MONDOmagazine

Mountains
Choral
2009, Thrill Jockey

By Allana Mayer

Mountains’ third release, and the first not on their self-started label Apestaartje, reminds me of my grandma’s house. Choral is thick, warm, like a stew that’s been simmering for a week. The press release insists it’s “largely live and performed in real time”, which is a welcome change from the mental picture of guys perched in front of laptops, obsessing over panning and balance. While it’s impossible to make work like this without those moments, there’s yet a comforting sense of handmade craftwork, layering patiently and methodically, like making candles.

The first and title track is a soft fuzz, a gentle panning of samples with cyclical amplitude changes, a soft high note that bounces around the landscape, and one long-held chord — all it needs to fit perfectly on a Stars Of The Lid album is a wordy title. “Melodica” and “Telescope” are similarly stark, though not to that extent. These tracks contrast with more structured songs; the slow guitar picking in “Map Table” is perfectly offset with aleatoric sounds, sounding like a missing track from Six Organs of Admittance’s School Of The Flower.

As passionate as I am about the beauty — the brilliance — of this album, it’s very difficult to write relevant words. There’s little to describe because nothing happens — layers of ambience, static, or single tones play simultaneously, barely growing, rarely changing, never detailed. While entire books can be filled with words about John Cage’s “4′33″”, they concern his political and philosophical statement, not the tone and amplitude of his silence. When someone analyzes a minimalist piece, much the same situation occurs. With so little to describe, what left but to discuss but the intention behind the work? But so often ambient work has no ideal anymore; it’s merely an aesthetic, a mimickry of artists gone before. The theoretical intent of any musical genre during its inception is in no way guaranteed to be shared by later waves of its artists. But what’s theory when it sounds this good?

I’ve reviewed several albums that don’t seem to contain any tension, that don’t begin with a problem and certainly never find a resolution. While tension is often a requirement for a pop song, and is the motif of choice for any elementary composition, somehow it’s perfectly acceptable for groups like Mountains to work outside that formula. It’s important to note that they do it without fading into the background, without losing their poignancy. Choral is a retreat to a cabin in the woods, a warm fireplace and a bearskin rug, where you can live and think free of distraction. It’s the contentedness we all hope hibernation can be, minus the boredom it probably is.

By John Hastings

The Police are ear-poison and Sting is the creepy British fairy pouring them into your head. I dislike them so much that I’m inspired to pen this piece despite the fact that they are almost completely off the radar at the time of writing. In fact, nothing specific has happened to spark this rant. They don’t have a new album, they aren’t touring, and I didn’t even hear one of their songs on the radio recently. I just woke up today and thought, goddamn it, I fucking hate The Police.

Let’s begin with the basic fact that Sting is a wanker. He’s the bass player, for christ’s sake! Reinventing himself with tribal rhythms every once in a while just makes him that much more of a loser. As my ears will attest, the only honest song this goof has ever coined was “King of Pain”.

I’ll admit that some of the actual music is bearable, even danceable at times, but it’s the drivel The Police try to pass off as lyrics that disgusts me. I’ll also admit that “Roxanne” was enjoyable at one point in my life — in fact, The “Roxanne” Drinking Game was one of my favourites back in university, and the song works well at strip clubs and bachelor parties. But, unlike real artists, The Police weren’t able to write a song about prostitution without blatant statements like “walk the streets for money / you don’t care if it’s wrong or if it’s right.” At least The Animals’ classic “House of the Rising Sun” only inferred the selling of flesh. How stupid do The Police think we are? Must we be force-fed the oh-so-risque meaning? The only red light should be the alarm in your head, warning you that this lazy simplicity is insulting.

Then there’s the ever-popular, always vomit-inducing “Message In a Bottle.” Ostensibly, this song is about a lonely soul who discovers that others are lonely, too. This is the kind of swill that high school students put into their independent study units in an attempt to be deep. I’d have respect for this song if it was about Sting going on a bender lamenting the fact that he’d bottled a dude and banged a hooker, but instead it’s just sentimental tripe. I’m not even going to get started on “Every Little Thing She Does is Magic”, as every little thing Sting does pisses the shit out of me.

The one that really twists my nibblets, though, is the painfully obvious “Don’t Stand So Close To Me.” I can almost see Sting hunched over his desk by firelight, scribbling furiously about the student who seduces the teacher, and licking his lips at all the money he’ll make off the teenage girls who will lap up this insipid, melodramatic mush.

Nothing speaks louder to the dreadfulness of The Police than their video for the aptly-named song “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da.” What the fuck are they doing — skiing? And why hasn’t God brought down the mountain upon them? This is sacreligious at the least, and sanctimonious for sure. How did these clowns ever become superstars?

The list of nonsensical twaddle goes on and on. I couldn’t believe the support The Police got for their reunion tour from some of my friends. I’m sickened to the core that this dribble is regarded as “classic 80s.” It’s the “oh-my-god-I-love-this-song” attitude whenever one of these overplayed Police songs pollutes the airwaves that really gets me. Hopefully, with their reunion tour done, we’ve seen the end — because, with every breath I take, I fucking hate The Police.

Andrew Bird
Noble Beast
Fat Possum, 2009

By Peter Gorman

Andrew Bird’s favourite snack food — according to a recent interview with Bob Boilen on NPR’s All Songs Considered — is olives. Now, olives, you see (bear with me here) are something of a solitary variety of snack food. One might, say, shoot the shit with friends — beer flowing, voices lifting — over a plate of nachos; or, upon emerging reluctantly from the tent to meet the cold dawn of the last day of hiking, huddle with mates about the final Ziploc of gorp; or maybe stay in with a sweetheart and a bag of Orville Redenbacher’s by the blue light of a movie. Olives, on the other hand, demand solitude. A plate of olives, crackers, feta, a glass of riesling, and some obscure historical tome: surely this must be how Andrew Bird unwinds after a hard day’s work, no?

