And the S's continue...
Steve Mason - Lost and Found [YouTube] [Spotify]
Kind of Mason in microcosm - rurally inclined acoustic melody, tentative beats, underlying darkness.
Still Corners - Endless Summer [download via P4K] [Soundcloud]
Ah, the Be My Baby drums. But what's going on around them is more fascinating, blurry Beach House/Broadcast dreampop with droney organ and shoegaze guitars in the shadows.
Still Flyin' - Runaway Train II [YouTube] [Spotify]
Another sax solo that doesn't invalidate the whole song, this one placed against the sort of rush only loads and loads of people being involved can produce.
Stop Eject - I Am A Social Network [YouTube] [Spotify]
One last splutter from the post-punk quarter, from a band running with Love Ends Disaster! in music life as well as baritone brooding.
The Strange Death Of Liberal England - Rising Sea [YouTube] [Spotify]
The new nautical theme didn't quite work across an album (as did speaking on stage instead of holding up signs, that was a disappointment when we saw them recently), but when they really let go with the rousing Arcade Fire on uppers swell they still pack a punch.
Summer Camp - Ghost Train [YouTube] [Spotify]
It didn't just fade away when they turned out to be some people nobody had heard of (this is on the worldwide blog scale, obviously we knew precisely who they were). The reason for that was they took only enough from the 80s - and then not even all that much musically - to not actually sound like they're as obsessed about it as they otherwise make out.
Superman Revenge Squad - Yeah, This House Is Haunted [can't help you here, go and buy Dead Crow Blues EP]
The man's a lyrical genius, and you'll all recognise this one day. And now he's writing a play based on (or at least sharing a title with) this song!
Swahili Blonde - Le Mampatee [YouTube] [Spotify]
From an album that turned out to be too cool for its own good, even with members of Duran Duran and Red Hot Chili Peppers involved, one spectacular moment of deformed scratchy punk-funk.
Sweet Baboo - Y'r Lungs [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Plangent, wry Welsh folk. Another song on his album I'm A Dancer/Songs About Sleepin' features the fantastic line "Daniel Johnston has written hundreds of great tunes and I’ve got six, so I guess there’s some catching up to do".
Talons - Trevelyan [download from MusicGlue]
Shame the album was too bombastic for its own good, but taken individually they surge, swell and dramatise like nobody's business.
Tender Trap - Girls With Guns [YouTube] [Spotify]
The revenge of Amelia Fletcher (with Elizabeth Allo Darlin' on board) in classic stand-up drumming, jangly guitaring form.
This Many Boyfriends - I Should Be A Communist [Myspace] [Spotify]
There used to be loads of bands like this around 1986, of course, throwing Smiths self-deprecation into a pit of Orange Juice forceful jangle. Now there's the finest of lines between deliberately not trying and knowing, as these do, how to be... well... knowing.
Those Dancing Days - Fuckarias [download] [YouTube]
There was an occasional undercurrent of something less happy go lucky from Nacka's finest girl gang before, but now they're looking proper daggers at you through the medium of garage and rolling drums. The second album Daydreams And Nightmares is out on March 7th.
Tindersticks - Harmony Around My Table [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
"Found a penny, I picked it up/And on that day I had some luck/But that was two weeks last Tuesday". Oh, Stuart.
Under Alien Skies - Faint [Myspace] [Soundcloud]
Hard to pick out one track by the Prestatyn duo of sadly limited wider public knowledge, but the to date latest of their stews of dissembled samples, pre-chillwave summer beats, Beach Boys, Animal Collective and general laptop mystery is as good a place to land as any.
Vampire Weekend - Cousins [YouTube] [Spotify]
Ah, if only the rest of the album had been as thrusting and as charging as its lead-off single.
Wap Wap Wow - Don't Keep Losing Heart [Myspace]/Rhosyn - Glass [Myspace]
Wap Wap Wow was Rose Dagul plus eight, Rhosyn is Rose Dagul plus four. All the tracks on both Myspaces, based around hypnotic strings and looped voices, are worth your time.
The Wave Pictures - I Shall Be A Ditch Digger [Spotify]
As with most Wave Pictures songs it's hung around their set for years and may even have been recorded in reduced circumstances but ended up tossed off on an EP. If he put his mind to it Dave Tattersall could rival Robert Pollard for output.
Wavves - King Of The Beach [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
We may be alone in thinking the album of which this is the title track outdoes 'er indoors' all ends up. Very much California surf-punk by a chronic stoner, yes.
Wild Nothing - Summer Holiday [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Over the course of this year's album and EP Jack Tatum attempted to represent the entire alternative 80s, from New Order to Kate Bush to the Cocteau Twins. Here he has a shot at Felt.
The Wind Up Birds - Tyre Fire [YouTube] [Spotify]
You don't often hear bands these days who remind you of Animals That Swim. Northern post-Morrissey kitchen sink drama meets insidious post-punk wiriness.
