With the increasingly high volume of albums being released from year to year and the countless trends and subgenres that emerge as a result, writing a retrospective on a year's worth of music is less a function of what I've heard, but rather what I haven't heard. So other than stating an obvious trend - people like auto-tune way too much - I'm going to stay away from macro explanations of 2008 in music and stick to the micro. I'll rap about what I know.
As a fan of DJ Shadow's 1996 album Endtroducing..., 2008 was a good year for me. Ever since that classic album was released 12 years ago, artists have been trying to capture its epic scope and tasteful sampling with varying degrees of success. In 2008, albums released by Blue Sky Black Death, Metaform, and Ayatollah all gave their take on instrumental hip hop. There were also a few really interesting mc-backed hip hop albums this year, mostly notably by Dela, Black Spade, and Black Milk, all of whom have an oddly hopeful lyrical flavor.
My sweet spot, punk and hardcore, had some great albums as well. Dead to Me, The Loved Ones, and The Gaslight Anthem released albums that were very much influenced by rock and Americana and generally avoided the melodic, pop punk stylings of similarly billed bands like NOFX and No Use for a Name. There were no hardcore LPs that blew me away but Trash Talk really snuck up on me towards the end of the year, and seeing them live last weekend only cemented my love for their slightly more fun version of Ceremony's fast but brutal brand of hardcore. A final subgenre worth mentioning, emo, was all over the map this year with good albums that could be short and chaotic (Loma Prieta) or long and melodic (Mesa Verde, ...Who Calls So Loud). There was even an album by Algernon Cadwallader that's a fairly accurate facsimile of Cap'n Jazz.
The rest of the music I digested this year was all over the map. IDM, modern classical, jazz, folk, indie, metal, psychedelic, alternative, and pop were all represented. If any one thing unified them, it was that they were all readily available over the internet, many of them for free (or rather legally).
A final highlight of the past year was getting to see a few really great concerts. Band of Horses on Valentine's Day in Brooklyn, Girl Talk at my school in April (and the great post-concert festivities), Kayo Dot in October, and Trash Talk in December stood out as particularly great, whether for intensity, production value, or just good, clean fun.
Top Albums of 2008
25. The Flashbulb -
Soundtrack to a Vacant Life [
Review]
Fittingly, the first album on this list gained all of its steam by being self-released on the internet. Soundtrack to a Vacant Life is a thirty-one song, hour-plus IDM journey led by composer Benn Jordan. His style is soft and consonant, but not without moments of intensity and escalation. Though the format of the disc is piecemeal and scenic in the spirit of a soundtrack, many of the individual tracks sparkle as two-minute mini-epics, offering dazzling landmarks throughout this musical autobiography. The album's greatest strength is that despite its extended run-time and synthesized construction, Soundtrack to a Vacant Life is one of the most personal and intimate albums of the year
24. Kayo Dot -
Blue Lambency Downward [
Review]
Blue Lambency Downward is Kayo Dot's third album and marks a final step away from the intelligent metal of Choirs of the Eye that put Kayo Dot on the map. On this album Toby Driver creates a sonic landscape that will feel uncharacteristically inert upon first listen. Contrapuntal woodwind melodies sit alongside big guitar chords and pointillistic drumming. This chamber-arranged jazzy surface belies the fact that Driver's music is as sophisticated and complex as ever. This album is not ranked as high as it could be - a product of Blue Lambency Downward's diminished visceral immediacy, which is what made Kayo Dot's two previous albums so powerful in addition to being intelligent - but Driver et al. are still producing some of the most mind-bending music out there.
