Top 100 Albums of 2000-2009: #55 - #51
---#55---
Akóya Afrobeat Ensemble - President Dey Pass
(afrobeat)
2008
When people think about afro-beat a handful of things spring to mind - speedy percussion, horns, "tribal" motifs, bursts of energy, political indignation, spoken word sections stretched over longform grooves, race relations and, of course, the great Fela Kuti. There's one keyword that I think is the most important of all - excitement. In amongst all of the topical aspects and funky musicianship of afro-beat, the one most crucial thing it needs to do above all else is get you excited. It needs to motivate you to care, to dance, to really feel it, because when you're sporting 13 minute tracks, having your listeners feel it is absolutely essential. Featuring musicians from countries all around the world, and centred around experienced band-leader Kaleta, Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble are relatively new to the modern afro-beat scene, but their second album, 2008's President Dey Pass, has already left an immense impact on me. All those elements I mentioned are here in abundance, and the excitement level? Hell, these guys are absolutely riveting. With those long track-runtimes regularly stretching past the ten-minute mark, this is music that you can get lost in, forcing you to forget where you are and what you're doing as those irrepressible grooves and passionate, killer vocals grab hold of your focus (and your feet) and simply refuse to let go. "Wahala" makes for an awesome closer, while the forty minute run comprised of "Fela Dey", "Je Je L'Aiye" and "B.F.B.F. Panama" is so good that it rivals the best work of Antibalas.
---#54---
Mu - Afro Finger and Gel
(house, electronic)
2003
I'm reasonably certain that Mutsumi Kanamori eats babies and can kill you with her brain. The lead singer for punk-house freakshow Mu delivers her punchy, broken-English caterwauling with such fearlessness and defiant attitude, that when she belts out lines like "Show me what you want motherf*cker! Who do you think you are? You don't know how strong I am!", it doesn't seem too far fetched that at any moment she might burst forth from your speakers, primed to kick your ass halfway into next week. If it sounds like Afro Finger and Gel is a touch on the difficult side of the listening spectrum, that's because it well and truly is. Kanamori's vocals are completely awesome - although that only really becomes apparent after a few listens; to start with she's just really scary - and Maurice Fulton wraps her up in a prickly DJ set of abrasive, thumpy and distinctively retro-flavoured house music. This album really won me over for a handful of primary reasons. First of all, nothing I've ever heard sounds even remotely like Afro Finger and Gel, so it certainly scores big points for originality. Secondly, all the scary unfamiliarity of the album gives way to some really addictive grooves and surprisingly enticing singalong vocals, so it demands repeat listens based on far more than novelty alone. Finally, the album is hilarious. Whether its the ridiculous talk show parody of "My Name is Tommi" (best track, fyi), the "where the hell did that come from?" r'n'b breakdown partway into "Let's Get Sick" or the mind-bending juxtaposition of Kanamori's indignant vocals against the jaunty piano backing on "Hello Bored Biz Man", the album delivers plenty of smile-worthy moments and even a few laugh-out-loud ones. But mostly, it's all about Kanamori being awesome - did I mention she kicks ass, eats babies and can kill you with her brain?
---#53---
Thee Oh Sees - The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In
(garage-rock, noise-rock, psych-rock)
2008
The Oh Sees deliver fifteen slices of fuzzed-out, druggy garage-rock on The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In, without a piece of filler in sight. Choruses of ghostly vocals echo their way around the snappy percussion, sharp basslines and dense layers of dirty, jagged guitar riffs which slice through sheets of distortion like razors, while the heavily filtered vocals and gauzy production lend the album a nostalgic, retro vibe that's authentic and awfully appealing. The songs here are about 3/4 riotous rockers and 1/4 hazy, trippy detours, and the album is sequenced quite perfectly to space the latter out amongst the former in a very pleasing manner. It's also the sort of album so consistently great that picking highlights can be very tricky indeed, although personally I think the blistering opener "Block of Ice", the super-surreal and very appropriately named "Graveyard Drug Party" (which features some great echoes of muffled, choppy guitar), the slightly poppy title-track and, in particular, the acid-soaked stomper "Visit Colonel" stand out from the pack. The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In is a shining example of top-shelf garage-rock, and it's got one hell of a funny title to boot. You could certainly do a lot worse than spending a night in its company.
