20. Vapid – Practically Dead (Nominal / Deranged)

And this year’s award for best band that sounds exactly like Bikini Kill goes to…
But seriously folks, I kid - after a disconcerting opening ten seconds that I hope I’m mishearing, Vancouver’s Vapid have an absolute ripper of a furious, depoliticised post-riot grrl punk rock album on the go here.

“The Vancouver new wave scene is tough and raunchy,” claimed a hilarious local TV announcer back in 1979, and clearly such logic applies no less today, as Vapid’s singer announces “hey cunt-hole bitch I’ve come to even the score” within her debut record’s first minute and the band proceed to kick through a set of sub-two minute cuts including “Die”, “Sex Stains”, “Bruises” and “Hate You”. In spite of all appearances though, Vapid are not hardcore – more just amped up, aggressive pop-punk really, somewhat reminiscent of the Avengers, Zeros, Dils etc, all cut through with a ‘90s guitar sound and hectoring vocal delivery that speaks of some serious quality time spent in the company of Kathleen and the girls/boy, Bratmobile, God Is My Co-Pilot and yadda yadda yadda.

Call me a wuss if you like, but whilst the comedy aggro is all good fun, I think the album really hits its stride when Vapid give in to their pop instincts on the second half, letting “So Far Gone”, “Movin’ On” and particularly “Death of Youth” stand out as some of the flat out best songs I’ve heard this year.

I dunno how long these girls and guys have been in the game, but it’s notable I think that many of the best numbers here seem to betray a certain wistful, ‘best is behind us’ vibe that hits pretty hard in combination with propulsive, pogo-worthy tunes. Here’s hoping it’s an approach they’ll find the energy to expand on in future, moreso than settling scores with cunthole bitches. Although that would be fine too.

But seriously guys, “Death of Youth” is something else – one of my picks of the year, for sure.

Mp3> Death of Youth


19. Dignan Porch – Tendrils (Captured Tracks)

Um, another one that’s gonna be hard to write about here, I fear. ‘Dignan Porch’ is a terrible name for a group, but I was drawn to their record because I like the cover so much. I’ve never managed to catch them live, but they are some people, apparently based in London. “Tendrils” sounds like a bunch of beautiful little song-writing demos, the kind that it’s easy to imagine some shit band in the ‘90s would have felt the need to blow up into airless, overproduced four minute full band arrangements, then gone around earnestly trying to convince everyone that they’ve recorded the best album in the world, as the gentle promise of the original demos fades away unheard.

Thankfully though, Dignan Porch are not a shit band from the ‘90s, so, in the free n’ easy world of 2010, we can relax and enjoy the demos. These are primarily realised through the means of a strummed acoustic guitar, over which somebody else plays terrific Barry Melton/J. Mascis-styled decorative electric lead. A fairly agreeable male vocalist sings simple, quiet songs through some nice, woozy Leslie speaker type effects.

I realise this sounds pretty awful, but don’t bail yet.

All of these songs are short – none of them outstay their welcome. A verse, a chorus or two, and they’re out. How refreshing is that from some guys who evidently play acoustic guitars in public places? Furthermore, all of these songs really strong melodies, frequently crossing the line into teen-movie-soundtrack hooks so relentlessly big and shameless that by the half-way point they start to sound almost manipulative.

Such uninhibited pop/rock bullseyeing, in combination with the woozy, Skip Spence / Elevators campfire psych dilated pupil fecklessness of the whole venture, is a combination that works extremely well for me. Sometimes they sound a bit like the shorter, weirder songs from Bee Thousand-era GBV. Sometimes they sound like Alasatair Galbraith’s group, The Rip. Sometimes they remind me of “Naked If We Want To” off the first Moby Grape album. Sometimes they even sound a little bit like Carl Simmons. Mostly though, they sound a bit like an acoustic(ish) Dinosaur Jr, getting high and trying to sound all witchy.

I dunno what any of these songs are s’posed to be about, and I don’t much care. They sound fantastic, and they have a real nice, human feeling to them, and this is a great record.

