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 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.

To Whom It May Concern,

I am writing to you express my disappointment and outrage that the Trust has apparently proposed that 6Music should be closed under a forthcoming strategic review.

I bought a DAB Radio in 2002 and at the time it was purely so that I could listen to 6Music and now, over seven years later, it is still it’s primary function outside listening to Test Match Special. Over this period I’ve started and finished university, changed jobs three times and moved twice and it has been a reassuring presence in my life. Listening to 6Music and the calibre of knowledgeable and charismatic DJs on the station from the beginning with the two Phils at breakfast to the likes of Andrew Collins, Sean Rowley, Pete Mitchell, Vic McGylnn and Bob Harris has been a consistent part of my adult life. I would be greatly distraught if the current home to the likes of Adam and Joe, Craig Charles’s Funk Show, Guy Garvey, Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne faced the axe, these are all passionate presenters who care deeply about music and this is always conveyed in the way they put their shows together.

As has been stated by those defending it in the media it would be a great act of cultural vandalism to axe the station. It’s a ludicrous assumption that the listeners to the station would be either be served by either BBC Radio 1 or Radio 2. These stations have a clear demographic that they cater for and I and over half a million others do not fit into. I wish to listen to the radio to hear new music and music that had otherwise passed me by. Radio 1 doesn’t do this during the daytime currently and attempting to squeeze this provision into it would only alienate the existing fans of the station. The same goes for Radio 2 which you yourselves have said ‘must do more to attract ethnic minority listeners and those over 65’. You can’t allow Radio 1 and Radio 2 to become all things to all people as this was the problem they had in the early and late 90s respectively. I would question whether any commercial station would put the time and effort involved in the BBC Introducing programme that has opened my ears to a plethora of brand new bands without the power of major labels behind them and would not get an airing during daylight hours on the rest of the corporation let alone on a rival commercial operator. I also would be sceptical that any commercial operator would allow it’s presenter’s as many free choices an hour for the presenters to give their shows a semblance of their personalities over heavily regimented playlists. Would they allow flights of fancy that have delighted my ears such as all 23 minutes of Genesis’ ‘Supper’s Ready’, the hundreds of hours of Peel Sessions that the station has played since 2002 or Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone, a show unrivalled for crate digging eclecticism anywhere in the world? Are these the type of listeners that the BBC no longer want to cater for anymore? The gig-goers? The fans who buy vinyl and make lists of their favourite b-sides or top 50 albums of 1979 in their free time? 6Music is successful and can only continue to grow if allowed as there is a gap in the ‘market’ for appealing to listeners like myself.

Most importantly though, considering the political atmosphere and positioning behind the reasons for the cuts I think it is truly outrageous that a body that extols itself as being one that should ‘inform, educate and entertain’ should be considering bowing to commercial pressure from media barons that have no interest in improving the BBC, or the experience of the license payer but are seeking to destroy it. It is much better regarded than right wing newspapers, with vested interests would have you believe and should stand up for itself in the face of unjust criticism remembering that it will always have people who are prepared to do so for it.

Yours faithfully,

Mitchell Stirling

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.

We’ve also included some tasters from forthcoming albums from Race Horses as well as a few of our tips from the year including First Aid Kit, Dimbleby and Capper and Toro Y Moi. There’s also thrown in some tracks from acts we’ve reviewed live this month like Vivian Girls and She Keeps Bees and acts we put on like the ace The Grave Architects and fantastic Cats and Cats and Cats.

There’s also track from this month’s classic album; David Bowie’s Lodger and a highlight from one of the best expanded re-issues of the month, David Crosby’s If I Could Only Remember My Name. Phew! Let’s hope February keeps us this busy as well.

Here it is: January 2010 in a playlist

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.

Though success, both commercially and artistically has dictated that we should place Turner in the upper echelons of the indie hierarchy. Close to the likes of Jarvis Cocker or Morrissey. There seems to be an issue about how all the adulation can extend beyond his work on the Arctic Monkeys debut release Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not, culturally it was an album that changed the whole landscape of indie music, and by indie I don’t mean real indie, I mean indie. Y’all dig?

Think about it. It was an album that came from nowhere, produced a plethora of singles that everybody could relate to, transcending generations. You had everybody from the thousands in festival crowds singing ‘When the Sun Goes Down’ arms joined in unison, to a couple of middle aged dinner ladies singing along to ‘Mardy Bum’ on the radio whilst smeared in breadcrumbs and chip fat.

Then came the expectation, the hype, the pressure. Briefly acknowledged in the EP Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys? we saw Turner the songwriter admitting that becoming a rockstar is not all it’s cracked up to be, and that life on the road can be a bit boring. Favourite Worst Nightmare seemed to reflect the hectic new found lifestyle, generally more frantic the band’s debut, we witnessed something unsure emerge from Turner. Where as in these circumstances, a more extroverted personality can embrace the notion that all eyes are on me now, for Turner a reticence set in. It appeared the man became serious too soon, and muddled himself in the quagmire of maturity.

Crooning on tracks such as ‘505’ and ‘Do Me A Favour’ Turner seemed hell bent in becoming an old man in his early twenties, adopting a vintage romantic persona that men such as Richard Hawley, Nick Cave and Scott Walker have naturally grown into. But the jacket didn’t fit. It seemed even less believable when he jettisoned the Monkeys to work with Miles Kane on the ridiculously pompous The Last Shadow Puppets side project.

See Turner found himself in a quandary, his popularity intact, his star fixed firmly in space. But his legacy perhaps already ruined. Arctic Monkeys couldn’t even do what Oasis did, and release two GREAT albums consecutively, they merely released one. Lyrically Turner deserted observation and wit, and became a little more cryptic, alienating the public by mystifying the private.

Though Humbug has established the Monkeys alongside Muse, Coldplay and Kasabian as festival headliners and bona fide heavyweights, what they share with those bands is a lack of pushing the boundaries, solid but unspectacular. Trustworthy musicianship, an almost bankable guarantee of a good gig, but the element of surprise is missing. Humbug seemed almost predictable, the getting back to basics album, working with Josh Homme in the desert to merely reconnect with the essence of rock.

I don’t believe that the other three members of the Arctic Monkeys are musical visionaries. Turner doesn’t have a foil within the band; there is no Lennon or McCartney, or better still Morrissey or Marr dynamic. He can trust his band to play, but not to create, and obviously the limitations of his band mates influenced his decision to adopt a side project involving the likes of James Ford and Owen Pallett. The group dynamic is tight musically, but seemingly unlikely to produce a Kid A defining release.

Maybe it all came too soon. The lad had to quickly adjust, and his life abruptly altered from having a comfortable little to acquiring an awful lot. Turner has always downplayed his success, though you’d be foolish to believe it hasn’t affected him. You go from being a bedroom bard to the voice of a generation, the expectation paradigm shifts.

In a time, as the fine football journo John Nicholson remarked where we have a tendency to over-rate, over-praise or even over-criticize. Turner exists as a man accelerated; perhaps not a genius, not yet a legend, but somewhere in the middle.

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.

100 Broken Windows marked Idlewild’s first steps from raggy-arsed punk slashers into something a little more refined. They might eventually have gone too far down the road to maturity, but at this stage Idlewild were still one of the most exciting bands in the world.

