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INTERPOL - Turn On The Bright Lights (2002)
Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)
Books - The Lemon Of Pink (2003)
Junior Boys - Last Exit (2004)
Air - 10 000 Hz Legend (2001)
Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires
(2005)
Two Lone Swordsmen - From The Double Gone
Chapel (2004)
Lcd Soundsystem - Lcd Soundsystem (2005)
Divine Comedy - Absent Friends
(2004)
Notwist - Neon Golden (2002)
Coldplay - Parachutes (2000)
Rachel's - System/Layers (2003)
El Guapo - Fake French (2003)
Fennesz - Endless Summer (2001)
Felix Da Housecat - Kittenz and Thee
Glitz (2002)
Primal Scream - XTMNTR (2000)
Johnny Cash - American IV The Man Comes
Around (2002)
Khonnor - Handwriting (2004)
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks
(2005)
Stateless - Stateless (2007)
Bobby Conn - King For A Day (2007)
Portishead - Third (2008)
David Sylvian - Blemish (2003)
John Foxx-Robyn Guthrie - Mirrorball
(2009)
Postal Service - Give Up (2003)
Tarwater - Dwellers On The Threshold
(2002)
Radio Dept - Lesser Matters (2003)
The Duckworth Lewis Method - The
Duckworth Lewis Method (2009)
Lali Puna - Scary Word Theory
(2001)
Ladytron - 604 (2001)
Liars - They Were Wrong So We Drowned
(2004)
Mercury Rev - All Is Dream (2001)
Royksopp - Melody A.M. (2001)
Eels - Daisies Of The Galaxy (2000)
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi (2002)
Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand
(2004)
Goldfrapp - Felt Mountain (2001)
Four Tet - Rounds (2003)
Smog - Dong Of Sevotion (2000)
Xiu Xiu - Knife Play (2002)
Ã… - Ã… (2006)
B Fleischmann - Welcome Tourist
(2003)
Velma - Ludwig (2003)
Sylvain Chauveau - Le Livre Noir Du
Capitalisme (2000)
Zero 7 - Simple Things (2001)
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
(2003)
Hot Chip - Coming On Strong (2004)
Trans Am - The Red Line (2000)
Clinic - Walking With Thee (2002)
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WILLIAM BASINSKI - The Disintegration Loops
(2001, 2062)
Volcano The Bear - Classic Erasmus Fusion
(2006, Beta Lactam Ring)
Mike Pathos - People (2004, Tzadik)
Avey Tare & Panda Bear - Spirit They're Gone,
Spirit They've Vanished (2000, Animal)
Stars Of The Lid - The Tired Sounds Of
(2001, Kranky)
Dalek - Absence (2005, Ipepac)
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon (2006,
Kranky)
Sightings - Through The Panama (2007, Load)
Black Dice - Beaches And Canyons
(2002, Dfa)
Books - Thought For Food (2002,
Tomlab)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005, Asthmatic
Kitty)
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance Of The
Moon And The Sun (2006, Self Released)
Burial - Untrue (2007, Hyperdub)
Peeesseye - Mayhem In The Mansion, Shivers
In The Shack (2007, Evolving Ear)
Dopplereffekt - Linear Accelerator
(2003, International Deejay Gigolo Records)
Omar Souleyman - Highway To Hassake (Folk
And Pop Sounds Of Syria) (2007, Sublime
Frequencies)
Fennesz - Endless Summer (2001, Mego)
Gala Drop - Gala Drop (2009, Gala Drop
Records)
Birchville Cat Motel - Gunpowder Temple Of
Heaven (2008, Pica Disc)
Supersilent - 6 (2003, Rune Grammofon)
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JOANNA NEWSOM - Ys
Spring Heel Jack - Disappeared
Shit And Shine - Ladybird
Dirty Three - Whatever You Love You Are
Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
Vladislav Delay - Anima
Solex - Low Kick And Hard Bop
Everlovely Lightningheart - Cusp
Colleen - Golden Morning Breaks
Scott Tuma - Hard Again
Carla Bozulich - Evangelista
Pan Sonic - Kesto
Orthrelm - OV
Aun - Motorsleep
Supersilent - 6
Charalambides - Joy Shapes
Hella - Church Gone Wild/Chirpin Hard
Black Dice - Beaches & Canyons
Xiu Xiu - La Foret
To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie - The Patron
Khanate - Things Viral
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie
Mountain
Eluvium - Talk Amongst The Trees
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Pelt - Ayahuasca
Cerberus Shoal - Mr Boy Dog
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
M83 - Dead Cities Red Seas & Lost Ghosts
Lofty Pillars - Amsterdam
Xiu Xiu - A Promise
Shit And Shine - Jealous Of
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Comets On Fire - Field Recordings From
The Sun
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
Shannon Wright - Honeybee Girls
Tool - Lateralus
Apse - Climb Up
Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
Juana Molina - Un Dia
Amon Tobin - Out From Out Where
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Dan Deacon - Bromst
Animal Collective - Spirits They’re Gone
cLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD
Antlers - Hospice
Battles - Mirrored
Jessica Bailiff - Jessica Bailiff
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrrsing
Today Is The Day - Sadness Will Prevail
Books - Lemon Of Pink
Italian artists:
WITH LOVE - A Great Circle
Zu - Igneo
My Cat Is An Alien - The Cosmological Eye
Trilogy
Giardini Di Mirò - Rise and Fall
Weltraum - Sy
Jennifer Gentle - Funny Creatures
Lane
Testadeporcu - Acciaiu
Beatrice Antolini - A Due
Ronin - Ronin
Petrina - In Doma
Sense Of Akasha - People Do Not Know Who
Rules
Julie’s Haircut - Our Secret
Ceremony
Gerda - Gerda
Forbici Di Manitu - L’Infanzia di M
Mariposa - Profitti Now
To The Ansaphone - To The
Ansaphone
Larsen - Play
Caboto - Hidden Or Just Gone
Duozero - No Programma
Ephel Duath - Phormula
XP Devices - Starrust & Ballast
Clark Nova - So Young
Maisie - Do You Still Remember
Deus Ex Machina - Cinque
Humanoira - L’Arte di Sciogliere La Neve
Uzeda - Stella
Faccions - Faccions
Franklin Delano - Like a Smoking Gun in
Front of me
Dadamatto - Ti Tolgo La Vita
Bron Y Aur - Bron Y Aur
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OKKERVIL RIVER – Down The River Of Golden Dreams
(2003)
Wilco – A Ghost Is Born (2004)
Andrew Bird – The Mysterious Production
Of Eggs (2005)
Joseph Arthur – Come To Where I’m From
(2000)
The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
(2005)
Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)
Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
Eels – Blinking Lights And Other
Revelations (2005)
M. Ward – Transfiguration Of Vincent
(2003)
The Decemberists – Castaways And Cutouts
(2002)
Bright Eyes – Fevers & Mirrors (2000)
Califone – Quicksand/Cradlesnakes (2003)
Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (2005)
Bonnie “Prince†Billy – Ease Down The
Road (2001)
Jon Foreman – Fall, Winter, Spring,
Summer (2008)
Shearwater – Palo Santo (2006)
Micah P. Hinson – Micah P. Hinson And The
Red Empire Orchestra (2008)
Chris Bathgate – A Cork Tale Wake (2007)
Mojave 3 – Excuses For Travellers (2000)
Beck – Sea Change (2002)
Giant Sand – Chore Of Enchantment (2000)
Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days
(2004)
Damien Jurado – Ghost Of David
(2000)
Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2007)
Devendra Banhart – Niño Rojo (2004)
Elvis Perkins In Dearland – Elvis Perkins
In Dearland (2009)
Vic Chesnutt – At The Cut (2009)
Silver Jews – Bright Flight (2001)
Belle & Sebastian – Fold Your Hands Child,
You Walk Like A Peasant
(2000)
John Vanderslice – Pixel Revolt (2005)
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AA.VV. - DFA Compilation #2
It's the sound of the New York jungle. It's the apotheosis of elegantly funked-up and stripped-down rhythm. James Murphy puts everyone in line and prints out the electronic manifesto of the 2000s. What remains of the past and what the future will be.
Daft Punk - Discovery
From the electronics department of Fnac to the mega electronic parties of the whole planet: if you're a bass genius and a master of pop art applied to rhythm, nothing is impossible. A junkyard of passion, zest for life and plenty, but really plenty, of light. "Discovery" isn't a record, it's a necessity.
Notwist - Neon Golden
Plug your emotion into a socket and light up with passion. The consequences? A beam of golden light, precisely.
Storm and Stress - Under Thunder and Fluorescent
Lights
Like good little hipsters and Upper East Side schoolkids, we disintegrate whatever can still be called rock. We ask uncle jazz for help and wallow like pigs. Ten years on and still no one has managed to assemble and disassemble fifty years of history with such mathematical perfection. Seminal.
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Jeff Tweedy is the warm, depressed, drunken soul of the Big Apple. A hotel as a refuge for one's own inspirations, chords torn from the soul and healthy experimentalism applied to the song form, courtesy of O'Rourke. Is that enough for you?
Burial - Burial
You're standing before industrial masses shifted by the blast of crazed woofers. A true steelworks storm of bass is underway, and calling it cavernous is an understatement. Burial isn't the next big thing to be consumed in a hurry, but the artist who more than any other embodies the current sound of London's outskirts. It's the black soul of a favored white man capable of moving an elephant with the force of gain. Chapeau.
