Bad Ally (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} zenith) wrote,@ 2006-12-21 01:52:00 |
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I know now fragility
10 days to the end of the year, time to start writing about 10 albums released this year that I love.
These end of year lists are problematic anyway, but the start of this year feels so long ago that I'm even more likely to have forgotten albums than usual. Amazon is telling me that Powder Burns, Sexor and The Greatest are all 2006 releases, which seems insane to me in some ways. That's before we even get onto those that have just been realised which I haven't really had time to assess (the new Gwen Stefani and Ciara albums) or even buy yet (Game Theory which I keep meaning to buy ever since hearing it in this weird organic pizza place in NY and being amazed that The Roots could sound so tight, More Fish).
But I think I can do 10, not necessarily "THE" top 10, but I'm pretty sure I have 9 that are better than anything else I've heard and another 9 or so to listen to until I pick one of those. So let's give it a shot, not in any order other than which it feels easiest to write about first.
The Knife - Silent Shout
There was this advert for... I think maybe Guinness, maybe a car... Anyway, it was a couple of years ago and got shown at the cinema a lot, and it featured some people driving through the countryside at night, looking for a party. One of them sees a glowing little insect flying around by the window, so they stop the car and get out and walk off the road into the darkness, through the woods, following this tiny flickering light, until there are more flickering lights and eventually, there in the middle of the forest, is a party.
I always found that advert a lot more ambiguously sinister than I thought it was meant to be - something Pied Piper about it, something grim fairytale, the sense of being lured off the path into the darkness, away from civilisation... There might be the best party in the world waiting for you, or you might just end up wandering the woods until you freeze to death, or walking into the sea by mistake, y'know?
And THAT is Silent Shout. It's a party in the middle of a forest, hosted by unfamiliar people who enthrall but also terrify you with their pagan ways, and it's also the forest around you, the utterly quiet, pitch black bits... Such a contradictory album because it contains one of the biggest dancefloor stormers of the year, the utterly crazed and joyous 'We Share Our Mothers' Health', and yet so many songs which sound so fragile and tiny and easily crushed ('From Off To On' is barely a whisper).
This is also the album that there seems to be most consensus about on the bits of the internet that I frequent where music is discussed. I think that's because The Knife do pop, but on this record they do it in a very... unpop way. So it ends up appealing to everyone. Leading everyone into the dark.
THREE TRACKS YOU MUST HEAR: 'Silent Shout', 'Forest Families', 'We Share Our Mothers' Health'
10 days to the end of the year, time to start writing about 10 albums released this year that I love.
These end of year lists are problematic anyway, but the start of this year feels so long ago that I'm even more likely to have forgotten albums than usual. Amazon is telling me that Powder Burns, Sexor and The Greatest are all 2006 releases, which seems insane to me in some ways. That's before we even get onto those that have just been realised which I haven't really had time to assess (the new Gwen Stefani and Ciara albums) or even buy yet (Game Theory which I keep meaning to buy ever since hearing it in this weird organic pizza place in NY and being amazed that The Roots could sound so tight, More Fish).
But I think I can do 10, not necessarily "THE" top 10, but I'm pretty sure I have 9 that are better than anything else I've heard and another 9 or so to listen to until I pick one of those. So let's give it a shot, not in any order other than which it feels easiest to write about first.
The Knife - Silent Shout
There was this advert for... I think maybe Guinness, maybe a car... Anyway, it was a couple of years ago and got shown at the cinema a lot, and it featured some people driving through the countryside at night, looking for a party. One of them sees a glowing little insect flying around by the window, so they stop the car and get out and walk off the road into the darkness, through the woods, following this tiny flickering light, until there are more flickering lights and eventually, there in the middle of the forest, is a party.
I always found that advert a lot more ambiguously sinister than I thought it was meant to be - something Pied Piper about it, something grim fairytale, the sense of being lured off the path into the darkness, away from civilisation... There might be the best party in the world waiting for you, or you might just end up wandering the woods until you freeze to death, or walking into the sea by mistake, y'know?
And THAT is Silent Shout. It's a party in the middle of a forest, hosted by unfamiliar people who enthrall but also terrify you with their pagan ways, and it's also the forest around you, the utterly quiet, pitch black bits... Such a contradictory album because it contains one of the biggest dancefloor stormers of the year, the utterly crazed and joyous 'We Share Our Mothers' Health', and yet so many songs which sound so fragile and tiny and easily crushed ('From Off To On' is barely a whisper).
This is also the album that there seems to be most consensus about on the bits of the internet that I frequent where music is discussed. I think that's because The Knife do pop, but on this record they do it in a very... unpop way. So it ends up appealing to everyone. Leading everyone into the dark.
THREE TRACKS YOU MUST HEAR: 'Silent Shout', 'Forest Families', 'We Share Our Mothers' Health'
