A bird's eye view of 2006

As always, the dawn of a new year goes hand in hand with nostalgic reflections of the old. After a few days of head-scratching, checking with my old notes to see what I've enjoyed the most, I've compiled a list of my Top 20 favorite albums of 2006, rated in a 1-10 scoring system (with 10/10 being the top score). Only albums with a score of 8 or higher made it onto this list.


Albums with score 10/10

1. Tom Waits: Orphans
2. TV On The Radio: Return to cookie mountain
3. Beirut: Gulag orkestar
4. Thom Yorke: The eraser

Albums with score 9/10

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Show your bones
7. The Low Frequency In Stereo: The last temptation of ...
8. Gotan Project: Lunatico
9. Rockettothesky: To sing you apple trees
10. Muse: Black holes and revelations
11. Quasi: When the going gets dark

Albums with score 8/10

12. 120 Days: 120 Days
13. The Raconteurs: Broken boy soldiers
14. Marit Larsen: Under the surface
15. Das Bierbeben: Alles fällt
16. Calexico: Garden ruin
17. The Knife: Silent shout
18. Liars: Drum's not dead
19. Grand Island: Say no to sin
20. Sonic Youth: Rather ripped

In addition to the Top 20 list a number of non-2006 releases, basically late discoveries, also appeared frequently on my CD-player. Here are the most popular non-2006:

• Art Brut: Bang bang rock & roll
• Singapore Sling: Life is killing my rock'n'roll
  
• Daniel Boyacioglu: Visa 2007 - show me the money
• Mew: Frengers
• Audrey Horne: No Hay Banda
  

Finally, here are the Top 20 songs that mostly infected my mind during 2006:

1. "Postcards from Italy" - Beirut
2. "Wolf like me" - TV on the Radio
3. "The last temptation of..." - The Low Frequency in Stereo
4. "Silent shout" - The Knife
5. "Come out, come down, fade out, be gone" - 120 Days
6. "Knights of Cydonia" - Muse
7. "Formed a band" - Art Brut
8. "Sea of love" - Tom Waits
   
9. "God's gonna cut you down" - Johnny Cash
   
10. "The clock" - Thom Yorke
11. "Barrie For Billy Mackenzie" - Rockettothesky
    
12. "Pass the hatchet, I think I'm Goodkind" - Yo La Tengo
13. "Golden Lion" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
14. "Rhineland (Heartland)" - Beirut
15. "Steady as she goes" - The Raconteurs
16. "LDN" - Lily Allen
17. "Hours" - TV on the Radio
18. "A cute lovesong, please" - Rockettothesky
19. "Us annexed" - Grand Island
20. "In cod we trust" - Ghostigital feat Mark E. Smith

And that's all I had to say about the music of 2006. Now I'm looking forward in great anticipation for what 2007 has in store for us. A number of interesting albums are supposed to come out the first few months, such as "Days of rage" by Salvatore (Jan 1), "Some loud thunder" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Jan 27) and not to forget "Myth takes" by !!! (Mar 5). I can hardly wait ;-)

The shattered soul
following close but nearly twice as slow.
In my good times
there were always golden rocks to throw,
at those who admit defeat too late.
Those were our times, those were our times.
['Postcards from Italy' - Beirut]

The lost son returns

Over the years Tom Waits have written and discarded a number of songs as he didn't see them fit for inclusion on albums he worked on at the time. Until this year, that is.

With his triple-CD release, "Orphans: Brawlers, bawlers and bastards", Waits have taken the concept of rarities-albums to a new level. This isn't merely a collection of rare or unreleased material but actually one of his strongest albums to date where each of the CDs have their own musical theme.

1. Brawlers: Mostly rock'n'roll.
   
2. Bawlers: Ballads and more quiet songs.
   
3. Bastards: His impossible-to-classify material.
   

The first CD, "Brawlers", is probably the most accessible for new listeners. It displays Waits in a fine rock form, with energetic drumming and guitar playing on tracks such as "Lie to me", "2:19" and "Fish in the Jailhouse". One of the best reflections of the year on the Crisis in the Middle East is given by Waits on the track "Road to peace", while on "The return of Jackie and Judie" he gives new life to the 30 year old Ramones song. A personal favorite on this disc is the wonderful version of Phil Phillips "Sea of love" from 1959, possibly the best cover on the entire album!

Once Kissinger said "we have no friends, America only has interests"
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he's hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future in the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press 10,000 miles from the road to peace.

The fundamentalist killing on both sides is standing in the path of peace
But tell me why are we arming the Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?
And if God is great and God is good why can't he change the hearts of men?

Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
And he's lost upon the road to peace
And he's lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace.

