Friday, December 07, 2007

Albums Of The Year Part 4: 25-1

Just before I kick off the final instalment, a quick reminder of the previous albums of the year here:

2006: Bruce Springsteen - We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions
2005: Acoustic Ladyland - Last Chance Disco
2004: Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
2003: Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People (in a piece written for John Kell's Unpredictable Same fanzine - this blog started in March 2004)

I'm not sure I stand by some of those choices now! Without further ado, here's the Top 25 of 2007...

25. Tinariwen – Aman Iman: Water Is Life (Independiente)
The Tuareg Desert Blues masters reached a substantial audience here in the UK with this stirring and potent set. Demonstrating just how much life and vitality can be drawn from very minimal harmony, the group exploited the unfamiliar tones and scale constructions of their native music to colossal impact. This is fervent and righteous music, its political motivation and unapologetic rebelliousness evident in spite of the language barrier.

24. Rufus Wainwright – Release The Stars (Polydor)
Initial impressions of ‘Release The Stars’ might suggest that Rufus indulged all his camp fantasies across one dazzling, totally over the top collection, but there’s more to ‘Release The Stars’ than meets the eye. Like the rest of his best work, it somehow manages to be simultaneously frivolous and profound. Whilst he’s certainly not one to resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding, the lavish treatments adorning the songs here seem appropriately ostentatious rather than merely extravagant. Best of all, his voice continues to develop into a really powerful instrument – there’s less of the exaggerated slurring and much more personal conviction this time around.

23. El-P – I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead (Definitive Jux)
Whilst there were no hip hop albums in the league of ‘Liquid Swords’, ‘The Cold Vein’ or ‘Fishscale’ this year, Definitive Jux’s production maestro El-P came pretty close with this brooding, unsettling collection. It’s certainly a hip hop album where the focus is as much on the music as the lyrics – the dark, tense and claustrophobic atmospheres that El-P conjures have become something of a signature sound. Added to this are some original, occasionally surreal words that push well beyond rap’s usual braggadocio and machismo.

22. PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Island)
There’s something genuinely creepy, disturbing and malevolent about ‘White Chalk’. It seems, at least in part, to be a document of the corruption of innocence and the end of childhood, and its language is dark, foreboding and unrepentant. The presentation is similarly uncompromising, with Polly mostly abandoning guitars in favour of very skeletal, untutored piano playing. ‘White Chalk’ seems to constitute a deliberate repudiation of virtuosity from one of our most accomplished artistes, but the results are dependably vivid and unsettling.

21. Olafur Arnalds – Eulogy For Evolution (Erased Tapes)
Iceland’s freshest export has been highlighted as the obvious next step for lovers of Sigur Ros’ composition with rock dynamics. Where Sigur Ros sometimes veer into plodding rhythmic banality, Arnalds avoids this pitfall by frequently jettisoning rhythm in favour of mood and atmosphere. These are remarkably pure and elegantly simple compositions, full of space and silence and with individual notes held as long as feels necessary. Themes are repeated and developed rather than merely stated. The result is a concise but meaningful collection of profound and aching sadness, unrepentantly desolate and mournful.

20. Efterklang – Parades (Leaf)
With ‘Parades’, Danish group Efterklang crafted one of the most original and fascinating releases of the year. There’s something of the collective joy so beloved of The Polyphonic Spree in their layered choral vocals and chamber arrangements, but their nimble incorporation of marching rhythms and furtive textures marked them as several leagues above that most pretentious of bands. Their occasional preference for melancholy calm over quasi-religious fervour also results in a less overbearing, more immersing sound. This is adventurous music that veers between the mysterious and the extraordinary, brilliantly arranged and executed with formal restraint. There are now so many acts keen to find that intersection where electronics and acoustics subsume each other that it would be too easy to neglect those bands that hit that very spot perfectly. Efterklang are certainly one of them.

