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Archive: thrill-jockey

My top ten albums of 2009

31 December 2009 14:53

Categories: *, Entertainment, Music, Reviews

Music of 2009

A series of posts

  1. My top twenty albums of 2009 — part one
  2. My top ten albums of 2009

10. The Fiery Furnaces — I’m Going Away

I'm Going Away coverIt wouldn’t be an end-of-year music roundup from me without something related to The Fiery Furnaces appearing on the list. And here it is: I’m Going Away. This is probably the lowest they have appeared in my end-of-year list since I discovered them. Not that I’m Going Away is a poor album (otherwise it wouldn’t be in my top ten). But as The Fiery Furnaces have produced more conventional music, I have found them less interesting. Nevertheless, this album has some great tracks, not least ‘Charmaine Champagne’.

9. Bibio — Ambivalence Avenue

Ambivalence Avenue coverI had not taken much notice of Bibio in the past, but after hearing some clips from Ambivalence Avenue I decided to give it a shot. I was not disappointed. The influence of Boards of Canada is at times painfully obvious. But into the childlike nostalgic sepia-toned mix is thrown more folk-based influences, IDM, hip-hop and funk. And it all feels like it fits well. My favourite track is ‘Haikuesque (When She Laughs)’, even though it clearly owes so much to Boards of Canada.

8. Tortoise — Beacons of Ancestorship

Beacons of Ancestorship coverI could not wait for this to come out, yet at the same time I was apprehensive about the results. Beacons of Ancestorship is Tortoise’s first proper album since 2003′s It’s All Around You. Even that was a bit of a let-down, and the bits of material they have released in the intervening period (*cough* not looking at any particular collaborations with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, you understand) have been poor.

But Beacons of Ancestorship, if not exactly up to the, ahem, Standards of their classic albums, is by no means a let-down. It’s just that you get the sense that nowadays Tortoise operate comfortably within their boundaries, rather than challenging them as they did in the past. What can’t be taken away, however, is the fact that this video for ‘Prepare Your Coffin’ is awesome.

7. Doves — Kingdom of Rust

Kingdom of Rust coverYou might rightly think, “Blimey, Doves. That’s that band that gets worse after every album.” Maybe so, but the fact that they do this and yet their latest album, Kingdom of Rust, is still brilliant demonstrates just how good a band Doves are. The first single worried me somewhat as it seemed like Doves by numbers. But it has grown on me, and the reset of the album shows a good development in the band’s sound, with a harder edge in some parts and a krautrocky and electronic vibe in others. The highlight is ’10:03′.

6. Dirty Projectors — Bitte Orca

Bitte Orca (Limited Edition) coverDirty Projectors is an odd band, because they are one of the very few acts that I have ever managed to see live (when they supported Battles a couple of years ago). As a live act they were pretty impressive — the singing was incredible. When you hear Bitte Orca, it might sound suspiciously like the vocals are not real. But they definitely are.

Dirty Projectors are clearly going places. The band has doubled in size since I saw them, and Bitte Orca has been critically acclaimed. And for good reason. The band has a very distinctive sound and almost every song is good. This is ‘Useful Chamber’.

5. Animal Collective — Merriweather Post Pavilion

Merriweather Post Pavilion coverAnimal Collective have been the darlings of the music press this year. While they don’t quite justify all of the hype, their album Merriweather Post Pavilion certainly deserves to be recognised as one of the best of the year. They have done a good job of crafting a poppier and more accessible sound while maintaining their experimental roots. This is ‘Summertime Clothes’.

4. Graham Coxon — The Spinning Top

The Spinning Top coverAfter spending his past few albums apparently trying to make more mainstream albums, Graham Coxon went back to basics with The Spinning Top. It reminds me of his earliest albums, which is no bad thing. There is a wonderfully natural and gentle sound to this album and right from the first listen I knew I was going to love it. Here is the marvellous ‘Brave the Storm’.

3. Tyondai Braxton — Central Market

Central Market coverTyondai Braxton is a pivotal member of the experimental electronic / rock band Battles. I think Battles is just about the best band going right now, and I was hugely looking forward to Tyondai Braxton’s solo effort, Central Market. It was not quite what I was expecting, but I was not disappointed. This is the sound of an artist truly pushing himself and exploring musical areas in a way that musicians should do more often.

Orchestral arrangements, crunching guitar loops, sweeping electronic effects and kazoos are fearlessly mixed together. As with his work with Battles, there are sometimes childish melodies — the sort of thing kids might hum in the playground. It would annoy you if it didn’t work so well. Despite the amazing scope of this album, I have chosen to feature one of the more conventional songs, ‘J. City’, because it is so irresistibly awesome.

