BEST ALBUMS OF 2010

While you were enjoying the festive season, here at AMG headquartersour writers have been locked away in a small, dark and windowless room to ensure they could come up with only the finest musical releases of 2010 for your perusal. Those now enjoying the benefits of the sun again alongside myself are: Tim Ritchie, Tracy Ellis, Nick Kennedy, Aidan Roberts, Alex Harmon and Brian Yatman.

We hope you enjoy these as much as we have.

Chris Peken

BEST LOCAL

Dirt River Radio – Beer Bottle Poetry

Not since Mark Seymour took to the sweat soaked beer barns of Australia in a blue singlet and sang, “You don’t make me feel like I’m a woman anymore,” have we heard such an eloquent treatise on the Australian male as put forth by Dirt River Radio in The Boys in the Public Bar. Blues with the roots still showing, rock with the grit still attached. (CP)

The Holidays – Post Paradise
On their debut album, The Holidays explore bright, reverberating, candy-coloured sound-worlds, delivering an utterly contemporary take on Afro-beat and post-punk, but with a cosmopolitan, hedonistic, restless edge. Cooler than a rainbow paddle-pop in a blow-up pool. (BY, AH, CP)

Kyu – Kyu

Two young women who sing in marvellous harmony – there are hints at Bulgarian folk music or Kate Bush – then there are the arrangements, at times incredibly sparse and at others so dense my ears are digging for clarity. These aren’t pop songs in the conventional sense: less about hooks and choruses, and more about atmosphere and raw feeling. (TR, BY)

Washington – I Believe You Liar

All I can really say is: Finally. And: Amazing. But I’ll go on… sounds perfect live, brilliant film clips, a debut album that united the nation. She can do no wrong in my eyes. (AH)

BEST WORLD

Afrocubism – Afrocubism

Did you know that the recording for Buena Vista Social Club wasn’t really supposed to happen? The original plan was to have some musicians from Mali visit Cuba and record with some of the most revered players there, but the Malian musicians were unable to travel to Havana at the planned time back in 1996.

The producer behind the original idea and the same label that released Buena Vista didn’t let the dream fade to nothing, nearly a decade and a half later the recording is finally here. It happened in just a few days, the two groups of players had not previously met, but the tracks poured out easily and spontaneously. The recording was done “live” with the players being together in one room, interacting and feeding off each other. The result is Afrocubism. (TR)

Djan Djan – Djan Djan

African Kora master Mamadou Diabate (cousin of Toumani Diabate), Indian tabla player Bobby Singh and Australian guitarist Jeff Lang are all virtuosos in their own right, but collectively they have taken music to a new level with Djan Djan. Ten instrumental pieces where the interplay between instruments and musicians is so spontaneous and fluid that it is hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. There is not a weak moment here, not a note or beat that isn’t perfectly in sync, not a melody or rhythm not born of the earth and rising for us in all their glory. (CP)

BEST ROCK

Arcade Fire – The Suburbs

An intelligent, poetic album perfect for those late night highway drives alone. The Suburbs is jaunty, rattling and sprawling like a big unkempt city, but gradually the new neighbourhood starts to feel like home and songs like Modern Man and Suburban War reveal their beauty and become familiar friends you can’t imagine life without. (TE, AH)

BEST BLUES

Robert Plant – Band of Joy

Robert Plant is a legend. If he had never sung another note post Led Zeppelin his legacy would have remained. Yet he continues to have one of the strongest outputs of any of the “I used to be in…” crowd. Combining here with Buddy Miller, Patty Griffin and a near faultless song selection (including not one, but two killer Low covers) there is a lot of joy to be had. (CP)

Charlie Parr – When the Devil Goes Blind

His songs are about death, suffering, the apocalypse, Ned Kelly, hopeless aspirations and dreams that are squashed by reality. And the rasped voice Charlie Parr is the man to deliver it. This record is timeless and has its roots in Alan Lomax’s field recordings and his father’s firsthand accounts of the depression and riding the freight trains. This is the real deal Appalachian Blues.  (TR, CP)

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Georgia Fields – Georgia Fields

There seems to be a constant flow of new female Australian artists and most are well worth listening to. But what makes some of them stand out and be heard? I think it is a combination of craft, graft and luck.