I wish I hadn’t started throwing that phrase ‘campfire psych’ around all the time. It sounds stupid I know, but it’s just this category I seem to have developed in my head, and I’m at a loss as to how else to file bands like this one, y’know? Suggestions for a better sub-sub-genre label welcomed at the usual address.

Mp3> As You Were


18. The Mantles – Pink Information EP (Mexican Summer)

From November this year:

“This year’s follow-up EP, ‘Pink Information’ on Mexican Summer, sees The Mantles reversing the natural trajectory taken by a lot of groups, stepping back from the ‘dark, sweeping drama’ approach of their LP in favour of a scrappier, more elemental pop angle, somewhat reminiscent of The Clean’s early material – a pretty encouraging turn of events, I’m sure you’d agree.

Happily, the EP also finds the band’s songwriting hitting a whole new level. I mean, what can I tell you – “Cascades” and “Situations” and just some of the most compulsively listenable songs I’ve heard this year, twisting and chugging, dead-pan and sweet and cool and… well, just perfect, really. Perfect in a way you never realised was ‘perfect’ until you heard it. There's a wildness here that there wasn't quite enough of on the LP; that bit just before the end of "Situations", where he exclaims "in the laboratory, the midnight hour..." before aborting the verse and ploughing straight back in a final chorus just blows my mind.

“Lily Never Married” is even better, sounding like one of those songs about unhappy family members and cloudy days that Ray Davies used to stick in the middle of mid-‘60s Kinks albums like morbid cries for help, catapulted back to our attention via a flawless Velvets groove and unbearably simple/poignant chord progression – a sad, humane song, using a few chords, a rhythm, a handful of repeated lyrics, to carry the quiet sorrow of an ordinary, wasted life into a place of real transcendence. “Now she's old / what can you say? / People just don't do / that anymore...”. Fitting those magic notes and words together, like Ray or Lou Reed used to be able to do every now and again. Five minutes passes in the space of, ooh, two and a half, easy. It’s really, really great.

I don’t like the song “Summer Read” quite so much as I used to, since I clocked the title and realised the opening line isn’t “TREAT ME LIKE A SUBMARINE”, but it’s still pretty good.

After some reflection, I think The Mantles are one of the only American “indie-rock” bands – in the sense of being unaffiliated with the conventions and fandom of garage or pop or punk or noise or psych or whatever else – whose output I really care for at present.”

Mp3> Lily Never Married


17. The Specific Heats – Cursed! (Fun With Absetos / Saganism)

Back in August, I wrote this about seein’ The Specific Heats play live:

“Boy, The Specific Heats are an amazing band! I was pretty blown away when I caught them on their visit to the UK last summer, and this time, if anything, I like them even better. They’ve survived a couple of line-up changes since then, and the presence Eric on bass rather undermines my previous assumption that Matt Patalano had deliberately built himself an ultimate rock n’ roll band of pretty ladies to help him bring his songs to the world, but that aside the new recruits fit in seamlessly. The whole deal is still essentially Matt’s baby after all, and he’s on exuberant form here, leaping around like a kid at a birthday party, wringing lunatic stuntman solos from his groovy Ventures guitar. Keira Flynn-Carson still gives the impression of being the happiest drummer on the planet, and the band’s high spirits are pretty contagious as they rip through a good dozen of their more upbeat numbers without a bummer to be seen.

Pulling influences from all over the shelf marked “the last 50 years of pop-infused rock n’ roll”, the ‘Heats combination of ‘60s pop-sike baroque, breathless Sloan/Weezer-style power-pop, surf-rock dynamics and good-natured Nuggets goofery is an exultant expression of high wire walking musical synthesis, and their new LP “Cursed!” is a veritable belter. And if “Baby I’m An Existentialist” ends up sounding almost exactly like “Down & Out” by Camper Van Beethoven, and “All I Want” is The Modern Lovers’ “Someone I Care About” rewritten via The Seeds’ “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine”… well how can this possibly be anything other than a good thing? Originality is overrated.

