I’m very late with starting the reviews of my favourite albums of 2007. In this respect I find it vulgar to reduce my opinion and feelings of an album to a mere review and to consider one better or worse than another. But I do so because it allows me to more easily recall exactly how I felt about an album and where my head and the rest of me was at that time. It builds relationships between albums, between artists and when other albums are released it allows me to appreciate them more and perhaps place them in my pantheon of ‘best loved’ music. Carrie Brownstein has another view. My favourites of last year’s music (which traditionally encompasses everything I’ve heard that year, not only released that year) realise something else too: that how frequently I play an album doesn’t correlate to how much I like it. An album – more than just a single song – requires a context before being listened to. The time invested in listening is irrelevant, the emotion however is not. There needs to be a match and emotions are subtle creatures. Some albums require a more defined head state than others, which is why some of the albums on this list of 2007 surprise me with their appearance. Including this one:

Number 10 of 2007 — Pluramon: The Monstrous Surplus

This is the fourth album from Marcus Schmickler’s shoegaze project. But to earmark it thus is slightly inconsiderate. I’ve listened to a lot of Lush’s work over the past two days, re-encountering the gradual transplanting of their original sound into its Britpop vision. Like their final version, Pluramon’s sound doesn’t over-exploit its most obvious references, nor does it totally consume other styles. Instead – particularly with this album – it turns inwards, refining the genre through the benefit of technology, reducing the attendant emotions from ‘dream pop’ towards only dreams. Despite its four vocalists – three female, the other from Marcus, all gorgeously employed – and its lyrics, this is an album which is experienced by how you respond to it, a place that AR Kane got to visit on their 1989 album, “i”. It wants to be pure pop music but the layers of sound which slide, grind and collide, burying individual songs, ensures it isn’t, although an awareness of the way pop is felt and constructed is obvious.

Turn On opens the album sounding like Alison Shaw fronting mid-career Lush, but when the enveloped vocals of Julee Cruise hide beneath the expanse of string-like noise (or noise-like strings) the tone of album is set. On Border, there’s no such foreplay. We land directly where Marcus wants us to feel. Just when we’re comfortable with this, an organ picks up the main melody to tweak the emotional connection with the song still further. Elsewhere there are more obvious reference points to genre: the portmento guitar slides that characterised My Bloody Valentine’s sound is mimicked on If Time Was On My Side, but without the expected queasiness. Similarly, the collapsing frantic drumming of their music is ignored. Instead Pluramon uses traditional rock percussion that serves to emphasise the rest of the music.

Drowning In You turns vocals into noise, the guitars and bass simply swirl and cut, this is where sensation comes from. For some songs it’s not necessary to internalise what is sung (that comes later), initially just the notes and how they’re sung will suffice. Language is unimportant. For others, particularly in the standout cover of Sham 69’s The Kids Are United, the lyrics are critical. This is also true for Fresh Aufhebung, which features Jutta Koether’s spoken words, taking the drone-pop of Loop and turning the dreams nightmarish.

When the noise drops as it does on crossover between K-Land and Can’t Disappear – essentially one song split in two – piano, strings, high hat and vocals – it arrives more beautifully than if it had appeared without its predecessors. Even the clichéd thunderstorm feels right, complementing with its own bassy rumble. Perhaps these couple of songs are merely a lead to the key point of the album. Once you know what’s coming, the drawn out conclusion of Can’t Disappear teases further. If The Kids Are United strikes home immediately with folky tambourine bashing. The vocals, sometimes just adding a layer to the other songs, take centre stage for this song, choral and chorused they bring a sublime blissful state. This isn’t enough however – the pop desires of this album push forward once again with a masterly key change.

After this the final two tracks are unsatisfying, but this album is clearly at the front of the continued evolution of the genre. I never expected the celebration to last this long.

The Monstrous Surplus – iTunes UK
Pluramon – Official Website