Top Ten (plus one) Records from 2003 For Which You Should Pay Money:

1. Kelley Stoltz: Antique Glow. The album begins with a riff from "Here Comes The Sun," then veers immediately into "Venus In Furs" territory, and dips into Meddle-land, all sung through a Beck-infused psychedlic folk sheen. Sorry to drop all the names but Kelley invites it on this record, which manages to be so much more than the sum of its influences. From the Drake-y "Mean Marriane" to the T Rex scuzz "Are You Electric" to the stupid "Underwater" to the touching "Mt. Fuji/My Silverlining," Antique Glow was the album that I played most obsessively this year. Kelley's previous album The Past Was Faster was a lo-fi novelty; Antique Glow is a lo-fi masterpiece, a happy neighbor to Bee Thousand. Outstanding!

2. The Fall: Country On The Click/The Real New Fall LP. It's another Fall record; this one took a long time to show up. It seemed like a bad sign and an inevitability when it was called back to be remixed after review copies were already sent out, but luckily the remix only pumped up the good bits to extreme levels and eradicated the dull bits. Finally, the first Fall album in a few years to be consistently listenable all the way through; I don't think there's a boring track on here, and it has at least three of the best songs MES has written ("Protein Protection," "Sparta FC," and "Mountain Energie").

3. Dizzee Rascal: Boy in da Corner. Is this hip-hop? Is it electronic? It is definitely paranoid, musically offputting, and claustrophobic, and extremeley English. DR's rhymes and stylings are, well, I don't even know what to say about them. This is coming out next year in the US and Matador hopes are high for this to break-through big time, but I think it's too weird for American audiences; one of the most original albums to come out of England in a decade.

4. Radiohead: Hail to the Thief. Hearing guitars on a Radiohead album again was confusing at first but I adjusted. In the end, I find it a stronger record than Amnesiac, and certainly more fun.

5. Nina Nastasia: Run to Ruin. Like a dark night drive down a crappy overgrown road, in the middle of a tense conversation with someone you used to love about something you regret. Jim White's drums provide the migrane.

6. Mogwai, Happy Songs for Happy People. "How many Mogwai records do you need?" You need this one, at least.

7. Colleen: Everyone Alive Wants Answers. Another "pretty" record, signifying that "pretty" ruled the year for me.

8. Lisa Germano: Lullabye For Liquid Pig. Unbelievably overdue. Beautiful.

9. Belle & Sebastian: Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Thank you Trevor Horn, for passing on the latest Seal borefest to make Belle and Sebastian into the best New Wave Band of 1984. This should have been issued on orange vinyl. If the guitar solo in "Stay Loose" doesn''t move you then it would take an earthquake.

10. Piano Magic: The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic. Released too late in the year for most people to hear. It wouldn't be an Agenbyte year-end list without a PM album. This is their most consistent release after the Bliss Out.

11. Grandaddy: Sumday. The boys from Modesto coat their desert soundscapes with sugar and push the bliss envelope. A record with so many surprisingly pretty moments. If only the rumored double album version had been released.

Other recommendations: Matt Elliott: The Mess We Made; these ghosts hate you. Don't sleep tonight. George: the Magic Lantern; english-post-folk, pretty textures. OutKast: the Love Below/Speakerboxxx; Sylvain Chauveau: Un Autre Decembre; more of the pretty. David Sylvian, Blemish; finally a challenging release from Sylvian. Uncompromising. More in this vein, please. Juana Molina: Segundo; lovely Spanish electro-folk, like a blippy Cat Power. Robert Wyatt: Cuckooland; another solid record, too bad they don't happen more often. Arab Strap: Monday at the Hug and Pint; opens with "The Shy Retirer," my new favorite Strap song, because it bolsters my belief that the english do nothing but sit around pubs, eat pills, and lech on each other; the Mars Volta: De-loused in the Comatorium; this might be a stupid record, the cover art certainly is, but it fulfills some adolescent urge to listen to Rush, so it gets a recommendation. the Yeah Yeah Yeahs: Fever to Tell; the Rapture: Echoes; I like Gang of Four and PIL. The Wrens: Meadowlands; a screamy emo Red House Painters; Sun Kil Moon: Ghosts of the Great Highway; why wasn't this called an RHP album? In a lesser year would have placed higher, for "Duk Koo Kim" alone, probably Kozelek's best song since "Drop".

