Compared to first album preview track Past Broadcasts the folk-pop chorus' new single, out March 4th, is more conventional in that it starts tentatively and ends with a huge swell. That's not to say they've become Of Monsters And Men or anything like that, merely that the sound they're mining is really beginning to match up to their ambitions, soaring strings and slow burn melodic development meeting up to complete commitment.
As well as dates with Social Club, Screaming Maldini and Frontier Ruckus they have some headline outings coming up:
February 21st London Bull & Gate
February 22nd Northampton Roadmender
February 28th Cardiff Undertone
March 7th Southend Railway Hotel
March 9th Hitchin Club 85
22nd March Chester Telford's Warehouse
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Documentary and eyewitness
Before they all get taken down for copyright infringement, an at-a-glance list of music documentaries currently on YouTube in full:
Synth Britannia
Prog Britannia
Reggae Britannia
Heavy Metal Britannia
Punk Britannia (part two; part three)
Pump Up the Volume - The History Of House Music
Krautrock - The Rebirth of Germany
When Albums Ruled The World
The Joy Of Disco
The Compleat Beatles - 1982 doc that was pre-Anthology (not all of which is online) the most complete film about the band
David Bowie: Cracked Actor
Nationwide: Kate Bush On Tour
Ramones: End Of The Century
Sex Pistols: The Filth And The Fury
The Clash: Westway To The World
2-Tone Britain
Pixies - Gouge
loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Dig!
Meeting People Is Easy
Johnny Cash - The Last Great American
Joni Mitchell - Woman Of Heart And Mind
A Skin Too Few: The Days Of Nick Drake
Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You
Live Forever: The Rise And Fall Of Britpop
Blur: No Distance Left To Run
Blur: Starshaped
Can
The Wonderful And Frightening World Of Mark E Smith
The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart
Sun Ra: Brother From Another Planet
Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon
Hawkwind: Do Not Panic
1991: The Year Punk Broke
Pavement: Slow Century
Fugazi: Instrument
Minutemen: We Jam Econo
Mission Of Burma - Not a Photograph
Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
The Strange Story of Joe Meek
Moog: A Film
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: The Alchemists Of Sound
Scratch (a history of hip-hop DJing)
Any more good links, leave them in the comments.
Synth Britannia
Prog Britannia
Reggae Britannia
Heavy Metal Britannia
Punk Britannia (part two; part three)
Pump Up the Volume - The History Of House Music
Krautrock - The Rebirth of Germany
When Albums Ruled The World
The Joy Of Disco
The Compleat Beatles - 1982 doc that was pre-Anthology (not all of which is online) the most complete film about the band
David Bowie: Cracked Actor
Nationwide: Kate Bush On Tour
Ramones: End Of The Century
Sex Pistols: The Filth And The Fury
The Clash: Westway To The World
2-Tone Britain
Pixies - Gouge
loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies
Heavy Metal Parking Lot
Dig!
Meeting People Is Easy
Johnny Cash - The Last Great American
Joni Mitchell - Woman Of Heart And Mind
A Skin Too Few: The Days Of Nick Drake
Jeff Buckley - Everybody Here Wants You
Live Forever: The Rise And Fall Of Britpop
Blur: No Distance Left To Run
Blur: Starshaped
Can
The Wonderful And Frightening World Of Mark E Smith
The Artist Formerly Known as Captain Beefheart
Sun Ra: Brother From Another Planet
Fela Kuti: Music Is The Weapon
Hawkwind: Do Not Panic
1991: The Year Punk Broke
Pavement: Slow Century
Fugazi: Instrument
Minutemen: We Jam Econo
Mission Of Burma - Not a Photograph
Wilco - I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
The Strange Story of Joe Meek
Moog: A Film
BBC Radiophonic Workshop: The Alchemists Of Sound
Scratch (a history of hip-hop DJing)
Any more good links, leave them in the comments.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Scott & Charlene's Wedding - Two Weeks
For some reason Flavorwire compared Craig Dermody's work to Nirvana earlier this week. Maybe some of the records he loved, more like. This lead track from a new EP develops Dermody's honest to a fault lovelorn Dunedin Sound reflections into a more expansive, almost power-pop region with hints of Pavement knowing slacker and Teenage Fanclub melodies. Where it develops from here could be fascinating.
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Tessera Skies - Milieu
This is still only the second publicly released track by the trio - the first was Simon 'Bella Union' Raymonde's track of 2012, which is some way to start - but they're already carving something of a shimmering ambient space for themselves. Produced by Nick Mason off that Pink Floyd as part of the Roundhouse 30/30 project in conjunction with EMI and Generator, and to be released on its tie-in compilation on 14th February (a proper, different single follows in March) it builds gradually on tremulous piano lines and delicately self-questioning existential musings before lifting off completely from its morrings into jazz drums and a soaring self-contained grandiosity without having to add that much more instrumentation, all proving to confirm our great hopes for their year ahead.
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
We Three And The Death Rattle - Inpatients
Quite some time since we first wrote about them WTATDR's grindingly sleazy Jon Spencer/Gun Club r'n'r directness is still an instant hit. Having spent 2012 in the live company of The Kills, Josh T Pearson, Craig Finn and Bo Ningen this new single, part of a double A side 7" out March 5th, is a righteously primal blues-garage thump, scuzzed up riffs and a beat like banging head against wall as Amy Cooper declaims like it means everything.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
The Chapman Family - Adult
If not run out of steam exactly, it did seem like the Chapmans' ire and interference had dragged itself into a dead end a little. Not any more. This new single, downloadable for free from their Facebook, does whatever the threatening noisepop equivalent of smartening up is, a rejigged lineup doing little to temper the sense that their songs are stuck to the side of a runaway centrifuge, bass ploughing its way through the crust as guitars feed back and roar against Kingsley's focused brooding. Tour in February, proper single in May, second album in the autumn.
