onsdag 6 Jan 2010, 3:49
20. Anni Rossi - Rockwell (4AD)
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The first adjective that comes to my mind when I think about the 2008 EP (Afton) from this extraordinary coetaneous from Chicago is brave. Those six songs cannot be compared to anything I have listened before. You may think her voice can be “Reginish” in an extreme way, you may find the vocal smears of Machine and Venice a little bit driven in order to make the whole project intentionally weird. The truth is Anni Rossi released an extremely brave EP, centered not only on her personal vocal style, but above all on her spectacular instrument: the viola. “It's a viola, not a violin” are the first words written on her myspace, and in fact it's important to point out how talented she is on her own instrument. The impression is that that EP represents better what she really wants to sound like, in a genuine way. That's the reason why I don't feel very comfortable choosing her full length album, Rockwell, produced by good old Steve Albini. While in Afton Anni appears totally free to express her fresh art, Rockwell seems to force her inspiration within a frame that wants her to be flawless. The album is great anyway and Central Utah may be one of the greatest pieces of songwriting of the year.
19. Tara Jane O'Neil - A Ways Away (K Records)
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I heard about Tara for the first time when I went to see Mirah live in Rome. I knew they were touring together and that they signed for the same label, but I had no idea what to expect. When she came on stage she looked a little bit catatonic and her hair soon began to separate the audience from her beautiful eyes. From the first note of Dig In I felt like I was connecting with her music, surprisingly. Even though I didn't know a single tune, I loved her fragile voice immediately and the gentleness of her guitar sent me in instant ecstasy. When I listened to A Ways Away I caught the same feelings of the live set, something that rarely happens. In fact this record is very near to her live performance: beautiful songs ready to lull the audience with inexhaustible intensity, watery currents that gently take you to a softened dimension. This album has the power to lull and comfort (the almost Cohen-reminiscing In Tall Grass, A New Binding), but may be hard to digest for those who don't take the risk of moving emotionally to unsettling places (Howl). A Ways Away has been my amniotic fluid of 2009.
18. The Dead Weather - Horehound (Third Man)
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Allison Mosshart as front-woman of a band. A band created by and featuring Jack White.
End of the games.
17. Micachu - Jewellery (Rough Trade / Accidental)
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In 2009 it's been impossible not to bump into Mica Levi for a while. From the small article in the NME “Radar” column appeared last year to the prestigious place where she is now the path has led to a triumph. Björk premiered the video for Turn Me Well on her website as a recommendation for her fans, Patrick Wolf twittered his appreciation for Jewellery and invited her as a guest on stage at the Palladium show last November, not to mention the enthusiastic reviews on every single music magazine worldwide. What else should I say? I can choose the same words used by others to describe her first record with the Shapes: new, fresh, young, ingenious, daring, hilarious. Personally I think that this album waked me up from my slow-core phase, rendering me a new sense of rhythm. There used to be a Beck who played the postmodern game of pastiche. Micachu may be the new metropolitan voice of those who rewrite the rules of that game.
16. Josephine Foster - Graphic As A Star (Fire)
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Josephine Foster doesn't belong to this world. That's the reason why she's able to transcend the present time and “collaborate” with one of most important and beloved lyricists of the XIX century, Emily Dickinson. In fact Josephine hasn't just set to music some of her favourite poems by Dickinson, but generated credible surroundings for the atmosphere that each poem creates itself. Her otherworldly voice is not only interpreting, but also personifying the words, giving a peculiar, personal shape to the images originally built by the poet. Far from being a style exercise, Graphic As a Star, recorded in the nature of Mecina Bombarón with only a guitar, a harmonica and the help of twittering local birds, proves Josephine's love for the sublime connection between music and literature (as in her 2006 experiment A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing) and marks a new chapter in her ever changing career, which saw her spanning from children songs (Little Life) to highly experimental grounds (Was it That Ever Was?), from psychedelic rock (All The Leaves Are Gone) to freak folk (Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You) and much else.
