My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 8 Through 1

And so we've reached the end of this year's journey through my top albums. Before we get into the top eight, I'll try to sum up which albums released in the last few months of 2008. September brought offerings from Jenny Lewis, Mercury Rev, People in Planes, Butch Walker, No and the Maybes, Glasvegas, Santogold, Jon Ryman, Metallica, Chairlift, Kings of Leon, and a sophomore record from former Suede frontman, Brett Anderson. There were also a few that have already made this countdown, including TV on the Radio, Ladyhawke, and Okkervil River.

October's albums was jam-packed with records from Empire of the Sun, Department of Eagles, The Sea and Cake, Eugene McGuinness, Of Montreal, Kaiser Chiefs, Keane, Euros Childs, Bloc Party (the physical version), Los Campesinos!, and AC/DC with their long-awaited return. There were also a couple of disappointments from The Cure and Cold War Kids. Snow Patrol demonstrated that they couldn't compete with Chasing Cars while Oasis produced another unneccessary album. And there were several antlered mammals afoot with releases from Deerhoof, Deerhunter, and The Dears. Again, there were several released in October that you've already seen in this series, namely, from Simon Bookish, Maps of Norway, Polarkreis 18, and Twig.

November saw records from We Are Standard, Glass Candy, Razorlight, Threatmantics, Max Tundra, Thieves Like Us, Kanye West, and The Killers. Of course November was also the momentous occasion of Guns 'n Roses' Chinese Democracy. I apologize, but as the year wound down, I didn't note any albums released in December except for an inexplicably successful comeback from Britney Spears.

To recap, the countdown thus far is:

40. The Penguin League - Antarctica Takes All!
39. This Gift - Sons & Daughters
38. Apocalypso - The Presets
37. Sea From Shore - School of Language
36. The Colour of Snow - Polarkreis 18
35. L'anthologie des 3 perchoirs - Duchess Says
34. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - David Byrne and Brian Eno
33. For Emma Forever - Bon Iver
32. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp
31. Die Off Songbird - Maps of Norway
30. Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair
29. The Devil, You + Me - The Notwist
28. The Jade Motel - Zeigeist
27. The Stand-Ins - Okkervil River
26. Evolutionary Sunset Call - stanleylucasrevolution
25. Oracular Spectacular - MGMT
24. Life After Ridge - Twig
23. V - Van She
22. Cut the World - Moscow Olympics
21. O My Heart - Mother Mother
20. Hold On Now Youngster - Los Campesinos!
19. Dear Science - TV on the Radio
18. Saturdays = Youth - M83
17. Aurora - The Deer Tracks
16. We Just Are - The Japanese Popstars
15. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
14. Do You Like Rock Music? - British Sea Power
13. Limbo, Panto - Wild Beasts
12. Surreal Auteur - Allegories
11. Everything/Everything - Simon Bookish
10. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke
9. Velocifero - Ladytron

Drumroll please...

8. Lust Lust Lust - The Raveonettes

The Danish duo are on fire this year with both this brilliant album released at the start of the year and then four outstanding EPs spread throughout the rest of 2008. Kicking off with the distorted, brain-shredding wall of sound and dirge-like guitars in Aly, Walk With Me, Lust Lust Lust is a triumph from beginning to end, and after so many successful releases, it is even more of a victory. The reverb effects applied to their dissonant, clanging guitars produce some haunting, slightly Western film-tinged soundscapes; songs like Aly, Walk With Me, Lust, and Expelled From Love give you the feeling of trekking through a wind-sculpted desert of volcanic ash during a peach-hued sunset. These darker songs share space with peppier, sweeter songs like Dead Sound, Blush, You Want the Candy and Blitzed. This record achieves a perfect balance between JAMC/Sonic Youth fuzzy noise and chirpy melody. Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo have every right to sound aloof and cooler-than-thou - they are the kids with black lollipops in their mouths at the prom.

Aly, Walk With Me - The Raveonettes

Dead Sound - The Raveonettes

7. A Certain Feeling - Bodies of Water

This Californian band was so impressive live when I saw them early this year in Toronto that I bought their debut album, Ears Will Pop & Eyes Will Blink, on the spot. Then they released their sophomore album this summer and I continued to be enthralled with their rich harmonies and inventive song structures. The epic album opener Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey still plays my vertebrae like a xylophone, and the choral gusto of Under the Pines that strips the breath from my lungs. Throughout the album, there's a fragility juxtaposed to a straining intensity and a keening mourning abutting an unbridled celebration. Styles are hard to pin down in this record as they swirl and eddy around your knees, threatening to drag you under and stir you into the sand. It's a baptism worth experiencing.

Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey - Bodies of Water

Water Here - Bodies of Water

6. The Midnight Organ Flight - Frightened Rabbit

This sophomore effort from Scottish band Frightened Rabbit is a continuation of their brand of painful, almost self-flagellating, honesty over shambolic folk and taut, whip-snap percussion. Singer, Scott Hutchison, sings in a ragged, broken wail that can sometimes remind me of Conor Oberst and sometimes of Gary Lightbody back when he was in Polar Bear not Snow Patrol. They may have grown more accessible, but they are no less stingingly accusatory or violently truthful. Like the modern leper in the album opener, the band sounds like it's going down kicking and screaming against a senseless world full of heartbreak and internal conflict. But like a slight brightening at the edge of the horizon during a thunderstorm, The Midnight Organ Flight tempers the gloom and harsh proclamations of the human condition with a sliver of salvation in the gloaming.

