The Skinny's Soundtrack to 2006

There's nothing quite like a raging brawl over what constitutes a good record to get the old adrenaline pumping at Skinny HQ: Stones or Strokes? Fantomas or Fornby? Beasties or Belafonte? Why, just the other day, the Sounds team were at it again for the simple sake of figuring out who had recorded the album of the year. You know we all emerged from the experience a physically and psychologically battered and bruised mess, but we got the results and even had a wee blether with some of the creators of the records we dug in 2006. Behold, the Skinny's second self-indulgent end of year album poll...

Feature by Billy Hamilton | 12 Dec 2006

10. Liars - Drum's Not Dead (Mute)
If Liars' chillingly abstruse second album left NYC's fashionistas scratching their heads in utter bewilderment, then Drum's not Dead is surely their attempt to hypnotise these dumbfounded legions and lead them away, Pied Piper style, to some freakish netherworld. Having cut away the flabby, conceptual vestiges of their last record, what now remains of Liars' sound possesses a limpid, bell-like quality. Bristling noise and urgent tempos are replaced by crystalline melodies and hypnotic, rhythmic drones - the sound of a band that has found its focus. Album highlight 'The Wrong Coat for You Mt. Heart Attack' showcases Liars' newfound embrace of minimalism and restraint; with Angus deploying his minute vocal oscillations over a somnolent bassline to sublime effect. There is an intimacy captured here which sounds almost effortless; a trait which is enhanced by the track's beautifully awkward descending guitar scale. To hear a band finding their voice is a pleasure, and there are many such moments on this album. [Jay Shukla]

9. James Yorkston - Year of the Leopard
(Domino)
Produced by Paul Webb, aka Rustin Man, The Year of the Leopard has a similarly autumnal atmosphere to his collaboration with Beth Gibbons, Out of Season. It's an album for the quiet moments, reflecting the line "I live for your quiet embrace" in opener 'The Summer Song'. This time around Yorkston doesn't credit The Athletes on the sleeve, probably because he plays most of the instruments himself, including Mandolin, Concertina and Bouzouki, although he is helped out by various members of the Fence Collective. As Yorkston told us, "It's just like asking my mates. I also had King Creosote and the Lone Pigeon on my first record - I'd be foolish not to." The subtlety of this instrumentation creates an intimate warmth and calm that can't help but be contagious, as Yorkston weaves subtle tales of equal intimacy featuring such tender lyrics as "After a long sad day/Your cat recognises my misadventure/she climbed and slept upon my chest/And she rose and fell with my breathing/Like a sea bird riding a wave." [Milo McLaughlin]

8. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar (4AD)
It speaks volumes about global instability when sanctuary can be found in Beirut - and guiding us through the debris of an era ravaged by war and self-gratifying foreign policy is Zach Condon with debut LP 'The Gulag Orkestar'. From the forlorn, head bowed marching of 'Prenziauerberg,' Condon sores into an enchanting orchestral abyss like a mournful Eastern European traveller. 'Postcards From Italy' flutters with delicate ukulele caressed by gypsy horns, whilst 'Bratislava' is a regal stomp of vocal defiance embellished by militaristic drums and Slovak jazz. Awash with musical juxtapositions, it's an awe-invoking record of cultural beauty that has you shuddering at the thought of slapdash guitars and sloppy production. As 'After The Curtain' fades from memory like the closure of an electronic séance, you're left emotionally enriched and aurally educated. "The most important thing for me in music is the melodic hook," Condon proclaimed to The Skinny. "I feel no need to say anything over songs – the sounds are more than powerful enough." [Billy Hamilton]

7. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (XL)
Thom Yorke's been at pains to dismiss any potential Radiohead split, by declaring his solo project, The Eraser, as having been created with the total blessing of the other four members of the seminal Oxford outfit. Starting with the title track, we're treated to Four Tet-esque spluttering bleeps and electronically created sounds, combined with lashings of Thom's obscenely unique voice. Those expecting a Radiohead spin-off, while we all frantically await the 7th album, will be thoroughly disappointed with Thom's obvious adoration of the electronic sound. Only hints of piano in 'Analyze,' and the 'I Might Be Wrong' styled guitar riffs of 'Black Swan' offer the slightest suggestion towards that particular direction. The dark 'Skip Divided', and catchy 'Harrowdown Hill' are obvious highlights, but then this is an album without lowlights. With Thom at his creative best, The Eraser is an album obviously created by a musical genius. Buy it. [Chris Pickering]

6. Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist (Maverick)
On album number five Deftones consolidate their position as the poster boys for credible heavy music with an exhilarating tour de force that dazzles with its confidence and energy. Although the band are working with a limited palette, the scope of their sound is still immense. Sheets of crushing, melodic guitar crash sideways into Moreno's devestating, chiming vocals, before the music ruptures and pulls apart under the weight of its own intensity, giving way to a series of thunderous, sludgy riffs that manage to push all the right buttons without sounding like second-hand goods. Moreno's love of eighties rock and pop keeps the vocal lines interesting, while the apocalyptic fervour of tracks like 'Rapture' confirm the fact that far from being over the hill, Deftones are a band at the very height of their powers. The embarrassing contribution by Giant Drag's Annie Hardy on 'Pink Cellphone' stops this from getting five skinnys, but this is still one of the albums of the year. (Jay Shukla)

5. Tool - 10,000 Days
(Volcano)
"Have you really lived 10,000 or more days, or have you lived one day 10,000 or more times?" asked "self-development" guru Wayne Dyer. It's pretty clear that Maynard James Keenan poses the same question on Tool's 4th LP. 10,000 Days continues down the epic path beset by 2001's Lateralus in terms of laying on the crescendo hunting treacle-thick hooks as often as the mellower ambient trips, and it all gels into a dose of that fleeting, untouchable aspect of what heavy music apparently lacks in 2006. Luring the listener in almost unconditionally, all of the key elements are here and the machine is well oiled. Keenan is in fine voice; Danny Carey and Justin Chancellor bring the rhythm precision to the likes of neck-snapping juggernaut, 'Jambi', and the intoxicating drama of the colossal 'Rosetta Stoned'. Adam Jones squalls like the obsessive virtuoso he is throughout; sometimes with a sitar but almost always to the beat of some elaborate mathematical algorithm. Of their off-kilter song arrangements Carey told The Skinny: "I was raised thinking in those terms; I was always good at geometry." Ever wish you'd paid a bit more attention in maths? [Dave Kerr]

4. Tapes n' Tapes - The Loon (XL)
Tapes 'n Tapes are anything but original. The badges of their favourite bands are emblematically pinned to every track on debut album The Loon. But when music is this engrossing a little simulation can take you a long way. On first take, the record is a disappointing ragtag fusion of The Pixies and Pavement, but on closer inspection its cavernous garage sound loses its insularity and unfolds into gregariously unhinged pseudo-punk blues. Frenetic and churning, it's a refreshing slab of boyish idolism that features vocalist Josh Grier remonstrating like a countrified David Byrne. The effortless 'Buckle' splashes like a sun-blushed hybrid of Flaming Lips and The Beach Boys, whilst 'Crazy Eights' is a whisky fuelled sludge-fest soaked in a brutal Beefheart riff. Matt Kretzmann acknowledged this dichotomy in interview with The Skinny recently; "We didn't want to makes it too sugary sweet but at the same time we had to make it listenable from start to finish." The Loon is a magnetically scuffling record with the power to affect you both aurally and emotionally. They may lack originality but Tapes 'n Tapes ooze greatness. [Billy Hamilton]

