motel de moka

Elevator Beat:
Caminabamos por las calles bulliciosas del centro.
Te pareces a mi alma y te pareces a la palabra melancolia.
A veces se podia oir la vibracion de la luz.

Simone Fisher Turner - harrodspianos
Christopher Bissonette - pellucidity
Liam Singer - asthma/rivets in water
Max Richter - on the nature of daylight
Eluvium - an accidental memory in case of death
Jasmine Star - sky decides

Image by Marcus Zilliox.

And so it is. I updated this post and added #11 to the list after realizing that even numbers are evil. Here’s the trackback to the other post with: Motel de Moka’s top 5 albums of the year. Remember to support hungry musicians. Buy records, go to gigs, show them love.

11. Electric President - electric president
Download: Electric President - good morning, hypocrite
Download: Electric President - ten thousand lines (alternate mix)

This album is phantastic albeit much too short comprised of 10 clear but complex pop jems. They have recently been signed to the excelent Morr Label and it’s been scheduled as a 2006 release, so I’m kind of cheating on this one, oh, and I’m not telling how I got my hands on it.

10. Marsen Jules - herbstlaub
Download: Marsen Jules - fans d’ automne

Herbstlaub, which simply means “autumn leaves” is a hazy ambient album that I’ve found myself coming back to time and time again. Easily the best pure ambient album and probably one of the best electronical ones released on 2005.
If you like it you might want to try Eluvium’s “talk amongst the trees”, another noteworthy ambient album released this year.

9. Sigur Ros - takk
Download: Sigur Ros - hoppipolla

I must be honest, I didn’t enjoy this one as much as Agaetis Byrjun or even (), Jonsi’s voice has gotten a bit too high for me to enjoy and I’m already irritated at his supposed hopelandic full of “iyu”s, yet, they remain one of the most inventive modern musical outfits in the world today and the music is still carried with power and beauty so I’m not complaining. It just didn’t hit me the way their past releases did. Maybe I was expecting too much from this one. Nonetheless, highly recommended.

8.Idaho - the lone gunman
Download: Idaho - live today again

I like this one, Jeff Martin has that type of wispy voice that I can’t resist, and the lone gunman might be the best Idaho album in years. In case you didn’t knew: Idaho has been around the music scene for more than 12 years yet almost noone has heard about it. Give it a try, you wont regret it. A timeless somber beauty.

7. Cocorosie - noah’s ark
Download: Cocorosie - Beautiful Boyz

The sisters Casady are the best reinvention Bjork never made, of course Bjork couldn’t possibly imagine her sound as conceived on the bayou. Those harps and saloon pianos coloring this album give it a very bohemian take on avant-folk, and for fans of the genre this is a must.
If they continue improving their stylings and focusing their efforts a little more they might create something truly inspiring on a few years.

6. Colleen - the golden morning breaks
Download: Colleen -the golden morning breaks
Download: Colleen - summer water

Im warning you, this is a collection of harmless soft lullabies and the record has a unicorn and a fairie on the cover, somehow, I’m ashamed to say I love it. Every song on this release has the hability to seep into your subconcious with subtlety.
Cecile Schott picked the instruments punctuating the release carefully (most of them are from renaissance-era origin) which makes the whole record sound seemingly naked and it actually makes for the better because it finds her emotions bare for us to take. Quite lovely.
I’d also reccommend you to look for Susumu Yokota’s “Symbol” which didn’t make it to the list but has a certain resemblance to this one in it’s use of electronically-infused barroque music.

Laundry Room:
“Avanzo.
O retrocedo…
Con la noche entre las uñas.
Que el amor amarillo
y nuestros cuerpos de cerillos.”
Este poema escaso y pinche lo escribi usando el metodo dadaista. Dense un tiempo de leer “Seven Dada Manifestos” del genial Tristan Tzara. Y si viven ociosos como yo, maten tiempo con el metodo dada. El libro fue recomendado por la dadanoia de Kahlo.

I originally stated that my top albums of the year list was limited to 5 records, due to the positive comments from other bloggers and readers inquiring for a bigger list, I’m expanding it into a top 10. The albums have been selected already but I’m too lazy to do that post right now, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow or next week, for now I offer you some songs I’m enjoying at the moment:

Isolee - Schrapnell
Archer Prewitt - way of the sun
Eluvium - under the water it glowed
Colleen - the happy sea

The image is based on the medieval tapestrie “A mon seul desir”, one of six tapestries known by name as “the lady and the unicorn”. The artist remains unknown to date.

