Read & Listen

Zooey Deschanel, a wonderful actress and singer (of She & Him) and Ben Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie are engaged!

Great indie couple!
(Volk also mentions this.)

Source:

It was a bit easier to decide on my favorite tracks of the year. There were more distinct songs that I couldn’t stop listening to. So, I stuck to top 10, and excluded general favorites like Hercules & Love Affair “Blind” or Hot Chip “Ready For The Floor”. I didn’t really listen to them on repeat - if not consider the fact that “Ready For The Floor” has been my boyfriend’s alarm song…

Here it goes:

1. Death Cab for Cutie – I Will Possess Your Heart
2. Jersey – Shoeshine
3. Tricky – Bacative
4. Pram - Salva (Throwing Toys Into The Pram) (Modified Toy Orchestra version)
5. Portishead – Machine Gun
6. Populous with Short Stories – Royale Gold
7. Pallers – Humdrum
8. M83 – Graveyard Girl
9. The National Bank – Home
10. Morgan Geist – Detroit

P.S. Some notes:

“I will Possess Your Heart” is the most talented song of the year, really great, with this long intro especially. I didn’t include Morgan Geist’s “Most of All”, because the song was available in 2007, before the album. The National Bank’s “Home” is a bit cheesy, but I loved it, so it’s here. And Animal Collective’s “Brothersport” is not included, as it was leaked. The rest pretty much speaks for itself.

Assigning places to music is very hard and relative. I more or less managed with 1-20, though after the top 5, it was hard to decide what I liked better. And this all is very, very subjective. So, don’t judge - or do, it’s all up to you. I can only say that my favorite albums of the year were the great comebacks, Portishead, which was acknowledged by everyone, and underrated Tricky. Don’t know, but I found it a great album, and Tricky is still one of the best poets alive. And Jersey - these guys brought hours and hours of my listening to their new album. Concerned about being biased, I didn’t give them 1st place, but they come as #3 not because I happen to know them personally, but just because the album is so good! Anyway, here it goes - top 20 and other favorites whose places I wasn’t able to figure out.

1. Portishead – Third
2. Tricky – Knowle West Boy
3. Jersey – Itinerary
4. High Places – High Places
5. Flying Lotus – Los Angeles
6. The Sea and Cake – Car Alarm
7. The Cure – 4:13 Dream
8. M83 – Saturdays=Youth
9. Max Richter – 24 Postcards in Full Colour
10. Fujiya & Miyagi – Lightbulbs
11. Air France - No Way Down EP
12. Mogran Geist – Double Night Time
13. The Notwist – The Devil, You + Me
14. She & Him – Volume One
15. Koushik – Out My Window
16. Moscow Olympics – Cut The World
17. Psapp – The Camel’s Back
18. Animal Collective – Water Curses EP
19. Four Tet - Ringer (no review, but the EP is great)
20. Death Cab for Cutie – Narrow Stairs

Special Thanks:

Pram - Prisoner Of The Seven Pines EP
Kuryakin – Still Here EP
Max Tundra – Parallax Error Beheads You
Amadou & Mariam – Welcome To Mali
Hercules and Love Affair – Hercules and Love Affair
Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna
Annie – Don’t Stop (let’s consider it 2008)
Johann Johannsson – Fordlandia
Hauschka – Ferndorf
Simon Bookish – Everything/Everything
Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista
Rubies – Explode From The Center
Sigur Ros - ed sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust
Styrofoam – A Thousand Words
TV on the Radio – Dear Science
Ulrich Schnauss – Stars EP

The list of top tracks of 2008 is coming next.

Halou - Halou
[Vertebrae, 2008]

Halou have been making un-categorizable music for over ten years now. Dream pop, trip hop… you can look for analogs somewhere around these places, but Halou refuse to add themselves to any of those, and many more, styles. They really have their unique sound, somewhere between punk of the early Garbage, evergreen Cocteau Twins (by the way, note the appearance of Robin Guthrie on Professional, Evensong and Seabright). Ryan and Rebecca Coseboom are in no rush, it’s their fourth album since debut in 1995.

The main thing is that they don’t fall into the pop style, though the melodies are very singable and could be quite mainstream if treated differently. And on the other hand, they don’t get dragged into the realms of various kinds of electronic and indie styles. They’ve found a perfect spot somewhere in between, and stick to it. Some of the songs are lyrical and romantic, others are quite loud, most of them combine both. And everything is so fine-tuned and carefully written that you only realize that you’re listening on repeat, without quite being able to explain why.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace
Twitter
Halou inteview for Wired

Robin Guthrie - 3:19
[Darla, 2008]

3:19 is a soundtrack by Robin Guthrie, of the legendary Cocteau Twins. Melancholic, atmospheric, and really uplifting - not in a straighforward way. The real value of music is the ability to change something around you. And this is what 3:19 definitely can do. Piano tears, dreamy background create the lightest aura of a place where fairies are real, and anything is possible. The music is not dark - it is melancholic, but in a very light way. And it does somehow slide into what we call reality, into everyday life, routines, on the streets and in your room. Everything around you is the same, but at the same time so different - a feeling you cannot possibly describe, but you definitely feel it.

