Good Year for the First Half of the Alphabet

Time for the top ten albums of 2009. Here they are, in alphabetical order. It's a weird list this year, in that:

a) almost all the artists start with a letter between A and M,
b) there's very little rock, as such, on it, and
c) it's probably very unrepresentative of what people have actually been listening to this year.

There's just so much music out there, and I've spent most of 2009 quite broke and therefore not wanting to know what I was missing out on, that I feel like what I did end up discovering could seem very random and full of glaring omissions. I mean, I haven't checked these picks against those of the fascist trendy tastemakers yet or anything. Many of these albums were all picked up at one particular time in the summer when Alison and I were about to drive to Maine, so we'd have new stuff to listen to, so that portion of the year is probably over-represented. And I know there are albums on here that fans would say are not even the best albums by the artists who put them out. But this is just what I happened to stumble upon in my bumbling way and enjoy, so make your own list if you think it's not an accurate reflection of the year's best.

One other thing: I've included a sample streaming track from each album this year so you can hear what I'm talking about and see whether you agree with me. As the whole post is intended to convince people to buy the albums listed, I hope this blatant copyright infringement won't offend anyone. But if it does, I will gladly remove any and all of these tracks. Thanks.


Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
I know this one's going to be on a lot of people's lists. And so it should be. It seems like after that Panda Bear album did so well AC decided they should try to make music for the masses. I guess that means it's a little less weird than their previous stuff, but they've gone through a pretty natural evolution to get to this place, and it's highly enjoyable, and it's still not exactly The Beatles or anything. I mean, are you really going to force yourself not to like something this catchy and celebratory just because everyone else does? Is that even possible? Come on, man.


Bat for Lashes
Two Suns
This is one of those might-not-be-as-good-as-some-earlier-work-but-it's-the-first-thing-I-heard-and-I-love-it-so-screw-ya entries mentioned above. It's very spooky/romantic in a Kate Bush kind of way, so I suppose you have to be in the right kind of mood for it. But it gives me the shivers and makes me feel like I'm in high school again. That might not sound like a good thing, and I don't have time to figure out why it is in this case, so just take my word for it and check it out.


Bibio
Ambivalence Avenue
Another discovery after the fact. In fact, it seems this guy put out another album earlier this very year which may be even better than this one. I guess one of these days I'll get around to listening to it. This one reminds me a little of Caribou, in that it sounds like a guy who's into electronic music trying to make folk songs. Except Bibio's a bit funkier and more dance-oriented. Very pleasant on a long car trip, for instance from Nova Scotia to Maine.


Cass McCombs
Catacombs
Cass McCombs, on the other hand, sounds like a guy who's into folk music trying to make electronica. I suppose that makes him somewhat like Smog/Bill Callahan, who also put out an album this year that almost made it onto this list. McCombs doesn't sing as low as that guy, but his lyrics are similarly dark and/or personal. The songs are pretty and generally a bit more tuneful. I think he has some association with M. Ward too. He probably has other albums, some of which may or may not be better than this one. I should really find these things out if I'm going to pretend to be some kind of expert, eh?


Dog Day
Concentration
The only local release on this list. That probably makes me a jerk, as I'm sure there were lots of wonderful albums released by other Haligonian artists this year. But, as you may be starting to gather, I'm not exactly with it these days. At least, that's the excuse I'm going to stick with. I like this album at least twice as much as Dog Day's first one, and that's saying a heck of a lot.


Fever Ray
Fever Ray
Do you already know about this? Do I need to explain that it's the woman from electronic duo The Knife? I'll assume I do. You know how that The Knife album had that one really cool song, but then everything else, even though it was very spooky and weird, had this kind of goofiness to it that you just couldn't quite embrace or ignore? Well, this record managed to ditch the goofiness, while maintaining the darkness, including the super creepy Laurie Anderson style pitch-shifted vocals. Does that mean I'm saying the guy in The Knife is a goof? Maybe it does.


The Flaming Lips
Embryonic
I've already gone on at length about this album elsewhere. Here's another song, in case you weren't convinced by the first one. My friend Charles criticizes them for ripping off other bands, specifically Can on Embryonic. But I just can't not like it, no matter how hard I try. And I'm a very big Can fan. So that makes it legit, in my book. Kanye West made a whole song directly out of a Can sample, for Pete's sake, and I'm sure he made a lot more money off it than Wayne Coyne will see for his trouble on this awesome but very uncommercial record.


Tim Hecker
An Imaginary Country
Ambient electronics. If you like that kind of stuff, which I do, Tim Hecker produces some of the best that's out there. If it bores the hell out of you, well, you won't like this. If you're on the fence, give this track a try. You can listen carefully to the gorgeous attention to detail here, or let it envelope you in a blissed-out meditative fog, or you can just put it on in the background while you're working and not be distracted by it at all while you remain mysteriously calm. So many states of consciousness accessible through one artist's music... and he's Canadian too!


Mountains
Choral
Mountains are very ambient too, but not so electronic. Choral sounds to me like a hi-fi, long-play version of the Buddha Machine. The band name is appropriate because this music is beautiful and pastoral, rather than purely hypnotic. Dare I compare it to early Popol Vuh? The CD sleeve says this actually came out in 2008, but iTunes lists it as 2009 when I load it in, and it wasn't on last year's list, so it definitely deserves a spot here, even if it's not quite contemporary with the other entries.


Phoenix
Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
I'm sure you've already heard this album. It's everywhere. I'm pretty sure I heard this song in a Cadillac commercial. We used to call that "selling out." Now it's called "making a buck however you can, what with everyone and her grandmother putting out music and no one buying it." So what? Good for them, I say. If you somehow have avoided the hype, they're French and they sound like The Strokes. They're also undeniably catchy, to the extent that they made it onto this list despite ruining the near-perfect alphabetic pattern mentioned in the title of this post. And you KNOW I love a good alphabetic pattern.

