The Festive 50 (2011)

// December 16th, 2011 // No Comments » // Music Reviews

This year, I thought I might try and actually order my top 50 albums of the year by preference rather than taking the path of least resistance offered by an alphabetical listing. It’s much harder than I thought it might be. The decline in quality from 1 to 50 is actually rather slight and this makes the judgement calls between individual placings near impossible.

This rundown has been compiled from a much larger list of around 150 albums which have spiced up a lengthy succession of otherwise dreary days spent building and replumbing other people’s websites.

Top prize this year goes to the excellent collaboration between Adian Moffat and Bill Wells Everything’s Getting Older. For those of us of a certain vintage this album will have a particular resonance but for thinking music fans everywhere this is a must-have for 2011. PJ Harvey was awarded the Mercury Prize for Let England Shake and, this time at least, the judges were spot on. A stunning album. I was lucky enough to see Baltimore’s Wye Oak live this year when they were the support band for The National. The sublime Civilian has never been far from my playlist.

There is plenty to keep you busy here. From the post-rock loud/quiet of Mogwai’s Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will and the instrumental post-metal of Russian Circles’ Empros through to the experimentalism of Puscifier’s Conditions Of My Parole and David Lynch’s (yup, that one) Crazy Clown Time.

By my count there are 8 albums here by home-grown Scottish artists. Not a bad total. Special mention must go to Martin John Henry (of the late, and much missed De Rosa) and his superb solo debut The Other Half Of Everything.

1. Adian Moffat & Bill Wells – Everything’s Getting Older (open in spotify)
2. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake (open in spotify)
3. Wye Oak – Civilian (youtube clip)
4. The Antlers – Burst Apart (open in spotify)
5. The Decemberists – The King is Dead (open in spotify)
6. Wild Beasts – Smother (open in spotify)
7. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine (open in spotify)
8. St. Vincent – Strange Mercy (open in spotify)
9. Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (open in spotify)
10. Puscifier – Conditions of my Parole (open in spotify)
11. Star Wheel Press – Life Cycle of a Falling Bird (open in spotify)
12. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues (open in spotify)
13. Martin John Henry – The Other Half of Everything (open in spotify)
14. The Dø – Both Ways Open Jaws (open in spotify)
15. Feist – Metals (open in spotify)
16. Bon Iver – Bon Iver (open in spotify)
17. Gazelle Twin – The Entire City (open in spotify)
18. The Field – Looping State of Mind (review and streams)
19. Johann Johannsson – The Miner’s Hymns (open in spotify)
20. Elbow – Build a Rocket Boys! (open in spotify)
21. Kate Bush – 50 Words For Snow (open in spotify)
22. Tom Waits – Bad As Me (youtube clip)
23. Radiohead – The King of Limbs (open in spotify)
24. Laura Marling – A Creature I Don’t Know (open in spotify)
25. Alexi Murdoch – Towards The Sun (open in spotify)
26. Loch Lomond - Little Me Will Start a Storm (open in spotify)
27. Russian Circles – Empros (open in spotify)
28. Vessels – Helioscope (open in spotify)
29. Braids – Native Speaker (open in spotify)
30. Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds (open in spotify)
31. David Lynch – Crazy Clown Time (open in spotify)
32. Explosions In The Sky – Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (open in spotify)
33. Low – C’Mon (open in spotify)
34. Bjork – Biophilia (open in spotify)
35. Peggy Sue – Acrobats (open in spotify)
36. Found – Factorycraft (open in spotify)
37. David Thomas Broughton – Outbreeding (open in spotify)
38. Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi – Rome (open in spotify)
39. Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi (open in spotify)
40. RM Hubbert – First & Last (open in spotify)
41. R.E.M. – Collapse Into Now (open in spotify)
42. Christina Vantzou – No. 1 (open in spotify)
43. Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes (open in spotify)
44. The Jezabels – Prisoner (soundcloud track)
45. Gang Gang Dance – Eye Contact (open in spotify)
46. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo (open in spotify)
47. King’s Daughters and Sons – If Then Not When (open in spotify)
48. Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost (open in spotify)
49. Thrice – Major/Minor (open in spotify)
50. The Moth & The Mirror – Honestly, This World (open in spotify)

Exit light, enter night.

