Sounds of the Year 2001

the cannibal ox track I'm talking about is "iron galaxy".

- The sad (Daft) Punk singing "Why won't this dream come true?" on 'Digital Love'

- the art of silence: "QUIIIII-YAT!" from Missy Elliot, "You're right its true -" from the Strokes.

- Kylie's newtons-cradle keyboard pulses.

- a horde of Lambrini girls yelling "HOLD UP!" "MIND UP!" "SO SO!" behind Basement Jaxx.

more more more to come (but probably later this weekend)

Great thread idea.

i was waiting for you to start this thread since you first told me about the can ox thing...

hmmm...

the grain of the voiceover in pile's "1 of those days" on superlongevity...warm, deep, bemused, almost like he's whispering into yr ear...

the organ tones(?) which open bjork's "cocoon." likewise, the glitch sample running through "hidden place."

the detourned and fractured music box interludes on nobukazu takemura's hoshi no koe.

low-fi production genius on papa m's "krusty"...recording into a boombox while the simpsons plays in the background? the instrumental is genius, but what makes it great is that it was probably just tossed off, as the intermittent laughter overtop suggests. (fuck, i even recognized the episode. it was the one where ralph has a crush on lisa.)

i could pick 500 sounds from this heat's deceit, but i'll stick to...the smeared piano notes tape decayed and manipulated opening "sleep" (proto-glitch??)...

the opening of "lick shots" by missy elliot (which i believe tracer mentioned before)...the wicked witch of the west flying monkeys going "oooh-we-oooh" and then timbo "missadmeanorUH"

the overdriven Englishness of the vocalist on jaxx's "i want u"...it's so damn precious.

The yearning lonley half drukne decadent french sigh of rufus wainwright on moulin rouge.

tim harrington's line of "kidnapped! i dreamt i was kidnapped, by a guy with a moustache, and a chik with an eyepatch!" i laugh everytime i hear that line

I have no clue what the noise is(really messed up piano tracks?), but right before Dodo Nkishi's vocals kick in on Mouse on Mars' Actionist Respoke, whatever that sound is, it makes me bounce.

I just noticed within that last week of listening to the cd that on "Izzo(H.O.V.A.)," the fingers sliding on an acoustic guitar brings the whole beat together real nice.

that pause near the start of lightning bolt's 13 monsters riiight before they release the noise tidal wave and all hell breaks loose.

that part of lil mo's superwoman pt. II where the bell chimes join the syncopated duh-duh-duh riff

the middle segment on cann. ox's rasberry fields with the slowed-down mushmouth going "oh-no"... see what happens when you fuck with the wrong people?

The real tinny part of that one Daft Punk song.

The thirdish portion of the verses on "Blacklist" on the Prefuse disc. The first portion has the big grating bass swell, and then the second one has the reverby organ quarter notes, and then the third one: a really lovely vocal cooing that he seems to have pitch shifted into a few chord intervals. My actual favorite sound comes from the fact that one of the cooing sounds shifts pitch slightly before the other, and so there's a moment in there where they beat spookily off of one another. That's my single favorite sound of the year.

All of 'Before I Leave' on Fennesz's endless summer is loveable and makes me sigh. The 'phoenix rising' bit at the start of the last song from the Cold Vein, when a guitar is slowed down to a grind (it sounds like) is a spine-tingling moment. When the opening riff kicks in on Daft Punk's 'Aerodynamic' it feels like a really cool moment and I like being me when it happens. Same feeling at the heart of Roots Manuva's 'Sinny Sin Sins'. Oh Lawd!

The swirly synth that opens "Rock The Boat".

1. Whatever is banging out the opening chords on Mouse on Mars' "Paradical" as the film reel unwinds in the background.

2. The tiny click that takes the place of a snare drum in Jan Jelinek's "Them, Their".

3. The guitar tone on Fennesz' "Made in Hongkong".

4. The basic feedback hum that the first side of Sunroof!'s Sad Frog Wind is built around.

5. The chord swell that takes BJax' "Romeo," higher just past the halfway point (I just got this last night or I'd be more specific, sorry.)

every other moment on the prefuse album.

Some:
The last couple seconds of DMX's "Who we Be" where he goes nuts.
The minty fresh beat drop in Plaid's "Eyen".
A good deal of things off of Matmos' album.
The vocoder freak-out solo in Daft Punk's "HarderBetterFasterStronger".
The claustraphobic dirge bass of Bad Company's "Running Man".
The sound in Aaliyah's "Extra Smooth" that sounds like the jingle of a subway train arriving, but more mysterious.
The part in So Solid's "Haters" where the superlowfrequency bass shoves its way in.
The *splash* into soulful brilliance on Jay-Z's "Girls girls girls".
The hilariously absurd over the top beginning to Redman/AdamF's "Smash Something".

