2012. A YEAR Concluding a year’s worth of records is a funny old affair. The first thing to bear in mind is that it is entirely subjective and always offers the possibility of falling out horribly, which luckily we did not this year. All of the staff voted on a long list of releases (some three hundred and sixty plus titles) that we marked as one of three things; “A good record, warrants repeat plays”, “A great record, So good that I purchased it” and finally “Essential, love it”. We allocated each of the releases points based on the voting and also took into account how well things had sold (as you are all part of this) and also how often things had been played over the stereo. This miraculously resulted in a spreadsheet with ticks, points and x’s that concluded a list of 100 releases with only one problem... there was a dead heat in first position. After one final conference, where we discussed the virtues of both albums, one was crowned as ‘The Drift Record Shop 2012 Album of the Year’ - now don’t go turning to the back page, as we say every year, it’s all about the ride. The most gratifying part of being a record shop in 2012 is still being able to be one. We are well supported (again, thanks to you all) and awareness of independent record retailing is at an all time high. In April we celebrated the fifth Independent Record Store Day and you all came out in record numbers to celebrate with us. It was particularly special this year as we had only weeks previously moved to our new home at number 103. For those of you who haven’t noticed we are now five times bigger and carry thousands more titles on wax and plastic. If you spend any time at all in the shop you’ll learn very quickly that we’re absolutely obsessed with the institution of the record shop. In March of this year we produced the first issue of Deluxe; an irregular journal celebrating record shops around the globe. Issue Two came out in October and you’ll hopefully still be able to pick one up in the shop today. For us, being an independent retailer is a privileged position to be in and your continued support drives us, and affords us to search out more and more new music. Back in the late summer we started ‘Drift Record Club’. We have a full Winter/Christmas line up of give aways, listening parties and instores. Ask the handsome bucks at the counter about joining up, then come and drink a beer (or more aptly a delicious Dartmoor Ale) with us and listen to something spectacular.
So back to those records of the year then. Its really been a belting 12 months for new music. Strictly speaking it has been a belting 10 months for new music. As we write this we still have a good eight or nine weeks of new releases ahead of us in 2012, but we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere don’t we? Last year both Kate Bush and The Black Keys released albums in December, either of which could easily have been in with a shout for our illustrious Drift ‘best of year’ title but we couldn’t really include them as we’d not heard them in full. This year we are expecting new albums in late November and early December from Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin (a partnership made in heaven for left-field electronic and ambient fans) the new album ‘Free Reign’ (produced by Daniel Lopatin funnily enough) by Drift favourites Clinic. El Perro Del Mar returns with ‘Pale Fire’, Anstam’s ‘Stones and Woods’ (that we have heard in full and it is superb) and a new album by Scott Walker that we’re lucky enough to have heard parts of... a stunner right there! The closer we get to Christmas they will all be sat in stacks on the tables, an exciting end to the year I am sure you’ll all agree. The diversity of this years crop defines the 2012 list. Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips, producing some of the most viral and poignant rap records in the last decade both make the final list, also one of the most accessible in JJ Doom. Left-field icons Julia Holter, Laurel Halo, Eraas and Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland (Hype Williams) have all sold well (very exciting for us!) sat right on the shelf next to the dream pop of Beach House, The XX, and Echo Lake, the apocalyptic rock of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Earth and OM, the returning elder statesmen Bob Dylan, Bobby Womack and Leonard Cohen, David Byrne and St Vincent’s tropical pop, Kelan Philip Cohran & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’s swirling contemporary jazz, the Mercury nominated Alt-J, Richard Hawley and Field Music and finally Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra... which is most closely identifiable as the sound of acute madness. Besides them are eighty-one other records that we highly recommend, all of which sound unique and do something special, swooping, dramatic or is just straight up impossible not to head bang to.
103 High Street, Totnes Devon. TQ9 5SN 01803 866828 www.thedriftrecordshop.com
IN RECORDS We hope you enjoy reading our 2012 list. Although they will probably pull a face that seems contradictory, the staff do want to hear if you agree or not and we acknowledge now that there are some big albums (Django Django, Beth Jeans Houghton, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Kiwanuka, Graham Coxon, Gravenhurst, Damon Albarn, Smoke Fairies, Dent May, Frank Ocean) that didn’t make the final cut. That’s pretty exciting though isn’t it? What a time to be a record shop, what a time to be buying new music! See you at the counter and look forward to playing you some music. Drift.
THE TOP ONE HUNDRED
Dens - ‘Nootropic’ Got Want 100 Lower The long-awaited second album from Baltimore’s Lower Dens. A sleek album of metronomic pulses and vast and meticulous in it’s vision. “Lower Dens make music that seems to seep in through your pores. Music to be immersed in” - Clash Magazine
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Jon Porras - ‘Black Mesa’
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Minotaur Shock - ‘Orchard’
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NZCA/Lines - ‘NZCA/Lines’
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Tim Burgess - ‘Oh No I Love You’
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Dean Blunt & Inga Copeland - ‘Black Is Beautiful’
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Recorded by Jon Porras (half of ‘Barn Owl’) at home, Black Mesa is a reflection on desolation and the search for light in a barren land. The album follows an outlaw wanderer who ventures deep into the desert only to discover the Black Mesa, a bridge between worlds. Dark dreams...
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Minotaur Shock is criminally underrated. The Bristol producer’s pop-tinged electronica has the capacity to constantly surprise, filled as it is with slightly unhinged, cabaret-esque melodrama. First album in four years since his previous two albums on 4AD.
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Originally conceived as a guitar-based project, NZCA / Lines evolved into a suave, synth-pop sensation that combines pop melodies with r&b beats, lush arrangements with multi-layered harmonies. Shimmering slices of dream-pop.
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Featuring members of Lambchop, Clem Snide, My Morning Jacket, lo fi legend R Stevie Moore, Factory Floor’ and string arrangements from head High Llama Sean O’Hagan, ‘Oh No I Love You’ is Tim Burgess (The Charlatans) first solo record, ten years in the making.
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Laced with their signature hazy glow and crunched eurovision lullabies, kinetic drum machine jams, unsettling funk, smeared walls of synth, moments of unadulterated opiated bliss, ‘Black Is Beautiful’ is the debut LP from Dean Blunt and Inga Copeland, also of the group Hype Williams.
‘Kelan Philip Cohran & The Hypnotic Brass Ensemble’
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One of the years most viral and arresting albums. Phil Cohran and sons (eight of them) the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble took to the studio and recorded the songs that have lit the world up in the last 12 months. As ever, solid gold on Honest Jon’s.
Stealing Sheep - ‘Into the Diamond Sun’
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What’s in the water up on Merseyside? It’s as if there’s an endless source of almost psychedelic otherness running deep beneath the place. Stealing Sheep are very much a group channelling that source. You could hear it in their first recordings and its there flowing throughout their debut album.
Hot Chip - ‘In Our Heads’
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With ‘In Our Heads’, an unadulterated delight of an album bursting with dynamic floor fillers, euphoric earworms and verbose synth-fuelled love songs, Hot Chip cement their position as the world’s most talented electro-romantics.
Kendrick Lamar - ‘good kid, m.A.A.d city’
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Every so often an artist comes along who changes the musical landscape, an artist who brings something different to the game. Hailed as the new face of West Coast rap, the 24 yr-old Compton-native recently received a 9.5 rating on Pitchfork, the highest of the year.
90 Shed - ‘The Killer’
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Shed releases (on Modeselektor’s 50 Weapons label.) his third LP and in many ways his attempt to smash all his types of Techno onto one LP. As he says himself; Made for the pimped PA in your car, for home listening (at your neighbours costs) or also to enjoy with good headphones. Rave On!
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Volcano! - ‘Piñata’
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Halls - ‘Ark’
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Death Grips - ‘The Money Store’
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The Caretaker - ‘Patience (After Sebald)’
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Cloud Nothings - ‘Attack On Memory’
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Almost four years in the making, Piñata, is well worth the wait - by any measure it’s their best yet. Clocking in at just over 40 minutes, the album has an aggressive energy that’s as exciting as it is unpredictable. It’s leaner and meaner than its predecessors.
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Halls is the solo project of 21 year old South London musician Sam Howard. Ark - his brooding debut album - draws from a palette of crystalline melodies, intense production and panoramic instrumentation to create a deeply personal, constructivist work of art.
