Monday, December 18, 2006
Here's my Top 10 Albums & Singles list for 2006, with notes that ran in The Onion, plus a couple other short lists submitted to the Idolator "Jackin' Pop" poll.
ALBUMS
01 Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer (Playhouse)
Fizheuer Zieheuer is all about sublime repetition and subtle modulation, which wage battle in two 35-plus-minute tracks that run druggy minimal-techno rhythms under a Balkan brass band foreshortened to abstraction. Both are outlandish for their length, but they’re also outrageous for how much variety they squeeze out of tracks that sound the same until you really home in and get lost.
02 LCD Soundsystem, 45:33: Nike+ Original Run (no label)
A digital-only release made to take on 45-minute jogs, Nike+ Original Run finds LCD Soundsystem paying equal mind to its lust for punk-funk disco and celestial electro. The gapless sequencing illuminates links between parts that might not fit so well otherwise, and the chartable rising-and-falling action testifies to LCD’s increasingly impressive range.
03 Destroyer, Destroyer’s Rubies (Merge)
Destroyer’s Daniel Bejar is the best lyricist in rock, and—not exactly typically for him—he sounds driven to make that less of a secret on an album as allusive and elusive as the best poetry.
04 Trentemoller, The Last Resort (Poker Flat)
Adapting haute techno sound-design to moody and methodical swells of post-rock, Danish DJ/producer Trentemoller made a capital-A album that upped the ante for what minimal-minded electronic music can do in a full-length format.
05 Scott Walker, The Drift (4AD)
No album this year had a better song with a guy singing while punching a slab of meat.
06 Various Artists, Superlongevity 4 (Perlon)
A two-disc compilation for the best and weirdest techno label in Berlin (and, for that matter, the world), Superlongevity 4 offers up 17 hectic, humid, and hallowed tracks by Pantytec, Melchior Productions, Cabanne, Luciano, Matt John, and more. Most of the year’s best Perlon-stable stuff came out on vinyl 12-inches or on other labels (seek: Luciano & Melchior Productions’ “Father”), but there’s enough mystique here to go on.
07 Matmos, The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast (Matador)
08 Shearwater, Palo Alto (Misra)
09 Uusitalo, Tulenkantaja (Huume)
Another alter-ego of the Finnish artist who moonlights as Luomo and Vladislav Delay, Uusitalo falls between the two other guises (more dance-y than dubby, and more techno-y than house-y). No matter the network associations, Tulenkantaja features some of the most intricate and interesting rhythms of the year, finding elegant splints to wrap around fractures and giving the programmer’s arrow evermore organic aim.
10 Midlake, The Trials Of Van Occupanther (Bella Union)
This masterfully produced album sounds like high-period Fleetwood Mac. So why did the guys in Midlake go so far out their way to angle themselves as just another lazy, shambling indie-rock band in their live show?
SINGLES
01 Luciano & Melchior Productions, "Father" (Cadenza)
02 Justin Timberlake, "My Love" (Jive)
03 Lawrence, "Along the Wire [Superpitcher Remix]" (Ladomat)
04 Ricardo Villalobos, "Seive" (Diamonds & Pearls)
05 Pet Shop Boys, "Flamboyant [Michael Mayer Kompakt Mix]" (Parlophone)
06 Midlake, "Roscoe" (Bella Union)
07 Ne-Yo, "So Sick" (Def Jam)
08 Nelly Furtado, "Maneater" (Geffen)
09 Phoenix, "One Time Too Many" (Astralwerks)
10 Henrik Schwarz, Ame & Dixon, "Where We At [Version 1]" (Sonar Kollektiv)
REISSUES
01 T.Rex, Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow (Rhino)
02 Milton Nascimento, Milagre Dos Peixes (Water)
03 The Cure, Pornography (Rhino)
04 Arthur Russell, Springfield (Audika)
05 Karen Dalton, In My Own Time (Light In The Attic)
ARTISTS
01 Ricardo Villalobos
02 Three 6 Mafia
03 Joanna Newsom
04 David Milch
05 Scott Walker
ALBUMS
01 Ricardo Villalobos, Fizheuer Zieheuer (Playhouse)
Fizheuer Zieheuer is all about sublime repetition and subtle modulation, which wage battle in two 35-plus-minute tracks that run druggy minimal-techno rhythms under a Balkan brass band foreshortened to abstraction. Both are outlandish for their length, but they’re also outrageous for how much variety they squeeze out of tracks that sound the same until you really home in and get lost.
