Best of ‘09

Chad Buchholz’s Best of ‘09

5. The xx – xx
The problem I had with The xx when I first picked it up (or, loaded it down) was that it was the summer, we were in the middle of the ‘chillwave,’ and it just didn’t fit in with the breezy, sun-soaked, sand-rolled playlist that I had had on repeat for the better part of three months. But then the sun died, the rain set in and the ice followed. Suddenly the spare, crystalline, restrained intensity of the thing all started to make sense. And they stole all the good guitar tones from Interpol’s first album, which was maybe my favorite album of the last 10 years. Impressed.

4. Real Estate – Real Estate
I wish I didn’t have to contextualize albums in terms of the weather so often, but I can’t get away from it with Real Estate. Many of the reviews of the album refer to it as ‘sunny,’ or ‘dusty,’ or ‘beach music.’ To me it doesn’t sound like any of these things. While it may be an album set in the summer, it’s one spent recollecting seasons past. But even in this, it’s beautiful, hopeful, and totally transcendent of any simple categorization.

3. Ganglians – Monster Head Room
The Woodsist imprint – with releases this year by the likes of Kurt Vile, Vivian Girls, Woods, Blank Dogs, etc. – would probably take the “Label Of The Year” award if anybody out there in the list-making universe ran out of things to rank. Monster Head Room is, to me, the standout amongst a pretty impressive roster. Like the feral child conceived in an orgy including the Beach Boys and The Grateful Dead, MHR is alternately soaring and joyful, dark and thundering, relaxed and mellow, intense and brooding. “Valiant Brave” may just be the track of the year.

2. Japandroids – Post-Nothing
On paper it might be tough to sell a two-person garage-rock racket-fest paean to lost youth, lost love, and lost bros as one of the best albums of the year. But somehow, with Post-Nothing, Japandroids made this seemingly tired formula something much larger than the sum of its parts. For what it lacks in musical variety, the album makes up for in an unapologetic, wide-eyed, desperate belief that what it has to say has to be said. Maybe this is best summed up in the hometown anthem (elegy?) “Rockers East Vancouver,” with singer Brian King declaring, “We used to go out / Get drunk and get sad / Good friends / But this town / And this scene / Has gone bad”. Yeah, it may not be “Empire State Of Mind,” but a good artist learns to work with what they’ve has got. Out of the ashes of burnt out dreams Japandroids have managed to make something beautiful.

1. Flaming Lips – Embryonic
This is strange for me, because it’s something I usually consciously avoid (see: my omission of anything called “Animal Collective” or “Grizzly Bear” on this list), but I feel like I have to put this album on the list even though I don’t find it endlessly listenable and even though I’m able to think of three or four other albums who I feel more inclined to support. I mean, I’ve never been a huge Flaming Lips fan, feeling – up to this point – alienated by their ‘conceptualism,’ but holy fuck, Embryonic may very well be (one of) the most insane and important pieces of music released in the last year. It’s a monster – towering, threatening, undeniable. By the time you get to the last thundering bass hit of closer “Watching The Planets” you feel like you might have to pull the cover off of your speakers to see if the assault that was just waged didn’t shred the cones. Jesus.

Chad is a writer living in Vancouver who works as a carpenter to pay the bills. Or, when he is working and paying the bills he is doing it by working as a carpenter, because being a writer is turning out to be a difficult way to make any money for him. Right now he’s not doing either of the former (carpentry, bill paying), but he has been better at more consistently doing the latter (writing). You can find his writing on subjects ranging from his own haircuts to the impending apocalypse at crbuchholz.wordpress.com.