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Hailing from Sacramento, California, Death Grips was formed in late 2010. They are one of the most hyped bands on the planet and their volatile and erratic persona is only superseded by their explosive music. They are (to us) everything that is exciting about rap music.
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James Leyland Kirby returns with a long-in-the-making soundtrack to acclaimed filmmaker Grant Gee’s documentary about German writer WG Sebald. ‘Patience (After Sebald)’ is a multi-layered film essay on landscape, art, history, life and loss, told via a long walk through coastal East Anglia.
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Recorded with the legendary Steve Albini, this is the first time that the four-piece live band have recorded together (previously frontman Dylan Baldi played everything) and the result is their strongest album yet.
Ty Segall Band - ‘Slaughterhouse’
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The Ty Segall Band is Ty Segall (obviously), Mikal Cronin, Charlie Moonheart and Emily Rose Epstein. The band turned their amps all the way up, set their fuzz pedals on obliterate and commenced to kick ass and take names. Seriously, this record will melt your face.
Melody’s Echo Chamber - ‘Melody’s Echo Chamber’
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For fans of Broadcast, Stereolab and Tame Impala (who’s Kevin Parker recorded the album). Melody’s Echo Chamber is the name given to the work of Paris-based multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Melody Prochet. Possessing a penchant for wild-eyed psychedelia and homespun rhythms.
The XX - ‘Coexist’
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Three years on from their Mercury Prize winning debut, Romy Madley Croft, Oliver Sim and Jamie Smith are back with a new album, ‘Coexist’, and a new perspective. Where their debut ‘xx’ lent in close to whisper in your ear, ‘Coexist’ gazes warmly in your eyes. Grown up.
Goat - ‘World Music’
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For those who are unaware, Goat are a collective of musicians who hail from a small and very remote village called Korpolombolo in deepest darkest Sweden. Besides suffering a Voodoo curse, they kick out the best afro-jams we’ve heard in a long time.
Alt-J - ‘An Awesome Wave’
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The 2012 Mercury Music Award winners. Wonky pop music from Oxford via Leeds based Alt-J who’ve made many new friends this year and will hopefully be around long enough to grow beyond all the hype. They’re obsessed with triangles. ∆
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Sigur Rós - ‘Valtari’
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Laurel Halo - ‘Quarantine’
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The eight songs on this 54-minute album feel like an alternative musical path the band didn’t take after 2002’s untitled ( ) album. Frequently bereft of formal structures, and for large stretches of time more atmospheres than songs, the work is a welcome return to experimentalism. Lovely.
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Laurel Halo has developed a self-contained take on electronic music, collapsing the boundaries between ambient, pop, synthetic psychedelia, dub and the techno music of her Midwest roots. ‘Quarantine’, her debut album and first release on Hyperdub, is her most focused recording yet.
Mystery Jets - ‘Radlands’
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The album was recorded in Austin, Texas and Streatham, London and was co-produced by Mystery Jets and Dan Carey (Hot Chip, Franz Ferdinand). Whilst retaining the bands pop sensibilities, ‘Radlands’ sounds like a grown up band.
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Julia Holter - ‘Ekstasis’
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Iamamiwhoami - ‘Kin’
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This album is above all careful, and its deliberate construction allows it to work on a different plane from most music that scans as “ethereal.” It’s not the sort of oceanic wash you lose yourself in; instead, Holter’s music has a way of snapping tiny moments and small sonic gestures into focus.
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One of the most extraordinary internet phenomenons of recent times, imamiwhoami, have made an audio/visual sensory feast. kin is a musical album and film.. The first chapter was released in February on youtube and a succession of chapters have been uploaded every fortnight since.
Six Organs of Admittance - ‘Ascent’
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Ben Chasny regularly performs with a full, electric band, often cascades an electric guitar solo in the middle of an acoustic jam, and has recorded entire sides of electric drone. The cosmic / psychologic underpinnings of ‘Ascent’ are exactly what the zeitgeist is buzzing about here in 2012.
Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - ‘Trouble’
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This is a celebration of electronic music’s diversity and range. As Orlando, aka T.E.E.D himself comments: “I hoped to make a record that felt free from the frequent short-lived trends in dance music... that made sense to a dancer and a listener.”
Ariel Pink’s haunted Graffiti - ‘Mature Themes’
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West Coast natives Ariel Pink present the follow-up to 2010’s hugely successful ‘Before Today’. Far removed from Ariel’s early bedroom recordings, ‘Mature Themes’ is a product of a more collaborative process, with the often overlooked virtuoso musicianship of the band bought to the fore.
Mark Lanegan Band - ‘Blues Funeral’
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Recorded in Hollywood by Alain Johannes at his 11ad studio. The music was played by Johannes and Jack Irons with appearances from Greg Dulli, Josh Homme et al. Mark Lanegan has sung with Screaming Trees, Queens Of The Stone Age, Twilight Singers, Soulsavers and Isobel Campbell.
First Aid Kit - ‘The Lion’s Roar’
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Swedish Sisters First Aid Kit have gone from faraway teenage fans covering Fleet Foxes for fun to recording A Blue Series 7” of Buffy Sainte-Marie’s ‘Universal Soldier’ with Jack White in his Nashville, TN Third Man Studios. Their Second Album has just sold and sold this year.
Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra - ‘Bum Bum’
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The 18-piece Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra are back for a second instalment that leaves us breathless with its incredible richness. “BUM BUM” is not predictable for a single second, adding darker tones and atmospheres to the orchestra’s boundless musical pedigree.
Beak - ‘ > ‘
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One rainy afternoon in Bristol after many tortured, truly terrible recording sessions, something changed. and Beak re-found their feet. Formed by Geoff Barrow - Matt Williams - Billy Fuller, the new LP was recorded in one room live (with very few overdubs) - Beak > is upon us.
Youth Lagoon - ‘The Year Of Hibernation’
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Twenty-two year old Trevor Powers, whose musical venture is called Youth Lagoon, has had a long year. Not because he’s been endlessly touring or pursuing some wild dream, but because of life - the life of a kid going to college, being in love, heartache, and just living. We have no sympathy.
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Antony and the Johnsons - ‘Cut The World’
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Alabama Shakes - ‘Boys & Girls’
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The album is a collection of live symphonic recordings from the group’s four full-length studio albums (‘Antony & the Johnsons’, ‘I Am A Bird Now’, ‘The Crying Light’, ‘Swanlights’) and represents frontman Antony Hegarty’s continued meditation on light, nature and femininity.
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Alabama Shakes began playing together when they were in high school. Boys & Girls was recorded at The Bomb Shelter in Nashville, TN. Produced and mixed by the band members, the album is a vibrant fusion of swampy dirty South rock, blues and soul delivered with punk rock fervor.
Lotus Plaza - ‘Spooky Action At A Distance’
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This is the second album from Lotus Plaza, the solo nom de plume of Lockett Pundt, better known as the guitarist in Deerhunter. He has the uncanny ability to build soaring, melodic gems from simple musical phrases, from unabashed rockers to acoustic laced introspection.
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Bobby Womack - ‘The Bravest Man In The Universe’
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A funk and soul legend with more hits under his belt than we can count. His first album for 18 years was recorded and co-produced by Damon Albarn, (Womack did guest vocals for The Gorillaz’s) and XL label boss Richard Russell who produced Gil Scott Heron’s final album.
Animal Collective - ‘Centipede Hz’
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Centipede Hz’ is the tenth full length Animal Collective album, following the widely celebrated ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’ (2009), and also the first since ‘Strawberry Jam’ (2007) to feature all four original band members: Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist and Deakin. It’s kinetic!
Chairlift - ‘Something’
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After more than 18 months of composition and recording, Brooklyn-based and outer-spaced musical duo Chairlift return with a new album called ‘Something’, their dense and deftly-driven sophomore episode. “something simultaneously sinister... and completely beautiful” - The Guardian
The Orb featuring Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry - ‘The Orbserver in the Star House’
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“The Observer...” sparks with a rare magic as Dr Alex Paterson and long-time Orb member Thomas Fehlmann construct a panorama of strippeddown backdrops to provide the perfect backdrops for the Upsetter’s inimitable pronouncements, righteous declarations and sweet vocals.
