Spotifriday (On Monday)

I meant to do this with the posts on my favourites of 2009, and then before the weekend - and then I got prodded by a few friends, so here we are - a selection of Spotify playlist links to keep you entertained over the festive periods:

Albums Of 2009

Tracks Of 2009

and finally, here is the link to a playlist with stuff I'm listening to at the moment. This will change over time, possibly bite me on the arse, and be forgotten about at somepoints. But for now it might make some interesting listening

whiskas playlist (Dec '09)

Soundtrack to this post: Jay-Z, Olfar, Maccabees

Albums Of 2009

Here's the second part of my year in lists - my favourite albums of the year.

This should probably come with a few proviso's

I feel guilty for not including Merriweather Post Pavillion (Animal Collective) and Veckatimest (Grizzly Bear) but I'm just not that in to you

I feel like I should have listened to Tarot Sports (Fuck Buttons) and These Four Walls (We Were Promised Jetpacks) more

In a few weeks, Beast Rest Forth Mouth (Bear In Heaven) would probably chart a lot higher

1. Röyksopp – Junior

Royksopp feels like an odd choice, but it is an album that really has so muched. Prompted to listen by collaborations with Fever Ray and Lykke Li amongst others, it seems to do master the duo's famous electro sound, and with some awesome contributions create some dark, dance-pop masterpieces

Listen to 'Junior' on Spotify here

2. Magnolia Electric Co - Josephine

It was hard to work out how to place Josephine, another great album from Jason Molina, but without perhaps as much of a focal point as some previous albums, and a slightly more 'blissed out' feeling. Upon consideration, it's still better than pretty much anything else this year

Listen to 'Josephine' on Spotify here

3. The XX - XX

XX is certainly the hipsters record of choice - they were everywhere in Berlin earlier this year. It's rare an album and band create such an atmosphere on a record, and this album does more than that, backed up with some haunting gems with a unique (I said it) mix of sounds

Listen to 'XX' on Spotify here

4. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

From breathless start to finish, the size of tunes on this album is massive, with a beatiful interlude in the middle with the atmospheric two-parter Love Like A Sunset. Grammy nominated it as always seems a shame they haven't been able to breakthrough quite so much in the UK - Phoenix are the indie-pop band we need

Listen to 'Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix' on Spotify here

5. Swan Lake - Enemy Mine

The first of two Spencer Krug contributions, despite this album being very much a side project affair, and suffering from the potentially schizophrenic contributions of numerous writes, this is a quirky Canadian indie at it's best, and filled a whole in my world for a while

Listen to 'Enemy Mine' on Spotify here

6. Rock Plaza Central - ...At The Moment Of Most Needing, Or If Only They Could Turn Around, They Would Know They Weren't Alone

Rock Plaza Central's follow up to 2006's 'We Are Not Horses' would've been hard matched to improve on that, and 'At The Moment' takes a more laid back approach, further away from the psycadelic imagery of it's predecessor. In the process it gains a level of subdued beautiful to revel in

Listen to '...At The Moment Of Most Needing' on Spotify here

7. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca

Truely there is like no other as Dirty Projectors' immense vocal acrobatic harmony's. Sometimes distracting, always enticing, the melody's really are like no other

Listen to 'Bitte Orca' on Spotify here

8. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer

Sunset Rubdown's Dragonslayer, Spencer Krug's true sole side project, was a veritable mix sounds and songs, that grew with every listen and utterly bombastic live

Listen to 'Dragonslayer' on Spotify here

9. Kong - Snake Magnet

First delivered to me in 2007 by the hands of Biffy Clyro (I plugged them as a Band For 2008), it took a while getting released, but it's riffs are the size of massive bollocks only these screams could emanate from

Listen to Kong on Myspace here

10. School Of Seven Bells - Alpinism

Strictly released in late 2008, before a re-release this year - one of the most intense live bands I saw this year, the sonics and songs make me warm and fuzzy inside

Listen to 'Alpinism' on Spotify here

...and the best of the rest:

11. Tegan & Sara - Sainthood / 12. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers / 13. Fanfarlo - Reservoir / 14. Grammatics - Grammatics / 15. Sometree - Yonder / 16. Editors - In This Light And On This Evening / 17. Sonic Youth - The Eternal / 18. Bear In Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth / 19. Blue Roses - Blue Roses / 20. Riceboy Sleeps - Jonsi & Alex / 21. Micachu & The Shapes - Jewellery / 22. Monsters Of Folk - Monsters Of Folk / 23. Karen O & The Kids - Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack / 24. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions - Bavarian Fruit Bread / 25. Fever Ray - Fever Ray

And, finally, looking at my forever interesting Last.FM stats, my actual most listened to albums released in 2009, are the following:

1. The XX - XX

2. School Of Seven Bells - Alpinism

3. Rock Plaza Central - ...At The Moment Of Most Needing

4. Magnolia Electric Co - Josephine

5. Röyksopp – Junior

6. Swan Lake - Enemy Mine

7. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

8. Grammatics - Grammatics

9. Sometree - Yonder

10. Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

With a little note to say that Kong's 'Snake Magnet' would be at #8 in the last fm list, had I not recieved it in 2007!

Soundtrack to this post: Bear In Heaven

Tracks Of 2009

Hello, and welcome to the first of a few posts where I tread the well travelled 'best of' path. To follow are my favourite albums of the year, my favourite albums of the decade - and then the compulsory 'tips' for 2010 - hopefully. These are all subjective of course, one man's gravy is another man's porridge and all that.

