Best Discoveries in 2009

Todd Rundgren - A Wizard, A True Star

AWATS is hands down the best thing I came across this year. I had been listening to Something/Anything? for a while and rediscovered it during my period of unemployment. Then someone recommended the follow-up and I was blown away. No other album has jumped as quickly into my pile of favorites. I'm also very glad my discovery of this album coincided with his tour where he played the album in its entirety. I've never cared much for Patti Smith, but in her review she declared that this album is "preparing us for a generation of frenzied children who will dream in animation." If only...


Van Dyke Parks - Discover America
Millenium - Begin

As far as Van Dyke Parks goes, Song Cycle gets the attention, but Discover America has gotten more playtime for me. Exploring the genre of late-60s chamber pop in the vein of Smile-era Beach Boys led me to plenty of great albums; above all, Begin is the one I cannot believe has gone overlooked for so long.


Scritti Politti - Cupid & Psyche 85

I had dismissed this album as too saccharine for so long, but I'm glad I finally came around to it. What a treat. So perfectly distilled and consistent, and not too far removed from the over-production of Rundgren or the orchestration of Parks. Another association I have with this is Destroyer's Your Blues, one of my favorite albums of the past decade. Although worlds away in tone, they both occupy a very specific niche on the music spectrum that, in my mind, overshadows anything within range.


Harmonia - Deluxe
Manuel Gottsching - E2-E4
Walter Wegmuller - Tarot

I made an effort to explore Krautrock beyond the canon of Kraftwerk, Can, Faust, Neu!, Amon Duul II, and a few others. Getting into Ash Ra Tempel was a big help, as I prefer the trippy rhythms and comic guitar that Ash Ra Tempel puts forth over the more experimental Krautrock of, say, Conrad Schnitzler. The transition as Ash Ra Tempel became Ashra and then just Manuel Gottsching was great to hear, as the end-point for Gottsching was basically arriving at a new genre.

I was familiar with Cluster but less so with another Neu! offshoot, Harmonia. Their debut album is interesting, but I find Deluxe more enjoyable. Its summer sunset cover perfectly suggests the ideal time to blast Deluxe as loud as possible.

Walter Wegmuller's Tarot is like a Krautrock SuperFriends double-album. And just to hedge their bets, they made it a concept album: each track is themed after a unique Tarot card. There are a few dull ambient moments to sift through, but the high points more than make up for it.


Robert Wyatt - Rock Bottom
Kevin Ayers - Bananamour

Soft Machine was something I found a bit ahead of my time. I'm not sure how I came across them, but I was really into their first three albums while in high school. I wasn't a music nerd then; I don't think I had even found the Velvet Underground or Pavement. At any rate, revisiting Soft Machine and further exploring the work of its solo members was a real treat this year.


Bill Holt - Dreamies

Arguably the biggest thing in music this year was about the Beatles, and the biggest thing on television was Mad Men. With the release of Rock Band: Beatles Edition, the remastering of their catalogue, and the death of Michael Jackson, it was a fairly good year for the Beatles. In the midst of all of that, I frequently listened to Bill Holt's Dreamies, an "auralgraphic experience" loosely constructed as an extension to "Revolution No. 9" from the Beatles' self-titled album. Over slow, Lennon-like guitar strumming, Bill Holt sings and occasionally interjects bursts from Beatles songs, as if your radio temporarily picked up a different station. Also sampled are speeches from JFK, LBJ, and news reports from the JFK assassination. For me, this coincided with Mad Men's third season, which took place mainly in late 1963 and (spoiler alert!) featured the JFK assassination heavily. Of all the great music that came out of that decade, Bill Holt's Dreamies seems like the one vintage looking-glass suited perfectly for use in 2009.

Van Dyke Parks - Discover America

Van Dyke Parks is one of a handful of artists possessing a purity of vision that graces every project he is involved with. Very few could pull off an album titled Discover America -- with all the themes and motifs befitting such a moniker -- done entirely in the style of the Caribbean, most specifically Trinidad circa the 1940s. The songs weave together in a sonic tapestry that connects the untiring Yankee spirit of ingenuity with the opulence and romanticism of the islands. While tomes could easily be devoted to dissecting the album's multiple layers of meaning, to call it an eclectic masterpiece of multicultural Americana might be a start. While the contents of the album as a whole are tropical in flavor, there are numerous examples of Parks' trademark swaddling arrangements and unique perspectives -- such as odes to his favorite vocalists ("Bing Crosby" and the marvelous "The Four Mills Brothers"). Just as he had done with the "Bicycle Rider" suite on Brian Wilson's Smile, Parks has the uncanny ability to incorporate various active musical story lines at once. "John Jones," for example, is the saga of a pioneer-era gunslinger set to a laid-back reggae beat. This brilliant technique is likewise incorporated into "FDR in Trinidad" -- featuring the distinct instrumental backing of Little Feat replete with electric guitar punctuations from fret master Lowell George. The band is flawless in their interpretation of Parks' quirky and addictively potent chord changes. The sheer breadth of musical approaches on Discover America may take the uninitiated a few listens to truly absorb. These idiosyncrasies range from the artificially added vinyl surface noise heard during the diminutive opening track "Jack Palance" -- which mentions the actor's name in referring to a woman who shares the same facial features (yikes!) -- to the irony and humor-laden saga of the crime-fighting "G-Man Hoover." Another track worth mentioning is the spoken-word "Introduction," in which presumably Parks portrays a bus tour-guide. The heavy and purposeful tape editing is highly reminiscent of Captain Beefheart's "The Dust Blows Forward ..." or the introduction to "Pena" from his epic Trout Mask Replica. Discover America is a pop music history lesson that is without question one of the lost classics of the early '70s. Likewise, it may as easily have been several decades ahead of its time.

(Van Dyke Parks - Discover America)