Albums in 2010 - Part II

I will admit it, sometimes I need to think long and hard to remember if an album was released this year or the previous one, there is so much music out there, it can be tricky to keep up with it. However some albums punch you in the stomach at the first listen, so much so that you remember where you were when you heard it.
It's the case with These New Puritans ' second album "Hidden". I did enjoy the experimentations on their first opus: it was clever, quite obtuse but raging with some great energy.
It was with a lot of anticipation that I put the new album on my CD player and it started like this:



The whole album is a tad heavy to digest but it beams with sounds and atmospheres so radically different from anything else that was released this year. It's raw, tribal, convoluted, brilliant, engaging. It's also not an album that I would listen to very often. But every time I need a little reminder of how utterly energizing and inovative music can be I reach for These New Puritans.

In the quiet corner we have the fabulous Dane Ognes Obel. she is so tiny yet so talented. Her first album Philarmonics was released in the fall and has seduced many music fans.
Her melodies are teinted with melancholy, a sort of quiet sadness, nothing too dramatic but it's not not just 'pretty' there is depth here.



Live she has that sort of little girl lost in the woods look, but once her fingers are safely on the piano, she opens up, like a flower.


we move swiftly to the witches: in the mould left empty by Bat For Lashes or Fever Ray, this year we have Glasser. Haunting, tribal, her siren-like vocals tempt the listener into her world. Quite mesmerizing.



Back to the folk music with Conor O Brian's project Villagers. It just reminds me of the best of what Bright Eyes can do. Songs like stories with well written lyrics, kudos in the voice, simple melodies. It's like a bowl of cocoa, like a friend who hugs you. And we all need those from time to time. The album's called Becoming A Jackal



and a bit of fluffy electro to finish today's post with London's Hot Chip. I love the album, it puts me in such a good mood, romatic music you can dance on, what's not to like. so there!