Albums 10-1
10. Destroyer Your Blues (Merge)
For some reason, this was widely celebrated in 2004 as his best since Streethawk (which is to say better than the love-it-or-hate-it glam-folk excess of This Night) or even City of Daughters—and in at least a few respects, it may be—, but I can’t help but feel the synth-heavy arrangements hindered yet another solid batch of Bejar’s highly esoteric art-rock (worst case scenario: the remake of “The Music Lovers”) as much as it helped it (best case scenario: when “Notorious Lightning” really kicks in). I stand by Bejar as one of our best songwriters, but to celebrate it as a return to form might say more about how easily people gave up in This Night than it does about Your Blues‘ utterly confusing dive into a level of irony so meta that it plays out like a Kaufman script. Best Moment: “What Road”
9. A.C. Newman The Slow Wonder (Blue Curtain/Matador)
While I’m not sure I think it tops either New Pornographers record (and I’m damn well sure it doesn’t reach Zumpano’s heights), Newman’s very first solo record is about as perfect as indie power-pop got in 2004. Best of all is “Town Halo’s” towering cello riff, just barely beating out the same song’s pre-chorus hook as one of his catchiest since, well, all of “Throwing Off Stars.” Not a single track sounds like b-side fodder, and, in fact, none even approach breaching a level of quality that has carried Newman’s outlandishly great output in the ’00s, and as a whole, they reaffirm his songwriting talent as one of our (and I mean that in the universal sense, not just us Canadians) finest. Best Moment: “The Town Halo”
8. New Buffalo Last Beautiful Day (Dot-Dash)
I’d imagine being “big” in Australia is a lot like being “big” in Canada; sure, you might have a dedicated fan-base back home, but try screaming “we’re the motherfucking Headstones” in England and you’re having that high school band nightmare all over again. Even our biggest acts (in both countries) rarely get recognized—good or bad—outside of their own confines, and when you look at which ones do (Powderfinger, Barenaked Ladies), it’s no wonder many can get all cautious when you start ranting about “this chick from Australia that’s awesome as fuck.” Aaron’s review does a great job of putting
Seltmann’s many talents into context, and hits the nail on the head when pointing out how rare an album Last Beautiful Day really is. It’s never overly strange or accessible, yet is stubbornly both; it doesn’t rely on the terrific production (in part courtesy of Avalanches member and husband
Darren Seltmann) as much as use it to give variety to what would, at times, otherwise be an album simplistic to Chan Marshall levels. It might be missing from nearly every other year-end list you’ll read this month, but they obviously haven’t heard “Recovery,” and if they have, they need to listen again. Best Moment: “Recovery”
7. Mclusky The Difference Between Me and You Is That I’m Not On Fire (Too Pure)
In my review for this record earlier this year, I described Fire as “much more an album of extremes;” many months and listens later, that focus on extremes has continually proven to be more the album’s defining statement than its failed gimmick. With their wicked sense of humour religiously offering a contrast to the brutal Albini-produced guitar-bass-drums attack, they tear violently through the very base elements of their sound, from volume to structure. Sure, this isn’t nearly as immediate as Dallas or My Pain and Sadness, but they’ve come out the other side a better band than ever, giving us all yet another reason to expect them to eventually follow through on what continues to be an incredible amount of potential. Best Moment: “Falco Vs. the Young Canoeist”
6. Max Richter The Blue Notebooks (Fat Cat)
Max Richter’s Blue Notebooks (minimalist neo-classical that includes a continuing narrative tying together the sound-scapes with a thankfully loose thread) is to me what Eluvium’s Lambent Material was in 2003: a sparse and sometimes overpoweringly beautiful listen from start to finish. It also works in every way that Eluvium’s follow-up EP, An Accidental Memory in the Case of Death, had ultimately failed; even with the barest of tools (sometimes the record barely exists), Richter’s compositions are strong enough to withstand some of its more more detracting repetitions. And it’s not all barely audible ambience or beautiful piano progressions, either; when it does get somewhat melodramatic, like “On the Nature of Daylight,” it can even challenge Godspeed’s more obnoxious epics with nothing more than a single instrument. Best Moment: “Horizon Variations”
5. Chad VanGaalen Infiniheart (Catch and Release/Flemish Eye)