The Modern Leper - Frightened Rabbit

Keep Yourself Warm - Frightened Rabbit

5. In Ghost Colours - Cut Copy

And so the last of the Modular artists on this countdown makes their appearance. When I first heard So Haunted, the first song released prior to the album, I wasn't convinced that Cut Copy was heading in a direction I could follow them into. I had been so immersed in their first album, Bright Like Neon Love, and its cooler, airy genre of electro, that it took awhile for me to adjust to the higher energy, brighter style. Now I've come to the conclusion that In Ghost Colours is actually an unexpected, but massive leap forward in the Cut Copy sound. I would even go so far as to elevate them to the same innate feel for melodic dance music as that of New Order in the 80s. There's a shimmer and twinkle to the album that ranges from the twee sprays of baby's breath of Feel the Love, Unforgettable Season, and Midnight Runner to the pumping, technicolour electro-disco of Out There On the Ice, Lights & Music, Hearts on Fire, Far Away, and Nobody Lost, Nobody Found. At least two thirds of the album have been or should have been hit singles, and I never tire of listening to it. It's like listening to a rainbow so dazzling that you hope you never find the pot of gold.

Feel the Love - Cut Copy

Far Away - Cut Copy

4. Intimacy - Bloc Party

While all their Brit Invasion of 2004 contemporaries have either produced disappointing second and third albums or faded away all together, Bloc Party has forged onwards with a respectable second album, and this year, a genius third. Their Gang of Fouresque minimalist post-punk has exploded into a razor-sharp hybrid of stark, crisp guitars and electronic acrobatics with interludes of vulnerable candor. The album begins with the brain-searing volley of Ares, Mercury, and Halo as the band wields their guitars like machine guns before dipping into the delicate melancholy of Biko, Signs and Zepherus. The bonus tracks, Letter to My Son and Your Visits Are Getting Shorter, included on the physical copy of the album that released well after the digital copy are equally gorgeous; in the latter track, the overlapping samples of Kele Okereke's voice emulate a scattered and conflicted stream of consciousness perfectly. And of course, Okereke's lyrics over the whole album are as beautifully poetic and insightful as always, creating deft allegories and intelligent commentary on human behaviour and relationships; the words are sung with such urgent passion that you can feel the desperate searching of another's eyes, the aching need of the mouths depicted in the album's cover art, and the turmoil over recoiling from closeness with another.

Mercury - Bloc Party

Biko - Bloc Party

3. Skeletal Lamping - Of Montreal

It would have been difficult to top Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer?, but Kevin Barnes manages at the very least to equal it in boundless imagination and myriad stylistic turns. If anything, Skeletal Lamping is labyrinthine in its construction as it blazes through glam, funk, psychedelia, twee rock, and electro, often all in one track. This unpredictable mixture was deliberate as Barnes created the most experimental and ambitious album of his career and attempted to flit through musical and lyrical ideas which seem to last about thirty seconds each. The genius comes in the composition because despite the seemingly capricious insanity, the album hangs together as a coherent, intricate whole without disintegrating into self-indulgent proggy wanking. You also get the feeling that Barnes isn't taking himself so seriously and is there to entertain, a flair that extends to his famously flamboyant live shows and his alter ego, the black she-male, Georgie Fruit. Barnes has the ability to innovate and the panache of the legends he channels on this record, including David Bowie and Prince, but he takes these attributes and stretches them into the farthest reaches of his psyche and libido, daring to tread beyond his heroes.

Nonpareil of Favor - Of Montreal

Beware Our Nubile Miscreants - Of Montreal

2. American Demo - The Indelicates

This highly literate, arch English duo have gotten nowhere near the amount of attention they should have from music fans and critics. This debut album made me believe in brilliantly witty lyrics again, and what's more, the music lives up to the words with its melodic sensibilities and propensity for gushingly expansive anthems. I like artists who make me think about things from a different angle, and The Indelicates do that more than the majority of new bands I've come across in the past few years. Their lyrics are definitely on par with anything Morrissey or Luke Haines created, and they make American Demo a piece of zeitgeist literature, a document of a mass media fatigue and disgust at a bloated, meaningless popular culture. They lambaste everything within reach, including feminism, sacred cow idols like Jeff Buckley, the rotting music industry, and youth itself. Perhaps the most surprising and startling track is Unity Mitford, an extraordinary song from the point of view of Mitford and her sympathetic love for Hitler - the concept and the lines "the indescribable beauty/Of a million hands raised to salute you/Like poppies lean when winds caress them/Cut flowers pressed to solemn duty" are enough to forgive the Gallagheresque guitar solo. Unity Mitford is a far cry from the trendy use of communism and fascism mocked in the song Sixteen while stand-out track New Art For the People, which acts as the theme for the album, is a bittersweet epic of a pathetic couple with all the romance of tragedy drained from them. These anthems make you believe in ideas like you did when you were young - they're like an adrenaline shot in the heart. I get chills every time I listen to the song Heroin and its rushing merge into We Are the Kids, the culmination of a generation frustrated by promises of inspiration in art, but which rather ironically provides the inspiration it violently mourns.

Unity Mitford - The Indelicates

We Hate the Kids - The Indelicates

1. Vanilla Swingers - Vanilla Swingers

Many months ago I stated that this album was my frontrunner for album of the year, and lo and behold, Vanilla Swingers managed to fight off all the other bands snapping at their heels. This self-titled debut is a concept album about two people who fall in love in the present, run away to the past (specifically, the 1980s), lose each other on their return to the present and then meet again in the future. It's a fluid work of art that takes John Gray's philosophical book Straw Dogs, which denies the progress myth of the human race, and weaves it into a narrative that defies progress by its convoluted, non-linear use of time. The London duo, comprised of Miles Jackson and Anne Gilpin, spin their tale over a backdrop of bittersweet, hushed melodies, which showcase the interplay between their diaphanous vocals and the intelligent beauty of their lyrics. This album makes me think about the innate human capacity to tell stories and to create myths in order to understand the world and humans themselves. Without our stories we are nothing. And these myths include one of the most perpetuated ones alongside progress: romantic love.

