RIB's 2013 Album of the Year: Mogwai -- Les Revenants

It's fitting in a time of sudden loss and slow recovery that my Album of the Year is the ghostly soundtrack to a French television drama about the dead coming back to life.

It's also appropriate in a year when words could only do so much — and nearly always failed — that my Album of the Year is almost entirely instrumental.

The walking dead of Les Revenants -- the French show that provides the title and inspiration for Mogwai's remarkable record -- are not zombies; they are everyday people who don't know they’re dead. In the opening scenes of the pilot -- the only part of the show I've seen, lacking an English subtitled version -- a school bus full of children careens off the side of a mountain road.

After the Mogwai-driven opening credits roll, a schoolgirl, Camille, climbs over the guardrail, back onto the road, and breathlessly makes her way back home -- where her mother, hearing sounds from the kitchen downstairs, watches as her dead daughter fixes herself a snack.

That's all I know about the show, which is set in a mysterious town that has drawn comparisons to Twin Peaks, to which I am an outspoken devotee.

So I don't quite know how each Mogwai track pairs with the visuals and the plot lines and the characters. All I can judge the record on is the music itself:

Beautiful. Haunting. Hopeful. Restrained.

Most of all, there is that restraint. Never does a song swell to the heights of "Death is the Road to Awe" -- the climax of The Fountain soundtrack that Mogwai recorded with Clint Mansell and Kronos Quartet.

But while that could sometimes make Mogwai's record less immediate than this year's runners-up -- the throbbing pop of Chvrches' The Bones of What You Believe, the raw indie rock power of Savages' Silence Yourself, the emotionally and racially charged vanity of Kanye West's Yeezus, the anachronistic but pure throw-your-head-back-and-dance pulse of Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, the instant familiarity of Laura Veirs' Warp and Weft, and even the quiet catchiness of Yo La Tengo’s Fade -- it didn't keep it from sticking with me as the months turned from cold to warm to hot to (prematurely) cold again.

Any or all of the runners-up could have been a fine choice for Album of the Year. But none of them truly fit. My Unwinnable readers already know what has defined my year, so I won’t go into it again (newbies click here). Perhaps it’s the fact that those records are packed with words and ideas and messages that make it impossible to pin them down as emblematic of a year so jumbled with emotion. There is no chorus or couplet that wraps up 2013 in a nice, tidy bow.

There is only the mournful sound of Mogwai.

And then there's Track 13 -- "What Are They Doing In Heaven Today?" -- the album's lone vocal cut, a well-worn tune attributed to 1920s Texan gospel singer Washington Phillips.

It may not be "Get Lucky" or "Blood on the Leaves" or "We Sink" or "She Will", but it may be the only song in a year of great songs that really had something to say to my soul:

What are they doing in heaven today,
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?
Peace abounds like a river, they say.
What are they doing there now?

I'm thinking of friends whom I used to know,
Who lived and suffered in this world below
But they've gone off to heaven, but I want to know
What are they doing there now?

Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?
Peace abounds like a river, they say.
But what are they doing there now?

There's some whose hearts were burdened with care
They paid for their moment to fighting and tears
But they clung to the cross with trembling and fear
But what are they doing there now?

Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?
Peace abounds like a river, they say.
But what are they doing there now?

And there's some whose bodies were full of disease
Physicians and doctors couldn't give them much ease
But they suffered 'til death brought a final release
But what are they doing there now?

Oh, what are they doing in heaven today,
Where sin and sorrow are all done away?
Peace abounds like a river, they say.
But what are they doing there now?

There's some who were poor and often despised
They looked up to heaven with tear-blinded eyes
While people were heedless and deaf to their cries
But what are they doing there now?

For an agnostic, I've had more reason to wonder about heaven than ever before.

In other words: Goodbye, 2013.

And here's a prayer for next year, too.

This post is running simultaneously at Unwinnable.com.

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, 1993-2013

1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash
1997: U2 -- Pop
1998: R.E.M. -- Up
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois
2006: The Decemberists -- The Crane Wife
2007: Radiohead -- In Rainbows
2008: Shearwater -- Rook
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion
2010: Laura Veirs -- July Flame
2011: PJ Harvey -- Let England Shake
2012: Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz
2013: Mogwai -- Les Revenants

Nominees: 2013 Album of the Year

I'm working today, so I'll keep it short and sweet.

