Why do we do it? Why do we insist at the end of every year
on dragging all the old news out of the bag and assessing it fresh when our minds
are patently addled and our concentration spans could be measured with a small
peanut left over from last year's xmas festivities? We do it because you expect
it. And though our methods are hazy at best and our criteria as likely to shift
as frequently as tectonic plates in the Indian Ocean we've pulled out two lots of ten albums
of 2006 that we think deserve heaps of additional, unconditional credit
and squeezed them into one neat and tidy column for your enjoyment. We do it because
we care... Top 10 Albums 2006 - by Alan Sargeant (ed.) #1
James Yorkston - The Year Of The Leopard (Domino Records)
Scotland
September 25, 2006
Produced by: Paul Webb
It's a bit like finding yourself marooned in a fish-boat off Skye with a crate of rum. The Year Of The Leopard is the sound of a thousand acres of sky, of desultory walks along the beach, idle rambles amongst the glens, late-night conversations and journeys alongside the ghostly vagaries of the Scot’s own (very literate) misfortunes. Curl up in the warm, woozy bosom of violins, clarinets, concertinas and drum brushes and sparse yet cosy arrangements.
#2 Subtle - For Hero: For Fool (Lex/EMI)
USA
October 16, 2006
Produced by: Subtle
Loose, ad-hoc, brainteaser hip-hop collective pull together all manner of re-sampled, de-sampled freakish city cyberscapes for densely layered and multi-faceted psychic beat adventure. It’s like aliens have taken over the asylum and yet tracks like ‘Middleclass Stomp’, ‘Middleclass Kill’ and ‘Midas Gutz’ are – for all their wacko obscurity - so effortlessly satisfying. Hats off to the band's nasally, high-pitched, polyrhythmic, white rapping beat-poet leader, Doseone for going completely bonkers.
#3
Charlotte Gainsbourg - 5: 55 (Because Music)
France
September 4, 2006
Produced by: Bill Callahan
An album on which the daughter of scandalous French lothario, Serge Gainsbourg wears the same jeans and shares the same toilet facilities as co-writers Jarvis Cocker, Neil Hannon and Air. A louche, low-key follow-up to the even loucher ‘Lemon Incest’, 5:55 boasts the same hushed, semi-spoken, coquettish narratives of the heart that defined its predecessor: only this time with the ticklish irony of Jarvis and Neil and the sultry jouissance of messrs Godin and Dunckel. Four solo albums in one.
#4 Scritti Politti - White Bread, Black Beer (Rough Trade)
Wales
May 29, 2006
Produced by: Green Gartside
Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, boy loses girl in the casual interplay between signified and signifier, dissolved in the ether of semiotics and in the long, tender sighs that accompany them. An album that sees the irrepressible Green Gartside shedding numerous layers of eccentricity, retracing the paths of his digressions and arriving, against all odds, at somekind of personal centre. Lo-fi, gentle and rarely venturing beyond a whisper, it’s as if the mixing engineer crept into the studio in the middle of the night, turned everything down but the vocal channels and left only the muffled whirr of the keys and bass-tones by which to navigate.
#5 Thirty Pounds Of Bone - The Homesick Children of Migrant Mothers
(Drfit Records)
England
December 4, 2004
Produced
by: Steve Gringer/Johny Lamb
A world of arson, moonshine, loves lost and others found, fishing boats, liver failure, troubled families and dark nights spent in the embrace of a single malt. Gigs alongside equally humble pantheists, British Sea Power, the sculduggerous Brakes and the woozy Walkmen culminates in an album that sits somewhere between the wicked, confessional narratives of Nick Cave and the bookish, folkish quietude of fellow miserablist Yorkston. Imagine an offshore party of fishermen and artists drowning in a barrel of their own beautiful misgivings as a handful of Cornish musicians sink the boat on which they sailed with little more than an accordion and a couple of penny whistles. So wonderully, wonderfully homesick. And blue. the remaining five records..........Adem - Love And Other Planets (Domino Records)
England
April 24, 2006
The miracle of love as defined by a collection of songs that spin like wild dilithium crystals in their own child-like zero-gravities. Tinkling wine glasses, humming noises, hobbycraft drum patterns, junk-shop jazz, vibraphones, xylophones and marimbas. Sometime Fridge member rips the stars from the very sky to satisfy his curious ache for the unconventional, the magical and the enchanting.
Archie Bronson Outfit – Derdang Derdang (Domino Records)
England
July 25, 2006
Grizzly, shredded blues outfit marches like an army of dog soldiers through a dissolute town of vampires in America’s Deep South – a flag of confederate pride in their hearts, blisters on their hands, blood on their trenchcoats and whilstling like demons to the tune of ‘When Johnny Comes Marching Home’.
Badly Drawn Boy - Born in The UK (EMI)
England
October 30, 2006
The sound of a man hovering nervously between the safe, protected joy of the past and the vulnerable possibilities of the future. Not so much a record as a rights of passage, but no less wonderful because of it.
Ed Harcourt– The Beautiful Lie (Heavenly)
England
June 5, 2006
The rakish collector of weird and wonderful instruments and self-confessed musical whore, doffs his cap, enters politely and proceeds to engage us in all manner of gothic folklore and wise, despairing storytelling It’s a tale of madness relieved by beauty, bottled in Lewes, East Sussex and fashioned from the ashes of Harcourt’s own cigarettes. His finest moment thus far.
