Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room Album of the Year 2012

One album fell short of being on my list - Anastasis - this long awaited return to earth of Dead Can Dance continued the path as if the band had never been spirited away, it's mostly successful in echoing their classic work, Lisa Gerrard blazes away on Return Of The She-King, Agape and Anabasis, meanwhile, Brendan Perry is confident in voice but he's launched their return with lyrics amateurish at best cringing at worse that threaten to abort the powerful musical trajectory. By consulting the Dick and Jane book of words via some new age hippy caravanserai our Brendan unfortunately left us with memorably banal thoughts on an otherwise good album, I quote: ”we are ancient, as ancient as the sun, we come from the ocean, once our ancestral home, so that one day we could all return, to our birthright, the great celestial dome”, “we are the children of the sun, there’s room for everyone, sunflowers in our hair”, “all the Queen’s horses and all the King’s men will never put these children back together again” duh!
Next time If Bren’ wants gothic comedy he should get the Mighty Boosh and Noel Fielding to write the words - ”Put on these corduroy slacks for me, you’ll look better in these shorts I’ve ordered you'll see…”:
Little Deer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSKSCXMdMV0


Eight albums in particular made the year for me.

Ekstasis by Julia Holter, idiosyncratic, and best appreciated with headphones to fully absorb the perspective. Julia’s deja vu voice has moments of Enya (not as troubling as that might sound depending on your opinion), Laurie Anderson pops up quite a bit, and I even detect Agnes Obel (a co-incidence I guess), the European and Oriental musical touches evoked (a guitar-less) Bill Nelson for me. I also recommend Julia’s re-issued and expanded album Tragedy, it’s a wider cinematic affair than the immediacy of Ekstasis. I’m looking forward to more work from Julia, however, her ‘official’ videos although being quite earnest are actually quite rubbish and undermine the intelligence of her music, avoid looking if possible, and listen instead.
Marienbad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QukVgY8I_nA


Mirrorring: Foreign Body is the first of two albums on the list from artistic collaborations, Mirrorring is Liz Harris (better known for her solo career as Grouper with guitar and vocals filtered through reverb and tape delay) and Jesy Fortino from Tiny Vipers, of whom I knew nothing. Harris's acoustic drone/ambiance is paired comfortably with Fortino’s quiet folk noir, the more obviously ‘Grouper sounding’ tracks are the real draw for me here with their sublime dreamtime escapism, the Fortino sung tracks by comparison are more traditional and grounded but they lend a balanced state of attitude to the overall shape of the album, creating a gentle waking interlude between Grouper’s dreaming state. Foreign Body is a delicate, meditative work, with a spiritual quality seemingly pretty on the surface but with an aspect that’s curiously uneasy beneath the beauty.
Fell Sound: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S5y4-CHFbQ

Storm Corrosion is the second collaboration of the year on the album list, this self-titled debut is from Stephen Wilson and Mikael Akerfeldt. I’ve lazily been under-familiar with Wilson’s long-time prog’ creation Porcupine Tree, and not at all or likely to be with Opeth which is Akerfeldt’s Swedish Metal band, but I was absorbed by Storm Corrosion with its nocturnal vibe, borderline mysticism, and minimal early Pink Floyd psychedelic mood. The passive and transfixing aura of the album stealthily drew me in and had me imagine that the songs might have been composed in a silent forest set in a European landscape at twilight.
Ljudet Innan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qtQ2-5wWP8


Grimes (Claire Boucher): Visions is the first of three albums that fall into my alternative pop category. Grime's most accessible and likely commercial album so far, with a Jools Holland show appearance, BBC album of the week, and every freebie newspaper with a review section, even Adam Buxton featured her song Oblivion on his ‘Bug’ youtube comedy show, so, the upside is that her profile is huge and her career stronger, but the downside? Hmm, time will tell, maybe she’ll implode. I may not have rated her gig which I saw during the summer, but I really enjoy this album with it’s helium-effects voiced keyboard pieces and it's frothy electro-pop snapshots.
Be A Body (Grimes in typical mode, and every young geek guys Dreamgirl. Is it just me or does watching a 24 year-old woman playing with her drum machine feel ever so slightly pervy?):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPSundvkYgE

Childhoods End by Ulver, is the second album here. Originally a Black Metal band, Ulver progressed through an eclectic back catalogue, pulling together now a collection of 60’s songs by various psychedelic bands and placing those ballads and pop into a more cohesive whole, it's far from being just any typical covers album. The original songs are still classic in themselves and Ulver have only slightly redacted the initial kaleidoscopic trippyness or tweaked up the dreamy sombre atmosphere, but they’ve created an intriguing journey through another time another place, and into a landscape where the daytime sunlight has been veiled by a darker filter, as such, this became my most addictive album of the year.
Everybody’s Been Burned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26cl51qm9SU

Circles by Moon Duo is the third alt’ pop album here. No major advancement in style on last years album but still as strong as ever with their recognisable mix of motorik rhythm, looped guitar, funky keyboards and machine beats, oh, and this almost electro number here – I Can See – (more like this in future please Moon Duo): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fApqTF7KA1E


Sleep Party People: We Were Drifting On A Sad Song - I stumbled across some random tracks online in the past but they slipped from memory like a melancholic dream I’d stopped recalling, so I’m glad I found this album release. Brian Batz the singer has a whinny voice that should maybe annoy me after a bit, but quite the reverse, his tiny animal otherworldly-ness adds to the fairytale charm of the music, and there’s often a plinky-plonk piano conjuring Virginia Astley or a Victorian pianola echoing away in an empty room. The songs create a comfortably ambient state of mind while occasionally giving way to a more up-tempo stride, somewhere out there on a snowy landscape Sigur Ros are jamming with Boards Of Canada.
The City Light Died – (you might think this is the most syrupy soppy video ever and that I should ‘man-up’, but I think it effectively captures the incomprehensible feeling of loss touchingly seen through our inner childhood eyes, so I’m sticking by it!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B8kWuJR2wg


And finally,
Godspeed You! Black Emperor: Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! – too right, and that’s exactly what this album makes me feel like doing. Down in the dumps? fed up with kicking against the pr!cks? well play this album, it may sound like music for the end of days or the coming apocalypse, but nah, I think they should play this at the Last Night Of The Proms, it’d make a fitting partner with visionary William Blake’s glorious Jerusalem. First track Mladic begins with some voices engaging in what could be interpreted as a rescue from the air - referring to a man with his arms outstretched and the attempt to grasp him - there’s a religious undertone that springs to mind about the image of a man in this pose, its an intriguing start to a dramatic and mysterious album.
Mladic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXdF9uhVrI0

I've got to go with the Ultravox album "Brilliant" as it is superb from start to finish and one of their best ever albums alongside "Vienna".