The Fastidious Assassins

For lovers of art in all its wondrous forms. A place for reflection and discussion, deliberation and discovery...

Wednesday 3 December 2008

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...