2007

Sorry I took so damn long.   Hopefully all that time gave you the chance to really absorb Starling Electric’s Clouded Staircase.  This is a much better year than the last, though it may have been the peak of my rejection of new music.   I really regret that because, 2007 was great, if you can believe that.  I am sure people will note the absence of Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga but, you know, I just haven't listened to it enough to really assess it.  The others, yes...

10.  AIR - Pocket Symphony

The French band is pretty much always on it, and this one was so on it few noticed its strengths at the time of its release.  It finds the duo excelling at everything they do and having it come together better than ever.  It is actually more focused than its excellent predecessor and is more personal.  This album is even more distinctly their own than Moon Safari.  Even with guest appearances from Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon, the AIR duo is in more control than ever, and which gives this album a cinematic feel reminiscent of their work on Virgin Suicides.  As always it is lush, smooth, and funky.  The funkiness can be best heard on "Mer Du Japon."

9.  Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum

This Pittsburgh group created an all new heavy psych sound through the use of analogue synthesizers with more traditional rock instruments.  It is a fantastic combination perfectly summed up by the opening track, "Forever Heavy," which captures the dark and creepy qualities of the Western Pennsylvania woods in which it was recorded.  This is the candy-coated Black Forest fairy tale brought into the 21st century with all its funky hip-hop influence and it still qualifies as one of the deepest acid rock records of its time.  BMSR are definitely in a category of their own when it comes to how these styles come together.  The songs are quite strong, but the atmospheres are their best strength here, and it is the perfect document of this band.  It’s as eerie as is it is chill. 

8.  Will Stratton - What the Night Said

Even as a friend of the artist, I cannot believe that this was recorded by an eighteen year-old and written at an even younger age.  Will is still one of the best and most under-appreciated artists of our time, and this debut album is still perhaps his strongest work due to its unbelievable sense of nostalgia.  His unique home of Basking Ridge, NJ, its landmarks, and people seems like a distant fantasy world fading away into idealized memory, even though the singer-songwriter had barely stepped away at this point.  In future years this album will be viewed as one of the masterpieces of 00s style folk and one of the high points in the career of guest musician Sufjan Stevens, if you can believe that.  With standouts like "Katydid" and "Sonnet," as well as contributions from the likes of Sam Deutsch on violin, this is an unusually mature first album with a legacy growing in status far from most people's attention.  Get on board as soon as you can.

7.   Caribou - Andorra

Due to the Dictator's ridiculous request, Daniel Snaith changed his stage name.  At first it seemed like that may have been his undoing, but this album proved that his previous album was just a forgivable weak point.  This release may be his finest to date as both his songs and arrangements became more melody-oriented.  Naturally, the first track is called "Melody Day" and the powerful tune is the first to introduce the flutes that make this album so lush and classical.  The second song, "Sandy" continues in the flute-heavy vein but is one of Caribou's most rocking songs.  It is definitely catchier than anything he made before, but it is still the dense shoegaze arrangements that are the greatest strength.  Snaith utilizes electronics in a way that makes his music hypnotic and dreamlike rather than merely repetitive and consistent.

6.  LCD Soundsystem - The Sound of Silver

Respected by many as the year's best album, it is an achievement of audio recording and one of the most intelligent dance records of all time.  Long unrecognized New York crypster James Murphy had broken through with "Daft Punk is Playing in My House" – the most unavoidable song of 2005 if in the right circles – and on this follow-up he proves himself the next Brian Eno.  Each sound on the album is delicately captured and placed in this spacious album that ranges from dance classics like "North American Scum" and "Time To Get Away" to the delicate beauty of "Someone Great."  Realizing his rare opportunity to make music history, Murphy put everything he could into this album.  The result is the most state-of-the-art record of its time, with all the musical knowledge and taste of the finest 70s art rock and 80s dance music combined with the technology and necessary knowhow of the modern age.  It certainly made its mark and proved to be a bit too much for its creator, but his legacy was solidified and he has no need to shut up and play the hits.

5.  Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond

Eighteen years later the true lineup of Dinosaur Jr. was back together and not only as great as ever, but making at least their second most solid album to date.  The conflicting personalities of J Mascis and Lou Barlow always created some of the best rock and roll music of all time, but it took the maturity of middle age to make it last.  Their songs and energy are the same as they were when they burst out of the Western Massachusetts wood (in no small part due to Murph, who hits as hard as ever).  They debuted their return with the opening track "Almost Ready" and blew away any skeptics with Mascis' wailing leads, generating enough energy to sustain the whole album.   "Crumble" kept up the momentum and the energy never wavered over the whole album. This made the power trio rock's greatest comeback success story of 2007 with three albums that have at least doubled the already respected band's reputation as one of the finest of the American Underground.

