Blog

- Favourite albums:

1. Archive - Controlling Crowds (I-IV)




I didn't expect any album to top Porcupine Tree's new record, but Archive managed to impress me most this year. I first got to know about the band on my last.fm recommendations and by seeing that they'd come to Munich in October. Loving concept records, I knew this could be an interesting album. At first, it didn't impress me that much to be honest.
The album really clicked for me while being on a 4-hour drive through the alps on my way to a five day trip to a glacier with my geography course. Somehow the landscape of the austrian alps matched perfectly with the album's sound - I even started to love the three songs with their rapper Rosko John (I'm usually not very fond of rapping).
I love the album's dense atmopshere created by both weird sound effects and the lyrics. I also never heard a band with four individual vocalists - all of them add so much variety to the sound of Archive.
Even the bonus tracks of the album, especially Killing All Movement, have the same quality of the album tracks.
Part IV, that was released seperately in October, has not really clicked for me yet, but I guess I just need a couple more listens to fully appreciate it, since I absolutely adore the first three parts.

I was lucky to see them perform the first two parts of the record live in Munich. Their live visuals even intensified the listening experience and especially Pollard Berrier stood out as a very charismatic performer.

Controlling Crowds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYVjjrpz-Ds
Collapse/Collide: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGWlPoIjpY

2. Porcupine Tree - The Incident Limited Deluxe Edition




Porcupine Tree's new album was of course the one I was looking forward to most this year. The idea of a 55 minute song-cycle got me very excited and I didn't want to miss the limited deluxe edition since I unfortunately missed the Insurgentes deluxe edition at the end of 2008. This time, I finally managed to order a copy soon enough. Even though I consider myself as a very patient person, waiting for the package to finally arrive was really straining, especially since I forced myself to no listen to any snippet or studio footage beforehand, because I wanted my first listen of the album to be in surround sound.
Both discs are incredibly inspiring: the recurring chord progression in "The Incident", the intuitive use of odd time signatures and the band compositions, where the other band members finally get a chance to shine: Flicker with a beautiful bass line by Colin Edwin (whose solo album Third Vessel narrowly missed my top 10), Bonnie the Cat with it's creative drum beat by Gavin Harrison and Black Dahlia, which was entirely composed by Richard Barbieri.
Listening to the record in 5.1 surround sound with the accompanying book of amazing artwork (done by Lasse Hoile as usual) and lyrics adds very much to the listening experience and absorbed me into it's dark atmosphere.
I also loved their full lenght live performance of The Incident, they managed to deliver it perfectly! I was lucky to see them live twice this year, one time focused on the visuals (once more, genius job by Lasse Hoile) and the second time more on the band performance. In connection with Stick Men opening for them playing King Crimson's Indiscipline amongst others, this second gig was my favourite concert this year.

Take a look at the book of artwork here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/28584265@N06/sets/72157622269812675/

3. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest



John Gourley, the lead singer and guitarist of Portugal. The Man highly recommended this album via their homepage, so I thought I should give it a listen on myspace since I never heard anything by Grizzly Bear so far.
As soon as Two Weeks started, I knew this could be an album for me. Then I discovered the site La Blogotheque - concerts à emporter and the gorgeous performances by them.
I really adore the album because of it's experimental use of uncommom chords while keeping the song structures rather simple (besides using a couple of odd time signatures). I think it's rare that music is catchy and experimental at the same time.
I just found an interesting track-by-track description by the band here.
Their concert in Munich was a highlight of the year, too - I loved the great performance as well as their simple but very beautiful lighting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4Y9XETUKmE

Ready, Able (Official Video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Puph1hejMQE

4. Steven Wilson - Insurgentes



As mentioned above, it really was a bummer that I missed the deluxe editon of this album since I really enjoyed Lasse Hoile's artwork and the 18 minute excerpt of the accompanying documentary of the album which highly influenced my own view on packaging and albums as a journey.
At least the digibook release of the album contained a 5.1. surround sound mix, too. I love the way Steven Wilson mixes in surround sound and I doubt this album would be so high on my list if I only had a stereo mix.
I can't describe the intense goosebumps I get by listening to Get All You Deserve in 5.1 - it's such a simple but ingenious idea to start of with a beautifully calm piano ballad and then destroying the beauty with this eerie white noise he came up with.
I love the fact that this record covers basically every musical side of Steven Wilson ranging from Progressive Rock (Harmony Korine), Drone (Get All You Deserve), Trip-Hop mixed with Drone (Abandoner) and Experimental (No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun) to Ambient (Veneno Para Las Hadas), beautiful piano ballads (Insurgentes) and even Post-Rock elements (Only Child) while still somehow keeping an overall sound that makes the album best when listened to as a whole.