Georgia Fields has done her time on the Melbourne live music scene: she has learned what works and why, she has released an independent EP and worked hard at getting some industry attention. So she has the craft, she’s done some graft — will it be her time for luck?

Her debut, self-titled album is all of charming, insightful and smart. Honest singing from someone not ashamed to sound Australian, great use of a variety of instruments, well produced and it has that…something. It makes me smile. I really think with a little luck, Georgia Fields’ little voice could make it big. (TR)

Kyu – Kyu

It is not often that I hear a record that I can’t work out on first pass, can’t find where it sits in the recorded music landscape or can’t even make up my mind what I think of it.

Kyu are a local duo, two young women who sing in marvelous harmony – there are hints at Bulgarian folk music or Kate Bush – then there are the arrangements, made by them, that at times are incredibly sparse and at others so dense my ears are digging for clarity, not clarity of sound, but clarity of musical reason. It is art and it is pop, and it makes me think I have to grab for example of where the sounds are derived from, but why do I? Because it just doesn’t fit.

I took a test and just let it play without trying to analyse it. Then I got it. I hope you will too. (TR)

Quantic Presenta Flowering Inferno – Dog With A Rope

There was a lad from Worcestershire in the UK who loved music and loved to create it. He immersed himself in sounds from the past like early soul and r’n’b. He then moved on to more tropical sounds and even relocated to Colombia where he built a studio for his own recordings. He has recorded 14 albums under a range of names, but Quantic is the moniker most know him by.

His latest release has him encompassing a heavy bass and reggae aesthetic alongside the tropical dance-orientated music from Cuba, Puerto Rico and Colombia.

And he has stayed true to his motto of not just replicating the past, but expanding and melding sounds to create new music. And while this music certainly pays homage to great sounds from the past, this master multi-instrumentalist and producer takes them into the 21st century. (TR)

Ben Sollee – Learning to Bend

We were first exposed to this fellow when he teamed up with Daniel Martin Moore for a beautiful record that dealt with the unattractive practice of mountaintop-removal coal mining. On this solo effort Ben Sollee still has his cello and his Appalachian sound, there’s even the odd bit of banjo (in a good way), but the sense of beauty and hope on this record are what makes it stand out.

Heartfelt lyrics, subtle production and a slight twist on country/folk make this record stand out and demand to be heard (in a very polite way). (TR)

The Books – The Way Out
This duo has released three albums before this one and each of them has struck a giant chord with me. I see (hear) their music as the next obvious and perfect step in the evolution of recorded music. It is smart, funny, intricate and, most importantly, warming. It makes me smile.

These two serious American players came across each other and listened to one another’s music collection. They instantly knew that they could make a new kind of pop music together. The ingredients are voice, guitar and cello — pretty standard. What comes next is their use of field recordings and lyrics from captured conversations, I can’t adequately explain the result in words, but the sounds are wonderful, challenging and rewarding. (TR)

Laurie Anderson – Homeland
It is nearly 10 years since Laurie Anderson’s last release and nearly 30 since O Superman broke through and changed the way audiences heard pop music and poetry.

