Top 5 Albums

N.B. This one was a tricky one... couldn't help but add a list of honourable mentions to my Top 5. It may be a commonplace thing for the next few lists as well... picking 5 was tricky!

HONOURABLE MENTIONS

(in no particular order)

Birth of the Cool - Miles Davis

Classic jazz from my favourite jazz musician of all time. The perfect album for cocktails on a Saturday evening.

Eyes Open - Snow Patrol

This album got me through a time in my life when I was sorely missing someone very special who was far away.

Kid A - Radiohead

This album is only a new favourite of mine, but I love the impersonal, terrifying, yet emotional feel of it.

Le fil - Camille

This concept album is amazing. The album consists almost entirely of vocal sounds. A drone on middle B links the songs together, creating a 'string' of sound (Le fil translates literally as 'the wire').

I Am a Bird Now - Antony and the Johnsons

The ethereal voice of Antony Hegarty and his gorgeous, honest words make this compelling album a heart-wrenching plea for a release from a world which isn't big enough to contain such a beautiful and unique person.

Volta - Björk

Industrial, warm, gentle, rough, loud, soft, foreign, real, contemporary... totally unique and totally Björk. The most amazing combination of conflicting ideas that just... works. The first Björk album I ever heard, which totally sold me to her sound.

Echolalia - Something for Kate

The first Something for Kate album that I bought for myself after being given their album The Official Fiction for Christmas. It made me want more, it began my epic crush on Paul Dempsey and Clint Hyndman (and Stephanie Ashworth, I suppose she has to be included) and I feel in love with Monsters, which, in my opinion, is one of the best Australian songs ever written.

TOP 5 ALBUMS

5. Simple Things - Zero 7

This trip hop album is the perfect soundtrack for a chilled out summer afternoon. Served perfectly with cocktails, paddle pool and fresh seasonal fruit. I am by no means a summer boy at all, but this album makes the whole thing all the more endearing to me. Whenever I listen to this album I am immediately transported back to living in Forest Lodge with my wonderful friends... cleaning the kitchen, returning from a shopping trip and packing away the shopping while nibbling on blue brie and crackers, endless glasses of white wine and champagne while getting ready to walk up the street to our favourite cocktail bar. It takes me to a place where I am totally relaxed and happy. They were wonderful days, and I cannot wait to relive some of them when I move back to the south side of the Harbour Bridge at the tail end of the year.

4. Medúlla – Björk

What an experience this album is. Similar to Le fil, the album was made with only a few non-vocal sounds on a select few tracks. The vocal sounds from both Björk and a wide array of collaborators contributing beatboxing, choral arrangements and throat singing blend into a wonderful soundscape of otherworldliness. Being a singer and chorister, I have a particular fascination with this album and the many varied ways in which the voice is used on it. I love that the album makes reference to and uses vocal techniques from ancient times through to different styles of contemporary vocal performance such as jazz, classical, pop, rock, dance, electronica, musical theatre and melts them all together with influences from vocal techniques and styles from different cultures into a beautiful mess of sound.

3. Blackbird - Katie Noonan

Anyone who knows me, or anyone who read my Top 5 Songs seven.by.five post will not be at all surprised to find a Katie Noonan album on this list. I adore her, especially when she performs jazz repertoire... so what better album than Katie Noonan along with some of the most fantastical living jazz musicians (Lewis Nash, Joe Lovano, John Schofield and Sam Keevers) performing arrangements of the inspired songs of Paul McCartney and John Lennon for jazz quintet! The interpretations of these songs are original and fresh, and add so much to original songs penned by McCartney and Lennon. Truly the most amazing moments on the album are Norwegian Wood, with a stunning solo from Joe Lovano on saxophone and the phenomenal Eleanor Rigby, in itself a masterpiece but performed here as an 'up-tempo fierce jazz waltz thing' it takes on a new life. The first time I met Katie was after her concert with the Australian Chamber Orchestra as part of their Sublime concert series in March 2008 at City Recital Hall in Angel Place. The last thing I said to her as I left was, 'Please, please record some more jazz.' This was her next release... coincidence? I like to think not...

2. Beautiful Sharks - Something for Kate

My favourite album from my favourite band. I was introduced to Something for Kate through their album The Official Fiction, which I got for Christmas the year it was released and really adored the sound it brought with it. A few weeks later I stumbled across a cheap copy of their most popular album, Echolalia and I began to fall in love with them. My friend bought me a copy of their one and only DVD, A Diversion, which had video clips and footage from live recorded gigs from their Echolalia album and the album previous to it, Beautiful Sharks. When I heard a couple of songs I rushed out and bought a copy of the album and my crush turned into a deep and fulfilling romance. I was in love. The album flutters between lush and gorgeous songs like Anchorman, The Astronaut and Whatever You Want through to songs that buzz with energy like Electricity and my own personal favourite Hallways. And who could let the beautiful, heartbreaking and empowering Back to You go by? Part of the reason this album is so special to me is because I fell in love with it while I was living at home, before I came out to my parents. The heartbreaking songs, the songs full of rage... they all served a purpose in healing my troubled soul. While this was a difficult period of my life, wrought with teenage angst, it was a formative one... and a time I hold very close to my heart. It was so strange to be so close but so distant from my parents and I felt as through I was on the precipice of some massive plunge into a scary, unknown place. This album was my closest friend on some very sad and lonely nights, and when I listen to it now I am reminded of how lucky I am that that plunge ended up not being so scary, and that after a year or so I could leave that angst and worry behind me to feel comforted and safe and loved by my wonderful parents.

1. Before Time Could Change Us - Paul Grabowsky, Katie Noonan and Dorothy Porter

This album is the perfect marriage of the talents of three of my favourite artists. Paul Grabowsky, my favourite Australian composer and one of my favourite jazz pianists, Katie Noonan, my favourite of favourites of... well, life... my all, my everything, and the late Dorothy Porter, my favourite Australian poet. Before Time Could Change Us is a gorgeous song cycle that began its life as a series of 16 poems written by Porter for Grabowsky to use as song cycle 'traversing that first flash of love, the tumult of an affair and the wistful and sometimes painful memories of something that was not meant to be.' The poems were given life by Grabowsky, each in a different style of jazz (standard, ballad, freestyle, etc.) and then pushed over the edge into another world by the indescribable talent of Katie Noonan. I have wept to these songs, I have been elated because of these songs... but what I love most about these songs is that I have lived them. I can identify with the sentiment of every single song in this cycle. Not only have I lived them, but I have sung them. Singing makes me what I am, and purchasing the score of the song cycle was such a fantastic decision. Not only have I been able to understand these songs from an aural perspective, but I've been able to sing them and take them deep inside my soul. Being able to sing these songs has meant that the experience of having them has been broadened and I have been able to make them my own songs. But of course, nothing compares to listening to Katie Noonan perform them... she truly is just so beautiful. I dare each and every one of you to listen to If Snakes Could Fly and not be completely taken aback by it. It is the most exquisite song you will ever hear.