Fridge - Happiness
If Adem Ilhan, Kieran Hebden and Sam Jeffers started playing like kindergarten kids with synthesizers, bass and guitars, what exactly would you expect? Nothing, or more simply the masterpiece of electro-folkloric abstraction of the decade. A marvel. Hardened imitators and piles of photocopy works will follow.
Xiu Xiu - Knife Play
The San Diego quartet led by his majesty Jamie Stewart has literally brought back to life that thing called new wave. "Knife Play" is pure madness, it's the collapse of rock neurosis and obsessiveness. Nothing will ever be the same again.
Cat Power - You Are Free
The cat of rock. The female free spirit. Depression turned into acoustic poetry and vocal enchantment. If angels had behavioral cracks, they'd listen to "Maybe Not" every single day. Divine. Inimitable. Chan Marshall is the muse of these gloomy 2000s. A hymn to malaise and to the deepest elegance.
The Microphones - Mount Eerie
If we had to choose the Genius of the decade, the choice would fall without hesitation on Phil Elvrum. Metallic contortions and lava-like percussion locked in a casket of impalpable noise. It's the highest peak of the K Records sound. Something tremendously destabilizing and dreamlike at the same time.
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Robert Owens - Night-Time Stories
Olivia Block - Heave To
El Guapo - Fake French
Black Eyes - Cough
AA.VV. Not Not Fun - Tapeworms Eat
Bookworms
Prefuse 73 - Surronded By Silence
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the
Moon and the Sun
The Knife - Silent Shout
Madlib - Shades Of Blue
Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
Two Lone Swordsmen - From the Double Gone
Chapel
Antony and the Johnsons - I Am a Bird Now
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks
J Dilla - Donuts
Marissa Nadler - The Saga of Mayflower
May
Human Eye - Human Eye
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Helios - Eingya
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HOOD - Outside Closer
Notwist - Neon Golden
El Guapo - Fake French
Daft Punk - Discorvery
Piano Magic - Artists' Rifles
AGF - Westernization Completed
Micah P. Hinson - And The Gospel Of Progress
Aoki Takamasa + Tujiko Noriko - 28
The Microphones - "The Glow"
Pt. 2
Nicola Hitchcock - Passive Aggressive
Tunng - Mother's Daughter And Other Songs
Holden - The Idiots Are Winning
The Gathering - Home
Basement Jaxx - Remedy
Leila - Courtesy Of Choice
Antenne - #2
Autour De Lucie - Faux Mouvement
Sneakster - Pseudo-Nouveau / Fifty-Fifty
Takagi Masakatsu - Journal Of
People
Kid606 - Down With The Scene
Antipop Consortium - Arrhythmia
Cornelius - Point
Nitrada - We Don't Know Why But We Do It
Lali Puna - Scary World Theory
raison d'être - Requiem For Abandoned Souls
Trespassers William - Having
Telefon Tel Aviv - Fahrenheit Fair Enough
Air - Talkie Walkie
Flunk - Morning Star
Her Space Holiday - The Young Machines
Kevin Blechdom - Bitches Without Britches
Arab Strap - Monday At The Hug
& Pint
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost
Ghosts
Niobe - Voodooluba
Solex - Low Kick And Hard Bop
Pia Fraus - In Solarium
Pram - Dark Island
Kate Havnevik - Malenkton
Sasse - Made Within The Upper Stairs Of
Heave
Sodastream - Reservations
Low - The Great Destroyer
Textile Ranch - Bird Heart In Wool
Vladislav Delay - Anima
Phon°noir - Putting Holes Into October
Skies
Junior Boys - Last Exit
Murcof - Martes
Juana Molina - Segundo
Tactile Gemma - Tactile Gemma
Melodium - Music For Invisible
People
Architect - I Went Out Shopping To Get
Some Noise
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RADIOHEAD - Kid A
A perfect meeting of experimentation and accessibility, the peak of Radiohead's career is ground that probably can never be trodden again. Soundscapes of an undefined place that, on closer inspection, is the future that lies ahead of us.
Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and the
Johnsons
Expressiveness and pathos in the delivery of a song the likes of which hadn't been heard in a long while. Antony's voice is that of a mortal angel who, in a theatre, sings and performs the dramas and feelings of a different, torn humanity. The Artist of the decade. Or of the new millennium?
Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes
Around
On immortality. The man in black needs no frills, he draws on material from young men far removed from his own time and, with just a few things, shapes it until it becomes his own. And "Hurt" is its manifesto. A song of pain that becomes his own, the manifesto of a sweet and brutal farewell capable of moving a mountain. Johnny Cash's voice and interpretation have been revealed to the generations of the new millennium. We should only be grateful.
Portishead – Third
The album that debunked all the pessimistic legends about reunions. Portishead come back together and don't sleep under already-warm covers, but plunge into an absolutely perfect murky flow. An album in which
you won't find a single note or pause out of place.
Tool – Lateralus
With its contorted lines and deviant time signatures, "Lateralus" is the perfect soundtrack for the projection of a madman's dreams, and (together with Today Is The Day) it reawakens a decade of tired, inert metal by injecting it with new lifeblood.
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Less experimental than the later "A Ghost Is Born", but of a staggering beauty. On the ashes of an America struck at the heart and in its pride, Wilco, without resorting to any kind of upheaval, bring alternative folk to its true maturity, writing songs that very few will ever be able to replicate.
Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up on Me
In the progressive decay of soul and R&B, amid meowing maidens in heat and honeyed Casanovas in their Sunday best, the Bishop sets things straight. With the help of illustrious pens writing him songs, the magnificent man, 150 kilos for almost seventy years of pure soul, drips feeling, blood, flesh, sweat and tears. And he proves how soul is only dead in the incapacity of the new generations.
Elliott Smith – From a Basement On The
Hill
The final song of a fragile, tormented soul. Elliott Smith left us too soon to face a new century in which he could surely have given us new emotions and splendid songs. Like "Between The Bars", "Waltz #2" or "Pretty (Ugly Before)". Unfortunately we can only thank him for the ones he left us. And never enough.
cLOUDDEAD – cLOUDDEAD
That a new century has arrived can be told even from small big things. Like the fact that three white kids show up to revolutionize hip-hop. A radical and innovative approach that marks a fundamental turning point in the genre.
Sigur Rós - ( )
The Icelandic landscape is said to be almost alien, and Sigur Rós arrived to sing it in the most fitting way. A new language, not only in terms of pure vocal expression but also in that ethereal blend of psychedelia, dream-pop and post-rock that will hardly be repeatable. Undefinable, as rightly underlined by the album's and songs' titles.
Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala
An album to lift your spirits, to have fun and sing along. The best pop of the new decade comes from Sweden and is playfully melancholic, warmed by sweetly retro orchestrations and illustrated by lyrics that are at times brilliant.
Matt Elliott - Drinking Songs
The existential spleen of Matt Elliott's drinking songs is one of the best songwriting showings of the decade. Visionary and sweetly resigned, "Drinking Songs" carries you into seedy dives populated by poetic, drunken maudits with stories of tragedies and loves, in the slow dance of a sad hangover.
Arcade Fire – Funeral
It may not be extremely innovative and/or original, but the hybrid pop of "Funeral" is, together with Lekman's retro pop, the best of the decade. Fresh and fun, it doesn't give an inch even after hundreds of listens.
Won James Won - Theorist Attack
A bunch of Russian kids find themselves conceiving an album. Do they have few ideas or too many? Are they drugged? Hallucinating? Brilliant? You put it on and listen to it absentmindedly. After a while you check the player to see if you're still listening to them or if you've accidentally switched to some other album. A musical kaleidoscope operated by an old man with Parkinson's: you shake it and there's a rap track, you move it again and you find metal, then avant-garde, rock and melody. And then?
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Among the strangest and most oblique creatures of the new millennium, Liars churn out, with their "Drum's Not Dead", an album with no reference point. A deranged wave-tribalism with which the sorcerer Angus carries us on one of the most hallucinated journeys of the decade.
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - The Letting Go
Carrying on a musical tradition, preserving it, renewing it and keeping its spirit intact. All of this lies in the genius of Will Oldham, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Palace, or whatever the hell he wants to be called. The purity and sweetness of folk that only the greats have known how to give us.
Vinicio Capossela - Canzoni A
Manovella
Our flag-bearer could only be the bizarre Vinicio. On his Waits-like path, this album is the peak. Refined piano ballads, the tradition of the Italian song and Balkan gypsy folk mix in an album that renews our own homegrown singer-songwriter world.
Songs: Ohia - The Lioness
The skeleton of folk. Jason Molina, who knows why, I always picture him singing in the dark. Or singing about the dark. Blues-folk psalmodies that tear through the night and stand out like the laments of a man strumming a tune from his porch overlooking the desert. Perhaps the best chronicler of loneliness, or the best loneliness in music, of the decade.
At the Drive-In - Relationship of Command
An assault of sounds, broken rhythms, tempo changes. Not a milestone, but an album you listen to in one breath, with no weak moments, fun and furious.
The Books - Thought For Food
One of the craziest and most beautiful albums of the decade. A jumble of sounds glued together with no logic, but which, as in certain visual puzzles, if you listen to it at certain moments you find a meaning in it, you hear a melody inside that reveals itself to you like a pleasant epiphany. Many try, few succeed.
