Aquarius Records : Customer Favorites 2007

Wow, so many extensive, detailed lists. You folks must LOOOVE music! All of the below is well worth pouring over... We found all sorts of stuff we should look for, or give another listen. Thanks for sharing your lists. And also thanks for all the kind words everybody, we really appreciate it! Apologies in advance if our slapdash methods for converting your emails into this webpage mangled anyone's top tens or tens of tens. (see also the AQ staff favorites of 2007)

SEAN SLEIGHT Here's my top 10 albums of 2007: 1) sleepytime gorilla museum - in glorious times 2) circle - katapult 3) when - trippy happy 4) that one guy - the moon is disgusting 5) ulver - shadows of the sun 6) of montreal - hissing fauna, are you the destroyer 7) alamaailman vasarat - maahan 8) amon tobin - the foley room 9) ulrich schnauss - goodbye 10) dan deacon - spiderman of the rings Aquarius Ruuuuuuuuuuules! KEN JAMISON loyal list reader and customer My humble top ten: (1) MONARCH - Dead Men Tell No Tales Doesn't perfectly fit in 2007 with some 2006-released material in it, but so what, there are so few albums nowadays (actually, none) that combine brutal pummeling and prettiness so perfectly. And it makes me want to marry a French lady with a powerful set of lungs. (2) SILVESTER ANFANG - Kosmies Slachtafval The band hits its dark psych groove and now I want to dance naked around a bonfire deep in the Belgian woods. It's like Acid Mothers Temple channeling AMM. (3) GNAW THEIR TONGUES - Reeking Pained and Shuddering The most frightening music available. Horrific noise and weirdly baroque sample combine for an experience recommended only to those able to suppress their lurking mental abnormalities. (4) THE ANGELIC PROCESS - Weighing Souls With Sand Heeeeeaaaaavy. And quite beautiful too. Shoegazer on overdrive. And good drugs. (5) ALCEST - Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde Reminds of the best parts of Slowdive, only hugely anthemic and able to induce goosebumps on your very soul. (6) CAINA - Mourner First 'prog' album I'll tip my hat to. Enough black metal remains to give it an edge and it remains intelligent to boot. (7) ALUK TODOLO - Descension Best release by a band-I-had-not-heard-of-until-I-heard-of-it- on-an-Aquarius-list this year. Noisily grotty, which is a major compliment. (8) CASPIAN - The Four Trees Best guitar-oriented post-rock album for '07. Amazing how that sounds so mainstream now, but really this is exceptional. (9) NADJA - Thaumogenesis Quite the shame that this is a limited edition. Thrilling and hypnotizing. Easily the top droning release last year. (10) JABLADAV - Black as Pitch As above, a shame it's so limited. Black metal from an innovative mind. I wrote a review comparing "St. Philip Episcopal Church" to the Stone Roses' "Fool's Gold". I'm not kidding; that's how intoxicating this stuff is. Thanks for letting me spew and opinionate. JOE MAGNUSON of Ritual Sound zine Hey dudes and dudettes, I stayed up late for this... Keep on rocking and I will keep on buying... and singing your praises! Top 10 LP's (and 2 CD's) of 2007 The task of narrowing down a list of my favorite albums of 2007 took nearly 3 hours. After much forehead rubbing and smoke sessions here's what I came up with, in alphabetical order: 1: Andrew Douglas Rothbard - 'Abandoned Meander' (Peaking Mandala) This record was what finally bumped the new Panda Bear album of of my turntable. Psychedelic experimental folk noise...nothing sounds quite right describing the open-eyed, open-mouthed awe that hits anyone within listening range of this thing. Amazing Devendra like vocals. Gypsy waltzes through what's left of Strawberry Fields... It's shocking how much better it seems with each listen. Highly recommended! 2: Boris/Doomriders - 'Long Hair and Tights' (Daymare) Super limited, double LP, Red Bull colored vinyl, Fangsanalsatan artwork: worth all the running around SF to find one. Boris' two sides are their entire show at Slims, here in SF, recorded on October 19th 2006. Straight-from-the-soundboard audio quality cements this as a perfect Boris release; the live show! The drone, the rock, the sweat...it's all on here. You can feel the rock wind blow through your hair! Skate-metal/hardcore Boston favorite Doomriders rip though songs from their 2005 album 'Black Thunder'(also worth finding) live in Japan. I hug my copy before I go to sleep at night. 3: Boris/Michio Kurihara - 'Rainbow' (Inoxia) Regular black vinyl, kinda plain white packaging, fucking amazing music. Michio Kurihara takes over Sunns previous position of reigning in Boris for one beautiful musical collaberation. Play this in the rain with a steaming pot of green tea and some green tobacco and watch the clouds blow by. Funky groove pop with twisted overblown guitar solos thrown in to fully blow your mind. Rythmic, hypnotic, spacious... Everytime we play this at my store on Haight Street someone brings up Can and I concur. Really beautiful stuff...just how long do Boris think they can keep suprising me? Thirty plus dollars for this slab o' wax but everytime I here those screeching guitar blowouts I smile...so worth it! 4: Earthless - 'Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky' (Tee Pee) Earthless finds a home at the always impressive Tee Pee records. This new record blew my mind instantly...expected considering their never- miss record. Better live, but still scorching on vinyl, Earthless break out of space and time boundries by hitting any other bands high mark and then sustaining that level of ROCK (yes, with all capitol letters) for about a half hour per song. If you are into stoner rock and have not heard Earthless yet then let me tell you; your eyelids will peel off your fucking head and your brain and tongue will leak out in tiny puddles. Jimi Hendrix playing with Led Zeppelin...on acid! The cover of 'Cherry Red' (with some rare Earthless vocals) is just the (ugh) cherry on top of the sonic sundae. This album will beat you up and steal your beer and pot....and maybe your woman. You like that tough-guy? 5: Graf Orlock - 'Destination Time: Tomorrow' (Level Plane) How to not go off on a tangent about this album? Okay, deep breaths... Amazing, (amazing!), fist-shaking, cinema inspired, grindcore. Graf Orlock have mastered the art of having a gimmick that only helps and never detracts. Samples from 80's and 90's action films are cut up and then pasted into some gorgeously fast chugga- chugga screamy hardcore. Do I sound like a gushing teen? Well, I'm 30 years old and love this album! The now famous CD came wrapped in a foil package that was itself wrapped in a Facehugger from the Aliens series. The superior vinyl recording came as a flesh pink or blood red 10" record packaged in a gatefold cover that, when opened, pops a cardboard alien out at you from a bloody chest. If you are even curious (or a movie nerd) please do give these guys a chance...Bad Boys II never sounded so good! 6: Klabautamann - 'Negeder Mand/Tuvstarr' (Heavy Horses) This is the most beautiful piece of vinyl I own. Finally Heavy Horses wised up and put out some Klabautamann on vinyl. This 7" had been on my to buy list all year. I emailed Aquarius about getting some of the last copies into the States and (abracadavre!) they showed up about a month later. Hand numbered and limited to 300, this thick 7" picture disc features German fairy tale witches, gnomes and fairies in eye- popping color. It also comes with a CD copy of both songs! Crazy...and the content itself? Two of the best melodic/black metal/ melodic songs they've done. Both of their albums are must haves, but if these two songs are any indication of what's to come I'm impressed! Progessive black metal in the same vein as Wolves In The Throne Room but with little slow-guitar interludes. Brutal and scary and damn pretty! 7: Mammatus - 'The Coast Explodes' (Holy Mountain) If God is real, surely he lives in California. It's just kind of odd that he has decided to make music. What you havent heard his stuff yet? His band is called Mammatus and they're located in Santa Cruz. Who else would have the balls to put the sounds of sea lions on an album and be able to pull it off so well you can't beleive your ears? Seriously, this is easily one of the best albums of 2007, taking progressive acid/stoner music to the next level. I can't even start to describe this album without sounding like a D&D hippie! It's THAT GOOD! Cosmic mind expansion that, this year anyway, surpassed even Acid Mothers Temple for heady album/tour/band of the year. Fantastic! 8: Middian - 'Age Eternal' (Land O' Smiles) Five songs, one hour total, two thick ass LP's from ultra-rad Land O' Smiles record label, this is truly a stoned out, sludged up, doom masterpeice. My god...everytime it's on the player I end up zoning out. Certainly for fans of Sleep or Mike Scheidt's old band YOB. The Asunder/Middian show at Thee Parkside was the best party I have ever been to in SF without a doubt. Read up on their recent troubles and try to help them out if possible. Metal Blade dropped them after a similiar named band (that sounds like high school talent show metal made by 15 year olds) stuck lawsuits to everyone assosiated with them. Middian in 2008! 9: Polysics - 'Polysics Or Die! Vista' (Myspace Records) Orange jumpsuits, moog and synth laden pop songs, weird stage show and videos...that's right it's Devo...wait a minute! It's NOT Devo!? No, it's Polysics an amazing Japanese tsunami of talent. This beautiful double orange vinyl release from Myspace Records (yes, getting schooled by Myspace Records kinda stings) is bursting with every thing that is good about pop music. Each song is sonic ice cream. Their name comes from the Korg Polysix which was the first synth owned by lead guy Hiroyuki Hayashi if that tells you anything. They sound like the Rentals being played at 45rpm. Blend Devo, the Sounds, the Cars, the Rentals and a shredding surf guitar in a blender and it will spit out this unbelievable upbeat, catchy, and indispensable album. Play this album at parties for both your art school classmates and your ironic hipster friends...and if anyone says they don't like this then they are blood hungry zombies that must be stopped at all costs. Preferably with shotguns. Seriously, how could you not like this shit! There's no way. 10: Witchcraft - 'The Alchemist' (Rise Above) Right from the start; our Oakland native David V. D'Andrea's artwork is stunning and sets the tone for Witchcrafts third album. LP came with a giant book of lyrics and sketches. These Swedish boys definately took an admirable leap forward and focused all of their mighty rock skill to form a perfect album. This record has been played, either in my home or at my store, maybe 300 times since I bought it. The magic is still there...and anyone that was at the Slims show last year, or the Bottom Of The Hill show on Thanksgiving of 2006, knows they absolutely kill it live. Bravo! 11: Avichi - 'The Divine Tragedy' CD (Numen Malevolum Barathri) From the first moment I saw the outer sleeve artwork for this one I knew I would like it. Never heard of them or the label, but crisp clean packaging artwork goes a long way. I wasn't disappointed. The first track is a pulsing intro to the tortured and esoteric world of Aamonael (former guitarist for Nachtmystium). Immediately I know this is going to be good. The blast of cold air that echoes from the second track reminds me of atmospheric genre bending Wolves In The Throne Room. Not metal to bang your head to, but metal to surrender yourself to. Though fast and epic sounding, the tracks never seem like shitty glued together quickies. I was most surprised at the level of musicianship on this disc. This is one of those albums you put on to impress people that don't like this kind of music. I had rock dudes nodding their heads along to the amazing instrumental track "Prayer For Release." The vocals are low, tortured growls, but the lyrics, damn...the lyrics are amazing. None of the usual faux- gore-for-gores sake, cheesy black magic crud; the lyrics are intensely personal, dark and real. It's as though a real live adult wrote this, not some 12 year old moron. This album is razor sharp from start to finish. Ultra high level dark metal in a hard to nail down style. To black to be stoner, to majestic to be black...too good to stop listening. The replay value is amazing. I haven't gotten bored of it in a few weeks. Bravo and thank you to NMB for putting this out. Why it isn't on every ones lips and turntables is beyond me. One to watch and certainly one to add to the archives. Evil, amazing, solid as a rock. 12: Wolves In The Throne Room - 'Two Hunters' CD (Southern Lord) I cannot wait to get this on vinyl. Mmmmmm...so good. Possibly the best album of the year, at least in the black metal genre. After listening to this disc I want to quit my job, empty my bank account, grab my girlfriend, and head for the WITTR farm and start helping them plant seedlings. Any band that has said, "If you don't know what phase the moon is currently in then you are not metal" is an inspiration to me. This is the soundtrack to the first forty-six minutes after death, David Lynch style. Black and magical and one of the best damn black metal albums I have ever heard. Dictionary definition of the word 'epic'. Highest recommendation ever! Honorable mention: Om, High On Fire, Circle, Patton Oswalt, 3 Inches of Blood, Arcade Fire, Panda Bear, SUNN live for an hour and a half straight at the Independent, and especially: anything Wooden Shjips! Begin forwarded message: JOE SAMSON Hails to AQ and your fantastic lists! Very great year for metal music and mayhem. 