So this is the new year, but I do feel different – optimistic. Another year gone by and what have we learned? Well with all that I’ve been through I still love and have faith in 2 things; people (shockingly) and music. Here’s 2 New Year’s day recent classics, a classic 11:11 drop from Film School most don’t know, and a couple of amazing mashups from Girl Talk to keep the party going right. These first two are dedicated to two people; John Lloyd and Anthony Korsund. I’m an only child, but I’ve been blessed by whatever turns energy into matter and matter into life capable of incandescent moonlit dreams, with two best friends and I guess I know a little of what it’s like to have a brother (x2). They are completely different people, practically polar opposites, outside the fact that they are both very caring guys and true friends. I feel as if I’m a combination of them both and am indebted tremendously to what they have both taught me. [Editors note: It hasn't been easy being my friend/ brother but in the end I hope it's all been worth it, I know it has been for me.]
Also, while I’m on the subject of friends, I had to help one from doing something stupid last night. I want her to know that everything is going to be fine and her life will be amazing and work out beautifully as she journeys through a long, fulfilling future. Be strong beautiful Liz, stay amazing, stay gold, stay here.
Death Cab for Cutie (Dropping a new album in 2011) – The New Year
The Walkmen – The New Year (Big up’in Nosferatu)
Film School – 11:11 (make a wish, this band should be much better known, again this is a band I’m big champion of, check out all 3 of their stellar albums (link) )
Again, Girl Talk made the mashup, party album of the year, it’s totally available for free down load here: http://www.illegal-art.net/allday/
A few highlights:
Girl Talk – This is the Remix (Cruel, Cruel Summer, Sittin on Chrome with the Teflon Don)
Girl Talk – Triple Double (A Young Millionaire, Stuntin like 1901)
10. The Walkmen, Lisbon
Just edging works from LCD Soundsystem, Vampire Weekend, Two Door Cinema Club, Tokyo Police Club, Minus the Bear, Gold Panda, and No Age The Walkmen have always dichotomously and counter-intuitively provided the soundtrack to a well-meaning hangover, beautifully crafted and composed with beatitudes of Whiskey soaked barroom escapades on a Wednesday afternoon. High on the buzz of a good jam, and always capturing the feeling of band working it out together in the same room in one glorious take. Lisbon, like its titular capital is another beautiful mess, in desperate need of urban renewal but perfect in its imperfection and decrepit slums. Angela Surf City is the very embodiment of electrifying rock n’ roll, bask in it’s journey toward the frsicalating dusk-light. I found myself penniless in Lisbon in the Spring of 2009, alone, disheveled yet ravenous with the prospect of adventure. I’m reminded of the yellow cable cars and lovely, lithe German enchantress named Julia and her compadre Little Miss Sunshine. Here’s to you girls, and here’s to you Vasco de Gama.
9. Crystal Castles, II
There’s nothing I can say about Crystal Castles II that every other blog west of Mumbai hasn’t already. Robert Smith himself kicked in with a vocal on Not in Love, which is a cover from the 80′s band Platinum Blond. This video creeps into your subconsciousness and doesn’t let go. Alice Glass has finally withdrawn the knife from teeth and turned the feedback down to 11 as she shockingly reveals a penchant for real melody. She may not elicit the bulge in your skinny jeans the way Ladytron’s lispy Helen Marnie does, but Glass was the sexiest, scariest thing on two legs in ’10.
8. The Black Keys, Brothers The Black Keys returned with Brothers, their strongest work to date. This video itself justifies the bands very existence, which due to infighting has often been in question. 14 other tracks did nothing but enforce that the band may wane in tightness on the streets of Akron, Ohio but not in the studio.
7. Beach House, Teendream
Dream pop is back if you hadn’t noticed, it’s like the summer of ’89 in the Northern UK never ended, not that I was there for or remember any of that but I read things. Beach House is from Baltimore and nailed their music for the Xanax generation (was it Valium in ’89?) with their third full length, Teendream. Turn the lights down low, in fact let them friscalate. This one is for my friend Tony, titularly the nation of his heritage and a trip he made just a few years back, Norway.
6. The National, High Violet
Critics and bloggers love, love, love the National, blah, blah, blah. I’m no different. High Violet was not Boxer or even Alligator, it was a less tuneful and a more somber record. But it was surely one of the year’s best and more of a grower than a shower. The spider’s may be creeping through the floorboards, but the band’s high-wire act between lullabies to the myopic and four-minute realizations that sadness still fuels creativity is not less than amazing.
