THE FORTY-TWO BEST RECORDS OF 2011:
Part # 1.

Yeah, I decided to make it forty-two. And your point is..?

Here’s the two bonuses, before we move on to the usual five-per-post run down.

42. Dum Dum Girls – Only In Dreams (Sub-Pop)

Sneakily checking this out prior to release a couple of months back, I scribbled some stuff here that still sums up my feelings quite nicely really.

‘Only In Dreams’ is such a leap from DDGs previous material, it’s like listening to a different band. Amazing to think that as recently as the end of last year, she/they were still knocking out tracks in the same lo-fi vein as her earliest material (cf: the ‘He Gets Me High’ EP, ‘Stiff Little Fingers’ 7”, the Misfits cover on the b-side of the ‘Bhang Bhang..’ single). ‘Only In Dreams’ though is full steam ahead toward bombastic, mainstream-focused guitar-pop that really sounds like The Pretenders.

Inevitably, this takes them a lot further away from the elements that initially drew me to the band, but as far as second album progressions go it’s a logical and well-executed move I s’pose. The chief failing here isn’t so much the sound as the fact that – for me at least - the songwriting doesn’t match up to the high standards set by the first LP, favouring generic love songs and empty platitudes over the weirder/darker details and character studies that stood out on ‘I Will Be’. But the drumming’s still great, the guitars still have a reassuring coating of fuzz n’ phase all over them, and when it all works, it’s pretty brilliant - you’d certainly be hard-pressed to find better gigantic, transcendent, radio-ready pop/rock songs than ‘Bedroom Eyes’ and ‘Just a Creep’ in the racks circa 2011.

Far from a total bust then, but basically listening to ‘Only In Dreams’ feels a bit like seeing a much-loved pupil graduating from art college and getting a job in the city or something. Bye bye Dum Dum Girls, hope you have fun out in the big wide world! I’ll stay here playing that f-ed up tape with ‘Long Hair’ and ‘Hey Sis’ on it.

Youtube > Bedroom Eyes




41. Hype Williams – One Nation (Hippos in Tanks)

Writing previously about impeccably mysterioso London duo Hype Williams, after catching them live last year and subsequently reviewing their first 12”, I ended up comparing them to Boards of Canada. A fairly random shot at a passing insight, but one that now makes me feel kinda vindicated, as ‘One Nation’ sees them jettisoning the final traces of the cut n’ paste murk and sketchy bedroom improvisations that characterised their earliest material (check out the ‘High Beams’ EP if you can find it, it’s great), and defaulting to a fully synth-based approach that… well, that basically sounds *so much* like Boards of Canada that the similarity becomes unavoidable. Or at least, I think it does. I suppose it could just be some weird fixation I’ve developed?

Anyway, Hype Williams’ main departure point from the BoC blueprint – aside from generally working with a slightly more threatening, lo-fi aesthetic – is the removal of any head-noddy 4/4 ‘beatz’ (always the element that narked me on BoC’s otherwise very fine records), and their replacement with the kind of menacingly fragmented dub-step type drum programming that I won’t embarrass myself by trying to define, as I’m basically pretty unfamiliar with the styles from which it originates. Further contemporary signifiers can easily be heard in another significant addition – that of direct vocal samples - heavily echoed sighs and exultations, warped reflections of contemporary club music and radio pop.

In keeping with their previous releases, ‘One Nation’ takes the form of an entirely unmarked white label 12”, anonymous but for the fact that Boomkat put it in the post to me when I ordered the Hype Williams record. I had to dig up an illegal download to find any track titles (where did they come from? Did some random uploader make them up?), and just had to google again to find out what label it’s on. Feeding into this aesthetic of overall eeriness, HW, like BoC before them, succeed in creating an atmosphere of Utter Creep by means of dragging ostensibly ‘positive’ sounds – crackly poetry recitals and pitch-shifted self-help dialogues, echoing watch alarms and distant ice cream van chimes (no laughing/crying children this time round, but I think I caught a few on the last record) – out of their original contexts, letting them float anxiously in the void, twisted out of shape alongside the duo’s soothing, distantly familiar melodies, made strange via deteriorating washes of electronic sound. Y’know, just like…. uh, so look, I don’t wanna sound like I’m hitting HW w/ plagiarism allegations here – it’s really good to hear this stuff revisited, retooled - made more visceral and unpredictable for a new era, and, as ever, ‘One Nation’ is an engaging and rewarding listen that takes on a life beyond its obvious antecedents.