The only appearance olives make in a Bird song occurs in “Dora Goes to Town,” from his 1998 Bowl of Fire record, Oh! The Grandeur, wherein the titular character “puts eggs in her orange juice, coffee in her tea / Puts olives in her jelly, says that’s the way it’s gonna be / Ashes and mashes and dust and mustard / Creamed spinach sandwich and she cuts the crusts off.” See how she, with much free time on her hands, gleefully mis-combines these various foodstuffs and insists (to no one but herself!) “that’s the way it’s gonna be”? Olives are the favoured snack food of somebody like Dora, of someone (to borrow a line from Noble Beast’s gorgeous “Effigy”) “who’s spent a little too much time alone”.

Andrew Bird obviously spends a great deal of time alone. Only someone with so much time to themselves — and therefore permitted to let his mind wander from scientific musings to ancient civilizations, childhood memories to existential arithmetic, and to meticulously hollow out a perfect melody (or ten!) with his soft, perfect whistling —could write the kind of songs that Bird does. Occasionally, however, the product of such, ahem, alone-time can start to collapse ‘neath its own weight.

Take, for instance, the opening verse from Noble Beast’s (self-referentially-titled?) fifth track, “Tenuousness”: “Tenuous at best was all he had to say / When pressed about the rest of it, the world that is / From proto-Sanskrit Minoans to Porto-centric Lisboans / Greek Cypriots and harbor sorts who hang around in ports a lot.” Catch all that? Note especially, “proto-Sanskrit” to “Porto-centric” to “harbor sorts who hang around in ports a lot.” See, it’s a joke: Porto is a city in Portugal and, oddly enough, it’s a port city and, if “porto-centric” were actually a word, one could hazard a guess that it would mean “one who hangs around in ports a lot” and also Lisbon (where Lisboans are from) is a port city in Portugal and…

Okay, so maybe it’s not exactly ha ha funny, but it’s undeniably and impossibly clever — if you happened to spot it for the fleeting moment in which that particular mouthful sped by, that is. And therein lies my lone quibble with the music of Noble Beast: it’s a thousand brilliant punchlines crammed into three-and-a-half minutes of stagetime. As Cokemachineglow’s Eric Sams noted in his most astute review of Bird’s Armchair Apocrypha, “It is as if he was served a concise statement of the rules of pop, perused it thoroughly, and decided while politely handing it back that he wasn’t interested in pursuing that particular course.” Bird wants to have his three-and-a-half minute pop song and eat it too. In Bird’s case, such a course often yields dazzling results. Nevertheless, the truth is that, under such formal contraints, one can only cram in so much ancient history, existentialist reckonings, popular science, post-structural écriture, dizzying wordplay, syllables, etc. before things start to burst a little at the seams.

It should come as no surprise, then, that it is collaboration, expressly with Minneappolis multi-instrumentalist Martin Dosh, that produces some of Bird’s finest moments. In particular, “Not a Robot, but a Ghost” — propelled by Dosh’s yardsale percussion and ferocious drumming — is, indeed, everything it’s cracked up to be, delivering on the immense promise of last year’s Soldier On EP standout “The Trees were Mistaken”. While it’s underscored, both musically and lyrically, by a paranoia not unlike that befitting a Thom Yorke tune, it still undoubtedly carries a heartbeat (y’know, that thing humans do, to remind themselves they’re alive?… sorry, Thom).

With my word-count creeping ever-northwards, at this point I feel the need to flail my arms desperately about, proclaiming that this is, nevertheless, a fantastic record. (Furthermore, the bonus disc of instrumental experimentation, though it reveals itself slowly, demands repeated listens — headphones listens; as Bird is known to retool tracks for inclusion on later albums, one can only imagine in what form some of these melodies might pop up next.)

Anyway, sure, it can be a thin line between brilliance and self-indulgence — but Andrew Bird, with few exceptions, tends to stay on the right side of it. Admittedly, Noble Beast may not temper some of its excesses as well as previous albums, but it still displays the complex and sophisticated machinations of Bird’s relentlessly imaginative mind turning as ever before.

Johnny West
The Chicken Angel Woman With a Triangle
Tosteestostas, 2008

By Meryl Howsam

Windsor musician Johnny West describes his latest album, The Chicken Angel Woman With A Triangle, as being one of the strangest collections of music he’s ever created, yet oddly cohesive. On one hand, Chicken Angel Woman includes (but is not limited to) rhyming lyrics and song structures conventional enough to be categorized into genres or sub-genres. On the other hand, any album with song titles such as “He Was Saved by Poultry From the Shadow of Beef,” “Never Bring Lined Paper to a Knife Fight,” and “What Will Become of Luke Perry’s Nipples?” can hardly be described as normal. And the titles are just the beginning.

The album begins with the banjo-heavy “Blue Cheese Necklace,” an alt-country song that is one of the more melodically accessible tracks. The catchy tune — which features unusual rhymes like “I couldn’t come up with a suitable ending / I kicked the vacuum cleaner I was befriending” — is a perfect introduction to the carefree nature of the album. As the album continues, West ensures that each song is different than the last: “Please Remember to Forget Me” and “The Condensed Journey of a Tree” are slower, acoustic guitar-driven songs, while “Random Confessions of a Failed Lothario” and “Mary Anne Says Grace” are off-the-wall, improvised tracks sung in strange voices. The album’s instrumental tracks include a bouncy toy piano tune and a soft organ piece.

