A FEW YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED…IN 2009

Music | jon.ramsay | January 19, 2010

A FEW YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED.

Before we go completely crazy for 2010 and its endless musical possibilities…

There’s still time to look back on some of 2009’s hidden gems. Here are a few classic albums that may just have slipped under your radar…

Real Estate – Real Estate

Further proof that nostalgia IS what it used to be, this New Jersey four-piece trade in the kind of carefree surf pop that glorifies the adolescence we we’d had.

They mine the same rich vein of childhood reminiscences as other great acts like Neon Indian and Washed Out, but eschew the woozy synths and Atari effects in favour of summery guitar jams. An awesome debut from a band with much more still to offer.

MP3 REAL ESTATE – BEACH COMBER

Lone – Ecstasy & Friends

Bearing hallmarks of the ’09 dreamwave movement but with a sound distinctly his own, Lone AKA Matt Cutler produced one of the year’s most under-rated albums in the form of Ecstasy & Friends.

The breakbeats are a bit Prefuse 73, the lo-fi textures are very Boards of Canada, but it’s the vivid, technicolour beauty of tracks like “To Be With A Person You Really Dig” and “Karen Loves Kate” that make us go weak at the knees. First class stuff.

MP3 LONE – KAREN LOVES KATE

Yagya – Rigning

Icelandic computer science student Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson makes atmospheric electronica music that perfectly channels the isolation and stark, tectonic beauty of his homeland.

The dub techno and ambient influences are obvious, but this album is anything but boring, with repeated shifts, changes in pace and the inclusion of some wonderfully unexpected samples. Just great music to lose yourself in.

MP3 YAGYA – RIGNING NIU

Mungolian Jetset – We Gave It All Away… Now We’re Taking It Back

The continuing (and very welcome) disco revival garnered a lot of blog-column inches last year, but if anyone managed to nail the full tribal thrust of the genre it was wacky Norwegians Pål ‘Strangefruit’ Nyhus and producer Knut Sævik.

Their first album ‘Beauty Came To Us In Stone’ was a bit too avant-jazz for our tastes, but ‘We Gave It All Away…’ redeemed them with a more direct and dancefloor-friendly sound. 10-minute disco epic ‘Clairevoyage’ has to be heard to be believed.

MP3 MUNGOLIAN JETSET – CLAIREVOYAGE

JJ – JJ No. 2  (♥♥♥)

We round off our list with ANOTHER Scandinavian group (is there no end to their talents?), the mysterious Gothenberg-based duo JJ.

Their names are Joakim Benon and Elin Kastlander, and they’re signed to The Tough Alliance’s ‘Sincerely Yours Label, and that’s pretty much the sum total of what we know about them… other than that they’re responsible for one of the year’s most weird and wonderful pop albums in JJ No. 2.

Beautifully psychedelic and crammed with irresistible melody, this one was true love at first listen. Do yourself a favour and track this one down now.

MP3 JJ – FROM AFRICA TO MALAGA

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