Alice's Top 5 of 2005

I know this is a little late, and has already been done by Eugene, and Keiran did a really cool Rainer Maria thingy and... yeah. I'm rubbish, I know! Sorry sorry sorry everyone. I'm trying to make up for it by doing 5 albums in one post.

2005 was a reasonable year for music, I suppose. There were some cool new albums, but generally most of my purchases were much-needed classics, such as Ramones boxsets, Jeff Buckley remasters and the disgusting way that Sonic Youth are cashing in on all their old albums by re-releasing them as expensive double-CDs with insightful booklets - completely pointless yet unavoidable additions to my shelves. I even had a momentary flash of guilt over my downloading habits and vowed to replace all of my CD-R albums with the real thing. That lasted about a week but it was an expensive 7 days. The beginning of 2005 was riddled with hip-hop and post-rock discoveries; I made a mad attempt at buying every Constellation Records album I could get my hands on, and lined an entire shelf with albums by DJ Shadow, Coldcut, Ugly Duckling, Beastie Boys and so on... Then, as with every Summer, everybody around me seemed to produce a fiddle or a bodram drum and I had my annual Summer Of Folk Music; The Duhks, The Waifs (again), Ani Difranco (as usual), Old Crow Medicine Show, Cat Empire... and then as the cold weather closed in I rediscovered the grindcore and screamo records I'd cherished through 2004, rounded off with an out-of-body experience at a Melt Banana show.

So yeah. Generally it was a pretty cool year for my ears. And so far 2006 hasn't been too bad either.

Anyway, here's five classic releases from 2005. Please note that these in no way reflect my absolute top five favourites of 2005! Well, I lie. Sigur Ros would be in there, and Ani Difranco would be in my top artists of all time anyway. However, these are just a small handful that I enjoyed getting lost in, that I have not written about yet, or that I generally feel deserve a brief mention.

Regina Spektor - Mary Ann Meets The Gravediggers and Other Short Stories
Regina Spektor, it has to be said, is my favourite of the new wave of fairy-tale-chic artists who've hit the review columns of every "underground" publication on the planet. All the Joanna Newsoms, all the Devendra Banharts... Regina Spektor is my favourite. Mary Ann Meets The Gravediggers is a small collection of tracks from her two other records, neither of which have been officially available in the UK before. Technically, this is a 2006 release, but I've been waiting for it since way back in last year so I'm making it count just so I can tell you all to go out and buy it. It comes with a DVD as well, with a little short film to some of the music and a couple of videos to the singles. I love this. I love it, I love it, I looooove it! I love the lyrics and I love her voice and I love the artwork and I love the video to 'Us' and... I love this.

Oedipus

Ani Difranco - Knuckle Down
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Ani Difranco is a genius. Musically, she is one of the most influential folk guitarists of all time. Politically, she's hailed as one of her generation's most recognised feminists and anti-war protesters. Even as a writer, her song-lyrics and poetry is up there, sometimes beyond, the likes of Patti Smith. She's made like a berjillion albums and has had even more different hairstyles than that. When I listen to an Ani Difranco song, any song, any record, that I haven't heard in a while - or even if I've had it on repeat for the last day - I get that funny shiver in my spine. I think if I could choose something to be the last thing I hear, it'd be one of her albums. Not to sound like an obsessive fan or anything, but listening to Ani Difranco should be put on the National Curriculum. This album is one of her finest, perhaps not her best, but an incredible album nonetheless.

Manhole

Busdriver - Fear Of A Black Tangent
This one time I was at work and my best friend Hamish was hanging out with me while I priced stuff up. When this happens, we fight over who gets to choose what to listen to and he usually wins and usually sulk because of it. Anyway, this one day, some time in 2005, he put on a mixtape that some girl made him, and on it was Busdriver. Then I found this album in a tiny record shop in Dorchester and just managed to afford it with the last coppers in my pocket, and I don't think I could imagine a day that I didn't have this on my iPod. A great, great hip-hop album.

Avantcore

Sigur Ros - Takk
Yeah... I've already done a write-up on this. It's great. Go buy it if you haven't already! What more can I say more about this? A total classic.

Glósóli






Tracy + The Plastics - Culture For Pigeons
Tracy isn't a real person. She's the alter-ego of an eccentric lesbian film-maker from the Northwest called Wynne Greenwood. "The Plastics" are Cola on drums, and Nikki on keyboards, who argue between eachother over how songs should sound, what they're wearing, and criticise eachother openly - and yet they don't exist either. They're acted by Greenwood too, and are projected behind her while "Tracy" performs her part of the act live onstage, stopping occasionally to interact with her "band-mates". The films that go alongside the disjointed electro soundtracks are long and slightly spooky - domestic objects become instruments in the band - the pot-plant dances in time to the keyboard and the shake of the nail polish becomes the high-hat. The CD is one of those weird double-sided CDs that are a DVD one way up and an audio CD when facing the other way up. The first couple of times I watched the DVD, I didn't really get it, but I think at some point it just clicked. Now when I listen to the CD, all I can see is three Wynne Greenwood's arguing with eachother and huffing and puffing during a band practise, the back of her neck, and the carpet in her house. You have to see it a few times to understand why this is so amazing.

Henrietta

HAPPY 2006!
Alice-Rose