The No Ripcord Years: 2007-2009 (NR10)
As part of our tenth birthday celebrations, I asked the current crop of No Ripcord writers to contribute a few words on some of their favourite records of the last ten years. This is not intended to be a definitive look at the last decade; it’s just a space for all of us to remember some of the classic albums of the period and to promote a few overlooked efforts. Perhaps at some point down the line we’ll do a best of decade feature – this is not it.
Please use the comments space to discuss some of the music you remember from 2007, 2008, and 2009. Reflections on overlooked gems and undisputed classics are equally welcome.
2007
The year of “pay what you like”... and a lot of pretty awesome music. We haven’t even included LCD Soundsystem, Panda Bear and The Field, but that’s not because we don’t think they’re great records – we just ended up writing about different things.
Menomena: Friend And Foe
Portland trio Menomena opened up 2007 with Friend And Foe, their perfectly conceived piece of anti-indie rock-dom that refused to emulate or revive anything. Friend And Foe was a step toward something new, an indie album that wasn’t stuck in an 80s time warp, resigned to disco dance beats and sullen, distorted vocals, or masquerading as authentic 60s garage pop with obligatory and snotty Brit-‘tude. Friend And Foe even went so far as to restate the importance of an album’s physical being, boasting a package design and character that impersonal and disposable files could never hope to capture. The album won some acclaim, but was somehow left off of a lot of “Best Of” lists for the year. Criminal. (Sean Caldwell)
Stars of the Lid: And Their Refinement of the Decline
My buddy Matt, who is prone to chiding my sweet-tooth for out-rock and drone, once sent me text message reading something along the lines of, “Is the appeal of listening to Stars of the Lid in the waiting around for something to happen?” The answer, of course, is yes. Decline is paced as a constant building and receding, its texture a resplendent marriage of imminence and absence. I can honestly say that Decline is, by a wide margin, the record that I’ve listened to most frequently over the past two years, and just about every listen gleans a small, beautiful surprise. It is the perennial “repeat all” record, a set that I turn to when I’m too distracted or exhausted to figure out exactly what I want to listen to, and which always turns out to be exactly that. (Tom Whalen)
MGMT: Oracular Spectacular
An orgy of crushed squeaks and analogue funk, Oracular Spectacular employs ethnic flourishes, Prince-ly falsettos, and a dark sense of humour to great effect. Yet there is sweetness, too; the sex-stomp of Electric Feel is matched by the lamented innocence of Kids, both songs electronically degraded to the point of breaking apart. As if being scratched out from an overplayed record, MGMT revel in a kind of primitive, retrograde style that is familiar yet has no discernible home. The Youth and Of Moons, Birds & Monsters display a morbid underbelly, revealing that Oracular has a shadow behind all the throwback sunshine. (Kevin Liedel)
Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
A music critic once wrote that Spoon was in the business of finding the sparsest way possible to write a rock song. Kill the Moonlight seemed the perfect example of this. Stay Don’t Go is built on a single repetitive guitar line and monotone vocals. Single The Way We Get By is, for a pop song, extremely simple and free of over-production. But just because the band could make hit songs through minimalism doesn’t mean they couldn’t make better songs with the help of more instrumentation. Case in point: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.The Underdog and You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb, two of the band’s catchiest tracks to date, benefit from an infusion of irresistible horns and varied percussion. With ever album the band releases, Spoon seems to get better and better, and Britt Daniel seems more confident than ever. (Conor McKay)
Kings of Leon: Because of the Times
Oh God! Where is In Rainbows? Somewhere in my top ten, for sure, but Because of the Times has to take the gold. This record is all about Caleb Followill’s voice and the feeling it emotes, something that is between anguish and excitement. These are some great tales from the dusty road, and this is an album that will remain fresh for a long, long time. (Andy Pareti)
Zbigniew Preisner: Silence, Night and Dreams
Zbigniew Preisner is perhaps best known for his many film soundtracks, particularly his collaborations with Polish director Krzysztof Kieślowski, but Silence, Night and Dreams is a work of great importance in its own right. It is a sprawling piece for orchestra, choir and soloists: a thoroughly modern orchestra, as it turns out, which Preisner describes as having elements of “completely contemporary electronic” music: recorder, glass harmonica, Hammond organ, vibraphone and entirely contemporary brushed drums on To Speak. The opus is based on text from the Book of Job and sung mostly in Latin. Portuguese singer Teresa Salgueiro sings a beautiful Latin verse in To Know which translates as “But where shall wisdom be found? / And where is the place of understanding? / Man does not know the way to it, / and it is not found in the land of the living. / The deep says ‘It is not in me’, / ... ‘It is not with me’”. It’s a magnificent spiritual work as much secular as religious: Preisner describes it as being influenced by ‘technological alienation’, and urges us in a short poem in the liner notes to ‘prevail against the slogans, the labels, illusions and indifference, the cradles that surround us’. All in all, an unfairly overlooked album, and hands down the best classical work of 2007. (Michael Skinnider)
Radiohead: In Rainbows
More was written about the pricing model than the music itself, but now that the dust has settled, In Rainbows has assumed a deservedly prominent place in the Radiohead canon; I’d place it just ahead of The Bends and Amnesiac, although I admit it’s not quite up there with the band’s true masterworks, OK Computer and Kid A. Looking back, 2003’s Hail to the Thief feels like a slight disappointment; a solid record that saw the band acknowledging their angst-rock roots, while continuing to explore the electronic territories that characterised their 2000/2001 output. In Rainbows pushed the boundaries back further still, utilising a broad sonic palette with elements of krautrock, jazz, electronica, and rock. While Radiohead had drawn from these genres before, the variety and cohesiveness of In Rainbows made it feel like the band’s most forward thinking work since Kid A; it’s also one of their most enjoyable albums. (David Coleman)
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2008
We celebrated 2008 with two end of year features, which showcased the view of our writers and readers respectively. There was some healthy disagreement, as you’d expect, but the general consensus seemed to be that 2008 boasted a variety of pretty decent music, lots of which was made by bearded white men in plaid shirts.