5. Deerhunter, Halcyon Digest
Ok so Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox suffers from a rare genetic disorder of the connective tissue called Marfan Syndrome. He’s frightfully underweight and not much to look at. In an era when MTV plays reruns of Jersey Shore (thanks for nearly ruining the multitude of advantages of being Italian, I’ve been asked to do more “fist pumping” this year than I did when I was 13 and first discovered ah hum the pleasures of one’s own company) more often than a music video, one’s appearance is less important than say even 10 years ago. Halcyon Digest waivers between self proclaimed “ambient punk”, yes dream pop, Lou Reed at his Velvetiest and a whole lot in between. It’s one hell of a beautiful and original piece of work. A true highlight of 2010 and a band that has fulfilled it’s outer stellar ambition, whether blitzed on Halcyon (a benzodiazepene class tranquilizer like Xananx or Valium) or not. [Editors note: no human should be subjected to the horrors of the protracted withdrawal from these drugs. Never, under any circumstance take any of these drugs (most commonly Ativan, Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, even Ambien) for more than 2 consecutive weeks unless one looks forward to unleashing all of hell's fire upon one's central nervous system, a thousand times worse than heroin or cocaine withdrawal. If you do have any problems with these drugs report immediately to http://www.benzo.org.uk.] In another year it could have been 1, many westerly of Mumbai surely thinks so.
4. Mumford and Sons, Sigh No More
Folksters coming out of the UK with the full approval of the music press and the Mercury Music Prize committee behind them, Sigh No More got an American release this past year. What first sound like simple folk tunes build into something all-together more wonderful on nearly every track. Fleet Foxes, the challenge has been issued. The band most likely to go Baroque pop on round two, which will surely elicit sadness on my side of the Atlantic.
3. Arcade Fire, the Suburbs.
There are so many songs and ideas on the Suburbs that I’m still not sure I’ve come to fully appreciate them, though the record has been out since summer. Upon even initial listen you knew you were aurally swallowing something important and rumored to be 95 percent protein (I still hold to that), chock full of goodness and something to say. But what? That suburbs were bad? Thank you very much Jack Kerouac 1957, I get that the blue din of LCD TV screens in every living room across this fine nation serve as a new religion of conformity to the masses. Or is it that Win Butler misses his happy yet forlorn days outside the city lights? (City Lights bookstore deserve a mention in any Kerouac laden rant, right?) I still do not know. But I know it is a damned good record even if they still have yet to best their kinetic first outing. But you know what they say; an entire lifetime to write your first record, 18 months thereafter. After being held up in an abandoned church somewhere in Canada they finally set upon a full-fledged tour of the states. Monty Python’s (and Time Bandits’) Terry Gilliam even set to direct a webcast of one such show at NYC’s Madison square garden. This one will be poured over for years and I’m not sure we will come away with more than a few good tunes but Win sings them with the conviction of a Pentecostal discovering a new tongue. A record that helped define the year regardless.
2. Wild Nothing, Gemini
For me personally my top 2 albums is where the rubber meets the road between what I found most satisfying and beholden to my indie ideals and 2 records largely looked over by many of the “scene maker”. I’ve passed the age to which I care and know brilliance in my marrow when it’s melodies or drum attacks fracture my translucent skull. Jack Tatum is Wild Nothing, it’s a one-man moniker akin to Bright Eyes. Gemini is such a fine and authentic dream pop outing, Ian Brown, Elizabeth Fraser, J. Spaceman and Wayne Coyne circa 1990 would have all wet their pants one chorus into album opener Live In Dreams. A perfect record – no, a perfect artifact – yes, eminently listenable – absofuckinglutely. “Because our lips won’t last forever And that’s exactly why I’d rather live in dreams and I’d rather die…” I’m with you brother Tatum. Chinatown is a perfect song in these post Cut Copy halcyon days and the fan-made video a close second for my clip of year. Find Clown!!! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be bemused for certain and please purchase this record via your favorite legit downloading service. This is a small artist that must be supported. The glorious Chinatown:
1. The Kissaway Trail, Sleep Mountain