Vanilla Swingers deconstructs and plays with this myth as history erodes it from all sides and dimensions. At the same time, this album makes me understand why we cling to the myth of romantic love: romantic love provides us with an escape from reality, but in its bittersweet tragedies, it also gives us just as much pleasure from pain and heartbreak. Songs like I'll Stay Next to You and Back to the Present are romantic precisely because they present the transience of love and speak to our fetishization of the fleeting. The music complements the theme elegantly as it flows like quicksilver in an hourglass and period details of the 80s creep in with bubbles of electro and washes of Pet Shop Boys synths. In the world of this album, there is no golden past, there is no improved future, and there is no true escape from the present. But human salvation and self-preservation comes in the form of storytelling. In the track Goodbye Lennon, which is set to the sound of a heartbeat and a ticking clock, a graceful fusion of different measures of time, the following lyrics appear: "I didn't find myself back there/But I lost myself in you/And it felt so.../It doesn't have to end this way/Cos you can always start again/It's just a possible world." And that is how Vanilla Swingers transcends the rest of the albums this year; Vanilla Swingers have shown how humans can make an ellipsis pregnant with meaning and how our survival is bound up in the creation of possible worlds.

I'll Stay Next To You - Vanilla Swingers

The Hive - Vanilla Swingers

The honourable mention for this final installment is Brett Anderson's Wilderness, a rather welcome surprise after what he has produced post-Suede. While I didn't find too much exciting about his debut solo album and his not-so-impressive reunion with Bernard Butler as The Tears, Wilderness is an acoustic guitar-led, intimate album that made me believe that there is some talent left in Anderson after all. There is an almost dark medieval tone to the record as Anderson sheds his former self-assured preening for an unguarded glimpse of his exquisite fraility.

Funeral Mantra - Brett Anderson

And so ends the countdown and a crazy year of New Kids on the Block reunions (an event that I was convinced was a practical joke for months) and of RIAA reassessments; of Chinese Democracy and of threats to Blogger MP3 blog democracy; of Russell Brand's fall from grace and of Noel Gallagher's tumble into the monitors at the Toronto Virgin Festival. Thank you for coming along for the ride down my rather bumpy lane of musical memories. This weekend brings the final part of my weekly mix round-up, and as an extra special gift for the end of 2008, there will be a New Year's Eve mix waiting for you on Tuesday.

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 16 Through 9

So, we've come to the second last installment of my Top 40 Albums of 2008. Before plunging into the fray once more, I will attempt to remind you of what music the summer of 2008 brought with it. July kicked off with releases by Beck, The Black Ghosts, Ratatat, The Hold Steady, and an excellent Kitsune remix album by Digitalism. The month ended with albums from post-punk veterans Wire, CSS, Bodies of Water, Little Ones, Friendly Fires, The Black Kids, and The Great Northwest. Of course there was also a rather disappointing new album from Primal Scream and the debut from Ida Maria, whose song Better When You're Naked has drilled a painful hole into the back of my skull.

The latter half of summer, namely August, saw records from Vanilla Swingers, The Faint, Noah and the Whale, Late of the Pier, The Stills, Ra Ra Riot, and Pop Levi. There were also records that have already appeared in this countdown, including those from Van She, The Deer Tracks, and Duchess Says. August also brought the solo debut by Conor Oberst, which I confess confused me since I figured he essentially was Bright Eyes, and The Airbourne Toxic Event released their debut album, culminating in pointless, unwinnable wars with Pitchfork. And there was the seemingly inevitable comeback album from The Verve that I frankly didn't need.

Almost there...

16. We Just Are - The Japanese Popstars

Though this debut from Irish electronic outfit The Japanese Popstars is yet to release in North America, I'm still counting its release as in 2008. It is everything I've been waiting for in an electronic record after the excitement over Justice, Simian Mobile Disco, Boys Noize, and Digitalism last year. There are mind-shattering moments of violent electronics balanced with gentle percolation of synth sound and flashes of laser. In essence, there's a sophistication to the gritty power of the beats - it's a bit like being bloodily taken out by a hitman in a very nice suit.

Sample Whore - The Japanese Popstars

Delboys Revenge - The Japanese Popstars

15. Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!! - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

I'm not an expert on Nick Cave - I only own some Birthday Party and his From Her to Eternity album. But I like to think I know a fantastic album when I hear one and the latest from Cave and his Bad Seeds is just that. After his Grinderman project, Cave appears to have returned to his older group in fine form with dark, vivid storytelling and his haunting habit of weaving a spell on par with mysterious religions; Cave's rich, raspy voice is that of a worldly preacher who has already seen plenty of fire and brimstone here on Earth, but who has also encountered the ridiculous in humanity's flaws and had a good, smoke-rattled laugh about it. I already included the excellent single that shares its title with the album in a previous mix, but that gives me an opportunity to showcase some of the other great tracks on a record which takes you on a journey through raw rock soundscapes and dusty midnights the colour of loneliness. If anyone can commune with the recently raised from the dead and show them a good time, it's Nick Cave.

Night of the Lotus Eaters - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

More News From Nowhere - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

14. Do You Like Rock Music? - British Sea Power

British Sea Power's third album seemed to crash through the barricades at the start of this year, raising the Brighton-based band's profile around the world. This record fuses the band's trademark arcane wit with heart-fluttering songs that recall the spiritual intensity of artists like The Arcade Fire. Songs like No Lucifer and Waving Flags took unlikely subject matter of impending apocalypses and immigration and created anthems of inspiring beauty, and then songs like Lights Out For Darkier Skies, Atom, and Down on the Ground justified the record's title a thousand times over. A light aura seems to permeate the entire album with a gentle glow that works its way into your blood until every cell in your body is singing.

