In the same way that a gullible kid could be convinced that his echoing voice is really a half dozen people calling back from the horizon, this track always tricks me for a moment into thinking it's more than just Liz Harris and her guitar (well it's certainly more, but those are its component parts) . It's lonely and intimate, but her solitude sounds grand. I'd believe she was alone in an abandoned undersea kingdom before I could picture her in a sparsely furnished bedroom. This is probably the prettiest track I heard all year, and the one that sounded most like a forgotten day that I once swore I'd never forget. JK

Hercules & Love Affair - "Hercules' Theme"

Mythology teaches that being the strongest man on earth can lead to a small boost in confidence that can turn any hero into quite the ladies' man, man's man, and for that matter everything that moves' man. In pop culture terms, it seems that Hercules was the Gladiator version of Russel Crowe mixed with the sex drive of Prince. In any event it takes quite a musical number to thematically represent the son of Zeus. Their namesake, Hercules and Love Affair, nail it. The steady rhythm of the song's beginning is quickly swept up into a flurry of disco horn lines that are complimented by layers of string loops and vocals that must have been kept in a hedonic box in the back room of a some Manhattan club since 1977. As the song winds deeper we are suddenly met with something altogether unique and new where after a brief pause the repetitive horn line is sequestered by high hat clicks. The bass then makes a late entrance and the room erupts into a frenzy as a Gillespie-like horn solo paves the song into climax and completion. Disco never went to this place, three decades later perhaps it is ready. Y. Korngold

the Long Blondes - "Century"

By far, 2008's saddest musical footnote was the sudden illness of Dorian Cox, and the resulting hiatus of the Long Blondes. Beyond basic human sympathy, the lead track from "Couples" establishes the grounds for our loss. The band's established sharp guitar sass gives way to Italo-via-Portland disco. Kate Jackson quits pouting and starts channeling lyrics from an hazy, impressionistic future. This track finds our favorite Brits on the verge of something new. It's crushing to think that now we might never fully arrive. JK

Black Mountain - "Angels"

Haven't enough artists already recorded a song with some number of the word "angel" in the title? Wikipedia lists some 30 titles, although this isn't one of them. Perhaps the draw is the automatic associative power of the celestial. When you write about anything of self-evident importance, an immediate authority is leant to your song, even if the song itself is lacking. Not that Black Mountain's entry into the angel pantheon shows any want. All of the requisite themes are here, subdued meter, intense instrumental breakdown, and of course, roaring string section – but in each case, the clichés are built up only to be broken down. The "angel" in question is a women lured into temptation, implored to "lay [her] halo down" as the song drags us down into the sleaziness of mortality. R. Monty

Memory Cassette - "50mph"

This is what's playing inside one of those cars in Minority Report that wrap around buildings—not during the Cruise chase sequence, but later on, as the suns are setting, and the working stiff of the crimeless future is heading home, thinking sexual thoughts about the face of a woman he saw on one of those giant LED billboards. He's wondering whether it's appropriate to lust after a mirage, but he can't keep from singing along with the song's possibly human voice, "Gravity's got nothing on us" and with a flick of his finger, cues the song back up again. DK

TV on the Radio - "Golden Age"

"There's a golden age comin' round" may not be meant to be taken at face value, but there's genuine hope in the midst of all this dark funk, and it's all the more apropos in the wake of Obama. While TVOTR hasn't jettisoned its trademark spookiness, the strings soar high above the knotty rhythms, providing celebratory commentary to a song that, if it were any denser, might very well preclude dancing. Building up to a glorious fadeout that echoes that of the Heads' "Once in a Lifetime," "Golden Age" also seems to echo and update Paul Simon's "days of miracles and wonder" for more complicated times. For my money, the song of the year. DK

Frightened Rabbit - "The Twist"

Imagine spending a long college weekend at some foreign, cold-weather city. (Say, Toronto.) And imagine that you're trolling the streets, hopping from unknown bar to unknown bar, and you're trapped in the glorious, sweaty alcoholic haze where time stands still and moves infinitely forward at the speed of light. And all of a sudden you're the best dancer in the whole damn bar and you're partnered with a cute someone and you have no idea where it's going, but that's ok because you feel like the night would never end. And right now this is the only place in the world you want to be even though you're pretty certain this relationship will never see the light of day. And you have no idea who this person is! That would be perfect. RM

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Posted by Jeff Klingman at December 29, 2008 11:45 AM

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