Soundcloud > Warlord

Labels: best of 2011, Dum Dum Girls, Hype Williams

THE FORTY BEST RECORDS OF 2011:
Introduction.

I know, who the hell starts doing their ‘best of year’ round-ups in November? Some kind of freak, clearly. DECEMBER 1st is the start date. Everybody knows that.

Over the past few years though, it’s become increasingly clear that – sadly - I probably do more actual music writing in December than I do in total over the preceding 11 months, usually tripping over myself trying to get it all done in time, and bringing the whole thing into harbour* in garbled, first draft form around January 15th when nobody cares anymore, cos it’s next year already.

So to spread things out, ease my (ha) workload, hopefully encourage some better, more sensibly spaced content, I’m gonna start a bit early. I’d planned to start even earlier, but I got distracted. Inevitably I’ll hear some great stuff during the next few weeks that I’ll wish I’d been able to include, but… maybe I’ll do another post about those later, or something.

Some general notes before we get started:

If one thing has refined my new release record listening during 2011, it’s been the curse of the Disappointing Second Album. Seems that throughout this year, my flat has been echoing with the dread sound some of the brightest stars of the‘08/’09 Awesome Glut crashing against the rocks.** We all know that sinking feeling I’m sure – getting to side # 2 of a much-anticipated record, thinking “y’know, I don’t think I really even like this”.

I’ll name no names, but you get what I mean – if you notice any bands that I’ve championed over the past few years who are notable by their absence from the forthcoming list, well, there ya go. I’m sure you’d agree it would be dishonest of me to keep on delivering forced praise out of some misguided sense of loyalty when the music is just isn’t doing it for me, so I won’t.

It’s ok of course, it’s not a final judgement – second album can happen to anyone. Some bands turning in a lacklustre ‘ten-songs-we-had-to-write-quick’ effort, others just developing their music into a more elaborate, fully-realised style that I just don’t like as much as their scruffier early stuff because.. y’know, I’m fickle like that. In the case of the former, hopefully they can have a good think and really pull things together for the third go ‘round – we’ll still be listening. As to the latter, well, no hard feelings – it’s been good to know ya. I’ll still cherish your early stuff, and hope you have fun out there in the big wide world being Suede or Simple Minds or whatever.

Subsequent to that, you’ll probably notice that some of the reviews within my forthcoming top # 40 kinda read like bad reviews. This is a little odd, I’ll grant you, but the sad fact is that some of my favourite artists have brought out records this year which, whilst not without their qualities and points of interest, are somewhat underwhelming or confounding within said artist’s overall canon. So I still like ‘em enough for them to make the list, but a slip from, say, consistently being in my top # 5 to being placed about 30-something is something we need to examine, if ya see what I mean.

That sounds a bit cold, doesn’t it? It’s not a competition after all. “MUST TRY HARDER, Indie-Rock Band # 348234!” Maybe I’m getting too carried away with this numbered listing business? The numbers don’t really mean anything, after all – I only started it as a convenient framework within which to convey my relative enthusiasm for stuff, because listing things in alphabetical order seemed kinda lame.

Just because I’m not feelin’ something or other quite as much as I did two years ago, or don’t like the production on so-and-so’s record, that shouldn’t be taken as any objective critical judgement, lest you need reminding.

Anyway, negativity aside, the good news is that there’s been no shortage of records I’ve really liked this year – unexpected hits, new groups, old favourites making good – all the usual fab gear. Starting… soon? Next few days, honest.

*Gotta watch those seafaring metaphors, I just can’t let them be.
**SEE WHAT I MEAN?

Labels: announcements, best of 2011, the difficult second album

Hey, Future of the Left have some new stuff out.

I don’t usually go in for ‘plug’ type posts, but hey – better than no posts. Just thought that fans of obtuse, hateful diatribes detailing the failures of the modern world set to the accompaniment of tormented prog-punk might benefit from knowing that Future of the Left – who made one of the most extraordinary albums of recent years with ‘Travels With Myself and Another’ – have got a new six track EP type thing out this week.

Precisely the kind of mid-level, semi-pro band-with-a-certain-following who are left in a sticky spot by the recent collapse of the music industry, and lumbered with artwork and title choices that are hardly likely to generate much enthusiasm beyond their existing fan-base (I mean look at this damn thing for chrissake, looks like some sixth form grunge band’s demo CD), I guess I just feel that Future of the Left should be pushed in people’s direction a bit more forcefully. £3.99 at Amazon, you bastards. There, that was pretty forceful.