19. Iron and Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Transgressive/Sub Pop)
I’ve been harping on about Sam Beam’s literary brand of songwriting for some time here, but ‘The Shepherd’s Dog’, comfortably his most consistent album to date, sees him expand his musical outlook too. Softly spoken and well versed in the art of understatement, Beam’s new vision of American folk is now not just rich in gothic imagery and allusive language, but also able to incorporate a wide range of musical infusions from dub reggae to African rhythms with adroit tenderness. Members of Calexico embellish Beam’s ensemble with a pioneer spirit. As usual, a handful of the songs here are effortlessly moving, and the whole album coheres beautifully.

18. Curios – Hidden (Jazzizit)
Acoustic Ladyland have garnered considerable publicity over the last couple of years for their insistent, media-friendly fusion of punk and jazz, but their quietly gifted and unassuming keyboardist Tom Cawley crafted a magisterial record of his own in 2007, to a sadly much less significant fanfare. It’s a great time for the piano trio at the moment, and Curios are among a number of groups really pushing the format well beyond its obvious limitations. With a near perfect balance of elegiac, emotional ballads, palpable swing and rhythmically propulsive energy, the group adds real muscle and impressive interplay to Cawley’s sophisticated compositions. Veering from the frantic to the sensuous, ‘Hidden’ is a multi-faceted and deeply rewarding work.
17. Battles – Mirrored (Warp)
With Tyondai ‘son of Anthony’ Braxton and members of Helmet and Don Caballero amongst their number, Battles were always going to be an adventurous proposition. Yet the more predictable math rock of their initial EPs gave little preparation for this confounding and exceptional debut album proper. ‘Mirrored’ is off-kilter but thoroughly groovy, and full of all manner of interesting sounds. It’s a supremely technical music by most rock bands’ standards, but it also encapsulates the basic, elemental thrill that comes from the best rock and roll.

16. Bruce Springsteen and The Sessions Band – Live In Dublin (Columbia)
It’s a bit of an indulgence to include this fantastic live recording in addition to Springsteen’s E Street comeback, but it’s just such a thrilling, celebratory document that it couldn’t have been omitted. Springsteen’s shows with the Sessions band may not have reached as many people as the E Street stadium extravaganzas, but they certainly rivalled those shows for intensity and unrestrained mass celebration. Digging deep into musical history, Springsteen channelled his characteristic fervour and grit through the great American canon, reinventing many of his own original songs in the process. Best of all was his biting rewrite of Blind Alfred Reed’s ‘How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live’ to reveal George W. Bush’s incompetence and thinly veiled indifference in the face of Hurricane Katrina. ‘He’s the best of what America could be…and should be’ according to Jon Landau. Damn right.

15. Yeasayer – All Hour Cymbals (We Are Free)
‘World music that doesn’t make you want to puke’ according to our only viable music weekly (how about actually looking to the wider world for some more of that?), Yeasayer’s debut was an exhilarating rush of rhythmic and harmonic invention, equal parts Crosby, Stills and Nash and King Crimson. Here is a band set to build their profile considerably in 2008 – very much pursuing their own distinctive path, and creating some rich, positive and intoxicating music in the process. So often do their abundant ideas bear fruit in reality, Yeasayer’s ambitions are lofty but never embarrassing or misguided.

14. John Abercrombie – The Third Quartet (ECM)
John Abercrombie is one of the master guitarists, and ‘The Third Quartet’ is yet another peerless example of his artistry. It’s an evocative, expressive and fluid collection demonstrating both the exemplary technique of the group leader and the combined prowess of his outstanding ensemble. This is elusive, subtle music that takes time to weave its peculiar and haunting web. It creates a distinctive feeling of weightlessness and drifting that is both challenging and satisfying.

13. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver (DFA/EMI)
James Murphy remains an intriguing proposition – a man who makes hipster music despite appearing defiantly uncool in demeanour. It’s easy to see how Hot Chip have found a happy home on his DFA label. ‘Sound Of Silver’ is a massive improvement on his promising but rather cobbled together debut album. He has absorbed a massive range of music, from the driving Krautrock of Neu! to the primitive grooves of Dinosaur L or ESG, via minimal composers such as Steve Reich. Murphy is astute in unpicking the thorny problem of attempts to regress back to adolescence, emphasising the poignancy that accompanies growing older. Musically, it is minimal but relentless and propulsive – it satisfies both the impulse to dance and the cerebral demand for conceptual thought.