2. Grizzly Bear — Veckatimest

Veckatimest coverGrizzly Bear is one of those bands that just gets better and better. Each album is an improvement on the last, and I can’t wait to hear what they can create in the future. They have a wonderful natural sound to them, which means that even though they are often described as an experimental rock band, they are nevertheless accessible. They just write great songs. ‘Two Weeks’ is an instant chamber pop classic.

1. Broadcast and The Focus Group — Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age

Broadcast & the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age coverThis is a true meeting of minds. Broadcast are already well established as a great band with an interesting take on bringing the past to the present in weird and wonderful ways. The Focus Group is Julian House, who has designed artwork for Broadcast for several years and is now one of the chief figureheads of the ‘hauntology’ genre, as co-founder of the incredible Ghost Box record label.

It has to be said that this album sounds like ten parts The Focus Group to one part Broadcast. (Who knows what Broadcast’s new material will be like? A new album is due in 2010, and perhaps it is heavily influenced by the happening hauntology sound.)

Broadcast and The Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age presents a wonderful dreamworld collage of sound. Influenced by creepy 1970s B-movies and low-budget science fiction, psychedelia and folk music. Equally childlike and scary, this is the most different-sounding, yet oddly familiar-sounding, release of the year. I am sure that in years to come it will be viewed as the crowning glory of this strange and intriguing new genre. This is ‘I See, So I See So’.

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Music of 2007: #40–#21

7 January 2008 10:13

Categories: Entertainment, Music

Music of 2007

A series of posts

  1. What I listened to in 2007
  2. Music of 2007: #40–#21
  3. Music of 2007: #20–#11
  4. Music not of 2007: three reissues
  5. Music of 2007: #10–#4
  6. Music of 2007: top three

Updated to include the full 20 — I messed up the original post. Thanks to Ali for pointing it out.

Hmm, a bit late here. That always seems to happen nowadays. Sorry about that. But I like to wait until the very end of the year to do my end-of-year list, unlike others who sometimes compile their list in December or even November.

In my view, 2007 was a very good year for music indeed. But competition for the top spot in my list wasn’t close. But before we get there, here are some of the albums that appear lower down on my list, going up to #21.

40. Mira Calix — Eyes Set Against the Sun

The biggest disappointment of the year for me. This album has had all year to grow on me, yet it is still to grab me.

39. Bonde do Rolê — With Lasers

I guess baile funk is an acquired taste. I didn’t get CSS, and this album grates on me a bit. Perhaps I was blinded by the association with the rather good Diplo when I bought this album. Not my finest purchase of the year.

38. iLiKETRAiNS — Elegies To Lessons Learnt

My brother goes on and on about this band. So I’ve given them a go. I like some of their older songs — particularly ‘The Bible’ and ‘Go To Sleep’. So it’s beyond me why these tracks will remain as obscure demos or b-sides, while the album is full of samey dross.

The worst thing about iLiKETRAiNS for me is that this is one of the most obvious examples of post-rock by numbers I have heard. It really sounds like a poor man’s Godspeed You! Black Emperor. It’s not just the derivative nature of the music that gets me. It’s the fact that the original post-rock music was about pushing the boundaries.

In the past the ‘post-rock’ tag was applied to bands who were wary of being labelled in that way. But now there are bands out there who are actively trying to sound like ‘post-rock’. It spectacularly misses the point of the entire approach of the original post-rock bands.

37. Maxïmo Park — Our Earthly Pleasures

A disappointingly by-the-numbers follow-up to the exciting A Certain Trigger. You’d normally hope for a band to broaden its sound for the second album, but Maxïmo Park have done the opposite.

The greatest deviation from the norm comes in ‘Russian Literature’, which starts off sounding like something that their old pals Field Music would have come up with before descending into the bland Maxïmo template.

36. Bogdan Raczynski — Alright!

Not sure about this one. I’ve been meaning to buy a Bogdan Raczynski record for ages, so when he brought out Alright! I thought I would give it a go. I guess I must have bought the wrong one to start with because it has not impressed me as much as I was hoping.

35. Savath & Savalas — Golden Pollen

Yet another bland album from Scott Herren. Aside from a few aurally pleasant moments, this album is totally devoid of landmarks, and sounds just like old Savath & Savalas stuff.

After the major disappointment of Security Screenings under his other monicker (Prefuse 73), as well as a string of other increasingly disappointing releases, this was the final straw for me. I have stopped buying Scott Herren records until I hear definitive evidence that he has upped his game. The great days of One Word Extinguisher seem so long ago now…

34. High Priest — Born Identity

I’m quite glad that Antipop Consortium are getting back together because it really was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Whatever I heard of Beans’s solo material sounded (quite aptly) as offensive as audio farts.

