kagablog

thanks to tobbi for this link

By Tom Chivers

Many people are uncomfortable with the march of the surveillance state – but a Manchester band has used it to their advantage.

Unable to afford a proper camera crew and equipment, The Get Out Clause, an unsigned band from the city, decided to make use of the cameras seen all over British streets.

With an estimated 13 million CCTV cameras in Britain, suitable locations were not hard to come by.

They set up their equipment, drum kit and all, in eighty locations around Manchester – including on a bus – and proceeded to play to the cameras.

Afterwards they wrote to the companies or organisations involved and asked for the footage under the Freedom of Information Act.

“We wanted to produce something that looked good and that wasn’t too expensive to do,” guitarist Tony Churnside told Sky News.

“We hit upon the idea of going into Manchester and setting up in front of cameras we knew would be filming and then requesting that footage under the Freedom Of Information act.”

Only a quarter of the organisations contacted fulfilled their obligation to hand over the footage – perhaps predictably, bigger firms were reluctant, while smaller companies were more helpful – but that still provided enough for a video with 20 locations.

“We had a number of different excuses as to why we weren’t given the footage, like they didn’t have the footage. They delete after a certain amount of time, so if they procrastinate for long enough, they can claim it’s been deleted,” Mr Churnside said.

Michael Blake (piano)
“Spring in Havana” International Electroacoustic Music Festival
16 March 2008, 16h00, Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Havana, Cuba

In the course of researching Xhosa music (in the Eastern Cape, South Africa), one of Dr David Dargie’s informants, Mrs Amelia No-Silence Matiso, told him how the Xhosa people like “to put salt into their songs” to bring the performance to life. Salt may be added rhythmically, melodically and harmonically through the use of cross-rhythms, clap-delay techniques, altered scale tones, parallel melodic and harmonic parts, non-harmonic tones, dissonance, pattern-singing, and a variety of vocal techniques. The now legendary Nofinishi Dywili, whose live and recorded performances are among my most memorable musical experiences, was probably the greatest exponent of uhadi bow music. Strangely, the day after I had completed the piece I heard from a friend, Andrew Tracey, that she had died. “Ways to put in the salt” was written at the request of John Tilbury who gave the first performance in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown, South Africa on 28 June 2002 during the New Music Indaba. In 2006 I had the idea of composing a commentary on the piece that would sample and transform the sounds of the uhadi bow and singers, and sometimes sample the voice of Nofinishi herself. This can be played as a second layer of the piece, a kind of Kontakte in reverse — since the soundtrack came later. “Ways to put in the salt (Havana version 2008)” is my small tribute to Stockhausen, without whom we wouldn’t have electronic music or electroacoustic music festivals.

The thought crossed my mind a few weeks ago to do a performance of 4′33″ using digital technology, modern sound equipment, and music production software. A recent event focusing on performance art at the Bag Factory, called RE/Action, gave me the opportunity to take advantage of this happy idea.

4′33″ is an experimental musical work by former Fluxus member and avant-garde composer John Cage (1912 - 1992). The original piece was composed for piano and consists of about four and a half minutes of silence with an introduction by Cage saying: “I have nothing to say, and I am saying it”. Even though its first manifestation was for piano, Cage had originally composed 4’33” for any instrument, giving me allowance to perform a digital version in two parts in front of an audience at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg.

Cage structured 4’33” in three randomly selected movements, depending on the action, performer, and setting. Thus, the beginning an end of each movement is not dictated by the composer. Despite this premise, I decided to compose the digital version in two parts, the first part being the original piece, and the second part taking the form of a remix. Cage did, however, stipulate that the title should reflect the timings for each movement, which is why my performance of 4’33” began at about 19:15 (after all the other performers at the event had finished). Unknown to me this was also about the time that the Imam calls the faithful into prayer at the nearby mosque. The original sub-title of 4’33” was “A Silent Prayer”, which was referred to by the presence of Lerato Shadi, suspended with cloth in a messianic pose on the wall opposite to me, giving the entire room a religious atmosphere of Christian and Muslim, East and West undertones (or overtones; whatever strikes your fancy).

I introduced myself and the piece, and then I sat down in front of my Korg midi controller, MacBook Pro, Tascam audio controller, a marantz amplifier and Sony earphones; surrounded by condenser microphones, KEF monitors, lots of cords and about thirty five people. I readied myself, because in my experience sound equipment almost always has issues, not to mention computers. Each part lasted about 5 minutes, including the breaks between movements and live editing time. As mentioned, the first part consisted of Cage’s original 4’33”, with completely random beginning and ending points for each movement, and 30 second intervals separating the three movements. I thought part one was fairly successful because most people kept as silent as they could, except for some late comers who did not quite catch on to what was going on, but the Imam’s sound came totally unexpectedly, and almost perfectly.

After the piece had been successfully recorded in part one of the rendition, there was about a two minute respite before the commencement of part two. The chants of the Imam took up most of movement one in part one, so I decided to focus on that section of ambiance in the remix. I aimed the microphones at the monitors and left them to record whilst the remix was played through the speakers. In this way the remix was recorded as heard by the audience during its live production. Silence and noise was amplified, spliced and fragmented in a totally random manner, bearing no pattern except for some repetitive sections, with no interludes or pauses for about four and a half minutes. Part two was interesting because onlookers did not know they were still being recorded and felt free to speak there minds. Little did they know that I could hear their conversations very clearly with my earphones, with statements like: “what is he doing… Why is he just sitting there?”, and “is there a problem with his equipment?”

Once both parts had been completed, after about 10 minutes, the recording, re-recording, and remix was published immediately on an Ipod Shuffle and put up for sale for R2000. There was no buyer, which completely dumbfounded me, because I was sure that people would give anything for an Ipod shuffle with amplified, broken silence on it. Given this disappointment an edited and mastered version of the two parts will also be made available as a free download in due course.

The full title of this rendition has been settled on as: 4′33″ (a silent prayer for Darfur), piece for digital media. This title was influenced by the serendipitous event of the Imam chanting, and also by a friend who answered me when I told him about my performance: “…fuck Shane, why do you perform these meaningless acts when you could be saving people in Darfur or something…”

Thank you to Johan Thom for organizing the event, “RE/Action”. Thank you also to all the other performers, Rat Western, Lerato Shadi, Bronwyn Lace and all the rest, you guys were great. And, thank you to the Bag Factory for hosting the event.

shane de lange

this article first appeared on shane de lange’s blog

Below is a nice rendition of 4′33″ by David Tudor, a student and colleague of John Cage.

