It’s been somewhat of a strange year for music. The buying public’s reliance on talent contests for new music increased, arguably, as well as the intense media spotlight flashed on the unlucky, talented few. Illegal downloading remained as prominent as ever this year, causing many smaller bands to split or splinter off in new directions. But somewhere, amongst that, a burning desire on the part of independent labels and determined musicians brought out some of the decade’s best records, as the mediocre ‘noughties’ coiled and sprung into a sonic conclusion.
Weirdly, it’s a battle between two forces that remains a constant theme in the year’s best music. In some of the best albums, talented musicians have produced works that have elements of a theme, and elements of its polar opposite. You’ll see that this a recurring pattern in my choices this year.
It’s heartening that there’s still a lot of effort being put into music. More and more, an image of get-rich-and-famous-quick is being shone through one of the thousand stage lights on talent shows. There’s an ever-present feeling of impending doom, culturally, with a combination of impatience for immediate fame and of course the oft-mentioned economic downturn. But with all this talk of recession, we’ve been lucky to buy albums with bold, searing ambition, which belie the attitudes that tabloid press desire us to share. Really, we’ve been spoilt for choice in 2009, even with all the talk of downgrading in every facet of our lives.
I could go on and on for thousands of words about genre after genre after genre. I really could. That being a waste of yr bandwith, however, I’m just going to pinpoint, pinch and pour spotlight on these year’s best records, according to me, basically. I can only hope you agree, disagree, debate or comment on my choices. Music’s a democracy. We’re all right, we’re all wrong.
Enjoy x.
10. Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited
When it was announced that this year’s Times New Viking record would be “20% higher fidelity”, many fans grew suspicious. Thankfully, the doubt was blown away by a record that is quite possibly the band’s best yet. Weirdly, Times New Viking managed in “Born Again Revisited” both the short, three-chord jabs of lo-fi punk chaos and a new found ability to create songs like “Move To California”, hard-hitting anti-anthems which prove as much of a shock to the senses as the band’s standard issue raucous, sharp melodies.
9. Wavves – Wavves
“got no car, got no money, I got nothin’ nothin’ nothin’ not at all”
Wavves are a strange animal. The slackers from San Diego manage to balance a unique dichotomy of lazy melodies with an intense bricolage of blurring noise, lo-fi production and a bigger landscape of ideas than the first listen of a track like ‘No Hope Kids’ implies. This, their first LP, is by all accounts a strong debut, which plays host to woozy psychedelic-tinged stoner ballads and bittersweet hooks that immediately encapsulate an audience caught unawares. If they can keep their tempers in check, Wavves will be contenders for the no-wave throne, left bare by Sonic Youth.
8. Calories – Adventuring
“Adventuring is dangerous, but danger can be fun”
Before this year, I hadn’t a clue who Calories were. I hadn’t read about them anywhere, been to any of their shows or heard any of their songs. Then a random tip-off led me to one of Britain’s most exciting touring acts. Lucky, that.
Calories won’t fatten you, instead, they’ll take you on a voyage with sunsets, flowers and mountains. They’ll go deer-spotting with you, and sing battle-wearied ballads as camp smoke fills yr nostrils. You’re thinking folk, you’re wrong. These are unorthodox sentiments from a brand of often brash, more often mechanical stabs of guitar, with hummable melodies and a profound narrative.
The Calories adventure has just begun.
7. Dinosaur Jr. – Farm
“I got lost in thought, I’m over it.”
When I reviewed the latest Dinosaur Jr. record back in July, I used a horrible set of clichés about a band returning to form. For example: “Like a fine wine, Dinosaur Jr. seem to have improved and improved with age.” I don’t even drink wine. I’m a fraud. Reviewing inadequacies to one side, Dinosaur Jr.’s latest offering does inspire a whole host of boring, tired out phrases, which is ironic because the trio sound fresher than ever in ‘Farm’. Back are the colossal riffs, simple yet often ambitious and profound lyrics and J Mascis’ melancholic drawl. However, as back-to-basics as this is, there’s a certain flamboyancy in ‘Farm’, especially in chirpy lead track ‘Over It’, where an effects-heavy guitar part traces over an achingly ‘why couldn’t I have written that?!’ chord progression, leaving Mascis to ponder over past digressions and strive ahead using a variety of situational twists, which provide an intriguing narrative. This is a mightily impressive record, and while it’s unlikely that the Mascis-Murph-Barlow triple threat will ever recreate another anthem quite like ‘Freak Scene’ or ‘Feel The Pain’ ever again, it doesn’t matter as long as Dinosaur Jr. keep making records of this standard.
6. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
“If there’s a party somewhere, we’re going to stay in”
As Belle and Sebastian’s crown begins to rust, this year saw a new force in ‘twee’, as ironic as that may sound. New York’s The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, like the best bands this year, manage a balancing act between two opposing factors: in this case, a folksy melodic range and shoegaze snarls of guitar noise wrestle for attention. The result is an astoundingly beautiful collection of songs. ‘Come Saturday’ is an ode to ignoring the party season and staying indoors, nestled in lovers’ arms, with a sound that meets somewhere between My Bloody Valentine circa ‘Loveless’ and The Vaselines. This trend continues, especially in the anthemic ‘Stay Alive’, which comfortably rests the record’s best chorus, a cry to ‘shoot at the sky’. While The Pains of Being Pure at Heart sing of aimless wreckage, they effortlessly sketch landscapes of immense beauty, managing to weave between careless wanders and poignant streaks of lyrical focus. In short, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have all the weapons in their arsenal to overtake their contemporaries, and blast ‘twee’ into a sharpened musical context.
5. Sky Larkin – The Golden Spike
“I’ll take office if that’s enough, and order my city to swallow yours up”.
To put Sky Larkin’s fantastic debut record midway into a ‘best of’ list seems to understate it massively, but such is music’s tendency to surprise – this year has been a hugely successful one for fantastic LPs. Any other year, ‘The Golden Spike’ would have stormed its way into, at the very least, top 3 territory.
That shouldn’t take away from what is a ridiculously great record. Beginning with the almost primal shouts of ‘Fossil, I’, Sky Larkin present listeners with music that has maturity, craft and wisdom well beyond the band’s tender years. Katie Harkin’s ability to write lyrics that have the verve of the best poets and vibrant imagery, intertwined with the ability to make memorable, catchy vocal hooks, is vastly impressive. This, combined with razor-sharp guitar lines and a rhythm section which oozes both sturdiness, and in some cases flamboyancy, makes ‘The Golden Spike’ an increasingly enjoyable LP with every listen. It’s pop music, but with more than enough edge to separate itself from boring indie-lite, like The Libertines, and it’s a record with the ability to propel itself into more profound territory. Without a doubt, 2010 is going to be a big year for the trio.
4. Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Fuck Buttons don’t make things easy for themselves. The Bristol duo managed to alienate the mainstream immediately with their band name, before making a debut record so blindingly good that it set the benchmark for noise, post-rock, and a million other genres, in the last few years. Somehow, Fuck Buttons managed to raise their game further with ‘Tarot Sport’, a sophomore record that journeys into dance ground rather than straight up noise.
‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’ from debut ‘Street Horrsing’ raised the bar for track 1s, not just for the genre (whatever pigeonhole you wish to insert the band into) but in general. Many describe it as the ultimate ‘building up’ track, a song which adds layer upon layer of mesmeric loops before distorted screams via a toy microphone calls to arms. However, ‘Surf Solar’, is just as good an opener: a 10-minute epic, showcasing the duo’s ability to make a bizarrely accessible brand of electro-noise. Legendary dance producer Andy Weatherall manages succinctly to channel Fuck Buttons’ energy into a dance soundscape, as pounding beats take the place of screams, and synth loops force Ministry of Sound ostinatos into an alt-atmosphere. An altmosphere, if you will.
Questionable analogies to one side, Fuck Buttons have achieved a record which doesn’t just move up a gear from ‘Street Horrsing’, but encapsulates the best qualities from that record and vaults them into a neon world of dance and ambition. It’ll be fascinating to see which direction they head in next.
3. Dananananaykroyd – Hey Everyone!
“Turn yr hissy fits into sissy hits”
Dananananaykroyd’s rise in 2009 seems both deserved and unlikely. Here, you have a band that channel the raw energy of early Blood Brothers, write bizarre lyrics about manufacturing clothes, and boast unorthodox lyrical patterns swaying from the catchy to the complex. However, here you also have a band that extract the pop sensibilities of Devo, producing ‘sissy hits’ which work as anti-anthems, such as the brilliant ‘Black Wax’, while also maintaining an aggressive edge which makes their live shows so incredible.
Sure, most of the songs on ‘Hey Everyone!’ have been released before. But it’s the brilliant production of the LP that separates it from earlier releases, and catapults Dananananaykroyd onto a bigger stage. The guitar sound is absolutely huge, especially on tracks like ‘Watch This’, where they weave between clean verse hooks and clattering, manic choruses. Calum Gunn’s vocal delivery manages to summarise the band’s sound entirely, accommodating both pleading cries and wandering melodies, much like Johnny Whitney of the aforementioned Seattle outfit.
The running theme of the year’s best records is also true for the Glasgow 5-piece; ‘Hey Everyone’ forces parallel lines to meet in a pop-screamo world with walls of hugs and apathetic Satans. Like the best music this year, it’s a skill in balance that makes this record so enjoyable. Even if it brings back slam-dancing. Well, you can’t win ‘em all.
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
“I don’t mean to seem like I care about material things like a social status, I just want four walls and adobe slabs for my girls”
Animal Collective have the habit of taking you on a journey through sonic landscapes, with bizarre imagery, futuristic cinematic scores, reverb-heavy vocal deliveries and psychedelic streams of musical consciousness. It’s with ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’, named after a venue in Columbia, Maryland that the journey has its most obvious destination: heavy beats, simple thrills.
