Best of ‘09

John Mutch’s Best of ‘09

5. Wild Beats – Two Dancers
Wild Beasts really are spoilt. In singers Hayden Thorpe and Tom Flemming the Leeds, UK foursome have two of the most freakishly talented singers in music today. Their debut, Limbo Panto, released in 2008, showed the full extent of Hayden and Tom’s outlandish vocal ranges via a flurry of spiraling wails and bile curdling wails. Number two though, is all about finding that perfect middle ground between the ostentatious and the downright theatrical. Their voices remain the centre pieces of the composition but instead of dominating, they swoop and soar gracefully and naturally, driving the whole album perfectly.

4. Micachu – Jewellery
In a year dominated by female songwriters Mica Levi has been criminally overlooked. Sure she doesn’t quite fit within the La Roux and Little Boots’ Eighties vibe and sure, she does kinda look and sound a LOT like a boy – but Micachu and her faithful backing band “The Shapes” are nevertheless responsible for writing some of THE edgiest and the unluckiest pop songs of ‘09. In a musical landscape dominated by synthesizers and drum machines, it takes quite an imagination to pull together the sounds of broken glass bottles, vacuum cleaners and computers farting and somehow make them sound melodic.

3. Islands – Vapours
Montreal boys Islands are surely Canada’s reigning indie pop merchants. After a slightly disappointing second album in 2008’s Arms Way, 2009 saw Nicholas Thorburn and his gang return to full stride once more with a glossy 12-track collection of indie pop perfection. No matter what weird avenues music may travel over the next year, there will always be room for a bit of well-rounded indie pop from Canada’s finest.

2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
Apparently pretty confident, Animal Collective released Merriweather Post Pavilion in January – a notorious black hole in the music industry’s calendar. Such self-assurance seems to have paid off too – 11 months later and songs like “My Girls” and “Summertime Clothes” remain first choices for just about any playlist going. Their equally brilliant follow-up EP Fall Be Kind – released in December – sees the loop-pedal-loving foursome sign out from 09 in the same brilliant way they checked in.

1. The xx – xx
It took me a while to get round to properly listening to this one. I mean, lets face it, The xx are hardly the most enticing or original sounding proposition. Schooled in South West London (where else?), they’re a four-strong gang of moody looking kids who enjoy dressing up in black, leaning against walls for press shots and playing scuffed-up indie pop. But man am I glad I gave them the time they deserve. Without sounding massively different from their peers, they’re light-years ahead of them in quality. Their debut, xx is so perfectly simple and unassuming you won’t even notice as it quietly gnaws away at your soul before it takes full-control of your senses.

John Mutch was unable to face life as a graduate in the recession-doomed UK, John has recently immigrated to Vancouver in search of work, music and Mexican food. He has written for UK mags Clash, The Fly and a handful of publications in Oregon, where he spent a year studying.