Other gems of the decade:
Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & the Mysterious
Production of Eggs
Antipop Consortium – Arrhythmia
Architecture in Helsinki - In Case We Die
Ardecore – Ardecore
Bachi da seta – Non io
Barzin - My Life in Rooms
Battles – Mirrored
Clark Nova – So Young
Clogs – Lantern
Colder – Heat
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks
Damien Rice – O
Daniel Johnston – Fear Yourself
D'Angelo – Voodoo
Dusk + Blackdown - Margins Music
Elizabeth Anka Vajagic - Stand With the
Stillness of This Day
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Fennesz - Endless Summer
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Guillemots - Through the Windowpane
Have a Nice Life – Deathconsciousness
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights
J Dilla – Donuts
Joanna Newsom – Ys
José James - The Dreamer
Kill the Vultures - Kill the Vultures
Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica
My Latest Novel – Wolves
Offlaga Disco Pax - Socialismo tascabile (Prove
tecniche di trasmissione)
Okkervil River - Down the River of Golden Dreams
Oxbow - The Narcotic Story
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor
Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires
Piano Magic – Disaffected
Rachel's - Systems/Layers
Runhild Gammelseater - Amplicon
Scott Matthew - Scott Matthew
Scott Walker - The Drift
Stars Of The Lid – And Their Refinement Of The
Decline
Storm and Stress - Under Thunder and Fluorescent
Lights
Super_Collider - Raw Digits
TBA – Annulé
Tenhi – Maaäet
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
The Bug - London Zoo
The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat
The Notwist - Neon Golden
Tinariwen – Amassakoul
Today Is the Day - Sadness Will Prevail
Toumani Diabaté - The Mandé Variations
Tunng - Comments of the Inner Chorus
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Two Lone Swordsmen - From the Double Gone Chapel
Ulver - Shadows of the Sun
Vic Chesnutt - North Star Deserter
Victor Demé – Victor Demé
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DAFT PUNK - Discovery
The day house music became a child again, with its
pop dreams and its hopes for boundless adventures,
for stories to imagine and tell to anyone.
A stellar, powerful record, viscerally connecting
two poles kept apart far too often: electronic music
and songs you can sing by heart, with the heart
of two revolutionary geniuses in between.
Dilla aka Jay Dee - Donuts
What would hip-hop have been in the last 15 years
without Jay Dee? Worse, for sure, with far less
fearlessness. "Donuts" is
the testament of the most smiling and
colorful producer that the stifling world of the
double H has ever encountered, a record full of
black music, blood, sweat, craft and passion.
Sketches of songs, loops, samples
dropped from above by an illness that
took him away from us. J Dilla changed my life.
Four Tet - Rounds
Kieran Hebden is a gentle soul; his earlier works,
before Rounds, had already shown him as a
little genius of that kind of sound once
known as indietronica, but "Rounds"
shuffles the deck and sets Hebden even further
apart from the crowd of producers pursuing
that path, effectively creating an alternative
no one else has managed to follow.
Burial - Untrue
UK garage and hardcore continuum, nice words,
nice sounds, nice concepts. Far removed. "Untrue"
is above all the sound of the here and now of centerless
metropolises, of suburbs after the suburbs
and within the suburbs, of everyday life pushing
on by sheer inertia alone. "Untrue"
is the work on the voices, the tight, circular
rhythms, the grainy production of a young man
who stamped his mark on the non-genre
of this decade.
LCD Soundsytem - LCD Soundsystem
Punk-funk-disco-rock'n'roll-house and full steam ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen: James Murphy, the all-crushing blender
who smashed the world. Sticky choruses,
irresistible grooves, couldn't-care-less poses, and mind you,
check out the second disc, especially the second
disc.
Flying Lotus - Reset
After 1983, before Los Angeles. Inside "Reset"
there's the Flying Lotus shaping his own path,
getting ever closer to dubstep tension
while keeping the roar of his own sound; these are
rhythms that stumble and reassemble each
time apparently different, but above everything
there's "Tea Leaf Dancer": The Song, the
soul of the 2000s.
James Holden - The Idiots Are Winning
Only the man in the bathrobe could mock
the minimal techno scene with a vicious minimal
record, a lesson in style and vision for
all the preachers of the gospel. "The Idiots
Are Winning" definitively closes the season
of soulless sound, sending it straight
to hell.
Dälek - Absence
Violence, brutality, struggle and resistance. "Absence"
definitively enshrines Dälek and Oktopus in the pantheon
of rap, a step forward toward the destruction
of sound within a noise apocalypse coupled
with a revolution in the structure of the giant MC's
hardcore flow. The result is pure
acid.
Rhythm & Sound - Rhythm & Sound
Moritz und Mark, ring Basic Channel's buzzer. The
R&S behemoth probes the depths of dub,
of Jamaican roots inside electronic spirals,
an immense sound that not only reconfirms the genius
of the two but opens a new season for techno,
infiltrating it with dub's tension and darkness.
Antipop Consortium - Arrhythmia
The Consortium unleashes this bomb of hysterical
and playful hip-hop. Inside there are beats that are too
fast, samples of ping pong balls
and rapping whose origin truly defies
explanation. The summa of nerd aesthetics
within the black music world.
Felix Da Housecat - Kittenz and Thee Glitz
Primal Scream - XTRMNTR
At The Drive -In - Relationship Of Command
Hymie's Basement - Hymie's Basement
N.E.R.D. - In Search Of…
Apparat - Duplex
Outkast - Speakerboxxx/The Love Below
Notwist - Neon Golden
Shackleton - Three EPs
Swayzak - Dirty Dancing
Kid606 - Down With The Scene
Fatboy Slim - Live On Brighton Beach
The Rapture - Echoes
Cassius - The Sound Of Violence
Tool - Lateralus
Books - Thought For Food
Dimitri From Paris - After The Playboy
Mansion
Dizzee Rascal - Boy In Da Corner
El-P - I'll Sleep When You're Dead
Tiefschwarz - A Little Help For Your Friends
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ARCADE FIRE - Funeral (2004)
Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Elliott Smith - From The Basement On The Hill
(2004)
Wilco - Yankee Foxtrot Hotel (2002)
Roots - Phrenology (2002)
Notwist - Neon Golden (2002)
Animal Collective - Here Comes The Indian
(2003)
Bright Eyes - Fevers & Mirrors (2000)
Hymie’s Basement - Hymie’s Basement (2003)
OutKast - Speakerboxx / The Love Below
(2003)
LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem (2005)
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In
People (2001)
Low - The Great Destroyer (2005)
Liars - They Threw Us All in a Trench and
Stuck a Monument on Top
(2001)
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
(2006)
Cat Power - You Are Free (2003)
Fiery Furnaces - Gallowsbird's Bark (2003)
Kanye West - Late Registration (2005)
Interpol - Turn On the Bright Lights (2002)
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy (2005)
Death Cab For Cutie - Plans (2005)
Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2 (2003)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise (2005)
Sigur Ros - () (2002)
Dalek - Absence (2005)
...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - Source Tags & Codes (2002)
National - Boxer (2007)
Daniel Johnston - Fear Yourself
(2003)
Queens of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
(2002)
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SHIT & SHINE - Ladybird [England/Usa, 2005]
A river in flood, a mad dash with neither head
nor tail, Ladybird is a desolating experience,
a blend of every experience of psychedelic rock
from the last 40 years (Velvet Underground and Stooges, above all),
compressed and hurled toward the future. If anyone
ever remembers this first decade of
rock musically, it will be thanks to records like this one.
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon [Usa,
2006]
Another single-track record; the microtonal variations
stemming from Whitman's meta-compositional
processes manage to produce an almost-static
sonic universe that wipes the slate clean of
electronic music's past, and does so with a grace
that borders on the miraculous.
Ambrose Field & John Potter - Being
Dufay [England, 2009]
Another electronic miracle, Being Dufay is a record
with few (perhaps no) precedents. It's not
the usual new age music seeking legitimacy
by simply latching onto some masterpiece
of the past; Field (a composer of musique
concrète and soundscapes) and Potter (tenor
of the Hilliard Ensemble) "create" moving,
breathtaking sonic landscapes through the use
and elaboration of melodic fragments by Guillaume
Dufay, the greatest of the Flemish composers.
An experiment that will go down in the annals, backed
by a world tour that was applauded everywhere.
Sleep - Dopesmoker [Usa, 2003]
A rediscovered masterpiece, Dopesmoker is a record
that can rightly be called seminal. The sonic magma
of the title track, as viscous
as it is incandescent, marks the listening experience indelibly;
the doom and stoner metal we know today
probably owe everything to this
record.
Eluvium - Talk Amongst The Trees [Usa,
2004]
It's certainly Matthew Cooper, aka Eluvium, who picks up
Eno's scepter; melody tiptoes into Eluvium's
ambient sound and gives
a soul to electronic compositions as rarely
happens. A record to find yourself again and
your own soul.
Panda Bear - Person Pitch [Usa, 2007]
For better or worse, Noah Lennox marks a decade
of indie music with Person Pitch; the reclaiming
of the American pop music tradition is merely
the tool for giving his textures
a fullness of sound from another era.
Far Corner - Endangered [Usa, 2007]
Equally at ease with composed music and
fully improvised music, Far Corner from
Wisconsin breathe new life into a genre that
reached artistic heights with Henry Cow, Keith
Emerson and Colosseum. They play with the precision
of classical musicians and have an angular sound,
at times raw.
Joanna Newsom - Ys [Usa, 2006]
The little elf from Nevada City, with the invaluable
help of three "sacred monsters"
of rock (Van
Dyke Parks on arrangements, Jim O'Rourke on
production and Steve Albini in the studio), crafts
an absolute masterpiece of indie-folk. With the harp
for company, played with an extremely graceful
yet intense touch, she lays out her fairy-tale eloquence
supported by celestial music.
