The CYPJN?! Top 9 Albums of 2009

SO... 2009 draws to a close and leaves in its wake a raft of fantastic new albums, including a slew of impressive debuts. As always, narrowing down this year's top picks was a painstaking task. But I can say that the nine presented here are the ones that landed most solidly for me.

My own 2009 was an upsy-downsy affair on many levels. Frankly, I'll be more than happy to get it the FUCK off my back, however I recognize that the process of this year was an absolutely essential part of the setup to make 2010 a year of serious discovery and forward movement.

Musically, I spent a lot of time looking backward. My summer in Los Angeles was an incredibly evocative experience and the hours I spent swimming the racks of Amoeba Records' UNPARALLELED used section found me filling in much-needed blanks in my collection. Many hours on the 101 spent listening to long-overdue digital replacements of classics from my cassette library. Screaming Blue Messiahs, English Beat, XTC, Oingo Boingo, Liz Phair, etc. Also, I had compiled a number of L.A.-centric mixes for the occasion, which were on a fairly heavy rotation. Subsequently, it took me up until the last quarter to get around to some of the more important releases of this year.

For anyone who knows me beyond a passing acquaintance, there will be one tres surprising omission from the below list. The long-standing assumption when I began doing these year-end record evals was that whenever my all-time favorite band released it's next album, that album would almost certainly land in CYPJN!?'s top spot for that year. Stands to reason, no? Hence my utter astonishment at my inability to fully connect with U2's No Line On The Horizon. The album came out just days before my first L.A. trip last April, and my time on the sunny coast gave me ample opportunity to truly give it a go. The problem was, only about half of the album penetrated on any real level. The rest simply dribbled down my earlobes and blew away on the Pacific Coast breeze. A full review was promised, yet never materialized because I simply. Couldn't. Get there with it. The reasons for this are many. Too many cooks in the producorial kitchen. Slogan-y, frictionless lyrics. Consciously radio-friendly melodies. I could mintuaeize for hours, but you get the point. That said, there are moments on the album that really soar and songs like "No Line On The Horizon", "Magnificent" and "FEZ-Being Born" stand alongside some of the band's best moments of the 00's. Particularly affecting is "Cedars of Lebanon", the most perfect top-to-bottom studio track the band has produced since "Please". The bottom line on No Line is this: I enjoy the album on a lot of levels. But, in the end it left me looking to the horizon for something a little more adventurous.

Another distinction of this list is that it is perhaps the ONLY Best of '09 rundown that does not include Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion. And I am damn proud of that distinction. I will say however that the album's ubiquitous praise and seeming sonic profundity have assured me that if for some reason I ever decide that I want to make it as an indie superphenom, all's I need to do is gather some hand-clappin' stoner buddies for an hour-long Garage Band circle jerk and voila!, Pitchfork hands me the crown.

Having said that, there are some other widely-heralded albums whose hype was well deserved. You'll find some of them below. Others flew inexplicably under the critical radar, so I'm delighted to have a chance to shine a light on them here.

Without further ado, I give you IMBA's TOP 9 ALBUMS OF 2009. Enjoy...

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9. Dan Auerbach, Keep It Hid

"What's wrong, dear brother? Have you lost faith?", Dan Auerbach asks us at the beginning of his much-anticipated solo album Keep It Hid. The answer, Dan, is no. My faith in your ability to make a kickass record, regardless of the lineup, remains intact.

Given the unwavering consistency of The Black Keys' output over the years, it seemed a no-brainer that an Auerbach solo spit would follow suit. I expected to like it. A lot. And with the first listen, all of my expectations were surpassed.
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Using colors not usually found on a Black Keys palette, Keep It Hid paints expressionistic pictures of love, loss, betrayal and desire against a backdrop of fuzzed-out dirty blues, Southern-fried rock grooves, garage riffs, weathered soul and chilly acoustic ballads. The band expanded on their original drums-and-guitar template for last year's Attack & Release, and that spirit of expansion appears to have followed Auerbach into the studio for this one.

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Personal favorites include "Real Desire", "When the Night Comes", "Keep It Hid" and "Street Walkin'". And if my funeral playlist weren't already obnoxiously long, the Beatle-flavored "Goin' Home" would probably find it's way into the mix. But, make no mistake. Every track on this album is fantastic. Exercise a little faith and go pick it up.

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Serving Suggestion: Feels like a hot summer night in the dirty south. Plop yourself under a weeping willow with a six pack of Schlitz and dig in.