1. Mavis Staples – We’ll Never Turn Back (Anti-)

- a dozen traditional and might as well be traditional songs about equality, civil rights and the blessings of the Lord might seem an unusual choice for album of the year, but this collection of freedom songs, sung with unfailing authority and conviction by one of the great soul and gospel voices of our time, who happened also to have been around and involved when activist singing was at its ‘60s peak, and produced with impressive simplicity and focus by Ry Cooder, ended up winning hands down as it just kept getting stronger and more emotionally involving as its rivals struggled to keep up

2. Robert Wyatt – Comicopera (Domino)

- the combined age of the two artists at the top of this list is around 130, not bad for someone who prides himself on continually seeking out the new and the challenging and never, in the words of the civil rights anthem that gave its name to my No 1, turning back (well, not that often, anyway), but if you think that nostalgia might have played too great a part in the choices you clearly haven’t heard the music – there is, in fact, as so often, a touch of an unspecified, indeterminate past about the sound of Wyatt as he deals expertly and enticingly in gentle persuasion, quietly mordant wit and engaging wistfulness, and dispenses, often with considerable political irony, a general air of calm as he dabbles in his usual array of folk, jazz and amiably avant-artpop and rock forms, yet he always sounds slightly ahead of whatever else is going on – Wyatt’s strength is that he’s not only a dabbler but perhaps even, in cricketing terms, a dibbly-dobbler, too, that quintessential English medium pacer who seems innocuous enough but is damn nearly impossible to get away, and who invariably ends up snaring his prey – “Comicopera”, a significant part of which finds Wyatt reflecting on war, seems likely to stand out for some time even in his singular body of work

3. Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba – Segu Blue (Out/Here) / Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara – Soul Science (Wayward)

- essentially, I suppose, banjo and fiddle music from West Africa, Kouyate’s Malian ngoni and Camara’s Gambian ritti being, respectively, fundamentally and without getting too musicologically anal, ancestors of those favourite folk instruments, and every bit as thrilling as any created in the Appalachians or anywhere else (and arguably more elegant than most) – Kouyate’s group is a ngoni quartet with guest vocals from several highly evocative West Africans, including the celebrated Kassy Made Diabate and Malian bluesman Lobi Traore, while Camara’s collaborator is the long serving guitarist in Robert Plant’s band and the producer of the first album by Tinariwen, for whom see (not much) further down this list – despite the sometimes fanciful notions that surround the pre-slavery West African origins of the blues, it’s hard not to hear them here; where “Segu Blue” might be redolent of the Mississippi Delta, though, “Soul Science” seems to align itself with that state’s hill country’s hambone and drone

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

7. Frode Haltli – Passing Images (ECM) / Sinikka Langeland – Starflowers (ECM)

- a couple of extraordinary and spellbinding Norwegian musicians taking chances with their folk tradition (and, at the same time, taking their folk tradition to places it can hardly have imagined possible) – Langeland merges her Finnish table harp, the kantele, and her stunning folk voice with a group of jazz musicians including the outstanding saxophonist Trygve Seim on a series of songs by woodcutter poet Hans Børli; accordionist Haltli adds trumpet, viola and voice where the natural sounds of breath blown, air pumped and horsehair scraped become as riveting and engaging as the non-vocal sounds that sometimes emanate from Maja Ratkje’s throat, lips and tongue, yet these are as beautiful in their own way as the slow, still, folk-inflected tunes that gradually unfurl out of and fold back into Haltli’s remarkable musical imagination

8. Martin Simpson – Prodigal Son (Topic)

- this may be the album, in a long and impressive career, that best represents Simpson’s range – the traditional English folk songs are there, as ever, his radically improved singing no longer playing second fiddle to his remarkable acoustic guitar playing, and so are the American roots influences in which he immersed himself even more completely in his years living in the USA (including a more mature and better considered cover of Randy Newman’s Louisiana 1927 than the one on Simpson’s debut, slightly altered to accommodate Katrina), and, of course, the delicate instrumentals, but, perhaps most of all, there’s also a brutally honest, beautifully paced original song about his father, who was never any good with money, yet taught his son a range of small skills he uses every day

9. The Arcade Fire – Neon Bible (Merge)

- the question, of course, was how these sudden yet persistently appealing Canadian indie rock darlings were going to top that amazing debut - they didn’t, quite, as it turned out, but the fact that they got this close is pretty remarkable in itself – Funeral’s sheer unexpectedness is what dazzled everybody, and probably continues to do so – the darker, perhaps more deliberate Neon Bible is not as explicitly ravishing, but it’s still beyond what most bands achieved in 2007

10. Sam Baker – Pretty World (BlueLimeStone)

- Baker, in an apparently endless line of brilliant Texan songwriters, had to re-learn the guitar following injuries sustained in a bomb blast twenty odd years ago, when the guy sitting next to him in a Peruvian railway carriage was killed, and he sings in a halting, slightly stilted fashion as a result of his consequent severe hearing loss, but his songs, packed with small but crucial insights and which might, of course, not otherwise have been written the way they were, don’t need the support of that amazing story to reveal themselves as among the pithiest and most poignant I’ve heard for ages

11. Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective – Wátina (Cumbancha)

- Andy Palacio, who died suddenly in January this year, lived just long enough to see the effect of his Garifuna Collective’s highly attractive and widely well-regarded debut album on publicising not only his native culture to the world at large, but the very existence at all of his people, a Caribbean race partially descended from shipwrecked West African slaves and living in the Central American country of Belize – on “Wátina”, Palacio, already a veteran of several albums, concentrated deliberately, in the company of other leading Garifuna musicians, on his own traditional music and language, and the results, which reflect both their West African and Caribbean influences in a way that adds to both, were among the year’s most agreeable unanticipated pleasures

