the albums

i procured a lot of new music this year. when i talked about bandwidth consumption before, it must be admitted that a fair portion of it also went on the seemingly endless travels through the jungle of mp3 blogs in the pursuit of new, and typically banging music. of course this kind of musical exploration tends to militate against the enjoyment of full albums, but there still remained a few which really captured my interest through the year. here's five of them. in no particular order. with sample mp3s. hip hip.




burial - untrue

only released in november, a huge amount has already been written about this sophomore effort from secretive dubstep producer burial. secretive as in apparently only a few people know who he is in real life. how delightfully intriguing. but that kind of ambiguity fits the music perfectly, a relentlessly atmospheric blend of garage-revivalism, ambient washes, distorted vocals and thick as night bass pulses. untrue is what everyone says it is: the perfect soundtrack to every rainy night in the city, replete with the half-glimpsed echoes of the evening just past. different and masterful. listen to it on a good set of speakers.

burial - untrue




the field - from here we go sublime

a charmingly minimal cover for a charmingly minimal album; this was the cd that really set me off onto my minimal techno semi-frenzy. having always been a bit of a minimal hater prior to this point, actually enjoying this album came as a bit of a surprise. becoming lightly obsessed with it even more so. with the amount of study i was (purportedly) doing this year, half the appeal of minimal was the lack of action within individual tracks. but the thing is, once you really start floating along with them, you realise how exquisitely crafted they often are, how the addition of a single element can completely change the tenor of a tune, sweeping you along in the hypnotic wash of its subtly shifting repetitions. the remarkable thing about this album is its ability to make warm and oddly beautiful the glacial numbness of its skittering beats, a problem (at least to me) which much minimal struggles to overcome. the fifth track, everyday is a case in point. thick bass drones serve as the platform for a chopped up, sharp edged drum loop, which gives way to arcing bursts of melody that cascade up and down the octave before the strangled loops of a distorted human voice phases in and suddenly it sounds as rich and full as anything you've heard. glorious. possibly sublime.

the field - everyday



radiohead - in rainbows

in addition to being one of the better experiments in the power and potential of the internet to revolutionise the music industry, this was also, and more importantly, a great album. in rainbows is probably about as poppy as radiohead have ever gotten, but they've achieved it without surrendering any of their sadness and anger. while, by and large, i don't have much time for the mumblings of indie rock anymore, there's just something about radiohead which i find immediately and utterly engaging. they're all wonderfully crafted and varied songs here, and thom yorke is in fine form, doing what he does best: depressing the fuck out of everything withing audible range. unfortunately the album is no longer available for download (where one could pay what they thought the album was worth - even if that was $0), but it's well worth finding in plastic form if you haven't already.

radiohead - reckoner



gui boratto - chromophobia

his kompakt record label affiliations aside, i don't really see gui boratto as being particularly minimalist. he's a bit more booka shade by my reckoning, although with a slightly harder and more propulsive edge. but even that's a fairly partial account of chromophobia. one of the better descriptions came from the pitchfork review, which described boratto as a 'sleight-of-speed' master; his tracks are produced to generate the auditory illusion that different elements are moving at different speeds. but at the same time these tunes retain a proper sense of both momentum and melody, and it is this that makes chromophobia feel like such a cohesive album. whereas 'from here we go sublime' can sometimes feel like a grab bag of individual exercises in minimalism loosely thrown together, there is no doubting the arc of chromophobia. the beginning songs are coated in paranoia and industrial-edged scattershot, while the middle part, from the title track on, swing more towards the minor change melodic house so beloved of 2006, before warming up into the expansive and glorious 'beautiful life', the album's anthemic climax, which leads on into a final descent into melancholy. it's a pretty sweet ride.

gui boratto - beautiful life



justice - †

it had to get in there. the bizarre thing about this album was the fact that it was almost as good as everyone thought it was going to be. because those were some pretty fucking high expectations. i'm not going to say too much about it, because the web is already drenched enough in laudatory writings about justice as is, but suffice to say that in 2007 this album (possibly alongside daft punk's alive) seemed to catalyse a particular generation's newly relaxed attitudes towards electronic music. and unadulterated hedonism. it was also the year in which i learnt to stop worrying and love electro. it's a fun time to be young and irresponsible.

justice - genesis