sorry this is huge but i spent forever on it for another forum where we do this every year so i wanted to post it around!
#30:
Feathers FeathersThe first like 20 seconds of this album almost make you think it's going to be some stupid Renaissance Faire crap but it's actually a pretty enchanting folk album. It is very nature-inspired, I'll say that. As 'freak-folk' goes this is pretty high on the totem pole. If they can get away with a song title like "Silverleaves in the Air of Starseedlings" then they can hippie it up all they like I guess. That's actually the best song on the album.
#29:
Six Organs of Admittance School of the FlowerThis might be the earliest selection for me. I heard it around the time it was released here, in January. It was pretty much my introduction to all that psych-folk/raga/drone business, which led to getting into more noisy stuff in general, so it has sentimental value. A very nice album, nostalgia aside. I love the 13-minute monster-jam title track.
#28:
John Vanderslice Pixel RevoltJohn Vanderslice gives me the impression he's always the underdog, for some reason. Maybe it's because he's kind of ugly. Well, this album is cool. It's kind of unassuming indie pop/rock/songwriter stuff, and he sounds like the dude from Cake, but most of it is very magnetic. "Exodus Damage" and "Dear Sarah Shu" are really catchy.
#27:
The Aprils Space Dream BathroomI kind of needed one ridiculously fucking stupidly happy album this year, so between this and Katamari Damacy songs I was set. It's only 25 minutes, but it's 25 minutes of these cannon blasts of unbelievably smiley pop. Of course they're Japanese. I don't think we English-speaking nations are able to produce pure sustained joy like this. It's nice to have music that's just there to make you smile, although you could absolutely sell tons of soap if you put this in a commercial. "Time after Time" is just too great.
#26:
Zeljko McMullen DisorderI got the impression from clips and reviews of this one that it was purely a noise album, but I found it was actually a kind of blend of noise and dense, layered ambient stuff. It's like the guy was trying to make a noise album and then Christian Fennesz came into the studio and slapped him in the face, but not that hard. It's really mesmerizing.
#25:
Aoki Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko 28This album can feel really dense and also really destabilizing. It must be what styrofoam feels like when thrown through the air. Tujiko's vocals have a certain longing that goes with Aoki's light glitchy style that make the whole thing a bit techno-spooky. It's Tujiko's melodies that carry the album, especially on "Alien" and "Fly-Variation."
#24:
The Decemberists PicaresqueThis album reminds me of that saying about 'sell a man a book and you sell him a whole new life.' Each song is its own living, vibrant fantasy. Spies, male prostitutes, train drivers, whale-swallowed sailors, soccer players, love-struck child laborers...and there's stellar music to match. This is my favorite of their albums so far.
#23:
Hanne Hukkelberg Little ThingsI figured out what this album keeps reminds me of, and it's because of the music as well as the cover, and that's a root beer float. I listened to this several times throughout the year but it took a while to click as a whole. I guess I probably wasn't listening to "Balloon" very hard. Well, it's very light, airy and sweet. But there's actually a lot to it once you find its center of gravity. So it really is like getting melted iceberg from a soft-serve machine.
#22:
Bright Eyes I'm Wide Awake, It's MorningAnother one from early in the year. I'd forgotten about it until seeing it on other lists, and I have to give it credit for being full of extremely well-written songs, even despite the stigma on the guy.
#21:
Akron/Family & Angels of Light Akron/Family & Angels of Light SplitA pretty late entry, but this split LP is already a favorite. Might be higher on my list when I've spent more time with it. It's got the somber Americana-folk thing covered, and also these great loud moments of great big noisy riffs or a bunch of people hollering along. Great energy throughout.
#20:
Hauschka The Prepared PianoHauschka is actually just the one guy, Volker Bertelmann, and this album is mostly him playing the piano. It's prepared piano, so he's gone in and jimmied up the strings and coaxed all kinds of springs and pops and percussive sounds out of them. It makes the whole thing very vivid. Lots going in every song, even the softer ones. It helps that the guy is an amazing composer. His songs make my head go somewhere with rainy cobblestone streets with a bunch of ducks walking around.
