Previously: 2005, 2003

Every year I try and pull together my thoughts on what music I enjoyed the most in 2006. Time consuming, sure, but it’s something I really enjoy doing. Revisiting releases from earlier in the year is an interesting exercise in seeing just how much your taste can change in a couple of months. So, later, much later, we’ll hit a list of the Top 10 Albums and the Top 10 Tracks of 2006, but first, the random categories. Let’s rock it.

Best Downtempo/Uptempo Combination

Underworld¹ haven’t dropped anything in your local HMV this year, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been busy. Over the past year or so they’ve been regularly releasing stuff through Underworld Live. You pay your five quid, download your album, and you’re away. While the releases thus far have been a lot more experimental and less dancey than their studio releases, there’s been some superb stuff to be found. I particularly loved the Misterons Mix, a compilation of bits of all three of the official online releases for 05/06. It’s very chilled, and is excellent working music, and many a day I’ve left it playing on loop while I slave away at the keyboard. Underworld with pianos and nary a drum beat to be hear, who’d have picked it.

Just when I thought they’d really started to focus on the ambient stuff, they released a four-hour set playing live with Sven Vath from the Cocoon club in Frankfurt that was broadcast live over the internet. It’s a storming set, showcasing a stack of new and very exciting tracks. What I’ve heard leads me to believe that their new album, due next year, will have some killer tunes on it. And when it does hit, I’ll be first in the line.

¹ Yes, this is the latest of my efforts to create a category devoted solely to Underworld every. single. year.

Best Gigs

5. Guitarwolf / Insane naked guy: Kobe Rock street, Star Club, Japan

Nick did the write-up thing: “I only recognised one of the songs (Invader Earth), but who gives a fuck? From the moment Guitar Wolf stepped onto the stage, you knew the club’s awesomeness level had gone through the roof. I can’t even remember what he was saying. Everyone there knew he was the SHIT.” More here and here and if you’re in Kobe watch this space because they’ll probably put details of next year’s events up soon.

4. Royksopp: Shinsaibashi Quattro, Japan

They played a massive set, two encores, and then ran around in spider-man masks and the support guitarist smashed his guitar into the stage. To Royksopp. I have never seen a Japanese crowd get so into anything live. Not Guitarwolf. Not Denki Groove. Not the fucking Chilli Peppers.

3. 2ManyDJs: Fuji Rock, Japan

I say 2ManyDJs, but the Saturday night lineup for Fuji Rock was as follows: Ryukyu Disko, Soulwax: Niteversions, Hyper, Junkie XL and finally 2ManyDJs. The red marquee was still utterly packed when the sun came up at 5, and the concert promoters forcibly ejected 2ManyDJs, the 50 people dancing on stage, and the thousands in the marquee at about 5:30. That night alone was worth the entry fee, the horrendous train journey, and the slog home, a thousand times over.

2. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs: Fuji Rock, Japan

I kept my shoes, and my clothes, clean and dry for a two whole days at Fuji Rock, and I was very pleased about it. Then the Yeah Yeah Yeahs happened. This is what my shoes looked like afterwards.

1. Kings of Convenience: Shinsaibashi Quattro, Japan

Hands down the best gig of the year, and one of the best I’ve seen. In April, I gushed about it and said: “in “Homesick” [Erlend] sings about “two soft voices, blended in perfection” and that’s exactly what it was: perfection.” Eight months on and I still shiver when I think about it.

Best “When did Glowsticks and Guitars get freaky, and what in the hell is this.”

Back in November, I wrote: “I don’t know when the fuck the new-disco/electro-pop/indie-rave thing blew up, but I love it to bits. Technicoloured clowns vomiting rainbows while they beat unicorns to death with glowsticks is the new black.” While a certain Doug Thailes might have taken offense, it’s a fresh sound, and one that is gaining momentum, particularly in Australia. For a great introduction, and what I think is the best Mix CD of the year, grab a hold of Fabriclive 29 which has been mixed by Australia’s own Cut Copy. It’s a rollicking, bouncy mix that just screams “Hey! Party. Party now. You get out on that fucking dance floor and you tear it up.”