High Priest similarly is not so great on his own. Born Identity isn’t offensively bad though. In truth it has some really good moments — a nice mixture of experimental electronic hip-hop and commercial sensibilities, such as in ‘Banger Up Top’.

My biggest problem with this album as a whole is that it is quite a claustrophobic listen. Songs start and end abruptly, as though there wasn’t the time given to allow ideas to gestate. This gives the album a dizzyingly fast-paced feel. There is just no time taken to pause and take a breath.

Video: ‘Pitfalls’

33. Amiina — Kurr

I found this album quite boring. It has some pleasant moments, but overall I find it flat and lifeless. A bit of a shame as I liked their EP, Animamina.

32. Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid — Tongues

Another disappointing album. When a modern pioneer of electronic music teams up a well-respected jazz drummer you expect magic to happen. What we got was little more than a selection of ramblings.

For Kieran Hebden’s part, the electronics mostly sound suspiciously similar to older Four Tet material, with a particular similarity to Everything Ecstatic. Meanwhile, Steve Reid’s drumming is disappointingly unadventurous and takes far too long to develop.

There is a video on YouTube of them performing ‘Brain’ live, and it is much better than the version on the album. Even though the albums are said to be recorded as live improvisations with no overdubs, I can imagine that it is pretty spectacular to see this live in action. But the album misfires a lot.

31. Trans Am — Sex Change

Hmm. I’m new to this band, and this is a recent purchase. So I’ll have to give the album a bit more time to digest before giving a definitive verdict on it.

But album opener ‘First Words’ is a neat and enjoyable nod to Krautrock. I find nothing particularly offensive about the rest of the album. Indeed, it is impressively eclectic, which is probably one of the reasons why I’m struggling to sum it up. Another impressive thing is that apparently the album only took three weeks from conception to completion. Efficient!

30. Clark — Ted E.P.

A so-so EP from a musician who promises so much more. Many of the sounds are recycled from the already disappointing Body Riddle. To add insult to injury, the final track, ‘Cremation Drones’ is a blatant rip-off of Boards of Canada’s sound.

Video: ‘Ted’

My original review of Ted E.P.

29. The Tuss — Confederation Trough EP

Some good tracks here. A decent taster for the follow-up album, Roughup Edge. (I write more about The Tuss in my review for Roughup Edge, higher up in the list.)

28. Proswell — Bruxist Frog

A landmark album, as it was the last ever to be released on the excellent Merck label. Another nail in the coffin of the ailing IDM genre. Just as well Bruxist Frog wasn’t a honker then!

Mind you, it’s not a completely excellent album either, and in a lot of ways it is a demonstration of what is wrong with IDM just now. The innovation just isn’t there any more, and it has begun to sound as safe as any other genre. Bruxist Frog mostly consists of pleasant and safe melodies, and styles that can be traced back to the 1980s.

There are some good moments in this album though. I particularly give my thumbs-up to ‘Run Loop God’.

Sad to see such a great label go.

27. Ceephax — Volume One

Hmm, I experimented a lot with buying my first album by a lot of artists last year. This one is Ceephax’s Volume One. It’s an album of reasonably good 8-bit style retro goodness, with a good sense of humour mixed in.

There is some banging stuff here, but my favourites are the more melodic and pleasant tunes. The highlight for me is ‘TX Jammer’.

I’m not sure if it’s convinced me to buy more Ceephax / Acid Crew stuff, but this is a fairly good album.

26. Battles — Atlas

The only reason this is so far down is because it is really a single. Apart from ‘Atlas’, this only contains a DJ Koze remix of Atlas. But it has to be mentioned because it pointed the way to the phenomenon of the year and definitive proof that there is still room for innovation in the world of music.

The song came as a shock to fans of Battles. It marked a fairly radical departure from their previous material. The in-your-face vocals (which some have likened to the Chipmunks) took some getting used to.

But that is the point. It is challenging, but also wonderfully fun. All music should be like this.

The album version is great enough, but Atlas really comes into its own in live form. That’s what Battles are all about. As a studio album, Mirrored is great, but it is most astonishing to see these sounds being made live. Here they are performing it on Later with Jools Holland.

25. Clark — Throttle Promoter

At last, Clark moves into new territory. Throttle Promoter is a teaser EP for Clark’s ‘surprise’ upcoming album, Turning Dragon, which is due out later this month.

