the best albums of 2007; part II

Posted on December 31st, 2007 in music by dja

PART II (#50-#26)

050 Band of Horses
Cease to Begin
[Sub Pop/Oct 9]
Seattle band’s sophomore album is submerged in a gloomy Americana abyss of reverb and My Morning Jacket-styled wailing that do nothing to alleviate the dismal desolation depicted on its cover.

High point: Is There A Ghost

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049 Panda Bear
Person Pitch
[Paw Tracks/Mar 20]
Animal Collective member’s third solo record is an avant garde cavalcade of strange kaleidoscopic collages composed with patience but bleeding with passion — evoking a sense of experimentation that shimmers and sparkles with a strange, translucent beauty.

High point: Bros

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048 The New Pornographers
Challengers
[Matador/Aug 21]
Much-adorned Canadians’ latest is more tame and less daring than previous releases, relying instead on subtle textures and unobtrusive hooks that don’t quite live up to potential but still outperform most bands’ best.

High point: All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth

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047 The Field
From Here We Go Sublime
[Kompakt/Mar 26]
Axel Willner’s debut is an intense minimalist opus of pounding beats and simplistic, repeating melodies which ironically add to the record’s complexity and ultimately rewrite it into something else entirely (a rave? death? drugs? hypnosis?).

High point: Over the Ice

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046 Jatun
Jatun
[Other Electricities/Mar 6]
Jatun’s self-titled debut takes the synth-soaked melodies of M83 and mixes them with restive, Röyksoppian beats; blissfully scattering atmospheric trip-hop and waves of mesmerizing shoegaze in every direction.

High point: Ghost and Grey

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045 Maria Taylor
Lynn Teeter Flower
[Saddle Creek/Mar 6]
Former Azure Ray frontwoman’s sophomore effort is delicate and mellifluous, championed by beautiful vocal harmonies and a gentle, soothing rainstorm of instrumentation.

High point: Clean Getaway

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044
The Go! Team

Proof of Youth
[Sub Pop/Sep 11]
Lauded six-piece’s sophomore LP sounds a bit too similar to its predecessor yet still exhibits enough funky hooks and schoolyard chants to warrant a roller-skate-derby dance-off.

High point: Keys to the City

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043
Rilo Kiley

Under the Blacklight
[Warner Bros/Aug 21]
Cult band’s fourth release delves into synth-pop territory while still clinging tightly to its alt-country roots, resulting in a neo-Fleetwood Mac vibe that’s at once both retro and progressive.

High point: Dreamworld

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042
The Good, The Bad & The Queen

The Good, The Bad & The Queen
[Parolphone/Jan 22]
Damon Albarn’s latest project is a logical evolution of Gorillaz’ lethargic melodies mixed with a skillful understanding of indie rock’s recent history. It’s poppy but loaded with a complex subtext that lends it further credibility and rewards patience.

High point: Kingdom of Doom

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041
Liars

Liars
[Mute/Aug 28]
A valorous return to form, these NYC avant-gardists’ fourth full-length is brash, defiant and mutinous while still maintaining a skillfully crafted sense of experimentalism and self-deconstruction.

High point: What Would They Know

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040
Ken Andrews

Secrets of the Lost Satellite
[Dinosaur Fight/Mar 13]
Former Failure frontman’s first official solo album is filled with themes of loss and alienation atop spacey, heroin-induced melodies, grunged-up guitars and near-perfect production.

High point: Allergic

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039
Glös

Harmonium
[Lovitt/Mar 27]
Former members of Denali and Engine Down collaborate to create this hauntingly brilliant record thick with dissonance and drenched in unnerving melody —- incessantly threatening to explode.

High point: Entre

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038
Piano Magic

Part-Monster
[Important/May 29]
The latest from this ambient-pop charged UK collective is fueled by moody post-punk malaise and a subtle canvas of musical radiation that silently electrifies and envelopes its surroundings, altogether relaxing and entrancing and barely convulsing.

