The Desert Island Top 10: Aloha

Back to the Desert Island 10 and onward to #7...

Aloha - Sugar

Aloha has received plenty of mentions here, though more for Some Echoes ('06) and Light Works EP ('07) than for their brilliant second album Sugar ('02). I only mentioned it at length in one of the very first mp3 posts on this blog, way back in September of 2006. Thankfully, we're in the middle of this series of self-discovery and sharing so I get to talk about it again, this time with an audience.

This record is in the top 10 because it changed my ears. From the moment I heard "Let Your Head Hang Low", I knew I wouldn't hear anything the same afterwards. This is hook-friendly pop for the Flaming Lips set. This is a loose chaos of vibraphones, wurlitzer, and fuzzy guitars. There's a lot of crash cymbal herein. This record is a schizophrenic siamese twin, joined at the heart, pulling in different directions but staying in the same place. It is perfectly flawed, balanced in its randomness, and a reminder that new music is, indeed, still being made in select places of this green Earth. Sugar is a beautiful sonic accident, perpetrated to change my life. And possibly yours, dear reader.

Listen:
Let Your Head Hang Low
It Won't Be Long
[from Sugar|buy]

Previous entries in the Desert Island 10:
#8 Jonatha Brooke & The Story - Plumb
#9 Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days
#10 Lovedrug - Pretend You're Alive