The Fifth

OK, this is hard. Really, any number of albums deserve to be here--Amps for Christ's The People at Large, Fennesz's Venice (thanks in large part to a guest vocal from the one and only David Sylvian), Six Organs of Admittance's For Octavio Paz, Sunn O)))'s White 2 (also thanks to a guest vocal from Mayhem's Attila Csihar), Joanna Newsom's The Milk-Eyed Mender, Zucanican's Jarr CD-R, The Sky Green Leopards' One Thousand Bird Ceremony, which was originally set to be the fifth in this list, and what about that awesome new FALL record? And I haven't even heard Glenn Jones's new one. Holy Smokes!--so yeah, there's just no shortage of great, mind-bending musical outage to soak up with the brain sponge right now.

But...

I'm gonna have to reach back to the beginning of the year and give it to Ghost. The Japanese prog/folk lords have never sounded better than they do on Hypnotic Underworld (Drag City), never infused their ornate, dynamic folk rock with such accessibility and humanism. Sure the opening four part jazz/psych title track seems like an alienating way to start, but listen closer, listen deeper. No other sequence would've really made sense. So, that is all for now. In six months, I reserve the right to completely change my mind. If you want to know what this record actually sounds like, see my review at Free City. One love from below.