1) Abigor- Fractal Possession 2) Root- Daemon Viam Invenient 3) And This Army- Foe 4) Portal- 0utre' 5) Rage- Speak Of The Dead 6) Alpha Drone- Alpha Drone 7) Cales- Savage Blood 8) DHG- Supervillian Outcast 9) Blut Aus Nord- Odinist 10 Countess- Blazing Flames of War 11) Inquisition- Nefarious Dismal Orations 12) Svartsyn- Timeless Reign 13) The Angelic Process- Weighing Souls With Sand 14) The Vision Bleak- The Wolves Go Hunt Their Prey 15) Heavenly- Virus 16) End of Level Boss- Inside The Difference Engine 17) Mekong Delta- Lurking Fear 18) Rush- Snakes & Arrows 19) Zozobra- Harmonic Tremors 20) Lunatic Gods- Ante Portas Thanks for a great a mailorder, keep up the good work ladies and gents! VEITH KILBERT some of his favorite music of the year (in alphy order). Blues Control- s/t (holy mountain) I heard "Puff" is also great but I have yet to get my hands on it Burning Star Core- "Blood Lightning 2007" (no fun productions) If any of the other BSC albums are this good I will have to dig in because this was the first one I heard. Deerhoof- "Friend Opportunity" (kill rock stars) Demons- "Life Destroyer" box set (aa records) It was hard for me to pick one of their releases but I had to go with this one. I can't get enough of that analog synth sound. Der TPK (Teenage Panzerkorps)- "Harmful Emotions" (siltbreeze) I finally bought a turntable a year or two ago so I wouldn't miss out on records like this one. This is pure bliss. The first time I listened to it I think I listened to the B side first because it wasn't marked, but I think it worked out better. Lil Wayne- "Da Drought 3" (mixtape) I admit, I'm a sucker for hype, especially when it comes to hip hop albums. But Lil Wayne has always been one of my favorite rappers and he was definitely on top of his game with this one. Tha Carta 3: The Leak (the full version, not the ep) was a close second. Pharoahe Monch- Desire (src/universal) There was some buzz around this album when it first came out but I think a lot of people forgot about it. Not me! Prodigy- "Return of the Mac" (mixtape) The White Stripes- "Icky Thump" (if you see a cop coming, Warn' a Brotha!!!!) If I were to make a list of my favorite bands, the White Stripes probably wouldn't make it. But I love this record and it has had a long shelf life for me. I always come back to it everyonce in a while. Also, it is very inspiring that "blues rock" (i hate to say it) can still sound this fresh. I also love the guitar tones, especially the synthesizer tone he uses on his guitar for all of his solos. Tomutonttu- s/t (beta-lactam ring) Trim- "Soulfood Vol. 1" (mixtape) This was my favorite grime album of the year. Skepta's "Greatest Hits" was a close second. I was on the edge of my seat throughout this whole mixtape and that is rare for me for a hip hop album. Usually there are a couple of filler tracks, but not on here. I never even zoned out one time. But to be fair I was only able to get my hands on a few grime albums so I guess it isn't fair to say it was the best. All of the grime websites claim the Durrty Goodz "Axiom" EP was either the top album or one of the best but I am still trying to hunt down a hard copy. Damn, sometimes I wish I could teleport to England. MICHAEL DWILOW favorites of 2007: Studio - "West Coast" (Information) Miles Okazaki - "Mirror" (self-released) Richard Youngs & Tirath Singh Nirmala - "S/T" (HP Cycle) Circle (featuring Verde) - "Tower" (Last Visible Dog) The Bad Trips - "S/T" (Rocket) Galax - "Never Ending Space Tracking" (Archive) Exploding Star Orchestra - "We Are All From Somewhere Else" (Thrill Jockey) Omar Souleyman - "Highway to Hassake" (Sublime Frequencies) (((Powerhouse Sound))) - "Oslo/Chicago: Breaks" (Atavistic) Sun Supreme - "S/T" (Meds) Begin forwarded message: DAVID FORBIS top 10 for 2007: 1. Kinski "Down Below it's Chaos" 2. Arcade Fire "Neon Bible" 3. White Stripes "Icky Thump" 4. Mofro "Country Ghetto" 5. Ryan Adams "Easy Tiger" 6. Pelican "City of Echoes" 7. Jason Isbell "Sirens of the Ditch" 8. Jesu "Conqueror" 9. Wooden Shjips "Wooden Shjips" 10. Dax Riggs "We Sing of Only Blood or Love" I thought 2007 was a very mediocre year for new music. Perhaps it was just that most of my favorites didn't release new albums in 2007, but it's not even the end of January and there have been 2008 discs that would break into my top-10 of 2007. I think 2008 is going to be devastatingly huge for good new music. NATE CHRISTY Top 13 Favorites of 2007 NORDVARGR / DRAKH The Betrayal of Light DEATHSPELL OMEGA Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum ALCEST Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde QUEENS of the STONE AGE Era Vulgaris WOLVES in the THRONE ROOM Two Hunters WOLD Screech Owl PRIMORDIAL To the Nameless Dead WATAIN Sworn to the Dark PIG DESTROYER Phantom Limb MONARCH Dead Men Tell No Tales WITCHCRAFT The Alchemist CIRCLE Katapult XASTHUR Defective Epitaph Thanks for the brilliant lists and awesome mailorder service aQ! EMILY SLOAN i love you guys in no particular order, here are my top 10 records of 2007:::: Assemble head in sunburst sound: ekranoplan Grouper: cover the windows and the walls Warhammer 48K: An Ethereal Oracle Ash Pool: Genital Tomb D. Charles Speer: Some Forgotten Country The Oh Sees: Sucks Blood Austerity Program: Black Madonna Low: Drums and Guns melvins: the making love demos Papercuts: Can't Go Back I think those are all from this last year. Don't even get me started on all the new music I got that wasn't actually released in 07. too much! KEVIN PAULUS, Chicagoan Top Ten Albums Battles - Mirrored Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow Expo 70 - Animism Circle - Katapult Bruce Haack - The Electric Lucifer Reissue Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures Reissue Joanna Newsom - Ys Panda Bear - Person Pitch Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline Wooden Shjips - S/T Top Ten AQ streams (as in I havent gotten around to buying) Antibalas - Security Glenn Branca - Indeterminate Activity of Resultant Masses Andrew Chalk - Goldfall Circle featuring Verde - Tower Erik EnockssonvFarval Falkenberg The Fucking Champs - VI Philip Glass - Analog Jasper TX - A Darkness Life On Earth - Look! There is Life on Earth! The Locust - New Erections PETER WOLAK The Best Shows Daft Punk at Los Angeles Sports Arena The Wildhearts at Key Club Soriah at Steve Allen Theater Danny O'Keefe at McCabe's Ya Ho Wha 13 at Silent Movie Theater Gehenna at Shea's The Best Albums Slough Feg: Hardworlder The Wildhearts: The Wildhearts Ginger: Yoni Daft Punk: Alive 2007 Eluvium: Copia The Best Reissues Bobb Trimble: Iron Curtain Innocence Enrico Simonetti with Goblin: Gamma Peter Martin and Finch: Drouyn The Best Found Songs Chuck Girard: Lay Your Burden Down Patchwork: Mountain Lady Rusty Weir: Good, Good Lovin' Robbie McDougall: San Andreas Gary P. Nunn: Tennessee Road DANIEL SKEVINGTON Managed to get down to a top 10 artists, but some of them had to include more than one record... New Records: Expo 70 - Animism/Mystical Amplification/Illusive Landscaping Circle - Telescope/Tyrant/Tower Miasma - Manfauna Bottomless Pit - Hammer of the Gods Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound Flower/Corsano Duo - Radiant Mirror Shit and Shine - Cunts with Roses Richard Pinhas - Metatron Steel Mammoth - Neuclear Barbarians/Atomic Mountain Magma - Mythes et Legendes Vol.2/3 (These were DVDs, does that count?) Reissues/Archival Releases: Camberwell Now - All's Well Klaus Schulze - Timewind Boredoms - Super Roots 5 Heldon - Live Electronik Geurilla/Well and Alive in France C.C.C.C. - Early Works Miles Davis - Complete 'On the Corner' 2006 Crossover Honourable Mentions: Boris w/Michio Kurihawa - Rainbow Boris/Sunn0))) - Altar Chavez - Better Days Will Haunt You Pretty much anything on EM This Heat - Out of Cold Storage HAL LOOBY A dozen 2007 favorites, in antiphabetical order Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall 1971 Amon Tobin - Foley Room Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement Of The Decline Panda Bear - Person Pitch Pan Sonic - Katodivaihe / Cathodephase Nina Nastasia & Jim White - You Follow Me Madlib - Beat Conducta Vol. 3-4: In India Kode9 mix CD for Sonar Festival/Go! Magazine Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog DJ /Rupture vs Filastine - Shotgun Wedding vol 6 Blonde Redhead - 23 Battles - Mirrored Special mention to Cocorosie's "Adventures of Ghosthorse & Stillborn," which I haven't listened to yet still savoring the memory of their set at Touch & Go 25th anniversary party in Sep 2006. Reissue! Tommy McCook & The Agrovators - King Tubby Meets The Agrovators At Dub Station Label bummer of 2007: the demise of Blood & Fire MARK SIMS Hey AQ another bumper year down and my CD/Vinyl storage space continues to diminish! Nevertheless I wouldnt have it any other way..Keep up the great work! Below are some of my Fave albums of 2007 (In alphabetical order only); 01) ANDREW CHALK - Time Of Hayfield 02) 3/4HADBEENELIMINATED - Theology 03) BISHOP, SIR RICHARD - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds 04) BLACKSHAW, JAMES - The Cloud Of Unknowing 05) BURIAL - Untrue 06) CLAYPIPE / PEKKO KAPPI / THE BLITHE SONS - The Amazed Map 07) FEAR FALLS BURNING & NADJA - Self Titled 08) FENNESZ / SAKAMOTO - Cendre 09) GHQ - Crystal Healing 10) HALA STRANA - Heave The Gambrel Roof 11) IGNATZ - II 12) NADJA - Thaumogenesis 13) Of - The Sun & Earth Together 14) ROSE, JACK - Self Titled 15) SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - Shelter From The Ash 16) SOUVENIR'S YOUNG AMERICA - An Ocean Without Water 17) STARS OF THE LID - And Their Refinement Of The Decline 18) SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN - Fire Escape 19) TELEFON TEL AVIV - Remixes Compiled 20) V/A - Pop Ambient 2008 21) V/A - Thai Pop Spectacular 22) VOICE OF THE SEVEN WOODS - Self Titled 23) ZELIENOPLE -Stone Academy Quality late discoveries / reissues worth a mention; ASTATKE, MULATU - Ethiopiques Vol. 4 BASHO, ROBBIE - Venus In Cancer BEN, JORGE - Forca Bruta GUEBROU, TSEGUE-MARYAM - Ethiopiques Vol. 21 HAACK, BRUCE - The Electric Lucifer SEEFEEL - Quique (Redux Edition) RAE DONALDSON Robert Plant & Alison Krauss "Raising Sand" Deerhoof "Friend Opportunity" Begushkin "Nightly Creatures" Field Music "Tones Of Town" Mike Wexler "Sun Wheel" Wilco "Sky Blue Sky" Boris/Michio Kurihara "Rainbows" Stephen Duffy & The Lilac Time "Runout Groove" King Kong "Buncha Beans" Arbouretum "Rite Of Uncovering" The Owl Service "A Garland Of Songs" Eric Enocksson "Farval Falkenberg" Bill Callahan "Woke On A Whaleheart" PG Six "Slightly Sorry" Angels Of Light "We Are Him" Panda Bear "Person Pitch" Uncle Earl "Waterloo, Tennessee" Mary Timony Band "The Shapes We Make" Robert Fripp "At The End Of Time: Churchscapes" Six Organs Of Admittance "Shelter From The Ash" Sharron Kraus "Right Wantonly A-Mumming" Ghost "In Stormy Night" James Blackshaw "The Cloud Of Unknowing" Anekdoten "A Time Of Day" Kemialliset Ystavat "Untitled" Meg Baird "Dear Companion" The Mabuses "Mabused" Damon & Naomi "Within These Walls" Castanets "In The Vines" Hanne Hukkelberg "Rykestrasse 68" KRAIG KELLER Best of 2007 1. Raccoo-oo-oon Behold Secret Kingdom 2. Mayhem Ordo Ad Chao 3. Mariee Sioux Faces In the Rocks 4. Soundtrack, Once 5. These Are Powers Terrific Seasons 6. Marnie Stern In Advance of the Broken Arm 7. ZS Arms 8. Battles Mirrored 9. Deathspell Omega Fas Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum 10. Behold . . . The Arctopus Skullgrid 11. Aids Wolf/Athletic Automaton Clash of the Life Force Warriors Special section for newly released old material: 1. Charles Mingus with Eric Dolphy Cornell, 1964 2. Albert Ayler The Hilversum Sessions And once again thanks to all the awesome bands that played Cleveland this year; in addition to the ones above, we also had Extreme Noise Terror (Yes!!!), Watain, Angelcorpse, Phobia, Ruins, Neptune, Municipal Waste, Toxic Holocaust, Archaeopteryx, Clockcleaner, Magik Markers/GHQ, Iskra, The New Flesh, Pig Destroyer, White Mice, Battletorn, XBXRX, Wolf Eyes, Facedowninshit, Nachtmystium, Unearthly Trance, Black Cobra, Air Conditioning, Ho-Ag, Monotonix, Scalpels, Noxagt, and probably more that I forgot. RY WHARTON tops for 2007: long: Angels of Light- We Are Him 2LP Rhys Chatham- A Crimson Grail CD Cloaks- CDR Clockcleaner- Babylon Rules LP Earth- Hibernaculum LP Electric Wizard- Witchcult Today 2lp Daniel Menche- Wolf's Milk CD (and the rest of the Utech Arc series) Naked on the Vague- Blood Pressure Sessions CD Portal- Outre LP Sightings- Through the Panama CD/LP Ed Yazijian- Six Ways to Avoid the Evil Eye LP short: Blank Dogs- First Two Weeks 12" Brainbombs- Stinking Memory 7" Distance- Fallen (Vex'd Remix) 12" His Electro Blue Voice- Fog 7" Human Eye- Spiders & Their Kin 7" Landed- Creeping Hand 12" Shackleton - Blood On My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now Mix) 12" Spider- Charlie 7" Valet- Fire 7" Wooden Shjips- Sub Pop 7" old: Peter Martin & Finch- Drouyn Soundtrack CD Poll- Anthrope LP Raxola- s/t LP MB- Symphony for a Genocide CD Carol of Harvest- S/T LP Valerie and Her Week of Wonders CD Various- Broken Flag: A Retrospective 5LP Box TRAVIS KRUSE 1. Deathspell Omega - Fas Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum 2. Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline 3. Longmont Potion Castle - Vol. 6 4. Elend - A World In Their Screams 5. Drudkh - Estrangement 6. Blonde Redhead - 23 7. Anaal Nathrakh - Hell is Empty, and All of the Devils are Here 8. Dethklok - The Dethalbum 9. Tim and Eric on Adult Swim 10. Xavier, Renegade Angel on Adult Swim TODD PONTIUS Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror CD (Siltbreeze) Islaja - Ulual yyy (Fonal) Times New Viking - Celebrate the Paisley Reich LP (Siltbreeze) Emeralds - Smoke Signals cassette, Servant cassette (Wagon) Group Doueh - Guitar Music From The Western Sahara LP (Sublime Frequencies) Emeralds - Dirtweed Diaries vol 2 (Main & Disfigure) Psychedelic Horseshit - Magic Flowers Droned (Siltbreeze) the Cherry Blossoms - s/t LP (Black Velvet Fuckere, etc) Tommy Jay - Tall Tales of Trauma (Columbus Discount reissue) Tyvek/Cheveu split 7" (SS) TV Ghost - Atomic Rain 7" (Die Stasi) El Jesus de Magico - Funeral Home Sessions 7" (Columbus Discount) Sapat - Halycon Daze 7" (Black Velvet Fuckere) Sic Alps - Description of the Harbor 12" (Awesome Vistas) Necropolis - Working Man 7" (Columbus Discount) Ghosting / Robedoor split 7" (Not Not Fun) Robedoor / Yellow Swans split 7" (Arbor) MICHAEL WOODRING Top 11 (in no order) Tindersticks - BBC Sessions Andrew Liles - Black End Rhys Chatham - A Crimson Grail Stars of the Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline Erik Enocksson - Farval Falkenberg Mordant Music - The Tower - Parts VIII-XVIII Elegi - Sistereis Tied + Tickled Trio - Aelita Sylvain Chauveau - Nuage Gavin Bryars with Alter Ego and Philip Jeck - The Sinking of the Titanic Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - Music From The Motion Picture The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford Almost got into the top 11: Inland Empire soundtrack Ontayso - The 25th Hour (First Version) Arca - On ne distinguait plus les tetes Maserati - Inventions for the New Season Souvaris - A Hat VADIM EGOROV These are the records that immediately spring to mind when I think of 2007: 1. Dalek - Abandoned Language 2. PJ Harvey - White Chalk 3. Om - Pilgrimage 4. Group Inerane - Guitars From Agadez 5. Loren Connors - The Hymn Of The North Star 6. Richard Youngs - Autumn Response 7. Wooden Shjips - s/t 8. Daniel Belteshazzar Higgs - Metempsychotic Melodies 9. White Hills - Glitter Glamour Atrocity 10. Cloudland Canyon - Silver Tongued Sisyphus 11. Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds 12. Tim Hecker - Atlas 13. The Shape Of Broad Minds - Craft Of The Lost Art 14. Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement Of The Decline 15. Mammatus - The Coast Explodes 16. Last Of The Real Hardmen - Darkness 17. Grouper - Cover The Windows And The Walls 18. The Necks - Townsville 19. Ignatz - II 20. Hototogisu - Robed In Verdigris 21. Gregg Kowalsky - Tendrils In Vigne 22. Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - Shining Skull Breath 23. Ov - Noctilucent Valleys 24. Six Organs Of Admittance - Shelter From The Ash 25. Yellow Swans - At All Ends 26. White Rainbow - Prism Of Eternal Now 27. Kim Doo Soo - Ten Days Butterfly 28. Gultskra Artikler - Kasha Iz Topora 29. Percee P - Perseverance 30. Adam Pacione - From Stills To Motion 31. Titan - A Raining Sun Of Light And Love, For You & You & You 32. Richard Crandell - Spring Steel 33. Onra - Chinoiseries 34. Underworld - Oblivion With Bells 35. Burning Star Core - Operator Dead Post Abandoned thanks again to you too for a wonderful year full of great sounds! BERNARD FRANCIS KYLE robert wyatt - comicopera scott walker - And who shall go to the ball? And what shall go to the ball ? joni mitchell - shine jens lekman - night falls over kortedala rothko - eleven stages of intervention thurston moore - trees outside the academy zeitkratzer - lou reed metal machine music marhaug / asheim - Grand Mutation jenny hoyston - Isle Of valgeir sigurosson - Ekvilibrium circle - Katapult supersilent - 8 michael nyman - love counts, an opera in two acts om - pilgrimage a place to bury strangers - a place to bury strangers abbey lincoln - abbey plays abbey Gorecki, String Quartet No. 3 (Kronos Quartet) SAM BOWDEN 2007 Faves: Uchihashi Kazuhisa and Yoshida Tatsuya - Improvisations 2 Jerry Johnson - Next Door Conversation Boredoms - Super Roots 9 Electrelane - No Calls, No Shouts Pants Yell! - Alison Statton Maher Shalal Hash Baz - L'Autre Cap Jana Hunter - There's No Home Evan Miller - Beeswax Ephemera James Blackshaw - The Cloud of Unknowing Nedelle - The Locksmith Cometh Stars Of The Lid - And Their Refinement of the Decline Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm Black Moth Super Rainbow - Dandelion Gum BARR - Summary Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses Hauschka - Room To Expand Wooden Wand - James and the Quiet Viking Moses - The Parts That Showed LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver I hope that isn't too epic & funkier than last years I hope ANGEL M GARCIA in no particular order HALA STRANA Heave the Gambrel Roof (Music Fellowship) STEVEN R SMITH Owl (Digitalis) BATTLES Mirrored (warp) FLOWER-CORSANO DUO The Radiant Mirror (textile) TIGHT MEAT DUO vanishing fist (Bo' Weavil) THINGUMA*JIGSAW (awakeinwhitechapel) (Deserted Village) FOVEA HEX Neither Speak Nor Remain Silent 3: Allure (Die Stadt) DELAY, VLADISLAV Multila (Huume) ANGELS OF LIGHT We Are Him (Young God) WOODEN SHJIPS s/t (Holy Mountain) CHESNUTT, VIC North Star Deserter (Constellation) SMITH, CHRIS Bad Orchestra (Death Valley) ISLAJA Ulual Yyy (Fonal) ZECHARIA, ZADIK Kurdish Melodies On Zorna - REMIXES (Something On>The Road) STARS OF THE LID And Their Refinement Of The Decline (Kranky) GRAILS Burning Off Impurities (Temporary Residence) JOHANSSON, JERRY Next Door Conversation (Kning Disk) EINBACH, WILHELM The Funerary Notebooks Of Herr Gratchenfleiss (The Guild Of Funerary Violinists) LOW Drums And Guns (Sub Pop) SOFTWAR s/t (Digitalis) NEWSOM, JOANNA And The Ys Street Band (Drag City) OV "Noctilucent Valleys" (Soft Abuse) ATOMINE ELEKTRINE Nebulous (Essence) FURSAXA Alone In The Dark Wood (All Tomorrow's Parties) V/A A Ride Across The Skies On A Knife Dipped In Blood (Curor Curor) BAIRD, MEG Dear Companion (Drag City) CATLIN, TIM Radio Ghosts (23five) BLACKSHAW, JAMES The Cloud Of Unknowing (Tompkins Square) BISHOP, SIR RICHARD While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust Music) HEADDRESS Turquoise (Totem Songs) JACKMAN, VIKKI Of Beauty Reminiscing (Faraway Press) TREES COMMUNITY, THE The Christ Tree (Regular Edition) (Hand/Eye) BURNING STAR CORE Operator Dead... Post Abandoned (No Quarter) BAKER, AIDAN Figures (Volubilis) VOICE OF THE SEVEN WOODS s/t (Twisted Nerve) SUSANNA Sonata Mix Dwarf Cosmos (Rune Grammofon) CARIBOU Andorra (Merge) AKRON/FAMILY Love Is Simple (Young God) DAMON & NAOMI Within These Walls (20/20/20) BISHOP, SIR RICHARD "Polytheistic Fragments" (Drag City) IRON AND WINE The Shepherd's Dog (Sub Pop) cd 14.98 LEKMAN, JENS Night Falls Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian) CHARALAMBIDES "Electricity Ghost" (Wholly Other) HARVEY, PJ "White Chalk" (Universal Island) WYATT, ROBERT "Comicopera" (Domino) BURIAL Untrue (Hyper Dub) SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE Shelter from the Ash (Drag City) VALERIE PROJECT, THE s/t (Drag City) YOUNGS, RICHARD Autumn Response (Jagjaguwar) CONNORS, LOREN As Roses Bow: Collected Airs 1992 - 2002 (FamilyVineyard) GULTSKRA ARTIKLER Kasha Iz Topora (Miasmah Recordings) HIGGS, DANIEL "BELTESHAZZAR" Metempsychotic Memories (Holy Mountain) HARMONIA Live 1974 (Water) LOUIS DEBIASIO 2007 Top 12 Burial - Untrue Echospace - The Coldest Season Earthless - Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky Panda Bear - Person Pitch Alcest - Souvenirs D'un Autre Monde Wooden Wand - From the Road Vol. 7 Yellow Swans - At All Ends A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers Borg - Borg Om - Pilgrimage Servile Sect - Stratospheric Passenger RV Paintings - Trinity Rivers Best Reissue Seefeel - Quique BEN LYNCH Hey guys - here's my top 22 of the year. 2007 has been the best for a while, cutting this down to 10 would have broken my heart 1. Soft Circle - Full Bloom 2. Raccoo-oo-oon - Behold Secret Kingdom 3. Yellow Swans - At All Ends 4. Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound 5. Boredoms - Super Roots 9 6. Daft Punk - Alive 2007 7. James Blackshaw - The Cloud Of Unknowing 8. Nadja - Radiance Of Shadows 9. La Otracina - Tonal Ellipse Of The One 10. A Place to Bury Strangers - A Place to Bury Strangers 11. Boris with Merzbow - Rock Dream 12. The Beautiful Girls - Ziggurats 13. Dungen - Tio Bitar 14. Health - Health 15. Titan - A Raining Sun Of Light & Love For You & You & You 16. Whitehouse - Racket 17. Blarke Bayer/Black Widow - Arctic Blast 18. Fuck Buttons - Sweet Love For Planet Earth EP 19. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond 20. Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy 21. Fear Falls Burning & Nadja - Fear Falls Burning & Nadja 22. Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Gently Bleeds GARY CUTLER, Seattle WA Top 30 Albums of 2007 (in no particular order) Nadja- Thaumogenesis (Archive) & Radiance of Shadows (Alien8) Pan Sonic- Katodivaihe (Blast First Petite) Amir El Saffar- Two Rivers (Pi) The Necks- Townsville (Fish of Milk) Burial- Untrue (Hyperdub) Om- Pilgrimage (Southern Lord) Paul Bley- Solo in Mondsee (ECM) Murcof- Cosmos (Leaf) Robert Wyatt- Comicopera (Domino) Paolo Angeli- Tessuti (ReR Megacorp) Wolves in the Throne Room- Two Hunters (Southern Lord) Echospace- The Coldest Season (Modern Love) High on Fire- Death Is This Communion (Relapse) Caribou- Andorra (Merge) Daniel Menche- Deluge & Sunder (Beta-Lactam Ring), Wolfs Milk (Utech), Bleeding Heavens (Blossoming Noise) Circle- Tyrant (Southern), Tower (Last Visible Dog), Katapult (No Quarter) Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat- An Interlude to the Outermost ((K-RAA- K) 3) Dlek- Abandoned Language (Ipecac) Panda Bear- Person Pitch (Paw Tracks) Grinderman- s/t (Anti) Tinariwen- Aman Iman (World Village) Pole- Steingarten (~scape) Grails- Burning Off Impurities (Temporary Residence) Burning Star Core- Blood Lightning 2007 (No Fun) & Operator Dead Post Abandoned (No Quarter) Throbbing Gristle- Part Two: The Endless Not (Mute) Neurosis- Given to the Rising (Neurot) Thomas Fehlmann- Honigpumpe (Kompakt) James Blackshaw- The Cloud of Unknowing (Tompkins Square) Lasse Marhaug/Nils Henrik Asheim- Grand Mutation (Touch) Death Ambient- Drunken Forest (Tzadik) Top Reissues of 2007 Ananda Shankar- Missing You/A Musical Discovery of India (Fallout) Harmonia- Live 1974 (Water) Teiji Ito- Tenno/Music for Maya (Tzadik) Jorge Ben- Fora Bruta (Dust Groove) Nico- The Frozen Borderline (1968-1970) (Rhino) Top Compilations of 2007 Dirty Space Disco (Tigersushi) Soundboy Punishments (Skull Disco) Columbia! The Golden Age of Discos Fuentes (1960-1976) (Soundway) The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru (Barbes) Box of Dub: Dubstep and Future Dub, Vols. 1 & 2 (Soul Jazz) COLIN WILLIAMSON top 10 of 2007, in no particular order: Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledicti, in Ignem Aeternum Procer Veneficus - The Cold Gloaming Snowdrift - s/t Monarch! - Die Tonight Ulver - Shadows of the Sun Elegi - Sistereis Finntroll - Ur Jordens Djup Peste Noire - Folkfuck Folie Taarma - Remnants of a Tormenting Black Shadow Oren Ambarchi - In the Pendulum's Embrace Honorable mentions: Mayhem - Ordo ad Chao Boris w/ Michio Kurihara - Rainbow The Sword/Witchcraft - split Jefre Cantu-Ledesma - The Phantom Harp New Risen Throne - Whispers of the Approaching Wastefulness Xasthur - Defective Epitaph RYAN VAN DEN HEUVEL Angels Of Light - We Are Him Astral Social Club - Star Guzzlers Death Ambient - Drunken Forest Earthless - Rhythms From A Cosmic Sky Expo '70 - Animism Expo '70 - Audio Archive 002 Grails - Burning Off Impurities Group Doueh - Guitar Music From The Western Sahara Heavy Winged - Feel Inside Higgs, Daniel - Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot Higgs, Daniel - Metempsychotic Melodies Om - Pilgrimage Sangre Cavallum - Veleno De Teixo Shit and Shine - Cunts With Roses Soft Circle - Full Bloom Soriah - Offerings of Light to the Dead Ulver - Shadows on the Sun Waldteufel - Sanguis White Rainbow - Prism of Eternal Now Reissues: Campbell, Neil - Sol Powr Heavy Winged - Blacc Lust Waldteufel - Rauhnacht Bootlegs: Fennesz/Mike Patton Live in Paris Film: Izgnanie aka The Banishment No Country for Old Men Rescue Dawn DENMAN ANDERSON 1.Ammo)(omma-Go to Hell cd-r 2.Caacrinolas-Vargtimmen cd-r 3.Wolves in the Throne Room-Diadem of 12 Stars 2xlp 4.Harvey Milk-My Love is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be (re-release) cd 5.L'Acephale-Mord und Totschlag cd 6.Bone Awl-Undying Glare 7" 7.Time of the Wolf-s/t cd 8.M.I.A.-Kala 9.Xasthur-Xasthur mlp 10.Yelle-Pop-Up cd 11. De Magia Veterum-Spikes Through Eyes Demo, Clavicula Salomonis, The Blood of Prophets and Saints CHAD, Weird Forest Sorry it was just too good a year for music to list only ten. In no order: Inca Ore/Grouper - Split Tape (self-released) Marble Sky - The Sad Return (Callow God) Prurient & Kevin Drumm - All Are Guests In The House Of The Lord (Hospital) Yellow Swans - At All Ends (Load & Weird Forest) Impregnable - Pink Thorn (Ekhein) Chin Chin - S/T (Dialect Recordings) Sightings - Through The Panama (Load Records & Ecstatic Peace!) Radiohead - In Rainbows (Self Released) Cadaver In Drag - Raw Child (Animal In Disguise) Wooden Wand Hassara - Backyard Hassara I-III (Three Lobed) Heavy Winged - Feel Inside (Archive) Descension Yellow Swans (Acuarela) Mick Flower & Chris Corsano - The Radiant Mirror (Textile) & The Undisputed Dimension (NO-FI) Emeralds - Allegory Of Allergies (Gods of Tundra) plus all the Emeralds side jams including Lilypad, and Mark and Steve's stuff..so good. Sword Heaven - Entrance (Load Records) Kemialliset Ystavat - S/T (Fonal) Maurizio Bianchi - Das Platinzeitalter (Incunabulum) Suishou No Fune - I Throw A Stone Into The Endless Depths (Sloow Tapes) Lambsbread - Stereo Mars (Ecstatic Peace!) GHQ - everything!..the Three Lobed lp, the Sloow Tape, the Not Not Fun Emeralds/Sam Goldberg - Tour 2007 tape (Self Released) Air Conditioning - The Ocean (Callow God) & Dead Rails (Load Records) Blues Control - s/t (Holy Mountain) & Their split 7" with Heavy Winged (Not Not Fun) Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust Music) X.O.4 - Cataracts (Ecstatic Peace!) Dead C - Future Artists (Ba Da Bing!) Jandek - Manhattan Tuesday (Corwood Industries) Liars - S/T (Mute) American Band - American Band's First Album (Blossoming Noise) Hatred - S/T (Ultra Eczema) Demons - Frozen Fog (AA Records) Monopoly Child tapes (Pacific City) White Rainbow - Prism Of The Eternal Now (Kranky & Marriage) Sam Goldberg - Halcyon (Wagon) Hatred/Demons - split tape (AA Records) Dead Raven Choir - My Firstborn Will Surely Be Blind (Aurora Borealis) Jay Reatard - Blood Visions (In The Red) Pulse Emitter - Meditative Music (Self Released) Broom Dusters - Sound From The Bottom of the Tokyo Underground (Siwa) Wolf Eyes/Spykes/Nate Young/Failing Lights 2lp (Troubleman) Wolf Eyes - Claustrophobic (Gods of Tundra) Reissues: Ray Russell - Secret Asylum (Reel Recordings) Michael James - Runaway World (World In Sound) Masayuki Takayangi reissues especially La Grima (Doubt Music) Heavy Winged - Blacc Lust (Three lobed) Favorite Find of the Year: San Lucas Band - Music of Guatemala LP (ABC/Command) ADAM MAXWELL BARHAMAND Top 10: 1. Daft Punk - Alive 2007 2. Panda Bear - Person Pitch 3. The National - Boxer 4. Miranda Lambert - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend 5. Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog 6. M.I.A. - Kala 7. Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala 8. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago 9. Radiohead - In Rainbows 10. !!! - Myth Takes Barely missed the cut: Parts & Labor - Mapmaker Burial - Untrue Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends A-Trak - Dirty South Dance Battles - Mirrored Tinariwen - Aman Iman: Water is Life Others: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal Boratto, Gui - Chromophobia Chromatics - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack IV...Night Drive Deacon, Dan - Spiderman of the Rings Feist - The Reminder Justice - Monch, Pharoahe - Desire Phosphorescent - Pride Studio - Yearbook 1 Villalobos, Ricardo - Fabric 36 - Ricardo Villalobos VA - Prins Thomas Presents Cosmo Galactic Prism Begin forwarded message: CURRAN FARIS wilco - sky blue sky minus the bear - planet of ice battles - mirrored hide your daughters - the teen girl's guide to social success jose gonzalez - in our nature deathspell omega - FAS radiohead - in rainbows brain banger - yellow belly black dice - load blown coalesce - salt and passage (7") band of horses - cease to begin shellac - excellent italian greyhound volt - rorhat the cancer conspiracy - omega thanks for ruling aq!! KEN BOONE 01> The Holy See - Fucking Physics 02> Burning Star Core - Operator Dead...Post Abandoned 03> Birchville Cat Motel - Birds Call Home Their Dead 04> Magik Markers - Boss 05> Valerio Cosi - And The Spiritual Committee 06> Descension Yellow Swans 07> Aluk Todolo - Descension 08> RV Paintings - Trinity Rivers 09> Burial - Untrue 10> Blues Control - Puff 11> Valerio Cosi - Freedom Meditation Music (vol 1-3) 12> Robedoor/Pocahaunted - Hunted Gathering 13> Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends 14> Birchville Cat Motel - Bird Sister Blasphemy 15> Heavy Winged - We Grow 16> Yellow Swans - At All Ends 17> Heavy Winged - Feel Inside 18> Century Plants - Sound System Sound 19> Ignatz II 20> Pulga - Pulga Loves You FORREST L NORVELL or, actually, a list in three parts. I won't know what the best records of 2007 were for years, if ever, and so none of these are ranked, beyond separating the list into parts. The first 11 are 11 instead of 10 because I couldn't find anything else to remove to reduce it to an even 10. All of these releases were originally released in 2007, as far as I know. I. 11 interesting releases from 2007, sorted by artist: A Sunny Day in Glasgow - Scribble Mural Comic Journal Bloody Panda - Pheromone Burial - Untrue Dalek - Abandoned Language KTL - KTL 2 Larsen & Friends - Abeceda MIA - Kala Nadja - Touched [remastered] Neurosis - Given to the Rising Skull Disco - Soundboy Punishments Xasthur - Defective Epitaph II. 13 other releases that are only slightly less interesting, sorted by artist: Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses Ddheimsgard - Supervillain Outcast Dopplereffekt - Calabi Yau Space v/a - Dubstep Sufferah, Volume 3 (mixed by Grievous Angel) Durrty Goodz - Axiom EP Earth - Hibernaculum Every Time I Die - The Big Dirty PJ Harvey - White Chalk LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver The Necks - Townsville Neil Landstrumm - Restaurant of Assassins Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter from the Ash Weedeater - God Luck and Good Speed III. 4 essential reissues & archival releases: Current 93 - The Inmost Light: Hallucinatory Patripassianist Song Nico - The Frozen Borderline: 1968-1970 Gram Parsons & The Flying Burrito Brothers - Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth [expanded] LO BEEDLE Kemialliset Ystvt - Untitled Venetian Snares - My Downfall Shining - Grindstone Mammal - Lonesome Drifter Islaja - Palaa Aurinkoon Brian Harnetty - American Winter Chris DeLaurenti - Favorite Intermission Black Dice - Load Blown David Thomas Broughton - It's In There Somewhere... Witchcraft - The Alchemist BARRY P. SARANCHUK from Moosic, PA my top ten for 2007.....I'm sure I forgot something, but here's what I've come up with. 1 SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE - "Shelter From The Ash" 2 LEWIS & CLARKE - "Blasts Of Holy Birth" 3 KLAUS SCHULZE - "Kontinuum" 4 LA OTRACINA - "Tonal Ellipse Of The One" 5 STARCASTLE - "Song Of Times" 6 NEOKARMA JOOKLO TRIO - "Meditation" (LP only) 7 KEVIN AYERS - "The Unfairground" 8 SIGUR ROS - "Heima DVD" 9 CARAVAN - "The Show Of Our Lives" (BBC recordings 1969-1975) 10 BIG ELF - "Hex" >>>>Now I had one hell of a time leaving the next five titles off of the "tops" list ,but the others got way more play 'n' such. So,here's the ones that JUST missed the "toppermost ten"! 11 THE NEW AGE - "All Around" LP only 12 GHOST - "Overature" CD & DVD 13 ACID MOTHERS GURU GURU - "Psychedelic Navigator" 14 BROTHER JT - "Purgatory,Sweet Purgatory" 8 inch record 15 ROBERT WYATT - "Comicopera" JACE THE SPACE FACE BARTET Let it be known that I cut about 12 things off of this list, so this is as edited as I could get it. What an amazing year for music! Since I had a pretty dramatic year personally and financially, I am grateful for the friends and bandmates that exposed me to so much of this stuff. And I am grateful to Aquarius Records in San Fran Mighty Cisco for existing! 2000Heaven Roster, owed almost entirely to friends and band mates because I had no capital with which to negotiate salaries this season STARTING LINE-UP and their most recent sports page headlines... Ash Pool - World Turns on its Hinge: Raw face-beef with a side of impalement! Ruins of Beverast - Rain Upon the Impure: My soul escaped the mortal coil of infinity! Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings: A chain letter on a Lite-Brite gave chicken pox! Daft Punk - Alive 2007: David Copperfield finds out Jesus was a dinosaur! Wolves in the Throne Room - Two Hunters: Clouds are on fire but we are water! Lyrinx - Nihilistic Purity: Global warming is nothing compared to the exploding sun! Fucking Champs - VI: See the sounds, hear the light! Ancestors - s/t: An old man hit someone elses child with a hammer for no reason! Nifelheim - Envoy of Lucifer: Caverns on flame with black thrash metal! Witchcraft - The Alchemist: Druids burn rubber on the cobblestone highway! Arkha Sva - Gloria Satanae: In the forest stands a cloak with no master! Angantyr - Haevn: Surfing an avalanche on a giant scimitar! Shawn Phase - Blast Portable: Pizza is the best food and will clean your Nintendo! Andrew W.K. - Close Calls with: Brick Walls DeVito and Schwarzenegger are twins! American Cheeseburger - s/t and Modern Advice: 99 problems +1 extra problem! Alex Mauer - Color Caves: One blow on an ivory flute introduces the next level! Drowned - Viscera Terrae: The graves are breathing softly and uttering a name! Ice Bound Majesty - A Tomb to Erect: Faithfully they seek a nest in which to lay! Rotting Christ - Theogonia: A copper ring bears the sigil of horned times! Bestial mockery - Slaying the Life: In the skull of cursed agony ferments your fruit! Slough Feg - Hardworlder: The Sheelanagig steers us from the blackest wormhole! Neurosis - Given to the Rising: Yeomen forsook their crop to build a bomb shelter! Sigh - Hangmans Hymn: This piano goes from 0 to 60 in three whiffs of an onion peel! B TEAM: Mgla - Further Down the Nest Drowning the Light - To the End of Time Lik - Lekamen Illusionen Kallet Watain - Sworn to the Dark Paysage d'Hiver - Einsamkeit Dax Riggs - We Sing of Only Blood and Love SIMON J KARIS (Melbourne, Australia) 10. The Locust- New Erections 9. Liars - Liars 8. PJ Harvey - White Chalk 7. Growing - Vision Swim 6. Deerhunter - Cryptograms 5. Architecture In Helsinki - Places Like This 4. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver 3. The Nation Blue - Protest Songs 2. Muscles - Guns Babes Lemonade 1. Big Business - Here Come The Waterworks RANDALL HINSON Best New Stuff Of 2007 Vomit Orchestra - Antecrux The Finches - Human Like a House Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Midlake - The Trails Of Van Occupanther Alasehir - The Stone Sentinels Ryokuchi & Fire Witch - split Neurosis - Given To The Rising Conifer / Ocean - split (but mostly for the Conifer side!) Darkestrah - Epos Machinefabriek - Koploop Wizard Prison - II Blut Aus Nord - Odinist : The Destruction Of Reason By Illumination Love As Laughter - Trademark Of Quality Best Reissues Of 2007 C.O.B. - Moyshe McStiff And The Tartan Lancers Of The Sacred Heart Ougenweide - Ougenweide / All Die Weil Ich Mag Dorothy Ashby - The Rubaiyat Of Dorothy Ashby The Best Of Lone Wolf And Cub - OST Best Music That Isn't From 2007 That I Loved In 2007 Feathers - s/t Goliath Bird Eater - Blood Venus Silencer - Death-Pierce Me Snowblood - Being And Becoming Pure Joy - Gelatin And Bright Atavist - s/t Coil - Black Antlers Favorite Songs of 2007 Electrelane - To The East Tony Naima And The Bitters - In Death's Cold Embrace Monarch - I Got Erection Begin forwarded message: CHRIS VIDELL Some favorites: Axolotl - Memory Theater Birchville Cat Motel - Seventh Ruined Hex Grails - Burning Off Impurities Glenn Jones - Against Which The Sea Continually Beats Kinski - Down Below It's Chaos La Otracina - Tonal Ellipse Of The One Steven R Smith - Owl Spiral Joy Band - Wake Of The Dying Sun King Wooden Shjips Plus the reissues The Habibiyya - If Man But Knew Skullflower - IIIrd Gatekeeper STEVE MERCER Top 10 for 2007, in alphabetical order: Big Business - Here Come the Waterworks His Name is Alive - Sweet Earth Flower Reveries - Live in Bologna Ulrich Schnauss - Goodbye Shining - Grindstone Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - In Glorious Times Marnie Stern - In Advance of the Broken Arm Talibam - Hungry Hungry Hemispheres Amon Tobin - Foley Room White Hills - Heads on Fire Honorable mention: Atavist and Nadja - 12012291920 Melt Banana - Bambi's Dilemma Pluramon - The Monstrous Surplus Radiohead - In Rainbows Sunburned Hand of the Man - Fire Escape Ween - La Cucaracha Some good records from Denver bands: Amphibious Jones - Critters of Habit Fucking Orange - Bison The Inactivists - Dreaded Concept Album New Ancient Astronauts - Astronautlius The Skivies - Between Appliance and Apparel ALEX SOUZA Hi guys, here's my list for last year. Keep up the killer work; I know it must be tiring to keep on being the coolest record store in the world and all, but you're doing a good job ;) 01) Citay - Little Kingdom 02) Panda Bear - Person Pitch 03) Magik Markers - Boss 04) Flower/Corsano Duo - The Radiant Mirror 05) Holy Fuck - LP 06) White Magic - Dark Stars [EP] 07) Om - Pilgrimage 08) Marnie Stern - In Advance Of The Broken Arm 09) Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala 10) The Balustrade Ensemble - Capsules JACK HANKIN Top 11 Studio "West Coast" Yeasayers (s/t) Mabuses "Mabufer" Bracken "We Know About the Need" Mum "Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy" Iron & Wine "Shepherd's Dog" Morning Recordings "The Welcome Kinetic" Pram "The Moving Frontier" Radiohead "In Rainbows" Instruments "Cast a Half Shadow" 1900s "Cold & Kind" GREG JACKSON Thanks for being such a wicked little record store, you guys. Thought I'd contribute to your list. 1. Stars of the Lid... And Their Refinement Of The Decline 2. Fog- Ditherer 3. Machinefabriek- Slaapzucht 4. Queens of the Stone Age- Era Vulgaris 5. Daughters- Hell Songs LP 6. Pelican- City of Echoes 7. Locust- New Erections 8. A Sunny Day In Glasgow- Scribble Mural Comic Journal 9. Whitehouse- Racket 10. Zodiac- Soundtrack MATTHEW COUNTS Favorite ten new records: Dugnen - Tio Batar Caribou - Andorra Robert Wyatt - Comicopera Colleen - Les Ondes Silencieuses Clientele - God Save the Clientele Sally Shapiro - Disco Romance Circle - Tower feat. Verde The Field - From Here We Go Sublime Akron Family - Love is Simple Tiny Vipers - Hands Across The Void Speshul Mentions: Boris/Kurihara - Rainbow Charles Tolliver - With Love The Valerie Project Lucky Pierre - Dip Es - Sateenkaarisuudelma title too long and too finnish to type Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments Panda Bear - Person Pitch The Necks - Chemist (06 technically, but a favorite discovery of last year) Reissues of the year: Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come Anne Briggs - Sing a Song for You LP on Bo Weavil Vashti Bunyan - Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind (Singles and Demos '64-67) Welsh Rare Beat - Rarities from the Sain Records catalog on the Finders Keepers label All the other Finders Keepers LPs I bought in '07: Mustafa zkent ve Orkestrasi Selda Sarolta Zalatnay Sedmikrsky (Daisies Soundtrack) Michael Garrick Trio Moonscape (Trunk) Soul Jazz - Brazil 70 comp. M Ward Duet For Guitars #2 Music of Idris Ackamour BEST LIVE SHOW: CIRCLE at Chop Suey hands down!! PATRICK COX 01. Electric Wizard - Witchcult Today 02. Ween - La Cacaracha 03. The Moon Upstairs - Guarding the Golden Apple 04. Blood Duster - Lyden Na 05. Charlotte Hatherley - The Deep Blue 06. Pluramon - The Monstrous Surplus 07. The Devastations - Yes, U 08. Fabienne Delsol - Between You And Me 09. Clockcleaner - Babylon Rules 10. Marissa Nadler - Songs III: Bird on the Water 11. Grouper - Cover the Windows and the Walls 12. Feist - Reminder 13. PJ Harvey - White Chalk 14. Autumn Shade - Ezra Moon 15. Boris - Rock Dream (with Merzbow) 16. Greg Ashley - Painted Garden 17. Hard-Ons - Most People Are Nicer Than Us 18. Terminals - Last Days Of The Sun 19. Ai Aso - Chamomile Pool 20. Mountain Party - Afternoon In Bamboos JOHN LEE, Chicago 1. Times New Viking - Present The Paisley Reich (Siltbreeze) 2. Eroc - 1 (Brain/Universal) 3. V/A - Melodii Tuvi: Throat Songs and Folk Tunes from Tuva (Dust to Digital) 4. M.I.A. - Kala (XL) 5. Keith Hudson (and the Soul Syndicate) - Nuh Skin Up (Pressure Sounds) 6. Dinosaur Jr - Beyond (Fat Possum) 7. V/A - Carolina Funk (Jazzman) 8. Sir Richard Bishop - Polytheistic Fragments (Drag City) 9. Von Sdenfed - Tromatic Reflexxions (Domino) 10. Deerhunter - Cryptograms (Kranky) 11. Wooden Shjips - S/T (Holy Mountain) 12. Kemialliset Ystvt - Untitled (Fonal) 13. Lambsbread - Stereo Mars (Ecstatic Peace) 14. Bruce Haack - The Electric Lucifer (Omni Recording Corporation) 15. Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks) 16. Blues Control - S/T (Holy Mountain) 17. V/A - Thai Pop Spectacular 1960s-1980s (Sublime Frequencies) 18. Meg Baird - Dear Companion (Drag City) 19. Pink Reason - Cleaning the Mirror (Siltbreeze) 20. Six Organs of Admittance - Shelter From the Ash (Drag City) 21. Jay-Z - American Gangster (Roc-A-Fella) 22. Radiohead - In Rainbows (self-released) 23. Circle - Panic (Ektro) 24. The Dead C - Future Artists (Ba Da Bing) 25. High on Fire - Death Is This Communion (Relapse) Honorable Mention: Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (Domino) The Arcade Fire - Funeral (Merge) Avarus - Rasvaaja (Secret Eye) Sir Richard Bishop - While My Guitar Violently Bleeds (Locust) Boris with Michio Kurihara - Rainbow (Drag City/Pedal) Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come (Water) Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub) Circle - Katapult (No Quarter) Circle (featuring Verde) - Tower (Last Visible Dog) Karen Dalton - Cotton Eyed Joe (Megaphone) Fursaxa - Alone in the Dark Wood (ATP Recordings) Ghost - In Stormy Nights (Drag City) Daniel A.I.U. Higgs - Atomic Yggdrasil Tarot (Thrill Jockey) Michael Hurley - Ancestral Swamp (Gnomonsong Recordings) Krypt Axeripper - Mechanical Witch (Ektro) NVH/Chasny - Plays the Book of Revelations (Yik Yak) Pekos/Yoro Diallo - S/T (Yaala Yaala) The Ponys - Turn the Lights Out (Matador) Shellac - Excellent Italian Greyhound (Touch and Go) Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga (Merge) Sunburned Circle - The Blaze Game (Conspiracy) The White Stripes - Icky Thump (Warner Bros.) Wiley - Playtime is Over (Big Dada) ALEX HERTER my top 10 records of 2007 Les Trois Malheures- S/T Ep Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Baby 81 Alcest - Souvenirs d'un Autre Monde Boris Vs. SBGM- Damaged 10'' The Duke Spirit - Ex Voto Ep Les Savy Fav - Lets Stay Friends Queens of the Stone Age - Era Vulgaris The Manhattan Love Suicides - Kick It Back 7'' Wooden Shjips - S/T Dinosaur Jr - Beyond Begin forwarded message: ANDREW BEDDOW lps: Grouper - Cover the Windows and the Walls (Root Strata) Meg Baird - Dear Companion (Drag City) Stars of the Lid - And their Refinement of the Decline (Kranky) Andrew Chalk - Time of Hayfield (Faraway Press) Cherry Blossoms LP (Apostasy, a bunch of others) Cloaks - A Crystal Skull in Peru (Atheists Are Gods) STL - Night Grooves (Something) Twinsistermoon - Levels and Crossings (no label) Melchior Productions - No Disco Future (Perlon) Emeralds - Allegory of Allergies (Gods of Tundra) Sapat - Mortoise and Tenon (Siltbreeze) Ed Yazijian - Six Ways to Avoid the Evil Eye (Onetree) Meursault - Sleeping Debris (Students Of Decay) Burial - Untrue (Hyperdub) tracks/12"s: Tony Allen - 'Ole [Moritz Von Oswald remix]' (Honest Jon's) Mala - 'Alicia' (no label) Peverelist - 'Die Brucke' (Punch Drunk) Cassy - 'Somelightuntothenight' (Beatstreet) Soul Capsule - 'Waiting 4 a Way' (Perlon) Shackleton - 'Blood On My Hands [Ricardo Villalobos Apocalypso Now mix]' (Skull Disco Bovill - Differential 12" (Meanwhile) T++ - 'Allied' / 'Worn Down' (no label) Nick Sol - 'World Dubbing' (Mojuba) 2562 - 'Channel Two' (Tectonic) Ion Ludwig - 'Q of Munich' (Quagmire) Martyn - 'Twenty Four' (3024) Mike Huckaby - My Life with the Wave 12" (Synth) Jichael Mackson - Baff 12" (Hartchef Discos) Lerosa - Much Later 12" (Uzuri) / Seeker 12" (Enclave) ERP - Alorsan 12" (Frantic Flowers) Kai Alce - Broken Headlights 12"(Real Soon) DJ Qu & David S - To Eaches Own 12" / DJ Qu - Passing States 12" (both Strength Music) GARY SIMMONS Hello AQUARIUS! Here's what I listened to last year. Dedicated with love to my Greyhound WHIP - I miss you! Best Album Of 2007: The Future Of Forestry - Twilight Other Things I Listened To (In ABC): Assemblage23 - Meta Maurizio Bianchi - Elisionem Burial - Untrue Nick Cave / Warren Ellis - The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford Andrew Chalk - Time Of Hayfield Crowded House - Time On Earth Diary Of Dreams - Nekrolog 43 Diorama - A Different Life Einsturzende Neubauten - Alles Wieder Offen Great Lake Swimmers - Ongiara Hidur Gudnadottir / BJ Nilsen / Stilluppsteypa - Second Childhood Robin Guthrie / Harold Budd - After The Night Falls Robin Guthrie / Harold Budd - Before The Day Breaks Arve Henriksen - Strjon In Strict Confidence - Exile Paradise (The Hecq Destruxxion) Irr.app.(ext.) - Cosmic Superimposition Jandek - Brooklyn Wednesday Mark Knopfler - Kill To Get Crimson David Lynch - The Air Is On Fire Melotron - Propaganda Alva Noto - Xerrox Vol.1 Stephen OMalley / Zev - Magistral Phosphorescent - Pride Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand Seabound - Double-Crosser Steve Roach - Immersion: Three Supersilent - 8 Throbbing Gristle - Part Two: The Endless Not VNV Nation - Judgement RE-ISSUES: Andrew Chalk - Goldfall Andrew Chalk - The River That Flows Into The Sands 2 Vikki Jackman - Of Beauty Reminiscing LIVE: Michael Brook (Boston, MA) Crowed House (Northampton, MA) Jandek (Boston, MA) And One / VNV Nation (Boston, MA) DEREK FAHNESTOCK (01) Radiohead -- IN RAINBOWS (Was the 2008 release of the CD a plot to top 2008 lists, as well? Forget it guys, you used up your eligibility. But what a way to go.) (02) Deerhunter -- CRYPTOGRAMS/ FLUORESCENT GREY EP (03) Goes Cube -- BECKON THE DAGGER GOD EP (this was actually released in '06, I think.) (04a) Nadja -- TOUCHED (04b) Nadja -- RADIANCE OF SHADOWS (just be thankful we didn't have to go to "4(p)") (05) Andrew Bird -- ARMCHAIR APOCRYPHA (last track is simply beautiful. Rest of album not too shabby, either.) (06) Les Savy Fav -- LET'S STAY FRIENDS (still good) (07) Interpol -- OUR LOVE TO ADMIRE (still good) (08) Rush -- SNAKES & ARROWS (still -- WHA?!?!?!? Yes, kids, they play better than you, they write better than you, and they even sing better than you.) (09) Torche -- IN RETURN EP (looking forward to next full length!) (10) Battles -- MIRRORS (@45%TR 2149546. And I mean it.) ANGELA, Weirdo Records Various ~ Latinamericarpet: Exploring the Vinyl Warp of Latin American Psychedelia Vol. 1 ~ Sublime Frequencies cd 2007/196x Completely heady & frothy mix of Ventures ripoffs, mexican hat dances played on wurlitzers, children's instructional records, multiple attempts at chipmunk voices, fake steel drums, yoga meditation, ladies' mountain music from Peru, skits of doors being broken down, Chilean accordion, and that's just the short list. There are a shitload of Americulture ripoffs here, ranging from early 60s teen pop to Russian classical composers. There are so many in fact that if you can name more of the quotes on this record than I can, I'll pony up & mail you a dollar. Mixed in are some pan-S. Amer folk numbers, some more 'authentic' than others. But it's hardly an issue, especially with major freakos like 'La Gringa Inga' (a precursor to Xuxa perhaps?) popping in every few minutes to tell you what your foot is called in Ingles. Psych fans should note that there's not really a ton of fuzz here, but any surf/Link Wray fan would say that this is Attention Defecit Syndrome Psychedelia all the way. Telegraph Avenue ~ Telegraph Avenue ~ Get Back/Munster/Repsychled lp/cd 2007/1971 Oooooh! I'd heard this one was good, but I didn't believe the hype until I put it on. Lickably luscious stained-glass harmony with those groovy Wings/Zombies-inspired vocals that make everybody such fans of Laghonia, We All Together, & so on. Plenty of bossa bopping underneath to keep things moving, & fuzz only puts the icing on the cake. Another Peruvian psych slam dunk. Hair Police/Redrot ~ Hair Police/Redrot ~ Aryan Asshole cd 2007/2006 I'm totally psyched that this cassette got reished on cd, because it's a bomb. Live on Halloween, Hair Police & solo Mich. dude Ryan Opperman whump away like some sort of backasswards zombie reggae band. The recording (done by Nate Young & Heath Moerland) is completely fucked up- sounds like they put the whole thing through an echoplex- & it adds yet another layer to the nasty echoey romping onstage. There's also plenty of beer-fueled yowling & gabbering from those standing too close to the tape recorder. Free electronics, sax, drums, feedback vox, and you can easily hear how much fun everybody is having. Various ~ Songs the Bonzo Dog Band Taught Us ~ Lightning Tree cd 2006/1921-39 Maybe you like the Bonzos. And if you do I'd bet five nippers you're over fifty, contribute to an IRA, and think Zappa is 'really way out'. Coolio, but for lots o' the rest of us, the Bonzo Dog Band ain't half as interesting as the wobbly old ballroom & vaudevillian numbers they ripped off. Hear the natty novelty sounds of P.G. Wodehouse and the Jazz Age as they appear on crackly old 78s. Fans of everybody from Rudy Vallee to Cab Calloway will simply pop their wainscoats. And just so we're not knockin' the Bonzos too badly, do note that they hand picked every track here. Nifty sheet music photos included too. Various ~ Voodoo Party ~ University of Vice lp 2007/195x Totally wonderful ooga booga & jungle primitivo from the late 50s. Loads of bongos, unearthly echo, and vocalists who cry wild and stick bones through their noses. As usual from U. of Vice, there's tracks from around the world. Great vocal & instrumental impressions of animals & zombies. Also one of the only versions of the calypso/voodoo standard 'Rookoombay' where you can understand most of the lyrics. Vom Grill ~ Biflinstrum ~ Audiobot cdr 2007 Brilliantly sloppy synth farts & sine tone blurping by my personal spiritual paragon & ultimate eurodude, Dennis Tyfus. Recorded drunk (one can only assume) at the Hardline Elephant house. Amazing synth horror show of blood farts, cream cheese burps, and zappy bee stings. Moog, Roland drum machine, & Korg. Unknown ~ Thai Orchestra lp ~ Mississippi 2007/2000/197x Mysterious recording of an uncredited large ensemble blasting through countryside molam at breakneck speed. It had also been issued once before as the 'Siamese Temple Ball' cd. Percussion, xylophone, Thai electric guitar, & lots of hooting from the crowd too. Even better the second time around, I think. Graham Lambkin ~ Salmon Run ~ Kye cd 2007 Jesus wept. Not only does Lambkin put out very few releases, they'll lay you out like a JuJitsu fighter when they do come around. This one's got the Shad man playing around with somber and resplendent string quartet & classical vocals records, and mixing them in to the dry & hinky cassette stomp that you're familiar with from those awesome Ring albums. Just as creepy, dark, and cloying as you could want, but gentle too- because we're all lonleyhearts sometimes. Lambkin also says that he ended up with this after starting out to make a concept record about...I wouldn't kid ya... bigfoot. Luiz Eca Y La Familia Sagrada ~ La Nueva Onda Del Brasil ~ Vampisoul lp 2007/1978/1970 Absolutely fantasmic bossa hippie explosion. A waterfall of Sergio Mendez/Hellers vocals, big honkin' mariachi brass, tightly driven bossa acoustic guitars, and funkadelic murk. It's all mixed together & squirts in your face just like a grapefruit. Recorded in Mexico in '70 but went unreleased until '78, when it probably sounded like a drugged-up airline commercial more than anything else. They were the house band for a hotel chain, and the record was issued as a souvenir for the hotel gift shop. Various AM-500 Box set American Tapes 1 one-sided 7", 19 cdrs, 1 dvdr 2007/2005-07 Man alive, whatta mountain. Over a year in the making & released exactly a year ago to celebrate the opening of '07 and the 500th release on his label, John Olson from Wolf Eyes topped his already prolific proclivities with this whopper of a box set. Edition of 100, and each one came with individual collage art in the inimitable Amtapes style (jumbled up angles, b&w xerox faces with eyes white- outed out, illegible handwriting, etc). I did, I *think*, actually listen to the entirety of this set over the course of the year. Have to admit though, the disc I kept going back to, and the one that made me cough up the considerable dough, was the 'comedy' cdr. It was described by Ol' Coorz himself thusly: "Goofin CD/ Corsano, Wolves, Tyfuss, Keenan, Graveboyz, all dumb banter like "Steak and Shake Missing Children Hoarder/Cook".....drunk post gig situations ramblings/ totally retarded". ALAN ST. LAURENT 2007 will go down in the history books as one of the WORST years I've ever had in my personal life. A major car wreck, job loss and all kinds of madness. But through it all I managed to hook onto some hot sounds as usual. After all, what else is there? ;-) Here they are in no particular order. Original Silence - First Original Silence (Smalltown Superjazz) David Lynch - The Air Is On Fire (Strange World Music) Moby Grape - Moby Grape (reissue on Sundazed) Blues Explosion - Jukebox Explosion (In The Red) Major Stars - Mirror/Messenger (Drag City) Circle - Rakennus (Ektro) No Neck Blues Band - LIVE @ Ken's Electric Lake (Locust Music) Thurston Moore - Trees Outside The Academy (Ecstatic Peace) Magik Markers - Redux aka The Real Mccoy (Arbitrary Signs) V/A - White Lace And Strange - (Psychic Circle) JEAN-FRANCOIS RIOUX 1. MOUTHUS - Saw a halo (Load) 2. EARTH - Hibernaculum (Souther Lord) 3. SUNN0)) - Oracle (Souther Lord) 4. DESTROYALLDREAMERS - WISH I WAS ALL FLAMES (Where Are My) 5. SIGHTINGS - Through the Panama (Load) 6. WOODEN SHJIPS - S/T (Holy Mountain) 7. THE SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN - Z (Ecstatic Peace) 8. OM - Pilgrimage (Souther Lord) 9. OREN AMBARCHI - In the pendulum's embrace (Souther Lord) 10. NADJA - Radiance of shadows (Alien8) BRUNO BISSONNETTE (in no particular order) : 1. To Live and Shave in L.A.: Les Tricoteuses 2. Nondor Neva: DMT Rok [performed by _ ("Undrskor")] 3. The Flying Luttenbachers: Incarcerated by Abstraction 4. Nondor Neva: Wooden Machine Music/2001 5. Sightings: Through the Panama 6. Haswell/Hecker: Blackest Ever Black 7. Ergo Phizmiz: Nose points in different directions 8. RLW with rm74: Pirouetten 9. MC Maguire: Meta-Conspiracy 10. To Live and Shave in L.A. 2: The 300 Dollar Silk Shirt also these were very good- RLW with Bhob Rainey: I don't think I can see you tonight Drumcorps: Grist Sudden Infant: Dark Sperm Marcus Schmickler: Altars of Science JAY UDELL Top 10 Albums of 2007 1. Symphony X - Paradise Lost 2. Devian - Ninewinged Serpent (UK release date because I did in fact order it from Amazon UK) 3. Machine Head - The Blackening 4. Sebastian Bach - Angel Down 5. Shadows Fall - Threads Of Life 6. Bloodsimple - Red Harvest 7. Down - III Over The Under 8. Witchcraft - The Alchemist 9. Dax Riggs - We Sing Of Only Blood Or Love 10. Megadeth - United Abominations JOSEPH A. GERVASI of Exhumed Films and Diabolik DVD Top Ten New Records of 2007: Boris with Michio Kurihara: "Rainbow" The Valerie Project: "s/t" Crippled Black Phoenix: "A Love of Shared Disasters" Wolves in the Throne Room: "Two Hunters" Radiohead: "In Rainbows" World's End Girlfriend: "Hurtbreak Wonderland" Of Montreal: "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?" Om: "Pilgrimage" Ice-Bound Majesty: CDr Carribou: "Andorra" Top Ten Collection or Re-Issue Records of 2007: V/A: "The Essence of Swedish Progressive Music, 1967-1979" boxset V/A: "Eccentric Soul - The Outskirts of Deep City" The Trees Community: "The Christ Tree" David Crosby: "If Only I Could Remember My Name..." Mono: "Gone" Ophiucus: "s/t" Valerie and Her Week of Wonders OST V/A: "Brazil 70" Neil Young: "Live at Massey Hall, 1971" V/A: "Into the Afterlife" (Zombies, Colin Blunstone, et al) ADRIAN DZIEWANSKI Top 3 then an 8 way tie for 4th. 1. STARS OF THE LID "Stars of the Lid and Their Refinement of the Decline" 2. ANDREW CHALK "Goldfall" (cd reissue) 3. RADIOHEAD "In Rainbows" JEAN-FRANCOIS LAPORTE "Soundmatters" M.I.A. "Kala" ANIMAL COLLECTIVE "Strawberry Jam" JAMES BLACKSHAW "Cloud of Unknowing" JASPER TX AND MACHINEFABRIEK (DAG ROSENQVIST AND RUTGER ZUYDERVELT) "Vintermusik" MACHINEFABRIEK "Slaapzucht" WILLIAM BASINSKI "Shortwave Music" DIRTY PROJECTORS "Rise Above" JENGIZ AZIZ '07:- 1. Poppy & The Jezebels - Follow Me Down (mini-album) 2. Vibracathedral Orchestra - Wisdom Thunderbolt 3. Shining - Grindstone 4. Edgar Jones - Gettin' A Little Help... From The "Joneses" 5. Wooden Shjips - Wooden Shjips SARAH MALAKOFF "the sounds of 2007" (in no particular order): 1) We All Together - s/t (Get Back LP) 2) Bee Gees - The Studio Albums 1967-1968 (Reprise/Rhino 6LP Set) 3) Anne Briggs - The Time Has Come (Water CD) 4) Betty Davis - s/t (Light In The Attic CD) 5) Tully - Sea of Joy (EM Records CD) 6) Panda Bear - Person Pitch (Paw Tracks 2LP) 7) Boris wth Michio Kurihara - Rainbow (Pedal CD) 8) Boredoms - 77 Boadrum NYC, Live, 7/7/07 9) V/A - Brazil '70: After Tropicalia: New Directions In Brazilian Music (Soul Jazz 2LP) 10) Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin (Sub Pop LP) 11) Sir Richard Bishop - Fingering The Devil (Latitudes/Southern LP) 12) Mary Weiss - Dangerous Game (Norton LP) 13) Nico - The Frozen Borderline 1968-1970 (Elektra/Reprise/Rhino 2CD) 14) Wooden Shjips - s/t (Holy Mountain 2CD) 15) COB - Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart (Sunbeam CD) 16) The Clique - Sugar On Sunday: The Definitive Collection (Rev-Ola CD) 17) July - July & The Second of July (Mason Records CD) ALEX BUCZYNSKI Black Metal & Blue Notes - Top 50 Of 2007 Monster Magnet - 4 Way Diablo Mayhem - Ordo Ad Chao Watain - Sworn To The Dark Charogne - Purge Nox - Ixaxaar Marduk - Rom:5:12 Yperite - Seuls Les Morts Ont Ou La Fin De La Geurre Arkhon Infaustus - Orthodoxyn Lubrik Hate - Negative Destiny Nile - Ithyphallic Anthony Braxton - 9 Compositions Method of Defiance - Inamorata Tiziano Tononi & The Ornettians - Peace Warriors Vol. 2: Forgotten Children (((Powerhouse Sound))) - Oslo/Chicago Breaks Mushroom With Eddie Gale - Joint Happening Butch Morris - Conducts The Nublu Orchestra Charlie Hunter Trio - Mistico Healing Force - The Songs Of Albert Ayler John McLaughlin, Jaco Pastorius, Tony Williams - Trio of Doom Klaus Schulze - Kontinuum Miles Davis - The Complete On The Corner Sessions Secret Oyster - Straight To The Krakenhaus Soft Machine - The Complete CBS Years Disrupt - Disrupt Dead Raoul Valve - The Andrew Blake Soundtracks Exit 13 - High Life Bruce Haacke - The Electric Lucifer Melvin Jackson - Funky Skull Bill Heid - The John Leslie Soundtracks Zweistein - Trip, Flip Out, Meditation Thurston Moore - Extra Action Azrael - Act III: Self + Act IV: Goat Vital Remains - Icons Of Evil Electric Wizard - Witchcult Today Trelldom - Til Minne . . . Winterblut - Das Aas Aller Dinge Thunderbolt - Apocalyptic Doom Mutiilation - Sorrow Galaxies Pantheon I - The Wanderer And His Shadow Drawn & Quartered - Merciless Hammer Of Lucifer Dimmu Borgir - In Sorte Diaboli Naglfar - Harvest Cephalic Carnage - Xenosapian Canvas Solaris - Cortical Tectonics Candlemass - King Of The Grey Islands Deathspell Omega - Fas - Ite, Maledictii, In Ign Aeternum Behemoth - The Apostasy Immolation - Shadows In The Light Odious Mortem - Cryptic Implosion Zarathustra - In Hora Mortis Inspiration: Alan Moore & Melinda Gebbie, Michael Manning, David Aaron Clark, Dian Hanson, Richard Kern, Steve Diet Goedde, Dave Naz & Ashley Blue, Octavio, Joe Gallant, John Stagliano, Jake Malone, Joey Silvera, Jazz Duro, Justin Slayer, Mason & William H., Michelle & Aiden, Bobby D., Joanna Angel, Eon Mckai, Dana Dearmond, Kim Kane, Sasha Grey, Charlotte Stokely, Jack The Zipper and all "Models." JOHN HUMBLET TOP 10 of 2007 in no particular order: EMERALDS "Allegory Of Allergies" cassette (Gods Of Tundra) MILES DEVENS Atlantic Woman cassette (New Age Cassettes) A BAD DIANA The Lights Are On But No-Ones Home CD (United Jnana) MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS Gitchii Manitu (12 Step Retrance Program For Troubled Dream) cassette (Pacific City) WOODEN SHJIPS s/t CD (Holy Mountain) PACIFIC RAT TEMPLE BAND Tan Kim Boa Paradise cassette (New Age Tapes) COMMISSARIS HJULER EN MAMA BEER Mensen die kort staan voor de zelfdoding LP (Ultra Eczema) LES RALLIZES DNUDS Yodo-go-a-go-go (aka Flightless Bird Needs Water Wings) CD (10th Avenue Freeze Out) GAVIN BRYARS/PHILIP JECK/ALTER EGO The Sinking Of The Titanic CD (Touch) SUISHOU NO FUNE I Throw A Stone Into The Endless Depths cassette (Sloow Tapes) * RE-ISSUE TOP 10 of 2007 in no particular order: J. D. EMMANUEL Wizards LP (Dreamtime Taped Sounds) ZWEISTEIN Trip Flip Out Meditation 3xCD (Captain Trip) YOSHI WADA Lament For The Rise And Fall Of The Elephantine Crocodile CD (EM Records) COSTIN MIEREANU Luna Cinese CD-r (Creel Pone) VIKKI JACKMAN Of Beauty Reminiscing CD (Faraway Press) CURRENT 93 The Inmost Light 3xCD (Durtro/Jnana) NOAH HOWARD The Black Ark CD (Bo Weavil Recordings) NUNO CANAVARRO Plux Quba CD (Moikai) GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA Nuova Consonanza CD (Bella Casa) MAURIZIO BIANCHI Symphony For A Genocide CD (Hospital Productions) * TOP 10 bought and enjoyed, but not released in 2007 in no particular order: PUBLIC IMAGE LIMITED Metal Box CD (Virgin) GRAVEYARDS Psalm Alarm cassette (Meudiademorte) JASON LESCALLEET The Pilgrim picture disc LP + CD (Glistening Examples) VARIOUS ARTISTS The Complete 10-Inch Series From Cold Blue 3xCD (Cold Blue) ROLAND P. YOUNG Isophonic Boogie Woogie CD (EM Records) JACQUES BERROCAL Flash picture disc 10-inch (Alga Marghen) ACHIM REICHEL & MACHINES Echo/A. R. IV 2xCD (New Amos Records) ZOLTAN PONGRCZ & IVN PATACHICH Hungarian Electroacoustic Music Works By... CD (Hungaroton Classic) PETER GRUDZIEN The Unicorn CD (Radioactive Records) TOSHI ICHIYANAGI Obscure Tape Music of Japan Vol. 5: Music For Tinguely CD (Edition Omega Point) .and of course the never ending yes, this is wishful thinking! Creel Pone output. JEFFERSON PETREY HERE ARE MY TOP ALBUMS OF 2007 IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER V/A "50 Years of New Music in Darmstadt 1946-1996" -Reissue (Col Legno) Bernard Parmegiani "Chants Magntiques" (Fractal) Janek Schaefer "In The Last Hour" (Room40) Pan Sonic "Katodivaihe" (Blast First) Oren Ambarchi "In the Pendulums' Embrace" (Touch) Lost in Hildurness "Mount A" (12 tonar) V/A "Hitokomakura : Sound-Art Tribute to Yasujiro Ozu" (and/OAR) Adrian Klumpes "Be Still" (Leaf) Ultralyd "Conditions for a Piece of Music" (Rune Grammofon) Luigi Nono "Prometeo" (Col Legno) Gavin Bryars/Philip Jeck/Alter Ego Ensemble "The Sinking of the Titanic" (Touch) KTL "2" (Mego) Marcus Schmickler "Altars of Science" (surround-DVD edition) (Mego) Zeitkratzer/Lou Reed "Metal Music Machine" (Asphodel) Peter Brotzmann Octet "Complete Machine Gun Sessions" (Atavistic) Boris/Merzbow "Rock Dream" (Southern Lord) FILMS OF 2007 IN NO PARTICULAR HIERARCHICAL ORDER Jia Zhang-Ke "Still Life" (China) Apichatpong Weerasethakul "Syndromes and a Century" (Thailand) Tsai Ming-Liang "I Don't Want to Sleep Alone" (Taiwan) Julia Loktev "Day Night Day Night" (United States) Abderrahmane Sissako "Bamako" (Mali) Alfonso Cuarn "Children of Men" (United States) Mahamat-Saleh Haroun "Dry Season" (Chad) Chris Marker "Case of the Grinning Cat" (France) Guy Maddin "Brand Upon the Brain!" (live orator/orchestra version) (Canada) Rainer Werner Fassbinder "Berlin Alexanderplatz" -Rereleased (Germany) Shohei Imamura "Vengeance is Mine"/"Profound Desire of the Gods"/"History of Postwar Japan" - Rereleased (Japan) Though not consistent enough to warrant whole-hearted inclusion here, these two films are deserving of a honorable mention. Distinct for their sprawling long-duration narrative, convoluted storytelling, inventive use of DV and the weird conflicting mix of pure cinema 'magic' and almost self-parody levels of 'missing the mark' when the aim is set this high: Richard Kelley "Southland Tales" (United States) David Lynch "INLAND EMPIRE" (United States) AND VISUAL ART OF 2007 ALSO IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER Olafur Eliasson "Take Your Time" (SFMOMA) Neo Rauch/Tilo Baumgrtel/David Schnell "Life After Death: New Leipzig Paintings" (Frye Art-Seattle) Louise Bourgeois "Bourgeois in Boston" (ICA-Boston) Felix Schramm "New Work: Misfit" (MOMA) Tivon Rice "Resolution/Apotheosis" (Lawrimore Project-Seattle) Bruce Nauman "Elusive Signs" (Henry Art-Seattle) Some notable events in the multi-sensory spectrum of the arts this year - travel and film + music festivals helped with creating more of the experience of these in the 3rd Dimension kind of way. Yes! To witnessing more live music performed, art out in the city and cinema in the theatre in 2008. DEREK GODAT (Ultra Hard Gel) Soundtrack 2007 Flying Canyon "Flying Canyon" Giant Skyflower Band "Blood of the Sunworm" Midlake "Trials of Vanoccupanther" Castle Project "Diaries of a Broken Heart" Marc Manning "Air In The Trees" Claypipe "For the Creek Kaituna" Bardo Pond "Ticket Crystals" Sean Smith "Eternal" Richard Youngs "Autumn Response" Winter Flowers "Chiming Leaves of the Shimmering Forest" Homayun Sakhi "Music of Central Asia vol 3" Nikhil Banerjee "Rotterdam 1970" Danzig "6:66 Satan's Child" / "7:77 I Luciferi" Fikret Kizilok "Gun Ola Devran Done" Mikami Kan "Hiraku Yume Nado Arujanashi" MEATBREAK AND THE BLACK STATIC Yes yes, here is my rather excessive, weighty, overly dramatic and self-absorbed top 50 run down of the year 2007. Plus also, my top 20 Brighton bands of the year too - that one might be more interesting for you. Maybe. I hope! Plus, here's my January Not For Resale download, with a load of the most interesting new stuff from the demo circuit I've come across this month: http://www.sendspace.com/file/ cge8z4 Too much writing in these files for me to take up your time saying much more here. Top 50 Albums Of 2007 50. Wooden Shjips Wooden Shjips Holy Mountain http://www.myspace.com/woodenshjips http://www.holymountain.com Five tracks of throbbing kaleidoscopic weed-smoke drone that instantly find their groove in We Ask You To Ride, introducing an album that sits in the foggy headspace of 60s West-coast psych-rock, rolling around in the sun-baked blues trance for just over half an hour. 49. LCD Soundsystem Sound Of Silver DFA http://www.lcdsoundsystem.com http://www.dfarecords.com In Sound of Silver James Murphy produced the perfect foil for his debut, incorporating all the heroes he baited his listeners for holding up on Losin My Edge. Theres a lot of Bowie, Prince and Kraftwerk, theres a lot of funk, electro, post-punk and theres All My Friends, Us Vs. Them and Watch The Tapes. 48. Phosphorescent Pride Dead Oceans http://www.myspace.com/phosphorescent http://www.deadoceans.com/ No Bonnie Billy this year? Not to worry, Phosphorescent man Matthew Houck picks up that battered country bleakness baton and, well, not so much runs off with it, but slouches onto the porch and sits picking out mournful sunset ballads to beckon the encroaching darkness. 47. Jonquil Sunny Casinos Try Harder http://www.myspace.com/jonquiluk http://www.tryharderrecords.com Oxfords Jonquil create a feral, fractured folk thats a bit mangy round the edges, scruffy like its slept in the gutter for months. Barely-there vocals are set back into the mix, surrounded and supplanted by the rushing sounds of pianos, guitars, drums and percussive paraphernalia that add to the bare bones of some already wonderful tunes. 46. Mammatus The Coast Explodes Holy Mountain http://www.myspace.com/mammatus http://www.holymountain.com After being underwhelmed with their previous self-titled album, this huge slab of heavy drone burst into my brain with the opening track Dragon Of The Deep Part Three (Excellent Swordfight). A totally storming monolithic album imbued with the perpetual brewing menace of black thunderheads on the horizon. 45. Dungen Tio Bitar Kemando http://www.myspace.com/dungen http://www.kemado.com In a rougher, wilder, more atmospheric and eloquent record than its predecessors Gustav Ejstes fourth album at the helm of Dungen is a huge progression into his obsession with drawing out the psychedelic and harmonious elements of late 60s/early 70s errrprogressive rock. 44. Tomahawk Anonymous Ipecac http://www.myspace.com/tomahawkofficial http://www.ipecac.com No more proggy metal for Tomahawk it seems, as Mike Patton looked to native American rhythms for Anonymous. In tracks like Ghost Dance and Mescal Rites I, Patton, ex-Jesus Lizard Duane Denison and ex-Helmet drummer John Stainer interpret an entire culture of sound and add a modern surface of synths and riffs without undermining the natural feel of the source. 43. Bergraven Dodsvisioner Hydra Head http://www.myspace.com/bergraven http://www.hydrahead.com In a year where Xasthur was conspicuous by his absence of especially great records, Swedens Bergraven stepped in with a second album to fill the claustrophobic labyrinthian breach. What Pr Gustafsson adds to the complex tapestry is taken from the forefather of Scandinavian darkness Quorthorn and welded to stomping, shrieking post-black metal shoegaze, prog-forest twists down shadowed paths and out into the slightly less well known. 42. Patrick Wolf The Magic Position Loog http://www.myspace.com/officialpatrickwolf http://www.loogrecords.co.uk Ex-Minty member Patrick Wolf brings a bit of the circus back with his third album. Wind In The Wires and Lycanthropy were acoustic folk inflected minor chord lamentations but this is him in full drag, upping the key and the drama, waltzing around in full technicolour glory. 