Rockfeedback Records of the Year 2009 – #10-1
By: Kevin Molloy, Izzy James, Hayley Leaver, Thomas Hannan, Fred Mikardo-Greaves
10) Q-Tip – Kamaal: The Abstract (Battery)
“You wouldn't shoot a Policeman and then steal his helmet. You wouldn't go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the Policeman's grieving widow, and then steal it again. Downloading films is stealing; if you do it you WILL face the consequences!” - The I T Crowd
So it is with music. If you download it, Lars Ulrich won’t be able to feed his kids any more. So don’t ever do it. There are only a few exceptions where I’ll allow such a disgusting practice to take place, and these are for the purposes of creating ironic DJ sets (I don’t really want to buy The Essential Tina Turner, but the people need to be reminded of the greatness of ‘What’s Love Got To Do With It?), and for finding ‘lost’ albums that never got a commercial release. Like, say, Time Fades Away by Neil Young. Or Kamaal: The Abstract by Q-Tip. Kamaal is a wonderfully inventive, jazzy and unusually considered hip hop record, full of huge hooks and the tightest funk of the year, no contest. Thing is, upon submitting it to his label many years back, it was deemed too ‘out there’ to dare release, mainly down to the lack of actual rapping on it. This is baffling, as a few months later, Outkast released Stankonia, which essentially just ripped it off, and was massive. Maybe they, like everyone else, just downloaded the thing.
Thing is, now it’s actually been released. So you if you already downloaded it, you have to buy it otherwise you’ll go to hell. And if you’ve not already downloaded it, you have to buy it because it’s completely bloody brilliant. [THOMAS HANNAN]
9) The Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner)
I didn’t know what I wanted the Flaming Lips to do next. To be honest, I was pretty content with them releasing albums that were just, y’know, OK, so long as they kept occasionally blowing my mind with a live show marinated in glitter and confetti, organising Hallowe’en parades for hundreds of people dressed as skeletons or releasing Eraserhead meets Creature From The Black Lagoon type feature films. There were worse ways for a band to grow old, after all. I mean, you don’t see Raditude in this list, do you? So anyway, this year the Flaming Lips made what is definitely their best album since The Soft Bulletin and one which might even be better than any of those that preceded it (is it better than The Soft Bulletin though? HAH!!!). Rather than doing what I thought they would, i.e. try to remake TSB for the third time on the trot, they ditched anything that was luscious, frivolous or easy about the band as people knew them at this point in time and delivered an astonishing hour of drone, groove and psychedelia that was unlike anything they tried their hands at before, just at a point when we thought said hands were tied to creating pale imitations of former glories for ever more. I’m hugely excited to be a massive Flaming Lips fan again – and the band themselves sound pretty excited about the The Flaming Lips again, too. [THOMAS HANNAN]
8) Wildbirds & Peacedrums - The Snake (Leaf)
You can't help but get the feeling that everything capable of making noise would be a distraction to husband and wife duo, Andreas and Mariam, aka Wildbirds & Peacedrums. The whole of The Snake, their second album after the tentative, childlike quaverings of their wonderful debut, Heartcore, feels like an experiment. What would happen if we just let my voice wander aimlessly after a note whilst you pummel the drums, and we leave this old music box playing at random? Ohhhhh, that sound nice! Should we press record? Now let's do it with a HUGE drum circle! (see Rockfeedback capturing of the same here). How about with a huge Icelandic choir? Oh, ok, we'll wait til early 2010 to do that... But back to the album in hand - The Snake treats us to crazed spiralling bluesy wails that turn into shrieks of triumphant and sorrowful, weeping scales. Mariam conjures up a Gaia-like goddess-level of intensity in her cascading, lilting melodies. At times sparse, at others all-encompassing, the duo revel in nothing more than a simple joy of melody and composition. Voices will whisper to you, seemingly inside your eardums, just before a cacophony of drums, guitar and guttural screams pull you away from whatever sense you'd managed to find. And when it all sounds like it's getting a little arthouse and leftfield for your fancy, the album closes out on perhaps their most accesible and wonderful piece of work to date - 'My Heart' is an ode to nothing more than your own organ of circulation, with jangling keys and a melody that falls somewhere disconcertingly between stadium and Kate Bush. A voice that's at once unearthly and yet welcomes you into to its beguiling depths. You come out the other side of The Snake, and you wonder what on earth you just listened to, and quite why you remember absolutely nothing from the last 45 minutes other than some fairly intense memories of swooping melodies and crashing drums - it's like a fairytale narcotic - utterly addictive, and frighteningly masterful. [KEVIN MOLLOY]