Cloud Boat - Wanderlust
Not so much dreampop as drifting slowly into nightmarish coves, the duo's first proper single in a while, out March 5th, is all about the atmosphere, delicate guitar licks leaving great big holes for ambient waves to cascade into. The plangent vocal and minimal, looped and whirring electronics behind recall James Blake with/or a decaying Ghosting Season but it holds its own iridescent glow amid the enveloping tension. There's a handful of dates around the single - March 5th London Waiting Room, 6th Birmingham Bulls Head, 7th Manchester Trof, 9th Bristol Start The Bus.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
EXCLUSIVE: Alcopop! free sampler Cat in a Hat 2013 (STN version)
The label that brought you compilations as maps, menus and messages in bottles and singles as frisbees and badge sets must be compelled to do something special every time they promote something. And so here's a special compilation made for our benefit by Alcopop! Recordings, five songs from members of their roster, one for each of the 49 blogs that took part in Blog Sound Of 2013, all free download and all with a different picture of a cat in a hat. Of course. Presenting number 41:
Friday, January 18, 2013
Dark Horses - Traps
Brighton sextet Dark Horses' press release comes with plenty of high class signifiers - Artrocker single of the year, Sigur Ros and Beck supports, "rumoured Stone Roses supports and Mercury Prize nominations" whatever that means, Death In Vegas' Richard Fearless producing their album Black Music, which we seem to have slept on as it came out last October. They didn't need to claim any of that, to be honest - just mentioning that bassist Harry Bohay-Nowell is the son of Vernon Dudley Bohay-Nowell from the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band would have been more than enough to pique STN's interest. You can see what Fearless saw in this brand of wound-up spiralling prairie dankness, singer Lisa Elle making for a temptress of a frontwoman as everyone else invokes Mazzy Star-like dusty spectralism. It's nothing that fans of, say, Howling Bells, Duke Spirit or late 90s PJ Harvey won't be largely familiar with but it's more than engaging in its ethereal siren qualities.
What we talk about when we talk about 'guitar bands are coming back'
Predictions made at the start of a year in music are prone to wavering fortunes. Sometimes it's due to the benefit of hindsight - yes, Lady Gaga was only number six in the BBC Sound Of 2009, but all we had to go on was some facepainted promo shots and Just Dance, nobody knew what stylistic leaps she had ahead and winner Little Boots was everyone's idea of a characterful pop wizard to come until the label made a mess of her following releases. More recently it seems the idea of such lists as self-fulfilling prophecy has been greeted by a cussed public with a "we'll see about that". Sound Of 2012 champion Michael Kiwanuka had a decent run, top five album and Mercury nomination, but his name didn't figure come the end of year reviews.
Discourse around the music to come in 2013 has seemingly centred on one sentence - "guitar bands are coming back". Radio 1 head of music George Ergatoudis told Music Week "the public appetite for guitar bands is definitely building back up" in November, after Kiss FM's Andy Roberts had told the same trade journal "we're probably waiting for guitars to come back..We're due guitars but I think they'll be a fusion of something (radio stations) will all be able to play." Which sounds like Fun and Maroon 5, but never mind.
But what do we mean by that? Guitars never went away, of course - it's not like big pop acts are taking over festival headline slots, the Vaccines play the O2 in May, a new saviour is promoted at almost every turn. We keep being told that 'live music', a term by which producers and DJs are notable for their unstated absence, is booming.
In such context such statements feel a bit more like wish fulfilment - this year's Sound Of top five contained no guitar bands (unless you count Haim, and if we're calling Haim the alternative it's probably time to all pack up and go home). No, what they mean is sales, and specifically the singles chart. No matter that the decline in singles chart positions of indie acts is allied to the rise of download culture and immediate release, anathema to the large sector of indieland that still believes primarily in physical stock and slow builds - Jake Bugg's singles chart peak is 28, the Vaccines 32, Beady Eye 31, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds 15, Mumford & Sons 12. Even just idle curiosity would have lifted Alt-J above 75 a few years ago. That the sector also had a bad year album sales-wise - none in the end of year top 30 - may have been a catalyst, but it's one heading in the opposite direction to logic. The idea that the singles chart - while at all other times derided as unrepresentative, of course - is the be all and end all and Cowell and Guettapop are somehow the only things that are popular is a hangover from Britpop, where records were nakedly pitched into the commercial core with aggressively marketed store discounts and multiple formats. That doesn't, and can't, happen any more because the market changed and, like dear HMV, guitar bands seem not to have noticed.
The ultimate question is, is there much evidence that the public are going along with this sea change, or is it still the same core market? They don't seem to be falling over each other to raise Libertines-knockoffs-local-support-band-who-once-heard-Glasvegas-made-good Palma Violets to the level the NME so wants them to reach, while everyone else given the big push these last couple of months - Peace, Swim Deep, Temples - sound like areas we've already long past carved up. And, of course, that's what's worked well the last couple of times Guitars Came Back. Meanwhile the track downloaders still cling to their rave-pop, their boy bands, their pretend-dubstep and their X Factor runners up because it's what they know and what the current set-up of the mass music media, such as it exists, is naturally pushed towards - Capital and Heart, two stations that couldn't care less about the way the hip wind is blowing are steadily gaining listeners. Britpop felt like a sea change because in 1995-96 it still felt like an outsider's genre, whereas more recently it's felt like a volcanic tremor that's attempting to push up from the middle because Liam Gallagher said something once and, well, all these guitar bands are the same. Maybe that's why parties like Ergatoudis, who would have grown up on Britpop's imagined cultural legacy and the always underlying blokeishness of the radio format, are so keen to push the message - it's not so much a new dawn as a new marketing opportunity.
