The Crossed Pond

I have to cop to getting the List Itch at the end of years and decades. Not only is it deliciously self-indulgent (which I might apologize for in some other context; but wtf, it’s my blog), but it also gives me an opportunity to take an inventory of sorts and to think critically about my favorite pop culture things. Most of all, I just have a good time doing it, scouring over my stuff, re-listening, re-experiencing. There are worse ways to spend a weekend.

Anyway, since we’re closing in on the end of the Aughts (or Uh-Ohs, or whatever), what the hell. I’m going to list up. This week, music.

As you know from my Music Videos of the Week, I have awesome taste in music. So here are my Thirty Favorite Albums of the Decade. At least as it stands this week.

My ground rules: No soundtracks (for the record: 1. O Brother, 2. Amelie, 3. Into the Wild, 4. Dancer in the Dark, 5. Cold Mountain). No EPs (sorry Calexico!). No albums solely on the basis of singles no matter how great (Which suckily means I can’t give love to a lot of the decade’s best artists; my best singles list would probably look radically different with not more than 50% overlap on artists). And I’ll try to resist the tendency of listing my favorite artists of the decade if I can’t find an album that I would put up (Sorry Decemberists! Sorry Mos Def! Sorry Regina Spektor!), or albums that I really like and recognize as great but just don’t strike as personal a chord as the rest (Sorry Sorry Flaming Lips!), or albums that were great at the time but haven’t really stood the test of time for me (Sorry New Pornographers!). Most importantly, only one album per artist. My actual Top Ten without that rule would wind up being dominated by four artists; my Top Thirty maybe 20. In a lot of cases, the decision between a couple of different great albums from an artist was really really hard, but I leaned, in general, towards the best pure album, even if it wasn’t the breakout or the one with the best singles. In cases where it was a real close call, I’ll probably say so. And by the end, I’ll probably totally cop out on that rule anyway.

Last caveat: I curse like a trucker. I try to keep that in check on the blog, but for some reason am incapable of curbing it when discussing music. You’ve been warned.

Below the jump: The Best Albums of the Decade. According to me, anyway.

30 (TIE). The Streets – A Grand Don’t Come For Free (2004)

A lot of people would have picked Original Pirate Material, but for me this is the better realized vision. This album was two things. A totally novel approach to hip-hop, a sort of garage hash of beats, spoken word, and observational lyricism. And secondly, one of the most British fucking albums since Anarchy in the U.K.

Try these: “Fit But You Know It”, “Dry Your Eyes”, “Such a Twat”

30 (TIE). Outkast – Stankonia (2000)

My original version of this list didn’t feature Outkast, in large measure because Speakerboxxx/Love Below has not aged well for me, and besides, they’re making everybody else’s lists. But ultimately I couldn’t justify not giving a nod to Stankonia, which really is one of the greatest hip-hip albums of all time, containing some of the best tracks of the decade.

Try these: “B.O.B.”, “Ms. Jackson”, “Slum Beautiful”

29. Ekova – Space Lullabies and Other Fantasmagore (2001)

This is a very out-of-left field album—and group for that matter. It’s equal parts French, Arabic, and American, and seems equal parts traditional roots as electronica. And the result is just as fusion-y as the description might lead you to expect. But more than the cosmopolitan vibe, the sounds on the album are effortlessly smooth. The up-tempo songs are actually exciting—an adjective I don’t normally append to music. And their slower songs lull you into a kind of content fugue. The best part? Most of the songs have a little bit of both of those moods working for them.

Try these: “A Soul’s Delight”, “Siip Siie”, “The Chase”

28. Scott H. Biram – Dirty Old One-Man Band (2005)

An online buddy hipped me to this one—one of those internet conversations where a person suggests something, you download a song or two, and next thing you know you own everything the artist ever released and are camped outside some random dive bar in Pittsburgh waiting for them to play, but even though they’re scheduled to start at 8 they don’t let anyone in until 9:00, and by 10:30 you find yourself half drunk and surrounded by a mix of hollowed-out punks, intellectual alt-country douchebags, and redneck bruisers and still no music and finally 23 fistfights later at like 11:45 one of the bartenders has to announce that the musical act got drunk at their afternoon gig in Ohio and won’t be there before 2 AM barclose and you’re like “motherfucker”. And then the cops arrive.