7) Jeffrey Lewis – ‘Em Are I (Rough Trade)
Whilst every Jeffrey Lewis album prior to this has been admittedly charming, there have been one or two standout moments amidst the lo fi scratchiness that have suggested that Lewis was capable of something quite special. These moments, songs like ‘Back When I Was Four’ and ‘Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror’, great though they were, actually served to make the rest of their parent albums seem a little bit... worse. Or just disappointingly un-ambitious, at least. What ‘Em Are I does so well is have ten of these moments, the quality not dipping at all, once it gets going. Prepare for ‘Roll Bus Roll’ (the best song about sleeping, ever), ‘Broken Broken Broken Heart’, ‘If Life Exists?’, ‘Whistle Past The Graveyard’ and the rest of it to rocket to the top of your list of favourite Jeffrey Lewis songs. [THOMAS HANNAN]
6) Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)
Veckatimest is one of those albums that's simply breathtaking. You wonder how these four young boys from Brooklyn managed to craft something so complex. If love is in the details then this album is your soulmate. But with so much attention to detail you'd expect them to slip up somewhere - surely one song isn't as strong as the rest? Surely their harmonies can't be pitch perfect on every note? If this is your thinking then prepare to be gravely disappointed. Admittedly, because of its sheer musical magnitude, Veckatimest is not an easy listen. It's not music that will slip into the background unnoticed. It demands your attention, prays that you will pick up on the subtle strings and ethereal backing harmonies; you even have to strain to understand the murmured vocals of Rossen and Droste. Although this may sound like hard work, it almost guarantees that this album is not easily dismissed. With each listen, something new is discovered and appreciated, and the one simple thing about the album becomes clear, for me at least, it’s as near to perfection as we're ever going to get. [IZZY JAMES]
5) Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino)
On Two Dancers, each Wild Beast seems to have found a place they’re far more comfortable in than they were on album one. The drumming of Chris Talbot takes a far more prominent role than on Limbo Panto…, pushing and bustling the record towards its climax, and Tom Fleming’s basslines (ranging from ghostly flit on opener ‘The Fun Powder Plot’ to the webby darkness of ‘We Still Got the Taste Dancin’ on our Tongues’) murmur like a sinister angel under the melodies. Guitars glisten and ring like quicksilver, in turn chiming harsh on ‘Hooting and Howling’ and slipping into a broken music-box swing for ‘Two Dancers (II)’ and ‘Underbelly’. Hayden Thorpe can still, at the drop of the hat, switch from deranged child to a sweet intensity akin to Anthony Hegarty, and he appears to have learned how to both assimilate himself into the sound and still sound like no indie singer out there. But what of the songs? They are, to put it quite simply, astonishing. I don’t quite know how, but the group have managed to make Limbo…, a fine debut in anyone’s eyes, sound positively ordinary when put up against their new work. Driven by a seemingly insatiable desire to lay bare the myriad emotions tied up in love, sex, and the futility of youth, this set of ten tracks sets about blowing all previous notions clean out the water whilst somehow still being inexorably Wild-Beastly. [FRED MIKARDO-GREAVES]
4) Micachu – Jewellery (Rough Trade)
Micachu and the Shapes are using the same instruments as other bands have - there's a drumkit, a laptop, and a guitar. But I've not heard synths programmed this crunchily before, drums played with this much 'I really couldn't give a f**k' before. In my life, I've heard guitars played with things jammed in them before, but I think even Thurston Moore would give this a listen and exclaim 'Kim, you gotta check this chick out!' at the top of his lungs. I've heard a vacuum cleaner before. But not on a pop album. Think to yourself, and think hard - when was the last time you heard a really well produced, delicately thought out, lo-fi album? Have you ever heard one, really? Isn't the point of them that they're meant to be endearingly unlistenable, amateurish, half arsed? See how much this is turning on its head? Much of Jewellery sounds like this: KAHCAHKAHCAHTISHTISHBHXHXHXwoo! The rest of it sounds completely bloody symphonic. [THOMAS HANNAN]
3) The xx – The xx (XL)
