Remember 2008? Good times with the economy tanking and your 401K evaporating. The presidential election was pretty dope, and watching Tina Fey out-Palin Palin made for can't-miss TV, but what about music? We had the extremes of the chronically over-hyped Vampire Weekend, and the criminally overlooked (in the US anyway) Elbow. In between there was gay disco, cello-rock, weird white boy quasi-rapping, 12-string guitar prodigies, a movie star joining forces with an indie rock god, a young classical music master crossing over into alterna-territory, crazy-ass noise maestros, nu-folk, and some of the usual suspects doing particularly commendable work. So with no further ado, we present the Junkmedia best of 2008:
25. Why? - Alopecia. (Anticon). There's some serious introspection goin' on between these grooves. Yoni Wolf emerges as a fearless lyricist/wordsmith - cataloguing thoughts that most people keep trapped inside their boiling brains - (“I sleep on my back cause its good for the spine and coffin rehearsal,” “Devoid of all hope, circus mirrors and pot smoke,” “Blowing kisses to disinterested bitches,” “Sending sexy SMS's to my ex's new man cause I can.”) - proves that there's a heart behind the beats. – Keith Wallace.
24. James Bradshaw - Litany of Echoes. (Thompkins Square). More 12-string guitar wonders from the prolific Blackshaw, who grows with leaps and bounds with each new release. – Tyler Wilcox.
23. Fire on Fire - Five Song EP. (Young God). These communal folksters from Portland, Maine blend elements of old timey singalongs and group harmonizing with a slight experimental folk tint, proving there is wisdom in old ways, all the while investing these archaic forms with a 21st lyrical concerns and urgency. Spreading five songs conjured from an array of acoustic instruments over a half hour, the group capture a psychedelic campfire folk feel. – Keith Wallace.
22. Cogwheel Dogs - Anticoagulant. (Self-Released). I stand by Cogwheel Dogs as the most exciting musical emergence of the year. The analogy does not quite do the Dogs justice, but one can get a vague idea of the sound by imagining giving the Dresden Dolls a guitar and a cello and maybe teaching them how to write songs. Anticoagulant just wins me the fuck over - the grating cello slides and brushed tom furies arouse the nerves, and Rebecca Mosley's tilting and dangling delivery consistently drives every damned hook home - and there are no shortage of hooks, either. – Cas Kaplan.
21. Pas/Cal - I Was Raised On Matthew Mark, Luke & Laura. (Le Grand Magistry). A virtuosic masterpiece that mixes pure pop pleasure with mind-bendingly complex song forms. Too bad its prolonged creation seems to have broken up the band … - Tyler Wilcox.
20. Animal Collective - Water Curses. (Domino). While interviewing Avey Tare a few years ago he revealed to me a core secret of the Animal Collective: “When you record, everything is slow paced and you really have the time to be like ‘oh that goes there, that goes there’, because there is a means to our madness or whatever, everything is written and we’re very sound-oriented, we want things to sound a specific way.” This extended player dropped after Strawberry Jam and found them shedding skins like a sonic snake and revealing their intentions - they may have moved to a bigger label but they haven’t watered down their essential strangeness. Animal Collective are still following the sound in their own heads and that’s pretty different from anyone else's conception of “popular music”. – Keith Wallace.
19. Primal Scream – Beautiful Future. (WEA International). Throughout a long a varied career, the Scream’s output hasn’t exactly been known for its consistency, and following the cod-rock failure of Riot City Blues, Beautiful Future emerged as a pleasant surprise. As with as their best output, the Scream revel when trying to move forward, and thus whilst they reinvent the wheel, they manage this by simply creating a batch of optimistic and fun songs that puts them back on track. – Karl Butler.
18. Hercules and Love Affair – Self-titled. (DFA/Mute.) Hercules and Love Affair is the creation of New York DJ and scenester Andy Butler and marks the return of gay disco by way of Greek mythology. Along with DFA Record's Tim Goldworthy acting as co-producer/beat-master, and a talented cast of musicians and singer/songwriters, Butler has created a modern disco/house revival project infused with the familiar bruises of isolation, melancholy, and loss; paying homage to a musical era drenched in nostalgic reverie, all the while breathing fresh life into its return by modernizing authentic production styles. – Christine Wright.
17. The Last Shadow Puppets – The Age of the Understatement. (Domino). Remember the 60s? All those collaborations, supergroups and side-projects by the era's biggest artists? Well, slowly but surely the notion of exclusivity is once again being demolished; The Last Shadow Puppets is no mere side project for the Arctic Monkeys' Alex Tuner as this batch of Scott Walker-esque songs clearly shows. Owen Pallett, no less, even get’s in on the act on the string arrangements. – Karl Butler.
16. Robert Forster – The Evangelist. (Yep Rock) . A lovely elegy to his late Go-Betweens mate Grant McLennan that is more uplifting than depressing, Forster explores magic and loss on this, his finest solo recording. – Tyler Wilcox.
15. She & Him – Volume One (Merge) . Let’s face it, She & Him aren’t exactly going to trouble the boundaries of musical exploration, but this doesn’t distract from the overwhelming charm of this collaborative effort between M. Ward and actress Zooey Deschanel. Most striking is Deschanel’s voice, whose soft intonations are eerily reminiscent of the light side of 1960s pop and a million miles away from the lung busting horrors of American Idol which too often pollute vocal training in today’s world. Simply put, a delight. – Karl Butler.
