PSF: 2007 Writers' Poll
What we loved last year

Left to right: Volcano the Bear, Mavis Staples, Elton Dean, George Jones, Kammerflimmer

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It's that time again but since most of our scribes can't contain their love of music in a puny list of 10 items, here's their list of 15 favorite releases of 2007. We don't have a tallied-up poll here- instead, we'd like you to read through all the individual choices of our scribes. See what you agree with and what you don't agree with and hopefully, you'll find some things you'll want to explore too. Enjoy!

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Michael Baker

I picked 15 because it is the solution to the Reconstruction Conjecture: N(1,s) + N(2,s) + ... + N(n,s) = C(|E|,s),[ + Britney s waistline, ca. Thanksgiving 2007]. And because I was thinking that ever since David Ruffin died no one has bothered to talk to me, musically or otherwise. But this has been a fab year: bright bursts of sunshiny pop that have lifted my hopes, expanded my horizons, and challenged my dreamscape. Jes kiddin , you Pollyanna mother fuckers! This list s songs call to mind corpses rotting in Rwanda, girls named Ping Pong walking away, Akron in August, and BBQ and beer in Memphis. And I could not get enough. I must thank Goner Board, Satch, WFMU, Hoboken s Tunes, and the fancy pants at Trouser Press for introducing me to much of this, for I no longer leave my home because I have everything I need here unsigned postcards from the Yukon, Power Rangers vids, dirty pics of Madonna, and killer, soul-breaking musical slabs of honesty and brutality and truncated forgiveness. This shit almost killed me. Maybe next year. Thank you artists. And RIP Stockhausen, Wagoner, Lazlo Kovacs, and Vonnegut.

8 PM The Hex Dispensers The Hex Dispensers
9 PM Eddy Current Suppression Ring Eddie Current Suppression Ring
10 PM Silence
11 PM Hue Blanc s Joyless Ones Arriere Garde
12 Cococoma Cococoma
1 AM Silence
2 AM Lamps LampsLamps
3 AM Silence
4 AM Sadies New Seasons
5 AM Jason Isbel Sirens of The Ditch
6 AM Silence
7 AM Harlan T Bobo I m Your Man
8 AM Ike Reilly Assassination We Belong To the Staggering Evening
9 AM Silence
10 AM Silence
11 AM King Khan & His Shrines What Is?
12 Mark Sultan The Sultanic Verses
1 PM Psychedelic Horseshit Magic Flowers Droned
2 PM Silence
3 PM Haunted George Pile O Meat
4 PM Clockcleaner Babylon Rules
5 PM Silence
6 PM Silence
7 PM Wooden Tit Return to Cinder

EP of the Year
Staags Five Songs From the Staags!!!

Singles of the Year:
None. My car got boosted.

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Darren Bergstein

2007... well, numerically the year doesn't matter. The music continues, the amount of good music being released continues, unabated. What keeps metamorphosing is the mode of delivery. Downloading and the MP3 medium are becoming the norm; CDs are going the way of the dodo, I'm afraid, contrary to what anyone says. The audiovisual artform is in danger of extinction the writing's on the wall, the future looks dim. I, for one, will always champion music as a synergistic collaboration between aural rendering and tactile physicality. This year I made it a personal mandate to acquire recordings that were "packaged" as eye-popping objets d'art, intentionally rebelling against this whole idea of music as mere data. Regarding the genres of electronic(a) and experimental music: they both might have went more "underground" this year, but so what? Mainstreaming such musics, or pigeonholing their respective artists, was a fool's gesture anyway. More tellingly, this was the year I "rediscovered" synth/sequencer music, strolling amidst the borogroves of memory (moog) lane, and loving every minute of it. The list below is, of course, subjective (as are all lists of this type) and simply "representative" of another 365 days that never failed to surprise, titillate, confound, and challenge.

• As Lonely As Dave Bowman Pod
• Chris Herbert Mezzotint
• Donnacha Costello Colorseries
• Elve Infinite Garden
• Giuseppe Ielasi August
• Gunter Muller Live & Replayed
• Ian Boddy Elemental
• Nelson Foltz/Tom Lynn Still Life Vol. 1-3
• O Yuki Conjugate The Euphoria Of Disobedience
• Radio Massacre International Blacker
• Robert Fripp Churchscapes
• Starving Weirdos Father Guru
• Steinbruchel Basis
• Steve Roach Arc Of Passion
• Yann Novak Meadowsweet

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Tim Broun

Full disclosure - I worked on number 3. In no particular order:

• Robert Wyatt Comicopera
• Edwyn Collins Home Again
• Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings 100 Days, 100 Nights
• Various Andrew Weatherall's Sci.Fi.Lo.Fi, Volume 1
• Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
• Severed Heads ComMerz, Vol. 1 & 2
• Grinderman Grinderman
• Bruce Springsteen Magic
• Fire Engines Hungry Beat
• LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver
• Arcade Fire Neon Bible
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Various Joe Strummer, The Future Is Unwritten
• The Bongolian Outer Bongolia
• Vic Godard & Subway Sect 1978 Now

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Kevin Chesser

• Okkervil River The Stage Names
  This is the rock album that we all knew they had in them. Black Sheep Boy was great, but somebody needed to tell that little twit to get his mopey ass off the couch and figure out what a power chord is.