I also really enjoyed participating in the Abandoner Remix competition.

Harmony Korine (Official Video by Lasse Hoile):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BClzBQmZZBc

5. Isis- Wavering Radiant



Isis is a band I discovered a couple of years ago via youtube - I loved the sound of In Fiction but the vocals weren't my cup of tea at that time. After getting into growls a bit more through Opeth last year, I was looking forward to this album and hoping to dig the vocals, too.
The album didn't impress me much at the beginning, the growl parts seemed rather unfitting next to the melodic instrumental parts. But over the year, the album grew on me more and more, I started to really like the complex arrangements of the songs and the overall flow of the record. A couple of days ago, I was completely blown away by the album, so now I can say that it's definately one of my favourite "heavy" records ever!

Their concert in Munich was great, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DACI9vsZpqY

20 Minutes / 40 Years (Official Video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS3NkhjsBf0

6. Arms & Sleepers - Matador



Arms And Sleepers is a band I discovered through Last.fm.
I only bought the album at the beginnnig of this month but it never really left my hi-fi system since then and somehow it ended up being very high on my list.
I love it's calm, even fragile sound - exactly what I needed to guide me through this season. This is just perfect for cold snowy winter evenings, listening through headphones with goosebumps all over your body. Too bad I won't be able to see any of their concerts in Germany next year...

Nice short interview with the band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRD8_qBot4Y

Download the song [track artist=Arms And Sleepers]The Architekt for free legally here: http://www.pluginmusic.com/freemusic/armsandsleepers

7. Pure Reason Revolution - Amor Vincit Omnia



Here comes another artist that I discovered via Last.fm. The song The Bright Ambassadors Of Morning popped up on my recommendations radio and I instantly fell in love with the band's sound.
I bought their new record only knowing that one song, so I couldn't believe my ears when the intro synth riff of Les Malheurs started.
The album is very different to their first effort, but once you accept that, this album has so much to offer. Regarding the reviews, many people obviously couldn't deal with the industrial and even electronic sound of AVO, but I love when bands decide to make something completly different if they keep the quality on the same level. Combined with their beautifully arranged vocal harmonies, the overall sound of the album as a whole is pretty weird and nothing I've ever heard so far, which is probably also a main reason why I like it so much.

Their live performances of the album are amazing, too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hCDv5kWd5E

8. Tortoise - Beacons Of Ancestorship



Tortoise has also been on my last.fm recommendations list for quite some time now, so their new album seemed like the ideal opportunity to finally get into them. Beacons Of Ancestorship really impressed me because of it's unique sound outside of any genre and it's experimental use of both synthesizers and two drums playing simultaneously.
Simple but very creative ideas like the rhythm of Charteroak Foundation (the guitar starts in triads giving the listener the impression the song is in 6/8 - then the drums kick in with a straight 4/4 beat and the whole thing turns around) make the album special for me.
Their concert in Munich this summer was one of my favourites this year, too.
It was very interesting to see how they play these songs live, especially with the two drums in the front of the stage. In addition, they seemed to dig their music very much which I always enjoy seeing. Last but not least their visuals created a very nice mood in connection with the music.

Check out a few live performances here:
http://pitchfork.com/tv/#/episode/2016-tortoise/1

Picture set of the band live:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephanck/sets/72157622086726080/detail/

9. John Frusciante - The Empyrean



Over the last couple of years, I lost basically all of my interest in the Red Hot Chili Peppers and instead discovered that John Frusciante's solo albums were more than just a side project. When the rumours about John leaving RHCP came up which were verified by him only a couple of days later on his web site, stating that his interests changed into "making a different kind of music, alone, and being my own engineer" and that he thinks that "art has never been something done out of a sense of duty", my respect and adoration for him as a musician soared.

Here is an incredibly inspiring interview with him on the album, but also inspiring for life in general - at least for me ;):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lfw7YRpkfY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiSJKfLS75o

10. The Mars Volta - Octahedron



We all know that Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez has raised the standards when it comes to the quanitity of releases a year (he released 6 solo albums this year!), but regardless of that I didn't expect to hear another TMV record so soon after last year's The Bedlam in Goliath.
For this album, Omar decided to limit himself and write a more straight forward album without "adding 97 parts to the song". I really like the outcome, it's very different to the wall of sound of TBIG, it has a more pyschedelic and acoustic sound which adds even more variety to their sound. Of course this album is still very complex and innovative non the less.
It's a shame though that their amazing drummer Thomas Pridgen had to leave the band before the start of their european tour...but at least I could see him in action with them once more at the Southside Festival this summer!

