ItBS!'s "Stuff I Liked in 2004"
Another year has come and gone, and with it, a whole slew of records were released. If you're a music fan it seems you have to do a "Best of" list at the end of a calendar year to-- I don't really know why, to tell you the truth. To show your superior musical taste? To show you keep your ear to the ground and are aware of new and exciting sounds few others know about? To spark controversy? I guess this is my contribution to the unending list of lists for this time of year. These aren't the BEST OF 2004, as one man claiming such a ridiculous thing is foolish. This is merely a list of things musical in 2004 that I encountered and made some sort of impact on me. The list includes albums released this year, as well as reissues/archival material, a concert and even music videos. It is done in alphabetical order because I can't really quantify my appreciation of these sorts of things and have them do battle. I sure liked a lot of releases with black & white covers. I plan to add (and possibly subtract) 2004 material over time, because I know I missed out on a lot this year and won't stumble over it for a while, so check back occasionally. If you would like to to buy any of the albums listed here, here is a list of stores that may be able to help you purchase them.
Beastie Boys To the 5 Boroughs DblLP | CD (Capitol)
This album, the first by the Beasties in six years, got a whole lot of hate directed towards it, due to the Boys' age, MCA's raspy voice, the kinda dumb "political" lyrics, the kinda dumb lyrics in general, weak beats, etc. But to exclude it on my part would be wrong, given how much I listened to it over the summer. Yes, it's far from being their finest hour, but I was just glad that they decided to do something different (an all rap album!) after releasing the same album three times in the 1990s (Swampy hip hop through megaphone vocals! Now 'hardcore'! Now Meters-esque soul! Something mystical!) to artisitically diminishing returns. If the videos showed the Beasties running out of ideas, at least I still got a kick out of tracks like "Triple Trouble" and "Ch-ch-Check It Out!" (and admire their restraint in not using a Don Adams reference in the latter) through my headphones. Bonus points for the super nice packaging (if you can find the non-jewelcase version) of a 14-panel gatefold drawing of New York City, circa the late-1990s.
Blues Explosion live at Babylon, June
The Blues Explosion played their first ever Ottawa show, meaning I didn't have to drive to and from Montreal to see them for a change. The BX could've been forgiven if they had decided to half ass it for a show that was part of a very brief 5 date East Coast US/two Canadian cities tour, but I swear, this may have been the most fun I've ever had at a concert. I wrote an exam earlier that day, and that night I was yelling "SWEAT!" or "BLUES EXPLOSION!" like I didn't have a care in the world. The BX played old stuff, relatively rare stuff from 7" singles, a bunch of tracks from the new album still months away at that point, and it was all good (the final encore went from "Bellbottoms" to a new song nobody knew, and it still felt like the band went out on the highest note possible). All the new tracks had me so pumped up for Damage (Santuary Records), but ultimately the album ended up being a huge let down, another over-produced, no flow record by the band, easily their worst one. But that still can't take away the memory of me stepping out onto Bank Street at 1:00AM, looking down at my sweat ("SWEAT!") drenched shirt and smiling, having been sufficiently rocked senseless by Jon, Judah and Russell.
David Brent "If You Don't Know Me By Now" video (Juxtaposition Records)
Possibly the greatest music video of all time.
No. No, it's definitely the greatest music video of all-time. The man drips soul, and you definitely feel every ounce of his pain when you see his woman walk out on him. It can be seen in the first of the two Office Christmas specials, which originally aired on the BBC in late December 2003, but didn't air in Canada until November 2004, so I'm making it one of my favourites of the year.
Now that I think about it, I may not have actually seen The Office until this year, and while this is a page devoted to the music of 2004, the one where David sang "Free Love Freeway" was the first full episode (of the twelve in total) that I saw, and watching him sing to his co-workers is what made me an instaneous fan, so, thanks to insomnia and Showcase television for that. Go Office!
