My favorite records of 2009

Here’s an idea which has been germinating in my mind for quite some time now.  Continuing my habit of marching to the sound of my own personal drummer, I deliver to you a “best of” list for a year that is some six months in the past.  I know that it is customary for critics to engage in such ruminations in greater temporal proximity to the time period in question, but I think that it is appropriate to let the developments of the past settle in the consciousness a bit before passing judgment on their various qualities.  Not only do we find ourselves in a better position to evaluate the releases of the year gone by, but we also have an opportunity to discover some that may have been initially overlooked.  There is one recording, in particular, that would not have made my list had I composed it on New Year’s Day that may now find itself as my overall favorite.  With these philosophical preliminaries out of the way, let’s get on with some reviews.

I present these discoveries in an order which is not meant to indicate a hierarchy of value or importance.  At any given point, any one of these records may be the “best” one for present purposes.  There was a number of interesting compilations and samplers released in 2009, but I will start with the full-length LP’s.

I present this record at the top of the list because, without a doubt, it is the one that has had the biggest splash on mass-media consciousness.  The single, “How You Like Me Now”, formed the soundtrack for a Super Bowl commercial that went viral in my world.  You may remember the one: it was an ad for a car company that featured a sock monkey and other children’s toys rocking out while enjoying the ride.  When I first saw the ad my jaw just about hit the floor because I had discovered the record just a few weeks earlier and featured it on my radio show.  You can check the records on that.  The album itself was released in October of 2009 as the second full length outing from The Heavy.  The first record came out in 2007 and completely escaped my notice, but the band is fully on my radar now.  The sound is a wonderful amalgamation of a variety of styles that I love.  Overall, one might describe it as grungy, garage band soul, although that doesn’t really do it justice.  They are an English outfit from a town called Noid, which is fun, and you can hear the cross pollination of rootsy American styles with those more commonly associated with our friends from across the pond.  This is in-your-face music which is best listened to at top volume.  It is real music produced by real people with real instruments.  There are a few samples and other production tricks, but these do not detract from the very organic sound.  I can also say that they absolutely kill it in live performance.  I saw them open up for Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, and although it would be going a bit too far to say they stole the show, they certainly did their damnedest.  If you’ve had the good fortune to see SJDK, you know that NO ONE steals the stage from Sharon, but I have to say that it was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen by an opening act.  The band had the crowd chanting and waving their arms to all of the songs, not just the single with which they were already familiar.  The album is similarly solid from start to finish, mixing up tempos and styles to keep one’s interest throughout.

This, my friends, is real-deal, old-school, heart-crunching soul music.  This is a man who has paid his dues and is singing songs with a depth of experience and feeling that others can only try to emulate.  Although the band is full of chops monsters, the emphasis here is not on technical virtuosity but on emotional veracity.  You cannot listen to these songs without feeling as though you have entered into one man’s world of pain and triumph.  Lee Fields is Brooklyn-based performer on the Truth & Soul label.  He runs with a crowd that includes a number artists on the Daptone record label.  In particular, the drummer and guitarist for Lee’s band are in Sharon Jones’ Dap-Kings.  Lee and Sharon have been working together for years, long before they both found the degree of success that they currently enjoy.  Apparently the song “Ladies” has been featured in several television shows, including “Entourage”.  I don’t know anything about that show, but if it helps this artist bring super heavy-duty soul to a wider audience, then I am all for it.  I can also vouch for the fact that Lee puts on one hell of a live show.  If you get the chance, I can personally recommend seeing him at Southpaw in Brooklyn.  Southpaw is one of  Brooklyn’s premier music venues, a place where you can see top quality talent in a modest sized room for less than an arm and a leg.  Lee puts so much energy into his performance that I was actually concerned for the man’s health by the time it was over.  Luckily for all of us, he survives to deliver the goods for another audience on another day.  There is an added level of respect for an artist who can create a beautiful live experience in addition to recording work that I want to listen to over and over again.

