PSF's 2009 Writers' Poll
Our favorite things

Left to right: Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo De Cotonou, Screaming Females, Evelyn Petrova, Feelies, Extra Golden

---

And here it is... again... our annual writer's poll. But instead of a measly 10 albums, our writers get to choose up to 20 of 'em to give you a better idea of what they like and what you might consider checking out. Or you can just wonder about our taste in music and argue with us about it. Enjoy!

---

Tim Broun

Try as I might, 2009 seems to be the year I officially entered old-fartdom. I could only find one single new studio recorded release that I felt enthusiastic enough about to include on this list.

• Kraftwerk Remasters
  
• Tom Waits Glitter & Doom
  
• Tom Waits Orphans (vinyl version)
  
• Charles Mingus Mingus Ah Um: 50th Anniversary Edition
  
• James Brown Singles Series
  
• Iggy Pop Preliminaires
  
• Various Artists Daptone Gold
  
• Death For the Whole World To See
  
• Stooges You Don't Want My Name, You Want My Action
  
• Sun Ra Interplanetary Melodies
  
• Sun Ra The Second Stop Is Jupiter
  
• Sun Ra Rocket Ship Rock
  
• Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport
  
• Lee Fields My World
  
• Anvil the Movie (DVD)
  

---

Ken Cox

• Various Artists Golden Age of Country
  
• Various Artists Holy Mackerel! – Pretenders to Little Richard's Throne
  
• Dolly Parton Dolly
  
• Hank Williams The Unreleased Recordings: Gospel Keepsakes
  
• Janis Joplin The Woodstock Experience
  
• Jerry Lee Lewis Mean Mean Man
  
• Sons of the Pioneers Way Out There: The Complete Commercial Recordings 1934-1943
  
• Cal Smith The Best of Cal Smith
  
• The Donnas Greatest Hits Volume 16
  
• Charlie Rich The Ballads of Charlie Rich
  
• Carrie Underwood Play On
  
• The Oak Ridge Boys The Boys Are Back
  
• Shakira She Wolf
  
• Claire Lynch Whatcha Gonna Do
  
• Piano Red Digging the Boogie:1950-1956
  
• Amos Milburn Rocks
  
• Nanci Griffith The Loving Kind
  
• Neko Case Middle Cyclone
  
• Ralph Stanley Can’t You Hear the Mountains Calling
  
• Buddy Holly Not Fade Away: The Complete Studio Recordings and More
  

---

Jorge Fernandez

• Supersilent 9
  
• Animal Collective Merriweather Post-Pavillion
  
• Alan Courtis & Aaron Moore Brokebox Juke
  
• Alasdair Roberts Spoils
  
• Black Dice Repo
  
• Julie Tippetts & Martin Archer Ghosts Of Gold
  
• Richard Youngs Under Stellar Streams
  
• Eliane Radigue Tryptich
  
• Sun O))) Monoliths And Dimensions
  
• The Feelies The Good Earth (reissue)
  

---

Michael Freerix

Besides rediscovering The Swell Maps, I listended to following records many times this year...

• Tara Jane O'Neil A Ways Away (In an ocean of eery music TJO stands out like a lighhouse.)
  
• Pasadena Project Hypersly (2 Berlin-based music performers who sound like Sun Ra playing Gospel tunes. Amazing stuff!)
  
• Califone All My Friends Are Funeral Singers (I'd be glad to have a lot of funeral singers as friends if they would make music like this.)
  
• Michael Hurley Ida Con Snock (While other people grow old and become boring, he only becomes more and more unique and interesting)
  
• Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba I Speak Fula (Kouyate plays the Ngoni, a tiny instrument that sounds like a mix between a harp and a banjo. This is african soul music)
  
• 17 Hippies El Dorado (starting from Berlin they tour the world, and there seems to be no place on earth where their music sounds unfamiliar to the audience)
  
• Tinariwen Imidwan: Companions (How can anybody resist Tuaregs being influenced by Led Zeppelin, whom they heard on cassettes when they where kids. I would love to hear 'A Whole lot of Love' at full volume on a good system in the middle of the night in the Sahara desert. Just think of it!)
  
