Link: http://secondmotionrecords.com/artists/steve-kilbey-martin-kennedy.html

Steve Kilbey’s solo career is just as prominent and almost as long lasting as his involvement in The Church. And with the second phase of the 30th Anniversary Church re-issues in the works from Second Motion, White Magic is perfect timing.

With the heavier and denser structure of The Church’s Untitled #23, White Magic lets Kilbey focus and expand on his airy, natural views on the transcendental experience. It reminds me of why I love Priest=Aura and songs like “Destination” from Starfish so much.

Teaming up again with Martin Kennedy, the two enlisted members from Kennedy’s Aussie band All India Radio to help expand the moody contexture of Kilbey’s mysterious mind and Kennedy’s chakra-like floating pop.

The beauty of White Magic is the expanse of Kilbey’s talent wrapped up into the three-minute pop song. Even with the shorter time constriction, we still feel that journeyman in him, as well as the moment of suspended animation in us. We lose ourselves in the beauty of the delicacy in the music and the sheer joy that Kilbey can still feel as vital and fresh as the day we discovered the clouds.

“Intense” proves you don’t have to turn it up to have the song’s essence weigh down on you. “Unfocused” is the pure art of floating as the song is the perfect feeling of slow drifting. Not much gets beyond the tempo structure of a drawl. With guitar reverb like on “Sumer,” it’s a perfect accentuation.

Without plucking the nectar from every song on this album and divulging the elements that transform within every blooming experience, it’s best left to be experienced yourself. What I can say is that White Magic may just be one of the most beautiful albums to experience.

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.

“This was definitely the right time for me to be doing something of this caliber,” he said. “I started this project right at the end of my previous group, Burnside Project, because I had a creative need I had to fill. This was a challenge to myself. Could I get someone like Dave Smalley work in a concept of a House song. This was the type of question I was asking myself at the time, so I followed through with it.”

By the mid-2000s, Burnside Project was fading out and what was left was his experience as a producer and remixer, doing re-workings for artists like Beck, Radiohead, Kristin Hersh and a laundry list of other independent performers.

“It’s really easy to remix a song and throw a beat behind it. I am really careful to try and make a remix distinctly original and not just some techno remix that is ‘by-the-numbers.’ I try to bring in instruments and percussion to mold that electronic and organic experience together.”

To get the full story, you have to back things up pre-Burnside Project and Jankovich will tell you that his career is stemmed from his love of growing up to the New Wave and Punk Rock sound. He started out in the Punk Rock scene in Madison, Wisconsin, listening to people like Smalley and his band Dag Nasty, as well as groups like The Cure and New Order. But when an opportunity to arose in New York City, he took it and gravitated more to the electronic scene.

“This was in the mid-90s when the Drum-N-Bass and Trip Hop scene became popular. When I started making electronic music during those times, I kept thinking how do I get back to that New Wave ideal.”

That’s when Burnside Project took off and the electro-pop sensibilities for Jankovich really started to shine. While creating and remixing, he started to become fascinated with songs that don’t fit in regards to context of an electronic environment and rework them.

“My remixes got me thinking on how to do an entire album on them,” he said. “What would it be like if I took my iPod and put it on shuffle. The only thing that really changed were the vocalists. The music stayed the same as far as style. So that was when I made my personal wish list of collaborators.”

People on that list beside Smalley and Hitchock, were artists like Steve Kilbey from The Church and Tanya Donelly from Belly to more contemporary artists like Danny Seim from Menomena and Yuki Chikudate from Asobi Sesku.

Of course, several people on his list couldn’t accept due to certain engagements, obligations, or other commitments, but ones like the list above did make it. In an Internet society, things moved pretty quickly, but Jankovich still took his time.

“Reason it took so long to complete this is that I did not have a deadline. I also was careful to perfect these songs. It was a big worry for me that it had to feel completely natural. I did not want any novelty to it. The personal challenge for me was to have 12 solid songs where I could see each one as a single. I felt that every song on this project was the best it could be.”

Another factor in the process was that the procedure was different for every artist. For someone like Seim and Menomena, their collaboration and correspondence was strictly exchanged via e-mail; whereas, for Donelly, Jankovich went to Boston to spend time at her house, one of several daunting experiences for him.

“It was a pretty intimidating experience because I grew up listening to Belly, and I didn’t know what to expect. But she was so nice, and I got to personally help direct that song.”

According to Jankovich, there were two moments in which his heart would jump and turn this legitimate project into one of realistic value: first, when they wrote back and accepted to being a part of the project, and second, when he heard the vocal take for the first time.

“Most people you idolize, you realize that they are totally normal people,” he said. “There were some worries and anxieties, wondering what is going through their head. For me, these are like the U2s of the world. They are successful people but are normal in how they treat that, and I liked it.

“What I’ve learned is that collaboration is so creatively rewarding. It’s an environment I feel comfortable releasing and plan to do more.”