It certainly makes a change for Warp, whose hype machine usually can’t resist announcing new albums several months ahead of their release, making for an agonising wait for the sometimes obsessive fans of Boards of Canada and the like. Another treat for fans is that you get 25% off the new album by entering the serial number from the runout groove on Throttle Promoter.

As for the music, it is a pleasing change of direction. Gone are the overly-intricate backdrops. There is clearly an emphasis here on just producing good, fun tunes. ‘Kin Griff’ reminds me a bit of Aphex Twin’s ‘Naks Acid’, in a good way. It bodes well for Turning Dragon.

24. Bumps — Bumps

The percussion section of Tortoise decided to make their own album of “raw, drums, breaks, beats”. I guess it will do while we wait for a new Tortoise album.

As you would expect, it is masterful. Being essentially an album of drumming and little else, there is obviously little in the way of melody. But that doesn’t keep this from being a captivating — if brief — album.

Most of the tracks are quite short, and there is little breathing space between them. Yet the album covers a surprisingly large variety of moods and styles. If you’re a fan of Tortoise, you should definitely pick this up, although I fear lots of people will have missed it on the radar.

23. !!! — Myth Takes

I have to admit to being slightly disappointed by this album. !!! always felt to me like a band who could achieve more than they did, and Myth Takes is a bit of a missed opportunity.

There are some top songs here. ‘Must Be the Moon’, ‘Heart of Hearts’ and ‘Sweet Life’ all deserve a special mention. But they don’t reach the heights of previous !!! songs ‘Me And Giuliani Down By the School Yard (A True Story)’ or ‘Intensify’.

Video: Must Be the Moon

22. Boom Bip — Sacchrilege

A welcome change in direction for Boom Bip. I did not take to his last album. It sounded like he was becoming an old man. The punchy Sacchrilege is a great comeback. A bouncy, dancey joy. I hope this EP is a taste of things to come from Boom Bip.

Also, Sacchrilege has the best packaging of the year for my money. Even by Lex’s high artwork standards, this is a cracker. Styled like some fantasy confectionery box, with the winning combination of hot pink and baby blue. Best of all, you pull out the record to find that it is pink coloured vinyl!

21. Luke Vibert — Chicago, Detroit, Redruth

A fine album, further improving on the style developed in previous Luke Vibert albums YosepH and Lovers Acid. For me, the track ‘Comfycozy’ is a highlight of the year. It sounds like a genius mashup of two long-lost Muzak classics.

There are some other top-notch tracks to be found here — ‘Brain Rave’ and ‘Swet’ spring to mind. Having said that, the quality isn’t consistently high throughout the entire album. But it’s definitely worth a look.

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Tortoise — A Lazarus Taxon

23 August 2006 03:04

Categories: DVD, Entertainment, Internet, Music, Nostalgia, Reviews, Technology

A Lazarus Taxon artwork It shouldn’t really be the case that an album of old tracks that never made it onto proper albums is one of the most hotly anticipated albums of the year. But it is very difficult not to get excited about Tortoise’s music, particularly when most of it comes from the band’s most fertile period.

A Lazarus Taxon is a mammoth compendium of rarities from one of the most revered bands of the past fifteen years. Three CDs are filled to the brim, and a bonus DVD is thrown in for good measure. And it costs little more than a normal album. This is craziness!

The first thing you notice about A Lazarus Taxon, though, is the bleakness of the packaging: black and white photographs of car crashes taken by Arnold Odermatt. The photographs are brilliant, but apart from that I have to wonder why Tortoise decided to use these as the artwork for a box set that almost sums up their career.

In their review of this album, Pitchfork described the album as having “tombstone vibe”:

…in many ways they remain emblematically tied to the mid- to late-1990s, a time when indie rock remixes were a real mind blower and everyone was scrimping for their own marimba.

It is unfortunately true that Tortoise’s heyday has probably been and gone. Although my personal favourite Tortoise album is the relatively recent Standards from 2001, there are few people who would say that their last proper album, It’s All Around You, is their best. And if the startlingly bland album of cover versions made with Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, The Brave and The Bold, is a sign of things to come, it is difficult to get excited about new Tortoise material. Not as excited as you would get about old Tortoise material anyway.

So along comes A Lazarus Taxon to remind us what all the fuss was about. And make no mistake — that fuss was justified. Hearing Tortoise’s music was one of the major reasons why I started getting interested in more experimental music about five years ago.

‘Experimental’ is a term that is used far too liberally when no actual experimentation takes place, but Tortoise surely deserve the tag. They are often credited with inventing a genre — post-rock, a kind of krautrock updated for the 1990s where indie-rock, electronic music, Steve Reich-style minimalism and jazz all met with ease. This is a band that was so unconventional that the first appearance of a (not bass) guitar was a big step — pretty weird for a rock band. Tortoise turned the vibraphone into a rock and roll instrument, man!

