hector Zazou & Swara–In The House Of Mirrors
  48. Hot Chip–Made In The Dark
  49. Huun-Huur-Tu–Mother Earth! Father Sky!
  50. Jack Peñate–Matinée
  51. James Blackshaw–The Wolf Also Shall Dwell with the Lamb
  52. James Blackshaw–White Goddess
  53. James Hardway–L.A. Instrumental
  54. J-Boogie’s Dubtronic Science–Soul Vibrations
  55. J*Davey–The Beauty In Distortion / The Land Of The Lost
  56. J-Live–Then What Happened
  57. Josh Martinez–World Famous Sex Buffet
  58. Joy Division–The Best Of
  59. Juno Reactor–Gods & Monsters
  60. Kasai Allstars–In The 7th Moon, The Chief Turned Into A Swimming Fish And A
  61. Kaya Project–…& So It Goes
  62. Kayhan Kalhor–Silent City
  63. Kraak & Smaak–Plastic People
  64. La Sonora de Lucho Macedo–Gozalo – Bugalu Tropical Volume 2
  65. La Sonora de Lucho Macedo–¡Gózalo! Vol. 1 – Bugalú Tropical
  66. Lau Nau–Nukkuu
  67. Les Voix Baroques–Canticum Canticorum
  68. Louie Vega–House Masters: Louie Vega
  69. Luomo–Convivial
  70. Lyrics Born–Everywhere At Once
  71. Marco Benevento–Invisible Baby
  72. Markus Schulz–Markus Schulz – Amsterdam 08
  73. Melody Gardot–Worrisome Heart
  74. Michael Nyman–8 Lust Songs: I Sonetti Lussuriosi
  75. Michael Nyman–Mozart 252
  76. Mike Ladd–Nostalgialator
  77. Minus The Bear–Acoustics
  78. Moby–Last Night
  79. Natacha Atlas–Ana Hina
  80. Natural Self feat. Andreya Triana–The Art Of Vibration
  81. N.E.R.D.–Seeing Sounds [Explicit]
  82. Niyaz–Nine Heavens
  83. Nomo–Ghost Rock
  84. Plantlife–Time Traveller
  85. Plants and Animals–Parc Avenue
  86. Portishead–Third
  87. Q-Tip–The Renaissance
  88. Quantic Presents…Flowering Inferno–Death Of The Revolution
  89. Quiet Village–Silent Movie
  90. Raashan Ahmad–The Push
  91. Rainbow Arabia–The Basta
  92. Ratatat–LP3
  93. Rebirth Brass Band–25th Anniversary
  94. Richard Swift–Ground Trouble Jaw
  95. Santogold–Santogold
  96. Scott Reynolds–Adventure Boy
  97. Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80–Seun Kuti & Fela’s Egypt 80
  98. Siah & Yeshua dapoED–The Visualz Anthology
  99. Stanton Moore–Emphasis! (On Parenthesis)
  100. Studio–Yearbook 2
  101. Thao–We Brave Bee Stings and All
  102. The Big Sleep–Sleep Forever
  103. The Black Ghosts–The Black Ghosts
  104. The Cat Empire–So Many Nights
  105. The Gaslight Anthem–The ’59 Sound
  106. The Herbaliser–Same As It Never Was
  107. The High Decibels–The High Decibels
  108. The Hold Steady–Stay Positive
  109. The Matthew Herbert Big Band–There’s Me And There’s You
  110. The Postmarks–By The Numbers
  111. The Saturday Knights–Mingle
  112. The Vandermark 5–Beat Reader
  113. Thievery Corporation–Radio Retaliation
  114. TM Juke And The Jack Baker Trio–Boto And The Second Liners
  115. Vampire Weekend–Vampire Weekend
  116. Vibesquad–Dawn Patrol
  117. Yusef Lateef–Yusef Lateef
  118. Zomby–Where Were U in ’92?
  119. Zuco 103–After The Carnival

Time to turn up the speakers for the next 107 hours or so…

*edit–Found a straggler and culled it.