Roy Montgomery - The Allegory Of Hearing
[N. Zeland, 2000]
After having branded the last stretch of
the century with fire and before prematurely leaving
the scene, Montgomery gifts the new millennium a
record as poetic as it is intelligent, not to
say brilliant. His guitar, deployed in the
most varied ways, manages all on its own to deliver emotions
by the shovelful that touch both the heart and the
brain.
Ghost - Hypnotic Underworld [Japan,
2004]
Probably the band's masterpiece; a record
capable of ecstatically abducting you for its entire
duration and that afterwards you just want to replay.
When he's inspired, Masaki Batoh is an unstoppable
psychedelic genius.
Keith Fullerton Withman - Playthroughs
[Usa, 2002]
Having abandoned his traditional moniker, Hrvåtski,
and his drill'n'bass past, which went down in history,
Withman inaugurates the glorious season of process-generated
music that will lead to Lisbon. In "Playthroughs" all
the salient elements of his new style already appear
in nuce, packaged in 5 tracks that
live in balance between the deep abyss and
the elevation of ecstasy.
Dirty Three - Whatever You Love, You Are
[Australia, 2000]
Before inevitably heading down sunset boulevard,
Ellis & co. give us this musical pearl
of immense value; the generations immediately
following will treasure it from the first to the last
note.
Spring Heel Jack - Amassed [England, 2002]
If a conceptual precedent
is to be sought for "Being Dufay" by Field & Potter,
"Amassed" is certainly the most credited one. The work
done by Coxon and Wales has enormous musical value,
besides doing justice to an entire
generation of contemporary jazz musicians.
Maudlin Of The Well - Part The Second [Usa,
2009]
Brought back by popular demand, Driver resurrects
his first project and does so by gifting fans
a tremendous prog-metal masterpiece. Great music,
just like the old days.
Rachel's - Systems/Layers [Usa, 2003]
A wonderful record, where harmony reigns supreme.
The swan song of one of the most significant
(and unjustly underrated) bands of the 90s,
among the highest expressions of so-called post-rock.
Jon Hassell - Last Night The Moon Came
Dropping Its Clothes In The Street [Usa, 2009]
After having lost his bearings, between cameo appearances
and a dip in inspiration, Hassell toward the end of the first
decade finds himself again on an exceptional record,
where the 4 live tracks and the others recorded in the studio bring
his moving ethnic fusion back to the levels
reached in the 80s. God bless him!
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois [Usa, 2005]
The record that perhaps more than any other defined the indie-pop
of this decade, marked by a freshness
of inspiration that has very few equals in the history
of the genre. In the following years it has
practically been plundered by just about everyone.
Lofty Pillars - Amsterdam [Usa, 2001]
Slowcore at its fullest expression. Krassner
gives us an intense record, warm and melancholic
at the same time, with songs backed by
first-rate singer-songwriter craftsmanship.
Mastodon - Crack The Skye [Usa, 2009]
The apotheosis of prog-metal; an ambitious,
grandiloquent and contradictory record but for
precisely that reason gripping from start to finish; just as
gripping and contradictory is the story of the
monk Rasputin that it draws on.
"Crack The Skye" essentially kills
prog-metal and hands it over to rock history.
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production
Of Eggs [Usa, 2005]
One of the great masterpieces of indie-pop and certainly
one of the most important records of the decade. The
lightness of Bird's melodic touch, whether he's
singing, playing violin or whistling,
is thoroughly delightful.
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone [England,
2000]
The "heaviest band in the universe"
at the peak of its powers. Dopethrone is the record that
marks stoner metal forever and pushes
the genre to an unhoped-for leap in quality. Seminal,
in the truest sense of the term.
Bersarin Quartett - Bersarin Quartett [Germany,
2008]
Heir to the great German electronic
tradition, Thomas Bücker produces an ambient record of notable
substance and great depth, with a warm,
creamy sound reminiscent of the analog electronics
that once belonged to Tangerine Dream and Schulze.
DJ Spooky - Optometry [Usa, 2002]
With this work, a counterpart to Amassed by SHJ,
Thirsty Ear launches a new genre. A record "composed"
by the expert hands of Paul Miller and that delivers
a powerful, multifaceted sound; absolutely
brilliant!
Black Mountain - In The Future [Canada,
2008]
Miss Led Zeppelin? And Pink Floyd?
And King Crimson's mellotron? "In The
Future" is a record that manages, without coming off
as pompous, to quench the thirst of those parched for
"old school" psychedelic rock.
A thoroughly enjoyable record.
Jonny Trunk - Scrapbook [England, 2009]
"Tomorrow's music played yesterday".
Trunk, the man behind one of the smartest
independent labels of recent years,
Trunk Records, showcases all
his retro-futurist collage work, a worthy heir to the
mad mosaics once created by Frank Zappa. A record
as intelligent as few others; due for reassessment.
Isis - Panopticon [Usa, 2004]
An absolute must for all metal
enthusiasts. The successful attempt to reconcile
the metal minimalism of Earth and Melvins with the
experimentation of Godflesh and Neurosis; a true
mission impossible.
Supersilent - 6 [Norway, 2003]
The absolute masterpiece of the Norwegian band and
a record that never stops surprising and yielding up
secrets. Esoteric.
Khanate - Things Viral [Usa, 2003]
The record that best represents the doom
metal style, with a couple of tracks (Dead and Fields) that have entered
metal legend.
The Books - The Lemon Of Pink [Usa, 2003]
Few indie electronic records sound
this authentically indie! And in the best
sense of the term. The delicacy of the sonic watercolors
woven by the New York duo is the mirror of
a flawless formal balance.
Final Fantasy - He Poos Clouds [Usa, 2006]
An eclectic record, not to say curious, but capable
of gathering and capitalizing on the many flashes
of melodic ingenuity of its creator, Owen Pallett.
Far (thankfully) from the sterile grandiloquence
of baroque pop, "He Poos Clouds" is
a record you never tire of listening to.
Mastodon - Leviathan
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
Les Joyaux De La Princesse - Aux Volontaires
De La Croix de Sang
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso
U.F.O. - La Nòvia
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Mars Volta - Frances The Mute
Paik - Orson Fader
Today Is The Day - Sadness Will
Prevail
Damien Rice - O
Spring Heel Jack - Disappeared
Kopernik - Kopernik
Piano Magic - The Troubled Sleep Of Piano
Magic
Loscil - Submers
Infidel?/Castro! - Bioentropic Fractal Damage
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds Of Stars
of the Lid6
Bark Psychosis - Codename:
Dustsucker
Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments
Toby Dammit - Top Dollar
Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I
Miss Everyone
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GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! (2000)
Sigur Rós - ( ) (2002)
Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Antony and the Johnsons - Antony and the
Johnsons (2000)
Eluvium - An Accidental Memory in the Case
of Death (2004)
Toby Driver - In the L..L..Library Loft
(2005)
Infidel?/Castro! - Bioentropic Damage Fractal
(2005)
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of the
Moon and the Sun (2006)
Agalloch - The White EP (2008)
Animal Hospital - Memory (2009)
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks (2005)
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi
(2002)
Balmorhea - All Is Wild, All Is Silent
(2009)
Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
(2009)
Battles - Mirrored (2007)
Liars - Drum's Not Dead (2006)
Microphones - The Glow pt. 2
Uochi Toki - Libro audio (2009)
Have a Nice Life - Deathconsciousness (2008)
The Fiery Furnaces - Blueberry Boat (2004)
Mogwai - Mr. Beast (2006)
Converge - Jane Doe (2001)
Kayo Dot - Choirs of the Eye (2003)
Vàli - Forlatt (2004)
Tenhi - Maaäet (2006)
Mountains - Choral (2009)
Vex'd - Degenerate (2005)
Volcano the Bear - Classic Erasmus Fusion
(2006)
John Zorn - Six Litanies for Heliogabalus
(2007)
Boris - Flood
Supersilent - 6
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Pyramids - Pyramids (2008)
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Yanqui U.X.O.
(2002)
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M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (2003, Mute)
The relentless pursuit of the sublime by two
kids from Antibes whose gaze is constantly
turned skyward. A universe of colors
explodes between searing shoegaze intensity, vintage
electronics revivals, the airy grace of the french-touch
sound, and a panoramic, majestic grandeur.
Piano Magic - Disaffected (2005, Talitres)
In a state of grace, the versatile band led
by Glen Johnson have their say on the revival of
new wave sounds and mannerisms, the true cliché of these
years. Beneath a constant veil of enchanted melancholy,
it's easy to recognize yourself in each of the
stories told on "Disaffected", along a
path of immaculate splendor and rare emotional
impact.
Ulver - Perdition City (2000, Jester
Records)
At the dawn of the third millennium the wolves of Oslo
emerge with a documentary on the era's sonic
"subconscious". Spectral and enveloping trip-hop
digressions take shape from the everyday reality
of centerless cities, an entire life photographed
in its eternal spinning of wheels.
Pan Sonic - Kesto (2004, Blast First)
An encyclopedia of experimental electronics in
4 hefty volumes credited to the duo Vainio/Vasanen,
more than ever polyglot explorers of all
the space separating noise from silence,
movement from stasis.
Jesu - Conqueror (2007, Hydra Head)
At the peak of inspiration, Justin
Broadrick's genius relocates to heaven his many years'
experience in the most infernal circles of metal
avant-garde. In "Conqueror" the weighty
soul of doom lives on, sublimated into melodies
of pure light, the manifesto of that musical current
that continues to contaminate, confuse and expand
the boundaries of metal.
