There are few who enjoy having their music ordered and listed so much as myself, and Rob Gordon. But the New Year is a time for people of all stripes to come together and discuss what was the best of the year. Albums, of course, are no exception; in fact they are so overly and enthusiastically accepted that a large number exist with no clear need. This is not one of them, trust me. And you do trust me, don't you?
Before we get to it, I must include a brief glossary. Firstly, herein you will find the word "electronicist", as in a person whose musical instrument is electronic equipment. This is not a real word, but shouldn't it be? And since the best way to introduce a new word to the culture is to put it to practice, that's what I'm doing. Do your part and write a doctoral thesis on "Electronicists of the 20th Century". The second word is "jubate", which I learned while playing Balderdash one evening, and it means to be covered with a thick mane of hair. Here's the part where you go, "Huh!", if you haven't already done so. Moving on!
The Year of Our Lord, 2007 AD was a rather good one for music. Some fantastic albums of innumerable styles were released. So without further ado or further clichés... The Best Albums of 2007.
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Runners-Up
15. Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and Weather
14. Björk - Volta
13. of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
12. Feist - The Reminder
11. Fred Frith & Evelyn Glennie - The Sugar Factory
The Top Ten
10. Menomena - Friend and Foe
Maybe computers will never have hearts or express emotion, but with a little help we can pretend. That's the basis behind the music of Menomena, the Portland, Oregon-based indie rock group that should by all rights be considered a quartet: three multi-instrumentalist humanoids and one computer program called Deeler. While the carbon-based members lay down brief riffs and ideas sequentially, Deeler is made to loop them and compile them until a full song emerges. It may sound like a tragically flat and lazy way of coming to recording a song, but the compositions that make up Friend and Foe are anything but. These are tunes that bump and sizzle; they have an indie strut founded in classic rock and swoon with disarming melodies. In short, the songs are very good, and it's to hear the digital heartbeat beneath that demonstrates what is most important about this album: a new creative partnership being contracted between man and machine.
9. múm - Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy
múm comes from the lineage of Icelandic musicians (such as Björk and Sigur Rós) to marry preciousness and adventurousness. And even with a significant lineup change and a redirection from electronic-based songs with live instruments to vice-versa, the group has maintained that original ethos. On Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy the band proves themselves masters of making experimental sounds palatable. Here, a guitar glitches in and out, preventing its momentum from steering the song into vapid pop terrain; there, a sporadic blast of unintelligible beats and percussion is blanketed by a gorgeously serene melodica melody, taming the wild beast. It's a proper marriage: both rely on the other's strengths, and in working together something emerges that is greater than the sum.
8. Groundtruther with John Medeski - Altitude
Altitude is the final part in a planned trilogy-- following Latitude and Longitude-- and while the previous output has reached far and wide, this one reaches right out to grab you by the face. Groundtruther is the trio of 7-string guitarist Charlie Hunter, drummer/electronicist Bobby Previte, and a rotating “special guest” third member; this time out, it's uptown keyboard wizard John Medeski. Everything about this album is bigger than its forerunners; the concepts are grander, the payoff bigger. Most obvious is the expansion to two discs, labeled “Above Sea Level” and “Below Sea Level”. The former-- ranging from “Taipei 101” to “Empire State”-- is an aggressive, electric affair--, and the latter-- “Death Valley” to “Challenger Deep”-- is a moody, acoustic one. The trio pays homage to its subjects by covering a vast amount of space. Loosely formed compositions are at the core, but they travel from there to new areas, always searching and discovering, but never letting their ambitions compromise the jazz that's at the heart of all this. Indeed, the solos and improvisations are strong and with a purpose. This album could easily have been consumed by its own pretensions, but it skirts that peril to stake new, majestic ground.
7. The Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works
There's often a scene in the typical horror B-movie in which the monster, confronted by the people still alive, grows to many times its original size before its prey's terrified eyes. This is precisely what The Dillinger Escape Plan have done on their latest album. In past works the reigning kings of math-metal sweated blood to create a truly formidable foundation of intricate riffs and spastic polyrhythms fused tightly together; all the while the music remained staunchly hard and bristling. But on Ire Works the Plan grows outward in all directions, incorporating electronic pastiches, ambient soundscapes, world music influences, and even flirting with pop (“Black Bubblegum”). This is not for the metal purist, who believes that if it's not as hard as humanly possible it's worthless; this is for the modern musical omnivore. Yes, the music is still bold and aggressive, but it has a point and a purpose behind it. This is a band going somewhere, and devouring everything along the way.
6. Radiohead - In Rainbows
Many a giddy fan's first reaction to Radiohead's newest album was of the bowled-over, head-in-the-clouds variety. And this of course was before hearing it. After all, when Yorke and company had decided to release In Rainbows online, completely independently, and at a price determined by the downloader, they had simultaneously struck a blow to the music industry and also solved its greatest problem. It was sheer genius, but it says nothing about the quality of the album, right? In fact, it's that same incisive vision which makes In Rainbows so damn strong. Radiohead has not necessarily taken yet another creative turn here, but they are still far ahead of the curve. The band takes unconventional chord changes, unlikely instrumentation, obtuse lyrics and strange structures to make some bafflingly accessible music: a quadruple negative that equals a positive. Time will surely show this band as one who shaped 21st century music in a major way, and this album is one more of their tools.
5. Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy - Cornell 1964
Much fanfare was made of the release of the Charles Mingus Sextet's March 18, 1964 performance at Cornell University, and rightfully so. Most of the promotions and gushing reviews spoke of how fortunate it was for these tapes to be discovered, of how rare the performance was of this short-lived group, and how they rival other recordings of the same band in sound and performance quality. But all of that is also true of the release of Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall two years ago, which was released by the same label and featured similar packaging. What particularly makes this recording a true prize is, as identified in Gary Giddins' liner notes, hearing Mingus, “caught in a state of shameless joy.” Charles Mingus-- a man notoriously irascible, known to chastise his musicians on stage even when they played well-- is heard celebrating. During his extended solo on “Sophisticated Lady” his mood begins to change as he chuckles to himself; as the band blithely parades through a highly inventive half hour of “Fables of Faubus” it is clear that something unusual is going on; finally, as “Take the 'A' Train” closes out the first disc with a downright humorous trading of eights between Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond, you know you are witness to something special. Charles Mingus' restlessness was both a handicap and a key to his success, but on that night for him to stop and simply enjoy himself allowed Mingus and his band to open up and express themselves in all new ways. Their joy becomes our joy.
4. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog
If anyone wants to know where traditional songwriting should be heading, they need not look any further than to Iron & Wine's latest lament, The Shepherd's Dog. Iron & Wine is of course the nom de croon of Sam Beam, the jubate former film professor whose delicate hush of a voice is an indication of the extreme sensitivity that makes these songs superb. And by sensitivity I of course mean acuity; the bleary-eyed lyrics and occasional manic stabs of sound do not make this sentimental territory. Beam's sensitivity is responsible for the perfect textural choices at the heart of it all. On “Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car” the jumble of lyrics tag-team with brief jam interludes, allowing each to rest and come back out swinging. On “Carousel” the smoothness of naked electric guitars, cymbal swells and Rhodes chords are contrasted with Beam's Vocoder-laden vocals. These are but a couple of the countless subtle elements sown into the fertile ground of great songwriting, growing as thick as the Amazon. It's The Shepherd's Dog's beauty, and ours to behold.
3. David Torn - Prezens
There are plenty of musicians living on the experimental edge who attempt to earn their credibility by mashing up their native style or genre with an unlikely other. It's a proven formula, but also an old one, and there are a fair number of these folk who do it half-assed or fail completely. David Torn is not one; that is, he doesn't belong in this group at all. On Prezens, the guitarist/composer and his esteemed colleagues Tim Berne (sax), Craig Taborn (keys, electronics) and Tom Rainey (drums) do not begin at any particularly known stylistic point; it's a musical no-man's land. And from there they begin to draw on various established ideas, yet still refraining from overt “fusions”. Even what is drawn in is not easily categorized; the programmed beats and loops have little relation to electronic music, pounding or skittish drums turn a defiantly blind eye to all rock traditions, and the actual solos are played as if jazz was completely unknown to them. Even what is recognizable is refracted through several stylistic lenses; on “AK” the vaguely bluesy riff dug into by the guitar and organ is still skewed by echoes and ambient noise-- to say nothing of the processed sine wave that opens the track, or the sliced-and-diced saxophone freakout to come later. This is music being written in in a language being created right along with it.
2. Dr. Dog - We All Belong
What's wrong with sounding like The Beatles? It's a shame that a rave review must begin so defensively, but too often is the Philly indie quintet Dr. Dog dismissed for aping the fab four. My take is, if you were to sound like another band, why not the greatest rock band of all time? But this is still unfair because Dr. Dog are far from a Beatles knockoff. Firstly, The Beatles are inimitable. Secondly Dr. Dog's music is not by any stretch derivative; the sound is more a tip of the cap than a swipe of the playbook. All the same, it's much of what they share in common with The Beatles that makes We All Belong such a crowning achievement. It's whimsical with the charm of being unselfconscious, and the songs are catchy and enjoyable while revealing that the process is all about the joy of making music. Songs like “My Old Ways”, “Ain't It Strange” and “Worst Trip” shuffle and bounce along with distinct appreciation for how a melody can wind around a beat, or how the percussion can underpin the vocal harmonies. It's all a very delicate labor of love that results in some deceptively simple, yet undeniably wonderful music. And you know who else were masters of that, don't you?
1. Battles - Mirrored 
Usually, the two sides to musical appreciation are at war. On one side you have a primal, visceral attraction to accessibility, and on the other side is intellectual stimulation. It is difficult for a musician to make the two coexist; each wants to dominate the other, and often people completely ignore one and swear the other is all that matters (hence boy bands and Schöenberg). A successful marriage of the two is possibly the most important accomplishment for a musician. That is precisely why the instrumental rock quartet Battles' debut album Mirrored is the best release of the year. The album's central thesis is to construct rock compositions using dozens of brief and simple (as little as one or two notes) motives as building blocks, which interlock in a distinct, nearly impenetrable pattern. Fascinating, yes? And yet it makes you move, too, because these motives are born from meaty snare snaps, grinding guitar licks, thick keyboard trills, and a full serving of heavily processed vocals. “Snare Hanger” has several instruments trading lines in separate time signatures, like idiot savants conversing entirely in prime numbers. “Tij” kicks off with an amalgam of several guitar riffs seemingly compiled from all separate rock songs, and forced to coexist. And on “Atlas” they play magician, slowing down and pulling apart their sleight of hand trick to reveal how it's all done. No attempt to push the concept is wasted, and along with it the dexterity of the group. An album that rocks this hard shouldn't also be so forward-thinking.
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Honorable Mentions
Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
El-P - I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead
Jens Lekman - Night Falls over Kortedala
M.I.A. - Kala
(((Powerhouse Sound))) - Oslo/Chicago: Breaks
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
'Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story' Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
The White Stripes - Icky Thump