The lost blog... 2011 - 21 albums

I found this unfinished and neglected blog post saved as a draft. In the spirit of bands releasing warts'n'all archive recordings of previously unreleased material, here is the blog as I found it - no remastering, editing or remixing has taken place...

Originally written December 2011:

A non-definitive list of recommended albums from 2011. I've deliberately omitted PJ Harvey from the list because you're probably sick of everyone telling you how good the album is.

Anyway, here it is, in alphabetical order as usual. Maybe you'll like some of them...

Arctic Monkeys – Suck It And See
AM go "pop"? Their best album yet? A return to form? (answers: "not quite", "possibly" and "no, they never lost it - Humbug was a great album"). Whatever the critics might have said, this is certainly more accessible than previous efforts and the influence of Richard Hawley and the 60s is apparent on a number of these tracks.

Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
or "Hot Sauce Committee with a slightly amended tracklisting". This covers pretty much all bases for the Beastie Boys, from the punk-hop of "Lee Majors Comes Again" to the classic BB sound of "Make Some Noise", via the smoker's delight that is "Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament".

Bibio – Mind Bokeh
Bibio makes "lovely" music don't you think? Even when he's doing his best Phil Lynott impression on "Take Off Your Shirt". Get the limited edition packaging, get your cameras out and make your own Bokeh. Eh?

James Blake – James Blake
Seen as a disappointment by those who thought it was uncool for James Blake to be good looking and to start singing on his records. The rest of it thought it was a beautiful, bold, sparse effort. And as for the bass when I saw him live at the Green Man Festival....

Bon Iver – Bon Iver
Adding a couple of layers of keyboards and effects to his sound was a brave move, but it works - I guess that's what happens when you hang out with Kanye West for too long. "Beth/Rest" in particular is stunning, sounding like the sort of tune you'd listen late on a summers evening.

Euros Childs – Ends
The seventh solo album in 6 years from Euros was a stripped back affair, featuring just vocals and piano on the majority of tracks. He's reigned in his "messing about as if no one is going to hear the results" approach to songwriting to put together his second fully coherent set of tunes of the year.

Julian Cope – The JEHOVAHCOAT Demos
A set of (previously) unreleased material from the Autogeddon era. Mostly instrumental, this could have easily fallen into his classic "Rite" series of albums - sounding like a threeway fight between Funkadelic, Can and Hawkwind.

Destroyer – Kaputt
Those lazy comparisons with Sade from some corners of the music press didn't really do anyone any favours did they? I can't imagine many Sade fans liking this album. Yeah, it's got saxophones on it and it sounds "a bit 80s", but it's probably got more in common with Leonard Cohen's classic "I'm Your Man" than Diamond Life. Here's what I said about it earlier this year: Destroyer - Kaputt

Baxter Dury – Happy Soup
Sounding more and more like his dad, this is a collection of three minute new wave pop nuggets.

The Field - Looping State of Mind
Is this as good as 2009's "Yesterday and Today"? I've not listened to it enough yet, but the early signs are promising...

Ford and Lopatin – Channel Pressure
I remember being laughed at for buying the first Zoot Woman album in 2001 - it (and me) being seen as taking irony a step too far with that whole 80s sound. But that album now seems so ahead of it's time with 80's sound. Anyway, this album doesn't really sound like Zoot Woman other than the dreamy vocals

Holy Ghost! – Holy Ghost!
Didn't really have a lot to say about this at the time, other than I liked it. This review seems to sum it up... Holy Ghost

Jonny – Jonny
Euros Childs (Gorky's Zygotic Mynci) and Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub). Sadly their ode to Gloria Estefan didn't make it onto the album

Junior Boys – It’s All True

Low – C’Mon

Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
The great forgotton album of 2011? I don't think I've seen this in any "best of the year" lists yet, which is a massive oversight because this is one of Mogwai's finest yet. "limited" copies included the stunningly beautiful 23-minute "Music for a forgotten future".

Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
What he said: Oneohtrix Point Never - Replica

Peaking Lights – 936
The aural equivalent of a half forgotten memory of a summer spent listing to a radio station playing dub, post punk and Saint Etienne.

Gruff Rhys – Hotel Shampoo
Sounds just as you would expect from Gruff Rhys.

Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk – Ulrich Schnauss & Jonas Munk
After the disappointing (to me) "Goodbye" album, it was nice to find Mr Schnauss returning to his classic Slowdive vs OMD sound.

Soft Metals - Soft Metals
I wish this had been the new Human League album, rather than the it-has-it's-moments-but-note-enough-of-them album they did release.

Suuns – Zeroes QC

Wilco – The Whole Love
Containing some of their poppiest tunes since "Summerteeth" and most out there moments since "A Ghost Is Born"

Wooden Shjips - West
More of the same, but different. There's a grand total of two chords on this album - both of 'em good uns.

Can - The Lost Tapes

Most "previously unreleased" compilations, although worthy, rarely amount to much more than a fans-only selection of variable quality. This, on the other hand, is astounding - three CDs of previously unreleased songs, works in progress and live tracks, spanning from 1968 to 1977.

I was intending to review this album, but I've just realised that I simply don't have sufficient grasp on the English language, or know enough adjectives, to do justice to this release. All I will say is that The Lost Tapes is up there with the greatest music that Can have ever made, which happens to be some of the greatest and most influential music of all time - just ask John Lydon or Kanye West - and still no one has ever come close to sounding like Can. They are one of the few truly unique bands in the history of music. 

Having said that, I'm sure a lot of people will moan that there's not enough choruses.

Here's one of my current favourites from the release...

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING - The War Room EP

Whilst I'm waiting for the vinyl version to arrive in the post, here's my thoughts on the digital version...

