THE STEREO SANCTITY TOP 10 RECORDS OF 2005;

Well, it was inevitable, so here goes.

I should point out that, firstly, this is as ever a list compiled from the relatively small number of new records I’ve actually had a chance to hear. I’ve had a bit more money and general access to stuff than last year, and thus have heard more, but unlike certain journalists and magazines I make no claims toward omniscience. So if you’re wondering why your favourite stuff is missing, in all probability the answer is “seriously dude, it sounds GREAT, but I’m not a rich man and I couldn’t find it cheap anywhere. Could you do me a copy?”. Either that or “Take your Arcade Fire CD and FUCK OFF”.

Secondly, I’ll admit that for those familiar with my musical taste, this is perhaps the most predictable list ever assembled. What can I say? A lot of people whose music I enjoy have come out with new stuff this year, and I’ve enjoyed it. Dull I know, but I am what I am.

It's certainly been a good year for folk and associated weird mutations thereof, but on the other hand I'm somewhat shamed at the lack of rip-roaring teenage punk rock fury on my list. What's up with that, huh?

Well anyway, without further ado;

The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree (4AD)

If we’re basically talking fucking great songs that’ll make even the most jaded amongst us sit up and take notice, laugh, cry, whatever… well then nobody on earth beats the Mountain Goats current form.

Herman Dune – Not on Top LP & Jackson Heights EP (Track & Field)

The latest instalments of the Herman Dune saga, and perhaps the best batch of songs these modern day heroes have cooked up yet. Not since the glory days of Leonard Cohen has listening to nomadic, bohemian Jewish guys singing their diaries been so much fun. And thinking about it, this also has zombies and giants and swearwords and singalong choruses and stuff, and is thus a lot more fun.

Oneida – The Wedding (Rough Trade)

I would hereby like to withdraw my initial reticence about this album being more of a grab-bag of ideas than a cohesive whole. Because what a fucking bag of ideas it is! Who else could storm through such an evocative mix of star-gazing pop majesty, crazed acid-punk shred and menacing pagan psychedelia with enough energy and sense of purpose to emerge with one of the best albums of the year? Nobody, that’s who. Discerning heads are gonna be diving into this one for pearls for decades to come.

Dead Meadow – Feathers (Matador)

If you are me, Dead Meadow are incapable of disappointing. This album sees them playing down their trademark Sabbath-on-acid dirge in order to explore slightly more blissed out realms of sweet, intertwining guitar leads and murky cosmic haze, but it’s still head-meltingly good gear, with their bold excursions into catchy, acoustic psych-pop emerging particularly triumphant, and highlighting the song-writing prowess behind the bong-blasting racket.

Helen Love – Bubblegum Killers EP (Sympathy for the Record Industry)

Just when we’d given up hope, four new Helen Love songs crash into our world on shiny pink vinyl and flip our wigs anew with their pristine joy-punk perfection yet again. “Debbie (hearts) Joey” is number one all over heaven.

Six Organs of Admittance – School of the Flower (Drag City)

Expecting to love it from the word go, I was initially a bit underwhelmed by this album – the perfectly realised psyche-folk compositions Ben Chasny presents herein don’t immediately stand out as being particularly weird or cosmic or experimental or loud or complex or whatever else us jaded music junkies may hope for, but that’s not what Chasny’s aiming at – he’s just putting his all into making genuinely beautiful, conventionally harmonic yet mysterious music that only an idiot could fail to get utterly drawn into on a summer evening walk or a long drift off the sleep – basically School of the Flower is a pure fucking pleasure that’s grown on me like fungus.

Birchville Cat Motel – Chi Vampires (Celebrate Psi Phenomena)

The first track on here sounds like a universal god butterfly trapped in an oil lamp. The second track sounds like the extended death rattle of a pre-industrial agrarian paradise being crushed by dark, satanic mills. The final track goes metal with enough majesty and ferocity to make the Sunn 0)))/Earth axis pause for thought and generally feels like a million bats blotting out the sky forever, culminating in what sounds like Bela Lugosi’s granddad broadcasting bloodcurdling revolutionary pronouncements from deep in the Ural mountains. So a good listen all round really.

Low – the Great Destroyer (Rough Trade)

To my mind, this is the best album Low have ever done. The move towards a far more immediate and, um, assertive..? state of mind is a real shot in the arm for the band and, perhaps more to the point, there’s an almost unbroken hit rate here when it comes to stunning songs. Would make my top 10 on the strength of “Death of a Salesman” alone, but add “Just Stand Back”, “California”, “When I Go Deaf”, “Singing Eveeybody’s Song” etc. – well it’s just a great album in the classic sense. They were great live too – I never thought I’d live to see Alan Sparhawk doing Townhend-esque windmills on his geetar!

Edan – Beauty & the Beat (Lexx)

Outkast aside, this is the only new hip-hop album that’s really grabbed my attention since, well, I don’t even remember when. Anyway, it’s great. It sounds kind of like if one of the lesser members of the Wu-Tang Clan had played the Brian Wilson card and disappeared after ‘36 Chambers’ to spend a decade cooking up a totally whacked out psychedelic concept album. But even if you don’t dig the psyche thing, this shit is just so sharp and concise and FUN TO LISTEN TO that it’s modest half an hour blows the 80 minute monuments to macho bluster many other rappers have to offer completely out of the water.

Now there’s a bit of a scuffle going on for 10th place, and I can’t really make up my mind, so let’s call it a draw between;

Jeffrey & Jack Lewis – City & Eastern Songs (Rough Trade)
Featuring ‘Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror’ and some other great songs too!

Alexander Tucker – Old Fog (ATP)
More folk, more paganism, more beastly, bearded business with acoustic guitar tunings in the dead of night... another guy for me to proclaim a genius.

Vashti Bunyan – lookaftering (FatCat)
Not just a dead-cert for comeback of the year, but one of the loveliest bunches of songs too.

And if this Top 10 was a Top 23 or something stupid like that, I would also have loved to include;

Fursaxa – lepidoptera
A Hawk and a Hacksaw – darkness at noon
Boris – akuta no uto
Tunng – mother’s daughter & other songs
Afri Rampo – kore ga mayaku da
Lucky Luke – patrick the survivor
Nagisa Ne Ti – dream sounds
Stephen Malkmus – face the truth
Gang Gang Dance – god’s money
Hot Snakes - audit in progress
Alister Roberts – no earthly man
The Research – I love you but.. (single)
Love as Laughter – laughter’s fifth