Top 10 Albums of 2009

My top albums of 2009. In no particular order.

ARTIST / ALBUM

Radiohead / In Rainbows (Self-released 2007)
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When in Rainbows came out, Brian said he thought it was their best record. I told him he was crazy, but had to at least re-consider after the last 2-3 weeks of this year...the winter...the holidays. It was the only thing I listened to. For me it was COLD weather and sushi in the east village. I listened to more music this year than any before, and at the end when I had boiled through everything this was the base I Iistened to over and over.

Loscil / Plume (Kranky 2006)
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Plume is a dense album. I started listening to it in 2008, and finished in 2009. Track 5 brought me in first. Then 8 and 9 back to back. I remember hearing those waking up on the train one morning at 4 or 5 am when I had missed my stop and was at the end of the line. Then it was 7-8-9, and then 5-6-7-8-9. And then I started from the beginning, and after only 2 years I could make my way through the whole thing: 1-9. This is the craziest hours of the day.

Bob Dylan (b. 1941) / The Bootleg Series Vol 4: Bob Dylan Live 1966, The Royal Albert Hall Concert (Columbia 1998) 
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A concert recorded in London in 1966 when Dylan was 24 years old. It was the first tour where Dylan played an acoustic set followed by an electric set. Right before Like a Rolling Stone you can hear him say, "play it loud" to the band. Bootleg Series VI (released in 2004) is a concert from two years previous that finds him slightly unsure. This one finds him in a state of teaching. There had to be a point in his career when he felt like he was watching the world from another planet and flying down to give it a greater understanding of itself. This recording captures it.

Frightened Rabbit / The Midnight Organ Fight (Fat Cat 2008)
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I saw Frightened Rabbit at LPR in January 09. I don't remember the specifics, but I do remember really enjoying the show. Like drinking beer, and laughing, and telling someone to shut the fuck up at one point. 

Here We Go Magic / Here We Go Magic (Western Vinyl 2009
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It was the third or fourth week in March and we were in Nebraska. Coming from Texas. It was Jen, David and I and we were in a conversion van. David was navigating with an iPhone and Jen was in the back seat. She put on music. A band she played a show with in NYC. It sounded like something I would listen to. She started playing along on guitar and singing.

I get back to NYC, work for a week or two and remember this band Jen played in the van. Somewhere in Nebraska or Oklahoma. I googled "Brooklyn band magic." The first hit was Here We Go Magic. I listened, and liked it and bought it. I listened to it over and over.

 

Can / Future Days (Mute 1973)

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Can's "Future Days" is Jersey highways in and out of New York City. It's rusty power plants and soggy grass fields, and rhythms like wheels on the road.

  

Bo Diddley (1928 - 2008) /18 random songs on a CD-R

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A random cd I found in someone's van with 18 Bo Diddley tracks on it. A comp cd someone had burned from Bo's early Chess records. It doesn't make sense, I suppose, to consider it a top album, but I did listen to it more than any other album. Bo Diddley is the stretch of highway between Toronto and Detroit. Or Tennessee and North Carolina. It's Mississippi to Texas or any stretch of highway anywhere in America.