Saturday, 25th of December, 2004

OK well it had to happen. I'm doing a best-of-2004 Utility Fog tomorrow night, so I've therefore pretty much got sitting on the floor my best music of the year list. So… Considering I thought 2004 was a bit of a disappointing year, it's not bad. This is what comes of doing a 3-hour radio show every week I guess!
Including a couple of EPs/7"s as well, my list goes something like this… [oops - and I keep missing things, so if you saw this when first posted, there may be more there now!]

65daysofstatic – The Fall Of Math [Monotreme]
Oren Ambarchi – Grapes From The Estate [Touch]
Animal Collective – Sung Tongs [Fat Cat]
Keef Baker – the widnes years [n5md]
Björk – Medúlla [One Little Indian] (only like about half of this – nowhere near as good as Vespertine IMHO but I'm listing it anyway)
The Boats – Songs By The Sea [Moteer]
Bola – Gnayse [Skam]
Boom Bip – Corymb [Lex Records]
Boom Bip & Daedelus – 28:06:42:12 [Mush]
Adam Butler – Schmoozing With the Après Garde [Whatness] (came out 2003 but really hard to find and I only picked it up this year – genius!)
Mara Carlyle – The Lovely [Accidental Records]
Andrew Coleman – demons [Tripel]
Comatone – E-50 [Feral Media]
Greg Davis – Somnia [Kranky]
Greg Davis – Diaphonous 12" [Lux Nigra]
Daedelus – A Gent Agent [Laboratory Instinct]
Decomposure – Taking Things Apart [Unschooled Records]
DJ /Rupture – Special Gunpowder [Tigerbeat6] (half great, half not very good at all (hey ok, "not my thing at all"), but I feel the same about Nettle, only it's less good)
edIT – Crying Over Pros For No Reason [Planet µ]
Enduser – From Zero [Mirex]
Enduser – Bollywood Breaks EP [Ad Noiseam]
Epic 45 – Slides [Make Mine Music]
Epic 45 – Against The Pull of Autumn [Where Are My Records]
Erast – Goodair & Minimissing [Laboratory Instinct]
Fennesz – Venice [Mego]
Finkelstein – The Art of Escapism [AK Duck]
Jason Forrest (aka Donna Summer) – The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post-Disco Crash [Sonig]
Four Tet – Both when I am alone and we both are (his side of the split 7" with Hella) [Ache Records]
Four Tet – My Angel Rocks Back and Forth [Domino]
Four Tet – Live in Copenhagen 30th March 2004 [Domino]
Funckarma – Smizm [dub]
Giardini di Mirò – Hits for broken Hearts and Asses [2.nd rec]
Her Space Holiday – The Young Machines Remixed [Mush]
Herv – Snap Hands [Compactrisc]
Hood – The Lost You EP [Domino]
Icarus – I Tweat The Birdy Electric [Leaf]
Inch-time – any colour you like & root-drinking in the dark [self-released]
Junior Boys – Last Exit 12" [Kin] (for the wonderful Fennesz remix and their "unbirthday" self-remix – not particularly keen on their normal stuff)
Kattoo – Places [Hymen]
Juana Molina – Tres Cosas [Domino]
Mouse on Mars – Radical Connector [Sonig]
M̼m РSummer Make Good [Fat Cat]
Joanna Newsom – The Milk-Eyed Mender [Drag City] {This was added in March 2005 when I discovered how awesome this album is. Yes, her voice can grate, but the songwriting and harp-playing are superb. I don't like the Wurlitzer & piano tracks as much, but the harpsichord one is great too.}
Nitrada – We Don't Know Why But We Do It [2.nd rec]
Pedro – Fear & Resilience remixes [Melodic]
Qua – Painting Monsters on Clouds [Surgery]
Quasimojo – Savant Garde [Mira] (apparently 2003 but I only discovered halfway through 2004)
Gabriel Prokofiev – String Quartet No. 1, performed by the Elysian Quartet [Nonclassical]
The Rectifiers – Levy EP [Sensory Projects]
Saddleback – Everything's a Love Letter [Preservation]
Savath & Savalas РMa̱ana [Warp Records]
Subtle – A New White (not as good as the seasons EPs but good) [Lex Records]
Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans [Sounds Familyre/Spunk]
Shadow Huntaz – Corrupt Data [Skam]
Shitmat – Full English Breakfest 12"s/CD [Planet µ]
Slicker – We All Have A Plan [Hefty]
Dwayne Sodahberk – Unfortunately [Tigerbeat 6] (from 2003 but I didn't find it till 2004 and spun it constantly for about half a year)
Spark – Super Robot Battle Deluxe [n5md]
State River Widening – Cottonhead [Vertical Form] (very late entry, this – only just got hold of it! Added 16/01/05)
Telefon Tel Aviv – Map Of What Is Effortless [Hefty]
Holly Throsby – On Night [Spunk]
Tiki Obmar – Seasons [Merck]
Tin Hat Trio – Book of Silk [Ropeadope]
Tracker – Blankets [Top Shelf Comix/FILMguerrero]
Trinkets – Choose Your Own Adventure [Trinkets Music]
Triosk – Moment Returns [Leaf]
Venetian Snares – Huge Chrome Cylinder Box Unfolding [Planet µ] (I found this fairly disappointing but I'm listing it anyway)
Venetian Snares – Moonglow/This Bitter Earth [Addict] (now DIS is DA SHIT]
Wagon Christ – Sorry I Make You Lush [Ninja Tune]
Keith Fullerton Whitman – Antithesis & Schöner Flußengel 12"s [Kranky]
Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles [Kill Rock Stars via Tomlab and/or popfrenzy]
John Zorn & co – Masada String Trio live / Masada Recital [Tzadik]
V/A – Carbon [Mirex]
V/A – Children of Mu [Planet µ]
V/A – em:t0004 [em:t]
V/A – Flipside (a Candle Records remix compilation) [Candle Records]
V/A – Fork Songs [Audio Dregs]
V/A – Hear You Soon: Part One [Blue Bell Records]
V/A – Misplaced Pets [Misplaced Music]
Isan & Styrofoam – Morr Music Japan Tour 2004 [Morr Music]
V/A – Song of the Silent Land [Constellation]
V/A – TRR50 Thank You [Temporary Residence]
Various 12"s on Mashit! – one of the labels of the year…

Speaking of stuff from 2003 which was only discovered in 2004, I was playing The Books' Lemon of Pink from when (before?) it came out on [Tomlab] (Oct 2003), but Spunk licensed it in Australia in 2004… Should be on lots of people's top-lists for this year here.

Brilliant forthcoming stuff for 2005 that I've been spinning a lot:
Gauche – Paints Lane [Invada] (Sydney live electronica, mad-brilliant)
Hood – Outside Closer [Domino]
Amon Tobin – soundtrack to Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 3: Chaos Theory [Ninja Tune]
Tunng – Mother's Daughter and Other Songs [Static Caravan] (NEXT YEAR'S ALBUM OF THE YEAR!)

2 Responses to “Top music for 2004”

1. Utility Fog » Playlist 26.12.04 says:
   December 26th, 2004 at 7:25 am

   [...] y be interested to peek over at my blog, where I've posted an extremely long list of my favourite releases of 2004… Starting with a song on a boxing theme [...]

2. hannah says:
   January 6th, 2005 at 4:12 pm

   … have deep love for Múm.