**edit–Culled Coptic Light because it was released in 2005 and my copy had the date encoded wrong.

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Taste shifts in music are breaking me of long held beliefs.

Tuesday, April 29th, 2008

Last night while downloading this month’s allotment from eMusic it dawned on me that my tastes have profoundly shifted in the last four months or so as a good amount of the albums I picked up fall under the “Classical” moniker, well, more accurately it is a sort of experimental Folk meets avant-garde Classical.  I’m not really sure what to make of it but in the past year or so I have been finding myself increasingly drawn to acoustical music that sort of falls into the category of minimalism or drones–think Gamelean played on a piano or guitar.

It started late last summer when I stumbled onto Glenn Jones sublime Against Which The Sea Continually Beats, which was the tipping point where I slowly teetered until I tumbled into Steve Reich and David Lang this past December–a strange transition for certain. Usually when I’m out shopping for new music I have a list to work from of artists and albums that were recommended by friends or the media but lately I have been buying in a more free association manner and maybe this is why I’m listening to music so different from my “established taste”.

Free association listening is a liberating experience in that my itch for new, different, and novel is being scratched much more thoroughly.  There is something to be said for shutting out the noise of the world, closing your eyes and letting your heart and ears guide you.  Some of my most recent discoveries have been so counter-intuitive and have broken me of some deeply held musical prejudice.

Micheal Harrison’s Revelation, as well as being aptly titled, is a perfect example of the breaking of some long held views.  Dave Lewis of allmusic writes,

Harrison is regarded as an expert and creative mind in the field of tuning and the possibilities inherent in “just intonation” where the distance between pitches is derived from mathematical formulas rather than from the familiar system of equal temperament used in the tuning of most pianos.

A year ago I held a dim view of alternate tuning schemes and held twelve-tone in a contempt rooted in ignorance.  Honestly, I know nothing about tuning beyond a smattering learned in music theory classes I took some sixteen years ago.  That combined with my parent’s fervor for the compositions of Bach, Handel, and Mozart ingrained in me a belief that if certain musics do not adhere in some manner to the “Western Canon” that it is potentially flawed or misguided.  It is more gray and malleable than it sounds but it boils down to a knee jerk response to hearing instruments commonly associated with Western music working in micro-tonalities and alternate tunings.  While I’m being completely honest, I own a copy of Jorgensen’s Tuning which I had bought to complete my ruse of being knowledgeable about the field.  Seriously, I have never done more than flip through it.  Color me an asshat.

So what is blowing my mind at the moment?  The above mentioned Revelation is one.  At first listen the piano sounds brittle and woefully out of tune as if it had been sitting neglected in some abandoned schoolhouse being warped by rain, sun, and snow.  However, after sinking into its dense clouds and textures I found myself in a place where it made sense.  The harmonics that Harrison conjures are at once alien but familiar and as I continue to listen “just intonation” begins to make as much sense as equal temperament.

Following the path of piano music I am currently enamored with Hauschka who I’ve mentioned in passing before.  The Prepared Piano is an earlier piece but it too has served to break me of the long held prejudice regarding “prepared” instruments.  Before hearing Bertelman’s work my perception of this style was that it had more in common with a bag of hammers and wrenches tumbling down a flight of stairs than with what might be referred to as “music”.  I was wrong.  This album, along with last year’s Room To Expand is quirky, hypnotic, and beautiful and bears no resemblance to what I thought a prepared piano would sound like.

Additionally, I’m looking forward to digging into Ethel’s Light which at first pass was raw, romantic, and playful as well as getting deeper into Steve Reich’s work with Drumming performed by So Percussion.  Maybe these albums will open my mind further and see my ears drift deeper into sounds I have never experienced.

