Top 10 Albums of 2009

It might be a bit early to write these kind of lists—2009 isn't completely over yet—but here goes anyway. My ten favourite albums this year were:

10. The Temper Trap - ConditionsThe hit "Sweet Disposition" of this atmospheric indie rock band from Melbourne was featured in (500) Days of Summer.

9. The Elms - The Great American MidrangeAfter trying out a Black Keys brand of blues rock which didn't suit singer Owen Thomas's voice at all, the Elms have returned to their old rhythm'n'blues/heartland rock sound, but with smoother production and improved musicianship.

8. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career
Camera Obscura's latest album sounds more contrived than their previous ones, but it's still enjoyable.

7. The Beatles in Mono
I had to include these in my list. I especially enjoyed the reissue of the earlier albums: it helped me understand why their earlier stuff sounded edgy at the time!

6. God Help the GirlBelle&Sebastian's side-project (with female singers, mostly) is the soundtrack to Stuart Murdoch's upcoming musical film. It's far less pretentious than it sounds, and its 60s pop sound is quite refreshing.

5. Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's YouThis is a great sequel to her first album—it's more clever, more mature, but just as fun.

4. Patrick Watson - Wooden ArmsThis album is probably less accessible than his previous one, but it's definitely worth the effort.

3. Tonight: Franz FerdinandMany, many bands are having a go at "New Wave" these days, and it doesn't always work: but I think Franz Ferdinand have the creativity and the freshness that all those other "dance-punk" acts lack.

2. Monsters of FolkConor Oberst (Bright Eys) + Jim Jones (My Morning Jacket) + M Ward. Sums it up, really.

1. M Ward - Hold TimeA fantastic indie folk/alt country album...

Balloons, Toothbrushes and Jetpacks

Another great gig at the cabaret of the Cartonnerie... Cultural activities are getting better and better in this city, I do think Reims is slowly waking up.

Libelul was an unoriginal but enjoyable indie pop duo from Brussels, which sounded a bit like Death Cab for Cutie or Jimmy Eat World with a hint of electronica.

Then came the main support act, the Swedish Thus:Owls, (pictured above) fronted by a girl who was sporting a Joni Mitchell-like dress and who sang like Shara Worden from My Brightest Diamond. The band was obviously influenced by celtic music, but there was a heavy dose of psychedelia and quite a dark edge. It wasn't unlike what I imagine goth folk band Espers would sound like if they started covering the seventies psych folk band Trees...

Finally Patrick Watson (below) started playing... I love the indescribable form of baroque pop of his albums (in 2007 he won the Polaris Music Prize for best Canadian album, beating fellow nominees Feist and the Arcade Fire), but I was expecting Watson to be one of those pretentious singer/songwriters who stare at their piano keys during the whole concert.
But he actually turned out to be very charismatic, and great at engaging the audience. He kept cracking jokes with his bandmates and chatting away to us in his Quebecan French. He got everyone singing happy birthday for one of the sound technicians, and for the encore, he walked through the audience, singing into a strange Tim Burton-like contraption which was strapped on his back and that he called the "megasuit". It basically looked like a jetpack with half a dozen megaphones sticking out of it. His band made use of instruments in some of the most creative ways I've ever seen. The guitarist did things I've never seen anyone do with a guitar (he played it with a toothbrush at one point); the drummer/percussionist would often draw a bow against a saw; and there were also balloons, Fischer Price kiddies toys, toothpicks and countless other weird objects-turned-instruments... It was one of the most entertaining and "interactive" gigs I've ever been to. And it just shows you that you can make "serious" music without taking yourself seriously. Very refreshing.

Grapes and Virgins

At the end of last month I went to two gigs. One was by John Grape, a local indie folk band (and not a singer), which played for the "Noctambule", which is a night-time festival in Reims. Musicians, dancers, actors, artists etc come out in the streets. It's a great idea, it's just a pity that there aren't more people who come out for it.

