Monorail Poll 2009

I spent quite a lot of this year vacillating over whether Camera Obscura’s My Maudlin Career was the best thing I’d ever heard, or the worst. It wasn’t just the occasionally sloppy lyrics; a more serious flaw was the masochism of the songs, which saw Traceyanne goading herself ever deeper into unreciprocated affection. They didn’t seem to be part of any healing process, they were there to prolong the hurt, pick the scab, deepen the wound. This rang a bell I would rather had kept quiet (mostly, except...), but there was no denying the record’s power. I’ve put it as near to the middle of my list as possible. I love it, I hate it. Those peaks in ‘The Sweetest Thing’, oh my.

In contrast, the other records are all anti-inflammatory. They are like taking a hot bath on a cold evening. Maybe the Frànçois record is more like a Turkish bath than the others. The Eddie Marcon bath looks out through plate glass on to a frozen lake, upon which wild cats prowl. Gok’s bath is in a gentleman’s club, and Jeeves is on hand with cocktails. There is a television with windscreen wipers showing Tom and Jerry cartoons. Bill Callahan’s bath is at home, to which you have just returned after recovering from a car crash (this is his best since Red Apple Falls, right? I haven’t been paying too much attention). Directorsound’s bath is in a field, as a starry night turns slowly into dawn, complete with chorus. Spare Snare have never had a bath, do not be ridiculous.

These are records which refuse to be hurried by the century in which they find themselves, and of course Pastels / Tenniscoats come out top, how could they not? This year, slow slow slow didn’t suck.

My votes in the poll (results ‘To be announced at our late night shopping event / belated birthday on Monday evening’):

Albums

1. Pastels / Tenniscoats – Two Sunsets
2. Bill Callahan – Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
3. Frànçois & The Atlas Mountains – Plaine Inondable
4. Eddie Marcon – Wata No Kemuri No Syotaijo
5. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career
6. Bill Wells and Maher Shalal Hash Baz – Gok
7. Directorsound – Minstrels for Sleepless
8. Spare Snare – I Love You, I Hate You
9. Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard – ’Em Are I
10. Pants Yell! – Received Pronunciation

Track

Kristin Hersh – Flooding

Reissue

Kraftwerk – The Catalogue