(no subject)
favourite albums of 2007 (top 5, though not ordered)
jennifer gentle - the midnight room
formerly a duo, the now solo marco fasolo is an italian man channeling syd barrett while locked inside some remote italian castle. fasolo plays ever creepy note himself, his musical vision so devoted it's almost unsettling. these are pop songs, but there's nothing comforting about them (a trait they share with Liars). seeing them in august was exactly as i had hoped: a madcap non-stop jittery barrage of their zaniest bits played expertly by a sizable band. barrett is still the biggest influence that comes to mind, with their shared paranoid reverb and meandering queasy melodies. The best songs on here sound like the kinks on bad acid soundtracking a funeral for a clown.
liars - liars
liars have found a sound. after a lot of often-interesting-but-not-always-pleasant experimental electro-trash, they've finessed their groove on their newest s/t. melding the deep pulse and broken ragas of their previous drums not dead with a newfound sense of confidence and pop sensibilities, liars go for broke on an eclectic grab bag veering from dub to metal to synthpop with a steady, eerie aplomb. a fierce gumbo of t-rex's riffs, joy division's bittersweet isolation, spoon's groove and animal collective's mania as produced by lee "scratch" perry. This would be a good place to start but wouldn't do justice to these sometimes abrasive yet immaculately anthemic songs. gauzy freaky droney poppy goodness. ramones on robitussen.
the besnard lakes - are the dark horse
I first encountered this band when they opened for the unicorns at kraftbrau in kalamazoo in 2005. Possibly the polar opposite of that band (though more akin to nick diamonds current islands) the lakes played careful dirges, slowly unpacked yet hopeful and occasionally compelling. Their debut record mimicked the live show and was relegated to the realm of pretty-good. Skip to 2007 and nothing could prepare me for the besnard lakes are the dark horse from the sweet falsetto of opening track "Disaster" to the psychedelic march of closer "Cedric's War", this album hooked me from the start with its classic touchstones filtered through up-to-the-minute production. The clockwork build-ups, ample tremolo and big buoyant zeppelin guitars recall early spiritualized while the vocal harmonies and studio mastery are straight-up brian wilson. Maybe frontman and sound engineer Jace Lasek was tired of the stripped down fare he was producing for wolf parade and frog eyes and wanted to unleash his own inner prog-opus; or perhaps he caught on to the magnificent prog-pop of the arcade fire and the dirty projectors and thought "hey, me too!". Whatever the reason, I thank the stars for this catchy, confident, transcendent release.
caribou - andorra
Another studio whiz kid who finally brought it all together in 2007. Dan Snaith is an expat Canadian in London who for years has been dabbling in kraut-rock drum assaults and woozy summertime guitar lines, sometimes to succesful ends but just as often to meandering tedium. All is forgiven on andorra, where this erstwhile PhD of mathematics (really!) lets his perfectionist flag fly on a collection of deep, immaculate pop songs. It's summer of love choruses filtered through post-shoegaze IDM like Boards of Canada or M83, brought into gorgeous technicolor by Snaith's technical skill and increasingly capable pipes. Seeing them live in October, I was instantly energized by the barrage of electronics, grab-bag instrumental fills, and multiple drum-set percussive assaults. At least for one record, Caribou has found a single direction and pursued it to glorious ends.
panda bear - person pitch
in his solo work, animal collective's noah lennox (aka panda bear) shys away from his band's kitchen-sink maximalism and jet engine propulsion but retains and perhaps enhances their penchant for airy incandescent whimsy and ancient spiritual melodic meditation. as grandly operatic as his previous young prayer was intensely personal, here panda bear throws open the doors and lets some light shine on the type of droning cyclic samples usually bent inward and intent on (ahem) shoegazing. the resulting record is drenched in moving paradox: infinite and endless yet built on echo and repetition, heavy with layered reverb yet bouyant with blissed-out and disarmingly clear melodies. like AC, liars, and the newer of montreal, lennox's vision and experimentalism is bent on creating a future out of rock's past instead of simply rehashing it. person pitch is perfectly executed ambition, something unique and crucial enough to encompass and transcend genre. while i am terrible at picking favourites, i will point to this record as perhaps the most important of the year.
other favourites:
grails - burning off impurities
klaxons - myths of the near future
menonomena - friend and foe
of montreal - hissing fauna are you the destroyer
battles - mirrored
animal collective - strawberry jam
architecture in helsinki - places like this
deerhoof - friend opportunity
ghost - in stormy nights
headdress - turquoise
mum - go go smear the poison ivy
radiohead - in rainbows
pop levi - the return to form black magick party
swan lake - beast moans
white rabbits - fort nightly
as always, there were a ton of albums that probably would/should have been on here, had i sought them out or given them enough time. alas, i've only two ears.