Life Without Buildings - Any Other City

Natalie Shaw:
Instead of re-reviewing my albums of the decade, I’ve done a list of my favourites (in no particular order) -

Life Without Buildings’ Any Other City
Maxïmo Park’s A Certain Trigger
Cat Power’s The Greatest
Wild Beasts’ Two Dancers
Frightened Rabbit’s The Midnight Organ Fight
Voxtrot’s Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives (yeah it’s an EP, whatever)
Shearwater’s Rook
LCD Soundsystem’s Sound Of Silver
Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts Of The Great Highway
The National’s Boxer
Radiohead’s In Rainbows
Blur’s Think Tank
Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
Field Music’s Tones Of Town
Art Brut’s Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Joan As Police Woman’s Real Life
Electrelane’s The Power Out
Mirah’s Advisory Committee
Tom Vek’s Nothing But Green Lights
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists’ Hearts Of Oak
Pete and The Pirates’ Little Death
The Blow’s Paper Television
Baby Teeth’s The Baby Teeth Album
Aloha’s Some Echoes
El Perro del Mar’s El Perro del Mar

Manic Street Preachers - Journal for Plague Lovers

Manic Street Preachers’ Journal For Plague Lovers – by David Lichfield
Seemingly incapable of providing the world with incendiary material again, the Manics served up a combustible slice of humble pie with Journal For Plague Lovers. From the ominous In Utero-isms of ‘Peeled Apples’ to the raucous hidden track ‘Bag Lady’, the use of Richey Edwards’ lyrics brought a sense of massve urgency to affairs sadly lacking over the previous decade. Combining gallows humour with the best aspects of their populist output and the uncompromising blaze of their earlier work, this album hung together like a gripping scenes from a quintessential movie, each track peeling off horrific layers of Edwards’ doom-fated mindset. Hugely eclectic and massively cryptic, spine-chilling tracks such as ‘Me and Stephen Hawking’ and ‘Marlon JD’ were powered with the sonic relevance of a youthful, vicious band at the peak of their powers, whilst ‘Facing Page: Top Left’ and ‘William’s Last Words’ were shot through with a stomach-churning foreshadow.

Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People

Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People by Daniel Harrison:
In a decade when so much great music emerged from Canada, this 2002 album from the sprawling Toronto-based collective was the point where all that untrammelled creativity reached its glorious peak. Rousing, swelling, superb indie anthems like ‘KC Accidental’, ‘Stars and Sons’ and ‘Cause = Time’ are hook-laden and danceable, the tunes never smothered by the arsenal of instruments thrown into the mix. It was a sound that cleared the way for Arcade Fire and influenced much of what was to follow, but it’s the more subdued moments that really seal YFIIP’s classic status. ‘I’m Still Your Fag’ is desolate, hypnotic minimalism; the majestic ‘Shampoo Suicide’’s  trance-inducing ambience gives way to a haunting, multi-layered climax; while on ‘Anthems for a Seventeen-Year Old Girl’, a sublime banjo-and-strings backdrop frames a gorgeously-sung (by Metric’s Emily Haines) lament for lost youth: ”Park that car / Drop that phone / Sleep on the floor / Dream about me…”. There’s also time for detours into garage squall (’Almost Crimes’), hazy, dreamy pop (’Looks Just Like The Sun’) and a sun-kissed instrumental jam (’Pacific Theme’), yet at no point does the album lose its irresistible flow. Eclectic, adventurous and exhilarating, it’s a record to lose yourself in.

The National - Boxer

The National’s Boxer, by Stef Siepel:
For their second album they went in debt to make it. The third got them the recognition, their fourth did not only get them out of debt, it would be The National’s magnum opus (up to this point). The arrangements, the lyrics, the themes running through the songs: it is rare that an album both can document the zeitgeist so well whilst also having all the qualities of being timeless, which is the case with Boxer. The songs are build up and structured beautifully, between those insistent drums, the guitars, and occasional guest appearances by horns and the like. And then there is that feeling of confusion yet beauty, the mixture of loss yet comfort. Lines like: “And we put our arms around the stereo for hours/as it sings to itself, or whatever it does/as it sings to itself of its long lost loves” are yet to be rivaled in this decade, putting Berninger firmly among the worlds best lyricists. The combination of orchestration and lyrical depth makes this my favourite album this decade.

Aereogramme - Sleep and Release

Aereogramme’s Sleep and Release – by Peter Harris
The beardy Scots were masters of juggling big brooding, jagged rock with the most delicate and heartfelt melody and over their three albums and three EPs they never mixed the ingredients to better effect than on 2003’s Sleep and Release.

The album has everything a growing boy needs in his rock diet – ‘Indiscretion#243′ opens with a bass lines that sounds like someone carving concrete and ends with an organ led sing-along. ‘Black Path’ is airy and almost hymn like. ‘Older’ riffs and crunches along and melds into the absolutely spectacular ‘No Really, Everything’s Fine’ which would certainly be in the running for my song of the decade. Then we have ‘Yes’, a pop song with a riffing bridge that to this day still causes my neck hairs to quiver. The album ends on the lush trio of ‘In Gratitude’, ‘A Winter’s Discord’ and an unnamed final track which rolls strikingly into a string soaked denouement.

The band didn’t quite have the support they deserved when they were still going and I for one miss Aereogramme more than any other band who has split in this last decade.

Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven

Godspeed You Black Emperor!’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven – by Rory Gibb
When I was about 15, there was a boy at school who used to listen to Godspeed You Black Emperor!. I once asked him what he was listening to; we’d just traded copies of Tool albums and I wanted to try and find some new music along the same lines. I was immediately put off by his response – the name conjured up images of some terrifying black metal band, which teenage me really couldn’t be dealing with – and resolved never to bother. More fool me. It wasn’t for another five years or so that I actually listened to them, and with retrospect if there was one band I would dearly love to have seen live, Godspeed would take the prize.

2000’s Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven wove together all the threads of their previous work, both artistically and politically, to startling effect that hasn’t diminished one iota in the near-decade since its release. And in a world where lawful protest is increasingly crushed under the weight of city surveillance, the proud march of the corporate state continues unabated and we still send soldiers to die in the desert under unjust pretences, its message now seems more relevant than ever. Still, even beyond its conceptual strength it is simply a beautiful album, and probably the finest ‘post-rock’ record ever made. Sure, in their time Godspeed had moments of greatness that reach far beyond even the most captivating segments of Lift Your Skinny Fists… , but as an entire statement of intent its breadth and scope of ambition is unrivalled. Even the album’s title is a clue as to its content, a promise of hope even in dark times – if their earlier work was a cry of rage, an admission of ‘Everything’s fucked, but we can’t do anything about it’, on Lift Your Skinny Fists they offer a glimmer of redemption, almost intangible but audible in the parade that gathers momentum and recedes into the darkness of ‘Storm’.

The past decade pretty much constitutes my entire musical life, and all the questionable teenage obsessions (the entire genre of nu-metal, anyone?) that went with it. In the end I’ve plumped for Lift Your Skinny Fists… , for the simple reason that, unlike so many others, in the five or so years since it first wormed its way into my consciousness it has stubbornly refused to leave.

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.

