2008 Best CD's

Ciao, Tutti!

Happy Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanza, Solstice, New Years, Chinese New Year, and anything I may have forgotten. Love each other and kiss total strangers. It may help them get through the incredible stress of endless shopping, partying with people you hoped would have moved to Virginia by now, making food, and decorating. 'Tis the season.

My vacation has been exactly that: a vacation. The best part about college is the length of vacations. And yet I feel I should be hard at work. I'm still working on my fantasy trilogy of novels. My original goal was to finish with Book 2 by the end of the break. Ha! That would have been great. Plus I wanted to finish writing all the music for my recital next semester. Now I just feel inadequate. Not to mention my inability to read any or all of the great books I've received this season. Plus wanting to post more short stories on this blog, which hasn't exactly happened yet.

So work never ends. How come no one told me about this?

But today I feel it is my duty - No! My privilege - to post my top ten CD's of 2008. About a month ago I was wondering how I was going to even come up with 10. Now I feel 2008 was a pretty strong year after all for music, much more so than last year.

But first:

Where To Find My Stories

The other stories are in the archives somewhere along the left-hand side of my blog, intermingled with the pictures I took in Europe and shameless self-promotion.

"Sam Fails to Finish a Love Story" is under the post entitled "Sam Fails to Finish a Love Story" (duh) in the month of November.

"The VideoMag Proposal" is under the post entitled "The Day Before November" in October. It's a long post and the story is near the bottom.

"Cliche Central" is under the post entitled "Art Sharing Day" in October.

My brother's sudden fiction, "On The Way To Work," is under the post entitled "On The Way To Work - My Brother, The Storyteller" in November.

Enjoy!

Top 10 CD's of 2008

1) The Dodo's - Visiter Yes, that is spelled correctly. The title of the CD gives this Oakland-based group an apt portrayal of their homemade style, as does their childish album art. The acoustic, wry guitar-drums duo (no, not like the White Stripes or Black Keys) pounds groove and distinctive melodic qualities into the mind in one of the best complete CD's I've heard in ages. Everything's there. Great songs, like "Joe's Waltz" and "Park Song." A feeling of continuity throughout the disc. Innovative rhythm and harmony. Emotional vocals. The only complaint to be had about this CD is the occasional ill-conceived lyric. Otherwise, this is amazing. Please, go buy this CD right now. I'm waiting.

2) Dafnis Prieto Sextet - The Emotions Series: Taking the Soul for a Walk I may be biased here, since I personally know most of the musicians on this project and the leader, drummer Dafis Prieto, is one of the senior faculty at my school. Plus I saw the premier of this suite at the Jazz Gallery in New York City. That said, I've been waiting for this CD for about a year now and it did not disappoint. This is some of the most exciting jazz writing and arranging out there since Dave Holland, conspicuously absent from this list, accidentally relinquished the mantle. A unique fuzzing of Afro-Cuban jazz styles with fusion and traditional jazz, Prieto utilizes the colors of the sextet and his own virtuosic drumming to the extreme. It can be a bit much at times; Prieto's writing, like his playing, has the tendency to be dense. But it's worth it.

Talking to Peter Apfelbaum, saxophonist and melodicaist on the record and lifelong friend of mine, he said that the musicians brought their best to the studio that day. They were so excited about it that they considered not even remastering it. Now, how's that for chemistry? Magic? One of the few good jazz records of the year.

3) TV On The Radio - Dear Science You have to understand this as two CD's: one that starts on track 1 and the other that starts on track 6. If this were the second CD, it would easily be number one. Home of "Love Dog" and "DLZ," two of the best songs released this year, the second half of "Dear Science" is potent, gritty, and exciting. Other than "Dancing Choose," nothing else of the project resembles anything of the originality and drive of their previous records. When listening to "Crying" for the first time I felt like ripping my headphones out. It felt more overproduced than the Black Keys's new CD, produced by Danger Mouse. However, after a few listens I have been able to appreciate all the songs, including the over appreciated single, "Golden Age." If I sound down on the CD, it's only in comparison to TV On The Radio's other work. Compared to the rest of the bands out there, a mainstream, poppy TVOTR CD is still one of the best of the year by far.

After the first three there's a real drop-off. I like all the CD's in the top ten, of course, but these three were by far the best, and depending on your style, can probably be arranged in whatever order you want.

