Dexterity's Albums Of The Decade

The only time I'm any good at making lists (or updating this blog) is year-end, when I get to reflect on the past 365 days in music. Because it's also the end of the decade it's also given me a great excuse to occupy time reflecting on ten year's worth of music.

So here's a list of what I thought were the greatest, the most significant or plainly the most leave-on-repeat records of the past decade. I haven't included DJ mixes (bar the one Charles Webster, which is the best summation of this super producer's output under various aliases), or reissues of any music released pre-1990 (bar the Koos, which was unavailable on CD or vinyl for way too long - and because the noises this SA band banged out still sound vital - plus a few other noughties-released 'best of' collections of vital artists like Carl Craig and Aaliyah).

As always I reserve the right to make additions and corrections at any time... Enjoy.

1. Bjork - Vespertine
2. Felix Laband - Dark Days Exit
3. Isolee - We Are Monster
4. PJ Harvey - Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea
5. Matthew Herbert - Bodily Functions
6. Burial - Burial
7. Phoenix - Alphabetical
8. MIA - Arular
9. Metro Area - Metro Area
10. Common - Like Water For Chocolate
11. LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
12. Kate Bush - Aerial
13. Hot Chip - Coming On Strong
14. Junior Boys - Last Exit
15. Radiohead - Amnesiac
16. Hercules & Love Affair - Hercules & Love Affair
17. Yeah Yeah Yeah's - Fever To Tell
18. The xx - The xx
19. Grace Jones - Hurricane
20. The Roots - Phrenology


A few others well worth listening to:

69 - The Legendary Adventures Of A Filter King
Aaliyah - I Care 4 U
Akufen - My Way
Aphex Twin - 26 Mixes For Cash
Apparat - Walls
Arcade Fire - Funeral
The Avalanches - Since I Left You
Erykah Badu - Worldwide Underground
Erykah Badu - New Ameryykah: Part One (4th World War)
Basement Jaxx - Rooty
Benga - Diary Of An Afro-Warrior
Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
Boards Of Canada - Geogaddi
The Books - Thought For Food
The Books - The Lemon Of Pink
Brooks - You, Me & Us
The Bug - London Zoo
Bullion - Pet Sounds: In The Key Of Dee
Burial - Untrue
Cobblestone Jazz - 23 Seconds
Common - Electric Circus
Chromatics - Night Drive
Circlesquare - Songs About Dancing And Drugs
Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald - ReComposed
Dangermouse - The Grey Album
Matthew Dear - Asa Breed
DJ/rupture - Special Gunpowder
DJ Harvey - Black Cock Edits
DJ Koze - Reincarnations: The Remix Chapter 2001 - 2009
Dusk & Blackdown - Margins Music
Missy Elliott - Miss E: So Addictive
Fennesz - Endless Summer
The Field - From Here We Go Sublime
Fink - Biscuits For Breakfast
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Forss - Soulhack
Four Tet - Rounds
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dympha
Jose Gonzalez - Veneer
Gorillaz - Gorillaz
Guillaume & The Coutu Dumonts - Face L'Est
PJ Harvey - Uh Huh Her
Richie Hawtin - DE9
Hot Chip - The Warning
Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
Hudson Mohawke - Polyfolk Dance
Hudson Mohawke - Butter
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Isolee - Rest
Jay-Z - The Blueprint
Jay Dee - J Dilla Remixes
Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
Junior Boys - Begone Dull Care
Jamie Lidell - Multiply
Jamie Lidell - Jim
Kerrier District - Kerrier District
Kid Koala - Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
The Knife - Silent Shout
Kode9 & The Spaceape - Memories Of The Future
Koos - The Black Tape
Felix Laband - Thin Shoes In June
Felix Laband - 4/4 Down The Stairs
Neil Landstrumm - Lord For £39
LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver
Losoul - Belong
Luciano - Tribute To The Sun
Lukid - Foma
Luomo - Vocalcity
Luomo - Convivial
Massive Attack - 100th Window
Masters At Work - Strictly MAW
The Matthew Herbert Big Band - Goodbye Swingtime
MIA - Kala
MIA vs Diplo - Piracy Funds Terrorism
Milanese - Lockout
Mocky - Saskamodie
Moderat - Moderat
Morgan Geist - Double Night Time
Mos Def - The Ecstatic
Mr. Scruff - Keep It Unreal
Murcof - Martes
My My - Songs For The Gentle
NERD - In Search Of...
Omar-S - FXHE Collected
Outkast - Stankonia
Erlend Oye - DJ Kicks
Panda Bear - Person Pitch
Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Kelley Polar - I Need You To Hold On While The Sky Is Falling
Pole - 3
Portishead - Third
Prefuse 73 - Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives
Q-Tip - The Renaissance
Radiohead - Kid A
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Radiohead - Hail To The Thief
The Rapture - Echoes
The Real Estate Agents - Marcus Wormstorm & Sibot Are...
The Roots - The Tipping Point
Roots Manuva - Run Come Save Me
Royksopp - Melody AM
Sade - Lovers Rock
Henrik Schwarz - Live
Shed - Shedding The Past
Dani Siciliano - Likes...
The Soft Pink Truth - Do You Party?
Spank Rock - YoYoYoYoYo
Super_Collider - Head On
Swayzak - Dirty Dancing
David Sylvian - Blemish
John Tejada - Logic Memory Centre
Jimi Tenor - Out Of Nowhere
Terranova - Hitchhiking Nonstop With No Particular Destination
Justin Timberlake - Justified
Trentemoller - The Last Resort
Tricky - Knowle West Boy
Trus'Me - Working Nights
TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Villalobos - Alcachofa
Wagon Christ - Musipal
Charles Webster - Born On The 24th Of July
Charles Webster - Defected presents...
Kanye West - The College Dropout
Paul Weller - 22 Dreams
Saul Williams - Saul Williams
Yeah Yeah Yeah's - It's Blitz!
Zomby - Where Were You In '92?