The Witch And The Robot - Hetero [Myspace] [YouTube]
Mates of British Sea Power make like Earl Brutus never left us. (Which with The Pre New they technically didn't, but you get what we're driving at)
Yeasayer - Ambling Alp [YouTube] [Spotify]
Been interesting to observe Yeasayer's development from Afro-futurists to death disco killers, especially live where things reach rave proportions as vested men hit electronic things.
Yu(c)k - Automatic [download] [YouTube]
The downbeat keyboard-led alter ego of dirty fuzz pedal-led Yuck, such starkness achieves an almost hymnal stillness. A sanctifying note to round off the hundred on.
Showing posts with label tracks of 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tracks of 2010. Show all posts
Monday, December 27, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tracks of the year III
Male Bonding - Weird Feelings [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
Bring on the fuzz! And something rock and roll that's older than the hardcore and grunge influences people are quick to throw at the Sub Pop trio.
Maps & Atlases - Solid Ground [YouTube] [Spotify]
From an album, Perch Patchwork, that felt it was nearly there but got fatally distracted, the sound of an analogue TV On The Radio or what happens when math gets reined in to being pop.
Maybeshewill - To The Skies From A Hillside [YouTube] [Spotify]
Previously they could be lushly open with a hint of danger, or they could be full-on heavy riffola with a hint of reconciliation. Here, they're both.
Mew - Do You Love It? [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
The new song, time sig changeable and propulsively enigmatic as ever, from a low-key best of called Eggs Are Funny. Never have got the hang of album titles, Mew.
MGMT - Brian Eno [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
A song about being chased through the woods by a vengeful Brian Eno that sounds like the Television Personalities. And then people wonder why they don't sell as many records any more.
The Middle East — Blood [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
It didn't seem to happen in the post-Fleet Foxes world in the way many expected, maybe because their records came out last year in their native Australia. Obviously that doesn't mean their fluttering crescendoing folk-pop of many parts should be overlooked.
Moscow Youth Cult - Girls Of Boredom [download via TLOBF] [Soundcloud]
8-bit electronics as dark, fuzzy and prone to distortion and jumpiness as a degraded VHS tape. Quite easy when you can just c'n'p something you wrote for somebody else, isn't it?
Past Lives - K Hole [Myspace] [YouTube]
Most of The Blood Brothers regroup to update the outer edges of 1981 and all the No Wave and SST that implies.
Peggy Sue - Watchmen [YouTube] [[Spotify]
These sorts of harmonies aren't usually used in the cause of something so barbed, nor does acoustic music get as full-on intemperate as the bridge does.
Pulled Apart By Horses - High Five Swan Dive Nose Dive [YouTube] [Spotify]
Sounds painful.
Quasi - Little White Horse [YouTube] [Spotify]
Maybe filling out the sound so much wasn't great for them in the long run, but they can still put out punchy college radio necessary roughness.
Roky Erickson - Goodbye Sweet Dreams [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Okkervil River lend a sympathetic hand in backing the once self-destructive 13th Floor Elevator, whose singing and sentiments might break your heart.
Rumour Cubes - The University Is A Factory [Soundcloud] [Bandcamp]
Skyscraping instrumental post-rock with violin, viola and electronics touches both pensiveness and catharsis.
School Of Seven Bells - Windstorm [YouTube] [Spotify]
They're never as quite as good as you might hope, but the sandstorm loop and airy vocal make this one work.
Screaming Maldini - The Extraordinary [Myspace] [Spotify]
Think we wrote this reminded us of Alphabeat the first time we heard it. Now it reminds us of Dogs Die In Hot Cars. The truth lies somewhere between these two points.
Sleigh Bells - Riot Rhythm [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
An exhausting listen, that album. Here they do what MIA couldn't and find an unhappy medium between noise, beats and offhand vocals.
So Many Dynamos - Keep It Simple [YouTube] [Spotify]
The forceful ADD American post-punk band who didn't make the music press break.
The Sound Of The Ladies - What We Did With Our Lives [Bandcamp]
The bloke off Answer Me This! turns out to be a quietly wondrous singer-songwriter, poetically wry and acutely melancholic.
Spectrals - Peppermint [YouTube] [Spotify]
Louis Jones' output brings whole new dimensions to the concept of hit and miss. Here he delivers sweetly swinging rock'n'roll, and it's a comfortable hit. Well, it would be, it wouldn't be in this list otherwise.
Spencer McGarry Season - Great Enemies [Myspace] [YouTube]
Anti-robot scree from former power-pop trio turned double figure membership showtune baroque collective.
Stairs To Korea - All Of Your Friends [YouTube] [Bandcamp]
One man and his armoury of pedals is all very well and good, but it's not much use without a poetic heart.
Stars And Sons - If It’s Good For Me [YouTube] [Spotify]
Bravely rescuing piano pounding pop from Scouting For Girls.