All of the instruments on the album are played and recorded by West himself, and include toy ukulele, Wurlitzer and Fender Rhodes, mini glockenspiel, and various percussion, claps, and stomps. West claims to have left various vocal and instrumental mistakes on the album, claiming that they add character and that it wouldn’t be in his nature as a musician to fix them. He clearly isn’t afraid to experiment, yet has a strong concept of what makes music listenable — in this case, the common themes mixed in with the quirkiness and imperfections. And of course, the fun.

Source & Inspiration III
The Art of Time Ensemble
January 29th, 2009 @ Harbourfront Centre

By Gabrielle Charron-Merritt

Source. The place from which everything appears, akin to water and its small-stream beginnings, headed for the ocean. In the ocean of music, from where does the water come? The source of music is two-fold; it is part nature (the mind and the body being able to produce sounds) and nurture (the mind and the body being able to reproduce sounds). There are some musicians who write songs, and others who play covers. Most do both, because neither source of inspiration is better than the other, and even original material contains a few stolen ideas from Music’s past.

The Art of Time Ensemble, a chamber music collective, successfully combined three forms of music and three types of musicians during Korngold: Source & Inspiration: classical music and musicians who play the “covers” of dead composers, popular music and singer-songwriters who write original music and lyrics, and modern music and composers who often write music for films and commercials.

The ensemble has hosted such evenings before. For each, a different classical composer was chosen (previous composers include Schumann and Schubert). This year, the early 20th-century composer Erich Korngold (1897-1957) was chosen. The evening first featured Korngold’s Suite for Two Violins, Cello and Piano, Op. 23, played by members of the ensemble.  In the second half of the performance, singer-songwriters Martin Tielli, Danny Michel, and John Southworth performed songs that they wrote, inspired by the suite. These songs were also arranged by present-day composers and accompanied by the Art of Time Ensemble.

Korngold was an interesting choice. Although he composed music for opera, orchestra, and chamber ensemble, a big part of his career was focused on writing music for film. He is best known for scoring The Adventures of Robin Hood, featuring Errol Flynn. This movie music was not much different from the classical music Korngold had been writing in Europe. Written in the 1930s and 1940s, it marks the Golden Age of Hollywood, where production companies hired full-sized orchestras to perform scores. Korngold helped shape this music, and most likely influenced film composers like Carl Stalling, who wrote the music for Looney Tunes. Incidentally, some of the composers involved in this evening also work in professional film.

So, what was the evening like?

Serious. Silly. Charming.

In the first half, I felt the formality of a concert hall. Everyone in the audience was still, leaving applause for the end of the suite rather than clapping between movements. The room seemed to relax when the singer-songwriters came out one-by-one to perform their songs. They delivered their distinctive pre-song banter, talking about anything from their level of nervousness to the song’s history. Before each song, the piano quintet played the excerpt from the suite that had been used as inspiration. The songs featured the stories of sailors, liars, and Korngold himself; the most memorable line came from John Southworth, who sang “werewolves on reefer, androids on ether”, in his song “Athabasca”.

All the performances were captivating and inspiring. The evening celebrated Korngold and many professional musicians of our times; genres mixed well and helped strengthen the idea that collaboration is important in the musical world today.

Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion
Domino, 2009

By John Hastings

I’ve had a really hard time getting into the music of Animal Collective over the years. With the release of their 8^th studio album, Merriweather Post Pavilion, I was determined to find out the reason for so much praise. I put on my tracksuit, fluffed up the pillows on the couch, and hunkered down to give this album a solid combing-over (with my ears). And guess what? I think I finally get it. I think I like it.

Animal Collective is just that, a collective, each musician with their own sound and story, together in a strange but engaging combination. While the group has consisted of a number of different artists over the years, the main collaborators are Panda Bear and Avey Tare, as well as Geologist and Deakin, all of whom have their own solo projects. If you’re completely unfamiliar with anything Animal Collective, let’s just be simple and call it folky electronica.

Merriweather Post Pavilion opens with “In The Flowers” and reminds me of watching The Wizard of Oz cued up with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I can just envision a tripped-out Dorothy wandering through a field of poppies, complete with the sounds of birds and water and everything else Animal Collective drips into their songs. One great thing about this release: it sounds different on each replay, and I find new, and mesmerizing, sonic alleyways every time. There are so many layers that each track can veritably take the helm depending on where, when, why, and how you’re listening. The whole disc is solid, though the first half is most memorable. There’s a great tribal sound to “Lion in a Coma,” and they save some of the best for last with “Brothersport,” the album’s longest — but possibly most accessible — tune.

The second track, “My Girls,” has to be the standout on this disc. It’s spacy but captivating and builds into a great groove, where the vocals really find themselves and Animal Collective’s talents shine the brightest. If a tune was going to break the group into the mainstream, it would be this one. Following closely behind would be “Summertime Clothes,” where we hear that “a voice from the clock says you’re gonna get tired” — but we don’t, and as the chorus breaks out with a heavy clap-along rhythm, we fully understand why they belt “I wanna walk around with you.”

Rumour has it that Animal Collective is being seriously considered as the opener for U2’s next world tour, though this remains to be seen. Still, Animal Collective will play a show at the Sound Academy on May 15^th as part of their own massive world tour. Reportedly, their live shows make the records seem dim in comparison. Though they’ve taken me years to appreciate, I don’t plan on missing the Collective this time. It’s being stated by everyone, but remember this disc in December when we think back on albums of the year for ‘09. Enjoy.

Antony & The Johnsons
The Crying Light
Secretly Canadian, 2009

By Allana Mayer

Since ‘05, things have been quiet on the Antony & The Johnsons front. I Am A Bird Now was one of those albums that nobody thought could be topped — thus, Antony Hegarty fucked off for a few years. Alongside his numerous forays into the cultural sphere (including insulting Sean Penn while trying to support transgender rights, singing for Hercules and Love Affair, designing a ballgown for charity, hanging out with Marina Abramovich and Bjork, and getting his visual art sold), Antony found time to pose on the cover of every magazine in the universe. Oh yeah, and eventually he got around to making another album. Hey, I never said it was a good album. The gown he designed was pretty, though.

