26. Om - Conference of the Birds (2006)

Om are Chris Haikus and Al Cisneros from San Francisco, and formerly from the heavy stoner rock riff merchants Sleep, who made the genre classic Jerusalem, an epic album length track of sludgy Sabbath bong worship.

When the duo resurfaced as Om they ditched the lead guitar entirely, and replaced the noise with a concentrated meditative skyward groove of just bass, drums and monotone chant like vocal.
The aim in all of this seems to be quasi religious transcendental experience akin to Gregorian chant, Alice Coltrane or Nyah-Bingi Rasta drum circles.

This is Om's sophomore release, just two lengthy tracks of maximum meditational usefulness. The lyrics seem to follow some oblique logic, maybe some ancient Haiku or the encrypted instructions for a psychedelic shamanic ritual. Or perhaps just a heavily tripping Jerry Horne like individual describing the flight of a swan. Slow paced hypnotic words in changing patterns; sample: 'The orphic glow seen - as arwal sounds rise - cumbent to the throne - within on spine's attained plow'.

Om's music then is psychedelic in the original sense of 'mind expanding' or 'mind altering', certainly for the duration, and more effective as loud as possible. Mighty bass grooves and eastern drone scales weave patterns around the ride cymbals, burrowing as deep as Sabbath or Melvins but without guitar.

Following this there would be one further studio album 'Pilgrimage' which is also great. They would also reform Sleep to perform Jerusalem live on several dates. More recently Al Cisneros, the Bass and vocal part of the duo would put out a few singles of dub reggae influenced music, which were great, and made perfect sense in the context of the deep grooves of the best doom/stoner rock. In actual fact a dub remix of all the Om stuff could work well. Looking forward to seeing the next guise they will appear under.

38. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - The Doledrums (2004) / Worn Copy (2005)

 Ariel Pink or Ariel Rosenberg is really where the new Millennium started, some of the albums at the top of this list (oh the anticipation!) in retrospect now seem like great end of 90's pieces. Whereas Ariel belongs squarely in the new millennium, with a whole shtick so post everything, and haunted by an enormous musical past and Ariel seems influenced by almost all of it. Previous practitioners who borrowed from older styles, even when good could come off like either pastiche (Strokes, White Stripes), or wacky and ironic (Beck, Beastie Boys). Where Ariel differed was that you can hear his love for 80's indie and pop, but you never felt like he was taking the piss out of it. In fact on his first run of records he often sings and beatboxes with a passion that can be intensely moving.