Icelandic post-rockers Sigur Ros
Back in July, we culled through our playlists and came up with our top ten tracks for the first half of 2008.
Now that it's January -- the season of snow, hangovers, and "Best Of" lists -- we're posting our top ten (or so) tracks for the second half of 2008.
Parachute: by Shugo Tokumaru
Here’s how I’d describe Exit, Shugo Tokumaru’s 2008 album: toy soldiers creep into a clockmaker’s workshop in the middle of the night and form a miniature pop orchestra. (Check out the video for Button for another example.) Call it toy folk pop. Whatever you want to call it, Shugo-san's music makes you feel like the glass isn’t only half full, it’s exploding with sunshine.
Olympic Airways: by Foals
On the surface, these Oxford boys sound like more post-punks, like Bloc Party but with a Fine Young Cannibals falsetto. But then you hear that mathematical precision in the guitars: intricate, antiphonal (best listened to with headphones), syncopated, and dissonant, almost crossing over into electronic/minimalist territory. When Legolas in The Two Towers mistakes Gandalf for the evil wizard Saruman, Gandalf says "I am Saruman, or Saruman as he should have been." That's Foals: Bloc Party as they should have been.
Symphony 6: Fair Thee Well and Requiem Mix: by Emily Wells
Two things we don’t usually like in pop: strings and loops. Strings because most pop artists couldn’t orchestrate their way out of a paper bag, and loops because they may be cool to watch live (Jon Brion, say) but are usually lame and tiresome on record. With the gritty violin loops she plays on this track, though, L.A.-based Emily Wells manages to have her cake and eat it too, with a side of bite and brooding.
Parasite: by The Muslims
Rock and roll, pure and simple. That's all we have to say. (Except that these San Diego-based dudes have changed their name to The Soft Pack.)
Lights Out: by Santogold
Santogold is to indie music as Rogue is to the X-Men: her superpower is absorbing other people's powers. On her self-titled first album (which dropped in April; this single came out in August), she absorbs Karen O's garage band wail (on L.E.S Artistes) and M.I.A.'s 8-bit urban jungle hip-hop (on Creator). She also channels dub, reggae, and on this track, New Wave. One reviewer said listening to "Lights Out" was like discovering a lost track by The Pretenders.
Gobbledigook: by Sigur Ros
If the Big Bang had a sound track, this might be it. If you bend Finlandia around a compound time signature, add some hemiola and pounding drums, and frost it all with lyrics written in an ethereal, half made-up language (click here for a rough translation), this is what you'll get: a searing track of lava and ice (Sigur Ros are from Iceland), bubbling and popping with elemental force.
Paper Planes (DFA Remix): by M.I.A.The original Paper Planes single, off M.I.A.'s 2007 album, Kala, was catchy, but bogged down with too many samples: gunshots, cash registers, The Clash's "Straight to Hell." This dance-punk remix by DFA, featured on the soundtrack for the soon-to-be Oscar-laden "Slumdog Millionaire," strips away the noise, keeps the swagger, and juices it up with a funk groove that would put George Clinton to shame.
Magic Doors: by Portishead
Bands like Portishead and Goldfrapp know you can have it all: you can be electronic and elegant; you can be plugged in and painterly. Just about every track on Portishead’s long-awaited album, "Third," proves this (we included "The Rip" on our list for the first half of 2008). Though the album dropped early in the year, "Magic Doors" was recently released as a single.
Vive Solo: by Juana Molina
Argentina's Juana Molina is one of those rare artists whose albums we look forward to listening to in their entirety. It’s hard, though, to pin down one track you like; they're soundscapes as much as songs (especially if your Spanish is next to zero). Her latest album, Un Dia, brings rhythm into the foreground. We actually like Los Hongos de Marosa better, but couldn't add it to our playlist.
Offend Maggie: by Deerhoof
We want to like Deerhoof. Not just because drummer Greg Saunier is from Oberlin, but because we like an outside-the-box approach to music. Many Deerhoof songs, though, sound like other bands warming up. Call it art rock, but when you break open the traditional format, it can be refreshing, but it can also, we have to admit, be hard to listen to. "Offend Maggie," though, takes this aesthetic and tames it into a short, even catchy song, with a grace note-inflected guitar riff that almost sounds like an Eastern European folk song.
No One Does it Like You: by Department of Eagles
Call it Roy Rogers meets the Velvet Underground: a dreamy, whimsical tune moseying along on a jaunty, cowboy ostinato. Oh, and with a wash of Lawrence Welk backup vocals on acid. When those guitar triplets come in, it almost feels like a Philip Glass film score: The Hours, Mishima, Kundun...take your pick.
Five Years Time: by Noah and the Whale
Pretend, for a moment, that this song wasn’t played to death in a Saturn commercial this summer, and you’ll be able to enjoy it in all its wide-eyed, indie exuberance. This song is like a Wes Anderson flick condensed into 3 1/2 minutes (the video certainly feels like it). How quirkily good-natured can you get?
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