Dave Heaton: September 30, 2007

1. 
   
   Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian)

   Album of the year? Probably. How can music this sad sound this lush and romantic?

2. Sleeping States – There the Open Space (Misra)

   Another of my favorites so far this year – mixes experimental guitar, indie-pop and jazz-crooner vocals, in beautiful ways.

3. PJ Harvey – White Chalk (Island)

   Maybe not her best album (I still say that’s Rid of Me), but definitely one of the most distinctive – the piano and near-falsetto-vocals give it an otherworldly quality that’s unique in her discography.

4. Kanye West – Graduation (Roc-a-Fella)

   Not as elegantly full as Late Registration, but still a solid album, with a variety of music sampled (Daft Punk, Can, Steely Dan, Mountain) and made into sleek hip-hop. An album-length joke about Kanye’s “ego”, but also pushing his music forward.

5. Aesop Rock – None Shall Pass (Definitive Jux)

   His best album because he’s learned that streamlining things can make his unique style seem even more unique, and less smothering.

6. The Lucksmiths – Spring a Leak (Matinee)

   Fabulous, jam-packed two-disc set of singles and rarities and radio performances and whatnots.

7. Architecture in Helsinki – Places Like This (Polyvinyl)

   I can’t get my head around the vocals, why they’ve turned their voices into cartoon characters, but this album’s still tons of fun.

8. The Burnside Project – “I Do Believe You Are Blushing”

   I haven’t heard the whole album (their latest, from earlier in the year I believe), but you have love a band that, in 2007, is covering Unrest still. Don’t forget ‘em!

9. The Rascals – “Groovin”

   Working on an article somewhere else about Collectors Choice’s seven Rascals reissues…so I’ve been listening to, and thinking about, this brilliant song a lot lately.

10. Miles Davis – “It Never Entered My Mind”

    I heard an NPR segment interviewing somebody about his favorite Miles Davis song. It was “Someday My Prince Will Come” – this one is mine.