Best Albums of 2009 so far

Has been a while since last post. I will be better from now on, promise....here's the plan for the next few weeks-

• Album reviews- new Dinosaur Jr, new Sonic Youth, Dirty Projectors, Manic Street Preachers
  
• Live reviews- Deerhunter, Johnny Foreigner, Joan of Arc

So that's the next few weeks, and here is my favourite albums of the year so far aha:

• Pains of Being Pure At Heart- S/T
• Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavillion
• Dan Deacon Bromst
• Women- S/T
• Sky Larkin- The Golden Spike
• Wavves- S/T
• Calories- Adventuring
• Grizzly Bear- Vecktamist
• Grammatics- S/T
• Dirty Projectors- Bitte Orca
• Future of the Left- Travels...

Women/Elmo Logic (Night and Day Manchester)

As I wonder into the hallowed Night and Day, Elmo Logic's eerie-pop is mulling at the back of the room. The spiky staccato Interpol guitar lines flutter tremendously, whilst the rest of the band are locked in Grammatics-esque baroque theatrics...well worth keeping an eye on...

I have been intrigued by the live prospect of Women; as the album itself is confusing yet intriguing. The spiraling discordant side of Women is much more notable in the live setting, with the freak outs Swell-Maps- style, coming across a lot more prominently than the lo-fi fuzz-pop that is the album. The set is short and loud, with swaying distortion flying about everywhere, each song drifting into the next; and the effect is powerful. The set was always teetering on being self-indulgent and hard-going, but the band are tight and a well-oiled machine, so the set is punchy; and most importantly, underneath the feedback and effects, are damn fine pop songs.

Start of 2009 Albums

This year has started very well in terms of records and it shows no signs of slowing down, and with gigs from Women, Parts and Labor, Wild Beasts, 65 Days of Static, Wavves, Grammatics, Art Brut and Dananananaykroyd coming up; 2009 is shaping up to be a great year

                                            

Pains of Being Pure At Heart- S/T

As a sucker for female led twee-pop, this album was always going to be a favourite of mine. So I'm full of hyperbole, so here it goes, take it how you want...(warning if you hate twee, you will hate this records, or like me, it will go straight to your heart). I'll keep it short, a Smithsian pedigree of songwriting, and 

enchanting Boy/Girl vocals, make this a beautiful pop record. Full. Stop.

Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavillion

What can I say about this album that hasn't already been said? Yes, there's a lot of hype around this record. Yes, if you don't get Animal Collective then it will see overrated (I used to be in this camp). Yes, its just another Animal Collective album with added reverb. But, in my eyes its just a fantastic pop record, that brightens up the dismal weather. Give it a chance, and it'll grow, I promise. I may regret that....

Women- Women

This album takes many twists and turns, and is at times quite a confusing record. Sometimes its chiming and popp

y and all Velvet-Undergroundy, then at other times its all discordant and fuzzy, but under all this lies a really strong record, that in time becomes a very clear signal of intent. I think there is a lot more to come from these guys

Grammatics- Grammatics

A band I have been following for ages, finally release their first full-length, and it is well well well well worth the wait. An album designed for sitting down with big headphones on, and listening to it as a whole; skewed pop stretched over epic proportions of spiky guitars, pounding bass, and sharp cello, and the production is stellar. I am looking forward to see how this translates live, but this record could well be the album of 2009 already, fantastic....

Overlooked Records of 2008

A year full of fantastic music always meant that some gems would be missed, and here are a few I have stumbled upon:

Marnie Stern- This is It, and I am It.....

Like a rolling stone, Marnie's new album really gallops with her fantastic finger tapping keeping each song ticking over, powered by the awesome locomotive that is Zach Hill. Couldn't have picked a better line up myself....

Grouper- Dragging A Dead Deer Up a Hill

A sparse yet intimate, frightening yet heart-felt, hooded creature of a record, is perfect for evening walks in the autumn. A beautiful Cat Power-esque voice, that really resonates in your soul

Beach House- Devotion

A haunting and beautiful record, filled with beautiful reverb and gorgeous percussion that wrap each song in a beautiful warm romanticist bubble, teetering on the edge of bursting. I feel very stupid for missing out on this the first time. If you haven't already investigated, investigate NOW.

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