The Crying Light is just like his debut; from the sound alone, I’d guess they were all written around the same time, and that some of these are songs that didn’t fit on I Am A Bird Now. The songs are vacant of experiment and innovation, yet pleasing in a vapid way. You’re never really sure what he’s singing about, but it does feel important. “Kiss My Name” is just an excuse to sing the word “kiss” over and over, as far as I can tell; “Another World” and “Daylight and the Sun” are wrist-slitting music at its finest.

Antony just seems to me like someone who has never had even the tiniest sense of humour about anything. Even with a song called “Epilepsy is Dancing” — and how can you not have a sense of humour about that? You’d think I’d be in awe of his incredible deadpan, but I’m actually convinced that some part of his crusade for gender/post-gender equality (extensive surgery? Too much crying at Oprah segments?) has left him without the required facial muscles to produce a smile. Still, it gives him that cool voice, so I guess it’s okay.

As a self-hating-woman, I find his self-hating-man saga a fascinating one, even if I can’t stand his music. His website states that he thinks “a feminist revolution might save our world”, and, even if it didn’t, it would be hard to ignore the generally-held opinion that he is a black woman trapped inside a white man’s body. You have to take “self-hating” with a grain of salt, for both of us — it’s not that we don’t like who we are, it’s just that the other gender seems so much cooler, has gotten all the enviable traits. I don’t necessarily want to be a man, but they sure are more fun to hang out with; I can’t claim that Antony wants to be a woman, but he sure does stick them up on a scarily-high pedestal.

But I’m overjoyed to see Antony getting respect as an artist, rather than just publicity for being opositional to our categorizing instincts. I suppose if he did it with self-deprecation it would be easier for people to laugh at him; his seriousness and the honest dramatic reactions it elicits from fans makes him a much more compelling figure. Even if his music irritates me and my commitment to the notion that intelligence requires humour, I have to give him kudos. I just wish his version of the feminine ideal didn’t involve being gut-wrenchingly miserable all the time. I still want to pinch his elfen cheeks and tell him to buck up.

Various Artists
Just Like Heaven: A Tribute To The Cure
American Laundromat Records, 2009

By Allana Mayer

I don’t review compilations much. It’s one thing to mock the efforts of a musician or group of musicians, but to make an enemy of an entire record label? Dangerous. Luckily, American Laundromat is a label that, at the moment, produces mostly tribute albums — to Kim Deal and Neil Young, as well as a comp of high-school favourites (e.g., “Pretty In Pink”).

At any rate, all the scorn in the issue at hand is directed towards myself, for still being gullible enough to find a Cure tribute album worth a listen. Even with The Devics, Dean & Britta, and other familiar artists on the bill, it still says more about that hopelessly heartbroken subculture to which a part of me belongs. I saw The Cure perform on a late-night talk show recently. It worried me. They seem dated and aged in equal portions, and while I missed the initial outpouring of goth love for them back in the day, let’s just say that I have The Head On The Door on cassette. Still, at least I’m not totally stuck in the ’80s like American Laundromat is. (Then again, we might be at that point in time where people don’t have to excuse knowing all the words to songs like “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” or “Common People.” Yes? No?)

The best thing about these sorts of albums are the qualities of reimagination and reinvention that go into the tracks. In this respect I have to say that Just Like Heaven didn’t push the envelope. Most tracks simply capitalize on the twee aspects of the originals, implausibly making them even sappier and moodier. The Submarines’ “Boys Don’t Cry” is probably the best example of this, but almost all tracks share in the crime. Tanya Donelly seems to be taking the piss out of “The Lovecats,” while the Kitty Karlyle cover of “In Between Days” essentially strips the life from the song, rendering it irretrievable pop-punk garbage.

Elk City vocalist Renee LoBue seems to be singing out the side of her mouth, as though she’s either gripping a cigarette or has suffered a minor stroke, but their rendition of “Close To Me” gets seriously, charmingly shoegaze. Cassettes Won’t Listen’s “Let’s Go To Bed” at least gets bouncy and synthy, which is a nice change of pace, and Julie Peel’s acoustic “A Night Like This” cover is really lovely, mostly for the bass part — too bad every female vocalist on this comp manages to sound identical to me. For the most part, though, unimaginative covers abound, and any impressions the songs might’ve made are buried under a simple lack of Cure-ness. It might be that people were simply too chicken to fuck with the formula. How could anybody else do it better, after all?

There just isn’t enough time in the year, is there?  After twelve months of some ridiculously good and bad releases, even the most comprehensive music site (which MONDO is not!) can have trouble keeping up — especially with the excitement of a new year’s releases looming over our heads.

Luckily, with the best-of lists done once and for all, we can throw all convention out the window and go for quantity over quality.  Your fearless Music editors slaved over a hot laptop to bring you quick, snappy summaries of twenty albums we didn’t get to in 2008.

