Pete Novez; attorney at law.

29 of '09 part 2 (of 29)

Bat For Lashes - Daniel

from the album “Two Suns”

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Natasha Khan showed some promise on her front-loaded 2006 debut ‘Fur and Gold’, but has really came into her own with this years ‘Two Suns’.

And Daniel, the albums first single, is a huge part of why.

She’s rebelled against comparisons to Kate Bush and likeminded female artists before, but here she seems to embrace them, and gives us a millennial sister-song to Ms.Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”.

The song slowly comes together wrapping you up in a steady drumbeat and softly jangling tambourine before synthesized horns kick in and Khan calls the listener to attention with an ethereal crooning of the line “Daniel when I first saw you, I knew that you had a flame in your heart”.

The unwavering drum beat meets and melds with a noodling synth and a fuzzy thud in the background like distant cannon fire before being joined by a snazzy string section.

Listening now what strikes me most is the way she seamlessly drops and adds elements but they never for a second feel out of place and make a remarkably cohesive pop song from disparate elements.

With the sound of the song and the album it comes from in general I could see how people could write it off as cold and unemotional but to my mind it always seems like a person guarding themselves against further pain and heartbreak. The emotion is there, it’s just not on the surface.

The song builds to it’s climax as she engages in a theatrical call and response with herself, thanks to double tracking, before it slowly fades away as strings are delicately plucked and the synth retreats into the distance.

In my mind this stands as one of the finest singles of the year (which you could probably tell by it winding up on my list of the top 29) but if I were actually numbering this list It’d be hard for me to not place it at number one.

29 of '09 part 1 (of 29)

Arctic Monkeys - Cornerstone

from the album “Humbug”

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Before now I wouldn’t really have called myself an Arctic Monkeys fan.

By the time they first started gaining play on Australian radio I was already a jaded 18 year old with a cynical attitude towards new British rock.

I’d had brief but memorable love affairs with Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, and enjoyed work by Kaiser Chiefs and The Futureheads, but that was fading, and although I didn’t mind the Monkeys’ singles, I needed something new and started wrapping my head around hip-hop.

But I’m older now and willing to try things, and when news broke earlier this year that the boys from Sheffield had roped in Josh (Homme sweet) Homme to sit in the producer’s chair, my interest was piqued.

(Although in an ironic turn the tracks I found myself most drawn to on the record were the three Homme didn’t touch, instead being the work of previous Monkey’s collaborator Simian/Mobile Disco’s James Ford)

Alex Turner’s always had a deft way with words, but on the third Monkeys LP his lyrics change and mutate. The same way on the majority of the record the music itself became murkier and mysterious. With their newly stoned surroundings Turner’s words become a sort of absurd poetry; ramblings of a young but promising shaman spinning yarns about borrowing parts from animals and of horrifying shadows on the wall of the snakepit.

But on ‘Cornerstone’, for one of the few times on the album the words are less obscured and more direct, with a sly take on replacing a former flame with a doppelganger. The twisting words kept me entertained through the verses, but it really hit home on the chorus with the line “Kept my shortcuts to myself”. I wouldn’t say it’s the exact same but I’ll admit I’ve found myself in similar circumstances; concealing knowledge just to enjoy the present for a little longer. For the first time I find myself finally seeing what drew people to the band in the first place; familiar situations, whether it’s a night out at the discotheque or simply growing up, but with a slight twist (The diet coke with lemon of music if you will).

Come closing time, three minutes and change that seem to zip by, our hero hasn’t gotten what he was really after, but he’s going to work with what he’s got.

That’s normally the sort of slightly odd cop-out I’d baulk at, but the lyrics never set themselves up to be taken all that seriously.Perhaps like the relationship between our protagonist and his “new” love?

Sonically the band keeps up, content to work in the background as peripheral characters for the span of this song, but in the end it’s all about the words.

And they work just fine.

29 of '09

Tomorrow marks the beginning of a project I’m going to call “29 of ‘09”.

I buy a lot of music and I spend a lot of time listening to that music and thinking about it but because I’m not much of a writer you probably don’t know this unless you’ve met me.

But enough is enough.

From tomorrow until the end of December I’m going to try and talk a little bit about twenty-nine songs by twenty-nine different artists released in the past year that I feel are worth recognition and some of your affection.

I don’t want to be one of those people who says “I like a lot of different music” (the people who say this almost always mean their tastes stretch from pop to rock to pop-rock) but this list will most likely be a little eclectic and feature stuff that’ll make it onto the Pitchfork best of the year list right alongside some tunes that are most likely being played on Nova right now.

I don’t expect anyone to like it all but if you could give it a listen I’d appreciate it (and on the plus side once you’ve heard something you have an informed opinion and the best kind of opinions are informed ones).

I’m not much of a ranking kind of guy so the twenty-nine will just be coming in the alphabetical order of the artist’s names.

And as always feel free to disagree with me since arguing gives me a boner.

See you on the other side.

*Too long,didn’t read version*

I’m writing shit about twenty-nine songs from 2009.