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You know what? It’s been a crazy 2008 for me so far, and so I make no apologies for posting my Best Music of 2007 mix nine months late. Please to Enjoy!

Download this mix as individual MP3s (zipped)

As an additional bonus this year, I’d like to present a few audio visual accompaniments to these songs.

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

1. The RZA - N.Y.C. Everything (featuring Method Man) (4:17)
2. Phoenix - Everything Is Everything (3:00)
3. Elliott Smith - Everything Reminds Me of Her (2:37)
4. Casey Deinel - Everything (3:30)
5. Elliott Smith - Everything Means Nothing to Me (2:24)
6. Of Montreal - Everything Dissapears When You Come Around (2:35)
7. Radiohead - Everything In Its Right Place (4:12)
8. Underworld - Rez / Cowgirl (11:47)
9. Moby - Everything Is Wrong (1:14)
10. Coldplay - Everything’s not lost (7:14)

Total: 42:50

Everything.zip [47.2 MB]

Several weeks late, but here it is… A small sample of 2005’s best music, as selected by me. Comments? Queries? Quiests?

British Sea Power - Oh Larsen B

I saw these guys play a concert sometime last summer and it was awesome. I think it was the last show of their tour and they were just going nuts. The stage crew had to stop them from bringing down the lighting rigs at one point. (This was at the Logan Square Auditorium, so it’s not like that would have been the hardest thing in the world to do). I wanted to go right out and get their CD (Open Season) immediately, but one thing led to another and several months later I still didn’t have it. Finally I came across the disc at Laurie’s Planet of Sound and recalled how great the show was. I picked it up and played it as I drove up the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco in October. If there is a more perfect soundtrack for this drive, I’d like to hear it. It’s just sounds big, epic, sweeping. The lyrics are great, too. Take “Oh Larsen B” for instance:

You’re fractured and cold, but your heart is unbroken
My favourite, foremost coastal Antarctic shelf
You had 12,000 years, and now it’s all over
500 billion tonnes of the purest packed ice and snow
Oh Larsen B, oh won’t you fall on me!

Sounds silly, but give it a listen and see if it doesn’t rock!

Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires

This is the second album from Patrick Wolf, and it’s one of those things that I kind of knew I’d like before I even listened to a single track. The story goes that Patrick Wolf was kind of a weirdo whose first album was totally unhinged and full of angst about his troubled childhood. Somehow in the course of promoting this album, he managed to piss off a lot of people in the London music press and eventually got so sick of the whole scene that he retreated to a little shack on a cliff overlooking the ocean in Cornwall. Here, he single-handedly recorded a series of tracks for his new album, layering dozen of stringed instruments, vocals, and various field recordings on top of electronic percussion and atmospherics. He finally took the whole mess back to London, polished it up and so we arrive at “Wind in the Wires.” It’s definetly a dark album, but not a bleak one, if that distinction makes any sense. I really like the following bit from the title track:

This wild electricity
Made static by industry
Like a bird in an aviary
Singing to the sky
Just singing to be free

This album makes me feel like moving to a little house by the ocean and watching the waves roll in and out.

The Boy Least Likely To - My Tiger My Heart

This is by “The Boy Least Likely To” who are awkwardly named after a Smiths song. Many people have supposed that this song is about Calvin & Hobbes, but this is allegedly not so. It does appear to be about a boy and his stuffed tiger, but let’s just leave it at that. It is a simple and sad song about growing up and leaving behind the things of your childhood. Clearly this has been done before, but it’s done really, really well here. There’s another Boy Least Likely song later in this series that is all kinds of funky with the xylophone and synthesizers but this is just vocals, guitar & bass. And that’s all it needs.

Ben Lee - Whatever It Is

Ok, first things first. I had a lot of doubts about including this particular song from Ben Lee’s 2005 album, “Awake is the New Sleep.” But everyone’s already heard “Catch My Disease,” I figured. Maybe they’d like to hear something new. Something to make them think, “Hey, maybe I should hear the rest of that album!” But of course if you haven’t heard “Catch My Disease,” then my whole thing just kind of falls apart. So if you haven’t heard that song, you’re really making things difficult for me here!! =) Anyhow, maybe I should say something about the song itself. Well, it’s soft and sweet and positive in a way that is maybe a nice change from the first few songs I’ve talked about. It says, “Yes, you can do whatever it is you want to do.”

