Not all of these albums were released this year. Several came out in '08 and a couple in '07. However, they were all new to me in 2009 and are among the best of the albums I purchased over the last 12 months. With five days to go until Christmas, you might find some inspiration here if last-minute shopping is in order.
Ray Guns Are Not Just the Future
From the duo of Inara George (the bird) and Greg Kurstin (the bee), this has become one of my favourite new acquisitions. Well-crafted songs displaying an imaginative use of instrumentation and percussion that blend power pop, dance beats, Flaming Lips-like instrumental effects and musical references that will remind you of all sorts of antecedents without lifting directly from any of them. George's Feist-like voice floats through this tapestry.
After a short opening fanfare, the first song ("My Love") begins with bells, gongs, handclaps and bass drum beats that give it a Tibetan air, as well as polyrhythmic complexity. "Strawberry Fields Forever"-style woodwinds later form an instrumental bridge.
"You're A Cad" has a Roaring '20s beat. "Witch" is reminiscent of a James Bond theme song in both melodic structure and vocal delivery. "Love Letter to Japan" plays on oriental-style power pop. "Ray Gun" resurrects the harpsichord sound that was popular for a while in '60s pop. "Everything is Ending" utilizes a Burt Bacharach-style '60s horn sound and for some reason reminds me of Sly and the Family Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime". Yet George and Kurstin work all these elements into a fresh sound.
A very clever little pop album indeed.
Patrick Watson
Wooden Arms
I bought this after seeing Watson perform on an episode of TV's Live At the Rehearsal Hall, where his band's musical imagination and humour were quite evident. They have an imaginative approach to instrumentation. For example, on the song "Beijing", a bicycle is played to create rhythmic percussion. A guitar is played with spoons (they're used to tap the strings) on the opening of "Man Like You", creating a zither-like effect. On "Machinery of the Heavens", the album's longest song, plucked strings sound like ticking clocks.
Watson was born in California, but grew up in Hudson, Quebec. He's played with the Cinematic Orchestra. He affects a largely falsetto vocal which is sometimes very Broken Social Scene-ish. This floats over instrumentation that forms an orchestral, percussive dreamscape. At times it's almost classical but use is also made of instrumental sound effects and distortion
An inventive album full of interesting textures.
Andrew Bird
Noble Beast
Another very interesting record melodically and percussively. Bird is a multi-instrumentalist, though his weapon of choice is a violin and he's a superb player, using it often in novel ways. It's used for melody, percussion and sometimes played like a guitar. Bird is also, anachronistically, an extremely accomplished whistler, a talent used to augment this album's sound (sometimes giving it the air of an Italian western soundtrack). He also has a pleasant voice. His lyrics are idiosyncratic to say the least.
A well-produced album with a lush sound.
TriBeCaStan
Strange Cousin
TriBeCaStan is the brainchild of John Kruth and Jeff Greene, supplemented by a quintet of other musicians. This is one of the most unusual albums you'll hear in some time. They play a grab bag of esoteric world instruments: bendir (a North African frame drum), Moldavian kaval (a type of herder's flute), yayli tambur (a Turkish stringed instrument) and nyckelharpa (a 16-stringed Swedish concoction that looks like a violin-accordion hybrid; it's played with both bow and keys) among many others, as well as more familiar instruments like banjo, bass and mandolin.
The result is an understandably other-worldly selection of tunes not unlike something you'd hear from the Silk Road Ensemble. The most intriguing piece, though, is "Tribecastani Traffic Jam" in which the instruments are used to create the sounds of a New York tarffic jam (the band's name is taken from TriBeCa, the neighbourhood comprising the triangle below Canal St. in Manhattan).
Fascinating stuff.
Lisa Hannigan
Sea Sew
I discovered Hannigan when she was the musical guest on an episode of The Colbert Report. Stephen Colbert had heard her on the Internet, bought the album and invited her on. A lovely voice, again, as with many of these albums, interesting instrumentation and arrangements, more of a singer/songwriter folky sound. Hannigan is an excellent lyricist (as in "I Don't Know"). There are some terrific melodies on this album, the first by the Irish singer.
Maria Schneider Orchestra
Sky Blue
This is a jazz outfit not, in its way, unlike Carla Bley's. There are some achingly beautiful solos on here combined with more dissonant avant-garde bits. The mix creates the tension and release that often contributes to great jazz records. The track "Cerulean Skies" won a Grammy last year for best instrumental composition.
The album's not to be confused with Passport's Sky Blue or Wilco's Sky Blue Sky.
Holly Cole
I think this self-titled album is the Canadian singer's best. I always regarded Cole, from Halifax, as a quirky vocalist. This past fall I saw her on Live At the Rehearsal Hall and was so taken with her version of "Sunny Side of the Street" that I had to get it. I found it on this version of the album which was on iTunes (it's the bonus track and was not on the CD release).
Upon listening to the album (released in 2007) I found that Cole had progressed remarkably as a singer, developing a Frank Sinatra level facility with phrasing and a delightfully playful and creative delivery. Her version of "Alley Cat Song" is a masterpiece and a brilliant lesson in how to wrap a voice around words to set mood and implication.
She plays here, as usual, with her long-time musical collaborator, the pianist Aaron Davis (who also has solo albums to his credit and was the keyboardist and leading composer for years with the Canadian latin jazz outfit Manteca).
Danny Michel
Loving the Alien
This album, which came out last year, is Michel's tribute to David Bowie. Here he brilliantly reworks 11 Bowie songs, not just doing covers but making them stylistically his own, in some cases improving them, though my least favourites are the two selections from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. However, his renditions of "Young Americans" and "Ashes to Ashes" are simply brilliant (and he renders the lyrics to the former fully understandable, which they aren't in the rush of Bowie's original).
Michel was born, his Wkipedia entry informs us, in Kitchener, Ontario, "close to the Smiles 'n Chuckles chocolate factory". Maybe that explains his musical joie de vivre.
The Lost Fingers
Lost in the '80s
Another album that came out last year, this is a hilarious romp through a dozen 1980s rock and pop classics like "Pump Up the Jam", "You Shook Me All Night Long", "Part-Time Lover" and "Tainted Love". What makes this album distinctive is the complete re-working of all these tunes as Django Reinhardt inspired gypsy bistro jazz tunes.
It's an album full of energy and great acoustic guitar work that will have you tapping your feet, singing along and laughing simultaneously.
Bob Dylan
Christmas in the Heart
We'll end with the funniest and, in its way, the most entertaining Christmas album of the season. Certainly the oddest. Dylan croaks his way through a range of Yule standards, sounding like a combination of Jimmy Durante, Louis Armstrong and Tom Waits. It may take some getting used to - some of his missed notes elicited grimaces from my partner - yet the album grows on you with successive listenings.
Given Dylan's history, one could be forgiven for suspecting a cynical take on the whole Christmas thing (actually, it's a charitable undertaking - proceeds from the album are going to Feeding America to provide meals for the poor). Dylan he approaches it with a sense of good-natured fun. Clearly the best song here is his version of "Must Be Santa", written by Mitch Miller and once famously recorded by the children's singer Raffi. Here, Dylan does it as a zydeco polka, inspired by a version that was made by the band Brave Combo. Dylan's version intersperses the names of Santa's reindeer with those of American presidents:
"Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen
Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton"
Definitely a hoot.The video's a riot too.
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