12. Mary Gauthier – Between Daylight And Dark (Lost Highway) / Lucinda Williams – West (Lost Highway)

- ten years ago Lucinda Williams finally made, in “Car Wheels On A Gravel Road”, the album that her supporters had hoped she might have in her, and her life was changed forever, along with the attitude of quite a large audience towards Southern songwriting women, but she seemed to lose her artistic way a little as mainstream acceptance grew – “West”, reflecting her geographical move in that direction (it might have been equally appropriate to have twinned it with Steve Earle’s Nashville to New York offering) is a wonderful return to form under a Hal Willner production hand that allows emotional rawness to infiltrate the sound again, and gets exactly the right amount out of a band in which guitarist Bill Frisell and Tin Hat Trio keyboard man Rob Burger are just perfect – Gauthier, also Louisiana born and Southern raised and sounding not unlike Williams, might have been at about the same place in her career before “Between Daylight And Dark” and, while it doesn’t seem to have attracted quite the public attention that “Car Wheels” did, it strikes me that the Joe Henry produced album, with significant musical contributions by a couple of Frisellian associates Greg Leisz and David Piltch and superb songwriting by Gauthier who shines her lyrical torch both outwards and inwards with penetrating observation and unflinching honesty, ought, in a fairer world, to have a similar effect on her profile

13. Levon Helm – Dirt Farmer (Vanguard)

- that Helm still sings like he does, after throat cancer, 28 radiation treatments and, he says, plenty of prayer, seems like a miracle – he’s 67 years old now, so it’s not quite the majesty of the Band anymore but, with added experience, resonance and even deeper immersion into the old time folk and blues traditions that inform the hard core of this acoustic album produced by Dylan bandsman Larry Campbell and featuring Levon’s daughter Amy, it’s much more than the next best thing

14. The Imagined Village – The Imagined Village (Real World)

- an ambitious project in which Simon Emmerson, best known for his cross-cultural work with the Afro-Celt Sound System, revisits old English folk song with an intriguing mix of the English and inter-generational traditional (Martin & Eliza Carthy, the vocal Young Coppers, the instrumental Gloworms), the English but not so traditional (Paul Weller, Billy Bragg, poet Benjamin Zephaniah who totally re-imagines the story of Tam Lyn), the English and somewhere in between (Chris Wood, Tunng, Sheila Chandra) and his own (and the Trans-Global Underground’s) electro-acoustic and wonderfully eclectic inspiration

15. Carlo Mombelli & the Prisoners Of Strange (Instinct Africaine) / Dan Wilson/Mark Huggett Project – Max Roach Park (Musketeer)

- there’s an indication in the dates at the back of Mombelli’s CD digipak of just how difficult it is to get unusual South African music into the public eye (or ear): the recording took place early in 2005, yet it was only released in 2007 – then, to get hold of a copy, I eventually approached the artist and label owner directly, record stores and Internet sites having proved a waste of time – despite this, it’s been nominated for a South African Music Award in one of the few categories that can be taken seriously by anyone not part of the mainstream industry and media’s fifty million Elvis fans can’t be wrong approach (they can, of course, if you play them nothing but Elvis) - experimental bass playing composer Carlo Mombelli’s exceptional group features trumpeter Marcus Wyatt, tenorist Sydney Mnisi and drummer Lloyd Martin, with Jessica Bailey’s cello and Siya Makuzeni’s extraordinary, largely wordless vocals contributing sonic, harmonic and textural elements that make it highly unusual, if not unique, in a South African context - arresting, challenging, exquisitely off-kilter and sometimes even oddly funky, the group’s spontaneous freestyle chamber music (Mombelli’s description) is everything the musically adventurous would like to see more of around these parts – the Wilson/Huggett group is here again (their album featured in last year’s list) because they now have a proper release, and a thoroughly deserved SAMA nomination to go with it

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

21. The Shins – Wincing The Night Away (Sub Pop)

- the “Shins will change your life” hype was impossible to live up to, and this third album seemed deliberately to avoid trying to match the “Garden State” fuelled frenzy – yet it entered the US charts at an improbable No 2, and so the Shins became, formally, the great white hope of indie rock – but guitars chime and voices soar in subtler shades of pop dazzle as the more measured performance suggested it might actually take longer to reveal itself and, consequently, longer to fade, which is precisely how it has turned out … in my life, anyway – it never did make No 1, and the glorious single, Phantom Limb, only reached No 87, suggesting that I was right not only about the band but the audience as well

22. Orchestra Baobab – Made In Dakar (World Circuit) / Youssou N’Dour – Rokku Mi Rokka (Nonesuch)

- the fact that these two albums, both recorded in N’Dour’s Senegalese studio, deliver precisely what we’ve come to expect (which is, let’s face it, the very acme of Afropop) should surely be the cause of great celebration, even if we can shut our eyes and imagine how they’re going to sound (with maybe only Neneh Cherry’s rap on Youssou’s Wake Up (It’s Africa Calling) an exception, though we ought to have guessed what a title like that would generate) – so the veteran Orchestra sound like they’ve sounded for decades, comfortable and comforting with biting guitar and mellifluous sax peppering those wonderfully languid vocals and Afro-Cuban rhythms with just enough spice on a set of new songs and new recordings of old, but mainly not previously Baobabed songs – Youssou guests, too – his own record, on the other hand, is a gleaming, modern thing with few surprises (well, perhaps the New Orleans second line rhythm on Sportif , and a telling appearance by West African music’s man of my year, Bassekou Kouyate) but class to burn

23. Iron & Wine – The Shepherd’s Dog (Sub Pop)

- on Sam Beam’s third proper album, discounting the Calexico collaboration, the somewhat muted tones used to paint the general atmosphere of the first two explode into a comparative riot of production colour, with banjos, slide and steel guitars, funky electric piano, traces of dub and even a hint of Africa jostling for space – there have been clues, some on that Calexico effort, that he might be headed in this kind of direction, but the sonic and stylistic richness of “The Shepherd’s Dog” still surprises – the vocals remain hushed and vaguely conspiratorial, the overall mood melancholy, but there’s so much more to hear!

