the submersible dirigible

Knocking off the whole middle bit here with this second post, in hopes of moving this along to my top 10 albums ahead of the actual new year.  Again, the actual numerical ranking is pretty meaningless.  I loved all these albums.  Novelty plays a big part here, groups who reimagined their sound, and alltogether new sounds tend to stick in my ears.

Podcast for the middle bit to come shortly, as soon as I’m back within reach of my music collection.

37. Ignatz – III [KRAAK]
Crackling, whispered songwriting —  III is an album of prematurely aged, over-treated, dusty recordings exposed to electromagnetic waves and solar radiation.  Its interference completements the neurotic electric guitar and whispered vocal folk textures at this album’s heart.

36. Lau Nau – Nukkuu [Locust]
Plucky, atonal incantations from Helsinki’s Laura Naukkarinen.  Like Islaja, Lau Nau’s acid folk is an easy listen, despite its dissonance.  Nukuu’s frosty acoustic melodies, carefree vocals, and electric guitar whiteouts, put together, epitomizes the best of Finland’s bizarre, woolen folk community.

35. Mark McGuire – The Garden of Eternal Life [Arbor]
As a group, and individually in numerous side/solo projects, Cleveland, Ohio’s Emeralds are a three man kraut revival.  McGuire’s own solo work is thoroughly cerebral, easily comparable to Terry Riley’s psychedelic minimalism.  The Garden of Eternal Life stands out among his numerous releases this year, a cool nebula of warm guitar wanderings ona  too-limited Arbor cassette.

34. Xela – In Bocca al Lupo [Type]
Xela has undergone quite the transition in the last several years, from the rubbery electro-idm of 2003’s Frosty Mornings, to his latest experiments with barren field recordings, drone, and noise.  Part of me misses the sweetness of Tangled Wool, or 2006 Dead Sea Xela — a middle ground between his warm electronic music and recent nightmare dungeon drone.  Mostly I’m just enjoying In Bocca al Lupo’s haunting, bleached-bone ambient.  ’Beatae Immortalitatis’ — specifically its clattering percussion and glistening synths — is the album’s clear highlight.

33. Richard Skelton – Marking Time [Preservation]
At long last, Sustain Release ringleader and ambient musician Richard Skelton receives the full label release his work deserves.  The album itself is a cool, echoing ambient — Skelton’s wailing bowed instruments, clattering field loops and pinprick piano notes slither straight down my spinal cord.  The music feels deeply personal, a layered patchwork of heart wreching performances.

32. Aidan Baker & Tim Hecker – Fantasma-Paratasie [Alien8]
Collaborations don’t always lead to a sum of its parts.  The Mick Jagger, David Bowie duo is a horrifying testament to this fact.  While Baker and Hecker’s Fatasma-Paratasie isn’t quite a sum of its parts either, the album is still a treat for fans of either musician.  I was hoping for something more enduring, but the collaboration is ultimately a wonderful spectacle.  The duo’s tracks blend together into an imposing wash of warm, melodic electronic-drone.

31. Pumice – Quo [Soft Abuse]
I’m still waiting for the artist bold enough to really take the lo-fi aesthetic to the next level, recording their entire album from a treehouse, through a tin can and string, straight onto a home-cut phonographic cylinder.  Until then, Pumice will have to do.  Quo is mostly similar to Stefan Neville’s preceding work, but his songwriting continues to improve.  More fun than previous albums, certain tracks sound like sunday morning cartoons themes broadcast from the corrosive planetary surface of Venus.

30. Grails – Take Refuge In Clean Living [Important]
Grails’ first of two incredible releases this year will be familiar to fans.  The group still owes some patronage to the godfathers of post-rock, though it’s almost insulting to stick them with that tired genre tag, considering how far their sound has evolved.  Psychedelics, eastern influences, and arena-scaled prog rock occupy the album’s five epic instrumentals.  I only rank Take Refuge… below Doomsayer (#15) for its relative similarity to the band’s existing work.

29. Steve Hauschildt – Rapt for Liquid Minister [Arbor]
Like band-mate Mark McGuire, Steve Hauschildt is quickly making a name for himself outside of Emeralds.  Hauschildt effortlessly parlays his experience behind the Moog into an album of swirling synthetic melodies.  In my review, I noticed clear nods to Popol Vuh’s Aguirre, and I can’t imagine better source material for contemporary kraut adulation.  I only wish I’d known about Emeralds last year, and gotten ahead of the trio’s group and solo release onslaught.

