i have really been trying not to break down and do the year-end list thing because each time i start, i am totally overwhelmed by the number of brilliant releases from the past year. i’ve been really fortunate this year, and the music, thankfully, has been great as well. not only were there several anticipated albums which delivered big, but i discovered even more

artists who emerged for the first time with stunning debuts. of course, my first introduction to releases from years past filled a huge portion of the rotation as well.

with that being said, i don’t think i can do justice to the year in a list. most of what i would include has assuredly been on other lists both big and small, and i will admit, it is usually far easier to remember the names of the major players than it is to recall the hidden gems when trying to amass something like this. even the month-by-month notes and lists that i made for exactly this occassion seem so barren and incomplete as i read through them. with so many brilliant albums surfacing at times months past their release dates and so many more finding themselves incredibly difficult to track down just to hear at all, i must say that the musical output of 2005 did an incredible job of keeping up the pace while soundtracking a very exciting and rewarding year of my life.

with that having been said, i must also admit that i am working on my 2006 list already.

band of horses are one of the first on for next year. the official band site here is very nice. i read a mention of this awhile ago due to the carissa’s weird connection.

band of horses – for wicked gil

boy omega have a site here. there are some downloads of the band, which is itself pretty interesting. i’m often very impressed to find non-american bands out-americana’ing us, as is the case here with the swedish roots of main boy martin gustafsson. according to the site news, they’ll hopefully be touring as an eight-piece.

boy omega – by midnight we’ll give it a go

minmae have a bunch of their mp3s posted here – not to mention a nice presence on archive.org

another very brilliant band i’ve just been introduced to is hammock.

hammock – the air between us

hammock – blankets of night

both are incredible, with the former being exceptional. this band will immediately call to mind conglomerate comparisons involving many of your favorite epic, spatial, wall-of-sound shoegaze bands in an attempt to define them, which is definitely not a bad thing.

my friend basic recommended this mix by sasha pafos (in .rar format) . . . it’s very nice.

here’s the tracklist:

01 Das Bierbeben – Staub (Robag Wruhmes Remix)

02 Luciano & Mathew Jonson – Alpine Rocket

03 Jeremy P. Caulfield – Grotbox (Alex Smoke Remix)

04 Robag Wruhme – Mensur

05 Dominik Eulberg – Der Totenkopfschwärmer Im Bienenstock

06 Pan/Tone – Radio Dispatch

07 Alex Under – Tormenta De Cerebros

08 Sweet ‘n Candy – Marzipan

09 Alex Under – Jerome Y Alex

10 Basteroid – Dawaj Dawaj

11 Ryan Crosson – Junk Mail

12 Berlin By Night – Living On Video (Extended Mix)

13 Frank Martiniq – Extrashark

14 Quarks – Allein (Augen Zu Und Durch) (Sascha Funke remix)

oh, and by the way, much to my surprise, i have a myspace account. i’d totally forgotten i’d even signed up for it, and, in fact, i hadn’t logged in since the day i opened it back in june of 2004. i’m working on getting some basic stuff up there. i don’t mind paying the $4 a month to host my own site, but it is obviously a major force in the online world for bands, information dispersal, and networking alike. it’s fairly bare-bones so far, but check it out here.

thanks beattheindiedrum.com for the mention as well as the multitude of great recommendations over the last few weeks. the most recent of these, burn the airwaves, offer three “demos” on their myspace account here. myspace is what it is, but these three tracks are definitely not demos. this is an ep so get it from them while you can.

two lambchop related things recently – one is josh rouse, which is the kind of stuff that makes grocery store-related jobs bearable. consider this nashville sam prekop, extra good on the better of david gray. the other is character, which is apparently a large number of the session musicians involved in the lambchop stuff coming together to play what is more or less a nashville take on godspeed you black emperor. seriously.

heard a few things from monroe mustang tonight, who are on jagjaguwar. this stuff is freaking incredible. shoemericana or something. amerigaze.

took awhile to hear some things from tree by leaf, but it was worth it. hear some songs from them here. i really love husband and wife bands.

viva voce has also been a very welcome surprise. they would love to let you hear the songs they have posted here.

honestly, my favorite 80’s band is talk talk. beyond my introduction to them with “talk talk”, i am a huge fan of catherine wheel, whose early albums ferment and chrome were produced by tim friese-green, the keyboardist in talk talk, and who also acted as as much of an unofficial fifth member as jim o’rourke has ever been. i now recognize many catherine wheel lyrics as talk talk lyrics — everyone needs someone . . . to live by — and i find tim friese-green’s keyboard work in talk talk to be of an incredible nature. it is the type of stuff that should outshine martin gore, honestly — and mark hollis . . . i mean, this is not a battle of the stars or anything ok. but spirit of eden? colour of spring? laughing stock? there’s nothing else that comes close.

i was really really disappointed that my morning jacket’s recent tour only came as close as columbia, mo. now, i’m even sadder to learn that centro-matic/south san gabriel’s will johnson was the opener. egads. i love my morning jacket, and am even a fan of the direction the band took on z – but it is johnson’s day jobs that are really blowing me away lately.

my first “best of 2005″ album was the books’ lost and safe – and who i am very excited about seeing at the andy warhol museam in pittsburgh in march. other candidates include animal collective’s feels, broken social scene, and boards of canada’s the campfire headphase, although i have a fake version which i actually like more than the real thing. the akron/family album was an earlier release, but a late discovery.

i guess this is to say, the best band i’ve heard today — and today still being tuesday although it’s technically wednesday morning — is monroe mustangs.

another band i’ve enjoyed hearing lately is ambulance ltd. i know, they have been around a bit, but this is really what i would like to think of when i think brit-pop.

the sanso-xtro article in foxy digitalis was right on. this is great stuff. the closest i can come to this is like the girl kicking the guy’s ass if this was versus polmo polpo. it’s love.

oh, by now, i’m sure the songs for a green pheasant thing is all over. in fact, i know it is. god, i love this stuff so much. this is the kind of thing that makes you comfortable in a snow hut a million miles away from everything with only everything you love around you. hard to believe a label like fat cat would deliver, right.

two of the shows i regret missing the most here in kansas city are the trail of dead show at the el torreon a few years ago and low down at the fahrenheit two or so years ago.

low were scheduled to play the grand emporium earlier this year but cancelled due to band issues. i’m sure they’ll return with a new bassist and will tour again. in the meantime, there is all this lovely lovely music, and i also highly recommend the low in europe dvd – which was reportedly limited to a select quantity, although netflix does have a copy.