Best Music 2008

 

 

            Harry’s 44^th Annual Top Ten in the Form of Top Seventy for 2008

 

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth .... And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ....

 

I thought it was a very good year for music, although strangely the whole top 30 could be re-arranged with some justification.  Nothing stood out, no trends, no astonishments, just the continuation of the abyss of birds.

 

1. April – Sun Kil Moon

Lazy and sad folk rock in the California style.  One cut even Jackson Browne via pleading emo reductionism.  Although a grouping of very different songs, by the end it seems like the same song ten times over.  But it is a good song, with either acoustic clear ringing Lucky Man guitar or thick and growling alt-country richness.  Sometimes you need to step up, show some sack, and be the wimpy folkie for these scary times.  Folks follow you down San Francisco streets and there is fog rolling in the Golden Gate of middle life consciousness.  Although chances are it’s blood not flowers in the hair.  It’s late in the day, if early in the year.  April is, after all, the cruelest month.  Flame so low for the End of Time; tea’s on tap in the wasteland.

 

2. Dig!! Lazarus! Dig! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Although there is the expected Cavian death/sex/God triangulation, and it’s particularly sharp-tongued in this version, what’s notably different from past NCBS efforts is the band loosed to swing.  Chunky grooves for the nasty bar band at the Terminal lounge.  Jump and jive for the Jeremiad.  The best prayers are still born in this nightmare.  Dear God, explain this shit if you can.  In the mean time, get up out of your morbid funk and shake your booty-full-of-miracles.

 

3. Microcastle – Deerhunter

World-weary was always a primary color in the indie palette, and brightens up this invitation Into My Room.  Re-introducing new waves of three chord Brit-pop to the post-millennial ear via the Nuggets collection.  Seemingly proving once again that the best students of music history also blur the sources, if not the Source.  That seems still consistent with Popmusic’s timeless jukebox of adolescent angst and masturbatory self-importance.  The production both brightens and dulls unexpectedly, keeping the listener off balance and reminding that this isn’t familiar territory after all. An essay on the glory of B-side past glory; potsherds from the detritus of forgotten band practice.  After, well, all.

 

4. Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust- Sigur Ros

Vintage rock guitar grandeur is still in place, if only in this cargo cult oddity.  But moving beyond the broadband Nordic bombast to carefully stated lyricism is what takes this to the top five.  I no longer care that the labored verses are unintelligible when the timbre and earnestness of the voices, human and electronic, are so insistent and guileless.  And it has a peppery grassy aftertaste to follow the citrus-oak nose.  Goes well with global warming and bank failures.

 

5. Directions to See a Ghost – The Black Angels

Mushrooms and clouds, shovel-ready psychedelic clues, and a sweet re-dedication to the drone.  In the globalized environment Berlin, Pandora’s Box and Austin seem to be each other’s zones of proximal development.  Kids in the garage proving that yes you Can,  tune up, drop this, turn it up, and clear out the neural pathways.  Everything old is neu again.  Zeitgeist in the eternal if artificial machines. Mystery and detection; gumshoegaze,

 

6. For Emma – Bon Iver

Shining lovesongs from the loneliest boy in town.  I was dreaming of what a man had said and I was hoping it was a lie.  Proving once again that longing and loss, no matter what beautiful music it makes, hurts like hell.  No question the most artful songcraft of the year, but the instrumental arrangements and the falsetto that convey these stories beg the question as to whether any of these dreamy tales would stand the light of another day.  More than anything else on this list I wonder what this will sound like in ten years.   It might not even last until dawn, or it might set up house in the eternal present.  Which is its principled message, there is no way of knowing.

 

7. The Devil, You and Me – The Notwist

Jangly guitars and wall of sound have a new lease on that half-life the Germans seems adept at living in. Something about this music seems like the band has other more important things to do; so effortless is the tightly paced instrumentation, flattened out vocals, episodic electronics, and beat.   But the thrown away, thrown in, the Dasein of the slight music has a subversive urgency.  It may be a weakly sung presence, but it’s all that’s I have left.  Ich la tengo.  Teutonic Wilco. The good lies win indeed.