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James Yorkston - ‘I Was A Cat From A Book’
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Toy - ‘Toy’
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Shearwater - ‘Animal Joy’
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Symmetry - ‘Theme For An Imaginary Film’
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“I Was A Cat...” finds James Yorkston playing with a new band comprised of members of Lamb and The Cinematic Orchestra, alongside old friends. The album was produced by James Yorkston and Dave Wrench and mostly recorded live during five wintery days in Bryn Derwen Studios, Wales.
Eraas - ‘Eraas’
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ERAAS succeeds in that it can transport us to a place that can be revisited at any time just by listening. The inescapable moods and atmosphere created by the album instantly brings a chill to the spine and a dreamlike (or nightmarish) landscape that is well worth visiting again and again.
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Recorded during the spring of 2012 with Dan Carey in his South London studio. TOY have exploded outside of the comparisons to The Horror’s with an explosive live show and an album of spacious kraut rock that deserves to be played loud. Loud... you hear us... LOUD!!
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‘Animal Joy’ was recorded and produced Danny Reisch in Austin, Texas, and released on Sub Pop Records. The band’s previous three records, known as the ‘Island Arc Trilogy’, were released on Matador Records. Warm, rich and full of hooks. Some lush Americana.
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Three years in the makiing, it’s two hours of claustrophobic cinematic bliss compiled for painters, writers, photographers, designers, cruisers, night walkers and dreamers. Over the span of 37 tracks, Symmetry embraces the elegance of European noir, cut with a lean and violent American razor.
King Tuff - ‘King Tuff’
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First King Tuff album for Sub Pop, and his second album overall. Produced by Bobby Harlow, of The Go and Conspiracy Of Owls, and recorded during a furious two-week run in Detroit. Onomatopoeic cover of the year. Neon. Pink. Ludicrous. Full On. Rock Bat. Brilliant.
The Walkmen - ‘Heaven’
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Produced by Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Band of Horses) whilst Robin Pecknold sings harmonies on two songs on the record. The Walkmen are the great New York band of their generation, making the best music of their career and filling their largest venues yet.
Woods - ‘Bend Beyond’
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For their seventh album Woods have got dark, when you really get in there and listen Jeremy Earl is singing about some heavy stuff. Instrumentally, it’s certainly the most full Woods record yet; guitars weave and bubble across peppy drumming, but lyrically Earl is at his most direct and spare.
Thee Oh Sees - ‘Putrifiers II’
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Thee Oh Sees’ records have more or less charted the band’s evolution from a solitary psych-pop project to brute-force hypno-punkers. With their reputation as one of America’s most redoubtable live acts wholly assured, they explore the possibilities of the studio and lustrous psychedelia.
THE TOP FIFT Y ALBUMS
Ty Segall and White Fence - ‘Hair’
Lambchop - ‘Mr. M’
As you will have noticed, the second appearance from Ty Segall this year in the top 100. Known for rock & roll both savage and incisive and pastorally acid-winged, Ty Segall and White Fence have collaborated on a set of songs that accelerate wildly from where we last found them. ‘Hair’ squares their guitar-fringed traffic with purple flashes, escalating every song before multiple explosions rock the frame during their penultimate joust. Providing the ‘Hair’-dressing for your psychic salad are Ty Segall and White Fence’s Tim Presley, with Sean Presley and Mikal Cronin along for the ride. The album unrolls from within, plunging from rock trips to acoustic strollers to poppy reveries to freak-downs at side’s end. ‘Hair’ gets tangled deep in clouds of guitars and drums and counter-riffs and percussion and noise, then pressed flat and combed back with vocal harmonies and compression.
Mr. M is Lambchop’s eleventh album on City Slang and documents the band at its best, it encapsulates one of the most profound moments in their history. Kurt Wagner turned away from music and picked up his brushes to paint his way out of a funk that followed the premature death of friend Vic Chesnutt. (Incidentally the paintings, a series called Beautillion Millitaire 2000, feature on the album sleeve). “As I worked, I was approached by Mark Nevers (former full time band member & producer for the likes of Andrew Bird and Will Oldham) with the idea of making another Lambchop record. He had a concept of a sound and a method that worked with the tone of my writing. His idea was a kind of ‘psycha-Sinatra’ sound, one that involved the arranging of strings and other sounds in a more open and yet complex way. I felt Lambchop had one more good record in us, and this time I was going to do things as directly and true to my desires as possible.”
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Pontiak - ‘Echo Ono’
On a return trip from SXSW, the three brothers of Pontiak conceived of recording an expressionistic record. Something unlike anything they had tried before. They imagined it as a color project, painted through music, favoring the traditional form of the song to explore texture and color. Recorded at their farm in the heart of Virginia, Van, Lain, and Jennings rotated between their respective instruments and engineering duties. They treated the equipment as another instrument, placing just as much importance on the sound leaving the amps and drum skins as the sound written on the tape. No distortion or overdrive pedals were used. If an amp started to act unpredictably, they turned it up. If a speaker started rattling, they pushed it. As the summer began to wind down and the album took shape, it became clear that they had realized their love of texture and color that loud music produces. Music so loud it produces physical vibrations in your chest. It was like walking to the top of a hill and watching the sky expand, a vision fully realised.
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Bob Dylan - ‘Tempest’
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The 35th studio set from Dylan, marking the 50th anniversary of his eponymous debut album on Columbia Records. Dylan produced the album himself under his Jack Frost moniker.. much as he’d deny it! Press has been pretty wild so far for the album, the Guardian recently proclaimed “We’ve had a sneak preview of what may be Bob Dylan’s final album. The good news? It’s the best thing he’s done in a decade”. Uncut gave it a full 10 out of 10. Given that The Tempest was Shakespeare’s final play, and we know that Dylan is a student of the Bard, could this be the 71-year-old artist’s way of telling us that with this record he’s calling it quits?Dylan himself has appeared to pooh-pooh the question, telling Rolling Stone “Shakespeare’s last play was called The Tempest. It wasn’t called just plain Tempest. The name of my record is just plain Tempest. It’s two different titles.” As Dylan-ites we were always excited, but it’s the warmth and wry humour that marks album number 35th as one of our favourites. Long may it last.
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David Byrne & St Vincent ‘Love This Giant
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Recorded over two years in Hoboken, NJ, the album is a collaboration in the truest sense of the word, with Byrne and St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) co-writing ten of the album’s twelve tracks, and each artist penning one song individually. The album centres around an explosive brass band and is propelled by John Congleton’s drum programming. “There was no delineating what the roles were,” explains Clark. “It’s a collaboration I’m truly proud of.” The duo also split lyrical and vocal duties on the record which, despite eschewing a traditional guitar / bass / drums line-up in favour of idiosyncratic horn arrangements, presents itself as infectious and modern hook-laden rock. Byrne and Clark spin their intriguingly enigmatic tales, by turns whimsical and dark, backed by a large brass band in lieu of a traditional rock lineup. There is a magical urbanity to ‘Love This Giant’: It’s as if they’re dancing in the streets, their voices soaring over the rhythms, the melodies, the barely contained cacophony of the city.
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Friends - ‘Manifest!’
School of Seven Bells - ‘Ghostory’
After blazing out of Bushwick in 2011 with the two buzz-worthy singles, “I’m His Girl” and “Friend Crush”, a reputation for turning live gigs into spontaneous DIY parties (and vice versa), and a bio built to withstand the most cynical indie-blog cred-vetting – Brooklyn’s Friends release their debut album ‘Manifest!’ Produced by the band, its twelve tracks were recorded between last summer and this spring with engineer Daniel Schlett at Strange Weather studios in Brooklyn. Single, and the album’s climax, “Mind Control”, has been mixed by Paul Epworth, and it sums up the seditious streak of ‘Manifest!’ The musical choices are brazen even by Friends’ standards: superfly bass, slinky synth, crybaby wah, bongo solo, group chants.
How many identical twins does one really need in their band? The departure of singer/keyboardist Claudia Deheza in late 2010 leftSchool of Seven Bells featuring just the one sister in its line-up, Alejandra, alongside former Secret Machines man Benjamin Curtis. But Claudia’s absence hasn’t had a huge impact on this third album’s sound: SVIIB has always been about the music rather than the members making it. It’s refreshing indeed that, while the expression “the music does the talking” typically has the heart sinking, this pair’s otherworldly soundscapes do exactly that. Though unerringly composed, Deheza doesn’t sing with the brassy confidence of a pop star, but rather the steadiness of a surgeon-- “this happened, here’s how I feel,” and melodies move straight and orderly, dots continuously connected.