On the second CD, "Bawlers", we find Waits in a calmer mood, mixing traditional country and nightclub jazz on what can best be called ballads. His own composition "Long Way Home" may very well end up as a hit among country-fans in both Norway and the US, it's one of the smoother and more pop oriented pieces I've ever heard by Waits. "Widow's grove" could very well have been the movie score for "How the west was won", here Waits dives into the heart of American folk music treating us to real fiddle and accordion music. But on "Little drop of poison" he's back were we're used to have him, in the dirty bar of a saloon with a piano and that distinct Whisky-voice. A great tune with wonderful lyrics. Other interesting tracks include "Goodnight Irene", where Waits have made a modern lullaby of Leadbelly's old blues song, and the timeless "Young at heart" - covered by a multitude of artists earlier, from Bing Crosby to Bananarama, but noone quite like this.

On the last CD Waits have collected the songs that didn't fit in on the first two but he felt were too good to leave out of this compilation. Thus the name "Bastards". The CD opens with a wonderful version of Kurt Weill and Berthold Brechts grand finale from "The Treepenny Opera" (1928), "What keeps mankind alive". Then follows a roundtrip in Waits' Wonderful World, with a mixture of spoken word - such as on "The pontiac" where Waits sounds a bit like Denis Leary and on "Nirvana" where he recites Charles Bukowski - and jazzy soundscapes that would have fit perfectly into a David Lynch movie. One of the hilights from this CD is the track "Dog Door", which sounds like Butthole Surfers trying to do a Ween-cover. Gorgeous!

All in all a very varied collection of new and old material where most of it is of the highest quality. This album already belongs to the rich Waits canon. A treat and a masterpiece!

Howling like wolves

The Brooklyn-based quintet, TV on the Radio, has been around for a couple of years impressing fans and critics alike with their special blend of electronica, punkish energy and throbbing rhythms. Two years after the highly acclaimed debut, "Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes", they're back with their sophomore album, "Return to the cookie mountain".

In short, not many changes have been introduced to their music in the two years that have passed but the songs are, if possible, even more complex and catchy with atmospheric moods and raw energy intermingled. This is an album that just keeps growing, it's a real wolfish beast with no fillers!

The album opens up with the post-industrial "I was a lover". With sonic noise and heavy rhythms, interspersed with a piano, it sets the pace for the rest of the album. The following track, "Hours", is the closest thing to a radio-friendly song the band has ever written, with driving marching drums it has a certain hit potential.

About halfway into the album we encounter "Wolf like me", a haunting song with a drive that would have made Iggy Pop proud to be the creator of.

We could jet in a stolen car
but i bet we wouldn't get too far
before the transformation takes
and bloodlust tanks and
crave gets slaked.

My mind has changed
my body's frame, but God i like it.
My heart's aflame
my body's strained, but God i like it.
[Wolf like us]

The album ends with the slow and heavy "Wash the day away" that runs you over like a steamroller, leaving a gap that can only be filled by pushing the play button again and again and again ...

What a Beast!

A melancholic lap dog sings again

Three years after the last Radiohead album, frontman Thom Yorke is breaking the silence with his first solo album to date, claiming that the material wouldn't fit on a Radiohead album and that he's got Go from his bandmates to do this.

At any rate, entitled "The Eraser", the album is a fairly low key production with just Yorke's voice and a varying electronic landscape to back it up. But it works surprisingly well and seems to grow with each listen. Like a good classic should.

The album opens with the title track, where Yorke sings and hums to a simple beat, with a piano-like synth-driven the song. It should be too simple to attract my attention, but there is something in the loaded atmosphere ... hm, yes, there is actually a touch of the Reznoresque desperation in both the lyrics and the soundscape. Not as agressive, of course, but it's there. Very interesting and a good appetizer for what is to come!

The next four songs are all of a very high quality, the Nine Inch Nails-feeling is still present on some of the songs but with a more low key and softer touch. "Analyze" is a fairly soft song, almost a ballad. But hot on the heels of that song Yorke launches into the musically most complex song on the album, "The clock", with multiple layers of tick-tock, humming and singing. It was the song that first stood out for me and it has remained a favorite for a month now!

The "Black swan" is another high point, possibly the most Radiohead-like song with little left of the Reznoresque start. On "Skip divided", Yorke is back in the very strange soundscape of the "The clock" and "The eraser". It sounds like the perfect soundtrack to a Tim Burton animation, "Corpse Bride Returns" perhaps? The lyrics are dark and cynical and goes hand in hand with the melody through this great song.

No more common dress or elliptical caress
Don't look into your eyes
'cause i'm desperately in love in love.
When you walk in the room everything disappears.
When you walk in a room it's a terrible mess.
When you walk in a room i start to melt.
When you walk in a room i follow you round,
like a dog, i'm a dog, i'm a dog, i'm a lapdog.
i'm your lapdog, yeah.
i just got a number and location.

There are actually no weak tracks on this album, both "And it rained all night" and "Harrowdown hill" are two other great songs. The album ends with the beautiful "Cymbal rush", a fast-paced song that sounds like a mixture of The Communards and Sigur Ros!! What a way to end an album, it raises the adrenaline level and infects the listener with a need to replay the album immediately.

