My list will contain many choices you will expect and maybe some you don't. I base it entirely on my own subjective position as an electro-acoustic composer with a great love for post-punk music and adventurous forms of all stripes.


The Two-Minute Miracles: Volume III (2003) Anyone who bemoans the loss of song-writing craft in this mediated world obviously hasn't heard The Two-Minute Miracles and their perfect pop creations. I first came across them in a rock bar in London ONT and knew I was in the presence of true musical genius. I got a copy of their demo from the singer, Andy Magoffin, who has made a career of hiding his light under a bushel.
Several albums later the band are still working it out in the best possible ways. Only one of the 13 songs on Volume II tops the three minute mark. "Rayon Queen In A Nylon Dream" and "Name That Song" you can play at my wake. Ditto "Aphasia" and "Stall Tactics" from Volume III (The Silence of Animals). They are all so supremely cute and hummable and tap-your-feet-ish. But dear heart, I'm getting carried away.
(If you can't travel to London ONT you might get their music as downloads from Zunior or on CD from Teenage USA. But you should really go to London instead.)


Similarly elsewhere: Wilco should be failures but instead pull rabbits from hats. "Poor Places" winds up to incredible intensity. "Reservations" from beginning to end lies in some kind of Big Star parallel universe. And no-one can ever do that except Big Star themselves. So maybe Wilco are some kind of genius? Damned if I know.

Wire: Read & Burn 02 (2002)
Wire: Send (2003) They're back...again! The history of Wire is a history of returning -- whoever named their first compilation got it right in one. This time they're in full guitar loop overdrive, still ironic but now noisier. Better? Likely not, but these first doses of the newest version of this particular conducting metal rod puts most of their grand-children to shame. Lots of track repetition between these three disks means you end up buying each one. Not exactly value for money but valuable nonetheless. "It's all in the art. Of stopping." But they don't stop. So what does that tell us?




Compelling emotions, stories from adolescence and a sway and swoop that can incorporate punk with rock with folk without really caring that there is any difference. Arcade Fire: you might have heard of them. But still, some good, huh?

Live they were crap except when they were the best rock band on Earth. On which nights you actually knew there are reasons why rock exists... and not just to fill out the muscle shirts and the tight trousers. Other times everyone hated them; I mean, they sing like women, right? But is anyone else going to write an alien conspiracy song about a WKRP character? Or redo one of their own tunes -- about teenage suicide nonetheless -- as a piece of electro crap? Or sing about feeling guilty for not having shot a gun? I mean, what wimps, right? Right?
Then you get "Making Progress", one of the most heart-breaking tunes ever. And "Little Bird". And "Shack in the Cornfields". And of course they produced their most accessible album as their swan-song. Bastards.

This Dustsucker is in deep narcosis; this is driving down the highway stoned music, like a chapter from a bad Bill Drummond novel. You put this on and drift away, but never ever in the fall-into-your-arms-all-safe feeling of the rave. Here there's always a concrete embankment waiting in the dark. It's J.G. Ballard on ecstasy.
One could complain that it's not all as focused as it should be. But "Shapeshifting" builds to a lovely noise mass. And "Burning the City" is my favourite song of forever. "Did you ever hear the one?"


Never has anyone got as much out of their name as Eleanor Friedberger, and her brother isn't doing too badly either. When I hear Totoro mentioned at about minute seven of "Quay Cur" I wonder if they have been watching the same anime as myself. No, likely they're saying something completely different. And that's only the questions thrown up by one small snippet of one not-so-small song on this very long album. Imagine how confused and bemused you will be after the eleventh time signature change, the four-hundredth chord, the eight-thousandth rhyming couplet? What about when they rhyme "Valencia" with "in extensia" (only because they pronounce stuff the 'Merican way, natch)? What about when they inform you that "Donna had a Scotch and made him switch off the porn, because there's nothing that's dirty about the ocean in the morn"? What about the cheesy organ (who's your grandmother?) and whacked out duophonic synth lines all over what should be (maybe, possibly) guitar-based folk songs? What about the strangulated syntax of "Where did you for lunch-time go?" That's better writing than most bands manage in a career.
This is what you'd hear at a free performance in a bookstore in Iowa if the daughter of the store-owner had learned everything she knew from Baptist Bible Camp, The Residents and Tiny Talent Hour. And then been forced to listen to her older brother's collection of Scandinavian prog rock, imitating the songs on her Casio. While harbouring a deep love and respect for James Joyce.
So maybe you could stop reading me as I try to do the impossible and describe this train-wreck of an album... and instead start listening to it. For the perfection of the punch-line half-way through "Chief Inspector Blancheflower"... and much more. You'll laugh until you stop.

Here is illustrated a delicate balance: cleverly orchestrated pop music with idiosyncratic instrumentation and novel song forms performed with spirit and a certain sense of rightness. It's as though every performer was channeling their inner child in perfect synchrony. Not surprising then that it never worked out nearly so well for them subsequently. But listen to this one particular gem of an album and you'll be jumping on the spot, spinning round and round, while singing along in your best fake opera voice. Every song is better than the one before. And since the first song is amazing, that means we end up in the stratosphere pretty darned soon.
In case they die they've produced a lasting work of wonder. I'm sure for that they sleep better nights.

But not this time.
You don't know who this is, but it's one David Suss from Brooklyn. He releases cassettes (remember them?) and burns his own CDs for labels no-one will ever know. "The Notebook Behind Your Eyes" is the best drone music since Phil Niblock. And drone music is possibly the most difficult music to make interesting. There's complete brilliance on display here, as organ piles upon synthetic chatterings and guitar washes. It all keeps evolving and doesn't hold back on the noise quotient. No-one will mistake this for ambient. It's incredible.
Conclusion
OK, so, there you are. Some great music that might just change your life. But these are just the runner-ups. So, next time: the album of the decade. I hope you are ready. I hope you are sitting down. Because nothing will prepare you. No, nothing at all.
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2 comments:
Great list for sure. Looking forward to the best album. Wondering what you think of the recent reformation of the Wild Swans and their new single. I've heard that you are a fan.
The Wild Swans actually have two new singles and I have heard one... and wish I hadn't. Some things are best left alone. Some magic cannot be recaptured.
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