Needless to say that the "simple" songs still kick ass live:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra8GIp2a3OI

- Favourite EPs:

- Kaki King - Mexican Teenagers EP



- Oceansize - Home & Minor



- Puscifer - "C" Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference Here) E.P.



- Honourable mentions:

- Oceansize - Feed To Feed
- Long Distance Calling - Avoid The Light
- Colin Edwin - Third Vessel
- Katatonia - Night Is The New Day
- Tim McMillan - 2.13
- Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
- dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion
- Tosca - No Hassle
- Benny Greb - Brass Band
- múm - Sing Along To Songs You Don't Know
- Les Claypool - Of Fungi and Foe
- Portugal. The Man - The Satanic Satanist
- Panzerballett - Hart Genossen Von Abba Bis Zappa
- Russian Circles - Geneva
- Sunn O))) - Monoliths and dimensions
- Eels - Hombre Lobo
- De-Phazz - Big

- Disappointments:

- God Is an Astronaut - God Is An Astronaut
- Mono - Hymn To The Immortal Wind

- Not listened enough yet or not at all:

- Air - Love 2
- Baroness - Blue Record
- Ben Harper & The Relentless 7 - White Lies For Dark Times
- Birdpen - On/Off/Safety/Danger
- Emergency Room - The Funky Side Of The Moon
- Jónsi & Alex - Riceboy Sleeps
- Medeski, Martin and Wood - Radiolarians: The Evolutionary Set
- Pelican - What We All Come To Need
- Stick Men - Stick Men
- St. Vincent - Actor
- Tingvall Trio - Vattensaga
- The Cat Empire - Live On Earth
- The Flaming Lips - Embyonic
- Tord Gustavsen Ensemble - Restored, Returned
- The Twilight Sad - Forget The Night Ahead
- Zero 7 - Yeah Ghost

- Favourite album covers:

- Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition:



- The Mars Volta - Octahedron:



- Favourite packaging:

- Jónsi & Alex - Riceboy Sleeps Special Edition:




This deluxe edition was just too lovely to miss. Besides the album itself and the additional All Animals EP, the package contains the amazing Riceboy Sleeps book of artwork by Jónsi & Alex, a badge and on top of it, a coloring book and a set of pencils.

You can get an impression here:
Riceboy Sleeps Book
Coloring Book

- Portugal. The Man - The Satanic Satanist:



Regarding the artwork, Portugal. The Man really came up with something unique for this record. As shown in the picture above, the artwork can be transformed in various ways in order to create new variations.
For me, this album is a perfect example of a nice package while keeping a reasonable and affordable price.

- Porcupine Tree - The Incident Limited Deluxe Edition:



This one, instead, is a perfect example of a really lavish package.
The deluxe edition of The Incident contains the album on 2 CDs, a 5.1 surround mix of the album on the DVD, a softcover book of pretty weird drawings by Hajo Müller and a very big hardcover book with extensive artwork and the lyrics all housed in a nice solid slipcase.

- Favourite concerts:

- 1. Porcupine Tree & Stick Men, Munich, Tonhalle
- 2. Archive & Birdpen, Munich, Backstage
- 3. Tim McMillan Band, Munich, Ars Musica
- 4. Grizzly Bear & St. Vincent, Munich, Theaterfabrik
- 5. Tortoise, Munich, Ampere
- 6. Nine Inch Nails, Southside Festival
- 7. Blackfield, Munich, Ampere
- 8. Zappa Plays Zappa, Munich, Theaterfabrik
- 9. Maceo Parker / Tower of Power, Munich, Muffathalle
- 10. The Twilight Sad, Munich, Atomic Café / Pure Reason Revolution,
Munich, 59:1 / Isis, Munich, Hansa 39

- special place for the Sunn O))) concert in
Munich, Hansa 39 – incredible experience (((((O)))))

- Discoveries:

Archive, Grizzly Bear, Isis, Tortoise, Long Distance Calling, Leech,
Pure Reason Revolution, Katatonia, Tim McMillan, Stebmo, Riverside,
Paatos, Tosca, múm, Earth, dredg, Russian Circles, Pelican,
Mike Dillon's Go-Go Jungle, Skerik's Syncopated Taint Septet, Fleet Foxes,
Buckethead, Calexico, Sunn O))), Nneka, Chris Gall Trio, Benny Greb,
Tord Gustavsen Trio, Tord Gustavsen Ensemble, God Is an Astronaut,
Richard Barbieri, Colin Edwin, Stick Men, Ulver, Battles, Arms and Sleepers