Call this the country portion of the Christmas compilation. Hey, I made it, of course there's a country portion. The redoubtable Ron Sexsmith is mixed with fine seasonal offerings from Neal Casal, Mary Gauthier and Hayes Carll.
We always have time for Rufus Wainwright, who gets things off to a fine start, while Seasick Steve offers Christmas cheer from behind bars - like Emmy two days ago. That's the spirit, huh?
The tension is palpable as the scrutiny intensifies and No. 1 draws ever closer. Every choice now means one less candidate for the Big Prize, every curveball thrown in means something big must have been missed off.
Welcome to Day 21 of the Musical Advent Calendar, featuring uncharacteristic u-turns from Ali and an oversize MJ Hibbert thumbnail.
Ali Mason
Wild Beasts - Two Dancers (Domino)
Track: This Is Our Lot
Never have I performed such a complete U-turn over an album as I did with Two Dancers. When I first heard I hated it, I loathed it - I thought it was some sort of joke. But somehow it kept dragging me back until I conceded that, while I still didn't like it, I found it compelling. By the time I saw them owning Leeds Cockpit, I absolutely loved it. For anyone like me who missed out on their 2008 debut effort Limbo Panto, Hayden Thorpe's wailing falsetto is a disarming instrument - perhaps it was my utter loathing of the Bee Gees that made me instinctively dislike it. The funny thing is, as much as that voice is the band's trademark, it's not what makes them great. What makes them great is their daring, filthy songs - pulsing with bass and oozing with grime. No artist has quite nailed life in 21st-century Britain like this, from the casual misogyny of All The King's Men through to the boozed-up anti-ballad This Is Our Lot. Kaiser Chiefs, take note.
Rory Dollard
Noah And The Whale - The First Days of Spring (Mercury)
Track: The First Days of Spring
Remember when Adam Sandler ditched the screwball comedies for a second and turned out a knockout performance in Punch Drunk Love? Noah and The Whale’s Charlie Fink has just blown Happy Gilmore out of the water for unexpected turnarounds. Less than a year after a jaunty but forgettable debut, Fink has penned a potential break-up classic for the ages. Hewn from the same raw material as Blood on the Tracks or Blue, First Days...is a relentlessly honest chronicle of his split from folkie Laura Marling which aims for brilliance and, sometimes painfully, succeeds.
Dom Farrell
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (Saddle Creek)
Track: Buriedfed
On Written Over – one of the many highlights on MBAR’s stunning eponymous debut – the New York troubadour sings of having his “face in the dirt” and “ass in the sky”. This sentiment does a good job of summing up lyrically stark and bleak record telling tales of drug-addled failure and a desperation for redemptive second chances, which at times Robinson scarcely seems to believe he deserves. Against the odds, near flawless song craft allied with gloriously ragged (see what I’ve done there) production allows for many uplifting moments. As Buriedfed builds from its hushed beginning to a rousing, skyscraping crescendo, Robinson is damn close to perfection. The course guitar work on Woodfriend and The Ongoing Debate of Present vs. Future calls to mind Neil Young’s faithful ally Old Black. In fact, if you imagine Young’s legendary ditch trilogy, but with heavier, murkier drugs in Brooklyn’s back streets then you’re probably getting a grasp of the wonders unfolding here.
Andy Welch
Ian Brown - My Way (Polydor)
Track: Stellify
It’s interesting Ian Brown should call his latest solo album My Way. It kind of suggests he’s not been doing things his own way for the last 20 years, which of course, he has. There aren’t many British artists who’ve so steadfastly stuck to their guns, and the fact he so vocally shouts down any chance of a Stone Roses reunion is worthy of huge respect on its own. Stellify, which kicks off King Monkey’s sixth solo album is up there with FEAR as one of the best songs he’s ever written. Originally intended for Rihanna, it’s easy to imagine her singing over the song’s fierce beat and stabs of piano and Mariachi horns. Vanity Kills, one of the other stand-out tracks, was meant for Kanye West too. There are still some of the moralistic, state-of-the-nation lyrics leftover from last album The World Is Yours, but this time around it’s more personal with Brown concentrating on his past, and John Squire in particular. “You walked yourself into the wilderness,” he sings on Always Remember Me. “Those were the days when we had it all, and these are the times I’ve got so much more.” Compelling, insightful, exciting and above all, enjoyable, it’s his best solo album to date.