DJ Dexterity’s Favourite Albums of 2008

It's been interesting how much consensus there’s been on year-end best music lists. A handful of albums have been cropping up consistently across the blogosphere and on sites like Pitchfork: Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Cut Copy, Kings of Leon and the album in my top spot seemingly rubbed many people the right way in 2008. But barring Hercules And Love Affair's self-titled debut - a remarkable transposition of disco tropes into modern shapes that transformed Antony Hegarty into a torch singer every bit as worthy as Marc Almond or Chaka Khan - I thought these touted albums were effective (and affective) rather than radical.

In 2008, I located listening joy in the retro-future flights of fancy taken by Erykah Badu, Raphael Saadiq and Jamie Lidell; in the body-punching drums and sparkling rhymes of Q-Tip (as well as the wheezier and sleazier but highly questionable slant supplied by Lil Wayne); in brilliance from Bristol: the highly-anticipated returns - and returns to dirty, dazzling heights - of Portishead and Tricky; in acts like Foals, Vampire Weekend and Esau Mwamwaya, who turned their attention to Africa and found fresh avenues for alternative music here; in subsonic explorers like Benga, Zomby and Flying Lotus, who ensured that 'bass' music (which has been somewhat annoyingly broken up into a multitude of mini-genres, like dubstep, grime, wonky and aquacrunk) still does damage to dancers’ internal organs; in the strange and unlikely 'pop' music that Gang Gang Dance and Nôze stumbled across; in the audacious bootlegging of Pocketknife and Cousin Cole, who managed to make main floor fodder out of rock and folk oldies like Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen…


It wasn't a great year for electronic/dance albums (it rarely is), but promising emissions - 'wonky' ways forward, if you'll forgive the totally unnecessary use of this year's most shockingly-named genre - emerged from the aforementioned sub-bass operators, and I suspect that the likes of Joker, Headhunter, Rustie, TRG etc. will pull off similar feats in 2009.

There are some also-rans (or nearly theres) that deserve a mention: '808s & Heartbreak', a solid, slightly different issue from Kanye West that might have made the list had T-Pain not already smashed the Autotune to within an inch of its life; the psychedelic kiss that was MGMT's 'Oracular Spectacular', which was officially released in 2007; the so so clever and super-cheeky, but often cheesily cloying, Girl Talk album; Beck's 'Modern Guilt', which was just too flimsy and flyweight in places; and the head-spinning 'Dear Painter, Paint Me' from M_Nus man Heartthrob, which was a little too specialised (but had some of the most exciting moments of any album from last year). Add to these decent but not-too-daring records from Jay Haze, Bauhaus, Bloc Party and Osborne. And as always, because of the daunting mass of music released, I didn't/couldn't get around to listening to records from The Roots, Roots Manuva, Matthew Herbert, Neil Landstrumm, Morgan Geist, Mr. Scruff and Shed.

Here though are 25 albums that I did get around to listening to (most more than once!) and that I thought most effectively grasped the sonic possibilities available in 2008; albums that had my pleasure centres and synapses (and often limbs too) operating overtime…


25. Lil' Wayne - Tha Carter III
24. Esau Mwamawaya & Radioclit – The Very Best
23. The Bug - London Zoo
22. Nôze - Songs On The Rocks
21. Hot Chip - Made In The Dark
20. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
19. AmpLive - Rainydayz
18. Radiohead - The Best Of
17. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
16. Loco Dice - 7 Dunham Place
15. Theo Parrish – Sound Sculptures
14. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
13. Zomby – Where Were U In '92?
12. Foals - Antidotes
11. Raphael Saadiq - The Way I See It
10. Gang Gang Dance - Saint Dymphna
9. Q-Tip - The Renaissance
8. Benga – Diary Of An Afro-Warrior
7. Pocketknife & Cousin Cole - Tambourine Dream
6. Prosumer & Murat Tepeli – Serenity
5. Tricky - Knowle West Boy
4. Jamie Lidell - Jim
3. Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War
2. Portishead – Third
1. Hercules & Love Affair – Hercules & Love Affair

Hercules & Love Affair - Blind (Frankie Knuckles Dub)
(not on the album - buy it!)