41. Monotract Trueno Oscuro Load http://www.myspace.com/monotractxp http://www.loadrecords.com A pestilent surge of debased feral rock and roll. Its noise clad to a striking form hammered out violently on drums and screwed up electronics, guitars dragging Neanderthal knuckles across the charred surface, weirdly effected vocals piercing through the miasma. But yeah, this is rock and roll for sure. 40. Blood Of The Black Owl - Blood Of The Black Owl Glassthroat Recordings / Bindrune http://www.myspace.com/bloodoftheblackowl http://bindrunerecordings.com http://www.glassthroatrecordings.com/pages/index2.html Any album that has three minutes of distant wolves howling in the wind deserves attention. Or maybe its the 74 minutes of relentless doom laden pitch black riffs surrounding it that cant be ignored. One of the two, or even both. Yup 39. Bill Callahan Woke On A Whaleheart Drag City http://www.myspace.com/toomuchtolove http://www.dragcity.com Until I saw Bill Callahan play at Green Man this year Id never heard much Smog, despite friends best efforts. I dont know why Id never really got into it before, because his performance was one that really tripped something in me and when he played Diamond Dancer it instantly became one of my favourite songs of the year. 6 months of constant listening hasnt dimmed the magic. 38. Gui Boratto Chromophobia Kompakt http://www.myspace.com/guiboratto http://www.kompakt-net.com Brazilian producer makes psychedelic minimalist blog-house record of the year. Not that Im totally sure what blog-house is but its a phrase that turned up all over the err..blogosphere this year. For an album with such a metronomic beat, this never gets dull, considering the label, due to the subtly produced constantly shifting scenery flowing past the gently pulsing engine. 37. Modeselektor Happy Birthday Bpitch http://www.modeselektor.com/ http://bpitchcontrol.de Ram-raiding through dance genres like nobodies business, and featuring the most impressive/disgusting belch on record, Modeselektor release a unique vision cast from acid-dub, trance, hip-hop, IDM, electro and well, whatever else you can pick out of it yourself really. Having worked together for 15 years, Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary pretty much know each other as intimately as any partnership and the results are fortunately, as much fun to listen to as they must have been to make. 36. High On Fire Death Is This Communion Relapse http://www.myspace.com/highonfireslays http://www.relapse.com A band ostensibly formed as a platform for Matt Pike to volley forth riff after riff, High On Fire have suddenly become the consummate synthesis of the entire library of every discerning Metal fan. A blackened wasteland stalked by ferocious blood-thirsty beasts, of drawn swords and clashing steel, of chest-pounding aggrandisement and cosmic valour. Death, Black, Thrash, Power, Speed this album has it all. 35. Earth Hibernaculum Southern Lord http://www.thronesanddominions.com http://www.southernlord.com Hex tried to twist the old Earth into an Americana like template of Western desert ragas but this is the full realization of that project. This reputedly began as a piano based album, with string embellishments gradually phasing out the key parts, but the timbres and tones of the guitars would have you think this could never have been cast from anything else. Gentle piano and two basses add to the long droning resonances plucked out from Dylan Carsons guitars while unobtrusive drums urge the pace along but never hurry it. Really something to get lost in the backwoods of your mind to. 34. Mammal Lonesome Drifter Animal Disguise http://www.myspace.com/doublenature http://www.animaldisguise.com A record that is by turns ambient to the point of non-existence and cruelly harsh, Gary Beauvais seems to have created the sound of someone realizing that there is more to noise music than simply battering as hard as possible and twisting all the dials up to the max. It is nuanced, stark, spacious and breathes precious life into a genre littered with rotting carcasses and the stench of stale death. 33. Tivol Interstellar Overbike Last Visible Dog http://www.lastvisibledog.com Pedal to the metal leather-clad, diesel stinkin Finnish freak-noise blasted out over two huge space-jams of cosmic disorder and intergalactic chaos courting. This record doesnt really let up in density at all, the only times the guitars part is to allow the synths to come strafing into the void with their lazer guided melodies. 32. Deepchord Presents Echospace The Coldest Season Modern Love http://www.myspace.com/deepchord http://www.modern-love.co.uk Im still not sold on Burial. What I hear when I listen to Untrue is nowhere near as convincingly formed as this record. Detroit based ambient-dub producer Rod Modell teamed up with Soulteks Steve Hitchell to create an analogue snowstorm of silent ambient static. The Coldest Season is made more of sensations than music, the first sign of a beat taking over four minutes to appear in opener First Point Of Aries and over the course of the album their shadowy presence never builds into much more than fleeting glimpses through the blizzard. 31. Lietterschpich I Cum Blood In The Think Tank Heart & Crossbone http://www.myspace.com/doomdub http://hcbrecords.com/store-hcb.html Rock and roll based noise has never been the same since Wolf Eyes tore it up so hard with Burned Mind a couple of years ago, but Lietterschpich have added an extra sort of turmoil to the mix an element of humanity and vulnerability. Not the kind of things Wolf Eyes would ever allow to creep in. 30. Voice Of The Seven Woods - Voice Of The Seven Woods Twisted Nerve http://www.myspace.com/voiceofthesevenwoods http://www.twistednerve.co.uk The debut album of the Manchester based Rick Tomlinson, is an electrically revved psychedelic mind-melter of a folk album. Coming off the back of several self-released 7s and CDRs, its a freakish hybrid of acid acoustics, blown-out psych-rock and kraut rhythms that keeps burrowing its way further into my brain with each listen. 29. JohnnyTwentyThree - JXXIII Self-Released http://www.myspace.com/j23music http://www.johnnytwentythree.com The only band JohnnyTwentythree really remind me of is Brightons Revenge Of Shinobi, much moreso than Explosions In the Sky and those of the gentler end of the post-rock spectrum the lightness and space, the shimmering gossamer tremolo, the peaks that dance on tiptoes. An hugely involving listen that can take ten minutes to build up into a throbbing crescendo, and on Ghost Soldiers is holds that peak for another ten, raining sheer euphoria into the room over every second. 28. Caina Mourner Profound Lore http://www.myspace.com/cainaband http://www.profoundlorerecords.com The work of the lone underground Sussex-based black metal visionary Andrew Curtis-Brignell, Mourner is a record of complex woven moods and sounds, taking black atmospherics into genuinely uncharted territories. All the hallmarks of raw turmoil are there in abundance, but few albums create such involving spaces to find yourself immersed in. Not surprisingly, the next album wont be out for another year creating Mourner must have been an exhausting expenditure of energy and emotion. 27. Heavy Winged On The Marble Cliffs Trensmat http://www.myspace.com/heavywinged http://www.iolfree.ie/~blingbling/index.htm This is the first appearance of Heavy Winged in my list and this release is the most unfettered, noisy and downright unyielding of them all. Reasonably short by Winged standards, first track Concrete Glass concludes after a bewildering six minutes of atonal scree and polymorphous feedback screeching. Very Japanese, but not in the least bit derivative, this trio do not normally go in for such furiously blown out indecipherable walls of noise but this is as in keeping with their greater vision as the beat driven shapes of the other two albums still to come. 26. Om Pilgrimage Southern Lord http://www.myspace.com/variationsontheme http://www.southernlord.com This is not an album of music created through conscious thought and rehearsal, it is cosmic reverberation ciphered through human hands, already existing outside of the mortal sphere, the flesh a mere conduit for the galactic energies pooling themselves in the records grooves. Meditative and transcendental, Chris Hakius and Al Cisneros have locked into another set of super-massive riffs, and though it may not feature my favourite Om track (which would be Rays Of The Sun - To The Shrinebuilder from the Current 93 split 10 Inerrant Rays Of Infallible Sun. Though Unitive Knowledge Of The Godhead comes a pretty close second) it does contain the most variety and depth of any of their releases so far. 25. Alcest Souvenirs Dun Autre Monde Profound Lore http://www.myspace.com/alcestmusic www.profoundlorerecords.com Alcest is the solo incarnation of Avignon based black metaller Neige - the guiding member of caustic outfit Peste Noir and the much lighter Amesoeurs. One of the most controversial releases this year, Souvenirs Dun Autre Monde (Memories Of Another World) has received both rapturous and spiteful receptions from all corners of the metal world. It is principally a shoegaze album with heavy reference to bands like Ride and Slowdive all clean vocals heavy with reverb and chorus, big cloudburst guitars, a wash of blissed out drone. No metal at all, except for the occasional, surprisingly deployed blast-beat that ripples underneath the hazy melodies. 24. Heavy Winged We Grow Not Not Fun http://www.myspace.com/heavywinged www.notnotfun.com Probably the most beautiful looking record released all year, the deep heavy marbled blues of the vinyl resonated through into the music itself. A murky oceanic turbulence, the groaning of ships hulls, the clatter of collapsing rigging, strings dragging across wood, flesh caught in the centre, at the mercy of the elements imposing themselves on its frail, vulnerable nakedness. Standing up to Heavy Winged without succumbing is an impossible feat. 23. Efterklang Parades The Leaf Label http://www.myspace.com/efterklang http://www.theleaflabel.com/index.html Parades takes its time in spreading the peaks and valleys across its entirety; the choral vocals swelling over the microfauna of strings growing out of the digital landscape, the euphoria naturally unfurling in an elegant display of restrained beauty. Some people are still making albums that arent a collection of songs which have to show the bands full hand the whole time. 22. Panda Bear - Person Pitch Paw Tracks http://www.myspace.com/rippityrippity http://www.paw-tracks.com Panda Bear makes me tolerate the beauty in the Beach Boys harmonies because I dont have to think of Brian Wilson or Mike Love when I listen to them. Instead, I can get lost in the heavily reverb drenched delinquent psych-ragas of Bros and Good Girl Carrots while anticipating the shadowy corners of Im Not with its solemn Benedictine intro, a measured counterpoint to the playful acid contortions of the epic sprawl surrounding it. 21. The National - Boxer Beggars Banquet http://www.myspace.com/thenational http://www.beggars.com The National have in Matt Berninger the sexiest voice on record this year (as Mrs Meatbreak reminds me every time we listen). The most perfect drum sounds, clean guitar lines and memorable, achingly potent hooks combine with stunning lyrical imagery and story-telling into a smooth urban rock album similar to The Hold Steady though shorn of all the unkempt druggy religious iconography. 20. White Hills Heads On Fire Fuck Off & Di http://www.myspace.com/whitehills http://www.fuckoffanddi.co.uk Turn up, head down, trance off. Pretty much must be what the band ethic around the White Hills is every practice. Signed to Julian Copes label they have put out three increasingly heavy albums of pure unrestrained drugged out Spacemen 3, MBV style freak-drone. The air at the edges of this record crackles with energy, a pulsing, persistent never-ending torrent of opiated luminescence. Its noisy, direct and it plays the best bits over and over and over and overnandoverandoverandover 19. Gnaw Their Tongues Spasming And Howling, Bowels Loosening And Bladders Emptying, Vomiting Helplessly Self-Released http://www.myspace.com/gnawtheirtongues http://gnawtheirtongues.blogspot.com The complete synthesis of noise, metal and electronics, Gnaw Their Tounges epic soundscapes recall Atari Teenage Riot at their most pulverisingly, misanthropic severest, and Burning Star Core at their bleakest. Stretching the boundaries of speed and excess is what the lone Mories does best, but he breaks it up with haunting samples and entrancing drone. The complete works of the metal and extreme electronics communities bottled in one potent elixir. 18. Caribou Andorra Merge http://www.myspace.com/cariboumanitoba http://www.mergerecords.com At first this seemed like a similar album to Grizzly Bears Yellow House and I never paid it as much attention as that, until one day something just popped around the first verse of Shes The One when Dan Snaiths voice breaks just a little and the strings are swelling up pretty behind him, then I was finished by the little chugging mandolin after the chorus. After that it seemed like some long lost Perfumed Garden relic and the rest of the album came into focus that beautifully realised. 17. Gravenhurst The Western Lands Warp http://www.myspace.com/gravenhurst http://www.warprecords.com The thing I like most about this album is that I have no real idea of what it actually is. It is a music that defies easy categorization. Could it be post-folk? Who really cares when the music herein is of such luscious, melody oriented hues? The flickering instrumentation, the graceful lines, swallowed by ferocious feedback and volatile percussion reappear as dignified twilight acoustic tunes the other side of the fury. It could all be quite confusing, were it not on Warp a sign that something not quite of the ordinary is occurring. 16. The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns And Fifteen Winters Fatcat http://www.myspace.com/thetwilightsad http://fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/home.php With their full-force white-out guitars, cacophonous percussion, brusque Glaswegian accent and stories of children on fire The Twilight Sad are only a small side-step from fellow countrymen like Mogwai and Arab Strap. But there is a greater sentimentality working between the sheets of noise that does not just rely on the power of the music or the sinisterly day-to-day mundane recounted in the lyrics. It is traditional folk music filtered through nostalgia and modern cynicism plus a shit load of effects pedals giving it a unique aura and a unique voice. 