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Moon Duo - ‘Circles’
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Formed in San Francisco in 2009 by Wooden Shijps guitarist Ripley Johnson and Sanae Yamada. Fusing the futuristic pylon hum and transistor reverb of Suicide or Silver Apples with the heat-haze fuzz of American rock ‘n’ roll to create tracks of blistering space rock. ‘Circles’ is the product of a long winter’s isolation in the Rocky Mountains, though the road to its fruition stretched over six months and several locations. The groundwork for the album was laid at the band’s home in Blue River, Colorado in the early months of 2012, where all songs were written, and the preliminary tracks recorded. For two weeks in early April, Moon Duo moved into a small apartment above Lucky Cat Recordings in San Francisco for an additional recording session with engineer Phil Manley (Trans Am, Life Coach). Inspiration for many of the songs themes, as well as the title ‘Circles’, came from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 essay by the same name, on the symbol and nature of “the flying Perfect.”
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Sun Kil Moon - ‘Among The Leaves’
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Despite being perpetually too poor to drink dive-bar drafts, Stockholm’s Holograms still manage to projectile vomit their fare share of poison. Their regurgitations originate more from the nausea inherent with menial labor in the desolate warehouses of Sweden than alcohol abuse; ultimately making it more enjoyable to sift through. In defiance of their decrepit instruments (estimated at a handful of Kronas) Holograms emit a seemingly impossible energy. Their sound synthesizes the drudgery of dismal existence with a lust for something better; echoing both the violent abandonment of punk as well as some of the electronic gloss of early 80’s new wave. Their sound has proven far too large for Stockholm’s charred pavement and empty streets; leading us to think it’s about time for all of us to get a little drunker together. “one of the finest slabs of protopunk brilliance to come out in ages, it’s basically the breakfast jingle to the bristling new Nordic Oi movement.” - NME
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Among The Leaves is the 5th full length album by Mark Kozelek under the Sun Kil Moon moniker. Played almost entirely on nylon string guitar, this 17-song all original album was recorded between October 2011 and January 2012 in San Francisco. Among The Leaves - words which caught Mark’s attention from a John Connolly novel - finds Mark relaxed, singing playfully about his life as a musician while retaining the melancholic spirit of his 20 year catalog. Mark’s love for San Francisco and Northern California are at the heart of this new album. “My first album (Down Colorful Hill) was released in 1992” says Kozelek, but creatively, I feel like I’m just beginning. The new album was written and recorded impulsively, without second guessing. I didn’t have that kind of confidence in the past.” Though Among The Leaves is mostly in the solo, nylon string style of previous LP Admiral Fell Promises, a new ensemble of players joined Mark for a portion of the record, recalling the same spirit as early albums, but with a fresh, new sound.
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Holograms - ‘Holograms’
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Tamaryn - ‘Tender New Signs’
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Tender New Signs is the kind of record that exists where experiences connect to the senses, where memories emerge and bring with them all the feeling and imagery that had been resting just below the surface of consciousness. It’s the title of Tamaryn’s second album, in partnership with her longtime collaborator Rex John Shelverton. Informing the layers and textures found on their debut full length The Waves, this new opus takes a bold step forward in structure and form. With it’s skygazing pop songs and impressionistic sketches of once well-guarded emotions, Tamaryn and Rex have created a defining work. The roots of this musical partnership began almost a decade ago: “We bonded instantly and over time started sharing ideas for songs. Eventually we began to collaborate on some recordings, travelling between coasts until the project inspired me to move to California indefinitely.” A collision of hypnotic psychedelia and bittersweet dream pop.
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TURNTABLES This Christmas we are all about two record players. Both are produced by Pro-Ject Audio in Austria and both of them have been an overwhelming success with critics and record fans alike. In fact both have just cleared up at the 'What Hi-Fi?' awards and are about to do the same at the 'Hi-Fi Choice' magazine awards... nerdy as the acclaim sounds, those guys know their record players. The Genie (or Pro-Ject RPM1 Genie MKIII to give it it's full title) is currently in residence on our counter. We've had a white one for a while, now we have a black one. They also come in Red and will cost you £240. Besides looking lush, their two main benefits are a factory-fitted Ortofon 2m Red cartridge (this would set you back a good £50-£60 alone!) and that it's motor is not connected to it's body, limiting any vibrations. The Debut Carbon (also a Mk III) has been one of Pro-Ject's main hitters since the late 1990's. Inside it is a very similar player to the Genie, but the first key difference is that it is mounted on a plinth (this also offers a fixed tip back hard lid) The 'Carbon' also has a a factory-fitted Ortofon 2m Red cartridge, and what sets it above ALL other turntables anywhere near it's price is it's 8.6" one-piece carbon fibre tonearm, adding stiffness and reducing resonance around the pick-up cartridge. A real show pony, it is available in Black, Blue, Green, Red, Silver, White and Yellow. £300. Full tech specs are online at www.thedriftrecordshop.net
Q&A
I want a turntable, will it work with my stereo? - Probably. The two main things you'll need to check (both around the back of your stereo) is that it has a 'PHONO' input. The red and white wire's you plug into your amplifier, these need to go into a 'PHONO' input. If you plug this into (for a example) the CD input you will not be able to hear your beautiful new deck above a world of hissing and buzzing. I do not have a phono input, is my stereo not going to work? - Not exactly, you'll need to buy a 'phono stage' (a little box) that adapts the power and acts as a convertor to your stereo. These are not especially cheap (around £75) and can sometimes be a false economy. All amplifiers worth their salt will have a phono input, it might be cheaper in the long run to re-invest. Do you sell Amplifiers? Yes, we work with Sansui (who are also clearing up in the end of year awards) and have an amplifier called 'SAP-201V' that retails at £299. We can also order in speakers and CD players if you require. Do you have them all in stock? Nope. Well, we have a few turntables, but any of the decks (including colour variants) can be shipped free to anywhere in the UK next working day by courier.
Matthew Dear - ‘Beams’
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Arguably the least Texansounding Texan recording artist in musical history, Matthew Dear makes intelligent, almost lugubrious electronic art-pop, influenced by his college days in Michigan and Detroit’s position as the birthplace of techno. Recorded in Dear’s home studio and mixed at Nicolas Vernhes’ Rare Book Room studios in Brooklyn, Beams evokes a day-lit dreamworld at once strange and familiar. While the album’s dancefloor-ready tempos, major keys, and sun-warmed synths signal Beams as the lighter, brighter response to its predecessor, closer inspection reveals a squirming mass of oddball details. Dear’s latest productions on Beams creak and groan like anxious organisms, with slivers of guitar, electric bass, and drum kit darting in and out among the synths and samples. Beams is the latest transmission from one of pop music’s most fascinating creative minds.
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Swans - ‘The Seer’
Echo Lake - ‘Wild Peace’
“The Seer took 30 years to make. It’s the culmination of every previous Swans album as well as any other music I’ve ever made, been involved in, or imagined. But it’s unfinished, like the songs themselves. It’s one frame in a reel. The frames blur, blend and will eventually fade. The songs began on an acoustic guitar, then were fleshed out with (invaluable) help from my friends, then were further tortured and seduced in rehearsals, live, and in the studio, and now they await further cannibalism and force-feeding as we prepare to perform some of them live, at which point they’ll mutate further, endlessly, or perhaps be discarded for a while. Despite what you might have heard or presumed, my quest is to spread light and joy through the world. My friends in Swans are all stellar men. Without them I’m a kitten, an infant. Our goal is the same: ecstasy!” Michael Gira.
Echo Lake formed late in 2010 after Thom Hill and Linda Jarvis met studying at art school in South London. The exchoir girl’s voice perfectly suited Hill’s Brian Wilson meets Galaxie 500 productions and they set about work on a project. The songwriting and recording duo fleshed out to a five piece for rare live dates, and put out an EP on cult London label No Pain In Pop to a press feeding frenzy. 14 months later and debut album Wild Peace is a considered, singular work brashly proving all the hype right. Marrying Hill’s huge, dense production style with countless interweaving layers of Jarvis’ emotive and cavernous voice the tracks seem to both float like the densest of mirages and maintain a majestic, considered indie-rock classicism. It’s a uniquely direct and convicted take on the melodic side of psychedelia’s pop frontier; the sound of a band flying close to the sun with just their debut release. In their essence, they display the uniqueness of a young band emerging fully formed, rapidly honing their many influences with supreme confidence.