02 LCD Soundsystem, 45:33: Nike+ Original Run (no label)
A digital-only release made to take on 45-minute jogs, Nike+ Original Run finds LCD Soundsystem paying equal mind to its lust for punk-funk disco and celestial electro. The gapless sequencing illuminates links between parts that might not fit so well otherwise, and the chartable rising-and-falling action testifies to LCD’s increasingly impressive range.
03 Destroyer, Destroyer’s Rubies (Merge)
Destroyer’s Daniel Bejar is the best lyricist in rock, and—not exactly typically for him—he sounds driven to make that less of a secret on an album as allusive and elusive as the best poetry.
04 Trentemoller, The Last Resort (Poker Flat)
Adapting haute techno sound-design to moody and methodical swells of post-rock, Danish DJ/producer Trentemoller made a capital-A album that upped the ante for what minimal-minded electronic music can do in a full-length format.
05 Scott Walker, The Drift (4AD)
No album this year had a better song with a guy singing while punching a slab of meat.
06 Various Artists, Superlongevity 4 (Perlon)
A two-disc compilation for the best and weirdest techno label in Berlin (and, for that matter, the world), Superlongevity 4 offers up 17 hectic, humid, and hallowed tracks by Pantytec, Melchior Productions, Cabanne, Luciano, Matt John, and more. Most of the year’s best Perlon-stable stuff came out on vinyl 12-inches or on other labels (seek: Luciano & Melchior Productions’ “Father”), but there’s enough mystique here to go on.
07 Matmos, The Rose Has Teeth In The Mouth Of The Beast (Matador)
08 Shearwater, Palo Alto (Misra)
09 Uusitalo, Tulenkantaja (Huume)
Another alter-ego of the Finnish artist who moonlights as Luomo and Vladislav Delay, Uusitalo falls between the two other guises (more dance-y than dubby, and more techno-y than house-y). No matter the network associations, Tulenkantaja features some of the most intricate and interesting rhythms of the year, finding elegant splints to wrap around fractures and giving the programmer’s arrow evermore organic aim.
10 Midlake, The Trials Of Van Occupanther (Bella Union)
This masterfully produced album sounds like high-period Fleetwood Mac. So why did the guys in Midlake go so far out their way to angle themselves as just another lazy, shambling indie-rock band in their live show?
SINGLES
01 Luciano & Melchior Productions, "Father" (Cadenza)
02 Justin Timberlake, "My Love" (Jive)
03 Lawrence, "Along the Wire [Superpitcher Remix]" (Ladomat)
04 Ricardo Villalobos, "Seive" (Diamonds & Pearls)
05 Pet Shop Boys, "Flamboyant [Michael Mayer Kompakt Mix]" (Parlophone)
06 Midlake, "Roscoe" (Bella Union)
07 Ne-Yo, "So Sick" (Def Jam)
08 Nelly Furtado, "Maneater" (Geffen)
09 Phoenix, "One Time Too Many" (Astralwerks)
10 Henrik Schwarz, Ame & Dixon, "Where We At [Version 1]" (Sonar Kollektiv)
REISSUES
01 T.Rex, Zinc Alloy And The Hidden Riders Of Tomorrow (Rhino)
02 Milton Nascimento, Milagre Dos Peixes (Water)
03 The Cure, Pornography (Rhino)
04 Arthur Russell, Springfield (Audika)
05 Karen Dalton, In My Own Time (Light In The Attic)
ARTISTS
01 Ricardo Villalobos
02 Three 6 Mafia
03 Joanna Newsom
04 David Milch
05 Scott Walker
