LIST: 21 Best Albums of 2008

Busy times and the premature death of my P2P new-music lifeline thinned the herd for me a bit this year, but good music is good music and here are my favorites...

1. Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago Okay, so there may be some controversy over including this at all, let alone picking it for #1, since it actually came out in 2007. But Jagjaguwar didn't begin distribution until '08 so unless you got an industry promo, snagged an early copy of the self-released LP at a show or are yourself Justin Vernon you probably think, like the rest of us, that Emma... came from the here and now rather than the just-last-year. I admit to cringing a little at the awkwardness of the situation, knowingly ignoring an actual release date in favor of a popularly misconstrued one in order to make the list, but it's just too good. This was my go-to album all year and it never once let me down. I can't wait to hear what's next.
2. Fleet Foxes s/t Rich vocal harmonies and folksy acoustic arrangements transcend your local Renaissance Faire with obvious influences from Simon & Garfunkle, The Beach Boys, CSN&Y and indie contemporaries Band of Horses and My Morning Jacket. Well deserved praise abounds...
3. TV on the Radio Dear Science Fast becoming the biggest and best rock band going, TVotR turn a corner, keeping agit-pop, revival rhythms and dense feedback loops at the core of a great, often (gasp) danceable album.
4. Blitzen Trapper Furr Their third LP finds them in a consistent, confident groove showcasing a deep love for the British invasion. Outstanding for its songwriting and ability to sound well-aged, not old.
5. No Age Nouns LA's hottest indie rock guitar fuzz peddlers make a strong case for being everywhere's hottest indie rock guitar fuzz peddlers.
6. The Dodos Visitor Deceptively musical, simple but rewarding, laid back with crisp-edges - solid indie emo done just right. This many rim-shots never sounded so good.
7. Vampire Weekend s/t It might be easier for music-philes to dismiss these guys as over privileged genre raping dilettantes than it is to admit that the songs are actually very good. Most tracks beg to be heard over and over like any good pop song should. Score one for the Omega house.
8. Deerhunter Microcastle They heard me! Dramatically more straightforward than its predecessors, the atmosphere remains but takes tangible if shifting forms.
9. My Morning Jacket Evil Urges MMJ's soulful turn grows and grows, turning out to be a smart artistic gamble in my book.
10. Bodies of Water Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink Like the Danielson family band (or cult or whatever) BoW prove that, if sung in unison by an ecstatic chorus of weirdos while accompanied by horns and percussion, even the most surreal of nihilist poetry can sound like a sunny day at the beach. I've got eyes on my belly! Yay!
11. Okkervil River The Stand Ins Will Sheff uses lots and lots of words to narrate songs about life on the road with a band. Still as cinematic as The Stage Names and as lovingly indebted to Bruce Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Gram Parsons as ever.
12. The Hold Steady Stay Positive Minnesota's biggest bar room bards spend their much deserved hype making... a decent rock record. The album, like the band, largely eschews their bread and butter tales of substance abuse and twenty-something wanderlust in favor of middle-aged reckoning. What happened to Holly and Charlemagne?
13. Man Man Rabbit Habits Jesus they're weird. Fun, interesting and a little bit scary but mostly weird. Philly freak rock polka with a unique and tangible odor. And mustaches!
14. Cut / Copy In Ghost Colours See also Icicle Works c. 1982 (thanks Amy). Dance like you'll never hear of New Order, dance!
15. School of Seven Bells Alpinisms Vocals and arrangements as airy and serious as the title implies but with solid rhythmic foundations. Lovely.
16. Mt. Eerie Lost Wisdom Haunting gets tossed around a lot when describing Phil Elvrum's brand of minimalist bedroom folk, but this is real "I see dead people" spooky (shiver).
17. Kaki King Dreaming of Revenge Expertly soft spoken, Dreaming beguiles and flirts, seeming to doze when it is actually lying in wait with quick eyes and sharp lines.
18. She & Him Volume One Zoey Deschanel + M. Ward = The Ronettes? Sure, with a darker sense of feminist irony, but fun retro girl pop - albeit in indie folk rags - just the same.
19. Girl Talk Feed the Animals A few truly inspired mash-up moments drive a second and slightly more sedate LP length mix of nearly 400 decade / genre hopping samples proving that sometimes more is more. Still, the wow factor ebbs.
20. Department of Eagles In Ear Park Tinkly echo-pop remembers then softens the roar of T Rex to a near whisper while indulging The Beatles darker musings.
21. Times New Viking Rip It Off Loud, staticky and distorted to within inches of total ruin, the disc's slash-n-bash textures artfully render an otherwise everyday DIY garage rocker somehow more, well, artful. Can you tell I'm shouting.