12. Gwilym Simcock – Perception (Basho)
I want to hate Gwilym Simcock. Prodigiously gifted as a composer and soloist, a top class ensemble player, young and distinctively handsome to boot – there’s just too much to envy. Yet ‘Perception’ is such a breathtakingly inspiring debut – theoretically grounded but also full of feeling, freedom and meaningful ideas. The group playing (featuring John Paricelli and Stan Sulzmann amongst other first rate musicians) is invigorating and thrilling, whilst Simcock’s writing is consistently inventive, particularly with time and metre. He’s also a skilled interpreter too, breathing thoroughly new life into his version of ‘The Way You Look Tonight’. He shares a sensibility with the revered American Brad Mehldau in his combination of technical mastery (established through rigorous classical training) with the spontaneity of improvisation. Yet his ballad playing is also supremely sensitive and he has a more playful and exuberant side that Mehldau sometimes lacks. Only the unflattering cover photograph does Simcock a disservice here. To say the future looks bright for him is something of an understatement.

11. The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse (Jagjaguwar)
A good friend of mine described this as ‘the album the Arcade Fire should have made next’. He has a good point there. Whilst the Arcade Fire opted to amplify their grandiose side, fellow Canadians The Besnard Lakes modestly crafted a slow burning, but ultimately towering second album that has begun to make a deserved international impact for them. With its spy theme and enthralling juxtaposition of progressive arrangements with very unfashionable 70s rock influences, the elaborate, twisting songs here placed the band in its own unique and unconventional space. That their live performances proved devastatingly loud and earth-shaking was a bonus.

10. Radiohead – In Rainbows (W.A.S.T.E./XL)
In a year when British group-based guitar music is notable by its almost total absence from my end-of-year round-up (only The Broken Family Band, Super Furry Animals, Paris Motel and The Twilight Sad make for the other entries), thank goodness for the return of Radiohead. There is no other British rock group working at this level of creativity and ambition. The minimal arrangements of these songs work through creating space as much as sound, and this may eventually stand proud as the most focussed of Radiohead’s post-‘OK Computer’ releases. No longer do they sound like a band merely appropriating a wide range of influences, but rather a living, breathing creative unit subsuming their reference points within a clear and consistent vision. Whilst I’ve been critical of Thom Yorke’s alienation-by-numbers lyrics elsewhere, he excels himself on two unusually personal standouts here – the confessionals ‘House Of Cards’ and ‘Reckoner’. The bonus disc added some more conventional balladry to satisfy less adventurous fans, but also continued the seductive, broadly erotic qualities that dominate the main release (indeed, I pre-empted Yorke himself – he has now called these ‘seduction songs’). With echoes of AR Kane, Talk Talk and Brian Eno, ‘In Rainbows’ built upon some judicious foundations with characteristic invention and audacity.

9. James Blackshaw – The Cloud Of Unknowing (Tompkins Square)
A student of the John Fahey ‘Takoma’ school of guitar playing, James Blackshaw is a homegrown instrumental talent worth celebrating. His sheets and layers of sound create effects that will be more familiar to students of contemporary classical music than folk or rock guitar playing. As a result, ‘The Cloud Of Unknowing’ has a spiritual, prophetic resonance at its heart and is one of 2007’s most unusual and idiosyncratic offerings. It’s actually Blackshaw’s fourth album, and with digital re-releases of the previous three now promised, it looks like a catalogue worth taking the time to explore further.

8. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)
As mirthful and mischievous as Animal Collective’s ‘Strawberry Jam’ undoubtedly is, they were trumped by this solo offering from their percussionist in 2007. In fact, this was by some distance the best record yet from the entire Paw Tracks staple. Taking the summer harmonies of Brian Wilson as its starting point, Noah Lennox filtered his infectious, insistent vocal lines through urgent, propulsive rhythms and quirky home studio manipulations. By linking these fragments together, Lennox crafted a song cycle that sounded at turns eerily familiar and purposefully alien. Lennox appeared to be warping something comforting into something unknown and unforgiving. Not to be confused with Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear of course.

7. Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Domino)
I can’t do much more here than to underline Marcello Carlin’s brilliant exposition on the underselling of this album by professional music critics in Britain (in a similar way, he argues, to the way writers approached ‘The Drift’ by Scott Walker last year). It took Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, in a characteristically erudite press release, to elucidate this album’s sheer brilliance clearly. Robert Wyatt is such a unique and distinctive voice (both literally and figuratively) that it has become all too easy to take him for granted. That much of ‘Comicopera’ emphasises how warm and accessible he can be is therefore no bad thing. Far from being too quirky and idiosyncratic to have a hit, Wyatt can be playful, sincere, warm and affecting. The writing here is incisive and the execution exquisite. Whilst much of the music feels like a statement of personal freedom, Wyatt’s strong sense of humanity and community is also evident and every note is carefully judged and timed. The sudden switch away from the English language represents the clearest expression of political frustration with Western foreign policy yet committed to disc (considerably more eloquent than Neil Young’s hamfisted and overpraised ‘Living With War’, for example). ‘Comicopera’ is a beautiful and disorientating suite charged with as much empathy and insight as anger and rage.

6. Burial – Untrue (Hyperdub)
Disorientating and unsettling, yet also grounded by real emotional depth and a soulful streak, Burial’s second album successfully upgraded the template of his astonishing debut. Although the album is largely wordless, its edited snatches of vocal samples and lingering synth pads combine to say more about a sense of urban dislocation than the self-conscious lyrics of either Thom Yorke or Kele Okereke. ‘Untrue’ is an uneasy but affecting listen to rival Tricky’s ‘Maxinquaye’ or Massive Attack’s ‘Blue Lines’.

5. Michael Brecker – Pilgrimage (Heads Up)
What a towering achievement this album is, not least because Brecker effectively kept himself alive whilst terminally ill to complete it. Brecker surrounded himself with a dream line-up (with both Herbie Hancock and Brad Mehldau, a more-than-usually tasteful and expressive Pat Metheny, complemented and completed by the driving union of Jack DeJohnette and John Patittucci), the sterling support no doubt advancing him to the very peak of his own powers. Whilst ‘Pilgrimage’ does not add anything particularly new to the jazz idiom, it expands the existing language with peerless panache and flair. The themes are incomparably strong and memorable, the group dynamic virtually faultless and the improvising strident and powerful. It’s a muscular group performance, but also tender and mournful in all the appropriate places. ‘Pilgrimage’ is an inevitable future classic and, fittingly, one of Brecker’s very best albums.

4. David Torn – Prezens (ECM)
What is this extraordinary noise exactly? Is it jazz? Is it improvised metal? Is it electronica? Frankly, who cares how it’s classified? It’s much more important that it’s terrifyingly original and, by implication, absolutely terrifying. With an unfathomably inspired line up of free improvisers (Tim Berne, Craig Taborn and the world-class drummer Tom Rainey), ‘Prezens’ is brutal, confrontational and provocative all in the best possible way. It’s unpredictable and thrilling, primal yet also devilishly intricate. It’s some way removed from the more serene and meditative sound normally associated with the ECM label. Best of all, it’s an inspired combination of collective improvisation and studio processing that sounds palpably dangerous. It sounds like an auditory hallucination – a graphic and disturbing musical vision of hell.

3. Bjork – Volta (One Little Indian)
The tribal drums that usher in ‘Earth Intruders’ also neatly symbolise the onward march of Bjork’s musical career. Here is an artist who has never looked back and, at least in part through judicious collaborations, has continued to refine, develop and innovate in all aspects of her work, from production values to artwork. After the experiments with vocal effects on ‘Medulla’, ‘Volta’ adopted an earthier strategy, focussing more on rhythm and on that extraordinarily resonant all-female brass section (all the more striking in the moments when beats were abandoned). It also liberally picked and mixed musical styles from around the globe, with Toumani Diabate’s Koura adding depth and Congolese maestros Konono No. 1 making sonic trouble. With her voice frequently at its most uncompromising, this is not Bjork’s most conventionally melodic statement – but then conventional melody has never been her priority. With every release she continues to stretch her mind and her talent, this time synthesising the rigours of modern composition with the primarily sexual impulse of dance and soul music. It was a signpost of the woman’s magisterial talent that the Timbaland produced tracks are arguably the least successful here. Thematically, ‘Volta’ is a defiant and inspiring celebration of love and life, brave in its exhortation to embrace all opportunities and cast aside misgivings.