23. Pygmy Lush -
Mount Hope [
Review]
Folk is a genre driven by four-chord harmonic progressions, turnarounds, cadences, and other music theoretical devices that have trickled down from blues over the years. However, in the hands of Richmond, Virginia's Pygmy Lush, folk is stripped of its cliche compositional techniques, even more effectively than analogous reanimations by "psych-folk" groups such as Woods and Fleet Foxes. The band's second album, Mount Hope, renders folk into a vehicle for ambient, open-ended passages and songwriting that takes Pink Floyd's depressive tone on "Wish You Were Here" to more wistful yet brighter emotional territory. From the surf and pirate romping of "Concrete Mountain" and "Butch's Dream" to the sprawling minimalism of "Tumor" and "Red Room Blues," Mount Hope is an intimate and subtle reimagining of folk's possibilities.
22. ...Who Calls So Loud -
...Who Calls So Loud [
Review]
Funeral Diner's breakup, in the wake of one final EP, left a huge half-moon-shaped hole in the emotional hardcore scene. Thankfully, drummer Matt Badja and guitarist Dave Mello started a new project that picks up almost exactly where Funeral Diner left off. ...Who Calls So Loud's sound is still overwhelming and crushing while remaining melodic, but there is room for playfulness as in the acoustic and slide guitar introduction to "Assume the Power Focus" which would have no place on an album like The Underdark. ...Who Calls So Loud is an album of a band halfway between a storied old sound and an auspicious new one. As such, for what it lacks in unity of vision, it more than makes up for in spirit, intensity, and beautiful songwriting.
21. Flying Lotus -
Los Angeles [
Review]
Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus, aka FlyLo, aka the guy who's music is used on Adult Swim commercials, followed up his 2006 debut LP, 1983, with the attention-grabbing release, Los Angeles. LA is a small and careful, but ultimately substantial progression from his previous efforts. The cornucopia of samples that defined 1983's varied soundscapes has been mushed together, thrown through a few distortion filters, and yanked even more out of quantization to produce an album that shuffles, sludges, and grooves harder than any other out this year. FlyLo's unique taste in samples for his drum kits yields a rich flavor that when squeezed into his off-kilter timing and beats gives a sound that is absolutely throbbing (additional visual evidence of this can be witnessed in his video for "Parisian Goldfish"). This album really is best new music.
20. Venetian Snares -
Detrimentalist [
Review]
When Venetian Snares, the prolific breakbeat turned modern classical musician named Aaron Funk, releases a new album, I find myself instantly recoiling. He puts out an LP and EP every year and I always anticipate his albums losing quality or just repeating the success of a previous release. However, every time I am shocked at how versatile Funk's palette is, and how well he reinvents himself album after album. Detrimentalist finds Funk dipping into a jungle of dub samples that have been worked into his usually convoluted patterns, mostly over some kind of alternating or asymmetric time signature. This new sound is also tempered with inspired elements of his recent forays into modern classical, all culminating on the final track "Miss Balaton" where Bartok meets Bumboklaat at 180 BPM.
19. Blue Sky Black Death -
Jean Grae: The Evil Jeanius [
Review]
It's a strange thing that such a good album could come out of such unofficial collaborative circumstances. Jean Grae, rapper with a dark, subdued style, and Blue Sky Black Death, trip hop gone post-rock producers from San Francisco, released The Evil Jeanius outside of their authorized canon (BSBD's Late Night Cinema and Jean Grae's Jeanius were both "official" releases earlier this year) but don't have some catchy name to acknowledge the team they've created (e.g. Deltron3030). The Evil Jeanius finds Blue Sky Black Death producing music that is notably truncated, chill, and reserved, which puts it at odds with the cathartic and epic content of Late Night Cinema. The production sounds like it's been reduced to complement Jean Grae's coy but depressed flow and lyrics. The sound slays on the lighter, placid tracks like "Take It Back" and "Lights Out," and only falters on the bombastic opening track, "Shadows Forever."