Waving Flags - British Sea Power

Atom - British Sea Power

13. Limbo, Panto - Wild Beasts

This record was unexpected in that it completely marches to its own drummer. And the drummer is a fey public school boy with a multiple personality disorder and a touch of satyriasis. The Klaus Nomi-inflected vocals with Finn Andrews-like anguished growls paired with the quirky patchwork of musical styles and equally offbeat, though literate, lyrics made for an endlessly interesting listen. Some may hate this album, but I love it. And I suppose, in the end, it's one of those kind of records.

Vigil For a Fuddy Duddy - Wild Beasts

Woebegone Wanderers - Wild Beasts

12. Surreal Auteur - Allegories

While I may not listen to all that much ambient music on a regular basis, Canadian duo Allegories transcends this particular genre, and all other genres for that matter. The intricate tapestry of this debut album is composed of three major movements that wash over you with unknowable yet familiar sounds, connecting with parts of you that you didn't know existed until its gauzy web tapped into your nervous system. This record reaches inside you and plants roots, ensuring your imagination will blossom with your own narratives.

Grass Toboggan - Allegories

Acro(nym) - Allegories

11. Everything/Everything - Simon Bookish

This album defines the current Information Age where everything comes at you all of the time, and classically-trained songwriter/musician Simon Bookish (real name: Leo Chadburn) has the skills to communicate the hubbub and overload via music perfectly. The jumble of musical styles and tempos convey urgency and apathy in equal turns as it bounds from brass clarion calls to vaudeville chamber pop to electronic whizzbangs. Bookish's hushed baritone is the voice of our times as he ruminates from what sounds like a fortress designed by Roald Dahl.

The Flood - Simon Bookish

Victorinox - Simon Bookish


10. Ladyhawke - Ladyhawke

And so the parade from Modular continues - their A&R people deserve many an accolade. Ladyhawke AKA Pip Brown had been skipping about my radar a long time before her debut album actually released. She has managed to glean and utilize all that was good about 80s electronic music without sounding passé or ironic. The high drama of Magic mingles with the streetwise cool of Manipulating Woman, the disco inferno of Paris is Burning and the driving shimmer of Back of the Van. Her voice has just the right amount of laidback distance and husky attitude and her music is like the solidification of all your favourite, but ephemeral, musical memories.

Magic - Ladyhawke

Professional Suicide - Ladyhawke

9. Velocifero - Ladytron

Another lady, so to speak. This was one of my most anticipated releases of the year, and thankfully, it delivered brilliantly. It will always be difficult to top Destroy Everything You Touch, but this record battles towards that territory with self-assured, measured steps. The fuzzy beats, crisp drum machines and austere synthesizers circle each other in an emotionally taut dance. Highlights include the glam stomp and celtic chant of Ghosts, the clipped rhythm and haughty chords of Deep Blue, and the incessant pulse and infectious groove of Runaway. Named after a stylish Italian scooter, this album projects an atmosphere of clandestine meetings and daring escape. Absolutely mesmerizing.

Ghosts - Ladytron

Deep Blue - Ladytron


The honourable mention this time is the self-titled album from Eugene McGuinness (perhaps I should have made this a countdown of my top albums from slightly eccentric wordy people). This album is full of gleeful jabs of repartee and impish rapiers of drollery while also including melodies bristling with energy and invention. I first became aware of McGuinness via my friend, Lisa, who found a music video on YouTube; his songs about being down a rabbit hole define both of our lives most of the time, so it figures she's the one who found him first. Life is strange and so is this album, which suits me fine.

Moscow State Circus - Eugene McGuinness

Next week the upper echelons of my countdown will be revealed - from what I can tell, I'm not really converging too well with anyone else's list, but you probably already noticed that. Considering there haven't been any more comments for this series one way or another, I will take the silence as agreement, or at the very least, tolerance. Or perhaps indifference. No matter. This weekend also brings the second part of my weekly mix year-end round-up.

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 24 Through 17

Welcome back. It's the third installment of the countdown of my top 40 albums of 2008, and by the end of this one, we're over halfways there. Here's a quick reminder of what got to our ears in May and June of this year. May was dominated by releases from Death Cab For Cutie, Spiritualized, No Age, and Alex Turner's latest project, The Last Shadow Puppets; outside of indie-blogland, Amy Winehouse replacement number two, Duffy, made her debut and thus Mercy became the bane of my existence. There were also releases from The Daysleepers, Zombie Zombie, The Very Sexuals, Titus Andronicus, The Delays, The Dandy Warhols, Jeremy Jay, The Futureheads and Booka Shade while The Charlatans rather anti-climactically released You Cross My Path after they had anti-climactically come up with the idea to give it away for free earlier in the year. The old guard was duly represented in May by Elvis Costello and the Imposters, The Wedding Present and Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Even Scarlett Johansson dropped an album.

June had the hipsters slobbering over releases by Fleet Foxes, Sigur Ros and the increasingly annoying and overrated The Ting Tings (to think I thought one of their songs was all right a year and a half ago). Swedish popster Lykke Li also became a bloghold name while albums from The Zutons, Paul Weller, Weezer, The Fratellis, Ladytron, Martha Wainwright, The Virgins, People Noise, Wolf Parade, Allegories, The Kid, Wild Beasts, Don Juan Dracula, Jim Noir associates The Beep Seals, White Denim, Infadels, Stereolab, Volente, Andrea Liuzza, The Subways, and yes, even Sparks, released. There were also albums from artists that have already graced this countdown, including The Notwist and The Presets. Also, in the outside world of music popularity, faux lesbian Katy Perry released her debut album, and so one of the least attractive homages to pin-up girls became a star and a new song became the bane of my existence as it sneaked about malls and episodes of So, You Think You Can Dance. And of course June saw the release of 2008's bestselling album (yes, it's sadly official): Coldplay's Viva La Vida.