• The Arcade Fire Neon Bible
  Amazing. Who didn't see this coming?

• New Ruins The Sound They Make
  Like The National, only better.

• The Twilight Sad Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
  These guys are bringing loud back.

• Band of Horses Cease To Begin
  Hey, Band of Horses, you rock hard, but could you find someone who actually knows how to play banjo for once?

• Frog Eyes Tears of the Valedictorian
  Like all Canadian bands, Frog Eyes is another apt reminder that the U.S. blows.

• M. Ward Duet For Guitars # 2 (reissue)
  Been waiting for this one to get reiussed for a while. Hearing it now, I can honestly say it would have been worth the import price anyway.

• Japancakes Loveless
  These guys redid My Bloody Valentine's Loveless using acoustic guitars, piano, and pedal steel. Slightly saner in the membrane?

• Ai Phoenix The Light Shines Almost All The Way
  If Camera Obscura was from Norway and didn't write lyrics about being hung up on stupid crap.

• Samamidon But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted
  Slow-burning, modern interpretations of traditional folk songs. ?Como se dice "Dance Party"???

• Les Savy Fav Let's Stay Friends
  The hiatus is over, and Tim Harrington's exposed flesh should be popping up in your worst nightmares any day now.

• The Weakerthans Reunion Tour
  John K. Samson is the coolest bus driver, EVER.

• Deerhoof Friend Opportunity
  What can I say. This album was . . . made in 2007?

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Robin Cook

• The Go! Team Proof of Youth
• Rilo Kiley Under the Blacklight
• Mavis Staples We'll Never Turn Back
• Feist The Reminder
• The Mary Timony Band The Shapes We Make

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Ken Cox

• Kellie Copeland and others Strand Of Pearls
  Kellie Copeland, daughter of Kenneth Copeland, her daughters, and niece - (www.kcm.org) - do a tremendous job on traditional religious songs.

• Jerry Lee Lewis Live From Austin, TX
  This CD is from the Killer's 1983 live performance on Austin City Limits.

• Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard Rockin' 88's
  These rockers are left - but their music is really right.

• The Oak Ridge Boys Gold
  The last remaining major country quartet shines like the title.

• Various Artists Classic Rockabilly
  From Onie Wheeler to the "Female Elvis" Janis Martin, one will hear some new old "real gone" songs.

• George Jones She Thinks I Still Care - The Complete United Artists Recordings 1962-1964
  One hundred-fifty songs fill this 5-CD set.

• Nat King Cole Every Time I Feel The Spirit
  This 1959 reissue features "The First Baseball Game" - in which the Bible and baseball merge.

• Freddy Fender The Freddy Fender Collection
  Rhino presents the best of the Tex-Mex performer.

• The Georgia Satellites Let It Rock - Greatest Hits
  This group, said Jimmy Guterman, "played guitar the way Jerry Lee Lewis does his piano."

• Al Hirt An Introduction To Al Hirt
  Like Orson Welles with a trumpet, Al Hirt blasted his way into happy ears.

• Keely Smith The Essential Capitol Collection
  This Virginia-born Cherokee maiden did well on her own.

• Spike Jones Classic Songs Of Spike Jones And His City Slickers
  The master of musical mayhem and pre-Weird Al parodies never grows old.

• Dwight Yoakam Dwight Sings Buck
  It's worth a few bucks to hear this tribute to Buck.

• Johnny Cash American III: Solitary Man
  The Man in Black's versatility is evident.

• Johnny Cash Wagonmaster
  With this last CD before his death. Porter Wagoner was the good in country music.

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Jorge Luis Fernandez

• Supersilent Supersilent 8
  As new Supersilent record is for me the musical event of the year; though this time, marking the band's tenth anniversary, I feared that the Norwegian guys weren't going to hit the right button. I was wrong: not only 8 is their finest release to date but the most varied. From the brutal musique-concrète of "8.3" to the spooky ambient plateau of "8.4", from the scorched earth frenzy of "8.7" to the mellotron-inflected Prog of "8.5" (including a mid-section which gives you a fair idea of how Talk Talk would sound today), nobody got any closer to this instant classic of genius and nerve.