Bring on the fuzz! And something rock and roll that's older than the hardcore and grunge influences people are quick to throw at the Sub Pop trio.
Maps & Atlases - Solid Ground [YouTube] [Spotify]
From an album, Perch Patchwork, that felt it was nearly there but got fatally distracted, the sound of an analogue TV On The Radio or what happens when math gets reined in to being pop.
Maybeshewill - To The Skies From A Hillside [YouTube] [Spotify]
Previously they could be lushly open with a hint of danger, or they could be full-on heavy riffola with a hint of reconciliation. Here, they're both.
Mew - Do You Love It? [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
The new song, time sig changeable and propulsively enigmatic as ever, from a low-key best of called Eggs Are Funny. Never have got the hang of album titles, Mew.
MGMT - Brian Eno [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
A song about being chased through the woods by a vengeful Brian Eno that sounds like the Television Personalities. And then people wonder why they don't sell as many records any more.
The Middle East — Blood [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
It didn't seem to happen in the post-Fleet Foxes world in the way many expected, maybe because their records came out last year in their native Australia. Obviously that doesn't mean their fluttering crescendoing folk-pop of many parts should be overlooked.
Moscow Youth Cult - Girls Of Boredom [download via TLOBF] [Soundcloud]
8-bit electronics as dark, fuzzy and prone to distortion and jumpiness as a degraded VHS tape. Quite easy when you can just c'n'p something you wrote for somebody else, isn't it?
Past Lives - K Hole [Myspace] [YouTube]
Most of The Blood Brothers regroup to update the outer edges of 1981 and all the No Wave and SST that implies.
Peggy Sue - Watchmen [YouTube] [[Spotify]
These sorts of harmonies aren't usually used in the cause of something so barbed, nor does acoustic music get as full-on intemperate as the bridge does.
Pulled Apart By Horses - High Five Swan Dive Nose Dive [YouTube] [Spotify]
Sounds painful.
Quasi - Little White Horse [YouTube] [Spotify]
Maybe filling out the sound so much wasn't great for them in the long run, but they can still put out punchy college radio necessary roughness.
Roky Erickson - Goodbye Sweet Dreams [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Okkervil River lend a sympathetic hand in backing the once self-destructive 13th Floor Elevator, whose singing and sentiments might break your heart.
Rumour Cubes - The University Is A Factory [Soundcloud] [Bandcamp]
Skyscraping instrumental post-rock with violin, viola and electronics touches both pensiveness and catharsis.
School Of Seven Bells - Windstorm [YouTube] [Spotify]
They're never as quite as good as you might hope, but the sandstorm loop and airy vocal make this one work.
Screaming Maldini - The Extraordinary [Myspace] [Spotify]
Think we wrote this reminded us of Alphabeat the first time we heard it. Now it reminds us of Dogs Die In Hot Cars. The truth lies somewhere between these two points.
Sleigh Bells - Riot Rhythm [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
An exhausting listen, that album. Here they do what MIA couldn't and find an unhappy medium between noise, beats and offhand vocals.
So Many Dynamos - Keep It Simple [YouTube] [Spotify]
The forceful ADD American post-punk band who didn't make the music press break.
The Sound Of The Ladies - What We Did With Our Lives [Bandcamp]
The bloke off Answer Me This! turns out to be a quietly wondrous singer-songwriter, poetically wry and acutely melancholic.
Spectrals - Peppermint [YouTube] [Spotify]
Louis Jones' output brings whole new dimensions to the concept of hit and miss. Here he delivers sweetly swinging rock'n'roll, and it's a comfortable hit. Well, it would be, it wouldn't be in this list otherwise.
Spencer McGarry Season - Great Enemies [Myspace] [YouTube]
Anti-robot scree from former power-pop trio turned double figure membership showtune baroque collective.
Stairs To Korea - All Of Your Friends [YouTube] [Bandcamp]
One man and his armoury of pedals is all very well and good, but it's not much use without a poetic heart.
Stars And Sons - If It’s Good For Me [YouTube] [Spotify]
Bravely rescuing piano pounding pop from Scouting For Girls.
Friday, December 24, 2010
Tracks of the year II
Fair Ohs - Eden Rock [YouTube (live)] [Soundcloud]
If Abe Vigoda aren't going to do it any more, this lot will have to steer the path towards Afro-noise-surf-pop nirvana.
Foals – Spanish Sahara [YouTube] [Spotify]
Can't tell you offhand what would have been number 51. Might have been Total Life Forever, which just sagged a bit around a strong middle, which isn't how albums are supposed to flow. This was the first track to emerge and showed things weren't always going to be math-pop forever.
Frankie & The Heartstrings - Tender [YouTube]
Yeah, them. You know, someone's going to have to come up with a collective term for indiefied bands with unabashed rock'n'roll romance taking the genre term back to its original intentions. As such, F&TH are working with Edwyn Collins on their album.
Gaggle - I Hear Flies [YouTube] [Spotify]
THIS IS MERELY A DISTRACTION FROM THE INEVITABLE.