The term ‘psychedelic pop’ gets thrown around so often these days it’s almost become offputting, [so] it’s fucking great to hear such a strong, funny, talented band stepping up to the plate and just plain OWNING that once noble descriptor. See ‘em, hear ‘em, however you’re able.”

Most of that applies nicely to their long-awaited (in certain quarters) second LP too. This is a really GREAT sounding psyche-pop album, full of delightfully dusty analogue reverbs, slapback echoes, strange drifty mysteries and weird Joe Meek squelches – the sonic equivalent of the paisley that bedecks the cover art. The songs are great and lively, and Matt’s heart-on-sleeve lyrics are funny and goofy and affecting. Anyone out there still looking for ‘that Elephant 6 sound’, but not wishing to suffocate themselves with insufferable beardy boredom: The Specific Heat are waiting.

Mp3> Baby, I’m an Existentialist


16. Wyatt / Atzmon / Stephen - For The Ghosts Within (Domino)


To be honest with you, I’m a small-minded, rock n’ roll-fixated jerk, and as such it is extremely unlikely that I would be found checking out the work of Palestinian saxophonist Gilad Atzmon or composer/string arranger Ros Stephen were it not for the unmistakable presence brought to this collaborative album by Robert Wyatt.

I suppose that one of the things that has most defined Wyatt’s career over the years has been the conflict between musical avant-gardism and old fashioned sentimentality – a conflict which has resolved itself in his best work not through compromise but through a beautiful kind of synthesis – music that strives for universal relevance, basic human connection, through new, open-ended means. And if the chasm between comfort and innovation on “For The Ghosts Within” is at times a little more uncomfortable than it was on Wyatt’s masterful “ComicOpera”, well it is a no less intriguing and enjoyable work for it, and it is certainly nice to hear Wyatt letting his metaphorical hair down, using the collaborative setting to indulge some of his more… well if I say ‘comfortable’, ‘sentimental’ urges, those sound like fairly negative distinctions within the parlance of modern music-scribble, but I certainly don’t mean them at such.

At the risk of making undue generalisations, both Atzmon and Stephen would seem to be quite backward-looking artists, though again, I don’t mean that in a negative sense. The former, as showcased here, sounds like a dedicated disciple of (oxymoron alert) classic-era modern jazz, his highly lyrical playing recalling the weighty tone and incandescent emotion of early ‘60s Miles, or Coltrane on his slower numbers. Stephen’s string arrangements meanwhile, though never corny or overblown, can’t help but recall the rich, sweeping scores of a ‘quality’ 1950s film, zeroing in on, say, the kind of aching theme one might expect to accompany a lady being quietly heartbroken, exiting a Paris café against a beautifully photographed black & white sky.

Appropriate to this inviting old world atmosphere, Wyatt finally grasps the nettle and gives in to his perhaps long-standing desire to full scale Chet Baker, bringing his own characteristically idiosyncratic interpretation to a variety of ‘classic’ tunes. Of course, Wyatt is the kind of man who could sing the phonebook and invest it with a unique pathos (in fact he probably has done at some point in his career), so to hear him apply his himself to such old warhorses as Raskin/Mercer’s “Laura” or Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life”, accompanied by Atzmon & Stephen’s cooked-to-perfection backing, is a plainly beautiful experience. Cutting through decades of accumulated schmaltz like the proverbial knife through butter, I think you’d be hard-pressed to find any genuine lover of 20th century song who is not touched by hearing Wyatt’s voice wrapped around these storied words, whilst even his extra-vocal contributions to instrumental standards “Round Midnight” and “In A Sentimental Mood” manage to help raise their original potent spirit above the parapets of dinner-jazz monotony. In an achievement perhaps only equalled in recent history by Joey Ramone himself, Wyatt and co. actually manage to close the album by delivering “What A Wonderful World” straight-faced, and getting away with it… just about.