A week later Lydia and I went to see the Virgins, a "dance-punk" band. They've only released one album so far, which is okay but not great. So I was impressed by their show: they're clearly far better live, and they've improved a lot since last year, when they released their album. It had been a while since I'd been to a gig with music you could dance to, and it was actually a lot of fun. The singer, Donald Cumming, also sang a couple of folk/blues ballads. It fitted his voice perfectly. It was a departure from their usual rock songs, which suggests that the band could come out with some surprises in the future... We'll see.

I was a bit bummed because I missed Shannon Wright and I won't be able to see Peter von Poehl, but I've got my ticket for Patrick Watson, who's coming later in the month.

Melomania

Got back from Scotland about a week ago, but I'm already back at work, preparing for the upcoming year. I might put some pics up later.
In the meantime, here's what I've been getting my kicks from (apart from shrooms, of course).








Wilco - Wilco















Eels - Hombre Lobo














The Hold Steady - Stay Positive












Kaleidoscope - Faintly Blowing


















Crosby, Still, Nash & Young - Déjà Vu

Furry Happy Monsters

Currently Listening to...

Fleet Foxes - self-titled













The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society













James Yorkston - When the Haar Rolls In














The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love













Grandaddy - Sumday

Parables & Primes

Parables & Primes is a folk album by Texan singer-songwriter Danny Schmidt.

Danny Schmidt sounds a bit like early Josh Ritter. Parables & Primes has the same bare and simple quality to it as Hello Starling. But its themes of isolation and alienation are more reminiscent of Jim White's material. Actually some of the tracks have the same kind of southern notes as White (the slide guitar on the song Neil Young for example), but thankfully stay well clear of the Nashville sound.

Schmidt, like all the great folk artists, uses and subverts biblical imagery, so there's that Dylan-Cohen feel to a lot of his songs. The album is musically quite diverse : a couple of the tracks sound like gospel songs (Esmee by the River and Beggars and Mules), Happy All the Time is a John Martyn-style folk-jazz fusion, and Stained Glass seems to have come right out of Songs of Leonard Cohen. Along with Dark-Eyed Prince it's, in my opinion, one of the album's most memorable tracks.

In Dark-Eyed Prince the artist uses a fairy tale-type narrative to talk about closing oneself up emotionally and not being able to accept what life or love has to offer.
Stained Glass tells the story of a congregation finding its church's stained glass window shattered on Good Friday, and finding out that the man who had made it has passed away years ago. The man's old father then decides to fix it for them and toils day and night, leaving his blood and tears in the glass, and finally bringing it to the church on Easter Sunday. Schmidt then goes on to sing about hope and brokenness.

The last few tracks of the album are less noteworthy, but all in all, Parables & Primes, without being revolutionary, is a good folk album. One warning though : like Leonard Cohen's material, it's probably not something you should listen to if you're already feeling down.

You can listen to the whole album for free on Deezer.

no more

Wrapped Up in Books

I've no time to update my blog these days. I'm really busy — and not in a trendy, livin' the vida loca, out-every-night way. In a monastic, nose between the pages, dreaming about words kind of way. I'm wrapped up in books.
And that's cool with me.

Camera Obscura

During the summer I listened to a lot of Nick Drake, but the band that most punctuated my year was, without a doubt, Belle & Sebastian. But for the past few months there's been another band competing for my attention : Camera Obscura. I heard one of their songs, I Love My Jean, as I was listening to one of Deezer's radios one day, and for a while I thought I was listening to an early B&S song. Wikipedia promptly informed me that Camera Obscura is an indie pop band from... Glascow. Just like Belle. I also read on some music blog that Stuart Murdoch helped produce their first album, Biggest Bluest Hi Fi (2001) but I'm not sure if that's true or not. But despite this connection, Camera Obscura don't sound merely like a Belle & Sebastian cover band.
Biggest Bluest Hi Fi is the album I like best so far, but they've issued two other good ones since (Underachievers Please Try Harder, 2003, and Let's Get Out Of This Country, 2006), as well as a number of singles (including a "cover" of Robert Burn's song,A red, red rose).
I'll be keeping an eye on this terrific wee band during 2009...