Gallops - Oh The Manatee [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Battles on a fuzzy glam setting or Errors on a bouncy castle. Your choice.
Gindrinker - Bob Grainger; Sexual Pervert [YouTube (live)] [Soundcloud]
Metal guitar, metallic drum machine, mental lyrics. We'd expect nothing less from Gates and Graf. You are also cordially invited to try out Brandyman, essentially Gindrinker as heavy rock.
Gruff Rhys - Shark Ridden Waters [download] [YouTube]
The teaming up of Gruff and weird-retro-futurist producer Andy Votel promises much for February's album Hotel Shampoo, previewed by this road trip Franco-tropicalia.
His Clancyness - Mistify The Ocean [download via The Fader] [YouTube]
Jonathan Clancy for the second time, and it seemed at one stage that he was going to put out a new slice of lo-fi woozy poetic dreampop every week. It slowed up after a while but the hit rate was kept high, perhaps none higher than this.
Honour Before Glory - Empty Bottles Broken Hearts [Soundcloud]
Whiskas from Forward Russia's current iteration fractures and vibrates around wracked songwriting in a way M83 or Spencer Krug would understand. Plenty to look forward to from him in '11.
Is Tropical - When O When [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
Beginning to suspect they may be a one shot deal as far as greatness goes, but as far as debut singles go little came better this year. Almost a meeting point between post-punk energy and the synths of M25 fields in 1989. It deserves a fresh genre name. 'Nu-rave', would that work?
Islet - Jasmine [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Rightly lauded for their borderline ridiculous live set that literally eradicates the gap between audience and performer, but the tribal dub post-punk motorik no wave stew of their two EPs, had they ever been released together, might have troubled the top end of STN's albums list.
James Blake - Limit To Your Love [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
After two lauded EPs of glitch-dubstep, Blake goes and makes a sparse piano cover of a Feist song that inhabits the same ballpark as Aqualung.
Janelle Monae - Dance Or Die [Myspace] [Spotify]
Truth be told it does feel a little like both tokenism and rockism leaving the indecently talented Monae down here, but couldn't help thinking most of the bits people lauded about were basically lesser Outkast productions. (And it's basically pale blog hipsters who went on about how she was about to become a huge global pop star without noticing that she really isn't, so we feel we're swimming against the hip tide much as when we left Deerhunter off the album list. Kanye? Never heard of him.) Anyway, the rush of ideas and words here is undeniable. Not so undeniable, though, as Tightrope on Letterman, bridge thoroughly taken to.
Japandroids - Heavenward Grand Prix [download] [Spotify]
Circular saw guitar fuzz, pounding drums and what for them and nobody else is mid-tempo meandering.
Jens Lekman - The End Of the World Is Bigger Than Love [download] [Spotify]
Oh you're so heartbroken, Jens. But at least he can try and put it in perspective, while still on his AM radio indiepop lush tip. Album in 2011, Jens? Please?
Johnny Foreigner - Elegy For Post Teenage Living Parts 1 And 2 [Spotify]
Starts as tenative collapsible noise, ends as bassy, talky dancepop with a George Pringle reference.
Jonquil - Compound [Soundcloud]
If Jonquil 1.0 was offbeat countryside folk, Jonquil 2.0 is offbeat Afropop. Note Hugo's brave falsetto and the crosshatched harmonies and the detail it sets itself to take off at high gear and then just doesn't.
Katy B - Katy On A Mission [YouTube] [Spotify]
Properly pop song of the year, largely because it comes from no proper pop background. Not to be confused with Truck regular KTB. Ms B doubtless turning shit even as you read this.
Laura Hocking & The Long Goodbye - Loves Of A Girl Wrestler [Myspace] [Bandcamp]
Hocking seems to have been around in various forms for years and years; this turnaround finds her as a cabaret folk ringmistress (in the circus rather than wrestling sense, despite the title and lyrics)
LCD Soundsystem - All I Want [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
We tried to like This Is Happening, we really did, but it did nothing for us as a work. Didn't help that the BBC festival coverage kept putting Drunk Girls on either. This motorik wander succeeded by turning All My Friends upside down.
Les Savy Fav - Dirty Knails [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
As with LCD, Root For Ruin seemed to be based on what people wanted from the band rather than the good place they were heading to. Dirty Knails at least finds them doing what they do best, that is let Tim Harrington take off all over the place while everyone else holds down a muscular, somehow danceable richocheting anthem in aspic.
Let's Buy Happiness - Six Wolves [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
We've been excited about the possibilities surrounding this Newcastle outfit who've already been on a trip to Radio 4's Loose Ends. When it came to releasing something they hit on gold of a Cocteaus/Sundays arc, all delayed guitars and inscrutable female vocals that are oddly like Alessi's Ark's.