#19:
Songs of Green Pheasant Songs of Green PheasantDuncan Sumpner's solo folk project, which seems to have risen from a fog-covered lake, soaked in reverb and layered vocals, pining for the sun. Sounds like Simon & Garfunkel trying to make a nature album. The best tracks are the slightly darker ones, they're kind of mysterious and churning.
#18:
Goldmund Corduroy RoadI'm not well-versed in contemporary piano, but
Corduroy Road stood out to me as a solo statement. It's quite minimal, but weighted with this really heavy sorrow, like it was composed for the walking wounded.
#17:
Riow Arai + Tujiko Noriko JOf the two Tujiko Noriko collaborations this year, this is the more beat-heavy, song-oriented one. These songs are haunting and very sexy, and I think Riow Arai really tapped into a musical vein that gives tangible life to Tujiko's songs. There are even a few recurrences of fragments and song ideas from the Aoki Takamasa collab., such as "Mou Ichido Alien," a take on
28's "Alien," but Arai throws a driving trip-hop instrumental under her. Both are fantastic versions, but "Mou Ichido Alien" has more gravity and intensity to it, and that's often true for the rest of this album. I haven't actually heard Tujiko's own solo album this year but I wonder if it's this good.
#16:
Broadcast Tender ButtonsMore fuzzy warm pop stuff. I realize nowadays anybody can do fuzzy warm pop stuff, so to get solid attention you have to be like Broadcast, because they also just write really good songs with good lyrics. They certainly have a sound culled from several different decades. I think I'd like this album even more if I found the perfect place to listen to it, not at home or in a car. Maybe a hovercraft.
#15:
Animal Collective FeelsSung Tongs wasn't adequate preparation for the mind-boggling energy and vitality of
Feels. Openers "Did You See The Words" and "Grass" are the best one-two punch ever, exploding with cymbals and screams and spastic, stair-climbing vocals. There's still a few traditional AC tunes, slow and sunny and drenched in reverb, as well as "Loch Raven," which is completely eerie but probably my favorite track. You have to be in the mood for this album, which I guess means your eyes need to be bulging out of your head in sheer joy, but it's totally worth it.
#14:
Xiu Xiu La FôretA big progression to a slightly more beat-oriented take on the passive-aggressive Xiu Xiu sound. No instantly impressive songs like
Fabulous Muscles, but this is the more consistent album. The instrumentation, especially, has become a lot more interesting and detailed. "Bog People" and "Muppet Face" are irresistable, and I love the woodwinds on "Ale."
#13:
Jens Lekman Oh You're So Silent JensThis album opens with the tragic tale of an unbought record called "At the Department of Forgotten Songs," in which an abandoned 45" takes the shape of an orphaned girl. Jens Lekman actually pulls that stunt off really well, because he's a great songwriter and he has this wonderfully rainy mood in every song. He makes other singer/songwriters look stupid, even when he's singing something ridiculous like "it's like someone spilled a beer all over the atmosphere!" Somehow I can even forgive him for having his cat do backing vocals on "F-Word," because he
makes it work. I don't really know how, but he does!
#12:
The Drones Wait Long By The River...These guys pretty much just rock super fucking hard. "Shark Fin Blues" is probably my favorite rock song of the year, and the rest of the album totally burns with fire ripped straight from the guts of blues. It's completely wrenching, and it makes me feel like 'heavy' music is a misnomer applied to metal bands which are superficially loud but carry little emotional weight. Reminds me of Comets on Fire, but like six times better.
#11:
Stephen Malkmus Face the TruthImmensely enjoyable new solo-business! I liked this album, and then kind of forgot about it, and then came back to it later in the year and found I really loved it. Great guitar-witchery. Great non-sequitir lyrics ("I'm the leech who can preach, they call me Sinister Joe!"). Catchy. as. fuck. Malkmus called this his 'hip-hop record' in an interview once. It's true! It also rocks with the ironical ferocity of a thousand suns!
