The Best of 2009: David Morris' Top Ten

Once again I find myself looking at my top ten end of year list thinking, “what have I got against my own people?” I could have tried flimsy excuses like “but Hush Arbors and Jason Molina of Magnolia Electric Co. all live in London!”, or “Zun Zun Egui live in Bristol” when everybody knows they come from outer space.

I could have clumsily counterbalanced my US-centric list with records I thoroughly enjoyed from home: in particular Nancy Elizabeth’s Wrought Iron, Circulus’ potent trip, and records by Beggin’ Your Pardon Miss Joan & Richard Youngs. Or those from abroad, including Berlin based pianist Nils Frahm’s two equally great piano records and Sublime Frequencies releases from Tibet, Syria and Morocco. Women? Damn…

Instead I’ve gone for the records that inspired me most. These are the records that have endured many listens and rendered the most insight, fun and wonder. Perhaps inspiration yields the highest harvest when sown in the fertile (read: soggy) part of my mind that fantasises about riding horses through the Sierra on some purposeful quest taking in some necessary wild times en route (I can’t quite articulate that like Cormac McCarthy does eh? I don’t even know what a Sierra is really…).

The following list is no particular order, they are simply my ten favourite records released this year, a land whose borders are far more fluid than it might seem. The idea of imposing a hierarchy on them feels both false and harmful to my future aural intake.

Arbouretum – Song of the Pearl

Despite the fact that I haven’t listened to this in a while, it nonetheless blazed a trail right across my springtime and this being the month of retrospection it is making me move again right now. Tempting to type in rhythm. Yeahh. There is soil at 15,000 feet above sea level, it seems to say. “There’s a carcass on the side, of the road and still I ride”.
     
     

Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle

American singer-songwriter Bill Callahan, also known as 'Smog' earlier in his career has never let up his creative stakes. On Eagle, Callahan’s impeccable lyric writing collides with impeccable arrangements. An effortless and honest creation that has, all clichés aside, only got better since its release. Strikes me human.
     

Pontiak – Maker

The Yeti trip. Didn’t like all the blasts of noise that interspersed the “songs” at first and now I love ‘em dearly. All time black-oak wonder barrel. ‘Wax Worship’, a six minute union of the two is the anthem of this anti-cult; an oasis of blood in the desert. A desert of blood back home on the farm.
     

Magnolia Electric Co. – Josephine

The absolute peak of mediocre country rock. Straightforwardly eccentric, geeky and triumphant heart. It doesn’t get better than this. “Out here even the prairie dogs the horizon”. Listened to this while driving to the moors in the unexpected summer reprieve of September. Listened to it on rainy days when the bills meant nothing to my soul, listened to it a lot. Like springwater, not like plastic bottles all over the floor at Primavera; where they elevated me.

Jack Rose & The Black Twig Pickers – s/t

This record did a number of things to me. It made me like old-time American music. When I say like, I mean resemble. Well, sort of. Maybe both. I listened to it too much and I still like it. It made me and my housemate drink two bottles of rum and spraypaint a new exit to a town called “Groovy” on a large roadsign near our house – somewhere in the UK. Hence local police reading this (you never know) will be directed to take up criminal proceedings with the residents of Floyd, Virginia.

Six Organs of Admittance – Luminous Night

Takes the internal landscape and lays it out for the other eyes, takes the land I walk and places it inside. A creaking and almost unstable moment of power, overflowing with all shades of love and unable to protect itself. All of that and more in my endless review of the record found here.
     
     
     

Nudge – As Good As Gone

Token non-rock/songwriter record. Concession to this “sampling” technique that might be starting to catch on. How dare you? It’s got nothing to do with that. Huge swollen hearts, bass blood pulsating through crystal arteries and out through gaping wounds as fractured flower guitar solos eaten by birds. Pinprick reality beats, Slowdive chimes, woozy and clear.

Hush Arbors – Yankee Reality

The fun of song, no pretensions, no nosebag of ego splurge. ‘Keith just writes great songs’, Leon Dufficy told me. That’s it. Me and my missus dancing around the bedroom to ‘Take it Easy’, me and my breakfast swaying to ‘So They Say’, me and Autumn driving around to ‘For While You Slept’.
     
     

D Charles Speer & the Helix – Distillation

Still too fresh for nostalgic reflection on times since… review here. Airboats, risk, seeking peace with liquid gold etcetera etcetera. Have an excerpt instead: "It’s strange that so many people dismiss Country music, but in the same way that Sunn0))) have provided a route for many into metal, and metal into many, it seems like it takes an outsider to smash a hole in a genre’s façade and show us that although the wider family have gotten a little big for their boots there’s a lot of beauty in their shadow."

Zun Zun Egui – Bal la Poussierre E.P

A Thing of Tastes to Come. A poorly composed haiku to a well composed world of jiggling. Cockles and Mussels, Alive Alive-O, fresh review found here. Summarising, here's what I said: "They have weight and gravity to them, they have bodies and hair and chubby bits and worn out shoes. They also sound like they’re having a good time" - you will too.

I was lying, it was in chronological order! Anyone who got that, you get a bonus point and a kick in the teeth for thinking too much about charts and orders. What are you? A music journalist for Christ’s sake? For more on any of those records (endorsed by a real life Human Being) a quick search in our little cavity will reveal a rather extensive review.

Others which made a distinct and lasting impression, aka the “elevenses”:

• Charles Spearin – The Happiness Project
• Sunburned Hand of the Man - A
• Tara Jane O’Neil – A Ways Away (almost in the ten!)
• MV & EE – Barn Nova
• Sir Richard Bishop – The Freak of Araby
• Chris Forsyth - Dreams
• Nancy Elizabeth – Wrought Iron
• Little Claw – Human Taste
• Six Organs of Admittance - RTZ
• Cave Singers – Welcome Joy
• Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound – When Sweet Sleep Returned
• Nils Frahm – The Bells
• Nils Frahm – Wintermusik
• Mt Eerie – Wind’s Poem
• Steven R Smith – Cities
• Land of Kush – Against the Day
• Magik Markers – Balf Quarry
• Glass Rock – Tall Firs Meet Soft Location