A Certain Ratio The Graveyard and the Ballroom LP+12" | CD (Soul Jazz)
The first of three ACR reissues put out by Soul Jazz this year, this time three proper albums plus bonus songs to go along with the 2-CD anthology the label released in 2002. This was originally released on the legendary Factory label in 1979 as a cassette-only affair; I believe the album had a CD release in some parts of Europe in the '90s, but this was the first time it got a vinyl release, which I guess to a casual music fan a first vinyl release 25 years after the fact might seem odd. Anyway, one side recorded in a studio (Graveyard) one side live (Ballroom), with a couple of overlapping tracks, and two bonus cuts thrown in. The band insists that they were a funk band, and should be treated as such, but the singer's monotone vocals are pretty similar to Ian Curtis of fellow Factory band Joy Division (they also shared a practice space), and thus the band sort or always got lumped as a second rate JD (on the live side, there's a few jabs at Joy Division between songs). The band would probably hate me saying this, but if you like the faster JD songs you could dance to (for example, "These Days", "Glass") and wished that they had done more songs like that in their brief lifespan, this is an album for you.
The Cure Join the Dots 4-CD box set (Fiction/Elektra/Rhino)
If you're anything like me, you spent a good portion of your high school years listening to the cassette version of the Cure's "Best of" album, Staring At the Sea. The cassette version is important because the second side of the tape was made up of B-sides to the singles on the A-side, and a large chunk of the tracks were great. The pop songs of the first side were contrasted by a more experimental Cure on the second side, a little darker and a little more menacing. Because of the tape being the first Cure album I had and the one I listened to the most, it shaped my opinion of what the Cure truly sounded like. Due to tapes wearing out, and the original singles almost impossible to find, hearing good quality versions of "Another Journey By Train" or "Mr Pink Eyes" or "The Man Inside My Mouth" or... has become difficult over time. Luckily, the Cure's contracts with both its European and American labels expired a couple years back, and the former labels now want to exploit the catalogue, which means this four CD box set of rare tracks was released this year. As you can tell from my preamble the early B-sides, which makes up the first disc of the collection, is really the drawing power of the set, but over the course of the other discs, if you have the patience to sit through radio mixes of tracks and other studio foolery, you will find some great tracks, especially from the Wish era. To paraphrase noted rock critic Troy McLure: "If this is what they put on the B-sides, what they put on the commercially available albums must be pure gold!"
various: DFA Compilation #2 TrpCD (DFA Records)
As the title suggests, this is the second CD compilation of material released by a label/production team that made its mark by releasing 12" singles. The first one focused on the A-sides of the early, revolutionary singles from 2002-2003, and this one possesses a much larger scope, covering two CDs instead of just the one, and picks up with the classic B-sides ("Beat Connection" by LCD Soundsystem, the eYe remix of "Endless Happiness" by Black Dice) not on the last compilation, as well as the singles that have come out since (J.O.Y., Pixletan, Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom), and material yet to come (Black Leotard Front, Liquid Liquid). As good as the tracks are, though, it seems to me when listening to the collection, the thrill of DFA productions rests in the fact that the artists make songs that are 5 to 15 minutes and meant to knock you on your butt as one side of a record. When placed back to back to back, with beginnings middles and ends, they tend to lose something. Perhaps the DFA realised this, because the third disc in the set is a nearly one-hour continuous mix of tracks, mostly culled from material on the first two CDs, mixing from one high to the next.
Lizzy Mercier Descloux Press Color LP | CD (Ze)
This may have officially been released in 2003, as I can recall having the other LMD reissue played for me at Organised Sound in late 2003, but it didn't become all that available until the spring of 2004, but 2003 or 2004, what does it matter? Almost all of the material dates back to 1978-1979. Descloux understood percussion (listen to the lead-off track, a cover of Arthur Brown's "Fire"), so the relative funkiness of the release wasn't a surprise. It's the strong bonus material appended to the reissue, of stuff she and collaborator DJ Banes recorded as Rosa Yemen that surprises. Basically short (less than two minutes) pieces of down-tuned guitar and vocals, ranging from murmurs to screeches, it's dark and menacing whereas the stuff under her own name is playful both in voice and structure, and would seem to be a big influence on dark guitar albums like Sonic Youth's 1983 LP Confusion is Sex. A hugely talented artist (the follow up Mambo Nassau is almost a world music album, and completely removes her from anything "punk"), it was great her long out of print material finally saw light of day again; unfortunately, around the time these reissues hit the stores of this continent this year, she succumbed to cancer after a long battle.
