Best albums of 2009
You've probably already read three thousand "Best of 2009" articles already this season... and most of the music lists were probably more Western-orientated than Limonádový Joe, and whiter than the guest list for a Daniel Landa concert. Here's the "alternative music from everywhere" version.
Keeping in mind this show's bias in favour of cross-genre experiments, and artists who are taking existing styles in totally different directions, these are the Friday Ripple's top ten albums of 2009:
JUKEBOX: Friday Ripple 11.12.09
10. Bisso Na Bisso Africa
After more than a decade's absence, the Congolese-French hip hop pioneers return with their follow-up to 1998's groundbreaking Racines. It was worth the wait.
Top tracks: Show Ce Soir; Meme Combat
9. Micachu and the Shapes Jewellery
This English trio, none of whom look like they're of legal drinking age, revitalised rock music this year with a half-size acoustic guitar and a bunch of home-made instruments.
Top tracks: Golden Phone; Vulture
8. Various Artists - Cape of Good Dope 2
A fresh collection from the group of producers, rappers, singers and musicians around Cape Town's African Dope Records. It's an eclectic mix spanning hip hop, reggae and electro, all mixed in with the usual Dope touchpoints of breakbeat, dub and swing.
Top tracks: Fletcher meets Mix n Blend feat Sindy - Shall We Swing; Sifiso Sudan - Smoke; JJ - Free Sensimilla
7. K'naan Troubadour
After the stripped-down acoustic hip hop brilliance of his 2007 live album The Dusty Foot On The Road, it's almost disappointing that the Toronto-based Somali rapper has returned to a studio-produced sound. However, there's more than enough good stuff on here to compensate.
Top tracks: Dreamer; T.I.A.
6. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone Advance Base Battery Life
A beautiful collection from the Leonard Cohen of cheap synthesisers. Not strictly a new album, this is a compilation of 7" singles released by Owen Ashworth over the past few years - but for those of us who don't own vinyl, it's all new stuff.
Top tracks: Graceland; Lesley Gore on the T.A.M.I. Show
5. Matisyahu Light
The one-man movement of Hasidic Jewish electro-reggae-rock returns to prove he's still a unique voice in contemporary music. Steeped in reggae, right down to the grandiose peace-and-love sentiments, but it's a sound of its own.
Top tracks: We Will Walk; One Day
4. The Very Best Warm Heart of Africa
Truly ground-breaking stuff from Malawian singer-songwriter Esau Mwamwaya and London-based electro duo Radioclit. Guest vocalists from their breakthrough 2008 mixtape (M.I.A., and Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig) return for the debut album proper.
Top tracks: Julia; Yalira; Warm Heart of Africa (feat. Ezra Koenig)
3. J.Period & K'naan The Messengers
An incredible triple album mixtape from the New York DJ and the Somalian-Canadian rapper, paying tribute to three of the greatest "messengers" of 20th Century music: Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. You can download this album for free!
Top tracks:
Belly Full (Messengers Remix f. Kardinal, Steele & Bajah;) Gentleman (Messengers Remix feat. Bajah); Got My Dream (Messengers Remix); The Great Depression (Dylan Tribute)
2. Mexican Institute of Sound Soy Sauce
Mexican electro comes of age with the third album from Mexican Institute of Sound. The man behind the institute, Camilo Lara, takes cues from nortec, breakbeat, hip hop, and the cumbia movement that has spread from Columbia all across the southern half of the Americas, to create a whole new dancefloor experience.
Top tracks:
Jalale; Cumbia; Comite Culificador Part 2; Sinfonia Agridulce
ALBUM OF THE YEAR 2009
1. RotFront Emigrantski Raggamuffin
It's a ska album, it's a reggae album, and it's a punk album. It's a Balkanbeat album and a klezmer album. It's a Ukrainian album, a German album, a Hungarian album, a Russian album and a Jewish album. It's all of these things and none of these things. It's a vodka-soaked party album, and I'm calling it the sound of Central Europe in 2009.