8. Jack Peñate - Everything is New

There's a phenomenon that occurs if you listen to KEXP frequently. You'll hear a new song and say to yourself, "Who IS THIS!?" Then, when you take a gander at the real-time online playlist, you see that it's an artist you've heard several times before and had the exact same reaction each time. So, after my third "Who IS THIS!?" moment with Jack Peñate, I decided it was time to just go ahead and buy the album.

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On the surface, Everything Is New is simply sexy British pop with moves to spare. But what elevates it beyond mere ear candy is a very peculiar brand of haunted soulfulness that occupies a space in my musical world which had previously gone uninhabited. While there is a sheen to the goings-on here and a celebration (of some sort) happening in the background, there is also an inherent longing that permeates. And that longing makes Everything is New utterly unshakable. Something darkly enticing beckons just under the dancey bass grooves and icily reverbed guitar chimes, and while we're never sure exactly what it is, we're desperate to find out.

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"Be the One" and "Tonight's Today" are prime examples of this je ne se quoi. Both are completely unlikely modern disco tracks - unquestionably danceable without being disposable. The slinky, maraca-frosted beats and ghostly vocal overdubs on "Every Glance" amplify the emotional heft of lines like "Take your hands off my shoulders and let me stand/I've been trying my hardest to be a man", while "Let's All Die" is one of the more joyous celebrations of mortality you're likely to hear for some time. What makes it all work is that, in the end, there's blood in the music, not tinsel.

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The connection between the hips and the heart has never been lost on me. And Everything is New will make sure it's not lost on you either.

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Serving Suggestion: Perfect for dinner prep as long as your kitchen's big enough to shake a little ass in. A vodka tonic with extra lime will limber you up without weighing you down.

7. The Horrors - Primary Colours

The phrase "alternative music" was originally coined to denote bands that were making music that was an alternative to what was being played on commercial radio at the time. Twentysome-odd years later, the phrase has come to mean absolutely nothing at all, at least in musical terms. Most of the insipid modern rock bands over-rotating on Top 40 radio today are deemed Alternative by record labels, distributors, etc.

(For proof of this, one need only check out the genre listing for crapsters like Panic at the Disco, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy on iTunes.)
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But there was a time, dear readers, when you could walk into your local, independent record store (the one on the outskirts of downtown that had a funky, punny name and sold Bauhaus t-shirts, Creepers and "water pipes") and hear something you'd never heard before that would absolutely blow your mind. Something you couldn't hear on the radio. Something that sounded like nothing you'd ever heard before. For me, it was often something dark, fuzzy, flangey and British. And you'd ask the guy behind the counter who was playing and, with a brilliantly aloof blend of reluctance and condescension, he'd tell you. And you'd plunk your lawnmowing money down on the counter, buy the album (on cassette), take it home and DEVOUR it.
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The music that came out of the golden age of "alternative" (read: the early-to-mid 80's) holds a very prominent position in my musical consciousness. There's something about those bands and those songs and those album covers and those record stores that tickles a very particular corner of my soul. And when I first came across London's The Horrors, a certain adolescent giddiness took hold. It was as if I was standing dumbstruck among the skate mags and Siouxsie posters at Drastic Plastic all over again.
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I say all of this partly to avoid having to come up with some lame geekoid classification for Primary Colours. If you identify at all with the above, you've already got a pretty good picture of what the album feels like and who its antecedents are. I could use descriptors like "haunted", "opaque" and "abstruse". I could employ the obligatory and reductive "Meets" Technique. ("Dude. It's like Chameleons UK meets My Bloody Valentine meets Swans!") Alas, I'll spare us both and simply tell you that this album tickles that very same little corner of my soul that got me excited about music in the first place.

Serving Suggestion: A dark, spicy red would be the best sidekick for this one. Try the Tapeña tempranillo. Or light some candles and load a bowl. Either way, you're good to go.

6. Other Lives - Other Lives

There's under the radar and then there's under the radar. In the case of Oklahoma's Other Lives, the italicized delivery would be the one to choose. The little press that was given to the band's debut LP wasted precious ink on ill-conceived Radiohead comparisons and broadstroke summations. Thankfully, I have a chance to set the record straight.

