Top 15 Albums of 2008

Well, I’m not really sure when the best time to do these lists is. Logic dictates it would be December 31st, but of course, the chances of anything really awesome being released over the next few months are fairly slim. Also, with the xmas decorations up all around the city already, the end of the year is pretty much being forced on us, even though there’s a good 1/6 of it left, so I might as well stick the knife in and end this miserable year prematurely. So here we have it: the best albums of this year, according to your humble scribe :D


15: MOGWAI - THE HAWK IS HOWLING

Scraping into the top 15 this year we have seminal instrumental rockers Mogwai with their first effort since the elegant restraint of 2005’s ‘Mr Beast’. For better or for worse, ‘Hawk’ sees Mogwai returning to more stodgy structure of albums past, with lengthy outros and prolonged passages of dark, dirgey rock. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The aggressive posturing of ’Batcat’ forms a perfect counterpoint to the meandering pleasantness of ‘I Love you, I’m Going to Blow Up Your School’. Still, it’s hard not to feel that with a little self editing, ‘The Hawk is Howling’ could have been as supple and powerful as their best works. As such , Mogwai will have to make do with the award for ‘Best Track Title of 2008’ with B-side ‘Stupid Prick Gets Chased by the Police and Looses His Slut Girlfriend’.


14: PERFUME - GAME

At number 14, I present to you the semaphore effort of Japanese electro/house/bubblegum pop legends Perfume. GAME itself is a frequently appalling album that redeems itself occasionally with moments of sickeningly guilty levity. The title track itself starts with a bass line so filthy that it causes spontaneous itching of the inner ear, while standout track ‘Plastic Smile’ is essentially Kylie Minogue, mixed by Daft Punk with the snare frequencies turned up to unbearable levels. The production, as with their debut ‘Complete Best’ is obscenely flawless, and frankly puts pretty much every Western pop band to shame. My advice is just to listen, smile, and if anyone catches you, claim you’re being ironic.


13: RYOJI IKEDA - TEST PATTERN

Sound/visual artist has always walked the line between uncompromising noise and dance music in his work. Coming both extreme high and low frequencies and working them into taught, immaculately constructed digital constructions, Test Pattern is as indicative of Ikeda’s work as anything he has previously accomplished. In turn both cold and inherently human, the minimal glitching of Test Pattern assures it a place in this years top 15 albums.


12: THE LONG BLONDES - COUPLES

Seemingly ditching the retro sensibilities that characterised their first effort, 2006’s deliciously poppy ‘Someone to Drive you Home’, ‘Couples’ soon consoles with its dancey bass drums, inventive production, and focus on keyboards, while still retaining the same lyrical wit and delivery that made them so interesting in the first place. Album opener ‘Century’ is arguably the album’s stand out stack , but overall this is a cohesive effort, bound together with a dark sensibility clearly inspired by Pulp in their hey-day.


11: YMCK - FAMILY GENESIS

Japanese bleepy videogame smooth jazz band YMCK hit their stride with their third album ‘Family Genesis’ an unabashed stab at the mainstream that displays a further homed mastery of their craft. Perfectly capturing the soft sounds of early NES sound chip music, Family Genesis is a warm, accomplished and unashamedly nostalgic release, proving that music formed completely from a sound chip can easily possess as much soul as music formed with more traditional instruments.


10: NO AGE - NOUNS

At last entering the top 10, we have L.A guitar/drums outfit No Age whose noisy, raw pop songs are as enjoyable as they are trendy. What makes this album really stand out from the crowd is the warmth of the production, revealing a veritable palimpsest of different layers of sound. The roar of the fuzz box in ‘Teen Creeps’ perfectly complements the jangley somnambulism of proceeding track ‘Eraser’. Nouns is a punchy, noisy collection of pure pop goodness.


9: DJ SCOTCH EGG - DRUMIZED

At number 9, we have one of my favourite artists of recent times, the one and only DJ Scotch Egg. While making music almost exclusively with Nintendo Gameboys, the Egg is adverse to experimenting with this instrument, taking the sound to some strange places. His 2007 performance at Glastonbury was indicative of this, seeing the strange young man collaborate with members of Trencher and the Boredoms. ’Drumized’ can be seen to be the confirmation of his previous experimentation with metal, noise and avant-garde. Repeating melodies, casual bursts of noise and the occasional bassy groove all characterise this album. Consequently, it is by far his most inaccessible effort to date, but perseverance pays handsomely here. Drumized is a truly satisfying album form one of the most fascinating musicians working today.


