@In Review Online: Top 25 Songs of 2009

Well, this is a little late in coming, but it's certainly worth a look. We've just posted our collective "best songs of the year" post over at In Review Online, and there's a little of everything on there. I contributed to the list, but it's very different than my "songs" list would have been (had I submitted one), which is a good thing.

Read the full thing HERE.

Here are the songs I included:

Dirty Projectors - "Stillness is the Move"

Animal Collective - "Brother Sport"

Miranda Lambert - "Airstream Song"

Bill Callahan - "Jim Cain"

Sunset Rubdown - "Idiot Heart"

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - "Skeletons"

Harlem Shakes - "Strictly Game"

Tiny Vipers - "Dreamer"

Best of 2009: 30 - 21

Numbers 30-31 of my favorite/the best albums of the year - enjoy!

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30: Deastro - Moondagger

Randolph Chabot, the man behind Deastro, is a sci-fi nerd with a love of synthetic-meets-organic electropop music. His debut, Moondagger, is such an excellent album because he takes all his quirks and uses them to create tunes that are unique, heartfelt, and very, very cool. (More from me)

MySpace


29: Andrew Bird - Noble Beast

Andrew Bird didn't make his best album with Noble Beast, but it may be his most adventurous effort and ultimately, it's a very rewarding experience. It's a sprawling record that has goes in many different directions, and the results are - more often than not - wonderful. (More from me)

MySpace


28: Tiny Vipers - Life on Earth

Songwriter Jesy Fortino's moniker, Tiny Vipers, may seem like a strange title at first glance, yet her meandering, delicate songs somehow fit such a name. Life on Earth is an emotionally powerful folk album that will certainly be a little sparse for some tastes, but for me it's truly captivating. (More from me)

Dreamer (MP3)

MySpace


27: Rock Central Plaza - ...At the Moment of Our Most Needing

Rock Central Plaza frontman Chris Eaton is really more of a storyteller than he is a a vocalist, but his roughly sung lyrics find a place in the often ornate yet gritty arrangements of his bandmates, and the result on their latest record is superb. An excellent and unfortunately overlooked folk album. (More from me)

(Don't You Believe the Words of) Handsome Men (MP3)

MySpace


26: The Thermals - Now We Can See

The fourth Thermals record is perhaps their most melodic and "pop" effort, but despite a little more introspection and less political commentary, they still know how to make a fantastic punk album. Now We Can See is my favorite from the Portland natives. (More from me)

MySpace


25: Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid

Dan Auerbach made a great album with Patrick Carney as The Black Keys in 2008, then turned around and made another amazing rock record under his own name this year. Of course it kinda sounds like a Black Keys album some of the time, but the breadth of styles here makes this Auerbach's own. (More from me)

MySpace


24: Rubik - Dada Bandits

Finnish indie-rockers Rubik were one of this year's best surprises for me. Their sophomore effort, Dada Bandits, is an experimentally-minded pop album that came - seemingly - out of nowhere, thrilling me upon first listen and just getting better the more time I spent with it. (More from me)

Wasteland (MP3)

MySpace


23: Atlas Sound - Logos

Logos is a great deal more expansive and compelling than its predecessor and just fantastic overall record, making Bradford Cox's Atlas Sound project the most interesting thing he's yet done (an opinion I know not everyone shares). Also, "Walkabout," with Noah Lennox, is one of this year's best tracks. (More from me)

Deerhunter/Atlas Sound homepage


22: Megafaun - Gather, Form and Fly

Megafaun - the group who used to record with Justin Vernon under the title DeYarmond Edison - have let everyone know that they're doing just fine without their former frontman, thank you very much. Gather, Form and Fly is a striking folk record with an intriguingly experimental edge that deserves every ounce of praise it has received. (More from me)

Kaufman's Ballad (MP3)

MySpace


21: Memory Tapes - Seek Magic

Dayve Hawk's Memory Tapes project finally saw a debut album, Seek Magic, released this year, and what a first effort it is - a beautifully crafted electronica album full of twists, turns, and just generally spectacular music. Not only one of the year's best debuts, but one of the year's more notable albums. (More from me)

Band Blog (with free tunes)

MySpace

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Review: Tiny Vipers - Life On Earth (* * * *)

There's something oddly fitting about Seattle musician Jesy Fortino's recording and performing moniker, Tiny Vipers. Listening to her music, there's no doubt about the number of people involved (namely one) or about the deeply personal nature of her sparse folk songs, yet the plural, serpentine namesake appropriately describes the slowly building emotional climaxes and subtle nuances found throughout her sophomore effort, Life On Earth. The new record is a remarkable, hour-long journey through love, loss, and other of life's mysteries with little more than Fortino's voice and guitar to guide you. The lengthy, deliberate tunes can take a little time to unveil their full beauty, but patience will be richly rewarded in one of this year's most stunning folk albums.

Fortino's especially spare, delicate style brings to mind the vocal characteristics of Joanna Newsom and the simple, winding songwriting of Mark Kozelek, though both of those comparisons can only be taken so far. With so little going on, instrumentally speaking, it's difficult to describe in writing what makes this music so captivating, but it's obvious that the magic in Tiny Vipers lies in Fortino's own unique presentation of what, on paper, is a fairly standard folk template. "Dreamer," the best and most emotionally charged track on Life On Earth, is a good place to start in understanding Fortino's strengths as a songwriter, with her signature acoustic guitar plucked gently but purposefully to support her thoughtfully melancholy lyrics. Her voice is soft, but not weak, and occasionally she pushes herself below her comfortable register into a low, dark whisper which she then rises above into a beautifully sad climax during the final minute, crying "I'm dying for a way out" in such a way as to break your heart on the spot.

Though variation isn't the focus on Life On Earth, Fortino introduces the occasional flourish, like her double-tracked vocals on "Development" or more forcefully strummed guitar on "Time Takes" to add some subtle texture to the album. Mostly, however, she creates the palpable atmosphere on the record by keeping things especially simple and uncluttered. Because of the plodding pace and bare instrumental approach, listeners might be tempted to pick a track or two to skip in order to make the whole more comprehensible and digestible (mine are "Young God" and "Untitled"), but the experience is better if time is invested to take in the entirety of Fortino's vision. The first half of the album is easily the stronger of the two, though the back half includes the epic, ten-minute title track which is quite excellent and even my aforementioned least favorites hardly feel like missteps, they just don't grab hold as completely as her best material.

Life On Earth is a truly gorgeous album worth losing yourself to if you're willing to expend the effort requires to dig into it. That's not a criticism, just an observation and perhaps a warning to those who insist their music be of the immediately gratifying variety. Jesy Fortino isn't about making this an easy experience, but a enriching and rewarding one for those who seek it.

Dreamer (MP3)