At their peak, Tortoise were able to defy your expectations, turning their music inside-out at ease, making the listener rip up his expectations over and over again — and not just for the sake of it. Tortoise were one of the few bands that were able to push the boundaries and experiment without coming close to disappearing up their back chute.

Can you imagine any other bands being able to create an epic like ‘Djed’? Lasting twenty-one minutes, the track begins as a quaint melody played on the bass guitar which becomes a driving mid-tempo foot-tapping quasi-jam. The party is interrputed by the most evil-sounding keyboard you’ll ever hear, which in turn becomes a mind-bending Steve Reich-influenced marimba / vibraphone showdown. The hypnotic percussion is interrupted by a ‘tape accident’ which eventually leads to the relaxed, ambienty conclusion. Despite the vast range of styles and moods explored in the track, it is cohesive — every single move makes sense. I really struggle to think of any other bands that could even dream of creating something like this.

Despite the high bar that Tortoise have set on their most well-known material, A Lazarus Taxon does not sound like just a bunch of sub-standard B-sides and obscurities thrown together. Almost everything on this album is every bit as strong as Tortoise’s regular album tracks. It is a real testament to the quality of the band that even Tortoise offal is so good.

Perhaps the only real disappointment about this album is that despite the length — almost three hours — a quick glance at Tortoise’s discography confirms that this comes nowhere close to tying up all those loose ends. Perhaps this is a simple case of choosing quality over quantity, but the quality of this album has only made me more eager to finally learn how to use Soulseek so that I can track down those obscure, forgotten remixes.

So what about that quality? The first two discs of the set are made up of remixes, Japanese bonus tracks and miscellaneous other tracks from out-of-print EPs. The album kicks off with ‘Gamera’, which appears to be one of Tortoise’s most famous tracks despite the fact that it is considered a ‘rarity’. The track is immediately familiar, as it is a reworking of ‘His Second Story Island’ from Tortoise’s eponymous debut album.

Other highlights include ‘Restless Waters’ (a chilled out reworking of ‘Dear Grandma and Grandpa’), ‘Blue Station’ (the beautiful Japanese bonus track for the Standards album) and the amusing ‘Waihopai’ (from the ‘Gently Cupping the Chin of the Ape’ tour EP). Autechre’s two remixes of ‘Ten Day Interval’ are also real standouts. You couldn’t dream of having two better acts working together, and both of them near the top of their game aswell.

For me, the album’s low point comes in the form of ‘Elmerson, Lincoln and Palmeri’ and ‘Deltitnu’, the inconsequential Japanese bonus tracks for It’s All Around You. Nobukazu Takemura’s ten minute-long remix of ‘TNT’ could have done with being half its length aswell.

The third disc is basically a reissue of Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters, an album of remixes from Tortoise’s debut album — but with the inclusion of ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’ which had to be left off the original after the DAT master was damaged in the post.

Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters is perhaps the most sought-after part of A Lazarus Taxon, although it is a bit of a disappointment to me. Maybe ten years ago it was revolutionary, but today it just sounds a bit rambling. There are some pleasent moments (some nice fuzzy ambient efforts) and it was worth the effort to include ‘Cornpone Brunch Watt Remix’, but for the most part RR&C doesn’t do much for me.

The DVD, where there was so much potential, is also a bit of a let down. The videos, apart from ‘Seneca’ and ‘Salt the Skies’, are poor and have dated badly.

Much of the live material is also of low quality. The band is absolutely fine, but the majority of the live footage — taken from a 1996 concert in Toronto — looks like it has been filmed on whatever was one step above a camcorder ten years ago. It certainly looks as though it’s been shot by amateurs, and the sound is badly out of synch with the pictures — very off-putting, especially when you’re watching the percussionists. It is like watching something on YouTube, not a DVD. I guess if that’s all there is then it’s obviously better than nothing, but it’s still a bit of a let down.

I was also looking forward to seeing ‘Seneca’ live, but that turned out to be Tortoise miming (pretending to play toy instruments) to an audience of bemused children on a television programme called Chic-A-Go-Go.

A better haul of videos can be found on YouTube, and I’ve collected some of them below the fold…

Despite the slightly more disappointing aspects, though, A Lazarus Taxon is a very special collection of tracks. Apart from including more tracks, it is difficult to imagine how this album could be better. A lot of gems have been plucked from obscurity, which is something to be grateful for. If you’re even slightly interested in Tortoise, you really should buy it. Three CDs and a DVD of excellent material, and it costs little more than a normal album.

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