Julie Doiron Goodnight Nobody LP | CD (Jagjaguar/Endearing)
As much as I like all of Julie's albums, I think the ones where she has a backing band made up of an actual band, instead of albums she makes and gets an ad hoc band to back her up in the studio, tend to really bring out the best in her. Maybe it's because the 'real' band has had time to jell and become a great musical entity, with its own personality. That's why I feel that this album, mostly made up of recordings of her backed up by French band Herman Dune, is easily her best album since 1999's Julie Doiron & the Wooden Stars. Recorded mostly in Paris in one day in the fall of 2003 (a few tracks were recorded here in Ottawa earlier this year, one at former collaborator Rick White's place), it's a strong album, and I feel that's best represented in the two songs that were previously recorded and performed solely by her that appear on this disc ("Snowfalls in November" and "The Songwriter"). David Herman Dune has one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard, and his backup vocals on "Snowfalls" really makes that song for me. On the latter track, Julie and the lads created some nice guitar noise that, along with Julie's vocal delivery, really brings a sharp edge to the song, which seemed rather mundane on it's original version (and, also, David Herman Dune's vocals add a lot). Oddly, this album was largely recorded in Paris, and it is her first album that doesn't have at least one song in French on it. I'd also like to say that the Julie Doiron & David Herman Dune show that I saw (each did a set, with the other handling the backing vocals and additional guitar) was a lot of fun, too. Herman Dune did a great cover of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" and another song where he walked around the club floor with a mandolin, singing among the crowd.
The Fall: Live at the Witch Trials DblLP (Earmark) | DblCD (Santuary)
Part of Sanctuary's Fall reissue series, this 2-CD set collects the European version of the Fall's 1979 debut, plus assorted singles, a demo and some live tracks on the first disc, while the second disc is made up of two 1979 Peel Sessions and a live concert from the same era. The second disc's live material is really lacking in the old sound department, but the excellence of the first disc is the best reason to buy this album (plus it's a 2-CD set priced cheaper than a lot of single discs), especially the great singles from the time. Also available as a 180gm 2-LP set without the Peel Sessions and live show.
Simon Finn Pass the Distance CD (Duotro/Jnana)
Lost 1970 psychedelic folk album gets reissued, with four bonus cuts.
various: How to Kill the DJ Vol 2 TrpLP (due in '05) | DblCD (Kill the DJ/Tigersushi)
Second in Tigersushi's collection of DJ mixes, this time around a showcase for the Optimo club, and its two DJs, JG Wilkes and JD Twitch. Optimo is a club night in Glasgow, Scotland, that happens every Sunday, and its a dance party where all genres and styles of music are unleashed on its participants. The first disc is a nearly 75 minute/42-track mix CD, laregly in the realm of "dance" music and is pretty great. But because of the diversity of the club, 75-minutes aren't going to give you a feel for the multi-hour, weekly night that's been running for around seven years, so the two DJs included a second, unmixed disc of some of their favourites for the club which ranges from the spooky instrumentation of Angelo Badalamanti, a string quartet cover of Kraftwerk, sleazy 1950s R&B from Andre Williams, Lee and Nancy, a bunch of great post-punk tunes and more. The unmixed CD is one of the best compilation albums of the year on its own
Reverend Charlie Jackson: God's Got It! LP (Crypt)
Super raw collection of Gospel tunes recorded for the Booker label in the 1970s, but sounding like they're from decades earlier. Largely just voice (either Jackson or a guest vocalist) and distorted guitar, with the odd stomping foot as percussion backing, these tunes would've been soooo much better blasting out of the tiny speaker at the front of those hard-shell self-contained record players we used to listen to religious music on when I went to Catholic school. (Released in 2003 as a CD on Casequarter, with extra tracks originally released on the Jackson label.)
