This year at Hidden Track, we concocted a little experiment for our year-end Best Albums of 2009 list. Instead of picking the old fashioned way – subjectively – we opted for something a little different: a collaborative, collective list that incorporates the opinions of everybody here at HT.

To begin, we devised an all-encompassing list of around 100 nominees and populated it in a Google spreadsheet – essentially anything that anybody who writes for Hidden Track liked at all, made the list. Then we invited our crew of writers to independently vote on the whole list (omitting anything unfamiliar) on a scale of 1 to 20 (20 = five stars). We ended up with 33 voters with varying degrees of familiarity with the nominees; some folks voted on just about everything, while some just a few. From there, we eliminated anything that did not receive at least three votes, calculated the average scores, and sorted it. We took the top 25 scores and presto: the Hidden Track 25 Best Albums of 2009. No bullshit, no big opinions; just the results.

Let’s check out numbers 10 through 6 and see what made the cut…

10) Fanfarlo – Reservoir

Key Tracks: Good Morning Midnight, The Walls Are Coming Down, Comets

Sounds Like: Arcade Fire, Frightened Rabbit, Andrew Bird

Skinny: Reservoir showed in Fanfarlo a number of immensely talented musicians who swap instruments, successfully incorporate unconventional tackle like the clarinet, trumpet, violin, melodica, even the saw, and write some amazing orchestral indie rock/pop songs. While all of the material comes across easy and beautiful, perhaps the best indication of what’s to come from this young juggernaut band is the album’s instrumental closing lullaby, Good Morning Midnight, which in a mere 1:26, could put both mom and baby to sleep.

READ ON for the next four album in our week long countdown…

9) Bela Fleck – Throw Down Your Heart, Tales from the Acoustic Planet, Vol. 3: Africa Sessions

Key Tracks: Djorelen, Angelina, Jesus is the Answer

Sounds Like: The Indestructible Beat of Soweto, Amou Sangare,

Skinny: Helping to remind us what we already know, that music is way bigger than any boundaries; Bela Fleck set out to Africa with his brother to traverse the massive continent, stopping in Uganda, Tanzania, Gambia and Mali with his banjo to collaborate with a colorful assortment of local musicians. The result, as Bela and these amazing musicians meshed so seamlessly, can only be described as heartwarming magic. Anyone who appreciates recording techniques and sound engineering will marvel at this work as these impromptu, often outdoor, jam sessions are captured magnificently.

8) Alec Ounsworth – Mo Beauty

Key Tracks: Holy, Holy, Holy Moses, South Philadelphia (Drug Days), When You’ve No Eyes

Sounds Like: part Beach House, part Phish’s “Maze”

Skinny: Producer Steve Berlin dreamt up one of the year’s novel ideas – pairing Clap Your Hands Say Yeah brainchild Alec Ounsworth with a group of funk royalty (George Porter Jr., Stanton Moore, Robert Walter, and Matt Sutton) in New Orleans to create a non-funk record. Ounsworth and friends earn the value of a thousand downloads with the last track alone and the album bounces enjoyably from the anxiety evoking opener Modern Girl (…With Scissors) to the New Orleans ode, Holy, Holy, Holy Moses, to the blithe horn cavalcade, South Philadelphia (Drug Days).

7) John Zorn – O’o

Key Tracks: Archaeopteryx, Po’o’uli, Little Bittern

Sounds Like: Mark Ribot, Eno, something Quentin Tarantino, and the Secret Machines

Skinny: Despite easily claiming the least accessible title in our top 25, eclectic composer and genre-defying sorcerer (often classified using some combination of the words surf, lounge, world, exotica  and jazz) John Zorn, not only captivates, but hypnotizes with an instrumental masterwork. The time period between opening ominous track Archaeopteryx and the last of Miller’s Crake vanishes somewhere between the jungle of Po’u’li, the stylish lounge of Solitaire,  and Napoleon Dynamite’s Idaho on Laughing Owl.

6) Deer Tick – Born On Flag Day

Key Tracks: Little White Lies, Smith Hill, Friday XIII

Sounds Like: ’50s rockabilly dowsed in a night chain smoking and hard drinking

Skinny: Deer Tick’s sophomore effort is anchored by lead singer John McCauley’s croaky, whiskey and cigarette-soaked vocals as he spins tales of woe that involve broken hearts and failed relationships. The Providence-based band music effortlessly combines country laments with the stark Nebraska-era Springsteen folk and 1950s rockabilly that would have made Buddy Holly proud.

HT Staff

Hidden Track was started in October of 2006 and features a team of dedicated contributors from across the country. This article was written by one of the newest members of our team or was a collaboration by more than one contributor. Want to contribute to Hidden Track? Send us a pitch to scott at glidemagazine dot com.

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