2007 In Review: The Top 30 Albums (Part 2: 10-5)

First Tier: Part 2 (10-5)


At the time I was first exposed to Hendrik Weber, I was copy-editing a review for this album and had little exposure to a fair amount of microhouse. Yes, of course I had heard Villalobos (whose Fabric 36 I really did enjoy this year), pre-Scales Herbert, and Vocalcity, but Pantha du Prince somehow spoke to me. This Bliss seemed to freely move between the essence of House and Techno; but very often Weber takes the scary winding path through spooky woods and abandoned châteaus to make this transition.

After initially hearing this album, I began fishing through his discog. Weber’s remixes of Depeche Mode, Animal Collective and his amazing singles “Lichten/Walden” (which would also register high on my list of the best songs of 2007) affirmed my love for This Bliss. There has been lots of conjecturing about Weber’s motivations for walking the lines of house, techno, and experimentation the way he does (see Philip Sherburne’s brief campanological interpretation; or Mark Abraham’s diagnosis of Weber as Herzog). The orchestration of “Saturn Strobe” (easily the best song on the LP) along with its pure groove is completely emblematic of Weber’s ample and established production chops. Weber isn’t limited to these showy textures, his nuanced approach in “Steiner im flug” (Jordan, do you catch the Herzog reference?) uses a rising bass line and a simple melody while combining samples from Herzog’s soundtrack by Popol Vuh. This Bliss has reoriented my own (electronic) sensibilities towards a darker, more experimental aesthetic. Hendrik Weber, in This Bliss, creates a beautiful (and cleverly) textured and harmonious voyage through pure melancholy.



For me, 2007 was an incredible year for electronic releases. A new Fennesz(!), Field, Burial, a great year for Kompakt generally (of course, SuperMayer aside) have marked an above average year for a breadth of electronic music. In particular, with the rise of various German labels like Kompakt, Cadenza, Mojuba and liebe*detail, in my opinion, the scene seems to be shifting from Detroit, Baltimore and Chicago to Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt. The deep house output of Germany (as I’ve already alluded to with Pantha du Prince) places my friend Mikel in the epicenter of dance: Berlin. There, DJs like Phillip Sollmann, aka Efdemin, release great single after great single, and can be seen live any given night of the week.

Efdemin, like Pantha du Prince, is most interesting because he blends the lines of distinctly different genres of electronic music; his debut, which hasn’t in my eyes received its due credit this year, happily moves from a feel of New York house, to Berlin minimalist. Just listen to the single “Lohn und Brot” (whose Sebo K and Tobias remixes are superb as well) or the dark “Acid Bells,” and you’ll understand what Efdemin is getting at. Barry O’Donoghue’s brief description of the album as a “red-eyed, late night take on deeper techno, house…and occasionally trance” is the most succinct and accurate description of Efdemin. Efdemin and This Bliss were the perfect albums to accompany me through many dark sleepless nights this semester. Regardless if you value sleep or not, you should still listen to either of these albums, if you haven’t already.



Now we enter the portion of the year-end listing where I am unable to say anything original and mildly thought provoking as it’s all been said and written.

That said, I personally have not always been a LCD fan (although I love DFA). I found James Murphy’s self-titled LCD Soundsystem to be half-formed/felt. To me, it ran as a great EP or single with hits like “Tribulations” and “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House,” but there seemed to be little cohesion or form. Without a doubt his single “Losing My Edge,” was LCD’s greatest output until Sound of Silver. What made “Losing My Edge” his best work was Murphy’s self-critical lyrics (ok, maybe self-deprecating) combined with catchy pop-song craft. This introspection offered more to me then the seemingly one-dimensional dance hits of “Disco Infiltrator” or “Movements”.

Sound of Silver has taken that self-critical edge of “Losing My Edge” and finally intimated it with personal experience. I could write about everyone’s favorite “All My Friends” as the best example of this, however, I think my personal favorite, “Someone Great” is more illustrative of Murphy’s growth. “Someone Great” is a pop masterpiece. I think it could be Murphy’s (a man deeply engaged with pop music—think of DFA’s remixes of Brittney Spears, NERD, Hot Chip and Gorillaz) best original contribution to pop-music making. Furthermore, the song reveals a truly bloody content, that of a terrible breakup/divorce and the continuation of life after said relationship. The juxtaposition of the catchy chorus and refrain against the brutal lyrics (I immediately think of “Suicide is Painless” but with the pop lunacy of “Hey Ya”) has a truly dazzling effect. Just listen to Diplo’s (another man deeply steeped in pop music) simple mashup of “Someone Great” with JT’s “My Love,” and you will understand Murphy’s inspired, and nearly universal, pop sensibilities. I bet even your grandmother would enjoy this album.



I’ve seen Animal Collective now three times, and the past two times (which have been in the last 10 months), the band has played virtually nothing from any of its older albums, Sung Tongs nor Feels. Upon hearing Strawberry Jam, I realized they weren’t playing anything from that album either. Animal Collective, on stage grinding out some sort of amazing grimey, dub, experimental noise-pop were probably test flying their forthcoming EP Water Curses (coming out April 2008) in May of 2007. These guys are more than way ahead of the curve. They are the trendsetters, dabbling in freak-folk, tribal drum, and jerky noise rock months before others; the band consistently moves onwards as the rest of the pack follow behind. Animal Collective has come to lead the indie-rock avant-garde, if one could be said to exist.

