1.) Courtney Barnett. “Sometimes
I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit.” (Mom & Pop). Barnett’s
second studio effort is a masterpiece that feels at once both casually
tossed-off and meticulously planned. Lyrically always inventive, Barnett
delivers ear-grabbing catch phrases with the panache of an Academy Award
winning actress and a Joyce-ian eye for detail and humor . The internal rhyme of this lyric from one of the CD’s stand-out cuts, “Pedestrian at
Best” gives a sense of its irresistible word
play: “I must confess I’ve made a mess / of what should be a small success /
but I digress at least I’ve tried my very best, I guess”. And check out this observational moment from
“Elevator Operator”: “He waits for an
elevator (one to nine) / a lady walks in and waits by his side / Her heels are
high and her bag is snakeskin / hair pulled so tight you can see her skeleton /
Vickers perfume on her breath, a tortoise-shell necklace between her breasts / She looks at him up and down with her botox frown / he’s well-used to that by
now.” Meanwhile, three cracker-jack
band mates whip up a wall of noise as tightly poised as battleship cannon while
Barnett herself conjures left-handed sonic hand grenades that would make both
Kurt Cobain and Jimi Hendrix jealous from their graves. What’s not to like? This was my favorite
record of the year.
2.) Songhoy Blues. “Music
in Exile” (World Circuit). The
title of the album is not meant to be whimsical. It’s as much of a political
statement as anything popular culture has come up with in this year of cartoon
campaigning and the demagoguery of Donald Trump. When jihadist terrorists took
over their Mali city, Bambako, three years ago, this 4-piece collective decided
to leave the country. They’ve lived on the road ever since, bouncing from gig
to gig and one borrowed couch to another to crash on. That they managed to
produce a searing set of blistering African blues as inspirational as this is
miraculous. Combining the subtle guitar licks of their homeland’s greatest
musician, Ali Farka Toure, with the ethereal easiness of Moroccan bedouin
music, “Music In Exile” feels timeless.
“Soubour”, the opening track, is a blues classic.
3.) Ryley Walker. “Primrose Green” (Dead
Oceans Records). If the organic, natural feel of acoustic guitars floats your
boat, this is the one record you need to own from this year’s great crop of
albums. “Primrose Green” announced Ryley Walker as an artist to watch in years
to come. It’s obvious from the first note that Bert Jansch’s blue print for
Pentangle provided Walker’s artistic template. His songs showcase virtuoso performances on his instrument and
Walker’s gorgeous vocals evoke Tim Buckley and John Martyn in their prime. “The
High Road” and “On the Banks of the Old Kishwaukee” are tracks to seek out.
4. Sufjan Stevens.
“Carrie & Lowell.”
(Asthmatic Kitty). Stevens has
one of the most wide-ranging curricula vitas in modern popular music. A
chameleon of the highest order, he’s dabbled in musical state histories
(Illinois and Michigan); Christmas albums; orchestral works; folk music, ballet
works and, now, a confessional tribute
to his parents and an intimate case study in bi-polar disorder. He hasn’t made an album that feels this
constrained since “Seven Swans.” He delivers these family tales in an
introspective whisper that make the heartache and tragedy feel earned, almost
sacred.
5.
Kendrick Lamar. “To
Pimp a Butterfly.” Eight out of every
ten critics have it at the top of their best of the year lists. 11 Grammy
nominations herald its historic relevance to the times and draw comparisons to
Stevie Wonder’s heyday. In a year when Black Lives Matter protests were callously
marginalized by Bill O’Reilly as “a radical group… not all that different from
the Black Panther movement", Lamar’s angry album was as politically and culturally
relevant as Bob Dylan’s finger-pointing songs of the 1960s and To Pimp a Butterfly became a timely
soundtrack to the media’s sound bites of white cops shooting black
teenagers. I didn’t enjoy it as much as
some other things I listened to this year, but it’s relevance to what’s
happening in America is impossible to ignore.
6. BC Camplight “How to Die In the North”
(Bella Union). After two forgotten piano-based CDs that were ignored by fans
and critics alike, New Jersey native Brian Christinzio moved to Manchester in
the north of England and quietly went to work on this quirky, gorgeous record. “Bold,
campy, heartbreaking and flush with moxie, Christinzo’s third outing is a
left-field gem, an indie rock distillation of ‘60s and ‘70s chamber pop tropes
that prefers Nilsson over Newman, Todd Rundgren over Lennon and McCartney,” is
how James Monger’s review for the All-Music Guide review put it. “You Should
have Gone to School" and “Love Isn’t Anybody’s Fault” best showcase the songwriter’s
considerable humor and charms.
7. Mbongwana Star. “From Kinshaha” (World
Circuit) If you liked “Kongotronics” by Konono No. 1 back in 2004, you’ll
appreciate this Republic of Congo collective called Mbongwana Star. Employing
the same “thumb pianos” as Konono, and singing retro tribal chants that sound
as if they were recorded in Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios back in the 1950s, the recording
has a live quality to it that makes it bristle with visceral power. Imagine you’re
standing on a crowded street corner in Kinshasa, hearing the next big thing to
come out of Africa and you’ll have a clue. “Malukayi”, one of the strongest
cuts, features Konono.
8. Father John Misty. “I Love You, Honey Bear.”
(Sub Pop). Josh Tillman’s second solo
effort reeks of Left Coast hipster irony and white boy L.A. cynicism. Don’t let
that scare you away. Think of Glenn Frey and Don Henley ooh-wooing their way through
a Jackson Browne cover for an early Eagles’ album and you’ll know the well-produced
studio charms of Father John’s sound. The sexually-frank bedroom details of his
personal life might provide a tad too much information for the weak of heart, but
so did the disintegration of Browne’s marriage back in the mid-1970s when “Late
for the Sly” and “The Pretender” became classics. Like
Jackson, Josh is a troubadour of the map of the heart.
9. Waxahatchee. “Ivy Tripp.” (Merge) Sleater-Kinney got better press and their “No
Cities to Love” CD has landed on a lot of “best of the year” lists, but for my
money “Waxahatchee” was the cleaner and more listenable feminist manifesto. A
native of Alabama but a resident of Philadelphia, Katie Crutchfield put
together a collection of songs that plumbs her past and uses the raw material
of failed relationships for fodder in ways that even Carrie Brownstein would admire.
“Breathless” and “La Loose” showcase Crutchfield’s fuzzy guitar rumblings, a hallmark
of the album.
10. Joanna Newsom. “Divers” (….) After keeping
fans waiting five long years for her 2015 release, Newsom finally delivered another terrific
album. Newsom’s strength is an ability to create a world that seems entirely
her own vision but that gives her fans access to a place of mysticism and renewal
as frequently as they go to church (but that probably offers them a more uplifting
experience). If Loreena McKennitt is your cup of mull, you should take a dive
into “Divers.”
1 In alphabetical order, these ten records were
in heavy rotation in my car stereo during the year and came close to making
this 2015 list of favorite recordings. Brandi Carlisle, “The Firewatcher’s Daughter”; The
Decemberists, “What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World”; Patti Griffin, “Servant of Love”; Ray Wylie Hubbard “The Ruffian’s Misfortune”;
Jason Isbell, “Something More than Fire,” Kacey Musgraves, “Pageant
Material”; James McMurtry, “Complicated Life”; Sleater-Kinney, “No Cities To Love”; Satellite
Hearts, “Desire Forces the Flow”;
and Tame Impala, “Currents”.
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