Foreign Beggars – Stray Point Agenda (Dented Records)
US
October 9, 2006
Subversive, politically conscious yet anchored squarely in the ‘thousand and one tears’ of human behaviour, a hip-hop album that morphs fluently from the sparse, minimal beats of logic to the choking orchestral smoke of a slowburn apocalypse. And one that shouldn’t make it… in anybody's list
Lily Allen - Alright Still
(Regal)
It's cute, no doubt about it. But for all the precarious kudos that it brought you in 2006, 'Alright Still' is little more than genetically over-modified, over-stylised, tomb-robbing, tune-robbing puppy puke. Savvy production credits, clever clever musical references and loads of shit raps laid over disproportionately better samples. The Streets for f**king Tweenies. Top 10 Albums 2006 - by James Berry (reviewer) #1
TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain (4ad)
US
July 3, 2006
Produced by: David Sitek
In which their turbo-eclectic urban-art-rock-hop concept snowballed, if said snowball had a rusty riveted iron chassis, tyrannosaurus incisors, an unstable leaking diesel engine and a dangerous smoking habit. Thrilling perfection with newly patented industrial bindings. We’ll start work on a sturdier plinth in time for their next effort.
#2 Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
(City Slang)
Canada
January 23 2006
Produced by: David Newfeld
There’s no point talking about glasses being half full when there are umpteen barrels and they’re all overflowing wildly. The shape-shifting Canadian collective better encapsulated the thrill of music and being amongst numerous like-minded souls than any other album we can remember hearing. Überindie, and every tune leaves a blister too.
#3
The Long Blondes – Someone To Drive You Home (Rough Trade)
England
November 6, 2006
Produced by: Steve Mackey
Britpop is sexy again! Yorkshire heirs to Elastica and Blondie, inheritors of Pulp’s glamorous, sarcastic treatment of the bloody ordinary, and owners of a strikingly snappy pop instinct, The Long Blondes finally turned in an album and made it match pretty much every expectation. And all without an eyelash shifting out of place. Set your hips free.
#4 Bat For Lashes – Fur & Gold
Divine (Echo)
Wales
September 11, 2006
Produced by: David Kosten
Ethereal. Delicious. There are some adjectives you cast around liberally, until someone drifts into view and renders all previous usage void. Natasha Khan appeared fresh and deeply malleable, like she was plucked from orbit, elements of Bjork, Kate Bush and Beth Gibbons spliced and moulded. Rhythmically and melodically pristine.
#5 Guillemots – Through The Windowpane
(Polydor)
England
July 10, 2006
Produced
by: Dangerfield/Chris Shaw
Simultaneously so very quaintly English (the kind of pop eccentricity – and we don’t mean frivolous madness – that should be preserved in amber lest we lose it) and utterly unhindered by boundaries of any design, this and they thought big. Made others’ vision look like a pinhole in a brick wall. Just damn classy. The British ‘Soft Bulletin'. the remaining five records..........Absentee – Schmotime (Memphis Industries)
England
May 8, 2006
Like Belle & Sebastian brawling with Bing Crosby in Oxfam. Obviously brilliant. Dizzy indie with heavy shopping.
Cyann & Ben – Sweet Beliefs
(Ever)
France
September 18, 2006
Wash after wash of swelling sonic bliss. Shoegazing inverted. Stargazing? Perhaps. A lunar tide thrown through an effects loop.
The Grates – Gravity Won’t Get You High (Universal)
Australia
July 17, 2006
Like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs without pretensions, in a summer dress, on a trampoline. Untainted fuzz-pedal joy.
The Longcut - A Call & Response
(Deltasonic)
England
June 12, 2006
20 years of Manchester compressed, condensed, digitised, fed into Thurston Moore, given amphetamines, regurgitated, excess swept away.
The Pipettes – We Are The Pipettes
(Memphis Industries)
US
August 28, 2006
The Shangri-Las in a Banana(rama) sandwich with Kenickie at a Grease drive-in screening. Only twice as sweet, with three times the kick. Every tune a single. And one that shouldn’t make it…
The Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I Am Not
(Domino Records)
*So ok, the cute kid with scruffy hair at the front is the indie Peter Kay for people who think Liam Gallagher is a Che Guevara for the 21st Century. He’s got a cracking turn of phrase, you can’t take that away from him. But you could lose the band. Derivative, impotently cheeky, post-Libertines monotony. You can maybe wring 2 decent tunes and one genuinely era-defining single out of it, but siphon off the hyperbole and you’re left with a collection that shouldn’t even have troubled The Bluetones’ comeback…
Best of the rest.....in no particular order
Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis (Rough Trade)
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye (Domino)
Brakes - The Beatific Visions Brakes (Rough Trade)
Grandaddy - Just Like The Fambly Cat (V2)
The Dears - Gang Of Losers (V2)
The Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I Am Not
(Domino Records) * Must be a Northern Thing
Clinic - Visitations (Domino Records)
Clearlake - Amber (Domino Records)
Best of the compilations and mixtapes.....in no particular order
More MPM Sound - Melting Pot Music (MPM Records)
Kitsuné Maison Compilation 3 (Kitsuné)
Mercury Rev - Back To Mine (DMC)
Tom Middleton - The Trip 2 (Family Recordings)
Air -Late Night Tales (Azuli)
Jarvis Cocker/Steve Mackey - The Trip (Family Recordings)
Complied
by James Berry and Alan Sargeant for Crud Magazine 2007©
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