13. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
So, the inscrutable queen of obscurity Mrs. Karin Dreijer might be a wee bit overexposed in this feature, but that just owes to her incredible creativity, doesn't it? Her debut solo effort, released under
her alias 'Fever Ray', is one of the murkiest, gloomiest record I've ever encountered. Even though only a few of the tracks really stand out from one another, and none of them may be smash hits, this isn't what Fever Ray is all about. It's about expressing a specific mood and a certain sentiment through a high level of musicality. It's just incredibly opaque and really well produced with curious samples, composite soundbits and the occasional distortion on Dreijers hair-raising vocals combining to paint a picture of a panically longing soul.My top three most listened according to Last.fm are:
- 'If I Had A Heart'
- 'Keep The Streets Empty For Me'
- 'When I Grow Up'
12. Hadouken! - Music For An Accelerated Culture
Speaking of leaps in musical genres, expressions and emotions, leaping from oblique Scandianvian virtuoseness to Kitsuné's grindie-dancepunking, glowstick-raving, ironically Hoxton-bashing Hadouken! is quite gargantuan. Combining pseudo grime vocals, vintage and sawtooth'y synths and a seemingly unending urge to rave about how
immensely the five self-appointed indie-limey's supposedly party, Music For An Accelerated Culture perhaps isn't exactly an example of fine musical composition, but it sure is an example of how a young and fairly unknown bunch of Leodesians are able to rev it up, with lyrics surprisingly accurately describing the wasted youth/future of society. Trailing Klaxons in fame and in terms of being at the right place at the right time (MFAAC was released in May 2008), Hadouken! might actually pose a properer definition of the much disputed term nu-rave, being some sort of a crossbreed between indie snobbery and the rabble's simplicity.The top three is:
- 'Get Smashed Gate Crash'
- 'That Boy That Girl'
- 'Liquid Lives'
11. The Cure - Boys Don't Cry
I have a tough time sorting these ones at the middle of the chart, and The Cure barely misses out on the top ten. They are however quite hard to compare to any of the other albums in this feature. The sheer age of it, being released in 1980 as an American re-release of their debut effort Three Imaginary Boys, from 1979, makes it an entirely different case than Hadouken! or Fever Ray or anything else. I've always had somewhat of a reluctancy towards older albums or artists, this mostly being a product of me being a synthesizist rather than a guitarist or a drummer, which means old guys doing five-minute soli doesn't exactly float my boat. With The Cure, however, I feel like I've struck gold. Or rather, I've sensed it, because knowing the debut album of a 30-year, 13-album catalogue seems like only encountering the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure I'm gonna discover more of this particular iceberg though, since it really benchmarks my indie history. So many bands I listen to on a regular basis - from Bloc Party, through Interpol, Phoenix and many others - draw influences from The Cure. It's a hell of a lot of work getting to know a band with a vast catalogue, but I think I've got started on The Cure in a good way. Definitely one of the most ground-breaking new acquaintances for me this year.
I've mostly listened to:
- 'Boys Don't Cry'
- 'Grinding Halt'
- 'Jumping Someone Else's Train'
10. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
It might be just a bit too early to put this one as high as this, but I'm doing it anyway. While still a relative newcomer, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is just an instantly likeable piece of extrovert indiepop. It's real
major-music (major in this case being the harmonic expression opposed to minor), and it's really well produced as well. Just a pure joy listening to it in proper earphones, and I think it will prove much more longevous than its predecessor. Phoenix prove that music doesn't necessarily need to be super-inventive to have a justified existence, but at the same time, with WAP, they've really gone into the details of the sound picture, making it a treat for the thorough enthusiast as well.So far, I've mostly listened to:
- 'Lisztomania'
- 'Lasso'
- Love Is Like A Sunset, part 1'
9. Mockin' Bird - Mockin' Bird
Mockin' Bird is yet another alias of the now supposedly alias-less electro-wizard Troels Abrahamsen. He has released two more musing and thoughtful electronic albums, I Know That You Know and WHT, with the latter having been released in the past year as well. But while that one didn't make my shortlist, Mockin' Bird did. And that's even though Ab
rahamsen released this one more or less just for the sake of it. Here, he throws all precautions and filters overboard and delivers a round of hard house, even omitting his very expressive voice. And it works. More or less all of the ten tracks cater to the electro-loving palate with simple sounds and efficient, head-moving beats. With this in mind, I'm all too excited that BLCK, which will be released this fall, is supposedly quite a bit housier than WHT was. Bring it on!Top three has been:
- 'Fake Drums'
- 'Exhaust'
- 'Ricochetting'
