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)

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:

The War You Don’t See

// December 16th, 2010 // No Comments » // Media, Misc., TV

A cursory glance at the programming schedule for ITV1 on any evening of the week usually prompts a deep sigh of disappointment. Tonight, for example, one can wallow in the bilge of Celebrity Grimefighters at 9pm and after a short break for the ITV News (which needs to sharpen up its ideas a bit) it’s an empty-headed leap into the fuel-injected gracelessness of 2 Fast 2 Furious. Unless you are a particularly vacant yet excitable teenage boy this film is not for you. It was with a great deal of surprise then that I noticed that the same channel had devoted upwards of 95 minutes to the broadcast of John Pilger’s new film The War You Don’t See on Tuesday evening at 10:35pm.

The film focuses mainly on the recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq and the manner in which public consent was, in the opinion of Pilger and others, manipulated by the US and UK governments with the aid of largely unquestioning editors in the mainstream media. Pilger’s passionate viewpoint is, I believe, too politically idealised to achieve the fait accompli he clearly believes he is presenting, however much in the film should be mandatory viewing for all thoughtful people and certainly for all working journalists.

You should watch the film (for free) on your own particular TV-on-demand service or on the ITV player (for the next 28 days).

Underworld – Barking

// September 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // Music Reviews

So, here we are. Underworld’s sixth full-length album and their first in three years. It’s also the first time Karl Hyde and Rick Smith have collaborated with others in producing an album. These “others” include Dubfire, Mark Knight & D. Ramirez, Paul Van Dyk and High Contrast. There is a drive and a heightened energy throughout the album as a result, producing a record with a distinctly “clubby” feel and one which departs a little from the darker, edgier Underworld of old reprised on Oblivion With Bells. The different co-producers on the songs also make the record seem like a compilation of Underworld remixes rather than a coherent “album” as such.
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Proper release for Dark Night of the Soul

// July 13th, 2010 // No Comments » // Music Reviews

After a lengthy legal dispute between EMI records and the artist Danger Mouse, his collaborative album (with Mark Linkous, AKA Sparklehorse and David Lynch …. yes, that one) Dark Night of the Soul [link] has finally been given a proper release. It featured in my list of favourite albums of last year and this release may give me an excuse to repeat it in this year’s list too. Given the title of the record and the fact that both Mark Linkous and guest vocalist Vic Chesnutt committed suicide within the last year you might be forgiven for dismissing it as being rather bleak. While there is certainly a searching introspective undercurrent throughout, the record is also inspiringly beautiful.
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