Try these: “Lost Case of Being Found”, “Blood, Sweat & Murder”, “Raisin’ Hell Again”

27. Nine inch nails – With Teeth (2005)

Got to hand it to Trent Reznor. He’s managed to crack the list of the decade’s best albums in the 80s, 90s, and this one too. With Teeth ain’t as good as Pretty Hate Machine or Downward Spiral, but it’s still pretty fucking great.

Try these: “With Teeth”, “The Hand That Feeds”, “Only”

26. Gogol Bordello – Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike (2005)

Eugene Hütz is almost too weird to exist. He’s like a low-rent version of Iggy Pop, if Iggy Pop were Ukrainian, barely spoke English, performed mostly gypsy punk rock, prominently featured an accordion on seemingly every track, and liked to wear only acid washed denim jackets, ripped spandex pants, no shirt, and a 70s cop-show mustache. Great fun.

“Start Wearing Purple”, “Not a Crime”, “Think Locally Fuck Globally”

25. Chromeo – Fancy Footwork (2007)

Chromeo!!!!!

So a Jew M.C. and an Arab D.J. meet in Montreal and decide to make music that can best be described as post-Jackson Five pre-Thriller Michael Jackson synth-pop with a dash of Miami Vice thrown in, only more shameless and without any attempt at mainstream success despite at times sounding like it almost begs to be counted as soulless Top 40 circa 1982. The result?

Chromeo!!!!!!!

“Tenderoni”, “Fancy Footwork”, “Momma’s Boy”

24. Bubba Sparxxx – Deliverance (2003)

This is one I expect I might get shit for, and in truth when I first picked up the album, on the strength of a video and Conan O’Brien appearance, I liked it but wasn’t overly preoccupied with it. But it’s stayed in the rotation ever since, never once falling off, and as the years have progressed, I’ve found myself more and more impressed by how well it’s held up and how what originally passed for gimmick—big Southern white guy rapping about confederate flags and unwanted pregnancies—has given way to what is a bonafide sound that’s been replicated plenty but has never quite sounded as original, inspired, or flowed as naturally. Call it a guilty pleasure if you like, but I’ve made my peace with this great album. And it stays on the rotation still.

“Jimmy Mathis”, “She Tried”, “Comin’ Round”

23. Missy Elliott – Under Construction (2002)

Missy Elliott, as far as I’m concerned, rules hip hop. There is no rap artist as inventive, as risk-taking and experimental but also as well produced and commercial, and as consistently fantastic as Missy Elliott. If Missy were a man, I’m convinced she would rule the world ala Kayne West or Outkast. As it stands, she just has to settle for being the best. Most people would go with So Addictive as her best album of the 00s. Flip a coin, but I’m giving the edge to Under Construction.

“Gossip Folks”, “Slide”, “Bring the Pain”

22. Dropkick Murphys – Sing Loud, Sing Proud! (2001)

It was good to see the Dropkick Murphys go from punk’s best-kept-secret to one of its biggest mainstream successes this decade. They remain one of the best acts around. This album is their crowning achievement this decade and it encapsulates everything that makes the Murphys so awesome. It rocks hard, it doesn’t shy from the political, it shies even less from the bagpipes. What can you say? It’s loud. It’s proud.

“Which Side Are You On?”, “For Boston”, “The Spicy McHaggis Jig”

21. William Shatner – Has Been (2004)

I will fight you.

“Common People”, “That’s Me Trying”, “I Can’t Get Behind That”

20. Rodrigo y Gabriela – Rodrigo y Gabriela (2006)

An easy to overlook album. It’s instrumental, it’s only eight tracks long, it’s nearly all guitar…hell, it’s even got a Stairway to Heaven cover for chrissakes. But despite that, Rodrigo y Gabriela did something I wouldn’t have thought possible—they took the acoustic guitar, the most over-exposed instrument in the world, combined it with some Latin almost Mariachi-esque flavor, and made it sound dazzlingly, mind-blowingly fresh.

“Diablo Rojas”, “Tamacun”, “Juan Loco”

19. Basement Jaxx – Kish Kash (2003)

Basement Jaxx hit just the right point in the decade. When Rooty (2001) and Kish Kash (2003) came out, a lot of critically acclaimed music seemed lost in the weeds. The smart indie set ala Radiohead had become insufferable and self-referential. Electronica had either become hopelessly Top 40 or a connoisseur’s game, intended only for the most hardcore fans. Music wasn’t bad, but it oftentimes didn’t seem like as much fun as it used to. Enter Basement Jaxx, who spent the decade making amazingly listenable everything-but-the-kitchen-sink albums without one iota of pretense, but a helluva lot of good time.

