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]
Múm - Summer 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 - Mañana [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.