Albums of the Year 2011: Honourable Mentions

First of all, sorry for not posting anything here since 1802.

For anyone who has not followed my writing elsewhere, my albums of the year list this year will appear from out of nowhere. I wish I had time to write about everything I've heard and enjoyed this year, but it's just not possible, especially given that my focus increasingly lies elsewhere (this has been a pretty big transitional year).

Here are some albums that, had I been in a slightly different mood, might easily have made my top 100 this year but, in the end, have lost out. The final list will appear here some time between tomorrow and Christmas Day, but I've still got a fair amount of work to do on it.

Wilco - The Whole Love (I agonised about this - Art of Almost and One Sunday Morning are two of the best songs this remarkable band have yet produced, but much of the ornate Beatles and Stones-y stuff in between doesn't quite do it for me).

Ry Cooder - Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (a fine album but not on the level of Chavez Ravine or the Chieftains collaboration in the latterday Cooder stakes)

Olafur Arnalds - Living Room Songs (lovely, as always with Arnalds, but I've included certain other examples of the neoclassical genre).

Jenny Hval - Viscera (still deciding exactly what I think of this very weird, possibly wonderful record).

LV & Joshua Idehen - Routes
JuJu - In Sound
Tamikrest - Toumastin
Alex Garnett - Serpent
Vladislav Delay Quartet - Vladislav Delay Quartet
Master Musicians of Bukkake - Totem Three
Sebastian Rochford and Pamelia Kurstin - Ouch Evil Slow Hop
Zun Zun Egui - Katang
Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin’
Matthewdavid - Outmind
Charles Bradley - No Time For Dreaming
Pat Metheny - What’s It All About
Fringe Magnetic - Twistic
Atlas Sound - Parallax
Matthew Shipp - Art of the Improviser
Gyratory System - New Harmony
Container - lp
Paul Simon - So Beautiful Or So What (lovely in places, but I'm not sure it's quite as good as everyone is making out. To be honest, I'd rather listen to the unfairly maligned Hearts and Bones).

Majiker - The House of Bones

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Mirror Traffic (definitely his crispest, most enjoyable post-Pavement album since the debut, well worth a listen)

Shelby Lynne - Revelation Road

The Roots - Undun (I've listened to very little hip hop this year and am not sure where to place this. On first few listens I'm intrigued).

TV On The Radio - Nine Types of Light
Sam Crowe Group - Flood Tide

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (I really liked this on release, but haven't listened to it for quite a while now)

Metronomy - The English Riviera
Peter Gabriel - New Blood
Me’Shell Ndegeocello - Weather
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything’s Getting Older
How To Dress Well - Love Remains
White Denim - D
White Denim - Last Days of Summer
Thurston Moore - Demolished Thoughts
Bibio - Mind Bokeh
Panda Bear - Tomboy
13 & God - Own Your Ghost
Dark Dark Dark - Wild Go
Youth Lagoon - The Year Of Hibernation
The Necks - Mindset
Laura Marling - A Creature I Don’t Know (by far her best yet and pretty much enough to convert me)

The Weeknd - House of Balloons/Thursday (an astonishing word of mouth hipster success this year - do I actually like it? I'm not sure)

Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me

Gang Gang Dance - Eye Contact (Glass Jar is amazing - what comes after kinda doesn't quite match it).

Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo
The War On Drugs - Slave Ambient
Beirut - The Rip Tide
Ghostpoet - Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jams
The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh

Wild Beasts - Smother (I admire them for doing something different, but I can't quite get into it - at the very least, I'd rather listen to the bands that supposedly inspired it - Talk Talk, Japan etc)

Washed Out - Within and Without
Cindytalk - Hold Everything Dear
Goldmund - All Will Prosper
Pete Swanson - Man With Potential
The Leisure Society - Into The Murky Water
Martyn - Ghost People
Little Dragon - Ritual Union
Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Other Lives - Tamer Animals
Marissa Nadler - Marissa Nadler
Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain
Junior Boys - It's All True
Beastie Boys - Hot Sauce Committee Part 1

musicOMH Reviews

I should also take the time to post links to some of my musicOMH pieces. It may seem like it has been a bit quite around these parts recently, but this is mainly why! I must get a system in place where I can link to musicOMH reviews as they are published.

Nat Baldwin - People Changes
Junior Boys - It's All True
{Ma} - The Last
Gillian Welch - The Harrow & The Harvest
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Pat Metheny - What It's All About
Sebastian Rochford & Pamelia Kurstin - Ouch Evil Slow Hop
Destroyer - Kaputt
JuJu - In Trance
The Impossible Gentlemen - The Impossible Gentlemen
Orchestre Poly-Rythmo - The 1st Album
Roy Harper - Songs Of Love & Loss Vols. 1 & 2
Thomas Dybdahl - Songs
Three Trapped Tigers - Route One Or Die
Vladislav Delay Quartet - Vladislav Delay Quartet
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Tell My Sister
Murcof - Le Sangre Illuminada OST
13 & God - Own Your Ghost
Chrissy Murderbot - Women's Studies
Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain
Tamikrest - Toumastin
Boxcutter - The Dissolve
Jenny Hval - Viscera
Marius Neset - Golden Xplosion
Kode9 & Spaceape - Black Sun
Panda Bear - Tomboy
Phaedra - The Sea
Singing Adams - Everybody Friends Now
Outhouse - Straw, Sticks & Bricks
Sebadoh - Bakesale (Reissue)

Anonymity

Zomby - Dedication (4AD)

Who is Zomby? I ask this question not simply because of his commitment to concealing his identity (his real name has never been given out and he masks his face in publicity shots). I also ask it because of the often confounding nature of the music he makes under a consistent alias. Dedication is his second full-length album, but YouTube and other internet platforms are cluttered with other tracks, some half-formed, some fully-flegded, that have never been officially released. By this stage, it's quite clear that he cannot simply be categorised as a 'post-dubstep' artist, or any such fatuous classification critics might use when they are unable to find adequate language to describe music. If Where Were You In 92? offered a sincere paen to the hardcore and rave eras, Dedication is attempting something very different.

Commentary on this album seems to have been beleaguered by a lack of understanding. It has been dismissed in some quarters as being overly fragmented or incomplete. For sure, the tracks are often brief and many end abruptly and unexpectedly. Yet if Dedication really is a response to grief - the loss of a love one - then the artistic approach adopted here seems to be wholly justified. One's emotions at such a time are often not easily defined or reduced to something coherent and simple. Dedication is a complex beast, flitting rapidly between a variety of styles, colours, textures, atmospheres and emotions. Such techniques are common in acoustic improvised music (although admittedly usually over much more sustained forms), but not so often explored within electronica, with its inevitably more limited dynamic range.

With the music on Dedication, Zomby has found fascinating and original ways of compensating for the music's lack of acoustic properties. Although there are certainly some well-worn influences here (Vangelis, hints at early electronic pioneers such as Daphne Oram), Zomby's work here appears to offer some clear routes away from post-dubstep cul de sacs. It is rhythmically interesting, and predictably dominated by the effects of sound and texture, but melody and harmony are also restored to a prominent place. Sometimes the music here sounds dislocated, withdrawn and distant, sometimes it sounds surprisingly and welcomingly intimate (especially on Natalia's Song).

Although it is fragmented, it is clearly intended to be approached and digested as a whole, rather than through its individual segments. It is completely out of step with the download, attention deficit era. It has a sense of mostly wordless, musical honesty and candour that demands attention and serious consideration. Sometimes it is its briefest moments that provide the greatest interest - I love the melancholy effect of the percussion sounds on Salamander and the pads on Lucifer. Taken individually, these tracks might seem slight, but within the context of the album as a whole, they are potent and imaginative.

Albums such as Dedication remind me that, although I am a committed acoustic musician, there is much to be learned from the techniques used by electronic producers and much to be appreciated and enjoyed. Listen to the polyrhythmic approach on Digital Rain - a track that manages to be at once musically creative, contemplative and gently humorous. Here and on the wonderful A Devil Lay Here, Zomby brilliantly creates emotional impact from the most detached and ambivalent of sounds.

Dedication may only be fully appreciated with the passing of time, something that is rare for the often more immdediate, constantly flucuating trends of electronic music (I fully confess that I cannot keep up with them). It is one of 2011's most underrated releases.

Playlist

I've been out in Vermont recording with Adrian Roye and the Exiles and the amazing Michael Chorney, so listening recently has partially been inspired by him:

Michael Chorney - Oom-Pah of the Ghost Parade
Michael Chorney - Songs In Secret Ink
Anais Mitchell - Hymns For The Exiled
Anais Mitchell - The Brightness
Becca Stevens - Weightless (2011)
Jeanne Lee and Ran Blake - You Stepped Out of a Cloud
Art Ensemble Of Chicago - Nice Guys
Lhasa - The Living Road
Jenny Scheinman - Crossing The Field

Also some listening inspired by Portishead's ATP event this weekend:
Portishead - Third
Company Flow - Funcrusher Plus
PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Beak> - Beak>

Contemporary:
Mark Hanslip and Javier Carmona - DosadoS
Zomby - Dedication
Ambrose Akinmusire - When the Heart Emerges Glistening
SBTRKT - SBTRKT
Ma - The Last
Nat Baldwin - People Change
Seb Rochford and Pamelia Kurstin - Ouch Evil Slow Hop
Pat Metheny - What's It All About
Memory Tapes - Player Piano
Gillian Welch - The Harrow and the Harvest
Bon Iver - Bon Iver
Marissa Nadler - Marissa Nadler
Battles - Gloss Drop

She's An Artist, She Don't Look Back?

Kate Bush - Director's Cut (EMI)

By audaciously re-recording and repackaging tracks from two albums in her back catalogue, Kate Bush seems to have caused some consternation. First, it's astonishing that in spite of being told that the new material from Kate Bush was not going to be a new album as such, many people still seemed to be expecting exactly that. Secondly, and more significantly, why do so may people seem to think revisiting material from the past is such a musical crime? Jazz musicians do so all the time, not just in re-interpreting the standard repertoire, but in reworking their own material. Wayne Shorter has recorded Footprints several times with a variety of ensembles. I see no reason for a song to be a solid, locked in artefact once it has been recorded. Why can it not be a living, breathing artefact, open to new performances and arrangements as time passes? Bob Dylan has long understood this very well.

Another subjective issue in any asssessment of Director's Cut is the apparent consensus that The Sensual World and The Red Shoes (the two albums from which these tracks are sourced) are the weakest and least admired of Bush's albums. I've never quite understood why this might be. For sure, Hounds of Love set an impressive conceptual and artistic standard - but I've always found an embarrassment of riches across these albums, even when they apparently present Bush at her most conventional. Her songwriting has been consistently strong.