15. Shannon Wright - Honeybee Girls (Vicious Circle)
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In a recent interview about her last album, Shannon said that a honeybee girl is “the conflict of a strong girl that finds herself repressing that strenght because of the stereotype bestowed upon her from her surroundings”. This album, her second after that much celebrated collaboration with Yann Tiersen, deals with women and the representation they make of themselves these days. And Shannon decided to unveil this issue with her gentlest and (let's call it) quite side. In fact it is very clear to the listener that she's now following the line of her 2007 masterpiece Let in The Light, creating songs of brilliant honesty, alternating the piano and the guitars without the vocal excess of some of her previous recordings (Dyed in The Wool, Maps of Tacit) or the ruthless sound of Over the Sun, her best record to date, produced by Steve Albini in 2004, centered on her powerhouse interpretation and amazing guitar skills. Honeybee Girls talks a more accessible language, and doesn't aim at smashing your feelings away as she used to. The old rock songs are just a few (Trumpets On New Year's Eve, Embers in Your Eyes) and what hits the most are the malleable melodies of opener Tall Countryside and the enchanting pair Father / Never Arrived; these last two let us foresee a new potential: the use of electronics and her unexpected ability to create catatonic trips. I agree this may be considered a transitional record. Wish all transitions could sound like this.
14. Scott Matthew - There is An Ocean That Divides.. (Glitterhouse)
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To me this second album doesn't reach the heights of his first self-title gem, but confirms the stature of Scott as a sensitive songwriter and sadcore singer. His voice is unique and his live performances are always enchanting. Even with this record the impression is that Scott keeps a sort of musical diary in which he gives vent to his inner currents, sometimes unraveling them in wonderful pictorical images (White Horse). For Dick must be one of the saddest songs ever. Impossible not to spend a tear listening to it on repeat. While the cute happy little songs (Thistle) left me a little disappointed at first, I instantly loved to death the essential atmosphere of the title track, co-wrote with the beautiful Marisol Limon Martinez: his voice, a piano and her neurotic warm voice whispering from nowhere the extremely long title of the album There Is An Ocean That Divides And With My Longing I Can Charge It With A Voltage Thats So Violent To Cross It Could Mean Death. A good soundtrack for soaking moments.
13. Scary Mansion - Make Me Cry (Talitres)
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I bless the day that I bumped into Every Joke is Half The Truth, the debut album by this amazing band from Brooklyn. Scary mansion is the musical project by illustrator Leah Hayes, aka the girl with one of the most interesting and heartbreaking voices out there. While their first album reflected a very melancholic mood, built around her crackling voice and the essential arrangements of her thunderstick, Make Me Cry sounds more louder and filled with guitars and drums, the drums of amazing Ben Shapiro. Leah still sings abrasive lyrics, sad in good way (make me cry/every week end; oh how I wish their problems could be mine) and definitely haunting (you 1% like yourself), this time wrapped in a cold, grey atmosphere of genuine rock. Over The Weekend is a perfect song, accompanied with strings and excellent, almost radio-friendly arrangements. Scum Inside, previously appeared in a folky and calm version on their first album, is now scaled-down to the bones: it sounds like a sort of hymn for self-destructive alternatives under 30, but maintains the refinement of the lyrics (when I think of all the scum inside I just die, I die). On My Mind, the last track, let us catch a glimpse of the “old” style, seeing Leah at the piano, singing about the trifle of being human. Look Through Your Eyes, the bonus track, is an appetizer for those who are familiar with her electronic habits, sprinkled around the web in side-projects and amazing tunes such as I Dumped My Mind, never released on an album but one of the highlights of their shows.
I bless that day. Yes, I do.
