2009

Real soon!  That is because something is wrong with  me today.  Can't focus on work or whatever.  Hopefully that's because of the rain because I was planning on getting some done this weekend.  Hopefully though it is because I am not that enthused about this year and maybe I will feel better when it's over with.  Not bad, just not that great.  As the years get more and more recent I feel like I miss more.  I was kinda hoping to hear The Eternal and really absorb Popular Songs before writing this, but alas...  I was still pretty down on new music at the time and caught most of these later, though without the excitement of them being all that fresh.  Anyway, let's get on with it...

10.  The Dolly Rocker Movement - Purple Journey Through the Mod Machine
Starting off is an album very much rooted in the 60s.  The Sydney group has some well-deserved connections to the BJM crowd and I saw them with the Quarter After in 2010.  Pretty great, but this album is stronger.  It's got that kind of organ and tambourine sound preferred by most current psych revivalists, and has a good amount  of classic folk rock in  the mix.  What makes  this band  so successful is they are not afraid to get repetitive and drony.  This mix works the best on the endless cycle of "For Those Smiling Eyes" and the sleepy atmosphere works just as well with vocals on "I can See Through Orange."  Even quicker songs like "Follow The Sound" have that burnt out quiet  energy to them.  This sounds more like the psychedelic sixties than the actual psychedelic sixties, perhaps Australia really is behind  is.

9.  Julian Casablancas - Phrazes  for the Young
In a lot of ways, Casablancas delivers exactly what you would expect from the solo debut of the Strokes' leader.  It's not all that different from his great band, but he takes his chances to incorporate the electronics, keyboards, layers, and lyrics that might not jive with his classic band.  Hmm, kind of like a another certain inspirational front man...  His talent for precision is the greatest charm on the album and ultimately it does not sound like anything else, as the cover shows his aspirations to create something for the future that is deeply rooted in the past.  He does make the most of his separation from the Strokes, but it is just not as great.  As their following albums suggest maybe he had just lost some steam.  Either way, the personal statement opener "Out of the Blue" is a stunner and one of the singer's best creations, obviously worth the price of admission on its own.

8.  Circulatory System - Signal Morning
Now less the mere follow-up to OTC, Will Cullen Hart and company get deeper into their artistic and atmospheric tendencies.  That dark psychedelic shroud that had coated all his music back as far as California Demise is in full effect, but there is also some electronic influence on the closing title track - something previously unfathomable in the E6 camp.  Hart had always seemed the less pop-oriented of OTC's two main songwriters and songs are less a part of what  defines this album as production and bizarre nightmarish arrangements, such as the oddly muted "The Frozen Lake - The Symmetry," still one of the album's catchier tunes.  It is more of a noise-rock or avant-garde album than the past would suggest, but embracing influences like Faust over the usual Beatles and Zombies makes this a very engaging psychedelic record with tracks like "Tiny  Concerts," and deconstructed pop like "This Morning (We Remembered Everything)."  Probably what it would  have sounded like if Yoko Ono really had hijacked the Beatles.

7.  Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
On their second album since re-forming Dinosaur Jr. has a lot less to prove.  They don't seem the feel the same need to capture their electrifying youth on loud, fast songs and rather embrace their age and home environment more.  It is a more stoney affair with longer, slower jammier songs, but it is a sound that really works for the trio whose dynamic continues to be the strongest of their long career.  It shows their influence from the likes of Neil Young more than ever, rather than their hardcore roots.  It could be the result of some successful shows with the Meat Puppets and Built to Spill with the three sharing more vision than ever.  That being said, it is a fine album and shows that the last was no fluke.  Dinosaur Jr. is back and in a new and wonderfully productive phase which luckily still remains.

6.  Will Stratton - No Wonder
Luckily it would not take as long for Will to get his albums out anymore, and his albums have begun to almost catch up to their prolific creator.  Unfortunately, his second album still did not break him out, but considering how much he had matured in the time since the last how else could it go.  The arrangements vary more from the sparse folk on most tracks to the fully arranged folk rock with horns and strings of "You're A Real Thing," probably Stratton's best pop tune to date (though I prefer earlier versions... for now).  His voice has always been strong, but with guest female harmonies on many tracks the vocals are even better than usual on this release.  He has also grown a great deal as a guitarist with stunning rapid finger-picking that shows his growing influence from John Fahey and Leo Kottke further distinguishing himself from your run of the mill folkie of our generation.  Plus, it gives even  more of a distinctly American  feeling  to his music and that is never a bad thing.