This being essentially a Wyatt record though, some more challenging, personal content is clearly needed/expected, and indeed the album’s overall highlight is probably “Lullaby For Lena”, a beautiful new song that sees Wyatt singing a set of simple, almost subliminal lyrics composed by his wife Alfie – “I was there for you / long before the day that I was born” . It is heart-stoppingly beautiful, standing alongside the very best moments from Wyatt’s solo albums.

Our man’s unflagging dedication to both experimentalism and political consciousness meanwhile is borne out in both the album’s thematic dedication to displaced peoples the world over, and the lengthy and somewhat confounding title track, which sees its cool, desert supper-club atmospherics and strident guest vocal from Tali Atzmon rudely interrupted when it segues into the next cut, where a volley of weird dixieland flourishes and faux-gramophone atmospherics from Atzmon is cut short by the break-beatin’ arrival of a pair of Palestinian rappers. Whilst the whole suite stands firm as a solid-as-fuck statement of political intent, it sadly must be said that these guys ain’t exactly the Wu-Tang Clan, and that their unexpected presence only really succeeds in standing out like a sore thumb amid this album’s polished musical world. One to chalk up as a ‘noble failure’ perhaps, but it has succeeded on numerous occasions in jerking me out of the wine-sipping late night reverie inspired by the familiar, upholstered surfaces of the rest of the album – and isn’t it exactly this kind of odd clash of moods, style, genre, nationalities, expectations, this search for a wholly borderless, universal new music, that has helped to define Robert Wyatt as one of the most consistently inspired musicians of his generation or any other?

Mp3> Laura

Labels: best of 2010, Dignan Porch, Robert Wyatt, The Mantles, The Specific Heats, Vapid

THE BEST ALBUMS OF 2007:
Part Three

MIKA MIKO – C.Y.S.L.A.B.F. (Kill Rock Stars)

I’m so pissed off that I missed the Mika Miko / No Age show at the Luminaire back in June. I even had a ticket. Damn birthday parties! Anyway, point is, Mika Miko are an all-female punk band from Los Angeles, only two of the thirteen songs they recorded for this debut album hit the two minute mark, and OMG, they absolutely SLAY. “The Slits being Black Flag” is what somebody or other said. The Slits comparison is slightly erroneous as there’s no reggae here, but Mika Miko definitely have that wild, self-sufficient !GIRL-GANG! energy going on, so we’ll let it slide. As to the `Flag comparison, well, yeah, I guess I’ll take it. Mika Miko may work the kind of spidery guitar-lines and stabby white-funk rhythms that seem to come as naturally to modern kids as ‘Louis Louis’ did to the ‘70s punks, but that can’t hide the fact that the vibe here is pure early Californian hardcore, and all the more thrilling for it, recalling a time and place in which the punk bands were still desperate weirdoes, unhindered by generic convention, grabbing influences from all over and hammering them down as fast as they could on the cheapest recording equipment in town. Maybe it’s LA’s status as a giant, soulless suburb that allows it to throw out some rock n’ roll this vital and crazed every now and then: “white, suburban delinquent music”, just like Iggy intended. To understand Mika Miko is to understand mic cables tangled around limbs, incomprehensible vocal takes yelled down what sounds like an international phoneline, Lorna Doom learning to play bass as she went along in The Germs, grazed knees, too many sweets, Robert Quine’s guitar solo on ‘Love Comes In Spurts’, songs that finish before you realise they’d started and drum beats whose sole purpose in life is to go BOUNCE!BOUNCE!BOUNCE!BOUNCE!BOUNCE!

This is decadent 2007 though, the key advantage being that instead of having to make a virtue of misery like the old punks, Mika Miko are content to just sound like they’re having Tons O’ Fun. 2007 also means that instead of toiling in vinyl darkness in the SST mines, Mika Miko can be part of arty partying type cliques, can pick up a bunch of hype from crappy free magazines, can wear stupid hats without fear of ridicule and can make groovy videos like the one below. Most of the time I hate 21st century po-mo hipster-media culture by default, but maybe, just maybe, there are occasions to stand and salute the moments of righteousness it can bring us.