Discourse around the music to come in 2013 has seemingly centred on one sentence - "guitar bands are coming back". Radio 1 head of music George Ergatoudis told Music Week "the public appetite for guitar bands is definitely building back up" in November, after Kiss FM's Andy Roberts had told the same trade journal "we're probably waiting for guitars to come back..We're due guitars but I think they'll be a fusion of something (radio stations) will all be able to play." Which sounds like Fun and Maroon 5, but never mind.
But what do we mean by that? Guitars never went away, of course - it's not like big pop acts are taking over festival headline slots, the Vaccines play the O2 in May, a new saviour is promoted at almost every turn. We keep being told that 'live music', a term by which producers and DJs are notable for their unstated absence, is booming.
In such context such statements feel a bit more like wish fulfilment - this year's Sound Of top five contained no guitar bands (unless you count Haim, and if we're calling Haim the alternative it's probably time to all pack up and go home). No, what they mean is sales, and specifically the singles chart. No matter that the decline in singles chart positions of indie acts is allied to the rise of download culture and immediate release, anathema to the large sector of indieland that still believes primarily in physical stock and slow builds - Jake Bugg's singles chart peak is 28, the Vaccines 32, Beady Eye 31, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds 15, Mumford & Sons 12. Even just idle curiosity would have lifted Alt-J above 75 a few years ago. That the sector also had a bad year album sales-wise - none in the end of year top 30 - may have been a catalyst, but it's one heading in the opposite direction to logic. The idea that the singles chart - while at all other times derided as unrepresentative, of course - is the be all and end all and Cowell and Guettapop are somehow the only things that are popular is a hangover from Britpop, where records were nakedly pitched into the commercial core with aggressively marketed store discounts and multiple formats. That doesn't, and can't, happen any more because the market changed and, like dear HMV, guitar bands seem not to have noticed.
The ultimate question is, is there much evidence that the public are going along with this sea change, or is it still the same core market? They don't seem to be falling over each other to raise Libertines-knockoffs-local-support-band-who-once-heard-Glasvegas-made-good Palma Violets to the level the NME so wants them to reach, while everyone else given the big push these last couple of months - Peace, Swim Deep, Temples - sound like areas we've already long past carved up. And, of course, that's what's worked well the last couple of times Guitars Came Back. Meanwhile the track downloaders still cling to their rave-pop, their boy bands, their pretend-dubstep and their X Factor runners up because it's what they know and what the current set-up of the mass music media, such as it exists, is naturally pushed towards - Capital and Heart, two stations that couldn't care less about the way the hip wind is blowing are steadily gaining listeners. Britpop felt like a sea change because in 1995-96 it still felt like an outsider's genre, whereas more recently it's felt like a volcanic tremor that's attempting to push up from the middle because Liam Gallagher said something once and, well, all these guitar bands are the same. Maybe that's why parties like Ergatoudis, who would have grown up on Britpop's imagined cultural legacy and the always underlying blokeishness of the radio format, are so keen to push the message - it's not so much a new dawn as a new marketing opportunity.
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Stagecoach - Threequel
Ever ready to start the party, Stagecoach's second album, due in May, seems to see them amping up their keg party mandolin-aided power-pop, roaring guitars elbowing their way into a West Coast melody, breaking down and building back up into coruscating drives. It was recorded in the boat studio of Rory Attwell, whose name does tend to crop up here quite a lot these days for his work with the likes of Evans The Death, PAWS, Let's Wrestle, Male Bonding, Veronica Falls, Yuck and Big Deal, and he's currently working with Palma Vi...oh. That's ruined it.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Fear Of Men - Seer
The second consecutive new song from one of our new band tips for the year, this relatively cleaned up and mildly more calmingly optimistic track, bedecked with martial drums and quite a bit of pensive silence which you know is just biding its time before the effects pedals get warmed up, comesfrom Early Fragments, a compilation of their 7"s to date being released in America though it seems there'll be some copies in indies over here.
Farewell J.R - Night Wolves
So not only does Farewell J.R have a name (Nick Rayner, if you must) but he has a debut EP ready. Health is out March 11th, the first release on Talking Shop Records via digital and limited edition 12". The slow, (un)steady build from airy/echoey elegance to crashing while still serene at heart chamber grandiosity still recalls For Emma Forever Ago, or at least its evolved live band incarnation, an emotive heft inherent in the chiming guitar and Rayner's pained sense of loss. One live date has been announced, St Pancras Old Church on March 21st. It'll be fascinating to see how it transfers.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
A bit of a do
A parish notice: For the second year running we're putting on a Leicester Indiepop Alldayer, this on Saturday March 23rd at Firebug (erm, in Leicester). Advance tickets are £7 via WeGotTickets, for which you get to see all these fine folk:
(And also Seabirds, who don't have any tracks online yet but they feature members of the now defunct and very good Red Shoe Diaries)
(And also Seabirds, who don't have any tracks online yet but they feature members of the now defunct and very good Red Shoe Diaries)
Monday, January 14, 2013
Fashoda Crisis - Polonium Tea Party
Southend's most withering have a new EP, The Jowls Of Justice, out today on pay-what-you-like, including former single Horatio, STN album contribution Hunting The Poor For Sport and this jackhammer pummelling finding the exact point where Albini and Falkous would cross the streams. And two other tracks.