• Volcano The Bear Amidst The Noise And Twigs
  More folk songs, dirges and rituals from one of the best British bands ever. Amidst The Noise is perhaps VTB's most accessible album, recharged with tuneful experimentalism.

• Richard Youngs & Simon Wickham-Smith 5 Years
  Composed by five pieces recorded between 2001 and 2006, this is R!!!S!!! most inspiring release since 1990's influential LAKE.

• Animal Collective Strawberry Jam
  Probably they'll never return to the childish experimentalism of Danse Manatee, but this album tops the song-oriented period the Collective started with 2004's Sung Tongs.

• M.I.A. Kala
  Like Tricky and Prince, M.I.A. is a revolutionary artist who blends rock and dance music in a defiant contemporary style. Her second album (a seamless spin-drier of Raincoats-like post-punk, hip hop and Asian pop) is as complex as melodically gifted.

• Rhys Chatham A Crimson Grail
  The master of guitar symphonies realized his most ambitious work, directing 400 electric guitarists at Paris' Sacre Coeur cathedral. The result is somewhat akin to Gavin Bryars' The Sinking Of The Titanic: religiously profane.

• Alan Courtis Las Sales Fundentes
  Ex-Reynols' first double CD is a cornucopia of unreleased tracks, out-of-print 7"'s and the soundtrack of a short movie. Plus, it's his first album released in his homeland, Argentina.

• Coughs Secret Passage
  A good example of a punk band sounding both uncompromising and modern, Coughs keeps the flame of '78 no wave alive and burning.

• Sandoz Lab Technicians The Western Lands
  Listening to The Western Lands feels like watching a Dutch master's painting: a huge labyrinth with surprises hiding in tiny details.

• Radiohead In Rainbows
  I finally got converted to Radiohead with this (until now) download-only release. Full of Beatles-esque experimentation: if OK Computer was their Sergeant Pepper and Kid A their White Album, this is their Abbey Road.

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M. Freerix

• Kammerflimmer Kollektief Jinx
  They use chamber music and elektro and mix them in their own, very unique, style. Etherial and haunting.

• Califone Roots and Crowns
  Like a dream in the desert. Repetative desperation blues.

• O'Death Head Home
  Rickety fence teeth and the crab apple switch. Nothing describes this music better than their song titles

• Halma Back to Pascal
  I think they'd beat the shit out of you if you'd call them krautrocky. But they are, mixed with a dub-feeling. Their version of the Hank Williams-song "Ramblin' Man" is the best and most spooky I've ever heard.

• The Teenage Idols The Teenage Idols
  Already published in 2003, I heard this in a record shop. Love at first hearing. Intense, raw and beautiful. They call themselves teenage idols from outer space. They are.

• C. W. Stoneking King Hokum
  The blues and nothing like but the blues. There's nothing that can beat tradition.

• King Khan & His Shrines What is ?!
  Beat with Voudou-Flavour. Sometimes with a touch of Velvet Underground or Charles Mingus or The Stooges, but always a class of its own.

• Iron and Wine The Shepherd's Dog
  Well, maybe it's more the sound than the songs? Sounds like Sean Beam hums to the sound of his guitar.

• Isis + Aereogramme In the Fishtank 14
  If I did not know it better this could be the soundtrack to Gus van Sant's Jerry. Or it could be the soundtrack to an imaginary film. It's quiet and loud, full of desperation and violence.

• Sun Ra Strange Celestial Road
  This is the first record by Sun Ra I ever heard. A friend of mine borrowed it to me when I was 18 and it stayed on my stereo for weeks. I was addicted to it, copied it on tape and have listened to it ever since. One of those few Sun Ra Records with a guitar player performing. You can even sing along to these songs.

• Lee Moses Time & Place
  Soul with a voodoo vibe. In his lifetime Lee Moses could release only one album and a few singles. It's a miracle how this fantastic music could be produced in a studio and not make it to the charts.

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Tyler Friedman
author of Tyler Friedman's 2007 Record Picks

• Panda Bear - Person Pitch
  Will this record silence those who maintain that all good music was made in the 60s? Or will it validate them?

• Alèmayèhu Eshèté Ethiopiques Volume 22
  Sounds like it was recorded on analog scotch tape. Makes no difference that have no idea what is being sung about, I know what I need to know: we're twenty-three volumes in, and I still haven't tired of this funky, funky, shambolic magic.

• Dirty Projectors Rise Above
  Angelic harmonies and caterwauls elaborately weave around one another creating a skein of beautiful sound.