2. Feist – The Reminder (Polydor)
Has there been a more insightful, compassionate and sympathetic collection of songs in the last ten years? On ‘The Reminder’, Leslie Feist encapsulated the overwhelming, sometimes stifling power of memory on human relationships with nuance, subtlety and grace. The overall sound was stately and refined but never bland (so the Dido comparisons are entirely misleading) - a highly sophisticated confection unafraid to venture into areas of personality and consciousness that most pop songwriters prefer to avoid. It’s a beautifully produced, captivating and powerfully moving record, and that ubiquitous ipod advert at least made sure that we didn’t miss out on her this year.

1. Dirty Projectors – Rise Above (Rough Trade)
Dave Longstreth’s weird and wonderful masterpiece has hardly even been noticed by the British music press. If it were not for his sterling set in support of Beirut at Koko earlier in the year, I may never have even heard this subversive, bold and fearless music. It’s supposedly a re-imagining of Black Flag’s classic ‘Damaged’ album in its entirety. This could so easily have been a grand folly extraordinaire, but Longstreth, retaining the album’s inlay but not the cassette itself from his youth, worked entirely from personal memories and interpretations. Direct flashbacks to that band’s sound are, perhaps as a result, really only apparent in the unexpected bursts of hardcore thrashing that sometimes perforate the meticulously crafted arrangements. There are hints of Afrobeat, country-rock and the avant garde, all melded into a rigorously controlled yet unspeakably thrilling melting pot. It’s both original and radical, making the rest of 2007’s rock music look timid and tepid by comparison.

Albums Of The Year 2007 Part 3: 50-26

50. Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (Definitive Jux)
Aesop Rock still remains one of my favourite rappers, and he hasn’t yet really put a foot wrong. His language is flighty, verbose and unconventional, and the music never settles for the familiar. Instead, it veers across all sorts of unpredictable, occasionally even uncomfortable terrain, and the results are visceral and exciting. Like his kindred spirits in the Anticon collective, Aesop Rock infuriates those who like their hip hop baser and more aggressive. Yet, if this is a genre based largely on poetics and voice inflections – why should it not incorporate wild flights of fancy and imaginative whims just as much as gritty dissections of reality?

49. Antibalas – Security (Anti)
This one seemed to miss the radar of most UK publications, but it’s a rather joyful and exuberant contemporary take on Afrobeat. Merging the preoccupations of Fela Kuti with the more cerebral outlook of Tortoise (whose John McEntire produces and mixes the entire set), this is a multicultural extravaganza of rhythm and feel. It’s tightly organised, but also thrillingly raw, burningly intense and organic, driven in equal parts by the crisp rhythm and horn sections.

48. Cinematic Orchestra – Ma Fleur (Ninja Tunes)
Here’s an album that has grown on me considerably over the course of the past few months. This is perhaps because it’s Jason Swinscoe’s most subtle musical statement to date – now as enthralled with folk music as with jazz and hip hop. It’s a lighter, more vulnerable record than its predecessors, and a sweetly intoxicating one too. Fontella Bass again guests, apparently now quite unwell, and her damaged but undefeated vocals are quietly devastating. Elsewhere, the intricate shuffle rhythms and slow building atmospheres are masterfully handled. There are some exquisitely judged contributions from some of London’s finest jazz musicians, including keyboardist Nick Ramm and percussionist Milo Fell.

47. Basquiat Strings – Basquiat Strings feat. Seb Rochford (F-IRE)
Whilst Seb Rochford is certainly a crucial figure here, underpinning the music with subtle brush strokes and a uniquely sensitive swing, this is really Cellist Ben Davis’ project. Rightly nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, but inevitably denied its deserved victory in favour of the far more superficial Klaxons, this album is an original fusion – chamber music that grooves.

