Fishpork’s 50 Favorite Tracks of 2009

This year really didn’t end up being that “greatest of the decade” as January-March may have suggested. With that said, our favorite tracks list became very album-heavy as it evolved throughout the year. With seven tracks from Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear in the top 20, you kinda get the point. Here is our very biased list of favorite tracks from 2009:

1. HEALTH - “Die Slow”
2. Grizzly Bear - “While You Wait for the Others“
3. Animal Collective - “Summertime Clothes”
4. Fuck Buttons - “Olympians”
5. Built to Spill - “Things Fall Apart”
6. Animal Collective - “My Girls”
7. Fever Ray - “Concrete Walls”
8. Grizzly Bear - “Ready, Able“
9. White Lies - “Farewell to the Foreground”
10. Moderat - “New Error”
11. Atlas Sound - “Attic Lights”
12. Grizzly Bear - “Two Weeks“
13. Animal Collective - “Guy’s Eyes”
14. Fuck Buttons - “The Lisbon Maru”
15. Atlas Sound - “Walkabout”
16. Animal Collective - “What Would I Want? Sky”
17. Dredg - “Information”
18. White Lies - “Death”
19. Fever Ray - “Coconut”
20. Animal Collective - “Brothersport”
21. Built to Spill - “Good Ol’ Boredom”
22. MC Rut - “I Don’t Really Know”
23. The Mars Volta - “Since We’ve Been Wrong”
24. Modest Mouse - “The Whale Song”
25. Dirty Projectors - “Cannibal Resource”
26. Deerhunter - “Game of Diamonds”
27. Morrissey - “It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore”
28. Animal Collective - “I Think I Can”
29. HEALTH - “We Are Water”
30. Dredg - “Mourning This Morning”
31. Sufjan Stevens - “You Are the Blood”
32. Fuck Buttons - “Surf Solar”
33. Phoenix - “Girlfriend”
34. The Flaming Lips - “Silver Trembling Hands”
35. White Rabbits - “Rudie Fails”
36. The Mars Volta - “With Twilight As Our Guide”
37. Radiohead - “These Are My Twisted Words”
38. Great Northern - “Fingers”
39. Royksopp - “Tricky, Tricky”
40. Dirty Projectors - “Useful Chamber”
41. St. Vincent - “The Party”
42. YACHT - “Ring The Bell”
43. Bat For Lashes - “Sleep Alone”
44. Atlas Sound - “Sheila”
45. Washed Out - “Feel It All Around”
46. Das Racist - “Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell”
47. Dirty Projectors - “Stillness Is The Move”
48. Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs - “Skeletons”
49. Great Northern - “Driveway”
50. Morrissey - “I’m OK By Myself”

The Fishpork 20: Favorite Albums of 2009

2009 started off as one of the strongest years for music in the decade but then slipped into a summer that left us scratching our heads and yearning for more. An impressive set of Fall releases surprised their way onto our Favorites List and cemented 2009 as a year that will impress music lovers in retrospect. These are our favorite albums from the past year:

1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

2. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

3. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

4. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport

5. Built to Spill - There Is No Enemy

6. Atlas Sound - Logos

7. Morrissey - Years of Refusal

8. Dredg - The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion

9. White Lies - To Lose Your Life

10. Moderat - Moderat

11. The Mars Volta - Octahedron

12. MC Rut - Middle Class Rut

13. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

14. Great Northern - Remind Me Where The Light Is

15. HEALTH - Get Color

16. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

17. The Flaming Lips - Embyronic

18. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

19. Isis - Wavering Radiant

20. Royksopp - Junior

Most Disappointing Albums:

• Lotus Plaza - The Floodlight Collective
• Wilco - Wilco (The Album)

Album Review: Moderat

Moderat is not the first collaboration by electronic gurus Modeselektor and Apparat. They released the disappointing Auf Kosten der Gesundheit EP in 2002 under the same moniker. The second collaborative effort from the group has much to offer fans of each but does not quite live up to each individual band’s previous works, especially that of Modeselektor. Happy Birthday! and Hello Mom! are landmark electronic dance records that few in the genre have approached in production and sonic mindfucking.

Recording on vintage analog gear, Moderat offers up one of the best tracks of 2009 in “New Error,” a slow building tour de force with an affecting drum beat and synths that seem to purposely fall off the rhythm track every once in a while. Other album highlights include “Rusty Nails,” a somber but catchy drum and bass track featuring vocals by Sascha Ring (Apparat) and “Sea Monkey,” a track that slowly builds from a repetitive and eclectic dance floor beat and pays off in the second half with a batch of swirling synths. The album does lose some of it’s addictive nature after the first three tracks and contains some filler between additional standouts “Sick With It” and “Porc#2.”

Moderat is currently supporting Radiohead on their European tour.

July’s Fresh Pork Cuts

Mark’s

• The Mars Volta - “With Twilight As My Guide”
• Middle Class Rut - “I Don’t Really Know”
• Thom Yorke - “All For The Best (Marc Mulcahy cover)”
• Modest Mouse - “History Sticks To Your Feet”
• Moderat - “Rusty Nails”

Peter’s

• Circulatory System - Solid Forms Dissolving
• Neon Indian - Terminally Chill
• Dirty Projectors - Useful Chamber
• Kurt Vile  - Overnite Religion
• Phaseone - Tower Grove Joint

June’s Fresh Pork Cuts

Mark’s:

• Fever Ray - “When I Grow Up (D. Lissvik Remix)”
• Moderat - “New Error”
• Daniel Rossen - “Waterfall (Judee Sill cover)”
• Modest Mouse - “Autumn Beds”
• White Denim - “I Start to Run”

Pete’s:

• Dirty Projectors - “Stillness is the Move”
• The Thermals - “Now We Can See”
• The Mars Volta - “Since We’ve Been Wrong”
• The Dead Weather - “Treat Me Like Your Mother”
• Modest Mouse - “Guilty Cocker Spaniels”

MP3: “New Error” by Moderat

Modeselektor (aka Gernot Bronsert and Sebastian Szary) and Apparat (aka Sascha Ring), two of Germany’s most acclaimed electronic acts, have joined up to release their upcoming collaborative record, Moderat (out May 12th on Bpitch Control). Modeselektor and Apparat first worked together as Moderat on an EP for BPitch Control in 2002. Amongst a slew of remixes for the likes of Thom Yorke and Björk, Modeselektor also went on to tour with Radiohead across Japan in 2008.

Download “New Error” here or stream it below: