My Favorite Music of 2006
Everytime I write one of these year-end lists, I feel the need to insert any number of disclaimers — that, unlike so many other audio/cinephiles, I actually don’t enjoy making lists of favorites, that I always feel odd making a year-end list before the year in question is over, that my lists always feel so woefully inadequate because I know there are are countless albums and movies that I didn’t experience, and so on. Yadda yadda yadda.
Just so you know.
So without any further ado, here’s a list of my favorite music from the year that was 2006, in no real particular order (my movie list is forthcoming).
Scott Walker — The Drift
I have a confession to make. I don’t think I listened to this album once after June. But that doesn’t really matter. No other release I heard this year left the same sort of impact (and scars) that The Drift did. Listening to The Drift is like experiencing every last bit of evidence that the world is indeed going to hell in a handbasket all at once.
Is it pretentious? Oh my yes. As I wrote in my review, The Drift might be the most pretentious album of 2006, 2007, and 2008. Only Scott Walker, it seems, might use a song about Elvis’ dead twin brother as a metaphor for the terror that has enveloped this nation since 9/11, or communicate the horrors of fascism with the sounds of punching a slab of meat or the image of a tiny bird flitting about a room.
However, nothing else in 2006 sounded like it, nothing else in 2006 had the same sort of impact, and nothing else in 2006 left me as trembling and as awestruck. Everything else I listened to last year lived in blacker-than-black shadow of The Drift.
Junior Boys — So This Is Goodbye
Now this is an album that I listened to almost non-stop once I had it in my possession. So This Is Goodbye is Junior Boys’ second long-player, and the first after the split of founding member Johnny Dark. It’s a gorgeous and seamless blend of synth-pop, disco, electronica, and new wave. And it’s all rendered in loving, and longing, detail thanks to Jeremy Greenspan’s sighing voice.
It really is all about the voice here, which might seem odd for what most folks might consider a “techno” album. But Greenspan’s voice coats these retro-futuristic songs with a mixture of seduction and longing, sensuality and melancholy. Whether Greenspan is playing the dirty old man trying to get his groove on with some pretty young thing, or a heartbroken sap trying to keep yet another lover from leaving him in the morning, his voice drips with emotion. Which meshes incredibly well with the ultra-sleek, ultra-smooth beats and synthesizers that sound like something creeping out of Miami dance clubs in some parallel version of 1980s where Kraftwerk’s robots eventually took over.
On a sidenote, “In The Morning” gets my vote for single of the year. I don’t think I played any other song nearly as much as this one.
The Great Depression — Preaching To The Fire
Preaching To The Fire was one of the first CDs I reviewed in 2006, and yet it remained lodged in my subconscious for the entire year. Todd Casper and Thomas Cranley’s gloomy, atmospheric take on alternative pop is almost instantly beguiling, drawing the listener into a twilight world of sound created from ethereal guitars, sparse arrangements, and haunting vocal harmonies as well as a healthy dose of dark, dramatic tension.
Listening to their music is somewhat akin to watching a stylish, atmospheric thriller that catches you up in a seductive mood even as it leaves you always uncertain as to just what, exactly, lurks around the next corner. Preaching To The Fire might not have been the most incendiary, throat-grabbing, heartwrenching release I heard all year, but there’s certainly something to be said for its haunting, seductive style and texture.
Jóhann Jóhannson — IBM 1401, A User’s Manual
There’s something about IBM 1401, A User’s Manual that makes it seem like some sort of pretentious concept album. Maybe its Jóhannson’s liner notes, in which he describes the album as a elegy for old, decrepit technology. Or that the music on the album was originally composed as part of modern dance routine. Or that it’s yet another attempt to blend old and new, classical and modern, antiques and technology — attempts that often feel, well, pretentious. At least to me, that is.
The reality, however, is that IBM 1401, A User’s Manual is a highly affecting album. Jóhannson’s string arrangements are powerful, heady stuff, ranking right up there with Godspeed You Black Emperor!‘s apocalyptic strains. And his method of elegizing ancient technology, by incorporating music that his father recorded on the first computer to arrive in Iceland (the titular IBM 1401) as well as recorded instructions for the 1401’s maintenance, often does achieve the reverence for which it strives.