Whether you’re out on the floor or at home on the computer, you might want to listen out for some of the following: The Klaxons – Magick, NY Pony Club – Get Dancy, Cut Copy – Future, Midnight Juggernauts – Deadly Venom and Van She – Kelly. Oh, and a hat-tip to Doug for being the single grumpiest person I’ve ever had on the blog.

What I first heard in 2006 and fell utterly in love with.

This can be summed up with two albums, both of the electronic persuasion. The Books – Lost and Safe is full of amazing soundscapes, old samples, and general sonic mayhem and Erlend Oye – Unrest is just, well, go listen to some of it over here or pick it up.

Most fun I had making a Mix CD

Laura Lies

“They say that the common goldfish has a memory span of roughly five seconds. Time to read this sentence and maybe the one after that. To flick aside the curtain and admire the sunset. To consider the pregnant possibility that tomorrow holds. Time for cause, but little for effect. Time to make the decision, but little for regret. Time enough for Ben.”

Most over-hyped piece of turd

This is a contest here between the woeful second album from The Killers, Sam’s Town and the equally woeful second album from Jet, Shine on, they both stink and I don’t really want to write any more about them, so I won’t.

Best Blue, Green and Brown

Soundtrack – The Earth is Burning

Best Tracks of 2006

10. Gerling – Gator

At first I didn’t know what to make of 4, Gerling’s latest effort, which I had my brother post over to me in Japan the second it was released in Australia. I am enamoured with Gerling: they were the soundtrack to my University days and a great number of their tracks hold a very special place in my heart. I love their irreverence, their quirky sense of humour and their constant innovation. Which is why is was so confused when I listened through 4 for the first time; this was straight from the textbook guitar-driven indie pop. Gator is a great pop song and there are a bunch more on the album. I have a feeling that if an hitherto unknown Australian band released 4, it would have been seized on with near Wolfmother fervor but, as it was Gerling, people didn’t quite know what to make of it. I don’t either, but it’s a great song, from a great album, and I hope their next is nothing like it.

9. Gnarls Barkley – Gone Daddy Gone

When Cee-Lo and Danger Mouse collaborated, anything could happen, but few could have predicted just how comprehensively these two nailed a completely fresh sound in Hip-hop. And I guess it’s ironic that the track I’ve chosen is a Violent Femmes cover, and one that certainly didn’t get the radio play or critical acclaim of Crazy, but it’s far and away my favourite track off St. Elsewhere. A close second would be Just a Thought. I guess I’m just weird that way. Tangentially, Australia was the only English-speaking country in which Crazy never reached the #1 position. Part of me wonders what it was up against, but I think it would depress me to find out, so I’m not looking it up.

8. Bonnie Prince Billy – No Bad News

Find me a more beautiful song from 2006, and I’ll slot it right in here.

7. Midnight Juggernauts – 45 and Rising (Cut Copy remix)

See below (Glowsticks and Unicorns) for a more complete look into this kind of sound. I just wish someone would come up for a name that isn’t Indie-Rave, because that is awful and makes me want to punch something. These guys sold out in Perth and I’m spewing I missed them, but I made up for it by listening to this track a hundred thousand times.

6. Certainly, Sir – Happy

The band that out Postal-Serviced The Postal Service. Maybe not as consistent as Gibbard’s side project but, surprisingly, the peaks surpass it. Hell, I think Gibbard even does guest vocals on a couple of the tracks. The album is called TAN! and if you liked Give Up back in 2003, I’d recommend giving this a listen.

5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Phenomena

I want you to imagine two people. One is peacefully asleep on a nice patch of grass in the summer sun, while the other is forcefully punching a large hole in a concrete wall with her bloodied fists. Here is a video clip on YouTube of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs playing Phenomena at some BBC festival this May. This is the person on asleep on the grass. When I saw them at Fuji Rock this year, they were the other person. With the concrete, and the blood, and the vicious, unrelenting mosh. You don’t have to punch through a wall while you’re listening to it, but no-one would blame you for trying.