And no, I don’t know what C.Y.S.L.A.B.F stands for. And I don’t know what any of the lyrics on this album are about either, but I suspect they’re probably about being awesome.

Mp3 > Jogging Song (He’s Your Mr. Right)


NO AGE – WEIRDO RIPPERS (FatCat)

I’m still pissed off that I missed that Mika Miko / No Age show at the Luminaire back in June. But at least they have the good grace to be close together in the alphabet, so that they follow each other in my album round-up. Anyway, No Age are ostensibly two guys from LA who play guitar and drums and used to be in a hardcore band, and I did a review of this record by them for Freq back in April. I’m actually quite surprised to see it popping up so prominently on my best-of-year list. Because you see, by any conventionally applicable standard, ‘Weirdo Rippers’ is NOT a great album. It’s patchy and it’s self-indulgent and it’s really badly recorded, and I’d be unlikely to play it to anyone and expect them to be immediately impressed. So what’s the score? Well basically, ‘Weirdo Rippers’ is *exciting*. If you’ll permit me to quote myself again:

“‘No Age do noise, No Age do pop (in a manner of speaking), but only infrequently do the two meet. These meetings prove to be the most interesting bits, and it is the tension between the two approaches that helps make Weirdo Rippers such an attention-grabbing singularity. All things considered, No Age's 'noise' tracks are exceptionally good, betraying a level of forethought and imagination that eludes many. […] Batteries of cheapola guitar effects summon up the kind of melancholic fuzz-scape dreamt of by post-MBV shoegaze disciples, interspersed with warped found sound textures and other intriguing sonic wreckage. […] Chopped and spliced into this nodding-out-on-petrol-fumes extravaganza are examples of the 'other' No Age, playing flailing guitar and drums beat-downs, recorded in classic dictaphone-in-the-rehearsal-room style. Here, No Age wisely reject the post-Lightning Bolt consensus of testosterone-fuelled sensory overload, instead playing up their relative technical inadequacies, thrashing sloppily at some distant horizon, strangulated geek yelping expressing mockery and self-belief in equal measure, eventually rallying around some semblance of a melody and coalescing into outbursts of refreshingly straightforward surf-riffin' guitar pop, imbuing No Age's noise-trash hardcore approach with a cracked strain of humanity and humour […] One of the most exciting thing I've heard from the American underground this year, No Age's positivist approach makes Weirdo Rippers a shot across the bows of the increasingly complacent noise scene, and suggests that, given some studio time and a crate of new toys, these boys are likely to return with something truly special.”

So there you go. “My Life’s Alright Without You” is still my favourite tune from the album, and I think it sufficiently demonstrates everything that’s great about No Age, circumnavigating The Dead C via Weezer over the course of 90 seconds. What’s not to love?

Mp3 > My Life’s Alright Without You


OM – PILGRIMAGE (Southern Lord)

Somehow I’ve managed to miss out on Om’s output over the past few years, so I can’t really comment re: how this record measures up to their previous work, but let me simply say…. Whoa. On ‘Pilgrimage’, Om demonstrate their mastery of the essentials of metal, raising the form to a zen-like plateau wherein heavy music no longer even needs to be loud to achieve heaviocity…. it’s simply spiritually heavy. Quiet music somehow hewn from lead weights, dumbbells and monolithic boulders. And then, after a good, long while, it does get loud, and it’s like, WHOA. Old Testament. Avert your eyes from the majesty of The Riff, lest ye be smote. Or smitten. Or whatever; you get the point. The God whose praises Om sing doesn’t piss about, so it’s a pretty hard point to miss.

I’m not posting an MP3 because this is half an hour of music that is clearly meant to be experienced in one go, preferably whilst laying down in darkness with the bass on the EQ cranked really high, and such is the grace of the transitions between segments that placing one in isolation from the rest would seem kind of sacrilegious.


