I will be the first to say that I was not to excited about hearing the idea of Peter Gabriel’s Scratch My Back. Cover tunes from Peter Gabriel, I was hoping for another original set of master works. The CD came and went and I gave it little notice and had only heard a few tracks that did little for me. At dinner a few weeks ago, a good friend looked at me and just said, “Gabriel and Byrne tracks, get them”, and I did.

What makes a great cover song? A song that make you hear the music if it was new and original. A track that has you diving back into the originals and re-listening to help you understand or hear the tracks in differently. Both tracks I Don’t Remember and Listening Wind I have listened to hundreds of times but these new version are brilliant and also illustrate how amazing the originals were too. If you have not listened to these tracks you should.

I Don’t Remember – David Byrne
Listening Wind- Peter Gabriel

Here We Go Magic’s new CD Pigeons many not be for everyone, but there is something here that I am really enjoying. The texture, the highs and lows. It just seems to fit the place that I am in today.

Best CD for Air travel: Sigur Ros – Anything after ()

Best song that brings me instantly back to Tanzania: Gaudi – Bethe Bethe Kese Kese

Best song that asked me a question that I wanted answered: Daniel Lanois – Where Will I Be

Best CD that I avoided for to long: Radiohead – In Rainbows

Best CD that I wish I wrote: Brian Eno – Another Day on Earth

Best CD with the craziest vocal manifestations: Zawose – Assembly

Best time machine back to old europe: Beirut – Gulag Orkestar

Best frat boy sound: Vampire Weekend

Best aleatoric music: The Books – Lost and Safe

Best song most likely written about my good days: Colin Hay – Beautiful World

Best song most likely written about my bad days: Chris Letcher – Harmonium

Most anticipated let down: Robert Fripp – Exposure (reissue)

Best historic rumor to come true: Brian Wilson – SMiLE

Best singer song writer that used  Condoleezza in a song: Robyn Hitchcock – Spooked

Best mass media music if someone knew who he was: Magnet – On Your Side

Best hidden anger management I just got divorced & we just went to war: Nine Horses – Snow Borne Sorrow

Best Resurgence of the 80’s sound of pop: The Postal Service – Give Up

Most impact on opening the musical sound of Africa to popular culture: Amadou & Mariam – Dimanche a Bamako

Master class: David Sylvian – Dead Bees On A Cake

The Brian Eno atmospheric music award: Fennesz – Venice

Most missed guitarist under 100lb (RIP Chris): Chris Whitley & Jeff Lang – Dislocation Blues

Most missed guitarist over 100lb (RIP Joe): Joe Strummer – Global A Go-Go

Best CD of the Decade: The Arcade Fire – Funeral

Ah, 2009 is almost behind us, and I have made very few musical posts, my apologies. It has been a busy crazy wonderful year, but on to the larger question. The question that I get asked every day, at least enough that I would comment on it. What were your favorite CD’s of 2009?

I find it a strange question now because very few people measure there favorite CD’s anymore. It has become the favorite song, so I have done both here.

My picks for the best CD’s released in in 2009:

10. Beirut - March of the Zapotec & Realpeople: Holland

9. Compilation - Dark Was The Night

8. Here We Go Magic – Here We Go Magic

7. Julian Casablancas - Phrazes For The Young

6. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

5. Mr. Anonymous – Mr. Anonymous 2

4. Bishop Allen – Grrr..

3. Patrick Watson – Wooden Arms

2. Riceboy Sleeps – Riceboy Sleeps

1. Sin Fang Bous – Clangour

Honorable Mention:

Easy Star’s All Stars – Easy Star’s Lonely Hearts Dub Band

David Sylvian – Manafon

Fanfarlo - Reservoir

My most listened to songs in 2009 (not necessarily published in 2009):

10. Lights On – John And Anne

9. Felix Laband – Whistling In Tongues

8. Praveen and Benoit – Death as a Man

7. Quantic And His Combo Barbaro – I Just Fell In Love Again

6. Vampire Weekend - Horchata

5. Au Revoir Simone - The Last One

4. Robyn Hitchcock – I’m Falling

3. Julianna Barwick - Sunlight, Heaven

2. Bon Iver – Blood Bank

1. Vieux Farka Touré – Aï Haïra

I know that I missed a whole bunch of music, but here it is.