Clearly, there were elements in the production and arrangement of this material that Bush herself was never happy with - Director's Cut has afforded her the chance to go back and make alterations. Some of these are very minor, pedantic changes. Others are massively significant. The result is an album that probably has little chance of rising to the top of fans' favourites, but which offers a brilliant case study of Kate Bush's artistic temperament and attention to detail - and, most interestingly of all perhaps, evidence of the change in timbre in her voice since the original tracks were recorded.

This change is immediately clear on Flower of the Mountain, a new version of The Sensual World in which Bush has finally been given permission to use Molly Bloom's soliloquy from James Joyce's Ulysees. Her voice seems older, perhaps wiser but also less adventurous somehow. Other than the new vocal, there isn't a lot of difference between this new version and the original, and I have to admit that the original sounded more erotic and involving to my ears. It sounds rather as if Bush is struggling to adapt the song to the words she always wanted to use. Her own actually worked more effectively. There are other alterations that seem to spoil the atmosphere of the original songs too - Lily is transformed into a rather lumbering funk-rock track, with superfluous streams of distorted guitar. It actually sounded less dated in its original guise.

Perhaps the most significant change throughout is the drums. These often seemed over-produced on the original albums, but here she has captured a much more natural, warm and acoustic drum sound. This comes across particularly clearly on the wonderful new versions of Deeper Understanding and Song of Solomon. The latter is a great example of how very subtle modifications can have a tremendous impact. The backing vocals of the Trio Bulgarka much clearer, and it has a tremendously detailed mood. The vocoder section of Deeper Understanding (featuring Bush's son Bertie) has caused some controversy. It perhaps makes the song sound less futuristic and even more of its time, however prescient it was when first released. Bush's tale of computer addiction has very much been borne out in the internet age. The mysterious, wordless extended coda, with its lithe, expressive drum pattern, is simply magnificent.

The most substantial changes are sure to divide opinion. This Woman's Work, among her most loved songs, and something of a power ballad in its original form, has been completely transformed into an Eno-esque, spacey, ambient lament. It tugs on the heartstrings a little less, but perhaps its distinctive contemplative melancholy is more nuanced and more realistic. I love both versions - the old one, of course, is very much still there. Less successful for me is Rubberband Girl, now remodelled as a clunky Rolling Stones pastiche. This kind of context just does not really suit Bush's flighty, theatrical approach to singing - it simply shows that she works far better as an idiosyncratic solo artist than as frontwoman in a rock and roll band.

Less transformative, but brilliantly designed nonetheless, is the new version of Moments of Pleasure. This was always a strong song - but even the most die-hard of Bush fans would surely have to admit that the original was a little over the top. This new version retains the piano ballad template, but the delivery and execution are considerably more restrained and elegant. Along with Song of Solomon, Deeper Understanding and This Woman's Work, it is one of the album's great triumphs.


On listening to Director's Cut, I'm reminded of something Ian Carr used to say a lot in his jazz workshops at WAC (now threatened with closure due to Arts Council cuts) - 'sometimes you have to look back in order to move forwards.' It's very wise advice actually, and I wonder when new Bush material does emerge, it might be considerably stronger as a result of her hard work on this project. Even if I'm wrong in this prediction, there's something hugely satisfying in seeing Bush wrongfoot everyone in such committed, steadfast style. Once again, it seems she is restless and on the move.

Case Sensitive

tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)

It seems as if everyone has been talking about this second album from Merrill Garbus - to the extent that it's almost tempting to veer into stubborn hype avoidance mode and simply ignore it. This would be a massive mistake though, for this album is every bit as wonderful and inventive as Garbus'type-setting is infuriating.

Garbus' solo debut Bird-Brains (OK, I can't be bothered with the upper and lower cases now) gradually worked its way to cult status, its extremely erratic recording quality failing to detract from Garbus' anything-goes approach. If anything, the frequently maxed out distortion added to the record's immense charms.

whokill is a different beast, however. It's more carefully edited, and its relatively concise running time definitely works in its favour. Also, it sees Garbus entering a professional recording studio for the first time, polishing her craft while retaining the essence of her maverick, scattershot style (The backing vocals on Gangsta are as harsh and biting as anything on Bird-Brains). In addition to whatever imaginative, creative merit this album undoubtedly has - the first impression of Garbus' ingenious work is that it is tremendous fun.

Garbus' approach is both brutally direct and wondrously wayward. Sometimes it feels as if she is throwing absolutely everything at the wall - whokill has avant garde saxophone freak-outs, Nigerian hi life style guitars and thunderous lo-fi drums. What holds it together is the element that reigns triumphantly over the melee - Garbus' jagged, unconventional voice. It's hard to find parallels for Garbus' style, but it seems to be influenced as much by hip-hop and dancehall toasting as by soul and more traditional forms of soundcraft. It is likely to be as polarising as the strange, intervalic daring of Dave Longstreth or the saccharine swoop of Joanna Newsom. For me, Garbus' versatility alone makes her an important vocal talent - she can be overpowering at one moment, the next expressing stark, naked vulnerability. When Riotriot stops and she belts out 'there is a freedom in violence I don't understand' with all the force in her lungs, it is genuinely disturbing, and yet somehow also strangely euphoric.

For all its sonic onslaught, whokill also has moments of disarming tenderness. Powa begins with strummed guitars and Garbus' fragile falsetto, before moving into more gutsy territory (Garbus' warped take on classic rock perhaps). Wooly Wooly Gong is more delicate still - a beautiful, haunting moment amidst some turbulent surroundings. These juxtapositions are always handled with thought and are carefully constructed. Garbus is clearly constantly alive to the possibilities of sound and timbre.

This is an important record - one that really establishes Garbus as a major female talent to watch alongside the likes of Bjork and Kate Bush. She is a true idiosyncratic individual, fully deserving of the hype and attention.

Playlist

Enjoying lots of great music at the moment and struggling to find time to write about it.

Grouper - A I A (Yellowelectric)
tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l (4AD)
Egyptrixx - Bible Eyes (Night Slugs)
Bibio - Mind Bokeh (Warp)
Vladislav Delay Quartet - Vladislav Delay Quartet (Honest Jon's)
Murcof - Le Sangre Illuminada (Infine)
Tindersticks - Claire Denis Soundtracks (free sampler with Sight & Sound)
Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Tell My Sister (Nonesuch 3 disc box set - their first two albums plus a disc of extras and rarities)
Look, Stranger! - If You're Listening EP (http://lookstranger.bandcamp.com)
Low - C'Mon (Sub Pop)
Singing Adams - Everybody Friends Now (Records Records Records)
Boxcutter - The Dissolve (Planet Mu)
Kode9 & The Spaceape - Black Sun (Hyperdub)
Chrissy Murderbot - Women's Studies (Planet Mu)
Paul Simon So Beautiful Or So What (Decca)
Emmylou Harris - Hard Bargain (Nonesuch)
The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh (Bella Union) - finally checking this out properly in light of their brilliant QEH gig last week, a review of which should be going up on musicOMH shortly.
TV On The Radio - Nine Types of Light (Polydor)
Cass McCombs - Wit's End (Domino)
Avishai Cohen - Seven Seas (Blue Note)
Metronomy - The English Riviera (Because)
How To Dress Well - Love Remains (PIAS) - something else I should have checked out ages ago!

More Reviews

Some links to some more of my work for musicOMH

Bill Callahan - Apocalypse
Alela Diane - Alela Diane & Wild Divine
Kairos 4tet - Statement of Intent
Joe Lovano - Bird Songs
Howe Gelb & Band Of Gypsies - Alegrias
Twelves - The Adding Machine
Gwilym Simcock - Good Days At Schloss Elmau
Fringe Magnetic - Twistic
Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972
Isolee - Well Spent Youth
Peaking Lights - 936
Vijay Iyer with Prasanna and Nitin Mitta - Tirtha

I do seem to have a default setting for four star reviews - but there's some really excellent music here. The Tim Hecker album strikes me as being something very special indeed.

Sanctuary

Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)

The recent expansive folly of Sufjan Stevens on The Age of Adz gives little hint of the nature of releases on his Asthmatic Kitty label. This latest release from vocalist Julianna Barwick has a timeless feeling to it, perhaps by virtue of being as in thrall to medieval choral music as it is to modern electronics and home studio recording techniques (it was recorded at Stevens’ personal studio). Whereas Stevens threw every conceivable piece of electronic trickery at the wall for ...Adz, Barwick focuses on the startlingly pure sound of her own layered, wordless voices, with haunting and impressive results.

There’s an inevitably hymnal, sacred quality to much of this music. It’s possible that Barwick might have been influenced as much by minimal, spiritually concerned contemporary composers such as Arvo Part as much as by the solipsistic vocal arrangements of, say, Bon Iver. The desire to move beyond language also has much in common with the ethereal, powerful music made by The Cocteau Twins. Comparisons may well also be made with Sigur Ros but, for the most part, The Magic Place lacks that band’s tendency towards portentous overstatement.

Barwick’s voice always occupies the foreground of the music, sometimes in glorious harmony, sometimes with compelling polyphonic dissonances. Perhaps the best example of her real skill in arranging comes with Keep Up The Good Work, where parts that initially seem in conflict with each other are carefully entwined. The dense reverb inevitably makes Barwick sounds ghostly and detached - but this is evidently the intended effect. Often it feels like Barwick’s multi-tracked voice is communicating from every possible dimension and more.

Barwick’s chief weapon would appear to be repetitive looping, hardly itself a particularly original gambit, but she uses it to create an illusion of complexity whilst keeping her music direct and resonant. She also makes intelligent use of pitch and range - shaping her phrases by using the extremes of her register. When instruments do join or take over (there is a piano coda to the majestic Flown), they occupy the same spare, reflective ground, with languid melodic lines, long held chords and acres of space.

Slightly unexpectedly, the penultimate track Prizewinning adds in a pulsating synthesiser line and the slightest suggestion of a beat, but even this tentative step towards minimal electronica fits with the album’s cohesive mood. Barwick has managed to find an open, broad sound that is at once ancient and modern.

Implosion

R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros)

The critical consensus surrounding latterday R.E.M. continues to mystify me. The general belief is that the group lost their way when Bill Berry left, recording a couple of albums that did not really 'represent' them (Up and Reveal) before making the first genuinely bad album of their career (Around The Sun) and finding their true voice as a 'rock' band again with Accelerate. My highly personal regard for Up aside, the generous reaction to Collapse Into Now is even more confounding. Around The Sun begins to look like a solid gold masterpiece when placed next to this. Reviews on both sides of the Atlantic have suggested this is R.E.M. sounding like themselves - and that it is the best album we can hope for them to make at this stage. This is hugely uncritical, and in some ways disrespectful to both the band and their longstanding fans.

Of course it's unreasonable to expect R.E.M. to make music that ranks with their greatest works (and I would include New Adventures In HiFi and Up in this list, along with everything from Murmur to Automatic For The People, perhaps even Monster as well - they have been a remarkably consistent band). It's not unreasonable, however, to expect something a little more than mere third rate facsimiles of their history. It's not unreasonable to expect a decent and sympathetic production. It's not unreasonable to expect some good songs, or some maturity and insight at this stage in a career.

