2008 so far.

[matt]

it's been another awesome year so far and this is off the cuff so i may well leave some out and have to add them later, but from memory (and after a quick butchers at my listening chart from the last 6 months from last.fm) these would be mine, more or less in order:

1 in ghost colours cut copy

brilliant 80s influenced sophomore record from melbourne's cut copy, an album that makes me smile and sing-along and is uplifting and life affirming to boot


2 yearbook 2 studio

an album of remixes yes, but what remixes! from their brilliant reworking of kylie to the blissed out love on a real train and summer pop perfection impossible this is an album with summer written all over it


3 s/t fleet foxes

massively hyped but probably worthy of the praise and a great mix of pop, rock & country


4 for emma, forever ago bon iver

simply gorgeous album of gentle acoustic strummings


5 silent movie quiet village

excellent downtempo sampadelic feast from radioslave & mate that sounds both familiar and original


6 s/t vampire weekend

not everyone's cup of tea but my wife and i have been enjoying these afro beat, prep rock stylings for most of the year


7 pacific ocean blue dennis wilson

okay, this may have originally come out in 1970-something, but it's been beautifully repackaged this year and been out of print almost 20 years so still qualifies for my list. fantastic debut (and sadly only) solo album from the beach boy's drummer and well worth checking out


8 the seldom seen kid elbow

quite simply their best album, which, if you know anything at all about elbow, is reason enough to get hold of this if you don't own a copy already


9 third portishead

brilliant return for beth & co that takes a few listens to get into and is way better than i dreamed hope for after all that time. should probably be higher up the list but to be honest there's been so much great stuff this year i haven't listened to this album as much as some of the others


10 blue river smith & mudd

actually came out the very tail end of last year but very nice album of chilled balearic vibes


and then some other very honourable mentions:

s/t hercules & love affair
stainless style neon neon
visiter the dodo's
sea lion ruby suns
nouns no age
the midnight organ fight frightened rabbits
songs in a&e spiritualized
staying in diskjokke
dystopia midnight juggernauts
saturdays=youth M83
disastro sonny j