4) Flying Lotus - Los Angeles Add a vocalist and this dub CD would easily be with the top three in terms of quality. More songs like the second-to-last "Testament" would have been appreciated. But it's hard to complain here. Flying Lotus has an obvious niche, and it's not meant to be listened to with the same rapt attention as the music listened above. It's meant to be soothing or in the background. "Los Angeles" has the composition of a great disc, even if a bit long. It functions like a long suite, so listening to the whole project in one sitting is rather fulfilling. Still, if you only have the time for a few singles, "Comet Course," "Riot," "Breathe.something/Stellar Star," and the aforementioned "Testament" eagerly await. Exciting rhythm and bass flow create this well-crafted CD. Now if there were only a melody...

5) Hercules and Love Affair - Hercules and Love Affair If you don't know Antony And The Johnsons, you're in for an adventure. The man can sing, but his voice takes some time getting warmed up to. His falsetto and self-inflicted tremolo fit this band perfectly for two reasons: he doesn't have to sing so slowly that the tremolo gets annoying, and the two weirdnesses complement each other. This dance/techno/electronica/soul/funk/whatever group's sonorities are so distinctive that Antony seems necessary here. And he kicks butt. This perfect-length CD features three different lead singers, violins, brass (including solos!), bass synths, and drum machine beats. Most of the time it rocks, grooves, jams, and gets into your soul, especially "Hercules Theme" and "Blind." Easily interchangeable with Flying Lotus for 4 and 5, but I went with Flying Lotus because its beats are more interesting. Innovative rhythm and harmony won over innovative rhythm and melody. Perhaps the two bands should get together... yeah, no.

6) Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Continued If I had to choose one CD from this 2-disc set, it would be Microcastle, but there's really no need. This collection of music is not particularly innovative, but the sound of the band and its lead singer is so in sync that they pull off a great project. Using styles ranging narrowly from indie rock to alternative rock to classic rock, everything falls easily into place. "Never Stops" actually had me thinking deeply about tonic/mediant relations in harmony, though now I'd say I like "Saved By Old Times" best on this CD. There's nothing to say about this CD's newness, just that they did everything right, save for the boring segment in the middle of the CD.

7) Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes Near the top of everyone's list for 2008, I had to check them out. And they are quite good. Americana, folk rock, a capella, Christmas carol sounding, etc. I was quite excited about them when I first put them in the CD tray. I am a sucker for cool vocal harmony, and they reminded me of a less innovative but fully welcome Crosby Stills Nash and Young. And the too-long CD is solid all the way through. I am particularly fond of the reverb on the singers' voices, giving the whole project a pastoral feel (as do the religious lyrics that are probably there but I don't listen to). But this is the first CD on the list without a single to brag effusively about. The 4th best song on "Dear Science" is better than the best song on this disc, to be honest. This disc is lined with undistinguished song after undistinguished song, all excellent, making up a fairly good unified work. And there is no rhythmic or chordal innovation here at all. The Dodos takes Fleet Foxes to school in terms of creativity, even if they would be grouped together under "acoustic rock."

8) Ambrose Akinmusire - Prelude: To Cora Another biased choice, Sam! While never overlapping with him in high school, we attended the same BHS Jazz Ensemble and know each other from there (okay, I doubt he knows me). The trumpeter cut this album right off his winning of the Thelonius Monk international jazz competition on trumpet, and he deals with the pressure of everyone watching him with the same gusto he had in high school. He plays trumpet, and I normally can't stand the way trumpets sound. Normally. He wrote most of the music, including the scary "M.I.S.T.A.G. (My Inappropriate Soundtrack To A Genocide)," one of my favorite songs to come out this year. Featured throughout most of the CD, giving it a distinctive sound, is a singer who sounds more suited for opera than for jazz, though it oddly meshes well with the trumpet here. She dominates "M.I.S.T.A.G." as well as a few other tracks by sounding out of place at first and dramatic at second. The vibraphonist (yay!) who shares a name with my middle school math teacher also lends his strange sound to the mix with his fast vibrato. The only shortcoming of the disc is its inconsistency. I could delete half of it, especially the superficially covered "Stablemates," and I wouldn't even notice. But try and take the whole CD and you'll have to kill me first.

