In the past, putting my album list together, I've lamented the "demise" of the album. There is a single-track mentality amongst the general public that can be overwhelming. In fact, the first year-end "Best of" album list I came across this year, at PASTE magazine, began with that same sort of lamentation. But? For some reason, I'm not so worried anymore. Don't feel the same threat to the album as a form of musical, artistic expression that I have previously - like the album is now more appreciated, somehow.
It's instinctual, don't have hard data. Maybe I've just finally come to be at peace with the idea that albums, singles, even EPs, can all coexist in harmony, simultaneously. Or maybe albums have finally come to be appreciated on such a scale and to such a degree that their existence is no longer "threatened". Either way, these year-end album columns no longer need be dissertations on the worth and definition of the album as "art form". So let's just get to the good stuff!
After a year personally that occasionally would have made old Job cringe, music continues to be my great, soothing constant, a steady source of joy, encouragement, solace and inspiration in my life when so many other aspects of my world have crashed and burned. Speaking of... do you suppose there's a reason one of my favorite songs this year has been the gleeful celebration of nuclear apocalypse and annihilation from A Perfect Circle, "So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish"? Hmmm.
But that's favorite songs, and another list for later - the band's album Eat the Elephant as a whole didn't quite make my Top Ten album list. What did? Glad you asked! With the usual caveats about nothing being absolute and fixed...
10. Circles Around the Sun - Let It Wander - Was not familiar with this project of guitarist Neil Casal's. The disc came my way because they were scheduled for a local Higher Ground show - that was postponed, unfortunately. Would have liked to have seen them live, especially after digging this double CD, the second release for the band. Casal is joined on here by keyboardist Adam MacDougall, one of his bandmates in the Chris Robinson Brotherhood, as well as bassist Dan Horne, and drummer Mark Levy.
There are two almost-twenty minute long "songs" on the album, "Halicarnassus" and "Ticket to Helix NGC 7293" - and they're my kinda Space Rock! There and back again, more excursions than tunes, really. And, yes, worth the trip!
"Electric Chair (Don't Sit There)" is a great - and more manageable sized - sample of the band. It still clocks in at a meaty 7:41, but they don't waste your time. It's a treat hearing Casal and MacDougall weave and trade musical phrases around and through each other, while Horne and Levy keep a solid groove on this one that doesn't get boring.
Cool story behind this "band" - they originally came together just to record Grateful Dead-influenced instrumentals for set break music during The Dead's "Fare Thee Well" concerts. Positive feedback - and the fact CATS enjoyed jamming together - led to them keeping it going. The music is still occasionally Dead-influenced, but the band has definitely developed its own personality. These jams owe as much to Tangerine Dream & the Dregs as they do the Dead, to my ears. And? Weirder still? There's a Chuck D cameo! He was at the same studio and heard and loved a tune they were doing, so they got him to record an intro for it and dedicated "One For Chuck" to him.
9. Villagers - The Art of Pretending to Swim. A song made me love this album. "A Trick of the Light" was just, somehow, perfect, when it arrived this summer. The wistful longing of Conor O'Brien's voice and lyrics float along on a gentle sea of guitar, easy percolating bass, jazzy drums and surging keys. Speaking of floating, check out the short film/video for the song:
The rest of the album operates in a similar vibe. Villagers is mostly a solo effort, so this is all O'Brien - it's his vibe, which is pretty chill, though he's singing about intense topics like belief and love and truth. "Fool" is another stand-out track, and makes sense as the second single to be released from the project. And "Love Came With All It Brings" doesn't sound exactly like, but for some reason reminds me of, Mercury Rev's Deserter's Songs. Much of this album does, but not in a direct way. Like Deserter's Songs, there's a dreamlike quality to much of The Art of Pretending to Swim, both the warm, fuzzy good kind and the mysterious, dangerous kind, and listening draws you into that dream. And like Jonathan from Mercury Rev, O'Brien isn't afraid to expose fragility and vulnerability in his voice and lyrics, which sometimes gives it all a gossamer, ethereal lightness. It's jarring to reach album's end and reawaken to cold reality.
8. Paul Weller - True Meanings. Speaking of vibes... this is my favorite Weller vibe. I know he wants to remain vital, and sometimes likes getting noisy with new young collaborators, and old noisy ones as well. But I love his music in his more folksy mode, where he picks up the English pastoral folk rock tradition mined by Steve Winwood and Traffic and some of the Canterbury Prog bands - Weller's Wild Wood is an all-time favorite of mine. I think his work with the band Stone Foundation has influenced him on True Meanings (their 2018 album deserves an honorable mention - Weller produced and appears on Stone Foundation's Everybody, Anyone), as their jazz-influenced rock approach is apparently in evidence here.