“Cish Cash”, “Right Here’s the Spot”, “Feels Like Home”

18. The Legendary Shack Shakers – Cockadoodledon’t (2003)

Legendary Shack Shakers grab the torch from the Reverend Horton Heat of the 90s. A mashup of Southern rock, Delta blues, and rockabilly punk, but, surprisingly, that’s not nearly as abrasive as it sounds. What it is is some great shit-kicking blues rock with a definite hardcore/roots tip.

“Help Me From My Brain”, “Pinetree Boogie”, “Shakerag Holler”

17. The White Stripes – Elephant (2003)

It’s hard to say anything about the White Stripes that hasn’t been said already. So I won’t. But I will say that they were a huge breath of fresh air into mainstream music at the turn of the decade, between this and 2001’s equally good White Blood Cells. And God bless Jack White. He makes the world a better place.

“Seven Nation Army”, “The Hardest Button to Button”, “Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine”

16. Postal Service – Give Up (2003)

Give Up is perhaps the great one-off of the 00s. It seems such a curious artifact now, with its NES-level beats, its contemplative, at times even depressive lyrics, its soaring synth, its close-to-the-bone vocals. But there’s not a single filler track on here, and although a lot of it got licensed to death, and Ben Gibbard or course went on to great things with Death Cab for Cutie, this album still feels like a moment frozen in time, but, curiously, timeless.

“Such Great Heights”, “This Place is a Prison”, “Nothing Better”

15. Antony and the Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now (2005)

Antony and the Johnsons was a true revelation of the decade. A Boy George style gender-bender but with a musical backing that dovetailed perfectly with the blossoming freak-folk movement and fronted by one of this decade’s greatest voices. Antony’s vocals—which swing effortlessly from trilly emo to boisterous cabaret to I’m-so-in-love-I-want-to-kill-myself chanson—are simply stunning.

“For Today I Am A Boy”, “Hope There’s Someone”, “Fistful of Love”

14. Jamie Cullum – Twentysomething (2004)

Michael Buble found a helluva lot of mainstream success this last decade by aping the crooner style, but Jamie Cullum is the real deal. It’s an easy style to do, a hard one to do well (an even harder one to get any respect for). He is the quintessential lounge singer, but I don’t mean that, at all, with the normal connotation—cheesy, mercenary, not very good. Rather, I mean that in the sense that Jamie Cullum is a guy that can walk into a spotlight in the corner of a lounge, sit down in front of the piano, adjust the microphone, and start playing. His records play like that. He’ll do the covers that everyone knows the words too. He’ll do the crowd-pleasing toe-tapping compositions that people can have fun with even if they’re too drunk to bother with words. He’ll do some witty ones, some serious ones, some ones about heartbreak, some ones to dance to. Intermingled, he’ll thrown in a fair number of his own original, serious songwriting attempts, the ones that make you stop and say “wow, what is this guy doing playing here?” And above all, he’ll be here all night.

“These Are the Days”, “High & Dry”, and covers of “Singin’ in the Rain” and “The Wind Cries Mary”

13. The Go! Team – Thunder, Lightning, Strike (2004)

The Go! Team makes me feel like I’m snorting pixie sticks off a rodeo clown’s ass listening to Schoolhouse Rocks as I prepare to jump into a montage that has me training for a dance-off while wearing zebra-striped spandex and surrounded by anime schoolgirls jumping up and down and clapping their hands. If that’s wrong, I don’t want to be right.

“Ladyflash”, “We Just Won’t Be Defeated”, “Everyone’s a VIP to Someone”

12. Tom Waits – Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards (2006)

This is an album made up of 56 songs by Waits that never quite made it on to some other album (hence Orphans). Taken as a whole, it represents an enormously substantial body of work in its own right, but it never once gets tired or redundant or, for that matter, feels like an anthology or throwaway record. And each CD, arranged thematically, is brilliant, and the album as a whole has everything that makes Tom Waits a national treasure, from rip-roaring gang-busters, to strangely resplendent ballads to lots of general weirdness.