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Yes, singer Jesse Tabish does have a somewhat Yorke-ian vocal register. Yes, "End of the Year" has some eerie similarities to "Paranoid Android". And, yes. The songs are expansive and borderline proggish at times. But as far as I'm concerned, any parallels beyond that are simply a symptom of lazy listening.
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Other Lives is dreamy, pastoral pop that, while reaching for the ether, keeps its feet firmly planted in the soil. Lush, gauzy and melancholic, the album is a ride along a winding stretch of rural American highway under a darkening, purple-bellied sky. In fact, if there were an award for Album Cover That Best Illustrates The Contents Of The Album Contained Within, meet this year's winner. Lilting piano, weepy cello and Tabish's crystalline croon are the hallmarks here. Particularly in "Paper Cities", which conjures cinematic visions of the wars at home and abroad. ("Put down your banners and flags / This war you've made won't last / And your country / Just lines on a map / They're drawn up / They won't last." ) And personal fave "It Was The Night" evinces such an atmosphere that you can almost hear a chill wind blowing through its bones.
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Other Lives is a moody listen, for sure. But if you're in that mood, nothing will treat you better.
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Serving Suggestion: A totally appropriate rainy day album. A strong, hot cup of tea sipped by a half-cracked window will round out the experience.

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5. Choir of Young Believers - This Is For The White In Your Eyes
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"Holy Crap! Are you hearing this?", The Missus asked me from the other end of the phone. We both tend to listen to KEXP at the office, but at the moment I was juggling about five jerkalicious projects so, no. I wasn't hearing this. The "this" in question was Choir of Young Believers' live in-studio performance at KEXP's New York outpost during the CMJ Music Festival. I had heard of the band and, at some point, had probably heard some song or other of theirs, but was not privy to whatever it was that was causing my wife to have a bona fide conniption in my ear. She was so excited (and I was subsequently excited by how excited she was) that we decided to check out their 3pm CMJ showcase at Living Room the following Saturday. A cramped coffeehouse-type space in the middle of the afternoon isn't a likely set up for a transcendent live music experience. But less than a minute into CoYB's first number, both of our jaws were on the floor.
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The first full-length from Danish singer-songwriter-guitarist Jannis Noya Makrigiannis and his rotating cast of sidefolk, This Is For The White In Your Eyes takes the My Morning Jacket/Fleet Foxes mold, breaks it, and arranges the remaining shards into an absolutely breathtaking mosaic. From the opening piano droplets of "Hollow Talk" to the Pet Sounds-tinged vocal layers on album closer "Yamagata", CoYB cover wide swaths of emotional territory. It's a 10-song journey that ends with more questions than answers, but leaves us richer for having taken the ride. In a year full of notable debuts (some worth the hype, some not), This Is For The White In Your Eyes is a truly thrilling discovery.
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Serving Suggestion: Perfect companion to a white, wintry day. The Missus also introduced me to the charms of the hot toddy this year. Put the kettle on, bust out the whiskey, honey and lemon and give this one a spin.
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4. Elvis Perkins in Dearland - Elvis Perkins in Dearland
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Elvis Perkins' debut Ash Wednesday was an aptly named meditation on death, grief and the process of rebuilding a life in the wake of tragedy. Sparse and contemplative, the album found Perkins trying to reassemble the pieces of his own life after his mother died tragically on September 11th, a day before the 9th anniversary of the death of his father, actor Anthony Perkins. Sonically, the album fairly well matched the themes tackled in songs like "Emile's Vietnam in the Sky", "Ash Wednesday", "It's a Sad World" and "Good Friday".
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Elvis Perkins in Dearland trods the same thematic ground, but from a notably different musical view. The skeletal lamentations of Ash Wednesday are given a fully-orchestrated overhaul here, adding banjo, clash cymbals, pump organ and horns to stirring and chilling effect. Instead of simply exploring the holes left behind by an absence, EPiD consciously reclaims the space. Songs like "Send My Fond Regards To Lonelyville" and "1, 2, 3 Goodbye" rassle with mortality but manage to keep their own shoulders well off the mat. Under Perkins' influence, what begin as funeral dirges blossom into full-blown Dixieland rave-ups. This contrast is nowhere more effective than on the album's crowning moment "Doomsday", which greets the apocalypse with a raised glass and a wild smile.

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Next to love, death is probably the second most oft-covered territory in popular music. Addressing it directly can be tricky business. That it not only avoids the usual pitfalls of such subject matter, but reframes how we think about the unthinkable is part of what makes Elvis Perkins in Dearland such a masterstroke.

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Serving Suggestion: A toast is in order here. A dry champagne drunk straight from the bottle while romping through New Orleans' French Quarter should do this one justice.