Guy Atkinson
Paramore - Brand New Eyes (Fueled By Raman)
Track: Careful
Stop sniggering at the back, this is absolutely ruddy great. While there's probably been cases of my inner muso swaying certain selections in this list, my inner emo-pop-punk lovin' 15-year-old self was responsible for this one. 'Pure pop perfection' is a phrase people will have heard me mutter on numerous occasions and rarely has it been more appropriately deployed than when describing Paramore's third offering. Hayley Williams' soaring vocals remain the driving force behind their appeal, but with stadium-sized choruses intertwining with irresistible melodies on nearly every track there was only ever going to be one outcome...SMITTEN.
Pranam Prabhakar
Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavillion (Domino)
Track: No More Runnin'
I think Animal Collective have put out consistently good albums since Sung Tongs, so I found it surprising that critics leapt on MPP. Many were predicting it would be in the end of year polls even before it was released. The excessive praise put me off at first – but again here’s an album that I return to regularly. My only criticism is that the post-rave euphoria starts to drain towards the last third of the album, which is why I choose 'No more runnin' as my favourite track. Its gentle, lilting tone was a welcome come-down, and sounds just as great on its own as it does sequenced on the album.
John Skilbeck
MJ Hibbert & The Validators - Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez (Artists Against Success)
Track: It Only Works Because You're Here
Mark Hibbett is a self-confessed database manager with a nice sideline in witty storytelling through the medium of pop. Frequently likened to Half Man Half Biscuit he may be, but to my mind Hibbett's songs have a warmer heart. Regardez, Ecoutez et Repetez was not strictly a comedy record, but it was at times laugh-out-loud funny.'Do The Indie Kid' told of a worrying trip to a French indie club, where the locals "partied like it was 1959", and of a wedding horror show where parents "started twisting to The Pixies... I could have died". Cream of the bunch was 'It Only Works Because You're Here', a saga of love rivalry in the workplace which veered close to pantomime. The good guy - the computer desk geek - eventually beats the baddie - the 'main site IT guy' - for the affections of the blushing girl on the top floor. It's all rather daft. Brilliantly so.
Matt Collins
Doves - Kingdom of Rust (EMI)
Track: The Greatest Denier
This year I've somehow managed to move beyond my habit of only buying new albums by bands I was into ten years ago, but clearly not in this instance. I wasn't expecting much from a title as pompous as this, or from a band who delivered something as lacklustre as Some Cities as a follow up to one of the best albums of the last 10 years in The Last Broadcast. But this is fine stuff - mesmerising effect-heavy guitar riffs swirl round a fast paced series of almost excluvely strong rock songs. Only the making-it-up-on-the-spot sound of Birds Fly Backwards spoils the party, which is what the skip button was made for.
SP
The Memory Tapes - Seek Magic (Something In Construction)
Track: Bicycle
It's going to be hard to top Pitchfork's succinct description of Memory Tapes' eight-song debut ("this shit is fucking hazy") but here goes... If New Order had gotten stoned in a field on a late Spring evening and decided to write their masterpiece, it might have come out a little like Seek Magic and Bicycle is arguably one of the singles of the year. It all comes from the inspired mind of Mr Dayve Hawk, who is perhaps the only person in the world who is more of a genius than whichever one his parents decided his forename needed a Y in it. You need this album in your life.