The biggest problem here, it pains me to admit, is Michael Stipe. His voice and lyrics have often been one of the band's great assets, even when he preferred a subdued and sometimes incomprehensible voice. If anything, his lyrics have been on the decline since Up. That album was intensely personal, honest and powerful and it would appear to have exhausted him. Reveal's musings on man and nature were a little glib and Around The Sun was dogged by benign platitudes. Here, he reaches a new nadir of self parody, often resorting to the worst aspects of his nonsense doggerel or lazily assumed profundity. It Happened Today is the worst example of the latter, with Stipe allowing himself to rhyme 'this is not a parable/It is a terrible....a terrible thing') because he has earned his wings. When the grand chorus of Stipe, Eddie Vedder and, unexpectedly, Joel Gibb from the Hidden Cameras, takes over with a chorus of aaaahs which lasts for half the song, it's almost as if Stipe has recognised what a disaster it is and can't be bothered to finish it. This is a long way from Find The River.

Cliches abound elsewhere too. Uberlin finds him 'flying on a star', Blue's detour into spoken word represents a flagrant attempt to reprise E-Bow The Letter (it even features Patti Smith for heaven's sake). Disoverer is a little better, a reminder that Stipe once wrote songs where the meaning was opaques, but where it at least felt there was a meaning somewhere. A number of the lyrics on Collapse Into Now feel clipped and underwritten, as if he was lacking inspiration. His voice sounds tired and uninterested throughout.

As for the music, it's largely ruined by Jacknife Lee's production. This makes me desperate to hear the demos the band supposedly recorded with Tucker Martine, a producer far more likely to capture the band sensitively, instead of applying heavy compression and stadium bombast. Lee was kept at bay a little on Accelerate (although both he and the band did seem to confuse distortion with radicalism) - here he is allowed to run riot. The worst moment is the hilarious Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter, featuring uncomfortable guest vocals from Peaches. It's an attempt to recapture the strident glam rock of the Monster-era, but its ludicrous rhyme scheme ('alligator/escalator') is more reminiscent of U2's 'mole in a hole' fiasco on Elevation, for me one of the worst songs in recent memory and not a good role model. It all suggests that the band are, in spite of refusing to tour this album, looking for a way back into the stadium big league that feels unnatural and unforced.

Some have suggested that Collapse Into Now feels like a band comfortable with who they are, perhaps because it is balanced between upbeat rockers and acoustic numbers (with mandolins!). For me, it feels like a band trying to recapture what they were. Uberlin is a direct facsimile of Drive but it has no bite, instead just floating by aimlessly. Oh My Heart is shamelessly self-referential, alluding to a song as recent as Houston. It's at least a hearfelt piece about New Orleans and Katrina - and arguably the strongest thing here. Mine Smell Like Honey sounds like The Wake Up Bomb with less energy and some very silly lyrics. The portentously titled Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I is regrettably forgettable. There's a distinct lack of strong melodies here - far more so than on Up.

What a shame that every R.E.M. album since Up has been hampered by self consciousness, and an attempt to make the band what people seem to expect them to be. On Reveal, it sounded like they wanted to move through the doors they had boldly opened with Up, but they had to temper this movement with some breezy, summery pop with a heavy Beach Boys influence. The whole has its moments, but is a little wishy-washy overall. Around The Sun was purposefully ballad heavy, in an attempt to be another Automatic For The People (although they seemed to have forgotten that that album had Ignoreland and The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight, and was never as relentlessly plodding). Accelerate was a blustery reaction to the criticism meted out to Around The Sun. Collapse Into Now is a desperate attempt to collect everything they have already achieved in one place - it just seems so half-hearted and browbeaten.

Perhaps there is pressure from Warners given the astronomical amount of money they invested in the band just as they were beginning a long commercial decline. But it says much about the status of R.E.M. in 2011 that there is a good deal more interest in the new Elbow record than in Collapse Into Now. I'm not for a minute suggesting they should stop making music - their artistry has sustained them well beyond the lifespan of most bands and has made them immeasurably important. Yet they should at least make the music they want to make - move to something more reflective and mature. It seems unlikely now that they will ever finish the job they started with Up.

Playlist

Some things I must get round to writing about, either here or elsewhere:

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
Nicolas Jaar - Space Is Only Noise (Circus Company)
Vijay Iyer with Prasanna and Nitin Mitta - Tirtha (Act)
Gwilym Simcock - Good Days at Schloss Elmau (Act)
Joe Lovano Us Five - Bird Songs (Blue Note)
Peaking Lights - 936 (Not Not Fun)
Gil Scott-Heron and Jamie xx - We're New Here (XL)
Isolee - Well Spent Youth (Pampa)
Julianna Barwick - The Magic Place (Asthmatic Kitty)
Destroyer - Kaputt (Merge)
Trichotomy - The Gentle War (Naim Jazz)
REM - Collapse Into Now (Warner Bros) - I suspect my review of this is not going to be too positive unfortunately.

Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't I?

Radiohead - The King of Limbs (Download/XL)

Perhaps the best aspect of Radiohead's mischief-making release methods is also the worst - the fact that music critics are no longer privileged enough to hear the music before the fans. The impressive lack of leaks means that everyone is making the same snap judgement on the music at exactly the same time. In some ways this is refreshing, but in others it is deeply irritating. However important a band Radiohead are, I'm not sure that the very fact of an album's release really merits live blogging. Perhaps it's interesting to see how people's first reactions gradually change - but they don't really help anyone trying to form an impression of the album.

Having spent a good few days with The King of Limbs now, I can confess that my own thoughts on it have changed too. Lotus Flower, the first track to appear online with that ludicrous Thom Yorke dance moves video, underwhelmed on first listen - but its subtleties only emerge after a few plays. That it's actually one of the album's most straightforwarly melodic moments says a great deal about how far Radiohead are now veering from the demands of the mainstream rock marketplace. This, in itself, is nothing new really.

This, I suppose, is the general issue with The King of Limbs. Like In Rainbows before it, it feels less like a complete redefinition of the group's sound, but more like a subtle expansion. There are sounds and textures here that suggest Thom's recent collaboration with Flying Lotus proved influential, as well as a fair hint that the group have been consuming radical UK bass music. Colin Greenwood is very prominent in the mix on many of these songs, creating a general sense of murky claustrophobia. It is in the areas of sound and atmosphere that King of Limbs really excells - from the tremendous, overwhelming, disorientating initial blast of Bloom to the off kilter, disturbing Feral. Even in the album's more approachable second half, the treatment of Yorke's vocals and the discreet entrance of strings and other elements never prove anything less than imaginative.

Rhythms are important too. Another common thread with In Rainbows are that many of these songs are built up from propulsive, urgent drum loops. There's not a great deal of dynamic contrast (as Edward Randell has already stated here) but the band arguably compensate for this with more textural approaches (drums drop in and out, at times the bass disappears, leaving everything feeling very stark and naked). Much of The King of Limbs also extends the more sensual, evocative approach the group have assumed since Hail To The Thief. The band completely eschew any anthemics or emotional manipulation here - everything is rigorous and austere. In this sense, this may be a very timely recording.

Some commentators have made claims implying that there are little or no guitars on King of Limbs. This is palpable nonsense. The guitars are simply used sparingly and sensibly - as a means of creating a new mood or texture rather than simply being there to define every aspect of the band's sound. The appropriately haunting Give Up The Ghost is ushered in by an acoustic guitar strum, whilst Mr. Magpie has muted, picked lines that add to the track's tetchy, twitchy feeling. Perhaps the best use of guitar anywhere on the record comes on the superb final track Separator, a song that is gradually worming its way into the upper echelons of my unwritten list of favourite Radiohead songs. The delicate, intertwining guitar lines are so deftly blended with the overall sound that it takes a while to register their presence.

It is the second half of King of Limbs that provides the album's more transparent pleasures - but even these are handled with dignified restraint. It seems that Codex might at any point explode into something bigger and more grandiose, but even with strings and brass, it's just a subdued heartbeat. Giving Up The Ghost and Seperator are both beautiful, Thom Yorke's voice multitracked to heartbreaking effect. Yet none of this should blind us to the more visceral impact of the album's more combative first half, nor to the band's impressive attention to detail.

King of Limbs is an unusually short album, but its consistent quality is arguably a first for post-OK Computer Radiohead. I've always a maintained a true masterpiece could have been constructed from the most successful moments from Kid A and Amnesiac - instead, we ended up with both and some slightly tentative moments. A similar argument could be made when both discs of In Rainbows are taken into consideration. There's little doubt that Hail To The Thief was overlong. This one seems purposefully balanced, carefully sequenced, meticulously composed and, as ever, superbly recorded. With every listen, it reveals new details and fresh perspectives.

England's Dreaming

PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Island)

Much as I really admire the writing and expertise of Rob Young, I can't help but question his assessment of the new PJ Harvey album in this month's Wire magazine. It's good to read a balanced review that steers clear of hyperbole or cynical attacks but his assertion that Let England Shake feels unfinished feels like a mistake to me. As is often the case with PJ Harvey albums, the music is raw, direct and sometimes combative but to me this feels like one of Harvey's most cohesive and successful artistic statements. It's impressive that so far into a recording career of perhaps surprising longevity, Harvey is continuing to develop and expand her horizons.

Thematically, Let England Shake could be presented as a logical extension of the concerns of its predecessor, 2007's White Chalk. On that album, Harvey seemed preoccupied with images of the English landscape - concerns that seemed to inspire her to traverse new musical terrain too, finding a new, higher vocal register and basing many of the arrangements around her rather rudimentary piano playing (even starker and less finessed than Joanna Newsom's). Some of those thoughts recur - as Harvey sings of the white cliffs of Dover for example - but Let England Shake seems to be aimed at broader concerns. Here, PJ Harvey addresses both imperial history and a war-dominated present, perhaps suggesting that England's glory has been blighted by war.

Few songwriters would have the historical impulse to make reference to the doomed Galipoli campaign, but sometimes Harvey's lyrics feel more impressionistic than some writers have suggested. On 'The Last Living Rose', she risks sounding like a Daily Express leader - 'Goddamn Europeans! Take me back to beautiful England'. Presumably, her attention is ironic, drawing attention the nation's imperial decline (for which reason I'm never quite sure whether she really means England, or is in fact speaking more generally about Britain).

Perhaps the most interesting feature about Let England Shake, the element that most reviews have bafflingly ignored, is how it sounds. Harvey has always had a tremendous gift for getting maximum results from the bare minimum of material. That she seems to do this without ever really repeating herself makes this all the more impressive. Whereas White Chalk foregrounded rudimentary piano, the guitar and Harvey's autoharp are at the heart of Let England Shake. Much of the music is based on very basic strumming patterns - yet it sounds primal and urgent rather than purely reductive. A finely balanced degree of reverb adds to the sense of impending doom.