LCD Soundsystem "Yeah" 12" (Output/DFA)
In late-2003 I was in Organised Sound, and they showed me a couple of promo CD singles of forthcoming 12" singles that had come in from the DFA (or at least their distributor), one by Delia Gonzalez & Gavin Russom and the other was this single. Ever since dropping the amazing "Losing My Edge"/"Beat Connection" 12" in the summer of 2002, LCD's output had been increasingly lackluster, with the 7" of "Give It Up" and the Internet leaked "Daft Punk is Playing At My House" actually having me question if the first single had been a huge fluke. Because of the later tracks not really doing anything for me, I didn't give the song another thought. Big mistake. When the 12" finally came out in early 2004, word of it's greatness spread quickly (it even ended up on Entertainment Weekly's "Top Ten things this week" list), and LCD Soundsystem had a another underground hit on their hands. Months later I finally heard the single. The A-side, the "Crass Mix" is the big draw, a near ten minute disco jam of people lazily repeating "Yeah yeah yeah..." over and over again, while singer James Murphy talks about "Nobody getting it done". The song mutates through its beat and synth noises and eventually explodes in sound, probably best depicting what would've happened if Tago Mago-era Can had recorded "I Want More". The B-side isn't as great, the "Pretentious mix" is pretty much an 11 minute version without the lead vocals or big musical payoff at the end, and the "Clap-a-pella" mix is pretty much the "Yeah yeah yeah..." vocals and handclaps of the main song. But the A-side, man, that's a good song. For the turntable-less, this can be found on the DFA Compilation #2 set.
Much More Retro (Digital channel 177)
I had to get digital cable in order to watch three of my classes on CUTV (formerly ITV), and you get a free preview of stuff when you initially sign up. I got addicted to this channel. 24 hours a day, no commercials, no VJs, just music videos from the 1970s to about 1999 by: Kraftwerk! Maestro Fresh Wes! Spoons! De La Soul! Howard Jones! Meat Loaf! Gowan! Blue Peter! Ramones! Journey! Human League! Gordon Lightfoot! Public Enemy! Thompson Twins! Seems to have a weird tendency to play a batch of videos by Canadian artists over a period of a time for no reason (for instance, I saw 3 different videos by the Jitters over three days, and simliar things have happened with Doug & the Slugs, Glass Tiger and Crash Vegas), but pretty much a free-for-all with regards to genres and artists. Reminds me of how fascinating it was watching music video channels when they actually showed music videos. Wham!'s "Wham Rap" may be the greatest piece of filmmaking of the last quarter of the 20th century.
N*E*R*D* "She Wants to Move" 12" (Virgin)
The song, with DFA and Mac & Toolz remixes on the flip.
Nouvelle Vague Nouvelle Vague LP | CD (Peace Frog)
Nouvelle Vague translates in English as "New Wave", and in Portugese as "Bossa Nova", and that's all you really need to know about this album: it's a collection of "New Wave" songs done Bossa Nova style. However, the album doesn't in the rigid confines of skinny ties and spiky hair, as the Dead Kennedys, the Clash, and Public Image Ltd. are some of the acts that get covered, and I doubt anyone really considers them "new wave". Semantics aside, some of the songs become incredibly beautiful in their made-over versions. I'm thinking specifically of the Sisters of Mercy's "Marian" and the Specials "Friday Night and Saturday Morning"; the icy synths of Depeche Mode's "Just Can't Get Enough" becomes a warm party tune. It's probably a novelty record, to be sure (see the nouvelle vague/bossa nova/new wave gimmick), but the finished product definitely transcends it. (I just read the liner notes to the album, and the concluding paragraph is almost the same as what I wrote to conclude this. Hmmm....)