Here I present to you the first of several instrumental albums that I fell in love with this year.  Let me just say that I am completely in the bag for The New Mastersounds.  I have loved them from the moment that I first heard them, and I have rarely been disappointed by anything they have done.  A quick check of my Last.fm profile will confirm this.  With the pair of releases documented here, the band demonstrates the maturity of their growing years.  As the title of the studio album suggests, The New Mastersounds have been playing together for quite a while now.  There have been a few personnel changes over the years, most notably the departure of keyboard player Bob Birch.  I was concerned for the future of the sound without Bob, given the organ-centric nature of many of the compositions.   It turns out that those fears were unfounded.  Without a doubt, the band continues to evolve as any long standing project must, but they have not lost a bit of their entertainment value.  If you aren’t already familiar with The NMS sound, you really have to hear it to understand its appeal.  Are they a funk band? Check. Are they a jazz band? Check.  Are they a groove-based jam band? Check.  They cross genres in a way that broadens their draw to a number of different stereotypical listeners.  Most often, they are slotted into the summer festival circuit with the jam band world.  While this may make the most sense from a promotional stand point, it doesn’t really fit with their musical and social roots.  Given the tremendously limited market for jazz in this country, it is understandable that they would not want to be limited by that categorization.  They are from Leeds, England, and there isn’t the same sort of hippie vibe there as we have here in the States.  If anything, they come from the dance club DJ scene.  Over the years they have performed with a variety of guest vocalists, including Corinne Bailey Rae and Dionne Charles, but for the most part I prefer the straight forward instrumental tracks, and the recent releases are in that vein.  Between the two records, I like the live one better, but this probably reflects my overall preference for live music as opposed to studio work.  There is just something about knowing that the musicians are talented enough to make the sound work without the benefit of repeated edits and retakes.  I also think that the music can be taken to a higher level with the help and feedback of a live audience.  I know that there are people that prefer that clean, controlled environment of a studio recording, and as a DJ I can sympathize with that view.  If that’s how you feel then you go ahead and listen to the studio album.  For myself, I am going to the show if I can.

This is the first record on this list by a band that I have not personally seen live.  This is a situation that I plan on remedying as soon as possible.  They have been to my extended neighborhood before, and they will be at The Narrows in Fall River in September.  To my great disappointment, the date is one for which I am already booked for a wedding.  Maybe someone will get cold feet.  I can only hope, because I am sure these guys rip it up in concert.  The Dynamites are a Tennessee- based big band with a grizzled soul singer out front.  In this respect, they are similar to Lee Fields and The Expressions, but the Dynamites have a greater dynamic range to their songs.  By this I mean that they have some absolutely up-tempo rippers, which Lee Fields doesn’t really.  Whereas Lee is pretty consistently sweet soul, and these guys can do that too, with Charles Walker on vocals, The Dynamites are more funky syncopation with a social message.  The horn arrangements are right out front, although the musicians are clearly very talented, there is not an emphasis on solos.  With all of the nouveau-retro soul and funk on the market today, it is refreshing to see a band that hails from the region where the genre got its start representing the form.  I am also happy to report that this is not some sort of revival tribute that belongs in a museum, but a vibrant exercise that demonstrates a vitality that suggests a bright future.  All I can say is what were these people doing in the ’80′s and ’90′s when contemporary music seemed so empty to me?

Here is another mostly instrumental record by a band that I can’t get enough of.  They are an Austin, Texas based band that combines elements of their Mexican heritage with good old American soul and funk.  There are also extensive references to Afro-beat and New Orleans style jazz.  You can also hear the result of having grown up on the streets with b-boy culture.  Low riders, break dancing and tag bombing are not unfamiliar to these folks, I’m pretty sure.  More or less the same people who form Brownout perform more traditional Mexican music under the name Grupo Fantasma.  Both acts are phenomenal, and I recommend them both.  I was lucky enough to see Brownout in Boston, and Grupo Fantasma is on tour and coming to the area this summer.  Unfortunately, the Brownout show that I dragged my friends to was not in the best venue.  Brownout is a ten (or so) piece outfit with multiple horns and percussionists, but on this night they were stuck in a 20′ x 20′ back room of a yuppy martini bar in Jamaica Plain.  Those of us there to see the show got a real treat, but we were surrounded by posers who more or less deserved a punch in the nose.  Oh well.  Grupo Fantasma are coming to The Middle East downstairs, so that should be a much better place to see a show.  After completely digging the first full length record, Homanaje, the sophomore effort is just as good.  Let’s hope there are many more to come.

There is apparently a burgeoning funk scene down under, and this record is a fine representative of the group.  Australia is just about  as far away as one can get from where I sit, so it seems a long shot that I could ever see any of these bands live, but I will maintain that hope anyway.  These folks have absolutely nailed the sound that I love so much.  They have horns, they have an amazing break-beat drummer and they have a singer out front who brings a wonderful jazz inflection to the heavy funk being laid down behind her.  As if you couldn’t decipher their influences on your own, there is a nod to the pantheon with the inclusion of a cover of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight”.  The singer brings her own inflection to the classic despite the fact that there is not a major rearrangement of the original.  If you know and like Alice Russell, I am sure you can find room in your heart for Dojo Cuts featuring Roxie Ray.

