Top Albums and Songs of 2009

I am the least hip of all hipsters. As much as I love publications like Paste Magazine, I'm pretty damn out of the loop when it comes to the NPR indie scene. I was a year behind the hype on almost all of 2008's big releases, including Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver. But nonetheless, I soldier on, compiling lists of albums and tracks that have seemed particularly excellent to me over the past 12 months. I'd love to hear feedback and comments and additions you would have made, so never be afraid of the comment button! Also, note that these albums in are no ranked order, seeing as how that's almost impossible. So this isn't really a "top" list in the strictest sense, but just nine really excellent records.

Favorite Albums:

1. Dark Was The Night, Various Artists: This tremendous, all-star collection of songs was released nearly a year ago by RedHot, an organization that, since the 1980s, has been putting out compilation albums in support of HIV/AIDS research and awareness programs. So right off the bat, there's really no way to go wrong, just based on the project of the album as a whole. It certainly doesn't hurt that it's packed to the rafters with amazing one-offs and B-sides from some of today's top indie acts, including Yeasayer, Bon Iver, The National, Andrew Bird, Grizzly Bear, Connor Oberst, and The Decembrists. It's a pretty tough chore picking out the strongest tracks from this collection, but I'd certainly fix Yeasayer's shimmering "Tightrope," Bon Iver's understated "Brackett, WI," My Brightest Diamond's cover of the Nina Simone classic, "Feelin' Good" and Connor Oberst and Gillian Welch's re-imagination of Oberst's "Lua" around the top of the heap. DWTN is an arresting compilation that never simply relies upon the clout of its contributors to carry its weight. This is a powerful, well-arranged set of songs for an excellent cause.

**

2. Horehound, The Dead Weather: Jack White's newest supergroup truly lives up to its expectations. Made up of vocalist Alison Mosshart (of The Kills), Jack White on drums, vocals, and occasionally guitar, Dean Fertita (of Queens of the Stone Age) on keys and guitar, and Jack Lawrence (of The Raconteurs) on bass and guitar, The Dead Weather convened somewhat by accident for a period of not much more than two weeks in 2009 to record their debut album Horehoud, with pretty excellent results. Part southern-fried rock, part Led Zeppelin, part soundtrack to your sexiest encounters, Horehound is a gritty, seductive, ballsy set of songs that makes you want to smash vintage guitars, grow your hair out, toss liquor bottles at your needy groupies, and gyrate your hips with all the energy you can muster. Standouts include the lead single "Treat Me Like Your Mother," and the unbelievably sexy, slow-burning album opener, "60 Feet Tall." One listen and I was totally hooked. Excellent album.

**

3. Noble Beast, Andrew Bird. Andrew Bird has a long, somewhat tortured and inconsistent relationship with the recording process, having been variably lumped in, over the course of his career, with a number of now-reviled trends, such as the ill-fated swing revival of the early 1990s. With Noble Beast, though, Bird seems to have finally hit his stride. By combining achingly beautiful violin arrangements and his incredibly erudite and verbose lyrics with just enough electronic instrumentation to keep it on the leading edge of the alt-folk scene, Noble Beast achieves that always challenging balance between pastoral beauty and avant garde poking and prodding. Perhaps the strongest songs on the album are the rollicking tongue-twister "Tenuousness," the lovely folk ballad "Effigy," the seven-minute instrumental piece "Carrion Suite," and my personal favorite, "Anonanimal." Sometimes stunningly crisp and precise, other times satisfyingly hearty and throaty, Noble Beast is an excellent album, especially for those quiet nights with a book and a mug of something warm.

**

4. New Moon Original Soundtrack, Various Artists. Let's just address the obvious elephant in the room right away. This is the soundtrack to New Moon. That movie about sparkling vampires who can't get laid, Native American werewolves, and awkward teen girl angst. I was in a meeting with a professor this term and he made direct reference to this album as an example of why he would hate to be a 20-something music snob in 2009. This disc is filled, top to bottom, with tracks from some of today's most important and influential independent acts, but is nonetheless stapled onto the back of the Twilight morass- what's a hipster to do? I've chosen the option of simply not caring. I'll never see the movie. I'll never have to hear Lykke Li (on the stunning track "Possibility") provide the background track to some vampire heartbreak montage. Problem solved. Let's just look at the music. Fielding tracks by artists such as Grizzly Bear, Anya Maria, Death Cab for Cutie, The Killers, and Thom Yorke, the New Moon OST is full, like DWTN, of tasty indie tidbits and elegant, lush tracks, such as the Bon Iver+St. Vincent collaboration "Roslyn," which, despite being next to incomprehensible, is stunningly beautiful. We even get some unexpected contributions from Lupe Fiasco (with the actually pretty wicked "Solar Midnight") and Australia's answer to Meatloaf, Eskimo Joe ("Thunderclap"). Despite their diversity and occasional weirdness, every song on this album is arresting in its own right, and they all deserve lots of attention, regardless of their unfortunate coupling to the Twilight vehicle. The vampires that this album promotes may suck, but the tracks it offer certainly don't (PUN).