4.  Deerhunter - Cryptograms

Finally, a new young band from new territory.  The Atlanta group really came into themselves with Bradford Cox, Moses Archeluta, Josh Fauver, and Lockett Pundt (plus Colin Mee) forming the classic lineup of one of the most vital rock bands of the modern era.  Though steeped in dense noise rock, Deerhunter is definitely still a rock act in the classic form playing loud fast guitar music… even when combined with their softer electronic-based atmospheres.  This album is one of their more consistently spirited and captures their electrifying live sound.  The band's musical knowledge is apparently stronger than their "indie" peers.  Their influences from the past greats are pure, especially in their krauty motorik drones.  All the timeless elements – or as Robert Pollard says, the four Ps – are represented with the Punk fury matching the deep Psychedelia on every note with its dense and swirling arrangements.  The Pop sticks out just as much with the catchiest songs that any noisy band has written since Sonic Youth, (best heard on "Strange Lights").  Deerhunter’s breakthrough showed a bright future for guitar rock, showing what could be achieved in combining the classic approach with a positively progressive attitude toward experimentation, new technology, and refusal to conform to anyone else's idea of how music should sound.

3.  Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam

On their second album with the full band after their big break, Animal Collective set out to make a sweet and uniformly congealed album that makes an unidentifiable splice of the natural and the synthetic.  Recorded in the odd choice of Tucson, this immensely successful record showed the band's ability to function as a single mind even as they function in ways unrecognizable to most musicians, reprocess it, and then do it again.  Opener "Peacebone" goes from pure mental cacophony, back down to Earth, and then eventually transcends into the beyond.  The other songs continue with this theme of brutality married to otherworldly beauty with a dense and unpredictable attack still kept under the four's tight control.  This is best heard on "Fireworks," with its pummeling rhythms and shiny melodies providing a surreal backing for Avey Tare's incomparable yowl.  "#1" takes a sparser approach but is full of unimaginable changes, gentle atmospheres, and – as usual – a melody constructed from various scraps of sound engineered in such an unusual way that only four separate yet congealed minds could make it.  Some say this is a more accessible record, but that sentiment is insane.  It just has a way of connecting that goes beyond the mind, though you could say the closing "Derek" is their greatest folk song… if you could call it that.

2.  Panda Bear - Person Pitch

Yet, it is a solo release that is the greatest out of the AC camp.  Panda's solo album recorded in Portugal after his marriage may be the best and most unique sample-based album.  The artist takes his samples and simply lets them go; creating a blissed out and sunny album that deconstructs and rebuilds itself, hitting upon the essence of life and music.  "Bros" is of course the best-known and strongest song and it creates a dazey beach atmosphere that feels like it could never end.  It is simply one of the most relaxing albums out there, even if it has the kind of deep beauty that can be painful.  Music so repetitive and post-modern rarely has the emotional power of these songs, and the greatest example of this power can be found on the closer "Ponytail."  Panda managed to create the kind of summery transcendence to which Brian Wilson lost his mind. And, even if he did so by "cheating," the results are undeniable.  From his Mediterranean paradise, Panda sends his message to the world to open its eyes, chill out, and see the beauty around – even with as scary and confusing it can be, as heard in the radical changes in songs like "Take Pills" and "Good Girl/Carrots."  Though the music may come from other sources, it is a deeply personal album as the artist sits "Comfy in Nautica" and embarks on "The Search for Delicious."  He found it and gave the world a deeply affecting and rare positive record to share in the light.

1.  PJ Harvey - White Chalk

So… it takes a lot to outdo all of the above.  However, Harvey made the best album of her career after something of a twelve-year slump with this record that sounds like it was recorded by a ghost.  With Flood and John Parrish, she made this otherworldly and unsettling album with old-fashioned instruments matching her antiquated image of that time.  It is like entering the mind of a mentally ill shut-in from the 19th Century, being comprised almost entirely of dark material.  The opener "The Devil" is a chilling introduction to this world of death and heartbreaking disorder, and it is an honest confrontation of the constant choice between good and evil with deeper implications beyond the physical realm.  This crossing over of the human soul is perhaps the album's biggest theme as heard on the title track and also the dizzying "When Under Ether."  The decay of the spiritual and physical life beyond death is captured in "To Talk To You." She addresses the present life in "Grow Grow Grow" and its utter disarray in "The Piano."  By this point, Harvey's talent is unfathomable as speaks what can barely comprehended by taking on subjects that have left all intelligent life forms without answers for all eternity, and most likely will forever.  It has a wisdom from beyond the grave and gets its point across while still answering no questions.  Its colors are brown, yellow, and green – employing the kind of timeless unsettling darkness seen in films like The City of Lost Children. It is painful when the last track "The Mountain" ends because the subjects breached on this album will never have a conclusion… but the record unfortunately must.  With Polly Jean you know there won't exactly be more either...  This is just an album in a category of its own and is still impossible to believe after countless listens.

Due to me forgetting a very important cable it may be a few days until 2008, but we shall see...