By Allana Mayer (AM) and Jake Shenker (JS)

13Ghosts – The Strangest Coloured Lights (Skybucket)
From the band name, I assumed this was either an Anticon release or some horrible tribute to that stupid Matthew Lillard movie; instead, it’s really enjoyable banjo/piano/acoustic indie-folk that makes you want to climb trees. (AM)

Ariane Moffatt - Tous Les Sens (Phantom Sound & Vision)
Don’t fear French music: Tous Les Sens is the third album from Québécois singer Ariane Moffatt, and blends trip-hop and breakbeats with gentle piano-driven singer/songwriter tunes. (JS)

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones - Jingle All the Way (Rounder / UMGD)
The title track may sound like voodoo music, but virtuoso banjoist Béla Fleck and his band of ridiculously talented musicians have made Christmas music a) interesting and b) insanely complex. (JS)

Byetone – Death Of A Typographer (Raster-Norton)
Thank God people are still releasing dark, threadbare electronica without calling it dubstep (God, that shit sucks). (AM)

Cloud Cult - Feel Good Ghost / Teapartying Through Tornadoes (Rebel Group)
Every once in a while, it’s nice to be told that everything’s going to be okay. (AM)

Cloudland Canyon – Lie In Light (Kranky)
I have listened to “You & I” more times than I can count and still think it is perfectly suited for both fucking and fighting – maybe both simultaneously. (AM)

The Fireman – Electric Arguments (ATO / RED)
While previous albums from The Fireman (Paul McCartney’s collaboration with producer Martin Glover a.k.a. Youth) were experiments in electronic music, Electric Arguments is an almost entirely organic effort.  Nobody would’ve guessed that when Paul passed 64, he’d still be writing kickass songs. (JS)

Grouper – Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill (Type), and Gregor Samsa - Rest (Kora)
I think that I’d like these two albums played as the soundtrack of the day of my death. (AM)

Helvetia – The Acrobats (The Static Cult Label)
This album is like an oversized mug filled with piping hot chicken soup, and a really great lap blanket, and someone massaging your feet all at once; in other words, it’s Yo La Tengo. (AM)

The Holloways - Sinners & Winners EP (The Orchard)
The Holloways are a cross between The Jam and The Clash, and this 4-track EP is a delicious teaser for their upcoming full-length (supposed release date March 2009). (JS)

Howlin’ Rain – Magnificent Fiend (Birdman / American)
This is a Comets On Fire side project that drops the ’90s-era psych/stoner influences and finds a home in ’70s classic rock instead, plus pulls off a great Queen/gospel revival medley in “Lord Have Mercy.” (AM)

Kaki King - Dreaming of Revenge (Velour)
Stop singing; get back to rocking. (AM)

Karkwa - Le Volume du Vent (Audiogram)
Another reason to embrace the French: Karkwa’s third album is full of great rock songs, shows strong minimalist influences, and brings them one step closer to sounding like Radiohead. (JS)

Koushik - Out My Window (Stones Throw)
My booty, when I listen to this album, must inevitably shake; it has made for some awkward streetcar rides. (AM)

The Lost Fingers - Lost in the ’80s (Tandem)
Big stars at this summer’s Montreal Jazz Festival, The Lost Fingers are a gypsy jazz trio whose repertoire consists entirely of really awesome ’80s music (first single? “Pump Up the Jam.”  ‘Nuff said). (JS)

Mouth Of The Architect – Quietly (Translation Loss)
At some point over the past few years, I’ve developed the ability to ignore stupid metal growls-as-vocals; thus, this album is actually pretty enjoyable. (AM)

National Bank – Come On Over To The Other Side (Universal Norway)
This gets more enjoyable every time I hear it, and isn’t nearly as creepy as their self-titled debut (which featured the ode to stalker fantasies, “Hello My Name Is Fred.” Shudder). (AM)

Quiet Village – Silent Movie (!K7)
“I wanna be Crockett!”
“No, I wanna be Crockett!”
“No, it’s my turn!”
“Why do you guys want to be Crockett, anyway?”
“Shut up, Robbie.”
“Yeah, the alligator can’t talk.”
“I hate this game.” (AM)

SND – 4, 5, 6 (Line / Mille Plateaux)
This is the musical equivalent of a kid getting himself a Spirograph and calling it physics. (See the E if you don’t believe me.) (AM)

Sun Kil Moon – April (Calo Verde)
This album made my mom sad over the holidays, and for that it can never be forgiven. (AM)

[One day, I got an email from Peter saying that, after not writing for MONDO in a while, he was trying out a new format — "tidy and concise," he called it. What appeared in my inbox was fifty - count 'em, fifty - haikus summarizing pretty much everything Peter listened to this year. That's a lot of counting-syllables-on-fingers, my friends. I thought about cutting it down since we've covered a few of these albums already, but there's just something nice about the idea. Fifty haikus. Somebody give this guy a medal. - Ed.]

By Peter Gorman

7k Oaks – 7000 Oaks
Wynton can say what
he wants about baseball. This:
Worth preparing for.

Erykah Badu – New Amerykah, Part One (4th World War)
Sexiest record
of the year: nothing comes close.
A prayer for ‘09.

The Baseball Project – Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails
Scott McCaughey? So good.
Scott McCaughey singing about
baseball?! Holy shit!

Beck – Modern Guilt
“Chemtrails” alone makes
up for the lame go-go beats;
L. Ron would be proud.

Black Keys - Attack & Release
Ike ODs, misses
comeback D-Mouse collab; Keys
rip shit anyway.

Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
Yes, it came out last
year – I (and Sub Pop) only
fell for it this year.

Bonnie “Prince” Billy – Lie Down in the Light
Public fellatio
set to straightforward country-
western – and it works!

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
Bad Seeds, Grinderman
meet halfway, light a fire [and
brimstone] under Cave’s ass.

Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power, and the Amorphous Strums – Dark Developments
“Dick the butcher, Tom
the bootblack” more compelling
than Joe the Plumber.

Jason Collett – Here’s to Being Here
Less Scene, more Paso
Mino brings focus; here’s to
the AM Dial.

Constantines – Kensington Heights
Fuck “Fugazi meets
Springsteen”; this sounds like the Cons:
“hard, hard, hard feelings.”

Deerhoof – Offend Maggie
Precise but, oddly,
irreverent and… a blast!
“God Speaking”? Ha! Quite.

Department of Eagles – In Ear Park
So intimate, and
so spacious. A headphones disc
for the great outdoors.

Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra - Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra
Forget the spoken
word; music speaks for itself,
nears Stellar Regions.