**

5. Torches/ Torches (The Ward, Colorado Demos), Brian Borcherdt. Borcherdt is something of a quiet deity in the Canadian music industry. He's spent most of his career starting independent artist development organizations and labels, such as Hand Drawn Dracula Records, and has helped launch the careers of such Canadian success stories as Jill Barber. While he's not working on the institutional side, he's busy touring with his critically-acclaimed noise/electro troupe, Holy Fuck. Borcherdt's moody, atmospheric, and decidedly dark solo work, however, belies this frantic persona. Torches is the follow up to Borcherdt's 2008 release, Coyotes, which rendered, in haunting, ethereal shades, the darkest, most idiosyncratic parts of the isolated imagination. After having almost lost every last bit of Torches to the trunk of a cab, Borcherdt released the whole album, along with the original demos, free of charge in late November, and building off of the aesthetic established by Coyotes, tracks like "Preserver" and "Crime Scenes," while a bit fuller and more fleshed out, provide stunningly honest, powerfully moody glimpses into the snowiest corners of memory.

**

6. Nice, Nice, Very Nice, Dan Mangan. I don’t think that there was ever any doubt that this album would end up on my year-end list. Any regular reader (or casual acquaintance) will know that, to borrow a friend’s term, I have a pretty serious “Mang-on,” though I prefer the term “Fangan.” Biases aside, however, this is a truly excellent album that deserves all the glowing press it had received since its release in August. Nice, Nice, Very Nice makes no bones about it- it aims for the heart strings. From the saccharine pizzicato strings in “You Silly Git,” to the roaring passion of “Basket,” to the stunning swell of “Fair Verona,” every song strikes at the emotions at a startlingly honest level. The album has received scattered criticism for being a bit schizophrenic in its programming. Granted, “Some People,” while a pretty great track, seems to be a bit out of place here. But nevertheless, the album doesn’t really need to adhere to a single aesthetic to be unified, as such. What holds the whole operation together is Mangan’s amazing ability to speak directly and without pretension to our most impassioned moments, be they silent and reflective, or soaring and heroic. Of course, a good sing along about robot love doesn’t hurt, either.

**

7. Timber Timbre, Timber Timbre. The band’s name gives probably the best summary of what to expect from their eponymous album- a kind of organic, echoey, spare, but still lush hike through the dark, seductive bits of our experiences; what one might hear if Grizzly Bear played a concert in the middle of a forest. The instrumentation throughout the album, heavy on organs, filtered guitars, muffled percussion, and sometimes barely-audible screeching violins, provides the perfect complement to Taylor Kirk's sultry, defiantly unique vocals. Nowhere on this album, does this combination work better than on the eerie blues track “Trouble Comes Knocking,” which wades through sticky guitar riffs and juke-bar piano lines to make everything around you seem a bit hazy and blue. Similarly, on the pared back “No Bold Villain,” we feel somehow caught between the crisp, shivering woods of Canada, and the claustrophobic humidity of the bayou- an oddly intoxicating balancing act. An album to wrap yourself in, and happily so.

**

8. Fantasies, Metric: The smashing Canadian success of the year, Metric’s follow up to Live It Out proved to be the album of the summer for many of my closest friends and compatriots. When Live It Out was released, Metric took some flak for moving into a more decidedly rock vein, with tracks like “Empty” defying the hooky pop sensibility of classics like “Combat Baby.” With Fantasies, Metric seems to have found some pretty excellent middle ground. Big, shimmery, full of distortion, loud, catchy, sometimes contemplative, and full of the melodic loveliness that made them the darlings of Canadian indie music nearly 10 years ago, Fantasies has proven both eminently listenable, effectively popular (without being populist), and irresistibly fun. My favorites include the album’s lead single “Help, I’m Alive,” the ridiculously catchy “Sick Muse,” and the big finale, “Stadium Love,” which all but demands open windows, a sunny day, and your foot to the floor.