High point: The King Cannot Be Found

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037
John Vanderslice

Emerald City
[Barsuk/Jul 24]
Folksy singer-songwriter’s sixth full-length ambles and saunters through a slightly-sedated landscape of seemingly-sparse instrumentation and insistent vocal melodies.

High point: Time to Go

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036
Maserati

Inventions for the New Season
[Temporary Residence Limited/Mar 19]
Athens experimentalists get serious with a stunning batch of churning, instrumental post-rock that fuses post-punk dynamics with implicit esoterica.

High point: The World Outside

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035
The Shins

Wincing the Night Away
[Sub Pop/Jan 23]
Exalted Portland group’s third proper album is awash in nocturnally-clad desperation, tossing and turning in a bed of diligent admissions and emotional sincerity.

High point: Split Needles

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034
A Band of Bees

Octopus
[Astralwerks/Mar 26]
English psych-revivalists’ third LP spans a vast array of styles and influences — resulting in a buoyant, hallucinatory listening experience dripping in acid-soaked vitality and sun-drenched happiness.

High point: Left Foot Stepdown

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033
PJ Harvey

White Chalk
[Island/Oct 2]
Semidivine heroine returns with an angelic offering of saintly vocals contrasted by stark lyricism and bleak piano overtures that barely manage to keep from drowning in the surrounding cesspool of gloom.

High point: White Chalk

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032
Shout Out Louds

Our Ill Wills
[Merge/Sep 11]
Swedish band’s second album is less sad than The Cure and more neue than new wave — resulting in an effortless cross-pollination of the two that’s happily sad.

High point: Tonight I Have to Leave it

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031
Handsome Furs

Plague Park
[Sub Pop/May 22]
Wolf Parade frontman Dan Boeckner teams up with his wife to make an estrogenic neo-Wolf Parade record blanketed by a fog of realized delusions and adequate sadness sung peacefully over a backdrop of steady, electronic rhythms and nostalgic melodies.

High point: Handsome Furs Hate This City

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030
Klaxons

Myths of the Near Future
[Polydor/Jan 29]
European new ravers’ debut LP is littered with literary and intellectual references and still doesn’t break a sweat while breakdancing circles around its surroundings.

High point: Golden Skans

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029
The Rosebuds

Night of the Furies
[Merge/Apr 10]
North Carolinan trio’s third full-length is soaked in beautiful indie pop bliss and lachrymose wordplay backed by gorgeously danceable synths and heaving beats; hypnotizing like a midnight summer thunderstorm.

High point: I Better Run

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028
Tegan and Sara

The Con
[Sire/Jul 24]
Androgynous twins’ fifth LP resonates with adamant synth crescendos and sugar-coated vocal harmonies, exhibiting a controlled erotic nuance that’s both restrained and impassioned.

High point: Like O, Like H

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027
Belaire

Exploding, Impacting
[Indirect/Jul 12]
Voxtrot members’ debut plays host to a myriad of emotions all while appearing casually blithe on a surface of happy-go-lucky synths and dancey choruses that lead nowhere but the circle of life’s happy-cum-sadness.

High point: Madison

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026
The KBC

On the Beat!
[High Voltage Sounds/Mar 19]
English electro-dance trio’s debut is a monstercosm of raver synths and throbbing beats fueled by a voguish attitude and raw, disconnected coolness.

High point: Trippin’

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Part I (#75-51)
Part III (#25-1)

the best albums of 2007; part I

Posted on December 30th, 2007 in music by dja

PART I (#75-#51)

On the fringe: Dropkick MurphysThe Meanest of Times; Emma PollockWatch the Fireworks; We All Have Hooks For Hands The Pretender; Besnard LakesAre the Dark Horse; DungenTio Bitar; Track A TigerWe Moved Like Ghosts; TomahawkAnonymous; BattlesMirrored; No AgeWeirdo Rippers; Oh My GodFools Want Noise; The AcornGlory Hope Mountain; Shinichi OsawaThe One; The WarlocksHeavy Skull Lover
075 Sunset Rubdown
Random Spirit Lover
[Jagjaguwar/Oct 9]
Third LP from Wolf Parade member is weirder than its predecessors — its rhythmic, staccato vocals contrast the surrounding circus-y instrumentation to form a strangely appealing aural carnival.