• Karen Dalton Cotton Eyed Joe: The Loop Tapes
  If music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, Karen Dalton arms are weighed down with bracelets. Profoundly affecting music-in the evening-in the dark-closed door-open soul-deep breaths.

• Beirut Lon Gisland EP
  If all early twenty-somethings were this precocious perhaps I would've taken high school more seriously. Zach Condon proves his first record wasn't a fluke and the whole Balkan brass sound isn't a gimmick, but a legitimate aesthetic.

• Sir Richard Bishop Polytheistic Fragments
  The Sun City Girls may be no more, but Sir Richard Bishop and his multi-cultural sojourns into the abyss of Abyssinia, the gulfs of Gypsy music, and the recesses of ragas haven't surrendered their passports just yet.

• Charles Mingus Quartet with Eric Dolphy Cornell 1964
  Ivy Leaguers beware: Mingus and Dolphy concoct music that cannot be reduced to a mathematical equation, grammatically correct sentence, or some other silly collegiate nonsense. This is music of the soul, of the viscera, put down the abacus and feeeel it.

• Various Artists I Belong To This Band: 85 Years of Sacred Harp Recordings
  Rockin' solfege, pre-Sound of Music, in sweet resonance with the Holy Spirit.

• Various Artists People Take Warning!: Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs 1913-1938
  Why is this music so incredible? I suppose the deadpan delivery of tragic material from ninety-four years ago reaffirms the fact that I'm so tiny and meaningless in the scheme of things that I'd be lucky to have my death committed to a crackly slab of shellac. But in a way that doesn't make we want to expedite the process.

• Various Artists Thai Pop Spectacular (1960's - 1980's) / Molam: Thai Country Groove Vol. 2
  My inner-ethnomusicologist devours releases like this.

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Aaron Goldberg

• The Darling Downs From One to Another (old Aussie indie battlers delivering the goods)
• Angels Of Light We Are Him (glam vs Dylan, who wins? Todd Haynes should semiotext their videos!...)
• Neil Young chrome Dreams II (solid)
• The Stooges The Weirdness (best 'international garage punk' release of the year)
• Terry Riley Les Yeux Fermes & Lifespan (goths should listen to this, but they don't)
• Eddy Current Suprresion Ring Eddy Current Suppresion Ring (good record, but I don't think they'll go beyond this)
• The Pink Stainless Tail The Infinite Wisdom Of (the biggest secret in Aussie indie rock - a sleeper cell of the 'Melbourne Mafia'!)

re-issues:

• Matthew Sweet Girlfriend (possibly best album of the grunge era)
• John Cale Paris 1919 (americana from Wales)
• Nico Frozen Borderline (still extreme)

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P draic Grant

• Jens Lekman Night Falls Over Kortedala
• Ian Brown The World Is Yours
• Babyshambles Shotter's Nation
• The Field From Here We Go Sublime
• Elvis Perkins Ash Wednesday
• Beastie Boys The Mix-Up
• Explosions In The Sky All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone
• Jay-Z American Gangster
• Robert Wyatt Comicopera
• Six Organs Of Admittance Shelter From The Ash
• Manic Street Preachers Send Away The Tigers
• The Clientele God Save The Clientele
• Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
• Blitzen Trapper Wild Mountain Nation
• Atmosphere Strictly Leakage

2007 was quite a mixed year for music in general. In the more mainstream releases, there was a clear divide between those who offered formulaic, by-numbers indie, and other artists who delved into the spirit of experimentation. Ian Brown's The World Is Yours divided critics, but was pure gold to me, a lover of strings and Marvin Gaye. The same division marked releases by Beastie Boys and Explosions In The Sky, which I similarly enjoyed. On the hip hop side of things, Jay-Z's brilliant, conceptual American Gangster captured the imagination with its combination of artistic integrity and commercial appeal, a perfect antidote to 50 Cent's Curtis. Overall, the album that captured my imagination was not the headline-grabbing In Rainbows by Radiohead (which led to predictably hysterical reactions regarding the innovative method of purchase) but Jens Lekman's Night Falls Over Kortedala, a release that points the way forward in 2008, with its humour, creativity and melodic ingenuity. On the whole, 2007 was quite a good year for music, yielding a few albums that will be considered classics, but the growing aesthetic maturity of some acts suggests greater bounties in the years ahead.

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Jason Gross

• Apples in Stereo New Magnetic Wonder
• Clinic Visitations
• Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
• Kanye West Graduation
• Bonde Do Role With Lasers
• Amon Tobin Foley Room
• The Ponys Turn the Lights Out
• Jesse Malin Glitter in the Gutter
• Sage Francis Human the Death Dance
• Architecture in Helsinki Places Like This
• British Sea Power Krankenhaus?
• Electrelane No Shouts No Calls
• Enon Grey Geysers... Carbon Clouds
• Consequence Don't Quit Your Day Job
• James Blood Ulmer Bad Blood in the City- The Piety Street Sessions

For my ridiculously long full list, see my blog.