18. Aussitot Mort -
Montuenga [
Review]
While everybody was group-worshiping Daitro and Sed Non Satiata's split LP, a great French emo album was released - on Level Plane no less - to minimal fan and critical response. Aussitot Mort's Montuenga takes the European style to new territory through innovative guitar work. The dual guitars run through delay pedals creating a constantly shifting network of contrapuntal melodies that are playful and beguiling but intricate and riveting. Backing that up is a capable rhythm section that is versatile enough to invoke post-metal, straight ahead hardcore, and even post-punk on any given passage. Aussitot Mort are even ambitious enough to work violin and glockenspiel into the mix at crucial moments, but just enough to punctuate the fantastic crescendos, and not so much that the already complex textures are spoiled by too much fiddling around with the successful European emo formula.
17. Extra Life -
Secular Works [
Review]
Though the number next to Extra Life says 17, it could have just as easily read 1 or 99. Extra Life is a band led by composer, Charlie Looker (Zs, Dirty Projectors), who's debut album, Secular Works, is the densest, most complicated and inscrutable album of 2008. Its sound combines Toby Driver's union of modern classical and metal, math rock, post-punk, and even the modal stylings of pre-Baroque motet composer, Guillame de Machaut, among other influences. Looker composes epic, brooding pieces that connote longing and self-loathing through unusual harmonic progressions and paradoxically openly dense and claustrophobically sparse instrumental arrangements. Its Looker's unique sense of songwriting that makes Secular Works the inexplicable beast that it is, and leads me to wonder if this is the most groundbreaking album of the year or a slab on unyielding avant garde mush. The more I wrap my brain around this album, the more I lean towards the former.
16. Grails -
Doomsdayer's Holiday [
Review]
After their reserved, concise masterpiece Redlight, Grails went off the deep end and released Burning Off Impurities and Black Tar Prophecies Vols. 1, 2, & 3, albums that traded away Grails modal-infused post-rock for psychedelic jam rock. The results were less than stellar. With Doomsdayer's Holiday, Grails reconcile their propensity to go on exploratory acid-tinged jams with their original graceful precision. However, there is no draught of bizarre psychedelia. There are flutes, bongos, violins, even a ney at one point, but all of these instruments, as well as the effects, production, and song structures are all reined in so that no song strays too far. In addition, there's a brooding darkness to the album that renders the usual levity and novelty of psyched-out sounds ominous and nefarious. As a result, Doomsdayer's Holiday is an even more multifaceted release that tantalizes and entices the listener with its melting pot of different tones and sounds.
15. Ghostlimb -
Bearing and Distance [
Review]
Ghostlimb's self-titled album missed my 2007 best-of list because I discovered the album in late December, so it gives me great pleasure to give Bearing and Distance a spot on this list. Bearing and Distance is a great album for the same reasons that Ghostlimb's self-titled album was great; it's heavier, faster, and catchier than any other hardcore album released in recent memory. However, Bearing and Distance's increased melodic variety and dedication to one-upping the intensity of their previous album makes this album truly great. It's always nice to see a band accomplish more in 19 ridiculously pissed-off minutes than most bands do in an entire career.
14. PSY/OPSogist -
Suffused With Static [
Review]
Influenced by DJ Shadow but with a taste in sampling that extends to The Doors and The Mars Volta, PSY/OPogist came out of no where with his full length Suffused With Static. The album is intended to be one continuous piece of music and as a result song divisions are superficial and mere earmarks for the larger journey. Suffused With Static has a deceptive pacing and you'll find yourself slipping in and out of this album's many layers throughout any one listen. From the sparse and raw hip hop of "Between the Keys" to the Indian drone and garage rock sounds of "Non Music" and even 60s psychedelia and pop on "Service Preparation," PSY/OPSogist has created and ethereal and beautiful hip hop dream world.
13. My Morning Jacket -
Evil Urges [
Review]
My Morning Jacket's sound is multivalent and constantly mutating. At moments they feel like a prog band, at others indie, and sometimes even southern rock. This shapeshifting quality is at work like never before on Evil Urges, an album that blurs the lines between their influences and makes a more homogeneous sound out of the component parts. This pureeing effect was met with backlash by a lot of fans, but for me it opened up their sound even more. Less attached at any one genre on any one song, My Morning Jacket were free to explore strange intersections like "Thank You Too" blending rock ballads with R&B production and melodies (literally the chorus melody is the same as on Akon's "I Want to Fuck You"). The album ending on "Touch Me I'm Going to Scream Part 2," an epic, synthed-out prog gem that throbs and shimmers with touches of tremolo and slide guitar, is perfect. Who would have thought that David Bowie, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and The Pixies could party so harmoniously together?
