|
When I realized that half my bandmates don't even own a CD player
I knew it was over. The days of the cohesive album are for old
farts. Here's my top ten for 2009, a year with some interesting
developments and omissions. The best songs helped weight some
of the best albums. Where's the beef? Let the salvos begin.
1. In sheer weight, mass and volume, the 4 LP set on Honest Jon's
called "Open Strings" is one of the finest box set art
packages in years. The premise is simple, two LPs of stellar unearthed
Turkish, Egyptian, Iraqi and Iranian 78's recorded in the 20's
and '30s (that's 1920 and 1930 for you futurists) and two LPs
of modern experimentalists recordings in response and repose,
featuring the usual cast of characters Sir Richard Bishop, Paul
Metzger and Six Organs of Admittance for starters. The early recordings
on oud, santour and fiddle are austere and beautiful; the new
responses are measured and modal. Best song: "Surfin' UAE"
by Rick Tomleson.
2. Mark McGuire "Solo Acoustic Guitar Volume Two" VDSQ
which stands for Vin Du Select Qualitite is another limited LP
release capsulating the moment's shape of acoustic finger-styling
in 2009. Mark McGuire is the guitarist from the gauze-noise-new-age
band Emeralds and his acoustic guitarwerks use looping, repetition
and expansion just like his band does, but it's all the more interesting
and warm when played on a steel six-string. "Front Porch
Blues" is the standout track. The label is releasing a series
of modern acoustic guitar players, and the Joshua Emery Blatchley
(Volume One) release is also highly recommended. Put your James
Blackshaw records away...
3. Josephine Foster "Graphic As A Star" on the Fire
Records imprint is another sparkling experimental gem from this
under-rated songstress. Featuring some of the sparest and direct
recordings in her cannon (some tracks are lone voice) the surprise
here is that for folks like me that put poetry next to opera on
the shelf, this is like a lonesome cowgirl singing in a cabin
by the fire and the recording on vinyl is amazing for its' presence
and immediacy. The songs are built around Emily Dickenson's poetry,
'Foster-ized' by her oratorio and some unique and simple uke and
guitar. "I Could Bring You Jewels -Had I A Mind To"
is representative of some of the great short gems on this disc.
The birds in the background were surely singing in response to
Miss Foster's beautiful voice. For those who still think Joni
Mitchell's pinnacle was "Blue", here's one like it.
5. Alela Diane "To Be Still" on Rough Trade is yet another
example of "the girls rule" in 2009. Here is another
disc of simple joys, with great and inviting melodies in a pastoral
folk setting including the title track. In a year with other excellent
discs by Samantha Crain, Espers and the above Josephine Foster,
the ladies have given us quite a treat.
4. Richmond Fontaine "We Used to Think the Freeway Was A
River" (Arena Rock Records) is another fine release by Willy
Vlautin and the boys. Here is the most complex and layered 'Americana'
Richmond Fontaine have recorded, sounding at times like the National
and Nitzsche-era Neil Young solo production, all the richer for
it. There's even a hint of Springsteen in the anthemic rockers
on the disc ("You Can Move Back Here"), but as good
as novelist Vlautin is with words, it's the simplest track "Watch
Out" with only two short stanzas repeated, that cuts the
deepest.
6. Patterson Hood's solo release "Murdering Oscar" on
Ruth St. Records finds our Drive-By Trucker pal in fine form as
a chronicler of the edges of suburban middle-class (and lower).
His wry "Screwtopia" asks the question "SUV or
mini-van..." and it makes a lot of sense. This release is
a tie with the DBT's "The Fine Print" on New West which
features the tracks that didn't make the albums, mostly recorded
between 2003 & 2005. It makes for a fine case of having folks
outside the band sequence the releases (or just stick 'em up as
unlabeled mp3s) in that some of these tracks like Jason Isbels
"TVA" are so good you can't believe they didn't make
the cut.
7. Om came out with their most sobering release this year in "God
Is Good" on Drag City. The vinyl has amazing clarity and
ominism. "It's all one long tune" Neil Young has said,
and in this case that may be true. The standout "Cremation
Ghat I" mixes doom & gloom with sitars. Sign me up. This
is stoner metal for the thinking man.
8. Emeralds eponymous "Emeralds" release came out on
Wagon/Gneiss Things in limited LP fashion on swirly-green fissured
and crackled vinyl late in the year. This band is extremely prolific
and loose with it's recordings. There are probably 60 various
cassettes, CDRs, EPs and splinter fragments circulating on the
net, and it is a joy to watch the band's trajectory getting more
cohesive, melodic, experimental and beautiful, all at the same
time. Emeralds weaves warm and gauzy analog synths, mutated guitar
and droning pulse-beats into something new and mesmerizing. Kid's
these days... they say the darndest things, with their Dad's old-school
New Age and Kraut records somehow being transmuted into an indie-psych-hipster
amalgam.
9. Magnolia Electric Co's "Josephine" on Secretly Canadian
was worth the wait. Front man Jason Molina (Songs:Ohia) has been
playing some of these songs live since 2005, and must have been
saving them until a cohesive album showed itself on the 'horizon'
to cite one of his more frequent lyrical metaphors used. Some
of the re-workings are for the better, some more cluttered and
careful (as illustrated on the demo version of "Josephine"
found on an excellent 45 with another great song "Rider.Shadow.Wolf"
left off the release). A favorite live song "Whip-Poor Will"
lost it's poignant trumpet solo but keeps it's feel with lines
like "Some of us aren't doing well/At the Southern Cross
Hotel..." In an alternate universe, this would be all over
FM radio.
10. Jay Farrar and Ben Gibbard put out a solid project with Atlantic
called "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone" using the paraphrased
'lyrics' of Jack Kerouac to tell the story of his dissolution
writing the novel "Big Sur". Haven't seen the movie
yet. The stand-out title track is the best song of the year. Somehow
simple chords can be made fresh again in the hands of two professional
worksman-like writers. This one is a late-starter, that rewards
more and more on repeated listenings.
REISSUES of the Year: Get two honorable mentions. The first is
well worth seeking out, Peter Walker's "Rainy Day Raga"
orignally released in 1966 on Vanguard (now on Harte Records),
features proto-raga guitar filtered through Walker's role as the
musical "choreographer" for Timothy Leary's New York
Academic experiments (aw, go ahead and call 'em parties). There
are some amazingly advanced modal folk romps here, including the
standout "Norwegian Mood" which lightly references some
Mop-tops across the pond. This one was going for $50 bucks on
eBay, so even better to see it re-issued.
Another stellar effort from the Sundazed crew is the vinyl re-issue
of the lost gem by the Holy Modal Rounders "Good Taste Is
Timeless". This one came out in 1971, and as a budding folkster
entering high-school in the early seventies, somehow this came
across our desk and bluegrass and folk music were never the same
again. The standouts are "Spring of '65 and "The Whole
World Oughta Go On A Vacation". Good advice, indeed... -Uncle
Jeff
|