“Lord I’ve Been Changed”, “King Kong”, “Lie to Me”

11. Kutiman – ThruYou (2009)

Like the last one, the “albumness” here is a bit dicey. It never, as far as I’m aware, got an official release, and I’d be surprised if you could buy it on CD. But then again, why would you? Kutiman is an Israeli DJ, and ThruYou is a project that typifies the 00s. He scoured YouTube for original sound clips—people playing guitar cords, singing snatches of songs acapella, trying to learn to play the maracas—and then created from them an entire album of songs. Clearly, that’s one hell of a gimmick, and watching the videos for the songs is a lot of fun—you’re listening to Kutiman original compositions but watching the hundreds of source videos from whence all the individual sounds are taken. But the real secret? Gimmick aside (although it’s one hell of a gimmick), the songs themselves—solid Afro-funk—are fantastic.

“I’m New”, “Mother of All Funk Cords”, “Someday”

THE TOP TEN

10. Reanimator – Music to Slit Wrists By (2003)

You will be forgiven if you missed this release. Reanimator is a relatively obscure DJ, and this was his only solo album as far as I’m aware. But it is two things. It is one of the best ambient records I’ve ever heard, meaning it flows effortlessly between its samples (which are considerable, weird, and awesome), it never insists on itself, it’s absolutely perfect to just put on from start to finish and, say, write to (one of the best writing records to come along in ages). And it’s one of the best pure albums of the decade, clocking in at 80 minutes and 27 tracks and not a single second that seems unnecessary or that isn’t immediately informed by the moment that came before it, or the moment that came after. This is the opposite of a singles record. There is no one great standout (and standalone) song. The album is, instead, a truly holistic experience. It’s one to put on, and lose yourself in.

“Socially Positive”, “Check One Two”, “The Line”

9. Iron & Wine – Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)

One’s first impression of Our Endless Numbered Days will probably be centered around its lethargic vocals and general lo-fi sound. But after only a very short time the genius of the record shines through. Samuel Beam is both a contemplative songwriter and a laconic musician, and the result is a truly incomparable album.

“Naked as We Come”, “Free Until They Cut Me Down”, “Teeth in the Grass”

8. Peter Mulvey – The Knuckleball Suite (2006)

It is a crime for Peter Mulvey to not be as well known as he ought to be. I suppose you would call him a folk musician, but it’s more accurate to say he’s just a guy with a guitar, and he knows how to use it. He’s a fabulous musician and possess a voice like old leather (to borrow a metaphor from a review of one of his records, a metaphor that cannot be improved upon). But more than that, he’s got a poet’s soul, a philosopher’s perspective, and an old man’s chagrin. Nobody has an eye like Peter Mulvey, and nobody writes as intelligent and narrative songs. The Knuckleball Suite plays like a stroll down mainstreet, lovingly sketching the contours of the heartland, observing and internalizing the rhythms and breaths of life. This record—the best pure album in his catalog—comes off like a warm summer evening on a porch rocking chair, maybe heading down to the bar later to have the old men regulars tell you a story that you’ve heard a million times before but which somehow always seems brand new.

“The Knuckleball Suite”, “Old Simon Stimson”, “You and Me and the Ten Thousand Things”

7. Eminem – Marshall Mathers LP (2000)

It’s really easy to knock Eminem these days, as he’s more or less turned himself into a caricature. He’s been uneven in his career to say the least, but in 2000 all the elements added up and clicked into place for one of the best pure rap albums of all time. Wildly personal and self-indulgent, bouncing from clownish to soul-bearing to angry to doleful to jubilant, the album is a roller coaster of a magnum opus, but the threads that hold it together is the perfectly layered production from Dre, and the wildly explosive talent of Em. Rap has never sounded as relevant, biting, and pure.

“Kill You”, “The Real Slim Shady”, “The Way I Am”

6. Johnny Cash – America IV: The Man Comes Around (2002)

Few artists ever have the opportunity or good fortune to take one final magnificent curtain call, but Johnny Cash managed it. America IV holds a curious place in the Cash catalogue. All the America albums are in their own ways quintessential Cash, but they’re all also radical departures. Stripped down, morose, brooding, they practically reek of mortality, a hang-dog kind of faith, and one final long look over the landscape (an impression which obviously was cemented when he shortly thereafter died). I think what was so startling about this record was how brutally self-aware it was. But even beyond what it sounds like in the context of Cash’s life and career, the whole album, every single song, is gorgeous, powerful, and, in a weird way, alive.