12. The Loved Ones -
Build and Burn [
Review]
In a year when Fat Wreck's classic bands like No Use for Name and Lagwagon disappointed, it's great to see their lesser known bands putting out clutch albums. Build & Burn was released in February and slipped under the radar for most people only to be forgotten since the release of an oddly similar album, The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound. On Build & Burn, The Loved Ones combine pop punk and rock with shades of folk and blues, a formula that is common nowadays (think Reinventing Axl Rose), but tough to balance (New Wave). The Loved Ones balance that with ease. "Pretty Good Year" and "The Inquirer" are swinging ballads that invoke Hot Water Music, and the album's best song, "Louisiana" is essentially a blues form run through a pop punk filter. The breakdown on that song and the proceeding chorus gets me whooping like a hillbilly every time I hear it.
11. Feral Children -
Second to the Last Frontier [
Review]
There is something wild but divine stirring within the vocals of Jim Cotton and Jeff Keegan. After the ramblings of "Billionaires vs Millionaires," subside, Second to the Last Frontier spills out into a synthesized drone and a strange chanted melody that are repeated throughout the song "Jaundice Giraffe." On top of that are the chaotic warbling lead vocals that sing "they love your yellow skin" over and over. The song is built out of an economical use of instrumentation and an amazing amount of repetition, but somehow this minimal drone is captivating throughout the entire song. Second to the Last Frontier builds lush soundscapes out of the musical equivalent of fog or vapor, part in thanks to Feral Children's feral vocalists, but also because of their keen sense of orchestration, songwriting, and healthy indie dramatics.
10. Metaform -
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants [
Review]
Living in the shadow (no pun intended) of other comparable albums released in 2008 is Metaform's Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, an accomplished trip hop / instrumental hip hop album that has sadly been ignored after an initial surge of positive reception that burst around the intertubes from February until April. Whereas Flying Lotus' Los Angeles is a breathing, organic mess, and Blue Sky Black Death's Late Night Cinema is all about escalation and grandiosity, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants is neither, preferring precise beatwork and sample-manipulation and low-key arrangements (excepting the bombastic opener "Rock It Number Nine"). However, Metaform's style is anything but modest or second class. From song to song he leaps from spastic but subdued IDM to syrupy R&B to funk and back to J Dilla and DJ Shadow-inspired hip hop again. By the time one gets to the album's electro pop ending track "Love and Loss," Standing on the Shoulders of Giants has proven itself to be both a guided tour and a strong deviation from hip hop's diverse history of affiliate sounds and genres.
9. Mesa Verde -
The Old Road [
Review]
Though I glorified Loma Prieta's Last City for being the antithesis to the current trend in emo that values post-rock's lofty, expanded song structures and effects-laden guitars, Mesa Verde's The Old Road, an album that fully embraces that trend, is anything but a predictable release. The Old Road's overall sound is closest to Envy's pre-Insomniac Doze, but with even more dedication to pummeling crescendos and a newfound ferocity in the instrumental performances. The vocal performance of David McLaughlin is particularly moving. Though not as dynamic of a vocalist as Chino Moreno or Daryl Palumbo, McLaughlin's scream is emotive and fierce, capturing as John Hanson put it, "human frailty and longing," with unparalleled efficacy.
8. Dela -
Changes of Atmosphere [
Review]
Dela's Changes of Atmosphere is a strangely international collaboration. Dela is French producer putting out smooth hip hop inspired by A Tribe Called Quest and De la Soul with notable amounts of jazz tinging his sound. On top of that Dela imports a slew of American MCs including Talib Kweli, J-Live, Large Professor, among others, who tend to rap about American and/or personal issues. The result is an album that just flows thanks to the ambient weightlessness of Dela's production and the competency of Dela's guests, all of whom bring their A-games, lending thoughtful, even sensitive lyrics that complement Dela's effortless style.
