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Dagbok

My favourite albums of 2010

torsdag 30 Dec 2010, 19:22

I imagine my friends have fallen off their chairs in shock. I promise to do one of these every year then wimp out at the enormity of the task. How on earth do you choose?!

I listened to about 500 new releases this year, not counting the ones I didn't like, so the actual figure is higher. 500 down to 10?

I saw a little sentence the other day - good music will always surface. If this is so, then all I have to do is look at what drifted to the top.

This journal is in three parts: albums I am not counting in my top 10 but deserve mention, albums that turned my head, and my top 10.

http://lastfm.obsessive-media.de/12month/10x3/Babs_05.jpeg

You don't mess with the masters

What's interesting about seeing your stats and charts in Last.fm is they are not always what you expect. I am maintaining a few collections, Massive Attack and Gorillaz for instance. I have both their new releases, but I didn't make the time to listen that often. These albums are meant to be played over the course of a lifetime, to return to next time you're in the mood or want a break and just want to relax. So if I am to make a list of albums that gained my utmost respect, they would be:

Breakthrough artists and albums that turned my head:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61SraBpNOvL._AA115_.jpg Maps & Atlases - Perch Patchwork
Experimental math rock that doesn't alienate the listener. Favourite track: The Charm

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vRF86AuSL._AA115_.jpg Anaïs Mitchell - Hadestown
A re-release, this is a concept album: a folk opera based on the ancient Greek myth of the poet Orpheus. Sounds vile on paper. And then you listen. Theatrical, lush, and you can actually hear Bon Iver, she tells you the story and you see it all in your mind. Wonderful. BBC review

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51x3yWPEKiL._AA115_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JdhOPADSL._AA115_.jpg http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mLuQ6rkDL._AA115_.jpg
Robyn - the trilogy: Body Talk Pt. 1, Body Talk Pt. 2, Body Talk
Where the Eels trilogy had the theme of met the girl, was with the girl, broke up with the girl, Robyn's trilogy is more along the lines of style and tempo. Remarkable for the story-telling in the lyrics and pop perfection.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510CkdImptL._AA115_.jpg Janelle Monáe - The Archandroid
Prince adores her and she is already acting the star she is yet to become. Whether she will reach the dizzy heights of Prince's fame or remain a critic's choice remains to be seen. Her music and delivery are brilliant, incorporating orchestral, opera, rock and high energy disco, soul and funk. The range in this album is breathtaking, and this is just the beginning.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61xnaDJKdaL._AA115_.jpg Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
We go from one intriguing work to another, this one difficult and dividing even fans. Depends how you approach it. I came to it with tired ears after way too much jingly jangly indie. This was an oasis. Something completely different. It's demanding and hard work, you never get a moment to rest, and yet you get a break from the run-of-the-mill.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31cjsgmPK-L._AA115_.jpg The Knife In Collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock - Tomorrow, In A Year
If you thought that was hard, you know nothing. This is another concept album, commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of Species’. Even I struggled with this. When I relax and let it play, I can take it in, but if I try to listen, it escapes from me. A combination of electronica and opera, the music is challenging and highly experimental. At times it is uncomfortable, it is never rewarding, and yet there is something there that is simply incredible. BBC review.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5119uWOutuL._AA115_.jpg Dutch - A Bright Cold Day
From one collaboration to another, this time an unlikely one between Stoupe of Jedi Mind Tricks and the relative unknown Liz Fullerton. It's like beauty and the beast as her gorgeous voice contrasts against the urban sounds. Favourite track: 2,000 Leagues Under My Keyboard.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41-KsUNPrtL._AA115_.jpg Oddjob - Clint
Nu-jazz. Clint Eastwood. Ennio Morricone.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uDPT7wncL._AA115_.jpg Jesca Hoop - Hunting My Dress
She was nanny to Tom Waits' kids. Then she moved to Manchester and Guy Garvey (Elbow) became her best friend. With so much support, she wasn't going to disappoint, and she doesn't. Another 'weird woman', Björk, Kate Bush et al, this album is a re-release. Freak-folk, great lyrics and her incredible range make this a standout album. My favourite track: Murder of Birds

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41siKow0oEL._AA115_.jpg Matthew Dear - Black City
There were a lot of albums and artist names with the word 'black' in them this year that were good, it was almost a guarantor of success. My pick is this dance album, with the track of summer 2010, Little People (Black City). And it has a cowbell!