// September 28th, 2011 // No Comments » // Comedy and Satire, Media, Misc., Uncategorized

Bill Bailey with a message for James, Lars and co.

Today’s aural treat

// September 27th, 2011 // No Comments » // Music Reviews

One of the things that has often kept me from descending into melancholic despair over the years is my love of good music. It doesn’t really matter what sort of music, it could be instrumental, sung in Icelandic, played on an authentic 15th century harpsichord or programmed via Ableton Live on an iMac. The key thing is that the music should be written and performed from the heart and avoid pandering to mass consumerist taste for the sake of inflated sales.

I recall vividly the very first time I was allowed by my parents to go off into a record shop in Edinburgh to purchase a 7″ single. It was 1979, I was 8 years old and I chose to purchase Message in a Bottle by The Police. By way of comparison, during the same visit to the record shop, my 7-year-old brother chose to purchase Dollar’s cover version of I Wanna Hold Your Hand. This divergence in musical taste persists to this day.

With much of what passes for culture in modern Britain leaving almost nothing of value behind after consumption, I have found music has taken on a greater importance in my life with each passing year. Comedy shows on prime-time TV which I previously enjoyed immensely now often leave me feeling short-changed with their increasing laziness. The same tired finger-pointing and sniggering “Nick Clegg’s a secret tory“. No he isn’t. Much closer to the truth is that David Cameron is patently a liberal and the large “C” conservative party no longer exists. But without the tories to bash, where does a card-carrying on-message left-leaning TV comedy panel show direct its ire? Best to maintain the fiction. Yes, I’m looking at you O’Briain!

Anyway, I digress. This morning I heard the new record by Peggy Sue (formerly Peggy Sue and the Pirates), Acrobats (Wichita Records). I did rather like their previous album Fossils & Other Phantoms and it made my Festive 50 last year. You could describe that record as nu-folk with a dark edge, should you like such pigeon-holing. I had been expecting more of the same with Acrobats but I was in for a bit of an eye-opener. The new record is, by any yardstick, a huge leap forward. Production duties on the album are carried out by long-time PJ Harvey collaborator John Parish and, perhaps inevitably, there are echoes of the early-career PJ Harvey here, never more clearly than on the opener “Cut My Teeth”. There is much less reliance on acoustic guitar, ukulele, banjo and the other accoutrements of the self-respecting indie nu-folk band here. This new album shows a bolder, darker side to Peggy Sue. There are a couple of weaker moments during the 45 minute runtime but they are easily forgiven when, overall, the standard is so high. I’ve heard the album twice today and can see already that repeat listening will be rewarded.

Smarter, more engaging and less contrived than some of their nu-folk peers such as fancy dress posh boys Mumford & Sons or Noah & the Whale, Peggy Sue are a band worth keeping an eye on. If you are a fan of PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, The Sian Alice Group, Laura Marling or Devics and you are also in the market for some new and interesting music, look no further.

Have a listen to the record for yourself here:

Even the minor release stuff is good!

// September 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // Media, Music Reviews

Scottish post-rockers Mogwai have released a new EP – Earth Division – and it’s available to listen to on Soundcloud. As far as the music goes, I would describe this as minor Mogwai and lacking the punch of their other 2011 release Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will but it’s still a great deal better than a lot of artist’s major releases and contains several sublime passages. They are playing Glasgow’s Barrowland on 22nd December and I’ll be preceding my staid family Christmas by attending what, I’m sure, will be a monumentally good gig. Here are the tracks from the new EP, enjoy …

1. Get To France

Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite: This song is a lovely piano ditty by John (Cummings). It also features a string arrangement by the wonderful and wonderfully double-barrelled Paul Leonard-Morgan. To my thoroughly dishevelled ears it is reminiscent of Erik Satie, but John could well have been going for something entirely different. He’s hard to read. The song title is, like many of our titles, a shamelessly stolen piece of Scottish colloquialism.