12. Chris Garneau - El Radio (Fargo)
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The second album by tiny and marvelous Chris Garneau overtook any predictable hypothesis about how the follow-up to critically acclaimed debut Music for Tourists would have been. While the first album (produced by Duncan Sheik) was essentially centered on his delicate voice and his piano, providing songs of strong intimacy and passionate confessional, El Radio shows a range of different scenarios. The opening track (The Leaving Song) confirms his ability to tell the pain of separation, here with the help of wonderfully orchestrated strings; Dirty Night Clowns shows the new unexpected dimension, the theatrical, cabaret-like one. His voice sounds kind of childish and the arrangements explode around it like overloaded blossoms, Fireflies being the highlight of this new experiment in sound. The song is catchy as a nursery rhyme and has multiple variations that throw you in an appetizing confusion. Again, the strings accompany his syncopated voice with a gentle touch. Over and Over seems like a response to his older songwriting, now fulfilled with more irony and calibrated lightness (I am in this thing/This fucking thing/It's happening over and over). The whole record, dedicated to his beloved grandma, is then multicolored and let us foresee more potential than self-indulgent Music for Tourists did.
11. Lisa Germano - Magic Neighbor (Young God)
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Thank (young) God, Michael Gira encourages Lisa Germano to make records from time to time. Magic neighbor is a little masterpiece of hers and shows the typical landscapes that only Lisa can paint with her fairy capabilities. This record inevitably feels the effect of her last efforts (Lullaby for a Liquid Pig, In The Maybe World), but also shows some new territories. First of all Lisa returns to the joyful acoustic guitars of her 90s glorious production (Simple, A Million Times), now accompanied with the breathtaking orchestrations she got us used to. Here you'll find some of her best instrumentals to date such as the waltzy little Marypan, germinated from her previous song Red Thread and the dreamy elegy Kitty Train, which sounds like stolen from her old old first record On The Way Down from The Moon Palace, very near to this last one, in my view, for their common folky atmospheres and childish nuances. To me the two complementary masterpieces of the record are the eponymous song Magic Neighbor and Suli-mon. In the first one the singer tells a sort of “legend for cats”, creating that feline atmosphere of sleepy darkness that only Lisa can bring to this world; her piano is just wonderful. Suli-mon instead, being half instrumental, makes you fall in a vortex of opposite feelings, lulling and scaring the crap out of you at the same time (we didn't hear distorted voices in her records in a long time), another of her most celebrated peculiarities. Magic Neighbor confirms again the greatness of our beloved “emotional wench”.
10. Antony and The Johnsons - The Crying Light (Secretly Canadian)
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Probably one of the last people in the world in 2009, I was still reluctant listening to Antony's work. With this album, probably the least adored by fans and appreciators, and the Another World EP, I began to get addicted to his voice and wonderfully orchestrated tunes. This record gives me a sense of undoubted equilibrium, a sort of peaceful state of mind. Songs that make me dance around and cry on tiptoe. You can imagine how I feel now about older masterpieces as I am a Bird Now and I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy.
9. Florence + The Machine - Lungs (Universal)
Florence Welch is a genius. She has a powerhouse voice and two enormous lungs to breath it out. She is an incredible performer and has a stunning stage presence. She is a fan of Spiritualized and Beyoncé at the same time. She writes a song like Kiss With a Fist, which can be easily used as an alternative hymn of the 00s and then shoots the gayest video ever seen (You Got the Love). In other words she has the ability to let her alternative vibe cohexist with her innate poppish soul (and “soul” is a key word in this record). As a consequence her audience is double-sided: screaming teens on one side, alternative music listeners on the other one. In the middle her two lungs, and the best pop record of the year.
8. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (Domino)
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This album made me discover Dave Longstreth and his extensive discography of ironic, highly experimental, genre-bashing records. Bitte Orca let this side of Dirty Projectors conciliate with the sense of pop music (Stillness is The Move could be sung by Rihanna without a smear). Their music is still arty, some kind of prog and technically refined, but the record is very accessible and fresh as few. Useful Chamber is the masterpiece tune: sung by Dave himself in an impeccable way, grows like a patchwork of different worlds. The creativity of the group is built around several landscapes, very different one from another, but matched together with ingenious tricks. The girls' choirs soothe the nerves and help proceeding in the adventure. The joy of interbreeding.
