As usual, I put this cd together over late December '09, but this year I never got round to writing about the songs that were on it, so voila:
1. Mexico City – Jolie Holland
from The Living and the Dead (Anti; 2008) [also, here]
2. This Tornado Loves You – Neko Case
from Middle Cyclone (Anti; 2009)
3. Unless It’s Kicks – Okkervil River
from The Stage Names (Jagjaguwar; 2007)
4. French Navy – Camera Obscura
from My Maudlin Career (4AD; 2009)
5. Knotty Pine – Dirty Projectors & David Byrne
from Dark Was The Night (4AD; 2009)
6. With A Girl Like You – Dave Sitek
from Dark Was The Night (4AD; 2009)
7. Hey, Snow White – The New Pornographers
from Dark Was The Night (4AD; 2009)
8. It Must Come Through – Jen Cloher & The Endless Sea
from Hidden Hands (Sandcastle Music; 2009) [also, here and here]
9. The Bleeding Heart Show – The New Pornographers
from Twin Cinema (Matador; 2005)
10. Us – Regina Spektor
from (500) Days of Summer OST (Sire; 2009) / Soviet Kitsch (Sire; 2004)
11. Gimme Sympathy – Metric
from Fantasies (Metric Music International; 2009)
The first part of the year was all about Jolie Holland - I really fell hard for her over '08 and '09, the drowsily narcotic Springtime Can Kill You and brighter, more rock-tinted The Living and the Dead providing contrasting but complementary pleasures, tied together by Holland's delightful yawn of a voice - and I kept listening to her all the way through...it's sunk in, deep. "The Living and the Dead" kicks off the album of that name, and there's something at once golden and shadowy about it that makes me think of long summer days.
Okkervil River was the other artist that seemed to be with me from start to finish of '09, although more at intervals than in a constant flow; it was The Stage Names that I came to first, and as so often happens in these circumstances, it's remained my favourite. There are any number of brilliant, confounding songs on that record, but "Unless It's Kicks" is probably the most immediate and quite possibly the best, fervidly urgent and excitingly, propulsively direct.
Middle Cyclone came out near the start of the year, and I listened to it a fair bit for a couple of weeks and realised at the time that it was as good as anything that Case had done before (which is really saying something) and then kind of neglected it; coming back to the album later in the year, I realised how thoroughly it had infiltrated my musical landscape despite the relatively few spins I'd given it the first time round, and was reminded of how great it is; "This Tornado Loves You" is probably the closest thing to a representative song from the lp, and in any event it's probably my favourite.
And then there's Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career didn't quite match 2006's minor classic (and, for me, sentimental favourite) Let's Get Out Of This Country, but it was still really damn sweet, and seemed to be constantly playing in the car as M and I drove wherever we were going, all over Melbourne.
I noticed even at the time that the Dark Was The Night compilation felt like a soundtrack to a certain part of the year, somewhere around the middle; for that period, it seemed like it was playing everywhere I went - in bookstores and cafes, before gigs, at home of course...there are too many brilliant songs on it to need recounting, but "With A Girl Like You" and "Hey, Snow White" were the ones that I most found myself playing over and over, and "Knotty Pine" the one that I most strongly associated with the compilation itself.
A bit after that came Hidden Hands, and once that one took root, it was pretty much all I listened to for a period of several weeks. Simply put, it's a spectacularly good modern roots-rock album, Cloher selling surging, epic rockers, more mid-tempo folk and classic pop-influenced numbers and show-stopping emotional highs with equal conviction. I got totally stuck on "It Must Come Through" - it still kills me.
The tail end of the year was pretty much about the New Pornographers and Regina Spektor. I finally picked up Challengers and Twin Cinema, and discovered they're both marvellous; "The Bleeding Heart Show" is one of the most sheerly irresistible songs I've ever heard, especially its ending. And as to Regina, well, that was sparked off by (500) Days of Summer, and so it's not surprising that "Us" is the one that really resonated.
And then, at the very end, I stumbled across Metric's latest, and found that it was simply exactly the kind of thing I like - the shimmering "Gimme Sympathy" was the clear highlight, but the whole thing, vividly melodic and excitingly now, was like a rushing wave to carry me into the new year - it gave me a rush.