#10:
Sufjan Stevens IllinoisSecond grand experiment from our shepherd and superhero, Sufjan Stevens. There are so many absolutely stellar songs on this album, from front to back, that it's easy to forgive the long running time and the occasional drag. It's more orchestral and ambitious than any of his previous work, and it's usually more vivid too, invoking history and UFO's and serial killers and bone cancer and urban expansion and the Bible. And above all his music has powerful emotional resonance. "Casimir Pulaski Day" slays me completely.
#9:
Vashti Bunyan LookafteringAn exquisite and bewitching album from our heroine, returning after decades out of the fold. Most folk albums take me someplace, evoking older, more pastoral or forested settings, so it's telling that
Lookaftering doesn't have to take me anywhere. It just meets me halfway. It's also worth nothing that Max Richter produced this record impeccably, which makes up for him not releasing new material this year!
#8:
Boris & Merzbow Sun Baked Snow CaveAfter spending some time with Merzbow's 1998 release
1930, I was ready for more punishment, so this collaboration was a huge surprise. It's one hour-long track, alternating between stark acoustic guitar and bright swatches of loud crackling distortion, but not of the usual ear-destroying Merzbow variety. It's got a very dense, enveloping, purifying quality about it, and the guitar parts, which I'm assuming are the work of the Boris trio, are similarly meditative for their minimalism. Vivid, powerful stuff.
#7:
Broken Social Scene Broken Social SceneI liked this album before, but after seeing them live, it really shot up my list. I didn't 'get' "7/4 Shoreline" until I saw them perform it. I think I just needed a kick start.
Broken Social Scene is a cacophonous orchestra of guitars and horns concentrated heavily into a great big noisy many-layered concoction of baby-making proportions. As much as I love Kevin Drew being the cool cat on some of their sexier songs, it's hearing him all loud and vulnerable and singing about painful stuff on "Superconnected" and "It's All Gonna Break" that really makes this great. This record is a bunch of huge kinky fireworks.
#6:
Silver Jews Tanglewood NumbersThere are many sides to the Silver Jews, and one of them is the side that makes me sit up and grin like an idiot. I didn't expect a whole album full of that side, but it really works. Yeah, when he sings 'sometimes a pony gets depressed' he's probably talking about heroin, but it's too funny! I love it. In its own way, it's as good as
American Water.
#5:
Saibou-Bungaku Yoru Made MatteRelying mostly on voice, guitar and violin, this duo plays completely haunting music that fleshes out the darkest moments of Nick Drake. Very palpable, very painful.
#4:
Deerhoof The Runners FourTook me a while to get used to the less-raucous sound, but here we are. Every time I think this album is about to drag, it kicks into a different gear. It's a constant barrage of ideas, melodies, statements and fragments that comes together very cohesively. I can't get enough of "Wrong Time Capsule" and "Spirit Ditties of No Tone."
#3:
Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of EggsThe lyrical thread running through this album makes it seem like Bird is warning someone against the dangers of believing in science too much. Gotta live in the moment and not worry about global warming and toxic waste and all that. I was pretty sold on this idea by the end of it. Even the crumbling of civilization sounds kind of fun: "there will be tables and chairs, there'll be pony rides and dancing bears!"
#2:
Feist Let It DieI found a word for this album: smouldering. It
smoulders. It also came out last year, technically, but its US release was this year, and it was this year that I first delved into it. It's really a phenomenal debut from Ms. Leslie Feist. It's sad and sexy and
smouldering. "Let it die / get out of my mind / we don't see eye to eye / or hear ear to ear." That guy is never going to recover from those lines. Ever. He'll carry them like a cross for the rest of his life.
#1:
Diane Cluck Oh Vanille/Ova NilleIn the end, 2005 was kind of a quiet year, and this album quietly melted my face off. An emotional convalescent dissects the nature of her sexual relationships with jagged wit. It's just her and a guitar, but she has a rare and special spark that makes everything luminous. Diane Cluck is the bees' knees.