Who's been sailing my airwaves?

The Dandy Warhols' ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols...

The album came out in the summer but I only got hold of it now. It's not revolutionary and it's probably not their best but it's classic Dandy psychedelia. The tunes aren't as catchy as Welcome to the Monkey House or Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia ; the songs are more similar to their earlier albums in that they need to be listened to several times to appreciate their true worth, but it's worth the effort.




Patrick Watson, Closer to Paradise.

I discovered this Canadian artist while listening to Deezer's indie pop/folk playlist. Closer to Paradise sounds a bit like what would happen if you got Jeff Buckley to sing on Radiohead's OK Computer, and enlisted Danny Elfman to play the glockenspiel, Tim Burton-style. Me likey very much.




Belle & Sebastian

I've been listening to them a lot recently, probably too much. What can I say... they're great pop songwriters! I can't say which album I like the best, but I've recently discovered their singles through the Push Barman to Open Old Wounds compilation. They've evolved quite a bit since their first album, but that's probably a good sign.

The Sound of Place

Découvrez Neil Young!

You've probably noticed how smells and odours can bring back memories of people, places and events that were sometimes long forgotten. For example, the smell of certain types of manure always reminds me of Ireland, because that was always the first thing I smelt coming out from the aeroplane once it had landed in Belfast International airport. Or the smell of rice boiling in milk brings me back to when my late grandmother would serve me steaming hot rice pudding in a tiny bowl with a blue flower pattern when I was a child.

Well, lately, listening to music has had more or less the same effect on me. It didn't bring memories back to me, but it made images of places pop up in my mind. For example, listening to Nick Drake's third and last album, Pink Moon, brought to my mind the picture of hilly woodlands under a dark starry sky, with the slender trees bending in the wind, and the top of a church steeple somewhere in the distance behind one of the taller hills. Joni Mitchell's Ladies of the Canyon painted a Provençal landscape in my mind's eye, with its blue mountains, proud poplars, lavender fields circling a quiet little market town waking up to the soft morning sunlight. My favourite Neil Young album, On the Beach, reminds me not of the coast or the sand, but of the open sea ; the ocean, dark but not agitated, failing to reflect the pallid sun ; the impression of loneliness, sadness, but not despair. It's probably no wonder, because the album itself is rather melancholic and bleak.
You might be wondering what I've smoked. But that's what music does. It sings to parts of us which are beyond our intellectual reach, beyond our conscience.

Velvet Ukulele

I've been thinking of buying a ukulele lately. It looks fun, it's handier to carry to the park than a folk guitar, and it sounds great... A bit like strumming a regular guitar with a capo on the 10th fret. Before buying one, I was checking if there were any uku ressources or tutorials on the web — I'm no autodictat — and while searching I discovered a singer called Jem Cooke. A Youtube video of one of her songs, "Miss You", was on a ukulele tablatures website, and it's quite good. (I included it in this post, below). She has a beautiful voice. I especially like her softer, simpler songs, which have a folkie ring to them. She sings in a "soul" style, so if you don't like Adele or KT Tunstall's vocal style, you mightn't like Jem. But it's definitely worth check her out her Myspace page anyway, here.



I've also started listening to Velvet Underground again. It had been a while. I'm especially into their third (untitled) album, the one with "Candy says", "Pale Blue Eyes" and the like. Listening to it again made me realise how much of an influence Velvet Underground and especially Lou Reed were to modern indie folk/accoustic bands. I had read about it but I had never actually noticed it myself before. You can hear their influence in some of Belle & Sebastian's early material, for example... even in a Devendra Banhart song (I can't remember which one) I was listening to earlier.
It's also interesting how people change. Lou Reed used to be one of the wildest rockstars around, now he's releasing meditation music, practises tai chi every day and is into Eastern spirituality.