Anderson’s new album will make some uncomfortable and thrill others. It is both safe (for her) and ground-breaking, in that there are challenging sounds, concepts and production. Best way to come at this album is to enter into a relationship without expectations but with a willingness to be beguiled. (TR)
LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

Every now and then a music rebel is born. In days gone past, that rebel would have been someone who pioneered new musical ways to express themselves; this guy nailed it by taking everything good from the 70s, 80s and 90s and making it his. That could sound like a tacky ad for a classic hits radio station, but it’s not. This rebel has made his mark by not paying attention to anything anyone else thought about music. He listened and picked up on the ideas of the best of the innovators and came up with a dance sound that is instantly both familiar and new. This is his third album, rumoured to be the last for this project, and together these discs make sense of the 21st century in a musical way. (TR)

The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra – Do Anything Go Anywhere

Afrobeat has experienced a rebirth of late with Seun Kuti reinvigorating his father’s [the late Fella Kuti] sound and new acts like Antibalas, the Budos Band and Nomo giving renewed life to the sound. Now we have the debut from a band that is based locally, but has players from across the globe. These players play many other styles of music in other bands, and bring elements of those styles to The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra. You can hear 60s to 70s Afrobeat, jazz, hip hop and funk brought together by this 20-strong group. They are already a super-group and this is their first album! You’ll be exposed to heavy duty horns, gritty guitar grooves and great songs…not to mention the incredibly infectious beats! (TR)

Paul Kelly A-Z

The man is always best served live; and here in intimate, stripped back mode it doesn’t get much better from Australian premier story teller. Read the book, follow the stories and enjoy the tunes. (CP, TE)

You Am I – You Am I

Back to their roots, independent of label, tough of sound. With the clever addition of backing vocals from Megan Washington and Lanie Lane – playing off Rogers subtle machismo – they have produced their best single this millennium in Trigger Finger, and one of their best and most nuanced pop rock records. The boys still got it in spades. (CP)

Antony and the Johnsons – Swanlights

Antony Hegarty is growing in confidence and album number three see his always distinctive voice matched with well developed songwriting. Simple lyrics and understated arrangements allow this album to breathe beautifully (with the exception of a strangely placed duet with Bjork). (CP)

Jason Walker – Ceiling Sun Letters

Jason Walker, along with talented pop producer Michael Carpenter, has drawn extensively from classic pop of the last four decades, from the country-rock of The Stones to the alt-pop of Grandaddy and The Smashing Pumpkins, via a little bit of Alex Chilton’s Big Star. The unheralded local hero produces what he has always threatened he could. (CP)

Magnetic Fields – Realism

Oh Stephen Merritt we do love you so. And while Merritt’s usually poisoned pen is well short of its usual caustic level, Realism is all the better for it. But don’t be fooled by the light nature of these tunes, Merritt returns to his folk roots and nails this change with the same slight-of-lyric charm he has always displayed – “I want you crawling back to me / Down on your knees / Like an appendectomy”. Realism is Magnetic Fields best release since the triple album 69 Love Songs. (CP)

Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate – Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate

Do you need anything beyond those two names? By the time of this recording Toure knew his time was short, and yet here is some of his lightest and most delicate playing. The interplay on the traditional tune Doudou is truly magical, with Toure overlaying one of his own tunes Singya. Diabate meanwhile continues to weave his kora magic, his fingers dancing over the strings with a warmth and generosity that continues to astound. This is album of two great musicians, two great songwriters and above all two great friends, and it is a fitting tribute to them on all three counts. (CP)

Moon Holiday – Moon Holiday
Alex Ward creates soundscapes of glassy geometric forms that seem to spin and gently collide, her cryptic snatches of interior monologue set to drones and ricocheting electronic drums. The overriding mood is one of serenity, of weightlessness, of an outsider’s bird’s-eye view. An assured debut, full of muted emotion and mystery. (BY)

Rebecca Barnard– Everlasting
The best songs on this album boast a mixture of sensuousness and grit that bears comparison with the work of Lucinda Williams.  Guitars are strummed, pianos ripple, drums patter, the arrangements ebb and flow, and Barnard (of Rebecca’s Empire) sings, her delivery unhurried, earthy, and tender. (BY)

Anne McCue – Broken Promise Land
On her latest album Anne McCue marks out a diverse, if occasionally quirky, stylistic territory that sets her apart from the average Nashville songbird.  Hailing from Campbelltown, Sydney but now based in the US,  she does a line in gritty  blues-rock  flavoured by her fiery – and surprisingly experimental – guitar playing. (BY)

