Let's establish some ground rules. This is not a definitive 'best of' list, but a cross-section of ten songs that in some way defined my 2010. Or I just love them. I find it tough to really rank them, so I've only got a top three - the rest are in no real order (ostensibly at least - they are listed as I thought of them, so there's probably an implicit sorting out that way). There'll probably be another ten on the way if I can find enough.So, ten bands, ten great songs, starting with...
1 - 65daysofstatic - Tiger Girl
That Tiger Girl is quite possibly the zenith of 65's incredible career to date is saying something. But this is well deserving of that accolade. A tease of a song that gradually unfolds over its ten minutes, it draws you in from its simple, unassuming beginnings to stop you in your tracks and leave you scraping skies and speechless. It is part post rock, part electronic, all special. A must.
2 - Sky Larkin - Still Windmills
Leeds' finest band, Sky Larkin, have been knocking on the door of something special for a while, something perfectly encapsulated in the opening lyric to this song - 'I know there's potential...'. Their second album Kaleide is a consistent highlight - probably my album of 2010 - so much so that picking one song from it is a tricky task. Still Windmills is a prime example of what they do so well - catchy hooks, razor-sharp guitars, quirky lyrics and effervescent vocals from the never-less-than-wonderful Katie Harkin.
3 - Maybeshewill - To The Skies From The Hillside
Not just for the song, but the way it combines with the video to create a single, jaw-droppingly beautiful piece of art. The music is not much in the way of progression from their first two albums, but then their first two albums were a little bit great. It peaks and troughs like any good post rock song should, but it shifts moods as well as sounds to create an all-out assault on the senses, crackling with tension, panic, power and sheer bliss. Listen, watch, and be in awe.
Los Campesinos! - The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future
Is it cheating to include a song that was given away free sometime in 2009 on a 2010 list? Not really, since it was the standout track on this year's 'Romance Is Boring' album. Appropriately windswept, emotional as ever and with an extra rawness that was missing from their more determindly twee efforts, Los Campesinos! are growing up.
Frightened Rabbit - Skip The Youth
For their third longplayer, Frightened Rabbit have stepped up again in terms of grandeur. From their lo-fi, scruffy indie beginnings to this, a true epic that crests the six-minute barrier thanks in part to a patient intro that recalls a sort of You! Me! Dancing! for the manic depressive. It somewhat echoes labelmates The Twilight Sad, whilst remaining wholly their own.
Errors - Supertribe
Slick, mathy electro pop from the Scottish foursome. This band ended my nine-month gig drought, and I'm glad I went. Top stuff.
Delphic - Acolyte
As if 'Tiger Girl' wasn't enough for one year, we get treated to another sumptuous, melodic instrumental from 2010's forgotten band.
Rolo Tomassi - Tongue In Chic
From the excellent, Diplo-produced second album 'Cosmology'. One moment screaming mathcore, then becomes all spaced out and jazzy, with ACTUAL singing and everything. (And I mean, everything). Clever, intricate and bloody scary.
Stagecoach - Map To The Freezer
Remember the first time you heard Los Campesinos!? (How do you deal with a pile-up of punctuation like that, eh?) Well Stagecoach have that same sense of unbridled, giddy fun about them, but with an added crunch to them, much like, say Dananananaykroyd or recent touring partners Johnny Foreigner. You can thank genius producer James Kenosha for that, deploying the same crisp rawness he brought to the Pulled Apart By Horses album. And yes, that video is 'Speed'. I don't really get why, either.
Maps and Atlases - Solid Ground
A quirky, unlikely math/folk crossover, like a downtempo This Town Needs Guns fronted by Napoleon IIIrd. And is as every bit as good as that sounds.
Tuesday 21 December 2010
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Johnny Foreigner - 'You Thought You Saw A Shooting Star But Yr Eyes Were Blurred With Tears And That Lighthouse Can Be Pretty Deceiving With The Sky So Clear And Sea So Calm'
Birmingham's indie heroes (and heroine) Johnny Foreigner still feel like a fresh, new, young band, and it takes quite a bit of adjusting to realise that they are two albums and a host of EPs and singles into their career to date. Their well-founded reputation has been built on a staple diet of scuzzy, shouty indie-pop that has permeated the vast majority of their catalogue to date. This, however, is a formula that only stretches so far, and even by their second longplayer, 'Grace And The Bigger Picture', signs of death by repetition were seeping in.
