A little late as usual, but here is the Best Music of 2006 list that I have been collating for the last several weeks. Enjoy!
Dorothy at Forty – Cursive – Happy Hollow
I’ve never really gotten into Cursive before, but this album is pretty damn irresistable. It’s equal parts of Manic Street Preachers, Blood Sweat and Tears & Tim Kasher’s Cursive side-project, The Good Life, all rolled into one crazy funk-rock hybrid. The lyrics are brilliant as well, covering such topics as the Iraq War, sex scandals in the church, creationism v. evolution and a variety of other such politically charged areas. Surprisingly, it’s not at all dull, and as an added bonus, the last track recounts the themes of the ones that precede it, just in case you missed them the first time around. =)
Supermassive Black Hole – Muse – Black Holes and Revelations
I like this song a lot, but it’s really here due to popular demand. Every once in awhile I check my server logs, and ever since I first posted a couple of Muse tracks earlier this year, this one has been consistently near the top of my “frequent http requests” list. In fact, along with another track I’ll get to in a moment, I think it’s been responsible for something crazy like 80 or 90 % of total traffic to my site this year. That’s measured in kilobytes, of course, not individual requests. But still! At any rate, this is a great song to play while you’re destroying galaxies.
Fuck Forever – Babyshambles – Down in Albion
Most of the Babyshambles album was pretty forgettable, but this one and the other single (Killamangiro) stuck pretty good. Fuck Forever gets the nod here mainly due to having “Fuck” in the title, and also for Pete’s delivery of the line “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand….. To make you toe the line.” The slightly unhinged drumming didn’t hurt either. But I could do without all of that stuff if Pete would just clean up a little bit and cut an album that sounds anywhere near as good as the Acousticalullaby demos from several years back, because the version of “Albion” on Down in Albion blows major ass compared to the one on the demos.
Clouds – Go Betweens – Striped Sunlight Sound
I had never heard of these guys before one of the founding members died in mid-2006, shortly after the band released this career spanning live album. Their music may be a little too wuss-rock for some tastes, but hey… you don’t have to go around *telling* everybody how much you like it, just keep it on hand for when you need to de-stress. =) This particular song gets high marks for borrowing a few lines from one of my favorite Dylan songs (Love Minus Zero/No Limit) and also for having god-damn perfect harmony vocals.
Let Down – Toots & The Maytals – Radiodread
You could be forgiven for assuming that a reggae tribute to Radiohead would suck but I’m here to tell you that it’s actually, shockingly good. This track in particular is absolutely amazing in it’s ability to transform one of the biggest downers in the Radiohead catalog into something resembling pure joy. One wonders about the type of music Thom Yorke might have produced if he’d grown up in a less rain-soaked climate.
Seven Day Smile – Jane Weaver – Seven Day Smile
A bit of a cheat here, as I believe this album was recorded several years ago and shelved for some reason. But it did get an official release this year, so I’d say it qualifies for the list. As I said when I posted some tracks from the album previously, it features production work by Andy Votel and the session band is the frickin’ Doves. What else do you need to know?
Nature’s Law – Embrace – This New Day
Here’s the other half of my “bandwidth-hog” award. This song has been downloaded an extrodinary amount since I first posted it and so I think we should all listen to it now and try to work out why. Did Embrace make it big in the US off this album? I kind of stopped paying attention. At any rate they really deserve to because this rocks all over Snow Patrol and all those other British “string rock” bands that have successfully gained a foothold here of late.
Nettie Moore – Bob Dylan – Modern Times
You could *also* be forgiven for ignoring Dylan’s recent output for any number of reasons (his voice, his early-to-mid 80’s work, etc.) but again, I’m just here to say… Give it a shot. Dylan’s been in some kind of deep groove lately and this album, recorded with his touring band captures it pretty well. His voice is in surprisingly good shape, and he takes it easy for much of this album, letting songs slowly stretch out to 6+ minutes. Nothing fancy at all going on here; just subtle, bluesy playing and some more of Dylan’s usual quasi-apocalyptic lyrics. Is he singing about a failed relationship, his own advancing years or just the end of the world? It’s hard to say.
Golden Cage – Whitest Boy Alive – Dreams
Erlend Øye *is* a total (white) nerd, but I think that the combined output of his various musical projects qualifies him as one of the “coolest” people alive too, so he can pretty much do what he wants. This album fits nicely between his super-folky stuff as part of the Kings of Convenience and his more dance-oriented solo work. There’s a beat, but it’s totally your call on whether you want to dance or just sit and listen to the music. I recommend trying each way a couple of times. Also good for bike riding when it’s warm outside.