Labels: 2003, reviews, top ten

Oh and I never talked about the American Music Club reunion after it happened. There was no good reason for me not to; I wanted to put photos from the show up but didn't think they turned out too well (here they are anyway), and I was supposed to write a review of the show for someone else and flaked. In that time AMC have played a bunch more shows, so here are some reflections on the two I've seen:
It isn't quite like they've never been away. Walking into the MOR before the first show was surreal. By the time they took the stage to begin the interminable tuning up, the room was filled beyond capacity, people in the front drenched in sweat from lack of air. Some guys unwisely took their shirts off but put them back on. Vudi had a mess of electro-harmonix effects. There was a piano but no one person to sit behind it. When they opened at the MOR with "Why Won't You Stay" it might have been ironic, or it might have been simply what they remembered how to play. The older songs began roughly, and the new ones were largely unfamiliar, and even the ones that were familar have been changed in significant ways. Where just two years ago the song formerly known as "Freedom" ended with the jibe "You wouldn't know freedom if it shat in your mouth", it's now called "Another Morning" and, with just a few lyrical changes, has become one of Eitzel's more affecting Kathleen tributes to date. At first Bruce's absence was obvious and the tension was palpable, but by the end of their set at du Nord to support Matt Gonzalez' mayoral run, Marc Cappelle was an obvious replacement.
The band is sober and older, but rested and at ease. In beween song banter is kept to a minimum. The new songs, "A Job to Do" and "Lucky" pick up where San Francisco and "All Your Jeans Were Too Tight" left off, wiggly Vudi-isms galore, but with more guile and more determination. Lyrically there is more bile and more hope. "Home" has become a thundering, revving, emotive call. "The Patriot's Heart" has improved with every public performance, the political content in this most political of years is overt and unabashed.
AMC are not a band that want to fuck around with pleasantries any more. They are not overly concerned with making you love them. If you don't feel anything: if you don't smile at the end of "Johnny Mathis' Feet," if you don't want to hit someone after "Bad Liquor," if you don't resent your country during "Team USA", then the hell with you, you're dead. Go home. American Music Club play this Monday and the next at Spaceland in Los Angeles.

Labels: american music club, live shows, mark eitzel, photos, reviews

Review: Piano Magic, "The Troubled Sleep of Piano Magic"
Now mutually divorced from 4AD, Piano Magic's talents haven't suffered a bit, in fact, the seperation has provided the opportunity to focus on what made the band so interesting to begin with.
Back to a band project after all the guests on "Writers Without Homes," "Troubled Sleep" is stylistically a proper follow up to "Artist's Rifles." Opener "Saint Marie" is a more-than-convincing Durutti Column homage which shows Johnson's aptitude with a guitar and an echo delay. Angele David-Guillou handles the french-accented girl vocal duties when needed; there is also a fair amount of acoustic guitar, much of it with a slightly spanish flavour in the picking patterns, making Piano Magic an increasingly European sounding project. "The End of a Dark, Tired Year" is propulsed by positively Factory-esque drumming; it's back to the sea on "The Tollboth Martyrs" featuring another musical variation on "A Trick of the Sea". "Speed the Road" is the same version released earlier as a single and still features some of Johnson's uncharacteristic lyrics ("even bad girls sleep tonight") but aside from that, this is a sombre album with a unique melancholy concentrating on the private tortures the mind can inflict on itself in the depths of sleeplessness. "Comets," which closes the album with David-Guillou's refrain "you should always tell them you love them/in case you never see them again" provides Piano Magic's most affecting moment. In summary: perfectly lovely.
Note: The Japanese version of this album substitutes the less interesting "What Does Not Destroy Me" from the Klima split 7" for the amazing track "I Am the Teacher's Son." I don't know why.

Labels: piano magic, reviews

Review: Colleen, "Everyone Alive Wants Answers"
An almost impossibly beautiful album from Paris musician Cecile Schott and an amazing revelation for anyone who has ever used Acid Loops to make music; never repetative, circling permutations of melody coalesce like drops of mercury on a mirror. The pieces have an antiquated feel thanks to the music-box-like piano and harpsichords and the pronounced sheen of surface noise that dusts each track. Cannot be recommended enough.

Londoners will have the incredible good fortune to see Colleen live at Track and Field on December 17th.

Labels: colleen, reviews