GULLS

TOP 10 Albums of the 2000s

(alphabetically listed)

Gas - Nah Und Fern
Isis - Oceanic
John Digweed - Transitions Vol 3
Khonnor - Handwriting
Meshuggah - Catch 33
Robert Babicz - A Cheerful Temper
Strategy - Drumsolo's Delight
Team Sleep - S/T
Thomas Fehlmann - Visions Of Blah
Tool - Lateralus

BEST OF MUSIC 2009

1. Tim Hecker - An Imaginary Country

An Imaginary Country is an ambient journey. Obviously, the metaphor is a place that exists only sonically ("Sea Of Pulses", "Chord Cascades", etc.) that you can visit with your eyes closed and a pair of headphones. This is really the only way to listen to this album.

Hecker sets the stage way out in some “ocean” and each section gradually morphs into its own identity with just enough of a hook to keep us engaged for the entire 50 minutes. We ascend three peaks along the way and explore numerous valleys in between. It's serene, sad, serious, mysterious, beautiful, and ultimately triumphant.

"Paragon Point" is the album's aptly titled masterpiece, layering soft wailing e-bow loops (see the opening of Tool - Lost Keys) over a slow church organ procession. "Where Shadows Make Shadows" ties us back to the opening track before laying down a wall of dark, distorted synths like something you'd hear on a Sunn O))) record. Another sea of pulses flickers in and out and as we reach the summit various samples are brought back in, giving us a final view of the entire span of territory that we have just traversed. The last track “200 Years” ties it all together by taking us exactly back to where we started, although as the title suggests, we have regressed (or advanced?) 100 years into the past along the way.

Of the hundreds of ambient albums I own, this truly stands out amongst the all-time greats. It's my favourite album of 2009 and the one I have listened to most often. After 30 or so listens I still haven't fully grasped it, which is why I keep going back to it.

2. Telefon Tel Aviv - Immolate Yourself

A close second. When this album first came out, I hated it. This was almost a year ago and I don't know what I was thinking. When I was describing to someone that I was putting together this list, they questioned how I could do so when people's tastes change so much over time. I agree. The last thing I would want to do is put out a list including albums that I had only recently heard that lose their luster after a few listens. All 5 of these albums have withstood the test of time, and this particular one has benefitted from it.

Taken at surface value, it tends to remind you too much of the influences. It's dark Nuwave that's been submerged in a pool of abstractness. But as you dig deeper and let it be what it is, it is a remarkable introspective. Considering the tragedy this band went through around the release of the record, there was obviously an intense emotional battle that was being drawn upon to create it. Contemplative songs constructed with thick and many layers of filtered synths and fuzzy vocals. The beats are crisp but everything else is slathered on the canvas. It's soaked in sadness and difficulty in a manner so loose that you lose your bearing, floating amongst each song. By track 7 "You Made A Tree On The Wold" you finally start to become grounded. But then completely submerged into the unknown on "Your Every Idol" before breaking through the other side with "You Are The Worst Thing In The World", which is the first and only thing that could even remotely be described as a pop song. The title (last) track is as deep on the scale as they can go but seems to pull all the chaos together and leave you in the glow of a beautiful light.

3. The Life And Times - Tragic Boogie

Massive in size, totally free of gimmicks, and with a sound all their own, The Life And Times have risen to the top of rock music by blowing away the world of subgenres, trends, and copycats. This is a big, emotional rock record comprising entirely of guitar, bass, drums, vocals, and miked amps run through a slew of analogue pedals. Yes, that's right. It's 2009 and no MIDI! I love that you can actually feel the kick pedal pounding the drum head and the guitars reverberating around the room.

It's heavy, expansive, and at times, gut-wrenchingly painful. There is little, if any, happiness unless you count what has been gained by the process of letting it all out (perhaps hinted at by the closing two tracks). The way Allen Epley, Eric Albert, and Christ Metcalf play off each other is magical. The tempo is constantly shifting and often simultaneously contradicting, especially when Epley wails slow flattened melodies (a technique he has mastered) over a kinetic storm of driving bass and drums.

"Que Sera Sera" opens the album declaring a short synopsis of Tragic Boogie and hints at the sorrow to come. The album then meanders through 5 beautifully dark laments before really picking up with "Confetti" (lead by "Pain Don't Hurt" in a typical Shiner diptych) when the drums and guitars sparkle and flutter maniacally exactly as Epley literally states it. We then ride up and down through to the end with each song progressively improving upon the last.

Alan Epley has been doing it for decades and he has yet to put out a bad album, let alone write a bad song. It's what he does well and, as evidenced by Tragic Boogie, he keeps getting better and better.

4. Christ. - Distance Lends Enchantment To The View

In a year in which many of my all-time greats failed to make the list, Christ. definitely elevated his game. Track after track, Distance Lends Enchantment To The View is easily his most diverse release. The beats are crisp and complicated but not glitchy. The music is fresh and interesting, without compromising his trademark sound. Full of classic tricks and introducing a few of his own, he leaves no question about his maturity as a composer. The opening track "Dymaxian Oceanic World" features a deceptive cadence that leaves us hanging emotionally at the end of the melody each time it is played. "Toynbee" ambles happily along ala Boards Of Canada but with a "playing your cheeks" popping riff that tends to distract you from the meat of the song and gives it a memorable identity. It works.

Side B is what does it for me. As the title suggests, it's what happens in the background, or the "distance", that makes you lower your brow and really pulls you in. The best example is on "Guides Tones". We get a beautiful melody on top of a slow pitch-bent air horn that seems to be coming from somewhere outside and beyond the horizon. It makes me feel as though I were out in an expanse of rolling hills and someone is flying a remote controlled airplane or something but as hard as I try, I can't see it. We aren't sure what it is, but it exists out there somewhere, and it distracts us from the music momentarily until we refocus to the foreground and it complements the whole in a strange and beautiful way.

He goes back to this technique (also serving to keep it all together) on "Odyssey 31" before launching into a powerful, furious chorus amongst a cacophony of singing snippet loops. It is the album's best track.

"Animus" brings us home in a fantastic, triumph lead by a warbly trumpet riff and a smattering of mic-recorded symbols.

Distance Lends Enchantment To The View is in many ways much better than his previous releases (all of which are outstanding) so it is only fitting that he gets mentioned here.

5. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

No surprises here, this one should be on everyone's list. It's tribal music from another planet, or perhaps another time way in the future when the world as we know it has ended and primitive people are reinventing spirituality using the tools of technology left behind from an earlier existence. Although everyone knows that Karin Dreijer Andersson is the one behind the music of Fever Ray, she somehow pulls off her fame with a mysterious anonymity. Fever Ray isn't human. There are three standout tracks and a bunch of great ones in between. The production is simple, yet carefully crafted and Karin's odd, chanted lyrics capture you and make her music truly unique. In "When I Grow Up" Karin effortlessly glides from note to note as if being pitch-bent by a wheel on a synth. It rolls on with a Justin Chancellor-esqe chorus bass riff and a slashing synth solo out of ancient China. "I'm Not Done" (clapping along while the vocals lag a half step behind) is the emotional apex of the album and a solid candidate for song of the year (which I have to give to Animal Collective – “Girls”). The closer "Coconut" is simply ridiculous. The YouTube footage I have seen of this live looks like a portal into another dimension. It's this song that makes you finally realize that what you just experiences isn't an album, it's a new and very real religion.

Honourable mention:

Alaska Ratio - 333

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion

Bear In Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth

Cex - Bataille Royal

The xx – The xx