• Flipper Love (I'm a fan since I first heard ‚Sex Bomb' when I was 17 and somehow they always convince me with their sound.)
  
• Eccentric Soul No. 27 ­ Smart's Palace (The Eccentric Soul-Series puts me back into a time that I miss not having lived in)
  
• Sonny Vincent With Members from Rocket from the Crypt (My first Sonny Vincent-Record and definitly not the last one)
  
• Eccentric Soul No. 25 - 24 Carat Black/Gone the Promises of Yesterday
  
• Dan Auerbach Keep It Hid
  
• Grampall Jookabox Ropechain (Like Hip-Hop on LSD)
  
• Vivian Girls Vivian Girls (Short and fast songs I could not stop listening to this year)
  
• Congregation Congregation (Funny that they are british, because they sound so pure american, like they where from the 50's)
  
• Black Box Revelation Set Your Head on Fire (yes, they do!)
  
• Raveonettes In And Out of Control (They sing about suicide and make you dance to it. Irresistable)
  
• The Heavy The House That Dirt Build (Soul mixed with punk-rock, there is nothing better)
  
• Mulatu Astatke & The Heliocentrics Inspiration Information (Astatke is around since the mid-60's, and never recorded a piece of boring music)
  
• Mama Rosin Brule Lentement (Cajun with a Velvet-Underground-Twist- who else could come up with this than two guys and a woman from Switzerland?)
  

---

Jason Gross

• Titus Andronicus The Airing of Grievances
  
• ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead The Century of Self
  
• K'Naan Troubadour
  
• Telekinesis! Telekinesis!
  
• Dan Deacon Bromst
  
• Living Things Habeas Corpus
  
• Neko Case Middle Cyclone
  
• Wussy Wussy
  
• Roman Candle Oh Tall Tree in the Ear
  
• Sonic Youth The Eternal
  
• Taggy Matcher Hip Hop Reggae Series Vol 1
  
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz
  
• Mary J. Blige Stronger With Each Tear
  
• Tom Waits Glitter and Doom Live
  
• Japandroids Post Nothing
  
• Red Holloway Go Red Go
  
• Mission Of Burma The Sound The Speed The Light
  
• Brilliant Colors Introducing
  
• Open Strings- Early Virtuoso Recordings From The Middle East, And New Respones
  
• Billy Boy Arnold, John Primer, Billy Branch and Lurrie Bell Chicago Blues: A Living History
  

Full list at http://yeweiblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/2009s-greatest-hits.html

---

Richard Haslop

As usual, there are about another hundred that could easily have found a place here, but I guess the clincher is that I just couldn’t decide what to drop in favour of Sonic Youth, Martin Simpson, Bill Frisell, Sam Baker, Reigning Sound, Wilco, Califone, the Neil Young extravaganza or the Blitzen Trapper EP.

• Justin Adams & Juldeh Camara Tell No Lies
  
• Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion
  
• Arbouretum Song Of The Pearl
  
• Big Star Keep An Eye On The Sky
  
• Staff Benda Bilili Trés Trés Fort
  
• Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle
  
• Mark Eitzel Klamath
  
• The Flaming Lips Embryonic
  
• Franco & le TPOK Jazz Francophonic Vol 2
  
• Grizzly Bear Veckatimest
  
• Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba I Speak Fula
  
• The Low Anthem Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
  
• Richmond Fontaine We Used To Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River
  
• Alasdair Roberts Spoils
  
• Oumou Sangare Seya
  
• 13th Floor Elevators Sign Of The 3 Eyed Men
  
• Tinariwen Imidiwan: Companions
  
• The Unthanks Here's The Tender Coming
  
• Various Three Score And Ten: A Voice To The People
  
• White Denim Fits
  

---

Left to right: Mulatu Astatke, Sun Ra, Bill Callahan, Blank Dogs, Comet Gain

---

Domenic Maltempi

• Atlas Sound Logos
  
• Comet Gain (Reissue Singles) Broken Record Prayers (These sorts of prayers …single prayers, paired very well, bottom heavy quick shuffled uplift lows.)
  
