Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room 2009 Album of the year

For me, the winner has to be Marc Almond's return to form with the seductive, empassioned and tender thing that is Orpheus in Exile

Just to have Marc Almond still with us is a miracle itself. And to realise it is so because he still has points to prove, messages to deliver and ground to break is deeply moving.

http://thequietus.com/articles/02691-mar...in-album-review

"A Skein of White Cranes" is one of his most beautiful songs ever. Which is interesting, as I consider "Storks" on Heart on Snow to be worthy of the same accolade...



The best Foxx album is A Secret Life.
Garry seems to have forgotten it, otherwise he would have said so too. :p

Still a some weeks left but at the moment this has came staight in at No 1.

The Swell Season - Strict Joy

followed closely by


Yusuf - Roadsinger

David Sylvian - Manafon

& a couple of Johns albums

A Secret Life & Mirrorball

Now that Susan Boyle's album is out, I think that is everything released for this year. Might be one or two seasonal albums I suppose.

I can't establish an outright winner - and wouldn't dare to having not heard the latest Piano Magic, Tom Waits (live) and Jori Hulkkonen yet - but I will try to pick the winner SO FAR.

There are a number of albums I haven't given full attention to yet, including Aidan Moffat and The Best Ofs' "How To Get To Heaven From Scotland", Mark Eitzel "Klamath" (first play tonight - very promising), and David Sylvian "Manafon" (after 5 or 6 listens, I think I really like it but I still don't feel like I know it).

There were very strong sets by Morrissey, Client, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys ("This Used To Be The Future" song of the year?), U2 (although Eno reckons it could/should have been more experimental), Dylan (I mean the regular one, not the Christmas one), and A-Ha (who dusted off the old synths with considerable style).

Of the Foxx albums, "My Lost City" carries the strongest memories, "The Quiet Man" is perfect, "Mirrorball" is summery, and "A Secret Life" is still somewhat secretive although it's the one I play the most.

Kudos also to Glen Johnson (of Piano Magic) for his album "Details Not Recorded".

However, three stand above all these for me:

Jarvis Cocker "Further Complications" - wherein an almost Grinderman-esque old-enough-to-know-better Jarvis rocks out a bit, sleazing along an ever more self-aware, confused, honest and sensitive trajectory. Or is that just me?

Marc Almond "Orpheus in Exile" - the character of Vadim Kozin might not even exist for all I know but Marc inhabits these wonderful songs as though he created him.

and the winner so far is:

Bill Callahan "Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle" - I feel like I never know what to say about Bill (some may know him as Smog or (Smog)). This record feels a bit darker than the last one (possibly due to the split with Joanna Newsom), but his humour has always been black and dry so it is hard to tell for certain. He has described these songs as looking at the same event from different perspectives. The arrangements are gorgeous and varied, lots of strings, sometimes comforting and scary in the same song. Key song "All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast".

Back at the beginning of the year one of the most significant things for me was re-discovering the albums of Dead Can Dance. So much great work to choose from, but Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (’08 re-master), just completely entranced me, still powerful after 22 years since its initial release.


The debut albums of 2009 that were highlights for me are:


A Secret Life, yes, no apology, and no surprises over this album being my number 1 choice of new material from John. From out of all of his new work this year, his change of directions, or him just happily jamming away with his friends and seeing what sticks to the wall, ASL is the one for me, with its almost (but not quite) unassuming manner, it is at heart a gently potent work. It ‘quietly’ breaks the tradition of John’s upfront electro, taking him and his collaborators into a more static and mesmerising place, a gauzy landscape filled with familiar hints of Foxxian regret and longing. It left me with a desire to hear more, and later in the year I found myself on a small quest to listen to other drone and minimalist artists.


Empire Of The Sun: Walking On A Dream

This is as poppy, and as soppy, as I’m likely to get with music these days! It was one of those random finds, found myself in a queue at HMV, this CD was on display at the counter, its cheesy but intriguing cover and Ballard title made me look it up later online, and a link to a couple of YouTube video singles had me instantly hooked. To be fair its not a consistently great album, I’m completely in love with two of the tracks, We Are The People, and The World, and I like four others, and the rest are okay, but that’s only six out of ten, well, that’s bordering on a failure for me! But there’s a real magic in the formula of these two guys together, the ethereal androgynous voice of the singer Luke Steele, and the warm keyboards of the music, which alternates from bouncy pop, to echoes of faraway sunset memories. The diamond on this album is We Are The People, such a beautiful song of sweet regret, or a tale of long-lost or unrequited love, it’s the haunting vocal chorus that is the heart of the song, as it sweeps you up and encourages you to just insert your own name/time into its story, that fleeting period in your youth when you had your first crush, did you act upon it, or did you just shy away…


Wooden Shjips: Dos’
Good summer grooving with the San Francisco foursome, okay, I don’t ‘groove’ necessarily, but a great album to be mentally sucked into. Psyche garage trance rock for a long summers evening with a beer in your hand, as your thoughts climb high up into the endless blue above, raise your tiny fists to the sky and rock against the machine, open the doors of perception and let yourself in…


The Pleasures Of Electricity…Plus
(I think I may have said a small thing or two about this re-release in another thread!)
So glad that the decade changed from how it began with me failing to see clearly the horsepower residing under the hood of the Pleasuremobile 2001. Back came John the mechanic to polish it all up lovingly with his leather chamois, and thus the decade ended with me enthusiastically embracing the cool, cool, chic of the Pleasureplus 2009 design.


