Best albums of 2008!

[Rod B.]

I understand, but that still leaves me contemplating a Mexican band in competition with Julie Fowlis, both of them trying to fit into a single spot on the list.

Oh heck, I'll go with the Mexicans. Mexicans it is.

Intriguing. Who would that be then?

Here's my updated list:

1. Buika: Niña de fuego.
2. Calle 13: Los de atras vienen conmigo.
3. Enrique Morente: Pablo de Málaga.
4. Calexico: Carried to Dust.
5. Roy Paci: Suonoglobal
6. Mariza: Terra
7. DeVotchKa: A Mad and Faithful Telling
8. Melingo: Maldito Tango
9. Natacha Atlas: Ana Hina
10.

[Kirin]

Pistolera and En Este Camino. I play them a lot and they make me "smile, clap, dance round the room."

http://www.myspace.com/pistoleramusic

The other Latin American group, the one I'm going to leave off, is Bio Ritmo.

http://www.myspace.com/bioritmo

[Rod B.]

Pistolera and En Este Camino. I play them a lot and they make me "smile, clap, dance round the room."

http://www.myspace.com/pistoleramusic

Excellent, just my sort of thing. How come I've never heard of them before? I've just downloaded their new CD off of i-Tunes and I suspect I'll be going back for their first one by the end of the day. The lead singer has a lovely clear voice, very easy to make out the lyrics and sing along.

Thanks Kirin!

[Kirin]

You're welcome!

How come I've never heard of them before?

My feeling is they're one of those bands that plays plenty of live shows, festivals, and so on, releases its own CDs, and gets very well known in its local area, but never (or, in this case, not "never" but "hasn't yet," since it's not as if the group has come to an end or anything) manages to break out. Whatever piece of luck they need hasn't come to them yet. They sound as if they'd be a good, fun party band -- clear, catchy songs, easy to follow, lots of movement. If they were playing live anywhere near me, I'd go.

[howard male]

OK, I think I'm ready to present my final Top Ten of the year, with only one last-minute new entry to nudge out... who's it going to be now?...

It's got to be DJ Dolores, simply because I've not gone back to play it for at least six months so I can only assume it's not as good as I thought it was.

To replace DJ Dolores is a CD which I must have played about a dozen times in the past week or so, and as Rob said, it offers up something new with each play. It also pulls off the clever trick of being both wildly eclectic and retaining an overall sonic integrity. Another remarkable thing is that Sonantes sound like a real band, with a real band's raggedness round the edges and natural rapport. The reason this is remarkable is that the album was put together in a fairly casual manner, with each musician just going to the Sao Paulo appartment where a laptop was waiting, and adding parts whenever the mood took them. The result is part indy/art rock, part spy movie soundtrack, and part a journey through various Brazilian styles. Great stuff.

1. A Mad & Faithful Telling by DeVotchKa
2. D'ici Et D'ailleurs by Soha
3. 03 by Son of Dave
4. Congotronics 3 (Kasai Allstars)
5. Mali Koura - Issa Bagayogo
6. Sonantes by Sonantes
7. A Town Called Addis by Dub Colossus
8. 'The Vodoun Effect' by Orchestre Poly-Rythmico de Cotonou
9. Ten Thousand - Agnostic Mountain Gospel Choir
10. 'Tchamantche' by Rokia Traore

Well, I didn't do too badly. The original idea for this strand was to see if we could gradually fill up our ten slots throughout the year without having to reverse any decisions along the way. Looking back, I've only had to boot out DJ Dolores and Yael Naim. How did the rest of you do?

[howard male]

It's all gone a bit quiet round here now, hasn't it? Perhaps it's time for you all to present your final top tens of the year. Although, no Folk albums please (joke, joke!)

[Nick Boyes]

I find myself only getting halfway there with a top 5 as I seem to have been buying stuff I missed out on when they were first released.

1) Les Amazones de Guinee - Wamato

maybe not the best musicians ever but brilliant in the car and for dancing round the lounge plus the photos used with the FRoots feature meant I'm in love !

2) Rupa & the April Fishes - Extraordinary Rendition

played more than any of the rest, my Pink Martini friends like it ( hope thats a recommendation )

3) Amadou Sodia - Ca Va se Savoir

good with a glass of wine at the end of the day

4) Eliza Carthy - Dreams of Breathing Underwater

yes a f**k singer but not a traditional song included and an english singer going her own way

5) Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It

now I will be banished, an american soul singer doing his own songs but with musicians and a mowtown feel

[Rod B.]

