Not that choosing the top 10 of 2009 has been any easier (I do not have the money to follow Wire or the NME's leads and pick 50). A particular spanner for me was the realisation that Tetragrammaton's Elegy for Native Tongues, the album I have perhaps enjoyed the most this year (old Skullflower and Fuck Buttons excepted) actually came out in 2008. Damn!
But, despite that, there have been more than a few classics and nice surprises, so, in order of preference, here goes!
1. Teeth of the Sea - Orphaned By The Ocean (The Rocket Record Company)Very underrated but triumphant mixture of just about every righteous and useful musical genre out there, from searing noise, to ambient electronics, to stomping psych metal, via some weird and lush mariachi trumpet sounds. Essential and rapturous.
2. Orthodox - Sentencia (Alone)Orthodox used to be a rather standard -if powerful- Metal band in the vein of Boris, Melvins and Sunn O))). But with Sentencia, they stripped-down their heavy, heavy thundering to explore free-jazz, experimental and musique concrete sounds, creating one of the most unpredictable albums of the decade, let alone the year.
3. Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions (Southern Lord)A good year indeed for drone/doom metal, with the genre's standard bearers delivering their best opus yet, and one that, much like Orthodox, sees the masters of sub-sub-bass notes and droning riffs explore new territories and textures, with strings, keyboards, choirs and trombones adding colour and variety to their monstrous roar.
4. D'Agostino/Foxx/Jansen - A Secret Life (Metamatic)One of my favourite ambient albums of recent years was this often-overlooked little gem featuring some improvised piano/tam tam jams between the evergreen John Foxx and foremr Japan drummer Steve Jansen, completed by sparse, stark keyboard shimmers from Steve D'Agostino.
5. William Basinski - 92982 (2062)An excellent and much appreciated return from the man behind The Disintegration Loops series. Again, Basinski uses old tape loops to create odd, gently shifting and highly absorbing ambient atmospheres that manage to evoke images of a sweltering New York skyline on a summer's night. Masterful!
6. Greymachine - Disconnected (Hydra Head)A surprise triumph was this association between Isis' Aaron Turner and Justin K Broadrick of Jesu. Disconnected is much closer to JKB's old band Godflesh with its harsh industrial sounds and extreme heaviness, but also incorporates the spacey, sky-soaring textures of Isis and Jesu, making this a superb meeting of the ferocious and the graceful.
7. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport (ATP Recordings)It may not have been as good as Street Horrrsing, but FB's sophomore effort still showcases this unique duo's absurb talent, as they take the noise-funk of their debut, compress it to buggery and add even more scattered dance/electro beats. The new style of dance.
8. Khanate - Clean Hands Go Foul (Hydra Head)The swansong of this unique metal outfit shows us just what we will be missing. They are still as harsh as fuck, but were also unafraid to experiment, with vocalist Alan Dubin in particular shining, unleashing his pained, harrowing shrieks over stripped-down, atmospheric, dark ambient metal. Not for the faint-hearted.
9. The xx - XX (Young Turks)My pop album of the year. XX is a ghostly, sparse album of modern indy rock, tinted by electro grooves and and r'n'b sensibility. Dominated by the superb deadpan vocals of the band's two singers, XX is pleasant surprise to emerge from indy's increasingly dull landscape.
10. OM - God Is Good (Drag City)Like Khanate, Sunn O))) and Orthodox, Om decided to experiment and play with their uber-heavy base sound, adding droning sitar, electric guitar and synth effects to augment their traditional fuzzed-out bass and scattered heavy jazz drums. Still perfect in so many ways.
Song of the year - "Olympians" by Fuck Buttons. Beautiful, soaring, spine-tingling.
Reissue of the year - Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere by Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Still brilliant, forty years on.
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