Looking Ahead: Autumn Album Releases

Kanye West

Forgive me if this feels like I’m already straightening out 2010’s picture frames, pushing its chairs under its tables and hurrying you out of the door marked ‘2011’ when we’re only halfway through August. The trouble is music release schedules operate several months ahead of real time so, as someone who is informed about music releases on a daily basis whether I like it or not, I’m currently existing in a parallel universe where it’s late October/early November.

Luckily, from my position in this imagined future (all release dates are of course subject to change), this autumn looks like continuing what was already been a strong year for new records. 2010 has seen many of the previous decade’s primary acts return in some form or another, to varying degrees of success, such as The National, LCD Soundsystem, Arcade Fire, Big Boi and Broken Social Scene. At the same time, newer acts have continued to hone their sound (Wavves, Best Coast) or seemingly burst out fully formed (Wild Nothing, Male Bonding, Baths). When looking ahead, it’s always the big names that stand out then – but don’t rule out a few surprises along the way. … Continue Reading

A-Z: An Ash Retrospective

Ash

We all have our seminal bands, those who take a major part in forming our tastes in our younger days, and with whom we form such strong bonds that we will follow them unconditionally, football style, whatever kind of form they are in. For me, Ash are one of those bands. Now that they have eschewed the album format altogether for their much discussed A-Z singles project (The first thirteen of which have recently been compiled and released as a single disc), now would seem as good a time as any to run a critical eye over their recorded output and see just why they are such an important band to so many. … Continue Reading

The Best of February

tUnE-yArDs

It seems like barely four weeks ago we published The Best of January and that’s because it was – February is only four weeks long. We like to keep it simple, at the bottom of this article is a condensed musical version of what we’ve been talking about last month. That means there are singles from Field Music, Gorillaz, Two Door Cinema Club, Efterklang and Tunng. Tracks from the albums by Midlake, The Archie Bronson Outfit, Pantha Du Prince (with help from Panda Bear) and Hot Chip.

We also saw Shearwater, New Young Pony Club and tUnE-yArDs live as well as taking a second look at Arctic Monkeys. Cate Le Bon waxed lyrical on Syd Barrett’s second solo album (Barrett) and we reviewed her first. Looking back we celebrated Chemical Underground past and present and caught up with members of the long-split-up and much-celebrated Life Without Buildings.

Here it is: Muso’s Guide – February 2010

BBC announces plans for cuts: our open letter

BBC 6Music

The BBC has just confirmed its plans to shed 6Music, the Asian Network and 25% of its online budget. Here’s our writer’s letter, summing up the dire situation. … Continue Reading

The best of January

Beach House - Teen Dream

For the intrigued/lazy amongst you we’ve decided to condense a month’s worth of blabber into an easy to digest Spotify playlist. Included are tracks from reviewed albums by Laura Viers, Beach House and Delphic as well as some January singles (OK and some late December ones) from These New Puritans, Late of The Pier, Plan B, I Was A King and The Strange Boys. … Continue Reading

Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I probably am, maybe…..

Arctic Monkeys

I’m not really too bothered about who he’s fucking, or where he lives, or even what he gets up to outside music. He can become an actor if he wants, start painting….. whatever. I’m concerned about Alex Turner, ‘the indie icon’, about this ‘genius’ tag that has prematurely been bestowed upon his slender frame. … Continue Reading

Albums of the decade: from the hat

Allow a few of our writers to give you their albums of the decade...

Idlewild - 100 Broken Windows

Idlewild’s 100 Broken Windows – by Paul Brown
As tricky a question as it is, I’d say the album which has meant the most to me this decade is 100 Broken Windows by Idlewild. The album was one of my first forays away from the Oasis, Travis, Stereophonics triumvirate which clogged the early-noughties hit parade, and opened up a gateway away from chart indie.

My love for this record isn’t just fuelled by nostalgia though. Even nine years later, no other British Indie band has matched it for energy, impact and sheer listenability.

It’s easy to understand why this is regarded by so many as a seminal album. . Roddy’s lyrics might straddle the line between intelligence and nonsense, (“…and Gertrude Stein said that’s enough!”) but that doesn’t matter at all, because 100 Broken Windows is powered along by incendiary (and bloody catchy) guitar riffs, and resonates with a glorious and barely contained rage. … Continue Reading

The best gigs of 2009

Owen Pallett

Between our ranks, we’ve been to a hell of a lot of gigs this year. So tidily and infinitely, here are a few looks back on the highlights of 2009 in gig form. … Continue Reading

Our top 50 singles of 2009

While we’ve given you plenty of editorial on our albums of the year (50-41, 40-31,30-21, 20-16, 15-11, 10-7. 6-4 3-1), we’re keeping it simple with this list of what releases our gaggle of writers collectively voted their singles of 2009. How did we reach this list, I hear you cry? May I hand over to our trusty friend, Excel Guru, who was last seen pre-ambling our top 50 albums end-of-year thingamejig:

“Everyone sent in a top 10 list and the 50 singles with the most nominations were collected; tie-breaks were decided by how high up those lists the songs were. Then everyone chose 10 ordered singles from the list of 50 and they were ranked using the same criteria as the album poll.”

… Continue Reading

Words with Blue Roses

Laura Groves

As a big fan of Blue Roses’s wonderful debut album and having been lucky enough to catch her a couple of times live before at The Great Escape and Glastonbury, Muso’s Guide was pleased to have the opportunity to chat to Blue Roses’ Laura Groves before her gig at The Captain’s Rest in Glasgow, earlier this month. Having to jettison an interview indoors thanks to the elderly gentleman, wearing his medals and a large poppy (it was Remembrance Sunday) who insisted on querying the war records of drinker’s grandfathers (no, really!) and not satisfied with was asking who had their medals. Laura chatted to us about her year, approach to song-writing and upcoming plans as well as Wild Beasts, gender roles in music and Twitter out in the wind and cold. Considering Laura had to cancel one gig before this night due to a sore throat, Muso’s Guide was very relieved that the tour was completed without anymore illness.

… Continue Reading