24. Aman Aman - Musica I Cants Sefardis d’Orient I Occident (Galileo)

- an offshoot of L’Ham de Foc, who featured strongly on this list a couple of years ago, Aman Aman plays exactly what the title tells us … music and songs of the Sephardic Jews of East and West, but that rather prosaic title doesn’t convey even a fraction of the strength and beauty and even excitement, or the sense of exotic time and place, that permeate this album, on which Mara Aranda, a gorgeous singer, and her mainly Spanish musician friends visit Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and elsewhere in search of their originally Iberian Jewish muse

25. Richard Thompson – Sweet Warrior (Proper) / Linda Thompson – Versatile Heart (Decca)

- more than 25 years on from their musical and marital separation, the legacy of the Richard and Linda Thompson partnership still resonates to such a degree that bracketing their individual efforts still seems entirely natural – overall, Linda’s may be even better than her “Fashionably Late” comeback, though the lump in the throat factor has dissipated and though “Versatile Heart” may not have the one or two showstoppers of its predecessor – but the title track’s clever rhyming and boozy horns, the traditional Katie Cruel with its bouncy left-handed Irish guitar and the fabulously nostalgic Whisky, Bob Copper And Me shouldn’t be missed, and she stills sings like a bruised and slightly shop-soiled angel – Richard, on the other hand, just keeps the quality coming, rocking harder this time than most recently, writing a great war in Iraq song, assimilating the tradition as naturally as ever without ever compromising his rock ‘n’ roll heart and, in Take Care The Road You Choose, devising yet another of those devastating rolling ballads he seems to have the copyright on – a prolific family year also disgorged a raggedly powerful Richard & Linda 1975 concert, and son Teddy released “Upfront And Down Low”, an excellent album of classic country covers

26. Ry Cooder – My Name Is Buddy (Nonesuch)

- after two decades of film soundtracks and cross cultural co-operations, Cooder has revived his own catalogue and follows the brilliant “Chavez Ravine” with this, an allegorical tale of a red cat, by colour and political persuasion, and his buddies as they travel through Depression era America – the music is a return to the era’s folk and blues roots that Cooder so expertly engaged on his earliest albums, and there’s Tex-Mex and R&B as well - a supporting cast that includes long time cohorts Bobby King, Terry Evans, Flaco Jimenez and Jim Keltner, as well as pianist Van Dyke Parks, piper Paddy Moloney, folk icon Pete Seeger and his old time music genius half-brother Mike, speaks for both the scope and the quality of music where Three Chords And The Truth describes a songwriting intent and an approach to living you might have thought had died out

27. Grinderman – Grinderman (Mute)

- if you’ve been paying attention you’ll have noticed that, even though Nick Cave has matured over the past couple of decades into one of rock’s great measured songwriters, he has never completely left the love of noisy post-bluespunk that the Birthday Party so comprehensively espoused when he first exploded into view, and the fact that Grinderman, an essentially, though not invariably, gutwrenchingly rowdy quartet featuring three of the Bad Seeds, growls and snarls its way through what was surely the raucous and gloriously ribald, yet still lyrically smart, rock album of the year should not have been a total surprise – whether this is the early beginning of a Cave policy of railing against the dying of his light in the year of his 50th birthday remains to be seen, but it’ll be no bad thing if it is

28. Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand (Rounder)

- two things struck me immediately about this record – firstly, the collaboration seemed entirely unlikely even if Plant had sung with Sandy Denny in halcyon Led Zeppelin days, that band had often messed with folk (but hardly ever, if at all, country) forms, and Plant’s post Zep career has been much more musically inclusive - secondly, despite my admiration for both Plant and the queen of bluegrass I’d never been especially attracted to them, yet I loved this album – that may have had (and may still have) something to do with a typically T Bone Burnett production and a wonderful song choice that takes in Townes Van Zandt, Allen Toussaint (as Naomi Neville), the Everly Brothers and Gene Clark (twice), as well as a reference to Sister Rosetta Tharpe in a song by Burnett’s wife Sam Phillips, but mostly I’m pretty sure it’s because they sing so damn well together

29. The National – Boxer (Beggars Banquet)

- I read somewhere that the National reminded some critics of both Joy Division and Bruce Springsteen, connections I wouldn’t have made myself but, having been alerted to them, can see why others might – darkly sturdy urban wasteland songwriting, isolated and melancholic urban wasteland sound … yep, there certainly are tangential similarities, though the National doesn’t actually sound anything like either of those acts – however, “Boxer” does sound a whole lot like its predecessor, “Alligator” … the brooding atmosphere is repeated, along with an overall feel of poetic dread, and I like it just as much – in fact, my response to “Boxer” turns out to be so similar that, on checking, I find that “Alligator” made No 28 on the 2005 version of this list

30. Erdem Helvacioglu – Altered Realities (New Albion) / David Torn – Prezens (ECM)

- maybe the most starkly beautiful album on this list, the Turkish composer’s “Altered Realities” are seven long and exquisitely textured acoustic guitar contemplations overlayed with real time electronics that support, stretch, distort, transfigure and transform the basic notes (despite what you would imagine to be the aural evidence, there was no mixing, editing, overdubbing or post-processing), or, where necessary, leave them alone, which means that all the music can be recreated, live, by a single musician – what is most impressive is that what sounds on the page like an exercise in electronic cleverness translates on record as music beyond your imagination – Torn’s explorations of the possibilities of the guitar relate mainly, though not exclusively, to the electric version, in the company of a fantastic improvisational band drawn from altoist Tim Berne’s Science Fiction group and, while what they do might seem a bit like science fiction to those of a more conservative six string bent, the array of sounds, ideas and, above all, musical, as opposed to merely sonic, invention, where the Delta blues, brutally visceral über-rock and inspired electronic manipulation all fit naturally together, it all fits naturally, if challengingly, together

31. Syd Kitchen – Across (No Budget)

- it seems ironic that, at just about the time that Kitchen’s quirky, highly individual but equally highly skilled songwriting appears to be finding a wider audience (a mainstream TV commercial; the much sought after McCabe’s gig in Santa Monica, California; a possible US-made film documentary; the appropriation by a large corporation of his Africa’s Not For Sissies slogan, needless to say without credit or commercial advantage to him, for a T-shirt), arguably his best album ever consists of four long solo acoustic guitar instrumentals named after the four elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water – each displays exactly the right combination of artistic drift and internal development, referencing, without fuss or fanfare, the numerous musical influences in his life, and together forming a fifth element, (the title of his compilation album notwithstanding) the quintessential Kitchen

32. Ghost – In Stormy Nights (Drag City) / Boris (with Michio Kurihara) – Rainbow (Drag City)

- I have decided, on buying Julian Cope’s book, “Japrocksampler” (a belated successor to his “Krautrocksampler” that I read twice), to spend more time than I have heretofore done investigating the outer limits of Japanese rock (indeed, my exposure to the subject has been such that Japanese rock seems to consist entirely of outer limits, which is just fine with me) – Ghost and Boris (with Ghost’s voice of God guitar player Kurihara) are contemporary bands, not dealt with by Cope – yet the psychedelic spirit so favoured by Saint Julian never leaves them, whether it’s whimsical and folky, like much of Ghost, or darkly menacing, like much of Boris, or ear splitting, brain frying, stomach pummeling experimental noise freak out, like the rest of both - and it’s all fabulous