You'd think I'd get bored of that whole 40 year old Neu! Motorik groove that bands keep peddling (see my future blog for how Neu! have become one of the most important bands in rock ever), but once in a while something comes along that reinvigorates the sound and takes the music somewhere new. Spitfire by PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING (always in capitals - it's important!) is one of such moment.

6 Music have already fallen in love with the track, with a number of their DJs fighting to claim bragging rights to who is their biggest fan (the prize goes to Tom Robinson for getting in there first back in 2009, whilst we were all oblivious to the band's charms) and now it seems as though the rest of the sane world is following suit.

If you haven't heard the song yet, then you can give it a listen , and watch the remarkable video here...



But one song does not maketh a great band, so what are the other tracks on the EP like? Well, like all their stuff (check out the equally excellent EP One and Roygbiv), the tracks lean heavily on the use of public information and WWII propaganda films - as the band say, they "teach the lessons of the past with the music of the future". There's nothing as instant or uptempo as Spitfire on the EP - it's more head nodding rocktronica (sorry!) with banjos than all out assault on the senses - but it's still pretty fantastic. The thing plays out like a concept EP starting with the outbreak of war and made all the more moving by sampled speech throughout, culminating in the touching Waltz for George (the EP is dedicated to J Willgoose Esquire's great uncle George, who was killed in Dunkirk during WWII, and the track is played on his old banjolele).

Ultravox's Brilliant - A Two Dimensional Review Graph

A rather crude diagram to show my initial impressions of the new Ultravox album.

Squarepusher - Ufabulum

The new Squarepusher album sounds a lot like, umm, err, Squarepusher.

Well, what did you expect?

Okay, to be more explicit - gone (or toned down at least) is the fusion sound of Just a Souvenir and the Daft-Punk-Go-R'n'B of the Shobaleader One album, and for those who often felt that some Squarepusher tracks were "a bit much", you'll be reassured to know that the kitchen sink approach (see the brilliantly bonkers "The Modern Bass Guitar" from 2006's Hello Everything) has been toned down...a bit. Even his bass guitar has taken a back seat for now.

What you get instead is the sound of classic Squarepusher - rich but complex rhythms and melodies, and frequent use of highly synth-etic orchestral sounds that he loves so much. It's also remarkably accessible (for him). There's not much point in me doing a track by track review, but I will say that right now I'm listening to Dark Steering, which manages to be funky, heavy as hell and playful at the same time.

The artwork and packaging is another Warp records masterpiece. Two discs in individual sleeves, a CD EP and a 12" booklet of photos, which are all finished off with a nice high gloss - you know, the type that immediately shows up ALL your fingerprints when you touch it.

Best of all the box that holds it all together, which printed phosphorescent ink so it goes from looking like this during the day...

To something like this at night...

If I had a better camera / grasp of Photoshop, then this would look even more impressive, but you'll just have to go out and buy the album instead...

From "Tonight" to "This Is What She's Like"

Two songs I've just played on Chorlton FM got me thinking about their lyrics and how they are head and shoulders above so much that is out there...

Iggy Pop - Tonight

"I saw my baby, she was turning blue".

Not the happiest of starts to a song I admit, but the sentiment at the heart of the song really is quite beautiful. It's rumoured to be about someone dying of a heroin overdose but it still conveys more emotion and says more than a thousand power ballads ever could.

It's arguably the song most likely to make me cry (not really cry obviously, but...err...nearly cry) - essentially Iggy is singing words of reassurance to a loved one who is on their death bed. The last verse is the one that really gets you, where Iggy stops singing to her and starts singing about her, at which point you know here life IS through.

Actually the only song more likely to make me cry is David Bowie and Tina Turner's cover version, where they ripped the soul out of the song and left it for dead in the gutter.



Dexy's Midnight Runners - This is What She's Like
This has to be the noblest attempt to describe someone and express how you feel about them ever. Anyone can sing "I love you" without really meaning it, so often it sounds like some trite half baked lyric, but few are able to try and express how they feel and sound so sincere as in this song.

What starts out as an awkward conversation between Kevin Rowland and Billy Adams turns into, over the course of 12 minutes, Kevin trying his best to explain how he feels about the girl in his life. But he can't - all he can do is list the kind of people he hates and everything that she most definitely isn't -  you know, the usual things such as the upper classes, people who put creases in their jeans and those who use words like "super" and fabulous" all the time.

"What's she like?" Billy keeps asking.
"In time, in time" is all Kevin can reply.

In the end he resorts to a singing a wordless melody to describe her. "oh, I see - she must be something" goes Billy. "I don't speak Italian myself....but I knew a man who did" Kevin summarises. Err...quite.

It's hilarious, stunning and bang on the mark. Looking forward to more of the same on their forthcoming album.

Check Your Head

I was thinking of this album earlier today and wanted to get home to listen to it. A friend had just posted an adapted version of the album cover online (renaming the album 'check your shoes', relating to his inability to leave the house with matching footwear) and I had So What'cha Want running through my mind.. .

Then, a couple of hours later the tragic news came through that MCA had died. Now, normally when someone dies I see a handful of comments amongst my friends online paying their respects and not much else. However, in this instance my news feed was immediately flooded with friends expressing their sadness at his passing - I've never seen so many people comment on someone in such a short space of time. It shows what a huge impact the Beastie Boys had - putting out a run of hugely entertaining, eclectic and innovative albums right up to last year's Hot Sauce Committee pt 2 - that moved so many of us.

Check Your Head just shades it for me as being their finest work, where they sound for the first time like a real band - or should I say like a dozen bands, such is the range of styles and genres they mesh together. It's one of my favourite albums from the last 20 years. Pass The Mic...