Sigur Rós - Takk... (2005, Emi)
If the extraordinary previous albums set
a production and compositional standard, "Takk.."
is the Icelandic band's acknowledgment
of their own enchanting power married
to more accessible pop structures, with the unique
ability to make even the most obvious things
wonderful.
Snowdrift - Snowdrift (2007, Paradigms)
Little-known shooting stars of American indie-rock,
Snowdrift from Seattle have just enough time
to bring to life this rare and priceless debut album,
before disappearing once again into oblivion. Songs
that travel nocturnal and lulling along the snow-covered
main street of some quiet and desolate
small town, the slowcore hypnosis of Justin McCormick's
guitars and Kat Terran's crystalline voice
push enchanted melodies into the
timeless limbo that belongs only to the classics.
Have A Nice Life - Deathconsciousness
(2008, Enemieslist Home Recordings)
Skillful riders of the new era of online
self-distribution, two young guys from Connecticut
put together at home on a shoestring budget the work
that bursts in to finally teach old post-punk
the language of the 2000s. Darkwave DNA
hybridized with shoegaze, drone-black-metal,
emo and whatever else debris and offshoots. A taste for mockery, ambition
and awareness underpin the intricate concept
the duo build around every gesture they make.
Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: The Endless
Not (2007, Mute)
The four pioneers of the industrial revolution
reunited for a pulsing trip that sums up
their gospel and all 26 years since
their first breakup, years of fundamental
solo and collective experiences, an entire
culture renews and strengthens itself on this record
through the language of a lunar and pervasive
electronic sound that belongs only to them.
Grouper - Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill
(2008, Type)
Acoustic spells hidden behind the dense
haze of a sound clinging to the low fidelity
of the recording, a siren's voice
whispering melodies of total beauty amid the waves
of a dirty, nebulous sound, as if it were the
negative print of the Cocteau Twins' Victorialand.
Liz Harris, from Portland, the most representative
aesthete of lo-fi to emerge in the latter part of the
decade, in the fullest and most moving document
of her dreamlike art.
EXTREME
Yellow Swans - Psychic Secession (2006,
Load)
Hair Police - Constantly Terrified (2005,
Troubleman Unlimited)
Skin Area - Journal Noir/Lithium Path
(2006, Cold Meat Industry)
Prurient - And Still, Wanting (2008,
No Fun)
METAL
Negura Bunget - Om (2006, code666)
Velvet Cacoon - Genevieve (2004, Southern
Lord)
Dornenreich - Her Von Welken Nachten
(2001, Prophecy)
Enslaved - Isa (2004, Tabu)
SELECTED AMBIENT WORKS
Thomas Köner - Nuuk (2004, Mille Plateaux)
Beyond Sensory Experience - Pursuit Of
Pleasure (2005, Cold Meat Industry)
Shuttle358 - Frame (2002, 12k)
Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet (2004,
Kranky)
Deathprod - Morals and Dogma (2004, Rune
Grammofon)
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TODAY IS THE DAY - Sadness Will Prevail
(2002; USA - 2xcd)
The most devastating journey to the end of
the night of the last decade. Terror noise-metal
with a progressive soul, representing the absolute
peak of one of the greatest and most
underrated bands of the last twenty years.
"Sadness Will Prevail" is true madness,
true psychosis" (Steve Austin). The final
abyss of "Never Answer The Phone"
alone would be enough to confirm it.
Infidel?/Castro! - Bioentropic
Damage Fractal (2005; USA - 2xcd)
George Korein and Colin Marston attempt an
incredible "futuristic" synthesis of
ambient, electroacoustic collage, electronics,
avant-metal, contemporary classical, art-rock,
IDM and more besides. Cacophonous, alien,
destructive and musically blasphemous, but
also poetic, moving and sincere,
"Bioentropic Damage Fractal" is a requiem for
the cyber-generation.
cLOUDDEAD – s/t (2001; USA)
Hip-hop surrealism. An alien work that
breaks down the grammar of a genre to
(not-)reassemble it in the form of scattered
textures, shapeshifting absences and unsettling
atmospheres. A phenomenal transfiguration.
A landmark record.
Won James Won - Theorist Attack
(2006; Russia)
Mother Russia gives us this
collective of unhinged madmen, capable of an
"absolute" interweaving of genres and styles that
slide into one another, like a sonic
matryoshka doll, following in the footsteps of Mr. Bungle and
Frank Zappa. A record that never stops
surprising, listen after listen. Citational and
experimental: a demonic montage of
attractions.
Natural Snow Buildings - Shadow
Kingdom (2009; France - 2xcd)
A boundless record, in every sense.
Probably the peak of the
free-folk experiments of the decade. The French duo
moves with terrible freedom through sonic
walls that rise like cathedrals,
going so far as to fuse, in the immeasurable "Chthonian Odyssey" -
"Hells Foundations" - "A
Birth Mark Like a Scar" (one of the greatest
masterpieces of recent years), the
metaphysical visions of Charalambides with the
abyssal suggestions of Fursaxa, the infinite
vibrations of the raga and the majestic inquiries
into the divine of Constance Demby. Otherworldly.
Li Jianhong - 三生石 (San Sheng Shi)
(2008; China)
A man, an electric guitar, a vision.
The transfiguration of cosmic music into a
grandiloquent, erratic post-psychedelic
noise. Jimi Hendrix flirting with the
Tangerine Dream? Mizutani inventing
shoegaze? Not for everyone. And he's
surely proud of it.
Orthrelm – Ov (2005; USA)
The absurd "artistic gesture" of Mick Barr
(guitar) and Josh Blair (drums), two
little-known nerds raised on video games,
beer and heavy metal. As if Steve Reich had
suddenly taken up metal. A unique,
unrepeatable, revolutionary record.
Paik – Satin Black (2004; USA)
Despite everything, the story of Paik
is an unjustly overlooked one. Yet these three guys from
Michigan marked, with this record, the
highest point of space-rock in the last
decade. An incandescent whirlwind of colossal
emotions, in a continuous alternation of ecstasy
and torment, horror and euphoria. Chamber
music for extraterrestrials; or the sound
of the Universe when, its hour come,
it implodes, dying, upon itself.
Colleen - The Golden Morning Breaks
(2005; France)
A record that tastes of ancient poetry. A
surface laminated with crystals over a
bed of aching melancholy. Surpassing in magic the
folktronic experiments of her first record,
Cecile Schott gives us a masterpiece made of
small accents and meticulous textures
left to vibrate with the ardour of
spontaneous improvisations. Magical.
Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004; USA)
The Canadian band's debut is a triumph of
pop-rock ballads that, amid wave-tinged clots and
vaguely baroque grandeur, paint a
fresco that is at once powerful, moving,
euphoric. Looking to the past, staying
anchored to the present and imagining the future.
Fursaxa – Kobold Moon (2008; USA)
With this record, following the already excellent
"Lepidoptera", Tara Burke definitively breaks
away from the free-folk caravan,
immersing herself in an arcane and mysterious
land, made of derelict vessels of
bodiless voices. A record literally
"suspended in the void".
Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines
(2002; USA)
The masters of brutal death metal deliver
one of the highest points in all of metal.
Mammoth walls of ferocity, devastating
riffs, heart-pounding instrumental
runs, a bone-crushing rhythm section, all
cast within atmospheres with a clear
Egyptian flavour. An absolute must of the last decade.
Stars of the Lid - The Tired Sounds
Of… (2001; USA - 2xcd)
An austere and formally refined record,
a majestic synthesis of ambient, cosmic and
neoclassical music, this is the point of no return
in the American duo's drive towards the
sublimation of "tired sound" into an
undefined carpet of micro melodic variations.
Music for the twilight of the soul.
Runhild Gammelsæter - Amplicon
(2008; Norway)
Hell according to the beautiful Runhild. An
exercise in witchcraft, an avant-garde rock
massacre. By altering and deforming
tiny shreds of sound-noise and vocal
torment, the Norwegian artist creates prodigious
settings on the border between dark ambient,
degraded industrial and devilish creative
vocalising. Satanic.
Toby Driver - In the L..L..Library
Loft (2005; USA)
A harrowing, dark and terrifying record, "In
the L..L..Library Loft" is the peak of the
musical research of the leader of Kayo Dot and
Maudlin of the Well. Between enchantment and despair:
how to show the "magical" in a tremor
of unease.
Ambrose Field & John Potter - Being
Dufay (2009; UK)
From an apparently irreconcilable
opposition (that between the precious Flemish
vocality of Guillaume Dufay (15th century) and the
enormous creative possibilities of electronics),
comes one of the most "timeless" records
of the last decade. A music that breathes
like an arcane breeze and has the devastating
power of a sacred epic. A quadrophony
of the soul journeying towards redemption.
Human Eye – s/t (2005; USA)
In the realm of reinterpreting-reviving-transfiguring
garage/punk sounds, Human Eye had no
rivals in the decade just gone,
above all because they were able to
approach the sound of the Edge/Creed pairing (Chrome)
and reinvigorate it properly. A journey into
the most radical and creative recesses of rock (but
wasn't it dead some twenty years ago?)
Mars Volta – Frances The Mute (2005;
USA)
There are those who worship them and those who hate them to death. There are
those who prefer the earlier "De-Loused in the
Comatorium" and those who prefer the more recent works. But it is
with this sumptuous, decadent record that Omar
Rodriguez-Lopez and Cedric Bixler reach
the peak of an (anti-)prog for the postcore
generation, one that in the suite "Cassandra Gemini"
touches absolutely sublime heights. Vibrant.