PANDA BEAR – PERSON PITCH (Paw Tracks)

Well, you knew it was coming. ‘Person Pitch’ seems to have become this year’s default list-topper across the board of indie-media, even achieving the dubious distinction of triumphing in Pitchfork’s 2007 run-down. Unlike the vast majority of previous list-topping buzz records though, ‘Person Pitch’ is also what we here at Stereo Sanctity would consider to be a really, really wonderful album, and as such it is heartening to see that so many people seem to have dug it. For the uninitiated, what Noah Lennox, aka Panda Bear, has essentially done here is to loop some particularly ecstatic moments from his record collection and other found sound sources, warp them beyond recognition with pitch-shifting, delay and vast, oceanic reverb, and craft them into palaces of dense, hypnotic, dub-pop over which he harmonises with himself in his distinctive high-pitched croon, applying the logic of song and instinctively pulling beautifully formal, cyclical, endlessly comforting melodies out of what in lesser hands could have simply emerged as a big mess.

I’ve always thought of Panda Bear as being the more ‘difficult’ member of the Animal Collective – quite a boast considering that Avey Tare put out a whole album of music played backwards this year – but eventually also the most rewarding. His previous solo record, the initially baffling but ultimately quite moving ‘Young Prayer’, is a perfect case in point. Thankfully, ‘Person Pitch’ is a little more immediate, its ingredients sequenced with such a perfect understanding of what constitutes *good, warm, human-pleasing sound* that it’s hard not to be drawn in to some extent. But nonetheless, full appreciation definitely requires the listener to get into the right mood, particularly with regard to the music’s length and repetition. I daresay many people will NEVER be in the right mood to find a place for fourteen minutes of “Good Girl / Carrots” in their lives, and that’s ok, they shouldn’t waste time tearing their hair out wondering what they’re missing, there’s no big secret. But when you do find yourself in the right mood (I recommend a very long walk, near a river, on a day that is either very hot or very cold), ‘Person Pitch’ is a conduit for pure, drugless psychedelic transformation of an extremely pleasurable kind.

I’ve got this far without pulling out one of the inescapable Beach Boys comparisons that must have had Mr. Lennox launching fungal, technicolored psychic happy-daggers at reviewers throughout the year, but what the hell; let’s get it over with and conclude in lazy journo style by simply saying that ‘Person Pitch’ sounds kinda like what might have happened if, instead of being stuck in a world dominated by Spector and The Beatles, shyster doctors, abusive relatives and cokehead bandmates, Brian Wilson had instead woken up one morning in 1968 to find Terry Riley and Lee Perry standing on his doorstep, prototype samplers under their arms and ready to rock.

Mp3 > Bros (radio edit)


ROBERT WYATT – COMICOPERA (Domino)

Beyond the music he makes, Robert Wyatt has great importance to me simply as a person, and as a cultural presence. The documentary about him I videoed off BBC2 a few years ago has seen many viewings, and each time, I am awed by what a basically amazing bloke Wyatt is. Personally, artistically, politically, philosophically – I just can’t fault the guy at all; almost everything he says seems to resound with wisdom, humility and righteousness. He’s a true hero. That confession out of the way, I’ll admit that on a musical level, he lost me slightly with the vocal jazz miniatures of ‘Cookooland’, but ‘Comicopera’ has me back on side and then some. It’s an absolutely astonishing record, one of his all-time best.

Split into several distinct sections, ‘Comicopera’ unfolds with characteristically off-kilter grandeur, drifting across continents and palettes of sound like a series of musical waking dreams, much in the vein of 1997’s excellent ‘Shleep’, rendering musical and lyrical content effectively inseparable as Wyatt does his utmost to present a full picture of the world as he experiences it circa 2007, moving from the confines of his own home and relationships through the quiet confusion of 21st century British life into the full horror of international political turmoil, before concluding with some reflections on the possibilities for communication and mutual understanding between cultures now in the process of being forced closer together.