jennifer gentle - the midnight room
formerly a duo, the now solo marco fasolo is an italian man channeling syd barrett while locked inside some remote italian castle. fasolo plays ever creepy note himself, his musical vision so devoted it's almost unsettling. these are pop songs, but there's nothing comforting about them (a trait they share with Liars). seeing them in august was exactly as i had hoped: a madcap non-stop jittery barrage of their zaniest bits played expertly by a sizable band. barrett is still the biggest influence that comes to mind, with their shared paranoid reverb and meandering queasy melodies. The best songs on here sound like the kinks on bad acid soundtracking a funeral for a clown.
liars - liars
liars have found a sound. after a lot of often-interesting-but-not-always-pleasant experimental electro-trash, they've finessed their groove on their newest s/t. melding the deep pulse and broken ragas of their previous drums not dead with a newfound sense of confidence and pop sensibilities, liars go for broke on an eclectic grab bag veering from dub to metal to synthpop with a steady, eerie aplomb. a fierce gumbo of t-rex's riffs, joy division's bittersweet isolation, spoon's groove and animal collective's mania as produced by lee "scratch" perry. This would be a good place to start but wouldn't do justice to these sometimes abrasive yet immaculately anthemic songs. gauzy freaky droney poppy goodness. ramones on robitussen.
the besnard lakes - are the dark horse
I first encountered this band when they opened for the unicorns at kraftbrau in kalamazoo in 2005. Possibly the polar opposite of that band (though more akin to nick diamonds current islands) the lakes played careful dirges, slowly unpacked yet hopeful and occasionally compelling. Their debut record mimicked the live show and was relegated to the realm of pretty-good. Skip to 2007 and nothing could prepare me for the besnard lakes are the dark horse from the sweet falsetto of opening track "Disaster" to the psychedelic march of closer "Cedric's War", this album hooked me from the start with its classic touchstones filtered through up-to-the-minute production. The clockwork build-ups, ample tremolo and big buoyant zeppelin guitars recall early spiritualized while the vocal harmonies and studio mastery are straight-up brian wilson. Maybe frontman and sound engineer Jace Lasek was tired of the stripped down fare he was producing for wolf parade and frog eyes and wanted to unleash his own inner prog-opus; or perhaps he caught on to the magnificent prog-pop of the arcade fire and the dirty projectors and thought "hey, me too!". Whatever the reason, I thank the stars for this catchy, confident, transcendent release.
caribou - andorra
Another studio whiz kid who finally brought it all together in 2007. Dan Snaith is an expat Canadian in London who for years has been dabbling in kraut-rock drum assaults and woozy summertime guitar lines, sometimes to succesful ends but just as often to meandering tedium. All is forgiven on andorra, where this erstwhile PhD of mathematics (really!) lets his perfectionist flag fly on a collection of deep, immaculate pop songs. It's summer of love choruses filtered through post-shoegaze IDM like Boards of Canada or M83, brought into gorgeous technicolor by Snaith's technical skill and increasingly capable pipes. Seeing them live in October, I was instantly energized by the barrage of electronics, grab-bag instrumental fills, and multiple drum-set percussive assaults. At least for one record, Caribou has found a single direction and pursued it to glorious ends.
panda bear - person pitch
in his solo work, animal collective's noah lennox (aka panda bear) shys away from his band's kitchen-sink maximalism and jet engine propulsion but retains and perhaps enhances their penchant for airy incandescent whimsy and ancient spiritual melodic meditation. as grandly operatic as his previous young prayer was intensely personal, here panda bear throws open the doors and lets some light shine on the type of droning cyclic samples usually bent inward and intent on (ahem) shoegazing. the resulting record is drenched in moving paradox: infinite and endless yet built on echo and repetition, heavy with layered reverb yet bouyant with blissed-out and disarmingly clear melodies. like AC, liars, and the newer of montreal, lennox's vision and experimentalism is bent on creating a future out of rock's past instead of simply rehashing it. person pitch is perfectly executed ambition, something unique and crucial enough to encompass and transcend genre. while i am terrible at picking favourites, i will point to this record as perhaps the most important of the year.
other favourites:
grails - burning off impurities
klaxons - myths of the near future
menonomena - friend and foe
of montreal - hissing fauna are you the destroyer
battles - mirrored
animal collective - strawberry jam
architecture in helsinki - places like this
deerhoof - friend opportunity
ghost - in stormy nights
headdress - turquoise
mum - go go smear the poison ivy
radiohead - in rainbows
pop levi - the return to form black magick party
swan lake - beast moans
white rabbits - fort nightly
as always, there were a ton of albums that probably would/should have been on here, had i sought them out or given them enough time. alas, i've only two ears.