---#52---
Fugazi - The Argument
(post-hardcore, indie-rock)
2001
You'd be hard pressed to think of many instances where a long-running group's last album was regarded by many as their best, but that's the case with The Argument, the seventh and final post-hardcore statement in an eleven year career for Ian MacKaye and Co before their indefinite hiatus. While I've never been much of a post-hardcore guru, I can't imagine the genre getting much more polished, nuanced and sophisticated than this, to the point that, in this case, the label may be on the verge of being a misnomer. The album's more "rough-and-ready" tracks like "Cashout", "Full Disclosure" and "Ex-Spectator" serve their purposes as throwbacks to the genre's blueprint, but if anything sound more like new-millennium updates, while the more experimental works like "The Kill", "Strangelight", "Nightshop" and "Oh" (my personal favourite) defy easy categorisation. There's string sections on many of the tracks, a range of multi-part song-structures and even regular appearances by a second drummer, all of which, when combined with the powerful vocals, adrenaline-pumping playstyle and ever-sharp songwriting and lyricism, make for a truly thrilling album that's also rich with fine detail. The other thing about The Argument is it's subtlety - it's a slow grower that reveals new gems with every listen.
---#51---
The Fiery Furnaces - Widow City
(indie-rock, experimental pop/rock)
2007
Call it Blueberry Boat's slightly less accomplished little sibling, if you want. While the classic-rock influences and somewhat retro-focused approach certainly infuse Widow City with an identity all of its own amongst the Fiery's body of work, it definitely stands as the release most similar in style to the duo's breakout second album. The sprawling, genre-hopping, relentless creativity of Blueberry Boat is in full-force here, meaning that the album covers an awful lot of ground during its lengthy runtime - Elanour makes her first attempt at old-school hip-hop, juxtaposed against blazing noise-rock and flourishes of harp, on "Automatic Husband"; the group's trademark narrative-based story-songs are delivered on "The Philidelphia Grand Jury", "My Egyptian Grammar", "Caberet of the Seven Devils" and a few more tracks besides, and they're just as engrossing, unique and highly unusual as ever before; "Clear Signal From Cairo" is a hard-rock track that's heavier than anything the Freidberger's have created before or since; "Wicker Whatnots" features some subterranean basslines and drums so skittish they border on Squarepusher; and the title-track is perhaps the strangest of all, being made up of fractured bursts of upright piano and fluttering effects-filtered percussion. Importantly, there are a number of more accessible, relatively-straightforward cuts to offset all this mayhem, with tunes like "Duplexes of the Dead" (which features some great wah-wah), "Ex-Guru", "Right By Conquest" and "Pricked in the Heart" keeping proceedings from getting too out of hand. All this makes Widow City an incredibly charming effort, with enough great songs and clever ideas packed into its sixteen tracks to thoroughly satisfy any fan of exciting, forward-thinking rock music.
Akóya Afrobeat Ensemble - President Dey Pass
(afrobeat)
2008
When people think about afro-beat a handful of things spring to mind - speedy percussion, horns, "tribal" motifs, bursts of energy, political indignation, spoken word sections stretched over longform grooves, race relations and, of course, the great Fela Kuti. There's one keyword that I think is the most important of all - excitement. In amongst all of the topical aspects and funky musicianship of afro-beat, the one most crucial thing it needs to do above all else is get you excited. It needs to motivate you to care, to dance, to really feel it, because when you're sporting 13 minute tracks, having your listeners feel it is absolutely essential. Featuring musicians from countries all around the world, and centred around experienced band-leader Kaleta, Akoya Afrobeat Ensemble are relatively new to the modern afro-beat scene, but their second album, 2008's President Dey Pass, has already left an immense impact on me. All those elements I mentioned are here in abundance, and the excitement level? Hell, these guys are absolutely riveting. With those long track-runtimes regularly stretching past the ten-minute mark, this is music that you can get lost in, forcing you to forget where you are and what you're doing as those irrepressible grooves and passionate, killer vocals grab hold of your focus (and your feet) and simply refuse to let go. "Wahala" makes for an awesome closer, while the forty minute run comprised of "Fela Dey", "Je Je L'Aiye" and "B.F.B.F. Panama" is so good that it rivals the best work of Antibalas.
Click to view---#54---
Mu - Afro Finger and Gel
(house, electronic)
2003
I'm reasonably certain that Mutsumi Kanamori eats babies and can kill you with her brain. The lead singer for punk-house freakshow Mu delivers her punchy, broken-English caterwauling with such fearlessness and defiant attitude, that when she belts out lines like "Show me what you want motherf*cker! Who do you think you are? You don't know how strong I am!", it doesn't seem too far fetched that at any moment she might burst forth from your speakers, primed to kick your ass halfway into next week. If it sounds like Afro Finger and Gel is a touch on the difficult side of the listening spectrum, that's because it well and truly is. Kanamori's vocals are completely awesome - although that only really becomes apparent after a few listens; to start with she's just really scary - and Maurice Fulton wraps her up in a prickly DJ set of abrasive, thumpy and distinctively retro-flavoured house music. This album really won me over for a handful of primary reasons. First of all, nothing I've ever heard sounds even remotely like Afro Finger and Gel, so it certainly scores big points for originality. Secondly, all the scary unfamiliarity of the album gives way to some really addictive grooves and surprisingly enticing singalong vocals, so it demands repeat listens based on far more than novelty alone. Finally, the album is hilarious. Whether its the ridiculous talk show parody of "My Name is Tommi" (best track, fyi), the "where the hell did that come from?" r'n'b breakdown partway into "Let's Get Sick" or the mind-bending juxtaposition of Kanamori's indignant vocals against the jaunty piano backing on "Hello Bored Biz Man", the album delivers plenty of smile-worthy moments and even a few laugh-out-loud ones. But mostly, it's all about Kanamori being awesome - did I mention she kicks ass, eats babies and can kill you with her brain?
