2009 Albums I'm Most Excited About

Alright, now that all that year-end madness is finished with, allow me to present my list of the albums I'm most excited for in the (now not-so-)new year. I didn't deliberately go for 10, it just kinda happened that way. In no particular order:

Photo by David S. Rubin

Pin Me Down had talked about releasing their as-yet-untitled debut album last year but it didn't happen, so hopefully we'll be seeing it in 2009. The band is made up of 1/2 Russell Lissack from Bloc Party and 1/2 New York singer/songwriter/guitarist Milena Mepris (formerly of electro-punks Black Moustache), and is rounded out by drummer/producer extrordinaire Alex Elena (plus regular collaborations with ex-Battle guitarist Jamie Ellis and a whole bunch of other awesome people), so you can see why I would be more than a little excited about them. Their debut single, Cryptic, released last year via Kitsuné, did not disappoint, and the two other tunes on their MySpace have only added to my enthusiasm. Here's that debut single:

Pin Me Down - Cryptic (zShare)

As I may have mentioned a couple times previously, Norwegian electronica duo Röyksopp have a new album coming out, on March 23 via Astralwerks to be exact. It's been four years since their last studio outing, and that album (The Understanding) remains one of my favourites. New disc's called Junior and will be preceded on March 9 by the single Happy Up Here, which you may stream right here, or buy from iTunes here. The album was recorded and engineered in Bergen, Stockholm, Copenhagen and London, and features contributions from Robyn, Lykke Li, Karin Dreijer (of The Knife and Fever Ray) and Anneli Drecker (via Stereogum).

Anglo-Icelandic electronica-folk crew Fields created one of my favourite albums of 2007 with their debut Everything Last Winter, and it looks like they're back in 2009 to repeat the magic (sans guitarist Jamie Putman, who left on amicable terms). Not a lot of info on this one - their entire website has been taken down, replaced with a very purple MySpace page featuring a scary profile pic - but there are two new songs available for streaming on said MySpace page, and they sound hella good. They also did a fair bit of touring over the past year, so keep your eyes open for any more dates, especially if you're in Europe.

Photo by Edwin Tse

Metric recently unveiled the first single from their as-yet-untitled third (depending on how you count them) studio album, called Help I'm Alive. You can stream it at their MySpace or buy it at iTunes, or watch a lovely video put together by Emily Haines about it, and the evolution of her songwriting, at their website. The song is likely my favourite thing Metric have produced yet, which is really saying something, but I think its simplicity (discussed by Emily in the vid, you should really go watch) adds a lot to it, and it just sounds more focused almost than Metric's previous work. Expect the album early this year via Last Gang.

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

Back in Novemeber, Tegan & Sara spent some time in New Orleans writing songs together for the first time ever (see this post by Tegan and this one by Sara on their wonderful MySpace blog). The promise of new Tegan & Sara material, and the fact that Tegan plays "absursdly wonderful" drums (to quote Sara) on all of it, is enough to have me shaking in anticipation; even more exciting, they recently sent off a stack of demos (40, to be exact) to the excellent and talented Mr. Chris Walla, who produced their previous album, 2007's The Con, with plans to get into a studio and record in the spring. As if that weren't enough, they're also releasing a series of T&S books, designed by the ever-talented Emy Storey, with the first one coming out in the spring. Here's a pretty good-quality live recording of a new song that may or may not make it onto the album, from a show a couple weeks ago in Sydney (thanks to Autumn Nocturne for recording the whole show, you can download it at the Internet Archive here):

Tegan & Sara - Give Chase (Enmore Theatre, Sydney, Australia 08.01.09) (via the Internet Archive)

Photo by Autumn de Wilde

There isn't a lot of information about Silversun Pickups' upcoming second album, apart from its title, Swoon, and the number of tracks on it (17). Lead singer/guitarist Brian Aubert has said, however, that "some songs are very quiet and delicate, [while] others are just fucking loud." It's also been confirmed by the band that Darren Waterston and Sara Cumings will again be lending their considerable talent to the album's artwork and graphic design/lettering, respectively, as they did on 2006's Carnavas, which happened to be one of my favourite albums from that year (not to mention one of the most visually gorgeous). As well, Tony Hoffer and Dave Cooley are returning to mixing and mastering duties. Look out for it this year via Dangerbird.

Photo by Drew Reynolds

I love An Horse. Regular readers may have caught on to that by now. Technically their debut album, Rearrange Beds, was released digitally in 2008, but it just came out physically this month in Australia and is set for March 17 everywhere else, so it qualifies for this list. I seriously haven't been this excited about a new band in a long damn while, and I really want as many people to discover their greatness as possible. Go listen to some songs at their MySpace, or go back to this post to grab a couple mp3s from the album.

Uh Huh Her are a band I haven't talked about on the blog yet, mostly because I first listened to them just a couple a weeks ago, around the same time I first heard An Horse actually (and for the same reason; both bands were touring with Tegan & Sara). I'm kinda cheating with this one because their debut album, Common Reaction, came out back in August, but since I just came across it so recently (and because it's so great) I thought I'd include it. The band is made up of singer and multi-instrumentalist (and I do mean "multi", she litereally plays every instrument on the record) Camila Grey, formerly of Mellowdrone, and singer/synth-player Leisha Hailey, who played in a couple bands prior to this but more recently has been busy as an actress on The L Word. Uh Huh Her (named after the PJ Harvery album) have a rather cool sound, blending the best of 80s pop and 90s electronica to create something that's refreshing yet retro, without ever veering into irony. If that sounds like your thing, go stream some songs at MySpace. Here's the title track:

Uh Huh Her - Common Reaction (zShare)

Photo be Katie Evans

Now, Now Every Children are another band I've been addicted to lately, but then, with songs as catchy as Cars, it would be hard to listen to them and not get addicted (seriously, just try not to sing along with "Oh my god, I don't care about the car" at the top of your lungs). They basically just use guitars, drums and keyboards for their sound, but it feels much bigger than that, largely thanks to some amazing drumming that really pops out at you and interlocks beautifully with the guitars. The album's also called Cars and is available right now from Afternoon Records' online shop and iTunes (although Amazon's claiming it won't be released until Frebruary 10), and is highly recommended if you like urgent, driving, sometimes joyous, sometimes heartbroken indie pop-rock. Stream some songs at MySpace.

Finally, The Boss's latest, entitled Working On A Dream, is out January 27 via Columbia. Stream the whole thing right now at npr.org. 'Nuff said.