Me
The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin (Bella Union)
Track: The Horizon Is A Beltway
Every now and then a band comes out of nowhere with what turns out to be their third album, and you wonder how the heck you never heard of them before. It would be fair to describe Oh My God, Charlie Darwin as the Low Anthem's coming out party as they have exploded into the consciousness with this delightful sampling of Americana. Gospel, folk, country, it's all on here. Gorgeous harmonized folk on tracks like To Ohio and Ticket Taker somehow sits comfortably with the raucous likes of The Horizon Is A Beltway, a song which Ben Knox Miller screams out in such a way you fear for his ability to ever perform To Ohio properly again. As an Americana addict, I can't help but love an album that touches every base.
The public aren't always noted for their good taste - they like Susan Boyle, Transformers movies and those books about abused children. However, iTunes revealed recently that Lungs was their fifth best-selling album of the year so on this occasion the public were exactly right. Florence Welch's brand of theatrical, percussive pop-rock caught the imagination this year and quite right too - it's thrilling stuff. Single Rabbit Heart is one of those songs it's hard to imagine didn't exist as recently as a couple of years ago and the standard of her gothic pop fairytales rarely drops. Florence's voice (she's an entrancing live performer, too) is captivating, but it's as much the almost tribal drumming which drives this album, embodied in Drumming Song, and even the more pedestrian songs are pulled of with such sheer energy, they win you over. The only black mark is the ill advised cover of You've Got The Love - the album deserves a better finish than this uninspiring 'bonus' track.
Rory Dollard
Wilco - Wilco (The Album) (Nonesuch)
Track: Bull Black Nova
Increasingly, Wilco’s back catalogue is looking like the primary text in the Americana canon. This latest chapter fuses elements of their previous efforts – from the fevered, almost delinquent intensity of Bull Black Nova to the playful AOR of Wilco (the song) and the epic acoustic closer Everlasting Everything. Jeff Tweedy’s weatherworn voice, meanwhile, has never sounded better.
Dom Farrell
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp)
Track: About Face
The third offering from Brooklyn quartet Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest is a gift that keeps on giving. A densely textured collection of songs that reveals more to the listener with every listen, it is a joy of a record. Influences from the Beach Boys to Radiohead are in evidence. Indeed 2007’s support slots with Oxford’s finest appear to have shepherded Veckatimest in an In Rainbows direction. Southern Point and Two Weeks provide a thrilling, enthralling opening salvo, while About Face is simply a lovely slice of tenderly crafted sunshine pop. By the time the bruised epic Foreground closes proceedings it is very hard not to have been won over.
Andy Welch
Jack Penate - Everything Is New (XL)
Track: Be The One
Quite frankly, Jack Penate had no right to make this album. His first record was an annoyingly jaunty affair, each track seemingly more indebted to The Housemartins’ hit Happy Hour than the last. It’s hard to imagine anyone being excited by the prospect of another album from the South-London-born singer songwriter; his record label, his fans, hell even him. Then he went and wrote this, one of the very finest albums of the year. Calypso rhythms, steel drums and dub basslines – whose record collection was he borrowing? – are all capped off by Jack’s mature, impassioned vocals. Pull My Heart Away, the title track and Tonight’s Today, nonsensical chorus aside, are obvious highlights, but it’s Be The One, a contender for single of the year with its unconventional structure, swirling brass and electronic stabs, that is this album’s crowning glory. A minor classic.
Guy Atkinson
Japandroids - Post-Nothing (Polyvinyl)
Track: Young Hearts Spark Fire
In short, this is what Times New Viking and No Age would sound like if they actually had tunes to back up their lo-fi posturing. In slightly longer, this is by some distance the most life-affirming record I've heard this year and continues to make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Scuzzy guitars, breathless drumming and bombastic choruses drive these songs forward at a relentless pace, but it's lyrics like "We used to dream, Now we worry about dying" that resonate longest and keep me coming back every time.
Pranam Prabhakar
The XX - XX (XL)
Track: Fantasy
I saw The XX live in Manchester earlier this year when they supported Micachu and the Shapes at the Deaf Institute. And frankly, I was less than impressed. I admit that I hadn’t previously heard them, but their sparse arrangements and shy demeanour didn’t really gel for me. But then they rolled out Basic Space and everything suddenly made sense. A Florence and the Machine remix and several listens on Spotify later, and I was hooked, addicted, bewitched and totally in love with this band. It’s a record that whispers rather than shouts, and my ticket for their return trip to Manchester is now very much booked.
