The Top 20 Albums of 2011 - #18 - Liam Finn: FOMO

The Top 20 Albums of 2011

#18 Liam Finn: FOMO

Words by Dirk Calloway

Preface: You're reading the third entry in a daily series, focused on reviewing one of 2011's best albums each day. Over the next 3 weeks, we'll work our way up to the 'Best Album of 2011'. You can catch up on missed entries by clicking this link here.

Let's get this out of the way now... 2007's I'll Be Lightning is, to me, an absolute classic. At the time I swore it was the Album of the Year, and I'm still fine with that decision. Its arrival hit me like, well, a lightning bolt. It screamed "see, we can sing in kiwi accents but make some damned good music while we're at it." Liam Finn's live shows became legendary for their loop pedal creativity, that would build and build into a monstrous, drum-heavy, crescendo. In the years since, he's performed on Letterman, added a variety of musicians - most importantly, Eliza-Jane Barnes - to his line-ups, released an EP, and made a sort of indie-NZ supergroup called BARB. Fair to say, he's been a busy boy and he's been keeping himself interested musically.

FOMO feels like the proof of all that musical pudding. This is not a follow-up to a prior album; it's a fresh entity unto itself. FOMO is an album that stands on its own two feet, without prior precedent needed to survive, nor any mention of its creator's family tree. All this is as it should be. Finn's well into his second decade as New Zealand's wildest indie-rocker. Coupled with Betchadupa, BARB and his solo work, he's put on shows that I'll look back on with fondness to my dying day. This is not a "sophomore record" at all; I've lost track of how many records he's appeared on now! No, this is the work of a fully-formed artist, who's quite clearly grown-up, wiser and more experienced than any of his previous albums showed him to be. Check out this fantastic live version of his song Roll of the Eye below for an idea of what I mean:

Wow huh? How nuts does that get? In lesser hands, it might have been a naval-gazing song about stifled creativity. Handled by Finn, it's capable of a broader dynamic than that. I feel like FOMO presents songs that are mined to their full potential. They explore the surface, then delve deeper inside to find pockets of riffs that are unexpected, but gratefully received by the listener. Liam alluded to this in the publicity material released around the album's launch. He frequently mentioned that his relationship with producer Burke Reid was deliberately collaborative, and that the resulting songs were different to how he'd have made them if he were left to his own devices. Of all the songs on FOMO, that difference in approach is perhaps the most obvious on its thundering middle-track, The Struggle:

It's one of the best sounding pop songs I've heard in years... provided it's played on a good set of speakers. Sadly, it sounds absolutely horrible on a bad set of speakers. I heard it in a tinny set of speakers in a cafe a few weeks ago and all I could hear was the effects, the handclaps and the sawtooth waves of the keyboard. All traces of the thumping bass line and vocals were gone. Likewise, play it through your iPod's earbuds (and to be fair, that is how the majority of music is probably consumed these days) and you'll end up hitting pause or turning down the volume. It makes me sad to say it, but I'd love to hear a remixed and remastered version of FOMO. I'd really like to hear a mix that present's only Finn's vocals and the core group of instruments to the listener. They're strong songs, they withstand scrutiny, and they've been played passionately by their creator. The music video for Jump Your Bones makes this point abundantly clear:

Perhaps the swirling mix was concocted to add more conflict to an album that is explicitly about inner conflict? If so, cool. Point well made. The blurry album cover also ties to this theme, the sound effects and crazy keyboards do too, and that acronym of a title makes sure you know it. FOMO is an album that screams "we're at home, and we're damned uncomfortable about that." It's an album explicitly about New Zealanders' deep and abiding cultural cringe. I dig it. You should dig it out of your local record store / online retailer.

Return tomorrow to find out who made 2011's 17th best album. They're an American band that, briefly, redefined what rock music should sound like. As always, if you want to see other posts in this series, click here.

The Top 20 Albums of 2011 - #19 - Kimbra: Vows

The Top 20 Albums of 2011

#19 Kimbra: Vows

Words by Dirk Calloway

Preface: You're reading the second entry in a daily series. Each day, I'm posting a review about one of 2011's best albums. Over the next 3 weeks, we'll work our way up to the 'Best Album of 2011'. You can catch up on missed entries by clicking this link here.

