Top Albums Of 2008

Ok, I..m very late with this. Still here is my list and reviews of/motivations for each album.



1. No Age ”Nouns”
“Nouns” isn..t just the immediate melodies of “Eraser” and “Teen Creeps”. This isn..t just indie rock/pop garnitured or drenched with fuzz (Glasvegas anyone?). The noise, patterns, droning, sounds AND the melodies are fit together as a whole in all the 12 short tracks of the album. It’s not even just one concept repeated throughout the same way but there is a great variation in both form and content. You have a lo-fi fuzz field where slowly a couple of listens in, the distinct melody appears as actually emerging from the wall of sound as in “Miner”. Another one gives you a simple staccato electronic rhythm combined with some chords, brittle wordless choiring, and laconically performed verses, which all together builds the small but distinct ballad of “Things I did when I was dead”. The instrumentals “Keechie” and “Impossible Bouquet” give you No Ages own version of guitar droning brilliance, simple, lo-fi but sensitive, and nicely accompanied with soft white noise. Yes and then of course they give you the punky often noisy pop/rock gems of “Sleeper Hold”, “Cappo” and “Brain Burner”. Throughout it all though there is an attitude with a healthy dose of refreshing almost existential sincerity without ever risking fall into pretentiousness for its own sake. And if you’re up for it, add the digi-pack edition with a 46 page package creative visuals and you have an audiovisual installation. Either way, “Nouns” is art at its best.



2. The Welcome Wagon ”Welcome to…”
Let..s get it over with. Yes, this is produced, released and partly played by Sufjan Stevens. And it shows. Sometimes it..s confusingly like his music. It doesn..t matter though. Had it been his latest album under his own name I..d say it..d be one of his better. Though there has certainly been a listening with open ears to traditionals and Sufjan, the beautiful arrangements with some gospel choiring, strings and horns owe quite a lot to Sufjans, you can hear his presence. But on this album they’re particularly well balanced to fit with the simple, distinct melodies and folk oriented songs of the Aiutos. The lyrics reach from hymnal to soul-searching material, from confessional to storytelling. It ..s first and last the result of a pastor..s couple in New York with a love for tradional americana, folk, and the alternative end of popular music (judging by their pick of producer and the excellent Velvet Underground cover (then maybe that was the suggested pick of the producer) and last but not least for the lord expressed through some of that ol.. time religion. Yup. It..s not a joke. It..s not a clever concept. Neither is it boringly “authentic”. We have here in the best sense some of the sweetest and at the same time strongest and original indie-folk released for quite some time.




3. Dungen ”4”
Another ten pieces with recognizable elements of jazz, r&b, folk, progressive rock, stoner, and modern dance and more. Very importantly these are just a natural part of the DNA of a band looking and moving into the future. Carefully and originally composed and played these songs and instrumentals (there is a 50/50 divide) is a seamless rich, enjoyable and actually new sounding music from today’s Bandhagen (suburb of Stockholm and the name of the last track of “4”).



4. Gang Gang Dance ”Saint Dymphna”
This is downright eclecticism. It..s a musically unbridled musical trip with arabic folk inspired singing, experimental electronica (i.e. Autechre) as well as more dance and pop oriented ditto (i.e. Hot Chip), West-African tunes and bass lines, some rap, some spoken lyrics, some swirling guitar and keyboard work (some of which is reminiscent of A Mountain Of Ones excellent ep..s compiled on last years “Collected Works”), a wide array of sounds and live and programmed rhythms and more! The variety in the mix is great within the actual tracks but also between them throughout the album. This particularly works as a whole
and so the story of today’s world with it’s ingredients of chaos and fear but also of beauty, and hope for peace is unfolded; a strong sonorous stand, which provides some guidance away from insanity. The allotted saint is beautifully depicted on the cover.



5. Arthur Russell ”Love is overtaking me”
Arthur had a vison and feel for combining popular music..s directness in melody, beat and lyrics – mostly as found in the reinvention of disco in the early eighties – with contemporary compositional music..s openness to details of sound and readiness to always retry and expand the listening process. In these 21 songs Arthur focuses on singer song writer-country music. Here he settles for the actual song writing, which means there is not that much of his experimental side represented on this disc. Nevertheless his generally non-sentimental approach, feeling for subtle shifts of focus in song structure, sense of melody together with his brittle voice and stream of consciousness singing of very direct but very seldom oversimplifying lyrics, delivers some high quality country songs. Yet another very successful compilation of Arthurs previously unreleased material, that is strikingly up to date even though it..s now more than 16 years since he passed.



