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Monday, December 29, 2008

Mr. Thistle's Top 50

Wowee Zowee! I don’t know about you, but 2008 was good to me. So good, I legitimately considered creating a top 100 year list and even then lamented not being able to highlight all the awesome stuff that I have listened to this year. A top 50 is ridiculous enough as it is. All you really have to do to check out more is scroll through our past posts anyway, right? Anyways, I have put some serious mind-melting effort into forming this list to my actual tastes and not to what I think that I should like or what I feel probably should have been higher on my list. Lists mutate over time anyway, but this is as close a representation of what I feel is the best 2008 has to offer as of year end. Stay tuned for when we resume posting again in 2009 because there is already some ridiculous releases on the horizon (Animal Collective, Belong, Avalanches, The Dirty Projectors). Hopefully we can keep up. Enjoy and remember to ridicule our lists and post your own in the comments section. Love Mr. Thistle.

1. Gang Gang Dance – Saint Dymphna

The album wherein GGD arranged the perfect marriage of urban electronics and primitive tribalism. Saint Dymphna acts like a faultless DJ mix by effortlessly meshing and sequencing the beautifully surreal with animalistic pop to take you places that you could never get to otherwise.

2. The Fun Years – Baby, It’s Cold Inside

It is hard to decide when an “ambient” record transitions from being good to being really good to being essential. With all the minimalist repetition involved, there is plenty of room to get lost in internal arguments for and against a given. Somehow, Baby, It’s Cold Inside never provided me an opportunity to doubt it. The Fun Years have created an ambiance drone record so intricate and lucid that it really shouldn’t be pegged as an ambient drone record at all. But for lack of a better genre to hang it under, that tag will have to remain. With a guitar and turntable, The Fun Years have produced magnificence. To these ears, this is beauty defined.

3. Deerhunter – Microcastle / Weird Era Cont.

A beguilingly simple double release of epic proportions, Microcastle and Weird Era Cont showcase Deerhunter’s dueling strengths: psychedelic experimentation and grandiose, laconic pop. In addition, no album this year has improved so much upon repeated listens. The release of Microcastle and Weird Era Cont marks Deerhunter as one of the very best bands working in indie rock today.

4. Women – Women

You know what? I just don’t get Women. One moment they’re all nice and flirty and the next they’ve descended into some moody atonal fit. Didn’t know if I was talking about the band or the gender for a second, did ya? Well, fortunately for the band, they can make a moody atonal fit sound just as wonderful as a picnic sunny with a loved one. On this, their debut self-titled release, Women have created an astoundingly self assured album filled front to back with pure rock genius.

5. The Hospitals – Hairdryer Peace

Hairdryer Peace is the most effed up record I have heard in a long time. The members of The Hospitals must have been going through some serious mental issues in order to produce something this pensive and grating. The thing is a bi-polar panic attack of epic proportions. There has been a lot of buzz about subterranean noise pop this year, but Hairdryer Peace is far more abrasive and cavernous than anything else out there. The Hospitals don’t make noise pop, they make pop noise.

6. Kurt Weisman – Spiritual Sci-fi

This album is so weird and so wonderful at the same time; I absolutely adore it. There really isn’t anything quite like it. A personal project created over the course of 10 years, Spiritual Sci-Fi is filled with layers upon layer of little bells and whistles to go along with Weisman’s pitch-shifted vocal delivery. The album title says it all…the cover on the other hand, not so much.

7. A Faulty Chromosome - As An Ex-Anorexic’s Six Sicks Exit, …

This is perhaps the most endearing record I heard all year. Coming from out of nowhere, A Faulty Chromosomes produced an effortless piece of unassuming indie dream-pop genius that held me over for months while I waited for 2008 to really get rolling, but even when the hits started to come out, As An Ex-Anorexic’s held strong. Oddly titled and ambivalently marketed, AFC’s debut is about as lovable as a record get. Consider me smitten. Microcastle obsessives just don’t know what they’re missing.

8. Amplifier Machine – Her Mouth Is An Outlaw

Pristine and introspective, Amplifier Machine is a testament to gorgeous moments building slowly into nothingness. Yep, no massive climactic moments here, just endless beauty. I have always been a sucker for anticlimaxes, but to describe Her Mouth Is An Outlaw as anticlimactic is counterintuitive. Amplifier Machine’s debut is that epic epiphany, that ultimate climax stretched out and played over seven tracks of immaculate wonder.

9. Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer

At Mount Zoomer is the most underrated major indie rock release of 2008, bar none. Wolf Parade have definitely turned a corner on this album, which is probably why a lot of critics have been shuffling their feet when reviewing it, but to disregard it on the basis that it isn’t Apologies to the Queen Mary is simply lazy. More patient and rock oriented, At Mount Zoomer is Wolf Parade growing into their own skin, At Mount Zoomer is Wolf Parade not caring what the indie rock public wants from them, At Mount Zoomer is…is…just awesome!

10. Alan Licht & Aki Onda – Everydays

To say that Alan Licht and Aki Onda’s collaborative effort on Everdays is all over the map is incorrect. Everydays has created an entirely new audio landscape of completely uncharted territory. Everydays is a visceral experience that avoids easy definitions. Suffice it to say that Licht and Onda have created something epic touching on everything that is good about contemporary experimental music.

11.The Walkmen – You & Me

12. Chad VanGaalen – Soft Airplane

13. Subtle – ExitingARM

14. Invincible – Shapeshifters

15. Belong – Same Places (Slow Version) 12”

16. Skeletons – Money

17. Scott Tuma – Not For Nobody

18. Juana Molina – Un Dia

19. Loma Prieta – Last City

20. Evangelicals – The Evening Descends

21. Wavves – S/T
22. MoHa! – One Way Ticket to Candyland
23. Lau Nau – Nukkuu
24. TV On The Radio – Dear Science,
25. Navigator – Songs for Mei and Satsuki
26. Dosh – Wolves and Wishes
27. Ponytail – Ice Cream Spiritual
28. Nat Baldwin – Most Valuable Player
29. Fennesz – Black Sea
30. Millipede - Hyrule
31. Colourmusic – F, Monday, Orange, February, Venus, Lunatic, 1 or 13
32. The Tallest Man on Earth – Shallow Grave
33. Black Pus – Black Pus 4: All Aboard the Magic Pus
34. PAS/CAL – I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke and Laura
35. Bird Names – Open Relationship
36. Capsule – Blue
37. Aufgehoben - Khora
38. Dwayne Sodahberk - Fjarilsfalu
39. Sun Kil Moon – April
40. Music Tapes – For Clouds and Tornadoes
41. Pumice - Quo
42. Our Sleepless Forest – S/T
43. Kemialliset Ystavat – Harmaa Laguuni
44. The Raveonettes – Lust, Lust, Lust
45. Peter Broderick – Float
46. Grouper – Dragging a Dead Dear Up a Hill
47. Janek Schaefer – Extended Play (triptych for the child survivor of war and conflict)
48. Clark – Turning Dragons
49. Pyramids – Pyramids
50. Raccoo-oo-oon – S/T

-Mr. Thistle

Friday, December 21, 2007

Mr. Thistles Top 50 of 2007

This list is the result of a constantly updated Excel spreadsheet that I have kept all year, so hopefully nothing deserving gets left out. The sad part is that I wasn’t able to listen to a few albums which I sampled (Sightings, John Wiese, Stars of the Lid, The North Sea) of which I am sure would have made the list. It is inevitable to miss a few though. At some point you just have to give up and post your list, right? Anyways, we’ll get to all those records on FG eventually. Having thoroughly enjoyed this year’s musical fruits I have opted to further inundate you with the ten picks preceding my top 50 albums of 2007 (51-60). This is essentially for my own piece of mind. I already feel horrible for some of the enjoyable albums I have cut (such is the mindset of a music obsessed geek). Hopefully the addition won’t be viewed as too pompous or overwhelming (a general characteristic of ‘lists’ as a whole anyway – I love them though!). You may note that I have also updated my top ten from the time that it was graciously featured in Slowtrain’s year end music-zine. It’s just been that kind of year. In the end, this list represents what has endured and what was just hype. Seeing as how I have give out a virtual 8.5 to everything I have reviewed (I review what I like, so what), we are discussing the potential of removing scoring all together from Forest Gospel’s album features (give us your opinion on this!). The goodness of an album can fluctuate based on mood and time as this list prove. These are the albums that held strong through the thick and thin, hope you likey…(PS – please share your agreements, disagreements and your own list [I know you have one] in the comments; be a virtual friend)

1. Sunset Rubdown – Random Spirit Lover – The most multi faceted package of pure orchestrated incredibleness. It has been a long time since I have been so enamored with something so easily labeled ‘indie rock.’

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.

3. Pumice – Pebbles – My first true love of 2007. While it has been slightly upstaged by the albums I’ve placed in front of it, Pebbles is the kind of music that I wish that I would’ve created. Spanning territory from pop to drone to everything else in-between, Pumice is a versatile genius. Also, this would be a suitable blurb without the writing lo-fi.

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