Best Albums first half of 2010

Like last year I’d like to list the best records I’ve heard so far (alphabetically). I haven’t really heard that much music as last year, which might affect my list.

Caribou ‘Swim’, City Slang. “Odessa” is a monster track. And album is not bad, not bad at all.

Joanna Newsom ‘Hav one on me’, Drag City. Newsom tops her beautiful ‘Ys’ with 200 minutes of incredible song writing and singing.

LCD Soundsystem ‘This is happening’, EMI roecords. Dance music with hang over? Sounds like a party at 6 in the morning.

Shearwater ‘The Golden Archipelago’, Matador. Pompous pop music, much like the record ‘Rook’.

The Besnard Lakes ‘Are The Roaring Night’, Jagjaguwar. Vocal based post rocking little gem. Heard them first via Chromewaves.

The National ‘High Violet’, 4AD. Great sound, good and bad lyrics but all in all on heavy rotation at home and at work.

Thee Silver Mt Zion Memorial Orchestra ‘Kollaps Tradixionales’, Constellation. Read my review.

Battles and Wolf Parade still to be release later this year. This can become a pretty good year, but I probably need to step up and explore the unexplored a bit more. Else I could get disappointed about 2010.

I would like to mention some good records that I bought, but that are not from 2010:

Ben Frost ‘By the throat’, Bedroom Community Record. Mistake not buying it last year.

Eels ‘blinking lights and other reevlations’, Vagant Records. Emotional and strong.

Interpol ‘Turn n the Bright Lights’, Matador. I’m late. But when I heard “Hands away” I knew I had missed the record and went straight out and erased my mistake.

‘Prog is not a four letter word’ compiled by Andy Votel, Delay 68 Records. Heard ‘Sun Ui Lim’ at Moteldemoka.com and has not been disappointed about the compilation on obscure prog.

Best album in the decade 2000-2009

Maybe I mistake most important album with most important band.
Maybe the album isn’t even their major masterpiece, that one was released in the 90ies.
Maybe half of you who read this disagree, but my choice is far that controversial as the release of the album.
To me it is a “safe choice”. Maybe many of us are wrong, when we pick an album of the last decade so close after leaving the former decade.
But this album is a landmark. Their so-called masterpiece from ’97 promised an inheritor to U2. Not extrovert, rather introvert and sneering. And while Ok Computer is facing backwards, Kid A is forward-looking into the new decade, maybe even century.

I met with a couple of guys, just the same from the previous “Night before New Years Eve”, and we played two songs from albums within three categories:

Most important album from a musical perspective.

Most important album from a personal perspective.

And most important album from Denmark.

As introduced above I chose Radiohead “Kid A” from a musical perspective. My friends chose the following albums:

Scott Walker – The Drift
Elbow – Asleep in the Back
Modest Mouse – Moon & Antarctica
Eels – Blinking Lights and other Revelations
The National – Alligator
Battles – Mirrored
Kevin Drumm – Sheer Mellish Miasma

From the personal perspective I have been very fond of Thee Silver Mt Zion. But if I should bring out an album that has meant the most to me I’d say Man’sbestfriend “New Human is Illegal”. The poetry, the aggression, the samples, the humor, everything is just a perfect ‘unit’. My friends chose:

Ilyas Ahmed – Between Two Skies / Towards the Night
Interpol – Turn on the Bright Lights
Sigur Ros – ()
Christian Kjellvander – Songs from a two-room chapel
Beirut – Gulag Orkestar
The National – Alligator
Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – More Revery

In the last category I and one other chose Efterklang “Tripper” to be the best album from Denmark in the same decade. Other picks were:

Manual – Azure Vista
Moi Caprice – The Art of Kissing Properly
Tiger Tunes – Absolutely Worthless Compared To Important Books
Decorate Decorate – Normandie
Speaker Bite Me – If Love is Missin It must be Imposed
Mikael Simpson – Bsider, udtag og meget triste radiomix

Oh my a lot of albums have not even been mentioned above. But if you like some of the choices above, do check out Pitchfork > P2K. Maybe you find your own favourite there.