46. The Bad Plus – PROG (Heads Up)
Now that The Bad Plus’ power trio reversions of rock classics have lost their novelty value, there seems to be an increased risk of taking them for granted. This surely neglects the group’s remarkable technical ability, and their own creative impetus. Over the course of their last couple of albums, their original compositions have become more muscular, occasionally even fiery, and they polyrhythmic invention on display on ‘Prog’ is mind-boggling. Of the interpretations, David Bowie’s ‘Life On Mars’ becomes even more theatrical through a merciless extension by pianist Ethan Iverson and Tears For Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants To Rule The World’ is imbued with reflective regret.

45. Susanna – Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos (Rune Grammofon)
Oh Susanna! What icy elegance, what subtlety, what restraint! I don’t even have any idea what Susanna looks like, but her voice is one of the most beautiful and alluring sounds to pass my ears in the last couple of years. If last year’s album of perverse covers with her Magical Orchestra hinted at Susanna’s singular vision, this absurdly titled ‘solo’ work realises this with purity and majesty. These songs are supremely understated and their grief and sadness cuts through the austerity of the arrangements.

44. Paul Motian, Joe Lovano, Bill Frisell – Time and Time Again (ECM)
Paul Motian’s bassless trio is one of the most original groups in contemporary jazz. Frisell and Lovano seem like radically different musicians on paper. Lovano is well-versed in jazz language and produces a masterful, dominating sound. Frisell is more interested in the intersections between jazz and American folk music, and his trademark sound is more atmospheric and spacey. Yet Motian directs them into a very free and liberating creative space where, whilst restraining some of their more individualistic tendencies, they integrate in a quite remarkable symbiosis. Motian’s drumming is a language all of its own – his nimble, elongated strokes are unique among modern drummers.

43. Pharoahe Monch – Desire (SRC/Universal)
In spite of his breathtaking arrogance, after eight years of almost complete silence, Pharoahe Monch made one of the most taut and least indulgent hip hop albums in some time with ‘Desire’. It’s audacious in the extreme – how odd it is that hip hop seems the one genre of music so supremely personalised that covers are unthinkable. Monch destroys these casual assumptions with ingenuity with his version of Public Enemy’s ‘Welcome To The Terrordome’. In its genre-busting, cerebral force, ‘Desire’ seems almost like a lost classic from an earlier era, but it’s also so savage and confrontational as to resemble nothing else. He’s not shying away from key issues here – ‘Desire’ deals with gun crime, war and poverty amongst other weighty subjects. It’s an attacking, unrepentant blast from a major talent now thankfully back in the game.

42. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Rounder)
It was extremely irritating that all attention was focussed on the superficial Led Zeppelin reunion at the expense of either its chief motivation (the sad death of Atlantic records founder Armet Ehrtegun), or their frontman’s superb contemporary work. Plant is clearly determined not to let Zep get in the way of this fascinating collaborative project (he plans to tour with Krauss next year), but it was always inevitable that it wouldn’t have quite the same commercial impact. Plant has been delving deeper into his musical heritage over the past few years, the result being a complete diminution of rock posturing in favour of sensitively handled interpretations of an American folk canon. That Plant can immerse himself in this world convincingly is testament to his thorough understanding of the music. Whilst Krauss can sometimes be a little pristine or twee in her own work, she sounds more otherworldly and compelling here, and the combination of her voice with Plant’s is surprisingly exotic. With a band that includes the consistently innovative guitarist Marc Ribot, things were never going to get too conventional – and there’s a dark undertone to many of these inspired reworkings.

41. Okkervil River – The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)
Will Sheff continued his blisteringly intense, highly literate songwriting mission on this powerful collection, mixing brutality and tenderness in equal measure. He’s an absolutely superb lyricist, full of ideas delivered in the form of narrative prose-poems rather than conventional verse-chorus-verse songs. His vocal delivery is also savage and impassioned, although he’s increasingly capable of exercising restraint too. Once again, the arrangements were sublime, and his carefully constructed world completely absorbing.

40. Jim Hart’s Gemini – Emergence (Loop)
Those privileged few ‘in the know’ about London’s jazz scene would no doubt assert that the self-promoting Loop Collective represent one of the most promising prospects in some time. Yet Jim Hart’s Gemini, alongside Outhouse, are one of only a handful of their bands to get funds together for national tours. In spite of this, there’s not a great deal of publicity about them, and little recognition that ‘Emergence’ is one of the most confident British jazz albums of the year. Hart is a drummer and percussionist, but he concentrates exclusively on vibraphone and marimba here. He combines creative composing with adventurous improvising. There’s also a remarkably strong rapport between the musicians, driven along nicely by the swinging drumming of Tom Skinner.