'YTYSASSBYEWBWTATLCBPDWTSSCASSC' (for short)*, then, is the confident sound of a band seemingly tired of their comfort zone and looking for ways to branch out. As such, this EP release seems slightly disjointed, almost haphazard in the way it shifts from one track to the next. At 20 minutes and 6 songs, this is less of a cohesive record, more a brainstorming session. Fortunately for JoFo, just about everything they turn their hands to just, well, bloody works.
'The Wind And The Weathervanes' serves as an unusually restrained opener, hazy and laid back in an almost Pavement-like fashion, changing tack halfway to unleash a wave of expansive guitar lines more reminiscent of a post-rock outfit than the band we have come to know and love. That string sounds appear over the coda serve as a further reminder that this is a new-look, more grown up band we are witnessing before our eyes and our ears.
Well, almost. Those strings fade out into 'Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives', a determinedly out and out punk effort, certainly heavier than anything that they have made previously. It is a blistering and effective run through heavy chords and simple fast-paced drumming, backed by the familiar vocal interplay between Alexei and Kelly. Two tracks in and still no new direction found and stuck to. Where to next? On the second part of 'Elegy For Post-Teenage Living Parts One And Two', they turn to making skittish electro-pop, with Alexei monologuing over a synth bassline and programmed beats vaguely recalling early hit 'Salt, Pepa and Spinderella'.
And still they are not finished yet. 'Robert Scargill Takes The Prize' sees the band at their most tender, most heartfelt (a title it will hold for precisely two songs' time), a fragile boy/girl duet over plucked acoustic guitars and gentle keys turn proceedings towards folktronica for a moment. Christ, this band really can do anything. A neat touch is the false ending to this song, giving a few extra seconds of outro where many would just have gone 'enough'. By the time 'Harriet, By Proxy' arrives, it is almost familiarly unfamiliar, probably the only track here that could slip relatively unnoticed into either of their first two albums and yet in the context of this record something different again.
'Harriet...' decent enough though it is, almost serves as a pause before delivering something special for the closing track entitled, simply, 'Yr Loved'. Another slow-burning gem, beautiful both musically and lyrically and glittering with hope, this song confirms the new status of Johnny Foreigner. Forget the genre, style or direction. This band is life-affirming, and this EP is something to be savoured.
*I wonder how many reviews in the blogosphere will repeat this gag, but no matter.
'YTYSASSBYEWBWTATLCBPDWTSSCASSC' (for short)*, then, is the confident sound of a band seemingly tired of their comfort zone and looking for ways to branch out. As such, this EP release seems slightly disjointed, almost haphazard in the way it shifts from one track to the next. At 20 minutes and 6 songs, this is less of a cohesive record, more a brainstorming session. Fortunately for JoFo, just about everything they turn their hands to just, well, bloody works.
'The Wind And The Weathervanes' serves as an unusually restrained opener, hazy and laid back in an almost Pavement-like fashion, changing tack halfway to unleash a wave of expansive guitar lines more reminiscent of a post-rock outfit than the band we have come to know and love. That string sounds appear over the coda serve as a further reminder that this is a new-look, more grown up band we are witnessing before our eyes and our ears.
Well, almost. Those strings fade out into 'Who Needs Comment Boxes When You've Got Knives', a determinedly out and out punk effort, certainly heavier than anything that they have made previously. It is a blistering and effective run through heavy chords and simple fast-paced drumming, backed by the familiar vocal interplay between Alexei and Kelly. Two tracks in and still no new direction found and stuck to. Where to next? On the second part of 'Elegy For Post-Teenage Living Parts One And Two', they turn to making skittish electro-pop, with Alexei monologuing over a synth bassline and programmed beats vaguely recalling early hit 'Salt, Pepa and Spinderella'.
And still they are not finished yet. 'Robert Scargill Takes The Prize' sees the band at their most tender, most heartfelt (a title it will hold for precisely two songs' time), a fragile boy/girl duet over plucked acoustic guitars and gentle keys turn proceedings towards folktronica for a moment. Christ, this band really can do anything. A neat touch is the false ending to this song, giving a few extra seconds of outro where many would just have gone 'enough'. By the time 'Harriet, By Proxy' arrives, it is almost familiarly unfamiliar, probably the only track here that could slip relatively unnoticed into either of their first two albums and yet in the context of this record something different again.
'Harriet...' decent enough though it is, almost serves as a pause before delivering something special for the closing track entitled, simply, 'Yr Loved'. Another slow-burning gem, beautiful both musically and lyrically and glittering with hope, this song confirms the new status of Johnny Foreigner. Forget the genre, style or direction. This band is life-affirming, and this EP is something to be savoured.
*I wonder how many reviews in the blogosphere will repeat this gag, but no matter.
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