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Night Duty Playlist

Monday, February 4th, 2008

These past weeks Gabriella has been waking up during the witching hour looking for comfort, a bottle, or both and while I don’t mind being wakeful when my body wants rest it can take a toll after awhile. To keep myself steady I’ve been loading up more and more classical music, oddly split between Baroque and Modern with one Jazz album tossed in to keep things off balance. Now, like most things I’m into, I don’t profess to have deep or even cursory knowledge about the subject. I just know what I like.

GORECKI: Symphony No 3 / Three Olden Style PiecesGorecki: Symphony No 3 / Three Olden Style Pieces. Damn. I’ve mentioned this album before and it still stands as being one of my favorite pieces to date. Huge cathedrals of sound, aching melodies, and a glacial pace all conspire to create a feeling of wholeness and longing. Perfect for when you need to still your heart after being ripped from sleep by the chilling screams of a one year old looking for a bottle and a diaper change (a resounding endorsement if you ask me).

Steve Reich: Music for 18 MusiciansSteve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians was one of those “Hmmm, I’ll give it a shot” discoveries that seem to dominate my music purchases. I picked it up around the time as Gorecki and it instantly became one of my preferred late night albums. Reich layers rhythm and harmony like a painter might for texture or a baker for taste and in this composition those layers work together thos generate these long waves of melody that take minutes to unfold and reveal themselves. This is not to say that the music is a series of ponderous standing waves rather it is a breathless construction of rhythm that for me evokes long breezes coursing through tall summer grass.

Tehillim & The Desert Music Tehillim & The Desert Music is another album of Reich compositions that I picked up this past month. The first half of the album features great interplay between vocalists and percussion that possesses a sort of tribal feel that tickles the more reptilian parts of my brain while the latter half features compositions that sound much like the precursor to Music for 18 Musicians. In that regard the album is a little inconsistent if you are listening from beginning to end but each section is fantastic in its own right.

Biber: Soldiers, Gypsies, Farmers and a Night Watchman Biber: Soldiers, Gypsies, Farmers and a Night Watchman sees the playlist go for Baroque (…..really, I couldn’t let that slide). Biber is one of my favorite composers from this period as his work is impassioned and raw while making great use of folk traditions of Europe at the time which in many of the pieces leaves his work sounding some 200 years before its time. The attraction here is that the song cycle feels like a tour through a city contemporary to his time from raucous markets and back alleys to the closing of the city gates when all is beginning to lay down for the night.

J.S. Bach on the Lute J.S. Bach on the Lute is a collection of solo pieces performed by Paul Berget. There isn’t much I can say other than Bach is a giant and his work, for me, nearly always satisfies. Now I have always been a sucker for the lute and for the longest time I had wanted to purchase one and try to teach myself but life’s little conspiracies have kept me from it thus far. Berget’s work is a great substitution and it makes a very relaxing and enchanting listen when you are watching the clock round the corner to dawn.

Postcards From Gypsyland Postcards From Gypsyland is the curveball of the bunch in that it doesn’t lend itself to meditative exercises nor does it possess the more somnolent qualities of the prior albums. Rather it is a toe tapping and feisty collection of Gypsy Jazz that is the perfect for washing the sand out of one’s eyes when their child is up and ready to run around. Think of it as the aural equivalent of Red Bull but without the rot gut. It is a fantastic collection evocative of an era that might have never existed but in romantic writings of people who might wish that it truly was happening and that they were there soul and body.

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Albums I could not get out off my playlists in 2007.

Monday, December 17th, 2007

2007 Albums

Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass
African Virtuoses – The Classic Guinean Guitar Group
Apparat – Walls
Beruit – The Flying Club Cup
Burial – Untrue
Dalek – Abandoned Language
Fanfare Ciocarlia – Kings and Queens
Glenn Jones – Against Which the Sea Continually Beats
Richard Swift – Dressed Up For The Letdown
Spanish Harlem Orchestra – United We Swing
Stars of the Lid – and Their Refinement of the Decline
Tinariwen – Aman Iman: Water Is Life
Waldeck – Ballroom Stories

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Top of the Playlist

Friday, December 7th, 2007

It has been a long while since I have written anything about what I’ve been listening and while this probably should be posted over at Candied Pop my absence there leaves me feeling like I should warm up here first.