“The Man Comes Around”, “Hurt”, “God’s Gonna Cut You Down”

5. Mountain Goats – All Hail West Texas (2002)

I have to say I love John Darnielle’s studio albums, and the best singles are from them (try Tallahassee and Get Lonely). But All Hail West Texas was the breakout, and still the best pure album in his prodigious discography. Militantly lo-fi, it sounds like it was recorded through a tin can, and even its scope seems artificially constrained (centered as it is geographically). But Darnielle is a guy that works well with an inward focus, and here he weaves both terrific story-telling with a wordsmith’s glee and the sort of energy (hovering on pretentiousness) that comes from a guy who knows that he’s not famous yet, but also knows he damn well should be.

“Source Decay”, “Jenny”, “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton”

4. The Books – The Lemon of Pink (2002)

Perhaps my favorite best-kept-secret of the 00s, The Books is one of the most fascinating and compelling musical acts of the decade. They perform what is best described as “collage” music—the duo (a guitarist and a cellist) do create songs, good ones too, but 90% of the material used to do so is a hodge-podge of sound samples, often snatches of dialogue, found sound, looped unconventional instrumentation, even entire scenes. That’s neat, don’t get me wrong, but what sets the Books apart is that they manage to take all these disparate, generally non-musical samples, and weave them into gorgeous tracks with sometimes only a minimal amount of invasiveness. The result is positively hypnotizing, but it’s also an exercise in subconscious active listening. Like great modern art (and sometimes The Books almost feel like an installation piece at MOMA), the subject invites the listener to form their own patterns, make their own associations, to let your brain create the order that turns noise into music. It’s not as abrasive or even intellectual a process as that might make it sound, but the depth of the experience is something I’ve never quite had with any other artist, album, or music. Best listened to with headphones, says I—you need an immersive experience to get the full effect.

“The Lemon of Pink”, “Take Time”, “Tokyo”

3. Cee-Lo – Cee-Lo Green…Is the Soul Machine (2004)

The best hip hop album of the decade, for my money. This album has been sort of lost a bit, since Cee-Lo went on to his Danger Mouse collaboration (an album that barely missed my list), its crazy blowup single, and a kind of sideways superstardom. I hope Gnarls Barkley keeps recording, but for my money this is the album where Cee-Lo found his voice. He has long been toiling away in semi-obscurity, always a hype man or the R&B break guy, but in a way the lack of white hot attention gave him an experimental edge, which, when combined with his triple threat singing, rapping, and writing talents, produced a record here that was a triumph. There is, to be sure, a lot of great bass-thumping charters, but they’re a part of the record, not the point of it, mixed in with personal insights, jazzy numbers, slow jams, and always carried on the strength of one of the most charismatic hip hop artists in the game today.

“I’ll Be Around”, “The Art of Noise”, “Childz Play”

1 (TIE). Sufjan Stevens –Michigan (2003), Seven Swans (2004), *Illinois (2005)

I am going to totally cheat for my 1 and 2, because between them both, they have what I would say are four of the decade’s Top Five albums. At the very least, I will asterisk the one I would pick from both, if I had to pick one. And I’ve been changing the #1 and #2 order so much, I finally cry uncle and call it a tie.

With Sufjan, I’m not sure that I can even speak objectively, my relationship with his music feels so personal. When I first heard Michigan, I didn’t quite know what to think. It had a lulling musical quality and a lyricism that seemed like it occupied the space of travel writing, poetry, and diary. The 50 states thing, were you to explain it to somehow, sounds like schtick, but as an organizing principle for an album in Michigan, it makes absolute, total sense—this record could not have been made any other way. What first drew me to Sufjan, then, was this album, largely on the basis of his curious talent at writing.

Stevens drew close to the bone with Seven Swans, an album that touches me totally differently every time I listen to it. It was, in a way, a harbinger of the entire neo-folk movement, just Sufjan with his banjo for the most part. But I think one of the biggest strengths of it is that it is, at heart, a religious record. Real and genuine expressions of spirituality are very rare in music generally, much less indie music. But Sufjan has a way of playing it two ways. The first feels like he’s telling you a story, one as much allegorical as historic/religious. The other are the songs in which you feel like you’re eavesdropping on a child praying to God.