DIVORCE, Glasgow Stereo, 19/4 – by Andrew R. Hill
I’ve been to a lot of gigs this year, some of them to see personal all-time heroes. SUNN O))) have come damn close to being my subject, but I’ve decided to stick to my guns and cover DIVORCE.

I first saw them in April, supporting HEALTH at Stereo in Glasgow and I’ve been singing their praises ever since. I had seen a couple of the players in previous bands, but neither were a patch on DIVORCE. Each time I’ve seen them since they’ve provided a visceral thrill few other bands can match. They brutalise their instruments (especially exciting as they are four-fifths female), along with your ears. Vocalist Sinead Youth may as well be smacking you in the face with her microphone as she spits scorn and bile into it, most of her time amongst the crowd. The sound was (and still is) somewhere into the region of no wave/noisecore (recently dubbed, ‘nae wave’), but puny genrification mattered not a jot that first time I saw them. It was painful, tinnitus-inducing love at first listen.

They’ve attitude and passion in buckets, and if you’ve got the chance to see them and you pass on it, frankly, you’re a fucking idiot.

Casio Kids/Temper Trap/I Was A King, Reading Oakford Social Club, 17/5 – by Mitchell Stirling

Reading gig goers were treated to three international bands fresh from The Great Escape. On the Wonder Wheel stage first were one of the two Norwegian bands, I Was A King, whose unabashed love of the early ’90s work of the likes of Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, Mercury Rev and Dinosaur Jr. shone through, especially on ‘Norman Bilek’. Following on to a larger crowd were The Temper Trap, pre-blow up from (500) Days of Summer using their ‘Sweet Disposition’, the best U2 song for a decade, prominently. Seems slightly surreal now that this was a free gig in a smallish pub!

Finally and brilliantly, rounding of the night were Casio Kids, playing not only on their homeland’s national day but mere hours after ‘Fairytale’ had triumphed in Eurovision. Adding to the almost celebratory atmosphere were the balloons, bubbles and party poppers that adorned stage and crowd as the band delighted the masses with their Norwegian language songs. They flitted between a Nordic take on New Order, Scandinavian Stereolab and even a Viking Vampire Weekend but most importantly they sent the danced-out audience home buzzing.

Marcella and the Forget-Me-Nots , London Bistroteque!, 3/12 – by Wesley Nicholson

Marcella Puppini, founder member of the 1940s-style close-harmony group, The Puppini Sisters (they’re not really sisters but shhh!) gave a sneak preview of her new project, Marcella and the Forget-Me-Nots at Bistrotheque. Fronting her all-girl eight-piece orchestra, Marcella crooned and growled her way through a set of new material with nods to The Dresden Dolls, Tom Waits, and all that top-hatted scary Cabaret should be. Wonderfully terrifying with tunes that stay in your head for days afterwards. Standout tracks were ‘What Have You Done to Your Face?’, an attack on a certain surgically-adjusted actress, and the beautiful but terrifying ‘Lullaby’.

Of Montreal, Boston Paradise Rock Club, 20/4 – by Rebecca Schiller
A night that leaves you covered in fake blood, shaving cream, feathers and glitter is a good night. Throw in a pig and a tiger who hijack the stage to play music, and crowd-surfing ninjas, and it gets even better. Sound crazy? Trying to describe an of Montreal gig to anyone who has never experienced one first-hand is like trying to nail jelly to a pole. But when the band took the stage at Boston’s Paradise Rock Club in April, there was no denying that it was daring and dazzling and full of raunchy pizzazz.

Dirty Three, Green Man Festival, 21-23/8 – by Rory Gibb
Even amongst the hordes of fantastic new artists nipping at the heels of their forefathers throughout 2009, this year’s undoubted live highlight was a performance from some of the veterans of the circuit. Despite predictions to the contrary the weather throughout this year’s Green Man festival was almost uniformly lovely, a perfect complement to days spent with laid back folk and cider. So the mountain spirits timed it to perfection when, as Warren Ellis and his merry men strode onstage on Sunday evening, a light rain shattered the stage lights into delicate fractal patterns to the opening strains of ‘Some Summers They Drop Like Flies’. Despite suffering, as Ellis admitted, from an extended period of writers’ block, their old material sounded as vital as ever, his abrasive violin still carving out statements of almost unbearable weight over Jim White and Mick Turner’s sparse and delicate backing. It felt far too soon by the time they left the stage, leaving the echo of Ellis’ effortless stage banter ringing in an entire field’s ears.

Final Fantasy, Union Chapel, 28/5 – by Natalie Shaw
Choosing the finest set out of some 350-odd acts I’ll have seen by the end of the year (Songkick tells me so) was no mean feat but let alone the best thing I’ve seen in 2009, this may well have been the best show I’ve witnessed in my life. A music-of-worship set in a place-of-worship setting, Owen Pallett rose to the occasion and left the audience breathless as his combination of live-sampling and layered melodies met with the most wonderful accompaniment. Projectionist Stephanie Comilang’s delicate, ramshackle artwork provided the most captivating sub-narrative to the dry-hearted wonders he played. We were treated to a perfectly-lit ‘Many Lives>49PM’, a violin re-working of ‘He Poos Clouds’, a rapturous version of ‘Flare Gun’ and some breathtaking new tracks too – all with enough space and time to breathe in his dexterity for adventure. Never once have I felt so involved with a show; that it took my entire mindspace to comprehend made me realise the glory of the stunning Union Chapel, and of enjoying live music as an entity in its own right. Nothing else mattered, and Final Fantasy proved himself a charming, caustic act of beauty leaving everyone in the room entirely in awe.

Alasdair Roberts, Oliver Knights, Marry Gilhooley, Lal Waterson, James Yorkston, the Big Eyes Family Players, London Tabernacle, 7/11 – by Thomas Bolton

On Saturday 7th November, the best folk musicians and writers around descended on the small, strange Tabernacle in the depths of Notting Hill.  Mary Hampton sang unaccompanied in a heart-stoppingly clear voice; Alasdair Roberts channelled ancient Scotland via his own, devilishly inspired wyrd; Oliver Knight and Marry Gilhooley brought Waterson lineage, and Lal Waterson’s songs, to the party to the audience’s delight; headliners James Yorkston and the Big Eyes Family Players threatened to bring the cast iron ceiling down with rousing, unstoppable energy and the best tunes around.  After a good four hours of music the entire bill clustered round the mikes to encore with Lal’s Some Old Salty, like a gleeful East Yorkshire gang show troupe. A gig driven by open collaboration and mutual delight left everyone, in Lal’s words, ravenous for the midnight feast.

The Whitest Boy Alive/The New Wine, London Cargo, 17/4 – by Martin Dickie
Now Kings of Convenience are quietly touring again it is easy to forget that Erlend Øye’s side project (if it still counts as one) the Whitest Boy Alive were thrilling the in-crowd with electrifying shows at the start of the year. As Øye himself put it at this ramshackle, anything-goes gig, they are the band offering:  “the longest delayed gratification of any rock band playing house music.” But there was a band going one better that very same evening. Support act the New Wine, from Øye’s hometown of Bergen, Norway, effectively stole the show that night with a kind of white boy funk you might expect from Hall and Oates fronting Parliament having just had sex with Lindstrøm. The crescendo of the evening saw the two bands merge on stage and perform covers of Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ and Robin S’s ‘Show Me Love’ to an audience jumping about like they’d just seen the ghost of Michael Hutchence.