• Condo Fucks Fuck Book
  
• Cotton Jones- Paranoid Cocoon
  (Bite into the larvae and roll that Lucy with feet up, head loose, cistern creamed)
• Mountains Choral
  
• Dirty Projectors Bitte Orca (Ordinal syrup, sweet dry and ripping for any part of you engaged or otherwise)
  
• Jim O'Rourke The Visitor (over and over)
  
• Odd Nosdam (T.I.M.E Soundtrack) No need for a vespertine board ride to dig on this
  
• Alasdair Roberts Spoils
  
• Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
  
• Pajo Scream With Me (this- heart-felt and crestfallen rejigging of Misfit tunes, reminds and reanimates all that comically gilded macabre punk that so many teenagers and beyond---felt right to the bone)
  
• Silk Flowers Silk Flowers (a cut above the cold dead arm of tingly knock-out bees)
  
• Alarm Will Sound a/rhythmia
  
• Neon Indian Psychic Chasms (It doesn’t even matter that most nonplussed – out-crowd Indian’s don’t like neon things)
  
• Belbury Poly From an Ancient Star
  
• Lucky Dragons Open Power (if only we could fly away on the white vinyl of Open Power. This album has a gently propulsive, motionless travel quality to it…sharp pineapple skinned beauty)
  
• Nothing People Late Night
  
• Dirty French Psychedelics
  

---

Gregor Meyer

2009 was, for some, a lackluster year for new releases in the outer fringes of music, though archival releases and overdue reissues delivered the most rewarding hours of sonic adventure:

• The George-Edwards Group 38:38
  Record of the year, this rescued relic of a 1976 private press yields haunting folk-pop melodies and lyrics held afloat by guitars, piano, chimes & electronics. Unlike anything else then or now, this DIY/basement-tape gem is an utterly unique, ethereal work of devastating power.
  
• Human Being Live At the Zodiak, Berlin 1968
  
• Kluster [actually Eruption] 1969-1972
  
• Andrew Chalk & Daisuke Suzuki In Faxfleet Clouds Uplifted Autumn Gave Passage to Kind Nature
  
• Trad Gras Och Stenar Homeless Cats
  
• Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo De Cotonou The Voudon Effect 1972-75
  
• Overhang Party s/t
  
• V/A The Sound of Wonder! The First Wave of Plugged-iin Pop at the Pakistani Picture House
  
• Irmin Schmidt & Inner Space [Can] Kamasutra
  
• V/A School Me! Vol. 1: 1968-75 High School and Collegiate Jazz, Funk, Soul & Psychedelia
  
• Nurse with Wound Flawed Existencce
  

---

Richard Moule

• Phosphor II
  
• Electric Cowboy Cacophony Shark Guitar
  
• John Butcher Group somethingtobesaid
  
• Nudge As Good As Gone
  
• Not The Wind Not The Flag
  
• Tintinabulum
  
• Cannibal Corpse Evisceration Plague
  
• Maja Ratkje Cyborgic
  
• The Tony Wilson Sextet The People Look Like Flowers At Last
  
• Evelyn Petrova Living Water
  
• Furt Sense
  
• Behemoth Evangelion
  
• Ken Aldcroft Convergence Ensemble Our Hospitality
  
• Mary Halvorson/Jessica Pavone Thin Air
  

Highlight of the Year: Cannibal Corpse, Mayhem Festival Festival, Phoenix, Arizona.
Temperature:115 degrees in the shade.
CC were rightfully surly because of stage complications that forced them to shorten their set. Consequently, they unleashed their molten, metal wrath on an audience that tried to stand its ground in a parking lot, amidst a swirling, dust storm that threatened to the blow the stage over. It was a perfect storm of man and nature's sound and fury. It was "Live and Dangerous", to quote Thin Lizzy, and it was bliss.