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Spiritualized - ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light’
White Manna - ‘White Manna’
Recorded during the past two years, in Wales, LA and Reykjavik, and mixed in his own home, ‘Sweet Heart Sweet Light’ will be Spiritualized’s seventh studio album. The last was a concert album recorded at Radio City Music Hall, where Spiritualized rendered the ‘97 game changer ‘Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space’ in full. Pierce mixed Sweet Heart over eight drawnout months under something of a drug-induced stupor. But it wasn’t the kind of drug-induced stupor Pierce is known for. At the time, he was being hit with experimental chemotherapy treatments to combat a degenerative liver disease. “When you make a record, it has to be the single most important thing in your world. This time around, I wanted to do something that encompassed all I love in rock ‘n roll music. It’s got everything from Brotzmann and Berry right through to Dennis and Brian Wilson. I’m obsessed with music and the way you put it together and I don’t believe there are any rules.” - J. Spaceman.
White Manna play space rock with a scorched-earth policy, taking their listener on a journey of intensity and intoxication over the course of five gloriously unfurling tracks. The Californian quartet may telegraph where they’re coming from and where they’re going to take you with their track titles, but knowing the itinerary doesn’t dampen the thrill of their excursion into stellar depths. White Manna know the transcendental and transformative powers of repetition, locking you into their thick hazy grooves, ramping up the intensity of distortion and guitar wig-outs as they explore their own hallucinatory visions. White Manna won’t dazzle you with eclecticism; instead, they’re monomaniacs who repeatedly win you over with their irrepressible ability to soar out of the mundane and into the unknown. Far more powerful than any empty chemical trip, White Manna take you on an organically rapturous journey of hypnotic power and psychedelic spiritualism – enveloping, agonizing, beautiful and destructive.
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DIIV - ‘Oshin’
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DIIV (‘Dive’) is the nom-de-plume of Z. Cole Smith, musical provocateur and frontman of an atmospheric and autumnally charged new Brooklyn four-piece. Recently inked to the uberreliable Captured Tracks imprint, DIIV created instant vibrations in the blog-world with their impressionistic debut “Sometime”; finding it’s way onto the esteemed pages of Pitchfork and Altered Zones a mere matter of weeks after the group’s formation. Enlisting the aid of NYC indiesceneluminary, Devin Ruben Perez, former Smith Westerns drummer Colby Hewitt, and Mr. Smith’s childhood friend Andrew Bailey, DIIV craft a sound that is at once familial and frost-bitten. DIIV have made a compelling debut where what the band is actually about is fairly unimportant. But since Oshin deftly defines what they do, and what they don’t, this mystery is likely a temporary state. Indebted to classic kraut, dreamy Creation-records psychedelia, and the primitive-crunch of late-80s Seattle, the band walk a divisive yet perfectly fused patch of classic-underground influence.
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OM - ‘Advaitic Songs’
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Where ‘God Is Good’ was the first step in a more ornate and sophisticated direction for OM, ‘Advaitic Songs’ achieves a level of composition that would’ve been impossible to foresee. There remains the singularity of purpose that is the core of all OM records, but no single reason can account for this comprehensive nature of their evolution. On this album the core primary sound of OM remains, yet everything reaches further and becomes more of itself. Whatever drone-doom camp that OM had previously been placed in has been decimated by the sheer imagination and expansive quality of this recording. For a band that has continually followed its own course, and stood alone in its sound and approach, ‘Advaitic Songs’ for certain, is the band’s most focussed, progressive document. ‘Advaitic Songs’ has been mastered for greatest fidelity on 45 rpm double vinyl, achieving fullness, high definition and depth out of every consecutive moment.
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Leonard Cohen - ‘Old Ideas’
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In modern music it is commonplace for ageing performers to attempt to prove that they have a lust for life capable of defying gravity’s pull. But one of the striking things about this always striking album is just how unvarnished is the sound of its creator’s relative fragility: “I love to speak with Leonard, he’s a sportsman and shepherd,” sings the narrator on Going Home, before adding, “He’s a lazy bastard living in a suit.” On the second line Cohen’s voice cracks with such emphasis as to suggest this suit might be one of the last he wears. For a man with a gleam in his eye of such impishness as to make Sir Les Patterson seem decorous, this is startling stuff indeed. Old Ideas is a work which displays great finesse. The music presented is gentle, even fragile, but as ever, it is the author’s sense of poetic balance that renders this release as being a work of art. It is said that for every verse that makes it onto the lyric sheet, a further 10 make it to the floor. A quite brilliant release from an unmissable artist.
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Peaking Lights - ‘Lucifer’
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With ‘Lucifer’, the golden duo of Aaron Coyes and Indra Dunis continue to crystallize their mesmerising sound and find new dimensions within. Recorded in Brooklyn at Gary’s Electric studio over the course of a month and self-produced with the help of engineer Al Carson (Yeasayer, Oneohtrix Point Never), Peaking Lights consider ‘Lucifer’ a nocturnal version of their sound. “To us this record is about play and playfulness, unconditional love, rhythms and pulses, creation and vibration,” says Coyes. Boasting much to please anyone previously seduced by the genre-defying, gritty grooves and enchanting, sensual melodies of the band’s earlier work but also proving an altogether more heavy, propulsive and focused effort. Incredibly, there’s even space within ‘Lucifer’ for Coyes and Dunis’ already insanely broad palette of influences to widen even further – touches of analogue electronic dance music, sound collage and straight up pop joining the dub, krautrock and minimal disco of ‘936’ in a hypnotising concoction.
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Team Me - ‘To The Tree Tops!’
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The debut full-length release from Team Me, one of Scandinavia’s most innovative and promising acts. As grandiose as it is fragile and intimate, ‘To The Treetops!’ is an enchanting collection of rich, orchestrated pop songs. ‘To The Treetops!’ sees the band build on the eager enthusiasm displayed on their acclaimed EP and have created a vivid collection of expansive and addictive tracks which take in influences from across the musical spectrum. In ‘To The Treetops!’, Team Me have produced a playfully experimental album full of depth and warmth, with each track bound together by their rich musicality. Oslo’s Team Me has evolved from a collection of songs written by Marius, to a six person, multi-instrumental ensemble. This record is so crammed full of joy it’ll either make you giddy with happiness, or sick with a twee overdose. If the latter is true then you’ve no soul and you’re dead inside.
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Poliça - ‘Give You The Ghost’
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Minneapolis continues its golden run of producing quality talent with the first project to arrive out the Gayngs collective, the super slick electronic pop-soul outfit Poliça. Fronted by ice cool vocalist Channy Leanagh (who sang with Gayngs), produced by Ryan Olson and featuring Mike Noyce from Bon Iver, it’s a who’s who of the current Twin Cities scene. The result is 11 perfectly formed auto-tuned songs that re-shape the intersection of pop and digitised R&B. And for all Poliça’s synthetic manipulation, Channy’s soft vocals and Ryan’s electronic soundscapes reveal a tender heart beneath, pulsating with life and raw emotion. Born out of the break-up of a recent relationship, the majority of ‘Give You The Ghost’ reflects the difficulty of facing up to your mistakes and making peace with them; an exorcism via exciting new musical possibilities. “The recurring theme of this record is ‘what in the hell just happened and who in the hell am I anyways,” says Channy.
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Jack White - ‘Blunderbuss’
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Having recently divorced his wife, it’s tempting to interpret Jack White’s debut solo album as his very own version of Dylan’s breakup classic, Blood on the Tracks. After all, with its bruised, scabrous lyrics – full of nosebleeds, burst lips, missing limbs and pummelled digits – and preoccupation with love gone not so much bad as cataclysmic, it sounds as though the erstwhile White Stripe has been eviscerated by his loss. But it’s important to remember that, not only was the split apparently amicable (his ex sings back-up), but that White has never been a confessional songwriter in the conventional sense. Despite his deep devotion to the blues – that most ‘authentic’ of genres – he’s a conceptual art-rocker at heart, inhabiting his own unique crossroads between theatrical artifice and bloody-minded sincerity. There’s a sense throughout Blunderbuss (trust him to choose such an archaic weapon) that White is positively revelling in the role of the wronged lover. After all these years, there’s still nobody quite like him.