This ground has certainly been travelled before, but rarely with so much success. On one hand, the most successful modern interpreters of these genres (like Gogol Bordello's Ukrainian/Romany-influenced punk, and Goran Bregovich's Romany/Balkan-derived big band music) are very area-specific; on the other hand, bands who tackle the full spectrum of Central and Eastern European music usually do so at the expense of a cohesive musical identity of their own. Not so with RotFront, who slip effortlessly between styles without ever sacrificing their own distinctive sound.
Three factors in particular make this approach work so well here. Firstly, the collective is led by renaissance man Yuriy Gurzhy, the Ukrainian DJ behind the Russendisko compilation albums of contemporary Russian, Ukrainian and Eastern European alternative music, as well as the Berlin club nights of the same name. He's also one of the two curators of the Shtetl Superstars Jewish alternative music compilation, and the vocalist on Shantel's Balkanbeat hits Disko Boy and Citizen of Planet Paprika. If there's one man capable of bringing all these sounds together in a single project, it's Gurzhy.
Secondly, there's the influence of German dub producer Kraans de Lutin (Tiger HiFi). RotFront's earlier singles shared a sparse, punky production, at times a little too close to Russian vodka-folk-punks Leningrad to be truly original. With the addition of de Lutin's dub dynamics, the RotFront sound reaches its full potential.
Finally - as the lyrics make clear - Emigrantski Raggamuffin represents a specific culture in Europe, but not one defined by ethnic, national or linguistic terms. It's the culture of the gastarbeiter: immigrants in Germany's "guest worker" programme. Forget Balkanbeat, this is the sound of gastarbeiterbeat. A smarter European Union would adopt Rotfront as their official representatives: Emigrantski Raggamuffin is a better advertisement for the free movement of Europeans than a thousand official announcements. This is the sound of a Europe with open borders; just add vodka.
Top tracks:
Rotfront FM; Emigrantske Raggamuffin (feat. Smo); Remmidemmi; Sovietoblaster
Listen to highlights from all these albums on the Radio Wave Jukebox, under Friday Ripple > 11.12.2009. Here's the playlist:
Bisso Na Bisso - Show Ce Soir (V2 Music France)
Bisso Na Bisso - Meme Combat feat. Sizzla (V2 Music France)
Micachu and the Shapes - Golden Phone (Rough Trade)
Micachu & the Shapes - Vulture (Rough Trade)
Fletcher meets Mix n Blend feat Sindy - Shall We Swing (African Dope)
Sifiso Sudan - Smoke (African Dope)
JJ - Free Sensimilla (African Dope)
K'naan - Dreamer (Wrasse)
K'naan - T.I.A (Wrasse)
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Graceland (Tomlab)
Casiotone FTPA feat. Jenny Herbinson - Lesley Gore On The T.A.M.I. Show (Tomlab)
Matisyahu - We Will Walk (Epic)
Matisyahu - One Day (Epic)
The Very Best - Julia (Moshi Moshi)
The Very Best - Yalira (Moshi Moshi)
The Very Best - Warm Heart of Africa (feat. Ezra Koenig) (Moshi Moshi)
J.Period & K'naan - Belly Full (Messengers Remix f. Kardinal, Steele & Bajah) (self-released)
JPeriod & K'Nnaan feat. Bajah Gentleman (Messengers mix) (self-released)
J.Period & K'naan - Got My Dream (Messengers Remix) (self-released)
J.Period & K'naan - The Great Depression (Dylan Tribute) (self-released)
Mexican Institute of Sound - Jalale (Nacional/Cooking Vinyl)
Mexican Institute of Sound - Cumbia (Nacional/Cooking Vinyl)
Mexican Institute of Sound - Comite Culificador Part 2 (Nacional/Cooking Vinyl)
Mexican Institute of Sound - Sinfonia Agridulce (Nacional/Cooking Vinyl)
RotFront - Rotfront FM (Essay Recordings)
RotFront - Emigrantske Raggamuffin (feat. Smo) (Essay Recordings)
RotFront - Remmidemmi (Essay Recordings)
