Albums of the Year 2010

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Fatalist F
Fatalist Dec 5, 2010 14:52:52
Replying to Popel Vooje

Feels like a fantastic year for music, though I may have just been paying a little more attention recently - and being active again on HH has made a big difference, some great recommendations.

Would have struggled to come up with a top ten for most years of the 00s, but for 2010, ten isn't enough:

1) These New Puritans - Hidden
2) Field Music - Measure (I reckon their baroque pop-prog would actually appeal to quite a few HHers - strong elements of Hammill and 80s King Crimson in here)
3) Magic Lantern - Platoon
4) Jane Weaver - The Fallen By Watchbird
5) Anta - The Tree That Bears The Equine Fruit (thanks in particular to whoever recommended this in the modern prog thread - a real grower)
6) Sun Araw - On Patrol
7) Klaxons - Surfing The Void
8) Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth (technically 2009, but only got an official UK release this year)
9) Crippled Black Phoenix - I, Vigilante
10) Forest Swords - Dagger Paths
11) Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit
12) Tame Impala - Innerspeaker
13) Dungen - Skit I Allt
14) Voice Of The Seven Thunders - S/T
15) Majeure - Timespan

Plus honourable mentions for MGMT - Congratulations & Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma.

No doubt changes to this order and additions will be made over the coming months... have the new Eno, Third Eye Foundation and Salem albums on the way for Christmas

K Kilgore Trout
Kilgore Trout Dec 5, 2010 16:24:36
Replying to Fatalist

Good to see someone else liking the Field Music album! Not wanting to pigeonhole people, i've always assumed (as an occassional contributor but frequent lurker!) that the proggier stuff that seems to go over best here is coming from the more psychedelic end of the genre (the 'freakiness'/atmospherics perhaps compensating for the indulgences).

You'd be hard pressed to call the Brewis brothers 'trippy' or whatever, but i think a lot of their stuff (especially this year's double album, 'Tones Of Town' and 'The Week That Was') has a welcome sense of adventurousness and unpredictability, not so much sonically but in terms of structure and composition - all that nerdy stuff!

Add in bits of mid-period XTC (not really the early stuff that's been ripped off to death), chamber pop and maybe even a dash of post-rock (the Gastr Del Sol/Jim O'Rourke type stuff) and there's hopefully something to get your teeth into.

At very least, DON'T lump them in with fellow Sunderland scene indie-pop types like The Futureheads and bloody Maximo Park! They're considerably more interesting than that if you ask me.