And finally Illinois, his magnum opus, where all the lessons he’d hammered out from the previous two records (and his few prior, which delved into massive productive and electronica) took flight, and the result is one of the most lush and impactful records maybe ever. Illinois might be one of the grandest records I’ve ever listened to—it positively towers in arrangement and instrumentation. But what’s most amazing is that, in the midst of this massive wall of sound (as with, say, “Chicago”), Sufjan’s vocals and lyrics come in as gently as they did back when it was just him and a banjo. It’s a guy riding a tsunami on a velvet pillow. And, when that wave breaks and, for a moment, recedes (as with “Casmir Pulaski Day”), the result is as devastatingly beautiful and soulful as anything I’ve ever heard. This is a record that combines dizzying breadth with staggering breadth, and may be the best single album I’ve ever heard.

Michigan: “Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)”, “Vito’s Ordination Song”, “Romulus”

Seven Swans: “Seven Swans”, “Sister”, “All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands”

Illinois: “Chicago”, “Casimir Pulaski Day”, “Decatur”

1 (TIE). Joanna Newsom – *The Milk-Eyed Mender (2004) and Ys (2006)

I’d say Sufjan makes better albums and will probably have a bigger impact, but my heart lies with Joanna Newsom.

Few musicians were as cleanly divisive to indie music snobs as Joanna Newsom. A large class of first-time listeners are just instantly, and emphatically, off-put, never to be approachable again. Another class fall under her spell from the first bar, enchanted forever. Both can be equally evangelical. At this point I don’t even try to bridge the chasm anymore; if the subject comes up, or I put on a song for a new listener and their faces scrunch up in visceral and immediate unease, I just acknowledge that it’s not to their taste and move on. I have an equal disinterest in hearing extended diatribes about her pretentiousness or insincerity as I do in haranguing someone about their inability to engage with the music long enough to unlock its charms, textures, or meanings.

Here is what I do know. The moment I heard her harp begin to percuss in “Bridges and Balloons”, my ear instinctively cocked, sensing something unlike anything I’d ever heard before. As the melody began to flow into her vocals, and her vocals into the lyrics, I was struck with a kind of mellow daze. It seemed both profoundly familiar and startlingly new, but as I sat and the disc wound through “The Book of Right-On”, “En Gallop”, all the way to “”Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie”, I think what struck me most was the singular thought that it had never occurred to me before that music could be like this.

Milk-Eyed Mender, with its almost car-crash blend of avante garde classicism, folk melody, and personal eccentricity, was (and remains) simply stunning, the very best in a year in which an entire musical family tree (“new folk”, if you like) seemed to bloom, a constellation that includes Sufjan Stevens, Antony and the Johnsons, Will Oldham, Devendra Banhart, and saw expression in more mainstream acts like Regina Spektor and the Decemberists (P.S. if you hated Newsom the first time around and want to try a new access route, I’d highly suggest Colin Meloy (of the Decemberists) fantastic cover of “Bridges and Balloons”). Newsom exists both on the outskirts of that constellation and entirely separate from it, her own star system.

And if Milk-Eyed Mender remains approachable to fans of that brand for its roots charm, indie spirit, and accessible melodies, even if they had to adapt to her unconventional voice and dense, strange lyrics, her follow-up effort, Ys, went even further down the rabbit hole as she descended into storytelling that aped Lewis Carroll and ee cummings, and a musicality that owed itself more to baroque 17th century parlour music than the DIY harp of her first effort. The result was as unbelievably lush as it was flighty, as equally melancholic as it was fairy tale-ish, as much a dense textual exercise as it was a musical curiouoso, and as warm and personal as it was abstruse and archaic.

So here I’ll play to type and descend into evangelical. Joanna Newsom is—in voice, style, musicianship, and songwriting—as original a product as could be found this decade, a musical entity so far beyond post-modern that it circles back around again and becomes pre-. Her records are, both of them, so startling in their sheer denseness of experience that some people, upon exposure, can’t help but run and hide. But to those who fall under the spell, the experience is a decent analogue to the 00s decade itself. Marked by, if nothing else, fusion. A severe disinterest with genre, structure, convention, or popular taste, and instead a profoundly personal—and thus, by definition eccentric—yearning search for an experience marked by both nostalgia and novelty.

Milk-Eyed Mender: “The Book of Right On”, “Bridges and Balloons”, “Inflammatory Writ”

Ys: “Emily”, “Monkey & Bear”, “Cosmia”