Meh, mine would go something like this... I tried to do some write ups, because I do hate reading these lists and just going "who? what?" ... not to mention that I can't sleep.
Jamie Lidell - Multiply (Warp) Lidell ditches all the chaos of his first solo album and all the itchy fiddliness of the Super_Collider stuff and basically just takes a trip through various shades of soul and funk. Could be dismissed as a hipster Jamiroquai or something, but fuck it, I love it. Not all clean and polished up and a good dose of distortion and odd effects from time to time. Makes the nice bits nicer.
Koushik - Be With (Stone's Throw) Like if "trip-hop" lived up to its name as a genre? Kooky, blissed out songs which makes me think of Donovan and bods over weird little sketchy breaks and off-kilter jazz loops and seagulls and whatever else.. and I love how short the songs are!
The Books - Lost and Safe (Tomlab) Unlike most everyone, I don't like this as much as their second album, 'The Lemon of Pink'. Pretty impossible to describe, but everyone's talking about it, so hopefully people don't need me to explain.
Phoenix Foundation - Pegasus (Flying Nun) A band from my homeland, NZ, who are sorta soft rock with elements of country and a bit of kitchen sink madness to their arrangements. Funny instrumentals like 'Sea World' are like a Nintendo game meets Morricone or something. The sprawling 'Cars of Eden' has a ridiculous outro where Jeff Henderson, one of NZ's "big names" of free jazz, warbles and spits his sax over the softest, pussiest 80s synth chords while their ex-music teacher from high school bangs an atonal piano line out and a Quincy-Jones-would-be-proud guitar mute riff builds in the background. I dunno. I get the impression most regular posters here would hate this. Haha, not that I'm defensive or anything!
Nine Horses - Snow Borne Sorrow (Samadhisound) There's something I find really unattractive about David Sylvian and his "in all light their is darkness" type sobriety, his references to antiquity and all the rest. Song titles here like "The Banality of Evil" make me feel embarrassed. But still, I keep on coming back. When I ripped the CD I got told the genre for this is "progressive rock". Oh dear. The rock bits are quite awful.. so tame and un-moving.. but the majority of the album is quiet and sparse and quite interesting. Oh yeah, Nine Horses is Sylvian with other ex-Japan guy, Steve Jansen (Sylvian's bro?) and Burnt Friedman (Nonplace Urban Field / Drome / etc). Usual dudes like Ryuichi Sakamoto show up to do some atonal piano.
Kelley Polar - Love Songs of the Hanging Gardens (Environ) I thought the first Kelley Polar Quartet EP sounded exactly like Metro Area. Then he sang on that song 'The Rhythm Touch' and I thought it was really dumb. Still, bleep had recommended it to me and I stuck with it and suddenly declared it ruling. The album came out and I bought it instantly without listening to it. I was gutted by how stupidly soppy and dumb it was. Sounds like the musical Hair coupled with the same Metro Area type synth disco arrangements. Again, it's clicked. The cold soul and downright creepy sentiment of 'Black Hole' has me thinking "song of the year". But then there's Amerie, of course.
Steve Spacek - Space Shift (Sound in Colour?) Can't be bothered describing this in depth, but if you know Spacek, it's their singer/co-producer, but this is more forthright, more fun than they were. I was really excited when I first heard the first Spacek album, but that super rarefied sparseness is sorta the opposite of sex, which is weird in what is ostensibly r&b of some sort.. this resolves some of that. But then you can't throw around buzz words like "problematise", so maybe that's not a good thing.
God, do I sound like I like any of that??? Haha. Oh well.
And for the record I'm in the camp that says 'We Are Monster' is difficult and no fun too.