---

Jim Rader

• Archie Shepp Live in San Francisco
  
• The Feelies The Good Earth
  

---

Kevin C. Smith

• Belbury Poly From An Ancient Star
  
• Black Dice Repo
  
• Blank Dogs Under & Under
  
• Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
  
• Devo Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (reissue)
  
• Moon Wiring Club Striped Paint for the Last Post
  
• Odd Nosdam T.I.M.E. Soundtrack
  
• Tristan Perich 1-Bit Symphony
  
• The xx The xx
  

---

Ethan Stanislawski

• Pissed Jeans King of Jeans
  
• Poison Arrows First Class, And Forever
  
• Screaming Females Power Move
  
• The XX xx
  
• Brother Ali Us
  
• Japandroids Post-Nothing
  
• Lily Allen It's Not Me, It's You
  
• Mastodon Crack The Skye
  
• Mannequin Men Lose Your Illusion, Too
  
• Future of the Left Travels With Myself and Others
  
• Art Brut Art Brut Vs. Satan
  
• Harlem Shakes Technicolor Health
  
• Sonic Youth The Eternal
  
• The Dead Weather Horehound
  
• The Intelligence Fake Surfers
  

Reissues:

The Jesus Lizard Pure/Head/Goat/Liar/Down

Volcano Suns The Bright Orange Years / All-Night Lotus Party

---

Richie Unterberger

• Thee Midniters Thee Complete Midniters: Songs of Love, Rhythm & Psychedelia!
  
• Buddy Holly Memorial Collection
  
• Buddy Holly Down the Line: Rarities
  
• Lulu Shout! The Complete Decca Recordings
  
• The Who The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition
  
• Vince Taylor Jet Black Leather Machine
  
• Various Artists Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggest 1965-1968
  
• The Rationals Think Rational!
  
• Blossom Toes What on Earth: Rarities 1967-1969
  
• Various Artists 50 Years of Revolucion!
  
• The Mojos Everything's Alright: The Complete Recordings
  
• Jefferson Airplane The Woodstock Experience
  
• David Bowie Space Oddity 40th Anniversary Edition
  
• Santana The Woodstock Experience
  
• Various Artists Woodstock 40 Years On: Back to Yasgur's Farm
  
• Leonard Cohen Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 CD/DVD
  
• Various Artists An Outbreak of Twangin': Phantom Guitars Vol. 2: 26 Cool Early 60s Guitar Instrumentals
  
• Janis Joplin The Woodstock Experience
  
• The Doors Live in New York
  
• Jenni Muldaur Dearest Darlin'
  

---

Lisa Marie Valletutti

• Monty Are I Break Through the Silence
  
• Paramore Brand New Eyes
  
• Katy Perry MTV Unplugged Album
  
• The Almost Monster, Monster
  
• Train Save Me, San Francisco
  
• Lady Gaga The Fame Monster
  
• Glee Cast Album Volume 1
  
• Norah Jones The Fall
  
• Daughtry Leave This Town
  
• Tina Parol Bite My Tongue
  

---

Marko Vukusic

• Noisettes Wild Young Hearts
  
• The Dead Weather Horehound
  
• Arctic Monkeys Humburg
  
• John Fogerty The Blue Ridge Rangers Rides Again
  
• Pearl Jam Backspacer
  
• Heavy Trash Midnight Soul Serenade
  
• Seasick Steve Man From Another Time
  
• Air Love 2
  
• R.E.M. Live At The Olympia
  
• Bob Dylan Christmas In The Heart
  
• Nikka Costa Pebble To A Pearl
  
• The Derek Trucks Band Already Free
  
• Larry Garner Here Today Gone Tommorow
  
• Susan Tedeschi Back To The River
  
• Bruce Springsteen Working On A Dream
  
• White Lies To Lose My Life...
  
• U2 No Line On The Horizon
  
• Diana Krall Quiet Nights
  
• Yeah Yeah Yeahs It's Blitz!
  