Jeffrey Lewis, Sunderland Independent, 30/8 – by George Shaw
The first time I ever saw Jeffrey Lewis live was with The Cribs on tour back in 2006. That night I was left astounded, yet slightly baffled by his comic book projections and stories. I became an instant fan. Its apt then, that the next I time I should see him, one of the highlights of the night should revolve heavily around Wakefield’s finest.  Towards the end of what was already a great night Jeffrey Lewis came back on stage to play a medley of Cribs songs, closing a fantastic night of raps about mosquitoes and low budget films about the history of communism in China. What was his first time in Sunderland will hopefully not be his last.

Field Music, Sunderland Split Festival, 4/10 by George Shaw
Split Festival was a magnificent day and a great celebration of Sunderland’s finest in music and comedy. My highlight, however, came late in the day, just before headliners The Futureheads and Penetration. I managed to get myself right at the front row for one of the most eagerly anticipated sets, Field Music’s first gig since announcing they were returning – it was as if they’d never left. Playing through tracks from the first two albums and the School of Language record they sounded as tight as ever.  The huge grins on the faces of those in the front row really tell the story itself.

Los Campesinos!, Copy Haho, Sparky Deathcap, Newcastle University Basement 2, 27/10 – by George Shaw
I’m selecting all three sets from this gig because it was that good a night. Sparky Deathcap opened it with his lo-fi folk, hilarious slide projections and for one song, onstage band – Los Campesinos! Copy Haho followed and brought a slightly chaotic element to the night, with members walking through the crowd as they played through their spiky indie pop. Finally Los Campesinos! took to the stage, and almost immediately the crowd erupted. It is genuinely hard to keep still as they play their infectious, excitable set. A brief football (specifically Sunderland) chat with Gareth at the end cemented his place as my new favourite front-man.

Bat For Lashes, Northumbria University, 9/4 – by George Shaw
It might be a bit unfair to include this one, seeing as within the first five minutes or so of her taking to the stage, I’d fallen slightly in love with Natasha Khan, but really, it’s hard not to be enchanted by her stage presence.  Playing through a set which mostly consisted of material from the second album ‘Two Suns’, Khan is captivating as her voice effortlessly shifts from the upbeat and soaring, like in single “Daniel  to  the more delicate, tender moments of the night, like “Moon and Moon.” Enchanting throughout the night, my friend is still gutted she lost her ticket

The Flaming Lips, London Troxy, 10/11 – by Tom Collins
Gig of the year is an accolade most musicians can only dream of, but a cold November night saw Wayne Coyne and his band of psychedelic-punk musicians step forward and stake their claim for this prestigious title as they featured at The London Troxy for two sold out nights of Flaming Lips based mayhem.

A mixture of dry ice, confetti, balloons, lasers, an over-sized gong and a human hamster ball kept this festival of noise pumping along, turning the experience into more of a circus than a concert, and proving to the masses that a Flaming Lips gig is definitely something worth experiencing. The set list included hit tracks ‘The W.A.N.D.’ and ‘Yeah Yeah Yeah song’ but it was beloved ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Pt 1’ and closing song ‘Do You Realize?’ that provided the most exhilaration and biggest sing-a-longs of the night.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Newcastle Academy, 3/12 – by Paul Brown

It isn’t just a trick of my memory that the best gig I’ve been to this year also happens to be my most recent. It’s just that Yeah Yeah Yeahs were THAT good at Newcastle Academy on December 3rd. It’s not easy whipping the indie-kids into a frenzy in a venue of that size (I’ve seen plenty of bands fail) but from start to finish the band were a whirling buzz of energy, and the crowd had no choice but to comply. The new songs were as visceral as the old ones, and showed that the band can now put together a pretty meaty set after three albums. There was a real triumphant feel to the show which rounded off a fantastic year for the band. It wasn’t just the best gig I’ve seen this year, it was one of the best I’ve ever seen.

Neil Young, London Hard Rock Calling, 27/6 – by Rob Hastings

Ok. I realise now that I should have known better than to doubt Mr Neil Percival Young. But after watching him deliver that incendiary Glastonbury set on BBC2 while snuggled up at home, anyone with a ticket to see him play in Hyde Park the very next evening could have been forgiven for wondering if he had it in him to perform to such a level two nights running.

In the event, however, the final night of Young’s tour surely topped even that penultimate gig down on Worthy Farm.

“How so?” you might ask. Sure, there was the uniquely tumultuous crunch of those chords in Hey Hey, My My, and the divine catharsis of a seemingly never-ending Down By The River – but Eavis got those too. And there was the addition of an achingly sublime Old Man and the rambunctious F*!#In’ Up to the set – but two extra songs, no matter how good, can hardly beat that special something in the Glasto air.

Well, how about this: Neil Young… (yup, we gathered that much)… finishing his tour with a cover of A Day In The Life… (ok, but he does that at the end of every show)… when onto the stage bounds Paul McCartney for a duet. It was so good, I cried.

See you next year, darling readers!

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.”

Make no mistake either; these were all released as singles and not just hand-picked as our writers’ favourite tracks from albums. And it’s interesting to note that of these 50, 28 were from long-players (or not from LPs at all) that didn’t feature in our top 50 albums of the year, chosen by the very same gaggle of writers.

The radio-friendliness/commercial success of many of these singles forms an interesting near-dichotomy with our albums synopsis too. Are we spoon-fed by different channels when it comes to singles? Or does that awful notion of ‘guilty pleasure’ prevail (the amount of justification for some of our writers including Lady GaGa in their list said it all – and that’s honest), where it’s somehow more permissible to enjoy a Dizzee Rascal one-track than an album?

Of course it could just be that these tracks are stand-outs, but I fear a greater sub-text even within our own ranks. We’ll continue to cover singles because without that, there’s a great fear that the early falling-in-love-with stage of discovering an artist will dilute entirely.

And on that contemplative note, here’s our list:

1       Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Zero
2       Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
3       Bat For Lashes – Daniel
4       Wild Beasts – All The Kings Men
5       The Horrors – Sea Within A Sea
6       Animal Collective – My Girls
7       HEALTH – Die Slow
8       The XX – Islands
9       Animal Collective – Brother Sport
10      Arctic Monkeys – Cornerstone
11      The XX – Crystalised
12      Camera Obscura – French Navy
13      Phoenix – 1901
14      Dirty Projectors – Stillness Is In The Move
15      Jay-Z feat. Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind
16      Casiokids – Verdens Störste Land / Fot I Hose
17      Blue Roses – I Am Leaving  / Moments Before Sleep
18      La Roux – In For The Kill (Skream’s Let’s Get Ravey Remix)
19      Temper Trap – Sweet Disposition
20      Lady Gaga – Paparazzi
21      The Big Pink – Velvet
22      Franz Ferdinand – Ulysses
23      Muse – Uprising
24      Future of The Left – Arming Eritrea
25      The Cribs – Cheat On Me
26      Dizzee Rascal – Bonkers
27      Lily Allen – The Fear
28      Kasabian – Underdog
29      Brand New – At The Bottom
30      Burial/Four Tet – Moth / Wolf Club
31      Girls – Lust For Life
32      Regina Spektor – Laughing With / Blue Lips
33      The Prodigy – Omen
34      Sunset Rubdown – Idiot Heart
35      The Big Pink – Dominos
36      Noisettes – Never Forget You
37      Joy Orbison – Hyph Mngo
38      tUnE-yArDs – Hatari
39      Emmy The Great – First Love
40      Pulled Apart By Horses – I Punched A Lion In The Throat
41      Patrick Wolf – Hard Times
42      The Maccabees – No Kind Words
43      Jay-Z feat. Rihanna & Kanye West – Run This Town
44      The Twilight Sad – I Became A Prostitute
45      Biffy Clyro – That Golden Rule
46      Darkstar – Aidy’s Girl is a Computer
47      Gold Panda – Quitters Raga
48      Editors – Papillon
49      O.Children – Dead Disco Dancer
50      Paramore – Decode

Here is a Spotify playlist featuring 41 of the 50 singles. Run along and have a listen, why don’t you.