Dungen – 4
Less words, more damper-
pedalled keys. Less psych-rock, more
jazz-fusion… Still there?

Bob Dylan - Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
What can I say? E’en
his leftovers are brilliant.
(Lincoln ads: less so.)

Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
Five guys in love with
the sound of their own voices:
Alvin-Lucier-folk?

Giant Sand – proVISIONS
Gelb’s same strange trip through
the Southwest; as always, full
of humanity.

Grand Salvo – Death
Literate – not like
Meloy. No gimmicks; just bear,
bird, rabbit, rat, man.

Matthew Herbert Big Band – There’s Me and There’s You
It’s “[something] of great
importance.” How’d politics
learn to swing like this?

High Places – High Places
Airy Mary on
one hell of a mellow brick
road: uncluttered mess.

Invincible – Shapeshifters
This is not “conscious
hip-hop”; this is wide-fucking-
awake hip-hop. Damn.

Johann Johannsson – Fordlandia
Henry Ford’s failure
is Johannsson’s success. Not
just icy landscapes!

Jacaszek – Treny
Cinematic might
be the word – if this wintry
sorrow could be filmed.

Ladyhawk – Shots
Like the Shakey tune
that shares its name, this one pulls
no punches – and rawks.

Lambchop – (OH) Ohio
Nashville’s best voice (e’er
a hushed whisper) cracks, rambles,
disses recycling.

Daniel Lanois – Here is What Is
Eno follows a
Chest of drawers, Lanois follows
The gods of reverb.

Stephen Malkmus – Reel Emotional Trash
“Meandering jams”?
Bullshit. Malk eats Trey’s [geetar]
noodles for breakfast.

Megafaun – Bury the Square
Apparently not
too bummed out from Bon Iver
breaking up with them.

Mercury Rev – Strange Attractor
Yep, the free one on
their website was quite gorgeous;
not Snowflake Midnight.

Mountain Goats – Heretic Pride
Darnielle uplifts; gives
his characters (and us) some-
thing to believe in.

Mt. Eerie f/ Julie Doiron & Fred Squire – Lost Wisdom
Uncomfortably
vulnerable, as one might
expect from this bunch.

My Morning Jacket – Evil Urges
“Highly Suspicious”:
s’posed to be a man-rock joke.
“Peanut butter” wha?!

Randy Newman – Harps & Angels
“A Few Words in De-
fense of [Randy]“: “[haters] got
no reason to live.”

PAS/CAL – I Was Raised on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Laura
They were raised on the
Kinks, New Pornographers, and
Belle and Sebastien.

Portishead – Third
Give Portishead a
decade – better be this good.
Cripes, it’s about time.

R.E.M. – Accelerate
R.E.M. master
sounding like R.E.M. (And
master this one loud.)

Retribution Gospel Choir - Retribution Gospel Choir
Turns out Sparhawk’s some
kind of guitar-god… who knew?
Low crank it to onze.

Silver Jews – Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea
Berman – like Babars’
colonialism (see cover) -
still thrives… in new forms.

Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra and Tra-La-La Band - 13 Blues for Thirteen Moons
Post-dozen tracks of
silence: (post-..?) (punk-…?) rock beauty!
Godspeed! You Efrim.

Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw
Wish my bad days were
as lushly orchestrated
as Stuart Staples’.

Shugo Tokumaru - Exit
Google translator:
“free as the wind, polished to
gentle sky mirror.”

TV On The Radio – Dear Science,
Pretension and self-
importance aside, they still
craft some shit-hot tunes.

Chad Vangaalen – Soft Airplane
Praire falsetto,
blippy electro-beats: what
is this, fucking Trans?

The Walkmen – You & Me
“In The New Year”: the
year’s best hook. Guitars shimmer
and, shit, dude croons hard.

The War on Drugs – The War on Drugs
Despite their name, they
don’t burn poppy fields – but sure
set something ablaze.

Dennis Wilson – Pacific Ocean Blue
Thirty years on, still
brings you to tears. I’ll drink to
that. (So would Dennis.)

Windy & Carl – Songs for the Broken-Hearted
Wholly cathartic,
reverb-drenched drones, blankets of
heartbreak keep you warm.

Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
Krug and Boeckner fans
unite: this satisfies all!
(…well, except critics.)

Women – Women
The second-best thing
VanGaalen made this year. Beach
Boys meet Lou Reed: yikes!

Confusion continues to reign in MONDOmusic as we present to you Part Two of kind-of-maybe-something-like-the-best-of-2008.

Cameron Kowalchuk’s Top Eight, Plus (Unordered)

Borko – Celebrating Life (Morr)
An act after my heart, Borko seamlessly layers acoustic guitars, dreamy synths, and vocal flourishes to fabricate the best indie-shoegaze-electronic-folk album of the year. The smatterings of instruments such as harmonicas, trumpets, and bells give it a true organic feel that’s strangely intimate in nature.

Chequerboard – Penny Black (Lazybird)
Setting the dank synths aside for his acoustic guitar, every strum and pluck captivates as Chequerboard lays down some of the most heartbreaking music I’ve ever heard. There’s still an unsettling electronic presence, but the glitch is there to set the tone and pace rather than take away the acoustic focus.

Dokkemand – HONS! (Other Electricities)
Taking the “quirky” crown on this list, it’s great to see artists successfully meshing familiar noises with the musical equivalent of brain farts, unafraid of sounding like a smorgasbord of anything and everything. A bizarre, cute, scary, ADD-inspired pop record.

Dom Mino’ – Time Lapse (Schole)
This record makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It’s perfect curl-up-with-a-book-on-a-rainy-day music, all pretty bells and whistles and chirps and smiles. It’s sort of post-rocky, ambient, folky, and minimalist in spots, but it’s consistently gorgeous and inspires introspection.