Stop by next week for my picks the CD of the decade.

Ah, It has been awhile my music friends. please expect my apologies for not posting more, I have been focused on larger projects of change.

I though wanted to pass on the summer mix (a little late) that was given to the Magnificent 7 this year. I hope you enjoy, best listened in this order.

What Now, What Next (anything is possible)

1. Chest Of Drawers / Daniel Lanois 0:24

2. Transit Lounge / Crowded House 4:26

3. Good Morning Good Morning / Steel Pulse 2:50

4. Advent In Ives Garden / Sin Fang Bous 3:07

5. Daylight / Matt and Kim 2:51

6. Reckoner / Radiohead 4:50

7. St. Peter’s Day Festival / Ra Ra Riot 3:36

8. Cello Song / The Books 3:54

9. Dirt On Your New Shoes / Bishop Allen 2:45

10. Talk About the Passion / R.E.M. 3:24

11. Art / Tanya Davis 2:52

12. The Concubine / Beirut 3:30

13. All the First Pages / Anathallo 5:18

14. Supermellofied / Peter And The Wolf 3:06

15. Drowning Man / U2 4:15

16. Tunnelvision / Here We Go Magic 4:24

17. Ah…, I See / The Books 0:21

18. God Only Knows / Cornelius 4:57

Patrick Watson new CD Wooden Arm is a brilliant selection of well crafted songs. Now, I have to say this seems more like a fall collection of songs than spring, but the last few days of rain and fog it feels very much at home with nature right now.

Cello’s bello in and out, harmonized singing, textured sounds and a percussion selection that is not to far out, but walks on a very creative line of rhythms. I highly suggest this CD, if you are looking for a low key selection of songs for a raining day or to play in the background of a working day.

Two weeks ago a gave a talk about my trip and book about Tanzania. One of the subject that hit the cutting room floor for this talk was music or more importantly what was going through my head sonically.

There were many times that I heard a song from “Moonlight In Glory” from the the CD Life in a Bush of Ghosts. There is a speaking part toward the end of the song that I was reminded of almost daily. “Please Mama, Can we stay the night here, we are far from home…”

Another song was Bethe Bethe Kese Kese from the CD Dub Qawwali, which is just that, remixed Qawwali lyrics by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with a Jamaican dub sound. Yes, it sounds strange, but I have really enjoyed this track.

Then I am left with The Marsh from the CD Whitewater, it is an amazing track acoustic guitar work, with the many highs and lows that take me on a ride of joy, happiness and reflection.

This is a collection of songs that 4AD has released with profits benefitting the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.
Dark was the night, has something for everyone. It really is a who’s who of alternative music. The first disc I am really enjoying the tracks Train Song, Cello Song and Knotty Pine, but I for see that it will be only a matter of time that the rest starts growing on me.

It must be that time of year. Everything is colder and the New England weather chases me to emotional epic music. The work has pilled up and the need to think and work, during these times I often find the dramatic based music, works the best. In 2009 or should I say this end of 2008 has left us with some great emotionally centering music.

To start your winter of 09 collection of emotional classics, we should start with Johann Johannsson “Fordlandia”. This is a large work that at times reminds me of the music of Arvo Part, ebbs and flows of strings and emotions. Very moving music, is based on string arrangements that can take you to dark places, giving us places to reflect and pushes us forward.

If strings are not for you and you prefer the beeps and cracks of the modern electric sound. Fennesz “Black Sea” takes you for a ride if amazingly full textures of sound, what weave melodic states and emotional friction of sound. This is probably Fennesz most excess-able CD since Venice.

I can not forget looking a Sigur Ros for some emotional solstice. Their CD “Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust” that came out this year hits every energy source know to our being. Laughter and forgetting, reflection and pain can all be found in these tracks that I can not understand vocally, but I don’t need to. I have been hovering around the song Festival and the title track a lot lately.

Happy New Year! and hear is to the hope of more great music in 2009.

Peace.