4. Bonobo – Days to Come (feat. Bajka)

This song is the aural equivalent to this. Soak it up. Revel in its beauty. Emerge somehow better for it.

3. Tool – 10,000 Days (Wings Pt 2)

A dense, atmospheric track that slowly builds, and builds, and builds and builds. 10,000 Days highlights everything that Tool does best: compelling lyrics, intensely layered sound and a powerful 11 plus minute track that sounds fresh the whole way through. This song is also why I am not buying a ticket to the Big Day Out.

2. The Whitest Boy Alive – Inflation

A few years ago, whenever anyone asked me to recommend them some music, I asked them what they were into, what they’d listened to that year, and what some of their favourite CDs were. These days, I simply say: “Have you heard of Erlend Oye?” and send them a link to this track.

1. Sunset Rubdown – Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings

My girlfriend can be somewhat reticent towards approaching new music. That’s cool, everyone has their own tastes, and that’s what makes listening to someone else’s music collection so fascinating. But then she bought, and raved about, the latest Keane album: an album I can only describe as the most calculatedly maudlin radiohead rip-off I’ve ever heard. So in the latter half of 2006, I devised a plan of subconscious musical manipulation.

Now, I won’t go into details here but needless to say, it was a complete and utter failure. A Dismal Failure. The point is, as I was flipping through stuff to play to set the mood, or kill the mood, or repair the mood, or make the mood moodier, or philosophical, or just something to leave playing in the background, I seemed to be settling on this track more than anything else. It was something that I wanted everyone to hear. One that I wanted people to understand. One I wanted her to understand because this was a track that nailed everything that Keane was trying to do, without any of the bullshit.

I think “Shut Up” is hard to understand at first. It is dense and unapproachable, and it needs to be worked on gradually. Digested. It’s not a song that you will love the first time you hear, but it is one that will grow on you every successive time you hear it. I love everything about this track. The title, the beautiful lyrics, Krug’s delivery, the triumphant bridge, the perfect, perfect, perfect ending. It’s an entire album worth of great stuff packed into seven and a half glorious minutes and without a doubt the best track I’ve heard this year.

Best Albums

10. The Beatles – Love

The Beatles are, were and always will be the biggest band ever. Listen to this and tell me they don’t sound as fresh now as they ever did. The fact that they can play “Sun King” backwards and Lennon still sounds great doesn’t make any sense to me and that I’m putting the Beatles on a best of 2006 list just blows my mind. This album will be in so many stockings this Christmas it’s not even funny.

9. The Roots – Game Theory

The Roots are smart, media-savvy and well produced without a lot of the egotistical baggage that comes with being a smart, media-savvy hip-hop outfit that’s commercially viable. This is a fantastic hip-hop record, and it’s far more together than their previous outing, The Tipping Point. It’s all in the Music.

8. José González – Stay in the Shade EP

This is a mere five-track EP, featuring tracks off 2004’s Veneer. It has no place in a “Best Albums of 2006” list. It is not an album, the majority of the tracks did not come out in 2006, and there are only five of them. However, those five tracks are some the most beautiful and touching acoustic works I’ve heard. The cover of Kylie’s “Put your hand on your heart and tell me” is sublime and it’s fucking Kylie of whom I’m sure the words “beautiful and touching acoustic” have never before been uttered. Why González hasn’t yet exploded into the public consciousness baffles me.

7. Johanna Newsom – Ys

Every indie radio station, music publication, artist and promoter has been raving about this album since the second it has been released. When I wrote about it, I called it beautiful. And “haunting and shimmering and ethereal.” And I will leave it at that.