Shy And The Fight - I'd Rather You Lied
This isn't a proper release from the sprawling sextet but an old recording left in out-take purgatory during recording sessions for a forthcoming EP which won't sound much like this. Desperate hollering, heroic mini-guitar solos,wandering violin and prominent glockenspiel between verses give it more than the whiff of earlyish Los Campesinos! as redone by a post-Arcade Fire folk-bombast collective.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Calla capers
Some light reading for a Sunday morning (or whenever you read this) - Her Name Is Calla, who put out one of STN's ten favourite albums of 2010 and have continued in similar expansive, heart on sleeve post-post-rock vein ever since, are playing some gigs this month (19th Glasgow Ivory Blacks, 20th Sheffield Corporation, 21st Wolverhampton Slade Rooms). Around or shortly afterwards they'll be releasing... a comic book. The Way We Write, which will be available to preorder from here from February 15th ahead of publication on 16th March (also the date of a free launch night at Leicester's Cookie Jar), is the work of Rachael Smith, who has kindly given us the first two pages as preview:
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Android Angel - Chicago John
Paul Coltofeanu's works have featured here recently as the main brain behind the headspinning psych-pop of Free Swim, but he has a second outlet for low budget keyboard pop. From an album entitled Lie Back And Think Of England due later in the year, "written during summer 2011 while volunteering on a farm in the Romanian mountains, on a Water Buffalo reserve in the Ukraine, sat on the banks of Varosliget Lake in Budapest and in the squares and parks of Berlin", its tale of spy sexual subterfuge inevitably shares some of its DNA of pecularity with the band but in a more overtly POP! frame.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Widowspeak - Thick As Thieves
The forthcoming second Widowspeak album Almanac, out 28th January, foregoes the twang of their debut and heads into even mistier areas, sometimes finding a clearing and emerging near the inscrutable coiled guitars of Warpaint, but on repeated listens the wood crafted floating American gothic of Mazzy Star, very much in evidence on this single.
Tuesday, January 08, 2013
Northern Portrait - Greetings From Paris
The Swedes used to be dogged by accusations they cleaved rather too closely to the Smiths model, but their new Pretty Decent Swimmers EP takes them in one bound into the upper echelons of the Scandoindiepop model. Admittedly you could easily make the same note about at least one of these four songs, but elsewhere the liquid jangle and vocals that come across with cocksure swagger but harbour thoughts of self-questioning and things going wrong, here diverted by ideas of escape and the travails of holiday romance, exhibit a confidence and swing of their own.
Sunday, January 06, 2013
New year mopping up operation
Cloud Boat - I Left For A Reason (It Escapes Me Now)
There's quite a few trying to send 80s-influenced electronica down a darker path but few as successfully in creating a genuine fear of the dank unknown as the London duo whose last release was a full year ago, synth drones and guitar strokes nodding to hypnagogic dreampop before falling through the oppressive wormhole into the white of a minimal pool of sound waves in an echo chamber.
Haiku Salut - Los Elefantes
A Yann Tiersen soundtrack, chamber piano and accordion to hand, as rearranged and sent into something less definable and more experimentally playful by a Derbyshire instrumental trio whose debut album Tricolore is released on March 12th, shortly after which they'll be playing our second annual Leicester Indiepop Alldayer (if we ever manage to book a headliner, or indeed anyone else)
Jacques Caramac & The Sweet Generation - It Takes All Sorts...
Spotted by Lee Keep Pop Loud, this washed up in the detritus of 2012 - the 7" came out December 10th - from a shady trio who called the B-side Cadbury's Voltaire. We've not seen such levels of committed thematic punning in band name and title since The Be Be See - and whaddayaknow, that band's leader Kevin Retoryka is responsible here, along with the rhythm section from French art-rockers Underground Railroad. Taking a hefty swipe from The Fall, it's redolent of the sort of skewed Velvetsian curiosity that would have come out of Manchester via homemade cassette labels around the turn of the 80s.
Mat Riviere - Wool
The doomy/doomed lo-fi electronics mangler's second album Not Even Doom Music - officially out 1st April, but preorder the vinyl and get mp3s now - sees him retreat further into insistent inscrutability, a constant loop, out of focus vocals and offbeat drum sallies finding their way of worming their way into the conscious.
T-Shirt Weather - Beyoncé Eyes
There seems to be a little pool of modernist pop-punk emerging from down Durham way, mostly via the Discount Horse, um, stable. This trio heading straight for the jugular, precious little studio sheen and lots of chugging, staccato insistent riffology in a two and a half minute cut of fizzbomb melody. They say it's about "things going flat, like an old pop".
VWO - Spinne
Someone must have critiqued the Wellington duo as that couldn't owe much more to Animal Collective on a 1:16 downscale if they adopted nicknames. So they have. Maybe that's unfair on Natas and Scientist, as while there's a distinct cream of Avey Tare involved the pounding piano adds some kind of grounding to the chanting vocal cadences, splashing cymbals and whirlwinds of weird found sounds that form their own neo-psychedelic percussive mania.
There's quite a few trying to send 80s-influenced electronica down a darker path but few as successfully in creating a genuine fear of the dank unknown as the London duo whose last release was a full year ago, synth drones and guitar strokes nodding to hypnagogic dreampop before falling through the oppressive wormhole into the white of a minimal pool of sound waves in an echo chamber.
Haiku Salut - Los Elefantes
A Yann Tiersen soundtrack, chamber piano and accordion to hand, as rearranged and sent into something less definable and more experimentally playful by a Derbyshire instrumental trio whose debut album Tricolore is released on March 12th, shortly after which they'll be playing our second annual Leicester Indiepop Alldayer (if we ever manage to book a headliner, or indeed anyone else)
Jacques Caramac & The Sweet Generation - It Takes All Sorts...