Here are the nominees for the 2013 Album of the Year (in iTunes alphabetical order, as usual):

***

CHVRCHES -- THE BONES OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE

I'm starting to embrace pop more in my old age; or maybe pop has suddenly become all indie and cool again?

Doesn't matter. I did a lot of dancing on the way to work this year, and Chvrches -- one of two Scottish bands to earn a nomination in 2013 -- had a lot to do with it.

"Recover" ranks among my songs of the year; I've had it since their EP was released and it's been the soundtrack, in part, to some pretty hard times. A few of the other tracks on the album proper -- like "Tether" and "We Sink" -- had I had them sooner, might have provided a similar function. And they still may.

Synth pop about battling depression/obsession/addiction and relationship turmoil? That gets me on the dance floor.

Play it at your weddings.

***

DAFT PUNK -- RANDOM ACCESS MEMORIES

Did I mention I danced a lot this year?

"Get Lucky" was arguably the song of the summer (I called it, Amelia!) but the song that stole my heart (and got me to buy this album the day of its release) is "Doin' It Right", which features Panda Bear from two-time Album of the Year winners Animal Collective.

I think it was Amelia who quipped that I like songs that repeat the same thing over and over and over and over again -- although if it wasn't her, my work colleague Jeff has heard me singing enough made-up songs to know that it's sometimes my jam -- and I'm pretty sure she was referencing this song when she said it.

Maybe it's only robotic Kraftwerk-like voices or members of AC who can get away with it.

And me. At least until Jeff strangles me at my desk.

***

KANYE WEST -- YEEZUS

Kanye West finished second in the Album of the Year race a few years back, and he'll finish high in the rankings again this time around.

I'm gonna say the same thing I always say: Kanye West is a douchebag. But you shouldn't like his music despite that fact; you have to, at least in part, like it because of it.

"I Am a God (feat. God)" is perhaps the perfect example; Kanye is brazen enough to call himself a God, but also self-conscious and smart enough to undercut his message with the sounds of screaming and panting as he runs away from his own demons.

Is Yeezus as good as My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy? Probably not. But when a song like "Blood on the Leaves" is playing, I find it hard to believe there is a better hip-hop album out there, period.

***

LAURA VEIRS -- WARP AND WEFT

There are miles between Kanye West and Laura Veirs. But they live together harmoniously in my music collection, and for that I am thankful.

In fact, it was Veirs who beat out Kanye for Album of the Year with her previous release, July Flame, which remains one of my favorite albums of all time. I didn't expect her to top it, but apart from a track or two, this is as satisfying a follow-up as I could have hoped for.

There are songs on this album that sweep me away. "Sun Song" is a Vitamin D pill. "Ten Bridges" is the first light at the end of a wicked storm, the smell of ozone still in the air. And "White Cherry" is a world of its own, with a line I've employed as a musical mantra for months:

"Even in the lean times, I take pleasure in the wind chimes."

***

MOGWAI -- LES REVENANTS

Mogwai's soundtrack for a French TV show I've never seen has followed me around all year long.

None of the music here contains the climax that "Death is the Road to Awe" has on the soundtrack to The Fountain, but the subtle beauty of each song seems to suit the subject matter of the TV show -- a small, Twin Peaks-like town where the dead come back to life.

But these dead aren't zombies; they're regular, everyday people who never realized they'd died. It's a less morbid, less blood-splattered, less edge-of-your-seat sort of drama. Or at least it is based on Mogwai's soundtrack, which ranges between hazy despair and comforting, if not revelatory, beauty.

If the show's anywhere as good as its soundtrack, may it come to Netflix asap. In the meantime, this has been one of the most-spun soundtracks to my 2013:

A confounding mix of loss and a prayer for renewal.

***

SAVAGES -- SILENCE YOURSELF

I can't remember the last time a single guitar riff was enough to earn a record an Album of the Year nomination.

But it happened with Savages.

Pop open your Spotify (or just watch the video below) and blast "She Will" at near-maximum volume. Man, what a song.

