Top 10 records of 2006

Posted by Sean
Filed in Music
December 13, 2006

1. Oneida- Happy New Year
1. The Knife- Silent Shout

2. TV on the Radio- Return to cookie Mountain
2. Grizzly Bear- Yellow House
2. Liars- Drum's Not Dead

3. Psychic Ills - Dins
3. Clipd Beaks- Preyers
3. Indian Jewelry- Invasive Exotics

4. Girl Talk- Night Ripper
4. Lindstrom- It's a Feedelity Affair

5. Akron/Family - Meek Warrior

6. Les Aus - Haranna Hanne

7. Tim Hecker- Harmony In Ultraviolet
7. Fiery Furnaces- Bitter Tea

8. Man Man - Six Demon Bag
8. Califone - Roots & Crowns

9. The Blow - Paper Television
9. Pride Tiger - Wood, Dhak, Froese, Payette
9. Ladyhawk - s/t

10. Love is All - Nine Times That Same Song
10. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Boo Hoo Hoo Boo

-Oneida- With one of the best songs on the year, Up With People, Oneida have perfected their fusion of folky weirdness with ominous noise a la Liars. The record itself is a perfect cross-section of this hybrid, without sounding like a mixtape where you put one crazy loud song next to a really quiet one.
-The Knife, if they aren't already, will be huge next year. They make creepy masquerade techno with vocoders and pitch-shifters.
-Capturing the ennui and desperation of post 9.11 america, Return to Cookie Mountain is at once urgent and artistic.
-Yellow House is simply a gorgeous album. Grizzly Bear deliver a rich, incense scented tapestry decorated with ornate oriental frills, layered with thick Baroque velvet washes, and the odd playful splash of baby blue.
-Drum's Not Dead was recorded in a cavernous East German radio-theatre studio and tells the tale of the super-ego Drum and it's id counterpart, Mt. Heart Attack= Pure Menacing Darkitude.
-Dins is a psych-freak, feedback drenched, no-wave boogie sesh filled with hippy freak-outs and droning head-smashed-in noise.
-So is Clipd Beaks.
-And Indian Jewelry. Except less hippy and more Drone.
-Night Ripper is a plunderphonic masterpiece, although the term Mash-up is probably more contemporary.
-Lindstrom is pure Italo-disco greatness.
-Akron Family's Meek Warrior is, well click here.
-You've probably never heard of Les Aus but they put out an album of such heavy Krautosity that they had to renounce their Spanish passports. Eastern orthodox psych jams ahoy! Jingle Jangle geetars and canned heat drums.
-Tim Hecker makes soundscapes that are rich and warm, despite the genres inherent calculated cold electronic heart.
-Fiery Furnaces finally won me over by paying more attention to musical complexity as opposed to just singing weird.
-Man Man. Captain Beefheart jam with Need New Body. Cling clang bells and whistles verily and forsooth atop the flooded French Quarter brothel because the saints do in fact go marching on.
-Califone. Roots and Crowns is good. Dusty drone folk sodden from the waters of Walden Pond, dried off in the Windy City sun, and processed through blackened satellite fragments. OK?
-The Blow from Portland are snotty glitch-punk disco hipsters.
-I sort of burnt myself out on Pride Tiger, and I haven't seen them live in forever, but it is still a top ten.
-Ladyhawk: See above
-Love is All- This one sorta just sneaked in there. I needed to score points with the disco punk scene.
-TSHDT? are fun. I like how Chrissariffic claps after his own songs. And I like that dude who jumped up opn the stage at the Victory Square block party.

Local:

1. Ladyhawk - s/t
2. Pride Tiger - Wood, Dhak, Froese, Payette
3. They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - Boo Hoo Hoo Boo
4. Great Aunt Ida - How They Fly
5. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
7. Paul Devro - Toma3
8. Mutators - s/t 7"
9. Hot Loins- s/t 7"
10. Shearing Pinx - s/t 7"
10. b) Pink Mountaintops - Axis of Evol

Honourbale Mentions: I know, everybody loves Beach House, but I'll have to give it another try. And Joanna is on everyone's top ten list, but I didn't really feel it until I heard it live. The Matmos record wasn't as good as Civil War, and White Magic stopped grooving.

Matmos- the Rose has Teeth in the Mouth of the Beast
Joanna Newsom- Ys
Sunn O))) & Boris- Altar
Beach House- s/t
White Magic-Dat Rosa Mel Apibus
Benoit Pioulard- Precis
Spank Rock- Yoyoyoyoyo
Cansei De Ser Sexy- CSS
Ghostland Observatory - Paparazzi Lightning
Tussle - Telescope Mind
10lec6- Join Us
Library Tapes- Alone in the Bright Lights of a Shattered Life
Supersytem- A Million Microphones
Blood Brothers- Young Machetes
Tokyo Police Club- A Lesson in Crime
Planningtorock- Have It All
Subtle -for hero: for fool
Zombie Nation- Black Toys
The Rapture- Pieces Of The People We Love
Klaxons- Xan valley EP (The Full length will be number one next year)

Reader Reviews and Comments

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I can't believe I forgot the Man Man show on my list! A great oversight. I'll have to check out Les Aus.

Posted by: Saelan at December 13, 2006 10:51 PM | Quote Comment

Hold on. Where's the Clipse?

Posted by: Saelan at December 13, 2006 10:58 PM | Quote Comment

Too Trill for me.

Posted by: Sean Orr at December 13, 2006 11:25 PM | Quote Comment

this list makes me feel uncool.

Posted by: carlin at December 14, 2006 12:46 AM | Quote Comment

Thats the idea

Posted by: Sean Orr at December 14, 2006 1:16 AM | Quote Comment

Amen, Carlin. My top five included The Decemberists, Zero 7, Clearlake, BT, and Asobi Seksu. Apparently even my definition of 'off the beaten path' isn't beaten enough.