Lily Rae - Bad Film [Myspace] [Spotify]
Sometime Indelicate nails the sound of a really peeved Kirsty Maccoll, vocals inclusive. Apparently this first came out in 2007 but her album Oh No... was released this year and we hadn't previously heard it, as we suspect neither had you, so in it goes.
Lone Wolf — Keep Your Eyes On The Road [YouTube] [Spotify]
Come for Broken Pixel's spectacular reimagining of the Sledgehammer video, stay for Paul Marshall's shifting, intriguingly detailed alt-folk parable.
LookiMakeMusic - Why I Started The Indie Club Fires [Myspace] [Soundcloud]
Because Alexei Berrow couldn't have the 'awkward over-wordy jitteriness about shit indie clubs in Birmingham' field to himself.
The Loves - December Boy [YouTube]
Hell of a toss-up between this and the other half of the double A side Bubblegum, but they both prove Cardiff's other great knowingly retro band have hit top form... just as they're splitting up.
Lykke Li - Get Some [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
Those who saw her touring Youth Novels will know percussion featured well in her live set-up. They're even more to the forefront now. As are other concerns.
If Abe Vigoda aren't going to do it any more, this lot will have to steer the path towards Afro-noise-surf-pop nirvana.
Foals – Spanish Sahara [YouTube] [Spotify]
Can't tell you offhand what would have been number 51. Might have been Total Life Forever, which just sagged a bit around a strong middle, which isn't how albums are supposed to flow. This was the first track to emerge and showed things weren't always going to be math-pop forever.
Frankie & The Heartstrings - Tender [YouTube]
Yeah, them. You know, someone's going to have to come up with a collective term for indiefied bands with unabashed rock'n'roll romance taking the genre term back to its original intentions. As such, F&TH are working with Edwyn Collins on their album.
Gaggle - I Hear Flies [YouTube] [Spotify]
THIS IS MERELY A DISTRACTION FROM THE INEVITABLE.
Gallops - Oh The Manatee [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Battles on a fuzzy glam setting or Errors on a bouncy castle. Your choice.
Gindrinker - Bob Grainger; Sexual Pervert [YouTube (live)] [Soundcloud]
Metal guitar, metallic drum machine, mental lyrics. We'd expect nothing less from Gates and Graf. You are also cordially invited to try out Brandyman, essentially Gindrinker as heavy rock.
Gruff Rhys - Shark Ridden Waters [download] [YouTube]
The teaming up of Gruff and weird-retro-futurist producer Andy Votel promises much for February's album Hotel Shampoo, previewed by this road trip Franco-tropicalia.
His Clancyness - Mistify The Ocean [download via The Fader] [YouTube]
Jonathan Clancy for the second time, and it seemed at one stage that he was going to put out a new slice of lo-fi woozy poetic dreampop every week. It slowed up after a while but the hit rate was kept high, perhaps none higher than this.
Honour Before Glory - Empty Bottles Broken Hearts [Soundcloud]
Whiskas from Forward Russia's current iteration fractures and vibrates around wracked songwriting in a way M83 or Spencer Krug would understand. Plenty to look forward to from him in '11.
Is Tropical - When O When [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
Beginning to suspect they may be a one shot deal as far as greatness goes, but as far as debut singles go little came better this year. Almost a meeting point between post-punk energy and the synths of M25 fields in 1989. It deserves a fresh genre name. 'Nu-rave', would that work?
Islet - Jasmine [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Rightly lauded for their borderline ridiculous live set that literally eradicates the gap between audience and performer, but the tribal dub post-punk motorik no wave stew of their two EPs, had they ever been released together, might have troubled the top end of STN's albums list.
James Blake - Limit To Your Love [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
After two lauded EPs of glitch-dubstep, Blake goes and makes a sparse piano cover of a Feist song that inhabits the same ballpark as Aqualung.
Janelle Monae - Dance Or Die [Myspace] [Spotify]
Truth be told it does feel a little like both tokenism and rockism leaving the indecently talented Monae down here, but couldn't help thinking most of the bits people lauded about were basically lesser Outkast productions. (And it's basically pale blog hipsters who went on about how she was about to become a huge global pop star without noticing that she really isn't, so we feel we're swimming against the hip tide much as when we left Deerhunter off the album list. Kanye? Never heard of him.) Anyway, the rush of ideas and words here is undeniable. Not so undeniable, though, as Tightrope on Letterman, bridge thoroughly taken to.
Japandroids - Heavenward Grand Prix [download] [Spotify]
Circular saw guitar fuzz, pounding drums and what for them and nobody else is mid-tempo meandering.
Jens Lekman - The End Of the World Is Bigger Than Love [download] [Spotify]
Oh you're so heartbroken, Jens. But at least he can try and put it in perspective, while still on his AM radio indiepop lush tip. Album in 2011, Jens? Please?
Johnny Foreigner - Elegy For Post Teenage Living Parts 1 And 2 [Spotify]
Starts as tenative collapsible noise, ends as bassy, talky dancepop with a George Pringle reference.
