kagablog

16. Burial – Untrue (Hyperdub)

- lo-fi, claustrophobic, alienating, spectral (the telling song title is Ghost Hardware) and entirely dissimilar to anything else here, “Untrue” is the second album by anonymous electronic dubstep producer Burial, who claims that only about five people know who he is – there are no lustrous melodies, no irresistible dance beats, no overtly flash technology and the rare vocals are murky and cryptic – so it’s just one man’s imagination and a labyrinthine set of moods and surreptitious grooves that creep into your subconscious and gnaw away at your soul

17. Band Of Horses – Cease To Begin (Sub Pop)

- the Band Of Horses debut crept into my 2006 Top 20 without my even really noticing it, and I’ll be damned if their second hasn’t done precisely the same thing, and that’s despite having lost half of the original duo (though they have gained extra members) with so little damage to what it was that attracted me in the first place that I wondered for a moment what it was exactly that Mat Brooke did – Ben Bridwell’s high, airy tenor still soaks up and into those aching melodies and I think the songs may be better this time - to name arguably your best after a professional basketball player is one thing, to name it after one called Detlef Schrempf and make it work may be a sign of something approaching genius

18. Patty Griffin – Children Running Through (ATO)

- the most surprising entry among the half a dozen women in my twenty or so favourite albums of 2007 may have been Patty Griffin’s – six years ago in Austin I was happy enough to have caught her brief backing vocals at an Emmylou Harris gig, and didn’t bother to see her own show – I liked a few of her songs well enough, but I never got the impression that I’d be consistently engaged, and her albums bolstered that impression … until now – her command here of a variety of styles, from the folk and country that had always been her most conspicuous metier, to rockabilly, jazzy pop, soul and gospel, took me by surprise, as did the increase in breadth and depth of her songwriting, and every time I listened again to make sure, well, the album sounded even better – the standouts are probably the heartbreaking Trapeze, on which Emmylou repays the vocal favour, and the Martin Luther King tribute, Up To The Mountain, which she takes back from Solomon Burke, who did such a great job with it the previous year

19. Explosions In The Sky – All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (Temporary Residence Ltd)

- I go to London every year and, while I’m there, I catch a lot of tubes - by some distance, the iPod music that goes best with these trips falls into that largely instrumental if generally rather imprecisely classified category known as post-rock - the reason is probably the sense of space it creates – Canadians God Speed You Black Emperor (with an exclamation mark that seems to move from one album to the next), Thee Silver Mt Zion and their various offshoots and annexures are natural travel companions, but there are several others that do the job as well, and Explosions In The Sky from Austin, Tx are among the best without sounding much like the Canadians at all – carefully layering guitars into alternating currents of tremendous sonic power and melodic rapture, their approach has been criticised for being formulaic and even predictable, but the best post-rock works, I think, like a kind of dramatic, obvious minimalism, on the ability to build the sort of tension and make the engaging, if incremental, musical shifts that this band does

20. Bettye LaVette – The Scene Of The Crime (Anti-)

- LaVette was overlooked for much of what might be considered her prime by all but the most committed soul fans, a story told in supremely funky style on Before The Money Came – but, when it comes to soul singers, one’s prime apparently is as one’s prime does and, now in her sixties and a couple of albums into a new and what will hopefully prove to be properly appreciated lease of recording life, she sounds in fantastic shape – recorded at the storied Fame studios in Muscle Shoals and co-produced by Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers, who provide the tough, beautifully unkempt backing with guest appearances from Hood’s bassist father David and his height of Fame keyboard crony Spooner Oldham, LaVette takes on songs by Eddie Hinton, John Hiatt and even Willie Nelson and Elton John, inhabits them completely, and truly makes them her own