Posted by: Adam at December 14, 2006 2:56 AM | Quote Comment

Yea Pride Tiger. The Guys got signed to EMI and are in LA recording a new album. hopfully they will be home soon and treat us to a show with some new tunes!

Posted by: Chris at December 14, 2006 8:54 AM | Quote Comment

Girl Talk was sooooo bad.

Posted by: Graham Preston at December 14, 2006 2:11 PM | Quote Comment

that's funny. I thought maybe only Clipd Beaks and Les Aus were obscure...

Posted by: Sean Orr at December 14, 2006 2:52 PM | Quote Comment

Ed Blake, CJSF Music co-ord, top ten for 2006 in no order.

01 Om---conference of birds---Holy Mountain
infanitly humable. each side is an amazing 20 minute long hook. one of the
two records i bought this year w/my own money!

02 David Stackenäs---bow---Kning Disk
six acoustic guitars played w/fans! whats not to love!

03 Susanna and The Magical Orchetra---melody mountain---Rune Grammofon
breaths new life into tired classic anthems.

04 Psychic Ills---dins---The Social Registry
i fell into their murk and didn't climb out for months.

05 Jonathan Kane---I looked at the sun---Table Of The Elements
one riff beat to a glorious death. i spent days listening to this on repeat.

06 Sword, The ---age of winters---Kemado Records
if there was a better rock record made this year i didn't hear it.

07 Great Aunt Ida---how they fly---Northern Electric
ida's voice makes this icy lump of coal i call a heart melt.

08 Across Tundras---dark songs of the prairie---Crucial Blast
if there was a better rock record made this year i didn't hear it.

09 Espers---II---Drag City
sometime fuckin' hippies can make some good music. one of the two records i
bought this year w/my own money!

10 Anoice---remmings---Important
lush, beautiful and electronic.

4 near misses.
Howe Gelb---'sno angel like you---Thrill Jockey
you should come to canada more often.

Wilderbeats, The---live in concert---Indy
so sweet it made my teeth ache.

Chad VanGaalen---skelliconnection---Flemish Eye
i love songs where people stutter. the pop hooks didn't hurt either.

sunnO))) & Boris---altar---Southern Lord Recordings
heart! heart! heart! heart!

dissapointments
Black Angels, The---passover ---Light In The Attic
after year long love affair w/their first ep, this was a gigantic let down.

The Beggars Group
how many album samplers instead of full length records did we get from you
this year?

Calexico---garden ruin---Quarterstick
good god. what the fuck happened? did you guys fall out of the middle of the
road tree and hit every branch on the way down?

Tortoise---A Lazarus Taxon---Thrill Jockey
woof. if this was a 'for completists only' comp, then why did they service
radio w/a sampler cd that had the 5 good tracks on

the whole three disc set?

honorable mention
sudden death re-issues
always crowd pleasers.

cul de sac re-issue
proving how 15 years can just fly by.

jliat
a stead stream of conceptual audio art and re-issues of his early drone
works!

ECR (Elvis Coffee Records)
just pay for the postage. what a deal.

soft machine re-issues
keep 'em comming.

worst record ever
Magic Numbers, The---I see you, you see me +1---EMI
bullshit american idol rejects.

Posted by: ed at December 14, 2006 3:46 PM | Quote Comment

Your list makes me fell uncool.

Posted by: sean Orr at December 14, 2006 5:45 PM | Quote Comment

My two cents. I feel like I'm the only person who didn't like the They Don't Shoot Horses album. They certainly put on a fun show, but I don't know - I just couldn't imagine listening to them on the B-Line during rush hour.

Posted by: Viola at December 15, 2006 2:37 PM | Quote Comment

I think 'the knife' is quite overrated.
It's good, but not going to last.. unless you keep telling people it's cool because they don't really know what cool really is.

Posted by: vanessa griffiths at December 17, 2006 7:50 PM | Quote Comment

there in lies the Rub, Vanessa.

Posted by: sean Orr at December 18, 2006 1:06 AM | Quote Comment

I am the only one who loved Destroyer's Rubies?

Posted by: Christine at December 19, 2006 2:28 PM | Quote Comment

Certainly not Christine. Almost every blog in the universe, including Stylus and Pitchfork loves the Rubies.

Posted by: Sean Orr at December 19, 2006 10:46 PM | Quote Comment

eLucid's Patented Guide To Creating A Best-of 2006 Music List That Music Snobs Won't Take A Crap On.

10. Canadian band (Preferably from Montreal)
9. Obscure shit nobody's heard of
8. Ensemble composed of people famous for being in another band (extra credit if the other band is Rilo Kiley or the White Stripes)
7. Canadian band with whimsical animal name
6. Non-Canadian band with whimsical animal-name
5. Something Swedish, or Yo La Tengo - I Am Not Afraid Of Overlong Album Titles
4. Folksy-chick who plays stringed instrument and yodels, yelps, and/or screeches.
3. The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
2. Rap (Oooh, scary.)
1. Bob Dylan

Posted by: Mark at January 10, 2007 4:31 PM | Quote Comment

Ha! that's why I linked to this best-of-list generator...

Posted by: Sean Orr at January 10, 2007 7:55 PM | Quote Comment

man, i gotta listen to The Knife's album, it's no. 1 most lists i see. but TV on the radio @ no.2? i dunno...

Interesting top 10 nevertheless, my top 5 is comprised of Joanna Newsom, Cat Power, The Ditty Bops, Jenny Lewis and Regina Spektor...

but Bitter Tea was no.8 in my list! cheers!

Posted by: camille at January 11, 2007 2:15 PM | Quote Comment