Albums of the Decade - 38. Caribou - Our Love (2014)

 38. CARIBOU - OUR LOVE (2014) 

What's not to love about Dan Snaith, who has had a glittering career, who started out making "folktronica," who dazzles in kaleidoscopic tropes. who hushes-fizzes then grooves then syncopates? Who had five stunning albums before this? Who keeps getting better and better no matter? Caribou.

As I played DJ sets in Taipei for a few years in the mid-crunch of this decade, some of the tracks from this tapestry went down an absolute treat, gems like 'Can't Do Without You," "Your Love Will Set You Free" and "Julia Brightly" flowed into four hour showcases like olive oil flowing into my roast onion and pepper soup. Sometimes with butter.

In a similar way tthat Daft Punk absolutely revoluted last decade with "Discovery" - here Caribou autumnalized a good head of six years with the delicious Our Love - an ode to one of the gooeyest, yet sweetest feelings known to man - and the tunes never sound sickly. Honestly, if you haven't, get this Spotified quickly.

Albums of the Decade - 62. Land Observations - Roman Roads IV : XI (2012)

62. LAND OBSERVATIONS - ROMAN ROADS IV: XI  (2012)

Visual artist James Brooks crafted this gorgeous piece to accompany his visual art concerning mapping and cartography. Think boundaries and surface area infused with gently ruminative guitar licks over looped pedals. It is in keeping with the theme of one of my favourite novels of the decade, The Map and the Territory by Michel Houlebecq - in which an artist is doing amazingly successfully in depicting Michelin maps, is dating a Russian model - but the boiler in his house is broken and keeps fucking up - the text a paean to try and find some structure in ones own existential crisis.

Luckily with Roman Roads, no shit hits any fan, as the burnished film on these licks oscillate and oscillate. The album actually leaves the artists house on opeenr "Before the Kingsland Road" and takes some existent routes and others philosophical. I'll pander now:

When does one go? 
Where does I depart 
How come I didn't hang the clothes out to dry and instead you put them on the clothes horse? 
When will you send that fax?
Map me out my future would you?
Thanks.

Albums Of The Decade - 92. Bibio - A Mineral Love

92. BIBIO - A MINERAL LOVE 

Underrated sepia beige. Could there be a worse line than that to sell this album? It's folk with rose-tinted lenses, it's a dove cooing, it's spring spilling into summer. The production is as angelic as a delight, as a dessert. Normally. I'd abhor something so mucically fluffy - but Bibio has the depth to line this output with substance.

I first ran into Bibio at the top of the decade; glued to 2009's Ambivalence Avenue,making a big move to Taiwan in 2010. As I played tracks like Lovers' Carvings to my new roommates, it stopped them in their tracks. That timelessness of summer was captured in a few chords of gold, as Stephen Wilinson gave the bucolic sounds that chastened the city sprawl that we were feeling.

Advance it to 2016 and as I was leaving Asia, the technicolor hues were seeping through the audio, as four albums in-between had shown that Bibio, as a package, had finally put the feather in his cap. And. while it's rarely just a record that stands alone to represent an artist during the last ten years, at least with this effort, it typifies idealism in a laudative sense.

albums of 2012. - 27. Minotaur Shock - Orchard

27. MINOTAUR SHOCK - ORCHARD

Is this the best year ever for appropriately titled albums? Could well be. The organic nature to the folktronica is there for all to see and this stellar fifth effort from Bristol-based David Edwards is so autumnal that you could be making apple sauce in the kitchen and have the perfect accompaniment here.

Where Edwards was previsouly described as IDM, he's managed to shake off those shackles and the seeds have been sown. Excuse my cheesy cliches here but nature is cyclic and so is cliche. Justification enough? NO? Well if you're angry at my attitude, then listen to this instead and it'll put in the right frame of mind. With 10 tracks, and most over 5 minutes, you have something, in-depth, bullshit-free and as fresh as the wind blows. Gag me. No more cliche.

BEST PLAYED: When making apple sauce in the kitchen.