33. Panda Bear – Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)

- notwithstanding how much you thought you heard this connection before, what is most striking about “Person Pitch”, the Animal Collective’s Noah Lennox’s second album under his Panda Bear moniker, is just how much it sounds like what Brian Wilson did, does and, given that the stylistically quite wide-ranging and thoroughly contemporary production infused with an indie rock sensibility simply means that it sounds like a stylistically quite wide-ranging and thoroughly contemporary Brian Wilson infused with an indie rock sensibility, might yet do – it’s all marvellous, though, especially the vast Bros, which seems to incorporate everything Lennox does best into one 12 minute epic

34. Battles – Mirrored (Warp)

- a quartet out of Don Caballero and Helmet, amongst others, Battles has managed (absolutely and outrightly in some opinions, nearly in mine, which may be coloured by the damage done to my musical psyche by having lived through the grandiloquent schemes and creations of its antecedents), with its first release, to make progrock acceptable – this is some achievement, and the fact that this complex instrumental (with a few vocal sounds for leavening) collection of technological and intellectual trickery does work must be down to the band’s approach (do you call the kind of aggregation that would make his kind of music a band, I wonder), which, though undoubtedly serious, is never pompous and allows all sorts of humorous and even comic book asides into the process

35. Paul Motian / Bill Frisell / Joe Lovano – Time And Time Again (ECM) / Floratone – Floratone (Blue Note)

- this Motian trio is about as sure a guarantee of musical excellence, and even occasional genius, as it’s possible to find in any style, and the fact that they can do this stuff with their eyes closed (a figure of speech, you understand, as many musicians quite literally do what they do with their eyes closed) doesn’t mean either that it’s not worth doing or that they do it any less brilliantly, if arguably a little more abstractly and impressionistically this time – Floratone, a project that focuses musically and titularly on the South (mainly the post-Katrina South), includes drummer Matt Chamberlain as Frisell’s equal partner and features the Frisellian guitar tone, texture and compositional sense in spades, but the fact that both are listed as providing “loops”, and two non-instrumental producers receive equal band credit, says everything about the importance of the overall sound in relation to the actual notes being played

36. Beirut – The Flying Club Cup (Ba Da Bing!)

- Beirut’s 2006 “Gulag Orkestar” had to be a one-off … surely – a 19/20 year old American incorporating authentic-sounding Eastern European folk forms into an indie rock mosaic that spread from the Smiths to the Magnetic Fields and Neutral Milk Hotel … how on earth was he going to repeat that without simply repeating it? – well, he has, by doing much the same thing, only better and with increased maturity, and there are times that I believe I actually prefer this one – I can’t wait to see what he does next, though I’m secretly hoping it’ll be more of the same

37. Chris Letcher – Frieze (2 Feet/Sheer Sound) / David Kilgour – The Far Now (Merge)

- I read a piece written by London-based South African Chris Letcher (also the name of his band, by the way) some years ago about attending a Pavement gig and loving them to distraction – I always thought his work with Urban Creep and his duo with Matthew van der Want, which many South Africans knew, wouldn’t have prepared you for that, though his contribution to the first Lilo offering, which nobody anywhere even heard, may well have – on Frieze, his solo debut and by miles the finest locally related songwriting release of the year, all of that comes together in an intelligent, beautifully crafted, unpretentiously classy, yet slightly quirky rock/pop package on which Special Agents, a clear favourite from the past, is improved without showing up the songwriting quality around it – David Kilgour’s only connection is that he, too, comes from a country better known for rugby players than songwriters, in his case New Zealand – Kilgour is a veteran whose worth has even been formally recognised by his government by way of the Order Of Merit, his contributions to the Clean critical to the birth and development of what became acclaimed in indie rock circles home and away as the Dunedin Sound – but his solo career, too, has been a model of drop in anywhere you like and you won’t be disappointed consistency and understated melodic flair, and “The Far Now” is no exception

38. Rachel Unthank & The Winterset – The Bairns (Rabble Rouser/EMI) / June Tabor – Apples (Topic)

- just in case there’s been any doubt, the sublime Tabor proves, in her sixtieth year, that she is almost certainly the finest interpreter of the English folk tradition and contemporarily written neo-tradition, at least among the women, but maybe overall – as ever, this assessment goes way beyond her magnificent voice to include her choice of material, the real drama with which she invests it, and the way she gels with her restrained but marvellously sympathetic musicians and they with her – Rachel and Becky Unthank are young (their combined age is quite a bit short of Tabor’s) singing sisters plainly and proudly from the Newcastle region who seem already to have inherited a little of Tabor’s willingness for gentle boundary stretching – despite Rachel’s headline billing, the piano centred Winterset is a real collective (with four female voices exquisitely if slightly unusually arranged) prepared to take chances both within (I Wish) and outside (Robert Wyatt’s magnificent Sea Song) the tradition, and it all works

39. Radiohead – In Rainbows (Self released)

- it would be a pity if “In Rainbows” was only remembered as the album that caused a sea change in the way records are marketed (of course, whether or not it does remains to be seen, as an artist probably needs to have achieved a certain level of success to take on the industry juggernaut in the “pay what you think it’s worth” way that Radiohead did), because that might confuse future audiences into overlooking the fact that this is a very good record, perhaps even the band’s best for a decade - I’d have paid full price if I’d had to

40. John Surman – The Spaces In Between (ECM)

- this is the second of Surman’s projects for ECM in which the master of both the baritone sax’s rich sonority and the soprano’s sinuous mystery carefully intersects formal composition and well-directed improvisation, so that it’s often unclear where the one ends and the other begins – Surman, featured here with double bass and string quartet, adopts a lyrical, English compositional feel, yet finds space for both Middle Eastern influence and a revisiting of his own great ‘70s jazz-rock composition, Where Fortune Smiles

41. The Hold Steady – Boys And Girls In America (Vagrant)

- successfully walking the line between sincerity and contrivance is one of rock ‘n’ roll’s neatest tricks, but one of the hardest to pull off – Thin Lizzy and early Bruce Springsteen are such obvious touchstones for this Brooklyn outfit, with their big city rock sound, their coolly offhand rock gestures and their big, urban mythmaking rock lines, that my first impression was that they better have something to go with that to avoid becoming just a nostalgia act before their time, and it seems they do – they have such an obvious feel for the classic rock history they equally obviously love and respect it’s easy to condone the fact that Phil Lynott’s ghost seems at one point actually to have joined the band