28. Paavoharju – Laulu Laakson Kukista [Fonal]
Laulu Laakson Kukista is as difficult to describe as its name is to pronounce — bizarro-pop-kitsch seems fitting.  The group runs through a huge variety of instruments and noisemakers — piano, stringed instruments, field recordings, organs, accordions and possibly even kazoos.  The vocals can be alternately dreamy and jubilant, songs throughout the album are mournful, fun, and curious.  This one requires some patience, but can really astound if given the chance. (Kirkonväki @ youtube)

27. Emeralds / Quintana Roo – Bubble Quiet Complication / Beheaded Dynasty [Arbor]
Quintana Roo mossy sax and electric guitar muck-psych pairs nicely with Emeralds, on the top side.  Quintana Roo’s music is deeply rooted, sounding thick, muddy and grounded.  On the top side of this split lp, Emeralds soars high above the QR’s ceremonial-psych, streaking across the sky in lower earth orbit.

26. The Fun Years – Baby It’s Cold Inside [Barge]
Lofty guitars, bottomless loops, and soaring melodies, speckled with intereference make for a really stunning album out of left field.  This crew reminds me, quite favorably, of my absolute favorite Aidan Baker release, The Sea Swells a Bit… (samples).  Hadn’t heard of Barge Records until this year, the home of Baby It’s Cold Inside, but they’ve have an absolutely stunning year.  (The Fun Years @ vimeo ‘The Surge Is Working,’ ‘My Lowville,’ and ‘Auto Show Day of the Dead‘)

25. Vikki Jackman – Whispering Pages [Faraway Press]
Melodies seem to glance off this recording, notes unable t0 take purchase.  This creeping, breezy acoustic minimalism requires a great deal of patience, and a very quiet, safe listening place.  Given the right circumstances, its delicate beauty really blossoms.  Faraway Press has become the standard bearer, in my mind at least, for the barest of acoustronic minimalism. (Faraway Press’s Andrew Chalk @ youtube)

24. Fire on Fire – The Orchard [Young Gods]
Portland, Maine’s psych-folk supergroup follows their brilliant EP on Young Gods with a proper, full length debut album this year.  Brimming with Cerberus Shoal and Big Blood alums, with further assistance from bluegrass folkster Micah Blue Smaldone, the group has managed to cram an incredible amount of talent into this exhilarating, raucous barnburner.  Considering the group’s size, The Orchard’s cohesion is surprising, and lends the album an effortless, improvisational feel, like an inspired, late-night campfire jam session between close friends.  (Fire on Fire @ youtube)

23. Tobacco – Fucked Up Friends [Anticon]
This Black Moth Super Rainbow solo project is analog-electronica at its trance inducing best.  Fucked Up Friends is a bit out of my normal listening universe, but I still adore its creamy analog thickness, candied synth romps, and gritty glitch.  (Tobacco @ youtube ‘Hawker Boat,’ ‘Berries That Burn,’ ‘Little Pink Riding Hood,‘ ‘Gross Magik‘)

22. Mark McGuire – Amethyst Waves [Wagon]
I’ve just about run out of things to say about McGuire and Emeralds.  While I haven’t heard all of McGuire’s abundant 2008 releases, Amethyst Waves is far-and-away the most hypnotic Mark McGuire release to reach my my ears this year.  Underwater explorations in krautrock that are quaking with energy, like an oven of molten rock churning and dragging the massive continental crust along on its endless looping, chaotic cycle.

21. Nico Muhly – Mothertongue [Bedroom Community/Brassland]
Nico Muhly’s deep admiration of and familiarity with the work of minimalism visionary Philip Glass shines through Mothertongue, his second release for Bedroom Community.  I feel underqualified to say much about this album, but I can say Mothertongue is almost blinding in its beauty, imparting of sense of scale that leaves me in gaping in awe.  I only wish the album didn’t sound like a Philip Glass covers record.

20. Max Richter – 24 Postcards in Full Colour [Fat Cat]
Richter’s 24 Postcards is a collection of contemporary classical vignettes, few running much longer than 1m.  These unique recordings were composed as ringtones, and intended to be played in isolation and in reptition.  I’m not entirely sure the concept itself really works; drama and emotional complexity doesn’t translate terribly well over a dime sized speaker.  Still, you have to admire Richter for working to reimagine his music for the changing times.  Fortunately, the catchy piano, bowed and electric guitar microcosms still work wonderfully packaged as an album.