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.

Muso’s Guide: As we are getting near the end of the year, what have been your personal and artistic highlights?

Laura Groves: I think the last tour; especially the Wild Beasts support was brilliant. I think that we’ve come on as a live band and improved in that area. I’ve also just recorded this EP with some new songs which I’m quite pleased with. It’s kind of a new sound, which has evolved and that’s quite exciting. I’m really pleased with the way we’ve developed.

MG: Being picked up on Kanye West’s blog must have been a bit of a surprise as well?

LG: Yeah, definitely. It was a video from, I think Germany. They’d found one of my songs and liked and then they used it for one of their film-making projects and that was what was on the blog. Then I had people on my MySpace telling me I was on Kanye West’s blog. I was sceptical of course, as it was completely bizarre and unexpected but pretty cool.

MG: With the debut record, what were you trying to get across with it; an introduction to yourself as an artist?

LG: I think so; I just wanted to make a record of the songs I had in the way they were recorded. I didn’t want to attempt anything that the songs didn’t require. Those songs already existed but there’s a couple on there that actually wrote for the album, things like ‘Doubtful Comforts’ and ‘Rebecca’, and they don’t quite fit in with the others. Whereas ‘I Am Leaving’ for example was the first song that I wrote and recorded almost three years ago. It was kind of a record of what material I had.

MG: So you weren’t trying to capture your live sound on it or anything?

LG: Not really because it was kind of the other way round; we didn’t really come together as a live, thing while I was recording. It was more of an afterthought. There’s a lot of arrangements on the album which we don’t do live, we just re-work them a little bit. I didn’t really consider how we were going to play it all; we just did it as we went along.

MG: Was there a moment when you felt like everything was coming together and you were really doing it?

LG: Yes, definitely. I think when I decided to change the name. I was touring as Laura Groves and doing acoustic gigs by myself, then I felt it couldn’t be that anymore and had to move onto the next stage and it seemed appropriate.

MG: So when did you make that decision, then?

LG: Just towards the end of the recording phase actually. It was before we finished the album. Just because… it kind of surpassed our expectations of how we thought it was going to sound. It sort of changed from the original basic idea so at that stage we decided to [change the name].

MG: When you were recording, what were your main influences, music wise? A lot of reviewers have mentioned Joanna Newsom, Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush…

LG: Yeah, I mean I’m a big fan of all of those and a lot of different music. I don’t think I ever sat down and thought I want to… I didn’t really have a reference point for the album.

MG: You didn’t go to a producer and say “I want this to sound like ‘Hounds of Love’”?

LG: No, not really. That’s not to say they didn’t probably make their way into the music somehow.

MG: More of a sub-conscious than deliberate influence.

LG: Yeah.

MG: ‘Moments Before Sleep’ [B-side to 'I Am Leaving'] I really feel could fit on the Ninth Wave section of Hounds of Love, especially with the production and the vocal that you did on it.

LG: It’s a lot more electronic as well. There are no guitars on it at all, not one.

MG: A bit of a Kid A moment…

LG: Yeah (laughs). I never really have a template for the songs in terms of other people’s songs. I try to let them happen naturally. I don’t know if that’s going to change for the next thing that I do. I may go into that with a much clearer picture in my mind of the sound. That’s quite likely actually.

MG: So you think there is going to be a change to your approach to song-writing?

LG: I don’t know if my approach will be different; certainly in terms of having a clear idea about how the collection of songs are going to sound prior to starting the recording. Not that I’m making a concept album or anything! The actual song-writing and recording process will pretty much remain the same.

MG: Do you think, in that case, you might succumb to a temptation to write less personally and more allegorically or character based? Or even inspired by where you’re from?

LG: I think, I think it will still be a personal thing because I’m not in the habit of writing stories about other people. Maybe my lyrics are getting a bit more interesting in that they aren’t clearly about one particular thing or as obviously personally. I’m trying to write a lot more as well trying to be a bit more prolific with the lyrics. Initially I am all about the composing, the recording and the music side of things. Lyrics aren’t an afterthought but they did come later on. I am trying to put a lot more focus on that.

MG: When you are writing, are you constantly ‘on’ or do you need to find the time to write?

LG: I do sort of tend to mess around on the piano, experiment, see what I can come up with. I don’t have a regimented way of doing it. I’m not really the sort that is able to sit down, for a set time, and write a song from scratch. I wish I was sometimes but I can’t do it. It’s more of an organic process for me.

MG: The name is a literary reference, Tennessee Williams; [from The Glass Menagerie] is there anything you are reading at the moment that might seep into your work? Or do you separate that from your own song writing?

LG: No, definitely things that I read are an influence. As it’s getting wintery I’m reading gothic novels which might make a way in. I do love reading and literature but again I wouldn’t deliberately write in a certain style. It’s a lot more about ideas than… I use books to spark off ideas rather than inform my writing style, to get me in the right frame of mind.

MG: There are also a few references to things that can’t be held or seen or don’t really exist like Blue Roses for a start and seeing electricity, emotions and so on that seem to crop up.

LG:  Yeah I guess, again that kind of imagery is not something I set out to include. It’s more of a subconscious thing, definitely.

MG: Like with most female, young singers articles and reviews seem to have to mention the exact age of the singer? How does that make you feel? Because it doesn’t seem to be brought up nearly as much for male solo artists or bands.

LG: Yeah, it’s weird, especially recently with a lot of us coming through. It’s not really important, is it?

MG: How old are you actually, 21, 22?

LG: Almost 22, in a couple of weeks.

MG: It’s funny because Brian Wilson and Paul McCartney were both 23 in 1966 when they recorded Pet Sounds and Revolver yet we are amazed that Adele, Laura Marling, Lily Allen or yourself can make a good album because you are young. When, not so much recently like you say, if you look back through older magazines at what are considered classic albums of yesteryear and it’s not youth that’s the ‘amazing’ thing it’s that you are a female solo artist. Because they were full of bands with guys the same age, if not younger, which makes me think it’s a little hypocritical.

LG: Yeah, it’s focused on a lot and it is a strange thing especially the young aspect and how it’s an amazing thing and a lot of attention is drawn to it when if it’s a good album, it’s a good album.