Spotted by Lee Keep Pop Loud, this washed up in the detritus of 2012 - the 7" came out December 10th - from a shady trio who called the B-side Cadbury's Voltaire. We've not seen such levels of committed thematic punning in band name and title since The Be Be See - and whaddayaknow, that band's leader Kevin Retoryka is responsible here, along with the rhythm section from French art-rockers Underground Railroad. Taking a hefty swipe from The Fall, it's redolent of the sort of skewed Velvetsian curiosity that would have come out of Manchester via homemade cassette labels around the turn of the 80s.
Mat Riviere - Wool
The doomy/doomed lo-fi electronics mangler's second album Not Even Doom Music - officially out 1st April, but preorder the vinyl and get mp3s now - sees him retreat further into insistent inscrutability, a constant loop, out of focus vocals and offbeat drum sallies finding their way of worming their way into the conscious.
T-Shirt Weather - Beyoncé Eyes
There seems to be a little pool of modernist pop-punk emerging from down Durham way, mostly via the Discount Horse, um, stable. This trio heading straight for the jugular, precious little studio sheen and lots of chugging, staccato insistent riffology in a two and a half minute cut of fizzbomb melody. They say it's about "things going flat, like an old pop".
VWO - Spinne
Someone must have critiqued the Wellington duo as that couldn't owe much more to Animal Collective on a 1:16 downscale if they adopted nicknames. So they have. Maybe that's unfair on Natas and Scientist, as while there's a distinct cream of Avey Tare involved the pounding piano adds some kind of grounding to the chanting vocal cadences, splashing cymbals and whirlwinds of weird found sounds that form their own neo-psychedelic percussive mania.
Friday, January 04, 2013
20 albums for 2013
Or at least a cross-section of those we're excited about and have information on, followed by a big list of everyone else whispered about/for whom dates are confirmed...
The Acorn
Responsible for two luscious, detailed emotional charges of albums, Rolf Klausener put The Acorn on hiatus for a year and then, with a reworked lineup, started work on a new record in the autumn.
Arcade Fire
Jeremy Gara told an Ottawa radio station in October that they were in the studio and should have something out some time in 2013, probably towards its end. Their manager then let slip to Music Week that while usual collaborator Markus Dravs is working on the bulk of the album James Murphy has produced some tracks.
British Sea Power
Having sharpened new songs in a year of running their club night Krankenhaus, a new album has recently been mastered and all concerned are currently suggesting an April release. Before then the DVD of From The Sea To The Land Beyond, the found footage with BSP score documentary shown on BBC4 in November, is out in January.
Camera Obscura
While never engaged in the most frenzied of release activity it's longer than usual - three and three-quarter years as it stands - since Tracyanne and co swooned our way. They've been esconsed in Portland for the last month, from various Twitter clues it seems with Tucker Martine (Sufjan, Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, Laura Veirs) producing.
Daughter
The now trio finished off their debut towards the end of 2012 with Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, M83, Clinic) and his son Jolyon producing.
Edwyn Collins - Understated
Described by Collins as "northern soul crossed with punk" - the usual, then - Richard Hawley contributes to a couple of songs. Due 25th March. There's also a documentary film being made about him.
Everything Everything - Arc
Still seeming like they have more ideas then they really know what to do with and more time than they think to get them all in, the second album is again produced by David Kosten and is released 14th January.
Foals - Holy Fire
Out 11th February, choosing Inhaler as the first single seems a scattershot decision but Yannis claims it's fairly unrepresentative, though the choice of Flood and Alan Moulder as producers would suggest a heavier sound all round.
Los Campesinos!
As well as announcing their December London gig as their last before making their fifth album, interviewed late in 2012 Gareth revealed Tom had written the bulk of the music for it already, describing it as "more ambitious still and there are a lot more textures".
Low - The Invisible Way
Produced by Jeff Tweedy! The trio's tenth album was recorded in Wilco's studio, sounds in bits like this and is released 18th March.
Lucky Soul
After time off due to Ali's motherhood they've been back in the studio putting what's clearly perfectionist craft to their third album for a little while now - indeed there were photos on Facebook in mid-2011, an update suggested they were mixing it in June and yet Ali's Christmas message on the self same platform came from within confines near a mixing desk.
Mew
Busy "speaking with instruments and listening with body and throwing knives", as Silas put it in a website post in November, news that bodes well is the new record, nearly four years on from its precedessor, is being overseen by Michael Beinhorn, responsible for And The Glass Handed Kites.
My Bloody Valentine
New album mastered 21st December! So they say, and who are we the public to disbelieve them until we see evidence? *checks* Oh. OK. Anyway, apparently Kevin's actually got to a point he's happy with, with the classic line-up all contributing, and word is it might just be put out online one day and that there will be the climax of 21 years of hope.
The National
They reported studio business as brisk in September and played four new songs at their ATP last month.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
That difficult fifteenth album, released 18th February. Nick? "Well, if I were to use that threadbare metaphor of albums being like children, then Push The Sky Away is the ghost-baby in the incubator and Warren (Ellis)'s loops are its tiny, trembling heart-beat."
Savages
The band most likely to reported via Facebook 'WE ARE RECORDING THE ALBUM' on 29th November and 'LAST DAYS' on 14th December. Rodaidh McDonald (Adele, Daughter, King Krule, XX mixing) and one Johnny Hostile (who may or may not be the other half of John & Jehn) do the button pressing.
Sky Larkin
There'd been breakup rumours, especially when Doug left and Katie went off to tour as an auxiliary Wild Beast for the best part of fifteen months, but they recently decamped to Seattle for recording which presumably means a third hookup with John Goodmanson and Harkin has let slip they have two new, as yet unnamed members.
