My recommendations 2006:Ships by Danielson

Danielson: Ships
Secretly Canadian 5/9/2006

Available on Emusic

A project like Ships, whose purpose is to gather as many collaborators as possible into one room to make a record, would have failed under the direction of anyone who took themselves more seriously than Daniel Smith. Fortunately, Smith's insistence on making a fun, energetic record succeeded. Many of the collaborators who worked on Ships, such as Sufjan Stevens and Serena Maneesh, can get kind of heavy and depressing on their own, which isn't a bad thing. It just would have been misplaced on a Danielson record. Thanks to Smith's unifying vision, everyone brought a sense of frivolity and their silliest ideas to the table, resulting in the most solid and effortlessly enjoyable Danielson effort to date.