Dälek – Absence (2005; USA)
A caterpillar crossing, paying homage to Public Enemy and My Bloody Valentine. A colossal
apotheosis of flickering noise flames in
old-skool pulp, amid cursed beats & rhymes. The
post-modern, murderous face of a
turntable crackling at a toxic party
within a rust-coloured dawn.
Jasun Martz - The Pillory/The
Battle (2005; USA - 2xcd)
The American composer's masterpiece is a
majestic synthesis of styles and genres, in the vein
of Frank Zappa's total music. A
synthesis that, in its final, colossal movement,
turns into a grandiose sonic odyssey.
Wildildlife – Six (2007; USA)
Psychedelia, doom, stoner, noise, traces of
liquefied free-folk: all mixed
with a very, very crazed artsy streak.
"Six" is an unfolding hallucination.
Panda Bear – Person Pitch (2007;
USA)
The triumph of a psychedelia from another era.
Layers of echoes chasing one another in
a room full of mirrors. A thousand colours,
a thousand "possible" melodies. Then "Bro's" arrives
and it's as if the Beach Boys were redoing "Sister Ray". Timeless.
Supersilent – 6 (2003; Norway)
Elusive, enigmatic improvisations on the
border between jazz, ambient, electronics and rock.
A record where mystery triumphs, listen after
listen.
Volcano the Bear - Classic Erasmus
Fusion (2006; UK - 2xCd)
The absolute peak of the English trio. "Classic
Erasmus Fusion" has an eclectic,
colourful sound, poised between free-weird-folk and avant-jazz, but with eyes
and ears firmly fixed on many of the
Canterbury-esque experiences, Rock in
Opposition and krautrock. A manifesto of
surrealism applied to music.
Khanate – s/t (2001; USA)
Thunderous and fearsome, mammoth and
nerve-wracking. An apocalypse in slow-motion.
Radicalising some intuitions of Harvey
Milk, Khanate take doom metal to its
extreme consequences, through a
dramatised use of tiny details scattered in an
abyssal, atrophied, desperately
unfathomable void. Like descending into
hell: slowly, slowly, slowly…
Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
(2004; USA)
The blues-steeped avant-pop,
cabaret-tinged effervescence and
progressive-leaning digressions of the Friedberger
siblings (Eleanor and Matthew) reach their
culmination in the rock opera of "Blueberry Boat".
Creativity in power, with a smile
stamped on their lips. Exuberant and
unpredictable.
Xiu Xiu – A Promise (2003; USA)
James Stewart's sonic torture reaches
its peak here. A sound in black and white:
the white of a tormented and tormenting voice
and the black of bristly, bewitching,
fragile musical structures. Music that shatters,
reassembles, shatters again, agonises and
dies. And when the synth takes flight at the
end of "Ian Curtis Wishlist", the heart
skips a beat and we too die for a few
moments.
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005;
USA)
The highest point of the eclectic American
"singer-songwriter". A whirl of great
melodic intuitions, with arrangements that turn
orchestral, brass-band, intimate etc.
Twenty-two episodes for as many stories that
place before our eyes so many small,
great imaginary characters. Pop!
Tobias Lilja - Time Is On My Side
(2007; Sweden)
Looking for shortcuts among the stars, the
Swedish "starsailor" ends up holing up
in the labyrinths of the soul. A boundless
and solemn songwriting. Dark, cryptic elegies
of the immense.
Keith Fullerton Whitman - Lisbon
(2006; USA)
Building on what he had already experimented with in "Playthroughs",
Whitman uses the laptop to transfigure
guitar parts, turning them into a
sonic amalgam that it's
impossible not to sink into. "Lisbon" is an epic, extremely powerful
astral allegory.
DJ Spooky – Optometry (2002; USA)
Solex - Low Kick and Hard Bop
(2001; Netherlands)
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie
Mountain (2006; USA)
Spring Heel Jack - Disappeared
(2000; UK)
Microphones - Mount Eerie (2003;
USA)
Black Dice – Beaches & Canyons
(2002; USA)
Extra Life - Secular Works (2008;
USA)
Low – Trust (2002; USA)
Carla Bozulich - Evangelista (2006;
USA)
Liars - Drum's Not Dead (2006; USA)
Pelt - Ayahuasca (2001; USA - 2xcd)
Shit and Shine - Jealous of Shit
and Shine (2006; UK/USA)
Lydia Lunch - Smoke in the Shadows
(2004; USA)
The Czars - The Ugly People vs. the
Beautiful People (2001; USA)
Entropic Advance - Red Yellow Noise
(2002; USA - 2xcd)
Hexlove - Pija z Bogiem (2009; USA
- 2xcd)
Mew - No More Stories/ Are Told
Today/ I'm Sorry... (2009; USA)
Lofty Pillars - Amsterdam (2001;
USA)
Sunn O))) - Monoliths & Dimensions
(2009; USA)
Scott Walker – The Drift (2006;
USA)
Charalambides – Joy Shapes (2004; USA)
Dj Logic – The Anomaly (2001; USA)
Dirty Three - Whatever You Love, You
Are (2000; Australia)
Khlyst - Chaos Is My Name (2006;
USA/Norway)
ITALY (chronological order)
Zu – Igneo (2002)
Larsen Lombriki - Free From Deceit Or
Cunnings (2005)
With Love - A Great Circle (2006)
Å – s/t (2006)
Vonneumann - Switch Parmenide (2006)
Vinicio Capossela - Ovunque proteggi
(2006)
Valerio Cosi - Heavy Electronic Pacific
Rock (2008)
L'Enfance Rouge - Trapani - Halq Al
Waady (2008)
Sinenomine - Spartenza (2009)
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SUFJAN STEVENS - Illinois (2005)
Disarming. To those who delude themselves that pure and simple
beauty no longer has a right to exist,
"Illinois" turns the other
cheek. A shy, aestheticised record? Quite
the opposite. It's the joy of creation that
animates this whirl of songs, in a
flurry of imaginative references, indelible
melodies and orchestral divertissements.
All very postmodern, all very
light. A kaleidoscope. Or rather:
stained-glass windows, large and colourful. Songs that
chase one another like characters in a story, themes
that overlap, and voices and instruments all
united in a design that is a thousand things at once.
And then the light. It filters through the thin surface of
glass and floods it with vitality. It lights up the
colours and reaches us. It captivates us, it
reunites us: Sufjan Stevens's slender voice,
the orchestra, the echoes of minimalism, in
an ecstasy that restores meaning to a word:
spirituality.
At the Drive-in - Relationship Of Command
(2000)
Impetuous, impulsive. Yet intricate.
Precision-tooled. "Relationship of Command" pushes
post-hardcore to a point of no return. From
there on, it could only be progressive.
But these twelve tracks are in perpetual balance,
on a razor's edge: between drive and ambition,
impetus and organisation, rage, passion,
imagination.
Tool - Lateralus (2001)
Quod est inferius, est sicut quod est
superius, et quod est superius, est sicut quod
est inferius. The complexity of "Lateralus"
is that of the world, that of the cosmos.
An initiatory labyrinth in which the soul
dissolves and reappears like a ghost. A latent spirit
amid riddles and symmetries. More than metal,
esotericism.
Tortoise - Standards (2001)
And finally there was mannerism. It takes class,
a great deal of class to pull it off, and Tortoise
have it. With clarity and precision, they carve out
the manifesto of the new post-: Dismantle And
Reassemble, and goodbye to substance.
Fractured rhythms, dub tricks, decontextualised and
recombined commonplaces. Miniature worlds,
paradises of pure form.
No room for emotions, but the game is
so perfect you don't feel its
absence.
Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
Abstract, perhaps cubist, "Amnesiac" is
post-rock taking possession of pop. Songs
emptied out, emotions evaporated leaving
cold electronic skeletons exposed.
Streaked only by an irreducible speck of dust:
viruses, bacteria, jazz microorganisms that
anarchically recolonise the desolation.
My Latest Novel - Wolves (2006)
Folk: the music of community. The kind that once existed
is extinct or no longer the same, but the
need for music that speaks in the plural is
still alive. Through the notes, if not the
words: the tracks on "Wolves" are then
shy, delicate but also epic and enveloping.
Between acoustic crescendos and traditional ties,
the spirit of a new sense of community emerges.
Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your
Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven
(2000)
Soft/loud is synonymous with the most
emotional drift of the post- galaxy. This album is
its sacred text: an immense sound, open to
strings and horns; then minimal overlaps,
climate changes, storms, unexpected
clearings. Abandoning yourself to its flow
takes your breath away.
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
(2008)
Carefree, whimsical but at bottom a little
melancholy, this album revitalises what
seemed dead and buried. The raggedness of the
Feelies and the world-music wonder of "Graceland",
but above all an enthusiastic way of looking
at multiculturalism. Without losing its
own identity, without forcing anyone else's.
Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A
Cold Dead Place (2003)
To fly. A brief run on the ground, a few
wingbeats, then climbing and climbing,
carried by an updraft.
Crossing the clouds and, suddenly, seeing the
sun. And the world below is a white ocean, and
gliding gently has the sound of being
free. The sound of guitars: clear,
crystalline, an ecstasy of interweaving and
twists and turns.
Daft Punk - Alive 2007 (2007)
We'll remember it in a century's time, with nostalgia
and admiration. The way we remember
Futurism today.
