track of the week: "ambiguity song," by camper van beethoven

I've never really loved the use of "Indie" as a genre designator: I do use it, in my obsessively-maintained iTunes taxonomy, but its connection to the commercial dimension of the music world has always made it function a bit uncomfortably for me. The R.E.M. that produced Document (for independent label I.R.S.) sounds pretty much the same as the R.E.M. that produced Green (for major label Warner Brothers), so are some of those tracks "indie" and not others? What about the fact that I.R.S. itself was bought by EMI in 1994? And today's climate, teeming with subsidiary labels and imprints, makes it even harder to keep score, and if you were attempting to be rigorous in your use of the designator you'd drive apart bands who were making essentially the same style of music.

The option iTunes suggests, "Alternative & Punk," is another genre designator I've never loved, for reasons that don't require further explanation here. If I had my way, I'd go back to a label that seems to have fallen into disuse: "college rock," which I mainly remember from my own pre-college days, looking over the "Charts" page in issues of Rolling Stone, back in the late 80s.

That brings us to today's track, by quintessential college rock band Camper Van Beethoven: "Ambiguity Song." I'm feeling myself to be in a pretty ambiguous space lately, and so this song nicely captures my head-space some days. Unlike the concepts of "college rock" or "indie rock," the concept of ambiguity is one that does not quickly grow dated.

10 albums from 2007 (#1)

1. Akron / Family, Love Is Real

The latest entry in the attempt to write the great American psychedelic folk roadtrip album, and one of the most successful I've ever heard. This album is the triumphant album of experimental folk-rock that acts like Califone, Wilco, and the Flaming Lips have been almost-making for a decade now (and that Camper Van Beethoven were almost-making 20 years ago), but it also breaks from that framework periodically, expanding into ecstatic mind-expanding jams -- jams that locate the choice middle ground between the sloppy, shambalic, "No Neck Blues Band" type and the more polished, technically-efficient, "Phish" type, and consequently are more effective than either. Mystical in orientation, singular in vision: at its best, it's like a backwoods Americana version of the Boredom's Vision Creation New Sun. Essential.

Listen: Akron / Family, "Ed Is A Portal"

10 albums from 2007 (#2)

2. Fennesz / Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cendre

Ryuichi Sakamoto, perhaps best known for his film scores, has been quietly making a name for himself over the last five years or so as one of the traditional musicians best able to collaborate with laptop-types. His airy piano lines create a sense of nearly architectural spaciousness, allowing room for the textural subtlety of his collaborators to be heard: his albums with uber-minimalist Alva Noto provide forceful (and lovely) demonstrations of this. His earlier album with Fennesz, Santa Sala Cecilia, didn't work as successfully: it was an effective enough swarm of MSP noise, but there are a lot of those around, and from collaborators of this caliber, I had expected more. Cendre is precisely the album I wanted: ravishingly delicate playing from Sakamoto, kept rough-edged by the contribution of exotic, fine-grained silts and drones from Fennesz. A grand, beautiful, flawless record.

Listen: Fennesz / Ryuichi Sakamoto: "Cendre"

10 albums from 2007 (#3)

3. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver

On my top ten list from two years ago, I praised the LCD Soundsystem debut as being deeply enjoyable but mostly devoid of anything resembling significant content. Perhaps the exception on that album was "Losing My Edge," a song that got simultaneously funnier and more sobering the more you were able to recognize the aging hipster's lamentations as your own. Sound of Silver takes this intersection between irony and melancholy its central emotional ground, and it inhabits it brilliantly, crafting songs that are wry, moving, melancholy, and still (relatively) dance-floor friendly. If there's ever been a better pop album about adulthood, it's not coming to mind.

Listen: LCD Soundsystem: "All My Friends"

10 albums from 2007 (#4)

4. White Lichens, self-titled

A great pregnant thundercloud of a record. Each of the five drones collected here brood and surge and bristle, although spend enough time navigating their fields of electrical menace and you'll find nothing but mystic peacefulness at their center. A perfect soundtrack for some kind of as-yet-unrealized Tesla biopic. This disc represents a collaboration between Lichens (aka astral child Rob Lowe) and the heavy guitar duo White/Light: excellent acts in their own right, although neither has ever sounded better (and—full disclosure—I say this as one of the people who released the White/Light debut album a few years back).

Listen: White Lichens, "Belial"

10 albums from 2007 (#5)

5. Stars of The Lid, And Their Refinement of The Decline

It's true that each subsequent SoTL album grows softer and more edgeless, to the point where my associate D. Bauler can claim that they're now essentially making music for car commercials. But I'd be remiss in not including it in my list: it is two discs of grand, sad fanfare, in a year where grand, sad fanfare seemed all too appropriate. This is a music that makes failure into a kind of dignity, and that alone makes it a document of enormous value. Happy holidays.

Listen: Stars of The Lid, "That Finger On Your Temple Is The Barrel of My Raygun"

10 albums from 2007 (#6)

6. M.I.A., Kala

It may lack the revelatory force of her debut, and it doesn't exactly shine light on her famously slippery politics, but M.I.A.'s Arular follow-up contains enough head-scratching WTF moments to make it one of the year's most engagingly anarchic releases. A song about bird flu? A guest appearance by Timbaland? A guest appearance by a group of preadolescent aboriginal Australian rappers? Covers of the Pixies and the Modern Lovers? Sure, why not.

Listen: M.I.A., "Hussel"