• Elvis Costello Secret, Profane & Sugarcane
  

---

Gregg Wager

As a proud member of my mother?s Clean Plate Club, I have always made sure there were 20 titles to any top-20 list I make?usually struggling during those last bites to find nos. 17, 18, 19 and 20. For this year?s PSF poll, the struggle was what to exclude. I?d love to hear anyone?s theories about why I found this to be a good year of music. Meanwhile, I extend a special tribute to the loyal fans of Blue Cheer who over the decades kept that extremely influential rock trio going and this year suffered the loss of Dickie Peterson (1946-2009). Other maestros lost this year: Ali Akbar Khan (1922-2009), Maurice Jarre (1924-2009), Henri Pousseur (1929-2009), and Lukas Foss (1922-2009).

• Anaphoria Footpaths and Trade Routes (vinyl LP)
  
• Derek Bermel Voices for Solo Clarinet and Orchestra
  
• Domina Catrina The Book of Worlds
  
• Toshio Hosokawa Solo Concertos Vol. 1
  
• Roger Kleier The Night Has Many Hours
  
• Karlheinz Stockhausen PARADIES
  
• Dong Bang Shin Ki/Tohoshinki Share the World/We Are!
  
• Joe Zawinul & The Zawinul Syndicate 75
  
• Blue Cheer Rocks Europe (DVD)
  
• Mi-Ja Lee 50th Anniversary Album: 101 Songs
  
• Brian Joseph Davis Intro, and Other Instrumental Works
  
• Madonna Celebration
  
• Mark Grey Enemy Slayer: A Navajo Oratorio
  
• Peter Garland String Quartets 1 & 2
  
• Throbbing Gristle The Third Mind Movements
  
• Maurizio Pollini Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier I
  
• Elliott Carter A Nonsuch Retrospective
  
• Lucy Keany Fool Me
  
• Chinese Stars Heaven on Speed Dial
  
• John Zorn Femina
  

---

Kurt Wildermuth

• A-Bones Not Now!: Does justice to their live sound. A great way to remember the fun of seeing them rock the boat on a Rocks Off cruise in NYC's East River this summer.
• Built to Spill There Is No Enemy: Some of the tempos drag, but this is BtS's most moving and majestic work since Perfect from Now On, with some of Doug Martsch's most eloquent guitar playing.
• Bob Dylan "Forgetful Heart" on Together through Life + most of Christmas in the Heart: Johnny Mathis he ain't, babe, but the Christmas songs help him focus far more than the uninspired lyrics throughout Together through Life do. I'd trade all of that CD for Bob's Dylanesque delivery of the lines "Have yourself / a merry little Christmas," which sound like he's waited his whole life to sing them. And for a senior citizen whose voice is shot he does a beautiful "Little Drummer Boy"!
• Jesus Lizard live at the Fillmore East at Irving Plaza, November 19: Ferocious. Awesome.
• Michael Hurley and Ida Ida Con Smock: Hurley is charming, and Ida's backing is sensitive but loose and never precious.
• Mission of Burma The Sound the Speed the Light: Is it my problem or theirs that I can't place MoB's reunion releases in a hierarchy? This one has some garage rock and metal beneath its typically frantic surface.
• Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby: This late-2008 release is the most all-around enjoyable music I heard in 2009.
  

---

Mike Wood

• Castanets Texas Rose The Thaw & The Beast
  
• Death ...for The Whole World To See
  
• Black Breath Razor To Oblivion
  
• Iggy Pop Preliminaires
  
• Various Artists Daptone Gold
  
• Various Artists Ghana Special: Modern High Life, Afro-Sounds & Ghanaian Blues, 1968-81
  
• Pissed Jeans King of Jeans
  
• Volcano Suns All Night Lotus Party (reissue)
  
• Mono Hymn to the Immortal Wind
  
• Extra Golden Thank You Very Quickly
  

Left to right: Michael Hurley, Seasick Steve, The Almost, Thee Midnighters, Maurizio Pollini