Honourable mentions:
Sonic Youth The Eternal
Air Love 2 (See? This one would have made the list completely regular. AND they're also French! Damn you, Phoenix!)

Some Good News

Hey, guess what? Sherman Hines paid me the money he owed me! Or, rather, he paid the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Workforce Development, Labour Standards Division, and they paid me. Big thanks to Sandra McDougall, Labour Standards Officer, who took on the complaint and extracted a settlement.

Otherwise, news around here has been all Christmas gatherings and shows. Al Tuck played last Friday with the band that recorded Brave Last Days with him, i.e. Tracy Stevens, Brock Caldwell, and Charles Austin. It was a very special show at Tribeca. Sounded great, everyone had a good time, and there were lots of familiar faces there, including some out-of-towners. That's one nice thing about Christmastime — catching up with the expats.

The Lodge also played a show on the weekend, at the Paragon. It was a benefit for kids at the IWK hospital, and I was happy to see a pretty good turnout for a cold Sunday night. Nice intimate atmosphere in that place. This show went a heck of a lot better than our last one there. In fact, we were pretty darn good, if I may say so.

Speaking of which, our album, Take That, Devil showed up yesterday in the number two spot on Herohill's top five local recordings of the year. We were beat out only by Joel Plaskett, whose recording was a very ambitious triple album. Not too shabby! Guess it's time to put together my own top ten list...

How to Prepare for Winter

1. Reread Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters for the first time in decades, both in one week. Maybe skip Seymour, an Introduction.

2. On a late afternoon in early December, go out for a long walk.

3. Forget about Christmas. Just don't even think about it. It's cancelled this year.

4. See the decorations on people's houses and lawns. Notice how pretty some of them are.

5. As with all seasonal changes, it's all about the trees and the sky. Check out the bare branches against the grey-blue-brown smoke texture. Look at the pale sun region trying to shine in the middle of the swirling haze.

6. When it starts getting dark, admire all the lights that come on. Think about the crazy amount of work that humans do to make what is basically an alternate reality for themselves to live in, just because they like things to look a certain way. Even if a lot of that work's results don't come anywhere near achieving the expressive and aesthetic standards you think preferable and know possible, it's still pretty goddamn impressive that so many members of our species are willing to spend that much time and energy working on it. I mean, look at it! It's everywhere!

7. Rent The Royal Tenenbaums.

8. Cry when Margot walks off the bus in slow motion to Nico's "These Days," a perfect expression of inescapable and hopeless love on her face. Laugh when Gene Hackman says, "Oh, no no... that's um... dog's blood."

9. Pay special attention to the cemetery and rooftop scenes — the saturated foreground browns against the cold grey-blue sky. There's those tree branches again!

10. The next day, after it has snowed for the first really substantial time, go out for another long afternoon walk. This time, look at how the snow on the trees brings out their three-dimensionality, like a sort of reverse shading. It's as if they're being illuminated from above by a very bright spotlight.

11. Write down everything you are feeling. Try hard not to emulate Salinger, but allow yourself one "goddamn," just as a tribute.

Now you're all set! Enjoy the show for the next five months or so.

Watch Out — Hot Iron Coming Through!

There's been an awful lot of design work going on around here, which explains why I never seem to have much in the way of personal anecdotes these days. The good news is that some of the work I've been doing is actually kind of fun, and I'm even — maybe "proud" is not quite the right word, pride being one of not only the seven deadly sins but also the ten fetters in Buddhism blocking the way to samsara; so let's say "unashamed"; yes, that seems right — I'm even, I say, unashamed of some of the results. For instance, here's a logo I just finished for a video store in Wolfville. It's the kind of store that doesn't have the largest selection of movies, but is very picky about the quality of movies it stocks, and even takes some unashamedness in some of its more obscure titles, if I may be so anthropomorphistic. We went through the whole branding procedure together, including defining all the core brand values and naming the place. It's really nice when you get to be part of the entire process from start to finish like that.


And, while I'm at it, I don't think I've shown you my own logo, have I? Obviously, I was in on this entire branding process too, a process which is not exactly finished, as I'm still working on my website. I don't know how many of you out there are web designers, but it sure is a different kettle of fish from designing for print. I've done some of it before, but never actually the production part where you lay everything out in a web designing program and eventually make a live, interactive site that has to look right on all browsers and monitors, etc. It's finnicky and unrewarding! I'm really starting to see why tech-savvy web people and designers are always butting heads and talking past each other. It's like two completely different languages that are in no way intertranslatable. I'm developing a lot more tolerance — well some more tolerance, anyway, which I guess is not really saying very much — for all the messy and just plain hideous websites out there. The internet does not make good design easy. Stoopid internet. Anyways, here's the logo:


I'm just about finished branding a third company, too. My friends Jen and Aidan's gluten-free retail business. It's called Schoolhouse Gluten-Free Gourmet, and the logo has a nice (if I may say so) drawing of the old schoolhouse wherein they make all their products. I'll show it to you once it's finalized. Their tagline, which is necessary because after about a million rounds we finally had to admit that we couldn't get all the core values and character traits into the name without making it either religious- or medical-sounding, is "Taste the Possibilities."

"Hey, man, what's with all the taglines, and why is every one of them in the imperative mood?" I hear you asking impatiently, and I don't really have a good answer except that maybe after getting bossed around by finicky clients all day it feels good to boss their customers around a bit, even if it's in an inviting sort of way. Make of that what you will.™