Though word has spread slowly on VanGaalen’s debut since its release in January, the Calgary native probably won’t see Infiniheart finding a drastically bigger audience unless rumours of his signing to Secretly Canadian (and with that, a new release of this record in 2005) are actually true. But for now, the skinny on the most promising Canadian new-comer of 2004: Infiniheart is a compilation of about ten years worth of recordings by bedroom producer/singer/songwriter Chad VanGaalen, also a member of the west-coast rock group The Broken Ankles. Though he had to cut hundreds of songs, there’s no doubt he should have cut a couple of more; it’s a very draining experience, taking the entire thing in at once, and several of the instrumental passages (“Dolphinariums” in particular) seem distractingly out of place. Even with its mistakes, however, Infiniheart stays afloat; VanGaalen’s voice is distinctive without resorting to gimmickry, his lyrics are more often than not as involving as the music and, as a whole, it leaves so many doors open for future records that it remains virtually impossible to know where he’ll end up. If the rumours about SC aren’t true, don’t be surprised to see this record gain a cult following, anyway; eventually some label will catch on, giving him reason to wait far less than another decade to put together a follow-up. Best Moment: “Somewhere I Know There Is Nothing”
4. The Arcade Fire Funeral (Merge)
For those that caught the band live before the release of this record, the Arcade Fire’s meteoric rise to one of the year’s most critically acclaimed and widely adored indie rock groups since, well, the Wrens and last year’s Meadowlands wasn’t that much of a surprise, but it’s unlikely anyone else saw it coming. Finally able to capture their live chemistry perfectly on record, Funeral is impressive in ways that weren’t even hinted at on their debut EP. As easy as it would be to scrutinize this album needlessly in its somehow appointed role as the “next big indie thing,” why would anyone want to find fault in an album that far outweighs its several problems with an astonishingly diverse set that aptly takes on the most exciting aspects of their contemporaries without once hitting a significant lull. Sure, they’ve left themselves wide open for the expected backlash, but I’m certain Funeral will stand the test of time and, though I believe them capable of topping it, a continuing milestone from one of indie rock’s few truly exciting acts. Best Moment: “Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)”
3. Frog Eyes The Folded Palm (Absolutely Kosher)
Sean was right to use the word “singular” when reviewing an album this self-centered, though many seminal artists litter its expansive palette. Outside of Carey Mercer’s infamously brash and non-sequitur vocals, strong hints of Bowie, Elvis Costello and Pere Ubu battle it out in a non-so-subtle barrage of Mercer’s personality and politics. It has some latter-album lulls, but the highs are just ridiculous—the group’s songwriting economy taking an almost Streethawkian leap forward. All of the best elements of Golden River remain, but with a far greater focus on making a complete twelve-song statement that becomes harder to ignore the more you realize just how much is actually beneath all of the noise and shrieking. Best Moment: “The Oscillator’s Hum”
2. Devendra Banhart Rejoicing in the Hands/Nino Rojo (Young God)
I realize these don’t even officially get a joint release until next year, but it seems almost necessary to place both of Banhart’s 2004 records together; after all, he’s likened them to a mother/child relationship; then again, if I had smoked the amount of pot required to write songs as wonderfully twisted as “Little Yellow Spider” or “Insect Eyes,” I’d probably be seeing some pretty fascinating connections between the two, as well. Now listen, I know this whole “neo-folk”/”freak folk” (please stop using this phrase, people, and stop it now) avalanche of 2004 isn’t for everyone, but for all of their esoteric leanings and almost-to-the-point-of-parody psychedelia, there’s a lot of substance to this scene, and who better than a soft-spoken bearded hippie with two albums worth of timeless music to lead the way. Best Moment: “The Body Breaks” (Rejoicing); “A Ribbon” (Nino Rojo).
1. Brian Wilson SMiLE (Nonesuch)
You could fill some of the most superfluous volumes of music criticism history with essays and random shit I’ve written about this album, and even still writing a short blurb about this thing that can explain all that is great about it is all but impossible. Because let’s face facts here: no matter how much you’ve studied the mythology behind SMiLE and its nearly four-decade long gestation period, it isn’t hard to realize that Wilson has revived an album that stands outside of its enormous reputation as pop music’s great lost record, one which can be easily enjoyed in its many parts or as an incredibly fluid single journey through the core of what made/makes Wilson an unequaled one-man force; an album so richly personal and ahead of its time that it it has withstood implosion and decades of shame from its creator to come out the other end a modern masterpiece. The Wondermints should be commended for doing a respectable job imitating the Wrecking Crew, as well as their uncanny simulation the Boys’ long-tamed harmonies; surrounded by the talent, and now finally the support, Wilson finished the job, giving his legions of fans their lost masterpiece (that he dedicates the album to his patient fans is almost too endearing) and newcomers to Wilson’s creative peak can finally join in without having to get the weird guy at the record store to make them a bootleg copy. Whatever else was released in 2004, art-pop fans got the year’s only brand new cemented classic, and most likely the only one that will continue to influence another half-century’s worth of admirers. Best Moment: “Surf’s Up”
