ZapTown

It’s February 2010, and I’ve already got a month of the latest ambient and electronic releases of the year at hand, despite having little time to make my 2009 list. To that end, I now finally get around to displaying my fifteen favorite releases of last year (in all musical genres). These were the releases I listened to most in 2009. In no order:

Alva Noto—Xerrox, Vol. 2 (Raster-Noton)
An incredibly immersive album sure to appeal to fans of what we used to call glitch or microsound in olden times as well as folks who like their ambient music with meat and volume. Raster-Noton also released Atom™’s fine Kraftwerk homage, Leidgut, which almost made this list.

Papercuts—You Can Have What You Want (Gnomonsong)
I guess you could call this indie rock, but what does that even mean any more? It’s kind of similar to what Beach House are doing, though a little more on the hypnotic drone side of things. Spaced themes, plenty of reverb, and a faded-out sixties vibe. I played this one incessantly.

The Church—Untitled #23 (Second Motion)
They’re my favorite band, sure, but I wouldn’t put them on the list if I didn’t like the music (example: the execrable Shriek soundtrack they did last year). See my full review here.

Ducktails—Landscapes (Olde English Spelling Bee)
This LP-only release was a breath of fresh air to me this summer. I can’t say I’m convinced that “glo-fi” or “chillwave” is the next big thing in trendy indie music (if it is, I hope they give it a new name)—it’s just too hypnotic, and that never sells records to the kiddies, in my experience. Anyway, this had some great post-punk guitar tracks amidst Tang-Dream mandala sequencing and even some Ariel Pink inspired goodies.

Oneohtrix Point Never—Rifts (No Fun Productions)
The Russian Mind LP would have been on my list had it not been contained inside this mammoth double-CD compilation of most of the rest of the Point Never catalog. I love the new “classic” electronic music coming out right now. We who’ve been into it for years think it’s about time Schulze and Göttsching and Hoenig started getting some credit for making brain busting space drones years and years before many of us were born. Now if Steve Roach and Michael Stearns began getting some press, we’d really be going places….

Mokira—Persona (Type)
I found this album length paean to Spacemen 3 wholly bewitching. It runs the gamut from classic Fax Records style ambient, to William Basinski/Wolfgang Voigt classical loop echoes, to full-on Sonic Boom guitar phasing. This record is a classic from start to finish.

Animal Collective—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
I know, I know, this one was everywhere, and it doesn’t need me adding to the hype. Look, I’m thirty-three years old and I was the oldest guy at their local concert last year. I did not belong amidst the robo-tripping teens and the afrobeat text-dancing. I had no idea about any of this. But I sure played the latest Animal Collective CD a lot in 2009, even if it did make me a little more “NPR” inside. I’m not positive how much real longevity this record will have, but it would have been disingenuous for me not to include it on this list.

Sleepy Town Manufacture & Unit 21—No Traces (Infraction)
This one dwells in the hinterlands of ambient, all spooky samples and Biosphere-esque imaginary landscapes for films that never were (you can also insert your own overused stock description for ambient music here). Infraction is the ambient label to watch—classic material reissued, acclaimed artists supported, new and wonderful music unearthed. They deserve your support.

Celer—Engaged Touches (Home Normal)
Celer just got better and better last year with a string of memorable ambient releases on a variety of new and interesting labels. While several of their works were great in 2009, this was undoubtedly my favorite, two thick slabs of ambient classical vignettes, sad and haunting and eternal. Unfortunately, this CD went out of print, but those who are curious to know the unique sound of Celer are directed to their other fine 2009 albums on Low Point, Slow Flow, and Sentient Recognition Archive.

Tim Hecker—An Imaginary Country (Kranky)
Tim Hecker is probably the best way to get your wayward friends into listening to ambient and electronic music. His records have a backbone and it’s a great taster for those who can’t seem to initially find interest in the harmonic tone float background music of a lot of other material. While An Imaginary Country doesn’t represent the great stylistic leap forward of Hecker’s previous album, it still proves that he’s one of today’s best in “the field”—this one’s a titanic swath of cleansing distortion that suggests impressive alien vistas.

The B12 Records Archive; (7 volume, 14 CD set on B12 Records)
I used to dream about getting this music when it was all rare 12″ vinyl back in the grand old days of Warp. Who could afford the £200 price tags on that crap? The generous B12 guys come through with a vast set of everything they ever released on the label. All fourteen CDs are essential purchases for those who love Warp’s Artificial Intelligence series, GPR, the A.R.T. stable, and the sound of Detroit techno …

Belbury Poly—From an Ancient Star (Ghost Box)
The hauntology “genre” seems to be a bit hard to pin down, though the Ghost Box label is determined as the core source for the scattered sounds of library music, Ron Grainer, 70s supernatural TV programming, original Doctor Who or The Tomorrow People, and BBC logotones. Belbury Poly are my favorite Ghost Box act and this album is perhaps their best—a zippy and fun collection of themes to British shows about psychic detectives that never were. If you grew up in the seventies and early eighties, and were a total nerd, you’ll know just want I’m talking about within a few minutes of putting From and Ancient Star on the player. You can almost see Jon Pertwee board his hovercraft …

Black Moth Super Rainbow—Eating Us (Graveface)
BMSR are hard to pigeonhole and it’s one of the reasons I enjoy their stuff so much. Too poppy to be experimental, too weird to be indie rock … it’s a little of both and not really either. There’s a decidedly Electric Company PBS vibe about what they’re doing—maybe it’s all the vocoders and patently false hippy lyrics. I think they’re a love-it or hate-it affair. Check out my last podcast and see what you think.

Adam Pacione—2009 “Still Life” 3″ series
I think the most incredible ambient music of 2009 came out of Adam Pacione’s archives this year, in the form of his fourteen volume Still Life series of 3″ CDRs. Every last one of them was good, and some were downright transcendent, like “Ending Titles.” This guy has my full attention, and if you like traditional ambient, he should have yours too.

White Rainbow—New Clouds (Kranky)
Adam Forkner was on a fake “shit list” in the back of my mind for talking a slight amount of trash about Steve Roach on his shareblog. Kids have some nerve dropping a deuce on the masters of a genre of music they owe total allegiance to, is the way I see it. It’s like those new age vs. ambient wonks going around the internet a few years back. That kind of discussion is just preposterous. Nevertheless, this latest album of four solid White Rainbow tracks is quite excellent, if perhaps a bit too indebted to Ashra here and there. It’s still a mighty fine listen, and way more new age than ambient, in a good way.