80. Midlake: The Trials of Van Occupanther
Midlake is one of those bands that really don't sound like they should be releasing albums in this decade. Everything about the band screams 70s folk rock: the vocal harmonies, the lush keyboards mixed with folky guitars are all straight out of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's playbook. But unlike retro-rock acts Jet or Wolfmother, Midlake doesn't sound like they're just recycling riffs and stealing other bands material (although the irony of Wolfmother apeing Led Zeppelin, who in turn blatantly stole from blues artists should not be lost) but instead creating their own little antique world using the influences of classic folk rock artist and mixing it with their own prog-rock tendencies that they really embraced on their first album, but dropped significantly since then. Lyrically the band continues their theme of antiquity, all of the songs could be about any time in the worlds history. There is rumor that the album is a concept album based on the Oregon Trail computer game and if that is true it just make the album that much more awesome.79. Björk: Medúlla
Medúlla is a really difficult album in many ways. It's difficult to process, difficult to understand, and especially difficult to write about it. It's easy to get caught up in the "music made entirely out of human voices" gimmick, but even if Björk created the same album using her normal methods (if you could call any of Björk's methods normal...) it would still be a fabulous album full of ethereal soundscapes and massive, innovative beats and structures. The thing that really stand out in this album is just how amazing Björk's voice is, "Show Me Forgiveness" is just her voice, nothing else, and it's one of the albums most haunting and stunning tracks. Elsewhere, she show how flexible she is, such as in the opening seconds of "Where is the Line" where she stuttersteps her way through words, taking a short, simple word like "line" and making it soar. Her voice is the star of this album, and it's an album of just voices. That says something.78. Jack Rose: Kensington Blues
The blues can take many shapes, there's straight ol' B.B. King type blues, there's delta blues ala Muddy Waters, their's blues rock like Cream, the Allman's brought us southern blues rock, there's rhythm and blues (which sadly today has just become pop with a black singer) and now we even have "indie-blues" in bands like The White Stripes but the oft unjustly overlooked branch of acoustic blues is one of the most interesting. Kensington Blues is a instrumental album full of some of the wickedest finger-picking you'll ever hear and though it has it's base in blues, and for the most part sticks to that it has some other interesting surprises up it's sleave, such as ragas, straight folk, and swirling, droney melodies that are more ambient than anything else. It's obvious Jack Rose owes a lot to Robbie Basho and John Fahey, but his talent and compositions, as well as his interesting other little influences, makes him a worthwhile listen without a doubt.77. Lightning Bolt: Wonderful Rainbow
Ahh Lightning Bolt. Could you be any more ridicules? Crazy technical, spastic noise rock comprised of just drums and bass, with the bass sounds like a guitar 90% of the time. There are vocals, kind of, most of the time you can't understand a word they're saying, sometimes to the point that you're not sure whether it's some ones voice or a feedback being tortured to death. They don't really embrace the "advantages" of studio recording, but still use it for the most part in their recordings, albeit in their own twisted way. Bassist Brian Gibson's bass could hardly be called a bass, it's tuned wacko and has two banjo strings replacing the A and E strings. If you haven't formed an opinion on the band band yet, go listen to "Assassins"; if you like that song you'll like the rest of their work. If you don't, you won't. It's as simple as that.76. Shearwater: Palo Santo
At some point in our lives, we all must make a break from something and come into our own in whatever it is we’ve broken from. For Jonathon Meiburg that break was from the background and sharing the stage to be the full blown, one and only star of the show. Meiburg never truly got his own project, half the time he was playing behind Will Sheff in Okkervil River and the other half the time he was sharing the spotlight with him in Shearwater. But as Sheff got too busy to make and big contributions to Shearwater, Meiburg got to step in and take complete control. His approach is different from Sheff's, and it shows. Whereas in the past Shearwater was folk heavy, now they're atmospherical and piano driven indie rock. The music is dark and it matches Meiburg's stunning vocals perfectly creating a pitch-perfect album full of dread and chills.75. Sigur Rós: ( )
