Billy Kalb writesBilly Kalb’s Best of 2009

Throughout the month of December we’ll be posting lists of the best music of the year as determined by the volunteers that make CHIRP what it is. Today’s is from CHIRP’s Music Director, Billy Kalb.

Woe be to the radio DJ who has to take a sabbatical from radio; my exposure to new music was strictly regulated by my wallet this year. So, if not the best, here’s a list of my favorites.

1. Flaming Lips – Embryonic (Warner Bros.) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   If not the best record of the year, it was easily the most welcome. After the Technicolor dazzle of The Soft Bulletin and the serene trippiness of Yoshimi, the Lips lost me with 2005’s At War with the Mystics; it was fun, but I worried that the band had given themselves over entirely to cartoonish spectacle and Santa costumes at the cost of the songs. But here we have some spectacular new blood: not quite a return to form, or even a retreat to the olden days. Just a generous burst of the gloriously unpredictable weirdness that we’ve come to expect from Wayne Coyne & co., and it’s their best in 10 years.
2. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (Rabid) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   The first eight words will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end: “This won’t ever end ‘cause I want more.” Fever Ray’s Karin Dreijer-Andersson is a vampire, a demon, a soulless thing out to drain your life. This much is clear from opener “If I Had a Heart”, where she pitch-shifts and twists her voice until it barely registers as human. As an album, however, Fever Ray ultimately proves the contrary — Dreijer-Andersson is a human with a heart, and her songs here demonstrate an aching vulnerability rarely seen in her work as one-half of The Knife.
3. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   Damn but I’m glad for Person Pitch. Panda Bear returned to his main gig after his wildly successful 2007 solo adventure with a new sense of purpose. Animal Collective always struck me as a brilliant band tripped up by its own experimental overindulgences, but the focused, well-rounded MPP changed the game: an AC record that your mom could enjoy, yet compromising nothing in the way of derring-do. It felt right on time for 2009.
4. Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer (Jagjaguwar) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   How epic is that? Spencer Krug dials back the strangeness from the indie-prog Renaissance Faire bramblebush that was 2007’s Random Spirit Lover and delivers a record called Dragonslayer? Krug – by far the weirder of the two main dudes in Wolf Parade – has never played it safe, but this is as inviting as his Sunset Rubdown project has ever been. Part of that seems to be due to his having figured out how to make use of the whole band — in particular self-described “Jane-of-all-trades” Camilla Wynne Ingr, who has more vocal duties than ever before — but mostly it’s because the album just kicks effing ass. And wasn’t it always the D&D kids who most wanted to be rock stars?
5. Andrew Bird – Noble Beast (Fat Possum) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   Andrew Bird had the poor luck of releasing his latest on the same day as Animal Collective released theirs, quickly getting lost in the shadow of Merriweather Post Pavilion hype. That’s often the case with Bird, who builds sturdy, well-liked but unflashy albums of elegant indie rock time and again only to be buried in end-of-year lists. For his sake, Noble Beast makes my top 5. Bird continues to find new ways to surprise and engage with little more than a guitar, a violin and some masterfully arranged whistles. Well done, sir. Well done.
6. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   I’ll readily admit that I don’t think it’s their best work, but no one – not even Animal Collective – was less likely to make a major splash this year, and yet this summer found David Longstreth and his band playing Millennium Park. WTF? This is the closest the Projectors have ever come to an equal balance of challenge and familiarity, a sort of outsized avant-pop for the decade to come. Don’t believe me? Just listen to Solange Knowles’ cover of “Stillness is the Move” – that’s Beyonce’s sister, you know.
7. El Michels Affair – Enter the 37th Chamber (Fatbeats) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   Hypothetically, this shouldn’t have worked. I mean, the RZA’s Wu-Tang productions are already bulletproof. How could you change them without ruining everything? But somehow, taking them back in time by 35 years and reimagining them as a run of killer jazz/funk/soul jams still hit all the right notes. The El Michaels Affair – a loose collective of session players – turns what could have been a lukewarm covers record into a genuinely faithful yet original tribute to the 36 Chambers.
8. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   Arcade Fire, where have you gone? By 2009, the official playbook of indie rock had evolved into a sound so sleek and tuneful that Michael McDonald was taking note: “The punk movement swung towards being as primitive as possible, but now it’s back to where these guys are good musicians,” he told Paste. That’s not to say it’s dad rock, though. (I’m pretty sure my own dad has zero interest, and I even played him the b-side where McDonald does vocals.) It’s just a renewed appreciation for the kind of pop that flourishes within the chamber setting, and the realization that sometimes your song just needs a children’s choir. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that.
9. Dan Deacon – Bromst (Carpark) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
   Before Bromst, I was sure that Dan Deacon’s music was a fleeting pleasure. He’s wacky and fun and all that, but where’s the staying power? It’s neat, but is it good enough to be high art? Will it stand the test of time? After Bromst… who cares? Deacon’s an oddball savant making his own brilliant Saturday morning cartoon pop with reckless abandon and enviable aplomb. Months on, Bromst still impresses, and listening to a track like “Snookered,” well – wait, what was that? A passing trace of Brian Eno? Ah, I see. High art, indeed.
10. The Xx – Self-Titled (Young Turks) Amazon / Insound / iTunes
    It’s not a complicated formula: spare, spacey boy/girl post-punk duets. Songs about love. Songs about heartbreak. Songs about VCRs. It’s an album that’s considerably more than the sum of its assembled parts, just a dazzling little surprise from a new band no one had heard of before this year. And these kids are how old? 19? Hell yes, consider me ready for that next album.

Best album from 2008 that took me until 2009 to fully appreciate:
The Walkmen – You & Me (Gigantic)
What can I say? It’s a grower.

Best song from 2009 that was so good it totally overshadowed the also-good album it came from:
Bill Callahan – “All Thoughts Are Prey to Some Beast”
Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle was great, but this track somehow made the rest of it look less great.

Album I ended up liking a lot even though logically I shouldn’t have:
God Help The Girl – God Help the Girl (Matador)
My brain: “You know, this is basically indie rock showtunes.”
My heart: “Oh, I’m aware. Your point being?
My stomach: “Shut up, you guys. I want a sandwich.”

2009 reissue on my Christmas list that I’m most looking forward to:
Kraftwerk – The Catalog (Astralwerks/Mute) / Various Artists – Can You Dig It? The Music and Politics of Black Action Films 1968-1975 (Soul Jazz)
It’s a tie. I know, they couldn’t be further apart, but I can’t honestly say which one I’m more excited for.