Another common feature is call and response vocal techniques, which are used to superb effect on both The Glorious Land and The Words That Maketh Murder (on which Mick Harvey joins in), two of Harvey's finest songs to date. Basic rock and roll music is transformed into something more mysterious - something much closer to an English folk tradition.

Harvey also adds elements that seem incongruous - sometimes they are very obviously exactly that. The sample of Niney's Blood and Fire that underpins Written On The Forehead is not matched to the song's pitch or tempo and neither is the bugle clarion call on The Glorious Land. Elsewhere, baritone saxophone seems like a more forceful presence than bass guitar, especially on the ominous, drifting All and Everyone.

The quality and depth of feeling of the music here is remarkably consistent, but a few songs stand out nonetheless. On Battleship Hill is remarkable. It veers between a gentle, relaxed strum that might seem twee in any other context and some freer, subliminal moments on which Harvey's high register vocal sounds desperate. It ends with the devastating assessment that 'cruel nature has won again'. It's a startling, unpredictable, deviously clever piece of writing. England is a poignant, melancholy lament that demonstrates the great versatility of Harvey's voice on this album. Here she sounds more ragged and unhinged. Hanging In The Wire is simply beautiful, whilst Written On The Forehead is just disarmingly weird.

PJ Harvey seems to be one of those artists that just seems to get better as she matures. There is a case for her being right up there with Kate Bush and Bjork in the pantheon of great contemporary female artists. Sometimes in the past, her work has tended to be raw to the point of being difficult. Let England Shake is brilliantly realised - a Harvey album that can be loved as much as it can be admired.

Chain Links

Here are some of my most recent pieces for musicOMH:

Moritz Von Oswald Trio
Six Organs of Admittance
Aurelio
Gruff Rhys

One That Got Away

Partikel - Partikel (F-IRE)

Amazon has the official release date for this debut album from London jazz trio Partikel as October 2010, but somehow it's only just passed under my radar. It's a shame I didn't pick up on it earlier as it should undoubtedly have been included in my albums of the year list.

Partikel are a young band and it would be an easy argument to suggest that they might perhaps have recorded their debut album too early, before the individual players had really found their compositional or improvisational voices (they are recent graduates from Trinity College of Music's jazz course). This proves emphatically not to be the case, however. Saxophonist and composer Duncan Eagles, bassist Max Luthert and drummer Eric Ford honed their skills hosting jam sessions at the Hideaway venue in Streatham, South London, and so emerge as a fully formed, empathetic and interactive unit on this thrilling debut album.

Eagles' writing is melodically accessible and direct, thus potentially introducing new audiences to more sophisticated rhythmic techniques and to more interactive performance. This is a world where Luthert's propulsive lines and Ford's creative drumming (often incorporating an interesting range of auxiliary percussion instruments) have fundamental and vital roles in the ensemble. There are other contemporary jazz groups operating in a similar area - Kairos 4tet spring to mind as the most obvious contemporary comparison point. Partikel are exploring these avenues with a similar commitment to creativity, energy and accuracy.

Although the melodies may be direct, this is not to say that they are without depth. Oojimaflip has lines that seem straightforward - but it is a real skill to write compositions this immediate, but which serve as an inspiring springboard for improvisation and experiment - rhythmic modulation is a common feature of the band's daring and exciting music.

The band make great use of the space and freedom afforded by the piano-less trio format. Eagles plays with an impressive dynamic range and a full bodied sound, with consistently imaginative phrasing. He is more than ably supported by Luthert and Ford, the former a completely dependable presence, anchoring the music, while Ford plays creatvely and expressively throughout. Often, as on the track that gives both the band a name and the album its title, the band create a wealth of material from very minimal foundations - in this case a simple riff built from very few notes. Even when the music veers into freer territory, there is still the sense that the band are still exploring outward from the basis of the original idea.

The album is bookended by two short segments recorded at soundchecks, perhaps there simply to demonstrate the band's open-mindedness and continual development. In between are compositions rich in variety. Highlights include the unexpected twists and turns of Cryptography and the delicate, graceful lilt of The River.

The Backlash Blues

James Blake - James Blake

In some quarters of the media, the blogosphere and on twitter, James Blake has become a victim of cynicism. It's all very tempting of course - and I've no doubt been guilty of it myself. Given some of the selections that have graced the annual BBC tastemaking polls, it would be easy to dismiss Blake as a novelty or a pastiche merchant. The Quietus have been tweeting seemingly dismissive jokes about his use of autotune, whilst others have candidly decided that this debut album is either dull or indulgent. I had my own suspicions on hearing Blake's cover of Feist's 'Limit To Your Love', but that turns out to be something of a red herring. It's fine enough, but easily the most conventional track here.

What Blake appears to be doing with the rest of the album is something a good deal more ambitious than the Feist cover's take on Massive Attack esque modern soul. There are hints at R&B throughout the rest of the album, but as Blake himself admits, he has also been strongly influenced by the likes of Bon Iver and Laura Marling. Much of this courageous and well defined debut seems to be an attempt to combine the emotional punch of modern folk songwriting with some of the stylistic traits and minimalism of electronic production. In doing this, Blake will wrongfoot some of the admirers of his early EPs which, perhaps misleadingly, had been assumed by many to fall under the dubstep or post-dubstep banner. It's perhaps worth noting at this point that the outstanding Klawierwerke already gave some hint of what was to come on this full length. 'James Blake' the album demonstrates that Blake still has much in common with producers such as Jamie xx or Mount Kimbie, but he is also acutely aware of the power of the human voice and the purity of a simple melody.

Two tracks, both operating largely on the power of repetition and manipulation of a simple phrase, neatly sum up Blake's approach. 'The Wilhelm Scream' is a miniature masterpiece of minimal arrangement - spacious but cumulatively intense. 'I Never Learnt To Share' is similarly electrifying. It's built almost entirely around what seems like a candid confession ('my brother and my sister don't speak to me...but I don't blame them') but which assumes a stranger sentiment in the knowledge that Blake is in fact an only child. Much like 'The Wilhelm Scream', the song has a sense of a gathering storm. Blake generally eschews conventional song structures - these are arranged pieces rather than sets of verses and choruses.

Blake has a strong sense of harmony and rhythm. The gospel and blues undertones to the tantilisingly brief 'Give Me My Month' or the beautiful closer 'Measurements' suggests he has absorbed a far wider range of music than many commetators have given him credit for. He also has a keen sense of sound and a hugely impressive attention to detail that make even his most subtle pieces (such as the two parts of 'Lindisfarne', where his voice is electronically altered) have a depth of feeling and a real strength in commmunication. Anyone who closes their minds and ears to this excellent debut is missing the work of a talented and adventurous musician - one that could have career longevity simply through an ability to move in completely unpredictable directions.

First Playlist of 2011

Here's the first selection of the new year - new and old material. I wonder if the new Decemberists album might transpire to be a better new REM album than the upcoming new REM album. The Broadcast material is included as a result of devastating circumstances. The loss of Trish Keenan is massive, tragic and shocking. It's always good to return to their early albums - I just wish I was doing it for more positive reasons. I will have plenty to say about the Iron & Wine and James Blake albums soon.


The Decemberists - The King Is Dead
Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean
James Blake - James Blake
Jonny - Jonny (collaboration between Euros Childs and Norman Blake)
Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo
Sidi Toure - Sahel Folk

Broadcast - The Noise Made By People
Broadcast - Ha Ha Sound
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn The Torpedos
Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Up Above My Head (compilation)
Richard Thompson - Dream Attic
Richard Thompson - Henry The Human Fly (this seems to have been recently added to Spotify, which serves as some consolation for all the great jazz which has recently been removed).
Oriole - Migration
Oriole - Song For The Sleeping
Van Morrison - Moondance
Van Morrison - Astral Weeks

Richard Thompson Interview

A few days ago, I was lucky to have a brief telephone conversation with the incredible Richard Thompson. The results of that chat can be found here.

Richard had plenty of informed and inspiring things to say about social commentary, the folk music tradition and the idea of music being a process of constant exploration. He is clearly deeply immersed in music and deeply committed to every aspect of his work. I respect him even more as an artist now.

Review of 2010 Part 3: My 100 (and a bit) Best Albums

100. Phantom - Smoke and Mirrors (La Nausee)
Hardly anyone in the mainstream media noticed this wonderful download-only album from Canadian-British duo Phantom. Luckily, I gave it a warm review over at musicOMH. Consisting of two long tracks, themselves comprised of shorter pieces segued together, Smoke and Mirrors was both demanding and rewarding. Clearly intended to be digested as a whole, it went against commercial imperatives calling for bitesize chunks of music, and aimed at reinvigorating the album format for the download market. If it didn’t quite succeed, it wasn’t for lack of imagination and ambition in the music - Phantom constructed their own seamless, intoxicating sound collage with real skill.

99. Corinne Bailey Rae - The Sea (Virgin)
I surprised myself with just how much I liked this second album from a singer I’d previously dismissed as a coffee table prop. Having been through a great deal of personal tragedy and strife, that Bailey Rae returned to music at all was remarkable. That she returned with an album this deep, coherent and powerful is all the more impressive.

98. Teebs - Ardour (Brainfeeder)
This release, on Flying Lotus’ Brainfeeder label, was one of the many great electronic releases of the year - a pretty, lush, expansive work in the pastoral manner familiar from Four Tet circa Pause or Rounds.

97. Vijay Iyer - Solo (ACT)
Vijay Iyer’s solo piano music doesn’t quite have the incredible impact of his recent trio work, but it does demonstrate his knowledge of the jazz tradition as much as his intriguing attempts to subvert or develop it. He doesn’t seem as comfortable in this idiom as Keith Jarrett or Bill Evans, and he is a very different kind of pianist from those two great revolutionaries of jazz piano. ‘Solo’ shows him to be thoughtful as well as intelligent. As a result of this and some careful selections of material, ‘Solo’ is a satisfying album.

96. Andreya Triana - Lost Where I Belong (Ninja Tune)
Vocalist with Flying Lotus’ extraordinary Infinity project, Andreya Triana also made a decent album in her own name this year. Lost Where I Belong is spacious, delicate, sometimes exotic music - reminiscent of Minnie Riperton.

95. Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone (Anti)
Mavis Staples’ gritty voice still sounds striking and authoritative even now. Here, in Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, she finds another musician-producer completely attuned to her needs and abilities. This is a fine, carefully crafted album of excellent songs, delivered with passion, commitment and soul by Staples.

94. Field Music - (Measure) (Memphis Industries)
Field Music’s ‘hiatus’ turned out to be refreshingly brief, a detour of a couple of years to allow Peter and David Brewis to collaborate on separate projects. Now reunited under the Field Music moniker with one of the year’s many long albums (what was in the water in 2010?), it’s hard to resist dubbing them the OutKast of British indie. The Brewis brothers certainly revel in writing far more superior and sophisticated music to your average British indie band - this was cerebral, individualistic guitar pop.

