THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2009

By the time you read this, the last best-of lists of 2008 should be done and gone, which makes it time for this semi-psychic look forward at 2009. Although fantasy and helpful suggestion have their place – like fantastically suggesting new recorded work next year by the Entrance Band, Warpaint, Nosaj Thing, Gaslamp Killer, Residual Echoes, Gonjasufi, Mika Miko, Happy Hollows, Fol Chen and Fool’s Gold, some of which are almost certainly coming – these below are for the most part done deals. Some are recent signees that haven’t done a song wrong yet and some are albums completely finished except for delivery to the record store. And some just need someone to release them so they can claim a place on the last lists of 2009. But until then – you heard it here first.

CHRIS DARROW, CHRIS DARROW/UNDER MY DISGUISE (Everloving, March)
Darrow founded the offbeat L.A. band Kaleidoscope with guitarist David Lindley in the late ’60s; he went on to become something of a rock Zelig, turning up with everyone from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Leonard Cohen to Kim Fowley. In 1973-74 he authored these two somewhat zany solo albums. The sound is generally blues/country roots, but curveballs whiz by with regularity – a fiddle tune with a turned-around reggae beat, Celtic and Middle Eastern instrumentation, and covers like Hoagy Carmichael’s “Hong Kong Blues.” Local indie Everloving is doing up this package of wild ’n’ woolly stuff royally: the two-CD/two-LP set will arrive with a jumbo 12-by-12 booklet. (Chris Morris)

CRYSTAL ANTLERS, CURRENTLY UNTITLED (Touch and Go, April)
They were born beneath a Blue Cheer comparison but Long Beach’s Crystal Antlers pull apart whole decades for parts now, colliding garage tough-guys like the Misunderstood and the Music Machine with red-eyed Krautrock noiseniks and the overamplified motor-soul of Osmium-era Parliament. If it howls, they’ll throw it a bone; if it screams, they’ll chase it back into the dark; if it beats a hole through the floor, let’s consider the job well done. And if they pull in some gospel back-up singers, it could be album of the year. (Chris Ziegler)

DAVID SERBY, HONKY TONK AND VINE (Harbor Grove, late April/early May)
South Pasadena-based singer-songwriter Serby’s albums I Just Don’t Go Home and Another Sleepless Night established him as a formidable tunesmith who knows the honky-tonk template by heart. Honky Tonk and Vine finds Serby and his terrific band the Sidewinders (led by his producer and guitarist Ed Tree) in superb form. Beyond primo country like “Get It in Gear,” “Permanent Position,” and “I Only Smoke When I’m Drinkin’,” he stretches comfortably into Southern soul (“Honky Tonk Affair”) and Tex-Mex (“For Cryin’ Out Loud”). Qualitatively, Serby continues to nip at the heels of his principal role model Dave Alvin, crafting songs that are by turns good-humored and touching, played with fire and sung with conviction. (CM)

DIOS (MALOS), WE ARE DIOS
(No label or release date set)

After three quiet years, dios (malos) surface with we are dios, which plays like the Beatles’ “White Album” with extra help from Skip Spence (“Oh Don Fil Baad”) or like SMiLE session boots (the pocket symphony “Teem Tu”) transmitted over a secret shortwave numbers station. It’s dusty, distant, lonely, hopeful, sad, sarcastic, unexpectedly sophisticated and produced to idiosyncratic perfection from their practice space somewhere in the South Bay. Release this and then book the tour with Black Mountain and Kurt Vile; if it doesn’t go classic now, it’ll be a lost classic later. (CZ)

ELENI MANDELL, ARTIFICIAL FIRE (Zedtone, February)
Singer-songwriter Eleni Mandell goes full-band electric for this fearlessly diverse record – pop Eleni on “Right Side,” desolate Eleni on “Two Faces,” slinky Eleni on “God is Love,” which almost sounds ready for Betty Davis and even Buzzcocks basher Eleni on “Cracked,” which blows out the back of the album with fireworks probably nobody expected. “It Wasn’t the Time (It Was the Color)” starts as a heartbreaker – an Eleni octave this way or that slides the sun up or down – and tears open at the end as the guitar roars and the lightbulbs all burst. Proof here that possibilities are endless. (CZ)

GLASSER, CURRENTLY UNTITLED SINGLE AND EP (Various labels and release dates)
Glasser mastermind Cameron Mesirow sings with almost-ritual solemnity (like White Magic’s Mira Billotte) over drums and keys that breathe like some asleep and dreaming animal. Linda Perhacs loved to echo-repeat her voice the same way but Glasser points a mirror into a mirror and makes it into a song. (All of which she recorded herself on Garageband!) A single on U.K. prestige-label XL should put flowers on her doorstep; a domestic EP on a pending indie should get Brian Eno sending postcards to the same address. (CZ)

GRAM RABBIT, CURRENTLY UNTITLED (No label or release date set)
Furball synth and digital drums conceived in Joshua Tree’s psychedelic landscape and delivered by a group that hands out bunny headbands at shows. Gram Rabbit teams up with producer Ethan Allen to deliver what a cosmic cowboy wrapped in the Banshees would sound like. Their three previous albums contained a smattering of song styles, and it’s likely they’ll continue exploring the frontiers track by track – so expect breakbeats where the sun don’t shine. In an effort to fund the album themselves, they’ve set up a donor plan on their website. Give some dough and they’ll give you presents. Truly, Gram Rabbit knows what it takes to build a cult. (Daiana Feuer)

HECUBA, YOURS
(No label or release date set)