The Organ Grab That Gun LP | CD (604/Mint)
The first I can remember hearing about the Organ was in 2002, I believe, and there was a write-up in the newspaper promoting a forthcoming show. It sounded kind of interesting (five gals doing post-punk centered around a droney organ), but I didn't end up going. Earlier this year their full length debut finally came out. I sort of ignored it at first, as the band was now pretty hyped up, with a cover of Canadian monthly Exclaim to their credit, and co-released by one label that's never released anything I particularily liked and another run by the lead singer for a band I can't stand. I was pre-recording shows in the springtime because they were conflicting with a class, but the first half hour was me live. I decided to play something by the Organ because it allowed me to play "Organ Donor" by DJ Shadow and "Rated X" by Miles Davis (the only available song he did where he only played the organ, and not his trumpet, I believe). So I went into the station's "listening room" and put on the Organ disc, figuring I'd just find the shortest song that sounded okay, but song after song I was won over by what was played ("Wow, this songs pretty good. [skips to next track] This one is good too!"). They tend to get compared to the Smiths, especially the singer's vocals, which I don't really hear but maybe I'm not all that familiar with the Smiths as I think I am. The album is only half an hour long, and it does have a tendecy to drag towards the end, but the strong songwriting, especially in "Basement Band Song" (which may contain some of my favourite lyrics in a song this year), makes this album a lot better than many of the "retro" Canadian female vocal-led bands that people go crazy for these days. Thumbs down to these girls ignoring their call-in interview on Whatever's Cool with Me during CKCU's funding drive, though.
RTX Transmaniacon LP | CD (Drag City)
I sort of lost interest in Royal Trux after their second major label album, and never returned. I'm not sure why, as press pretty much raved about how great their albums were after returning to Drag City in the late 1990s, but I just completely lost interest in them. They split at the turn of the century, with co-leader Neil Michael Hagerty releasing a flurry of stuff (three albums under his own name, three albums with his new band Howling Hex, an album with Weird War, and an album of Drag City all stars) before RTX's other half, Jennifer Herrema, made a peep (aside from a guest "rap" on the Weird War LP from earlier this year that doesn't feature Hagerty). Then she put out this record in September. Hagerty got me back as a fan after seeing him perform live in 2003, and Drag City posted an advance track from this album ("Speed to Roam") on their site, which had me on the edge of my seat waiting for the release of this album, one I hadn't had any previous thoughts about at all. And how is the album? It's the best rock album of 1988! An awesome cover (look at it!) gives way to an album of huge sounding, unbelievably digitally compressed/messed around with rock songs that probably would've sounded amazing on Energy 1200 back in the day! It feels wrong to love it so much! It appears that the second half has concensus as the best part of the album, and I'm not going to disagree (it ends on a long run-out sample of Funkadelic's "One Nation Under a Groove"), but if you're looking for a guilt-free 'dumb' rock album that sounds like a guilty pleasure, this is for you.
Red Orkestra After the Wars CD (Fading Ways)
The bio makes references to the Smiths and Billy Bragg, but personally this debut album strikes me more as a less bombastic Coldplay. The lyrics towards the end of the CD have a bit more political edge to them, but the smart production on the album, giving it a full sound (some songs centred around piano or a snare drum instead of acoustic guitars, for example), moving it out of the realm of modern day folk or singer/songwriter stuff (although the last track, a live performance consisting solely of voice and guitar, moves right back in). I'm sort of at a loss of what to write about this album. It won't change your life by any means, but it's a nice listen, one that I've played many, many times and fits pretty much any mood you could be in.
Arthur Russell The World Of Arthur Russell TrpLP | CD (Soul Jazz)
This was the first of three collections of material by New York based cellist/composer/singer Arthur Russell released this year, and this one focused primarily on his dance music of the late-1970s and into the 1980s. There's a commanding sense of space in Russell's work and I think that may explain why his songs tend to transcend the "disco" or "dance" tags. And knowing that he's more than dance music, Soul Jazz stops the party occasionally and throws a haunting voice and cello track into the mix for a better perspective of what the man was capable of. The Larry Levan mix of "Is it All Over My Face?" by Russell's Loose Joints project might be the funkiest thing I've heard this year; the 13-minute long, airy "In the Light of the Miracle" might have been the flat-out best.