Even if the next Radiohead album shouldn't live up to the high expectations of the fans, Thom Yorke has proven that he's got more than one musical leg to support him - The Eraser is a wonderful and solid piece of music, a great start of his solo catalogue, and an album that deserves to be high on the Best Albums of the Year charts of 2006!

When the dark gets going...

They may claim to be Popeye the Sailor man, living in a garbage can, but this record smacks of qualities that are far removed from the garbage cans of contemporary music.

Quasi has been around for more than a decade but I must admit that they didn't appear on my musical radar until earlier this year. The band is a duo that hails from Portland, Oregon, consisting of singer/songwriter Sam Coomes and drummer Janet Weiss.

Sam and Janet first teamed up as Quasi back in 1993 but only started making waves around the turn of the millennium, after Janet had made an appearance as drummer for Sleater-Kinney - on their Dig Me Out (1997) album - and in particular after Quasi signed with Touch & Go in 2001.

Around spring equinoxe 2006 Quasi released their 6th album, the 3rd on Touch & Go, called When the going gets dark. It's a sneaky album. It didn't make a big splash in the press but seems to have snuck up on innocent reviewers and record shoppers. Myself included.

The first thing that struck me about the album is its playfulness and distortion, the surprising blend of styles and instruments; pianos overlayed with fuzzy synthetic sounds and guitars, the throbbing drums and soft backup vocals by Janet. At times it comes close to The Flaming Lips, or perhaps Modest Mouse, but still the album retains a feeling that this is their sound, their music.

When the going gets dark opens with a blaze of hammering piano keys on "Alice the goon", on which Sam's voice has the same out-of-breath qualities that Wayne Coyne sports so well. It's a powerful and clever opener, it caught my attention from the first listen and has even grown with time!

"Peace and love" is another strong track, though it's also the one with the strongest similarities to The Flaming Lips - it could almost have been from their Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots album, with its staccato rhythm, the quirky melody and the way Sam sings and Janet backs him up. It's a wonderful piece of pop rock.

Was I supposed to go down with the ship?
I was not the captain, it was not my trip.
Sailing to the moon, with Alice the Goon.
I'm Popeye the Sailor man, I live in a Garbage Can.
Oh baby, you gotta take the world.

Fortunately the album isn't a carbon copy of The 'Lips. There are many different musical spices on it, not at least on the instrumental track "Presto change-o" that sports a melancolic sounding piano, some jazzy drums and fuzzy guitars. It's really a strong track! On "Merry x-mas" they unwind a bit to perform more basic rock, stil with jazzy sounding drums.

In addition to the opening track and the instrumental. already mentioned, the highlights of the album includes the mellow title-track and the punkish "Death culture blues". The album fades out with the quiet "Invisible star", carried by a "Whiter shade of pale"-sounding Hammond organ. Very nice!

All in all, When the going gets dark is a solid album that still sounds fresh to me after four weeks of repeated playing. It's a favorite this summer!

The last temptation of...

It's been a busy year so far, I honestly haven't had the time to update my music blog. And even if I had had the time it would not have been that much new and exciting to write about. Until now, that is.

Two of the most anticipated albums of the year, Mr Beast by Mogwai and Silent Shout by The Knife, didn't quite live up to my expectations, both have their moments but not the overall strength to survive more than a few weeks on my player.

However, an album released near the end of March has completely swept me off my feet. I'm talking about the latest effort by the peculiar Danish-Norwegian band The Low Frequency in Stereo. Two years after the much praised Travelling Ants Who Got Eaten by Moskus the quartet is back with a new temptation on REC90: The Last Temptation of ... The Low Frequency In Stereo, Vol 1.

The Last Temptation of ... is a delicious album, starting where Travelling Ants left with a number of noisy pop-rock pearls, combining horns and organs with walls of guitars and an up-tempo, high energy beat. People will still be able to point fingers at musical references, such as Yo La Tengo, The Jesus and Mary Chain and not at least Stereolab. But the music is distinctively their own, they play in such a convincingly, natural manner, that it's obvious they've found their own spot in the great Universe of Sound.

The album opens with the up-tempo "Big City Blues", where the horns and organ follow a fast and furious comp, catching your attention from the first beat. It may sound a bit like Yo La Tengo but the darker undercurrent has a touch of Velvet Underground to it, and the result is just beautiful. On "21" the blazing guitars and bass hints strongly at The Jesus And Mary Chain, and with a catchy refrain this track probably has the biggest hit potential on the album.

Now I'm gone, really gone.
Hell, I was twenty-one.

Another very interesting song is "Axes", a song that could easily have fitted in among the best on any Stereolab-album, in all its glorious and atmospheric lo-fi. Hanne Eidsvaag Andersens voice floats in and out between the horns, what a delightful song.

The towering highlight of the album is the ten minutes long instrumental title track, featuring bongo drums and layers upon layers of guitars. It builds up slowly but surely, reaching a climax of massive sound seven minutes into the song. From there on and out it carves out a monument in base rock that will secure the band's position in Norwegian music for years to come.

This is not only a tempting album, it's a brilliantly executed classic!