Of course, I'm exaggerating a little. "City's Full" and "Shut Up" and "No Face" and "I Am Here" are among my other favorites in this PJ Harvey/Patti Smith-style rock debut that just crackles out of your speakers.

I've never seen them live, but I just had to copy this from Wikipedia: "The New Musical Express described their performances as 'frottage-inducingly intense affairs.'"

I can definitely believe it.

***

YO LA TENGO -- FADE

Yo La Tengo is old favorite band that I thought had dropped out of my consciousness, especially after I escaped Hoboken. (Even now, their music brings back bad memories.)

But this album is as fresh as if it was YLT's debut, and still as familiar as an old, well-worn baseball glove. "I'll Be Around" is my love song of the year, hands down. "Ohm" is Yo La Tengo's mission statement, expressed anew. "Is That Enough" and "The Point of It" are everything that's always been so lovable about this band.

Fade is as great an album as you'll ever hear from an act that's set to celebrate its 30th birthday next year.

What more could you ask for?

***

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Also in iTunes alphabetical order:

Atoms for Peace -- Amok

Bill Callahan -- Dream River

Bonnie "Prince" Billy & Dawn McCarthy -- What The Brothers Sang

Bookhouse -- Ghostwood

Caveman -- Caveman

David Bowie -- The Next Day

Karl Blau -- Shading Stump

My Bloody Valentine -- m b v

Rogue Wave -- Nightingale Floors

Shearwater -- Fellow Travelers

Various -- Son of Rogues Gallery (Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys)

RIB's 2012 Album of the Year Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz

The Album of the Year Award turns 20 today.

Twenty.

That number, 20 -- five more than my age when I started doing this -- shocked my friend Steph when I told her the other night over Ukrainian food that 19 Album of the Year Awards had already been handed out, and that the 20th was days away. She's known me for all but the first of them, so you can't fault her if the news made her feel a little bit old.

For me, though, the winner of the 20th Album of the Year Award, for all its faults, has done the opposite:

It's made me feel young.

Animal Collective's Centipede Hz -- the band's second Album of the Year winner, following its previous release, Merriweather Post Pavilion -- pumped me full of adrenaline this year. It reminded me of why I love music. It made me want to run.

And while the album missed many year-end lists -- Pitchfork left it out of its Top 50, instead including it on its Worst Album Covers list -- I liked it for the same reasons some others didn't, which are the same reasons I have come to love records for the past 20 years:

Centipede Hz is weird. It's hard to swallow. It's ugly at times. It's not as accessible or as charming as the band's last record, the one everyone agreed to love.

Centipede Hz is more than just those things, though. It's also thrilling, daring and brash -- and less repetitive than that last record.

There are personal reasons I love it, too. The day it came out, I ran through Astoria Park in the rain listening to it, a spontaneous run (I hadn't run in years) inspired by the record -- especially track two, Today's Supernatural, which against stiff competition may also be my song of the year.

That night I had a first (OK Cupid) date with a girl named Amelia Page. After four months, the things that remind me of her are now indelible.

It's an unfair advantage, surely, but there you have it.

I've spent a lot of time writing and talking about Centipede Hz, and I could say a lot more here. But, partly due to laziness and partly due to a lack of time, I will leave it with this not-so simple, and increasingly long, list:

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR, 1993-2012

1993: Counting Crows -- August and Everything After
1994: R.E.M. -- Monster
1995: The Innocence Mission -- Glow
1996: Dave Matthews Band -- Crash
1997: U2 -- Pop
1998: R.E.M. -- Up
1999: John Linnell -- State Songs
2000: Radiohead -- Kid A
2001: Bjork -- Vespertine
2002: Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
2003: Bonnie "Prince" Billy -- Master and Everyone
2004: Wilco -- A Ghost is Born
2005: Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois
2006: The Decemberists -- The Crane Wife
2007: Radiohead -- In Rainbows
2008: Shearwater -- Rook
2009: Animal Collective -- Merriweather Post Pavilion
2010: Laura Veirs -- July Flame
2011: PJ Harvey -- Let England Shake
2012: Animal Collective -- Centipede Hz

(2012's runners-up: 2. Sharon Van Etten -- Tramp; 3. Of Monsters and Men -- My Head is an Animal; 4. Shearwater -- Animal Joy; full nominees list here)