You can keep track of Pocket’s releases by going here: http://music-by-pocket.com/. And a full list of collaborators: Robyn Hitchcock, Shonali Bhowmik, Craig Wedren (Shudder To Think), Dave Smalley (Down By Law), Yuki Chikudate (Asobi Sesku), Mark Burgess, Steve Kilbey (The Church), Lorraine Lelis, Tanya Donelly (Belly), Sal Principato, and Danny Seim (Menomena).

Pocket

Catastrophic uncertainty in the world and the Church stand again with three new works to help make sense of all the chaos. I like their business model—regularly launching space and trance rock masterpieces regardless of who’s paying attention. I’ve been a fan for seventeen years, since I heard their biggest hit on an old 120 Minutes CD compilation, when teenagers would bother to go into record shops and buy samplers to figure out the new bands. Now a new record, a single, and an EP, the first of each in a few years, if you don’t count the continuing side-projects and tertiary releases like the somewhat rough, to put it politely, soundtrack (to a Jeff VanderMeer novel) of only a few months ago.

But what Church would we hear on 2009′s Untitled #23? The fin de siècle mystics post-Gold Afternoon Fix, before the late-nineties dethroned-wasteland Church (this latter era contained the underrated Magician Among the Spirits followed by a long silence until Hologram of Baal)? The dusty and broke raconteurs of the Quick Smoke at Spot’s b-sides era? The overheated lysergic cowboys of Forget Yourself? The sweet art-damaged drifters creeping out of upstairs windows on Uninvited, like the Clouds and After Everything Now This? We know the sci-fi dreams of Heyday and before are gone, embittered and disenchanted during Starfish already, but it was okay because the echoes left have way more to tell us anyway.

The music is a little bit of all of these, by my estimation. Every Church record’s got a misfire, every single and EP has a perfect gem of a b-side, and this latest brace is no different. By the titles:

The Pangaea disc contains the “single” from the album, a lovely tune in the vein of “Crash/Ride” and the softer tunes from After Everything and Uninvited, a velvet fog drifting out of Copenhagen 2:30 AM. This is followed by a duo of songs sung by Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper, “LLC” and “Insanity,” respectively. The former harks back to paisley underground cheers from Koppes’s solo Manchild & Myth, the latter slouched in the darkened coffee bars Willson-Piper’s recent solo efforts have inhabited since Hanging Out in Heaven. These welcome interludes are followed by the strongest lengthy piece the Church have ever managed on record, the nearly eighteen minute “So Love May Find Us,” which I feel should have been on the main album, as I’ll mention later. While the Church’s “jam” discs (Jammed, Bastard Universe) have been, arguably by nature, self-indulgent and unfocused, this track manages to pump along with great lyrics and musical shifts throughout; the sense of a band willing to stretch out within a song, while still keeping it tight and organized. It’s over much too quickly.

The Coffee Hounds EP contains what I feel ranks among their very best songs, “The Coffee Song.” In an earlier age before personal record labels marketing directly to fans, when artists had to worry about what songs to put where on their major label releases, this would have been a criminal backstaging of such a great song. Twin swoon-guitars interlocking, hazy atmospheres, languid vocal delivery—it’s everything I love about the Church. This is followed by a bright, driving, unexceptional cover of Kate Bush’s seminal “Hounds of Love” and an excellent instrumental version of “The Coffee Song” that fades in and out like an apparition. This one is the best supplemental EP since the Louisiana and Block singles from years past.

And, finally, the main course, which is the full album, Untitled #23, cheaply packed in plain black cardboard wraps (for those of us who were impatient and ordered the “special edition” that came with a really nice T-shirt), or the cover above for the regular edition in a digipak. Ten solid songs, one or two of which would have made excellent B-sides in favor of “The Coffee Song” and “So Love May Find Us,” and four or five that number among the Church’s best songs of any time period. “Cobalt Blue” could have been a lost track from the opiated era of Hologram of Baal. “Deadman’s Hand,” one of their best recent songs, is driving and claustrophobic, like “Grind” updated for troubled and hopeful times. The return of “Pangaea,” followed by another gem of a track, “Happenstance,” which, like “Unified Field” of the previous record, should have been a hit in a better world. This is followed by Kilbey in full-on moon-eyed Bob Dylan mode, “Space Saviour,” which I just can’t get into at all—about two minutes too long for me. Two sparse tracks, “On Angel Street” and “Sunken Sun,” follow—the latter containing fine keyboard work (and just a hint of “Milky Way for a moment?)—and slightly dilute the album’s previous momentum. Back up to speed with the epic “Anchorage,” chugging along on strong guitars and declarative vocal delivery. The album ends with the incredible tracks “Lunar” and “Operetta,” the first reminding me of the sadly ignored aether mysticism of the Magician era; auditory moonlight. “Operetta” is Church in Sgt. Pepper mode, a sweeping, melancholy epic—my favorite track on the record.

The production of these various works seems a little “off” to me, but I’m not expert enough to weigh in on just exactly what is wrong about it, other than that it sounds a little rough, in the same way Forget Yourself suffered. I miss the crystalline production and cover art values of Arista, as seen and heard on Priest = Aura, but the major label days are long gone, replaced by more local efforts by band members and associates. Still, in an era when a band like the uncompromising Church chug along for thirty years, with almost all of their peers fallen by the wayside, they are a kind of treasured anachronism. I’m just happy they’re still here for me, and anybody else who’ll lend a kind ear. “… you keep on going.”

