I’m late on getting you my list of the best albums of the decade, but it’s taken some time to dig through all of the incredible pieces of work that we’ve been hit with over the past 10 years. Since 2000, my ears have become keen to the inner workings of song and sound and it is partly due to the music below that I listen the way that I do. This decade has been an exhilarating one with bands like Animal Collective, Modest Mouse, Broken Social Scene, Death Cab For Cutie, and Sigur Ros solidifying their reach with monumental releases, and acts like Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones, Ray LaMontagne, Vampire Weekend and Bon Iver astonishing listeners with their debuts. I can’t resist including a few albums from smaller artists that are personal favorites, those of Leslie Helpert and The Slip. Dive in.

Death Cab for Cutie – The Photo Album (2001)
Death Cab weave together perfectly conceived indie pop songs, stunning in both their simplicity and beauty, permeated with vivid lyrics and visceral, rocking guitar on their 4th release.
mp3: Death Cab For Cutie – Blacking Out The Friction
mp3: Death Cab For Cutie – Coney Island
mp3: Death Cab For Cutie – Steadier Footing
Buy The Photo Album
MySpace | Website

Pinback – Blue Screen Life (2001)
The melodic subtle sonic journey of Blue Screen Life mixes lullabies and groove-laden ruminations into a superb genre of indie rock.
mp3: Pinback – Concrete Seconds
mp3: Pinback – Penelope
mp3: Pinback – Prog
Download Blue Screen Life
MySpace | Website

Zero 7 – Simple Things (2001)
The album combines an alluring mixture of sounds – electronica, jazz, soul, world music – featuring three talented vocalists (Mozez, Sia Furler, and Sophie Baker) to ride the top of these Air-like waves amid deep compositional swirls.
mp3: Zero 7 – I Have Seen
mp3: Zero 7 – Destiny
mp3: Zero 7 – Likufanele
Download Simple Things
MySpace | Website

John Mayer – Room for Squares (2001)
This is a lover’s album, perfect for wintertime snuggling with your honey. Mayer’s pop tunes have a certain depth, each filled with moving vocals and nakedly honest sentiment. Rooms for Squares is completely infectious and increasingly gratifying with each listen.
mp3: John Mayer – No Such Thing
mp3: John Mayer – Why Georgia
mp3: John Mayer – Back To You
Download Room For Squares
MySpace | Website

The Slip – Angels Come on Time (2002)
From the intricate bass/guitar grooves of “Get Me With Fuji” to the inspiring poetry and exploratory highs of “Sometimes True to Nothing”, Angels Come On Time peaks as one of my all time favorites. It was the soundtrack to my year.
mp3: The Slip – Get Me With Fuji
mp3: The Slip – Sometimes True To Nothing
mp3: The Slip – Nellie Jean
Purchase Angels Come on Time
MySpace | Website

Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People (2002)
This loose collective of wildly creative Canadian indie-rockers create a tattered, huge, unafraid, freewheeling sounds that are insatiably curious, effortless, fluid, textured, and inventive. Each tune glimmers with sheer radiance.
mp3: Broken Social Scene – Looks Just Like The Sun
mp3: Broken Social Scene – Anthems For A Seventeen Year Old Girl
mp3: Broken Social Scene – Lover’s Spit
Download You Forgot It In People
MySpace | Website

Leslie Helpert – Thirteen Songs (2002)
This is when I first fell in love with Leslie and her music and it’s been a long journey since then. The gorgeous tamber of her voice, the poetic narratives, and her embodied guitar playing permeate these exquisitely crafted songs.
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Honey Pot
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Penny The Hen
mp3: Leslie Helpert – A Serpentfly’s Dream
Purchase Thirteen Songs
MySpace

Norah Jones – Come Away With Me (2002)
A seductive quality pervades the simple yet sophisticated and intimate ambience Jones creates with her music. It’s heart-warming, romance inducing, and brilliantly charming. The impeccable musicians she chose to record with don’t hurt either.
mp3: Norah Jones – Don’t Know Why
mp3: Norah Jones – Seven Years
mp3: Norah Jones – Turn Me On
Download Come Away With Me
MySpace | Website

The Postal Service – Give Up (2002)
Myself and so many others fell in love with the unlikely combination of Ben Gibbard and Dntel. Their truly innovative blend of indie pop and electronica just feels right and invites numerous listens.
mp3: The Postal Service – District Sleeps Alone Tonight
mp3: The Postal Service – Nothing Better
mp3: The Postal Service – We Will Become Silhouettes
Download Give Up
MySpace | Website