5.  Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall
The title proved sadly fortuitous when the young, but prolific musician died five months later.  Never wasting any time, Reatard had grown a lot over the course of some great singles since his last album and this one has a much wider sound than his proper debut with influence reaching far beyond the punk/noise spectrum.  The songs are often slower and more pop oriented though "Faking It" is one in the old vein.  Reatard never had a problem writing a catchy tune, but these songs have more of a traditional and less challenging structure than heard on Blood Visions.  The subject matter is also a bit less brutal.  Though these lyrics still clearly from a tortured soul, there is a lot less about murder and bloodshed, taking on more of a romance in his insanity on tracks like the closing "There Is No Sun" (featuring strings!!!) and "I'm Watching You."  Like the music his The Shining-influenced album art shows the artists awareness of his own instability and violent tendencies that poses the question of where humor ends and terrifying honesty begins.  Reatard's early passing was a real tragedy for music that caused me to give up for a little while again, but at least he ended like this and there is surely more still yet to heard from the man.

4.  Atlas Sound - Logos
Bradford Cox distinguished himself as more than just the bizarre front man from Deerhunter with this bedroom project.  It may have not been the best for his band, but it shows just how much the artist can do on his  own with unlimited freedom.  Though there are more rock-oriented songs like "An Orchid," it is the best when brings in the electronics and allows for some real space.  This is best heard on his collaboration with Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier "Quick Canal" where her lyrics seem to speak for Cox better than he ever has.  Its atmospheric synthesizer and repetitive beat supports her sensuous voice in such a deep and intimate way that I can't hesitate to say that it is one of the most beautiful songs of all time.  Animal Collective's Noah "Panda  Bear" Lennox also appears on Walkabout, appropriate as this album is one of the few that earns comparison to his work  both alone and with the Collective.  Bradford Cox is a real one of a kind kind of guy, seemingly unrelatable even to those closest to him and this record is a window into his lonely world.  Luckily he is a musician of rare talent and can not only capture his essence honestly, but beautifully.

3.  Real Estate - Real Estate
While more and more band following the Boss himself emerged this Ridgewood quartet reminded the young  indie kids of the other sound of New Jersey.  The dynamics and experimentation of Yo La Tengo and the sincere suburban nostalgia of the Feelies and Speed the Plough laid the foundation for this relaxed guitar pop group.  Their debut is more on the lo-fi side, but with these clean guitars and perfect songs do not need any great production to capture the melancholy essence of a Mid-Atlantic summer with all its hopes, dreams, and humid disappointments.  As usual a "Suburban Beverage" is the perfect solution.  With the kind of mix only Jersey  has given us the core of bassist Alex Bleeker, Ducktails guitarist Matthew Mondanile and singer/guitarist Martin Courtney they play songs about water.  "Beach Comber" is the best of this theme capturing a beach life far removed from both the hyper punk sound emerging from San Diego at the time and the less desirable side of the Jersey Shore stinking up the  TV waves.  With their firm place in our roots and capturing the heartbreaking childhood memories of this state's people Real Estate found one of the most perfect sounds and led the way in this sudden emergence of great new artists from the Garden State.  It would only get better.

2.  The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
After playing up their unusual ability to please the mainstream the Lips returned to their roots on this long and heavy album.  The double LP format allowed the group to be free of having to be too focused, though it does have a  very unified voice, albeit without the unifying concept of other albums.  The recurring themes of animals and the zodiac spread the album's message into infinity rather than unifying its disperate sounds.  It is the beginning of their look into the darker side that clearly continues on the new one, espcially with the paranoid opener "Convinced of the Hex," though as usual, Coyne never lets go of hope (i.e. "If).  The band expands on a personal level here too with the addition of Kliph Scurlock on drums as Drodz moves more into the of keyboards.  He is as good a substitute as Drodz is in his new role and the band rocks the  hardest they have in decades throughout the whole experience.  They also take in outside collaborators to great effect such as MGMT on "Worm Mountain" and Karen O on the so beautiful-it's-not-even-cute "I Can Be Frog."  Re-unifying and asserting its wholeness with closer "Watching the Planets," this jolt of energy and dense psychedelic noise was  the perfect thing to revive the Lips and this album easily ranks amongst their best.

1.  Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion
What else could it be?  Animal Collective had reached unimaginable heights both artistically and commercially and made their album for their masses, especially back home in Maryland.  Named after the amphitheater its members grew up attending shows its sound was made to fill that kind of gigantic space.  With Deakin taking time away from the band the other three made a more electronic sound, but as always it is far from cold and mechanical.  They continue their pattern of recording in odd places by doing this  one in Missisippi.  I really don't feel like writing anything  right now.  Today sucks and you have already heard  this album.  If you have not though, I'll tell you my favorite songs are "Bluish" with its unfathomable hook, the horrifically relate-able "No More Runnin'," and of course, "My Girls" with the atmosphere and euphoria  of a good disco-house track.

Anyway, that's the 00s.  Doesn't even feel like a decade, does it?