From the first bass hit of opener ‘In The Flowers’, the listener is dragged into Animal Collective’s refurbished sound world, a more direct and focused meander through an endless stream of ideas that wrestle with a desire for accessibility, but on their own terms. By all means, it’s their easiest record to get into, as their craft for creating huge, unusual sounds is harnessed into a pop ethos, aimed at a crowd for dancing rather than beard stroking.
In no way have Animal Collective forgotten their roots, however. At times, ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ wanders into settings as unusual as records like ‘Feels’ and ‘Strawberry Jam’, tracks such as ‘Lion in a Coma’ illustrating the extent of weird ideas the three-piece have, as Guinean flute samples waltz with abstract, Dali-esque lyrical iconography. But it seems as if they’ve stopped trying to be weird for the sake of it, there’s definitely a heightened sense of purpose, especially in songs like ‘My Girls’, where traditional consumer values are questioned, or ‘Summertime Clothes’, where the bouncing, bass heavy synth pattern goes bare-knuckle with a free and easy set of lyrics about yr summer attire and a wish for a wander. Weirdly, while Animal Collective, themselves, wander in a musical world of such eccentricity, it’s as if they want to be easier to digest, wanting to ‘walk around with you’, the listener. They don’t want to overwhelm in this record, but they want to be enterprising with brilliant sounds that can still accommodate Beach Boys-esque lyrical tendencies. It works magnificently.
For fans, 2009 will be remembered as the year in which Animal Collective sprawled themselves over a mainstream context, while refusing to relinquish their status as cult heroes with dreamy antidotes to life’s dreary patterns. This is a brilliant, brilliant album.
1. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca
“Isn’t life under the sun just a crazy dream? Isn’t life just a mirage of the world before the world?”
In July, I greeted ‘Bitte Orca’ with undying love. I reviewed the record with such passion, that I heralded its release as ‘an exciting time for music’. 6 months on, I actually like this record more.
The thing about Dirty Projectors in the past was that they had what I like to call “The Marmite Complex”, with records like ‘The Getty Address’ meeting both acclaim and derision in the music press. Music writers would disagree about Dave Longstreth’s voice, about the accessibility of his Dirty Projectors project, dismissing it as ‘wailing over complicated rhythms’.
Dirty Projectors became somewhat more of a cohesive unit for ‘Rise Above’, an ambitious set of Black Flag covers which turned Henry Rollins’ angst-ridden anthems into sweeping, beautiful dreams, Rollins’ syllabic vocal stabs transformed into melismatic, sugarcoated poetry. Despite its constant changes of direction and challenging rhythms, it was pretty much a ‘normal’ record by Longstreth’s standards.
The musicians brought on board for ‘Rise Above’ may sound as if they’d been stretched to the limits by the adventurous project, but it was eclipsed by another LP of original, exposing massive vulnerability at the same time as it showed both astonishing ability, and a massive sense of adventure. That LP was ‘Bitte Orca’.
The amazing thing about ‘Bitte Orca’ is its inherent lack of coyness in the face of extreme risk. For example, the uncompromising ‘Stillness Is The Move’, where African guitar lines meet an Aaliyah-esque RnB vocal delivery and rhythm is a serious contender for song of the year. This and ‘Two Doves’, a frightened and vulnerable set of lyrics announce unquestionable love, and spindly acoustic guitar parts weave beautiful webs of undiluted ability and poignancy. In these two tracks, Longstreth remains strictly on six-string duties, allowing Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman to showcase their own unique vocal talents, hitting exquisite high notes and allowing the listener to hear a great level of vocal control.
‘Temecula Sunrise’ has some of the album’s best moments: an acoustic intro in which Longstreth appeals for a new lodger in a ‘new construction home’ is a delight, before the song erupts into a fantastic chorus. The almost-title-track ‘Useful Chamber’ takes the listener on an exploration of recorded drum beats, challenging harmonies and a frantic chorus, where a chorus of nonsense (‘Bitte Orca, Orca Bitte!’, the chorus lyric, literally means ‘Please, Whale’) seems bizarrely profound for two words that have been clashed together simply because the singer likes how they sound as a pairing.
I could take all the tracks and explain why they excite me in a whole load of detail, but there’s no need, simply because that’s not how this record operates. It’s not a collection of songs, it’s a well-oiled machine, running on an engine of brilliant ideas and a sense of danger. But it’s a danger that’s met with an experienced hand, that doesn’t allow the melodies to stray dangerously into the ‘almost but not quite’. Every note in ‘Bitte Orca’ has been heavily considered, not a second has been left to aleatoric. It sounds exciting, yet controlled.
Not only have Dirty Projectors made what I consider to be the best record of 2009, but a genuine modern classic. ‘Bitte Orca’ is an album that will last immortally in indie folklore, unless Longstreth and co. decide they’re going to make something even bigger and brighter. Quite frankly, you can’t bet against it, but until then, ‘Bitte Orca’ remains a truly outstanding artwork.