Strawberry Jam is no exception to this. But as one can infer from listening to 2007 (or many of choices for my Top 30), much of “indie-rock” has momentarily abandoned experimentation in exchange for pop ecstasy (e.g. Liars, Caribou, Battles). Animal Collective is no exception to this. Noah Lennox, as we can also see through some similarities to his amazing solo album, has obviously gained some sort of creative leverage within AC (all I hear are the harmonics of Brian Wilson, veiled under a net of Goo-era Thurston Moore din). Panda Bear hits mutli-tracked falsettos while Avey shrieks and cries in front of pop percussion lines and distorted (yet catchy) guitar progressions. Although the album may seem abrasive at first listen, Strawberry Jam is defiantly Animal Collective’s most reachable and cohesive works to do date. The band, just as Liars, don’t seem phased by much criticism, as they continue to follow their own path. I recall watching Animal Collective live on Conan O'Brien play one of their most abstract tracks from the album, “1," over their poppy "For Reverend Green" or "Winter Wonderland". As a self-proclaimed Animal Collective follower, “Fireworks” ranks for me, among my top five favorite tracks the band has produced. Strawberry Jam finds (Brian Wilsonian) pop beauty, experimentation, and progression for the band with little compromise. Most importantly, never judge an album by its title or album cover.




I have never liked M.I.A. Sure I’ll admit I fucking danced like no other when I heard “Galang” out clubbing (at the trons, no doubt), but who wouldn’t. Unlike the commercial controversies that have haunted “indie” bands in 2007 (I think of Wilco and Of Montreal), the use of “Galang” in a Honda Civic ad didn’t seem too distasteful to me. Despite her "leftist" politics, what’s wrong with exchanging one ephemeral cultural creation (the club hit, remix, etc) with another (the television commercial). In 2005, I wasn’t really moved by Arular, unlike many, many others (see my discussion about LCD Soundsystem’s debut above).

Sri Lankan Maya Arulpragasam, a visual artist, vocalist, and producer, also known as M.I.A, is done with Civic commercials now; she's on to bigger and better things, hopefully. Kala is one of the best-produced records I’ve heard in a very long time. This comes as no surprise given that M.I.A. is often spotted on the arm of (Philly-based!) legend Diplo; Kala has amazing tracks produced by Switch, Timbaland, Blaqstarr and Morganics. I include the lesser Morganics given the impossibility they achieved on their track “Mango Pickle Down River”; somehow, the production is so good they’ve made an amazing hit out of children actually rapping. So much has been written about these tracks, I don’t even want to try to offer something to the fold. Although I probably won’t give her (nor Jay-Z!) the political salience that Harvey does, however M.I.A. can be seen as a sort of pop music personification of the loaded term “globalization”. Just as I’ve mentioned with The Tough Alliance’s “Something Special,” M.I.A. with great production and unadorned lyrics, has created an incredibly poignant statement about the ever-expanding fissure that exists between the first and third worlds, while maintaining the functionality of a near-perfect pop song; “Paper Planes” is that good. The real proof is in the pudding given that his album is produced so amazingly, that I have yet to find a remix that can truly beat the original cuts.



This summer I had the incredible chance to intern for two semi-respectable music criticism outlets in Chicago. In doing so, I was able to actually meet celebrities and rock stars. The two most memorable experiences with rockstars involved food: 1) Dan Deacon, I watched him use an unpeeled banana as a spoon to eat guacamole, as he told me “Don’t worry, you can’t taste the peel over the guacamole,” and; 2) Bradford Cox, the lead singer of Atlanta’s Deerhunter, in front of a free ice-cream truck at Pitchfork's Music Festival this summer (the only real perk of being a “VIP”)—there in a long slender yellow sundress, Cox strong-armed me into choosing a drumstick over an orange Dreamsicle. I remember vividly, Cox fitfully uttering “no really, you’ll thank me for those extra nuts and nugget…later”.

Although I was only able to speak with Cox for five or seven minutes, our interaction seems like a near-perfect reflection of my perception of their album Cryptograms: frenetic, cryptic, and frustrating. At first listen to the album, one can hear what sounds like a stop-and-go pace; from the beginning, Cox and co. are not performing to provide the listener with a comfortable stream and flow (I.e. the just too long “Intro,” into the amazing “Cryptograms,” stepping back in the slow-drifting “White Ink”). Listening to Cryptograms so much, I’ve come to think of it as conceptual album of sorts: just as its title proclaims, the “message” of the album drifts from the tousled and abstract of the first few tracks of the album into the clarified and harmonious (“Spring Hall Convert,” “Strange Lights,” and “Hazel St”).

In this way, the album makes its statement as a classic “record”: Side 1, with its dreamlike static and drone climaxing in “Lake Somerset” and ending around “Octet”; and Side 2, with its subverted pop songs, likewise culminates in “Strange Lights” and runs through until the ending track “Heatherwood”. I’ll admit that my acceptance of those early abstract songs derive from my new found (at least, more extensive) appreciation of Shoegaze (yes, Michael, Jordan and Dan; I’ve finally given in). To me, Side 1 blisses in-and-out between ambience and guitar-driven static. This sort of loss and relocation is what I’ve come to cherish in shoegazers like MBV and Spiritualized.

Deerhunter’s Fluorescent Grey EP rewards the true believers, and scorns the skeptical. This EP easily jumps four styles with easy and precise continuity. In contrast to those immovable tracks in the beginning of Cryptograms, Fluorescent provides four amazing songs (the title track and "Mr. Glass" easily rival the best tracks on the LP). They removed those early moments of “relocation” and “refocus” and created a remarkable and stunning EP. This year I’ve been completely blown away by Deerhunter. I can’t wait to see what this band has to offer; for one, I’ve already heard Cox’s solo project, Atlas Sound, and it seems to maintain its own unique sound and splendor. I'm excited/scared to see what Cox and Deerhunter will bring us in the upcoming years.