Summer Camp
Elizabeth told DIY last month "I'm finding it difficult to work out what I want it to sound like, and whether we want it to be like the first album but hopefully a bit better, or to just try something totally different... We don't want it to be concept-y. We want it to be more personal, and about us and our experiences of being in a band". Summer-ish, she reckons.
Warpaint
Long in hibernation after 2010's breakout - indeed they were talking new album advanced plans during 2011 festival season - they played SS Coachella just before Christmas with a set heavy on new songs.
Wild Beasts
Talking to the New Statesman in October Hayden Thorpe claimed they were already writing, though he couldn't tell yet regarding the shape it'll take. He has said it may arrive late in the year.
AND ALSO... (at least maybe so in some cases): And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures (18/3), Atoms For Peace - Amok (25/2), The Avalanches, Ballboy, Blonde Redhead, Blue Roses, Broken Records, Calories, Eels - Wonderful, Glorious (4/2), Esben & The Witch - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face (21/1), The Flaming Lips, Franz Ferdinand, Haiku Salut - Tricolore (11/3), I Am Kloot - Let It All In (21/1), Jetplane Landing, Joe Gideon & The Shark - Freakish (7/1), John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts (11/3), The Knife, Laura Marling, Let's Buy Happiness, Local Natives - Hummingbird (28/1), Lord Huron - Lonesome Dreams (14/1), Lykke Li, Marques Toliver, MIA, Modest Mouse, Napoleon IIIrd, No Age, Okkervil River, Other Lives, Owen Pallett, The Pastels, Peggy Sue, Portishead, Primal Scream, PVT - Homosapien (11/2), Queens Of The Stone Age, Rose Elinor Dougall, Spectral Park - Spectral Park (28/1), Spoon, Still Corners, The Thermals, Tigercats, tUnE-YarDs, Vampire Weekend, Veronica Falls - Waiting For Something To Happen (4/2), The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, Widowspeak - Almanac (11/2), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yo La Tengo - Fade (14/1)
The Acorn
Responsible for two luscious, detailed emotional charges of albums, Rolf Klausener put The Acorn on hiatus for a year and then, with a reworked lineup, started work on a new record in the autumn.
Arcade Fire
Jeremy Gara told an Ottawa radio station in October that they were in the studio and should have something out some time in 2013, probably towards its end. Their manager then let slip to Music Week that while usual collaborator Markus Dravs is working on the bulk of the album James Murphy has produced some tracks.
British Sea Power
Having sharpened new songs in a year of running their club night Krankenhaus, a new album has recently been mastered and all concerned are currently suggesting an April release. Before then the DVD of From The Sea To The Land Beyond, the found footage with BSP score documentary shown on BBC4 in November, is out in January.
Camera Obscura
While never engaged in the most frenzied of release activity it's longer than usual - three and three-quarter years as it stands - since Tracyanne and co swooned our way. They've been esconsed in Portland for the last month, from various Twitter clues it seems with Tucker Martine (Sufjan, Decemberists, My Morning Jacket, Laura Veirs) producing.
Daughter
The now trio finished off their debut towards the end of 2012 with Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros, M83, Clinic) and his son Jolyon producing.
Edwyn Collins - Understated
Described by Collins as "northern soul crossed with punk" - the usual, then - Richard Hawley contributes to a couple of songs. Due 25th March. There's also a documentary film being made about him.
Everything Everything - Arc
Still seeming like they have more ideas then they really know what to do with and more time than they think to get them all in, the second album is again produced by David Kosten and is released 14th January.
Foals - Holy Fire
Out 11th February, choosing Inhaler as the first single seems a scattershot decision but Yannis claims it's fairly unrepresentative, though the choice of Flood and Alan Moulder as producers would suggest a heavier sound all round.
Los Campesinos!
As well as announcing their December London gig as their last before making their fifth album, interviewed late in 2012 Gareth revealed Tom had written the bulk of the music for it already, describing it as "more ambitious still and there are a lot more textures".
Low - The Invisible Way
Produced by Jeff Tweedy! The trio's tenth album was recorded in Wilco's studio, sounds in bits like this and is released 18th March.
Lucky Soul
After time off due to Ali's motherhood they've been back in the studio putting what's clearly perfectionist craft to their third album for a little while now - indeed there were photos on Facebook in mid-2011, an update suggested they were mixing it in June and yet Ali's Christmas message on the self same platform came from within confines near a mixing desk.
Mew
Busy "speaking with instruments and listening with body and throwing knives", as Silas put it in a website post in November, news that bodes well is the new record, nearly four years on from its precedessor, is being overseen by Michael Beinhorn, responsible for And The Glass Handed Kites.
My Bloody Valentine
New album mastered 21st December! So they say, and who are we the public to disbelieve them until we see evidence? *checks* Oh. OK. Anyway, apparently Kevin's actually got to a point he's happy with, with the classic line-up all contributing, and word is it might just be put out online one day and that there will be the climax of 21 years of hope.
The National
They reported studio business as brisk in September and played four new songs at their ATP last month.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push The Sky Away
That difficult fifteenth album, released 18th February. Nick? "Well, if I were to use that threadbare metaphor of albums being like children, then Push The Sky Away is the ghost-baby in the incubator and Warren (Ellis)'s loops are its tiny, trembling heart-beat."
Savages
The band most likely to reported via Facebook 'WE ARE RECORDING THE ALBUM' on 29th November and 'LAST DAYS' on 14th December. Rodaidh McDonald (Adele, Daughter, King Krule, XX mixing) and one Johnny Hostile (who may or may not be the other half of John & Jehn) do the button pressing.