I fucking loved (and still love) 2005. Here’s my list of the top 5 albums of the year, I could have easily chosen other 5 or could’ve made up a top 50 list, but there’s more important people out there doing that, therefore, I am not.
I’m not claiming this ones are the best ones out there, but they’re merely my top 5. This is the music that has been on my side this year and it has encompassed important changes in my life, this is the reason the very reason I love this albums.
Thanks to the people that were reading the blog this year, I’d really appreciate any comments or suggestions on the site or the music.

5. Animal Collective - feels
Download: Animal collective - Banshee beat

Animal Collective are well known for the emotional resonance they transmit through their releases. This is their most mellodic and accesible work yet. A tasteful and inventive release from a band with a quite unique sound.

4. Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Download: Sufjan Stevens - Chicago

The second delivery from Sufjan Stevens’s 50 state project is as beautiful and diverse as Michigan. Despite the ridiculous subtitles and the horrendous cover, we still love you Sufjan.

3. Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & The mysterious production of eggs
Download: Andrew Bird - sovay
Download: Andrew Bird - a nervous tic emotion of the head to the left

This is the musical testimony of the long path Bird has walked. On Weather Systems, it seemed he was in the process of creating something exceptional. Time passed, and this is the album he created. While Casual ears will simply find it laid-back, attentive ones might find many rewards on this one. Highly reccomended.

2. Paavoharju - Yhä Hämärää
Download: Paavoharju - puhuri
Download: Paavoharju - valo tihkuu kaiken lapi

Chances are you hate Paavoharju in the same degree I hate the fiery furnaces. It’s even more probable you’ll hate me for taking it all the way up to second place on my list.
This is the concept behind the album: A band of Finnish born-again christians making music to record their religious re-discovery. I would have runned away from this one at the mention of the word “christian”, but the music itself is of such grandeur, it actually transmits real devotion. Admirably consistent for such an un-organized collage of sounds: Bollywood music, church hymns, vynil crackles, digital filters, beautiful pop tunes and ambient esoteric noises.

1. The Books - Lost and safe
Download: The Books - smells like content
Download: The Books - an animated description of mr maps

This is the first album I bought this year. When the record stopped spinning I already knew this one was ending up on the top of my list. It’s weird cause I never really cared that much about “thought for food” or “the lemon of pink”, but for this one, consider my hat tipped. My personal reccomendation for 2005.

Laundry Room:
Bueno les menti, termine el examen y no tengo nada que hacer mientras my beloved llega a su destino, que suerte la de uds.
Ay, cuando el sol cambia su color.

The wilderness - end of freedom
Pinback - loro
Ute Lemper - tango ballad
Jolie Holland - old fashioned morphine
Jens Lekman - I saw her at the antiwar demonstration
Xiao He - mama
Cocorosie - brazilian sun

The image was taken from a friend’s page and I don’t know who made it, it seems to me she took it from one of those loonies from l’ art brut, but I might be wrong… december is near and it’s very probable the blog will be changed back to english…

Laundry Room:
On the first post about folktronics, I recall writing about Four Tet and Greg Davis as emblematic artists of the genre but didn’t actually linked to any songs from them, so here you go. Four tet’s last album was a bit of a letdown for me, aside from “sun, drums and soil” the whole record is just another cute organic IDM album noone needs, I’m uploading my favorite song from him instead, slow jam from the beautiful “rounds”. Errand boy is an artist whose specialty is to use copy-paste at his electronica and folk records (folktronics, yes?), the whole LP is free to download at radio free polygon. Ah, yes, thanks to Silent K for directing me to “Husky Rescue”.

Cuando Kieran Hebden saco Rounds a finales del 2003 el mundo de la electronica habia cambiado de ser calculador y frio a organico y tibio. Four tet no fue el primero en provocar los cambios, pero, si fue quien los hizo evidentes, y esos vienen siendo los pioneros del genero. Que si la folk-tronica ya esta dando patadas de ahogada? Probablemente. Pero quedaron buenas rolas para el recuerdo. A prender velas.

Errand boy - x depends on y
Ogurusu Norihide - humour
Greg Davis - brocade
Husky Rescue - new light of tomorrow
Four Tet - slow jam

Image by Nina Frenkel.

Laundry Room:
It’s getting cold outside where I live. Both my hands and my feet get stiff in the morning (you wouldn’t know how hard it’s getting to write this down). I need a warm blanket. And I definitely need someone to snuggle up with. I’m hoping so much you’re wide awake by now.

Jon Brion - strings that tie to you
Beulah - gravity’s bringing us down
Sambassadeur - between the lines
Magnet - little miss or less
Psapp - Rear Moth
Destroyer - It’s gonna take an airplane

Image from the ench gallery.