1 BJORK Vespertine (Elektra) The most consistently daring pop artist of our time raises the bar again with an album that’s at once delicate and substantive. Gorgeous but restrained orchestrations of strings, harp, and music box glide over layers of tiny, glitchy electronic sounds–handled by experts like Matmos and Matthew Herbert–creating an intimate space for Bjork’s songs of carnal rapture and emotional ardor. Her vocal idiosyncrasies once seemed like limiting quirks, but she keeps finding new emotions to express through her deep catalog of swoops, curlicues, and cries. And just as heartening as her ongoing creative growth is the undiminished devotion of her fan base.
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2 BOB DYLAN “Love and Theft” (Columbia) If you don’t count Wilco’s superb Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which appeared on the Internet for a few weeks this year, as an official release, Bob Dylan’s latest is the shoo-in for great consensus album of 2001. It may not be as dark or as different as 1997’s Time Out of Mind, but this freewheeling survey of American music–Delta blues, western swing, jump blues, Chicago blues, parlor songs, and rock ‘n’ roll–might be Dylan’s most enjoyable recording since the 70s. With a ravaged voice he goes for broke, tackling archetypal tales of lust, love, desperation, death, disaster, and salvation with nothing-left-to-prove charisma, machismo, and, above all, humor. He produced it himself (under the moniker Jack Frost) in two weeks with his longtime touring band, so all the performances have a smoldering immediacy.
5 FANFARE CIOCARLIA Iag Bari (Piranha) On its third album, this high-octane Moldavian Gypsy brass band goes pomo without forfeiting the manic drive that made its music stand out in Emir Kusturica’s 1995 film Underground. Many of the tunes barrel along furiously–some at more than 200 beats per minute–with shockingly articulate trumpet runs, unison clarinet lines, and tuba hocketing, but on Iag Bari the group also brings in guest vocalists, from the wildly emoting Romanian pop star Dan Armeanca to the polyphonic Bulgarian Voices-Angelite choir. They toss in some accordion, violin, and propulsive drumming on a few tunes and even interpolate a bit of the Godfather theme into “Besh o Drom.”
10 AB BAARS TRIO Songs (Geestgronden) The longtime trio featuring great Dutch reedist Ab Baars, bassist Wilbert de Joode, and drummer Martin van Duynhoven pays homage to Native Americans in a program studded with surprises. From cheeky winks like the bold overhaul of the jazz standard “Cherokee” to lovely interpretations of traditional songs of the Hopi, Inuit, Navajo, Cheyenne, and the Kwakiutl, it consistently evokes the wide-open spaces of the plains.