 

8. Stay Positive – Hold Steady

Soccer hooligan mom’s soundtrack for celebrations commemorating the slim margin between anti-social culture wars and criminal drug addiction.  There but for fortune go you or I.  God’s grace only is sufficient to stay positive when you are jonesing for a rebirth of wonder.  Wide swath of guitar army riffing to clean the palate.  It’s time gentlemen, it’s time to dance this mess around again.

 

 

9. Malady of Elegance – Goldmund

Minimal piano landscapes.  Lovely proportional melodies with mindfulness aplenty.  But this idiom’s linguistic turn is the space that these fragments fill and empty.  The simplicity of the sound about sound can be heard in the mechanical squeaks and  scratches and clunks of the piano’s keys.  The physicality of the sound is music about music that is both atavistic regression and lyrical speculation about what’s for dinner, which, clearly, is served clearly and most likely on good china.. 

 

10. Uproot - DJ Rupture

Far from the Phuket of song and legend, this world beat trails off into surprising tangents, still danceable and still Phresh.  Clicks and found sound and dub step, and dirty electronics.  This is a cerebral highlight reel of eco-tourism.  Its sound punches holes in the air, and skillfully drives the car by itself off into the Dark Night of the Soul, as dancing on the edge was never so organized, so referenced.  This ravenous collection has a bibliography of some rigor.   Just when you thought IDM was turning all vinegary.

 

11. Made in Dakar – Orchestra Baobob
12. Songs for the Broken Hearted – Windy and Carl
13. Treny – Jacazek
14. Re-Vision - Nils Pettar Molvaer
15. Lie in Light – Cloudland Canyon
16. Lie Down in the Light – Bonnie “Prince” Billy
17. No Age - Nouns
18. 24 Postcards – Max Richter
19. Litany of Echoes, James Blackshaw
20. Devotion - Beach House
21. Nina de Fuego - Buika
22. Rook – Shearwater
23. Caesura - Helios
24. The Visiter – The Dodos
25. Uno - Juana Molina
26. Venus on Earth – Dengue Fever
27. Doomsayer’s Holiday – Grails
28. Holon - Nik Bärtsch
29. Wamato – Les Amazones de Guinee
30. In the Future – Black Mountain
31. Motion to Rejoin – Brightblack Morning Light
32. Alegranza – El Guincho
33. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
34. Black Sleep – Jasper, TX
35. The Rocky Road – Damien Dempsey
36. At War with Walls and Mazes – Son Lux
37. Laulu Laakson Kikista  - Paavoharju
38. Let the Blind Lead Those Who Cannot See – Atlas Sound
39. Seldom Seen Kid – Elbow
40. Retribution Gospel Choir – Retribution Gospel Choir
41. The End of a Summer - Julia Hülsmann
42. Dome - Enders
43. January – Marcin Wasliewski
44. Third – Portishead
45. Rainshadow Sky – Jeff Pearce
46. The Week That Was – The Week That Was
47. Float – Peter Broderick
48. Saturdays = Youths – M83
49. In Field and Town – Hayden
50. The Black Sea - Fennesz
51. Taksim Trio – Taksim Trio
52. Ear Park – Department of Eagles 
53. 22 Dreams – Paul Weller
54. Oracular Spectacular – MGMT
55. II – The Alps
56. All I Intended to Be – Emmylou Harris
57. Evil Urges – My Morning Jacket
58. The Midnight Organ Flight – Frightened Rabbit
59. Es Tiempo - Alla
60. At War with Walls and Mazes – Son Lux
61. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
62. Rio - Aterciopelados
63. Con Otro Aire - Chambao
64. Los Angeles – Flying Lotus
65. Glasvegas - Glasvegas
66. In Ghost – Cut Copy
67. The Golden Age – American Music Club
68. Miles from India - Various Artists
69. Dear Science – TV on the Radio
70. Songs in A & E - Spiritualized