Jonquil - Compound [Soundcloud]
If Jonquil 1.0 was offbeat countryside folk, Jonquil 2.0 is offbeat Afropop. Note Hugo's brave falsetto and the crosshatched harmonies and the detail it sets itself to take off at high gear and then just doesn't.
Katy B - Katy On A Mission [YouTube] [Spotify]
Properly pop song of the year, largely because it comes from no proper pop background. Not to be confused with Truck regular KTB. Ms B doubtless turning shit even as you read this.
Laura Hocking & The Long Goodbye - Loves Of A Girl Wrestler [Myspace] [Bandcamp]
Hocking seems to have been around in various forms for years and years; this turnaround finds her as a cabaret folk ringmistress (in the circus rather than wrestling sense, despite the title and lyrics)
LCD Soundsystem - All I Want [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
We tried to like This Is Happening, we really did, but it did nothing for us as a work. Didn't help that the BBC festival coverage kept putting Drunk Girls on either. This motorik wander succeeded by turning All My Friends upside down.
Les Savy Fav - Dirty Knails [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
As with LCD, Root For Ruin seemed to be based on what people wanted from the band rather than the good place they were heading to. Dirty Knails at least finds them doing what they do best, that is let Tim Harrington take off all over the place while everyone else holds down a muscular, somehow danceable richocheting anthem in aspic.
Let's Buy Happiness - Six Wolves [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
We've been excited about the possibilities surrounding this Newcastle outfit who've already been on a trip to Radio 4's Loose Ends. When it came to releasing something they hit on gold of a Cocteaus/Sundays arc, all delayed guitars and inscrutable female vocals that are oddly like Alessi's Ark's.
Lily Rae - Bad Film [Myspace] [Spotify]
Sometime Indelicate nails the sound of a really peeved Kirsty Maccoll, vocals inclusive. Apparently this first came out in 2007 but her album Oh No... was released this year and we hadn't previously heard it, as we suspect neither had you, so in it goes.
Lone Wolf — Keep Your Eyes On The Road [YouTube] [Spotify]
Come for Broken Pixel's spectacular reimagining of the Sledgehammer video, stay for Paul Marshall's shifting, intriguingly detailed alt-folk parable.
LookiMakeMusic - Why I Started The Indie Club Fires [Myspace] [Soundcloud]
Because Alexei Berrow couldn't have the 'awkward over-wordy jitteriness about shit indie clubs in Birmingham' field to himself.
The Loves - December Boy [YouTube]
Hell of a toss-up between this and the other half of the double A side Bubblegum, but they both prove Cardiff's other great knowingly retro band have hit top form... just as they're splitting up.
Lykke Li - Get Some [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
Those who saw her touring Youth Novels will know percussion featured well in her live set-up. They're even more to the forefront now. As are other concerns.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Tracks of the year I
Here we go with part one of four (wrapped around Christmas Day) chronicling a round hundred of the best tracks to have been passed our way this year, ruthlessly filtered down from a list of almost too much quality to talk about (personal apologies to Ace Bushy Striptease here), with only artists represented in the album top fifty left out (SPOILERS). See this broad sweep of what 2010 variously had to offer:
A Classic Education - I Lost Time [YouTube] [Spotify]
The uncrowned kings of Bologna finally got round to releasing a new EP, expansively structured while remaining driven by the personal like a happier Modest Mouse. Given this is a song bemoaning the passing of opportunity, not all that happier, but the point stands.
Abe Vigoda - Throwing Shade [YouTube] [Spotify]
Former Afro-punk rollercoaster turn darkwave. Here, they land right between the two and make themselves dizzy.
Adam Donen - It's Over Now [YouTube]
Few brood like Donen, best described on this year's Immortality as Mike Scott taking after a secular Josh T Pearson, quiet anger at modernity his way.
Admiral Radley - I Heart California [YouTube] [Spotify]
Jason Lytle and some of Earlimart perhaps not entirely straightfaced. Can't properly pronounce Leicestershire.
The Attery Squash - Devo Was Right About Everything (Robert & Gerald Casale remix) [YouTube] [Spotify]
Because the idea of getting a caustic song about Devo remixed by Devo is cheering. Some may know this in its briefly viral Charlie Brooker Is Right About Everything form.
Best Coast - Boyfriend [YouTube] [Spotify]
Come on, everyone, there's one good song on Crazy For You! Luckily it's a really good one.
Blonde Redhead - Not Getting There [YouTube] [Spotify]
Man alive, Penny Sparkle is one disappointing album. That's but for this slab of dystopian electro darkness like a modern dreampop Propaganda.
British Sea Power - Zeus [YouTube] [Spotify]
"Rick Stein, pleased to meet you, I did not mean to be so rude". Now that's an opening line.
Broken Social Scene - Texico Bitches [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
Only allegorical curates can enjoy BSS albums these days, and clearly nothing on Forgiveness Rock Record was a Cause=Time. Hell, there's not even an Anthem For A Seventeen Year Old Girl. But this one rides along bumpily.