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3. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
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A couple months before the release of Noble Beast, The Missus and I were treated to a preview of what would be the album's opening track during an Andrew Bird show in Tarrytown. Performing solo, violin, guitar and looping equipment all operating fluidly, Bird launched into "Oh No" and we knew immediately that we were going to be in for something special when the album dropped in January. Who else could get away with a chorus as lyrically quirktastic as: "And it would take a calculated blow to the head/to blind the eyes of all the harmless sociopaths/Arm in arm we are the harmless sociopaths/Oh, arm in arm with all the harmless sociopaths" without sounding either precious or pretentious? Few but the Birdman, I'll submit.

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Musically speaking, Noble Beast is not as ambitious as its predecessor, Armchair Apocrypha. (CYPJN?!'s #6 Album of 2007) Which is not to say it aspires to less. It simply reveals Bird playing to his strengths in a way that produces a slightly more refined collection of songs. All the signature elements are present: layered violin loops, virtuosic whistling, grainy electric guitar and a blend of acoustic and electronic rhythm tracks, all underpinning Bird's inimitable vocal flutter. What sets this album apart from Bird's previous work may be difficult to pin down in exact terms, but the primary takeaways fall under the umbrellas of Cohesion, Maturity and Accessibility.

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Noble Beast is elegantly-crafted, bucolic indie folk-pop at its finest. While it may not reach for the moon, what it accomplishes here on earth is still pretty astonishing. And if a true American original is going to borrow from anyone, it may as well be from himself.
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Serving Suggestion: A perfect springtime spin. Find the exact location pictured on the album cover, drop a blanket and park yourself in the late afternoon sun with a bottle of viognier.
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2. Fanfarlo - Reservoir

Fanwha...? Whofarly...? I know, I know. You've never heard of them. That's why you have me. And once you finally pick up your copy of Fanfarlo's brilliant debut Reservoir, I'll look forward to receiving copious Thank You's in my comments box.

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I hopped on the Fanfarlo bandwagon early. Early enough that Reservoir was available from their website for $1. Best goddamn dollar I spent all year. And it is no small coincidence that my number 2 album of the year comes courtesy of the same band that gave me my number 2 favorite show of the year (right behind The Veils' gig at Spaceland in L.A.).

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Hailing from London and centered around Swedish-born indie maestro Simon Balthazar, Fanfarlo take the multi-instrumental approach writ large by Arcade Fire and Beirut and distill it into a cozy cocktail of pure chamber-pop ecstasy. At first listen, one might even mistake Balthazar's sweet upper-register vibrato for that of Beirut's Zach Condon. Spend a little more time with the album, however, and you'll soon realize that direct-line comparisons to any particular influence are a moot exercise. There's something singular happening here.

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Fanfarlo brought something truly special to 2009 and Reservoir was a big part of my own personal soundtrack. My introduction to the band came via "The Walls Are Coming Down". That it would become my de facto anthem for the year is simultaneously head-scratching and totally appropriate. Plucky pizzicato violin, trumpet, xylophone, mandolin, acoustic guitar and a jaunty, mercurial bass line create a revelrous swell that belies the cynical snapshot presented in the lyrics. Actually, when I think about it, this dichotomy makes the song's appeal sort of a no-brainer for an eternal optimist who also happens to be intimately attuned to his dark side.

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Other noteworthy tracks include "I'm A Pilot", the lovely "If It Is Growing", and the lively "Harold T. Watkins, Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time". From beginning to end, Reservoir was hands-down 2009's most pleasant surprise.
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Serving Suggestion: I described the album as a cocktail, so there you go. Make yourself an Old Fashioned and gather some friends around the Victrola.

1. The Veils - Sun Gangs
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I've always wanted to do this.
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Show instead of tell.
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It's just... I mean... It's SO...
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No...
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I won't cheapen it with words.
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Ladies and Gentlemen....
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I give you...
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IMBA's #1 Album of 2009...
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Sun Gangs.

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Sun Gangs - The Veils

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AND.... The best of the rest...
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Honorable Mentions:
Richard Hawley - Truelove's Gutter
Fool's Gold - Fool's Gold
Foreign Born - Person to Person
The xx - XX
Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy
The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
Florence + The Machine - Lungs
Muse - The Resistance
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
Sonic Youth - The Eternal

Capsula - Rising Mountains

EP of the Year:
Lissie - Why You Runnin'
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Narrowing down this year's picks was a helluva feat, BUT I can already see next year's list forming in my head. With new releases by Spoon, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, Radiohead and Gogol Bordello on the horizon, 2010's countdown promises to be a crowded-ass affair.

Here's to all that the new year has in store, musically and otherwise...

Happy Listening.

Peace,
-IMBA