It's all gone a bit quiet round here now, hasn't it? Perhaps it's time for you all to present your final top tens of the year.

OK FWIW, on the last day of the year here's my final 'best of 2008'. Good though it is, I've dropped the Roy Paci CD as it was actually released mid 2007, and that lets me get both Kočani Orkestar and Elefthería Arvanítaki in. Anyone else enthusiatic about the Kočani release? I think it's really good.

1=. Buika: Niña de fuego.
1=. Calle 13: Los de atrás vienen conmigo.
3. Calexico: Carried to Dust.
4. Enrique Morente: Pablo de Málaga.
5. Kočani Orkestar: Ravished Bride.
6. Elefthería Arvanitáki: Mírame
7. DeVotchKa: A Mad and Faithful Telling
8. Mariza: Terra
9. Melingo: Maldito Tango
10. Natacha Atlas: Ana Hina

[Papa M]

No sign of Bon Iver in any of your lists?

[Jonathan E.]

. . . you've seen the rest, now get ready for the best!

What at least one of you has been waiting for! I've probably put everybody off with the bombast above — hey, I was just playing! Here are my Top 10 Albums for 2008. I've finally decided that I'm unlikely to hear anything new and wonderful this year! Anyway, it already is 2009 in the UK — still counting down here.

1. Michael Franti & Spearhead — All Rebel Rockers
2. Cheb i Sabbah — Devotion
3. Rupa & the April Fishes — eXtraOrdinary rendition
4. Alan Skidmore's Ubizo — 50 Journeys
5. Grupo Fantasma — Sonidos Gold
6. Harry Beckett — The Modern Sound of Harry Beckett
7. Seun Kuti & Fela's Egypt 80 — Seun Kuti & Fela's Egypt 80
8. Toumani Diabaté — Mandé Variations
9. Kassin+2 — Futurismo
10. Lee "Scratch" Perry — The Mighty Upsetter

Contenders & Dropouts (in no particular order)

Kokolo — Love International
Taj Mahal — Maestro
Brownout — Homenage
Up, Bustle & Out with Sevval Sam — Istambul's Secrets
TransGlobal Underground — Moonshout
Etran Finatawa — Desert Crossroads
Orchestra Baobab — Made In Dakar
Isssa Bagayogo — Mali Kouri
Temple of Sound — Globalhead
Michael Blake Sextet — Amor de Cosmos
Femi Kuti — Day By Day

Reissue/Compilation of The Year:

V/A — Nigeria Special — Modern Highlife, Afro Sounds, & Nigerian Blues 1970 to 1976
Steinski — What Does It All Mean?
Franco — Francophone Vol. 1.
Ry-Co Jazz — Bon Voyage !!
V/A — Calypsoul 70
V/A — The Rough Guide To Latin Funk

Notes & Commentary

So my final Top 10 bears almost no relation to various partial iterations over the course of the year. Now, I'll admit that I'm playing a bit by putting three acts from San Francisco as my top three. But, let me tell you, the Michael Franti release was the easy winner for me. Sometimes you hear people asking where's the voice of resistance to Bush and the "war on terror". Well, Michael is a strong voice opposing the criminal acts of the Bush regime, not only as a political stance but also in a very personal way. He also knows how to write catchy love songs — and the whole thing sounds great in the car. I never cared for his previous releases, but this one stands out as spectacular. Sly & Robbie, my contenders for "most connected backroom boys of the C20th", produced. The Cheb i Sabbah and Rupa & the April Fishes are both strong releases and would have made the list wherever they were from, but perhaps a slot or two lower. Regionalism has its privileges.

Alan Skidmore's 50 Journeys got a luke warm quickie review in fRoots. What do I care? This is the sort of stuff I love. Afro-jazz with lots of percussion and horns and the whole thing stomps and wails like the midnight hour will never end. Grupo Fantasma kind of took Brownout's position, which is fair enough in that they're many of the same musicians. Sonidos Gold is a bit funkier than Homenage and that's all there was to it.