Anyways, some backstory: with my new job I am finding that I have the chance to listen for hours on end with no peanut gallery to tell me to turn it down, off, or put something “new” on (read that last as play something that Clear Channel might). I’m finding myself becoming complete and total junkie having opened a second eMusic account for 100 tracks me to 190 in a 30 day period–for the math inclined it works out to be around 20 albums on average–but working 12+ hours a day means I can pretty much work through the list every two days. So while I may not have much time to write posts I have plenty of time for listening to music.

Virunga - Feet on FireVirunga – Feet on Fire (1991)
Lately, I have been finding myself listening more and more to artists from Africa particularly artists working in a sound of classic Afropop. This album is smooth which does much to mask the insane 12/8 time signatures that they deftly weave in many of the songs. Listening to this album makes me wish that we had dance bands like this touring around New England as their steamy tropical sound would do much to take the bite out of the winter months.

Orchestra Baobob - A Night at Club BaobobOrchestra Baobob – A Night at Club Baobob (2006)
This album is spectacular and intoxicating. The beats hold a loping cumbia feel with a huge brass sections and a bright sawtooth edged guitar that winds around the songs. Add to that vocals that often remind me of a raw early Rai sound and you have an album that at once feels exotic but compels your feet to tap as best as you can to the crazed poly-rhythms. Ignore your friends who might refer to this album as “cigar chomping Cuban commie music” as they know little of geography, politics, or damn fine music.

Eric Agyeman - Highlife SafariEric Agyeman – Highlife Safari (1994)
This is one of Gabriella’s favorite albums and when it comes on she does her charming little squat-thrust dance keeping time to the music better than I could ever hope to. She is on to something as this album is eminently danceable with its nimble bass lines, shuffling percussion, spiraling guitar lines, and shout and response vocals. Nothing passes the day better than dancing about the living with her while this album blasts from the stereo.

Souad Massi - Deb (Heart Broken)Souad Massi – Deb (Heart Broken) (2003)
Moving north on the continent by way of France is Souad Massi who, especially on this album, embodies the notion of World Fusion. On Deb (Heart Broken) you can hear Rai, Folk music of Europe (Spain and France), weepy cinematic string passages warm up the sound, and occasionally sprinklings of tabla to round out the percussion. This album is far more romantic and moody sounding than her 2005 effort and that likely is because of the heavy Rai and Flamenco influences. Toss this on after sunset and curl up with someone you love.

Herbert - Bodily FunctionsHerbert – Bodily Functions (2001)
I fell deeply and madly in love with 2006′s Score, as Management says, because it tickles my inner Chelsea boy. Since then I have been on a quest to get all of Herbert’s albums and this one has me just as inflamed with passion but for different reasons. While Score was a huge post-Broadway send up this one is darker and smokier carrying a sort of sophistication in its seeming ennui. This one is for when the clock rolls past midnight and you find yourself left alone with your thoughts, some warm, others pained, but each tinged with a helpless sense of romance.

Burial - UntrueBurial – Untrue (2007)
A couple of days I rolled past Ludlow in the hours before sunrise. The lights along the highway were extinguished and the valley was wrap in starless black with only the ruddy glow of sodium halide lights from the factories below to dot the landscape. Occasionally the sky would light up with blue columns of flame exploding from impossibly skinny stacks. Untrue is the soundtrack to that landscape. It is dark, moody, mechanical, cold, and distant yet in all that it retains a transcendent beauty. The machine like precision of the beats and the disembodied vocals that are layered and looped for texture make for an alien yet familiar sound. A sound that is at once primal, feeding our need for an incessant driving beat, and dystopian with the shell casings skittering across concrete and swelling synth pads that fill your head beyond capacity. Easily one of my favorite releases this year.

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