‘Comicopera’ is certainly a mighty musical statement befitting a veteran of the prog rock era. Summarised in terms such as those above it sounds like an almost ludicrously earnest, over-reaching, self-righteous undertaking, and in the hands of any other aging British musician it probably would be. But as Wyatt’s fans will already know well, his wit, subtlety, intelligence, musical imagination and the unflagging sense of honesty and humanity with which he approaches his work, not to mention the assistance of his impressive band of international collaborators, makes Robert more than up to the task of emerging with what is easily one of the most beautiful and affecting albums of the year.

Such is the range of subject matter, emotion and musical form covered by ‘Comicopera’ that I could easily stumble through pages of clumsy verbiage trying to get to grips with it all. Far better that you just find forty-five minutes to sit down with a pot of tea and listen to it yourself, and, if further info is required, let me point you in the direction of Thom Jurek’s excellent write-up of the record at All Music Guide, which does the job for me quite nicely.

Mp3 > Stay Tuned


ERIK FRIEDLANDER – BLOCK ICE & PROPANE (Skipstone Records)

This is out of alphabetical order because it’s a late entry; I’ve only gotten around to giving it a good listen this weekend. Erik Friedlander is best known to me for his sterling work providing strings on the last few Mountain Goats records, and here he presents an album of solo cello pieces inspired by memories of epic childhood journeys across the USA. And much like an epic childhood journey, the results are at times rather lugubrious, but also on occasion extremely dramatic, and are eventually guaranteed to prove good, wholesome listening to anyone who enjoys cellos and epic American landscapes and such like. Friedlander is a musician of prodigious inventive skill, and the improvised passages here howl, soar, shriek and moan in the manner of the more adventurous free improv bassists, occasionally sounding like he is attempting to channel a Slayer solo, whilst the more conventional, composed segments are beautifully lyrical, at their best recalling what might have transpired had John Fahey taken up the cello.

Possibly too abstract to appeal to many of the indie rockers who already know Friedlander’s name, yet too staid and sentimental for the majority of avant-jazzers to take an interest, this is the kind of basically bloody good music liable to slip between the cracks of current music scenes, so I thought I’d make space to give it a shout-out.

Mp3 > A Thousand Unpieced Suns


I have also quite enjoyed:


Ectogram – Fluff On A Faraway Hill

Great sideways crab-walking Welsh spacerock; dense, fuzzy, warm-blooded, weird and lovely.

Electric Wizard – Witchcult Today

Jus Osborn’s new four piece Electric Wizard may lack the spark (or whatever the dark, doom metal opposite of a spark is) that led the original line-up to scale the heights of the Dopethrone, but no matter. This is still, in a profound sense, an Electric Wizard album, and there are times in life when nothing else will do. Specifically, times when you’ve just smoked an ounce of weed and watched five Redemption videos in a row.

Expo 70 – Animism

One man’s sub-bass buzzing double LP tribute to the glory days of Ash Ra Tempel, Fripp & Eno, Tangerine Dream et al = a very special sleepy-time for science fiction fans!

PJ Harvey – White Chalk

Relegated from a place in the main list simply because I don’t think the songwriting chops on display here can really sustain the chamber piano / ghostly Victorian waif concept across a whole album, but Polly is still in command of an ancient, gut-level musical power, and the title track and a few other songs when things come together here are really, really stunning.

Ill Ease - All Systems-A-Go-Go

One woman band Elizabeth Sharp hates drum machines. They always stay on time, they're always perfect, she says dismissively. She doesn't like keyboards much either. Too much sucky, not enough fucky, she concludes. Clearly Ms Sharp and I have much to discuss.

Times New Viking – Presents The Paisley Reich

A great, thrashy guitar/keyboard/yelping punk trio with some killer songs, big noise and barrels of energy, sadly marred here by the fact that they seem to have been recorded on a dictaphone in the coat pocket of someone in the rehearsal room across the corridor. Obviously I’m always up for a good live-to-tape lo-fi blast, but y’know – there are limits. Maybe next time they can bring a microphone and a four-track and really kick some ass.

Labels: album reviews, best of 2007, Erik Friedlander, Mika Miko, No Age, Om, Panda Bear, Robert Wyatt