kagablog

4. Joe Henry – Civilians (Anti-)

- the legend “produced by Joe Henry” is a surefire indicator of quality in a record, so it’s appropriate that the best of these last year turned out to be his own tenth, and surely finest, album - if I had any influence at all, his Our Song would win Grammy Song of the Year by several lengths – it’s an astonishing meditation on growing old, the fleeting nature of even the most substantial fame (American sports names don’t come very much bigger than Willie Mays), America’s own, suddenly less certain place in the world, the gap between what we want and what we’ll settle for, and buying garage door springs, that moves almost imperceptibly from an assertion of the protagonist’s individual rights to his submission to God’s will – a friend who understands these things better than most says Wave, the very next song on the album, is in fact the year’s best - to single out these two, though, is to overlook at least half a dozen more whose clarity of thought and individuality of expression might just take your breath away

5. Okkervil River – The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar)

- there’s about a minute on this album, as A Girl In Port plays out to pedal steel swooning over boozy horns and Nashville piano, that may be the most gorgeous I heard all year – the song itself is an absolute drop-dead beauty, but what’s most striking about the Austin band’s fourth album in a steadily more impressive Jagjaguwar catalogue that must, surely, eventually result in some small measure of world domination, is that the others around it, from the rocking opener with the enigmatic title via the smart-arse references to songs with numbers in their title (the point of Plus Ones is made by adding one to titles by Paul Simon, ? & the Mysterians, Nena, the Zombies, R.E.M., the Byrds, David Bowie, the Crests and the Commodores - nine miles high, 100th red balloon, 97th tear … geddit?) to a reflection on the suicide of poet John Berryman that culminates in Sloop John B, the Caribbean folk song that became a Beach Boys hit, all stand up for themselves – and the solo demo versions of those songs on the extra disc of the limited edition stand up, as a quite different album, to the official full band versions

6. Tinariwen – Aman Iman (Independiente)

- somebody, turning up late and looking for a hook, called Tinariwen the Touareg Rolling Stones, and the description appears to have stuck, in some quarters at least, but, if that conjures up an image of ancient if once bluesworthy poseurs falling off camels rather than out of palm trees, nothing could be further from the truth – there’s a spirit and an (albeit dark and brooding) elemental energy about these fierce looking former freedom fighters’ trademark desert blues that grabbed hold of my sub-Saharan heart the first time I heard it, and simply won’t let go – the trick is for the music to transcend the back story, and Tinariwen’s has done that, without a single missed step that I can recall, throughout three albums