All this week on Melting Pot we’ve been taking a look back at 2010’s year in music. This post covers the best (new) records that I heard last year. This tends to be the most difficult of these lists to put together. Choosing a “best” record means (at least to me) that you really have to think of the full album, from the first to the last track, and how everything works together and then stack it up against all the other records. This year I’ve had a really difficult time trying to choose between the top records I heard. Every time I thought I’d picked a #1, I’d listen to another record in this Top 5 and suddenly be convinced that now I was listening to the best record of the year. Ultimately I’ve chosen a bit of a cop-out and decided not to choose a single #1 record, but instead to declare a five way tie between these exceptional albums. All of these records are here at the top of a long list of favorites because of the special attention to style and sound they represent in very different ways. So, here you go, here’s my list of the Top 5 best new records from 2010, let me know what your favorites of 2010 were in the comments or on our facebook page!
***Honorable Mentions: Ana Tijoux – 1977 (Nacional), Aloe Blacc – Good Things (Stones Throw), Jose James – Black Magic (Brownswood), Black Keys – Brothers (Nonesuch), Bonobo – Black Sands (Ninja Tune), Polar Bear – Peepers (Leaf), Sun Kil Moon – Admiral Fell Promises (Caldo Verde)
Dum Dum Girls – I Will Be – Sub Pop
In a year with so many solid releases from hard rockin’ bands featuring women (i.e. Best Coast, Golden Triangle, Frankie Rose & the Outs, Agent Ribbons, Fabienne Del Sol, Neverever, etc. ,etc.) this record remained at the top of that list and virtually every other. The main reason is frontwoman Dee Dee’s songwriting ability and her use of harmony combined with mountains upon mountains of fuzzy distortion. Dee Dee’s bedroom project blossomed fully into a band this past year, with help on this record from producer Richard Gottehrer. “Blissed out Buzzsaw” is the way the band describes this sound and it seems quite apt. From start to finish, this remains my favorite indie-rock record of 2010.
El Guincho – Pop Negro – Young Turks
When this album first came out I didn’t think too highly of it. It took my absolute love affair with “Bombay” (more on that later) to get me to listen to this album more than the initial run through. I think part of the reason I initially wasn’t that impressed with Pop Negro is because of how different it is from Alegranza, the previous album by El Guincho. That one had this absurdist quality to the samples that made it unique and distinct. It seemed at first listen that here El Guincho was attempting to just craft a more mainstream version of his sound, perhaps (and this was seriously my first thought when I heard “Novias”) to garner more money from the commercials and films that LA music supervisors would “place” his songs into. It took a couple of trips from home to work (Pasadena to Long Beach, roughly a 45min to 1hr drive) for me to fully appreciate this record. I mistook significant growth in song writing ability and clarity of musical vision with misguided commercial aspirations, but thankfully I came to my senses. Now, whenever this album is playing, and not just the fantastic lead track “Bombay” but virtually every single other track, I swear it gets a little brighter outside. It’s like sunlight is trapped within these notes and when the songs play it just bursts out. With all the tracks taken together, the album sounds like the best party that has ever been thrown, and this is very much by careful design. Throwing an exceptional party captured into sound is no easy feat. El Guincho really took great care with this record, as evidenced by his endearingly nerdy “influenced by” notes on his website, and there is no other place it belongs than as one of the best records of 2010.
Flying Lotus – Cosmogramma – Warp
Flying Lotus is one of a handful of electronic artists who have a distinct and completely recognizable sound, so much so that within seconds you know it is FlyLo production (as evidenced by his guest work in 2010 on Andreya Triana, Jose James & Gonjasufi’s records). The fact that he continues to move far beyond that signature sound is a testament to the talent that exists within the mind and heart of Mr. Ellison. Here on Cosmogramma he adds finely textured strings, clearly feeling inspired by his “auntie” Alice Coltrane, and more explicitly jazz inflected samples and aesthetics into what is an even deeper, more expansive and thrilling collection of music than his previous album Los Angeles. At the time I thought that record was the perfect album to drive around LA in the early morning hours, this one trumps it significantly.
Dungen – Skit I Allt – Kemado
This was another record that on first listen I was not particularly impressed with. Being a massive fan of Dungen, I was hotly anticipating this release. When it arrived, I thought it was solid, but there were no songs that stood out. I was ranking it behind Dungen’s previous records, 2007’s Tio Batar and 2008’s IV. In a similar fashion to the El Guincho record, it was during a trip down to Long Beach that I actually compared the three records and surprisingly found that not only is Skit I Allt the most cohesive and consistent of the last three releases from Dungen, it also turned out to be the most enjoyable listen for me. Few records in recent memory have had so much epic sounding material as this release. Part of the appeal of Dungen is the incredible attention to sound that Gustav Ejstes and crew bring out, especially on the drums. Also part of the appeal is the fact that clearly this is a group that enjoys making music together. Some of that is wrapped up in the title. I’m really surprised that not once have I said the album title on the air. Since “Skit I Allt” means “Fuck It All” in Swedish, I’d be in violation of FCC regulations (which cover “foreign” languages in the same way they cover English). But the “fuck it all” here is more of a celebratory exclamation than a nihilistic resignation, and that was most welcome in 2010.
Gonjasufi – A Sufi & A Killer – Warp
A Sufi & A Killer certainly was the most interesting and challenging release I heard in 2010, a wild mix of psych, trip/hip-hop, stoner rock, punk and middle eastern music courtesy of Gonjasufi & Gaslamp Killer (with a few assists from Flying Lotus and others). The album doesn’t even sound like reality. It sounds like a fever dream brought about from being in the desert too long. Everything is distorted, pushed far into the red. Similar to his live sets at venues like Low End Theory, Gaslamp Killer’s production choices are truly eclectic and inspiring, mining material from all over the globe from the 1960s/1970s and creating something truly distinct. If this record had just been instrumental it STILL might have ended up on this list, but thankfully it also includes vocals from Gonjasufi. Gonjasufi’s voice is at times grating, sometimes a bit menacing, at other times comforting or even loving on a few tracks. It’s pretty extraordinary how flexible that instrument is. It’s no small feat to go from sounding like a male version of Billie Holiday, and then become HR from Bad Brain’s little brother and later morph into someone’s irate grandfather, but Gonjasufi accomplishes that and more. Fascinating talent all around involved here.