(Why a live album? Because here the
cubist genius of France's two most famous helmets
plays with itself like never before. Because in
this album 2+2 makes 6, and "Around the World" + "Harder
Better Faster Stronger" makes infinity.)
Uochi Toki - Libro Audio (2009)
The best Italian hip-hop record of all time? With
cynicism, meticulousness and a certain dose of
sonic terrorism, music and lyrics make it
clear that only an idiot could think
that way ("best"? "hip-hop"? "of all time"?)
And then this is a book-record. That is,
essentially, an album that makes the listener
feel like an idiot. If only there were more of those.
Four Tet - Rounds (2003)
Once upon a time there was folktronica. And Four Tet
was already the best back then. "Rounds" is
suspension and wonder, fantasy and
circularity. Hip-hop, glitch and acoustic
warmth. Lightness, a gentle breeze,
spirituality.
Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
"Amnesiac"'s twin is perhaps (perhaps!) a
little less claustrophobic. Dreamy, ethereal, not
any more optimistic for that: in fact, its
post-punk/electronic hybrid is about as
alienating as anything pop has produced in
recent times.
2 Many DJ's - As Heard on Radio Soulwax
Part 2 (2002)
The title of funniest album of the decade
goes to the magnum opus of
bastard-pop. Pop, rock, dance of every
genre and era blended into an
irresistible flow of Frankenstein
monsters. The head of one song, the tail of another, the
bassline of yet another. Irreverence: plenty.
Snobbery: zero. A perfect snapshot of the
spirit of the times.
Circle Take the Square - As the Roots Undo
(2004)
Frenzy, emphasis, convulsion: this is
screamo, the most visceral fringe of
post-hardcore. But "As the Roots Undo" is its
most evolved landing point, an ordered chaos that has
taken on math-rock's diagonals and the
heavenly crescendos of soft/loud. A
completely unexpected folk spirit makes
this intense record the hidden mirror
of a generation, of its discontents, of
its dreams.
Isis - Panopticon (2004)
[post-sludge]
The Shins - Chutes Too Narrow (2003)
[indie-pop]
múm - Finally We Are No One (2000) [folktronica]
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005) [new
new wave]
Tim Berne - Science Friction (2002) [avant-garde
jazz]
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the
Ship Even Sank (2007) [indie-rock]
Amon Tobin - Supermodified (2000) [IDM]
Port-Royal - Flares (2005) [soft/loud]
Anathallo - Floating World (2006)
[progressive pop]
Hood - Cold House (2001) [post-rock]
Supersilent - 6 (2003) [improvised]
Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
[indie-rock]
Subtle - A New White (2004) [post-hop]
Gravenhurst - The Western Lands (2007)
[indie-folk/rock]
Wilco - A Ghost Is Born (2004) [indie-country]
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cLOUDDEAD - cLOUDDEAD (Big Dada)
It could go down as the "Velvet
Underground & Nico" of hip-hop, but even if it
doesn't, cLOUDDEAD's debut remains
simply the most surprising record (and
certainly also one of the finest) of the entire
decade. It has everything: ambient, soot,
freak logorrhea, an air of metropolitan
provincialism, pink sunsets, video games,
lo-fi and a storm of ideas. Almost the entire
Anticon collective worked on it: a myriad
of voices and worlds. Unmatched.
Daft Punk - Discovery (Virgin)
The past turning into the future. Among
all the countless reinterpretations made in the
decade of the '80s behemoth, this one is
projected towards eternity with an inhuman, artificial
ease, without even running
the risk of the concept overriding the
fun.
Storm&Stress - Under Thunder And
Fluorescent Light (Touch & Go)
The (fake) free revolution of post-rock,
that is, what could have been and wasn't.
A connecting link between the underground
music worlds of the two decades, destined to
deny the past and never spawn a school. And to
shine with a hermetic light.
Volcano The Bear - Classic Erasmus
Fusion (Beta Lactam Ring)
The record that, through its completeness,
attention to detail and experimental drive, annihilates
an entire decade of freak-folk wanderings.
It arrives when the phenomenon had already partly faded, it
distances itself from it in almost every way and aims to
be remembered.
Black Dice - Repo (Paw Tracks)
The perfect summary of the decade. Mocking and
monstrous.
Animal Collective - Here Comes The
Indian (Paw Tracks)
Perhaps the single most influential record on the
underground worlds of the 00s. Electronic
moaning elevated to a vitalistic syntax
that hides and tortures reproductive
drives while letting childish anxieties
flow out.
Asa Chang & Junray - Jun Ray Song Chang
(Leaf)
A perfect fusion of sunny irony and bottomless
melancholy, a chromatic explosion and
ethno-exotica of the ephemeral glitch-pop idiom.
Educational and unmissable. On the same level,
the more recent, less volatile "Kage No Nai Hito".
Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca (Domino)
The "sellable" landing point of one of the most
personal paths of the decade, it's a bet on a
pop music that could be.
Vinicio Capossela - Ovunque Proteggi (Warner/Cgd)
A record with ridiculously grand ambitions
extremely well placed. Being outside
any sense of topicality in cases like this
means having chosen it, and that's a great merit.
Jeffrey Lewis - It's the Ones Who've
Cracked That the Light Shines Through (Rough
Trade)
The state of the art of urban
singer-songwriting: wordy, sincere and
amused. Without any parricidal ambitions and even less
depressive posturing. Someone ought to
build him a monument, really.
The Hospitals - The Hospitals (In The
Red)
The record that relaunched and sharpened
garage-noise's fangs in the 00s. Paroxysmal,
desperate and devastated. It couldn't have had
worthy successors and indeed it hasn't had any,
but the fact that Adam Stonehouse, rather than
scrape the barrel, preferred to throw himself
into experiments he was perfectly suited for,
is nothing but further proof of the brutal
madness underlying the operation.
Aa Vv - Pisspounder (Deathbomb Arc)
A compilation of small fry for 00s noise.
It was a great branching-out and
a bubbling background noise for all
these years. And we had fun.
The Microphones - The Glow Pt. 2 (K
Records)
What's left of the '90s: the best
possible summary of the best expressions
of American indie-rock of that time, coagulated
into Phil Elvrum's deeply private imagination.
Preferred over "Mount Eerie", which surpasses it
in several respects, for purely
personal reasons.
Sufjan Stevens - C'mon Feel The
Illinoise (Asthmatic Kitty)
Though not entirely cohesive, no one has written
pop songs and arrangements at this level,
air to breathe in deeply from someone who
has always done things his own way.
Talibam! - Ordination Of The
Globetrotting Conscripts (Azul Discografica)
To remind us that unhinged free-music
has roots that can (and indeed
should) go beyond Dead C and Throbbing
Gristle (for a few years it seemed that the
disobedient students had necessarily become the
new academy). A force of
nature and a lot of laughs.
Peeesseye - Mayhem in the Mansion,
Shivers in the Shack (Evolving Ear)
Or the synthesis of a good part of the most
abject underground languages in
circulation into a music that arrives last and
does better than those that came first. Because it sucks
their blood.
The Books - The Lemon Of Pink (TomLab)
The chattering crickets of the most
unusual pop digressions, between electronic
minimalism and scraps of folk alphabet. Fortunately
unscathed after the binges that followed
and spared, to their credit, from the folktronic plague.
Intelligently unclassifiable.
Gowns - Red State (Cardboard)
A depressive, youthful record, where it's hard to tell
how much is beautiful and how much is
original. Probably a great deal of both.
Anti Pop Consortium - Arrhythmia (Warp)
The black side of the new hip-hop
matter. Which in terms of ideas has little to
envy from the lopsided white intellectualisms
mentioned above.
Bill Orcutt – A New Way To Pay Old
Debts (Palilalia)
Guitar solos that knock you flat.
The only one to take on the six strings who has
spoken a thoroughly contemporary language.
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SIGUR ROS - ()
port-royal - Flares
Troum - Shutun
Radiohead - Kid A
Notwist - Neon Golden
Royksopp - Melody Am
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift
Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to
Heaven!
mum - Finally We Are No One
Supersilent - 6
Pan Sonic - Kesto
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
Microphones - Mount Eerie
Black Dice - Beaches & Canyons
Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor
Animal Collective - Here Comes The
Indian
Arcade Fire - Funeral
Offlaga Disco Pax - Socialismo Tascabile
Joanna Newsom - YS
Have A Nice Life -
Deathconsciousness
Piano Magic - Disaffected
July Skies - The Weather Clock
Deerhunter - Microcastle / Weird Era
Cont.
Radiohead - Amnesiac
San Agustin - The Expanding Sea
The White Birch - Star Is Just a Sun
Gas - Pop
The For Carnation - The For Carnation
Beth Gibbons & Rustin Man - Out
of Season
M83 - Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost
Ghosts
Ã… - Ã…
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
Air - Talkie Walkie
Daft Punk - Discovery
port-royal - Afraid To Dance
Natural Snow Buildings - Shadow Kingdom
Boards Of Canada - Geodaddi
A Silver Mt. Zion - This Is Our Punk
Rock
Matt Elliott - The Mess We Made
Bark Psychosis - Codename: Dustsucker
Khonnor - Handwriting
Pan American - Quiet City
Patrick Wolf - Wind In The Wires
Murcof - Remembranza
Marissa Nadler - The Saga of Mayflower
May
Daft Punk - Human After All
Dalek - Absence
Tenhi - Maaäet
Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement
of the Decline
Cold Cave - Love Comes Close
Luomo - Vocalcity
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cLOUDDEAD – Ten
Radiohead – Kid A
Arcade Fire – Funeral
Mars Volta – Frances The Mute
Liars – We Were Wrong So We Drowned
Dalek – Absence
Human Eye – Human Eye
Won James Won – Theorist Attack
Outkast – Speakerboxx / The Love Below
Tv On The Radio – Return To Cookie
Mountain
Dj Sprinkles – Midtown 120 Blues
Neurosis – The Eye Of Every Storm
Supersilent – Supersilent 6
Tinariwen - Amassakoul
Oneida – Each One Teach One
Today Is The Day – Sadness Will
Prevail
Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy
Black Dice – Beaches & Canyons
Fiery Furnaces – Blueberry Boat
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Comets On Fire – Field Recordings From
The Sun
Elliott Smith – From A Basement On The
Hill
Sigur Ros – ( )
Shape Of Broad Minds – Craft Of The
Lost Art
Royksopp – Melody A.M.