Celer: Engaged Touches

I’ve got to thank A Secret Life for unexpectedly guiding me in the direction of a group like Celer. During the summer I was eager for more subtle drone and delicacy, and I came across a sample of Engaged Touches, which intrigued me, but I let it pass, and then In September the full version just happened to be on a disc that I was given. Realising that I really needed to have the physical CD album, it was all sold out when I went back to look for it, but just recently I’ve managed to track it down, overpriced, but very welcome!

This album is a particular highpoint in a direction of work that the musical partnership of Will Long, and Danielle Baquet-Long (who unexpectedly passed away in July from heart failure) had been evolving throughout a few of their previous albums. Some of their work is misleadingly (or lazily by reviewers) listed under ‘new age’ WTF, (but then I’ve also seen ASL wrongly referred to as such). Engaged Touches is emotive minimalist electronica, with its field recordings of endless train travel through a distant and foreign landscape. Its unashamedly romantic strings that become a recurring theme throughout the album create a deep feeling of longing, it is hugely touching and somewhat poignant, and quite simply a beautiful experience.


Lotus Plaza: The Floodlight Collective

I’m sneaking this one in at the last moment, Only played it a few times since I got it in October, as its got such a summer sound I was saving it till spring and next years warmer months, (as if!), have been stuck at home ill recently so it’s been on repeat a lot this last week.

In some ways this album just sweeps right over you, with its bright colourful elements all whizzing past, but I like its enthusiastic warmth, it’s cocktail of garage guitar, hazy dreampop, vaguely psychedelic and ambient moments. Perhaps there’s the risk its heady blurry appeal might not be lasting, time will tell, but right now in the midst of all the snow outside, and the cold indoors, its musical textures and colours are very uplifting. A few of the standout tracks are the jangly Whiteout, the shimmering Antoine, and the spacey title track The Floodlight Collective.

Nice choices Core but I have to say that "We Are The People" is my most hated song of the year bar none! But hey different strokes for different folks.

I think for me it has to be the Pet Shop Boys album "Yes" as it is a masterpiece from start to end and shows that messrs Tennant & Lowe are still top of their game. Without doubt one of the greatest artists this country has produced.

My fave tracks are "Love Etc", "Did You See Me Coming", "Vulnerable", "Building A Wall" and "King Of Rome".

"Fundamental" was a hard album to top and did this succeed in doing this ...... Yes!

Other contenders were the remastered editions of "Pleasures Of Electricity" an album I did n't buy first time round and got it for Christmas and is, for me one of John's best pieces of work, also Gary Numan's "The Pleasure Principle" an album that has stood the test of time and how is it "Cars" still sounds so fresh??

Another album I liked was the second album by Northern Kind which is called "Wired", a synth duo that has evolved from the Myspace scene and started to get noticed and even secured a support slot on the recent Kajagoogoo UK tour. Their music has some great influences, notably Yazoo & early Depeche Mode.

Keep an eye out for them in 2010!

Gary

Official Gary Hunter Homepage

If it's not too late, I'm going to add Morrissey's Years of Refusal to my list.

I can't stop playing it - and that's the first time with a Moz album for ages. I have sat on the fence with this until now, waiting for it to disappoint me, but it defiantly refuses to do so.

Your Were Good In your Time really stands out as one his best ever compositions

Despite his admittedly inconsistent output, I am a massive Luke Steele fan (one of my all-time fave albums is The Sleepy Jackson's "Lovers"), so I was delighted to see his latest project Empire of the Sun get a shout-out here. Thanks, Core Memory!

Nobody here in the States seems to have paid any attention to EOTS, so recently when I heard "We Are the People" in the background of a TV advert for Vizio, I was so shocked that I almost fell off my chair—good thing I was sat on the floor! I hope the exposure sparks enough interest and makes Luke Steele enough money to assure that he can keep following his wayward muse and perfect his crazy popcraft. Yes, "EOTS" is an uneven album, but I enjoyed it and I think the highs are very high and the lows are, well, still nothing quite as low as the majority of what I've heard this year, most of which has been pretty low indeed.

The CDs I most looked forward to in 2009 were David Sylvian's "Manafon," the charm of which quickly wore off for me; Rowland Howard's "Pop Crimes," which has one or two great songs but is a little too slapdash to have won me over as a whole (I was really bummed out to learn of his death a few days ago); and HTRK's "Marry Me Tonight," which I still unabashedly love. However, the CD I keep coming back to is Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions' "Through the Devil Softly." It's a good mood piece and all, but there's a lot out there that I didn't get to hear, so I don't think it deserves "album of the year" status. I bought very few 2009 releases—John Foxx's output having basically eaten up most of my CD budget in an economically challenged year . . .

I missed one. Savoy Grand "Accident Book". Slipped out at the end of November. Have only just discovered this, to my shame. Without hearing it, I can guarantee it was/will be/is amazing.