LIST: Kyle's Totally Shameless Twelve Days of Music Wish List, 2008

I know it's getting late but the year wouldn't seem complete without a request for a few things I missed hearing this year but still want to check out...   Happy New Year everybody!

1. Los Campesinos! Hold on Now, Youngster...
2. Atlas Sound Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel
3. Shearwater Rook
4. Max Tundra Parallax Error Beheads You
5. Vivian Girls s/t
6. Tallest Man on Earth Shallow Grave
7. Marnie Stern This Is It & I Am It & You Are It & So Is That & He Is It & She Is It & It Is It & That Is That
8. Horse Feathers House with No Home
9. Lambchop OH (Ohio)
10. Titus Andronicus The Airing of Grievances
11. Mae Shi Hlllyh
12. Hercules and Love Affair s/t

REVIEW: My Morning Jacket "Evil Urges"

Rating: 7.5

Fans of It Still Moves - those of you who have been keeping up with Drive By Truckers' lineup changes and file Skynard alongside the Beatles - should skip directly to track four, which in many cases is as good a place to start as any and is in fact the best track on the disc. If you picked up the MMJ string with Z then the opening title track will likely please in its abrupt but not illogical movement from Radiohead to the Allman Brothers by way of Prince, to each of whom MMJ owes no small debt.

On more than a few tunes the expert and increasingly ubiquitous Jim James trades his beautifully strained tenor for a newly honed falsetto, presumably seeking to balance soulful and corny while reassuring us all that "it ain't evil baby, if ya ain't hurting anybody." Flaming Lips via Louisville, KY.
The band seems to have taken its moment on a larger pop stage to retract and reflect, telling smaller, stickier stories with odd and nostalgic flourishes rather than turning it up to 11. An unexpected, thoughtful, and rewarding if not always dazzling effort from a band unafraid.

REVIEW: Deerhunter "Cryptograms"

Rating: 7

One of Atlanta's bright new crop of indie darlings alternates song by song between space prog ala Secret Machines and droning, circular atmospherics. Songs with words are flecked occasionally with Liars style noise-chants and hints of hysteria giving clues to a largely unseen pathos poised to scream and/or dance, while the directionless expanse of the album's star-scaped instrumental passages prop up the tension. I'm angling for more of the former and less of the latter, but enjoying the back and forth in the meantime.

REVIEW: The Black Keys "Attack and Release"

Rating: 8

Akron, Ohio's blue-eyed electric blues duo extraordinaire have found success playing in a pretty small sandbox over the course of their previous four LPs. This time around they invite producer Danger Mouse in to play, and as one might expect the Gnarls Barkley / MF Doom DJ brings his own toys. The sound remains rooted in their well established Delta Blues, drum and guitar rock tandem but goes further to acknowledge the classic rock and Detroit soul that naturally weaves its way in and out of the Keys' ongoing narratives. Not as far out as others have indicated the high profile producer might push, but easily a bigger box and deeper sand to play in.

REVIEW: New Pornographers "Challengers"

Rating: 9

New Pornographers continue to deliver some of the most compelling pop music out there, richly textured around classic hooks and effervescent human chemistry. While it is still AC Newman's outfit, Dan Bejar steps up to provide three great tracks, most notably "Myriad Harbour," a trip to Manhatten via the Velvet Underground (it's my kids' favorite song, just ahead of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer). Budding vocal icon Neko Case seems less present on this outing, leading just three wandering, mid tempo songs "Failsafe," "Go Places" and the title track, yet again the parts at work add up to more than the expected sum. This may not be the instant knock-out that was, but over time it has proved to be infinitely listenable and rewarding throughout.

REVIEW: Bon Iver "For Emma, Forever Ago"

Rating: 9.5

Beautifully haunted and heartbreaking, For Emma, Forever Ago is one of those albums with a great story that inextricably links person, place and time. Justin Vernon is Bon Iver the way Sam Beam is Iron & Wine, or at least was upon the release of the latter's debut Creek Drank the Cradle, and Emma is arguably that album's closest contemporary peer.