39. Supersilent – 8 (Rune Grammofon)
One feels there’s probably as much myth as reality about Norwegian free improvisers Supersilent. Do they really not communicate with each other aside from making this completely unplanned music? It seems unlikely – but, as with all their previous releases, there’s a weird and unforced alchemy to this manipulated, twisted electronic noise. If anything, ‘8’ seems a little more focussed than their previous output, with each track single-mindedly developing a clear idea to its logical conclusion.

38. Animal Collective – Strawberry Jam (Domino)
Animal Collective have progressively been restraining some of their more gonzo tendencies in favour of a more infectious sound that has become increasingly saccharine. ‘Strawberry Jam’ is therefore the perfect title for this sweeter-than-sweet set, but their handling of this jaunty, chirpy music somehow keeps it firmly on the right side of the fine line between insistent and irritating. There’s still a madcap experimentalism at their core, and with some surreal imagery and highly unusual sounds, they delivered their most boundlessly joyful, blissfully lysergic statement so far.

37. John Surman – The Spaces In Between (ECM)
Very little frustrates me quite as much as the notion that Classical and Jazz are mutually exclusive musical disciplines. As Hugh Masakela exclaimed at a recent London concert: ‘It’s not true that a symphony orchestra can’t swing!’. John Surman, one of British jazz’s finest talents, has long been honing his brand of part-composed, part-improvised chamber music. ‘The Spaces In Between’ is another collaboration with double bassist Chris Laurence and the Trans4Mation String Quartet, and may be the best example yet of this peculiarly effective cross-breeding. The music is richly melodic, elegiac and touching, and the quartet accompaniments veer from the languid to the surprisingly sprightly. Best of all, there’s plenty of space for exposition, and Surman has rarely sounded more in control, drawing a tremendous range of sounds from his range of saxophones and clarinets.

36. The Field – From Here We Go Sublime (Kompakt)
Whilst I’m really no techno expert, every so often there’s an album that passes within my radar and makes me wonder what I’ve been missing. In spite of the music’s US heritage with the likes of Derrick May and Jeff Mills, most recently, these albums have mostly emerged from Europe. Laurent Garnier’s ‘Unreasonable Behaviour’ was an almighty classic and a couple of years ago, Isolee’s ‘We Are Monster’ enthralled me with its elegant constructions. Now Swedish producer Axel Willner has produced one of the most captivating electronic albums of 2007. Some have emphasised that this album shares as much with the shoegazing techniques of My Bloody Valentine and Ride as with the minimalist work of Steve Reich or indeed Mills and May. ‘From Here We Go Sublime’ is not really about clever beats (it’s almost entirely four-square), but more about mood, texture and atmosphere. Willner weaves subtle changes into his cumulative repetitions with skill and craft.

35. Erik Friedlander – Block Ice and Propane (SkipStone)
The Cello is still rarely used as an improvisational instrument, which is odd given its depth, versatility and resonance. Yet Erik Friedlander is the highest ranking of three Cellists to appear in this list. He’s one of the instrument’s master technicians, both in ensemble format and as a solo artist, as on this remarkable recording. He has collaborated with artists as diverse as John Zorn and Courtney Love and clearly has little respect for conventional musical boundaries. Sometimes his sound his harsh and grating, sometimes it is dreamy and languid. Perhaps most interesting of all is his deconstructed blues pizzicato, by which he makes his instrument sound more like a guitar. Much of this is folk music, but it is folk music completely revitalised, and imbued with a wonderfully childlike and naïve curiosity.

34. Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti)
Ry Cooder brought his magic production touch to this collection of protest songs from the determinedly gritty former Staple Singer. ‘We’ll Never Turn Back’ demonstrated modern America could still sustain a fiery tradition of rebellion and saw Staples sermonising tirelessly against injustice wherever she saw it. Revitalising these civil rights songs so that they now applied to the impoverished and abused anywhere, she imbued her music with a righteous energy and powerful sense of community.