93. The Bad Plus - Never Stop (Emarcy)
I greatly preferred this to For All I Care, The Bad Plus’ previous album with vocalist Wendy Lewis. Never Stop is their first album to consist entirely of original compositions, and it served as a timely reminder that their own writing has for some time now been stronger than their infamous interpretations. They remain one of the best contemporary jazz trios - with a strong sense of time and groove, and a thrilling ability to interact.

92. Mountain Man - Made The Harbor (Bella Union)
This lovely piece of appalachian folk reminded me greatly of the very popular O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack, but with much less of a gently parodic sensibility. In fact, Made the Harbor sounds like a deeply serious record, in thrall to the sound of combined human voices.

91. Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo (Sub Pop)
Inevitably, much has been made of Avigdor Zahner-Isenberg’s youth (he’s still not even 20), but this would have been an impressive debut at any age. Zahner-Isenberg is a superb guitarist, and much of the excitement in the music comes from the relationship between his wiry but pretty melodies and the sudden bursts of heavy guitar improvising. If some of the song titles (Five Little Sluts, Summer Cum) lean towards the misogynistic or pointlessly provocative, this is the only downside of a summery album full of quality.

90. Mary Gauthier - The Foundling (Proper)
This is one of Gauthier’s finest album - an unflinching, brutally honest album about her own life as an adopted, initially abandoned child, and chronicling the pain and suffering of the rejection she felt on finding her birth mother. This is raw, heartbreaking music and Gauthier is one of the most undervalued singer-songwriters at work right now.

89. LCD Soundsystem - This Is Happening (DFA/EMI)
Basically more of the same from James Murphy - a small sense of diminishing returns after the fantastic Sound of Silver, but it would be churlish to complain when the results are this enjoyable. Murphy is, however, entirely right that it is time to move on to something different.

88. Matthew Dear - Black City (Ghostly International)
This sleek, robotic, dark and occasionally erotic album from Matthew Dear is fascinating. Dear has little shame in electronically manipulating his voice to produce some distinctly unfashionable sounds, and Black City is an individual and authoritative statement as a result of this.

87. Secret Quartet - Bloor Street (Edition)
This is essentially an album of classic-sounding acoustic jazz, benefiting from the melodic invention and clarity of tone from Martin Speake and the strong foundations provided by pianist Nikki Iles. The compositions are consistently strong and the improvising full of insight and inspiration.

86. Autechre - Oversteps/Move of Ten (Warp)
Another act to produce more music than strictly required in 2010 were electronic pioneers Autechre. I should have investigated the Autechre catalogue more throughly than I have. Occasionally, I find myself gently reminded of their existence and their deserved status. Oversteps may be the better of these two excellent albums - it’s not beat-driven and therefore avoids glitchy cliches entirely. It possibly harks back to the 80s or even earlier, with hints of Riyuchi Sakomoto or Tangerine Dream. This is all presented with a decisively contemporary spin though - and it’s impressive to find an act still keen to reinvent themselves so long into such an illustrious career.

85. Olafur Arnalds - and they have escaped the weight of darkness (Erased Tapes)
More of the same from Arnalds here on this portentously titled album (apparently inspired by the great Hungarian filmmaker Bela Tarr). Arnalds’ slow moving, direct and haunting melancholy is again very much in evidence, and the music is gently moving.

84. Paragon - Quarterlife Crisis (Shakewell Records)
This Anglo-German ensemble of young musicians (with composing duties shared between pianist Arthur Lea and saxophonist Peter Ehwald) now convenes infrequently but makes quirky, confident and appealing music. Quarterlife Crisis, recorded in Koln in 2009 after plenty of touring, is a delightful album characterised by a fine balance between charm and searching improvising.

83. High Places - High Places vs. Mankind (Thrill Jockey)
Another of the year’s more perversely underrated record, this infectious and likeable second album from High Places seemed to see the band relegated further to the margins. This seems strange when the album contained bright, accessible gems such as On Giving Up. The group’s approach is minimal but effective, making impressive use of space and making each note and sound matter.

82. Kurt Wagner and Cortney Tidwell present KORT - Invariable Heartache (City Slang)
This long-awaited collaboration between Lambchop mainman Wagner and the talented singer-songwriter Cortney Tidwell ended up quite a traditional affair, the duo tackling a set of Nashville country songs associated with Tidwell’s parents. Wagner’s voice sounds older and more experienced, Tidwell pulls off the difficult trick of providing a softer, but no less fascinating harmonic foil.

81. The Chieftains with Ry Cooder - San Patricio (Decca)
Everything Cooder touches seems to turn to gold. This collaboration with Irish group The Chieftains take on the weighty subject of the Irish conscripts who deserted from the American army to fight with the Mexicans in the border war of the 1840s, fusing Irish folk music with sounds from the southern US border. It’s a lengthy, challenging album, but both process and results are inspired and it stands as a fascinating document.

80. Marnie Stern - Marnie Stern (Souterrain Transmissions)
Yet more vigorous shredding from Marnie Stern and Zach Hill - their technical brilliance remains a coruscating source of inspiration rather than frustration.

79. Fool’s Gold - Fool’s Gold (Iamsound)
A group possibly named after a Stone Roses song may not necessarily float my boat these days, but Fool’s Gold are actually a treasure trove of riches. A little like Dirty Projectors, the Los Angeles-based collective fuse Western rock and pop with a variety of rhythms and playing styles from around the world. Vocalist Luke Top sings in Hebrew, adding an additional element to their extraordinary melting pot.

78. Avey Tare - Down There (Paw Tracks)
Avey Tare has sometimes seemed like the dangerous member of Animal Collective, swamping their earliest material with abrasive feedback screeches and moments of childlike whimsy. As the band have found a more successful balance within themselves, Panda Bear and Tare have both established themselves as independent artists as well. Down There is, mercifully, much less obtuse than Tare’s previous work outside the band - it features moments of twisting, eerie psychedelia and spidery melodic invention. It’s less sweet and joyful without the presence of Panda Bear, but no less peculiar and synaesthetic.

77. Caitlin Rose - Own Side Now (Names)
This faithful exploration of American country stylings is one of the best examples of this in some time. Rose is fully conversant in the vernacular of this musical tradition, and her songs are affecting and full of emotion. With her sensitive, empathetic band in tow, Rose has all the elements that make a superb singer-songwriter.

76. Jamie Lidell - Compass (Warp)
It’s a shame that this imaginative album seems to have failed to bring Lidell to a wider audience. Wisely, Lidell abandoned the slavish blue-eyed soul that rendered Jim something of a disappointment - Compass was sexier, weirder and considerably more honest. We can now again see the Lidell that made the best bits of Multiply, the Lidell who was one half of the amazing Super Collider, and even the Lidell that made the glitchy, confounding Muddlin’ Gear. Compass contained predictable hints at Prince, but less predictably, some of the meandering, fluid songwriting style of Terry Callier or even Terry Reid was also in operation here. Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor is just one of Lidell’s many collaborators here, and his sonic palette is in evidence throughout the album. For all the trickery and experimentation, it’s also personal and intimate too.

75. Robert Plant - Band Of Joy (Decca)
Plant seems to have entered a new, mature and staggeringly confident phase of his career now. With many clamouring for a direct follow-up to Raising Sand, Plant refused to acquiesce, instead forming a new version of his Band of Joy ensemble. This is every bit as assured and impressive an album as Raising Sand, and is stronger still for exploring some unexpected ground (the album features faithful covers of Low’s Monkey and Silver Rider). Plant’s interests seem to move further away from straightforward rock and more into a wide range of American music as he gets older. This seems like another honest, thoroughly committed statement.

74. Cheikh Lo - Jamm (World Circuit)
Jamm’s title suggests a righteous musical party, but the word actually translates to mean ‘peace’. Cheikh Lo’s music here, although groovy and celebratory, is also light and subtle too. The warmth of Pee Wee Ellis’ saxophone is a memorable feature of this carefully balanced, hugely enjoyable album.

73. Philip Jeck - An Ark For The Listener (Type)
I remain a little suspicious of ‘sound art’ as a concept distinct from music, but Jeck strikes me as one of the strongest examples of a completely modern composer. He builds his swirling, encircling pieces from the use of old vinyl, although this is by no means a ‘sampling’ endeavour like DJ Shadow. Jeck’s mysterious, spectral sound worlds depend on careful manipulation of texture and pitch. An Ark For The Listener is Jeck’s brilliant response to a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem, and it has all the wonder and complexity of Hopkins’ language.

72. Actress - Splazsh (Honest Jon’s)
Darren Cunningham’s self-contained, insular and mechanical electronica reached a new pinnacle on this tremendous set. It somehow sounded cold and loveless, yet deliciously seductive at the same time.

71. Hot Chip - One Life Stand (EMI)
This is Hot Chip’s most streamlined and focused work to date, perhaps a conscious response to the criticism the group received (unfairly in my view) for Made In The Dark’s scattershot tendency. There’s still room for diversity - as One Life Stand takes in English pop melodic stylings, Chicago House, Techno and modern soul. Alexis Taylor’s delicate, plaintive voice remains an intrinsic part of the group’s artistry. Their peerless merging of Taylor’s melodic sensibility with Joe Goddard’s independent, individual production values has expanded to feel more like an ensemble work. The Hot Chip live show is now impressively slick too.

70. Jason Moran - Ten (Blue Note)
The status of Jason Moran in the jazz world seems to increase year on year, Ten being another exceedingly impressive addition to his own catalogue and his work with Charles Lloyd perhaps providing an even stronger example of his rhythmic and melodic invention. This flexible, bold piano trio has, as the album’s title suggests, now been a working, trailblazing band for ten years and more. This album finds room for some healthy nostalgia - including a piece co-written with Moran’s teacher Andrew Hill, as well as interpretations of composers as diverse as Thelonious Monk and Conlon Nancarrow. Perhaps more than any of Moran’s previous releases, it offers a clear view of the heritage that has influenced his distinctive improvising. His group can still swing hard as well.

69. Nico Muhly - I Drink The Air Before Me (Decca)
It would be easy to find Nico Muhly’s ubiquity in his early-20s somewhat nauseating. Not only has he achieved considerable success as a composer, he’s produced some wonderfully evocative film soundtrack work and has become the string and brass arranger du jour for America’s indie bands. Yet listening to this recording of his major score for a dance piece, it’s hard to dispute his talent. This is a big, muscular, exciting work that even manages to make sensitive and effective use of a child’s choir. The work moves in a fragmentary fashion from the very unusual to diatonic plainchant whilst sustaining a coherent sense of identity and flow.

