Issue 10: End Of Decade Special

This week we take a trawl through a decade's worth of listening to dig up some oldies but goldies that seemed to have slipped through the net of most of the recent End Of Decade lists.

I'm not saying these are the best songs of the 2000s. Just sayin' they're good songs. I purposely left out a shedload of songs by bands and albums that have been well represented already.

Click here to listen now!

1. The New Year - 'The End's Not Near' (2004)


Helmed by brothers Matt and Bubba Kadane, The New Year have quietly released three flawless long players this decade.

More accessible and alive than their previous '90s incarnation Bedhead, The Kadane Brothers have nevertheless ramped up the misery and ennui to the point where their songs are left dangling somewhere between the deeply moving and the darkly comic.

The New Year MySpace


2. Ugly Casanova - 'Things I Don't Remember' (2002)


Lord knows - Isaac Brock has been more than adequately represented in the End of Decade praise. Modest Mouse's 'Moon and Antarctica' is a fabulous record, but for me it's this 2002 curio that really represents his decade's best work.

Working with Tim Rutili, John Orth and most importantly producer Brian Deck, Brock crafted a record that was entirely representative of its time. The genre was never given a name, but the sound of indie rock embracing sampling and ideas from the avant garde was certainly a new development and Deck was one of its pre-eminent exponents.

An incredible video accompanied the song too. Click above to watch it in all its childish glory now.

Ugly Casanova @ Subpop


3. Tunng - 'Bullets' (2007)


I could never make it through a whole album by Tunng, but in small doses they write some damn catchy melodies. The dark subject matter tastefully cuts the sweetness of the harmonies too.

Mottled with just the kind of audio experimentalism I alluded too in the Ugly Casanova description, 'Bullets' is for me their finest work to date.

Tunng MySpace


4. Tujiko Noriko - 'Narita Made' (2003)


This song features probably my favourite production of all time, minimal but huge and perfectly pitched to please my ear, this song in headphones is a real brain-tickler.

I remember seeing Tujiko Noriko in Vancouver the year this came out and being utterly amazed. Fennesz and Tim Hecker played at the same festival and in retrospect it was probably the last time laptop music would be so exciting as a movement.

Tujiko Noriko Website


5. Donnacha Costello - 'Orange A' (2004)


An incredibly warm and accessible example of minimal tech house or whatever you care to call it.

Dublin-based Costello released a series of colour-themed 12 inches throughout the decade and they're more than worthy of a little attention. You can purchase the collected Colorseries works right here.

Donnacha Costello MySpace


6. Einstürzende Neubauten - 'Youme & Meyou' (2004)


Stately song craft and pleasing aural arrangements are not what people instantly think of when Einstürzende Neubauten get mentioned. Then again, there's a fair amount of myth and confusion connected to this band.

As perfect a song as you could ever hope to hear, featuring an percussion instrument made of pipes that's captured my imagination ever since. Watch the video and tell me you aren't tempted to build one yourself.

Einstürzende Neubauten Website

7. Sieben - 'Rite For The Unfulfilled' (2007)

Photo credit: Pyhai

I used to work in a cinema and I can confirm that this song resonates with a certain ring of truth.

Sieben is the solo project of Matt Howden and features work he creates with just violin, loop pedal and voice. Completely ignored by anything approaching mainstream attention, he's nevertheless created some excellent work over the years and it more than deserves your ear. So go seek him out.

Sieben MySpace


8. Do Make Say Think - 'White Light Of' (2002)


Post Rock will remain forever the sound of the previous decade but one of its finest moment actually occurred in 2002 with the release of an album called '& Yet & Yet' by Do Make Say Think.

I know they call it Canadian Space Rock themselves, and I'm perfectly okay with that. Especially if they continue to be one of the finest live bands on the planet. A serious must see - and that's not just a clichéd turn of phrase.

Do Make Say Think MySpace


9. Songs: Ohia - 'Peoria Lunch Box Blues' (2003)

Photo credit: Steve Gullick

I've always known that Jason Molina has an army of diehard followers but I've never been one of them. I can't even remember how I found this song.

I think it may have been because of the guest vocalist Scout Niblett. I've always been fond of her ever-so-slightly off kilter vocals and I don't ever think they've ever been deployed as effectively as on this stand-out from Song Ohia's 2003 Magnolia Electric record.

Songs: Ohia MySpace

Top 30 Songs of 2008 - Part Three

Ladies and gentlemen - the final furlong: the 10 Best Songs Of 2008. Enjoy them all via the magic of the youtube playlist below:



10. Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power And The Amorphous Strums: 'And How'
Vic Chesnutt teams up with Elf Power for a song that pitches the listener an absurdist curveball. An urban fairytale, complete with nursery rhyme jauntiness that leaves one just as confused about its subject matter as its possible to be. Catchy hell it is too.

9. Jonquil: 'The Weight Of Lying On Your Back'
Sometimes songs are just so perfectly conceived, so full of energy and excitement that you can't help but surf the surge of joy that wells up every time you hear them. This is one of those songs. A cracking tune and a band to watch.

8. Grouper: 'Heavy Water / I'd Rather Be Sleeping'
I'm a huge fan of delay and reverb, especially when it's so deftly controlled as it is here. In fact, this song is so beautiful and finely spun that to say any thing more would run the risk of destroying the delicate magic that holds it together.

7. High Places: ' From Stardust To Sentience'
A band well and truly of their time and all the better for it. We're now at the point where skillful practitioners of the form, like Rob Barber and Mary Pearson, can not only make the machines talk and sing but breath too.

6. One More Grain: 'Jon Hassellhoff'
I wasn't in this band when they recorded this song, but when I heard it I knew I had to join. The marriage of Daniel Patrick Quinn's thick freeform thought soup and Andrew Blick's fine eerie trumpet drone and call. The rhythm section is excellent too. It's a shame that the band is no more, but this song will always sound this way, and that's the important thing. It's pretty much the only thing I care about.

5. Sigur Ros: 'Goobledigook'
By far and away the best song that Sigur Ros have ever written, as swirling, tempestuous and invigorating as the wind that blows in off the North Atlantic to torment the Icelandic people.

4. The New Year: 'The Company I Can Get'
This was the year I woke up and realised I don't want my musical heroes to be drug-adled stargazy waifs anymore - I want them to be learned men, men who've seen life and what it's got to give. Maybe they could even be history professors, then I'd really respect them.

3. Wild Beasts: 'His Grinning Skull'
The one truly exciting British band to emerge this year, and one with more than a whiff of The Smiths stately otherworldly poise. Not that the Beasts sounded like anything other than themselves, you understand. Thrillingly original and willfully obtuse at times. I saw them live more times than I can remember and was consistently flawed. Cheers to you, chaps!

2. Animal Collective: 'Street Flash'
Their alchemistic fingerprints were everywhere this year, and not just on their own record: the 'Water Curses' EP. But it was this release that contained their finest work to date. 'Street Flash' feels like the distillation of what this band have always promised, a swirling dayglow psychedelic masterpiece that's as accessible and welcoming as it is playful and interesting.

1. Destroyer: 'Shooting Rockets (From The Desk Of Night's Ape)'
From the moment 'Trouble In Dreams' arrived in the bleak tail end of winter there was something about this song that perfectly encapsulated 2008; the financial crisis, the end of decadence, even the sickening Chinese Olympic fervour was somehow conjured. It's the sound of something huge and overblown collapsing and falling in on itself and a song so huge and nebulous that I was lost in it for weeks. A masterfully arch piece of work that turned summer breeze into an ill wind.

"It's a terrible feast we've been stuffing our faces on..."