6. Alex Smoke – Incommunicado

I think this might have actually come out late 2005, but I picked it up in January have been hooked ever since. Part glitch, part ambient and part all-out techno, it’s held my interest for much longer than I expected. One of reasons I kept coming back to it again and again was that every track was unique and distinct, rather than the 80 minute mix you get on so many electro records these days. That and Chica Wappa is a storming tune.

5. Tool – 10,000 Days

Vicarious: from Latin vicārius “vicarious, substituted”

1. Experienced or gained through someone else, such as through watching or reading.

“I got a certain vicarious pleasure from listening to that new Tool album. Sure, it’s predictable, but the lyricism and emotional integrity of the songs are second to none.“

4. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs – Show Your Bones

If everyone as much energy and passion into making great music as the YYYs did, the world would be a better place.

3. Phoenix – It’s Never Been Like This

The boys from Paris lay down another perfectly produced pack of power-pop ballads. It’s Phoenix, and you know exactly what to expect, but I didn’t expect the sheer top-to-bottom quality of this record: there’s nary a poor track and a couple of absolute scorchers. If I’d seen them live, this would probably be album of the year but instead it will have to settle for third place.

2. The Whitest Boy Alive – Dreams

Erlend Oye can do no wrong. I’m dead serious, everything this guy touches turns to solid gold. The Kings of Convenience do gorgeous pop music, he made one of the best DJ Mixes ever with his DJ Kicks compilation, he collaborated with some of the freshest electronic talent in Europe and produced an album of sensational tracks with 2005’s Unrest (see below) and now he’s formed a band, recorded an album, and in doing so set a new benchmark for electro-pop. Dreams is fun, funky and danceable and you should grab it if you can.

1. Bonobo – Days to Come

It’s a well known fact that releasing a movie at the right time can help you with awards considerations but for music I tend to feel that it’s the opposite. An album that has had an entire year to grow on you is much more likely to be in contention that one released towards the end of the years. With this is mind, consider that Bonobo’s Days to Come was released in Australia in late November and I’d already rate it as one of my favourite albums of all time.

This is another genre bender, somewhere between downtempo electro and what they’re calling nu-jazz these days, and it’s gorgeous from start to finish. Like The Avalanches, “Since I Left You” before it, this is an album that is all-encompassing: people love it. Everyone loves it. Everyone wants to know who it is. You can put this on loop and listen to it again and again and again. The gorgeous voice of Bajka) helps a couple of the tracks but mostly it’s just Simon Green’s sublime instrumentation that is both pared-down, and at the same time rich and full. Contradictory, and I’m running out of adjectives.

You can listen to several of the tracks on his myspace page and form your own opinion but as for, I’m happy to list Days to Come as the best album I heard in 2006.

Last.FM does charts too

Last.FM quietly sits in your media player and sends track data through to their server and in the process creates the kind of listening data that record-company executives have wet dreams about. Give that anything I listened to passed through Last.FM at some stage, it’s a fascinating look at the difference between what I enjoyed critically, and what I actually listened to the most.

So, excluding my iPod and Vinyl habits, here’s what I listened to the most in 2006:

Albums

1. Alex Smoke – Incommunicado
2. William Orbit – Strange Cargo III
3. Cut Copy – Bright Like Neon Love
4. José González – Veneer
5. The Avalanches – Since I Left You

Tracks

1. José González – Deadweight on Velveteen
2. Alex Smoke – Chica Wappa (Mejor edit)
3. Mylo – Paris Four Hundred
4. Opus III – It’s a Fine Day
5. Alex Smoke – 6am

Artists

1. Underworld
2. Boards of Canada
3. Alex Smoke
4. Gerling
5. José González

The only artists that made the top five of all three lists were Alex Smoke and José González. For hilarity factor, check out The Avalanches at number five on the albums list, five years after its release. Insanity.

Most time wasted writing a “Best of” list

Do I win yet? Do I? Do I?

Your turn now

Music you liked, music you hated, calling me a cunt and abusing my musical taste: it’s all in the comments. Go crazy people.

Posted in Flatbeat on Friday December 22, 2006.

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