360 records from the year 2000: 105 - 101

105. Will Kimbrough: This

In case you haven’t gleamed it from the cover picture, the first song tells you everything you need to know about the album: it’s pure powerpop, made by a guy in his first phase of aging, holding on to the certainties ‘classic’ guitar pop can offer. The Byrds jangle, the Beatle harmony, the Tom Petty whine… He’s pretty good at it, sure, but you know this stuff. BUT…after the first track (with which there is nothing wrong) he delivers three back to back songs of such classic rightness – you know, those songs that sound like they’ve always existed but they really didn’t. Take for example ‘Chimayo’, a verse melody that reminds me of Prince’s ‘Paisley Park’ in a good way gives way to a gorgeous strings and horns section and then it repeats itself – it doesn’t need to do more, it’s just right. My mind is filled with all the heartbreak and inner strength in the world. Who cares that after those three tracks it lands back on hard soil and continues in good-but-not-stellar style? He almost lifts off again in the beautiful closing track ‘Goodnight moon’.

At its best: Chimayo, Need you now, Dream away, Goodnight moon

104. Marc Teamaker: Ping

A throwback to a pop/singer-songwriter sound that’s very early ‘90s to my ears: oversaturated with melody, polished and polite. Marc Teamaker is utterly infatuated with the popsounds of yesteryear, almost too respectful if he wasn’t so melodically gifted. As an artist he’s a bit of a cypher. Then again, he could be you or me, or any music message board poster making his own album. I’m usually not a fan of the genre (Jellyfish, Eric Matthews, that sort of thing), but I like this guy’s melodies a lot. Yeah, it’s not going to change the world, or even the music world. But it’s a lot of craft, a lot of love of music, a little bit wet. It sounds like a random person’s obsessive project. It probably was.

At its best: All good things, Can’t say why, No big surprise, King quiet, Wear & tear, Low tide

103. Neko Case & her boyfriends: Furnace room lullaby

That this record is almost emblematic for the indiecountry trend in the early 2000s shouldn’t distract from its excellence. Just lend your ear to ‘Porchlight’, an absolutely fantastic song on this set: the pining pedal steel on the intro, the heart melting pure country harmonies, that falsetto, the meaning of the words she sings ‘I long to be forgiven’ is fully captured in the music before drifting back into the fantasy of the chrousline ’So far away’, the duet between baritone guitar and pedal steel. I’ve been listening to this song on repeat, and if you dig it too, you will love this album.

At its best: Set out running, Porchlight, No need to cry, Thrice all American, We’ve never met

102. McCoy Tyner: Jazz roots

In 2011 I finally got the chance to see McCoy Tyner in concert and it was a wonderful experience. He played with a quartet but also a couple of solo numbers, in which he stretched out slowly and beautifully, as if he was considering every note for its beauty before he pressed the keys. So it was with some expectation that I listened to this album, a solo piano work dedicated to the great piano players in jazz history. And I didn’t get it. What was McCoy Tyner seeking in these early bebop, almost swing arrangements of old chestnuts? But gradually I found it, and this album keeps climbing higher in my estimation. It may start off on old fashioned, gloriously carefree form (which I now love), but it’s a voyage through the history of jazz, moving swiftly through the early stages but reaching high altitude on the central section, ‘You taught my heart to sing’, ‘Happy days’ and ‘Rio’, three self-written compositions that are classic Tyner, every bit the equal of the stuff I saw him do in concert – the first title is, I guess, Tyner’s own theme song, the second dedicated to Keith Jarrett, the third to Chick Corea. And finally, four more standards, some of the most classic songs in jazz, ‘Summertime’, ‘St Louis blues’, ‘Ain’t misbehavin’’ and ‘Misty’, but these aren’t done old fashioned, but rather completely re-imagined as classic McCoy Tyner material, full of the history of jazz and yet filled with the possibilities of tomorrow. It may not be one of the most fashionable records of the year, but that doesn’t diminish its grace, vision and beauty.

At its best: A night in Tunisia, Don’t get around much anymore, You taught my heart to sing, Happy days, Rio, Summertime

101. Sea & cake: Oui

One for us highbrow Chicago post-rock diggers. We like to listen to this overly polite melding of supple ‘ripple on a pond’ style drums, jazz chords, nearly inaudible electronic humming with song titles which bear no relation to the tracks which all sound the same anyway. And oh, do I detect a bit of African highlife in the guitar there?
I love this record.

At its best: Afternoon speaker, You beautiful bastard, The leaf, Midtown, Seemingly