There’s a funny
conundrum inside of me: I love, love a year ends list with
all of my ever-beating heart but when the opportunity to
create my own arises any and all music I enjoyed, loved,
even slightly liked fades from my mind, leaving me scared
and bewildered unable to construct an adequate
representation of my year in music. Happens every year, no
matter how prepared I attempt to make myself, how many lists
I write (which to be honest has been very few this year) to
bolster my memory when the panic comes sweeping down - I
just can’t bring to mind all the albums I loved.
Thus, I’m going to stop trying. This year I’m just going to
jot down a list of the musical, er, things that caught and
held my ever straying fancy this year. It’s not going to
have a number or an order or anything that would give it
structure, just a big amoebic sprawl of musical love.
Hope you enjoy!
Noah's Preferred Music From 2010
The Mississippi Records
Tape Series -
This amazing
record store in Portland, Oregon has been knocking out these
absolutely incredible tapes for years, but of course, since
I’m slow to grasp most simple things, they’ve alluded my
barely-encompassing gaze until early this summer. With
nearly 60 tapes under their belt, the good folk up in
Portland have compiled tape after tape of genrefied beauty.
Soul, funk, world music, Japanese psych-rock, post-war folk,
the genres they tap in to are both varied and beautifully
approached. I warn you, these tapes are drug like. But I’ll
let you take the first hit and see if you come back for
more:
House of Broken Hearts: Volume 1.
Woodsman -
Insects -
I can’t say
that Woodsman’s recently released Rare Forms is
favorite album of mine. The sprawling, wonked out psych
record fits the bill for a lonely bike ride in to a distant
horizon, but it rarely finds traction on my home player.
Yet, this track Insects the four minute opener to the
album, melted me in to a puddle the first go around. The
humming fuzz of the intro, the clattering drum beat, the
almost sitar-like guitar riff - it’s a gorgeous track and it
finds its way on to my record player and in to the soft
parts of my brain more than I’d like to mention.
Tame Impala -
Innerspeak -
The album
Rare Forms wished it could be. Still not released in the
states, this was a close second for my favorite album of the
year. So epic in its psychedelic tendencies I’m shocked at
how many times I can listen to it in a row. The Bold
Arrow of Time could be, if I was doing that sort of
thing, the track of the year. I imagine with the proper
dosage of drugs this album could be even more amazing, but
it certainly doesn’t require it.
:Tame
Impala - Island Walking:
Gabor Szabo -
Jazz Raga -
Light In The
Attic, regardless of my departure, still, in my humble
opinion, is the best damn reissue label out there. When word
came that Gabor Szabo’s Jazz Raga was their next
release I fretted a bit, knowing nothing about raga, jazz or
anyone named Gabor. You just can’t doubt Matt Sullivan and
his posse of music dorks though. Jazz Raga is all
sitar and twang but somehow manages to be the most addictive
album of the entire year. My girlfriend and I have had
heated debates about what’s the best song, she says
Walking On Nails, I say Mizrab. Or maybe it’s the
sitar cover of The Rolling Stone’s Paint It Black. Or
maybe this is just one fucking amazing album and you should
step on your best friend’s throat to get a copy of it.
:Gabor
Szabo - Comin' Back:
Reading Rainbow -
Prism Eyes -
This little gem
of an album has been on near constant rotation since it
popped through the mail slot at my shabby manor. It’s the
kind of rock ‘n’ roll that’ll have you bobbing your head and
shaking your fist and erratically riding your bike on a busy
street in the middle of a rainstorm. If Always On My Mind
isn’t the catchiest damn song of the year, I don’t know what
is.
:Reading
Rainbow - Always On My Mind:
ARP - The Soft
Wave & FRKWYS Vol. 3 -
ARP is the type
of electronica I would’ve snidely dismissed seven months
ago. Minimalist synth with a smidge of vocals. I would’ve
scoffed, attributed it to some soon fading hipster trend and
then never listened to it again. Yet ARP’s album The Soft
Wave is a goddamn masterpiece. A symphonic swell of an
album that’ll take you up and down and all the way around.
And if just to say, "look at how fucking fantastic I am" ARP
collaborated with minimalist superhero Anthony Moore for
FRKWYS Vol. 3, a logical continuation of The Soft Wave.
There is no better song to approach a cold morning then
Spinette.
:ARP
And Anthony Moore - Spinette:
Carl Perkins -
I
believe last year, "Country Music" became a newfound love of
mine. Well that love has only deepened in to an ever
expanding crater of lust and Carl Perkins is the main reason
for that. One fourth of The Million Dollar Quartet, Perkins
was the gentle pen behind some of the greatest twangers
(ahem, Mr. Elvis Presley’s Blue Suede Shoes) greatest
hits. His own albums are raucous affairs better suited for a
whiskey-soaked roadhouse than my linoleum tiled kitchen.
:Carl
Perkins - Boppin' The Blues:
Penny And The
Quarters - You And Me -
This is an
older track off a Numero Group compilation but it’s used to
such impressive effect in the absolutely stunning film
Blue Valentine that I expect it’s going to be ending up
on a lot, a lot of mix-tapes in the months following it’s
release. There’s something about the way the lead vocals
just jut their way over the deeper bass track and the
simple, sad lyrics that tie it all together that just make
me want to snap my fingers and smoke a cigarette. Best
single song discovery of the entire year.
:Penny
And The Quarters - You And Me:
And at this point in the list I start to go through my
I-Tunes and drag the old tracks to the surface, start
remembering the good old times, but you know, I like this
little hodge-podge of tracks. It reflects the black hole of
my mind and the music that’s vacuumed in there at all times.
But to end it, let me just say, best album of the year, even
with it’s January release date:
Beach House -
Teen Dream -
Absolutely
haunting, brilliant, and catchy in a way so few albums are
these days. There’s no glam or glitter to this startlingly
bit of music, just gloriously dreamy tracks performed
admirably well by two kids from Baltimore. Nothing else has
drifted in the corners of my mind more this year. Not even
for a moment.
Beach House - Walk In The Park
Noah Sanders is the blog/news editor at Light In The
Attic and a contributor at Sound On The Sound and
the KEXP blog. He also has his own
Criterion-based film site, Criterion Quest.
If you'd like to contact Noah in regards to his
writings here at Side One: Track One then please do
so
here.
- Noah Sanders -
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