Top 9 Best Electronic Albums of 2009

As evidenced by the decidedly non-deca nature of this list, 2009 was a good, but not great, year in electronic music. As you’ve already discovered if you’re the type who scrolls down to #1 before reading anything, it was also a bad year for new talent. If anything, the trend here is one of incrementalism: established musicians making small but vital tweaks to an already proven formula. After all, why fix what ain’t broken? (Answer: because complacency is the death of art.)

Huh, so that got off to a rather negative start. Let’s see if we can’t pick up the tempo with some MOTHERFUCKING BLEEPS AND BLOOPS:

I’ve tried many times to like Kid606, and those attempts have always failed. Perhaps it’s my reflexive distrust of all genres ending in “core,” but I’ve never really understood his appeal. The Warhol-wannabe post-everything stance can quickly get too meta for its own good, and it doesn’t always make for the most listenable material. Even so, I can’t help but crack a smile at “Mr. Wobble’s Nightmare,” a puckish riff on 4hero’s neoclassic “Mr. Krik’s Nightmare,” itself a parody of the anti-drug hysteria that shadowed rave culture. See what I mean?

Anyway. DJs and producers of supposedly fun “dance” music have an odd tendency to take themselves way too seriously, so it’s useful to have someone holding up a circus mirror now and then, and Kid606 certainly relishes that role. More to the point, Shout at the Döner is actually a pretty decent, even enjoyable album. I dare you to give it a listen and resist the urge to bob your head like an idiot.

As he proved with his last full-length release Chromophobia, Gui Boratto has a well-developed sense of irony. His music, however repetitive and loop-based, is anything but monochromatic, and in fact it’s nigh impossible to hear his latest album’s title track without imagining rainbow beach balls and sand between your toes. Take My Breath Away doesn’t quite live up to its titular promise, but neither does it disappoint. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a bad song in the bunch, and yet nothing aside from the near-epic “No Turning Back” comes close to greatness, or even really stands out. Luckily for Boratto, there’s a home for the fun but forgettable sugar-glazed techno-pop at which he so excels, and it’s called my office headphones.

This entry is a bit of a cheat in two ways: not only is Ghostly Swim a compilation, customarily a best-of no-no, but it was released in downloadable form over a year ago, barely squeaking into 2009 with an official CD release back in January. Guess what? No one cares. With offerings from Osborne, Matthew Dear, School of Seven Bells, and a crap-ton of lesser-known scene stalwarts, it’d have a place in this list if it were a badly dubbed cassette I found on the sidewalk. Actually that’d probably help its chances, if anything. The entire compilation is still available for free, so you really have no excuse not to go give it a listen right now. Go ahead, try Michna’s excellent opener “Triple Chrome Dipped.” I’ll wait.

If you’ve paid only peripheral attention to Basement Jaxx in the years since their chart-toppers Remedy and Rooty, well, shame on you. Kish Kash and Crazy Itch Radio, while not exactly brave departures in form, are solidly constructed from a rare booty-shaking amalgam that, despite schizophrenic influences, hold together surprisingly well. This has become even more obvious in the wake of Scars, which continues a proud and growing tradition. Just don’t go in expecting an hour of brainless euphoric club-bangers; therein lies disappointment. Quite the contrary, Scars seems to be telling us a story—one rife with heartbreak and longing, as evidenced by the surprising number of downtempo selections (check out “A Possibility,” “Stay Close,” and “Distractionz” for a few good examples). Make no mistake: Basement Jaxx has undergone a slow and steady evolution since their heady “Red Alert” days. A watershed moment à la Sgt. Pepper’s or Kid A this ain’t, but challenging your fans’ preconceived notions is always an experiment worth undertaking.

Hmm… a fictional group comprised of cartoon alter egos, held together by guest vocalists, duct tape, and a thin smear of ‘80s cultural pastiche. Haven’t I seen this before? Yes, the comparisons to Gorillaz are inevitable and valid, both conceptually and, to an extent, musically. Hell, the first single “Hold the Line” opens with an Ennio Morricone-inspired riff that bears an eerie resemblance to 2001’s unavoidable anthem “Clint Eastwood.” In the end, this Jamaican superhero achieved nowhere near the success that Gorillaz enjoyed, though there were months when it was difficult to turn on the radio without hearing an infectious dancehall groove from Diplo and Switch (the production duo behind Major Lazer). Fortunately, Guns Don’t Kill People is smart enough to drop any hint of pretension, and functions exactly as it should: the ideal soundtrack to a lazy summer party.