The Harry Beckett release is an Adrian Sherwood production and spectacular. Released kind of late in the year to be widely noticed in year end charts — but I think it has great legs. The Lee "Scratch" Perry is another concurrent Sherwood release and squeaks in at 10. Perry is, of course, Perry and in full flight here, not for everyone! But the sound is great. Anyway, two On U Sound releases make this a bit of a banner year for the likes of me! The Taj Mahal got pushed out by the Perry — I guess the ten spot is reserved for old-time sentimental favourites.

The Seun Kuti, Toumani Diabaté, and Kassin + 2 releases are all strong in their fields, more interesting (or at least caught my ear more) than other similar contenders, and, most importantly, attained their positions through more frequent play than those others that didn't quite make it.

Of those that didn't make my Top 10, Orchestra Baobab got dropped simply because they really came out in 2007 as far as most of you are concerned, so why bother? But, I have to say, I'm not sure it would really stand up against what did get charted. It's a nice record 'n' all that — but . . . And that was the problem with the Issa Bagayogo. It just didn't stand up to the competition as far as I am concerned. Some of the other contenders had been listed and dropped down and others I thought of as I was compiling the list but couldn't quite claim a top spot — all are decent to good records and might well please me more on another day or you any day of the week. But somehow, they just didn't have the legs.

When it comes to the Reissues and Compilations, I feel like it was almost a better year than for new releases! Let's be honest — I still haven't seen or heard the Franco, but I'm sure of its importance given the difficulty of finding his music conveniently curated over the years. However, the same can be said for all the others. Both the Steinski and the Nigerian collection standout as fabulous collections of hard-to-find obscurities — but there's only a hairsbreadth between those two and the Ry-Co Jazz and Calypsoul compilations. The Rough Guide to Latin Funk continues to impress as a round-up of a mostly contemporary scene that deserves more attention.

There are a few things that charted with others that I'd wish I'd heard properly, Dub Colossus is the most prominent, because in theory they sound interesting and possibly good enough for my Top 10 — but no one hears everything, not even those who get almost everything dropped through their mailbox for free!

[kas]

I seem to be buying the year's best only after the year has ended, so I have just about managed a top 5 + 1...
On the other hand, that gives me time to consider my choices...

1. Melingo - Maldito Tango
2. Al Andaluz Project - Deus et Diabolus
3. Toumani Diabaté - Mandé Variations
4. Seun Kuti & Fela's Egypt 80
5. Les Amazones de Guinée - Wamato

+ the one reissue that really blew me away:

Bismillah Khan - Chehnai's Humble Master

[kk]

Not sure if non-world albums are allowed in that list, but these are my favourites for 2008

1 Tindersticks - The Hungry Saw

2 Rokia Traore - Tchamantche
3 Toumani Diabate - The Mande Variations
4 Portishead - Third
5 3MA
6 Mariza - Terra
7 Cheb I Sabbah - Devotion
8 Lisa Gerrard & Klaus Schulze - Farscape
9 Rupa & April Fishes
10 Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Dolores

[Gordon Neill]

After much consideration, the Fife (South) chapter of the SOTW Forum is in a position to publish its albums of the year. Remarkably, I was spot on in my predictions for the year, made as early as 9 August. As my mum said, when she heard Trout Mask Replica, 'is this a record?'

The top 11 for the year:
1. Umalali: Garifuna Women's Project
2. Sonantes: Sonantes
3. 03: Son of Dave
4. Arabesque Arba'a 4: various
5. Sounds From a Bygone Age vol. 5: Gabi Lunca
6. Guitar Boy Superstar 1970-76: Sir Victor Uwaito
7. 1 Real: DJ Dolores
8. African Scream Contest: various
9. D'ici Et D'ailleurs: Soha
10. Various: Nigeria Special
11. A Mad and Faithful Telling: Devotchka

Special awards for:

Albums everyone else liked but I didn't (yet)
1= Nina de Fuego: Buika
1= Wamato: Les Amazones De Guinee

The best album from 2007 which I bought in 2008
1. Achilifunk: various

The best What Planet Have You Been Living On Gordon Not To Have Heard It Before album
1. Fashion Nugget: Cake

Weirdest compilation of the year
1. Sprigs Of Time: various

The best Charlie Gillett compilation of the year

1. Beyond the Horizon: various

[Tom McPhillips]

It’s been a funny year for my music, I probably say that every year – “aberrations is usâ€

[Charlie]

[quote="Tom McPhillips"]Le Trio Joubran’s “Majazâ€