John Skilbeck
Mika Miko - We Xaxu (PPM)
Track: Beat The Rush
Mika Miko will play their last ever gig on January 1, so, y'know, I'm sorry if you dig this marvellous punk record and want to adopt them as your new favourite band. Their second proper LP came a few months before the announcement of their demise, and pretty much perfectly reproduced the frantic nature of their live shows. They didn't so much support the Black Lips on tour earlier this year, they showed them up. Coming on like the Ramones but with Riff Randell filling in for Joey, the band emerged from the Los Angeles scene centring on the Smell club and have been pretty much trailblazers for the city's scuzz-punk movement. The four-girl, one-boy outfit played hard and fast on We Be Xaxu and were apparently unable, certainly unwilling, to drop down a gear. That might be considered a weakness but to my mind it's the album's strength. They pound the ear drums, the lyrics are pretty much impenetrable, and then, barely 20 minutes later, they're done and you're spent. They've got a killer track, Turkey Sandwich, which you might want to play come Christmas Day eve. If you want to upset Grandma.
Matt Collins
The Joy Formidable - A Balloon Called Moaning (Joy Formidable)
Track: Cradle
Welsh trio The Joy Formidable are very much a band on the ascendancy. Fusing simple yet effective songs with a desire to make guitar and bass amps scream as loudly as possible, they take indie rock somewhere that lovers of melody and moshing can both follow. Recorded in their bedroom a mere mile and a half from my flat, the band gave away the album via revoluntionary music website Music Glue, and are set to take over the world with a full length follow up in 2009.
SP
Florence & The Machine - Lungs (Island)
Track: You've Got The Love
Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air, and I know I can count on Florence. Lungs is the sort of giddy, lovable album that I wasn't sure would ever get made again, this side of the 1970s, with its earnest lyrics, Bush-like banshee wails and unlikely danceable rhythms. And while the original singles were pretty amazing anyway, Flo proved herself a fine interpreter too on this slow-burning bonus track - fans should definitely check out her cathartic Cold War Kids cover, Hpspital Beds, released as a B-side. Magic.
Me
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Up From Below (Vagrant Records)
Track: Home
For a long time I was sceptical of albums with a retro sound - albums that didn't sound to be of their own time. It's too easy to pigeonhole yourself as a novelty act if you do that. But 2010 would seem to be my year of embracing it. Among the acts to benefit are the quite spectacular Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes. Apparently stuck in the Californian desert with only an immense stash of psychedelic pharmaceuticals to live on, Mr Sharpe takes us back to the late 60s/early 70s on a quite magical ride. It's an eccentric album, but an irresistable one. Stacked full of immensely catchy tunes, I defy you to come away without a smile on your face and half the album stuck in your head.
Part three and, well, it's the weekend, and the perfect excuse to hide from the winter weather under a nice warm blanket. With that notion in mind, let's slow things down a little...
And so we stand on the cusp of the top five. What came so close it hurt?
Witness our panel's No. 6 albums of the year:
Ali Mason
The Leisure Society - The Sleeper (Full Time Hobby)
Track: The Darkest Place I Know
The cover art to The Sleeper looks like an old-fashioned vision of the future and that somehow reflects The Leisure Society's sound, which feels somehow suburban and nostalgic, but at the same time outward looking and fresh. What The Leisure Society do best is sweet, lilting acoustic tunes and swoonsome harmonies, masking some jaded and at times dark lyrics. It's a winning combination, especially on standout tracks We Were Wasted and The Darkest Place I Know.
Rory Dollard
The XX - XX (XL)
Track: Heart Skipped A Beat
One of the more surprising indie offering of the year, The XX debut was an effortlessly cooler-than-thou offering. In an era when many new bands go mad with studio toys and fill every nano-second with marching bands, loops, choirs and samples this record was defined by its sparseness and simplicity. The back-and-forth boy-girl vocalists, meanwhile, sounded like supermodels muttering sweet nothings to each other and the use of drums and bass nodded, ever so stylishly, towards hip-hop.