On first listen, ‘Polymers are Forever’ sounds like it might comprise various outings considered a bit too odd to fit in on past and future LPs – heavy on both the elaborate multi-part song dynamics and semi-spoken word storytelling, which pleases me no end. About four or five callous chuckles achieved during a half-attentive first spin. If you liked ‘Arming Eritrea’ and ‘Lapsed Catholics’ off the album, you’ll appreciate this lot. Or if you’ve got no idea what I’m going on about, why not just take me on trust. I mean, don’t you want to listen to angry Welshmen performing experimental rock songs entitled ‘My Wife is Unhappy’ and ‘Dry Hate’? No? Well I suppose I wouldn’t either if you put it like that, but you should want to.

I mean, check out this perplexing little epic - isn’t it great? Does it not bespeak some dark intelligence that might help you in your life, as you reluctantly navigate the world outside? Fine, fine whatever.

Labels: Future Of The Left

Blood Patrol – demo tape

Don’t push me too hard on the hows and whys, but recently I have been spending a lot of time listening to a demo by a band called Blood Patrol, operating out of somewhere in Germany.

I’ll be honest with you – I’ve not really made much of an effort to keep up with recent developments in the world of metal. In fact I am pretty much ignorant of everything that has transpired in the genre since I gave up reading ‘Terrorizer’ four or five years ago. I pick up new records by bands I already know I like, and one or two other things people have recommended to me, but aside from that…

I’m sure that there are dozens, probably hundreds, of incredible, innovative, awe-inspiring metal bands around whose work I’ve entirely missed out on. I daresay you could throw a brick on Camden high street and hit a more innovative, awe-inspiring metal band than Blood Patrol. Hell, most of the members of Blood Patrol are probably in a more innovative, awe-inspiring band than Blood Patrol.

But those other bands are not Blood Patrol.

I should probably say that in capitals. BLOOD PATROL!

What’s special about Blood Patrol?

Nothing.

So why, of all the metal bands in all the world, am I listening to Blood Patrol?

Because, dude – Blood Patrol RULES.

Metal logic. Best logic.

Listening to these demos – rejoicing in the muffled gut-thump of the practice room > portastudio > cassette > mp3 translation process – makes me want to learn to drive, get my licence, and buy a car. This is solely so that I could drive around aimlessly and give people lifts. And as they sit in the passenger seat, I’ll jam this tape in the stereo. I’ll start drinking fizzy drinks again, so that I can slurp from a big drive-thru cup as I say “yeah man, this is Blood Patrol” and start bashing out blast-beats on the steering wheel.

Hopefully it’ll be a long drive, so that I can cherish their expression of cautious relief in the moment of silence when the tape comes to an end… before I instinctively reach over and put it on again. I reckon I could spin it at least six times during an average slog across London.

Looking around me, I see indie records, psychedelic records, garage-punk records, whatever else. I listen to the sound of Blood Patrol from my computer speakers, and I think, fuck man, I’ve been wasting my life. I could have been listening to stuff that sounds like Blood Patrol. Why would anyone want to listen to music that doesn’t sound like this?

A metal review demands sub-genres, so what ‘THIS’ is is…. well I guess it’s kind of a hardcore/thrash crossover thing, with land speed record H/C drumming (not actually blast-beats, despite what I said earlier), low end Entombed/Bolt Thrower guitar chug, deranged ‘Reign in Blood’ whammy bar carnage and grave-soil gargling BM vocals. Perfection, in other words.

Completely devoid of the pretension and dry technicality that dooms much contemporary metal to the ‘not right now thanks’ pile, this tape is about as far as you can get from the pristine, multi-tracked headache factory of a studio death metal album. But at the same time, it doesn’t retreat back to the mysterioso trashcan-holocaust guff of yr average kvlt BM release either. Basically this just sounds like we always wanted metal so sound, before things got all silly – a functional low fidelity recording of some guys in a room, rocking it out with energy of a teenage punk band and the chops of stadium beserkers. It’s just plain fucking FUN. They’re singing about blood and thunder and destruction and zombie bloodbaths and rampaging through the dark night on galloping stallions and tearing monsters’ throats out, and they’re having the time of their lives. It’s exhilarating! It’s rock music! It’s METAL! It’s BLOOD PATROL. It… well, it rules.

Here they are doing ‘Unhallowed & Old’ and their self-titled song:




We ride at dawn for Blood Patrol’s myspace page!

Labels: Blood Patrol, METAL, tapes