High point: The Courtesan Has Sung

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074 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Some Loud Thunder
[Self-released/Jan 30]
The eclectic mixture of artsy post-punk and playfulness on these post-David Byrnians’ sophomore record is more reflective, less poppy and more challenging than its antecedent.

High point: The Sword Song

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073 Chromeo
Fancy Footwork
[V2/May 8]
Canadian dance pop duo’s second release is a metro-stained helping of funky grooves and insouciant hooks that are both guilty pleasures and skillfully crafted dance anthems.

High point: Fancy Footwork

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072 Other Men
Wake Up Swimming
[Robocore/Mar 20]
Pinback and Heavy Vegetable alumni team up for a set of spastic melodies and cracked-out vocals that collide perfectly with eachother to create a kind of tensely panicked charm.

High point: Other People

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071 Holy Fuck
LP
[Young Turks/Oct 23]
Toronto analog improvisationalists deliver second full-length of bleeding free-form electronica that twists and chugs and pulsates its way through a strange land of anti-dramatic melodica.

High point: The Pulse

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070 Die! Die! Die!
Promises Promises
[Tardus/Oct 8]
Note: scheduled for 2008 US release
New Zealand neo no-wavers’ latest is more exploratory, more melodic and more dynamic while still noisy and abrasive, revealing more depth and more sagacity with each successive listen.

High point: Sideways Here We Come

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069 Simian Mobile Disco
Attack Decay Sustain Release
[Wichita/Jun 18]
British electronic duo’s debut is jam-packed with ridiculously catchy dance beats, energetic rhythms and an explosively repressed attack on the senses.

High point: It’s the Beat

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068 Papercuts
Can’t Go Back
[Gnomonsong/Feb 13]
Californian neo-hippie Jason Quever’s second record is a transient, nomadic rubberband ball of bubbly melodies that are fully aware (and quite accepting) of their looming deaths.

High point: John Brown

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067 Justice

[Ed Banger/Jun 11]
French house duo’s first full-length is a brilliant update of Daft Punk’s blazing dancefloor anthems, its instantly memorable hooks transforming everything in its path to neon-checkered lights and ecstasy-fueled floor-stompings.

High point: D.A.N.C.E.

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066 Sole & the Skyrider Band
Sole & the Skyrider Band
[Anticon/Oct 23]
Avant-garde hip-hop artist’s latest combines intellectual, stream-of-consciousness vocal delivery with spacey, atmospheric overtures and abstract idealism.

High point: Shipwreckers

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065 Apostle of Hustle
National Anthem of Nowhere
[Arts & Crafts/Feb 6]
Broken Social Scene frontman offers up a guileful odyssey of worldly influences and hypnotic soundscapes that traverse through everything from downtempo to reggae.

High point: Haul Away

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064 Thrice
The Alchemy Index, Vol. 1 & 2
[Vagrant/Oct 16]
First two parts of post-hardcore band’s four-part conceptual anthology offers quite literal aural interpretations of Earth’s elements; dreary, atmospherical homages soaked to the core with evolutionary subtext.

High point: Night Diving

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063 Immaculate Machine
Immaculate Machine’s Fables
[Mint/Jun 12]
Canadian band returns with an excellent third effort that brims with sunny melodies and boy/girl harmonies that reminisce and introspect with a modest coyness.

High point: Jarhand

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062 Jesu
Conqueror
[Hydra Head/Feb 20]
Justin Broadrick returns with another sedated collection of stoned ambience and layers upon layers of droning, apocalyptic doomgaze that could quite possibly destroy the world’s sunlight in slow motion if played loud enough.