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Bill Fay - ‘Life Is People’
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Bill Fay is one of English music’s best kept secrets. At the dawn of the 1970s he was a one-man song factory, with a piano that spilled liquid gold and a voice every bit the equal of Ray Davies, John Lennon, early Bowie, or Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker. He made two solo albums and his LPs and reputation have grown to cult status. However, he never stopped writing; the music kept on coming. Now, in his late sixties, he has produced ‘Life Is People’, a brand new studio album that shows that his profoundly humanist vision is as strong as it ever was. There is universal acclaim that this could be a contemporary masterpiece. “Truly, the album of a lifetime” - The Independent. “astonishing, I hope and believe that this beautiful, hard-won music will be listened to for generations to come.” - MOJO, (Instant MOJO Classic). “Bill Fay is one of the greats — this is a beautiful album” - Nick Cave
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Hospitality - ‘Hospitality’
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The angular, intricate, and intelligent compositions of Hospitality signal a sophisticated new pop voice. Singer Amber Papini’s idiosyncratic songwriting and incisive lyrics coupled with the band’s rich arrangements on their self-titled debut explore youth, New York, and the bittersweet commingling of past and present in a way that feels just right, right now. From the opening phrases, guitar hooks are balanced with a cultivated melody. Papini’s singing has a wisp of an English accent via Kansas City (she learned to sing by imitating Richard Butler on The Psychedelic Furs’ Talk Talk Talk) and her lyrics create a moonstruck, even cinematic vision of New York City, where the band formed in 2007. After patiently honing their craft, playing concerts, Hospitality have reached what will be its first apex with many more heights to come; from their modest debut in a Red Hook row house, the band has evolved from four-track low-fidelity to a luxury five-star future.
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Peter Broderick - ‘Http://Itstartshear.Com’
Grimes - ‘Visions’
How do you feel about music downloading? It is a common question addressed to musicians and one that I have been asked several times in interviews. My response has always been that it doesn’t bother me. It is unavoidable. And in the best case someone who downloads an album and likes it might consider buying it at some point, or they might come to a concert and buy it directly from me at the merchandise table. What does bother me about downloading is how most of the time the listener doesn’t have access to the artwork and/or text that comes along with a physical copy. Perhaps for many people this doesn’t even matter, but personally I have always felt a great satisfaction from having an image and some words by the artist to accompany and enhance the sounds. To take in the full picture as the artist intended, which in my mind includes all the liner notes and artwork as well as the music. Peter Broderick
For those unaware, Grimes is the inventive work of Claire Boucher, a project that has gained notoriety since its inception back in early 2010. Moving to Montreal from Vancouver in 2006, she developed Grimes among the city’s burgeoning DIY scene; a scene where both punk ethos and pop music collide, resulting in a distinct sense of community, religiosity and psychedelic revelry. ‘Visions’ will be her fourth release in less than two years. With her creative bent being both musical and visual, her second self embodies the arts of 2D, performance, dance, video and sound, weaving them all together to strong rhythmic effect. Subsequent records have sharpened her production skills and each one has tackled different influences and styles. This new set incorporates influences as wide as Enya, TLC and Aphex Twin, whilst drawing from genres like New Jack Swing, IDM, New Age, K-pop, Industrial and Glitch, resulting in a record that is both otherworldly and futuristic.
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Field Music - ‘Plumb’
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Field Music (a.k.a. Sunderland siblings Peter and David Brewis) released this year their hugely anticipated fourth album, Plumb, through Memphis Industries in February. We are, always have been and always will be massive fans of all of the boys musical output, but Plumb feels like a glorious forging of all the greatest assets, chamber prop music of the highest order. More complex and rewarding that any others. With 15 tracks crammed into 35 minutes, Plumb remodels the modular, fragmented style of the first two Field Music albums; only now shot through with the surreal abstractions of 20th century film music from Bernstein to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory and with the off-beam funk and pristine synth-rock developed on the brothers’ School of Language and The Week That Was albums. Oh yeah, and as far as we’re concerned they bloody well won the Mercury Award!!!
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Cat Power - ‘Sun’
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Sun is the new studio album from Cat Power. Six years after her last album of original material [The Greatest, 2006], Chan Marshall has moved on from her collaborative forays into Memphis soul and Delta blues. She wrote, played, recorded and produced the entirety of Sun by herself, a statement of complete control that is echoed in the songs’ themes. Marshall calls Sun “a rebirth,” which is exactly what this confident, ambitious, charismatic record feels like. “’Moon Pix’ was about extreme isolation and survival in the crazy struggle,” she says. “Sun is don’t look back, pick up, and go confidently into your own future, to personal power and fulfilment.” Those versed in the Cat Power discography will detect elements of 2003’s landmark album You Are Free, which experimented with vocal forms and beats borrowed from urban music. Sonically, however, with credit to mixer Philippe Zdar (Phoenix, Chromeo, Beastie Boys), Sun is incredibly fresh, reflecting its forward-looking mindset.
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Actress - ‘RIP’
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Between sleep and the void lies the electronic interzone of Actress. Following the noted 2010 album “Splazsh” South London producer Darren Cunningham returns with a suite of electronic laments, tone structures and dreamtime rhythms which all carry his unmistakable fingerprint. “RIP” comprises 15 tracks painstakingly crafted by Cunningham over recent years, with a conceptual arc taking in death, life, sleep and religion. The 15 chapters of “RIP” begin with Ascension and the Book of Genesis and play out through gardens, serpents and mythological caves. There are no soft synths or plug-ins, instead he uses meticulous manual sound tinkering to create tones, tunings and textures. The ghosted rhythms of these tracks live in a parallel universe to the conventional rigours of the dancefloor. Unlike the sterile sound spaces rendered in so much laptop sound-product, these tracks carry traces of the endless mouse strokes that made them. You feel the sweat and sinew of handmade construction.
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‘Standing At The Sky’s Edge’ marks a seismic shift in direction for Hawley. The album is a euphoric, sonic assault on the senses, channelling elements of psychedelia, space rock and ragas with heavy riffs and raw, visceral guitar solos – as well as more familiar, tender moments – which will surprise Hawley’s fans and peers alike. Exploring lyrical themes of love, loss, redemption and darker areas of the human condition, it’s an album of ominous storytelling and cosmic exploration, sung in Hawley’s rich baritone and soundtracked by an epic musical journey in glorious, menacing Technicolor. In the tradition of Hawley’s previous albums, the title is inspired by an area of Sheffield. Hawley says of the album, “I wanted to get away from the orchestration of my previous records and make a live album with two guitars, bass, drums and rocket noises!” Hawley is one of the UK’s greatest, contemporary guitarists.
‘Bloom’ is the fourth full-length album by Baltimore-based Beach House. It builds on 2010s ‘Teen Dream’ to further develop their distinctive sound yet stands apart as a new piece of work. ‘Bloom’ is meant to be experienced as an album, a singular, unified vision of the world. Though not stripped down, the many layers of ‘Bloom’ are uncomplicated and meticulously constructed to ensure there is no waste. It’s easy to be carried along by Bloom’s easy sense of beauty, and much harder to trap exactly what it is that makes the record so charming. The answer lies in small moments and tectonic rubs: the overlapping vocal at the end of Lazuli; Lagrand sliding The Hours into ecstasy late on; or the weightless guitar interlude in New Year. In truth, there are too many such moments to list, and it’s probably more fun to discover them yourself. Those small workings of Bloom might not stick out at first but gently push songs towards blissful resolutions that somehow don’t feel manipulative or at all corny.
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Chromatics - ‘Kill For Love’
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Lex Records presents ‘Key To The Kuffs’, the debut collaborative album from MF DOOM and Jneiro Jarel (aka Dr Who Dat? / Shape of Broad Minds) under the moniker JJ DOOM. On paper, a full collaborative album from NYC’s notorious rap villain DOOM and space age production from Jneiro Jarel can’t fail. In practice it’s even better. DOOM is in the form of his life here. JJ produced all the tracks, DOOM provided the bulk of the vocals and compiled the cut and paste skits. DOOM recorded the album while ‘banished’ from the States and living in London. He references British culture throughout the album, name dropping British institutions, and possibly being the first emcee to reference My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Jneiro recording the beats in the Dirty South, got into a UK state mind, and turned in heavy hip hop production that leans towards grime, dubstep and British techno. The album will appeal to fans of far out hip hop production, J Dilla, Flying Lotus and El-P.