Hamish Stuart – Someone Else’s Child
Someone Else’s Child is a fully-realised expression of veteran drummer Hamish Stuart’s musical philosophy, blending understatement, a sense of space,  and regard for texture. That he’s waited so long to release an album of originals might point to a paucity of ideas, but the evidence here suggests otherwise. (BY)

Transat – Futile Mechanics
There’s a starkness to Transat’s sound, a DIY quality that puts me in mind of the strummy sing-alongs of NZ band The Bats, the grimy romanticism of The Dirty Three, and the claustrophobia of Forever Changes-era Love. They sound raw and gruff and like no-one else around. (BY)

PVT – Church With No Magic
Where PVT (previously Pivot) diverge from the pack of 80s revivalists is their emphasis on art rather than pop, and so it’s not so surprising they’ve signed with UK electronic label Warp (home of Aphex Twin and Autechre). Fans of Berlin-period Bowie (and Scott Walker’s Tilt) will enjoy the dirge-like Crimson Swan and the epic Light Up Bright Fires. (BY)

Laura Veirs – July Flame

The call of the wild meets the best of Pacific Northwest neo-folk. Hollering hobos and critters from the forest populate tales of the seasons turning (‘Summer is the Champion’) and new life (‘Make Something Good’). Veirs’ charm and prowess has been bottled by her producer husband Tucker Martine and sings down the wires like a breeze off the mountain. (TE)

78 Saab – Good Fortune

A chiming, sparkling guitar rock album. Ben Nash’s unique, reverberating voice soars anthemically over great riffs, and tasteful stops and starts and perfect production keeps the wind in the sails from start to finish. Standout track, ‘Never Gonna Be’ is achingly good. (TE)
The Avett Brothers – Live Volume 3

Two brothers from a musical family create perfect country/folk with sweet harmonies. Their style, steeped in tradition, is steered shy of cliché by Rick Rubin’s right-on sensibilities, and ‘January Wedding’ has to be the most romantic songs of the year. (TE)

Cloud Control – Bliss Release

A colourful album brimming with harmony, soul and flavours that conjure everything from The Seekers to the Brian Jonestown Massacre, but meld into something original and unique. Bold melodic ideas, such as the drawn out arpeggios in ‘There’s Nothing In The Water We Can’t Fight’ float into upbeat pop songs like ‘This Is What I Said’ to create a classic album. (TE)

Tame Impala – Inner Speaker

Solid psychedelic rock from young Perth quartet whose parents must have had great vinyl collections. Irrepressible power and groove. Stoner jams avoid self-indulgence with tight arrangements. An ambitious sonic layer cake that even pulls off an epic instrumental track. (TE)

Seabellies – By Limbo Lake

At it’s best, the 80s revival in new music can remind you that there was actually a lot of good in that much-maligned decade. I don’t think the Seabellies would even have heard some of the records theirs is reminiscent of, with its expansiveness, unpredictable arrangements, yearning vocals and jabs of orchestration. Think Prefab Sprout meets Talk Talk with a dash of Triffids for local flavour. It’s a rollicking road trip that moves from eerie and haunting (Paper Flame) to exuberant (Trans-Ending and Feel it Leave). (TE)

Junip – Fields

Jose Gonzales has teamed up with a band (drums and keyboards) to create a perfect psych-folk record that has all the sweetness and tunefulness of his solo albums, but with a lot more ‘oomph’ and momentum. Distorted nylon-string guitar never sounded so good. (TE)

Sia – We Are Born

Her voice has it all, emotive, innocent, riddled with pain, echoing with good vibes. Nothing obnoxious about her, like most quirky pop-princess’s (hello Lily Allen). This is understated and modest but will finally give her the recognition she deserves. (AH)

LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening

My musical version of a night out. Drunk girls, dancing, fights, raw honesty and a nice chill-out track to finish. I feel exhausted after every listen but keep coming back for more. (AH)

