Albums/Songs 2010

Right, I don't expect anyone to care but like any minor neurotic I enjoy making lists, so here are my favourite ('best') albums and individual tracks of 2010:

Albums:

10. Continuous Battle of Order - Pattern Seekers
Real-life guitar hero Hornby and drum maestro Craig Kearney wylin' out. Whenever I'm trying to entice ungrateful, culturally deprived, pig-ignorant Irish people (hi friends!) along to local gigs I usually describe these two in short as "a jazz band playing noise rock" and it's still the most accurate description I can manage. As in the best prog traditions, I believe there is some sort of concept to this record, but I won't piss them off with my own lazy attempt at interpreting it.

The Continous Battle Of Order - Pttrn Skrs from Richter Collective on Vimeo.

9. Beach Fossils - S/T
So many pretty intertwining guitar lines. Yes, the guy can only sing 4 or 5 notes but who gives a fuck, this record is about the guitars, not the frankly painfully dull lyrics.



8. Pulled Apart By Horses - S/T
Energetic, unpretentious, and fun. This is what all post-hardcore heavy metal would sound like in a perfect world. Macho bullshit nowhere to be seen, replaced instead by tons of gig-honed riffs, tight pop structures, and ridiculous lyrical choices, "Awesome, radical, totally bodacious!"



7. Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
To paraphrase Hipster Runoff, Deerhunter are 'a band created by/for/on the internet'. Darlings of online tastemakers like Pitchfork, their blog is a treasure trove of mixes and free downloads, and frontman Bradford Cox consistently blurs the line between artist and fan (he accepts all facebook requests, by the by). But none of this post-modern reinvention of what it is to be a rock band would matter if it wasn't for the fact that they write really excellent songs. This album is best listened to after a 24-hour stint of insomnia, on a tram, preferably in a foreign city.



6. Agalloch - Marrow of the Spirit
I once tried to rip off Agalloch when I played in a metal band. The song I wrote sounded a lot like the first song (after the ambient intro) on this album, except shit. Really, really, shit. Best to leave it to these guys.



5. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I'm Here?
Beautiful vintage synth sounds, treated Kosmiche Musik-esque guitar, and enough water-y effects to make Animal Collective blush and hide their delay pedals. An ecstatic interplay of noise and hazy webs of melody. The most accessible ambient/noise record imaginable, you could play this while visiting your granny or getting stoned in a squat. Or while visiting your squat-dwelling stoner granny.



4. Wavves - King Of The Beach
The blog-based-buzz-band-backlash has subsided and it's safe to like Wavves again. Yeah, Nathan Williams is a bit of an 'end, but half the lyrics on this album are him acknowledging that fact and mining it for aural gold. The anti-Arcade Fire, Wavves doesn't want to combat the apathy of suburban teenage America as much as embrace it; sublimating strip mall ennui via pop-punk nihilism, these songs are about getting stoned, pissing people off, begging forgiveness, and then doing it all over again none the wiser. The girl-group lalala harmonies, traces of classic west coast punk, and Nirvana-aping lyrical angst all place this record in a credible lineage of waster-Americana. Massive baseless (yet probably accurate) generalization: only self-serious bores could dislike such a record.



3. Gonjasufi - A Sufi & A Killer
The Captain Beefheart of hip-hop, Sumach Ecks takes inspiration from his desert surroundings and it comes across on this record; brittle guitar lines and fuzzy samples melting like Dali's clocks across a musical landscape of primitive drum loops and lo-fi production.



2. James Blake - Bells Sketch/CMYK/Klavierwerke EPs
Yes, I'm cheating just like every other end-of-year list-compiling nerd and including these three EPs as if they were one record. Blake is a genius, scarily young and the only sure-fire breakout act of the post-dubstep ghetto. It's a shame his current exposure is coming via a cringeworthy Feist cover but whatever, I'd rather hear that on the radio than 'Dirty Bit' or whatever the next aural war crime the Black Eyed Peas are preparing to unleash on an unsuspecting world.



1. Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
This is such an awesome record. "Hey guys, let's conflate small town dissatisfaction with the grandeur of the American civil war!" WTF. Patrick Stickles, I want your beard and your massive conceptual balls. This is what a quarter-life crisis sounds like.