42. Magik Markers – Boss (Ecstatic Peace) / Thurston Moore – Trees Outside The Academy (Ecstatic Peace)

- while it was certainly the Sonic Youth connection that caused me to investigate the Magik Markers in the first place, I don’t think it was the fact that Lee Ranaldo produced this release on Thurston Moore’s label that caused me to make an immediate association between Elisa Ambrogio’s melodically deadpan, slightly bored vocal style and that of Kim Gordon, or between the way the group shifts seamlessly, and in the same piece, between proper songs and sonic experimentation and a younger, more fervent version of the great New Yorkers – the title of Moore’s own album seems to represent the music within particularly well, with relatively plain speaking, elegantly textured acoustic guitar driven and violin decorated songwriting growing organically from the more intellectually rigorous explorations in sound and clamour that still populate the edges (and, in the hands of Dinosaur Jr’s J Mascis, some of the centre) of this record

43. Fanfare Ciocarlia – Kings And Queens (Asphalt Tango) / Taraf de Haïdouks – Maskarada (Crammed Discs)

- these genuine bands of gypsies (probably the two bands of Romanian gypsies, in fact) spread their stylistically significantly diverse if geographically related wings to outstanding effect here, and I’m not just talking about the fantastic Fanfare Ciocarlia’s lunatic brass band version of classic rock classic Born To Be Wild that you may have heard in “Borat” – they round up a glittering array of mainly singing but also playing Roma guests from the wider Balkan diaspora (including the astounding Esma Redzepova) for this programme, and then, instead of sitting back and watching what happens, match them stride for melodramatic stride all the way to the finish line – the band of brigands, on the other hand, usually all wild, scratchy fiddles and ancient croaking vocals, tackle a mainly Balkan and generally balkanistically styled classical set (Khatchaturian, de Falla, Albeniz – you know, the real McCoy) with a flair, a flavour and a musicality that not only would have made Bartók proud, but seems not a whit out of place next to the half dozen traditionals or near traditionals that complete the show

44. Tony Cox – Blue Anthem (Instinct Africaine/Sheer Sound)

- Cox’s special skill (setting up tight, intricate, often blindingly dexterous acoustic guitar patterns based on roots music forms) seemed different enough from now demised Cape Town improvisational trio Benguela’s (the slow, patient, development of electric soundscapes out of the bare bones of a groove and a few melodic threads) to make their collaboration intriguing rather than obvious – each must have had to make accommodations, but it works, and sometimes wonderfully, though best when it’s less clearly structured and more interactive

45. The New Pornographers – Challengers (Matador)

- “Challengers” may not deliver quite the immediate power pop rush of its forerunners, at least after the Brian Wilson-ish opener and its vaguely Beatlesque-via-a-more-indie-sussed-Jeff-Lynne successor, yet all of the band’s strengths (the greatest of which is AC Newman’s songwriting gift, whose melodic sense soars so naturally yet so often takes such unexpected turns) are on show again with a few additions (there’s a distinct flavour of early Roxy Music about All The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth, for example), maybe just not as obviously – and it can never be a bad thing to have Neko Case as an occasional vocal foil

46. Wilco – Sky Blue Sky (Nonesuch)

- whether “Sky Blue Sky” is (as some commentators believe) a return to the rootsy alternative country of “Being There”, or is not (which is what I think – I was going to suggest it’s anything but, but I can see at least some of their point), it’s definitely a departure from the “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”/ “A Ghost Is Born” band that I thought for a moment might be the best in the world – it looks back, and perhaps over its shoulder, at ‘70s singer-songwriter antecedents (and the Beatles, particularly on Hate It Here) and, consequently (again notwithstanding what some of those same commentators believe), sounds more like a Jeff Tweedy (as opposed to a Wilco) album than any of the others – it’s more musically conventional, too, and more comfortable as a result, which may be why, despite its fine songs and obvious general excellence, I still, after many rewarding plays, can’t place it higher than this

47. Steve Earle – Washington Square Serenade (New West)

- Earle recently left Nashville to live in New York City (Tennessee Blues tells a story of leaving that Guitar Town told of arriving twenty odd years earlier – according to the latter everybody told him he wouldn’t get far with 37 dollars and a Jap guitar) and this album focuses, without entirely foregoing songs of the South (Oxycontin Blues) or politics (Red Is The Colour … red, ironically, being the colour allocated to traditionally Republican states, Steve’s Hammer (For Pete) … Seeger, in case you wondered), on his new home (City Of Immigrants) and his new life (Days Aren’t Long Enough) and his new wife (Alison Moorer sings gorgeous back-up) – the sound is a bit newer, too, and the production, by the Dust Brothers’ John King, a bit sharper, though, this being Earle, mandolin and banjo are never far away – it’s the sound of a contented man, for the time being anyway

48. LCD Soundsystem – Sound Of Silver (DFA)

- whether the game you play while listening to LCD Soundsystem’s second album turns out to be Spot The Influence or Spot The Homage (there is a difference, and learning it will keep the fun going for hours after the game is up – others have spotted David Bowie, by the way, along with Joy Division, Kraftwerk and any number of dance producers that operate beyond the crushingly obvious, but there are others, whether deliberate or not), James Murphy’s pretty well seamless co-operation between rock and dance styles displays plenty of originality, too, as well as highly developed songwriting chops

49. Alasdair Roberts – The Amber Gatherers (Drag City) / Chris Wood – Trespasser (RUF)

- with its strong melodies, slightly stylised lyrics and titles like Riddle Me This, The Cruel War and The Calfless Cow, “The Amber Gatherers” sounds very much like an album of traditional songs, like its fine predecessor, “No Earthly Man” - the revelation in the sleeve notes that all songs are by Alasdair Roberts (copyright control) came as a genuine surprise, a testament to how well Roberts, in some ways a vocally more lithe and marginally less fragile Scottish Will Oldham (the producer of “No Earthly Man”), quietly goes about his business – there’s even a point where I’m reminded, obliquely enough to be intrigued, of a young, less bluesy Bert Jansch – I guess Chris Wood might occupy the point where, lyrically, a gentler Billy Bragg meets, musically, a less earthy Nic Jones or Martin Carthy – the songs, again steeped in the tradition and immersed in various contemporary considerations of Englishness, are, except two, Wood originals, with the epic Hugh Lupton co-write, England In Ribbons, nothing short of monumental