Lineland – Logos For Lovers (Audio Dregs) While explicitly electronic, this album draws from a painstakingly wide selection of styles, as if it’s an attempt to emulate music history in its entirety. Imagine an African rain dance, a 1960s bubblegum pop record, and an obscure jazz pioneer in a vintage Easy-Bake oven and you’re halfway there.

Rumpistol – Dynamo (Rump)
Rumpistol’s previous work has been easily definable: based in funk, but edgy enough to be IDM. Dynamo is a risky and impressive evolution for the Dane, delving into darker, loop-based grooves and teetering close to *gasp* dubstep, while maintaining his trademark warm, curious melodies.

Why? – Alopecia (Anticon)
I have massive respect for Why?’s storytelling skills. This wordy, oddball pop piece, like a sex addict’s loosely adapted memoirs, paints a picture as vivid as anything but is oh-so-sparse musically, which makes me want to say it’s mathematically efficient.

Winter Gloves – About A Girl (Paper Bag)
A trying-too-hard, faux-passionate Julian Casablancas stand-in for a lead singer? Check. On a label repping enough local indie darlings to keep CanCon happy for months? Check. More plaid threads and stray facial hairs than a Value Village shopping spree? Check. Why do I love this generic scenester dreck? Because it’s catchy as fuck and completely self-aware.

Honourable Mentions:
Gouseion’s Anhedonia EP (RunRiot): Pure, unapologetic “me too” electro, with an dirty 8-bit slant. Sweaty nostalgia all over the dancefloor.
Four Tet’s Ringer EP (Domino): After a disappointing fourth full-length and a string of lacklustre cash-ins, it only took four songs to rekindle my man-crush on everyone’s favorite fro-wearing Folktronicist.

Brent Wilson’s Top Five

1. Johnny Dowd – A Drunkard’s Masterpiece (Munich Records)
It’s easiest to think of this as a slightly twisted sequel to the soundtrack Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle made for One from the Heart, Francis Ford Coppola’s attempt at a small personal movie. It’s about a couple’s marriage falling apart in Las Vegas, to which Waits and Gayle provide a bit of a Greek chorus. Of course the couple reconcile at the end of the movie, but imagine them now: they’ve left Vegas for some bumfuck Southern town, they’ve started cheating on each other again, and, rather than make up, they’ve decided to get as far away from each other as they can. Dowd and his usual vocal partner, Kim Sherwood-Caso, take on the Waits and Gayle roles, filling us in on the thought processes during the dismantling of the relationship. This “sequel” will never get made, but the quasi-soundtrack is good enough to fill that void. It’s the most ambitious album Dowd’s made to date, throwing meditations on family (“Easy Money”), his high self-opinion (“Johnny’s Got the Mic”), and his lady’s fine rear end (“Caboose”) into a trio of Southern Gothic opuses all peppered with Dowd’s surreal, dry wit.

2. James Blackshaw – Litany of Echoes (Tompkins Square)
3. Why? – Alopecia (Anticon)
4. Matt Elliott – Howling Songs (Ici D’Ailleurs)
5. volcano! – Paperwork (Leaf)

Miles Baker’s Top Five

I used to be with “it.” But then they changed what “it” was. Now what I’m with isn’t “it,” and what’s “it” seems weird and scary to me. — Abe Simpson

1. David Bowie - Hunky Dory (Virgin, 1971)
Look out you rock and rollers, this album is awesome. It’s naked and intimate, and it features amazing songs like “Changes,” “Oh! You Pretty Things,” and “Life on Mars?”

2. Tom Waits – Blood Money (Anti, 2002)
Waits’ record about the shittiness of humanity is addictive. I routinely hurt my throat trying to sound like him.

3. Aimee Mann – @#%&*! Smilers (Superego, 2008)
I heart Aimee Mann hard. Her newest record continues the tradition of intelligent lyrics with strong songwriting.

4. David Bowie – Aladdin Sane (Virgin, 1973)
Two years later, the moxie from Hunky Dory is harnessed to be sexier and better produced.

5. Mother Mother – O My Heart (Last Gang, 2008)
Vancouver’s Mother Mother improved their already polished and unique sound on this record. They remind me of The Pixies in every good way possible, god bless them.

Allana Mayer’s Top One, Plus

1. Why? – Alopecia (Anticon)
I won’t lie: I feel less of an authority than ever right now. It’s pretty tempting to put Bowerbirds’ Hymns For A Dark Horse as my number one again, on the technicality of it being a re-release and all. But I wouldn’t do that to you. The truth of the matter is that I was so bowled over by the brilliance of Alopecia, and so totally underwhelmed by everything else that came out this year, that I can’t help but leave the rest vacant. Take that.

How I felt when I reviewed Alopecia back in the spring hasn’t changed, which is the surprising part. Usually albums take their time to grow on me (which is, I hope, the case with most 2008 releases that haven’t won me over yet) and then lose their places in my heart as other stuff comes out. Not this time. I still know all the words.

Honourable Mentions:
Yann Tiersen – Tabarly (EMI France); National Bank – Come On Over To The Other Side (Universal Norway); Helvetia – The Acrobats (The Static Cult); Black Angels – Directions To See A Ghost (Light In The Attic)

The Other Things I Listened To A Lot This Year:
1. Supersilent – “6.1″ (from 6, 2004)
2. Couch – Figur 5 (2006) and Profane (2001)
3. Sybarite – “Identity #2″(from Placement Issues, 2001)
4. The Dirty Projectors – The Getty Address (2005)
5. Field Music – Tones Of Town (2007)
6. King Cobb Steelie – Junior Relaxer (1997)

I know we all spent the year RickRolling each other and reliving A-Ha nostalgia. Believe it or not, some people released some albums this year, too. But most of us found ourselves reliving past interests, researching long-gone releases, and feeling positively old. Thus, Part One of the semi-sort-of-not-really-best-of-2008, as disagreed upon by your friends at MONDOmusic.