MG: Especially when people like Kate Bush, Paul Weller, Dizzee Rascal were all very young, 18-19 when they made their first records.

LG: And Kate Bush was at #1 in the charts with ‘Wuthering Heights’ when she was that age.

MG: I’m forever reading reviews that say “such and such belies their age on this record, isn’t it amazing someone so young can write something like this?” but no-one would write anything as ridiculous as “This is a good song, for a woman” which is almost the same thing.

LG: Yeah (laughs), I definitely agree with you.

MG: Talking about Revolver on ‘Eleanor Rigby’ there’s no instrument on that from the 20th century, it could have been performed in 1866 and, apart from the keyboard parts which could move to piano I guess, I get that sense with your music as well. That it’s not tied to the present day and could have been written fifty or a hundred years ago.

LG: My brother is a baroque violinist and specialises in old violins so we used them and they made a totally different sound. So it doesn’t really fit in with the fashion for young, female with a synth more electronic sound or whatever, that’s fine if that’s what you want to do but I think to try and mould something into a genre that it doesn’t really belong is not the right way to go about things. Like I was saying a little earlier; this is the way that the songs needed to be done, so that’s how we did it. We didn’t record them and then think “Oh, we need to make it sound a bit more like this”.

MG: So you don’t want to put a dubstep remix album?

LG: Ha, well you never know! Would that be such a bad thing?

MG: Maybe not, maybe you need to get in touch with someone?

LG: The guy that co-produced the album with me, one of my good friends, is really into all that. I’m sure he’d love to do some remixes.

MG: You’ve been on tour Noah & The Whale and as you mentioned Wild Beasts recently but how has it been on this, your first headlining tour?

LG: It’s been brilliant, completely different to what we are used to. We’ve been so used to doing support slots that it’s a nice departure. It’s good to know that people are coming out to see us. I really like touring. I don’t have to do any of the driving which helps! I really find performing in general quite nerve-wracking. I feel a lot more at home in the studio recording and things like that but I really enjoy it. We’ve changed the set around a little bit this time to make it a bit fresher as well. But really enjoying it, stage fright aside!

MG: You are quite friendly with Wild Beasts as well aren’t you?

LG: Yeah I’d met them a couple of times, I was aware of them obviously because they’re sort of Leeds based and I’m from around there. I’d seen them a few times around, local. With the tour for their new album they thought of asking us to go on tour with them, which was really good. Especially as I really like their new record.

MG: The reason I ask is I wanted to know if you were one of the girls from Shipley in ‘All The King’s Men’?

LG: No, I don’t think so! I think it’s more to do with the sound of the word Shipley rather than an actual, realistic description of anyone.

MG: I guess with the shout-outs to those kinds of far-flung places you’d not expect to be sung about, it’s an ode to The Smiths’ ‘Panic’.

LG: I think it’s more of a nod to that then. Yeah, or the reputation of the ladies in those parts!

MG: It’s been a few years since the first talk of a Yorkshire scene with Dance To The Radio artists breaking out, how do you see it now?

LG: Aside from Wild Beasts again, who are from Kendal but have relocated there’s Grammatics, who I really like, I’ve recorded a live track from the album [Blue Roses's album] and we re-arranged it, it was from a gig we played together where we played each other’s songs and is on the new EP. Where I’m from which is more Bradford than Leeds there’s not really too much going on. There was kind of a surge of activity a year or two ago but it’s sort of died out. That or it tends to gravitate towards Leeds. I mean the town where I’m from there’s even less happening than Bradford, it’s our little strange world.

MG: So aside from Grammatics, do you have any other collaborations on the horizon, or any that you’d like to do?

LG: I dunno, I’m going to start some more recording soon and thinking about the next album so I’d like to get some friends and the musicians I’ve met involved with that. With the touring it’s a good way to meet people and forge relationships with them. Definitely going to do more if I can.

MG: It does seem, maybe it’s something I just didn’t notice when I was younger, that a lot of acts on the same record label and support each other touring and things like that do seem to genuinely be tight and good friends with each other. I’m not so sure that this ‘trend’ is particularly linked to any kind of scene be it musically or geographically either, just that they are fans of each other’s work.

LG: Yeah definitely, and I think that’s really important. I mean sometimes it doesn’t work like that but when it does and you are really into another band, a special relationship can develop and it’s really good collaborating with people that you admire as well.

MG: How are XL as a record label? No pressure from them to tour more or follow up quickly?

LG: Good, I mean obviously they’ve got a lot of good stuff going on at the minute; they’ve had a good year. They are very good at just letting me do what I do. As I record myself and produce my own music they are behind me with that and let me get on with it and it’s more that I wanted to get on with it myself than they put pressure on me, it’s all quite relaxed.

MG: You are off to the US soon aren’t you? Looking forward to that? What else is coming up for you?

LG: Very much, yeah. We’re going for almost a month on a proper coast to coast tour. We’re touring with Marcus Foster, who’s just one guy and his acoustic guitar and we are all going in one car together. I’m kind of scared of flying so that’ll be a big obstacle to get over the Atlantic, but once we’re there, it should be really good.  There’s the new EP as well which as a couple of new songs an there’s the live song with Grammatics as well and a track off the album, ‘Does Anyone Love Me, Now’ [the EP's title track] It’s really good to have new material to take on the road.

MG: It’s coming to that time of the year again so, what are your favourite albums of the year?

LG: The two that stick out are Grizzly Bear, I love that and Wild Beasts. I’m listening to those two a lot at the minute.

MG: And the decade?

LG: Oh God!

MG: Sorry to spring this on you; first thing that pops into you head?

LG: I can’t think, most of the things I have been listening to are…

MG: Ten years old or more? Maybe I’ll ask you again in five years time.

LG: OK (laughs, sighs), oh dear.

MG: And finally how are you finding Twitter?

LG: Kind of annoying but addictive. I just end up telling people what I eat, so mundane but people like to know about things like that!

MG: It does humanise people a fair amount.

LG: Yeah but, that goes against it all. I like there being a bit of mystic when it comes to my favourite music.

MG: So you don’t want to read about Wild Beasts, popping down the shop.

LG: They’ve got one too! I don’t know, it’s a bit of a revelation, until now there was always a gap there. Especially with big artists where it seemed they were in a totally different world and unreachable

MG: Now we know they sit in their pyjamas watching the X-Factor eating tiramisu like the rest of us.

LG: Yeah, I kind of love it and hate it at the same time. It’s funny when you meet people and they say “We’ve tweeted each other” and you’d not known who they were at the time.

MG: Yeah, we’ve tweeted each other.

LG: Really? Oh cool.

Laura and the rest of Blue Roses are touring the USA and Canada from early December. The EP, ‘Does Anyone Love Me, Now’ is out 7th December and you can follow what Laura is eating on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/blueroseslaura

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

As a companion piece to our 50-1 countdown that hit the internet gradually over the past couple of weeks (check the top three and work backwards), I’ve decided to do this piece on my own personal top 20. First person writing, the chance to eschew writing as voice of a consensus – my very own top albums of 2009 as some sort of deeper representation of what this here site’s all about.

The order is very loose, and I guess based on factors such as how and how much I enjoyed them. I could probably put these albums in a tombola, get them out re-ordered and still call it a fair representation of my year. That said, the top five would have to be the top five, and in that order. They are five incredible albums that have added a next-level fever to this year.