Coldplay – A Rush Of Blood To The Head (2002)
This album intimately spoke to me and ever reminds me of what I was feeling during the fall of 2002. Anthemic, expansive stadium rock, moody and emotional equipped with booming crescendos and perfectly placed string arrangements. Pop ballads with a deep core.
mp3: Coldplay – In My Place
mp3: Coldplay – Green Eyes
mp3: Coldplay – Warning Sign
Download A Rush Of Blood To The Head
MySpace | Website

19 more albums to come…

Leslie Helpert perfectly embodies my idea of an artist. She is beautifully quirky, speaks in a language of images, tells you about imaginary friends, and is keen to all that makes life potent. She lives inside of her art and isn’t meant to do much else. Throwing herself into the act of creation, she offers herself as poet, guitarist, songbird, novelist, dancer, and artist (the gorgeous image at the top of Lux Illuminates is hers).

Watching Helpert perform is a captivating, emotional experience. Her body is stirred by the movement of her song, adding bottomless depth to the art she offers.

The American songstress has rendered 5 albums in the last decade, all which resound with her artistry. Ulu is her most recent effort, a 4-song EP recorded in Barcelona with producer Dave Bianchi. Enticed by intuition, Helpert left the states in March for a 6-week tour from Rome to Paris. She was compelled to delay her return and through a series of serendipitous events encountered Bianchi and found herself recording in Barcelona for the month of August. Ulu (December 2009) was then crafted and released on Bianchi’s Barcelona/NYC label “Whatabout Music”.

On Ulu, Helpert conspired with musicians from Spain, Greece, Guinea, Israel, Portugal and California to add cello, harp, Gaida (Greek bagpipes), upright and electric basses, vocals, trumpet and drum-kit to her musings. Helpert’s musicality comes through on the release in the form of guitar, Rhodes piano, electric bass, percussion, beatboxing, and her effusive vocals.

Throughout Ulu, Helpert draws you in with her intoxicating style, using music a modality to deliver art into the moment. “Young Coconut Water”, the EP’s single, embodies this dreamy elegance. As in all of my favorite compositions by the one known as Serpentfly, the song travels through a variety of sections, illustrating the complexity of Helpert’s unique writing style. Soaring horns lift the song up as she wails, woven with nectar-filled harmonies and cymbal crashes.

The rest of the tracks of Ulu are sophisticated and intimate. They capture the potential of this wistful siren, carrying the intelligent listener into a world of living poetry and detailed narrative. Helpert explores the rich timbre of her voice, embodying at once punk music and the sounds of a distant time. Rhythmic lyric and melancholy balladry are accompanied by innovative drumming, sumptuous strings, and evocative vocalizations.

2009 has seen Helpert trying her songs on the keen ears of Europe in small rooms and large theaters throughout Italy, France, Spain, Holland, and England. December still finds Helpert in the romantic lands of Europe.

Below is “Young Coconut Water” along with a few of my favorites from previous releases.

mp3: Leslie Helpert – Young Coconut Water – Ulu (2009)

Young Coconut Water
It just so happened, when we were each-others,
We pricked our fingers and became blood brothers.
It was an accident, really, kids climbing on barbed wire,
to go feed the colts little bombs on fire.

And, then again, when we were older,
By coincidence met ice-climbing frozen boulders.
We both anchored the pick-ax and by surprise,
It struck simultaneously in each of our sides,
And so this time we became blood sisters.

I’m your Type A when you’re needing transfusion,
And you’re not to blame, it’s both our confusion.
I, too, walk away like god’s born-again daughter.
Like fresh-pumped-in-the-vein Young Coconut Water,
Ignorant and Ignoble.

Through all adventure, I’ve learned a score.
It’s not your lover you’ve been searching for.
No matter the carriage, the wheel spoke aloud as you drive
They sang it’s not about your lover, this here’s not about your lover.

It’s your genius your longing to keep alive,
It’s your genuis your longing to keep alive.

mp3: Leslie Helpert – Snowfall – Cupcakes And Radishes (2005)
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Good N’ What We Had – Cupcakes And Radishes (2005)
mp3: Leslie Helpert – Honey Pot – 13 Songs (2002)

Leslie’s MySpace

Download through Amazon: Ulu