Singer Isabelle Albuquerque (whose grandmother was a Tunisian bandleader) made the Yoko Ono reference herself on this year’s excellent Sir EP; now she recalls unstoppables like Patti Smith and Annette Peacock over crystalline production by partner Jon Beasley. Lee Perry would appreciate the ethic (samping sirens for the hypnotic “Miles Away,” the love-supreme bells that intro “Magic,” the thundering cat’s purr that holds together “Tom and Jerry”) and Arthur Russell would appreciate the aesthetic. An album of mutant electro-disco songs that bloom like ink into water. (CZ)

JAIL WEDDINGS, CURRENTLY UNTITLED EP (Tru-Vow, spring)
Ten-deep alley-soul revue fronted by Gabe Hart (Starvations and Fortune’s Flesh) and distaff obliterators Katya Hubiak (the incandescent blonde) and Tornado Jane (the smoldering brunette) and braced out by a Wrecking Crew (including brass!) hauled up from beneath the Hollywood Hills. Be ready for songs that scan like vintage Sam Fuller (“You Will Surrender,” “How Am I Alive?” and “(Do You Think We’re Gonna End Up On) Skid Row?”) and stretch like tinsel between darkside crooners like Del Shannon and Dion and melodrama-drippers like the Shangri-La’s. The world’s a mess; it’s on this EP. (CZ)

LACO$TE, CURRENTLY UNTITLED (Manimal, summer)
Just in time for summer 2009, Manimal Vinyl will release Laco$te’s as-yet-untitled debut album. If only they could package lead singer X and deliver her from the Smell to your living room. She’d come cartwheeling out of a cardboard box and crawl all over the furniture while rapping over grungy electronic beats with syllabic reinforcement from her two partners in crime. The band describes itself as French rap from Los Angeles – perhaps by French they just mean accented oddly? (DF)

MIKE STINSON, THE JUKEBOX IN YOUR HEART (no label or release date set)
Mike Stinson, the uncrowned king of L.A. honky tonk, has released two homegrown albums packed with memorable songs like “The Late Great Golden State,” covered by Dwight Yoakam and Billy Bob Thornton. Stinson takes another crack at that latter-day Cali country classic on his new album, produced by Austin singer-guitarist Jesse Dayton and cut at Willie Nelson’s Pedernales Studio. It shows off his magnificent writing, from saloon shakers like “No One to Drink With” and “I Will Live to Drink Again” to heart-tuggers like “Square With the World” and “Angel of the Evening.” What’re different here are the ace production values and Stinson’s full-bodied singing, which has never sounded finer on record. (CM)

RAINBOW ARABIA, CURRENTLY UNTITLED (Manimal, spring)
Single “Let Them Dance” off Rainbow Arabia’s 2008 EP The Basta garnered the band some national praise and endless comparisons to M.I.A. While husband-and-wife duo Tiffany and Danny Preston are hardly a booty-shaking political diva from another continent, their music does meld Middle Eastern rhythms with dance-track energy. Expect catchy hooks encrypted with exotic backing – a snake-charmer’s pungi, a Fisher Price keyboard – on sandy bangers from their upcoming full-length album. (DF)

RAS G, GHETTO SCI FI (Poobah, January)
Space remains the place for another of L.A.’s free-thinking new beatmakers – Low End Theory/Brainfeeder fellow traveler Ras G puts together spare but sinuous instrumentals crackling with the same righteous sentiment as Sun Ra, Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders. “Afrikan Space Rhythms” makes möbius out of what sounds like Jackie Mittoo; “Sign Me Up” is filthy drums and a melody that’s still got roots dangling; “One for GLK and Elvin” snips a second of the Millennium’s saddest song and finale “El Saturn-Day” attempts to pixelate the birth pains of a tiny black hole. Someone could come put words on top of this but there’s plenty to talk about already. (CZ)

THE SOFT PACK, CURRENTLY UNTITLED (no label or release date set)
Formerly (and more formidably) called the Muslims, this L.A. four-piece last year issued a promising self-titled LP (with each album cover specially shot to pieces by an actual cop!) and the winning single “Extinction,” a stripped-to-the-ligaments rock ’n’ roll 45 that sounded like later/louder Feelies or earlier/burlier Modern Lovers. But their most recent single “Parasites” puts them on this list – a vicious Fall ripper produced to maximum ferocity by Darker My Love’s Rob Barbato. Nine more like that for a new label and 50,000 Soft Pack fans won’t be wrong. (CZ)

THAVIUS BECK, DIALOGUE (Mush, no release date set)
Producer (as heard on Saul Williams’ NiggyTardust!) and rapper (as heard on the punishing Lab Waste 45 earlier this year) Thavius Beck’s in ultra-concentrated form for a solo album with an iron core. The “GO!”/“Money”/“Violence” suite in the center finds him focused and ferocious – overdriven digital production (Memphis made more dense and intense) and lyric slashes at the soft point where society and media rub most closely together. Gunshot samples and shuddering 1989 kick drums make this the 2009 that digital was expecting. (CZ)

WOOLFY, IF YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YA!! (DFA/Rong, spring/summer)
When U.K.-to-L.A. transplant Woolfy releases this remixed and remastered full-length this year, he’ll become the first local to get an album out on New York’s powerhouse DFA, thanks to a disco-distribution treaty with his current home label Rong Music. If You Know What’s Good For Ya!! is pure atmosphere – dissipated vocals and melody on tip-toe (“Odyssey”) or guitar and neon hum (“Sonic Monday”) that sounds like the sweeter side of Spectrum. When Can said they wanted more, maybe this is what they meant. (CZ)