7. Thrice -
The Alchemy Index: Volumes III & IV - Air & Earth [
Review]
After the success of Vheissu, Thrice could have put out another album that carefully reined in new influences and sounds to color their tried and true post-hardcore nucleus. Instead they took a quantum leap forward, deciding to put out four six-song EPs, each sonically embodying a classical element (fire, water, air, earth). In many ways, they bit off more than they could chew; the resulting collection is wildly diverse and lacks cohesion (in a typical sense). In hindsight though, The Alchemy Index is more important for proving that Thrice's experimentation isn't empty, artsy dabbling, but can be gorgeously lush ("Silver Wings") or surprisingly subdued ("Digging My Own Grave"). The second half of the index, Air and Earth, doesn't perfectly cash in on the element concept but contains some of Thrice's best songs to date, and serves as a wonderful stepping stone for a future alloy of all of their eclectic influences.
6. The Gaslight Anthem -
The '59 Sound [
Review]
Obnoxious Bruce Springsteen references aside, The Gaslight Anthem have put out a great album in The '59 Sound. It's a punk album and as such relies on nuance and feeling to reinvent the same tried and true chord progressions. Singer, Brian Fallon, speaks from the perspective of hindsight, recalling childhood follies with a nostalgia that complements the throwback sound of the album. The reverb-laden production is supposedly meant to invoke the analog tones of 1959 and the guitar parts recall classic punk bands of my own childhood, particularly those of wistful and optimistic bands like the Bouncing Souls and Hot Water Music. The best part of these pre-meditated aesthetic choices is that they feel perfectly effortless instead of affected - the natural by-product of a punk heart's memory and not an indie brain's stunted creativity.
5. Loma Prieta -
Last City [
Review]
As both American and European emo take cues from now revolutionary bands like Circle Takes the Square, City of Caterpillar, and Saetia by inflating song structures with ambient, post-rock passages, it's nice to see Loma Prieta's album Last City completely blow away the competition this year with an album that is concise and immediate to the point of being claustrophobic. Loma Prieta, clearly influenced by Ampere's urgent mini-epics, shred out ten amazingly varied and compelling tracks in twenty-two minutes. The album's success hinges off of the satisfying guitar patterns of guitarist Derrick Chao and the relentless but delicately balanced drumming of Val Saucedo.
4. Girl Talk -
Feed the Animals [
Review]
2008 was a huge year for Gregg Gillis, stage name Girl Talk. If Night Ripper was the album that introduced him to the hordes of indie music fans that made him an underground hero, Feed the Animals was the one that perforated the consciousness of the mainstream media and made him into a rock star. From a friend's twelve-year old brother, to random people passed in the library, and even to my own mother, I've heard people singing "play your part..." sotto voce, as if they want the whole album to get stuck in their head and repeated ad nauseum. Despite Gillis' ubiquity, and the fact that Feed the Animals is touted as the ultimate party mix, I found this album moves me most when I'm alone and listening on headphones. His taste and technique are impeccable, which leads to great songwriting, and that's what really matters when the bass stops bumping and the party stops at 6 a.m. Feed the Animals has no hang over.
3. Son Lux -
At War With Walls and Mazes [
Review]
Good singer-songwriters establish an intimacy with their listeners through emotive vocals and personal lyrics. Son Lux, real name Ryan Lott, uses that general formula as a launching pad for a sound that transcends the genre entirely. At War With Walls and Mazes is an electronic masterpiece that pulls the listener through soul, classical, downtempo, breakbeat, r&b, folk, and countless other genres, all with a trip hop aesthetic and a singer-songwriter's open heart. Few albums are this technically meticulous yet also emotional lucid. At War With Walls and Mazes is a testament to Lott's delicacy as a producer and as a songwriter.