Dom Farrell
Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears - Tell 'Em What Your Name Is (Lost Highway)
Track: Gunpowder
Tell ‘Em What Your Name Is! must be the most entertaining 40 minutes I’ve spent listening to anything in a long, long time. Opener Gunpowder doesn’t so much kick things off as send the ball screaming in off the underside of the crossbar from 35 yards. Next up, Sugarfoot explodes into view and you can almost see the smoke coming off the horn section. As influences such as Howlin’ Wolf and James Brown career into one another over the next eight tracks, there is not a dull moment to be had. If you don’t like this, you probably haven’t got ears attached to your head.
These complete kooks are only one of the two genuinely unique bands that I've heard this year and for that they are rewarded with sixth spot. The only reason this isn't number one is that the rest of the album doesn't quite match the sheer brilliance and eccentricity displayed on 'Hooting and Howling', 'We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues' and 'All The Kings Men'. I could sit here all day and write about how much I have enjoyed this album, but I think this lyric does it better than I ever could: "His hairy hands, his falling fists, his dancing cock down by his knees..."
Pranam Prabhakar
Micachu & The Shapes - Jewellery (Warner Bros)
Track: Lips
I was first drawn to Micachu when I saw footage of her playing a vaccuum cleaner live onstage. It was a bit ridiculous, but mostly it was awesome. I think that sums up this record. It's a bit ridiculous and it doesn't take itself too seriously, but it's incredibly good fun.
John Skilbeck
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (Fortuna Pop)
Track: Everything With You
There's hardly any point in me describing the sound of The Pains... this won't be the first time you've read about them in the countdown, or heard their music, and I guess it may not be the last. But I've positioned them at number six in this here chart so should probably offer something of a fresh perspective. Here goes then. I used to go and watch a Scottish band called The Starlets whenever they came to Leeds in the early part of the decade. Their 'Surely Tomorrow You'll Feel Blue' album from 2001 is still a personal favourite. They had that Aztec Camera/Belle and Sebastian vibe to them, and possessed one particular shimmering gem of a song, 'Rocking In A Shy Way'. That song's title pretty much encapsulates TPOBPAH for me. Sure, their lyrics are intriguing and engaging, but Kip Berman and co aren't going to be blowing out speakers any time soon with tracks from this debut album, which was as fey as its guitars were fuzzy. Still, I loved it, and there should be more to come from them in 2010. They put out an all-new and all-wonderful EP, Higher Than The Stars, in the autumn, and if those tracks were leftovers then album number two should be wondrous.
Matt Collins
Martin Carr - Ye Gods (And Little Fishes) (Sonny Boy Records)
Track: Bear Lake
I've been following Martin Carr's career ever since I found out he wrote all of the Boo Radley's songs, collected as they are in a series of criminally underrated albums that didn't end till 2000. This is his first since dropping the Brave Captain moniker, and like all returns to form, Carr seems to have realised what he was originally good at and just gone back to bloody doing it. His voice still ain't up to much, and some would accuse him of oversimplicity. However, to have pre-empted Fleet Foxes' sound by a full year (this album was recorded and mixed in 2007), this collection of wistful folky laments deserves rather a lot more attention than it got.
SP
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp)
Track: Dory
Named after one of the Elizabeth Islands in Massachusetts (who knew?!), Veckatimest wins the awards for the most unlikely influences in a top 24 album. Laptop electronica? Victorian chamber music? Paul frickin' Simon? And while I'm leaving myself open to chants of "Are you Pranam in disguise?!", I have to confess Dory was my least favourite track when I first heard this album. The dizzying circus of Two Weeks is the immediate stand out but this mid-set folk interlude is the key to the heart of this most inventive of albums. Repeated listens reveal it to be a dark-hearted gem, like a Fleet Foxes for the bleak midwinter and closer in tone to the sinister melodies of Yellow House.