( ) has got to be the most minimal album in the world. The album really has no title, all eight songs have no titles, the album comes with a booklet that has a bunch of blank pages in it, and the lyrics (when they are any) are comprised of just two or so lines that are repeated throughout the album, plus they're in a made up gibberish language ("Vonlenska") that has no meaning. But besides all that, the album is stunningly beautiful. If you've never heard Sigur Rós the it's not really easy to explain, since no one really sounds much like them. Sufficed to say that the band plays darkly ambient music with touches of neo-classical and even rock, albeit very slow, gentle rock. To say the vocals are ethereal is an understatement, Jónsi Birgisson voice floats above the music with tense strains and high crescendos, and coming off more like a droney solo instrument than a human voice. But nothing about the band really seems human, so it fits.74. Grails: Burning Off Impurities
Grails really have everything going for them as far as making awesome music is concerned, they have the creativity to bring in all kinds of wild influences into their songs, they have the talent to write songs that use all those influences fluidly, and they have the chops to play the songs above and beyond perfectly. The band's shifting themes and influences make the album a pleasure to listen to, you never know what's coming next: "Soft Temple" opens the album with a creepy banjo dirge that gets joined halfway through the song by a twisted piano waltz and "Silk Road" takes the influence suggested by its title and twists it around into an acid trip meets a caravan ride. Energy flows from the songs like "Dead Vine Blues" and "Origin-Ing" and the title track, while elsewhere "More Extinction" and "Drawn Curtains" hardly rise above a drone. Just another proof that Grails can do anything they set their mind to.73. Patrick Wolf: Lycanthropy
The fact that Lycanthropy was written and recorded over eight years (1994-2002) while Patrick Wolf was between the ages of 11 and 19(!) is remarkable, but shouldn't surprise anyone whose heard the album and compared it to Wolf's following albums. The fact that Wolf is growing as a musician and person while throughout this album is readily apparent; taking the first two tracks as an example: "Wolf Song" is a complex folk song with viola, panpipes, ukulele, and earth percussion samples all performed by Wolf, and the lyrics are some of his most interesting and literary, whereas "Bloodbeat" is little more than a electro song with repetitive lyrics, it's not a bad song, just not on the level of it's the song that precedes it, nor of the one that follows it, the stunning "To the Lighthouse". This trend continues throughout the album, with spectacular songs being followed by average ones, well average for Wolf anyways, which is pretty freaking good non the less.72. World's End Girlfriend: The Lay Lie Land
Katsuhiko Maeda's music is really very much like his home country of Japan. His blend of electronica with classical and jazz mirrors Japan's cultural blending of futuristic technology and the traditions of their vast history. His music also displays that sense of wonder and excitement that Japanese folk tale are just rife with, as well as a penchant for using children's voices and laughter, another theme in the legends of Japan. But that comparison can only take us so far in talking about this album, it's such a vast, wordless endeavor (ten tracks clocking in at around 78 minutes) that really comes off as a beautiful and jarring piece of music. The beautiful part are the lonely strains of strings and horns, and the jarring part is when the beats and noise comes in, ripping the beautiful sections to shreds in their fury. It startles you when you first hear it, but you get used to it very fast.71. The Avalanches: Since I Left You
DJ Shadow paved the way for artists like The Avalanches, Girl Talk, and Soulwax, with Endtroducing....., the first album made entirely out of samples. It's not worth anyones time trying to compare any of their work with Shadow's, so I won't. Comparing between the artist themselves, however, is another matter. When you listen to Girl Talk, you know that it's all samples from the get-go, it's obvious. But with The Avalanches, it's not so clear what's going on. You could easily listen to the whole album and never know that there's no new material here. Girl Talk's transitions work completely, but sometimes it's only because it's so ridicules that you accept it while laughing your head off whereas with The Avalanches, everything flows naturally. Girl Talk is made for the dancefloor, but Since I Left You sounds much more organic, like it was built for a summer drive in the country with beats shinning like the sun and keyboards floating along like breeze through fields.Part 4, coming soon!
No comments:
Post a Comment