Mew — And The Glass Handed Kites
I admit, I came a little late to this one. However, once I finally had the disc in my hands, it consistently bowled me over. At first glance, the odds seems to be against the Danish group. There are those high-pitched vocals, oft-nonsensical lyrics, a love for prog/stadium rock bombast. Even the group seems to recognize this, jokingly referring to their music as “pretentious art rock.”
Be that as it may, And The Glass Handed Kites does indeed rock, featuring one of the single best song groups I heard all year; the triptych of “Apocalypso”, “Special”, and “The Zookeeper’s Boy.” All three of these songs are brilliant, and the cumulative effect even moreso. No matter how many times I listen to the album, I always get psyched as soon as “Apocalypso“ ‘s guitars come surging forth from the speakers.
However, the disc’s softer, more contemplative moments can prove equally strong. Songs such as “White Lips Kissed” and “Louise Louisa” take the bombast and redirect it into spiralling, crescendoing, wide-eyed ballads that, at their best moments, rival any similar thing you might find on a Flaming Lips album.
In other words, there’s a little something on And The Glass Handed Kites for everyone.
The Twilight Sad — The Twilight Sad EP
Ear-splittingly loud and yet also heartbreakingly beautiful, this debut EP from the Glaswegian quartet is a study in contrasts. Layer upon layer of abrasive, My Bloody Valentine-esque guitar build upon each other, along with a myriad of other instruments (including accordion). Meanwhile, James Graham’s vocals deliver cryptic, impressonistic lyrical sketches with a voice that ranges from drunken to dreamy — and with a nice Scottish burr to top things off.
The band’s influences and peers — My Bloody Valentine, Arab Strap, Mogwai — might seem at times a bit too apparent. Offsetting that is the rawness of the Twilight Sad’s music, a roughness that doesn’t quite seem lo-fi, and yet lends it an emotional tug that studio polish can all too easily wipe away. As such, even when the band seems fully intent on rupturing a few eardrums Loveless style, the rawness combined with Graham’s emotive voice gives the music an emotional outlet that no meer collection of influences could manage.
It’s the sort of raucous-yet-delicate music that instantly strike a chord in my heart, reminding me of less-than-glamorous attempts to make music with my friends. Also, it’s very easy to lose yourself in the roiling sounds generated by the group’s panoply of sounds and effects. Such that, even if their piercing, rollicking sounds leave you deaf, you probably won’t even mind.
Sufjan Stevens — Songs For Christmas
This collection of Sufjan’s Christmas-themed EPs barely counts as a 2006 release, as 80% of it was recorded between 2001 and 2005. But that’s enough for me.
A lot of folks have commented on this set as if it were more of a historical artifact than anything else, a document chronicling the growth of Sufjan’s as a songwriter and arranger. But that misses the real blessing of these 5 discs, and that is the inimitable manner in which Sufjan redeems what is often that most treacly of music: Christmas music.
Consisting of both renditions of traditional music as well as some original pieces, Songs For Christmas is by turns cheeky and reverent, playful and solemn, sacreligious and holy. One minute, he’s casting Santa Claus as burglar or celebrating the ruination of someone else’s Christmas, the next he’s singing an empathetic ballad of Yuletide lament or transforming a timeless carol like “What Child Is This?”, revealing it as a beautiful summation of Christian theology.
Sure, there are many moments that are rough around the edges, but let’s keep in mind that these EPs were originally intended to be fun holiday gifts for friends and family. That playful, “off the cuff” nature only adds to the collection’s charm. Songs For Christmas is a very fine gift indeed.
Some Very Honorable Mentions:
Mahogany — Connectivity!
Ester Drang — Rocinate
Max Richter — Songs From Before
RF — Views Of Distant Towns
Saint Etienne — Tales From Turnpike House
Woven Hand — Mosaic