And a special mention should also go to the following, who just missed out on the list: Sian Alice Group’s Troubled, Shaken Etc, Tortoise’s Beacons Of Ancestorship, Bill Callahan’s Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, Extradition Order’s Since The Bomb Dropped, Annie’s Don’t Stop, Fuck Buttons‘ Tarot Sport.

In short, it’s been a phenomenal year. Now here they are…

20. Sunset Rubdown – Dragonslayer: Spencer Krug’s genius knew no bounds as Sunset Rubdown’s third album loosened up and toned down the private narrative quota. Yet more of that layered-thought stuff Krug’d become such a master of mixed with deliberately child-like turns of phrase, AND we got given the most impossible not to dance to track of the year in ‘Idiot Heart’. An instructive triumph.
Position in writers’ top 50: #18

19. Fever Ray – Fever Ray: Karin Dreijer Andersson’s hermetic wall got strengthened further still as her Fever Ray persona all-out succeeded at creating an arcane cloud of vocal manipulation and dense electronica. So static was this self-titled record in its chimes and drones that the claustrophobia felt like a letting go. The sounds were plaintive and jarring, fitting the themes of disconnection and debilitation like hand-in-glove.
Position in writers’ top 50: #4

18. Cymbals Eat Guitars – Why There Are Mountains: The wildest experimentation hid deftly behind a heart of ’90s U.S. college rock on this impressively-developed debut album. Its variation never felt overblown as noises posed as hooks and dichotomies were linked together with lengthy passages of of arpeggial cacophony. Seamless ebb and flow between the gaps bridged this album into the mainstream, only briefly disguising Cymbals Eat Guitars’ world-sized ambition.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

17. The Decemberists – The Hazards Of Love: Based on an interpretation of the title of an Anne Briggs (lost folk singer from the ’60s and ’70s) EP, this ruddy ridiculous 17-track extravaganza was put together as, yes, you heard: a concept rock opera. The homicidal rake, the choir for revenge-seeking undead kids, the psychotic queen – they were all here. I’m still playing catch up with their garrulous fantasy, happily revelling in its exulted pomp.
Position in writers’ top 50: #32

16. tUnE-yArDs – BiRd-BrAiNs: Recorded on a digital tape recorder but by no means lo-fi in scope, tribal drums and ukulele loops formed the backbone of a record hissing with charm and clattered snippets of tribal drumming. Merrill Garbus’ (approx.) 26-octave range combined with rhythms attacking from all corners and oddly, it felt like a giant cohesive whole. Relying heavily on looping imperfect takes of each part into the polyphony, BiRd-BrAiNs possessed an improbable, one-off charm.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

15. Blue Roses – Blue Roses: The perfect soprano of Laura Groves, the fragile melodies, the warm thumb piano, the rapturous passages of choral melisma, the occasional twinkling xylophone – these were the reasons why Blue Roses’ beauty didn’t feel trapped by conventional boundaries of structure and harmony. Uneasy suspensions built up, descending scales and ascending sequences were sung, and I became enraptured.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

14. The Horrors – Primary Colours: This was a remarkable album of pitch-bending darkness cutting iconoclastic outlines, with 2009’s finest out-and-out frontman at its core. The hype died down as Geoff Barrow came in to make The Horrors’ second album a revelation of whizzing keyboards, Germanic screaming, hypnotic basslines, spiralling rhythms and giant crescendos. And I’ve still not a clue what they’re on about. Do they? It’s a moot point.
Position in writers’ top 50: #7

13. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart: There’s no wonder I fell so hard for a record combining the sounds of my favourite indiepop, C86 and dancefloor-bothering shoegaze bands. TPOBPAH danced through the mopery with such panache, bringing a sub-scene crashing into 2009 with an endless stream of precise and fuzzy twee anthems lucky enough to have Kip and Peggy’s sweet, nerdy vocals sat right at the heart.
Position in writers’ top 50: #8

12. The Clientele – Bonfires On The Heath: Capping off a period of almost exactly nine years after the release of Suburban Light, The Clientele’s breathy, ingratiating sound found its resolve with the addition of purring Spanish guitar lines, warm brass and a teasing sitar. The lyrics were as pictorial as ever, MacLean’s cogitative words conjuring up vivid imagery of clothes-stealing rhododendrons, characters solitarily traversing autumnal scenes. This was a great band doing what they do best: dreamy, romantic poesy with just the right amount of space to take it all in.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

11. Camera Obscura – My Maudlin Career: Whether jubilant to be sad or sad to be jubilant, the simple phrasing cut just where it hurt. The Glaswegians’ mix of indelible sadness and celebration was approached in a more poised fashion than their illustrious output had previously seen, making this LP their finest yet. Surging string arrangements and extravagantly lush production made each glorious catharsis all the more hard to take, only increasing my desire to be take the Traceyanne Campbell fangirling to a whole new level and do the obvious – give her a hug.
Position in writers’ top 50: #19

10. Patrick Wolf – The Bachelor: Funded by the fans, this record was an artistic ceremony. Each inch sounded so desperate to impress that it was a pass or fail mission – but fear not, for its perpetrator  concentrated so hard with such determined lyrics that it was to go no way other than a massive pass. The orchestral arrangements were pinpointed to each emotion, and Wolf’s interplay with interpretations of techno-pop and Celtic folk sounded like a homecoming, a personal revolution.
Position in writers’ top 50: #29

9. The Duckworth Lewis Method – The Duckworth Lewis Method: I’m not going to lie here: I’m no a cricket fan. It was the idea of this album that I loved, how sprightly and geeky it sounded. I temporarily became simple as the in-jokes rang out. “Always denied entry by the English gentry/now we’re riding Bentleys playing Twenty20″ they said, and I was filled with an untainted joy that led me to fleeting hour-long Wikipedia trails, teaching myself the idiosyncrasies of cricket. The idea of Hannon and Walsh spewing this gem out for jokes made it all the more addictive.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

8. Micachu and The Shapes – Jewellery: Mica Levi’s distinctive vocals and cohesive, fluff-free experimentation created an album of all-encompassing, neatly plastered together joy.  And I’ll bet my Spotify Premium subscription that Levi’s knowledge and desire to listen to everything was the background to her simultaneously attention-grabbing, attention-shirking debut. That it wasn’t a rumpus for its ambition goes by the wayside. Congratulations, Micachu.
Position in writers’ top 50: #17

7. YACHT – See Mystery Lights: Cryptic, skittering and even comical computer beats set the pace for this hedonistic record released on the ever-excellent DFA imprint. I’d never heard an album sound so wired yet chock-full of ridiculous hooks – the cabalistic minute-long build-up on ‘Summer Song’ offers the perfect snapshot. Simple basslines sat under disaffected vocals, and it sounded like an underwater party. Maybe if YACHT were around a few thousand years ago they’d now be as popular as religion?
Position in writers’ top 50: #48

6. The Whitest Boy Alive – Rules: Coming out too early in the year for it to be remembered (or so I choose to believe), Erlend Øye’s latest outing revelled in a fragile and introspective groove. With dance anthems waiting to escape (’High On The Heels’, ‘Courage’) playing equal part to in-a-corner think-outs (’Island’, ‘Intentions’), irresistibly smooth vamps symbolised the quietness craved in spite of Øye’s emotional turmoil. It sounded seasoned, like a weathered voice of self-absorption.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

