The Fastidious Assassins Review of 2008

2008 has been a year of economic decline, the debauchery of Capitalism has finally hit The Wall, and the party of smokey whiskey and Cuban cigars is over, and who pays the price? The downtrodden proletariat...anyway, times of social disillusionment create the greatest art, and 2008 is no different. The crash of the stock market, the election of Barack Obama, the death of Issac Hayes, the Large Hadron Collider at CERN is turned on, the Federal Republic of Nepal is established, Iran launches its first rocket into space....

This year, for me, has been all about Bradford Cox. Deerhunter's 'Cryptograms' was a shimmering beauty of a record that lay dormant in your subconscious for weeks, and slowly the songs would blossom. But to say the album was loveable, I'm not so sure...the album seemed to represent Cox's erratic/eccentric nature highlighted in a series of intriguing, if strange interviews. So I waited with baited breath for 'Microcastle', but before this came Cox's other project's, Atlas Sound, debut 'Let The Blind Lead Those That Cannot See'. Like all Cryptogram's dreamy, floaty passages stretched out to full songs, with Cox's best nonchalant vocal performance, the record is one of understated beauty contorted into something much more sinister. After listening to this record, I wondered what this meant for 'Microcastle', would we get a similar record, or a whole different beast? 'Microcastle' is the record I hoped Cox would make. Combining the best ambient elements of 'Cryptograms' and wrapping them around these amazing pop songs that Cox always hinted that he was capable of. 'Nothing Ever Happened' is perhaps the crowning glory in Microcastle's crown, just a bloody good pop song. Although Cox's songwriting shines through, we don't lose any of that beautiful sonic swirls that have been the key to his earlier work. Microcastle is no doubt my record of 2008 as for the first listen I have been hooked, and with every listen I discover something I hadn't noticed before, and no doubt the album will stand the test of time, and will be heralded a Noughties classic. 

The Fastidious Assassins' Top 20 of 2008

Prizes-

The Fastidious Assassins' Album of the Year: Deerhunter- Microcastle
Honourable Mention: Mount Eeerie- Lost Wisdom
Best Debut: Rolo Tomassi - Hysterics/ Vessels- White Fields And Open Devices
Future Classic: Charlottefield- What Are Friends For

1. Deerhunter- Microcastle
2. Youthmovies- Good Nature (challenging, angular, pop-edged)
3. Fuck Buttons- Street Horrssing (noise, noise, noise, beautiful, tribal, noise)
4. Bon Iver- For Emma, Forever Ago (heartache, natural, moving)
5. TV On The Radio- Dear Science (sassy, pumping, colourful)
6. Portishead- Third (dark, disturbing, disconcerting)
7. No Age- Nouns (nihilistic, simplicity, rush)
8. Los Campesinos!- Hold On Now.../We Are Beautiful... (energy, poetic, rosy) 
9. Volcano!- Paperwork (weaving, playful, chanting)
10. Vessels- White Fields And Open Devices (intricate, woosh, pounding)
11. Mogwai- The Hawk Is Howling (building, pulsing, melody)
12. Mount Eeerie- Lost Wisdom (natural, soothing, intimate)
13. Charlottefield- What Are Friends For (coarse, angular, relentless)
14. Shearwater- Rook (sparkling, twinkling, powerful)
15. Yeasayer- All Hours Cymbals (saucy, hipster, eastern)
16. Wild Beasts - Limbo Panto (smithsian, bashful, tempting)
17. Rolo Tomassi - Hysterics (reeling, complex, pulsing) 
18. Abe Vigoda- Skeleton (rigid, funk, tight)
19. Atlas Sound- Let The Blind Lead Those That Cannot See (dreamy, droney, desperate)
20. This Town Needs Guns- Animals (tickling, rummaging, tactical) 

Close but no cigar:

Johnny Foreigner - Waited Up 'Til It Was Light
Times New Viking – Rip It Off
Up-C Down-C Left-C Right-C ABC + Start - Embers
Why? – Alopecia
The Notwist – The Devil, You & Me
Earth - Honey Lion Maggots Skull
Harvey Milk - Life...the best game in town
Russian Circles - Station
Okkervil River - The Stand Ins
Grails- Doomdayers Holiday

Xiu Xiu- Women As Lovers

The Fastidious Assassins Top 5 EP's of 2008

1. Animal Collective- Water Curses

2. Youthmovies- Polyp

3. Maps and Atlases- You and Me and the Mountain

4. Dananananaykroyd- Sissy Hits

5. Shapes- Get Your Learn On

Close...-

Maths/Throats- Split

The Fastidious Assassins' Top 5 Films of 2008

1. Persepolis

2. There Will Be Blood

3. No Country For Old Men

4. Waltz With Bashir

5. In Bruges

Close...-

Baader-Meinhof Complex

Wall-E

Somer's Town

Hunger

The Fastidious Assassins' Record Label of the Year: 4AD

The Fastidious Assassin's Record Label for 2009: Holy Roar/Big Scary Monsters

Nominees: Holy Roar (Brontide, Rolo Tomassi, Throats), Bella Union (Abe Vigoda, Beach House, Fleet Foxes), Wichita (Los Campesinos!, Lovvers, The Bronx), Sub Pop (No Age, Foals, Wolf Parade), Matador (Times New Viking, Jay Reatard, Shearwater), 4AD (TV On The Radio, Deerhunter, Bon Iver), Big Scary Monsters (Blakfish, This Town Needs Guns, Pulled Apart By Horses, Yndi Halda, Jeniferever...)