Calories - FFWD [YouTube] [Spotify]
Abrasive like a Kinsella band, raging like art-hardcore, as exciting as the best noise-pop.
The Cast Of Cheers - Tigerfox [free Bandcamp]
The Irish Foals, they say. More math-shouty-intricate, we say.
Chapel Club — Five Trees [YouTube] [Spotify]
Poor man's Editors, of course, but nearly every band deserves to get it right once and their turn this year came with their borrowing guitar noises from Kevin Shields and a wind tunnel of a chorus from the Bunnymen.
Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM [YouTube] [Spotify]
For once not getting material based on who her dad was, Beck did his best production work in years weaving together a breakbeat, an MRI scan sample and Gainsbourg's detached vocal style and ending up as industrialised pop.
The Chapman Family - All Fall [YouTube] [Spotify]
Still sound like Maximo Park being incinerated.
Chapter 24 - Gregory [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
The Raincoats' unsteady art-post-punk as a jump-off point, flavoured with surf and hi-life, then spun around violently until you wonder how it sounds so comfortably kept together.
Club 8 - Western Hospitality [YouTube] [Spotify]
The People's Record may be the best thing the mightily prolific Johan Angergård has ever been involved with, in all its Afropop swagger.
Cold Seeds - King [Spotify]
Interesting that on a record featuring members of Meursault and King Creosote it's Animal Magic Tricks that get top billing on the standout track, a longing folk mesmer.
Coltrane Motion - Please Call It A Comeback [download]
Still a source of annoyance that we can't count Coltrane Motion albums for the big list as they've never come out in the UK. This baroque droning dreampop turning to clattering insistence should hopefully make you feel the same as us.
Cults - Go Outside [download] [YouTube]
Now what's going on here? New York duo sample Jim Jones, then launch into Swedish indiepop-style harmonic loungey pop with glockenspiel. It is released on a leading blog's label. A few months later, they sign to Columbia. This could be one of 2011's more fascinating subplots.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - Vocal Chords [Myspace] [Spotify]
Poor name, good stuff, finding the summer prettiness in Vampire Weekend-nodding harmonic pop with electronic undertow.
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern - Drive Too Fast [YouTube] [Spotify]
Best thing from a frustratingly inconsistent album, a tender song about a self-inflicted car crash victim, also known (to us) as the "lesbian from Brookside" song.
The Death Notes - In The Spider's Web [Myspace] [Bandcamp]
Banshees menace - that's Banshees when they had John McGeogh - brought into the post-punk revival a little late for most people but little affected for that.
The Declining Winter - Official World Cup Theme 2010 [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Yearning strings, Go-Betweens warmly nostalgic acoustic songwriting... John Barnes in the Maracana sample at the end aside it has about as much to do with World Cup themes as Colourbox's Official World Cup Theme in 1986, which seems to be the point.
Dog Is Dead - Glockenspiel Song [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Two towering singles of Mystery Jets pop-warp, skittish riffs and close harmony from the Nottingham teenage "skate kids and thespians" this year. Their debut features both a sax solo and a children's choir, and yet it's magnificent. They're going to be doing this on the next series of Skins, which is less so.
Emma Pollock - Red Orange Green [YouTube] [Spotify]
The Law Of Large Numbers was another of the year's disappointments, its highlight being this metronomic tale of increased nerviness.
Esben And The Witch - Marching Song [YouTube] [Spotify]
Some whispers beginning around a goth revival, hopefully more relevant than that late 90s New Grave thing which included Mansun. E&TW aren't strictly goth but the swirling sonics and stentorian drama of Rachel Davies' voice sets it late at night in a misty graveyard.
Evans The Death - Sleeping Song [Myspace] [download via A New Band A Day]
Said in some quarters to be 2011's best hope for continuation of 2010's great UK indiepop form, they kicked off with a great jangling rush, half-Pavement, half-C86.
A Classic Education - I Lost Time [YouTube] [Spotify]
The uncrowned kings of Bologna finally got round to releasing a new EP, expansively structured while remaining driven by the personal like a happier Modest Mouse. Given this is a song bemoaning the passing of opportunity, not all that happier, but the point stands.
Abe Vigoda - Throwing Shade [YouTube] [Spotify]
Former Afro-punk rollercoaster turn darkwave. Here, they land right between the two and make themselves dizzy.
Adam Donen - It's Over Now [YouTube]
Few brood like Donen, best described on this year's Immortality as Mike Scott taking after a secular Josh T Pearson, quiet anger at modernity his way.
Admiral Radley - I Heart California [YouTube] [Spotify]
Jason Lytle and some of Earlimart perhaps not entirely straightfaced. Can't properly pronounce Leicestershire.