Onwards and upwards...

24. Life After Ridge - Twig

I have a feeling this isn't a typical top album of 2008 choice. Maybe because most people haven't heard of the Swedish band Twig, especially because it can be difficult to search and find them when there are other bands with the same name. Or you may just end up with sites on actual twigs. To me, they manage to mash together the feel of The Smiths and New Order behind a flamboyant, Edwin Collinsesque voice. The album ranges from the unbridled jubilance of Ciao Ciao Bomb to the melodical moodiness of Indigo, and they manage to work within a cataclysm of the New Romantic and jangle pop. This is their first official release apart from several singles for Cloudberry Records, where their honest and quirky pop fits perfectly. There is something stubbornly C86/post-punk about them and I am completely disarmed.

Ciao Ciao Bomb - Twig

Constance and Her Cousin - Twig


23. V - Van She

Here's another group from the Modular roster. This debut LP (Van She has previously released an EP) was long awaited and it delivered beyond what I had expected based on the previous work by this Australian foursome. V is full of atmospheric, mind-bending psychedelia in addition to some of the expected 80s-influenced electropop and a gentle hipness reminiscent of retro hipsters Phoenix. The hissing mind explosion of Cat & the Eye, the pumping sophistication of Changes, the pouting slinkiness of Strangers, and the revamped anthemic exhilaration of Kelly push this album into the playlists for cool kid parties all over the world. Refreshing as a turquoise swimming pool.

Strangers - Van She

Kelly - Van She


22. Cut the World - Moscow Olympics

Like Twig's Life After the Ridge, this album by Phillippines-based band Moscow Olympics may seem an odd choice and probably won't appear on anybody else's lists. That's hugely unfortunate because this album is a twinkling gem of a shoegaze album. It's as if the whole album is made of spun sugar, fragile but glittering with grains of sweet luminosity. With a dreaminess reminiscent of The Radio Dept. and New Order's Ceremony, this record hangs in the air like the fragnance of lilacs on a summer day. A truly staggering debut.

Carolyn - Moscow Olympics

Cut the World - Moscow Olympics

21. O My Heart - Mother Mother

This sophomore album from Canadian band Mother Mother is a genre-smashing effort full of offbeat lyrics and phrasing. The band's taut energy alternately bangs its head, croons passionately over folk textures, and spikes holes through pop bubbles - sometimes all in the same song. They've developed that organic several-working-as-one-body aesthetic that they came out with on their debut album; now they are flawlessly combining elements that likely shouldn't belong together, and they do it with an insouciant aplomb. The relatively simple track Ghosting still gives me goosebumps when I listen to it. This album is the sound of a band that doesn't take itself seriously, but who have some serious talent.

O My Heart - Mother Mother

Hayloft - Mother Mother

20. Hold On Now Youngster - Los Campesinos!

As with MGMT, I attempted to resist Los Campesinos! for as long as I could because of their hype, but in the end, I had to admit the Welsh band made a cracking debut album. Their music is as exclamatory as their name and song titles (many of which wordy emo bands would kill to have written), and they feel like a younger, wittier Broken Social Social Scene. Melodies blast forth from within the punky cacophony and their shouty vocals are infectious. Though Los Campesinos! ambitiously released their sophomore album We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed later this year, their debut is the one that has had the most effect on me. They've made an art form of cantering about like verbose children, playfully splashing about in their own stream of consciousness.

Death to Los Campesinos! - Los Campesinos!

Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks - Los Campesinos!

19. Dear Science - TV on the Radio

When TV on the Radio first started getting buzz, including some from David Bowie, years ago, I took note and definitely appreciated their work on EPs and their debut album. However, Dear Science has made this significant band more accessible and memorable for me, and thus connected with me at a deeper level than before. The musical styles have fused beyond gospel, beyond electro, beyond funk, beyond hip hop - Tunde Adebimpe's raspy, soulful falsetto has reached inside me and nestled in my solar plexus. The dexterity in this record's lyrical phrasing is so complex and brilliant, you have to acknowledge the musicality of language itself. Through this lyrical, rhythmic quality, I have also come to realize just how intelligent and poetic TV on the Radio's lyrics are; for example, on Family Tree, the lyrics run, "We're laying in the shadow of your family tree/Your haunted heart and me/Brought down by an old idea whose time has come/And in the shadow of the gallows of your family tree/There's a hundred hearts soar free/Pumping blood to the roots of evil to keep it young." That is art.

Dancing Choose - TV on the Radio

Family Tree - TV on the Radio

18. Saturdays = Youth - M83

Now that Anthony Gonzalez has taken complete control over French musical entity M83, he has managed to produce an airy album in tribute to all those 80s American teen movies, and more importantly, what those movies signify - that belief that the underdog can fight back against the unfairness of the high school pecking order, that belief that impossible romance can culminate at prom, that belief that being a teenager is one of the most tragic and sweet times of one's life. Gonzalez melds all these emotions into a swirling, expansive soundscape of emotional intensity, and with the aid of Morgan Kibby's ethereal vocals, he creates a record of breathy anticipation and latent hopes. One of the songs of the year should surely be Kim & Jessie, a soaring anthem that sounds like how an evening summer breeze would feel against bare legs under a cotton skirt - the pumping synths take you back to unironic, youthful fantasy, prompting memories you wish you had.