15. Klaxons Myths Of The Near Future Polydor / Rinse http://www.myspace.com/klaxons http://www.betweenplanets.co.uk/index.php?tag=rinse-records Forget all that crap about nu-rave and listen to Klaxons for what they really are: Not some scene inducing media glitch, but a legacy of post-punks enduring aesthetic of fetishising sonic iconography and imbuing it with dangerous modern daring. They take their sound from sonic reverberations hidden in apocalyptic hieroglyphs, in demonic scripture, mythical rhetoric and human hedonism, binding them into an album thats a detailed ritual of progressive guitar dance. Whod have expected that then Reynolds? 14. Wolves In The Throne Room Two Hunters Southern Lord http://www.myspace.com/wolvesinthethroneroom http://www.southernlord.com I made Wolves debut album my number one last year and this is gifted with the same deftly deployed atmospheric brilliance as that, so the question I should ask is why isnt this as high in my list. Its not an enormous progression is the real answer. This is a subtle, nuanced reworking of a template which is pretty much theirs alone, but just as Mogwai and Godspeed emboldened their sounds with a more pronounced confidence after their debuts, so to have Wolves In The Throne Room. 13. The Angelic Process Weighing Souls With Sand Profound Lore http://www.myspace.com/theangelicprocess www.profoundlorerecords.com After 9 years, The Angelic Process have come to an end with K.Angyluss broken hand sealing their fate. This album is as fitting an exit as any. With his wife, M, this mysterious couple forge harrowing romantic poetry from an almost impenetrable wall of feedback. Each song building swiftly, lifting from the spine of a slow metronomic drum beat, thick soft noise shrouding the ascent, vocals surfacing between the waves. A huge sound and hugely fulfilling experience. 12. Aluk Todolo Descension Public Guilt http://www.myspace.com/aluktodolo http://www.publicguilt.com French black metal krautrock noise - a sub-genre containing surely only this one band. It must be the only black metal album to feature a slide blues guitar riff too. A deeply immersive experience that hisses through four James Plotkin mastered tracks, all heavy industrial clatter, dark ambience and teutonic groove. The sleeve credits only drums bass and guitar, but how they conjure the crumbling landslides collapsing all over this record with those three elements is a mystery and goes a ways to creating the aura pervading it. 11. 65 Days Of Static - The Destruction Of Small Ideas Monotreme http://www.myspace.com/sixtyfivedaysofstatic http://www.monotremerecords.com A band that keep pushing to produce something new, creating new angles and opening up different headspaces, 65 Days Of Static are now on their high octane drum battery and hurricane force effects phase. One of the most carefully produced albums this year, the sound of each drum padding, thumping can be felt connecting solidly, the crackle and hum of impending guitars swelling like pregnant pauses fills the room before the peaks burst the calm apart. When its quiet, its very very quiet and when its loud its scary. 10. Deerhunter Cryptograms Kranky http://www.myspace.com/deerhunter http://www.kranky.net A noisy little acid-fried post-punk indie-disco comedown-meltdown bastard of a record. Like when Outhud flipped out all kaleidoscopic and made your eyes bulge, this is that all over again but with more tone wash and fuzzbox. Big lakes of ambience sit between the motorik riots, keeping them apart or thered be bitchfight blood shed and this record never lets itself dip into the undignified (unlike Of Montreal, but thats a whole different thing). Until Heatherwood drops its shoulder at the end and comes right at you. 09. Bone Awl Meaningless Leaning Mess Klaxon Productions http://www.klaxonrecords.com/main.html http://www.klaxonrecords.com/main.html This two piece have been going since 2002 but I only discovered them in February when they released their debut album Meaningless Leaning Mess. Their fourteenth release. Ridiculous! Seven demos, three eps and four split singles later they spit this violent ball of spiky fisted, black crusted metal spite out. Its not too different to the addictive canon preceding it, but it sees the production even more overdriven, blown-out, the buzz burning that much fiercer, the eyes stretched wider, more frenzied, ragged throat screeching that much coarser, cymbals splashing their tinny crashes that much shriller. And the world shrinks that much smaller. If it is actually possible, this one could be even faster too, getting through 18 blistering tracks of hyper kinetic lo-fi scree in 38 minutes. Buckle up cunts, things are about to get very grim indeed. 08. One Unique Signal Tribe, Castle And Nation Genepool http://www.myspace.com/oneuniquesignal www.genepoolrecords.com One Unique Signal from Brentford, Essex; the grey-skied rain-cloud Stooges spinning off the dual axes of Joy Division and Spacemen 3. Bleak. Bleak, oppressive, the concrete walls of a city shot through with slices of light like gaps between buildings. Urban paranoia, environmental sickness, the threat of violence, the will to escape. Tribe, Castle and Nation embodies it all, releasing the bands response to the oppressive through taught star-scraping drone rock, using angled breaks in rhythm like elbows in faces, a survivalists handbook to the mean streets.. 07. Heavy Winged Taking The Veil Students Of Decay http://www.myspace.com/heavywinged http://www.studentsofdecay.com/ First released in 2006 on Terrastock as a run of 20, then re-released on Students Of Decay who then only upped the run to 100, but it was enough to get them to my ears and this was my first encounter with a band that would consume me for the entire year. I blew the amp at The Greenhouse Effect at the first Not For Resale LIVE! with Through The Shimmer and from there my relationship with this band was cemented. The other HW records in this list are dynamic in their own right, but this is an incredible trip over two near-half-hour tracks that suck the air from the room and the light from your eyes. And then it peaks. Holding it for 15 minutes, the driving surges buckle up into peaks, iridescent displays of showering feedback coursing from busted pedals, screeching through the wonky reels of an aging 4-track, driven by urgent propulsive drumming. Dance music for the fearless it is vital sounding and all-consuming to be in the presence of. 06. Cobalt Eater Of Birds Profound Lore http://www.myspace.com/eaterofbirds www.profoundlorerecords.com Holy shit, holy shit holy shit.Sometimes words fail and one is rendered a completely awestruck gibbering mess. After threatening their enemy with One thousand strikes of the skull hammer and leaving just a brewing tension between the drums and guitars the vocals drop back in on the appropriately titled Witherer starting off a four minute build of searing tribal drumming that the guitars lock onto, layering up riff on riff, cruising at immense velocity, the vocals drawling in their guttural rasp. Absolutely do not fucking mess with this band. Ultra heavy is not all this album is. It contains three heavily effected, slightly disturbing acoustic passages all titled The Ritual Use Of Fire. No need to expound on the importance of that element in its creative and destructive guises. Comprised of just two people Erik Wunder on drums and Phil McSorely on guitar, both adding vocals this is a primeval, primordial jam session of the most singularly minded crushing heaviness. Not only that, but it grooves so damn hard, reliant on the drums pushing the guitars on; its a rarely heard interplay of the purest, most intimate form, that is invigoratingly world eating as a result. 05. Monsters Build Mean Robots - Monsters Build Mean Robots Nice Weather For Airstrikes Http://www.myspace.com/MonstersBuildMeanRobots http://www.myspace.com/iownaregularhuntingrifle The name is striking. Think about it for a while and it conjures a harrowing doom-laden image. Monsters Build Mean Robots form of electronic oriented post-rock is formed of mostly instrumental songs with politically nuanced titles such as The Freedom To Fire Those Freedom Rockets, thisiswheretheoilcomesfrom.com and Sometimes We Sit And Stare At Passing Tanks. The intensity which that context lends the peaceful hum and whirr is palpable, becoming bolstered with guitars that really get noisy only the once for the peak of Chimes Break Through Light To Reach Us. A truly powerful, graceful, restrained and haunting record. 04. Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago Self-Released http://www.myspace.com/boniver http://www.jagjaguwar.com Justin Vernon abandoned his former band DeYarmond Edison and in the Winter of 2006 went out into a log cabin in the woods of Wisconsin where he lived for three months, keeping the fires going and spending long days considering his place in the world. Long recording sessions began and out of solitude and reflection came nine songs of brittle delicately anguished beauty. Lead by an arresting voice that sometimes feels awkwardly intimate, whispering close to your ear fears of frailty, inconsequence and vulnerability, this album captures on tape the sound of a soul wrestling with itself, the reverberations of the natural world and the quietude of life alone inside four wooden walls. 03. Future Of The Left Curses Too Pure http://www.myspace.com/futureoftheleft http://www.toopure.com From the ashes of McClusky and Jarcrew rises a phoenix of bewildering shapes and sounds. Humorous, spiteful, vengeful and almost always obtuse, Curses is one of those albums that transcends the sum of its parts. Shouty angsty vocals with a comedians timing, angular guitars driving like reckless yoof, broken fist pounded keyboards, create a whole with tangible character, harmonising vocals (anyone for a nice campfire round of Colin is a pussy?) and songs that build into roaring stomping mechanistic beasts. Tracks like The Lord Hates A Coward and Small Bones Small Bodies grind forward, touching dancefloors, but most generally not giving much of a shit about anyone as they leave a trail of psychedelic devastation in their wake. 02. Wold Screech Owl Profound Lore www.profoundlorerecords.com The village is in ruins and the shadows standing over the smolder hold swords burning red with fury. Opex on battle strings, Obey on scourge and Fortress Cookedjaw on poetry, vocals and devices. Twilight figures courting owls, dragons and cosmic energies. Fiercely intense, catastrophically harsh, this album is an expedition into some of the most unforgiving regions of sound imaginable. Taking the naturalistic form of BM to the furthest extremes they themselves say that Wold venerate our ancestors and cultures through myth and existence, and remain open and reflective to other effective metaphors, whilst simultaneously deploying the Satanic element in another ideological statement; Wold solemnly swear to adhere to the law of the Self this band embody the truest essences of the genre whilst absolutely destroying its legacy and creating a whole new one from critically red-lined fractured buzzing, festering riffs boiling under ragged shrieks and garbled incantations. 01. Of Montreal - Oh Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Polyvinyl http://www.myspace.com/ofmontreal http://www.polyvinylrecords.com My Top 20 bands/people/performers of 2007, in no particular order other than alphabetically. -A+M Album of the year contender number 2. Few bands send us records (actual vinyl ones too), this beautifully packaged, with this much astonishingly beautiful music in them and the skill to back it all up live with just a few nylon strings and drum skins for comfort. Bat For Lashes For dividing opinion more fiercely than anyone else in town, for repping Brighton at the Mercuries and being one of two girls to be robbed of the best artists award by the four day-glo horsemen of the apocalypse. Bearhead/Falling Boy This year Oliver Hill has started his record label, Constant Vertigo and sold out of every thing he has released, tempted Wolf Eyes Mike Connelly onto his roster, begun an intense night of the same name playing cosmic heaviosity at The Penthouse, and continues to find the time to play as both his solo outfits and with Noise&Drums trio Terminal Outputs and hardcore act End The Agony. Blood Red Shoes For totally running away with Reading festival and releasing some of the sweatiest singles this year. Oh, and the Its Getting Boring By The Sea Blamma Blamma Remix totally ups the ante on that Gossip remix. Coin-Op For returning in a blaze of hyper speed indie-disko glory, winning over everyone who sees them play and for creating the kind of songs that create cues at the DJ booth to find out who that was that we just danced to. Diagonal We havent seen too many prog-rock bands in town, but the one we did see reconfigured our synapses in ways King Crimson could only dream of. Plus, they hid a CD in Snoopers for us to find. Dylan Nyoukis For bringing the Colour Out Of Space festival to Brighton, even bigger and better than before, for it being a charitable event featuring some of the most talented (non?) musicians in the outsider scene. Not even London has something like this. Everyone To The Anderson The killerist post-rock-rock-Rock band in town. Immense sprawling tunes over two EPs released through Toy Soldier (also worthy of a big mention) The Flesh Happening This band dive head-first into places most people fear to even tread both musically and lyrically, with live shows proving they are in possession of the best front man in town, bar none. Foals Best New Band in Brighton. Britain? The World? Maybe next year, but the crown is coming. The Ghost Of A Thousand Kerrang! award nominees taking the UK hardcore scene by storm who also appear in This Is Menace alongside members of Killing Joke, Carcass and Napalm Death. Youve got to be good to associate with those kinds of people. Maths Class For accelerating out of the stocks of new-band-dom into a limelight stealing position in what, like a week or something daft? At such a young age too. Our Arctic Monkeys? Fuck that Our Maths Class. The Miserable Rich One of the few bands to unite the entire office which is rarity enough to earn them a place, but moreso because they write the kind of tunes capable of uniting nations. Monsters Build Mean Robots The most politicised band Kranky have yet to sign released a self titled album that makes my Top 5 of the year. An incredible way with sonic detail. Old Mayor UK doom just got itself the most succinctly devastating a