The Attery Squash - Devo Was Right About Everything (Robert & Gerald Casale remix) [YouTube] [Spotify]
Because the idea of getting a caustic song about Devo remixed by Devo is cheering. Some may know this in its briefly viral Charlie Brooker Is Right About Everything form.
Best Coast - Boyfriend [YouTube] [Spotify]
Come on, everyone, there's one good song on Crazy For You! Luckily it's a really good one.
Blonde Redhead - Not Getting There [YouTube] [Spotify]
Man alive, Penny Sparkle is one disappointing album. That's but for this slab of dystopian electro darkness like a modern dreampop Propaganda.
British Sea Power - Zeus [YouTube] [Spotify]
"Rick Stein, pleased to meet you, I did not mean to be so rude". Now that's an opening line.
Broken Social Scene - Texico Bitches [YouTube (live)] [Spotify]
Only allegorical curates can enjoy BSS albums these days, and clearly nothing on Forgiveness Rock Record was a Cause=Time. Hell, there's not even an Anthem For A Seventeen Year Old Girl. But this one rides along bumpily.
Calories - FFWD [YouTube] [Spotify]
Abrasive like a Kinsella band, raging like art-hardcore, as exciting as the best noise-pop.
The Cast Of Cheers - Tigerfox [free Bandcamp]
The Irish Foals, they say. More math-shouty-intricate, we say.
Chapel Club — Five Trees [YouTube] [Spotify]
Poor man's Editors, of course, but nearly every band deserves to get it right once and their turn this year came with their borrowing guitar noises from Kevin Shields and a wind tunnel of a chorus from the Bunnymen.
Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM [YouTube] [Spotify]
For once not getting material based on who her dad was, Beck did his best production work in years weaving together a breakbeat, an MRI scan sample and Gainsbourg's detached vocal style and ending up as industrialised pop.
The Chapman Family - All Fall [YouTube] [Spotify]
Still sound like Maximo Park being incinerated.
Chapter 24 - Gregory [YouTube] [Soundcloud]
The Raincoats' unsteady art-post-punk as a jump-off point, flavoured with surf and hi-life, then spun around violently until you wonder how it sounds so comfortably kept together.
Club 8 - Western Hospitality [YouTube] [Spotify]
The People's Record may be the best thing the mightily prolific Johan Angergård has ever been involved with, in all its Afropop swagger.
Cold Seeds - King [Spotify]
Interesting that on a record featuring members of Meursault and King Creosote it's Animal Magic Tricks that get top billing on the standout track, a longing folk mesmer.
Coltrane Motion - Please Call It A Comeback [download]
Still a source of annoyance that we can't count Coltrane Motion albums for the big list as they've never come out in the UK. This baroque droning dreampop turning to clattering insistence should hopefully make you feel the same as us.
Cults - Go Outside [download] [YouTube]
Now what's going on here? New York duo sample Jim Jones, then launch into Swedish indiepop-style harmonic loungey pop with glockenspiel. It is released on a leading blog's label. A few months later, they sign to Columbia. This could be one of 2011's more fascinating subplots.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. - Vocal Chords [Myspace] [Spotify]
Poor name, good stuff, finding the summer prettiness in Vampire Weekend-nodding harmonic pop with electronic undertow.
Darren Hayman and the Secondary Modern - Drive Too Fast [YouTube] [Spotify]
Best thing from a frustratingly inconsistent album, a tender song about a self-inflicted car crash victim, also known (to us) as the "lesbian from Brookside" song.
The Death Notes - In The Spider's Web [Myspace] [Bandcamp]
Banshees menace - that's Banshees when they had John McGeogh - brought into the post-punk revival a little late for most people but little affected for that.
The Declining Winter - Official World Cup Theme 2010 [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Yearning strings, Go-Betweens warmly nostalgic acoustic songwriting... John Barnes in the Maracana sample at the end aside it has about as much to do with World Cup themes as Colourbox's Official World Cup Theme in 1986, which seems to be the point.
Dog Is Dead - Glockenspiel Song [Soundcloud] [Spotify]
Two towering singles of Mystery Jets pop-warp, skittish riffs and close harmony from the Nottingham teenage "skate kids and thespians" this year. Their debut features both a sax solo and a children's choir, and yet it's magnificent. They're going to be doing this on the next series of Skins, which is less so.
Emma Pollock - Red Orange Green [YouTube] [Spotify]
The Law Of Large Numbers was another of the year's disappointments, its highlight being this metronomic tale of increased nerviness.
Esben And The Witch - Marching Song [YouTube] [Spotify]
Some whispers beginning around a goth revival, hopefully more relevant than that late 90s New Grave thing which included Mansun. E&TW aren't strictly goth but the swirling sonics and stentorian drama of Rachel Davies' voice sets it late at night in a misty graveyard.
Evans The Death - Sleeping Song [Myspace] [download via A New Band A Day]
Said in some quarters to be 2011's best hope for continuation of 2010's great UK indiepop form, they kicked off with a great jangling rush, half-Pavement, half-C86.
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