Kim & Jessie - M83

Couleurs - M83


17. Aurora - The Deer Tracks

This Swedish duo has created the musical equivalent of lying on your back on a hill and picking out shapes in the clouds. Their shimmering musical palette keeps subtly shifting before you until it creates an entirely new formation of imagination and wispy curliques of curiosity. You can feel the strength of damp, living earth behind your spine as the misty images conjured by synths and keyboards drift dizzyingly above your head, and for a moment, you can tell the Earth is rotating. I also encourage you to watch their breathtaking video for the song Slow Collision. Named for the ephemeral displays of light in the night sky, this album is humming with an unseen magnetism from a parallel dimension where thoughts manifest themselves in the static-filled sky.

Yes, This is My Broken Shield - The Deer Tracks

127 Sex Fyra - The Deer Tracks

The honourable mention for this part of the countdown is Transient Blood by The Kid. It's not a very typical choice - hey, even I was caught a little off-guard. But I can't deny that I love this album's effervescent electropop aesthetic. It is unapologetically catchy, and yes, the track Transient Dance does feel a lot like New Order's Krafty, but they take it somewhere else that I find absolutely blissful. Plus they have a song that goes "Sometimes I scare children and I like it."

Transient Dance - The Kid

Next Friday's installment will crack the top 10 when I cover numbers 16 through 9. And this weekend the Year-End Round-Up for weekly mixes begins.

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 32 Through 25

Okay, here's the second installment of my Top 40 Albums of 2008. Before we dive into the countdown, I'll jiggle your memory over some of this year's releases in March and April. March came in like a lion with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds' Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!, Billy Bragg's Mr. Love and Justice, The Boxing Lesson's Wild Streaks & Windy Days, The Young Knives' Superabundance, Supergrass's Diamond Hoo Ha Man and Hercules & Love Affair's debut self-titled album. March seemed to go out like a lion as well with releases from Crystal Castles, Fuck Buttons, We Are Scientists, These New Puritans, Neon Neon, The Kills, The Dodos, Devotchka and The Raconteurs. This was also the month we saw the release of Elbow's Mercury Prize-winning The Seldom Seen Kid and the hugely overrated Foals' Antidotes (what happened to that math rock fad anyway?).

April saw the return of some heavy hitters like REM and Portishead in addition to sophomore albums from Frightened Rabbit, Jim Noir, Cut Copy, The Kooks (why in the name of all that is pure and sacred?) and The Long Blondes ("Couples" being one of my bigger disappointments this year). There were also releases from Clinic, Tindersticks, Polysics, Tokyo Police Club, The Indelicates, M83, The Black Keys, and Moscow Olympics. Lastly, there was also the release of a double disc from Apparat full of remixes by and of the German artist.

And so we forge ahead to the list...

32. Seventh Tree - Goldfrapp

This album was one of the surprises of the year when it released in February. Gone were the sleazy glam beats; instead, a gentle, vulnerable psychedelic-folk stood in their place. Perhaps it was a bit of a return to Felt Mountain, and it could seem like a regressive trajectory when most artists have started with psychedelic-folk before leaping headlong into glam, but it is a refreshing rebirth. With Alison Goldfrapp's soaring, spine-tingling vocals and a warm, sensual beauty to the music, Seventh Tree still retains the ambient side of electro. Seventh Tree feels like climbing into an old, dusty wardrobe and finding yourself in a pastoral world full of speaking beasts and dryads or like slipping through the shivering surface of a looking-glass and revelling in a flower garden that can converse with you. It is innocent and frothy, yet it commands like a gypsy circus come to steal you away.

Clowns - Goldfrapp

A&E - Goldfrapp

31. Die Off Songbird - Maps of Norway

This is the Minneapolis band's sophomore album and it is an incredibly efferevescent piece of post-punk, full of propulsive guitars and singer Rebecca Leigh's dynamic vocals awash in a disorienting reverb. Leigh wavers from Debbie Harry to Elizabeth Fraser against an insistent moody background of driven rhythm and glacial accents. Often, Leigh's vocals are exotically incomprehensible, but the cadences and tone make you not want to bog yourself down in lyrical detail. There is a patience to this album, a willingness to submit to a brilliant few bars and repeat them until they build into a monumental payoff of magic spell-like proportions.

Cage the Lions - Maps of Norway

The Runout - Maps of Norway

30. Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair

I was a little perplexed to hear that Antony Hegarty from Antony and the Johnsons would be helping to front a disco band. Then when I heard the result, I was sold. In fact, Blind should be one of the top singles of the year. Hegarty's warbliness, which usually puts me off, transforms into a sorrowful soulfulness that works perfectly with the disco-influenced electronics. The combination of the other two vocalists, Kim Ann Foxman and Nomi, adds a breathier, funkier counterpoint to Hegarty. To me, this album is more about loss than celebration; at the same time, it pulses with a streetwise will to survive and to move on to a retro bassline. Hercules & Love Affair will definitely enter the mythology and pantheon of electronic music.

Time Will - Hercules & Love Affair

Athene - Hercules & Love Affair

29. The Devil, You + Me - The Notwist

It has taken this German band six years to follow up their indie hit Neon Golden, and it was worth the wait. It still has the moody shoegaze atmosphere to it that Neon Golden had, but it has shed the warm quirks for a metallic spinning. The record reminds me of a swiftly tilting planet, a balletic behemoth singing to itself as it makes its way through the vacuum of space. The lyrics seem more haunted and dwell more on the fallibility of people. The wobbly dissonance of songs like Where in This World projects an image of hurtling through frozen space and drifting through the grinding friction caused by the music of the spheres.