14. Crystal Castles – Crystal Casltes. (Last Gang) . A series of Ep's and some collaboration with sister band Health lead to this consistently thrilling first self-titled full length from the Canadian electro-clash duo. Alice Glass is the front woman to watch in coming years – witness her transformation of the songs on stage into screaming rave ups and tell me Fucked Up is still the only band bringing hardcore into the changing times. – Justin Joffe.
13. TV on the Radio – Dear Science. (DGC/Interscope) . On reflection, the huge hype, and subsequent critical praise, does seem to slightly exaggerate the true strength of TVOTR’s third full-length, but it remains a strong album. Cleverly sequenced and subtly portraying a negative societal image its championers heralded Dear Science as a musical footnote to eight years under the Bush regime. – Karl Butler.
12. Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea. (Drag City). The first Silver Jews release since David Berman finally decided to start touring the group after Tanglewood Numbers is also their most stripped down. The production is even sparser than on Malkmus' free The Natural Bridge, and when Berman’s wife Carrie comes in to sing on songs like “Party Barge,” you can hear the difference: a newfound swing and confidence in Berman’s lyrical delivery. – Justin Joffe.
11. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago. (Jagjaguwar). Justin Vernon once lived in my west of Ireland hometown, flogging mobile phones and supping pints in warm woodclad pubs awhile before retreating to the actual Wisconsin woods with his Northern Exposure boxset and laptop to home-record this album. A testament to the redemptive powers of creative solitude and the eventual blossoming which happens when such transmissions make it out into the wide outside world from the wild interior world, the hype for once wasn't just hot air on a cold morning. – Keith Wallace
10. Wolf Parade – At Mt. Zoomer. (Sub Pop.) A triumph in every respect. Wolf Parade take the reins of producing their sophomore LP, resulting in a psychedelically muscular record which addresses Lao Tzu's age old question: When your horse leaves the stable, what is the best way to convince it to return to you? – Justin Joffe.
9. Sigur Ros – Međ Suđ í Eyrum Viđ Spilum Endalaust. (EMI). “Međ Suđ…” may have been a conscious move away from the typical Sigur Rós epics we have grown to cherish, but thankfully they didn’t fully abandon their approach. The talk may have been on the more uplifting nature of tracks like "Gobbledigook," but this overlooked that they've produced two of their finest slow burners in "Festival" and "Ára Bátur." Of course, few bands could make a song literally translated as “Row Boat” as emotional as the nine minutes of the latter, but when you add a full orchestra and 90-piece choir to the band's sense of feeling, the results can only be epic. – Karl Butler.
8. Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks – Real Emotional Trash. (Matador). All that work on the soundtrack for Dylan movie I’m Not There has done our old boy proud. Bringing the cartoony quirkiness that made late period Pavement so bombastic and adding ex-Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss into the mix, Malkmus sounds wittier than he has in ages. And the songs, like, totally rock. – Justin Joffe.
7. Deerhunter – Microcastle (Kranky). A detour from the hard hitting Cryptograms, this year's Microcastle showcases the band’s versatility with its sheer beauty. – Brandon Ginsburg.
6. Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing. (ATP). I have always been a sucker for lo-fi synth technology, and Fuck Buttons have a way with fusing pretty melodies with aleatory noise that few of their contemporaries can touch. As the sounds begin to build on each other and the violent yells are added, the harmonics generated by the buzzes and drones add layers to the harmony, and in spite of the fact most songs approach the ten-minute mark, they're over before you know it. – Cas Kaplan.
5. Man Man – Rabbit Habits. (Anti). Man Man took the raucous, snarling, three ring mentality of Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart and created an album to lose your fucking mind to. – Brandon Ginsburg.
4. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping. (Polyvinyl). Simply put, if ever there existed a musical equivalent of weird fetish pornography, Skeletal Lamping embodies that spirit. – Karl Butler.
3. Portishead – Third. (Mercury). Dark, abrasive, and offering no apologies for the wait: Third is the anti-Chinese Democracy. That album arrived afflicted with a fatal self-consciousness, which doomed it: Third quite simply demands your attention, and from the first note the eleven year distance between the band’s last studio release and this one quickly collapses. It's not an easy listen, and it’s not, I think, meant to be. But it offers depth; you could look into it for a very, very long time, bewitched by its textures and its emotional power. – Juliet O'Keefe.
2. Nico Muhly – Mothertongue. (Bedroom Community). Muhly has come so far, so quickly, that he skirts dangerously close to being that odd thing, a prodigy: but his recent music belies the label and the assumption of early burnout or shallowness that often comes attached to it. This album has an expansive reach and an inventiveness that is sheer pleasure. It also endears itself by being a kind of crossover between the cerebral demands of new (classical) music and indie pop (Muhly’s comrades in arms include Grizzly Bear, Final Fantasy, Valgeir Sigurdsson, Bjork, Sigur Ros, and Beirut). – Juliet O'Keefe.
1. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (Geffen/Fiction). The Seldom Seen Kid was a nickname for a late friend of the band, and closing track “Friend of Ours” is dedicated to singer-songwriter, Brian Glancy, who died suddenly in 2006. When taken in this context, The Seldom Seen Kid easily becomes the most emotional album of the year, but one that's also laced with doses of poetic romanticism. Guy Garvey’s lyrics remain characteristically astounding, simply read any line of opening track “Starlings” and your heart can only gush at its beauty. If ever an album deserved to win the Mercury Prize, this did. – Karl Butler.
-- Illustration by Perri Sylvester.
Junkmedia Staff
January 6, 2009