Another band from Australia that is absolutely killing it is Deepstreet Soul.  Again, you can tell a lot about a band by the covers they choose to include in their repertoire.  In this case that means an fiery rendition of “Kick Out The Jams” by The MC5.  A band had better not try to tackle this number unless they plan to live up to the title.  Mission accomplished.  There is just enough difference from the original to make it interesting while maintaining the pure venom of the MC5 version.   The woman on the cover is the keyboard player, and not the singer, but they have a couple of tracks with guest vocals, including Tia Hunter on “Kick Out The Jams”.  For the most part, the band sticks to a Meters-inspired instrumentalism.  It reminds me how interesting it can be when an American form is shipped overseas, digested, amalgamated by a foreign audience with their own experiences, and shipped back to us with a slightly different spin on sounds with which we are intimately familiar.  The way funk and soul are being adopted by a global community today is similar to the way blues and R&B were gobbled up by the Brits in the ’60′s and shipped back to America with stunning results.  One main difference is that modern technology makes the world a much smaller place, and we no longer need so many middle men and record labels to limit our access to the goods.  The industry is dead, long live the industry.  But that’s a post for another day.

Let me start by saying that I love this album.  It’s another entry from the Australian crew, and it’s super heavy duty funk.  I first became aware of Kylie Auldist through her work with The Bamboos, who have a record which is an early entry for my best of 2010 list.  If this is the sort of thing that happens on a regular basis down under, then I need to start saving for my ticket.  The talent here is undeniable.  This woman demonstrates no fear with the vocal feats that she attempts and pulls off with aplomb.  Although firmly rooted in the funk and soul traditions that I love so much, there is less reverence for the traditional sound here than in some of the other records I have reviewed.  It is as much contemporary jazz-pop as it is a paean to the classics.  “Contemporary jazz-pop” is a genre that I thought would make me vomit, but there is an energy and creativity here which is immensely absorbing.  It gets better every time I listen to it, and that is the mark of very deep and textured quality.  Try it, you’ll like it.

With Laura Vane and The Vipertones, we continue to establish two different trends evident in the selections here.  That is, we have a strong female lead from the international community.  Back to England this time,  for some very heady funk.  Laura Vane exudes a powerful sexiness that lets you know that she is in complete control and that you will hang on her every word.  The band up the internationalist ante by including members from Holland as well as the UK who have an outstanding pedigree with other projects including Soul Snatchers, Diesler and AIFF, all of which I can strongly recommend.  This record is more traditionalist than the Kylie Auldist entry, with tinges of Motown and Stax.  Not as socio-politically conscious as The Dynamites’ album, these are personal songs of love and life as lived.

With this record, we move a little further away from sounds that are conveniently pigeonholed into one genre or another.  Lack of Afro is more or less a one man band and DJ project.  The one man is an Englishman called Adam Gibbons, and in addition to producing his own work he has produced numerous remixes for many other artists.  Apparently he does have a band that he takes on the road, and I would love to catch that act, although I think that is a relatively rare occurrence.  Mostly the act seems to be a DJ gig, which is fine, and I would love to catch that too.  Basically the guy takes memes that will be familiar to funk aficionados and layers them and reworks them in new and fascinating ways.  Think Moby with slightly less techno.  There is a bit of hip-hop and soul mixed in with the turntable scratching ethos to create a sound that borders on mod soundtrack at times.  You’ll just have to listen to it to really understand the vibe.  A couple of the tracks feature delicious vocals by Roxie Ray of the aforementioned Dojo Cuts, confirming the Lack of Afro habit of lending his talents to other acts.

Back to America for the next release, this time it’s gritty urban funk from the left coast.  Breakestra is a fabulous party band that grows directly out of ’80′s and ’90′s hip hop.  That having been said, there is very little overt reference to rap to be found on the various Breakestra records, including this one.  Rather, this is a live band that enjoys digging up the influences of rap and delivering them to an audience that might otherwise be unaware of some of the great deep funk records of the past.  In this respect, they fit right in with other bands in their modern interpretations of ’60′s and ’70′s themes.  One of their earliest releases, The Live Mix, just has to be heard to be believed.  It’s a series of what could be DJ samples of classic old tracks, except that they are performed by a live band on the fly.  Dusk Till Dawn marks the band’s second full-length release of original material, and once again I am happy to report that there is no sophomore jinx in effect.  Serious breakbeats, as the name would imply, combined with diverse instrumentation and relatively complex arrangements lead to a stimulating mix of songs that stand up to repeated listening.

Honorable mentions go to:

Here are my favorite compilations and greatest hits records of the year:

There are several other records on my list that I should like to mention, but I have clearly given you enough to think about for now.  That ought to keep you busy for a while.  I will write again soon with more tips.  I would love to know what your favorite recent releases are.  Please feel free to share them with me in the comments.  Until we meet again, Matty Dread over and out.

Advertisement