3. The Roots - Game Theory (Defjam)
Philadelphian hip-hop innovators The Roots may have joined the big-bucks Def Jam fraternity, but their latest long-player represents an artistic zenith in a career that always promised but never wholly delivered - until now. Elements of the jazzy Do You Want More?!!!??! and the rap-rock of Phrenology remain, but are augmented here with scuzzy vocal samples (including Radiohead's 'You And Whose Army?' on the heart-breaking 'Atonement') and muscular synths. The spirit of freeform experimentation is as impressive as, though stylistically different from, Outkast's Speakerboxx/The Love Below. Despite their major label status, The Roots were never ones to forget their roots, and Game Theory vindicates this fact, with lyricist Black Thought intelligently lamenting urban deprivation without ever resorting to Eminem-style self-mythologising on tracks like 'In the Music'. The bar is raised to such an extent that even an eight minute tribute to a lost associate (producer-extraordinaire J Dilla) never appears conceited and demands the sincerest of respect. [Nick Mitchell]

2. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones (Polydor)
It was always going to be hard to top Fever to Tell - an album that has grown to define the New York rock explosion of a few years back, and live this band is hard to better. First single, 'Gold Lion', grabbed the radio play it deserved, and Show Your Bones has the trademark Yeah Yeah Yeah's sound throughout, albeit without the raw primal passion of its predecessor. It still rocks hard, to the point of being far superior to the waft of indie wannabes crowding the scene at the moment. While a little more subdued, with acoustic guitar appearing on many tracks, it's not a step into the mainstream, more a shuffle away from the fringes. The acidic lyrics remain, as do the great guitar riffs, lorry-loads of distortion and drums that are belted to within an inch of their skins, confirming Show Your Bones as a triumphant return. [Xavier Toby]

1. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain (4AD)

Where last we left them, our heroes Tunde, David, Kyp, Jaleel and Gerard were crashing sonic waves through the flotsam and jetsam of messy minds at the ABC (see the review in Glasgow Live), and fleeing onwards to the next spiritually-starved site, somewhere in Europe's hands. TV On The Radio are spreading the word about their second album, Return To Cookie Mountain, the best album we've heard all year and, delighted as The Skinny are to talk to frontman Tunde Adebimpe, he sounds equally delighted to hear we like his album so much. "Ah that's great!" he exclaims. "Thank you for saying that man, that's totally awesome! Thank you just for listening to the record, that's the main thing!" Alas, with no priceless golden statue to present in recognition, we do extract a promise (of sorts) to return to Scotland during their next European tour with an incentive just as appealing - a specially-inscribed giant plank of shortbread. "We'll keep space for that, for the shortbread!" he says. Job done.

Return To Cookie Mountain is certainly 'job done' for TV On The Radio, the fulfillment of a potential developed by this group of highly talented individuals. "The band started about five years ago now," Adebimpe begins, "Myself and David Sitek, we were mates and the extension of us hanging out and drinking too much coffee was us making music." Adebimpe was animating for MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch, and Sitek was producing for Yeah Yeah Yeah's and The Liars whilst they made the half-serious OK Calculator. It was just a CD-R they handed out in Brooklyn streets and stuffed into shop-display furniture, but following their rise in fame it is, of course, now available to millions online. Improvised local gigs followed, which Adebimpe modestly describes as: "…a complete and total disaster, except in that period of time it was close to September 11th and people were glad to be anywhere getting really drunk and watching people make fools of themselves on stage. We started recording the Young Liars EP in the same period of time, just for something else to do. Dave was going to be working on the Liars album and I was trying to figure out how to use a Pro Tools Unit, so instead of putting stuff on an 8-track we were putting it into Pro Tools...and we finished 1 or 2 songs and we were like 'well, that sounds like real songs!'" Sitek passed that on to an acquaintance at Touch & Go Records, who instantly wanted to release it. "For a moment we were like 'No you can't put it out! We don't know why you wanna do that!' It wasn't really even finished but he got really, really excited about it."

"Around the time we finished that, Kyp [Malone] joined the band and we went on tour, we played a show with The Fall in Chicago, our first show, and it was a mess. It was obvious that we needed a full band to do something live that wasn't completely and totally embrassing, so we asked Gerard Smith and Jaleel Bunton to join our band, they're old friends of ours."

