Gang Gang Dance’s Album Of The Year, As A Matter Of “Fact”
London’s Fact Magazine—which runs one of the sharpest-witted, up-to-the-minute music blogs around—has been doling out year-end lists for a few weeks now, the newest of which is its Top 20 albums, preceded in recent weeks by Top 20s of reissues and DJ mixes. These lists are thankfully different than the ones you’ll find in the big U.K. mags, which we’re thankful for even when their logic escapes us. The albums, reissues, and mixes lists are after the jump, but first, a few impressions.
THE GOOD: Sorry, Fleet Foxes: Fact‘s got other priorities. The Top 20 albums is the strongest publication list so far this year—nearly all of the titles I’ve heard on it (Gang Gang Dance, No Age, Zomby, Portishead, Jay Reatard, Flying Lotus, H&LA, 2563, Vampire Weekend, the Bug, Claro Intelecto) are good-to-great by my ears. THE BAD: That Kelley Polar album (No. 17) is pretty weak sauce, guys. THE WHAAA? Surely 2008’s giant pile-up of African vault finds deserves a heftier representation in the reissues Top 20 than Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou at No. 18? (At the very least, the majordomos at the mag need to give Franco’s Francophonic Vol. 1, just out on Sterns, a spin.) And grateful as I am to Fact to linking to that Prins Thomas Resident Advisor podcast (I’d tried to find it to no avail earlier in the year), surely the fact that it was posted October 15, 2007, counts against it as a 2008 mix, shouldn’t it?
FACT’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2008 1. Gang Gang Dance, Saint Dymphna (Warp) 2. No Age, Nouns (Sub Pop) 3. Zomby, Where Were U in ’92? (Werk) 4. Portishead, Third (Island) 5. Late of the Pier, Fantasy Black Channel (Parlophone) 6. Jay Reatard, Matador Singles ’08 (Matador) 7. MGMT, Oracular Spectacular (Columbia) 8. Thomas Brinkmann, When Horses Die . . . (Max Ernst) 9. Deerhunter, Microcastle (4AD) 10. Flying Lotus, Los Angeles (Warp) 11. High Places (Thrill Jockey) 12. Hercules and Love Affair (EMI) 13. Ponytail, Ice Cream Social (We*Are*Free) 14. 2563, Aerial (Tectonic) 15. Vampire Weekend (XL) 16. The Bug, London Zoo (Ninja Tune) 17. Kelley Polar, I Need You to Hold on While the Sky Is Falling (Environ) 18. Claro Intelecto, Metanarrative (Modern Love) 19. Hush Arbors (Ecstatic Peace) 20. M83, Saturdays = Youth (Mute)
FACT’S TOP 20 REISSUES OF 2008 1. Gas, Nah Und Fern (Kompakt) 2. Arthur Russell, Love Is Overtaking Me (Audika) 3. Aphex Twin, Selected Ambient Works 85-92 and Classics (R&S) 4. Dennis Wilson, Pacific Ocean Blue (Caribou) 5. A Guy Called Gerald, Black Secret Technology (A Guy Called Gerald) 6. Liquid Liquid, Slip In and Out of Phenomenon (Domino) 7. The Prodigy, Experience Expanded: B-Sides and Remixes (XL) 8. Pavement, Brighten the Corners: Nicene Creedence Edition (Matador) 9. BBC Radiophonic Workshop: A Retrospective (The Grey Area) 10. Robert Wyatt, catalogue (Domino) 11. An England Story: The Culture of the MC in the UK 1984-2004 (Soul Jazz) 12. Pole, 1/2/3 (~scape) 13. Basic Channel, BCD-2 (Basic Channel) 14. Mount Vernon Arts Lab, The Séance at Hobs Lane (Ghost Box) 15. Derrick May, Innovator (R&S) 16. Tubeway Army, Replicas Redux (Beggars Banquet) 17. Philip Glass, Glass Box: A Nonesuch Retrospective (Nonesuch) 18. Gore, Hart Gore and Mean Man’s Dream (Southern Lord/FSS) 19. Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou, The Vodoun Effect 1972-1975: Funk and Sato from Benin’s Obscure Labels (Analog Africa) 20. Shining, In the Kingdom of Kitsch and Grindstone (Rune Grammofon)
FACT’S MIXES OF 2008 01: APPLEBLIM – RINSE APRIL PODCAST (Rinse FM) 02: METRO AREA – FABRIC 43 (Fabric) 03: MARCUS NASTY & MAC 10 – SEPTEMBER RINSE SET (Rinse FM) 04: OPTIMO – SLEEPWALK (Domino) 05: BOK BOK & MANARA – WHAT’S A NICHE? (Mad Decent) 06: ESAU MWANWAYA AND RADIOCLIT ARE… THE VERY BEST (Self-Released) 07: HYPERDUB SHOWCASE (Mary Anne Hobbs Experimental Show, Radio 1) 08: DJ /RUPTURE – UPROOT (The Agriculture) 09: TRIM – SOULFOOD VOLUME 3 (Self-Released) 10: PRINS THOMAS – RA.074 (Resident Advisor) 11: JUSTIN MILLER & JACQUES RENAULT – ANIMAL HOUSE (FACT) 12: GENERATION BASS (Mary Anne Hobbs Experimental Show, Radio 1) 13: CROOKERS – FIVE MINUTE MINI-MIX (Annie Mac’s Show, Radio 1) 14: HESSLE AUDIO – FACT MIX (FACT) 15: RITON – THE EINE KLEINE NACHTMUSIK MIXTAPE (Self-Released) 16: SQUINCY JONES – NINTENDUB (Self-Released) 17: MIKE SIMONETTI – ALBUTEROL MIX (Italians Do It Better) 18: DEETRON – FUSE PRESENTS… (Music Man) 19: JACKMASTER – MIX FOR SINDEN’S SHOW (Kiss FM) 20: GHOST BOX – ADVENTURES IN MODERN MUSIC GUEST MIX (Resonance FM)