8: SQUAREPUSHER - JUST A SOUVANIER

Perhaps not dissimilar to the change in pace offered by DJ Scotch Egg in Drumized, Squarepusher’s Tom Jenkins, completely out of the blue abandons his characteristic brand of break beat for something completely different: a concept album based on a passing daydream about an awesome funk band who perform with a huge coat hanger floating behind them. Undeniably strange, ‘Just a Souvenir’ is nevertheless an exhilarating experience of funky, processed bass lines, tinny drums and vocoderised vocals, exhibiting the same ‘retro futurist’ sensibilities of other such artists such as Add N to (x) and the Apples in Stereo, in order to make a fascinating, and above all fun concept album.


7: VENETIAN SNARES - DETRIMENTALIST

Business as usual here for Venetian Snares composer, Aaron Funk. After the experimentation of his previous albums, Venetian Snares returns with a straight album of no nonsense, balls to the wall break core. And you know what? It’s awesome. Vsnares skill with trackers is nothing short of enviable, and Detrimentalist, while a step back in terms musical progression, is still a good 100m sprint ahead of the competition. Play fucking loud.


6: FUCK BUTTONS - STREET HORRRSING

Fuck Buttons is one of those bands that gets very popular without me having a clue as to how it happened. Obviously I don’t begrudge them this success, as their debut album’s placing in this list goes to show. But frankly, when it comes to gaining popularity, everything seems stacked against them. For a start, they’re called Fuck Buttons, which hardly ingratiates you towards radio disk jockeys. Their songs are also around 10 minutes long, proceed with a funereal pace, and combine swathes of white noise with barely audible screaming in the mix. Not exactly something Chris Moyles would play. Putting aside their inexplicable mainstream appeal, however, we see Street Horrrsing to be an extremely proficient album, combing beautiful, abrasive drones with gorgeous, uplifting synths. Unprecedented and very welcome.


5: JOHNNY FOREIGNER - WAITED UP ‘TIL IT WAS LIGHT

Johnny Foreigner are frankly the kind of band I usually detest. Cliquey attitude, songs about going clubbing, faux American accents… Johnny Foreigner exhibit all of these potentially ruinous traits, and they do so time and time again. It’s just as well they also happen to write perfect, effortless pop songs. Combining excessively overdriven guitars and awesome arpeggiated riffs, the guitar work on ‘Waited up ‘Til it was Light is nothing short of absolutely amazing, and the shouty, screamy ramshackle vocals back up the almost stream of consciousness based fluidity of the melodies on offer. One of the few bands I saw this last year, Johnny Foreigner put on a great show, and this showmanship is surprisingly well captured on disc.


4: CRYSTAL CASTLES - CRYSTAL CASTLES

The inclusion of this album in the top 15, let alone the top 5, is frankly bizarre, and needs some explaining. The long awaited Crystal Castles debut album is a deeply disappointing experience. Overly long with an unprecedented level of filler for a band who previously excelled at crafting snappy, abrasive pop songs, I would even go as far to say that it’s not a good album. Melt Banana’s Bambi’s Dilemma, an album released this year by perhaps my favourite band of all time is conspicuously absent from this countdown. So why is one disappointing album charting so high, while another disappointing album doesn’t’t’t chart at all? The answer is surprisingly simple. Crystal Castles debut, while lacking cohesion and much needed brevity, has some fucking incredible songs on it. The disgusting bass and distorted bleeps and frenzied caterwauling of Alice Practice is insanely refreshing, the retro futurist (hey! Phrase du jour lolz) styling of Drink ‘n’ Fuck (now renamed ‘Good Times) is devastatingly catchy, and the sheer blissful maelstrom that is ‘xxzxcuzx me’ feels like music to start a riot to. Putting aside their music stealing endeavours, Crystal Castles are perhaps the most interesting chip tune act operating today.