**

9. Echoes, Jenn Grant: Jenn Grant makes me smile like a damn fool. I had the pleasure of seeing Jenn perform live with Dan Mangan this summer, before I’d ever had a chance to delve into her music. She was endearingly crazy, intimate, and always charming, and bounced between her lovely dream-pop ballads with ease. After the show, I took it upon myself to take a harder look at her 2009 release, Echoes, and was not disappointed. Grant’s vocals flutter elegantly atop every track, providing an arresting focal point amid quaint bass clarinet lines, simple, bright guitar parts, the pleasant white noise of brushes on a snare, and the delicate ringing of bells. Tracks such as “You’ll go Far,” the tender “Where Are You Now,” and the hypnotic “Sailing By Silverships,” epitomize this elegant mixing, and showcase Grant’s truly unique voice, which effortlessly swings between idiosyncratic and assured, elegant and tenuous. I just love this album. It’s so pretty, from top to bottom, and reflects the personality of its creator with photographic accuracy.

Songs!

I promise, to keep this short, I'll only write commentary for those songs that I haven't already mentioned above. Same rules apply: no particular order, and all that jazz.

1. "My Girls," Animal Collective: Big, sweeping, shimmery, hooky; one of a few songs that become the soundtrack to the best nights of the summer.

2. "Anonanimal," Andrew Bird.

3. "Ambling Alp," Yeasayer. This track was actually just released near the end of November as a free download, and has quickly become a favorite. Characteristically Yeasayer (filled with organs and elaborate falsetto choral passages), but still all its own, "Ampling Alp" rollicks through driving percussion and electronic elements to make for a wicked good time.

4. "So Far Around the Bend," The National. One of many great tracks from Dark Was The Night, this song is just lovely. The unaffected vocal delivery grounds the almost whimsical instrumentation, complete with dueling clarinets and rich piano. Always a pleasure, even if a pretty devastatingly sad one.

5. "You'll Go Far," Jenn Grant. I'm gonna break my own rule briefly just to express again how much I love this song. So pretty.

6. "Fair Verona," Dan Mangan.

7. "60 Feet Tall," The Dead Weather.

8. "Tightrope," Yeasayer.

9. "Deep Blue Sea," Grizzly Bear. Another track from Dark Was the Night that still impresses me almost a year later. "Deep Blue Sea" has Grizzly Bear written all over it, steeped in lush instrumentation, but what really sets this track apart is its swirling, hypnotic rhythm that mirrors the ebb and flow of its titular character.

10. "You're Too Cool," The Zolas. It's been a huge year for Vancouver artists, and this duo are a big part of the reason why. Their latest album Tic Toc Tic is a soulful, psychadelic, piano-driven romp that walks a fine line between quirky and certifiably crazy. But it's also excellent, and this spunky track captures its essence perfectly.

11. "Roslyn," Bon Iver and St. Vincent. (From the New Moon Original Soundtrack)

12. "Treat Me Like Your Mother," The Dead Weather

13. "Crime Scenes," Brian Borcherdt

14. "Big Bird in a Small Cage," Patrick Watson. Watson's latest album, Wooden Arms was shortlisted for Polaris this year, and deservedly so. His unique and always unexpected instrumentation constantly leaves me dizzy and wanting more. "Big Bird in a Small Cage" is just lovely- distinctly Watson, but uplifting and whimsical on an album that often takes a darker, more atmospheric approach.

15. "The Beat Stuff," Hannah Georgas. Hannah Georgas, another Vancouver artist, has had a tremendous year, having just recently snagged the CBC Radio 3 Bucky Award for Best New Artist, and this track is ample proof of why it was so deserved. So cute, so fun, spunky, and unique, "The Beat Stuff" is just great. Plain and simple.

16. "Goodnight Moon," Said the Whale. Consider this a bonus track? Said The Whale's newest release, Islands Disappear is a great time throughout, but this explosive, sweeping finale is really the tops from the disc, in my books. Starting innocently enough, with a tenderly finger-picked ukulele, "Goodnight Moon," gradually winds up into a big ole' dance/clap/shout-along, and couldn't be more fun if it tried.

And that's all she wrote! Sorry it's so distressingly long, I tend to ramble. As mentioned, feel free to provide feedback in a comment; I'd love to hear your thoughts. Hope the early days of the holidays are treating you and yours well.