2008: OUR YEAR IN ALBUMS – PART 8: MANY A VERY HONOURABLE MENTION VOL. 1

It's with a fondness we take a bow and draw the curtain on a year in music and start wrapping up the year in albums or we really could be here until next December and miss all of next year's. We really couldn't leave without a quick look through the rest of some exceptional records that arrived in 2008.
GANG GANG DANCE - SAINT DYMPHNA
The kind of album that could evolve an entire film from it's roots with it laying the foundation as the breath taking score. An incredible genre bending if not genre re-defining piece of work that demands at least ten listens to truly absorb every inch of it's ever mesmeric and mind-expanding experience. Maybe this is what being inside Stanley Kubrick's head would have been like?

ELBOW - THE SELDOM SEEN KID
A highly deserving winner of the Mercury prize. One of the best frontmen around on his finest form both vocally and lyrically and the sound of a band at the top of their game. For anyone not aware of the excellence of Garvey and co, this will tell you all you need to know. Epic and heartfelt.

MOLE & IRIS - CLOUDS EP
Lyrical genius and sample mad fantasia throughout.

BLOC PARTY - INTIMACY
It appeared as if from nowhere after the boys ran off to Kent with both producers from the two previous records and came back instantly with a third that showcased everything we love about Bloc Party's innovative yet additively accessible brand of indie rock.

BYRNE AND ENO - EVEYTHING THAT HAPPENS WILL HAPPEN TODAY
Two icons join forces for the first time in decades, unlikely anything but genius squared would follow.

CALEXICO - CARRIED TO DUST
'Carried To Dust', is another expertly crafted release from Calexico that sees them doing perhaps what they do best. Its rich, multi-genre and features plenty of subtle, intertwining melodies that seem to untwine and grow as the songs play through.

CUT COPY - IN GHOST COLOURS
Cut Copy cleverly managed to make a must-have album, not by forging new musical pathways or rapid-firing 'socially relevant' lyrics at the listener, but by creating a retro-futuristic sleepy mammoth that plucks gems from all corners of the musical world, and as such will be as listenable and enjoyable in fifty years time as it is today.

DAVID HOLMES - THE HOLY PICTURES
Having always wanted to make a record about his life, loves and loss in Belfast, the incubation of this long-awaited fourth solo album from David Holmes could be said to have almost lasted the entire length of his career.

HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR - HERCULES AND LOVE AFFAIR
The brainchild of DJ Andrew Butler, Hercules And Love Affair sit squarely in the disco tradition. Apart from plonking electronic effects and a thoroughly modern percussive machinery, the mood and attack are cribbed squarely from the late 1970s. Using a range of vocalists, actual songs with proper lyrics and discreet composition, Butler has re-invented classic gay disco without resorting to kitsch or lazy imitation. Sometimes melancholic, sometimes celebratory it is as listenable as it is danceable.

KANYE WEST - 808s & HEARTBREAK
The first post-Hip-Hop album? The Work of a genius or just some bloke singing like Cher? Love it or loathe it, few albums divided opinions quite as much as Mr. West's Autotune workout did in '08. Only time will dictate if there was any true significance for the album as a point in Hip-Hop history but, maybe it's just me hearing that 'Pop Champagne' track everywhere, it feels like there's a lot more Autotune users around already.

KINGS OF LEON - ONLY BY THE NIGHT
The Followill brother's finest moment arrived as they climbed the step from epic indie band to potential stadium fillers.

LADYHAWKE - LADYHAWKE
Kiwi retro popper Pip Brown arrived with her own moreish twist on classic 70's and 80's electronic fused pop.

LIGHTSPEED CHAMPION - FALLING OFF THE LAVENDER BRIDGE
'Falling Off The Lavender Bridge' is an antidote. In an age where eccentricities are swiftly glossed away to fit the latest musical drift it's the oddities, peculiarities, quirks that make Lightspeed Champion. Anxiety, despair, love, joy, failure and isolation; 'Falling Of The Lavender Bridge' documents what it is to feel. Only the maelstrom of juxtapositions that is Dev Hynes could have made a record as emotionally articulate as this.

LOS CAMPESINOS! - WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED
Two albums in the same year for the addictive Los Camp. Catchy to the sickening levels, they pursue their ramshackled indie-pop roots.

LYKKE LI - YOUTH NOVELS
Li, a twenty-something singer songwriter has gloriously taken her spot in the indie music scene in the past year, captivating audiences worldwide with her soul inspired musical experiments fuelled under the guidance of Björn Yttling of "Peter Bjorn and John." Fresh, charismatic and different. Essentially three words which describe this young Swedish vixen.

M83 - SATURDAYS = YOUTH
Everything that was great about 80's electronic music is amplified through the uplifting dream state euphoria of Anthony Gonzalez's vision in this exceptional fifth M83 album.

HOT CHIP - MADE IN THE DARK
Another upbeat electro roller coaster from Hot-Chip, as essential as ever.

DAEDELUS - LOVE TO MAKE MUSIC TO
As arousingly soulful and rhythmic as electronic music gets. Left-field samples, handclaps and liquid vocal mixed together like silky chocolate mouse.

DEPARTMENT OF EAGLES - IN EAR PARK
If Ray Davies was still making cutting edge indie records, they'd more than likely sound like this.

GLASS CANDY - BEAT BOX
Blondie meets Milo in Vice City for sexy time. Dripping with cool like a melted Miami ice cream.

MARNIE STERN - THIS IS IT & I AM IT & YOU ARE IT & SO IS THAT & HE IS IT & SHE IS IT & IT IS IT & THAT IS THAT
As fantastical and brilliantly bizarre as the ridiculous title would suggest. If you saw it in a shop without having any idea what it sounded like but you thought with a title like that it must be good so I'll buy it, you'd be right... and you should.