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Billy Hell

• Melt Banana Bambi's Dilemma
• Angels of Light We Are Him
• P.J. Harvey White Chalk
• Throbbing Gristle Part Two: The Endless Not
• Shellac Excellent Italian Greyhound
• Nina Nastasia and Jim White You Follow Me
• Dinosaur Jr Beyond
• Thee More Shallows Book of Bad Breaks
• Ultralyd Conditions for a Piece of Music
• Enon Grass Geysers... Carbon Clouds
• Anni Rossi Scandia CDR
• Nancy Elizabeth Battle and Victory
• Mick Turner / Tren Brothers Blue Trees
• Low Drums and Guns
• Death Ambient Drunken Forest

The event of the year was undoubtedly the Dirty Three curating All Tomorrow's Parties at Minehead, three days of excellent music by the seaside. This was the year of Jim White, as he drummmed on three of the best albums of the year and the Dirty Three didn't even release an album. Time warped and almost infinite multitudes of music eddied out. Melt Banana were speeding up years ahead of everyone else, making hyper hardcore that sounded like it came from the future. Conversely PJ Harvey sent slow elegance from the past. Old hands Michael Gira, Throbbing Gristle and Dinosaur Jr all made fine albums. Lets hope it's less than another seven years before the next Shellac album. A nice surprise came with the reactivation of Wire but Read Yellow split up. Requiem: sadly Lance Hahn of J-Church and Paul Raven, bassist of Killing Joke, died in October. "Too many funerals."

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Left to right: Guiseppe Ielasi, Future of the Left, Laura Veirs, Jamie T, Sir Richard Bishop

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Ed Hurt

• Cortney Tidwell Don't Let Stars Keep Us Tangled Up
• Nathaniel Mayer Why Don't You Give It to Me?
• Speck Mountain Summer Above
• Chuck Prophet Soap and Water
• Various Artists Song of America
• Bettye LaVette The Scene of the Crime
• Charlie Louvin-Charlie Louvin
• Wilco Sky Blue Sky
• John Anderson Easy Money
• Johnny Bush Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston's Country Soul
• Sly and the Family Stone There's a Riot Goin' On
• Various Artists Vee-Jay: The Definitive Collection
• Chris Kenner Land of 1000 Dances
• Moby Grape Moby Grape
• Miles Davis The Complete On the Corner Sessions

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Jesse Jarnow

• Of Montreal Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
• Wilco Sky Blue Sky
• Animal Collective Strawberry Jam
• Akron/Family Love is Simple
• Ween La Cucaracha
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Battles Mirrored
• Vampire Weekend (Blue CD-R)
• Diplo Pitchfork mix
• Various Artists Folk and Pop Music of Myannmar (Burma), vol. 3
• Sir Richard Bishop Polytheistic Fragments
• Various Artists razil '70
• Devendra Banhart Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon
• Patton Oswalt Werewolves and Lollipops
• M.I.A. Kala

WFMU DJs not withstanding, we all live in the secret museum of the air these days. Anyplace you can pick up a wifi signal, you can pluck anything you want from the ether: WFMU, a Japanese teenagers' J-pop playlists, MySpace demos, Beyonce, and everybody else. What's really weird, though, is that the weirder it gets, the more I return to white 20/30/40somethings residing (in the words of Bill Wasik) on the hipster archipelago. "Mars needs songs!" I typed into my AIM away message sometime last year, not really knowing what it meant at first, but soon translating it literally. Eventually, I accepted Vampire Weekend into my life, a conservative Indie balm in a world that has become too eclectic, and a million times more wonderful.

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Ore Koren

• The Good, the Bad & the Queen The Good, the Bad & the Queen
• Neil Young Chrome Dreams II
• Bruce Springsteen Magic
• I'm Not There Movie Soundtrack

2007 has been a "new-stalgic" year. First we have a debut project from the band of Damon Albarn (Blur) and Paul Simonon (The Clash) which's doing what the Germans never could - take Britain by a storm. Then we have new albums by two 70's pillars which show - especially The Boss - that you can still produce kick ass rock'n'roll even if you're in your late 50's or early 60's.

The last album in my list is also my favorite, featuring amazing Dylan covers, sometimes (please don't stone me) better than the original. My favorite song is Sonic Youth's version of "I'm Not There."

I hope that in 2008 we will see John Cale producing another album for Petty Smith.

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Calliope Kurtz

• MIA Kala 2007. The new PiL.
• Peggy Lee Sugar 'n Spice 1962. Elemental fem.
• Dolly Parton Those Were The Days 2005. Bling twang.
• Joni Mitchell Travelogue 2001. The new Ella.
• Hollyridge Strings The Beatles Songbook volume 5 1967. Includes "I Am The Walrus."
• The Living Strings Alice's Restaurant 1969. You read that right.
• Yoko Ono Approximately Infinite Universe 1972. I am woman, hear me roar.
• Heartless Bastards All This Time 2006. The new Stones.
• Britney Spears Blackout 2007. Pink is the new punk.
• Bloodrock Bloodrock 3 1971. Not really.

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Dave Lang

• Dad They Broke Me Lack (Missing Link)
• Always F.I.S.T. (Nervous Jerk)
• Throbbing Gristle Part Two: Endless Not CD (Mute)
• Winter Family Winter Family (Sub Rosa)
• Savage Republic 1938 (Neurot)
• Castings Punk Rock Is Bunk Squawk (Spanish Magic)
• Magnetics We Are the Mountains We Are the Fields (Sweat Lung)
• Vocokesh All This and Hieronymous Bosch (Strange Attractors Audio House)
• David S. Ware Renunciation (Aum Fidelity)
• Robert Wyatt Comic Opera (Domino)
• Jordi Savall/Hesperion XXI Francisco Javier: The Route Of The Orient (Alia Vox)
• The Budos Band II (Daptone)
• Anthony Pateras Chasms (Sirr.Ecords)

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George Light

• Aesop Rock None Shall Pass
• Tab Benoit The Power of the Pontchatrain
• Floratone Floratone
• Jason Isbell Sirens of the Ditch
• Jay-Z American Gangster
• Jens Lekman Night Falls Over Kortedala
• M.I.A. Kala
• Panda Bear Person Pitch
• Phantom Blues Band Out of the Shadows
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Robert Plant and Alison Kraus Raising Sand
• Robert Wyatt Comicopera
• X-tal Who Owns Our Dreams?

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Ben Malkin

• Blonde Redhead 23
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Various Artists (Goodbye Better Presents...) - Weird Terrain
• Ifwhen We Will Gently Destroy You
• Pale Amber Glow/Somebody Else's Sublimation
• Meneguar Strangers In Our House
• Marissa Nadler Songs III: Bird On The Water

Commentary: Mostly exploring the past these days. Past present future is all now nowadays. Also, what will the digital revolution do to cd's? Will vinyl and digital downloads be our next incarnation of the future? And what happens when all the hard drives crash? Hope there's no earthquakes to smash the vinyl. Vinyl's revenge? At least it gets people thinking about albums again. And it sounds better. Q: What about those of us who live in tiny apartments & have no room for such things? The digital tidal wave crashes on our heads. (See Neuromancer.') Cheers!

(ps: Blonde Redhead's new album really is one of the best I've heard the last decade or so.)

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Ellis Maytham

I only bought one new album which was stunning

David Gilmour On Island

only 2 great re-issues I know about

Moby Grape Moby Grape
The Move Message from the Country

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Alexander McLean

• Public Enemy How to sell soul to a soulless people who sold their soul
• KRS One & Marly Marl Hip hop lives
• Sonic Youth Daydream nation (Deluxe edition)
• Nine Inch Nails Year zero
• Tom Waits Orphans
• Doug Hammond A real deal
• Kanye West Graduation
• Wynton Marsalis From The Plantation To The Penitentiary
• Queens of the Stone Age Era Vulgaris
• Kronos Quartet Henryk Gorecki: String Quartet No. 3...songs are sung
• Gary Lucas & God and monsters Coming clean
• A concert for peace and reconciliation - Healing the divide
• Soulsaver It's not how far you fall, its the way you land
• Chemical Brothers We are the night

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Domenic Maltempi

• Deerhunter Cryptograms
  Debut Kranky and killer record. Seriously beautiful songs harnessing motionless ambient dogs, mushing on gelid foot over blue experi-sponge-rock spangles...

• Colleen Les Ondes Silencieuses
  Thank you for the way your exits balm. No samples here. Spare pieces wheel one wing and half high around a sky that god wanted back in it's lungs after thinking about it. This whole album is sheathed with impenetrability and sweet solicitude.

• LCD Sound System Sound of Silver
  It is the sound of silver and the coffee isn't even bitter! Excellent coming together of incredibly fun vocals, effortlessly awesome delivery through the cartoon needles of carefully whipped up hooks and blocks of warm-warm-hot-cool lathering repetition strokes.