7. DM Stith - Heavy Ghost (Asthmatic Kitty)
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Heavy Ghost is one of those albums that I think it's not humanly possible not to appreciate. David Stith comes from a family of music talents, worked with Shara Worden for Bring me The Workhorse and worked as a graphic designer before doing music as his first occupation. What else to say? Take Thanksgiving Moon for example: it begins with a folk guitar threatened by dark strings in the background; his beautiful voice begins to sing deliciously this hymn to the moon, summoning the softest choirs and nocturnal effects for a magical climax of unspeakable beauty. This song made Asthmatic Kitty fall in love with him, and so did with me. The whole album is a joy for the ears, his piano being the protagonist along with his malleable voice and the expressionistic atmospheres built around them.
6. Vic Chesnutt - At The Cut (Constellation)
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I didn't know Vic Chesnutt before this release. I am now very intrigued by his torrential previous discography and so sad for his recent passing. At the Cut is easily one of the best records that ever reached my ears. The lyrics are filled with despair, courage and disarming truth. The opening track Coward is a pass to access this dimension of self-centered therapy. The bluesy notes of When The Bottom Fell Out and the jazzy ones of Chinaberry Tree accompany his whipping voice to the core of the album, the loop trips of Chain and We Hovered With Short Wings, my personal favorites. The rest of the album gets angrier and more pounding, with words that leave a painful trace. Granny, the epilogue, has the most wonderful lapidary lyrics (Granny, oh granny what you doing by the kitchen sink?/she said: I'm just making up some pimento cheese/granny oh granny where did your husband, my grandaddy go/ she said he went off to heaven just before you were born). A sincere tough record of pure beauty.
5. Bat for Lashes - Two suns (Parlophone)
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The second album by Natasha Khan is an explosive adventure with interplanetary ambitions and confirms her as one of the most inspired songwriters of the UK scene. Against those who find her style derivative (from Kate Bush for example) I can easily identify a style of her own, based on the mixture of different genres (alternative pop, folk, piano-based sadcore and smooth electro) and authenticated with her irresistible shyness and enchanting voice. This album is evidently influenced by 80s electro and in fact the most interesting episodes are the addictive (and surprisingly well-known) Daniel and Pearl's Dream. On the other hand the delicate Moon and Moon and ghostly dark The Big Sleep gain my favor as the most intense moments of the album. I still prefer that perfect pearl of dark beauty that was Fur and Gold, but Two Suns is a worthy follow up and hopefully the second of an endless series of great lps from Khan. The album would have been perfect if more filled with the irrepressible energy of the opening track Glass, where her strong and crystalline voice clears its way between breathtaking variations and tribal drums.
4. Soap&Skin - Lovetune for Vacuum (Pias)
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Everything's been already said about Anja Plaschg. She's young, she's premature, she's an excellent pianist and a tormented soul. At first I couldn't listen to the album in its entirety, because I thought there was too much devastation and I wasn't well prepared to face it all. When I saw her performing on youtube I was shocked by her intensity and by her exaggerated moves. Some may think this extremely dark thing going on inside her can be sort of “unripe”, post-adolescent. It is not. I find her project even too much mature and conscious. She seems conscious of her musical path, of her extreme intuitions as a performer and of her musical references (her cover of Nico's Janitor of Lunacy is a fucking masterpiece). Her imagery is terrifying in a delicate way and the darkest, killer moments (Marche Funèbre, The Sun) are balanced by her sweetest, liberating voice (Cynthia, Mr. Gaunt Pt 1000). We will be talking about this woman for ages.