2. Blue Sky Black Death -
Late Night Cinema [
Review]
Maybe the one thing lacking from trip hop and instrumental hip hop is a truly great sense of the moment. Not since DJ Shadow's Endtroducing have listeners been treated to an album that makes good on instrumental hip hop's many strengths by fixing its one glaring weakness. On Late Night Cinema, Blue Sky Black Death effectively combine post-rock song structures and sense of poignancy and escalation, with trip hop's usual strengths (atmosphere, groove, diversity, etc.), to create the first album since Endtroducing that moves the listener as much as it soothes. The expansive, ever-changing song arcs feel monumental when coupled with smooth trumpets, fluttering violins, soulful vocal samples, and thick, awe-inspiring beats.
1. Have a Nice Life -
Deathconsciousness [
Review]
Deathconsciousness is a special album. It was recorded in a home studio over the course of five years by two friends Tim Macuga and Dan Barrett (ex-In Pieces) who wanted to combine their love of My Blood Valentine, Joy Division, Nine Inch Nails, and Xasthur into one unified sound. After speaking with Richard McFarlan, a Religious Anthropology professor at UMass Amherst, they were inspired to write a concept album surrounding the life and mysteries of Antiochus, an exiled Roman religious leader. In their words, "[w]e're playing songs in a dead genre about believers in a dead religion." Despite, and maybe thanks to all of this death consciousness, Have a Nice Life have produced an album that is startlingly nuanced, intimate, and emotionally gripping. The album, amidst fuzzy shoegaze tones and industrial beats, treads the line between despair and hope. The album is neither too brittle and cold, nor too lush and intricate. The resulting sound is esoteric and challenging, yet unexpectedly catchy. Deathconsciousness, while hardly a perfect album is certainly the most singular album released in a long while.
Honorable Mentions
Takka Takka - Migration
Off Minor - Some Blood
Cynic - Traced in Air
Esbjorn Svensson Trio - Leucocyte
Trash Talk - Trash Talk
Top EPs
Dead to Me - Little Brother
PSY/OPSogist - Souls Touch
Trash Talk - Plagues
Justice - Planisphère
Elder - Elder
Best Songs
Worst Albums
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Messiah J & The Expert - From the Word Go
Harvey Milk - Life...The Best Game in Town
Protest the Hero - Fortress
Zach Hill - Astrological Straits
Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life
Best Albums From Previous Years Discovered in 2008
Herbie Hancock - Maiden Voyage (1965)
Do Make Say Think - You, You're a History in Rust (2007)
Ghostlimb - Ghostlimb (2007)
The Microphones - The Glow pt. 2 (2001)
Efterklang - Tripper (2004)
Look Forward to 2009
Some of my most anticipated albums for 2008 have continued to be delayed and should (please) see the light of day in 2009. Circle Takes the Square's
Ritual of Names has been delayed by fairly natural processes. The recording has been intensive and long to ensure quality, which is great by me. Deltron3030's
Event II is supposedly done except for Del's vocals. I'm assuming he's researching his lyrics with a mix of bong rips and Cartoon Network. Deftones were hard at work on their new album
Eros until bassist Chi Cheng was in a car crash and fell into a coma. No hurry needed on that one obviously. Lastly, Glassjaw supposedly have the entire album done except half of the vocals (and obviously mixing and mastering) and have left us the nice preview for the song "You Think You're John Lennon" on their website. I also expect releases by Thursday, Silversun Pickups, and Bone Thugs some time in Q109. Lastly, the thing I'm probably most excited about that's going to be released in 09 is music by...myself. I've been slowly working on material over the past few months and will hopefully get an album out Q109. It's essentially hip hop but with influences from a wide range of weird stuff like jazz, math rock, and I even sample some gamelan in the beats. The album will also be completely free. If you want you can check out two unmixed demos on the myspace page [
here].
Peace.
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