19. John Baker – The John Baker Tapes [Trunk]
John Baker’s recordings have always stood out from the typical early electronic works, along with Delia Derbyshire’s contributions, on the various BBC Radiophonic Workshop collections.  His jazz sensibility showed in his electronic work, a sort of guiding light in the uncharted territory of early electronic music and tape manipulation.  Until 2008, only Delia Derbyshire’s Radiophonic Workshop recordings had received the individual attention her recordings deserved.  Thanks to the heroic efforts of Trunk Record’s Jonny Trunk, John Baker’s work has now received the same treatment.  The 2cd set includes previously unreleased home recordings, a slew of program themes, and the best of his work previously available on compilations.  The John Baker Tapes is an indispensable cultural treasure.

18. Ulaan Khol – I [Soft Abuse]
Steven R. Smith’s heavy, grainy psychedelic alter-ego, Ulaan Khol, was an early highlight of the year.  Already, he’s managed to record and release a follow up, appropriately titled II, again on Soft Abuse.  Ulaan Khol’s lurid electric guitars — the record sounds carved entirely by electric guitars — will immolate any speakers they touch.  Guitar virtuoso Steven R. Smith’s Ulaan Khol is an epic and filthy steampunk psych-rock.

17. Valet – Naked Acid [Kranky]
Valet’s Honey Owens major label debut is a more deliberate and polished effort than her previous diy cdr releases, and has lost some of its mystique in the translation.  Despite its more careful sound, Jackie-O alum Honey Ownens’ latest is thoroughly spaced, droning, and heady.  Despite its early release, Naked Acid was still finding its way into my rotation with the year’s latest.

16. Grails – Doomsdayer’s Holiday [Temporary Residence Limited]
Grails latest, Doomsdayer’s Holiday, opens with several seconds of distant, tortured screams, pursued by earth shattering drum footstomps, and flamethrower guitars.  This blood curtling pursuit foreshadows the darker tones of this a pitch perfect instrumental thriller.  Grails’ 2008 Take Refuge… was a spectacular album, but Doomsdayer is near transcendental — a collision of doom metal’s sinister composure,  post-rock’s improvisational, freewheeling spirit, and krautrock’s cerebral experimentalism.

15. Lawrence English – Kiri No Oto [Touch]
Touch tells us Kiri No Oto translates as ’sound of fog.’  That sums up this minimal electroacoustic masterpiece nicely.

14. Country Teasers / Ezee Tiger – W.O.A.R / W.O.A. [Holy Mountain]
Country Teasers’ truly jarring garage rock is certifiably insane.  Like the flaming pyre of an explosive highway pileup, W.O.A.R.’s cacaphonious, train-wreck guitars, lager-soaked pub vocals, meltdown percussion and psychopath lyrics make for a gruesome sight that’s impossible to ignore.  Its not easy listening by any means, but like the highway bloodstains and torched vehicles of that high speed accident, this album’s overwhelming shock factor is inexplicably alluring.  This band has been around for more than a decade, and I’m just happy Holy Mountain has seen fit to expose me to their ridiculous sound.  (Country Teasers @ youtube)

13. The Alps – III [Type]
A huge range of instruments — piano, guitars, drums, bass, saxophone and more — are streamlined into an accessible, trippy psychedelic rock.  Root Strata’s Jefre Cantu-Ledesma is best known for his heavy, impenetrable psychedelic with Tarentel, but he joins forces as The Alps with two other California musicians Alexis Georgopoulos (Arp, Tussle) and Scott Hewicker for a more refined effort.  III is simply the warmest, most inviting psychedelic music I encountered this year.

12. Valerio Cosi – Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock [Digitalis]
Saxophone and electronics stir and erupt into a textural work of seafloor spreading.  Electronic drones, layered, looping sax melodies and nimble dancing notes collide into an endless wall of sound.  Cosi has a slew of saxophone improv, drone an ambient releases under his belt at this point, but Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock stands apart from the rest.

11. Scott Tuma – Not For Nobody [Digitalis Arts & Crafts]
Not For Nobody’s willfully quaint folk songs sounded pretty underwhelming, and even a little silly on first listen.  With time though, Tuma’s lilliputian Americana turned out to be one of the year’s most dependable, bizarre folk delights.  The album is fanatically delicate and introspective, to the point of sounding almost neurotic; patience and comfortable, quiet spaces are required to really appreciate Tuma’s songwriting and allow its tiny melodies to find some place to unfurl.  Folk music’s narrow focus can quickly become tiresome for listeners with a broad musical palate, but Tuma’s miniature, music-box folk adds a genuinely new twist to the genre, freshening up the age-old genre.