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mwdwiamIL._AA115_.jpg Mountain Man - Made The Harbor
American folk. Three girls with gorgeous voices go back to the source, inspired by wildlife and their natural surroundings. Something sweet and a break from the world. Favourite track: Animal Tracks

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61VNsoVZ62L._AA115_.jpg Warpaint - The Fool
Shoegaze, dream pop Cocteau Twins-like, dark and ethereal.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515Nv1PKZ0L._AA115_.jpg Wolf People - Steeple
Hippies! Jethro Tull honest to goodness.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513Y8I4a-8L._AA115_.jpg Sa Dingding - Harmony
The Chinese Björk, this woman brings together east and west, heaven and earth, past and present and all within. Ingenious. Favourite track: Ha Ha Lili

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MSbJsUtpL._AA115_.jpg Villagers - Becoming a Jackal
Indie magical realism is what I liked about this album. A cut above.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PUGvqTc2L._AA115_.jpg Foals - Total Life Forever
Ok not really a breakthrough artist, but they broke through my staunch prejudice against them. Favourite track: Spanish Sahara

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51v4NMfvjjL._AA115_.jpg Vampire Weekend - Contra
The same applies to these guys. Couldn't stand them before. Won't hear a word against them now. Favourite track: Cousins

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511ys6xhKkL._AA115_.jpg The Glitch Mob - Drink The Sea
The sound of the future. Glitchy, hard to describe IDM. The right words haven't been invented yet. In the same league as Yeasayer for ingenuity and originality.

And now for my top ten:

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10. Yeasayer - Oddblood
I adored All Hour Cymbals (2007) and lapped up the hype in the run up to the release of Oddblood. I was prepared to be disappointed after I heard Ambling Alp, because I didn't like it. But then I heard O.N.E and that was me sold. I still think the debut is the stronger album but this band have such a unique approach, the difference is neither here nor there. They are wacky and original with a positivity that's infectious.

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09. Broken Bells - Broken Bells
This is a collaboration between The Shins frontman James Mercer and Brian ‘Danger Mouse’ Burton. It's the stripes on your chips turned gourmet. If indie can be dead classy, this is it. On one level, it's good radio music for everyman, unchallenging and pleasant. Go up a level, and the music is exquisite. Clever, subtle, with little splashes of colour and detail that don't go unnoticed, yet don't interfere either. The next level up and you're looking at how it's put together, the composition and arrangements. The pace, tone, the sense of familiarity even though you know you're listening to something very special and different. The Shins but better.

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08. Midlake - The Courage of Others
Hippies! Lovely, hippy dippy stuff, skipping through fields of flowers type of thing. Tight harmonies and acoustic instruments carefully controlled and guided, though the progression sounds effortless and free. This couldn't have been made in the 60s, there are ideas that could only have come from indie and space rock and bands such as Radiohead. Though the reference to Jethro Tull is there, it's just a peg in the ground. There is much more going on. I have listened to this album nearly twenty times and I feel I have barely scratched the surface.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515IZ4%2BYMRL._SS500_.jpg

07. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
The one with the creepy album cover. The music is pure Cocteau Twins and My Bloody Valentine. Beautiful, shimmering shoegaze dream pop, tranquil and transporting, underpinned by a Manchester flavour. The first track to jump out at me was Helicopter, followed by Desire Lines. It's like coming home.

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06. Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
Nutter! Nutter alert. One cover wasn't enough, and one of them was rude anyway, so he did a few just to be getting on with. The first listen went way over my head. The next few kind of hurt. The reviews were 10/10, what wasn't I getting? Then it clicked, one day when I was out walking and it was chugging away on my iPod. It's funny, but in a slightly cruel and vicious way, but even that's not straightforward, it's up one, up there with poetry that comes from stream of consciousness. I've played it about ten times and I've only just started. The humour is razor-sharp. And he wasn't kind to his collaborators either. Bon Iver features twice, but you wouldn't know it. What's he doing there? The gentle beardy folk bloke and this foul-mouthed insane genius? The lyrics are obscene. NSFW. Lyrically, musically, you name it, this is the album of 2010. Favourite track: Monster (feat. Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj & Bon Iver)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613P7LkXPTL._SS400_.jpg

05. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and a Killer
I haven't seen the figures but I think this year saw the highest number of new releases ever. Sounds impressive, but with so many sounding the same, there's not actually that much new music out there. So when you stumble across albums like this one, you can't help but notice. Here we have another original for 2010, helped by his friend, someone we're watching, Flying Lotus. If Flying Lotus is a key figure in avant-garde hip-hop, Gonjasufi is inventing some new path of his own. Trippy psychedelic, spliffed out and high. Listening to this, it's like you're in his head, hearing what he's hearing, seeing what he's seeing, all mushed up and mangled. Somehow, your IQ doesn't drop. With so many references from so many sources, as if he's sat there channel-surfing then turning the dial on the radio, the music keeps your interest piqued. Favourite track: Kowboyz&Indians featuring Las Grecas.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AkRWcX%2BiL._SS400_.jpg

04. Joanna Newsom - Have One on Me
We go from devils to angels. For me, this is by far her best album. Previous works left me challenged but intrigued. This left me blissed. Intricately embroidered with tiny details, the music is grand and opulent, her distinctive voice reigned in and better controlled. My favourite track is the first, Easy. From thereon in, I fall into her world and stay.

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03. Glasser - Ring
Last year, we had Bat for Lashes and Fever Ray. This year, it's Glasser. From the school of Björk and Kate Bush, this girl did all this herself on her laptop with GarageBand. Weird, outlandlish, dreamy, otherworldly, all the words you would apply to the women above. Glasser didn't break any new ground, but considering she did all this on her own, what will she do next? One to watch.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41NSITggPzL._SS500_.jpg

02. Beach House - Teen Dream
I know. It's just indie-pop and not that remarkable either. But I just loved it. Couldn't get enough. Good and honest, like home baked bread. The lead singer's voice caught my attention first. I thought it was a bloke. I don't know what she's done to wreck her voice, but Victoria Legrand has something very special. Favourite track: Walk In The Park

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01. The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Roaring Night
And my number one. Feel slightly emotional now. This album crept up on me from out of nowhere and blew everything else aside. I had heard The Besnard Lakes before, wasn't their greatest fan, so when I first heard this, I thought yeah, great, next. It wasn't till a little while later that I noticed I kept going back to it. Why? This is what the BBC said, I couldn't put it better myself:

Long-time stars of the Canadian indie-rock firmament, at The Besnard Lakes’ core is husband-and-wife duo Olga Goreas and Jace Lasek, creators of 2007’s …Are The Dark Horse album, an alternately intimate and grandiose set which clocked in at a svelte 45 minutes. With …Are the Roaring Night they delve deeper into the glittering soundscapes that have become synonymous with their sound; sacrificing something of the warmth that marked their previous work, they nonetheless emerge with a thoroughly impressive, coherent whole.
Opening in two parts with Like the Ocean, Like the Innocent, the ease and confidence on display is remarkable. Lacek’s falsetto spirals and dives over a tense, static fuzz which finally breaks into bracing power chords a few minutes in, heralding the arrival of Goreas’s echoing, husky vocals – the perfect foil to Lacek’s sharp, distinctive style.
It’s a sense of the elemental The Besnard Lakes aim for on …Are the Roaring Night, and for the most part they nail it. The mood is almost overwhelmingly sedate at times, but caterwauling highs bubble under throughout – peaks such as those found on Albatross may seem rare, but they’re all the more effective for it, delivered with the kind of gusto that peers such as Arcade Fire and Broken Social Scene revel in.
The vision they present the listener is admittedly a dark one, perhaps best epitomised by its centrepiece: in Land of Living Skies, Goreas takes the spotlight with a tale of losing oneself to the vagaries of nature, swelling oceans and rugged landscapes forming the backdrop to – and manifestation of – deeply personal quandaries.
As it draws to a close, Light Up the Night constitutes the record’s most outright beautiful moment, washes of strings and piano surging towards a serene climax that does much to allay all the fear and confusion preceding, only for final track The Lonely Moan to recede in ghostly, suggestive whispers, indicating that for The Besnard Lakes, things aren’t that clear-cut after all. –James Skinner

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