9) Ben Allison - Little Things Run The World Bassist Ben Allison being Ben Allison at his best. The first track explains it all. "Respiration," one of my favorite tracks of ALL TIME from his record "Buzz," is the opener again for his jazz/rock/fusion quartet Man-Sized Safe. Done differently and featuring a burning trumpet solo that makes the new rendition worth it, the tone is set for Ben Allison the way we've always known him. Like Deerhunter, this CD is nothing new done very well. Especially appreciated is the added play of saxophonist Ted Nash on a few tracks. Ben Allison has, as always, a rock-steady rhythm section and characteristic methods of composing melodies and harmonies that have always distinguished him from his contemporaries. His low rank on this list is almost a competition with himself rather than other CD's of 2008. The composition of this CD is at least as good as Fleet Foxes and probably the best place to start if you don't know his work yet. But still, nothing quite like "Riding the Nuclear Tiger" or the original "Respiration."

10) The Matthew Herbert Big Band - There's Me and There's You This disc is by far the most original of all on the top ten. That made for weird listening the first time through. Perhaps this is why record stores don't know whether to put him in the jazz or electronica section of their stores. May I add a category? Soundtrack, anyone? The lead vocalist sounds plucked from Broadway and shoved into a brassy jazz big band with a sampler running behind them. It was hard to get used to. The tracks sounded like show tunes, though at times like jazz big band pieces, and at others avant-garde dub pieces. I couldn't figure it out. But I figured that any guy who's able to scrounge together 100 musicians (no joke!) for a project deserves a second listen, and I'm glad I gave Matthew Herbert that second chance. The songs are catchy, thanks to their show tune nature; rhythmic, thanks to their electronica nature; and groovy and hip, thanks to their jazz influence. It's got it all thrown together in a hodgepodge of sound. I like it. My mother hates it. It's a personal preference thing. I personally don't like the predilection towards brass, and the singer's voice gets annoying eventually, but songs like the first track, "The Story," show what kind of insane brilliance a man with a vision can come up with. This is recommended just to hear what people are doing with music these days. Wow.

Honorable Mention:

Dave Holland Sextet - Pass It On. Meh. All the playing is good. I've heard it all a million times already. Still, though. Some the best players in jazz playing what I've heard a million times. Why I'd listen to this as opposed to any other Dave Holland record is beyond me, though.

High Places - High Places Short and sweet electronic music that sounds like a forest. It's calming and unique, but they ran out of ideas. 30 minutes and every song sounds the same.

DJ Rupture - Uproot Some of this dub record is really interesting. It works well as a continuous piece, but it gets long and tedious. He's got some great ideas, like with the violins in the middle somewhere, but a lot of it I can do without. People loved this record, though, so I'm giving it another shot.

The Bug - London Zoo "Poison Dart" has a great chorus, and some of the songs rock out. Great beats in general, and I love the political Jamaican rap. But about half of the CD just blows. Such a good idea with choppy execution.

Fucked Up - The Chemistry of Common Life If you don't mind punk rock with a guy screaming into the mic but mixed so low you can't even hear him, this is for you. The first song, "Son The Father," rules. Without it I would have never given the CD a chance. The music is actually pretty good, and they make it clear they have melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic sensibilities throughout the disc with different methods. "Crooked Head" is a good example. But do they have to scream? And do they have to mix it so bad?

Conspicuously Missing: Vampire Weekend

I never thought I'd have to justify not liking this CD to anyone. It's that bad. But here I am, trying to think of technical reasons to trash it. People loved this CD. It got about as much acclaim as "Dear Science." And it didn't deserve it. Every song sounded the same. It was tinny and wiry sounding. The harmonies sucked and the rhythms sucked even more. It was so damn bright I couldn't see a thing. It's not even innovative: The Walkmen are basically the same band (and their new CD was pretty bad, too, but it was better than Vampire Weekend, by a little). I'm sorry, world who likes that CD, but I just don't see it. This doesn't usually happen, but I really just don't understand the allure of that CD. I listen to a CD where people scream into the mic and the mix is awful, but I don't get this CD at all.

Seriously, don't waste your money.

Okay, I need sleep

No, really, I do. If you have any questions about the CD's or are having trouble finding them and need more information, just let me know. Or if you think I left something out and have some suggested listening for me, please please please PLEASE let me know! I love listening to new music! As well as, you know, making it.

Happy New Year.I knew it had to happen sometime.

-sam goldsmith