I have a confession to make. My default musical choice this past year—the one I left on repeat during long road trips, the one I played by default when hours of workplace drudgery loomed and I needed a guaranteed mood lift—didn’t even make this list. Not only that, but I downloaded it from the interwebs, for free (albeit in a boringly legal manner). It was the awkwardly titled mixtape Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are the Very Best, and it made the world a better place. Now that Malawi-born singer Mwamwaya and London-based production duo Radioclit have gone and released a slightly more legit alternative in Warm Heart of Africa, I have no choice but to love it. Gone are the mixtape’s more notable (and lawsuit-inspiring) mashups, replaced by actual collaborations with M.I.A. ("Rain Dance") and Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koening ("Warm Heart of Africa"). Happily, the overall tone emerges unscathed, as embodied in the joyous standout track “Kamphopo.” Aptly named, this culture clash of an album ought to warm even the coldest of cardiac cockles.

Sorry folks, but only one paragraph later and already it’s time for another confession. Don’t worry, this one is quick and painless: I have never seen Dan Deacon live. Every time he comes through town I’m either on vacation, previously committed, or blissfully ignorant. This is a crying shame because, as far as I can tell, a Dan Deacon performance is a thing of beauty: homemade frankensynths, anthemic beat-crazed freak-outs, and overall sweaty communal bliss. Further complicating matters, although Bromst is a lovely record, there is no point in playing a song to the uninitiated and hoping they’ll fall in love. His is a musical genius that rewards patience. Or at least drug use. In the world of psychotic drum machines and endless arpeggios, the distinction is not always clear.

Call me crazy, but I always assumed that half of a knife would be a bad thing: useless at best, and quite possibly dangerous (ba-dum tsch). Karin Dreijer Andersson—half of Swedish duo The Knife and all of Fever Ray—must have done the heavy lifting for 2006’s Silent Shout, because Fever Ray is the de facto sequel. (Her collaborator/brother’s DJ-oriented side project, Coolof, has not fared as well.) Her trademark spine-tingling vocals are back with a detuned vengeance, and lend a decidedly alien air to the already foreign landscape. Bubbly synth lines have never sounded so haunting, as they bounce you along to a mysterious but probably fatal destination. If cover artist Charles Burns’ other best-known work Black Hole is any indication, the world is a dark, chaotic place, and things are not going to end well.

As you can easily discover using the way-back machine, I have much love for Axel Willner, a.k.a. The Field. From Here We Go Sublime is obviously the standard by which all his subsequent efforts will be judged, so get out your apples and oranges and let’s have at it. First and foremost, Yesterday and Today is most notable for what it isn’t: a sophomore slump. Yes, the micro-samples, the minute chordal variations, and the achingly slow crescendos are all back. Yes, it will still annoy the hell out of people who require AB song structures and despise loops. And yes, it is still the antithesis of radio-friendly; you will never catch yourself grinding to it on a badly lit dance floor. But! There the similarities end. Willner is well aware his strong points, and does not mess with them, but he branches out in a number of unexpected ways. Behold “Everybody’s Got to Learn Sometime,” a relatively tame cover of the 1980 Korgis single (What!? Exactly.) that nevertheless worms its methodical way into your subconscious at some basic, primal level the original song never imagined possible. Or take the title track, a decidedly slow starter that, after a few minutes of relative fluff, takes a series of left turns that disorient you into a catatonic state, only to lift the veil at the 7:00 mark and drop a writhing kitten of a groove in your lap. This is what trance was always grasping for but could never reach. It is magical and hypnotic, and I can’t wait to hear more.

Some Related Entries:

Top-Notch Knob-Twiddled, Synth-Drenched, Loop-Ridden, Hyperreal Tweaker Jazz of Yesteryear

Top 10 Best Albums of 2009!

Top 10 Best Hip-Hop Albums/Mixtapes of 2009

Top 10 Best Albums of 2008

5 comments thus far ...

melophobe sponsors

Connect To melophobe

1. melophobe
2. concert reviews
3. fifty-word reviews
4. articles
5. links
6.