Animal Collective—Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
The new Animal Collective is really good, enough to make me sit at Ticketmaster with my hand over the button to get tickets that sold out near-instantly (Grouper‘s opening, too). I don’t understand the hype—what is it about this band that makes the press and people on NPR interested in electronic, mildly experimental music? Did ambient just need Beach Boys vocals to get that recognition? Another baffling element: the claim that this record makes electronics and samples seem “organic.” This is one of the most inorganic recordings I’ve ever heard, which is, in my opinion, a kind of strength. Organic is Alio Die recording the sound of mushrooms decomposing a tree trunk in Italy. This album is about as organic as its cover art (which looks like more of an optical illusion on the internet than in real life—surely an important message about the former, right?). Anyway, this has been a terrific album to swim laps to, and it’s something Mom might like. It peters out a little bit at the end, but I love it.

Deerhunter—Cryptograms, etc. (Kranky)
I basically bought all of the Deerhunter stuff on Kranky and I am obsessed. I haven’t been this excited with a new “rock band” in like forever; probably since the future sound of Bristol in the early 90s, of which this is tangentially, sonically related. You can trace a direct path from Flying Saucer Attack and AMP to here, walls of blissful noise with pop songs somewhere inside. Basically I think they’re incredible, and it’s rare that you find a pop-oriented outfit that does ambient tracks so well (i.e. “Tape Hiss Orchid” from Cryptograms). Side projects Atlas Sound (on my best of ’08 list) and Lotus Plaza are very fine as well.

Fleet Foxes—s/t (Sub Pop)
In my continuing trend to be faintly “relevant” by reading Entertainment Weekly and watching Lost (I’m totally hooked), I stumbled across Fleet Foxes almost everywhere. When some of you had it on your best of ’08 lists, I figured I’d give it a try. I have played this CD so much since I got it back in December. What wonderful music, it’s like folk-flavored candy (Ricola?). I don’t know if I’m sold on the current spate of bearded folk masters, but this one was a winner for me.

Mountains—Choral (Thrill Jockey)
Mountains came out with their best album thus far, and they are now on Thrill Jockey. I bought the double-vinyl because it has extra tracks and instantly regretted it as I’m always getting up and flipping over the platters to hear more. Four sides of vinyl is not enough for this music; they could have filled six and remained as potent. I’m not sure that this is a contender for best ambient album of the year, but it’s top-five worthy, for sure.

Atom™—Leidgut (Raster-Noton)
Finally Uwe gets his act together and releases a solid album, and on Raster-Noton, too. This one is undoubtedly an acquired taste (like most on Raster), but if you like Kraftwerk’s Radioactivity, especially the vocoder parts and Franz Schubert fixation, this is the post-electronic album for you. A robot vocalist and radio static orchestra perform polka hits. The packaging is, as ever, brilliantly clever.

Yagya—Rigning (Sending Orbs)
Finally, a new Yagya album. Though it doesn’t achieve the sublime heights of Rhythm of Snow (admittedly an almost impossible act to follow for me), it’s very nice stuff. The melodies are a little tamer, but the atmospheres are strong and totally three-dimensional. This is probably the fullest recording Yagya’s done so far and it made for perfect brunch music last Sunday morning. There’s a clear reason this guy takes two or three years between albums, there’s terrific care taken here.

The Church—Shriek–Music from the Soundtrack (Unorthodox Records)
I never thought I’d find a Church record lousy, but in this case, I just do. This is the soundtrack to a movie of a book (they screened the movie during the last concert tour, so I’ve seen it) so it isn’t exactly a Church album per se, so I guess it can be excused. I have not read the book, but I can say with certainty that the lines they use in the recording probably read better on the page than they do spoken aloud with nebulous musical enhancement. There are a few almost-Church tunes inside here somewhere, but, in the immortal words of Garfield the cat: inside all of this horse meat, I’ve yet to find the pony. The new album sounds incredible (drops next month, I think), but this is half-baked stuff.

Sleepy Town Manufacture & Unit 21—No Traces (Infraction)
Another incredible ambient release on Infraction, and certainly a contender for 2009′s best. Sleepy Town Manufacture (also known as Beautumn) takes Unit 21′s LP collection and cobbles together a Tarkovsky-esque trip through the Zone. If you liked last year’s Parks album, imagine that mixed with samples from 1950s stereo-test records and obscure soundtracks. This whole record is a tour de force, from the ample packaging to the bonus disc.

Also really fine:
Black Moth Super Rainbow—”Don’t You Want to Be in a Cult” picture 12″ (Mexican Summer)
Grouper / City Center split 7″ (definitely look for this one) (no label)
Pop Ambient 2009 (finally) (Kompakt)
Richard Pinhas & Merzbow (!)—Keio Line (Cuneiform Records)
Of—Rocks Will Open (Digitalis) (another fine tectonic ambient release by Loren Chasse)
Night Control—Death Control (Kill Shaman) (interesting avant-pop, sometimes has a Suicide feel)