Last week I wrote about 20 albums that were guaranteed to make people on your gift-giving list happy. The rest of this year’s top 40 are more personal picks: buy them for yourself during Boxing Week specials.
Laurie Anderson – Homeland (Nonesuch). “Was the constitution written in invisible ink? Has everyone here forgotten how to think? Is this great big boat starting to sink?” Fair questions. And few are better positioned to play the role of inquisitor than Laurie Anderson, whose wit, perception and poetry have never sounded so engaged with her selected topic — in this case, the end of an empire — than they do here. Musically, she combines the best of her sci-fi sounds of the ’80s with earthier and exotic instrumentation and manages to make it all breathe beautifully.
Bei Bei and Shawn Lee – Into the Wind (Ubiquity). It’s safe to say that the Chinese zither has never sounded funkier than it does on this collaboration, which works far better than most cross-cultural clashes do. Soundtrack supervisors for martial arts films should be paying close attention.
Jim Bryson and the Weakerthans – The Falcon Lake Incident (Maple). The Weakerthans rarely release new music, but considering how well they fare here backing up Ottawa songwriter Jim Bryson, they might not have to wait for their notoriously meticulous bandleader, John K. Samson, to amass a new set of material.
Plus, Bryson writes songs with similar wit, economy and melodic heft, and this is easily his finest work to date.
Budos Band – III (Daptone). Funk does not get any heavier than Budos Band, who filter all sorts of African influences and ’70s American funk into a percussive stew driven by baritone saxophone. Guaranteed to put swagger in your step.
Kathryn Calder – Are You My Mother? (File Under: Music). Calder is one of four lead singers in the New Pornographers, but her deeply personal debut solo album — performed with some of the top talent on the West Coast — shows that she’s also one of the most promising songwriters in the country.
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma (Warp). Alice Coltrane’s nephew brings his own unique sense of jazz-inspired adventurism to dense compositions that mash up every avant-garde development in electronic dance music of the last 20 years, with the lush orchestration his aunt was known for. Confounding, colourful and compelling.
Frog Eyes – Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph (Dead Oceans). In a year that ended with the death of Captain Beefheart, Victoria, B.C.’s Frog Eyes paid their own personal homage by channelling singer Carey Mercer’s visceral howl into anthemic avant-garde guitar rock that crackled with a nervous, dangerous energy that has never sounded as heavy—nor as successfully focused—as it does here.
It Kills – s/t (independent). This haunting Halifax trio set themselves apart from other mostly instrumental, morose chamber-rock bands by letting the sunlight in occasionally, and using vocals for atmospheric effect, not a capitulation to traditional songwriting.
Selina Martin – Disaster Fantasies (independent). Selina Martin has always oozed charisma, but here the Toronto performer has a set of songs that matches her grand ambitions and her love of glam, prog, punk, folk, balladry—and Rush. Every song sounds like a smash hit, making this without question the most underrated Canadian album of the year (surely not a prize she was shooting for).
Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me (Drag City). Following up a bloated, meandering double album (2006’s Ys) with, of course, a triple album, Newsom proves that more is in fact more. She still writes epic songs, her girlish voice—though tempered here—is still an acquired taste, and she still plays the harp. But the ornamental orchestration is perfectly complementary, and her writing here is as strong as Joni Mitchell was in her prime. This came out in February and took most of the year to digest properly, but it’s more than worth the investment for performer and listener alike.
Doug Paisley – Constant Companion (No Quarter). Paisley sounds like the kind of constant companion that’s been with you your entire life as a music fan: the Sunday morning acoustic singer/songwriter who is neither maudlin nor morose, who is slightly melancholy but not a sad sack, whose every guitar or vocal phrase is instantly warm and welcoming. Word of mouth is spreading fast: expect to hear a lot more about Doug Paisley in 2011 and beyond.
Pantha du Prince – Black Noise (Rough Trade). This German electronic producer sounds like he’s summoning the elements of the natural world to make his brand of surprisingly funky dance music: glacial ice, rushing water, crackling fires, pebble beaches, rustling branches. It’s a matter of time before Bjork comes calling.
Mike Patton – Mondo Cane (Ipecac). Italians are known for opera, not pop music. So of course vintage Italian pop music from the ’60s is full of operatic bravado, which makes it perfect for Mike Patton to interpret, whether it’s delicate cinematic balladry or metallic garage rock that segues into a go-go chorus. That he pulls it all off is to be expected; that it is so wonderfully orchestrated and sounds so fresh is just a bonus.
Justin Rutledge – The Early Widows (Six Shooter). This sensitive singer/songwriter opens the album with the song Be A Man; producer Hawksley Workman helps him do just that over the course of 10 tracks, with a dual-drummer rhythm section, gospel choirs, and rousing electric guitars giving Rutledge’s songs some welcome heft.
Schomberg Fair – Gospel (Hi-Hat). Whiskey-soaked, s--tkicking bluegrass songs on punk rock guitars delivered with considerable fire and brimstone, this Toronto band gives Canadiana roots rock a kick in the ass.
South Rakkas Crew – The Stimulus Package (Mad Decent). This Brampton-born group plays polyglot pop and deconstructionist dancehall that is wicked, wacky and wild party from beginning to end, full of booty bass that’s both abrasive and persuasive, and even the occasional auto-tuned vocal merely adds to the overall madness rather than a nauseating distraction.
The Thermals – Personal Life (Kill Rock Stars). Too often, power pop wastes its energy on superficial or sugary sweet lyrics. The Thermals, however, sing songs of inspiration and betrayal and perform them like it’s a matter of life or death. An album for those who think punk rock sold its soul long ago.
Tracey Thorn – Love and its Opposites (Merge). Though she’s the voice behind one of the biggest hits of the ’90s — Everything But the Girl’s Missing — this devastating solo record is the best thing she’s ever done, and certainly the most heartbreakingly honest album of the year for the way she writes about divorce, aging, motherhood and singledom. So good it hurts.
Wovenhand – The Threshingfloor (Sounds Familyre). With an ominous baritone that promises a healthy dose of hellfire, David Eugene Edwards expands his deeply spiritual Americana songcraft to include Irish, Turkish and Native American influences, creating a class all his own.
Zeus – Say Us (Arts and Crafts). Not only does this album sound like 1975, it sounds like this band has been around since 1975 — with decades of experience of songwriting, arranging and performing behind them. Instead, this is a debut album by a Toronto band with a long, bright future ahead of them.
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