• Pharaoh Overlord Live in Suomi Finland
  Recorded back in dirty old 06, this is more than a live album. It has a pleasing continuity, fur-steel lined rock thickness sticks close to legs of fuzzy-hard rock dope gulped reverse-histrionics that you will want to suckle like the new creature you become.

• Lewis & Clarke Blasts Of Holy Birth
  Pop-folk porch bliss, with flying porch included. Verdant gems wander somewhat mysteriously/pensively, vested in dronish plucking somnolence. A lot of live tracking doses the listener into a light moving thrall.

• Wooden Shjips Wooden Shjips
  Primordial rhythmic ooze gets you stuck in fine splintered shape.

• The Cherry Blossoms The Cherry Blossoms
  Countrified weirdness from Nashville! Not ashamed-professional dull weird noodling, way cooler. It's triply amazing that one can get so addled by this albums totality again and again. Beautiful album art home take me! Reminds me of making concept albums on taped over Madonna cassettes with my favorite cousins!

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Marc Philips

• Pixies Surfer Rosa (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab reissue)
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Arcade Fire Neon Bible
• Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• Burial Untrue
• Iron & Wine The Shepherd's Dog
• Wilco Sky Blue Sky
• Robert Plant and Alison Krause Raising Sand
• Nick Lowe At My Age
• Stars of the Lid And Their Refinement of the Decline
• The Field From Here We Go Sublime
• Levon Helm Dirt Farmer
• M.I.A Kala
• Battles Mirrored
• Robert Wyatt Comicopera

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Danny R. Phillips

2007 was an extraordinarily average year in music; this being my exceptionally opinionated point of view. If it weren't for Britney losing the mind beneath her hairless dome (something that provided me some much needed entertainment), the albums listed here, my daughter entering 6th grade and the birth of my son Jack, I probably would have taken some Hibernol and slept through the drudgery that was '07 in the Great Midwest. Alright, enough of the bullshit . Here's my list in no particular order. Enjoy!!

• Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
• Mississippi Witch Black Gamble
• The Ike Reilly Assassination We Belong to the Staggering Evening
• Bad Religion New Maps of Hell
• Milton and The Devil's Party How Wicked We've Become
• Led Zeppelin Mothership
• The White Stripes Icky Thump
• Against Me! New Wave
• The Upsets The Upsets
• Elvis Costello and The Attractions This Year's Model (reissue)
• Kurt Cobain About A Son Movie Soundtrack
• The Afghan Whigs Unbreakable- A Retrospective 1990-2006
• Sonic Youth Daydream Nation (deluxe edition)
• The Complete Monterey Pop Festival DVD set ( the performances by Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix alone were enough for this set to make my list)
• Ted Leo + The Pharmacists Living with the Living
• The Ramey Memo 300 Voices at the King Hill Pub
• P.J. Harvey White Chalk

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Danny Roberts

• Nine Inch Nails Year Zero
• Dinosaur Jr Beyond
• The Cribs Mens needs, womens needs, whatever
• Daft Punk Alive 2007
• Radiohead In Rainbows
• Panda Bear Person Pitch
• Sebadoh The Freed Man reissue
• Findu5 You Are
• Down III over the under
• Tomahawk Anonymous
• Future of the Left Curses
• Lou Barlow Mirror the eye
• Frank Black Christmass
• Sonic Youth Daydream Nation reissue
• Smashing Pumpkins Zeitgeist

Yes, its true, this year may well have been 1994 again. Its been a heavy lo-fi reformation acoustic dance fest in my (serpentine) pad this year, and yes i've taken to wearing plaid and band shirts again. I can't decide whether i'm approaching the classic midlife crisis or if the majority of the bands on my list really are better than the current crop. Time will tell, but for now these were damned fine albums. I even found space for my fave local band Findu5 (if radiohead can release an "official" album without a label then why can't they?) and i may yet be the only person to actually like Baldy Corgans new disc. Hey ho, 2008 beckons....

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Tim Shannon

• Dinosaur Jr Beyond
  The best reunion record ever? Holding it in my hands I'm still astounded an original line up reunion album exists.

• Magik Markers Boss
  A tremendous creative leap, broadening what a noise band can do.

• Meat Puppets Rise To Your Knees
  Finally left to their own devices they make a sun scorched psychedelic masterpiece. Easily their best since Too High To Die.

• Neil Young Chrome Dreams II
  Neil's muse burns stronger than ever with acoustic and electric tracks side by side.

• Neil Young Live at Massey Hall
  Beautiful, intimate show with stripped down versions of his songs cutting straight to the heart of them.

• Old Time Relijun Catharsis Crisis
  Another unique batch of beefheart free jazz punk.