Weller gets a little too orchestrated and smarmy for my taste at a couple of points on True Meanings, which is why this album isn't higher on my list. I like my Weller music on the mellow side, but not too mellow. Feel a bit like Goldilocks - too hard! too mellow! But I don't mean to complain. Weller hits a few sweets spots on this one - "Wishing Well", "Aspects" and "The Soul Searchers" all stand out - but I still find the lead track to be the most compelling here - "Moving On":
7. Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin. I didn't know who Ty Segall was. And then, I did. I'm sure I crossed that don't know/know line at some point, but... I can't really pinpoint it. A couple of years ago? Suddenly, it seemed like I'd already known of him. Maybe that's because there's a quality to Segall's work that is, dare I say, Timeless? When you hear some of his tunes, you do feel like you've always kind of known them. It's odd. And very cool. Check out "My Lady's On Fire"
He's a unique talent, the kind that, when you stumble across them, you're caught by something, a "wait a sec, what was that?" like you've spotted something familiar out of the corner of your eye, but you turn, and it's gone, and what seemed familiar is something new, a personal expression that is tapping into universals that have been mined before, but that is somehow, different, and yet true.
Had a chance to see him do a solo acoustic show last month, great experience! Seeing someone perform with just their acoustic guitar lets you know how real they are. He's for real. Will be fun to see him with his full band - and I plan to. The guy is incredibly prolific - Freedom's Goblin was only his first solo album this year. He also released Fudge Sandwich, a covers album. And a couple other albums and an EP with his other bands, too, for god measure.
"Alta" showcases some of Segall's electric guitar genius. His work on Freedom's Goblin ranges all over the place with the tunes themselves, from shredding metallic riffs to gentle folk strumming - he's not restrained nor encumbered by preconceived notions of genre, he plays each song the way it demands to be played, from searing power to great gentleness. The unifying factor here? Simply, Ty Segall.
6. Kyle Craft - Full Circle Nightmare. This could have been Number Five. This album, and the next, are pretty equal in my listening and love this past year. Decided this should be Six and I'm already not sure, it might be Five... gotta pull the trigger, so to speak, so, Kyle Craft gets Number Six. Saw him at the end of March at Higher Ground. Small crowd - gotta turn you on to his music so you'll go out and see him live!
Craft's music reminds me of that era when British bands were coming out of the boogie-woogie blues era and experimenting with fusing that with their English and cabaret show tune traditions, like Humble Pie or Small Faces, or Rolling Stones in that era. Not that he sounds like them, it just feels like a similar fusion is happening here on Full Circle Nightmare, as I think you can hear on "Heartbreak Junky":
You can hear the Pacific Northwest in here a bit, too, I believe. He's from Portland, Oregon. Maybe there's something in the water up there that somehow roots you, plants you in the fertile soil of rock's past, gives you an authenticity with which to approach the riffs and progressions employed previously by so many in the service of what some now call "classic rock". I hear that in one of my favorite current bands, Blitzen Trapper, also from Portland. And in one of my new favorites, too, The Moondoggies, from north of Seattle (their 2018 album is a bit higher on this list).
Alright, there's half of 'em. I'll have the other half tomorrow morning, I promise. I can promise because it's already written, mostly. Have to kind of get the top of the list together first, you see.
This year, there are a few Honorable Mentions as well. Clicking the Album Title will take you to a YouTube link of a favorite song on the album, unless a whole album link is available.
Already mentioned Stone Foundation - Everybody, Anyone, with Paul Weller guesting and producing. And there were actually two great instrumental rock albums this year. TAUK's - Shapeshifter II was just slightly edged out of the Top Ten by CATS. More on the jazz side of instrumental, Robert Walter's 20th Congress' Spacesuit was also extremely space-tasty. Sometimes Vermonters The Essex Green returned from a long hiatus with the awesome Hardly Electronic. decker. embodied his home of Sedona, Arizona in song on his Born to Wake Up. In a similar way, S. Carey's Hundred Acres, with its ethereal washes, sounds like the windswept north of Wisconsin, and not just thanks to the tune "True North" - almost in my Top Ten. King Tuff's The Other is uneven, but when there are flashes of brilliance, you'll sometimes have that. Same could be said of Phosphorescent's return, C'est La Vie, which is good, but a little shallow, almost as if he's too happy to delve as deep as we're accustomed.
I'm only just starting to get into Mark Knopfler's latest, Down the Road Wherever, and Roine Stolt's The Flower King - Manifesto of An Alchemist, which both seem good, but it's early.
Alright - #5 thru #1 coming tomorrow (Tuesday 12/11) morning... along with a Spotify Playlist of songs from the Top Ten Albums!
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And? My Glow-in-the-Dark Radio science fiction podcast is about to hit its 500th Episode! That happens Saturday - check it out at http://glowinthedarkradio.podomatic.com and join me Saturday for the Big Show!