3. PJ Harvey & John Parish - A Woman A Man Walked By (Island)
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One day Polly finds a tape cassette. On that tape there's a tune recorded several years before with her friend and long time collaborator John Parish. The tune is Black Hearted Love, a song of pure, perfect and crystalline rock, raw as much as it should and radio-friendly as much as PJ has not released since the time of internationally acclaimed Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea. The track becomes the opener of a new collaboration between the two musicians, twelve years after their last record together, that obscure creature that was Dance Hall at Louse Point in 1996. The formula remains the same: John provides the music, Polly the words and the voice. Rather to say the voices. In fact A Woman a Man Walked By not only is the latest album of one of the greatest English artists of this planet, but maybe it's the first place in which all her previous (and forthcoming) incarnations are gathered together. Here are the certain legacies of her 2007 piano-based album White Chalk, (Leaving California, The Soldier), the abrasive and destructive PJ of her first records, soaked in a totally new ironic dimension (the title-track in which she yells “I want your fucking ass” and the Baudelaire inspired Pig Will Not, where she barks till the headache). There's place also for psychedelic shades and industrial echoes (the outro to the title track The Crow Knows Where All The Little Children Go and the bouncing variations of The Chair). The alchemy between the two artists is total and can be clearly heard in the hide and seek game of Sixteen, Fifteen, Fourteen, where the properly folk basis of Parish meets the theatrical Polly of To Bring You My Love.
When in the first 80s John made Polly listen to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds's first album From Her to Eternity, she had the sensation that everything in the music experimentation was possible and yet to come. This last effort confirms their ability to cross always new borders. Together.
2. Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor (Bloody Chamber)
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It's been incredible how the teeny little prodigy boy who made tricks of lycanthropic beauty has become a superstar, a superhero, a model, a diva. All in a handful of years. Some preferred him when he was almost unknown and alone with his ukulele, some come to his shows nowadays just to see him strip off and pose when performing techno anthems such as Vulture and Battle. Still preferring to worship the masterpiece that isWind in The Wires, I have totally digested this first episode of the Battle project and I'm already looking forward to hear The Conqueror. The Bandstocks involvement was definitely a great investment in terms of collecting special editions and limited singles and it's been an occasion to see how much love Patrick has obtained in the last months. His shows are unique events, and after three wonderful (and so different) gigs, I can testify that he gives all his art and heart each time. The Bachelor tells the pain of being lonely and the fight for love, justice and self-awareness. Patrick speaks different languages, the theatrical folk of the title-track, the half-industrial orgy of Vulture and Battle (with the help of Alec Empire), the liturgic echoes of Who Will? and the orchestral epic of Damaris. Hard Times is a perfect pop-rock song: the strength of the words is supported by the damn catchy violin and the choirs celebrate the Patrick-show leaving a smile of satisfaction on your face and making you feel part of his personal “revolution”. Blackdown is the core of the album in terms of intimacy and moves deeply as well as performed live. This album reflects the purity of the intentions and confirms Patrick as one of the fathers of this new generation of extremely talented geniuses.
1. Bill Callahan - Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle (Drag City)
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2009 has been my Bill Callahan year. In less that 10 months I have discovered his oceanic discography. Starting à rebours with this last effort, it's been quite unsettling to go back to his lo-fi, highly experimental roots, the ones of amazing albums such as Julius Caesar, Sewn to The Sky and EPs as Floating or Burning Kingdom. Through the 90s and the 00s his works have become more accessible, but the pitch-dark of his soul has been constantly unfolded in multiple ways: through the beauty of the lyrics, the simplicity of the arrangements, often textured like orbital trips, and the courage to investigate his own fears and thoughts, not rarely with unexpected irony. There are lines written by Bill that always leave me speechless and stoned such as “There is no substitute for human flesh” or “So there is one less star in the sky/then who cares?”. Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle sounds different from all that previous stuff and has wonderfully arranged songs that seem to be born just in order to be… perfect. His voice gently sneaks through the orchestrations and the wrapping guitars. I agree with those who read the poetics of the album in a line of the opening track, Jim Cain, which says “I used to be darker, then I got lighter, then I got dark again”: Bill's still darkening his world and rethinking the frailty of life, these songs being the enchanting proof of his new majestic way of doing that.