Yes, it’s that time again. The beginning of a new year, and time to reflect on the year in music. As always, I shy away from rating, charting, calculating, and ordering music by some arbitrary value system, and instead opt for a free-form, no-particular-order, no-particular-amount year end list. Music and art cannot be defined by a scale of ranking, no matter how finely graded. Who can say that Album A is definitively X stars, or points, or thumbs, better than Album B? How can you crown an album “Best of the Year” when it isn’t humanly possible to hear (let alone listen to and get to know) even a fraction of all the music released, even in a single genre, during the year? So, like the last two years, this is more of a personal favorite and/or notable music list for 2006. The Disappointments and Near Misses are albums that should or could have been good, but inexplicably weren’t. Non 2006 Releases are just that…notable albums that I’ve finally discovered or rediscovered, and that held a special place on my turntable/iPod/Playlist during the year, even though they weren’t released in the previous year.
TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie Mountain: The “Little Engine That Could” story of 2006 comes from Brooklyn’s TV on the Radio, who made a damn fine album and then waited and waited and waited for it to actually hit the shelves. Of course, release dates are meaningless these days, and everyone had this late Summer release in their music library by late Spring. But that’s a topic for another post. The early attention and delayed release did nothing to dampen the attention this remarkable record rightfully received. Expanding on the dirty, blissed out density of their first record, Cookie Mountain gives a clearer glimpse into the swirling fuzz and soaring falsetto this group has made their trademark. Quite possibly one of the most instantly recognizable sounds in current rock music.
Joanna Newsom: Ys: Like TV on the Radio, Joanna Newsom has followed up a brilliant debut with an album that is several strides ahead in ambition, complexity, clarity, and daring. It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen: 10 minute harp and orchestra epics, with archaic, pastoral lyrics dense with natural symbolism. Yet somehow, she avoids becoming a Ren Fair caricature, transcending her potential pigeon-holing with an ear for melodic invention, and heartfelt, multilayered narratives that sound at once bright-eyed and world-weary.
The Knife: Silent Shout: Who would have guessed that 2006 would be the year that indie kids embraced gothic electro? Or that a pair of Swedish siblings best known for an upbeat pop song that was covered and used in a Sony commercial would release one of the biggest and darkest crossover albums of the year? Confounding expectations seems to be the entire point of this group. The rich synthpop backdrop careens between dancefloor friendly and horror film harrowing, with Karin Dreijer Andersson’s pitch shifted vocals deliver warnings and cautionary tales from multiple characters. It’s all very theatrical, in a way that would be perfectly suited to live performance, and yet they only played stateside three times. Maybe that will change next year?
Triosk: The Headlight Serenade: The last three albums were pretty widely acclaimed, and are doubtlessly showing up on all sorts of lists, but this is a smaller release that could probably use some more attention. This ambient-dub-by-way-of-jazz trio keeps the delicate atmosphere of their previous work, but ups the drama with denser arrangements and a greater dynamic range, moving from echoing minimalism to crashing piano chords. Not exactly any known form of jazz, but more like the distant offspring of Teo Macero and Brian Eno, bringing an improvisational framework to post-production-heavy styles.
Subtle: For Hero, For Fool: Some groups clean up their sound for their major label debuts, using large amounts of previously-unaffordable studio time and working with celebrity engineers to get a new level of polish. They often end up a bland shell of their former self in the process. Not so with Subtle. For Hero: For Fool, their first album for EMI, is raw and rough around the edges, steeped in the same intricate (and often disturbing) wordplay and dense, fractured hip-hop of their debut, A New White. I can’t imagine a label A&R guy even understanding what they’re doing, let alone trying to mold it into something slick and radio-ready, and thankfully, it doesn’t sound like they tried. Which means that we ended up getting to hear that rarest of all things: a thoughtful, visceral record that represents the unadulterated fruits of a unique artistic vision.
Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood: You can choose pretty much any category to judge this album by, and it will excel. Songwriting? Brilliant, and steps ahead of her already stellar previous work. The tension of the instrumental break in the title track, the suggestive narratives of “Star Witness” and “The Needle Has Landed,” are marks of a mature songwriter who is still finding new harmonic and lyrical territory to mine. Production? There’s a depth and spaciousness to this album that is sorely lacking in modern recordings. Like Blacklisted, Fox Confessor is coated in a deep, natural reverb that gives every voice and instrument a definite, fixed place. Performances? Top notch, from the expert rhythm section of Joey Burns and John Convertino, on loan from Calexico, to Giant Sand leader Howe Gelb. And of course, Ms. Case herself delivers some stunning and varied vocal performances, from the layered harmony parts to the powerful solo wails.
James Figurine: Mistake Mistake Mistake Mistake: The man best known as “the other guy in the Postal Service” put out a record that was supposed to take its primary inspiration from the minimal techno of labels like Kompakt and Spectral, but somehow he couldn’t get the pop out of his system for that long. It’s definitely a four on the floor dance record for the most part, but the breathy vocals and wistful lyrics demanded a more traditional structure than techno usually offers. So instead, we’re left with a record that bridges the gaps between a mainstream whose attention it floated beneath, and a subculture that’s too busy dancing to care. Which is OK, because those of us in the middle can enjoy it for all its various charms, without worrying about where it will land.
Honorable Mentions: Sonic Youth: Rather Ripped, Squarepusher: Hello Everything, Thom Yorke: The Eraser, The Fiery Furnaces: Bitter Tea, The Blow: Paper Television, Junior Boys: So This Is Goodbye, Mates of State: Bring It Back, Ellen Alien & Apparat: Orchestra of Bubbles
Disappointments and Near Misses:
Beck: The Information: I can’t call this a bad album, but it’s not up to the usual Beck standard. There’s some great tracks, but not as many as there should be, and the ones that don’t fit that description feel directionless and unfinished. The great moments are scattered among songs that are missing hooks or sound like rehashes from previous albums. The potential was definitely there, but something didn’t quite come together like it usually does.
The Decemberists: The Crane Wife: So Colin Meloy has been listening to a lot of Yes, I suppose? The best moments of this album are the most straightforward ones, oddly enough. But it pulls in too many directions, trying to be a little bit of everything, and the binding element, the Crane Wife narrative, fails to connect the scattered dots.
Built to Spill: You in Reverse: Another album by this long-lived band that just doesn’t live up to their best work. A collection of forgettable songs with some epic guitar work that nevertheless fails to reach the stellar heights of Keep It Like A Secret.
DJ Shadow: The Outsider: Honestly, I haven’t even listened to this whole album. I don’t own it, in physical form or otherwise. But I’ve heard more than I want to. The whole idea sounded so ill-considered right off the bat. As much as Shadow loves Hip-hop in general, and the Bay Area scene in particular, his strengths are not as a straightforward Hip-hop producer. Especially not in a style as limited and rudimentary as Hyphy. Incorporating that sound into his own personal style could have worked, but his talent feels wasted on this.
Non 2006 Releases:
Talk Talk: Laughing Stock & Spirit of Eden: I’ve been listening to these two albums for a while now, and wondering why I hadn’t heard of them earlier. Both are a stark departure from the group’s early synthpop sound, with long, often quiet, always unconventional songs played on an assortment of non-electronic instruments. So much a departure, in fact, that they had trouble even getting the albums released originally. Thankfully, they did come out, and these two beautifully iconoclastic statements are here, as an object lesson to everyone who cares about texture and dynamics, shining examples of pure craft and inspiration. See also: Mark Hollis: Mark Hollis.
John Coltrane: A Love Supreme Deluxe Edition: This re-release has been out for a few years now, but I just found out about it recently. Featuring a remaster by original engineer Rudy Van Gelder, a legend in his own right, from superior source material than any previous CD reissue, this monument of jazz from one of the genres towering giants is finally available in its best possible form. Also features the only surviving recordings from the almost mythical second day of the recording session, featuring an expanded band and different arrangements of the well-known original suite, and a recording of the only live performance of the suite in its entirety. This release is like the Dead Sea Scrolls of jazz.