Mark Ronson & The Business Int. – Record Collection

Gone are the brassy sounds, it’s in with the 80’s synthesizer. Still this album sounds familiar, like he’s taken classics and injected them with steroids, put them in a blender full of beats and taken the lid off. Messy, but good. (AH)

Vampire Weekend – Contra

Another punchy, upbeat and fun album from the boys who always sounds like they’ve had too many red bulls and are playing with toys. (AH)

Ou-Est Le Swimming Pool  – The Golden Years

After the death of Charles Haddon, the band released this album, changing it from Christ Died For Our Synths. Sure, it’s not perfect, and maybe this is a tribute vote but a carefree club-surfing album that makes you feel good. (AH)

Holly Miranda – The Magician’s Private Library

Breaking free of The Jealous Girlfriends, Holly’s debut album goes from childlike to ghostly dark. A whimsical red-wine voice that is heartbreaking and addictive at the same time. (AH)

Cee-Lo Green – The Lady Killer

Even without the ‘feel-good’ hit of the summer that is “F*ck You”, this album is great. Full of retro soul classics, it’s also got Motown, ballads and a bit of Billie Jean thrown in too. (AH)

Field Music – (measure)

The Brewis brothers from Sunderland, UK delivered their third album as Field Music at the start of the year after David’s School Of Language album and Peter’s Week That Was long player. All are brilliant and (measure) comes off like a best-of, with melodies and hooks colliding with ambitious arrangements of Zeppelin-style rock, modern chamber orchestras and XTC/10CC progressive pop. There’s so much mileage in these guys’ music – they play every day on the radio station in my mind and are massive stars. (NK)

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Before Today

Ariel borrows from everything I either love (The Cure) or grew up listening to without choice (Thompson Twins) whilst not sounding like anybody but himself. He makes music that’s so unique and, to my mind, truly pulled something off when he got a band together for the first time with Before Today that managed to interpret music he’d made completely solo on his previous records. Nothing was lost and the sense of nostalgia was even amplified with the new clarity in the production. But at the end of the day it’s the songs that endure, and many of these will be future classics. (NK)

These New Puritans – Hidden

Second album by young Brits who threw out the rule book a few records early by following up a fairly standard set of scratchy modern post-punk with an ambitious album of rhythms and highly arranged chamber rock. It sounds like little else out there and sounds great loud. If, like me, you actually LIKED it when a band like Radiohead said “nuts to The Bends” then this album is for you. (NK)

Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here

A dark and beautiful record by a pioneer of hip-hop, it’s lent extra weight by his documented struggle with drugs/jail and the dubstep-influenced production of Richard Russell. Just a wonderful document of a man not afraid to be open about his own failings, and subsequently something most can relate to. The title track is a straight cover of a Smog song that cuts deep – as does the rest. (NK)

Phoenix Foundation – Buffalo

Fourth album by Wellington collective that make a joyous racket and cinematic illustrations of their homeland. Great songs and great heart. (NK)

Baths – Cerulean

Will Wiesenfeld is Baths, and this album appeared on the Anticon label that is associated with hip-hop of a more experimental nature.  To my ears this music sounds more melodic than I generally associate with that genre, and neatly plugged the hole for me left by elusive Warp label stars Boards Of Canada. Youtube the video for Lovely Bloodflow and be amazed. (NK)

Adam Franklin – I Could Sleep For A Thousand Years

90’s melodic rockers Swervedriver will play Australia this year for the first time in eons and I’ll be there. But this exercise in nostalgia will not sate my taste for Adam Franklin’s solo work and I Could Sleep…, his 3rd – or 4th if you include the wonderful Magnetic Morning album A.M with Interpol’s Sam Fogerino – continues the grand melodic dream pop he’s been perfecting of late. Play it over and over. (NK)

