HAPPY 2010! We’re celebrating today with the first half of Uncle T’s favorite albums of 2009.
1. Heartless Bastards - The Mountain
This third effort is essentially an Erika Wennerstrom solo CD with great production work by Mike McCarthy (Spoon), recorded after the departure of the band’s bassist and drummer and before the latest players had been recruited. Erika emotes about relationship loss, sadness, transition, and moving forward. While the music retains this band’s signature guitar sound, other musicians were brought in to expand and sweeten many of the songs with pedal steel, mandolin, banjo, and violin. As a whole, it’s very good with Erika’s vocals at the forefront. The title song is pure magic, and there are plenty of other great moments.
Heartless Bastards - Sway from The Mountain
2. Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
Really cool collaboration of M. Ward, Jim James (My Morning Jacket), Conner Oberst and Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes). Surprisingly these guys seamlessly blend together to come up with the sleeper CD of the year. The worst thing about them is their name. For a super-group of their stature, they should have spent a time coming up with a memorable name; I don’t think “James, Oberst, Mogis, and Ward” would’ve worked any better. Oh well, just enjoy the music.
Monsters of Folk - Baby Boomer from Monsters of Folk
3. Booker T - Potato Hole
A perfect summertime CD of instrumentals by the legendary Stax keyboardist with able backing by The Drive-By Truckers and Neil Young on lead guitar. Similar to The MGs, but just a little dirtier. Excellent CD.
Booker T - Hey Ya from Potato Hole
4. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone
This vocalist force-of-nature put out her most consistent effort yet assisted by an assortment of friends (M. Ward, Calexico, Garth Hudson, etc.). The songs are about tornados, killer whales, prison girls, love, regret, and all kinds of other things.
Neko Case - Prison Girls from Middle Cyclone
5. Wilco - Wilco (the album)
Similar in style to their last CD, the excellent “Sky Blue Sky”, this one’s also pretty consistent and good. It seems this band has reached a nice creative musical plateau as a band. And witnessing their live performance at this year’s New Orleans Jazz Festival was quite a treat.
Wilco - Black Bull Nova- alt-gramma (371)
- indie.mom (395)
- Uncle T (7)
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