Yo-Yo Tricks – Fred Thomas – Sink Like A Symphony
Probably sometime in the next few years Fred Thomas will get his “Saturday Looks Good to Me” project back together and they’ll have a huge breakthrough album, a la Modest Mouse’s Good News for People who Love Bad News, but in the meantime we’ll have to content ourselves with this solo album (and 2005’s Every Night). It’s hell of unpolished, with vocal and instrumental cock-ups all over the place but that doesn’t mean it’s not perfect.
Everything – Casey Dienel – Daytrotter Sessions (also Wind-up Canary)
Songs about the sea make me happy, I have to admit. Songs that draw big, sloppy parallels between the sea, music and love & life itself get bonus points. Add in a nicely restrained self-accompaniment on solo piano and you’ve created a perfect storm of awesome.
Dead End Mystery – Sondre Lerche – Duper Sessions
While waiting for the “rock” follow-up album to Sondre Lerche’s 2004 album, “Two Way Monologue,” we got to enjoy this collection of jazz covers and originals that he cut with his “other” project, The Faces Down Quartet. It’s a nice mix of uptempo tracks and slower songs, like this one. His vocals are kind of Chet Baker in style, but a little less rough around the edges.
Baby’s Coming Back to Me – Jarvis Cocker – Jarvis
I wish I could post more tracks from Jarvis Cocker’s solo album here, but in keeping with the format of the list I will post just this one. But perhaps a follow-up post is in order because this album is all over the map. And is it cheating if I insist that you watch the music video for another Jarvis song? I think not!
That’s How Things Get Done – Howe Gelb – ‘Sno Angel Like You
Seems like forever ago that this album came out, but I checked and it was actually in 2006. Crazy. Anyhow I’ve posted on this one here before, but it’s easily among the best from the past year, so here it is again. Howe Gelb of Giant Sand got together with the Voices of Praise gospel choir, after meeting them at a blues festival and the result was this album. I never really got into Giant Sand before this album, but now I am totally sold. Awesome stuff!
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space – J Spaceman – Live at Salford (boot)
J Spaceman of Spiritualized had a brush with death last year. More than a brush, I suppose, as he was revived on two occasions after his heart stopped beating, during a case of double pnuemonia. Anyway, he made a complete recovery and headed back out onto the road with a band consisting of himself on acoustic guitar, a keyboardist, a few gospel singers and a string section. The results, as you can hear, were pretty spectacular. This is a nice (quieter) companion piece to the previous Spiritualized live album, recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1997.
We Share Our Mother’s Health – The Knife – Silent Shout
To paraphrase Barney Gumble: “I don’t know where these pixies came from, but I like their pixie drink!” (Sweden, I think… actually) This song is a bit… unsettling at first. But don’t worry, your brain will reconfigure itself pretty quickly and you’ll eventually reach the point where “We came down from the north… Blue hands and a torch…” starts running through your head at stoplights and on elevators.
Don’t Need A Leash – The Tyde – Three’s Co.
Another seafaring song of sorts here. I was initially super impressed by The Tyde’s 3rd album, but on further reflection there’s nothing as classic as “Silver’s Okay Michelle” from Once or “Blood Brothers” from Twice here. Regardless, the whole set is catchy as hell and I’m still shocked that these guys haven’t sold more songs to movies and commercials. Or maybe they have and I just wasn’t paying attention. But anyway, the production work on this album is gorgeous. Check out the quiet synth and guitar textures on this song.
Welp, that about does her, wraps her all up. It was a pretty good year, dontcha think? (Parts anyhow…) Guess the only thing left to do is download the whole thing as a ZIP.
Also, in the event that your collection of my previous “Best of…” and other MP3 compilations is perhaps incomplete, I have created a new category for easy access to past (and future) complations. Here it is:
http://www.antinomian.com/category/mixtapes
is full of great live drumming and bass playing that manages to work perfectly with the typical synth and drum-machine craziness. Check out some of the awesome bass runs on this track and try not to be weirded out by the robot voice reminding you how great it is to be a human.
wasn’t released yet. Damn Web 2.0 bands and their new-fangled business models. What’s next? Letting fans name their own price for an album?
, because they’re all over the place stylistically, but the album as a whole is pretty uniformly great. This track won out mainly for having a deceptively up-beat melody and jokey lyrics, while still getting in some great digs at the bland, frustrating sweetness of living “where the guards are gracious / And the grounds are grand / And the warden keeps the data on your favorite brands.”
is a great example of this and Gamma Ray is one of its catchier tracks.
, it’s from some demo/promo disc I downloaded.)
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himself this year.
, but it was worth it. Third has everything from spare, acoustic ballads to aggro, electric freakouts. This track is particularly amazing since it contains a little bit of both. The moment when the transition happens is my favorite part of the whole record.