+-New Pornographers, "Jackie, Hey-hey-ayay!" -N*E*R*D, "We gotta STAY TOGETHER, GIRL!" -Everytime the fellow from the Strokes says he's "leavin'" -OOIOO, "OH YEAH!"

+-Matmos, "For Felix" The part where everything fucks up.

+-Mouse On Mars, "Paradical" (best song this year?)About two minutes in, where something drops out and the string part becomes the most important thing in the world.

Most of my favourites came from a combination of words with the music or samples. Here's a very incomplete list:

Jay-Z - Heart Of The City: "Ain't no love-("Take 'em to church!")-in the heart of the city." Also the strings in "Girls Girls Girls" and bass grind in "The Blueprint".

Philly's Most Wanted - Cross The Border: "But look my man, I got three drinks in me - STUCK! - and I ain't trying to talk, I'm trying to... (stomping Neptunes beat drops in).

J Lo - Play: the beatless deep-house section where J Lo says "I just wanna dance. Is that such a crime? Okay, then," and the beat comes back with a snap and then stutters once, brilliantly.

112 - Peaches & Cream (Remix) - the heart-stopping bass-surge at the beginning.

Pulp - Weeds II (Origin Of The Species): the whole thing really, but the shocking descent at the beginning from the classic rock of "Weeds" into this spaced out dub groove is thrilling.

De La Soul - Simply: the dreamy burbling synths throughout the song, and then when they cut out to just a percolating funk groove a la Dee-Lite's "Groove Is In The Heart" and one of the guys says "introduce me to your mademoiselle!"

Bubba Sparxxx - Twerk A Little: those piqued-sounded cut up vocals that help make this the groove of the year.

The ricocheting beats in Cleptomaniac's "All I Do (Bump & Flex Dancehall Dub)", Sticky's "Boo" and TNT's "Easy Lovin' You" - three of the 2-step tracks of the year.

Cannibal Ox - B-Boys' Alpha: those eerie-but-sparkly organ drones.

Basement Jaxx - All I Know: that sentimental bassline (hint: turn this up really loud and its brilliance will be revealed).

Daft Punk - Digital Love: the joyous return of the house beat after the "dream come truuuueeee" line.

Blu Cantrell - Waste My Time: dem contemptuous sounding guitar samples

There's so many more where these came from...

Just to clear up. While Digital Love has lots of great parts there is no doubt that the best is the guitar solo

lots i could mention but most notable:

wilco's radio cure. when tweedy sings "my mind is filled with radio cures" and after that you hear doo-do-doo-doo repeat twice. that's nice.

Agree vehemently w/all mentions of "Get Ur Freak On" and "Digital Love"--amazing both, top to bottom. Thought this was a great year for singles myself. Others:

guitar solo on S. Malkmus's "Church on White"--so emotive, so meaning it
the way T. Harrington spits out the last lines of "Adopduction"--as funny as the opening is, the sadness he conveys with "They never even told me their real names!" is one of the saddest things I've ever heard
a lot of the segues on DJ /Rupture's Gold Teeth Thief mix CD (which is sneaking into my top ten, I think), particularly "Get Ur Freak On" into the instrumental of Nas's "Oochie Wally" at the top, or Oval into Muslimgauze into Paul Simon/Ladysmith Black Mambazo (!) into live Miriam Makeba (!!)
the whiny little g-funk noise at the end of the chorus of "Romeo"
the female "chhh"s on Baby Ford & Zip's "Windowshopping," from the Superlongevity comp
the hilarious lounge-lizard organ on Bob Dylan's "Bye and Bye"
sound of the year goes to the Coup's "Wear Clean Draws"--Boots: "Pam can I get a little scratch right here?" Pam: "[wick, wick-a-wick-a- wick] YEAH!"

sadness he conveys with "They never even told me their real names!" is one of the saddest things...

grrrr....

