2. Grouper – Cover the Windows and the Walls – In comparison, nothing else on this list deserves to be called haunting. One of the most beautiful records I have ever listened to.
4. Shugo Tokumaru – Exit – Imaginative folk pop perfection of the Japanese variety. Better than just about anything else you could be forced to call ‘charming.’
5. Aa (BIG A Little A) – Gaame – In a year with some great drumming, Aa’s Gaame has the best. Varied, wonderful, frantic rock that is the progressive as it is primal.
6. Yellow Swans – At All Ends / Descension EP – Devistatingly loud and coarse yet beautiful.
7. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago – The second most beautiful album of the year would be the most beautiful in any year that Grouper’s Cover the Windows and the Walls. Melancholy songwriting at its best.
8. Tim Hecker – Norberg - A puffy, billowy cloud of electro-acoustic bliss in just over twenty minutes. One singularly perfect, transcendent excursion.
9. Raccoo-oo-oon – Behold Secret Kingdom – A production miracle, Raccoo-oo-oon has taken everything that has made them mysterious noise rock maestros and channeled it into a crisp, resilient beast of a record. Behold Secret Kingdom is their masterpiece.
10. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam – poppy and weird, Animal Collective continue to knock the socks off every, regardless of when and where you heard them first. Perfect for old timey AC fans and nubes alike.
11. Wooden Wand – James & The Quiet – Pure, strong American songwriting of incredible quality. One of the most critically underrated albums of the year in my view.
12. No Age – Weirdo Rippers - Turning arty noise rock into accessible slabs of punk perfection. One of my favourite new bands of 2007.
13. Marnie Stern – In Advance of the Broken Arm - Incredible guitar work supplemented by incredible drumming from Hella. Marnie Stern’s debut was the first great CD I heard in 2007 and it is still as beautifully dangerous as ever.
14. Ben Frost – Theory of Machines – The pure combination of machine and humanity, Ben Frost’s Theory of Machines is an apocalyptic exercise in grinding cinematics.
15. Deerhoof – Friend Opportunity – The most accessible album from one of the best experimental indie rock bands of our generation. An early release date may have caused a lot of people to forget about this one. Amazingly amazing.
16. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup – Didn’t hit the heights of Elephant Gun for me, but was definitely a solid effort in music that can only be measured in terms of grandeur. Blissfully reaffirming music from the boy wonder.
17. Mark Templeton – Standing on a Hummingbird – organic, glitchy, kaleidoscopic, gorgeous.
18. Navigator –
Throwing Toungues – An on honest, penetrating album of lo-fi bedroom songs that require repeat listens.
19. Gowns – Red State – gothic Americana with a twinge of no wave. Gowns created an enrapturing, claustrophobic document of Middle America with Red State.
20. Shuta Hasunuma – OK Bamboo – Low key piano experiments that practically spell ‘pleasant’ without loosing its engaging touch.
21. Rhys Chatham – A Crimson Grail – Wildly powerful live document of 400 guitars playing like 400 guitars should; loud and long.
22. Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan – Pullhair Rubeye – While the concept that managed to piss off more than its fair share, Pullhair Rubeye is much more than a gimmick and nothing less than what Animal Collective fans should have come to expect of an album with Avey Tare.
23. The Lionelle – Oh! The Company We Keep! – This album did for me what Portugal. The Man did last year, produced a sharp indie rock record with which to simply rock.
24. Stag Hare – Ahspen – A single track of gorgeousness from the enigmatic sound voyage.
25. Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals – I still hear Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon here and I think Yeasayer is all the better for it.
26. The National – Boxer – A classic down tempo album of for any occasion.
27. Blonde Redhead – 23 – I retried this album after initially discarding it and fell in love. Thank you Sassigrass!
28. Morgan Packard – Airships Fill The Sky – Check the review from last week.
29. Giant Skyflower Band – Blood of the Sunworm – Glenn Donaldson strikes again with more psych folk pleasantries that never dip below his standard of genius.
30. Health – Health – This self titled album sounds like filling a car with discordant guitars and pedals along with a full drums set and a thousand drum sticks and then driving the whole thing off a cliff. It’s that good.
31. WZT Hearts – Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones – Um, this album is kind of like watching the crash of the car in the previous blurb filmed and shown in reverse. Kinda.
32. Radiohead – In Rainbows – A solid release from the Radiohead camp will always find a way onto my year end list, whether revolutionary or not.
33. The Dirty Projectors – Rise Above – Dave has long been one of my favourite musicians and Rise Above seems to be his great achievement after numerous recordings with scattered results.
34. Machinefabriek – Weleer – Two discs of compiled beauty from the Dutch experimentalist. If you like avant garde music, this album has a little bit of everything for you.
35. Angels of Light – We Are Him – Michael Gira has had a lot of admirers this year with dedicatory songs from Ben Frost and Klimek and We Are Him is the reason why. No one does gothic Americana quite as heavily or good as him.
36. Deerhunter – Cryptograms – This album is everything that critics have said about it. It isn’t hard to find someone gushing over Deerhunter this year.
37. Shining – Grindstone – Spastic, orchestral Norwegian metal…how couldn’t you like it.
38. Julianna Barwick – Sanguine – This album sounds like the more innocent, younger sister to Grouper’s Cover the Windows and the Walls. With that said, it is no wonder that it is so enriching.
39. Kemialliset Ystavat – untitled – This album is possibly the most bizarre on this list and is all the better for it. It sounds like packing a bomb with as many musical ideas as possible and the lighting the wick and watching to see how everything is blown to pieces.
40. Adrian Orange & Her Band – S/T – I have never liked Thanksgiving (Adrian Orange’s moniker) too much but something about this release, with its dub influences and choral embellishments is just impossible not to fall for.
41. Luke Temple – Snowbeast – A subtle, melancholic romp through some of the most exciting pop made all year.
42. James Blackshaw – The Cloud of Unknowing – meditative 12 string guitar picking that are simply transporting in their dreamy composition.
43. Battles – Mirrored – Wildly talented instrumental rock. In fact, this is about the only thing that has been exciting about instrumental rock for quite a few year
44. Andrew Bird – Armchair Apocrypha – an understated album from one of the wittiest muscians on the independent landscape.
45. Mouthus – Saw a Halo – The record that was most likely to have been mixed and mastered in a trash compactor.
46. Fiery Furnaces – Widow City – Fiery Furnaces at their most rocking and consistent.
47. The Tenants of Balathazar’s Castle – A Capella – Hushed, looped vocal experiments that are as surprisingly rewarding as they are unique.
48. Blues Control – Blues Control – Scuzzy blues ragas washed with noisy effects pedals.
49. Clipd Beaks – Hoarse Lords – No wave album of the year.
50. A Sunny Day In Glasgow – Scribble Mural Comic Journal – If Fennesz was in a pop band, this is probably how it would end up.
51. Pantha du Prince – This Bliss
52. Seabear – The Ghost That Carried Us Away
53. MoHa! – Norwegianism
54. Besnard Lakes – Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse
55. M.I.A. – Kala
56. Eric Copeland – Hermaphrodite
57. Vic Chesnutt – North Star Desert
58. Mike Wexler – Sun Wheel
59. Woelv – Tout Seui Dans la Foret en Plein Jour, Avez-Vous Peur?
60. Handsome Furs – Plague Park
-Mr. Thistle