Sonic Youth Sonic Nurse DblLP (Smells Like) | CD (Geffen)
Ever since Sonic Youth's 1995 album, Washing Machine, I've found their albums pretty hit or miss, and for the most part, pretty mediocre. This, however, was the first SY album that's blown me away in the nine years since Machine. I don't know if it's a new focus on the band's part (some of the album is influenced by the political climate of the US), or if the rear-view aspect of the band's last couple of years (a deluxe edition of 1992's big commercial attempt Dirty came out last year and a DVD of the band's videos that they've made over the last 14 years this year; Next year sees deluxe versions of their major label debut Goo and their self-titled 1982 debut) sparked something within them musically. The songs are tighter, Kim Gordon sings better than she has in years (she's been really grating on everything from A Thousand Leaves on), the instrumentation is fuller, but more precise than the sprawling stuff that's made the Youth's M.O. for the last 7 years or so. "The Unmade Bed" was the great pop song that wasn't this year, messy guitar solos and all. It's actually a late-period SY album I've enjoyed playing! I also got to see them live in Ottawa this year (thanks two-day Lollapalooza festival which fell apart!), but I didn't think they were all that hot, so I can't go overboard with praise. They did, however, play "Mote" when I saw them, so that was cool.
Sons and Daughters Love the Cup LP | CD (Domino)
Adele Bethel is probably best known for providing the whispering female vocals on Arab Strap albums; David Gow used to drum on those records, as well. Knowing that, there's no real way to prepare yourself for the whooping-it-up vocals and booming bass drum that makes up the sound of Sons and Daughters' mini-album. This Scottish four-piece recorded an album of country-ish tinged rock songs, but I'm not entirely sure if that gives you any idea of what the album actually sounds like. The rollicking "Johnny Cash" is the song that grabs your attention, the album closer, "Awkward Duet", is the reason you know you've stumbled upon a special band. (This album was originally released Nov 2003 on New Jersey-based label Ba-Da-Bing, but given that it's hard to find stuff on the label locally unless the band is local [Spiny Anteaters] or on a major label in this country [Hawksley Workman], I'm counting the 2004 reissue as a new release, despite only the artwork being different between the two versions.)
The Unintended The Unintended CD (Blue Fog)
I'm a big fan of Rick White, dating back to his days with Eric's Trip, and have been faithfully following him since the early 1990s. People I know who were Trip fans followed him through his Elevator incarnation, but many seemed to jump ship with each new album. I hung on as long as I could, but the last Elevator album, Darkness== > Light, was the one where I just could not find enough about it to actually say I enjoyed it. So when it was announced late last year that a new album/band by Rick, featuring all of the Sadies and Greg Keelor of Blue Rodeo fame, was coming out in January 2004, I didn't really know what to expect. I like Blue Rodeo fine and the Sadies I'm unfamiliar with, even though they're in town a lot and record frequently, but Dallas Good of the Sadies also joined Elevator for the last album I wasn't too fond of, so it was possible that his contributions to Elevator were what turned me off. I ended up hearing streaming audio of a track from the album on a Toronto record store web site, and it was far better than I would've imagined. The album encompasses a range of sounds falling into genres of folk music and psychedelica, almost exclusively played at a mid-tempo rate. There's a number of highlights on the album, but the biggest one, for me, is a great return to form by the talented Rick White.
Thanks for the music: Paul Atkinson, Estelle Axton, Jhonn Balance, Ray Charles, Ray Condo, D-Roc, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Clement "Sir Coxsone" Dodd, Malachi Favors, Rick James, Roger Johnston, Elvin Jones, Arthur "Killer" Kane, Terry Melcher, Ol Dirty Bastard, John Peel, Robert Quine, Johnny Ramone, Greg Shaw, Syreeta Wright