The 19th best album of 2011 was made by someone born in 1990. Just-turned 21, Kimbra has produced a work that belies her years. It's a pop album in the same way that a Janelle Monaé record might be. This is jazz, lounge, a capella ooo's and aaa's, swing and soul, all wrapped up in a package that is, somehow, definitely 'pop'. Safe to say that very few aspiring starlets out there are getting stuff like this released right now. This is bold, risky music. Not bad for a New Zealander! Check out the first song, Settle Down:

Great huh? It builds in the same way that you bake scones: preheat, sift in the dry stuff, add the thick stuff, stab it, knead it in over itself, press it down, coat it, and then let the heat build it up to something that is both with, and without, form. What an impressive production. Everything folds, bends and buckles under the momentum. Its precision and fluidity reminds me of the album artwork, which features (I presume) Kimbra dusted in white powder and drenched in inky bodypaint:

I'm eagerly awaiting Kimbra's follow-up to Vows. Next time around, I hope she gets more of a chance to dominate the song than the production team does. In Vows, the artist and the music itself are intertwined to such an extent that it's hard to tell who is the genius: the engineers or the singer. For now I'm happy to say both are outstanding groups of musicians making a remarkably coherent record. I'd just like to have a clearer picture in my head next time of who is leading who. In the video below though, there's no doubt who is the star:

Tune in tomorrow to find out who made the 18th best album of 2011! They're also a New Zealander, but don't worry, we'll get back to the Americans and Brits soon enough. And if you want to see other posts in this series, click here.

The Top 20 Albums of 2011 - #20 - Cults: Cults

The Top 20 Albums of 2011

#20 Cults: Cults

Words by Dirk Calloway

Preface: You're reading the first entry in a daily series. Each day, I will review one of 2011's best albums. I listened to over 100 records from that year, so I reckon I'm entitled to an opinion on the matter. Over the next 3 weeks, we'll work our way up to the 'Best Album of 2011'. You can catch up on missed entries by clicking this link here.

You've got to be really sure of your 'sound' if you self-title your first album. Cults' Cults (mind the lack of 'The') is self-assured as fuck, self-titled, and self-aware. It's reactive and meta, but also proactive in the way it seizes an idea and runs with it from start to finish. So... what the hell is it? Well, it's a buzz-pop / noise-pop record that's largely indebted to the work of Motown-era girl groups. It's the vibe of Sleigh Bells' Rill Rill, but stretched out over the course of an entire album. It's the reverb-drenched indie pop album of the summer that you can play to your mother:

The above video wasn't created by the band. Instead, it was created by a faithful fan who apparently whipped it together in a few hours. It perfectly marries their sound with the visuals of an unsettled suburbia, one that's drenched in radioactive sepia-tones. For those familiar with the New Zealand band The Brunettes, this is what they would sound like if they'd lased their lollipops with LSD. It's interesting to see the same song interpreted officially, in their actual music video below. It feels 'slicker' and that's why I don't like it as much, but at least it addresses the band's name, and goes some way to visually justifying the massive echo on the vocals:

So, what makes this record a great one? If you'd listened to 100+ albums this year, what would make it stand out from the crowd? For me, its songs are so laden with catchy hooks, melodies and beats that I find it hard to stay away. I'm not wild about its production, perhaps because it only sounds really good on my Sennheiser headphones (don't even bother playing it through your laptop speakers, or in your iPhone earbuds), but the songs themselves are so catchy that I can't resist playing them anyway. To Cults' credit, they are hiding rock-solid, well-crafted songs behind a layer of produced distortion: 

Compare the usage of that 'sound' to 99.9% of the other 'noise-pop' or 'buzz-pop' or 'whatever-you-call-it-pop' groups out there. Many bands in the genre are very busy hiding awful songs behind a forced production technique. Not Cults. In the words of Rolling Stone's Judy Rosen: "Cults are excellent songcrafters, expert at boosting drama with dynamics and unexpected sounds. But what sets their music apart is feeling: the mood of wistful romance that hovers over the songs, the idea that love is an insoluble mystery."

Tune in tomorrow to find out who made the 19th best album of 2011! They're a New Zealander. And if you want to see other posts in this series, click here.