---#53---
Thee Oh Sees - The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In
(garage-rock, noise-rock, psych-rock)
2008
The Oh Sees deliver fifteen slices of fuzzed-out, druggy garage-rock on The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In, without a piece of filler in sight. Choruses of ghostly vocals echo their way around the snappy percussion, sharp basslines and dense layers of dirty, jagged guitar riffs which slice through sheets of distortion like razors, while the heavily filtered vocals and gauzy production lend the album a nostalgic, retro vibe that's authentic and awfully appealing. The songs here are about 3/4 riotous rockers and 1/4 hazy, trippy detours, and the album is sequenced quite perfectly to space the latter out amongst the former in a very pleasing manner. It's also the sort of album so consistently great that picking highlights can be very tricky indeed, although personally I think the blistering opener "Block of Ice", the super-surreal and very appropriately named "Graveyard Drug Party" (which features some great echoes of muffled, choppy guitar), the slightly poppy title-track and, in particular, the acid-soaked stomper "Visit Colonel" stand out from the pack. The Master's Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In is a shining example of top-shelf garage-rock, and it's got one hell of a funny title to boot. You could certainly do a lot worse than spending a night in its company.
---#52---
Fugazi - The Argument
(post-hardcore, indie-rock)
2001
You'd be hard pressed to think of many instances where a long-running group's last album was regarded by many as their best, but that's the case with The Argument, the seventh and final post-hardcore statement in an eleven year career for Ian MacKaye and Co before their indefinite hiatus. While I've never been much of a post-hardcore guru, I can't imagine the genre getting much more polished, nuanced and sophisticated than this, to the point that, in this case, the label may be on the verge of being a misnomer. The album's more "rough-and-ready" tracks like "Cashout", "Full Disclosure" and "Ex-Spectator" serve their purposes as throwbacks to the genre's blueprint, but if anything sound more like new-millennium updates, while the more experimental works like "The Kill", "Strangelight", "Nightshop" and "Oh" (my personal favourite) defy easy categorisation. There's string sections on many of the tracks, a range of multi-part song-structures and even regular appearances by a second drummer, all of which, when combined with the powerful vocals, adrenaline-pumping playstyle and ever-sharp songwriting and lyricism, make for a truly thrilling album that's also rich with fine detail. The other thing about The Argument is it's subtlety - it's a slow grower that reveals new gems with every listen.
---#51---
The Fiery Furnaces - Widow City
(indie-rock, experimental pop/rock)
2007
Call it Blueberry Boat's slightly less accomplished little sibling, if you want. While the classic-rock influences and somewhat retro-focused approach certainly infuse Widow City with an identity all of its own amongst the Fiery's body of work, it definitely stands as the release most similar in style to the duo's breakout second album. The sprawling, genre-hopping, relentless creativity of Blueberry Boat is in full-force here, meaning that the album covers an awful lot of ground during its lengthy runtime - Elanour makes her first attempt at old-school hip-hop, juxtaposed against blazing noise-rock and flourishes of harp, on "Automatic Husband"; the group's trademark narrative-based story-songs are delivered on "The Philidelphia Grand Jury", "My Egyptian Grammar", "Caberet of the Seven Devils" and a few more tracks besides, and they're just as engrossing, unique and highly unusual as ever before; "Clear Signal From Cairo" is a hard-rock track that's heavier than anything the Freidberger's have created before or since; "Wicker Whatnots" features some subterranean basslines and drums so skittish they border on Squarepusher; and the title-track is perhaps the strangest of all, being made up of fractured bursts of upright piano and fluttering effects-filtered percussion. Importantly, there are a number of more accessible, relatively-straightforward cuts to offset all this mayhem, with tunes like "Duplexes of the Dead" (which features some great wah-wah), "Ex-Guru", "Right By Conquest" and "Pricked in the Heart" keeping proceedings from getting too out of hand. All this makes Widow City an incredibly charming effort, with enough great songs and clever ideas packed into its sixteen tracks to thoroughly satisfy any fan of exciting, forward-thinking rock music.