Massive Attack – Heligoland

Hands-down, this is the bands best album. Just fantastic song writing, production and ideas that bear repeated plays. Blue Lines and Protection were a long time ago, and to my ears sounds somewhat dated. Is anybody listening? Ground zero for me was Mezzanine but follow-up 100th Window seemed a little over-cooked. This one’s worth your time and money though. And live? Seeing them perform this on the steps of the Sydney Opera House was unforgettable. (NK)

Posies – Blood/Candy

After a patchy career living in the shadow of their 90’s masterwork Frosting On The Beater, the Posies trumped that album and delivered their best work by relaxing into their roles of delivering Jon Auer’s breezily melodic rockers and Ken Stringfellow’s meticulously arranged baroque pieces with energy and vigor. Killer after killer roles out on an album that over time will, at my house at least, enter the pantheon of ambitious pop classics like Spilt Milk, Skylarking and Radio City. (NK)

Dungen – Skit I Allt

6th record by Swedish collective led by the enigmatic Gustav Ejstes that have been honing a sound for a decade which evokes 60’s psyche with folky ambient touches. Previous records have rocked harder but this lulls and lilts the listener into a blissful state. Their own borrowing of old sounds and insistence of singing all lyrics in their native tongue is certainly no excuse for our own Tame Impala’s pillaging – shame on them for ripping Ejstes’ vision off wholesale, complete with production, arrangement and artwork ideas. It’s their “Inner Speaker” appearing on end-of-year lists the world over, presumably because critics can understand the lyrics, but for my money this band have a back catalogue and new album all worth your time and loyalty because they invented this sound. (NK)

Sophie Hutchings – Becalmed

Debut album by very talented Sydney woman who has often lent a hand to many of Sydney’s indie rock bands for years. This is a work of spare beauty and sparse sadness, evoking the wonderful work of Erik Satie on one hand and Lanois/Eno on the other. Gorgeous stuff. (NK)

Bonnie Prince Billy and the Cairo Gang – The Wondershow of the World
The prince of indie American gothic teamed up with new collaborators The Cairo Gang to create this spare and earthy masterpiece. Will Oldham’s eerily intimate musical tales explored twisted love and resentment, pacifism and contemplation and regret, and never before has his wafery baritone sounded more alive or convincing than here in the arms of the soulful Cairo Gang. (AR)

Bruce Springsteen – The Promise
Though containing no new songs, this treasure trove of Boss gems from the Darkness… sessions is a heady delight for Springsteen fans. Something about the raw energy of these recordings (laced with some unobtrusive new overdubs and gap-fills by Bruce himself) seems more alive and thrilling than ever in this remaster. These “lost” songs already feel like heartfelt classics. (AR)

Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
Much has been made in the press of Laura Marling’s talent, seemingly impossibly beyond her 20 years of age. But the proof really is in the pudding – this second album’s songs are so well-considered and beautifully delivered, and with hertz-perfect analogue production from Ethan Johns, that it’s impossible for it not to get under the skin. (AR)

The Chieftains and Ry Cooder – San Patricio
The untouchable kings of Irish folk The Chieftains, bring their worldly musical experience to the grand master of South American music history, and together these two geniuses have created a grand concept album, chronicling the little-known tale of the Irish soldiers sent to help the Mexicans in the brutal Civil War. This album proves that both collaborating parties are at the top of their game, combining their prowess to maximum emotional effect. (AR)

Midlake – The Courage of Others
Midlake’s sunny, neo-West Coast softrock reached its pinnacle with 2006’s acclaimed The Trials of Van Occupanther. This new record saw them turn a gentle corner towards the English winter with an album of densely harmonious, minor-chord ridden fanciful odes and rock dirges. Like Fairport Convention in their heyday, this was a dark and stormy treat for the winter of 2010. (AR)

Joanna Newsom – Have One On Me
Joanna Newsom’s weird, all-encompassing orhestral masterpiece Ys happened just before a chronic battle with vocal nodes – she has emerged on the other side with a new, gentler voice and a swathe of epic folk tales wrapped around her singularly amazing harp playing. This is a challenging record, sprawling across three compact discs, but one of the most rewarding of 2010. (AR)