1998 at 20

The year began with the kind of job I was holding down all decade became a career. I strode into the open plan floor which was bright with the spectacle of the Old Court Building through the windows. The job itself was good and only got better. I was still working a walk away from my job. I flirted with vegetarianism successfully enough for it to eventually take the lion's share of my diet. The previous year's smoking quit continued until it was effortless (not a single cigarette since October 1997) Homelife was troubled by two flatmates I like so little I contemplated moving out and leaving it to them but then one of them left and we got a good one. I started my second anthology comic which was about anger and so given to its theme in practice it became a largely incomprehensible mess. The year ended with the funnest fling I'd had in many a year. And the music was good.


MEZZANINE - MASSIVE ATTACK:

The strongest set by the outfit that partially invented the sole source of pop music innovation of its time, trip hop. There are standout tracks like Teardrop and Rising Son but the idea is to put the album on, press play (for authenticity's sake it should be a CD in a digipak), lie back in the dark and absorb. From ethereal whispers to machinery to Jimmy Page style metal guitar and gigantic bass this is a trek through the heaven and hell of the ekkied-up late '90s. The Apotheosis of its year and probably its decade. Still a favourite. Still played.







BLUE WONDER POWER MILK-HOOVERPHONIC:

My favourite find of the year before followed up the frequently compelling debut with something that moved away from the Bristol triphop they'd begun with and across the channel to the continent to work on their own stream of Europop. They were between lead female vocalists and when none were available the two composers provided pitched gutteral whispers. But as the tracks progress the full throated joy of Geike Aarnet's silken voice surfaces and spreads across the gorgeous strings and beats. It wove together much better than the previous one and augured well for the future. Though it was later I can never forget the joy of strolling around Lake Burley Griffin on a lunch break at a conference listening to a loop of Eden with its plaintive French horn figure, yearning guitars and brokenhearted vocal. Spring sunlight had never felt so cooling.

BIG CALM - MORCHEEBA:

Possibly the last album I bought from hearing it in a record shop. The gorgeous opening track, The Sea would have been good enough to get the album for alone but every single track plays somewhere between triphop, delta blues and great European cinema. The finale, the brooding horror movie setpiece of the title track might have fallen flat on its face with the rapper eventually just repeating the band name but the drive of the riff and momentum rise above it. Another still played album.








VERSION 2.0 - GARBAGE:

Someone had to do it and quickly. The internet was galloping toward the mainstream and studios were increasingly places where software apps out gunned tape so the nerdspeak of calling the improvement version 2.0 fit. It would never fit again without an increasingly feeble irony. Well, it was a good listen the first time. The best tracks after that were stripped down mixes on B-sides like the quieter Medication which should have been how the whole album sounded. When they weren't trying to rock up techno it was really more of the same, more version 1.5 beta. I still have this one but don't revisit it.






MOON SAFARI - AIR:

We all piled into De Los Santos on Brunswick St after seeing the wonderful Dark City at Hoyts one Saturday night. Fresh from the exhilarating film we sipped whatever we were affecting at the time (with me it was Fangelico) and this album came on the system. I asked what it was and bought a copy the next day. Still a winning mix of lounge and electronica. Beautiful moods all the way through.










YOU'VE COME A LONG WAY BABY - FLAT BOY SLIM:

One of those discs that everybody had, played for a month and never played again. Hooky and clever but saturated.
















IN THE AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA - NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL:

Discovered this a little later than its release date. A winding journey through singer songwriter ditties and epics that can chill and exult in the same verse. There are other recordings by Jeff Mangum and co (whatever co he happens to have assembled) but nothing reaches these heights. Brass sections that appear underneath lines where you never expected to hear them, a singing saw and a writer who can take you from high pitched joy to pulling your coat more securely around you.








THROUGH THE TREES - THE HANDSOME FAMILY:

Also heard a little later than the release date. I was at a band practice and someone handed me a cd that had come with a magazine. It was called Alt Country and had about twenty tracks of then current acts trying the old genre. I listened to all of it but really only heard the first track. "That's why people OD on pills or jump from the Golden Gate bridge. Anything to feel weightless again." Sung in a solid bass voice at the top of its range over a slowly thumping country backing, the song reached into my spine and held on. I Napstered the entire album and then bought it when I found a copy online. And then I made sure I saw them every time they came out. Husband and wife duo, Brett and Rennie Sparks create liminal country feasts where the dark and the gleams often look the same. Ethereal and filling all at once. A lot of country can be stark and chilling but this is eerie.