Line

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.

Mark Rothko

There aren’t many visual artists who move me on as profound a level as does music- which isn’t to say that I don’t find visual art beautiful, simply that there is very little of it which I find stirring in a visceral sense. Mark Rothko’s colour field paintings- in particular the Seagram Murals- do just that, however. I don’t mean the reproductions- the very existence of Rothko posters seems to me to be almost an insult to his work, to retain the surface but neglect the essence of the objects themselves- the sheer physical presence of these huge, sombre canvases is as important as the arrangement of colours on their surfaces, and while they initially appear simple, these are in fact hugely complex and subtle works- and I’m never quite sure *how* they achieve their impact, but I am never left in any doubt, almost immediately upon entering the rooms where they hang in muted lighting, that they do achieve an impact of almost religious intensity.

These aren’t pretty or beautiful paintings in any conventional sense- at first sight many seem to be simply dull fields of brown or black,or simple orange shapes, but these geometrical devices simply act as frames, and as one’s eyes grow accustomed to the paintings, the sheer depth of the works become apparent, drawing the eye in and expressing… it’s difficult to say exactly what. Perhaps Rothko’s critics are right and this art simply doesn’t *express* anything, but not in the sense of being empty- it’s simply that the paintings seem somehow to transcend the expression of emotion and go into another, more profound realm- it’s perhaps more appropriate to compare the experience to that of staring into the night sky than it is to most other artworks- they seem in some manner to tap into, to resonate with, the deep structure of the world, or the human mind,or both.

TECHNO

Techno…. ah, techno. I don’t think it’s quite true to say that there are two kinds of people in the world regarding techno- it’s an enigma, and its public reputation- as a soundtrack to all-night excess- is certainly not unwarranted, but to stop there and call it a mechanical backdrop to drug-taking is to do a grave disservice to one of the most fascinating, strange, and most of all of all musical forms. The old cliche about being ‘able to get high on the music, maaan’ is actually true- but even that is to stop far short of doing the form justice.

Techno, at its roots, is possibly the first truly pan-global form of music- the term originated in the desolate industrial wastelands of detroit- the story of the legendary quartet (Juan Atkins, Kevin Saunderson, Derrick May and Eddie Fowlkes) of local kids absorbing the funk and soul heritage of their city and fusing it with the futuristic sounds of German (and British) electronic music is familiar to many- and the best techno is still hugely redolent of both sides of that funk, soul and experimental electronic heritage, albeit stripped back in many cases to a minimal abstraction. So from two, apparently utterly opposed, musical traditions- the soulful, loose, rhythmic and melodic heritage of black american music, and the precise, studied, technical perfection of Kraftwerk and their ilk- came a music which combined aspects of both into one, newly compelling whole.

To say that these two heritages were so opposed of course is to oversimplify to the point of distortion- Motown was founded as much on exacting studio practice, precise songwriting and flawless musicianship as was Kling Klang, and likewise the Kosmische tradition contains a hell of a lot of groove-laden soulfulness, and the beauty of techno is to connect the common threads between the traditions as much as to blend the opposing aspects.

And of course these influences aren’t the only things to have poured into the music over the years- Sheffield synth-pop was as important German electronic music in the early development of the genre, and elements of everything from minimal classical music to dub reggae has found itself threaded into techno’s immortal pulse over the years by artists such as Basic Channel, Surgeon, and Robert Hood. The very fact that the music can be so stripped-back allows producers leeway to play with sounds, ideas and production techniques in a sometimes uniquely free manner, divorced from the constraints of traditional song structure- some of the strangest sounds I’ve heard have been worked into techno DJ sets.

And its development continues apace- forever being refined and reviewed, ever more subtle, its newest practicioners (I’m currently particularly fond of Berlin ‘economical’ techno maestros Exercise One) making music that’s ostensibly simple but which is powered by a heady combination of soul, hedonism and exacting intelligence.

Bill Callahan/(smog)

‘The Doctor Came at Dawn’, the first (smog) record I bought, wasn’t something I immediately warmed to- Bill Callahan (he’s recently ditched the (smog) moniker in favour of his given name) isn’t an artist who goes out of his way to make you like him, although he doesn’t have to- if you have any sense, you’ll eventually come to him. Although I wasn’t initially taken with the haphazard tuning and the sparse, seemingly aimless nature of many of the songs, the record sat like a niggling thought in the back of my mind, and I kept on returning to it again and again, and each time it revealed a little more of itself. It’s a record you can almost *taste* the musty oppression of ‘You Moved In’, the obsessive creepiness of ‘All your Women Things’, the funereal laughter and stark silences of ‘Hangman Blues’….  the whole record reeks of camphor, mould and stale whiskey- a taste one doesn’t quickly forget, even if it sticks in the throat to start with.

Many of his records, especially the more recent ones, are a lot easier to digest- Callahan’s songs (if you can call them such- they’re often more like musical haikus, or extended mantras, his golden baritone swaying assuredly in and out of metre like a prize-fighter) more often than not utilise very conventional instrumentation, but whereas, for example, Will Oldham is a songwriter in the classic sense of the word, for Callahan everything, and I mean everything, is a slave to the intent behind the songs- that he often chooses to glove his words in a gorgeous, countrified velvet, or to lace his tales of darkness and distress with a dry, wry sense of humour, only serves to heighten the impact of the iron fist beneath. He’s never pretentious, sentimental or flowery, but instead employs terse, often tough language to examine human (and, one imagines, particularly his own) psychology in an often uncomfortable, sometimes oblique, sometimes painfully direct, but always but uniquely rewarding way.

Particularly recommended: ‘Knock Knock’, ‘Dongs of Sevotion’, ‘Julius Caesar’

Wallpaper and updated MySpace tracks.

There’s some Line desktop wallpaper here, for monitors, EEEPCs, mobile phones. Enjoy. I think it works pretty well.

Also, I’ve uploaded some different songs to my Myspace. Excitingly these are now the final mastered versions. Have a listen, have a laugh.