I wasn't gonna write some bunf about each song, but I wrote that were the same "great song, had it in my head all year" - so I'll just leave you to listen

Without further ado, here are my Top 10 tracks of 2010:

1. Phoenix - 1901

Download 1901 from RCRDLBL.com here

2. Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

Download 'Stillness Is The Move' from RCRDLBL.com here

Watch 'Stillness Is The Move' on YouTube here

3. Animal Collective - My Girls

Listen to 'My Girls' on Spotify here

4. Grammatics - Double Negative

Listen to 'Double Negative' on Spotify here

5. Florence & The Machine - You Got The Love (XX Remix)

Download 'You Got The Love (XX Remix)' from RCRDLBL.com here

6. Grizzly Bear - Two Weeks

Watch 'Two Weeks' on You Tube here

7. Three Trapped Tigers - 6

Download '6' from NME.com here

8. Sometree - Conundrum

Listen to 'Conundrum' on Spotify here

9. Wild Beasts - The Fun Powder Plot

Listen to 'The Fun Powder Plot' on Spotify here

10. Sunset Rubdown - Idiot Heart

Download 'Idiot Heart' from RCRDLBL.com here

Close but no cigar: Editors - Bricks & Mortar / The XX - Crystalised / The Antlers - Two / School Of Seven Bells - Iamundernodisguise / The Maccabees - No Kind Words

And, finally, looking at my ever interesting Last.FM stats, my actual most listened to tracks released in 2009, are the following:

1. Local Natives - World News

2. Phoenix - 1901

3. Grammatics - Murderer

4. Animal Collective - My Girls

5. School Of Seven Bells - Iamundernodisguise

6. Passion Pit - Better Things

7. The XX - Crystalised

8. Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move

9. The Horrors - Sea Within A Sea

10. Swan Lake - Spanish Gold, 2044

See more here

Soundtrack to this post: Shearwater, Karen O & The Kids, Japandriods

My Leeds Festival 2009

This year I've felt a little too self absorbed to induldge myself in Leeds Festival properly. I spent the Friday & Sunday bed down in House Of Mook perfecting the mix for You Animals forthcoming opus, and setting up for recording some Honour Before Glory tracks on Monday

I did have a great day in attendance on the Saturday, though as usual it was the social aspect as much as the bands that made it the occasion it was.

I started the day watching The XX, who's album has quickly become a bit of a favourite of mine. It was an odd entity live, I wasn't expecting it to be that much more than it was, but I still thought it was a shame there wasn't more to it. Still, it's made me listen to the album today and I've enjoyed it all the more.

After The XX, I wandered around the site a little bit and checked out the BBC Introducing Stage, caught a little bit of ex-Loiner Anna Prior in Metronomy, before watching the Grammatics in the Festval Republic tent. And very good they were too

Later on, we camped out on the main stage to catch Vampire Weekend (who reminded me more than ever of Gracelands), bits of Bloc Party (very festival) and then Radiohead.

Radiohead was a bit of an odd one as not the set per se, but the whole set-up seemed very hard for a casual observer to 'break through' - and what I find odd, is why a band that was doing a sponsor-less tour in their own tents, was headlining such a 'corporate' festival?? With the 'arty' set up of video screens and lighting it was hard to connect from a distance, so I lost interest. I'm sure if I'd have been in the mood for an intense Radiohead set it would've been outstanding. I guess it was the festival equivalent of The Wire - not one for the casual observer. But that's what I go to the festival to be.

Two brief links / mentions:

1) To the festival volunteers who are actively getting involved. Great work if you can get it:

http://festvolunteers.blogspot.com/

2) Check out highlights of loads of bands on 'death of independent journalism' website the BBC:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/readingandleeds/2009/videos/

Keep an eye out for Faith No More covering the Eastenders theme

Many thanks to the kind people at Festival Republic though for letting me attend again. Hopefully next year I can do something worthwhile to attend

Soundtrack to this post: Wilco, Fever Ray

Honour Before Glory

Last night I played the first gig with new material I've been writing since Forward Russia finished their second album - which is about two years ago

It's taken so long, as I've been determined to thrash out these songs all on my own, not necessarily in a singer-songwriter style, and recently it has been the challenge to arrange simpler songs in a more interesting fashion. More on that later, as 'proper' recordings of songs played by a full band will emmerge shortly

I'm wary of calling this a new band, I'm wary of calling this a solo project. It's something I feel I have to do, and I guess it's somewhere between the two. Over the past year or so, I've moved away from the idea of the songs being presented by one man and his guitar, but an offer I cannot refuse has caused me to rethink this

In late October, I am off to Germany to support Sometree on 8 dates of their forthcoming album tour - just me & a guitar. I am nervous but excited

It's something I barely thought twice about, but having never performed on my own, ever, I'm nervous as hell at the prospect!! I'm hoping to play as many 'warm up' shows as I can before I leave, that I'll hopefully keep here, twitter and a myspace updated of. After the German tour, hopefully the priority will be to get some kind of band together to play the songs that will by then be hopefully recorded

It's called HONOUR BEFORE GLORY

Solo Live Dates

Sept 13 - Leeds UK, Brudenell Social Club w/ Sunset Rubdown

Oct 23 - Berlin DE, Lido w/ Sometree

Oct 25 - München DE, Orangehouse w/ Sometree

Oct 26 - Stuttgart DE, Universum w/ Sometree

Oct 27 - Freiburg DE, Jazzhaus w/ Sometree

Oct 28 - Frankfurt DE, Das Bett w/ Sometree

Oct 29 - Wien AT, B72 w/ Sometree

Oct 30 - Dortmund DE Tbc

Oct 31 - Leipzig DE, Moritzbastei w/ Sometree

Soundtrack to this post: Bon Iver, The XX, The Invisible / Art: Erin Ward