Me
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart (Fortuna Pop)
Track: The Tenure Itch
It takes a special album to instantly feel both fresh and familiar. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart did just that with their wonderful brand of shoegaze pop, which would have transported me right back to the late 80s/early 90s had I been buying records back then. With ten tracks that were all candidates to be singles in their own right, this is a 35-minute mini-masterpiece. It's an entirely joyful listening experience, and formed the backbone of my summer soundtrack.
I did the whole lucky number seven thing 11 days ago. Which is a shame, because it would have worked here too...
Ah well.
Ali Mason
The XX - XX (XL)
Track: Infinity
Nothing is wasted on this album of simple, elegant beauty. This is Pinter-esque music, as much about what's not there as what is. Every pause is as important as every note, every beat is as important as every word. Perhaps their youth allows them to write unaffected, heartbreaking and unapologetic songs about seemingly little things, but it's a rare maturity which drives them to treat every one with meticulous care and restraint. These tiny elements somehow combine to create a huge, resonant sound, engulfing the whole room and leaving two heartbroken people shivering in the middle, spilling their hearts
Rory Dollard
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson (Saddle Creek)
Track: Above The Sun
An early favourite that dominated the first part of my 2009 listening. MBAR, an engaging storyteller like only New York can produce, sired an album of scuzzily-produced, tautly played rock’n’roll. Add in a memorable voice, an opening track set at the narrator’s own funeral and some poetic lyrics and you have a sure-fire winner.
Dom Farrell
Doves - Kingdom of Rust (EMI)
Track: Kingdom of Rust
Much of the initial press for Kingdom of Rust spoke of how Doves had moved back to their Sub-Sub post-Hacienda roots and recorded a dance orientated record. However, this proved to be only a partial truth and a one-dimensional way of looking at a fine record by a fine band, even if it was not their finest. Certainly the likes of the 10:03 and The Greatest Denier ensure that the pace does not let up for the first half of the album, and you can picture the strobe lights being unleashed. But as usual, Doves bring a myriad of styles to the table. The lilting Spellbound would not be out of place on their 2000 debut Lost Souls, while the punching 60s R&B of House of Mirrors is a delight. The title track and lead off single showcases the uplifting melancholy that has become their trademark, while having the rare distinction of being one of the best songs ever played in the back of a black cab.
Andy Welch
Girls - Album
Track: Hellhole Ratrace (Fantasy Trashcan)
As stories go, the tale behind this album is up there with the best of them. Girls’ Christopher Owens spent the first 16 years of his life in a cult. During that time, his infant brother died because the cult didn’t believe in medical treatment, his dad upped and left and his mum was often forced to prostitute herself by the Children Of God movement to which they belonged. Owens then left the cult, fled for Texas, was befriended by a millionaire and moved to San Francisco where he formed Girls with Chet ‘JR’ White. As you might suspect, that background has clearly had an effect on Owens, and it’s all here on Album – pretentious title, granted. On Hellhole Ratrace, Owens is unhappy and “sick and tired of the way that I feel,” on Laura he’s just broken hearted while on Lust For Life he admits “I wish I had a father, and maybe then I would turned out right.” Despite the despairing lyrics, musically there are nods to Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, early Beach Boys and Phil Spector’s Wall Of Sound production. Quite simply, it’s a fascinating record in every way.
Guy Atkinson
The Grammatics - The Grammatics (Dance To The Radio)
Track: Rosa Flood
This album had been festering in my iTunes for what seemed like an eternity and it was only after seeing the Leeds four piece play a swoontastic acoustic set with Blue Roses that I decided to take the plunge. They're all awkward time signatures and angular guitars, but it's Owen Brinley's voice that really sets them apart. A unique hybrid of angelic falsetto and ear-shattering post-hardcore screaming combine to impressive effect and ensure that this is one talent to keep a close eye on.
