best-of lists are stupid
that said, fever ray made my favorite album of 2009, and i feel really strongly about that, and so i hope to say some things about it at a later date! but first, here are just a few albums from this year that are also good that you maybe haven’t heard because critics did not entirely jizz all over them as far as i know, and so maybe you should check them out!
do make say think, the other truths: the last time i saw this band one of the many dudes in it came to the front of the stage before their final song and gave this huge disquisition about how in one of the museums in toronto (i think it was toronto) they have this huge wheel you can spin that shows the population of various types of organisms on the earth, and you spin it and it shows how likely you’d be, if you were to be reincarnated, to be reincarnated as a bug or a protozoan or a fish or a turtle, and the wedge for being a human is infinitesimally tiny. so we are all so lucky to be these ridiculous creatures on this ridiculous planet, and we should do good and beautiful things while we are here, because when that wheel spins again for us we’ll probably be bugs and pond scum. so i think of that story when i listen to do make say think, and it is somehow very heartwarming.
lusine, a certain distance: this album is to the previous lusine stuff i’ve heard (push and emerald eps) as herbert’s score is to his previous work (which is not entirely a good analogy, because matthew herbert is a prolific and eclectic motherfucker, but listen to around the house followed by score, and then listen to some old/new lusine and we can have this discussion.) it strikes a really pleasant balance between poppier stuff with pretty vocals and i guess more abstract-sounding IDM??? all i want for xmas is a good vocabulary to talk about electronic music without actually knowing about it, because dang there is a learning curve, and i am still working on what 2/4 vs. 3/4 beat structures sound like.
telefon tel aviv, immolate yourself: it is hard for me to say anything about this album without acknowledging that half of this band died at the beginning of this year. i also have to acknowledge that they made one of my favorite records of all time; fahrenheit fair enough stands right alongside endless summer as the music i put on to mitigate stress and get my brain working. so hopefully it is not damning with faint praise to say this is the second-best record they made. that’s all i’ve got really. i keep coming back to it and it keeps surprising me, which is really what i want out of music.
and so. music continues to be excellent! i recommend it.