6. The Fall “Imperial Wax Solvent”
A bold and forceful statement of being around and ever developing since punk. “I..m a 50 year old man and I like it (…) What you gonna do about it?” If there is a tad of being defensive in there, Mark E Smith really needn..t be. The 12 tracks of last years The Fall album, easily attracts as a wholly enjoyable, energetic, varied and fresh sounding repeated listen. Some of the best moments from the past is cut..n spliced (at times it sounds like it..s done literally with old to reel to reel tapes, scissors and tape) together with some more electronic sounding kraut (he..s been working with Mouse On Mars the last couple of years), some jazzy moments, some 70..s hard pounding rock, an howling wolf and a banjo session (ironically enough and probably most deliberately the last one is found in the I..m-50-years-old-theme-song).



7. Fennesz ”Black sea”
Today..s master of the sound of drones is back. First of all, there is no one as capable of bringing nuances out of drones as Fennesz. This ability often results in a poetic shimmering sound – play LOUD. With that said though the free floating shimmering of Fennesz music can sometimes become a bit form-, and directionless; quite frankly lacking composition. On his latest effort “Black Sea” the layers of droning are carried out together with more concrete sounds. Concrete not in the sense of field recordings (but I wish oh yes I wish) but more clattering and rough (in Swedish we have the word “sträv” for rough but more balanced roughness that would be appropiate here). This builds up to a more evolving and actually felt soundscape well fitting the excellent title and loose concept (excellent in it self but particularly as a continuation from the last one being “Venice”) of the album.



8. The Mae Shi “HLLLYH”
An explosion of energy, distinct melodies, a singing all at once approach, styles such as hardcore, indie-rock, electro, pop, and all is topped with um… well apocalyptic lyrics. It’s a melting pot of crazy inspiring creativity and paired some really excellent melodies at the core. We have a showcase in taking care of indie-song-writing and at the same time challenging and expanding the habits of that same formula into something new and beautiful beyond at least my expectations. This is perhaps the most actually surprising record to come out last year.



9. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!!”
Wow! He rarely puts out something bad but it’s a bit like one’s learned to expect more stuff of the same sort. At worst that means he gets a bit… even. And while Lazarus is no revolution in ideas, there is some real increase of force here and Nick stands up tall with bold songs, arrangements and as always with some strong lyrics. It seems this means a bit less of an introspective and less cynical approach. Which in turn releases him into his more imaginative and alive approach. Lyrically this means wild story telling without letting his eyes off of reality as uncovered with an almost Lou-Reedian analytical way - but less cold than that, more lamenting - in the seven minute long and concluding “More News From Nowhere”. Grinderman was well needed and good, but leading the energy, edge and electricity of that back into his stable song writing results in his best output for long. This is modern days blues at its best. Who else would be capable to deliver it?



10. Frida Hyvönen ”Silence is wild”
Frida is to me perhaps the bravest singer song writer in long while. She can write beautiful melodies and arrangements with dynamics worthy of a musical most prominently so in the mighty “Dirty Dancing”. Still she doesn’t stay there but at other times allows herself a more prosaic expression. In “Science”, “My Cousin” and “December”, “Why Do You Love Me So Much?” the melodies are more mundane and the lyrics reflects seemingly open heartily but without euphemisms about different aspects of the insecurities of belonging in relationships. There are beautiful but immediate almost pop songs like “Scandinavian Blonde”, “Birds” and the wonderfully symphonic “London!”, delivered with like unforced honesty. And precisely honesty is what is the most striking characteristic. With a sound palette broad in spectrum she sings openly but not giving away everything about youthful dreaming, self criticism, settling down, abortion, traveling, vulnerability and control and as already said belonging. Maybe the honesty is at times flavored a bit too much of distance, but hey, it’s not me stepping up there. Yep, this is brave.