The Best of 2007

10.
The Grey Goose Wing - Kes
An unpredictable mix of acoustic freak folk, bird calls and recorder solos, this would be a truly experimental record if it weren't for the handful of true pop gems scattered throughout. Kes is a small man with a big heart, and The Grey Goose Wing is a strange and fascinating trip.

9.
Future Suture - Ned Collette
Somebody, get this guy a hobby - at the rate he's releasing these great albums he'll peak in his late 20s and be the subject of a bad covers album by the time he's 35. Future Suture is a more ambitious album than last year's debut, but it's every bit as good.

8.
Everybody - The Sea and Cake
Often touted as a "post-rock supergroup", this should be the album to finally peel off that label - these Chicago natives are the thinking man's pop collective, and Everybody sees them at their best. Sparkling, understated guitar pop for the backyard barbecue set.

7.
Liquorice Night - Sly Hats
Only in Melbourne could an awkward young bloke with a penchant for op-shop woollies and calypso rhythms run away with the local release of the year. Sweet like a high school love note, and as recklessly sincere as a confession scratched into a toilet cubicle wall.

5. TIE:
Person Pitch - Panda Bear
and Strawberry Jam - Animal Collective
Noah Lennox was another busy boy in 2007. Early in the year he gave us his third solo album as Panda Bear, a great mix of Brian Wilson-esque pop and campfire dance-folk. Most performers would be happy putting out one masterpiece in a year, but somehow Noah also found time to hook up with the other Animals and cook up their best and most accessible record to date. They've said that they wanted this album "to sound the way strawberry jam looks", and they've absolutely nailed it - Jam is sticky, full of strange pips, and packed with enough sugar to induce fits in small children.

4.
There The Open Spaces - Sleeping States
The thing about "sleep albums" is that you never get to hear the end of them - if they do their job, you're fast asleep by the time track 3 rolls around. This would be the perfect sleep album, but it's so damn gorgeous that I just have to stay awake to hear the whole thing.

3.
Mirrored - Battles
Prog rock for Terminator-obsessed maths geeks. The sound that comes from inside a 486 computer running a hundred programs at once - turbo button pressed in - amplified and multiplied. Difficult to explain, but equally difficult to take out of the CD player.

2.
You, You're A History In Rust - Do Make Say Think
With each release these Canadians seem to take another step away from the studio and delve deeper into the backyard. Their sound hasn't exactly changed, it's just become part of the garden, beautifully overgrown. Rust is rich and organic - jazz-infused post-rock at its best.

1.
In Rainbows - Radiohead
Not content simply with having changed the way we listen to music, these guys decided to change the way we buy it too. The fact that the album was brilliant became an aside - after bending the rock genre as far as it would go without snapping, Radiohead finally delivered OK Computer an unpredictable, well-mannered genius of a little brother. Album of the year by a long shot.

Published in mX, Thursday 20 December 2007.

Slacker Treasure

The Freed Man
Sebadoh
Domino, 2007
4.5 stars

Originally released on cassette in 1989, this beautiful reissue actually came out six months ago - though after 18 years, time is hardly of the essence. Named in response to Lou Barlow's newfound freedom from Dinosaur Jr, The Freed Man is a lo-fi masterpiece. It's the sound of a bunch of romantic slacker kids smoking pot and abusing their instruments in the garage. Some of it is truly great, some of it is just awful, but when it's all pasted together it becomes a kind of historic artifact; a time capsule for the late '80s.

Artwork: A

Published in mX, Thursday 13 December 2007.

Jingle Bells

Mistletonia
Various
Mistletone, 2007
4 stars

Finally, a Christmas album with the muscle to throw Bing Crosby out of the CD player. Melbourne label Mistletone have a deep well of acts at their disposal, and they've done a great job here with the aptly titled Mistletonia. Locals including Ned Collette, Kes, Pikelet and Francis Plagne contribute their own takes on the Christmas theme, as well as international groups such as Evangelicals, John Maus and The Sticks. Don't expect sleigh bells and crooning old men though the music here is as kaleidoscopic as the album's cover.

Artwork: B+

Published in mX, Thursday 6 December 2007.

Animal Frequency

Person Pitch
Panda Bear
Mistletone, 2007
4 stars

Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, knows his tunes. His influences read like a history of modern music: experimental dance, '60s pop, and '90s gangsta rap, they're all there in the liner notes. On Person Pitch, his third solo album away from Animal Collective, he somehow manages to meld all these genres and more into a gloriously unique folk-pop-campfire-dance album. It's impossible to describe these songs without mentioning the Beach Boys, but Person Pitch honestly sounds like Lennox has kidnapped Brian Wilson and locked him in an echoey basement with a sampler, a turntable and a box of op-shop vinyl finds. Why nobody thought of doing this years ago, I guess we'll never know.

Artwork: A+

Published in mX, Thursday 12 April 2007.