Marnie Stern: This Is It...
Probably one of the decade’s most distinctive musicians, Marnie Stern’s This Is It... juxtaposes her seeming naivety and personable observations with music that is both unsettling and striking. Zach Hill’s free form percussion running rampant as Marnie Stern sprays electric chaos, the seemingly limitless possibilities of where she’ll go makes her music divine and unique. She’s easily one of music’s most original performers. (Sean Caldwell)
Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
How to even begin to describe the rural, sincerely Appalachian warmth that is Fleet Foxes' debut? Be it the sing-along refrains of White Winter Hymnal to the aching simplicity of Oliver James, the Seattle folksters live and breathe understated warmth. The album achieves contemporary status (perhaps accidentally) on the back its rugged intimacy, coming out more daring and alive than many of 2008's better post-punk attempts. Yet there is also complexity, with offerings like Ragged Wood molting from melody to melody, and the inconspicuous Blue Ridge Mountains haunting the soul in ways no other song could hope. Fleet Foxes have given us a reverse reflection of modern times painted beautifully in acoustic colours. (Kevin Liedel)
Shearwater: Rook
When I saw Shearwater live in summer of 2008, I had never heard of them, knew nothing of their history, and had no idea what I was in for. But from the first rapturous notes sung by Jonathan Meiburg, I knew they were something special. Meiburg’s immensely powerful vocals are arresting, and when paired with the group’s huge sound and calm-before-the-storm dynamic, the songs produced are epic and haunting. Rook was one of the best records I heard last year. But it is still yet to be seen whether the record will finally help the band come out from behind the shadow of its relative, Okkervil River. (Conor McKay)
TV on the Radio: Dear Science
It’s simply the most genre-bending collection of songs to come out all year. Dear Science is quite the uncategorical album, and it’s all the better for it. With influences ranging from My Bloody Valentine to David Bowie to the Rolling Stones, no matter what direction they go in next, it is always the right one. (Andy Pareti)
Deerhunter: Microcastle
A compact, surprisingly melodic follow-up to 2007’s breakthrough Cryptograms, Microcastle is quite simply the best work of the Atlanta band’s career. From the gorgeous psychedelic swirls of Cover Me (Slowly), through the conventional pop songs of Agoraphobia and Nothing Ever Happened, right up to the tremulous arpeggios of the finale, Twilight at Carbon Lake, Cryptograms is a beautiful journey, and one which you’ll be eager to share in again and again. (David Coleman)
. . .
2009
We’re not even halfway through 2009, but significant trends are already developing. African-inspired indie-pop is popular (thanks for that, Vampire Weekend) and lo-fi is back with a... crackly hiss? The biggest album of the year so far has been Animal Collective’s mind-bending (and that’s just the cover art) Merriweather Post Pavilion, a kaleidoscopic collision of childlike folk and primitive dance, which seems to be the culmination of this divisive band’s experimental work to date. It’s going to take something special (Wilco? Sonic Youth? Another AC release?) to knock MPP off its throne this year, but I’m keeping an open mind – it’s only May, after all.
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Somewhere from the belly of Strawberry Jam's Fireworks, the most daring and accessible album of 2009 was born. Merriweather Post Pavilion is wriggling, hypnotic, and wet, opening with the funky pseudo-dance stylings of My Girls and never letting up. Though bloated with swirling sounds and a perpetual fog of random noises, there is real music here, albeit wrapped in and around the Collective's experimental antics and paeans to home life. Where else could a listener find such manic joy than the kind displayed in Daily Routine, skipping and humming in deranged elation until its breaks into schizophrenic slo-mo halfway through? The answer is a resounding "Nowhere!" (Kevin Liedel)
The Derek Trucks Band: Already Free
After a look at Rolling Stone’s 2007 cover story that declared John Mayer, John Frusciante and Derek Trucks “The New Guitar Gods,” it hardly seemed alarmist to suggest that the 2000s were, perhaps, not landmark years for the instrument. Trucks was, without question, a brilliant technician – probably the best bottleneck guitarist since Duane Allman – but he had yet to establish a full-band sound. His 2009 release Already Free changed all that. With the South Asian-influenced tangents out of his system after five previous studio albums, he narrowed his scope to blistering blues-rock songs like the weighty Down Don’t Bother Me and the barn-burning Get What You Deserve. And raspy vocalist Mike Mattison proved his importance to the band with his performances of, among other highlights, Dylan’s Down in the Flood. This album made The Derek Trucks Band not only a joy to listen to, but relevant as well, and it proved that an electric guitar solo can still thrill, even in 2009. (Ryan Faughnder)
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Fuzzy indie-pop is big news this year. There’s been a lot of stylish posturing from a variety of (mainly New York) groups, but no one has come close to matching The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart. Yes, this record pays tribute to genre favourites like The Pastels, Black Tambourine, and even My Bloody Valentine, but it does so without sacrificing substance and melody. POBPAH might not be an original band, but like The Strokes before them, they’ve taken a cluster of old influences and meshed them together to create a modern pop classic.
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