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Beach House - ‘Bloom’
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JJ Doom - ‘Key to the Kuffs’
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Richard Hawley - ‘Standing At the Sky’s Edge’
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Chromatics formed in the Pacific Northwest as a rickety no-wave band more than a decade ago, but re-emerged in the mid-2000s with a revamped lineup and a new sound that nicely coincided with a resurgence of interest in the slow, dreamy, notalways-Italian dance-pop subgenre known as Italo disco. As with other acts on New Jersey-based Italians Do It Better, a label co-founded by group mastermind Johnny Jewel, Chromatics didn’t just incorporate the vocoders and vintage synth arpeggios of the turn-of-the-1980s originals, they added the brittle guitars, dubby reverb, and urban dread of post-punk. In the years since, the label’s emphasis on grainy synths, smokey ambience, and analog-fetishizing textures became the M.O. of an entire class of artists. And the band’s 2007 Night Drive set the blueprint for last year’s film ‘Drive’; featuring two Jewel-assisted tracks, the film’s soundtrack exposed this music to a wider audience. Fans who discovered Chromatics through Drive will find plenty of easy entry points here.
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Father John Misty - ‘Fear Fun’
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Even before he joined Fleet Foxes in 2008, Josh Tillman had established a sound that made virtues of austerity and quiet, pitching his songs at a slow pace that at best bristled with prickly intensity or at worst lulled nearly into nonexistence. Perhaps freed by the new pseudonym or emboldened by his nearly four-year tenure as a Fleet Fox, Tillman varies things up on ‘Fear Fun’, reveals an adventurous palette, and makes what may be his best album to date. He’s finally shaken that lonesome, somber tone, and these songs sound all the better for it: gregarious, engaging, even funny. ‘Fear Fun’ isn’t merely a step forward lyrically; it also reveals new musical ambitions. Compared to his previous albums, it’s positively kaleidoscopic: less content to be moody and pretty and more intent on getting up in your face. Every song has its own identity, and the album’s slightly fractured vibe speaks volumes about the place that inspired it.
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Daphni - ‘Jiaolong’
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Caribou’s Dan Snaith has been busy touring with Radiohead for most of 2012, treating crowd-goers to his brilliant psych-pop and electronica. But he has still had time to employ his adoration for dance and club music, at least in the studio. His alias for dance music, Daphni, makes a debut full-length. The first Daphni album is entitled JIAOLONG (pronounced “JOW-long”), the same name as Snaith’s record label. Snaith also built a synthesizer that “plays a prominent role on the album.” As Snaith is the owner of a PhD in mathematics, technical achievements like that don’t come as much of a surprise. “Set against the backdrop of bland and functional dance music and the mindnumbing predictability of the EDM barfsplosion currently gripping the corporate ravesters, there is a small world where dance music lives up to its potential to liberate, surprise, and innovate. It’s there that I hope Daphni has a place.” - Dan Snaith
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Tame Impala - ‘Lonerism’
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Again recorded and produced almost entirely by Kevin Parker in studios, planes, hotels and homes around the world, and mixed by the trailblazing Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips / MGMT), Lonerism’s sound is not so much reinvented as completely redrafted and stretched way, way out. It’s a quantum leap forward for the band, the seeds of which were sown shortly after their debut album ‘Innerspeaker’ was mixed. Featuring twelve new songs, Lonerism’s most apparent advance is in it’s synthesizers – there’s swathes of them cutting melancosmic shapes across almost every track. There’s still the searing guitar lines, bouldering drums, free bass and of course Parker’s voice, but now there’s heavily mournful pads and sunshine lead lines from an army of analogue explorers in the mix.
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Robert Ellis - ‘Photographs’
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The 10-track album, his first release for New West, follows his limited selfreleased debut, ‘The Great Rearranger’, which came out in 2009. Ellis, a 22year old native of Houston, Texas, was raised on bluegrass and country music and played the songs of his heroes (Buck Owens, Conway Twitty, Johnny Paycheck and George Jones) every wednesday night at the legendary Fitzgerald’s club in Houston - The New York Times recently described Robert’s music as ‘equally inspired by Jackson Browne and George Jones’. His songwriting ability is equal to his encyclopaedic knowledge of these great writer’s catalogues, as ‘Photographs’ so eloquently proves. “What’s in it for me?” and “Comin’ Home” are two of the best contemporary country songs we’ve heard, and “Two cans of paint” is right up there for track of the year; ‘Rag’ of the year for sure.
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Simian Ghost - ‘Youth ‘
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Sharon Van Etten’s new album (her third, but first for Jagjaguwar) is profoundly effortless and singularminded. Borne from 14 months of scattered recording sessions whilst without a home, ‘Tramp’ is lush and triumphant, a fresh vision. Leagues ahead of her first two releases, the album was produced by Aaron Dessner of The National and features performances from Zach Condon (Beirut), Julianna Barwick, Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak) and Dessner himself. A beautiful album that moves from almost-early PJ Harvey dark guitar and drum defiant rock through to graceful, sublime, understated, declarative hymns. That she was essentially without a home over its recording process is evident over its 12 songs: they blur into each other at first, hallucinatory and shapeless, further listening revealing moments of standalone fury and beauty of the kind that has always been present in her work.
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From the cyclical melodicism and brevity of album opener “Curtain Call”, to the beauty inherent in the shimmering “The Capitol” and lead track “Wolf Girl”, there is a variety and aural confidence here that comes from an artist fulfilling their potential and songwriting ambitions. When the twinkling guitars arrive to colour album highlight “Automation”’s chorus, and with the likes of “Siren” and “No Dreams” to follow up, it’d be hard to argue that this isn’t their most accomplished release yet. It could reasonably be argued that the Scandinavians are better than anyone right now at pure pop, sweet melodies and infectious rhythms are a national – or rather, transnational – speciality. Clever but accessible, like the very best moments of M83, Active Child and Washed Out. We’ve always had a soft spot for melancholic Swedish pop, but this swoons to the highest level.
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Sharon Van Etten - ‘Tramp’
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Dan Deacon - ‘America’
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‘America’ is Dan Deacon’s most powerful work to date, the culmination of years spent playing both DIY venues and concert halls across the world. The ecstatic, celebratory sounds found on ‘America’ are in compelling contrast with the darker thematic undercurrents. Though his music and soundscapes depict the beauty and poetic nature of his homeland, Deacon’s lyrics display his distaste for consumer culture. Citing the influence of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street movements, Deacon wanted to make an album that signified the counterculture of our time. “Ultimately, I want the record to be euphoric and have people feel inspired and empowered,” he says. “We have so much art that’s vapid, and it’s candy. It’s just there to pass time and sell cars and to make people feel more detached. And I’m tired of that.” - Dan Deacon is a bloody hero and deserves recognition beyond perhaps anyone in this magazine.
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Fiona Apple - ‘The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver...’
Earth - ‘Angels Of Darkness, Demons Of Light II’
Godspeed You! Black Emperor ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!’
The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw, and whipping cords will serve you more than ropes will ever do’ (to give it’s full title) is Fiona Apple’s fourth studio album, her first studio offering for seven years. It is the second that she has named her album after a poem. Her second album, which has the full title of ‘when the pawn hits the conflicts he thinks like a king. what he knows throws the blows when he goes to the fight. and he’ll win the whole thing ‘fore he enters the ring. there’s no body to batter when your mind is your might. so when you go solo, you hold your own hand. and remember that depth is the greatest of heights. and if you know where you stand, then you know where to land. and if you fall it won’t matter, cause you’ll know that you’re right’... is the longest ever, according to the guinness book of world records. Besides all the linguistics, it is one of the finest singer-songwriter albums of the year and further testament to Fiona Apple as a visionary talent, singular and outspoken.
Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light II is striking in many ways, not least, in the wildly improvise nature of this particular recording. Earth’s songs, “Sigil of Brass” and “The Corascene Dog”, perfectly emphasize how the interplay between the foursome becomes even more accomplished as the recording evolves, a testament to the dynamism of this particular line up. Meanwhile, the track, “His Teeth Did Brightly Shine,” veers further into an entirely other directions, recalling sounds of the great British Acid Folk generation. This new Earth material brings forth some highly original and deeply mesmerizing tones throughout. As with so much of Dylan Carlson’s work, these five songs suggest a mournful last dance in the decrepit roadhouse of some faded midwest mining town. But its the little flourishes that make them truly majestic. This is easily the equal of, if not superior to, its illustrious companion.
Hard to believe a full decade has passed since the release of Yanqui U.X.O., the last album by GY!BE. Never a band to care for conventional industry wisdom, Yanqui was released shortly before xmas 2003 with little publicity and no press availability, no marketing plans or crosspromotions or brand synergies, with back cover artwork tracing the inextricable links between major music labels and the military-industrial complex. Driven by word-of-mouth from a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group’s sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication, the album found it’s rightful audience. ‘Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! Delivers two mighty sides of music (bookended by two new drones) that the band had been working up prior to their 2003 hiatus, which they have now shaped into something definitively stunning, immersive and utterly true to their legacy. The sound of the apocalypse, it was worth the wait.
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Flying Lotus - ‘Until The Quiet Comes’ Composed, according to Flying Lotus, as “a collage of mystical states, dreams, sleep and lullabies”, Until the Quiet Comes has the distinct feel of this nocturnal trip. From the twitching descent into a subconscious state and the out-offocus time-ether of the journey that follows, the sound is an unhinged, yet elegant evolution of the melodic and rhythmic interplay that is woven into the DNA of Flying Lotus’ aural personae. All this stylistic mingling and genre-melting has contributed significantly to shift music in a direction that makes intellectual leaps without forsaking the all-important heft of a bassline or unimpeded ‘swing’ of a drum beat - the same way so many masters of soul music have infused their songs for lovers and dancers with brilliant and heady subtext for decades. Until The Quiet Comes follows this tradition while clearing a path distinctly it’s own, which is a mark of a classic.
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Clark - ‘Iradelphic’
Chilly Gonzales - ‘Solo Piano II’
Chris Clark has been on a journey - and returns an ambitious, careerdefining, landmark record. Since we last heard from Chris Clark, he’s been exploring, in every sense of the word. Travelling the world, recording in all manner of diverse locations (the album itself was recorded across five countries; Australia, Germany, Wales, England and Norway), teaching himself new instruments and pulling inspiration from his subconscious. The result is ‘Iradelphic’, a beautiful and intricate melding of traditional instruments (Chris plays guitar, drums, harpsichord amongst others here), his unparalleled technical knowledge, and other exciting new elements. ‘Iradelphic’ manages to balance perfectly the warm and human with incredible technical skill. Hazy, kaleidoscope and sun-tinged. It’s a very organic album with real heart.
In December 2011, Chilly Gonzales moved his piano into Paris’ Studio Pigalle. There, alone for 10 days, he recorded a handful of songs that had made the short list from a hundred or so melodies written over the eight years that had passed since the release of the now iconic Solo Piano (2004’s Drift Record of the Year). The self-proclaimed musical genius has traveled quite a road to Solo Piano II. Producing Grammy-nominated albums and breaking a Guinness world record jumpstarted a period during which Chilly Gonzales returned to the stage after several years behind a studio console working for others. With his own albums and supporting tours, Chilly drew attention to his versatility as a performer and to his virtuosity as a pianist. Think Erik Satie; it really is that sublime a piece of work from start to finish.
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Efterklang “Piramida”
Forever fascinated by the purest possibilities of sound, since forming in 2001 Efterklang - childhood friends Mads Brauer, Casper Clausen and Rasmus Stolberg have consistently adjusted their sonic modus operandi to suit very specific inspirations. The results the band have produced so far - most notably across three acclaimed albums, 2004’s ‘Tripper’, 2007’s ‘Parades’ and 2010’s ‘Magic Chairs’ - have each explored different directions, each an end product of remarkably studied songcraft and emotional resonance. But ‘Piramida’ is perhaps the band’s greatest achievement: an album bringing the outside in, informed by frozen time and the relics
humanity leaves in its expanding wake. A less-densely layered collection than the electronic-hued ‘Parades’, and more direct than ‘Magic Chairs’, ‘Piramida’ is a rare example of a conceptually strong project that never forgets to let the concept serve the song, rather than the other way around. It’s a streamlined sound, but distinct and absorbing too. It showcases a band superbly capable of transitioning experiences shared by a select few into music that can be enjoyed by a wide, open-minded audience. Filmic and beautiful throughout, it’s a mighty accomplished piece of work.
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Dirty Projectors “Swing Lo Magellan”
We admitted right at the start of this 2012 Summery that there was a tie for record of the year, so in many ways here is the joint best record you could buy this year! For us Dirty Projectors sit in the slimmest of pigeon holes titled “can do no wrong” - 2009’s Bitte Orca is without doubt one of the best albums of this shops lifetime. Last years ‘Mount Wittenberg Orca’ (a colab with Björk) was un unparalleled success in producing an album that was both an art soundscape and a pop record full of hooks. They are honestly, peerless. Leading man and songwriter David Longstreth is a renaissance man cut in the finest ‘David Byrne’ cloth and his personality is
even more present this time around. Though Swing Lo Magellan’s themes are less overt, the story of Dirty Projectors’ sixth album is still irregular and intriguing. Tired of the “density” of Brooklyn, Longstreth relocated his band – minus the “on hiatus” Angel Deradoorian – to a long-abandoned house in upstate Delaware County. The result is an album that is far less-crowded than previous works (in his own words, Longstreth’s aim here is to veer away from the “florid arrangements” of 2009’s Bitte Orca) and one that, on the whole, feels suitably bucolic. All Killer.
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Grizzly Bear “Shields” One of the world’s most celebrated alternative bands return with a bold and breathtaking follow-up to their international breakthrough record (‘Veckatimest’) and land them selvesright at the top of the tree! Brooklyn’s Grizzly Bear have quietly gone about their business over the last ten years, and four albums in they’ve hit their peak, become their most ambitions and perhaps most their most fully formed with ‘Shields’. As with any ‘record of the year’, there just isn’t a weak moment on there. It’s bubbling over with hooks, obvious singles and radio gold. What sets it apart though is it’s ability to experiment without clearing letting on it is doing so. For such a big pop record it’s actually kind of sparse. The guitar really rattles as there is just one of them, handled with real might and fury, but always provoking some sort of question for the others to follow. The drums are given free reign and rarely act as just a time-keeper, leading songs across the LP. Its reminiscent in that way of late period Talk Talk, less sparse, but as protracted and each movement considered and calculated. Asked which tunes on ‘Shields’ belong to which songwriter, every member balks and explains that, for the first time, these are actually full-band numbers. Both in process and product, this is Grizzly Bear as they’ve never been. The words come matched by a sound that is more passionate than proper, a quality earned by spending less time on the perfect take than on the proper feeling. “This has a different energy behind it,” concludes Ed Droste (vocals). “’Veckatimest’ was a little
more of a polite album; the desire to keep the vocals smooth might have kept a little distance between us and the audience. This one feels a bit more rough and exposed, so that on ‘Shields’, everything speaks for itself.” The album reverberates with a sense of irresolution. This was present before with Grizzly Bear, in particular on Yellow House, but never to such a degree. And it’s that tension that makes returning to Shields so rewarding. The final one-two punch is a stunner, where the poignant grace of “Half-Gate” gives way to the magnificently epic “Sun in Your Eyes”. If “Sleeping Ute” was the start of a sojourn from society, “Sun” ends not with a return but a transcendent kiss-off: “So long, I’m never coming back.” This closing pair of songs speaks of the album’s complexity. Despite the formalism and easy-to-love production, Shields’ best moments inflict a sense of unease that wriggles under the skin and lingers after the final crescendo. But this collection of unvarnished shipwreck-spirituals is after something more challenging than a feel-good ending. With Shields, Grizzly Bear make certain demands--hold still, listen closely-- that seem downright radical in a busy and impatient world. If anything, they’re getting more intriguing as they go on: an object lesson in the value of allowing things to progress at their own pace. Where they go next may prove even more rewarding.