Vernon's soulful falsetto, spare guitar arrangements and hints of Grizzly Bear's house-bound pop combine to create a wintry isolation slowly warmed from within by the poetry it has inspired; cloistered one-note ballads rub up against chanty folk hymns and gospel harmonies. A sure bet for fans of M. Ward and the acts mentioned above. Don't miss highlights "Skinny Love," "Blindsided" and the impossibly perfect closer "Re: Stacks."

NEWS: Farewell to No Depression

Every time a friend leaves we mourn the loss, but when a good friend leaves the sadness is tempered by our faith that we will see one another again. So it is with my good friend No Depression magazine. Since 1995 Seattle based No Depression has celebrated American roots music and its many sub-strains, becoming alt-country's monthly Bible and elevating many artists, producers and their labels from niche players to important fixtures in the cultural landscape. The current May-June issue (#75) will be their last on paper. The cover features Artist of the Decade Buddy Miller, presumably appointed a year early since the magazine won't quite see the end of this one. No Depression will remain an online entity with expanded internet content and plans to produce a ND book with the University of Texas Press. So we'll see the writers and artists in print again, but it's never quite the same.

I subscribed for a few years (issues #30-58), bought a few t-shirts and have always been happy to associate myself, even if just as a fan, with a group of people committed to the free spirit of American music. Like the music it examined, the magazine allowed me to sit and take my time, look for new things and reflect on the old ones - practices for which computer monitors and streaming mp3 files seem poorly suited. It also kept me informed with what was coming down the pike with greater credibility than other magazines or music sites compromised by too many vendors with interests outside the music. I always found something new to like in No Depression, and learned something about the artists I already love. Thank you No Depression, my best to you and yours. See you 'round.

REVIEW: Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend"

Rating: 8

The boys of Vampire Weekend offer a bright and catchy take on Graceland era Paul Simon complete with a mild sense of cultural imperialism via toe tapping, quick-play-it-again pop.  White and weightless as sheets hung out to dry on a summer's day, the album comes well stocked with Talking Heads jangle, ska-lite rave-ups, some self consciously tart if clever rhymes and a healthy dose of nostalgia for the over privileged collegiate life of leisure.  My most cynical self projects a shelf life rivaling that of free range eggs.  However eggs are simple and delicious and almost impossible to mess up.  Bon appetit.

REVIEW: Spoon "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

Rating: 8.5

Spoon successfully assimilates the better part of 1960s street-wise soul, from hand claps to politics, into their dark, nasally suburban pop.  The addition of a small horn section only strengthens their identity as Austin natives.  Buddy Holly would be proud.

REVIEW: Radiohead "In Rainbows"

Rating: 8

I realize I'm a little late in the game on this, but I'd like to follow form and discuss at some length the album's initial pay-what-you-want online release before addressing with dismissive brevity the music, which is very good.

I paid $7.49 to download the album the night it became available. I picked this amount for two reasons. One: I wasn't sure if I was going to be charged US dollars or British pounds and given exchange rates this seemed like an equitable amount either way. And two: this is the number to which I default when browsing the used bins at records stores. I will often purchase discs of interest when priced $7.50 or less without much thought. Higher prices initiate an internal bargaining process which can lead to compromised decision making and larger moral dilemmas. What's interesting to me is that, like every other post I've read on the album's unconventional release, I feel obliged to tell you what I paid and why. From people justifying a free download to paying what they thought it was worth per song, the experiment seems to have forced a few folks to examine their place in the music for money game. Fancy that, Radiohead doing something that causes people to rethink things.

As for the music, Radiohead proves itself to be a real band made of real men capable of making real songs with regular instruments, and to be able to do it quite well. The roomfuls of sound generated by roomfuls of technical gadgets, complete with Thom Yorke's moving yet often inchoate vocal performances, seem to have been reinterpreted using traditional tools creating a soulful, stirring rock record, simple only by the standard set by the band's own work beginning with OK Computer. Not necessarily a return to early guitar driven work but a distillation of processes, returning focus to the band's performance rather than their innovations in the studio. The result is an album of hands-on music that sounds as if it was made by people rather than ideas. Based on the success of their online launch maybe Radiohead's most enduring innovation will be seen in the marketplace.