50. Dàimh – Crossing Point (Greentrax) / LAU – Lightweights And Gentlemen (Reveal)

- my longstanding passion for rootsy Celtic traditional music was well catered for during the year and, after much soul searching, these two bands seemed the best way to show you that real Celtic music has nothing to do with waterfalls and mist, or even Enya for that matter – Dàimh is a six piece from Ireland, Scotland, Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and the Irish/American music scene that covers all of those bases; LAU is a Scottish trio comprising three of that tradition’s finest young musicians and, in Kris Drever, whose wonderful “Black Water” was an overlooked wonder of the previous year, an outstanding young singer – LAU push the boundaries a little with their use of unusual rhythms and ability to drift off into other cultures, while Dàimh play and sing the good traditional stuff with a fire and distinction you may not have encountered since the glory days of the Bothy Band – it’s simple, really, you’ll have to get them both

1. Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath – Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath (Fledg’ling) / Brotherhood (Fledg’ling)

- these reissues of the mighty Brotherhood’s first two early ‘70s albums actually came out in very late 2006, so I wondered, briefly, whether to hide their presence further down the list, but, since they include (make that since they’re saturated with) some of the very best South African music ever made, since they were surely among the greatest big bands ever assembled, since they offer perhaps the most conclusive proof of the galvanising effect the exiled South Africans had on the UK free jazz scene, since Rolling Stone magazine once chose the Clash’s 1979 “London Calling” as its Album of the ‘80s, and since I doubt whether any albums, new or reissued, gave me greater or more lasting pleasure last year, I wondered only very briefly

2. Various - The Very Best Of Ethiopiques (Manteca) / Various – Authenticité: The Syliphone Years (Stern’s Africa)

- the favourable political climates that fuelled the remarkable musical abundance in Ethiopia and Guinea captured on these two double albums overlapped to a significant degree - Ethiopia’s, captured here in 28 totally captivating and astonishingly varied tracks drawn from the marvellous “Ethiopiques” CD series, lasted from the early ‘60s to the mid ‘70s, a joyous interregnum between two separate periods of political repression and consequent artistic recession, with the majority of these songs drawn from a recording explosion that occurred between 1969 and 1975 or shortly thereafter – the sound of Guinea’s, full of exuberance and hope, and coinciding with a policy of authenticité following the country’s independence from France, was primarily captured on the Syliphone label between 1965 and 1980 – if only a few artists on show here made any impression on the outside world, the overall quality is close to miraculous

3. Various - People Take Warning! Murder Ballads And Disaster Songs, 1913-1938 (Tompkins Square)

- superbly packaged three disc set of songs about flood, fire and famine, train, plane and bus wrecks, family slaughters, crimes of passion and the sinking of the Titanic that includes the original recorded version of the Kingston Trio’s 1958 hit tale of the 1868 murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dula in the North Carolina backwoods by the grand nephew of the sheriff (mentioned in the song) who brought him in – mainly old time folk and country and blues, of course, but there’s a traditional prayer for the Titanic dead, sung by a Jewish cantor, that has finally wiped all trace of that Celine Dion abomination from my memory - I can’t resist this sort of thing, and neither should you

4. Charles Mingus Sextet with Eric Dolphy – Cornell 1964 (Blue Note)

- a recently discovered double disc recording of an all but completely forgotten concert by this amazing outfit turns out to be as good as, if not better than several of the great bandleader’s most celebrated live recordings, with more than a phenomenal hour devoted to just Fables Of Faubus and Meditations and enough brilliance elsewhere to almost justify this placing even without that hour

5. Jim Ford – The Sounds Of Our Time (Bear Family)

- this obscure white country/soul singer’s only album (“Harlan County” from 1969), fleshed out here with singles and unreleased material, proves that, besides being a writer good enough to have attracted the attention of Aretha Franklin, Bobby Womack, Nick Lowe and the Temptations, and a personality funky enough to have been one of Sly Stone’s best friends, he was also an artist in the Dan Penn/Eddie Hinton class who might have been more famous had he been more interested, and enjoyed just a little luck

6. Nico – The Frozen Borderline 1968-1970 (Elektra/Reprise/Rhino)

- the Velvet Underground ice princess’s second and third albums, both produced by former bandmate John Cale, the only other musician on show and a perfect artistic foil who said of their non-commerciality, “You can’t sell suicide”, are stark, austere, desolate and intense, their carefully wrought atmosphere utterly uncompromising - yet there is heart here, of a sort, and even soul, as well as an appreciable amount of bitter beauty

7. Arthur Alexander – Lonely Just Like Me: The Final Chapter (HackTone)

- Alexander had a voice that was once described as the sound of heartbreak, and was the only songwriter to have had his songs recorded by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan – by definition, therefore, he should have been a big star, but sometimes life just doesn’t turn out that way – this is an expanded edition of his last album, sweetly melancholy, vastly tuneful, packed to the gills with real soul, and recorded after a two decade long absence from the business during which he beat addiction, drove a bus and found the Lord - it will break your heart, and so will the fact that he died just a few days after its release

8. Michael Rother – Flammende Herzen / Sterntaler / Katzenmusik / Fernwarme (Water) // Harmonia – Live 1974 (Water)

- long overdue CD reissues of the first four solo albums by Krautrock guitar genius Rother, formerly of Neu!, as well as a surprise first time live release by the Harmonia trio he formed with Cluster – where Harmonia’s approach is ascetic and artistically rigorous (more so than on their studio releases), qualities much prized by many of their Krautrock colleagues, Rother’s immediately subsequent playing, on perhaps the greatest guitar albums you’ve never heard, is languid, liquid and hugely melodious, and, especially on “Sterntaler”, it soars ecstatically

9. Moby Grape – Moby Grape / Wow / Grape Jam / Moby Grape ’69 / Truly Fine Citizen (Sundazed)

- in a year that saw excellent and highly recommended reissues of classic albums by Fairport Convention, Sonic Youth, Young Marble Giants, Pink Floyd, David Crosby, Joy Division and the Watersons among others, this fantastic set seemed the most desirable, covering the first incarnation of potentially the least era (or area) bound of the all of the San Francisco Summer of Love bands, each of the albums fleshed out with worthwhile extras and an attractive booklet – the first and third are the places to start, the debut cementing its reputation as one of rock’s greatest, while “‘69” will surprise some with its unsentimental and often gorgeous way with early country-rock – but you’ll want the others as well