Sky Larkin
There'd been breakup rumours, especially when Doug left and Katie went off to tour as an auxiliary Wild Beast for the best part of fifteen months, but they recently decamped to Seattle for recording which presumably means a third hookup with John Goodmanson and Harkin has let slip they have two new, as yet unnamed members.
Summer Camp
Elizabeth told DIY last month "I'm finding it difficult to work out what I want it to sound like, and whether we want it to be like the first album but hopefully a bit better, or to just try something totally different... We don't want it to be concept-y. We want it to be more personal, and about us and our experiences of being in a band". Summer-ish, she reckons.
Warpaint
Long in hibernation after 2010's breakout - indeed they were talking new album advanced plans during 2011 festival season - they played SS Coachella just before Christmas with a set heavy on new songs.
Wild Beasts
Talking to the New Statesman in October Hayden Thorpe claimed they were already writing, though he couldn't tell yet regarding the shape it'll take. He has said it may arrive late in the year.
AND ALSO... (at least maybe so in some cases): And So I Watch You From Afar - All Hail Bright Futures (18/3), Atoms For Peace - Amok (25/2), The Avalanches, Ballboy, Blonde Redhead, Blue Roses, Broken Records, Calories, Eels - Wonderful, Glorious (4/2), Esben & The Witch - Wash The Sins Not Only The Face (21/1), The Flaming Lips, Franz Ferdinand, Haiku Salut - Tricolore (11/3), I Am Kloot - Let It All In (21/1), Jetplane Landing, Joe Gideon & The Shark - Freakish (7/1), John Grant - Pale Green Ghosts (11/3), The Knife, Laura Marling, Let's Buy Happiness, Local Natives - Hummingbird (28/1), Lord Huron - Lonesome Dreams (14/1), Lykke Li, Marques Toliver, MIA, Modest Mouse, Napoleon IIIrd, No Age, Okkervil River, Other Lives, Owen Pallett, The Pastels, Peggy Sue, Portishead, Primal Scream, PVT - Homosapien (11/2), Queens Of The Stone Age, Rose Elinor Dougall, Spectral Park - Spectral Park (28/1), Spoon, Still Corners, The Thermals, Tigercats, tUnE-YarDs, Vampire Weekend, Veronica Falls - Waiting For Something To Happen (4/2), The Victorian English Gentlemens Club, Widowspeak - Almanac (11/2), Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Yo La Tengo - Fade (14/1)
Tuesday, January 01, 2013
UK Blogger Albums Of 2012 Poll Results
It's, we like to believe, a New Year's Day tradition by now, the eighth annual poll of polls of the UK music blogging and DIY music magazine community. Key participants among more than sixty blogs/writers who submitted lists or had them harvested this year: 17 Seconds, A Pocket Full Of Seeds, All Noise, Alphabet Bands, Both Bars On, Bowlegs, Breaking More Waves, Don't Watch Me Dancing, Dots & Dashes, Drunken Werewolf, Eaten By Monsters, Flying With Anna, Folly Of Youth, Give Pop A Chance!, God Is In The TV, GoldFlakePaint, I Prefer Their Older Stuff, In League With Paton, In Love Not Limbo, It's All Indie, Just Music That I Like, Just Played, Keep Pop Loud, Last Year's Girl, The Mad Mackerel, The Metaphorical Boat, Mudkiss, Music Fans Mic, Music Liberation, Music To Die For, Not Many Experts, Peenko, The Pop Cop, Ragged Glories, Scottish Fiction, someofitistrue, Skeletory, Useless Chamber and The Von Pip Musical Express.
That all done and introduced, let's get on with it...