68. Dave Holland Octet - Pathways (Dare2)/ Pepe Habichuela and Dave Holland - Hands (Emarcy)
I am cheating more than a little here by putting these two Dave Holland recordings together, but they serve as a timely reminder of Holland’s versatility. He has now established such a coherent and winning formula with his own ensembles (as evidenced by the thrilling ensemble playing on the live recording Pathways) that it is great to here him again in an entirely different context, playing outstanding Flamenco music with Pepe Habichuela. The album is at once both substantial and delicate, with some superb cajon playing from Juan Cormona.

67. Mike Reed’s People, Places and Things - Stories and Negotiations (482 Music)
Mike Reed’s People, Places and Things project has illuminated a new side to the exciting Chicago jazz scene. Rather than venturing into modernist abstraction or contemporary jazz-rock fusion, drummer and arranger Reed has used this ensemble to explore the venerable history and achievement of modern jazz in Chicago. This excellent live recording contains a mix of new arrangements of lesser known works (Sun Ra’s El is the Sound of Joy for example) and original pieces dedicated to Reed’s chief influences. Considering Reed is a drummer-bandleader, it’s interesting how restrained and supportive his playing is here - much of this is far more about the fresh take on horn arrangements.

66. Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record (Arts and Crafts)
This fourth album from Broken Social Scene was in places exhilarating and menacing, even if by now the shock factor in their ideas had worn off a little. Perhaps Forgiveness Rock Record is chiefly interesting for its cleaner, crisper production - something that, perhaps surprisingly, does not really diminish the band’s ragged glory in any way.

65 = Emeralds - Does It Look Like I’m Here? (Editions Mego)
65 = Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal (Editions Mego)

I find it very difficult to separate these two Editions Mego releases in my own mind, although there seems to have been a healthy competition between the two of them for many journalists. I’m usually suspicious of music that tries so very hard to abandon rhythm (an essential element of music), but these two releases achieved their goals so superbly that they became impossible to ignore. The Oneohtrix album is more like a contemporary noise suite - brilliantly structured, moving from its most combative and abrasive to its most affecting and soothing. Throughout, there are gentle hints of melody and form, so the fact that the single version of the title track featured vocals from Antony Hegarty came as less of a surprise than might otherwise be expected. Emeralds’ album took them away from the sprawling What Happened? in favour of something a little easier to navigate. That didn’t stop Does It Look Like I’m Here? from being one of the year’s most quietly mesmerising albums, full of supremely effective ideas.

63. Laura Veirs - July Flame (Bella Union)
Another massively underrated album from a female singer-songwriter in 2010. Post-Carbon Glacier, Veirs appears to have been taken for granted a little, as she has produced decent album after decent album, but each lacking a distinctive edge that would propel her back into critical consciousness. For me, July Flame ought to have been that album - it’s a much warmer and embraceable record than its predecessors, and the writing is full of compassion and humanity.

62. Benoit Pioulard - Lasted (Kranky)
Thomas Meluch’s third album as Benoit Pioulard is his most sophisticated and coherent yet, with a sense of rapture and awareness breaking through the pervading heat-haze. This time Meluch’s understated voice seems less buried and the melodies have greater impact as a result. This is achieved without sacrificing any of the strange, eerie qualities to Meluch’s music.

61. Kairos 4Tet - Kairos Moment (Kairos)
Although much of this album seems like rhythmic brinkmanship, Adam Waldmann’s Kairos 4Tet still emerge as a more accessible, less cerebral take on contemporary British jazz. Kairos Moment is brimming with infectious riffs and hooks, and the engine of the band is the dynamic, propulsive, ceaselessly exciting playing of bassist Jasper Hoiby and drummer Jon Scott, two of the strongest musicians currently at work on the London scene. A guest appearance by vocalist Heidi Vogel also provides a simmering, delightful highlight. The group, now with Ivo Neame on piano, have just finished work on their second album due for release in 2011.

60. Keith Jarrett and Charlie Haden - Jasmine (ECM)
This first duo recording between those great old friends and musical colleagues Jarrett and Haden had a wonderfully informal feeling to it. It’s unlikely that this will go down as one of Jarrett’s most revolutionary or adventurous statements - but then both these musicians did all that with the American Quartet. This instead has an intimate feel to it - the product of sincere mutual respect, both for each other and for the standard material they are playing. Haden’s bass sound is full and resonant, Jarrett is disciplined but typically passionate.

59. Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part 2 - Return of the Ankh (Universal)
I was a little surprised not to find the long-delayed second part of Badu’s New Amerykah project absent from so many list. For sure, it’s not as surprising or imposing as the first part - instead, it refocuses attention on Badu’s most characteristic stylistic traits. Many of these are virtues, however, as her supremely relaxed phrasing and understated, near-conversational style mark her out as one of the best modern R&B singers.

58. Jaga Jazzist - One Armed Badit (Ninja Tune)
One Armed Bandit is perhaps the most focused and immediate of the Jaga Jazzist albums - full of the usual dexterity and technique, but somehow delivered in a much more compact and less showy manner. It’s tremendously exciting - a fusion music with a peculiar dancing quality.

57. William Tyler - Behold The Spirit (Tompkins Square)
One of the great joys of being a music obsessive is discovering that a musician you are familiar with from one context has an entirely different near-secret musical life. Lambchop guitarist William Tyler’s solo album is a graceful, eloquent take on similar territory to that handled so well by James Blackshaw. It’s perhaps not quite as mysterious and pervading as Blackshaw’s All Is Falling. Some of the material here seems comforting and familiar, especially The Green Pastures, which luxuriates in the textural effects of pedal steel guitar as well as Tyler’s dexterous steel string fingerpicking. This is no bad thing - Tyler is an impressive guitarist, and the music he has produced here feels homely and inviting.

56. Luke Abbott - Holkham Drones (Border Community)
This is a gently superior album, one of those recordings that worms its way into one’s consciousness and eventually refuses to leave. On first listen, it seemed like distinctive but unassuming take on electronica. Repeated listens reveal a sense of fun as well as intelligence. Probably the best release from Border Community so far.

55. Richard Thompson - Dream Attic (Proper)
Dire cover art notwithstanding, this is an urgent, vibrant album from Thompson. Recorded live on a US tour, it provides plenty of evidence not just of Thompson’s outstanding guitar playing, but of the commitment and force of his accompanying musicians. Not only this, but the songwriting is superb too, with some wry and biting lyrics.

54. Tamikrest - Adagh (Glitterhouse)
It’s perhaps tempting to dismiss Tamikrest rather casually as an identikit Tinariwen, but actually ‘Adagh’ shows them to have a potency and power that is very much their own. This is a rousing, spirited album played with insistence, determination and a wonderfully natural feel.

53. Wyatt, Atzmon, Stephen - For The Ghosts Within (Domino)
Hearing Robert Wyatt’s beguiling, idiosyncratic voice - somehow always both comforting and startling - wrap itself around some of the most recognisable standards in the Great American Songbook proved one of 2010’s singular treats. The original music on this worthy collaboration is also fascinating. If not always wholly artistically successful, this is the work of brave and committed musicians and activists flying the flag for principled idealism.

52. Konono No. 1 - Assume Crash Position (Crammed Discs)
Fears that international acclaim and success might dilute Konono No. 1’s approach or sound proved mercifully unfounded. ‘Assume Crash Position’ was just as intense and thrilling an experience as its Congotronics predecessor. There is an urgency and excitement in this music that is impossible to resist.

51. The Roots - How I Got Over (Mercury)
Never quite convinced by Kanye West’s reliance on manipulated soul samples, I find that The Roots are a dependable example of how better to integrate rap and song. The unusual guest artists here (including Amber Coffman and Angel Deradoorian from Dirty Projectors and Joanna Newsom) fit surprisingly well into this album’s imposing and coherent sound.

50. New Pornographers - Together (Matador)
After jettisoning some of their quirkier, more appealing characteristics in favour of plodding orchestra-bolstered indie on Challengers, Together saw New Pornographers recapturing the kinetic, thrilling eruptions of joy that always made them so appealing in the first place. Carl Newman’s songwriting remains gleefully obtuse, whilst Dan Bejar continues to add his distinctive whimsy. The whole set seems to cohere more this time though, and is delivered with the confidence of a band who know exactly what they are doing.

49. Lobi Traore - Rainy Season Blues (Glitterhouse)
Of the many tragic losses in 2010, the premature death of Lobi Traore may be the saddest, robbing the world not only of one of its brightest talents but, one senses, of a musician yet to make his strongest statement. Rainy Season Blues, Traore’s first and last solo album, was recorded on the spur of the moment, after plans for an ensemble recording fell through. That it sounds so completely assured is revelatory. This is a record so deeply immersed in the blues that it drips with it. That Traore could have continued to make many more even better albums is devastating.

48. Lorn - Nothing Else (Brainfeeder)
This year belonged to Flying Lotus in so many ways, not just for the music released under his own moniker, but also for his production duties and his work as a free-spirited svengali with the Brainfeeder label. The Lorn album may be the label’s most substantial statement so far - a heavy, insistent US take on bass music that never fails to stimulate or surprise.

47. Lonelady - Nerve Up (Warp)
Warp’s attempts to branch out beyond glitchy and ambient electronica have produced mixed results, but I liked Lonelady’s twitchy ball of nervous energy far more than reviews suggested I might. This is four-square wiry post-punk set to a drum machine, with occasional nods to the relentless garage southern gothic of early R.E.M. Some angular, agitated vocals and some memorable songs enable Lonelady to communicate with stark authority.

46. Nina Nastasia - Outlaster (FatCat)
For me, this was comfortably the strongest Nina Nastasia album to date, a substantial leap forward in terms of both process and product. The arrangements on Outlaster are simply wonderful - full of unexpected dissonances and tensions, and the extra colour helps transport this well away from the conventions of singer-songwriterdom. Nastasia has always been an excellent writer - but she has never made an album quite this distinctive and compelling before.

45. Gonjasufi - A Sufi and a Killer (Warp)
Gonjasufi is a genuinely strange and unpredictable character. This collection is an inspired set of warped modern psychedelia, with inventive production from Flying Lotus and Gaslamp Killer. Gonjasufi’s vocals are not easily digestible - sometimes they are uncompromising and abrasive. Yet the music is mostly curiously uplifting.

44. Phosphorescent - Here’s To Taking It Easy (Dead Oceans)
Here’s To Taking It Easy is not exactly the most radical or forward thinking album in this list. It is instead a hugely successful attempt at classic American songcraft - much better than over-praised efforts from the likes of Drive By Truckers or Dylan LeBlanc. Matthew Houck’s work interpreting Willie Nelson for the previous Phosphorescent album may have had a lingering effect - much of this album comes bathed in a hazy melancholy. Much of it sounds effortless - relaxed but also literate and burning with feeling and intensity where necessary. Heij, Me I’m Light also provides a slightly incongrous, but wholly inspired detour into quasi-gospel fervour.