33. Stars Of The Lid – Stars Of The Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky)
This is some of the strangest, most haunting and beautiful music of the year, yet it achieves this by abandoning most established musical conventions. There’s little melody or harmony and no real underlying rhythm at all – the music instead relies solely on drones and pulses, with only very slight variations in tone and pitch. Yet the bizarre song titles suggest they are not too po-faced in their approach, and the results strongly bear this out. There’s a powerful and entrancing mood, and a carefully controlled ebb and flow that takes this into weird and wonderful territory.

32. Nels Cline Singers – Draw Breath (Cryptogramophone)
Whilst the merits of Wilco’s ‘Sky Blue Sky’ divided opinion somewhat, few could argue with the extraordinary vision and talent of their lead guitarist. With an effortless mastery of the fretboard, Nels Cline is a fearsome improviser rooted in both rock and roll and free jazz. ‘Draw Breath’ is an audacious and thoroughly engaging record, with some lengthy extrapolations that take numerous risks and raise the tension to fever pitch. The group’s name is a quirky misnomer though – there’s no singing whatsoever!

31. Sylvie Lewis – Translations (Cheap Lullaby)
With a slight taste for whimsy and a genuine enthusiasm for a songwriting tradition incorporating cabaret, jazz and musical theatre, Berklee-trained Sylvie Lewis proved one of the major discoveries of the year. Deceptively light and airy, many of these songs were sweetly observed and contained real wit and emotional substance. Her voice, always admirably restrained, never exaggerated or overstated her themes. With a talent for drawing convincing characters and imbuing them with much of her own endearing personality and charm, Lewis remains one to watch.

30. Fennesz Sakomoto – Cendre (Touch)
The combination of Christian Fennesz’s laptop guitar manipulations and Ryuchi Sakomoto’s lingering, unresolved piano chords created a haunting and melancholy atmosphere. Whilst not quite as singularly brilliant as Fennesz’s ‘Endless Summer’, this was still improvised electronic music at its most human and least cloying, invested this time not with warmth, but with a frosty heart.

29. Fraud – Fraud (Babel)
With a strikingly unconventional line-up (no bass, baritone guitar and two drummers!), Fraud proved one of British jazz’s most enticing prospects for some time. This debut was unpredictable and unstoppable in its foraging for new sounds. The chattering, intricate dynamic, chiefly dictated by Tim Giles’ unstoppable, constantly interjecting percussion, provided much more than a fleeting source of excitement.

28. The Broken Family Band – Hello Love (Track and Field)
The cherished cult indie heroes changed direction slightly with this fourth long player. They mostly abandoned both their gently parodic take on country and its more aggressive punk-infused counterpart in favour of some more sincere musings about love and loss. These songs were certainly earnest, but they were also unsparingly candid and unsentimental, and frequently wise in their conclusions and platitudes. There also seemed to be a new sophistication in both production and performance, resulting in ‘Hello Love’ being the group’s strongest and most satisfying work to date.

27. Marnie Stern – In Advance Of The Broken Arm (Kill Rock Stars)
Marnie Stern certainly took no prisoners with her furious, rapid fire, passive-aggressive music. Yet there was also a gift for melody lurking beneath the confrontational poise and the battering-ram assault. These shockingly immediate songs may well prove highly durable. Stern’s strong and distinctively feminine artistry was occasionally reminiscent of a more avant-garde Sleater Kinney. ‘In Advance of the Broken Arm’ has ushered in a fascinating and thrilling new talent.

26. Apostle of Hustle – National Anthem Of Nowhere (Arts and Crafts)
Anyone who thought Yeasayer were unique amongst Western groups in incorporating world music influences should head here. Andrew Whiteman’s project is one of the very strongest of the Broken Social Scene axis (certainly more interesting than Kevin Drew’s slightly underwhelming ‘Spirit If…’) and this is a dense and ambitious album characterised by intricate arrangement, subtle melodic craftsmanship and rhythmic dexterity. It’s adventurous rock music, striving admirably to push this still young musical form in exciting new directions.

To be continued...