Pranam Prabhakar
The Flaming Lips - Embryonic (Warner Bros)
Track: See The Leaves
Just when you thought it was safe to put your animal costume back in the closet, the Lips return with this monster of a track from a beast of an album, and in doing so, defy many preconceptions the casual fan might have of them. The symphonic sound of their last few records has been replaced by riffage. Dirty, proggy, smelly riffage that reeks of rehearsal rooms and poor ventilation. Crank up the bass on this one.
John Skilbeck
La Casa Azul - La Nueva Yma Sumac (Elefant Spain)
Track: Die Sexuelle Revolution
Like pop music, dancing and fun? So does La Casa Azul, aka Spanish super-producer/songwriter Guille Milkyway, who in 2008 unleashed his masterpiece album La Revolucion Sexual. He nearly represented his country at Eurovision last year but was sadly squeezed out in the final vote. But Milkyway is no Javine, he’s at least twice as good. His 2009 album was just as incredible as last year’s opus, largely because it contained four new reworkings of La Revolucion Sexual’s title track (including versions in English and German), cover versions galore including a euphoric Love Is In The Air, a guest appearance from head BMX Bandit Duglas T Stewart, and a few more reworkings of one-year-old tracks. The man’s a genius, and I’ve seen some great gigs in my life but none better than his at this summer’s Indietracks festival. Vive la revolucion.
Matt Collins
Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More (Island)
Track: Roll Away Your Stone
Get a bunch of men together. Arm them with guitars, banjos, a big tom drum and a beater to hit the drum as hard as possible. Tell them to play as fast as they can, then to hit the drum as hard as they can when they want to slow down. The result will be something akin to Sigh No More. Every song sounds like a folk anthem that indie kids can somehow still leap around to. The formula kicks off with the title track's defiant declaration of "Love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you / It will set you free / Be more like the man you were made to be" and may start to wear a bit thin by the time After the Storm echoes out, but by that point, you should need a rest from furiously banging that air drum.
SP
Drums - Summertime
Track: Let's Go Surfing (Moshi Moshi)
For a while now, anyone who can string a harmony together has been instantly compared to the Beach Boys and by that they usually mean the later bit when Dennis got good, Brian went wacko and they all bought into the late 1960s hippy Cali fragile egotistical dream. Thank the sweet lord for Drums then, the Moshi Moshi outfit who instead channel the spirit of the Wilsons circa '62 with their rampant paeans to the joys of surf. Summertime isn't just a one-dimensional throwback either though. There's cute arrangements, huge melodies and the greatest dose of late summer melancholy this side of Don Henley. Sure this is only seven tracks long but pull up a sandpit, jam the iPod on repeat and Christmas will soon seem six months away.
Me
Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest (Warp)
Track: While You Wait For The Others
I first latched on to Grizzly Bear when I picked up their Friend EP, primarily because it had the Band of Horses on it. Research following a subsequent conversation with Pranam found a video of these boys performing in the bath, and thus it immediately became clear they were musical visionaries. This theory was initially laughed at by folks Pranam and I sought to share it with. They should doubt us no longer. No album released this year is bursting with more ideas than Veckatimest. Trying to pin down Grizzly Bear to a particular style is a pointless exercise, they simply dabble in everything. From the soaring beauty of Two Weeks to the pop of While You Wait For The Others via the more ramshackle likes of Hold Still, this is an album that gives a little more each time.
Time for part two of the Christmas collection, in which we move in to slightly more serious waters with BB, Bruce and Tom Waits, before Louis Armstrong lightens the tone a little.
There's also the outstanding Fountains of Wayne track, the subject of much debate when the compilation was put together, this one eventually getting the nod over I Want An Alien For Christmas. It was a close vote.
BB King - Christmas Celebration
Bruce Springsteen - Merry Christmas Baby (Live)
Tom Waits - Christmas Card From A Hooker In Minneapolis
Louis Armstrong - 'Zat You Santa Claus
Willard Grant Conspiracy - Christmas In Nevada
Fountains of Wayne - The Man In The Santa Suit
Flaming Lips - A Change At Christmas (Say It Ain't So)
Posts