Jake Shenker’s Top Five

1. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (Todo Mundo)

In 1981, Talking Heads frontman David Byrne and acclaimed producer Brian Eno teamed up to produce the electroacoustic, tape-loop-driven My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. The record was a complete departure from Byrne’s Talking Heads style, lacking conventional vocals and built upon samples of voices and loops. In 2006, while working on the re-release of that record, Byrne and Eno decided to collaborate again, producing this year’s Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. This time, the duo took a more conventional approach, producing catchy pop songs with just a tinge of eclecticism. Byrne’s recognizable voice soars as dexterously as it did 25 years ago, and his songs are still top-notch; Eno’s production adds an electronic vibe to Byrne’s organic style, accenting acoustic folk songs with strange percussive hits and often unrecognizable instrumentation. The result is a record that is immediately digestible and appealing, but with enough bizarre nuance to produce something unique.

2. 340ml – Sorry For the Delay (Sheer Sound)
3. Hey Rosetta! – Into Your Lungs (Sonic)
4. Hawksley Workman – Los Manlicious (Universal)
5. Zaki Ibrahim – Eclectica (Sony)

Natalie Sylvie Plourde’s Top Five, Plus

1. Fleet Foxes -Fleet Foxes (Sub Pop)

I found this year to be quite slow compared to years past; in the rough, however, there were a few gleaming diamonds. New indie darlings Fleet Foxes have received much love from the music elite: Pitchfork and Mojo both recently named Fleet Foxes the best album of 2008. This lovely record will soothe your soul with its enchanting melodies and soft but sometimes complex acoustic guitar. The warm four-part harmonies used in many tracks contrast with the haunting vocals of Robin Pecknold, disputably the lead singer. Though it needs a bit of patience for the first listen, it grows on its listener with every play. It isn’t an album that will grab anyone by the face and shout “We rule!” but, really, it’s damn beautiful.

2. MGMT – Oracular Spectacular (Sony/Columbia)
3. Vampire Weekend -Vampire Weekend (XL)
4. Girl Talk- Feed the Animals (Illegal Art)
5. Portishead – Third (Island)

Honourable Mentions:
TI – Paper Trail (Atlantic); Lil Wayne – The Carter III (Universal); Kings of Leon – Only by the Night (RCA)

Leo Moncel’s Top Five

1. CBC Radio 1
From the friendly, quick-witted Matt Galloway of Here and Now to the hard-edged, focused manner of The Current’s Anna-Maria Tremonti, you know CBC Radio kept it engaging, entertaining, and educational. In the kitchen or the car, I know they got you hooked on the daily.

2. Teach Yourself Korean recordings
From Berlitz’s practically-oriented series of handy phrases and short dialogues, to the more comprehensive Mastering Korean, I was bumpin’ the elementary Hangukmal this fall. Hottest track from M.K. has to be “Dialogue A” where Mr. James meets Ms. Kim and they introduce themselves formally! But I won’t front like Berlitz didn’t put it down with their dialogue on reserving a table at a restaurant.

3. Old Leonard Cohen MP3s I borrowed from York University’s library
This shit had my speakers blazin’! From the sombre, condemnatory growl of “Avalanche” to the frustrated, self-loathing cries of “Dress Rehearsal Rag,” Cohen had it locked. If it’s dark and profound you’re after, Leonard Cohen’s your man.

4. Q-Tip – The Renaissance (Universal Motown), if I’d heard it
Yeah, Q-Tip emerging at long last with another release! If you’re a Tribe fan (that is, anyone with a pulse who can hear), then I know you were psyched about this one. I was, too. I heard from Facebook that it was excellent. I almost went and bought it. Then I kinda waffled and forgot about it. If I had heard this album, I probably would have loved it enough to give it my number four slot.

5. Nas – Untitled (Def Jam/Columbia)
Nas is, to my mind, the greatest rapper there is, period. I know why others don’t share my opinion when he keeps dropping albums that are just “fairly good.” Like this one. It is good. It even has something to say. It didn’t put my jaw on the floor, but it has the distinction of being the only real album on this list.

Jan Streekstra’s Top Five

1. Larkin Grimm – Parplar (Young God)
2. The Dodos – Visiter (French Kiss)
I’ve been mocked a lot in my life. And I’ve mocked a lot. A lot of writers — a lot of people — feel out their poignancies using the arts. I look at mockery and wonder how I can be so hypocritical as to tolerate this situation: like every childhood, mine was stained with taunts that caused me to cry almost before I knew what had happened. Yet I cannot abandon it — I would not feel safe abandoning it. While I have no pretensions that mockery serves as my first psychological guard, I do it and enjoy it.

I’ve realized that true mockery, spontaneous and free-reined, is fed in part by malice. Malice breeds in the wake of revealingly powerful apprehensions about your place in the state of the world. Mocking uses conviction, and conviction is the seat of conscious identity: mockery brings us a flavour of truth, an addictively direct, effective, and precise way to be clear about what we’re thinking.

Parplar and Visiter cap off the list and get nods because they mocked me directly, lyrically; I was lucky enough that their self-critical dementias spoke to mine. They pointed me out, and laughed at me, and in turn I learned from them. The rest are brilliant works, and relentlessly mocked me with their images of my history, teaching me that my tastes are predictable even when I’m firm in my belief that I have found something new. I don’t think this is the same as eternal recurrence, but it is equally discomforting.

3. Small Sur – We Live In Houses Made Of Wood (Tender Loving Empire)
4. Menahan Street Band – Make The Road By Walking (Dunham)
5. Why? – Alopecia (Anticon)