Line’s Albums of the Year

I’ve not done a top 10, so much as a top 7 or so- there were plenty of other albums which I thought were great (see the ‘honourable mentions’ list at the bottom), but these are the ones I’ll probably still be regularly digging out in 10 years’ time.

1. Grouper- ‘Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill’ (Type)

Some records are real attention-seekers, screaming ‘look at me!’ at you from the racks, practically pleading for you, or anyone, to love them. Usually though, you tire pretty quickly of them. It’s the quiet ones which really get you.

And so it proves with this record. Not content with hiding her songwriting light under a bushel, Liz Harris then submerges said bushel in a lake, before wreathing said lake in a dense cloud of fog. There’s barely a note or word on here which isn’t sonically blurred or smudged in some way. The effect of all this sonic manipulation on what is in some ways a 4AD-inflected acoustic singer-songwriter album though is quite simply magical- this is almost a ghost of a record,  something which feels insubstantial,  spectral- and yet it has a presence and a weight to it which is inescapable as a black hole. There’s something infinitely compelling about this record,  I rarely finish listening to it before wanting to put it back on again, and I doubt I shall ever tire of it.

2. Kanye West- ‘808s and Heartbreak’  (Island/Def Jam)

Ah, Kanye. He’s always been a bit of a favourite of mine, but he’s never really produced an album which I’d say was a hands-down classic- he’s always been beset by the old hip-hop problems of a pointlessly inflated tracklist and interminable skits, and on his last album his schtick (essentially, a neurotic and self-conscious simultaneous appraisal and aggrandisement of the state of consumerist culture, more specifically hip-hop, more specifically Kanye West) was wearing a little thin- the best tunes  while still enjoyable, struggled to keep their numerous  weaker brethren aloft.

His new one, however, is a conservative 12 tracks long. There are no skits. It opens with a funereal, 6-minute-long ballad. And it’s a bloody marvellous piece of work, brave and heartfelt, and very very personal. I’m not going to mention the production trick which is the most obvious key-note of this album- (it’s only one in a range of sonic themes -tribal-sounding drums, minor piano chords, strings, a wonky rawness to the production and the titular 808 kicks being the some of the most notable beside the Autotuned vocals)- the main thing that makes this record great is the songs- Kanye’s unique ability to fashion something emotional and compelling out of what looks simply thrown together- his knack of writing lyrics that look crude-  ‘I admit I still fantasize about you’ – but on closer inspection reveal a psychological complexity which surpasses that of most music, not just the pop r’n'b and hip-hop he’s so often lumped in with.

3. Beach House- ‘Devotion’ (Bella Union)

This record wraps itself around you like a lover on a Sunday morning, and simply doesn’t let you go- not that you’d want to go anyway. Fashioned from simple elements- hazy, smoky organ,  echo-drenched female vocals, a drum machine and a tambourine lazily keeping time- Beach House’s songs pull off the almost impossible trick of sounding timeless- there’s a wonderful purity to these songs, and the fact that there has been essentially no change at all between this and their last album merely demonstrates the perfection of the formula they’ve hit upon. There might not be many strings to their bow, but there simply don’t need to be. On most records, a cover of a song as great as ‘Some Things Last A Long Time’ by Daniel Johnston would stick out like a sore songwriting mountain-thumb, but here it’s just another one of a long series of woozy, warm, wistful but gently euphoric peaks.

4. Jacaszek- ‘Treny’ (Miasmah)

I really don’t know much information about who made this record- only that I find it utterly captivating. The combination of orchestral instrumentation and electronic production is one which is very difficult to get right- the rigidity of the one so often rendering the other inexpressive aural wallpaper. This, however, deftly utilises the advantages of each sound source, eschewing beats (though not rhythm) for a stately, sombre procession of strings, harp, wordless voice and processed noise, the record seeming to move step by slow step towards an invisible, but very definite goal, and it shares with the Fennesz record below a quality of being supremely technically sophisticated but in an almost invisibly deft way, and, like the Fennesz, always in service of the sentiment, and of emotion.

5. Fennesz- ‘Black Sea’ (Touch)

Christian Fennesz’s work has a tendency to creep up on you- at first listen almost nothing but a sea of crackles, on repeated listens a very focused sense of composition opens itself up, and the music (in my opinion) pulls itself far away in quality from most of his contemporaries (except perhaps for Tim Hecker and Alva Noto). ‘Black Sea’ is no exception, and, listen upon listen,  it slowly unfolds- a gorgeously intricate work of sonic origami, sounds wrapped in upon and over themselves.

6. Deerhunter- ‘Microcastle’ (4AD)

A bit of a late entry, this one, at least for me, but Deerhunter- never previously a band who’ve really pricked my ears particularly, it has to be said- really did it for me on this lush, subtly psychedelic indie rock record. They’re not pissing about, basically- whereas a huge portion of the world’s indie bands at the moment seem to be hell-bent  shoehorning in sonic craziness at the expense of actually writing decent songs, on ‘Microcastle’ Deerhunter put things the right way round- this is far from a journeymanlike ‘meat and potatoes’ record, but what makes me come back to it is the fact that the sonic craziness is always in thrall to the (excellent) songs.

7. The Chap- ‘Mega Breakfast’ (Lo)

The Chap have been a favourite of mine for a few years now- quite simply put, they have more ideas in one section of one song (pick any section!) than most bands have in their entire careers, and their completely inspired collision of krautrock, acid-fried psychedelia and glitch electronics,  bound together with extraordinarily arch and, well, fun, pop music deserves to win them many more fans than they currently have.

‘Mega Breakfast’, their third album proper, ought to go some way toward achieving that goal- within the opening 10 seconds it’s already managed to sound simultaneously like The Fall and Justin Timberlake, and over the next 40 minutes or so proceeds to run joyous riot across world music, techno,  Sparks and wherever else their imaginations take them to.  As they themselves point out- ‘MASSIVE TUNES, PUT THEM ON YOUR POD. ROD’. Oh In-DEED.

ALSO VERY GOOD:

El Guincho- ‘Alegranza!’ (Discoteca Océano)- My mate Nick said of this….  ‘This is the sound of my brain on Ecstacy’. I’m inclined to agree. Not unlike last year’s Panda Bear record, only with Tropicalia replacing Brian Wilson. Ace.

Lords- ‘Everyone Is People’ (Gringo)- Deranged and joyous Led Zep/Beefheart/Mingus riff’n'roll party action.

School of Seven Bells- ‘Alpinisms’ (Ghostly)- Pristine and yet wonderfully alluring shoegaze-tinged electronic pop.

Octavcat- ‘Hard as Snails’ (Uncharted Audio)- OK, I declare an interest, they’re labelmates of mine, but I defy anyone to say this isn’t a brilliantly  wonky, grainy, funny, lovable and yes,  hard as hell slice of electronics.

Paavoharju- ‘Laulu Laakson Kukista’  (Fonal)- Completely bonkers Finnish electronic folk record. Sounds in parts like a Finnish Leonard Cohen, in other places like a Finnish Kate Bush, but in most other places just really odd. Thanks Emily Kawasaki!

Byetone- ‘Death of a Typographer’  (Raster-Noton)- Another  compellingly austere teutonic beat-collage from Raster-Noton, who this year became easily one of my favourite labels.

The Bug- ‘London Zoo’ (Ninja Tune)- Patchy, perhaps, but with tunes as epically brilliant as the snarling ragga-dubstep of ‘Poison Dart’ and and the, er, menacing dubstep-ragga of ‘Skeng’, still one of the best albums of the year.