3: SABREPULSE - TURBO CITY

While I’ve always liked Sabrepulse, not least for single handedly introducing me to chip tune (along with DJ Scotch Egg maybe) and convincing me to start making Gameboy music, I’ve always felt that his albums were a little lacking. Sure, ‘Purple Haze’ is sublime, but you need more than one song to go mental to. As if in response to my misgivings, he crafted this, not only one of the best albums of the year, but perhaps the best pure chip tune album ever made. Ditching his previous Laptop augmented sound and switching to purely Gameboy produced tunes, Turbo City seems almost like an homage to fellow chip tune artist and one time tour mate USK, whose 4/4 bass rhythms and gorgeous melodies really push the Gameboy to its limits. Sabrepulse takes this concept to the next level. Ten tuneful, pounding perfect pop songs make up Turbo City’s runtime. Half an hour of pure, barely modified chip based goodness that comes, enthrals, and concludes to a cheer and adulation. This is the sound of an artist at the top of his game.


2: DEERHOOF - OFFEND MAGGIE

It perhaps goes without saying that any other year, this would be number one. Actually, given their last album was a little bit crap, you would be forgiven that Deerhoof’s latest would also follow ‘Friend Opportunity’ down the road of being slightly disappointing. Frankly, there’s not much more to say other than ‘it hasn’t’, and that ‘Offend Maggie’ is as good an album as Deerhoof have ever made. Stripping songs back to their requisite levels in a manner they havn’t accomplished for years, Offend Maggie on first listen at least sounds a bit toothless. A bit folksy perhaps, with none of the spiky indie pop they are famed for. Of course, as I learn time and time again, to judge anything on first impressions is stupid. And, as often happens with the best albums, Offend Maggie refuses to give up her charms with just one, ten, or even 100 listens. Deerhoof’s songwriting, now honed to an unbelievable level, really takes centre stage here, and the comparative lack of distortion compared to their earlier works really lets the subtleties of the melodies shine through. Singer Satomi is as bat-shit insane as ever, her unpolished and childish voice and lyrics really as much a part of Deerhoof’s sound as the twangy guitars and the syncopated drums. The end effect is one of warmth, inclusiveness and beauty. Every track has an inspired chord change or vocal inflection that will send hairs bristling down the back of your neck. It’s that good.


1: PORTISHEAD - THIRD

At number one on this years chart is perhaps the most surprising entry of all. Portishead split up years ago. They made some interesting stuff back in the day, but it was very middle of the road frankly, forever rooted in the time that made them. Mixing a bit of hip hop with a fairly depressing atmosphere and a beautiful female voice, Portishead were very much a white, middle class dinner party kind of band, about as edgy as most people would feel comfortable going. They had a fairly devoted following, but I always wondered if they ever really deserved it. Come 2008, and they released a third album out of nowhere. Cynicism abounded. How could a band be so removed from the music scene for so long, and return with anything approaching their initial output, let alone something world stopping, something now that would take their sound and carry it forward to a new set (if not generation) of fans? Somehow, they managed it. God know how, but Portishead made an album that is by far and away the best album of 2008. Third, the album in question, undeniably sounds like Portishead. But it sounds like a Portishead who have spent the last 8 or so years, and refining it to such a level that it becomes something more. All the original elements are there. The wavering vocals, the reverb infused guitars, the stuttering beats. Only now, everything has been utterly perfected. The guitars are so analogue sounding, they actually sound digital, through the clarity of the echo they produce. Other analogue instruments are sampled, but in such a way as to distort them irrevocably. A single violin note is sustained to infinity on the first track, hinting at a climax that will never be fulfilled: after building to an unbearable level, album opener ‘Silence’ ends with savage abruptness, the implicated violence of the truncated conclusion forming a silence more brutal than anything any other band could ever hope to achieve. Elsewhere, the bands characterising bass lines have also taken a post modern twist, now sounding more like doomed ships fog horns than anything you could possibly imagine dancing to. Third is a bleakly beautiful soundtrack to a horror movie simply too frightening and nihilistic to ever be produced, but instead exists in the mind of the listener, with every tainted crescendo and every moment of fragile beauty that Third demonstrates. Not bad then, for a fairly middle of the road band who haven’t done anything for the best part of the decade.


Well, that’s it then. Honourable mentions go out to acts such as Melt Banana (try harder next time lolz), Boris and Rolo Tomassi, who all produced great albums that fell a little short in various ways. All in all, 2008 was a pretty shit hot year for music.


I’ve decided to make a pack of music based around this list. Nothing fancy. Nothing remixed or altered: I didn’t even alter any ID tags. I recommend downloading it and shoving the 15 tracks (one from each album, see) on random. I don’t think piracy is too clever, but think of this as a mixtape. If the archive is password protected, the password is my surname. Enjoy!


Download Mike’s Pick of 2008 (sendspace link: will expire fairly sharpish)