10. Various – I’m Not There

- an “original soundtrack” album many of whose songs don’t feature in Todd Haynes’s film “inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan” at all – in fact, Bob’s only on one, but it is the title track, the enigmatic Basement Tape song that was arguably the greatest still in his unreleased catalogue – the rest are covers of Dylan songs by a bewildering array of acts, some of whom (Willie Nelson, Roger McGuinn, Los Lobos, Mark Lanegan) might have been born to sing their choices, while others (Cat Power, Tom Verlaine, Sufjan Stevens) mould the material to their own musical personalities – much of the backing is provided by two fine bands built around Sonic Youth and Calexico respectively, while Joe Henry’s production skills are amply utilised, too

11. Various – The Cosimo Matassa Story (Proper)

- cataloguing, across four CDs and 120 tracks, recording engineer Matassa’s remarkable career as the Crescent City’s record man of choice in those days, this is nothing less than a masterclass in New Orleans R&B and rock ‘n’ roll between 1951 and 1956 – Fats Domino and Little Richard are the big names, of course, but there’s plenty of Lloyd Price, Smiley Lewis, Bobby Charles and even early Art Neville and dozens of others, of differing degrees of fame or obscurity, influence or interest, with every one of them worth at least the space allocated to him (or her – Shirley Goodman’s unusual place in all this is emphasised by her almost exclusively male company)

12. Magnolia Electric Co – Sojourner (Secretly Canadian)

- four short albums of new, old and sometimes re-recorded songs, a similarly short DVD of life on the Canadian road and several other artefacts in a sturdy wooden box constitute the kind of package that fans of independent US rock should find irresistible, especially, if almost incidentally, because Jason Molina and latterly this band supply consistently fine music album after album and throughout this set

ALPHABETICAL RECOMMENDATIONS (the next 25 have asterisks)

Leonard Cohen – Songs Of Leonard Cohen / Songs From A Room / Songs Of Love
And Hate (Columbia/Legacy)
*David Crosby – If I Could Only Remember My Name …. (Atlantic/Rhino)
*Karen Dalton – Cotton Eyed Joe (Megaphone)
*Betty Davis – Betty Davis / They Say I’m Different (Light In The Attic)
*Jack DeJohnette & Bill Frisell – The Elephant Sleeps But Still Remembers (GBP)
*Sandy Denny – Live At The BBC (Universal)
*Dave Douglas – Live At The Jazz Standard (Greenleaf/Koch)
*Gordon Duncan – Just For Gordon (Greentrax)
Bob Dylan – Dylan (Columbia)
Joe Ely – Silver City (Rack ‘Em)
*Fairport Convention – Liege And Lief: Deluxe Edition (Island)
*Aretha Franklin – Rare And Unreleased Recordings From The Golden Reign Of
The Queen Of Soul (Rhino/Atlantic)
Robbie Fulks – Revenge (Yep Roc)
Green On Red – BBC Sessions (Maida Vale)
*Hallelujah Chicken Run Band – Take One 1974-79 (Analog Africa)
*Emmylou Harris – Songbird: Rare Tracks And Forgotten Gems (Rhino)
Dale Hawkins – “LA., Memphis & Tyler, Texas” (Rev-Ola)
*Andrew Hill – Compulsion (Blue Note)
*Robyn Hitchcock – I Wanna Go Backwards (Yep Roc)

*Keith Jarrett / Gary Peacock / Jack DeJohnette – My Foolish Heart: Live At
Montreux (ECM)
“Peerie” Willie Johnson – Willie’s World (Greentrax)
*Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures / Closer / Still (Collector’s Editions) (London)
Bill Knight – Kaapse Mengsel (Self released)
Konono No 1 – Live At Couleur Café (Crammed Discs)
Mahavishnu Orchestra – Original Album Classics (Columbia/Legacy)
*Makgona Tsohle Band – Mathaka Vols 1&2 (Gallo)
John McLaughlin – Original Album Classics (Columbia/Legacy)
Pat Metheny – Secret Story (Nonesuch)
*Mono – Gone: A Collection Of EPs 2000-2007 (Temporary Residence Ltd)
John Moriri – Various reissues (Gallo)
*Gwigwi Mrwebi – Mbaqanga Songs (Honest Jon’s)
*Gram Parsons – Archives Vol 1: With The Flying Burrito Brothers Live At The
Avalon Ballroom 1969 (Amoeba)
*Pink Floyd – The Piper At The Gates Of Dawn (EMI)
Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys – Jazzfest Live 2007 (Munckmusic)
Jason Ringenberg – Best Tracks And Side Tracks 1979-2007 (Yep Roc)
Tom Russell – Wounded Heart Of America (Hightone)
*Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation: Deluxe Edition (Geffen)
*Bruce Springsteen with the Sessions Band – Live In Dublin (Columbia)
Ralph Stanley – Mountain Preacher’s Child (Rebel)
Jem Targal – Luckey Guy (Obscure Oxide)
Chip Taylor & Carrie Rodriguez – Live From The Ruhr Triennale (Train Wreck)
Richard & Linda Thompson – In Concert, November 1975 (Island)
Various – BBC Radio 3 Awards For World Music ’07 (Manteca)
Various – Cape Jazz 3: Goema (Mountain)
Various – Classic Old-Time Fiddle (Smithsonian Folkways)
Various – Goin’ Home: A Tribute To Fats Domino (Vanguard)
Various – Jazzfest Live: The 2007 Compilation Album (Munckmusic)
Various – The Rough Guide To North African Café (World Music Network)
Various – Sound Of The World 2007 (Warner)
Various – Summer Records Anthology 1974-1988 (Light In The Attic)
M. Ward – Duet For Guitars #2 (Merge)
Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter & James Cotton – Breakin’ It Up, Breakin’ It Down
(Epic/Legacy)
*The Watersons – Frost And Fire / Sound Sound Your Instruments Of Joy (Topic)
Andre Williams – Movin’ On With Andre Williams: Greasy & Explicit Soul Movers
1956-1970 (Vampisoul)
Wreckless Eric – Big Smash (Stiff)
*Neil Young – Live At Massey Hall 1971 (Reprise)
*Young Marble Giants – Colossal Youth & Collected Works (Domino)
Warren Zevon – Preludes: Rare And Unreleased Recordings (New West)
Warren Zevon – Stand In The Fire (Asylum/Rhino)