High point: Old Year

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061 Caribou
Andorra
[Merge/Aug 21]
Daniel Snaith’s latest wintery wonderland ebbs and flows in a snowy-December haze of subtle melodies and intricate arrangements which beg for repeated listens and provide joyous memories that never really existed.

High point: Irene

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060 Chuck Ragan
Feast or Famine
[SideOneDummy/Aug 7]
Former Hot Water Music frontman’s solo debut is a whiskey-soaked, introspective compendium contemplating life’s left hooks and unjustness — cloaked in a folksy flurry of harmonicas, violins and banjos.

High point: The Boat

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059 Stars
In Our Bedroom After the War
[Arts & Crafts/Sep 25]
Canadian indie pop band’s fourth LP is a sublimely rich symphonic orchestration of vocalized sorrow, complete with pianized ballads and heartbroken themes of lost love.

High point: The Night Starts Here

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058 Wilco
Sky Blue Sky
[Nonesuch/May 15]
Alt-country superheroes’ latest continues to experiment with avant-jazz and atmospheric folk-pop to form an engaging (if relaxing) record filled with subtle instrumental complexities that only add to the depth of Jeff Tweedy’s increasingly engrossing vocals.

High point: Impossible Germany

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057 Rocky Votolato
The Bragg & Cuss
[Barsuk/Jun 19]
Alt-country singer-songwriter’s fifth album is another familiarly folk-tinged gem of pseudo-southern backwater rock that sounds as breezy as it is heavy.

High point: Red Dragon Wishes

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056 Pinback
Autumn of the Seraphs
[Touch and Go/Sep 11]
Energetic indie mainstays return with new LP of distinctively catchy brand of liquified melodies backed by unstable rhythmic confidence and high-octane, vivacious guitar interplay.

High point: Torch

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055 The Sea and Cake
Everybody
[Thrill Jockey/May 8]
Jazzy indie band’s seventh album further evidences an intrinsic grasp of subtle hooks, dazed vocals, and layered pseudo-electronic melodies; meandering slowly in and out of consciousness in a sundrenched daze.

High point: Lightning

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054 Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Baby 81
[RCA/May 1]
Anton Newcombe protégés’ fourth record takes a step back to the fuzzed-up-drugged-up garage rock of earlier releases and marries it perfectly with a pervading flair for mature, sensitive songwriting.

High point: Weapon of Choice

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053 Polynya
Polynya
[Childhoot Pet/Aug 14]
North Carolinan quartet offer up debut filled with Stereolab-ish time shifts and cherubic vocal harmonies swimming contently in an ocean of kaleidoscopic, drifting immediacy.

High point: Essy Persson

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052 Animal Collective
Strawberry Jam
[Domino/Sep 10]
NYC experimentalists are back with another insanity-tinged collection of Pixies-on-LSD-styled pop songs interlaced with meandering segues that form a surprisingly cohesive whole.

High point: Fireworks

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051 Mice Parade
Mice Parade
[Fat Cat/May 8]
Multi-instrumentalist New Yorkian’s latest is a typically genre-defying blend of electronica, post-rock, layered melodies and simplistically intense beauty; like a frozen butterfly emerging from a burning cocoon.

High point: Double Dolphins on a Dime

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Part II (#50-26)
Part III (#25-1)

Coming soon, best of 2007

Posted on December 15th, 2007 in music by dja

i am currently working on my best-of-2007 list. there were so many good albums this year that the list will at least be the top 50 (and possibly top 75) of the year. check back :)

until then, here is a song i like by the most underrated band of all time (dear Pidgeon: can you plz release a new album already, omfg?!?!@?@? i have been waiting over 3 years :( )

Pidgeon – Down

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the raveonettes – aly walk with me

Posted on December 2nd, 2007 in Uncategorized by dja

drive on the back of my motorcycle in the middle of the night while we terrorize the countryside even though no one knows

the raveonettes – aly walk with me

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