• Sonic Youth Daydream Nation
  Not only did they give their masterpiece the deluxe treatment but they also played its entirety live.

• Thurston Moore Trees Outside the Academy
  Great album showing there's more to him than noise freakouts.

• Various Artists: Im Not There Soundtrack
  aka Indie Goes Dylan has some entertaining covers by Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Yo La Tengo and more.

• White Stripes Icky Thump
  The band stays creative on their 5th outing. Can you name another record that incorporates synthesizers, garage rock, slide guitar blues, country, mexican and scottish influences?

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Al Spicer

• Amy Winehouse Back To Black
• Babyshambles Shotters Nation
• Kanye West Graduation
• Arcade Fire Neon Bible
• Hard-Fi Once Upon a Time in the West
• Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
• Gruff Rhys Candylion
• Klaxons Myths Of The Near Future
• Maximo Park Our Earthly Pleasures
• LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver
• Bloc Party A Weekend in the City
• Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare
• Manic Street Preachers Send Away the Tigers
• Chemical Brothers We Are the Night
• Jamie T Panic Prevention

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Mark S. Tucker

• James Isaak James Isaak
• James Isaak Leper in Suburbia
  Two striking releases by a young not-quite-categorizable folkie with unusual urban grit in spare atmospheres.

• Bernie Pearl Somebody Got to Do It!
  Outrageously rootsy and authentic blues, music of a sort that appears only once a decade.

• Mike Keneally Boil That Dust Speck
• Mike Keneally Hat
  Reissues of two seminal art-damage releases with extremely generous companion DVDs.

• Steve Khan Borrowed Time
  Ace session guitarist's latest solo - killer, as usual.

• Various Artists Down at the Sea Hotel
  Gorgeous lullabies for kiddies, written by Gorka, Waits, Cockburn, Winchester, etc.

• Evidence Iris
  Electro-ambient CD with marvelous bonus DVD of visual takes on each cut.

• Elton Dean & The Wrong Note The Unbelievable Truth
  What a way to go out!

• Phil Miller & In Cahoots Conspiracy Theories
  As proggy fusionoids get older, they just get jazzier and finer.

• Arti & Mestieri First Live in Japan
  Who the hell ever expected *these* guys to reform??? Niiiiiice!!!

• Steve Mann Alive 'N Pickin'
  Re-emergence compilation of a 60s/70s quirky blues player on a disc with 3 historic cuts featuring superb Janis Joplin vocals unavailable elsewhere.

• Jake Shimabukoro My Life
  EP of standards by the jaw-dropping young Hawaiian ukelele phenom astonishing connoissieurs everywhere.

• The Seventh Season Liquid Water
  Great understated rocky prog group's latest CD, *heavily* 70s Euro-slanted.

• Sando Szabo & Kevin Kastning Resonance
  Noodly abstract quitar duets a la Towner & Abercrombie; quietly beautiful and rarely done with this much perspicacity.

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Keith Walsh

• Goldfrapp Felt Mountain
• Goldfrapp Black Cherry
• Rough Guide to North African Caf
• Majid Bekkas African Gnaoua Blues
• Rosario Contigo Me Voy
• Christmas With The Chipmunks
• Aquabats Myths, Legends, and other Amazing Adventures, vol. 2
• Kplecraft Multi-Boxer
• I, Cactus I, Cactus
• Nullsleep Depeche Mode Megamix

Far from being a best of '07, this short list comprises my favorites from the music that found its way to my CD player or Windows Media app during the last year.

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Kurt Wildermuth

Here's my list, and all the artists are old favorites:

• Dean & Britta Back Numbers
• Low Drums and Guns
• Spoon Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
• Laura Veirs Saltbreakers
• Rufus Wainwright Release the Stars
• Rufus Wainwright Does Judy at Carnegie Hall

These aren't the "best" of 2007, just the only new CDs I happened to buy. I like 'em all very much, and I love things about each, but "Release the Stars" is the only one I love all the way through.

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Mike Wood

• Wildidlife Six
• Grinderman Grinderman
• Black Cobra Feather and Stone
• Nathaniel Mayer Why Don't You Give It To Me
• Angels of Light We Are Him
• Mono Gone a collection of Ep's 2000-2007
• Om Pilgrimage
• Earthmonkey Be That Change
• Shearwater Palo Santo
• The Conformists Three Hundred
• Porter Wagoner Wagonmaster
• Religious Knives Remains
• Gulls Easts & Opus
• Ed Gray The Late Gray Ed Great
• Johnny Parry Songs Without a Purpose

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Left to right: Stars of the Lid, Neil Young, Milton and the Devil's Party, Fire Engines, Japancakes