Some records I have consciously or unconsciously avoided this year but are probably good, in a boring critically-acclaimed kind of way: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs, Owen Pallett - Heartland, Kanye West - My Dark Twisted Fantasy / some records I like but couldn't list here: Women - (S/T), Sun Araw - On Patrol, Baths - Cerulean / some records from last year that I thought were from this year: Cobalt - Gin, Shield Your Eyes - Shield 'Em/ some records I haven't listened to yet but know I'm gonna like: Girls Names, Kvelertak.
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Songs

10. LCD Soundsystem - Dance Yrself Clean



9. Girl Unit - Wut
If rowdy "FILTHY" dubstep choons are to to be the soundtrack of choice for bros, hippies, and revolting students the world over, could they at least listen to the good stuff?


8. The Body - Empty Hearth
This is the most evil piece of music ever.


7. Sea Pinks - Japanese Knotweed
Great song, I learnt this. It's only four chords plus a weird diminished one.


6. Women - Eyesore



5. Tallest Man On Earth - King Of Spain
The only one-man-and-an-acoustic-guitar act I could handle this year.


4. The Drums - Let's Go Surfing
Hateful band, great summer tune.


3. Freddie Gibbs (ft Chuck Inglish, Bun B, Dan Auerbach, Chuck Tha Ripper) - Oil Money



2. Oneohtrix Point Never/Antony - Returnal/Returnal (Cover)
The most beautiful slice of melodic ambient/noise electronica released this year, and the equally heartbreaking solo piano cover.


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1. James Blake - I Only Know (What I Know Now)

DJ Format live @ The Farmhouse, Canterbury

DJ Format rose to prominence in the mid-‘oughties with his sample-based breaks and beats, drawing on the combined influences of feel-good hip-hop and sample-guru DJ Shadow. His live show is a master-class in live sampling and scratching, similar to the vibes of the Farmhouse’s regular soul/funk nights. As anachronistic as the live real-wax DJ experience might seem, Format effortlessly had the awkward white-as-white bread Farmhouse patrons attempting some enthusiastic b-boy moves (though the lack of accompanying MC might have disappointed some).

Despite being far too full of Christmas cake to really bust a move, I enjoyed both the constantly shifting tempos and musical references, from funky James Brown breaks to A Tribe Called Quest tributes. All in all this was the usual, well-organised and highly-enjoyable night at the Farmhouse.

myspace

BATS - Red In Tooth & Claw

Red in Tooth & Claw is the sound of 5 Richard Dawkins groupies rocking out in Converge’s recording studio. A furious rhythm section paired with 3 duelling guitars, BATS are not for the faint hearted, nor for the spiritually-minded. The subject matter on this, their debut LP, ranges from the CERN reactor to medieval religious persecution, the common thread being the endorsement and elevation of scientific thinking. Released on the Richer Collective, home of other noisy Irish bands such as Not Squares, Continuous Battle of Order, this record is a blistering and at times supremely melodic listen. Although I can’t speak for the band’s influences, their closest sonic kin would seem to be metal-core kingpins Converge…or perhaps dance-punkers Liars…or maybe label-mates Adebisi Shank…or maybe…

Evidently theirs is a sound not easily classified, their constant musical transmogrifications (big word!) resulting in a constantly exciting experience, even more so live. A mixture of danceable bass-lines, math-rock guitar, heavy riffs and quirky choral sections all combine to create a fairly unique sound. Key to any enjoyment of this album is the humour BATS bring to the subject matter: something generally sacrificed by other bands with such high-falutin’ philosophical agendas. Second track, “Gamma Ray Burst: Second Date” is a quasi-comical description of being on a date when a star dies, taking us with it; “Credulous Credulous” an over-the-top assault on new-age/old-age superstition, while “BATS spelled backwards is STAB” is self-explanatory. Suffice to say BATS are not a lecture, nor do they share the same infuriating smugness of Dawkins and his cohorts. They’re firmly tongue-in-cheek, whilst still being educational enough that I was able to justify listening to them to myself in lieu of revising for a Biology exam.

Red in Tooth & Claw, a line from a very, very long Tennyson poem, isn’t half as pretentious or nerdy as it should be. It’s fun, it’s loud, and it’s intensely danceable; both a great addition to the already excellent Richter Collective back catalogue as well as the strong leftfield of contemporary Irish music.

links:
myspace

An explanation of each track from frontman Rupert Morris

And video for single Shadow Fucking