The album that followed on Touch & Go (and picked up here by 4AD), Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes was a strikingly brave and ambitious debut. From the 3rd second of the opening track 'The Wrong Way', a stomping distorted beat crashes through any preconceptions of conformity, as if to announce "anything goes, so hold on!" The album won the Shortlist prize in the States – a sort of Mercury-equivalent for albums selling less than half-a-million. "It was a really strange thing because we didn't really know much about it. The nicest thing about it was you saw the panel of judges, it was mostly people I really respected and admired their work and it was a kick to think that someone you liked that much was even listening to what you were making. It ended up being a sticker on the CD album, "winner of the Shortlist award, if you have any idea what that is!" Despite the acclaim, the album was also considered by many to lack a certain something – there were dozens of great ideas thrown in, but did they really stick together?

Return To Cookie Mountain is 2006's greatest achievement because the ideas stick together. Endlessly inventive and energetic, it's disorientating at first, but with each listen it reveals another layer until it makes perfect sense. The lyrics, often sung by Adebimpe and Malone (providing the falsetto) in gorgeous harmony, vary from the oblique to the seemingly profound, often touching on socio-political themes. With every review putting a different spin on it, Tunde is reluctant to reveal what it's all really about – "I think that's up to the individual listener, ultimately." Whatever your take on the words, the real secret to Cookie Mountain's success is its musical singularity. No, Rolling Stone, it's nothing like What's Going On, Station to Station, or anything by The Smiths. No, Entertainment Weekly, it's no Scary Monsters either. You've all got it wrong. It's no more, no less and no other - it's TV On The Radio.

Bowie may not be such an obvious influence, but he is a big fan. Introduced to the band by a friend with great taste, he displayed his own by attending a few shows in New York. Tunde admits he was star-struck – "Yeah, of course, your brain turns into this computer-loop cycle and it's going [computer voice] 'wow that's David Bowie, wow that's David Bowie, wow that's David Bowie…' Then it's 'David Bowie's talking to me, wow that's David Bowie…,' and then I'm realising that I have to stop doing that and notice that there's a very real person right here!". He appears on the album too, but don't let that fool you into giving him the credit. "A lot of people are like 'I heard Bowie's on your record, but I can't hear him', and we're like 'if you go back and listen to that song ['Province'] thinking about Bowie you'll probably hear him.'" Right enough, he's tucked away as the 3rd singer in the chorus, barely audible in good headphones. Perhaps he was star-struck too. "They have a strong link with the great body of American poetry, especially Beat poetry," Bowie told Rolling Stone of his new favorite band. "The sampling, multi-tracking and mashing identifies them as the spawn of a techno-industrial society. I love the new record, I play it about three times a week, which is, like, saturation level for me."

So what kind of process was involved in attracting such admiration? "For four months of the year in 2005, it was like five people locked in a room together talking about events in our lives and in the world and having that canvas, that open space to sit in and make something out of it rather than worrying yourself to death. "Some of it was a sketch of something made by Kyp or myself on the four-track, and then we'd give it to the band and say 'lets see how we can make this look unfamiliar to ourselves again but with keeping a familiar thread'. And some tracks were soundscapes that Dave had written and asked if we had lyrics for."

And are they pleased with it? "We're entirely pleased! Of course you always see things that could be better... actually, I don't know if this is stupid to say about something you had a hand in making, but I really like listening to it!"

He's got great taste too, then. Return To Cookie Mountain finds that cohesion that was missing from Desperate Youth, as each tripping drum rhythm, reversed horn jab and droning distorted foghorn adheres perfectly into 11 stirring and immensely enjoyable soundscapes. "After this, everyone's got other projects that they need to get to. So I think we're going to take a little break and then get back out on tour pretty soon. We look forward to your giant shortbread!" [Ally Brown]

http://www.tvontheradio.com