Well here we are, weeks ago I revealed that I felt the Kissaway Trail had made the album of the year with Sleep Mountain. A look around popular blogs, and magazine year end countdowns have overlooked my favorite Danes. In the immortal words of the great Cee-lo Green “Fuck You”, I’ve been in this listening to indie music business for sometime and I know something special when I hear it. SDP, the New Year, Don’t Wake Up, Beat of Your Heartbeat, New Lipstick, Friendly Fire, Whirr of Wings are all stellar tracks, fusing glacial stalagmites of U2, Sigur Ros, Death Cab for Cutie, Mew, Sonic Youth, and Polyphonic Spree (remember them) into a fjords worth of epic highlights bedazzled in Sleep Mountain. They’ve toured the UK alongside the Editors, Ra Ra Riot and the Boxer Rebellion, all fine bands that will surely help break the band to the multitude of most likely English devotees. The Brits always know these things before we do, even on many of our own artists; I present Hendrix, Blondie and Kings of Leon as exhibits A-C of even American bands who broke England far before their own country. When you’re from Odense, Denmark, you’re certain to make your way to London long before Portland Oregon, though Kissaway did play a well received SXSW slot in Austin this year. I am a champion of this band and please, again download from a legal source, these guys are still making it happen. Two videos, one fan made, befitting numero uno. My kingdom for a cellar door…
The Re-issue of the year, if not century. The Stones. Two words and so many images and songs burst from one’s memory and imagination. Their finest and most legendarily produced record, Exile on Main Street, received a full reissue and documentary to mark a near 40-year anniversary of the original issue. The documentary, with tax-exiled bad men fleeing to the shores of the French Riviera, held up in ventilator-less mansion basements once occupied by Nazi’s while channeling the thickest grits and gravy of Southern American blues is a story too good, too Stones to have been made up. Photographers, children, hangers on lay stoned immaculate upstairs while the band sweated out take after take after take after take of the messiest masterpiece rock n roll has ever proclaimed. All this and Keith was firmly locked into a Heroin glaze while the French authorities closed in on removing the band from the country. Some legends are true. Take truth, add time, watch a legend grow.
The film trailer:
A track to leave you with, happy new year, may the light that shines within us all burn incandescently from within you in 2011. In fact turn in up to 11 and lets listen to two more tracks.
How about a few tracks to segue us into 2011, Cut Copy is set for a comeback, and I couldn’t be more pleased to see my favorite 80′s revivalists return. And it sounds as if their mingling into 60′s era French pop as well, magically delicious. Cut Copy – Take Me Over
Purposefully missing from my top 20 tracks was my video of the year; Skinny’s clip of Cee-Lo’s excellent cover of Band of Horses No One’s Gonna Love You. Warning! awesomely NSFW, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. A metaphor for wild, unhinged love. But as always, when we couple we face communication hurdles. One jumps, another is afraid. When you’re young its all too easy to simply walk away, despite every adventure you’ve shared together so far. Coming in a distant second was your sex tape, you know who you are you dirty slags!
Let’s take another look at the party album of the year; Girl Talk’s All Day
Best served with chasers of Stella Artois as a single, continuous unstoppable party mix. Right click and save. All Day
Also available as seperate tracks at http://www.illegal-art.net/allday/
Here’s a little sample: Track 3 That’s Right
Track 12 Every Day
Music for the comedown. Aural Xanax up in your ears courtesy of Diamond Messages.
Watch the video and be swept away. Statutory edgeplay though for sure.
Don’t Call It A Comeback, It’s a Festivus Miracle
New music coming in the early stages of 2011; the Strokes (pictured), Death Cab For Cutie (comparing their new work to Brian Eno), The Joy Formidable, Minks, Iron and Wine,The Decemberists, Cut Copy, Mogwai, Bright Eyes,Toro Y Moi (Ready to break Chillwave to the masses) and Devotchka. And that’s just through to February. It’s a Festivus miracle! Later in the year expect new music from Radiohead (in time for Coachella?) and Arctic Monkeys.
Still a top 10 albums of the year list to come then I dissapear back into the æther from whence I came.
How is it that we celebrate the most Christian of holidays, followed merely a week later by New Years; the most Satanic, bubonic hangover inducing, brush your teeth and leave before she wakes up days of the year? And am I the only one that’s noticed the world’s three major monotheistic religions all worship the same god? Really and we can’t simply co-exist peacefully? Humans are some race, I’m thinking about trading in my card and joining the marsupials, you get a cool pouch for stuff, never loose your car keys. Before I slip ever further into nonsense, let’s go through 20 of my favorite/ best tracks from that dirty slag 2010, just before we tell her that “it’s not her it’s us, we’ve just taken this relationship as far as it can go and to be honest we’ve already been facebooking 2011 on the side.” Right click and save tracks as desired. Next week the, 2010′s best mashup/party/ legally free album the year.
