Music Blog

This year saw a rather incredible number of our local musicians receive boatloads of praise in the national press and on blogs around the world. And rightly so, as incredible album after incredible album kept arriving in my mailbox from Portland bands and record labels these past 52 weeks.

It has put me in the enviable position of having to make a selection of the cream of this crop. The list has been changing almost daily over the last month as a certain song or show will remind me just how great a particular album is. But I have forced myself to choose five albums released in 2008 that I think are worthy of the world's time and attention. More importantly, I think they are worthy of your time and attention.

1. Horse Feathers - House With No Home (Kill Rock Stars): No album broke my heart faster than this quiet masterpiece. What cuts me so deep is front man Justin Ringle's voice. His singing is all buttery midrange with clipped ends and an oddly rounded pronunciation. And it is just what these songs require, adding the perfect note of nostalgia to an already wistful deep folk sound.

2. Blind Pilot - 3 Rounds and a Sound (Expunged): This humble act is one commercial endorsement or late night TV appearance away from ubiquity. Israel Nebeker and Ryan Dombrowski managed to find new inspiration in between the gatefold sleeves of '70s folk/rock and the jewel cases of the late '90s indie world. 3 Rounds is another dusty sounding gem in a year full of them.

3. Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements (Tomlab): The Girls' version of a lush Orange County/Van Dyke Parks pop song cycle ends up just as pixilated and disorienting as their earlier electronically minded works, but is somehow sweeter and more irresistible than ever before.

4. Dykeritz - Rearrangerologystics (Lucky Madison): Absolutely nothing on this album is predictable. Just when you think you have a vocal melody or aching synth line figured out, a newer, shinier version takes its place. It's the aural equivalent of the iTunes visualizer.

5. Pink Widower - The Enchanted Realm of the Pink Widower (North Pole): You're not likely to find a more loose-limbed and seductive album released by a band of six white kids this year. The sly, horn-drenched tunes caramelize jam band wonkiness into a perfectly sticky-sweet reduction.

Honorable mention: The Portland Cello Project - S/T, Talkdemonic - Eyes At Half Mast, Wow & Flutter - Golden Touch, Ghostwriter - Wreck The City, New Bloods - The Secret Life, A Weather - Cove, Whiskey Puppy - Unleashed, Bark Hide & Horn - National Road, Boy Eats Drum Machine - Booomboxxx, Eternal Tapestry - Mystic Induction, Paint And Copter - Damnatio Memoriae, Musee Mecanique - Hold This Ghost, Carcrashlander - S/T

Bob Ham is a freelance writer here in Portland. His work can be read most often in Willamette Week, The Oregonian and Relevant Magazine. He can be reached via e-mail at miller.ham (at) gmail.com or through his blog The Voice of Energy.