4AD had to win Record Label of the Year, purely for the three albums listed- three of the best albums of this year, indisputably. But this year two indepedent labels have really caught my attention, but due to 2009 holding their big releases, couldn't win label of the year. Holy Roar is home to a host of post-post-hardcore bands, kids barely out their teens playing the fiercest face shredding hardcore, but with a nice complicated edge. Watch out for Brontide next year...Big Scary Monsters are another fantastic indie that came to my attention this year. Past releases (This Town Needs Guns debut, Jeniferever's debut, and also the home of the late Meet Me In St Louis) are enough, but BSM will rule 2009, hear me RULE. With albums from Blakfish, Pulled Apart By Horses and ex-MMISL singer Shoes and Socks Off, 2009 will be a great year for BSM. And with rumours of BSM signing a band I have long admired, Native, keep your ear to the ground of BSM in 2009.

The First Fastidious Assassin Award: Steve Albini

Nominees: John Reis (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, Rocket From The Crypt), Oliver Stone (Film director- W., JFK, Nixon), Steve Albini (Big Black, Rapeman, Shellac), Barack Obama (American President), Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth), Will Oldham (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Palace Music etc), 

The Fastidious Assassin Award is an award that will be rewarded each year to build up a Fastidious Assassin Hall of Fame. Hall of Fame entrees will be people considered to pursue the ethics and beliefs of the Fastidious Assassins blog, and just generally create things we love and admire. Entrees can be anything from musicians, producers, film directors, authors. Assassins will not necessarily be prominent in said year, just merely someone who has come to our attention.

The first person to become a Fastidious Assassin is Steve Albini. First, lets talk about Steve as a producer. To show his significance and genius as a producer all we need to do is list who he has worked with and it will prove itself: Slint, Pixies, Jesus Lizard, Urge Overkill, Breeders, The Wedding Present (their best album), Don Caballero, PJ Harvey, Nirvana, Jawbreaker, Melt-Banana, Breadwinner, Oxbow, Low, Dirty Three, Neurosis, Dianogah, Owls, Mogwai, Songs: Ohia, yourcodenameis:milo, Mclusky, Mono, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Mono. And this often on their best output....no more needs to be said. 

Now Steve as a musician. Big Black were a ferociously, robotic band. Angular, saw-like guitars cut threw shards of harsh drum-machine beats, to make perhaps the most intimidating music ever produced. Rapemen, I know little to nothing about, but from what I do know, is that it was in similar sadistic vain to Big Black...maybe the name gives it away. Shellac, in my opinion, is the greatest of Albini's output. The same cheese-wire guitars, but this time matched by thundering drums, and plodding bass, and the results are 3 (maybe 4...) albums, of the most anthemic anti-anthems of anger, vulgarity and masochism, perhaps "Prayer To God" being the best example. Shellac have now cemented themselves as a classic band, and have become, seemingly, the in-house band of All Tomorrows Parties Festival. Albini's "The future belongs to the analog loyalists. Fuck digital." mantra, shows Albini's hedonistic indie asthetics, and is something we admire here at The Fastidious Assassins. 

2009 Tips: 

Everything off the Big Scary Monsters label

Grammatics (Dance To The Radio)

Crystal Antlers

Animal Collective: Yes, I know they are already popular, but with the release of the new album, Merriweather Post Pavillion, they will be elevated to the thrones of indiedom, and the post-Animal Collective surge of bands will continue, their influence intact...

Los Campesinos!- We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

We are always constantly preached the mantra that first impressions are the extremely important; but with LC!, you can go fuck that mantra. 'Indier-than-thou' types will pass LC! off as twee-pop with little to no-substance, but this is a superficial stance. That view may have held up with debut Hold On Now, Youngster (the lyrics at times are a bit sickly... but with WAB, WAD, this standpoint has no ground- LC! have a vicious bite. It was a side I had always seen in them- (in the live arena they alluded to this) but many had over looked, but that time is over.

We can talk about the music later, as firstly I think the package as a whole is worth looking at. It comes only thirty-three weeks after releasing debut album Hold on Now, Youngster... and contains ten completely new tracks, having been recorded over an eleven-day recording with John Goodmanson in his Seattle studio in June 2008. No singles or videos are to be made from the record, and the record release comes in a limited number, packaged in a box set with a custom designed box, a self-made dvd, a poster,badges and a 37 page 'zine including the lyrics for the record....gasp for air....and its a great package for the price of a normal cd- so before you've even put the CD in (thats if you haven't already downloaded it illegally...shock horror) you feel LC! care for you dear listener. First track "Ways To Make It Through The Wall" opens the album in traditional LC! gusto, but theres now a sting in LC!'s tail, opening line of the album being- "I think it's fair to say that I chose hopelessness...and inflicted it on the rest of us". "Miserabilia" continues the theme, and has that slap in the face you screamed for on LC!'s debut. The title track is possibly the strongest of the bunch- sticking to the winning LC! formula, but with a few different touches; but it is "You'll Need Those Fingers For Crossing" that signals of the new direction LC! are trying to forge. The track opens rather melancholic, but by the end the guitars have lifted the track to a triumphant finale. "All Your Keyfabe Friends" ends the album in suitable style.

I don't want to give the impression that LC! have morphed into a leviathan-esque metal band of masochistic brutishness; the same twisted introspective, awkward-teenager lyrics are still intact, the xylophone still pounds in the choruses, and the sweet female backing vocals are still firmly in place, but LC! just now have an added edge. The lyrics are that little bit darker, the guitars are that little bit more distorted, the keyboards throb that little harder...where LC! will go next is anyones guess, but providing two albums of this quality in one year is a commendable feat to be respected by everyone, and the package is a lovable ornament in the age of digital downloads.

Joyous, skewed-pop 8.9/10

 

N.B- I attended the recent Shred Yr Face Tour with a LC! sceptic, and quite a sceptic he is. He passes LC! off as "poofy crap indie"- but as Gareth LC! introduced "Miserbelia" by saying "This is a song about how we are all going to die alone", my friend turns to me and says "They're dark...I never realised...it's beautiful"...

Travel Elevates Music

From my frequent voyages across the UK, I have come to find music is all the more potent when you can watch the world go by. I thus created a playlist that I felt soundtracked a journey adequately-

1. Swans- The Sound

2. Low- Breaker

3. Mogwai- The Precipice

4. Death Cab For Cutie- Transatlantacism

5. Eluvium- Genius and the Thieves

6. Caribou- Pelican Narrows

7. Portishead- Sour Times (Live)

8. Mount Eeerie- Voice In Headphones

9. M83- You, Appearing

10. Pedro The Lion- June 18, 1976

11. Shearwater- The Snow Leopard

Mogwai (Manchester Academy)

As I have been waiting to see Mogwai for many a year- tonight was always going to be seminal for me. We are treating to a fantastic bill of Errors and Fuck Buttons- the latter offer Mogwai-esque post-rock but with a dancier element, which despite an awful crowd turnout, goes down well with the small congregation. Fuck Buttons attract a far more healthier crowd, and whilst I wasn't expecting much- I enjoy the album in certain moods- Fuck Buttons blow me away. First- the volume. Excruciatingly loud- the throat shredding screams pierce your soul, and the beats pound your head into submission. Impressed to say the least. But of course, we are here to see Mogwai...and god they don't disappoint. The next hour and a half is a sonic onslaught of leviathan scale. New songs such as "The Precipice" hold their own alongside classics such as "Cody" and "2 Rights Make 1 Wrong"; and thank every deity known to man...they play "Xmas Steps"- the song that brought me to Mogwai's bosom. I had met one of the guys from Fuck Buttons the previous night at Shred Yr Face Tour, who told me they had played "Xmas Steps" for them as it was one of their' birthdays, but they were tired of playing it- so I was worried...but they played it...and it was all I had ever hoped it would be. If the set was like being attacked by a swarm of brutes- the encore was how you felt the next morning. Returning with "Like Herod" Mogwai continue to force deafness upon you. Your ears hate you, your heart hurts from the pounding bass, but its beautiful- a sick deluded masochistic beauty. They finish with "Batcat" from the new album, and they make the album version sound prudish, and pre-pubescent. Live, "Batcat", is like a lions roar, and seals itself as a classic in the Mogwai canon. I stumble from through the doors at the end, ears ringing, ears glazed over trying to take in what just happened...all I can say is- two days on and my ears are still ringing...

Shred Yr Face Tour (Manchester Academy)

3 bands on the cusp on indiedom, together on a knees-up circus tour of the UK. First band on- Times New Viking, meet little rapport and blank faces despite their efforts. Live, I'm not so sure if TNV work...on record they are beautifully laced in fuzz and feedback; and once this is taken to a live arena, the songs didn't work...but thats just me...No Age are next, and all I can say is that they are heirs to the Sub Pop throne. Feedback, slapdash drums, drooled lyrics of nihilism and a GG Allin cover thrown in for good measure. Whilst the songs seem to feature the same chord progressions, you can't help but be drawn in by this band- infectious. Los Campesinos! seem to have a large weight on their shoulders, in following these two feedback laced bands, and personally I thought they would come over too twee, but they step up. New songs mingle with old favourites, and LC! play with the vigour and tension to keep up with the previous bands. They end with "Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks" and are mobbed onstage by the other bands; and as the bands leave the stage, you feel a sense of community between these 3 bands, and in the days of mp3s and downloads- the comradeship is a breath of fresh air.