43. Phronesis - Alive (Edition)
This live recording may be the strongest example of Jasper Hoiby’s bass-lead piano trio so far. With Mark Giuliana on drums and the exquisite Ivo Neame on piano, there’s a real urgency and depth of expression as well as the fluid interaction we have come to expect. Hoiby’s compositions are deceptive - initially they seem rhythmically driven, but eventually come to reveal subtle hooks and intelligent use of harmony and space.

42. Trembling Bells - Abandoned Love (Honest Jon’s)
Along with Alasdair Roberts, Trembling Bells are at the absolute forefront of contemporary folk music. Propelled superbly by Alex Neilsen’s fluid drumming, an unusual quality in this music, and with Lavinia Blackwell’s majestic voice claiming ownership of Neilsen’s melodies, this is one of the most captivating and imposing ensembles working in this area of music. Trembling Bells sound at once disciplined and liberated - informed by a sophisticated understanding of the tradition but also driven by a fervent desire to take the music in new directions.

41. Vampire Weekend - Contra (XL)
Vampire Weekend’s second album, released with surprising rapidity yet actually an improvement on their debut, seems to have been rather casually forgotten come the end of year lists. Perhaps it lacks some of the debut’s ivy league humour - but if anything it builds on the open-minded fusion of the first record. Ezra Koenig’s wordy lyrics and agitated vocal phrasing remain crucial characteristics - and they elevate the group above facile and misguided accusations of cultural tourism. Make no mistake that Vampire Weekend are an intelligent and significant band more than worthy of attention and discusssion.

40. Janelle Monae - The Archandroid (Bad Boy/Atlantic)
A highlight for many music lovers and critics this year, it’s easy to see why this dynamic slice of retro-futurist pop was so greatly loved. Sophisticated pop music is hard to find - and Janelle emerged with a tremendously strong brand - a smooth but gutsy voice, great style and a commitment and passion for her music. It went almost unnoticed then that The Archandroid breaks all the rules for marketable commercial pop music - it veers wilfully from one style to another, its flow gleefully interrupted by abrupt transitions. Monae’s madcap, conceptual structure could benefit from a stronger melodic core - but the ideas keep coming so thick and fast that the flaws seem insignificant when the project is so brilliantly reckless.

39. Oval - O (Thrill Jockey)
Featuring no less than 70 tracks, many of them intentionally confounding miniatures, Markus Popp seems to have designed O in order to manipulate last.fm stats. The conceit is not entirely malicious though - through these tiny bitesize pieces, a wider coherent whole emerges. It’s clearly not about the individual tracks, but more about how the sketches combine to create something meticulously ordered and yet strangely beautiful.

38. Alasdair Roberts and Friends - Too Long In This Condition (Navigator)
Roberts revisits the traditional songbook for the first time since No Earthly Man on this dependably excellent collection - this one, as the ‘friends’ moniker suggests, a little more reliant on the ensemble sound. If it’s not quite as glorious as last year’s Spoils, it’s still a tremendous collection, Roberts’ choice of narratives occasionally erring towards the dark and terrible as much as the wistful and romantic.

37. Mount Kimbie - Crooks and Lovers (Hot Flush)
For a while, this looked as if it might be the dubstep ‘break-out’ release of 2010, a word of mouth success to rival that of Burial. If it never quite got there, it wasn’t because of lack of imagination and quality in the recordings. This is a nuanced, atmospheric work that repays close attention - a haunting statement of intent.

36. Demdike Stare - Forest of Evil/Liberation Through Hearing/Voices of Dust (Modern Love)

One of the many acts proving in 2010 that quantity could be just as significant as quality, Lancashire’s Demdike Stare unleashed three albums of similar intensity and imagination, but each with its own individual character. Forest of Evil is comprised of two dense, lengthy pieces full of murk and menace. The final album in the trilogy explores ghostly sounds and voices to tremendous effect, finding a hinterland between dub, the radiophonic workshop and local landscape. An output as compelling as it is prodigious.

35. Polar Bear - Peepers (Leaf)
Seb Rochford’s outstanding contemporary jazz group added subtle variations to their sound on this fourth album, with Leafcutter John playing guitar as well as electronics. The addition of an accompanying harmony instrument makes a substantial difference, but the group’s credit, it has not completely altered their musical personality. Rather, it has expanded the possibilities. The quirky compositions are as rhythmically stimulating as ever, but its the album’s more pensive, reflective moments that show Rochford maturing as a composer.

34. Django Bates - Beloved Bird (Lost Marble)
Django’s virtuosic, mischievous, scurrying improvising didn’t find a particularly fruitful outlet in the collaboration with The Bad Plus at King’s Place, in spite of all the mutual respect between them. Far more exciting was this brilliant, highly exciting take on the music of Charlie Parker with a Danish trio - Bates proving that Parker’s nimble writing can have audacious and exciting contexts away from BeBop revivalism. Bates imposes his own character and style on this material with complete conviction.

33. Scuba - Triangulation (Hot Flush)
The Hot Flush label is helping to steer dubstep in exciting new directions, already suggesting that it might be a sub genre with some mileage. This second album from Scuba is a significant development from his debut, pregnant with tension and murkiness, full of bold explorations of the previously unknown.


32. Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth - Deluxe (Clean Feed)
This righteous, propulsive ensemble provided one of the American jazz highlights of 2010. Lightcap’s engaging, zestful compositions provided consistent interest, whilst the playing (especially from the superb keyboardist Craig Taborn) was imaginative and sprightly.

31. Shackleton - Fabric 55 (Fabric)
Emerging at the very tail end of the year and therefore absent from most lists, this is one of the most powerful arguments for the DJ mix album as artistic statement in some time. It’s perhaps the best mix set since DJ/Rupture’s majestic Minesweeper Suite. The difference here though is it’s not just the mix that provides this album with its character - it is that is is a mix consisting entirely of Shackleton’s own work. Now forging far beyond anything that might be labelled dubstep or, more nauseatingly, post-dubstep, this is the work of an artist fascinated by the broader possibilities of rhythm, sound and speech.

30. Erik Friedlander - Alchemy (SkipStone)
The Cello has always been one of the most versatile instruments - in Friedlander’s hands it seems that it can be made to do almost anything at all, from excoriating, searing sounds to moments of sweet and tender longing. Alchemy is a solo recording that covers these bases and much, much more - a brilliant document of Friedlander’s musical awareness and expressive manipulation of his instrument.

29. Bill Frisell - Beautiful Dreamers (Savoy Jazz)
Perhaps this trio recording doesn’t really break new ground for Frisell - but then this is an artist who has covered such diverse ground that it would be hard to find another truly radical position now. Still, the music is wonderfully played, with Frisell as ever finding the common ground between various American musical traditions. There are few musicians with such a gripping contemporary voice, but with a simultaneous expert grasp of musical and cultural history. Even the most hackneyed of standards - in this case Tea for Two - sound daring, playful and fresh when played by Frisell. This does not seem to have been written about very much - but, for me, it's one of Frisell's best albums.

28. Sun Kil Moon - Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)
Mark Kozelek’s unwavering consistency continued in marvellous fashion on this mesmerising, beautiful album. It was the first to see Kozelek play a nylon stringed classical guitar, an instrument he appears to have taken to with genuine commitment. The songs are typically wistul, detailed and evocative and Kozelek’s voice is one of those familiar, comforting sounds that can never lose its understated appeal. What is new is the passages of elaborate virtuosity on the guitar. One of Kozelek’s best records to date.

27. Chris Abrahams - Play Scar (Room40)
This solo album from The Necks’ pianist is deceptive, lulling the listener into a false sense of security from which moments of distinct creepiness arise. Just when it feels Abrahams has achieved some kind of inner peace, a rush of Hammond Organ makes for a turbulent intrusion. It’s a strange, spectral, fascinating collection of musical ruminations.

26. Gil Scott-Heron - I’m New Here (XL)
This skeletal record sounded not so much like an artistic renewal, more like a fragmentary, hugely articulate glimpse into what remained of Scott-Heron after drug addiction and prison. It’s a tremendous album, its intimate perspective achieved not just through Scott-Heron’s audacious and autobiographical poetry but also through judicious choices of material for interpretation (Robert Johnson, Smog’s title track). One doesn’t immediately consider Scott-Heron one of the great interpreters - I’m New Here makes it clear just what a skilled vocalist he remains, perhaps even because that smooth baritone is something much more wild and ragged now.

25. Caribou - Swim (City Slang)
Dan Snaith’s work as Caribou has always been teetering on the brink of something poptastic - but his slightly mischievous streak seems to have held him back from fully exploring his music’s melodic potential. Swim is at once his most immediate and his most assured album under the Caribou moniker. It still explores some of the psychedelic pathways he has traversed already, but it feels much more streamlined and less cluttered. His voice, never the strongest of instruments, works best when at its most intimate and conversation as on Odessa, one of the tracks of the year. Much of Swim is vibrant and intoxicating.

24. Atomic - Theater Tilters (Jazzland)
Intense, tempestuous, whirlrlwind contemporary live jazz from Norway. These performances, spread over two discs, have the fire and fury of jazz-rock fusion but also the liberation and propulsion of free improvisation. It’s a manic, consistently surprising experience.

23. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and The Cairo Gang - The Wonder Show of the World (Domino)
Has Will Oldham, now on his umpteenth album, become one of those artists who is too easily taken for granted? The Wonder Show of the World seems to have been forgotten in the end of year polls. It’s a sufficiently different statement from the more acclaimed Beware to merit attention in its own right. The Cairo Gang - yet another new incarnation - is essentially a trio with Emmett Kelly and Shahzal Ismally, and the arrangements are mostly sparse and demure but this is a far stronger intimate album than Master and Everyone. These are some of Oldham’s strongest songs though - full of wit, wisdom and some characteristically candid moments.

22. Nedry - Condors (Monotreme)
Somehow I almost missed this quite wonderful album. There’s more than a slight resemblance to Bjork in Ayu Okaita’s flighty vocals and the music is soulful, evocative and occasionally daring. This is a supremely confident debut, a fully formed mature statement than grows with every listen.

21. Food - Quiet Inlet (ECM)
ECM has had a strong year, with its best releases steering clear of European jazz cliches (indeed, it’s harder to find an act more in tune with the American tradition than Charles Lloyd’s Quartet). This is a new incarnation of Food that finds Thomas Stronen and Iain Ballamy collaborating with Nils Petter Molvaer and electronic wizard Christian Fennesz. The results are glacial and insidious, in the best possible way.

20. Matthew Herbert - One One/One Club (Accidental)
If Herbert had seemed to be coasting a little recently (a pleasant if slightly unremarkable album in Scale followed by a second Big Band project), his One trilogy (the final part, One Pig, will now be released in 2011) shook things up considerably. Few could have been expecting anything quite as personal and intimate as One One, on which Herbert assumed vocal duties for the first time. Clearly his is not a technically accomplished voice, but it provided the vulnerability and honesty that the material required. It was refreshing to see Herbert veer away from political or conceptual concerns and try something different. One Club saw a new application for the modern musique concrete techniques Herbert first employed on Plat du Jour, the whole album being made from source recordings Herbert made in a nightclub. As ever with Herbert, it is more cerebral than hedonistic.

19. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Before Today (4AD)
Whilst Ariel Pink’s initial compilations of home recordings provided plenty of examples of his wayward brilliance, his insistence that the clock be reset for this first studio recording with a band suggested it offered something different and more substantial. This may be true - these lush, fuzzy detours through unfashionable realms (Hall and Oates, 10cc and Todd Rundgren may be influences) did more than just attempt to reclaim FM rock as art. Pink created a new, odd soundworld in which conventional musical taste was thrown out of the window and the resultant quirky, unpredictable sounds were completely irresistible.

18. Pantha Du Prince - Black Noise (Rough Trade)
17. Four Tet - There Is Love In You (Domino)
Two of the best electronic albums of 2010 arrived relatively early in the year. There Is Love In You may be the best work Kieran Hebden has yet produced under the Four Tet moniker, particularly striking in its use of human voices and in its dizzying cut-up rhythms. The Pantha du Prince album may have been a little sidelined by longstanding listeners who found it mildly inferior to its predecessor This Bliss. This seems a little churlish when the quality level is so palpably high. There’s a brilliant sense of atmosphere on Black Noise, and there is a warmth and a melodic quality sometimes absent from electronic music.

16. Big Boi - Sir Lucious Left Foot - Son of Chico Dusty (Mercury)
Whilst the emergence of Janelle Monae as a retro-futurist pop sensation excited almost everyone, this solo album from one half of OutKast didn’t quite get as much adulation. For me, it was actually the better record, a wonderful pot-pourri of modern soul, finding much of the common ground between hi-tech US R&B and UK bass music. Big Boi himself remains a brilliantly charismatic rapper.

15. James Blackshaw - All Is Falling (Young God)
Just when it seems that the prodigious James Blackshaw might have nowhere left to go, he takes another surprising and successful left turn. All is Falling adds yet another string to his bow by virtue of being a long form composition, its unwavering consistency being one of its many strengths. Blackshaw’s technically adept guitar playing is now taking a back seat to his assumption of a wider role as composer. By the conclusion of All is Falling, Blackshaw has dealt with both chamber arrangements and more contemporary techniques, suggesting that Blackshaw may even have yet more tricks up his sleeve.

14. Kathryn Calder - Are You My Mother? (File Under Music)
It would be hard to find a stronger collection of indie-pop songwriting than this sugar rush of a solo debut from Kathryn Calder, member of both New Pornographers and the perenially underrated Immaculate Machine. As is all too predictable, it seems to have given little support in the UK, lacking adequate distribution and completely ignored by critics. This is a massive shame, as Calder is a substantial songwriting talent and this album is an affecting personal statement. Occasionally, the sweetness of its melodies threaten to overshadow the grief from which it was created. Recorded in a defiantly low-key manner at home, much of this sounds carefully arranged and crafted, and it’s hard to see how it could have been any stronger had Calder taken this material to a high end studio.

13. Clang Sayne - Winterlands (Clang Sayne)
Technically, this should probably be classed as a 2009 release, although it was only with its 2010 second run that this outstanding work started to gather more attention. Clang Sayne have to be one of the most inspired bands currently at work in this country, operating in a curious intersection between traditional folk song, jazz and free improvisation. The term ‘free folk’ has been banded around with reference to all manner of music but here, at last, was something to which it might be more appropriately applied. Laura Hylands’ beguiling voice provided the springboard for deeper, highly focused explorations of timbre and melody. This was without doubt a mature starting point, although a recent performance at Cafe Oto suggests the 2011 follow-up will be even stronger.

12. The Knife with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock - Tomorrow, In A Year (Mute)
If The Knife’s contemporary ‘opera’ about Charles Darwin (in reality perhaps more of a dance piece) was slightly patchy in performance, this should take nothing away from the extraordinary score that underpins it. At the centre of it all is the remarkable ‘Colouring of Pigeons’, comfortably one of the finest tracks of the year. Yet there are other moments equal to that achievement, and the poised combination of abrasion and lingering melody gives a combination of shock and awe appropriate to the nature of Darwin’s discoveries.

11. Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate - Ali and Toumani (World Circuit)
It seems odd that this second group of improvisations from two of the masters of Malian music was held back for so long but we can only be grateful that it has now appeared. Those who fell in love with In The Heart of the Moon will swoon equally to this collection - this music is so beautiful and moving that mere familiarity could never breed contempt for it. It’s the supremely balanced blend between guitar and kora that makes it so powerful - two brilliant musicians so bound in tradition and culture, playing with both expression and discipline.

10. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown (Righteous Babe)
Finally, Anais Mitchell is getting some of the attention she deserves. Her previous albums, although far more unassuming, contained some insightful, literate and delicate folk pop songs delivered in her idiosyncratic, slightly nasal pinch of a voice. Mitchell herself is a less dominant presence on Hadestown, if only because she has assembled an impressive cast of established singer-songwriters to play the various roles this reconstruction of the Orpheus myth requires. The concept would not be enough in itself to merit a top ten ranking in my list - it’s Mitchell’s execution of it, through the vehicle of some vivid narrative songwriting, that makes this so impressive. Drawing on a feast of roots music, this is steeped in tradition but delivered with individual authority.

9. The Golden Age of Steam - Raspberry Tongue (Babel)
Despite the involvement of the Mercury-nominated Kit Downes (on organ rather than acoustic piano), this vigorous, highly charged example of collective improvisation never quite got the attention it deserved in 2010. The Golden Age of Steam are both virtuosic and uncompromising, and sometimes the intensity level is so high that the music can be overpowering. Yet there is also subtlety and nuance aplenty in this superb set - this is a group of people alive to the possibility inherent in sound, in rhythm and in melodic lines.

8. Wildbirds and Peacedrums - Rivers (Leaf)
It’s barely been noted, but this conjoining of two short form EP releases presents a rather new Wildbirds and Peacedrums. It’s not just the new level ambition inherent in the choral arrangements of the album’s first half - it’s also in the attention to detail applied to sound and dynamics. This is a much less abrasive and arguably therefore also a much more widely appealing version of the group. Yet they have lost none of their imagination and desire to innovate. This music is profoundly beautiful and immersive.

7. Afrocubism - Afrocubism (World Circuit)
This project is something close to what was originally conceived for the Buena Vista Social Club, before visa issues scuppered the dream. Now some of the finest African and Cuban musicians meet in a highly empathetic, perhaps even symbiotic recording, that finds the shared ground in musical heritage. It’s a deeply traditional work, but one that gains fresh impetus and appeal from some unfamiliar instrumentation and through the knowledge and experience of the musicians involved. It is delivered with a relaxed grace typical of these musical masters and it is a consistently enriching and enjoyable listening experience.

6. Richard Skelton - Landings (Type)
Not so much an album as a full blown geographical and personal study, Skelton’s wonderful achievement transports us back to a time where landscape and location provided fertile inspiration for artists. With his nuanced, compelling music (an intriguing blend of acoustic and electronic elements), Skelton wordlessly explored links between place, grief and recovery. It’s a testament to the importance and influence of environment and the resilience of the human spirit.

5. Steve Lehman and Rudresh Mahanthappa - Dual Identity (Clean Feed)
This collaborative project between two of the most imaginative and thrilling alto saxophonists at work in US jazz is every bit as fascinating and challenging as one might expect. The group now features Liberty Ellmann on guitar, Matt Brewer on bass and Damion Reid on drums and the whole ensemble share Lehman and Mahanthappa’s preoccupation with rhythmic intricacy. Ellmann’s spiky, dissonant accompaniment is particularly crucial. The compositions are pieced together like intellectual puzzles, but the resulting music is immediate and weirdly groovy. The sound of two alto saxophonists duetting remains unusual, but Lehman and Mahanthappa carry it off with real skill - interweaving between each other with nimble flurries without ever crowding each other’s space.

4. Tim Whitehead - Colour Beginnings (Home Made)
Based on work Tim Whitehead undertook whilst composer in residence at Tate Britain during 2009, Colour Beginnings is inspired by encounters with a series of JMW Turner paintings and watercolour sketches. It is a process-driven work in which the process is human, personal and emotional. Whitehead recorded his improvised responses to the Turner artwork and then developed ensemble compositions from these improvisations. The result is a long form work of genuine inspiration, with moments of searing, passionate joy. Whitehead not just establishes the atmosphere of Turner’s work, but also its physicality - the crashing of waves, the sun’s reflection dancing on the water, clouds floating in the sky. The recordings are impressive given the unusual performance spaces (half of the album was recorded at the work’s premier at a gallery room in Tate Britain). Whitehead sounds committed and intense as always, ably abetted by keenly aware, sensitive playing from Liam Noble, Oli Hayhurst, Patrick Bettison and Milo Fell. Colour Beginnings is the best British jazz CD of the year, and a personal and professional triumph for Whitehead.

3. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (Drag City)
Never entirely convinced by Ys, I approached this colossal triple album with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried though - Have One On Me retains all that was magical, idiosyncratic and charming about Newsom whilst jettisoning some of her more extreme, grating tendencies. Her voice is more rounded and soulful, far less abrasive and the songs, whilst lengthy and exploratory in terms of Newsom’s ceaselessly inventive lyrics, benefit greatly from the chamber arrangements of her chief collaborator Ryan Francesconi. There are elements of West Coast folk and New Orleans jazz, but the resulting melting point is very much Newsom’s individual, original statement. Have One On Me is moving and inspiring at the same time as being overwhelming.

2. Charles Lloyd Quartet - Mirror (ECM)
Whilst some fawned over Brad Mehldau’s syrupy, over-produced Highway Rider, others realised that Lloyd’s current quartet (featuring Jason Moran, Reuben Rogers and Eric Harland) is among the best groups currently at work in American jazz, perhaps even the equal of his hugely influential late 1960s quartet. Their studio dates tend to be calmer than their rousing, sometimes tempestuous live performances, emphasising Lloyd’s tendency towards spiritual balm. Mirror works remarkably well though - a graceful, elegant and meditative work brimming with thoughtful statements, beautifully balanced ensemble sound and refined musicianship.

**1. Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma (Warp)**
FlyLo’s magnum opus divided opinion between those completely immersed in its enticing alternative cosmic reality and those infuriated by what they viewed as attention deficit disorder. Yet FlyLo has never really made isolated tracks as such - these small segments may veer suddenly and unexpected into new territory, but the overall picture makes a warped kind of sense. Cosmogramma is the most intricate and sophisticated sound collage Steven Ellison has yet produced, incorporating elements of hip hop, IDM, the astral jazz beloved of his great-aunt Alice Coltrane (particularly through Rebekah Raff’s harp) and 70s fusion. It’s a challenging but deeply rewarding work with a coherent vision and appealing philosophy.