2. Hound of Winter

Stuart Braithwaite: I’d describe this as a power-free power ballad. Which, in essence, is just a ballad. Confessing to writing a ballad is a brave thing to do, though at 35 years of age, abandoning a fear of judgment can easily be confused with bravery. The strings on this are by the irrepressible Luke Sutherland. A man who I recently witnessed convincing our lighting engineer that vegans ate eggs, but only the yolks.

3. Drunk and Crazy

Stuart Braithwaite: A lot of credit for this piece of randomonia must go to the producer of this EP, Paul Savage. This track recorded in three stages. First Barry (Burns)’s piano, then the strings and finally a pile of guitar noise. Somehow Paul managed to arrange all of this in a very imaginative fashion into what you hear. I’m still amazed as to how it turned out. The title is stolen from a country and western album that I found in the DJ booth of the Grand Ole Opry in Glasgow.

4. Does This Always Happen?

Stuart Braithwaite: This is a very simple song augmented again with a great string arrangement by Paul Leonard-Morgan. I’m sure Barry won’t appreciate the compliment but I think his improvised piano part here is really special. The title is a quote from our friend, the musician and artist Tom Schofield, who uttered this in bemusement when he walked into a psychedelic rock show in a very fancy private members club in Glasgow.

The Festive 50 (2010)

// December 21st, 2010 // No Comments » // Music Reviews

Another great year of music releases comes to an end. The list below represents my favourite 50 of the 120-plus new-release albums I’ve had the pleasure of hearing over the past 12 months. Some of my selections surprise me, when viewed in the cold light of these pixels. If someone had suggested to me last January that Kanye West would be making it onto my top-50 list for the year I’d have laughed in their face. However, I’ll give credit where credit is due. He released a quite excellent album last month and clearly should hole-up on Hawaii for 6 months at a time more often.

Those of you with hard rock and metal sensibilities may find the releases by Alcest, Black Mountain, Sleepy Sun, Kylesa and Grinderman to your liking. They have certainly enlivened many an otherwise boring work day at the website-building coal face.

I’m also partial to a bit of electronica now and then and Pantha du Prince, Caribou, Four Tet, The Chemical Brothers, Massive Attack and Underworld all had my head nodding with their rather fine albums from 2010. The Underworld record has a bit of a qualitative dip in the middle for 2 tracks – a fact that translated through to their otherwise hugely entertaining live show in November. “Between Stars” and “Diamond Jigsaw” are just not up to scratch and should be quietly forgotten. Netsky gets the vote for début, of the year. His album on occasion veers quite close to being a little cheesy but for sheer bravura drum and bass production values and outright enjoyability it was hard to beat.

Special mention must go to the female quartet of Laurie Anderson, Janelle Monáe, Anaïs Mitchell and Joanna Newsom for their efforts this year. Four epic albums full of invention and otherworldly beauty.

I see from my iTunes listing stats that I’ve listened to Pantha du Prince’s album more than any of the others, but it’s been out since very early in the year and holds an unfair advantage for that reason. 2010 also saw an enormously welcome return for Gil Scott-Heron with I’m New Here. The album’s not perfect but Gil is always worth listening to. However, despite receiving the occasional lukewarm review, I think my album of the year is Steve Mason’s Boys Outside, closely followed by Laurie Anderson’s Homeland.

Seek these albums out (if you have not already sought, I know what discerning people you are). Auditory satisfaction guaranteed.

The list is, as last year’s, not in any order of preference but follows a more conventional alphabetical listing.

Bubbling under …….

Mogwai – Special Moves
Bill Callahan – Rough Travel For A Rare Thing
The Tallest Man On Earth – Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird (EP)
Foals – Total Life Forever
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Hawk

Under normal circumstances both Mogwai and Bill Callahan would be making my top 50 with ease but their releases this year are live albums and, although both are excellent, I decided to open up the two spots for other records fighting for inclusion on the list.