What better way to kick things off than with the standout stomper from Mumford & Sons Sigh No More. The UK folksters have been lauded over ad nauseam in the British press (read like seamingly every other Uk band to ever as much as record a demo). But in this case the hype, mostly, is justified. Mumford & Sons – Little Lion Man
Much hyped NYC group to release full length in January. Meanwhile here’s their excellent first single. Jangly, dream pop just can’t be stopped (see Wild Nothing). Minks – Cemetery Rain
Released way back in 08 in their native UK, these piano led (yeah that’s right) indie rocker’s strike gold with this uplifting tune, but you’ll find the rest of “The City That Sleeps” a darker affair. And no they sound nothing like Keane. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. A Silent Film – You Will Leave A Mark
Carribou (or Daniel Snaith) at his danciest and catchiest, but how can you loose with a rhythm that would make Hot Chip jealous and vocal that sounds so much like Erlend Øye I had to look around to make sure it wasn’t.
Carribou – Odessa
Deadly, dark and dangerous, a tail of moonlit death never felt so good. Karen Elson’sthe Ghost Who Walks is a tiny bit country, a little more rock ‘n roll and gloriously spooky. Karen Elson – the Ghost Who Walk
Their second full length is crammed with tunes, and angular ideas. The most British sounding group of young Canadians I know of. Ridiculously catchy. Wasting is an art.. Tokyo Police Club - The End of a Spark
The xx are like their moniker implies about making sexy late night music. This, the best remix of the year, is straight up 3 a.m. and two bottles of Yellow Tail sexxy. The XX – Shelter (Them Jeans Remix)
Wildly critically adored dream pop revivalist, Wild Nothing is actually the moniker for Jack Tatum, the one-man wrecking crew that comprises the sum total of “the band” Wild Nothing – Chinatown
Another solid album from Ra Ra Riot with Orchard. Fewer standout tracks than their first but solid. And having one seriously hot cellist doesn’t hurt one bit either. The band most likely to break the glass ceiling next time out.Alexandra Lawn the key is always under the mat. Ra Ra Riot – Do You Remember
Deerhunter describe their music as “ambient punk” and there really is no more precise a way of describing the breakout track from Halcyon Digest. Since the band feature one of the more frightening looking front men in the history of music I’ve decided to use my standby photo subject in such occurences: Edie Sedgewick. Deerhunter – Helicopter
Yes Mew released No More Stories in 2009 but officially made Beach a single this past year. The Danes at their catchiest in a year where strangely they were overshadowed by some of their own countrymen, despite hailing from a nation smaller than most Costco Warehouses. Mew – Beach
Crystal Castles can not be stopped. 2010 saw them break into the indie major leagues with their second self titled album (not to be confused with 2008 self titled album). Now they’re making videos in cemeteries we cant get out of our heads and collaborating with the Cure’s Robert Smith. Here’s their best track from a fine year. Once again it never hurts when the front woman is more than a little hot, and scary as hell. Crystal Castles – Celestica
Now’s the time where I run through some tracks and artists that have broken through that indie glass ceiling and found themselves somewhere in between mainstream and “remember when those guys didn’t suck”. Never one to be an elitist, these all merit spots on my list. Brandon Flowers – Only the Young
Again you could argue when, why, how or if Muse stopped being indie and officially crossed over. Fact was 2010 was their year and we are just guests in it. Covering U2′s Where the Streets Have No Name on the mainstage at Glastonbury this past summer joined by the Edge himself on stage was surely one of the live highlights of the year (video). They set out to conquer the universe and had to settle for just the Earth instead. It’s just too bad that Twilight woman is a fan, though one of her tween vampire borefests spawned this mammoth track. It may break down like Muse by the numbers, but it works like Superstring Theory. Muse – Neutron Star Collision
Of the excellent tracks on Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, this is the one I keep coming back to. Rare because Win just plays support for Regine. “Quit these pretentious things and just punch a clock…” Arcade Fire – Sprawl II
The National win again with High Violet, though it might be their darkest and most impenetrable work yet. Being carried off by a swarm of bees is one way to avoid airport security ques, particularly if you’re whacked out on some kind of blood buzz. Glass of “V” anyone?
Since releasing the excellent Manners in 2009, Passion Pit have been working non stop, opening for the likes of Muse and doing remix work for seemingly anyone and everyone (Katy Perry, Tegan and Sara, Phoenix, Yeah Yeah Yeahs just to name a few). Yes this track is a remake, yes its gooey with sentimentality, yes Billy Corgan approves according to his twitter, and yes it was one of the highlights of the year. Passion Pit – Tonight, Tonight
What better way to put a little bow on my list than with a track called New Year. Easily the band and album I listened to the most this year, Denmark’s the Kissaway Trail released second LP Sleep Mountain way back in March, but it’s multiple epic tracks put the band atop the heap of a very good year for Scandinavian artists (See Shout Out Louds, Jonsi, Mew etc.) My song and album of the year. Hasse Mydtskov’s drumming alone is nothing less than a revelation.