Gloomy Planets - The Notwist

Gravity - The Notwist

28. The Jade Motel - Zeigeist

Despite the fact Zeigeist has been rumoured to be connected to fellow Swedish electronic act The Knife, this album seemed to come out of nowhere for me, and it smacked me in the face. Pretty hard. It is just one of those perfect electro albums that mixes caustic, but sexy vocals with hard-hitting beats and buzzy synths. The unhinged performance of tracks like Tar Heart runs up and down your body like fizzy electricity, and tracks like Bunny make you feel like you're trying to keep your balance in a funhouse. There's a hint of violence and insanity about this record - something JG Ballard about it - and it makes you want to spend the night.

Tar Heart - Zeigeist

Wrecked Metal - Zeigeist

27. The Stand-Ins - Okkervil River

I hadn't really gotten into Okkervil River until this year, but I'm so thankful that I have. They aren't just straight-ahead folk - there's an unexpected wit and propensity for expansive pop-rock sensibilities. Their latest album is just as amazing with its variety of bitter ballads and humourous upbeat tracks. The itchy impatience of Lost Coastlines is a fantastic piece of storytelling, depicting the mental state of someone unsure of the future. Its music canters about in unpredictable, yet familiar, ways as vocals switch back and forth. And songs like Singer Songwriter are worthy of Morrissey or Luke Haines in their articulate barbs: "You come from wealth/Yeah, you got wealth/What a bitch, they didn't give you much else/I heard cuts by The Kinks on your speakers/I saw Poe and Artaud on your shelves/While The Last Laugh's first scene on your flat panel screen/Lit Chanel that you've wrapped around yourself/You've got outsider art by an artist you arguably kidnapped to pin on the wall/Your designers have slyly directed the eye down pink lines here and your well lit pawn." It speaks for itself really.

Lost Coastlines - Okkervil River

Singer Songwriter - Okkervil River

26. Evolutionary Sunset Call - stanleylucasrevolution

I was thrown off guard by this truly independent album from California-based Sean Robertson's enigmatic project stanleylucasrevolution. It manages to compress self-loathing, self-belief, courage and fear into an uncomprising, truly experimental album. It's difficult to pin down the style as Evolutionary Sunset Call blends elements from country, spaghetti western, electro, trip hop, glam rock and psychedelia while adding vocal samples. Expertly stitched together with musical interludes, it tells the story of living in the shadows, but longing for change and a way out without succumbing to the safety of sliding back in. It's a bit like witnessing someone come to terms with him/herself after several bouts with the broken mirror.

Insatiable - stanleylucasrevolution

Sacred Sons - stanleylucasrevolution

25. Oracular Spectacular - MGMT

I tried to ignore MGMT for a very long time - the hipster hype behind them was overwhelming (already beginning last year), which always sets off warning bells for me. After an inadvertent listen to Time to Pretend, I had to admit they had one good song. Then after a begrudging listen to Electric Feel, I had to acknowledge they had two really good songs. Then after a more open listen to Kids, I came to see that they had three great songs. Finally, later this year, I realized they had a rather splendid album. There's something both wide-eyed technicolour dreamer and prococious glam slut about Oracular Spectacular. At the same time, it struts along with a self-assured funky falsetto and a hippie LSD sway. It's an album that the youth of 2008 will look back at and remember with fondness.

The Youth - MGMT

Kids - MGMT

The honourable mention for this post is Midnight Boom by The Kills. It's a punchy, raw album with short blasts of bolshy, fuzzed-out songs and minimalist ticking tracks. While Alison Mosshart's vocals range from tough to breathless, the yelps on one of the best songs of Midnight Boom, Tape Song, are interestingly reminiscent of Tegan and Sara. With this record, The Kills are everything The Ting Tings wish they could be.

What New York Used to Be - The Kills

Stay tuned for next Friday's rundown of numbers 24 through 17. And thank you for all of your comments thus far.

My Top 40 Albums of 2008: Numbers 40 Through 33

As promised, here's the first installment of my top albums of 2008. At the very beginning, I wanted to do a top 20; then it became a top 25; soon after, I made it a 35; eventually, it ended up as a top 40. Of course it now means that every Friday til the end of the year will feature a rather odd yet even eight albums. I will admit that I was still listening and arranging today. The inherent disclaimer in all this is that this list is of my top albums, in other words my favourites. That means that I didn't listen to every major release this year, let alone every release (even music nerds need some silence once and awhile), so I may either be missing out on some potential top albums or I may just be disinclined toward them in the first place - feel free to let me know what your personal favourites of the year were.

Before I dive into the countdown, I'm going to remind you a little bit about what was released in the first two months of 2008. (I was originally going to go a la The Big Fat Quiz of the Year and review the music events of every few months of the year, but I realized that I'm no match for such an activity, especially when I have difficulty remembering what I ate yesterday.) The year kicked off with releases by British Sea Power, The Magnetic Fields, Cat Power, Lightspeed Champion, Sons & Daughters, Beangrowers, the soundtrack for the hipster film phenomenon Juno, and the infinitely bloggable Vampire Weekend, a band that still leaves me completely cold despite the year seemingly belonging to them. As much as their pretentious, arty lyrics and Afro influences should draw me in, they end up sounding like a watery Paul Simon to me. February brought Hot Chip's highly anticipated third album and Goldfrapp's unexpected pastoral turn along with releases from Robots in Disguise, Dirtbombs, The Mountain Goats, The Raveonettes and another Amy Winehouse substitute, Adele. There were also debut LPs by Antarctica Takes All!, Los Campesinos! and the less exclamatory School of Language. Justin Vernon's first album as Bon Iver also made its official release in February.