Some moments:
Timba’s – “…here’s the switch now……….switch it back again” on the end of Bubba Sparxxx UGLY
Or when he puts on a dodgy accents for the roll call in All Y’all “Timba-l-a-ind we love yuw, we love the dope things that yuw duw” then the track rides on.
‘That’ loop from the Daft Punk’s Face-to-face, the sound starts somewhere behind me, does some pan-dimensional moves, and ends up coming outta my eyes.
Fennesz’s Paint-it-Black, about two thirds of the way through, when the orchestra bleeds in.
The melting voices in the background of Kurrupt’s – Ride Wid Us, was that this year?
I second the gold-teef compilation, too many moments to mention, but first heard the MC Hammer cut-ups, hitting the six-lane roundabout in Hammersmith, at speed on my bike. And lived.
The organ waking up in Avalanche’s Electricity
Too many moments.

"why don't you play the game?", sigh

the arrival of the melody (ish) in pen expers

"still fucking with crime cuz crime pays"

Those retro 30s-sounding jazz loops that keep popping up. along with those piano trills. the vocoded word "flawless", that squidgy beat that pops up when they take out the bass drum on the supermen lovers song (a cheap trick but i'm a sucker for it)

Can't remember if these are all from this year, but I certainly heard them this year. Limiting myself to one per artiste...

1. The kind of arpeggio C (or whatever, capo on fret X) in 'Philip' by Life Without Buildings. 'How come you're so pretty?'

2. The funky piano on 'Downloading Porn With Davo' by The Moldy Peaches. Why do djs always play '..Crack'? I'd much rather dance to this.

3. The contribution by the Uptown Shufflers to the beggining and end of 'I Love My Car' by Belle and Sebastian.

4. The minor chord change in the middle of the chorus of 'I Don't Do Crowds' by Camera Obscura.

5. The intro of the solo acoustic version of 'U.S. Postal Service' by The Pinefox, the decision to play it twice through instead of once giving more time for appreciation.

All the 'steam powered'(copyright Tom) clanking and groaning on the Can Ox album

The first few bars of trumpet on David Thomas and The Two Pale Boys' cover of Surf's Up

The bass on Jay-Z's U Don't Know

Tompaulin's combination of warped turntable, slide guitar and Katie's almost spoken 'ah's on Short Affairs

Hang on, what happened to my #3? Did I even have one? It's a mystery and no mistake.

Jesum Crow! Suddenly it's appeared! What's going on? Am I drunk?

5. "If the party's where you're at let me hear you say-" silence. end of track.
4. "put your hands up, throw em up" - and the whole song just stripped to the bass does a very satisfying little slide-down groan - "and we'll do it all over again..." A breakdown at the END of a song.
3. "have a good time" wailed in angst and fear and powerlessness; the sound makes "Where the Party At" the darkest party song since you know, the last really dark party song. I can't think of any.
2. "oh - oh, oh, oh oh"
1. those insistent guitar twerks that the song starts with. extremely clitoral.

"Turn up the bassline!" orders Romeo, so they do (So Solid Crew's '21 Seconds')

The TIE fighter noises on 'Absolutely Flawless'.

... you wo-ore a tie like Richard Gere ...
Why are those memorable moments from otherwise redundant tracks?

Yo, Tim - good call on De La's "Simply". I concur with what you said in your blog about it too. Is it possible however that you do not recognise where the bubbling synths come from? Or did you think it was so obvious that not mentioning it made more sense?

I'll have to think hard about Mitch's question but, like many others, Cann Ox and Daft Punk would be in my list.

Interesting that so many lists here include favorite moments instead of favorite sounds (i.e., "I like this chord change" or "when they come in on the chorus.") Many people don't fetishize sound like I do, I guess.

Of course, all the moments are made up of sounds, anyway.

Jeff: not until I checked the booklet, and even then I was totally surprised (not being aware of anything that Wings have done ever). I figured that anyone in a similar position to me would get the total wrong impression, too. Plus having read so many reviews that tend to bang on and on about the use of samples as an excuse to demonstrate the reviewer's own knowledge, I probably go out of my way to avoid doing the same.

the part on the canOx disc (track 4 i think) where megilah comes in with "and seriously spin a lyric that'll rip through a physical ligament" with the beat dropping simultaneously. love that part.

Leaving myself out of it, I suppose I'm down to

- the first zippy electric guitar phrase on 'Tweedle Dum & Tweedle Dee' (Dylan) - "so *that's* what we're in for";

- the huge electric guitar (? can't remember) chords which pile into 'High Water' (Dylan again) and make it go from dramatic to epic;

- Belle and Sebastian, 'Marx & Engels': the piano intro, the tremolo guitar announcing itself early on; the straight Am change with its very easy poignancy; the interplay between the two voices during the second half of the song.