I've heard a hell of a lot of music this year - mainly because I don't go out in the evenings anymore, and I sit listening to my iPod whilst waiting for the children to fall asleep. I think 2008 has been a great year for new music, but it may actually just be average - I've just listened to a lot.


Anyway here's my Top 10 LPs of the year (and they are all on vinyl)- ...
10. Paavoharju - Laulu Laakson Kukista (Fonal)
2008 has been my year for discovering Finnish Weird Schitt, and this album is Finnish Weird Schitt of the highest order - I've been listening to this since May and I still haven't got a handle on it - field recordings lead into choral passages and ultra lo-fi pop songs that have the strangest Eurovision echoes. I may never completely get to grips with what this allegedly Born Again Christian collective are up too, but it's been fun trying.

9. Bellowhead - Matachin (Navigator)
I'm still waiting for the perfect Bellowhead album, but it's getting closer. This is less ballad heavy than the debut, and includes the finest song they've recorded "Fakenham Fair" a song so swoonsomely beautiful and romantic it squashes this album into a top 10 it may otherwise have avoided. The whole band seems to be arranging now, and this has lead to some outrageously inventive takes on traditional English songs, I've marked it down though for a slight tendency towards goth-folk, and one too many grisly murder ballads. I look forward to an instrumental LP at some point in the future.

8. Koen Holtkamp - Field Rituals (Type)
I suppose this is an ambient record, I certainly tend to use it that way, but it is very beautiful. Heavy on drones, with some surprising use of guitar, accordion and unidentifiable (field?) recordings, this record soundtracked my final commutes in a most satisfying manner.

7. Stereolab - Chemical Chords (Duophonic)
The undoubted leaders of Record Collection Rock, but I still find them irresistible. I love the expanded Stereolab with the brass, vibes and radiophonic synths, but most of all I love the new punchier, shorter pop songs. "Self Portrait with Electric Brain" sounds like Madness's "My Girl" with pretensions. And that's not a bad thing.

6. Oren Ambarchi - A Final Kiss on Poisoned Cheeks (Table of the Elements)
'orrible title, huh? Especially when compared to the brill single "Destinationless Desire". Anyway this was a fabulous one sided slab of classic "laminal" free improv, from a guitarist who's put out a host of interesting stuff recently. This was lovely- building from tiny static clicks to a great cacophonic drone racket. Marvellous.

5. Faustus - Faustus (Navigator)
Best folk label by a long chalk this year was Navigator - who also release their stuff in gorgeous vinyl pressings. The Faustus album is terrific - three great vocalists and instrumentalists. Entirely acoustic, but none-the-less urgent, modern and imaginative takes on traditional songs. The harmonies are superb and old fave songs like "Balina Whalers" sound fresh again.

4. The Accidental - "There Were Wolves" (Thrill Jockey)
This one crept up on me, but I've found I've probably played it more than any other album this year. The kind of "folk" that's neither folky or traditional, in fact it's just peculiar songs with strange lyrics played mainly on acoustic instruments. Features the main bloke from Tunng, so sounds quite a lot like them, but minus the electronics. Creepy and hypnotic.

3. Wire - Object 47 (Pink Flag)
Look, I get as fed up as the next man with groups that keep sticking out albums or reforming when their glory days are clearly far behind them (and I'm sorry, but The Fall are clearly in that category now), but then Wire deliver an album as fantastic as "Object 47" which manages to combine the fresh urgency they discovered with the "Read and Burn" EPs, with the melodic sense of the the mid'80s and the production values of their Harvest releases of the 70s. The old blokes do very well indeed.

2. Portishead - Third (Island)
You'll know all about this one, I imagine. I was never much of a fan before - I loved "Sour Times" and that was about it, then this noisy, minimalist, scary and utterly unique record came out of nowhere, and blew me away. If by some miracle you haven't heard it, forget your pre-conceptions and give it a go.

1. Fennesz - Black Sea (Touch)
Only came out in December and is already one of my most played records. I love the way that Fennesz, despite his prediliction for glitchy sounds and blasts of pure noise, is also not afraid to be very very beautiful. This record is not as warm as "Venice" and instead feels like a desolate Nordic landscape, to the extent that, for a minute or two in "Glide", I'm actually reminded of Sibelius. There's more guitar than previously, and it's decidedly more plangent, but it's the the unique electronic textures that Christian Fennesz creates that really make this my favourite album of the year. Perfect Winter listening.

Happy New Year!