5. The Puddle - The Shakespeare Monkey: New Zealand’s The Puddle have been making music for 25 years, this album again completely slipping by the wayside. It featured, as ever, a sweet, shambling and velvety delivery meandering a well-read path of topics including infinite probability and human frailty. The polite/angry dichotomy of the guitar-playing reminded me of bands not often recalled like Galaxie 500, The Go-Betweens and Sebadoh. This album was lyric art of the wonkiest indiepop variety, a perfect set of reedy, well-worn literacy.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

4. St Vincent – Actor: Annie Clark’s rowdy prog-pop songs travelled to unexpected places by creating distinct and developed characters. Their numbed emotions were accurately reflected in the sympathetic production, and as the actors’ façades piled on top of each other, their own insecurities came gleaming through. Heavy guitars interspersed the glimmer in between that uniquely plush drollness as the listener became Clark’s foil, a helpless bit-part in the affair.
Position in writers’ top 50: #16

3. The XX – XX: An uncertain record sung as a one-on-one confession or an awkward late-night reveal with probably as many silences as notes, it was unclear whether XX was as stripped-back as being about a sexless sex, an intangible resolve that never came, or something else entirely. We’ll never know. But should it have been monikered ‘brave’ for its starkness? Remarkably not, as the xx’s influences seemed to be so incidental. This band’s exploration happened right before our eyes, in the dark and through a tiny crack in the door. An oh so welcome addition to trendsetters’ Things To Tack Onto And Learn From.
Position in writers’ top 50: #2

2) Lights – Rites: Lights’ endearingly schizoid personality made for an astonishingly sexy stoner record with killer slap-bass, cathartic guitars, soaring triply-dubbed harmonies and fuzzed-up dual vocals from Sophia Knapp and Linnea Vedder. It was an intense listen for sure, ranging from heavy and woozy to escapist and Italo disco-evoking in parts, impossible to find a centre in. The vocals cracked and disappeared into ambiance sometimes before gloopy acid-rock took over, at other times a quiet funk. In spite of the lack of centre, the jubilation was just so euphoric; its knack for creating this real, multi-faceted persona left me baffled as to why it didn’t become more popular than the ultra-cult secret it shamefully became.
Position in writers’ top 50: did not chart

1) Wild Beasts – Two Dancers: With any luck, you’ll have read me gushing about this in our Top 50 countdown series, because it finished top of the writers’ list as well as my own. But just why it was my finest album of the year? Well, the way it snuck out from the realms of outsider-pop for starters, the drug-like nature of how I breathed it in. The way each note rung out leaving me longing for the next; the reverb and the sound of it being played back like it was evolving right before my eyes. And those lyrics, why of course; heavenly metaphors clothed the darkest words in the finest garb. Two Dancers was that album, the one that will be looked back on as an unrivalled masterpiece for years to come.
Position in writers’ top 50: #1

3) Animal Collective’s Merriweather Post Pavilion by Russell Warfield

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

Animal Collective have been so diverse over the last ten years that they haven’t so much created a back catalogue of albums as they have a series of alternate debut records. The band whimsically flit from ear piercing noise drone to stripped down acoustic sounds in a manner which allows them to simultaneously progress and start afresh with each passing album.

Reinvention of their musical identity is something Animal Collective have once again achieved with Merriweather Post Pavilion, turning their hand this time to electronic-based material, but never have they accompanied it with such mainstream crossover appeal. Throughout this album in particular, the band triumphantly marries Panda Bear’s penchant for loops and samples with the tightly focused song structures of Avey Tare.

When you add to this the most glorious production the band has ever cultivated; lyrics which have taken a sudden turn for the literal and relateable and, perhaps most crucially, catchy-as-hell melodies, you have a recipe for something which, in an alternate reality, would probably break the UK top 30 album charts – oh, hang on. It did.

2) The XX’s XX by Jamie Smith

The XX - XX

In a year that will mostly be remembered for the rise of Brit-rap and electro-pop, the xx stood out like a sore thumb with their gentle ambience and careful melodies.

If the Big Pink laid the foundations for the resurgence in subtle British alternative music with their electric-rock debut earlier in the year, the xx built on them in stunning fashion with an eponymous record so accomplished and sure of itself you wouldn’t believe it was their first. The xx were the most precious delicacy of 2009 in more ways than one. Deliciously simple yet spellbindingly immersive, they proved that sometimes blogosphere hype is well deserved.

The boy/girl vocals of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley-Croft offered a fresh take on sharing lyrical duties with their sexy, sumptuous simpering to each other, while multi-instrumentalist and this writer’s namesake Jamie Smith put together the gorgeous backing tracks for the pair’s aural lovemaking.

1) Wild Beasts’ Two Dancers by Natalie Shaw

Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

From the opening chimes of ‘The Fun Powder Plot’, the stage was set for a boldly original album of true originality, sonic warmth and labyrinthine, admittedly thorny subject matter. The brazenness and volatility of the mating game, the quest to explore new senses through expansive, vivid passages of foreplay – it tempered the brashness by creating characters to despise and be ashamed of yet still, somehow, embrace.

With every listen, something surprising snuck out from behind the elegance; breathless, uncluttered production that gave the songs space for their extravagant eloquence and scope to slowly seep out. From the moment it was released in early August, Two Dancers capitalised on the unique charm of first album Limbo, Panto, piling on top of it crystal-clear tales of a dark underground via lecherous slapstick, tribal-style desperation and wild passion.

The “elegant and ugly” reference on ‘Hooting and Howling’ is a perfect pre-cursor to an album structured around such such striking sounds. And Hayden Thorpe’s outrageous falsetto isn’t used as a comic device, more as a foil for the harrowing feeling of threat the songs portray; not to say Wild Beasts haven’t seen the lighter side of their sound. Take the background “ooh”-ing on ‘Two Dancers (ii)’ against Tom Fleming’s rich baritone and you’re left with a quieter, ruminating band than on much of that first album. And the ‘Through The Iron Gate’ ends Two Dancers in a dark room, with guitar sounds mimicking reverberating thoughts.

Wild Beasts immortalised bleak tales of a social class usually side-stepped by the eloquent, with each note ringing out, longing remorsefully in the uncomfortably depravation set up by Chris Talbot’s core-of-steel drumming. The “guts fried up” imagery on ‘Underbelly’ and the oft-quoted “this is a booty call; my boot up your arse hole/This is a Freudian slip; my slipper in your bits” one-two on the album-opener are simply crane-arm picks from an anthology of breathtaking lyrics that scale the heights in their own right.

Two Dancers is a genuinely one-off piece, a truly unique album and it sits proudly on top of 2009’s tree of storming albums as less of an album, more of a world.

And that concludes that. If you’re not read more about the albums that finished below that lot, be sure to gander over to mathematical geekery on how we got this countdown, the 50-41, 40-31, 30-21,  20-16, 15-11, 10-7. and 6-4 – the full top 50. And check out Wild Beasts’ verdict on the news right here.

Please also read out Editor’s choice for the top 20 albums of 2009. Interesting stuff indeed.