Shit & Shine - Cherry
Matmos – A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To
Cure
Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights
Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport
Animal Collective – Here Comes The
Indians
Runhild Gammelsaeter - Amplicon
Primal Scream – XTRMNTR
Notwist – Neon Golden
Vic Chesnutt – North Star Deserter
Joanna Newsom – Y
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your
Skinny Fists Like Antennas To
Heaven
Wildildlife - Six
Infidel?/Castro! – Biocentropic Damage
Fractal
Evangelista – Hello, Voyager
Dusk & Blackdown – Margins Music
John Zorn - Electric Masada: 50th
Birthday Celebration Volume 4
Ghost – Hypnotic Underworld
Sightings – Arrived In Gold
Microphones – Mount Eerie
Christian Fennesz – Endless Summer
Sunn O))) – Monoliths & Dimensions
Jackie-O Motherfucker - Liberation
System Of A Down – Toxicity
Paik – Satin Black
Johnny Cash - The Man Comes Around
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GRAVENHURST - The Weestern Lands
Unwound - Leaves Turn Inside You
Deerhunter - Microcastle / Weird Era
Continued
At The Drive-in - Relationship of Command
16 Horsepower - Secret South
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
J Dilla - Donuts
Coil - The Ape Of Naples
Converge - Jane Doe
Joanna Newsom - Ys
Cut Copy - In Ghost Colours
Patrick Wolf - The Bachelor
Boris - Pink
Gospel - The Moon Is A Dead World
Centenaire - Centenaire
Psychic Ills - Dins
Have A Nice Life -
Deathconsciousness
Six Organs Of Admittance - Dark Noontide
Indian Jewelry - Free Gold!
Parts & Labor - Mapmaker
Dalek - Absence
Xiu Xiu - Knife Play
Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
Late of the Pier - Fantasy Black Channel
Kill The Vultures - Kill The Vultures
The White Birch - Star Is Just A Sun
Richard Youngs - Beyond the Valley of
Ultrahits
At Swim Two Birds - Returning to the
Scene of Crime
Zukanikan - Horse Republic
...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead
- Worlds Apart
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KNIFE - Deep Cuts (2003)
Vive la Fête - Nuit Blanche (2003)
Air - 10.000 Hz Legend (2001)
Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
(2002)
Domotic - Ask For Tiger (2005)
Kelis - Tasty (2003)
DJ Hell - NY Muscle (2003)
Restiform Bodies - Restiform Bodies (2001)
HEALTH - HEALTH (2008)
Broadcast - Tender Buttons (2005)
Caribou - The Milk Of Human Kindness
(2005)
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz! (2009)
Rapture - Echoes (2003)
AA.VV. - DFA Compilation #2 (2004)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
Low - The Great Destroyer (2005)
Divine Comedy - Victory For The Comic
Muse (2006)
The White Stripes - Elephant (2003)
The Postal Service - Give Up (2003)
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In
People (2002)
Kings Of Convenience - Quiet Is The New
Loud (2001)
El Guapo - Fake French (2003)
Cold Cave - Love Comes Close (2009)
Desire - II (2009)
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime (2007)
Kanye West - 808 & Heartbeat (2008)
Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista (2008)
Tba - Annulé (2005)
Neon Neon - Stainless Style (2008)
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AA.VV. - DFA Compilation #2 (2004)
Merz - Loveheart (2005)
No-Man - Returning Jesus (2001)
Notwist - Neon Golden (2002)
Jim Moray - Sweet England (2003)
Robert Owens - Night-Time Stories (2008)
David Kitt - The Big Romance (2001)
Matt Elliott - The Mess We Made (2003)
Natural Snow Buildings - The Dance of
the Moon and the Sun (2006)
The Microphones - The Glow pt. 2 (2001)
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
The Unicorns - Who Will Cut Our Hair
When We're Gone? (2003)
Rufus Wainwright - Poses (2001)
Flotation Toy Warning - Bluffer's Guide
to the Flight Deck (2004)
Bikeride - Summer Winners Summer Losers
(2000)
Arnold - Bahama (2001)
Four Tet - Rounds (2003)
B. Fleischmann - Welcome Tourist (2003)
Matthew Jay - Draw (2001)
The Afternoons - The Days We Found in
the Sun (2001)
Spring Heel Jack - Disappeared
(2000)
Coloma - Dovetail (2005)
Yo La Tengo - And Then Nothing Turned
Itself Inside-Out (2000)
Daft Punk - Discovery (2001)
Storm&Stress - Under Thunder and
Fluorescent Lights (2000)
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois (2005)
Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)
Raising the Fawn - The North Sea (2004)
Patrick Wolf - Wind in the Wires (2005)
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MIDLAKE - The Trials Of Van Occupanther
Stepping into the "trials" of this
mysterious protagonist means setting foot in
the world as if it were the most vivid of dreams.
Here everything seems to begin and end: in
the stories, enigmatic ones, where rational
understanding is not necessary, in the meticulous,
refined cleanliness of a work
that is simply out of time.
Band Of Horses - Everything All The
Time
Music as a force of nature, a stream that
gushes with ineffable purity, as if it were
nothing but the spontaneous product of an enormous
organism. The flash with which Mat Brooke
illuminates the world for a moment, before
retreating into milder counsel.
Death Cab For Cutie –
Transatlanticism
Perhaps the only true generational record of the
decade, in which Gibbard produces a kind
of guide for solitary travelers through the
emotional troubles that afflict
adolescence. A crossing brimming with compositional
genius.
Wilco - A Ghost Is Born
First and foremost come the songs, and those
on "A Ghost Is Born" stand out across the entire
discography of the Chicago band. A record
missing nothing, a demonstration of
how much can be conjured with those same
four instruments.
Okkervil River - Black Sheep Boy
A thrilling record from beginning to end,
in which the souls of Sheff and Meiburg
merge at their best. At that moment the
Okkervil River were truly a supergroup:
the two are perhaps the greatest songwriters (in
every sense) of the decade.
Destroyer – Destroyer's Rubies
You can almost see him, Dan Bejar, sipping
red wine on a Montreal terrace, with his
curly mane: his rubies contain
his charisma and his elegance in overflowing
measure. Meanwhile, the first spring sun
warming the Gulf of St. Lawrence
accompanies Bejar on his cheerful
countryside outings.
16 Horsepower - Secret South
McCarthy's frontier is the same place of
the soul that stirs the sleep of David
Eugene Edwards: a true desert shaman,
his voice conjures spirits that, little by
little, compose a landscape both fierce and
poignant at the same time.
The Mountain Goats – Tallahassee
The sound of Darnielle's acoustic guitar is
something that imprints itself forever on the
memory: "Tallahassee" is a record that
bursts with life, with force and simplicity.
Retracing the story of the "Alpha Series"
remains one of the most intense experiences.
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
The hallucinated composure of a New York
besieged by nightmares. A record that seems
born to dictate the law amid the creative
chaos of the new new wave. As if to say: now
we're getting serious.
Shearwater – Rook
It's hard to take seriously someone who's
broken away from an already "big" band. Yet
Meiburg, alongside Okkervil River, has
nurtured a creature of his own, fragile and
immensely powerful at the same time, in which
lives all the naturalistic allure of
his apocalyptic ornithology.
The National – Alligator
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Letting
Go
Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Bloc Party – Silent Alarm
Sigur Ros – ()
James Blackshaw – O True Believers
Current 93 - Black Ships Ate The Sky
Modest Mouse - The Moon And
Antarctica
My Morning Jacket – Okonokos
Eels – Blinking Lights And Other
Revelations
The Black Keys – Thickfreakness
Andrew Bird - The Mysterious
Production Of Eggs
The National – Boxer
Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild - Original
Soundtrack
Low – Things We Lost In The Fire
Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered
Days
Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer
Carissa's Wierd - Songs About Leaving
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
My Latest Novel – Wolves
Marissa Nadler – The Saga Of
Mayflower May
Sharron Kraus - The Fox's Wedding
Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It
In People
The Wrens – Meadowlands
The For Carnation - The For Carnation
Antony & The Johnsons – The Crying
Light
Doves - Lost Souls
Owen - At Home With Owen
Sufjan Stevens – Illinoise
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
Nada Surf – The Weight Is A Gift
Matt Elliott – Drinking Songs
The Antlers – Hospice
Yann Tiersen & Shannon Wright - Yann
Tiersen & Shannon Wright
Smog – A River Ain't Too Much To Love
Late Of The Pier – Fantasy Black
Channel
M Ward – Transfiguration Of St.
Vincent
Balmorhea – All Is Wild, All Is
Silent
Loney Dear – Lonely, Noir
Beach House – Devotion
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