On to the countdown:

40. The Penguin League - Anarctica Takes All!

As mentioned in the intro, The Penguin League released early in 2008, though it had been previously self-released by the Santa Cruz band. From the first burst of energy coming off the opening track I'm No Lover (featuring the great line "I'm not a lover, but a fighter"), the album cartwheels over itself like an even more puppyish Sufjan Stevens. Using glockenspiels, accordion, violin, harmonica and brass, the record is an eclectic mixture of folk, twee, and shambolic pop. Despite its rather frozen motif, its heart is warm enough to melt any ice shelf.

Flightless Birds - Antarctica Takes All!

Antarctica - Antarctica Takes All!

39. This Gift - Sons & Daughters

On their third album, the Glaswegian quartet turned to Bernard Butler for their production. The result is a blistering, whirling dervish of an album that takes the slightly dark folky bits evident on their excellent debut Love the Cup and transforms them into buzzsaw riffs and big choruses while the darkness continues to bubble beneath the surface like tar. Adele Bethel and Scott Paterson's vocals play off each other and blend in haunting combinations while the pace never slackens. I was fortunate to see them live early this year and it was an absolutely raucous show that largely showcased this record.

This Gift - Sons & Daughters

Iodine - Sons & Daughters

38. Apocalypso - The Presets

It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of the Modular record label - rarely is there an artist on their roster that I'm not excited about. Having said that, I didn't pay quite as close attention to the Australian electro act The Presets as I did to many of their peers. It took their second album to really grab and shake my attention like ripe fruit from my skull. There's a hard edge to their synthpop sensibilities, closer to labelmate MSTRKRFT than Cut Copy or Van She, and there are definitely viral melodies along with the relentless beats. The deep, often overwrought vocals can be both soulful and theatrical while the music leaps from grimy depths to soaring heights of melodrama.

This Boy's in Love - The Presets

Talk Like That - The Presets

37. Sea From Shore - School of Language

Also mentioned in the intro, this is the Sunderland group's first album, but not exactly. School of Language was born as a side project of the band Field Music, which is composed of David and Peter Brewis and Andrew Moore, a group that had already released two albums of their own. It is also fitting that two of the tracks (Disappointment '99 and Extended Holiday) feature members of The Futureheads not only because one of the Brewis brothers used to play drums for The Futureheads, but also because I detect a similar off-kilter jittery quality in some parts of the record, including the chorus of vowel recitation permeating the Rockist quartet, a group of four songs that bracket the album. Sea From Shore also shares the wry wit and wacky rhythms that seem inherent in bands from the Northeast while adding smoother melodic surfaces and laidback grooves.

Disappointment '99 - School of Language

This Is No Fun - School of Language

36. The Colour of Snow - Polarkreis 18

This album is the fourth from these five friends from Dresden. It shares a similar dramatic, but atmospheric quality to Mew, and electronic elements are fused with gossamer vocals, creating a blinding panorama of translucence and light. There's also a widescreen epic feel to the tracks on this record, ranging from a boundless energy akin to a child on a snow day to melancholic swathes of sound like wind-sculpted drifts. Listening to this record is a bit like staring through the spidery patterns of frost on windowpanes - with one breath it could shift like a kaleidoscope.

Allein Allein - Polarkreis 18

River Loves the Ocean - Polarkreis 18

35. L'anthologie des 3 perchoirs - Duchess Says

I wrote a review of this album way back around the time of its release and I stand by my opinion of this Montreal band. This record is the perfect blend of violent electro and punk that screams through every bone in your body like electric shock therapy. Daisy Chainsaw-like banshee howls punch and pummel their way through distorted beats and ominous synths. It's like a roller derby on a rink of broken glass.

Tenen non neu- Duchess Says

Rabies (Baby's Got The) - Duchess Says

34. Everything That Happens Will Happen Today - David Byrne and Brian Eno

It was the duo that many music fans wished would team back up again. David Byrne and Brian Eno hadn't worked together since their classic 1981 album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, a mixture of tribal rhythms and experimental electronics. This time Byrne and Eno tackle gospel and create an uplifting journey, shimmering with reverb and redemption. Byrne's vocals are bold and warm as burnished brass and the lyrics are optimistic yet ambivalent and witty enough for the cynical age we live in. At the same time, Eno's characteristic experimental flourishes are still present. Tentative tendrils of hope poke through this record despite a mundane reality the colour of gunmetal and concrete. This album is the equivalent of a baptismal font for a human race that has just gone on too long.

Home - David Byrne and Brian Eno

Everything That Happens - David Byrne and Brian Eno

33. For Emma, Forever Ago - Bon Iver

This particular album is bound to be on many a year-end list. It has been critically acclaimed everywhere you look. Justin Vernon famously wrote this record while spending three months in a remote cabin in Wisconsin. For Emma, Forever Ago is a document of catharsis and healing, and it emanates a profound solitude and gentle desperation. Sung in a raspy falsetto over acoustic guitar, there is an undeniable intimacy and rawness to these songs as though Vernon was slowly chipping away at his pain-clad heart with weary, calloused hands. In the process, he created a universal spark that has now been nourished by thousands of people worldwide, making it a toasty bon hiver indeed.

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

re: Stacks - Bon Iver

For each part of this countdown series, I will also include one album that almost made my list. The honourable mention for this installment is Hot Chip's Made in the Dark. Hot Chip's third album was a colourful patchwork of styles, ranging from dancefloor anthems to vulnerable ballads. Notably, Ready For the Floor, with its goofy music video, was an enormous hit that I keep coming back to.

Shake a Fist - Hot Chip

Numbers 32 through 25 will be coming at you next Friday. And this Sunday is the dreaded CTRNR Christmas Mix.