Silver Jews - Sleeping is the Only Love

David Berman has taken his sweet time putting this album together, and it doesn’t show. I mean that in a good way. Let me explain. Some bands are just supposed to sound sloppy. Silver Jews share a lot of DNA with Pavement, so clearly they are one of these bands. Tanglewood Numbers is a much more accomplished recording than Silver Jews earlier works, but it retains whatever essential sloppyness makes them great. Berman’s lyrics are perfect, as always:

I heard they were taming the shrew
I heard the shrew was you
You might as well say “Fuck me” cause I’m gonna keep on
Keep on loving you”

And also:

I had this friend his name was Marc with a “C”
His sister was like the heat coming off the back of an old TV

Following up on Ben Lee’s self-affirmation, we are now firmly in feel-good territory with Berman’s track. Which is kind of weird, coming from the Jews, but I’m not gonna argue with somebody’s good mood.

Arctic Monkeys - Mardy Bum

Since I placed this song on my list in late December (yes, it has taken me a long time to post this!) the Arctic Monkeys have issued the fastest-selling debut album in the history of England. I’m normally not one to gloat, but having passed on my chance to see Franz Ferdinand play at the Empty Bottle before their ascent to superstardom I feel somewhat justified in a tiny bit of smugness here. (Having seen these guys play to a crowd of about 200 people in SF a few months ago). Anyway, as for the song, there is probably a more polished version of it on their album, but this is the demo that actually came out in 2005, so here it remains. Enjoy the unabashed britpoppery… I know I did!

Ween - Gabrielle

Maybe this is a bif of a cheat, as Ween’s “Shinola Vol. 1″ is actually a collection of previously recorded but unreleased tracks, but technicalities aside, this song kicks. People say this song is a blatant Thin Lizzy homage (which is true), but I say… “Hell yes! And why aren’t the rest of you slackers giving it up for Thin Lizzy?” I’m also fond of the phrase, “The foundation of my malevolence” that comes up pretty early on in here. =)

Jamie Lidell - Multiply

Jamie Lidell has been discussed here before, so I’m not going to spend a lot of time re-hashing what I already said. Let me just say that if this is not one of the best albums of 2005 then something must be wrong with my ears. Just buy it already!

Biirdie - To Know That You Need Me

Biirdie’s been mentioned here before as well, but perhaps I really did not emphasize enough the first time how essential these guys are! People who I dragged to concerts last year know what I’m talking about. The rest of you are gonna have to imagine hearing this song played acoustically by Kala and Jared, as they wander through the 10-odd people who stayed all the way till the end of their set at Martyrs. Like Renton says, “Take the best orgasm you ever had, multiply it by a thousand and you’re still nowhere close.” These guys are both the most underappreciated band of 2005, and my #1. No contest.

The Tears - Two Creatures

People keep waiting for Suede’s Brett Anderson to put out a shitty album, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen. After steering Suede’s last album in an unexpectedly pop/folk direction he’s healed the rift with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler and it’s like Dog Man Star was yesterday. Clearly both guys are in a happier place now, so don’t go looking for any epic sex/drugs/mindfuck anthems like “The Asphalt World” on here, but if you’re after a song where the vocals and guitar don’t sound totally ridiculous with full string arrangement and chorus behind them, then this is your track.

The Boy Least Likely To - Be Gentle With Me

And we’re back to The Boy Least Likely To again. I think this is a fitting conclusion to the mix. It’s almost insanely twee but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make me want to dance! A well named album, to be sure.

So this concludes the Best of 2K5 mix. Hope you enjoyed it. I’m already finding stuff I should have included, but in the interest of getting this out the door, and not having to re-order the track numbers in the ID3 tags, I’ve decided it’s finished. Keep watching this space though; more music will surely follow!

Download the whole thing as a ZIP [50MB] (note: this link, and in fact maybe all these links will not be live forever, so grab ‘em now or forever hold your piece!