DELTRON 3030′S TOP 10 OF 2009
Filter just released their top ten album list for 2009 and this is what it looks like
1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
2. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (Glassnote)
3. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest (Warp)
4. Miike Snow, Miike Snow (Downtown)
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It’s Blitz! (Interscope)
6. Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Elvis Perkins in Dearland (XL)
7. Cass McCombs, Catacombs (Domino)
8. Passion Pit, Manners (Frenchkiss)
9. The Antlers, Hospice (Frenchkiss)
10. White Rabbits, It’s Frightening (TBD)
While I agree with many of their selections I can’t get past two errors:
1) Not slotting The Antlers at number one. (OK it is official -They should go ahead and process that restraining order now.
2) Leaving off the XX.. The XX’s debut record is an amazing album that deserves a top ten slotting.
I don’t want to define this as a travesty against humanity because we should save that word for the abomination that is MTV’s Jersey Shore. Instead let us simply call this an oversight. Allow me to correct these mistakes now with my rushed top ten.
Del’s top ten of 2009
1 The Antlers – Hospice (more…)
DELTRON 3030 RECOMMENDED: Dirty Projectors ‘Bitte Orca’
At this point I should just do these things Mad Lib style: “INSERT Adjective“, “INSERT OBJECT” started off as a solo project by “NAME OF PERSON IN ROOM” and since then has spiraled into a full piece band consisting of “INSERT NUMBER” members…and growing. It is “INSERT ADJECTIVE!”
” Stop trying to teach me, Madlibs!. I hate adverbs and I hate you! Someone get Mouse Trap out of the game chest!”
Enough of that flashback into my childhood. You get the idea.
The sound on Bitte Orca, highlighted by male/female call and response vocals layered over jangly guitars and constant tempo changes, is oddly accessible…or I suppose I should say is, all things considered, SURPRISINGLY accessible for a band whose last two albums were:
The Getty Address, a gibberish infused “noise opera”concept album about a suicidal Don Henley, oil, ancient Mexico, and post-9/11 America
Rise Above, an album of Black Flag songs as re imagined from memory, fifteen years after listening to it.
Yeah, they think they’re pretty damn clever. That didn’t stop them from winning over David Byrne. If you’re OK in his book, you’re OK in mine. Their collaboration was the lead track, and one of the many stand outs on the Dark Was The Night compilation, and it appears to have paid off for the band’s growth structurally and sonically….or maybe its because they stopped trying to scare people off by being too clever for their own good.
Highlights: “Stillness Is The Move”,” Cannibal Resource”, “Fluorescent Half Dome”, “Two Doves”
side note: I urge you to revisit Dark Was the Night if you haven’t listened to it yet. Go buy it now. Not only is it like a mixtape you can attain without having to put out for but every album sold will benefit the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising money and awareness for HIV and AIDS through popular culture. They are the people responsible for albums including No Alternative, Red Hot and Blue and many more, and this is their 20th year, and this is the 20th release!