Not so much about the music itself, but this time I have no intention of doing any surgery on the album. The whole thing is inside your head, but also it does influence what you do, what you see. This is what real talent is about, and Robin Guthrie is this talent, making the music much more than just what you hear.

Read & Listen:
Official website (blog)
Myspace

iso68 - Space Frames
[Pingipung, 2008]

Space Frames is a great electronic/jazz album, mixing organic and inorganic elements to create a real joy for the ear. Thomas Leboeg (of Kante) and Florian Zimmer (of Jersey and Saroos) plus their numerous guests inluding Andreas Habert, Johannes Huth and Carsten Netz, I think did let their inner child play. Millions of metallic, plastic, fabric and other god knows what pieces defragmented, and then glued together in a collage of various styles. Listening to the album is like watching a child play with a new toy. Bursting creativity and definitely lots of fun. God is in the details. Highly recommended.

Read & Listen:
iso68 Webiste
iso68 Myspace
Label Website
Space Frames on Last.FM (several full tracks)

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Fordlândia
[4AD, 2008]

A masterful album that sounds like an Icelandic fairy-tale. The base for this album is Henry Ford’s unsuccessful venture of buying brazillian land in hope for harvesting rubber for tires. But the music has nothing to do with South America - it’s pure Iceland. Recorded in Prague with string orchestra (not the first time Johann Johannsson doing so), Fordlandia opens with a 14-minute title track, the first minute is silence, from which grows a beautiful melody. The whole album is pretty much like watching a flower grow and bloom - a very slow, but nonetheless beautiful process, the mystery of nature. Fordlandia itself is like a symbol of tranquility and serenity.

Melodia

Read & Listen:
Jóhann Jóhannsson Myspace
Jóhann Jóhannsson Official Website
Fordlandia mp3

In the closure of the year, I’m trying to fit everything that I listened to and liked into at least brief reviews. I realize how hopeless this is, but I’m still going to try, at least with some things. And I’ll probably cut the English reviews to just one or two sentences. As always, no certain plan, just going with the flow.

Metaform - Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
[Just, 2008]

This is just a great album. Instrumental (well, mostly, samples used) hip-hop, with hints of these “giants” that Justice Aaron (aka Metaform) used. Here and there - not only hip-hop, but also R’n'B, electronica, jazz… There’s been a lot of wonderful music, and Metaform is not copying. He’s fusing it all into a collection of beats in different frames. One moment, you think Squarepusher. Another - Japanese chill-out of the 90s, with the reminiscence of the 50s lounge. Underground dub, acid jazz, Mole Listening Pearls-like sounds… A lot of things you can remember - or almost remember - from past times.

And still, no copying, but instead catching the main details, and putting them into a new context - that’s pretty much what Metaform is doing. The title of the album speaks for itself. Living between Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo adds to the international and inter-temporal feel - sometimes you catch glimpses of Japanese childlike attitude, then the Western sturdy approach comes in. 19 tracks make up a nice collection of beats and grooves that make “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants” one of the most interesting findings of the year.

P.S. The closing Love and Loss in the beginning sounds so familiar that you are subconsciously waiting for “drive boy dog boy dirty numb angel boy”

Read & Listen:
Official Website
Myspace
Crush mp3
I Feel Good mp3

Amadou & Mariam - Welcome to Mali
[Because, 2008]

There’s always a need for music that would be poppy/easily digested enough and at the same time interesting. This album is exactly like this, which makes it somewhat of the “album of the season” thing. Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia are a married couple from Mali, and with their album they do what they say, welcome everyone to their country, Mali. World music is usually pretty narrow-targeted, with its own “fan base”, but “Welcomd to Mali” widens it immensly with the combination of ethnic motives and international rhythms.

In 2006 they appeared with a Manu Chao produced debut, Dimanche à Bamako, and the sophomore album attracts the attention of many more people. French-sung tracks don’t get in the way of making this music truly international - not only English can gain this status.

Sun-baked rhythms, without any commercial intention, an honest and direct dance music spread throughout all 15 album tracks. A successful combination of Southern and Western traditions. Here you get ethnic African beats and vocals, pro-Western rock guitars, notes of blues - music that united nations. And on top of it put disco beats, and… you can get something pretty ugly, but Amadou & Mariam know the right proportions, and this fusion really has it all. No wonder it caught the eye (or should I say the ear) of Damon Albarn, who co-worked with them on the opening Sabali - the most beautiful of songs that at once sets the expectation level. The sweet vocals of Mariam spread the thick african honey over the melodies. The rhythms are not just pumping, but delicately and subtly get inside the essence of dance. Burning hot, like scorching sand under the direct sun rays one minute, cold like a dessert in the moonlight another - the chemistry of this music makes it hard to stay put. It’s much easier to give in to the influence of these rhythmic patterns and vocal shamanism.

The brightest pieces of the album, apart from Sabali, are Ce N’est Pas Bon, Djama, Djuru, Afrika.

Ce N’est Pas Bon Live

Read & Listen:
Amadou & Mariam Myspace
Sabali mp3
DJuru mp3
Je Te Kiffe mp3