75 SIGUR ROS - Valtari
74 SAM LEE - A Ground Of Its Own
73 BOBBY WOMACK - The Bravest Man In The Universe
72 TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS - Trouble
71 TITLE FIGHT - Floral Green
70 BETH JEANS HOUGHTON & THE HOOVES OF DESTINY - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
69 DEFTONES - Koi No Yokan
68 PEAKING LIGHTS - Lucifer
67 NEIL YOUNG - Psychedelic Pill
66 CRYSTAL CASTLES - III
65 HOLY OTHER - Held
64 DEATH GRIPS - The Money Store
63 METRIC - Synthetica
62 BILL FAY - Life Is People
61 TINDERSTICKS - The Something Rain
60 FIELD MUSIC - Plumb
59 FUTURE OF THE LEFT - The Plot Against Common Sense
58 MARTIN ROSSITER - The Defenestration Of St Martin
57 PURITY RING - Shrines
56 NIKI AND THE DOVE - Instinct
55 THE RAVEONETTES - Observator
54 LUCY ROSE - Like I Used To
53 HANNAH COHEN - Child Bride
52 CAT POWER - Sun
51 RACHEL SERMANNI - Under Mountains
50 FATHER JOHN MISTY - Fear Fun
49 KILLER MIKE - R.A.P. Music
48 ADMIRAL FALLOW - Tree Bursts In Snow
47 NITE JEWEL - One Second Of Love
46 DJANGO DJANGO - Django Django
45 THE WALKMEN - Heaven
44 EFTERKLANG - Piramida
43 CLOCK OPERA - Ways To Forget
42 JENS LEKMAN - I Know What Love Isn't
41 JAKE BUGG - Jake Bugg
40 DIIV - Oshin
39 COLD SPECKS - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
38 LIARS - WIXIW
37 DAVID BYRNE & ST VINCENT - Love This Giant
36 OF MONSTERS AND MEN - My Head Is An Animal
35 RM HUBBERT - Thirteen Lost And Found
34 BETH ORTON - Sugaring Season
33 HOT CHIP - In Our Heads
32 THE TWILIGHT SAD - No One Can Ever Know
31 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Wrecking Ball
30 ANAIS MITCHELL - Young Man In America
29 TALL SHIPS - Everything Touching
28 ALLO DARLIN' - Europe
27 TOY - Toy
26 FLYING LOTUS - Until The Quiet Comes
25 GOAT - World Music
24 THE XX - Coexist
23 FIONA APPLE - The Idler Wheel...
22 CLOUD NOTHINGS - Attack On Memory
21 DIRTY PROJECTORS - Swing Lo Magellan
20 LANA DEL REY - Born To Die
19 RICHARD HAWLEY - Standing At The Sky's Edge
18 BAT FOR LASHES - The Haunted Man
17 MEURSAULT - Something For The Weakened
16 CHROMATICS - Kill For Love
15 THE MACCABEES - Given To The Wild
14 FIRST AID KIT - The Lion's Roar
13 JACK WHITE - Blunderbuss
12 BEACH HOUSE - Bloom
11 JAPANDROIDS - Celebration Rock
10 GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Video: We Drift Like Worried Fire
9 JESSIE WARE - Devotion
Video: Wildest Moments
8 KENDRICK LAMAR - Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
Video: Swimming Pools
7 SWANS - The Seer
Video: Mother Of The World
6 GRIZZLY BEAR - Shields
Video: Yet Again
5 FRANK OCEAN - Channel Orange
Video: Thinking About You
4 TAME IMPALA - Lonerism
Video: Elephant
3 GRIMES - Visions
Video: Genesis
2 SHARON VAN ETTEN - Tramp
Video: Magic Chords
1 ALT-J - An Awesome Wave
Video: Tessellate
That all done and introduced, let's get on with it...
75 SIGUR ROS - Valtari
74 SAM LEE - A Ground Of Its Own
73 BOBBY WOMACK - The Bravest Man In The Universe
72 TOTALLY ENORMOUS EXTINCT DINOSAURS - Trouble
71 TITLE FIGHT - Floral Green
70 BETH JEANS HOUGHTON & THE HOOVES OF DESTINY - Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose
69 DEFTONES - Koi No Yokan
68 PEAKING LIGHTS - Lucifer
67 NEIL YOUNG - Psychedelic Pill
66 CRYSTAL CASTLES - III
65 HOLY OTHER - Held
64 DEATH GRIPS - The Money Store
63 METRIC - Synthetica
62 BILL FAY - Life Is People
61 TINDERSTICKS - The Something Rain
60 FIELD MUSIC - Plumb
59 FUTURE OF THE LEFT - The Plot Against Common Sense
58 MARTIN ROSSITER - The Defenestration Of St Martin
57 PURITY RING - Shrines
56 NIKI AND THE DOVE - Instinct
55 THE RAVEONETTES - Observator
54 LUCY ROSE - Like I Used To
53 HANNAH COHEN - Child Bride
52 CAT POWER - Sun
51 RACHEL SERMANNI - Under Mountains
50 FATHER JOHN MISTY - Fear Fun
49 KILLER MIKE - R.A.P. Music
48 ADMIRAL FALLOW - Tree Bursts In Snow
47 NITE JEWEL - One Second Of Love
46 DJANGO DJANGO - Django Django
45 THE WALKMEN - Heaven
44 EFTERKLANG - Piramida
43 CLOCK OPERA - Ways To Forget
42 JENS LEKMAN - I Know What Love Isn't
41 JAKE BUGG - Jake Bugg
40 DIIV - Oshin
39 COLD SPECKS - I Predict A Graceful Expulsion
38 LIARS - WIXIW
37 DAVID BYRNE & ST VINCENT - Love This Giant
36 OF MONSTERS AND MEN - My Head Is An Animal
35 RM HUBBERT - Thirteen Lost And Found
34 BETH ORTON - Sugaring Season
33 HOT CHIP - In Our Heads
32 THE TWILIGHT SAD - No One Can Ever Know
31 BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - Wrecking Ball
30 ANAIS MITCHELL - Young Man In America
29 TALL SHIPS - Everything Touching
28 ALLO DARLIN' - Europe
27 TOY - Toy
26 FLYING LOTUS - Until The Quiet Comes
25 GOAT - World Music
24 THE XX - Coexist
23 FIONA APPLE - The Idler Wheel...
22 CLOUD NOTHINGS - Attack On Memory
21 DIRTY PROJECTORS - Swing Lo Magellan
20 LANA DEL REY - Born To Die
19 RICHARD HAWLEY - Standing At The Sky's Edge
18 BAT FOR LASHES - The Haunted Man
17 MEURSAULT - Something For The Weakened
16 CHROMATICS - Kill For Love
15 THE MACCABEES - Given To The Wild
14 FIRST AID KIT - The Lion's Roar
13 JACK WHITE - Blunderbuss
12 BEACH HOUSE - Bloom
11 JAPANDROIDS - Celebration Rock
10 GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!
Video: We Drift Like Worried Fire
9 JESSIE WARE - Devotion
Video: Wildest Moments
8 KENDRICK LAMAR - Good Kid, M.A.A.D City
Video: Swimming Pools
7 SWANS - The Seer
Video: Mother Of The World
6 GRIZZLY BEAR - Shields
Video: Yet Again
5 FRANK OCEAN - Channel Orange
Video: Thinking About You
4 TAME IMPALA - Lonerism
Video: Elephant
3 GRIMES - Visions
Video: Genesis
2 SHARON VAN ETTEN - Tramp
Video: Magic Chords
1 ALT-J - An Awesome Wave
Video: Tessellate
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