Yes! December 2014, and this blog’s still hanging on to life by a fine thread. Rejoice!

About the only thing that is predictable around here is the inevitable records-of-the-year run-down, and, in beginning this year’s edition, I was planning to drop a bunch of fatuous, “well, what a year it’s been huh music fans” think-piece style blather addressing the mutation and abuse of the term ‘psyche’, examining the shaky foundations of my own persistent fetishisation of ‘exotic’ instrumentation within rock, considering the continued ossification of the ‘music industry’ even on the indie label level, and suggesting techniques that might be used to avoid having to look at its rotting flesh for too long when you could be doing something useful instead. Also, belatedly demanding that you all go and read Neil Kulkarni’s extraordinary Eastern Spring immediately.

Thankfully though, time is short and I’m knackered, so instead I’m going to skip all that crap and just get on with it. On a personal note, let’s just briefly say that 2014 has been one hell of an eventful year for me, and one that has shifted the foundations of my life around in ways both positive and negative. As such, my range of listening during the first two thirds of the year wasn’t what it could have been, but when I emerged blinking in the daylight a few months back, punk rock and its myriad off-shoots were waiting, and since then, there have been amazing times.

Practical notes before we begin:

1. Extending my already pretty flexible rules for formats applicable for this main “records” list, I intend to welcome with open arms the overdue death of the “you-must-make-an-album” mentality, and thus am going to be including for consideration *pretty much anything I feel like* that consists of more music than, say, a regular length two song single.

2. Some of the things on my list were released in 2013, because that’s just the way it is.

Hope that’s clear. Countdown commences TOMORROW. New posts every day until the new year if yr lucky. Hurray and hurrah, etc.

Labels: best of 2014, series intros