Brittle though it may first appear, the more time you give it the more you’ll realise the capabilities of this skeleton of a record. It can enforce everything from crying over nothing (‘Shelter’) to celebratory shape throwing (the exquisite ‘Basic Space’) without ever shifting from its particularly downbeat, couldn’t give a f**k delivery, or smiling, once. And yes, it is samey. Its variations of pace are practically non-existent. It admits of no happiness, other than that to be found in a drum sample with precisely the right amount of reverb on it (though I grant there is a lot of happiness to be found in that). But as we began to describe, The XX have a reason for everything sounding like it does here. The explanation is that everything sounds just perfect, doesn’t it? It’s as if the initial blueprints were so beautiful that they never even bothered building the thing. [THOMAS HANNAN]
2) Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)
Without a doubt one of the year’s coolest groups, this album portrayed the Brooklyn band at their most accessible yet, but still just a little bit odd – and that is what makes them. Dave Longstreth has one of the most recognisable voices around, but grouped with the two ladies, Amber and Angel, the vocal prowess exhibited on this album knocks most other ‘indie’ records from this year straight out the park. ‘Cannibal Resource’ wastes no time with formalities – there’s no easing into the Dirty Projectors’ peculiar ability to sound like something from another planet (in the best way possible). The eerie vocals that shadow Longstreth’s own distinctive voice create a choral force unlike any other recent group, or maybe any, full stop. Coupled with his slicing guitar, and the unabashedly clear production of the album, it is impossible to compare it to anything else. ‘Stillness is the Move’ has provided one of my most over-played songs of the year with its incredible Timberlake twang, and the catchiest of catchy Longstreth riffs. This five minute wonder may be the only track easily compared to anything else: an unequivocal homage to any number of glossy R&B hits. Sweetness itself follows in the form of ‘Two Doves’ where Amber Coffman takes the limelight, and to great effect. This is arguably why Bitte Orca is the band’s easiest album to relate to. It’s not that they’ve moved away from their individuality - and sheer weirdness – it’s that the greater time given over to the two inexplicably talented ladies is heart-stopping at times, and even more emphatic than Longstreth alone. Trying to explain why Dirty Projectors have spawned one of the year’s greatest albums – and possibly one of the decade’s? – is not an easy task, it would require an entire thesis to describe every compelling moment of the nine tracks. Just take it from me – it’s genius. [HAYLEY LEAVER]
1) Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
In terms of this poll, it had time on its side in a number of manners, did Merriweather Post Pavilion. Firstly, because it came out in January, this was the only album that could have been said to have genuinely soundtracked the whole of 2009 – I’ve listened to it at least once a week since it came out. But whilst in that respect all the other records in the list could turn round and accuse Merriweather... of being an even stronger contender for filthy cheat of the year than French ball-stroker (yes, I do find that funny) Thierry Henry, the truth was that it was so obvious that this was going to top this count-down from the moment ‘In The Flowers’ started that it was actually somewhat depressing. Far from depressing though was the actual sound of the album in question, a fine example of how a band can develop from experimental roots to become the defining forward thinking pop group of an era without sacrificing a pioneering outlook or working to anyone’s rules other than their own. And that’s the other reason time was important to Merriweather’s triumphant reign over the past twelve months – it’s was the culmination of umpteen years of sonic trickery, the logical next step in a career long exploration of sounds and texture that rewarded newcomers, sure, but nowhere near as much as it provided a sense of “that was SO worth it!” for those who’d followed the band through the parts of their discography that many others would deem unlistenable. Though such fans rightly loved those noises for genuine reasons, anyone who ever listened to Animal Collective properly knew that they were aiming at something else, and things like ‘My Girls’, ‘Summertime Clothes’ and ‘Brothersport’ were it – absolute and total perfection as suited to scratching ones head as they were for tapping ones feet. Also the most lyrically intriguing and emotionally weighty of their records (I considered writing a piece about how this might even be a concept LP about the importance of family, but even though I think I might be right, it sure as hell sounds lame when you put it like that), it gives me immense pleasure to see how the misfits who made Danse Manatee are now one of the biggest bands on the planet. The lunatics haven’t just taken over the asylum, they’re headlining Brixton Academy. [THOMAS HANNAN]
Artists in this article: Wild Beasts, The Flaming Lips, Q-Tip, Grizzly Bear, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Jeffrey Lewis, Micachu, The XX, Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective