Songs of 2011 pt. 1

It's that time of the year again, time for me to make a list of my favourite 20 songs of the year, which I'm going to try and do in groups of 5 between now and the end of the year. There is no order to these as I find that sort of ordering a little too difficult. I'm only going to only choose one track from each artist though which is tough.

2011 has been a pretty good year for music, for me maybe not so many great new artists as I would have liked but some fantastic new abums from bands and artists who have expanded and evolved their sounds.


Bon Iver - Holocene

Bon Iver's self titled second album is my album of the year, it's a record which I can listen to again and again and lose myself in it completely. It was really hard for me to choose only one song from this album and after some deliberation I've had to go with 'Holocene'. This song is moving, well written and lyrically beautiful. There are so much going on in this song that you almost discover something new with every listen.

Lykke Li - I follow Rivers

Lykke Li shows just how good pop songs should be written. 'Wounded Rhymes', her second album is absolutely brilliant and 'I Follow Rivers' is one of its finest moments. She returned with a darker, edgier sound that shakes away some of the youthfullness of her first album and this song shows just how far she has come. Like my Bon Iver choice before it was difficult to choose one song from this album but this just nudges it, a big catchy chorus and some great production throughout, I'll be listening to this for years to come.

Metronomy - The Bay 

Metronomy returned this year with a new sound, a full band and a concept album based on Torbay, what's not to like? This song is the centrepiece of that album, and what a song this is, even the video makes Torbay look good! The Erol Alkan edit is my remix of the year, a no brainer really there, and the original is fantastic in its own right. The Bay highlights just how much Metronomy's sound has changed since the first record while still maintaining the elements of why we loved them in the first place.

Wild Beasts - Bed Of Nails

Wild Beasts might not be to everyone's tastes and in fact I was slightly nonplussed about them until I saw them play an absolute blinder of a set at End Of The Road festival. Built up with some fantastic harmonies and what is a really individual sound for a guitar band at a time when much seems to be sounding the same to me. Intertwining melodies and sounds backed by a solid bass line and some great rythms really make this song deserving of its place in my top songs of the year. 

SBTRKT - Wildfire 

Featuring Sweden's Little Dragon (who released a great album in their own right this year), SBTRKT have produced a sparse dance sound that seperates it from the dearth of dull dubstep that came before it. This track is an absolute stormer on what is a really clever and well thought out album. Wildfire is a dark, brooding song song for small clubs and sweaty dancefloors, amazing.  

Goats cheese, asparagus and sun dried tomato tart

So I had my mum over for dinner last night and time wasn't on my side so I whipped this dish up. It's really simple but looks and tastes amazing. I used ready rolled puff which is far simpler and time consuming than making the real thing.

First of all dust a baking sheet with flour and cut a couple of tart sized rectangles of puff pastry and place them on the sheet. Score the puff using a sharp knife about 2cm in from the edge but careful not to cut all the way through.

Take four stems of asparagus cut into 2cm pieces (leaving the spear whole for the top of the tart) and 8 sun dried tomatoes, and mix in a bowl to allow the asparagus to take on some of the oil from the tomatoes. Layer the tomatoes and asparagus up on the tart with the spear on top and crumbled up soft goats cheese throughout,  cook on about 200 degrees for 12 or so minutes.

Easy.

Butternut Squash and Courgette Tagine

So maybe it might seem a bit strange that the second recipe I post on my blog also contains butternut squash but that's ok because it's a great vegetable. I more or less based this on a recipe I got from a cookbook with a few alterations. 

This is really simple to make and tastes great, I did it to serve two with enough left for my lunch the next day. 

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1/2 medium butternut squash

1 medium courgette

2 tins of chopped tomatoes

Pinch of saffron thread

2 teaspoons of crushed cumin seeds 

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons of crushed coriander seeds

1 cinnamon stick

1 large red chilli

1 tablespoon of honey

Peel the butternut squash and chop it into 2cm cubes, do the same with the courgette. Now finely chop and fry the onion in olive oil for a few minutes, then add the chopped garlic, after a minute or so add all the dried spices and stir for another minute before adding the chopped chilli. Add the tomatoes, cinnamon stick, honey and vegetables. 

Cook until tender, which is about 30 mins. You may need to top up with a bit of water to stop it drying out. Once done season and add plenty of chopped coriander. I then garnished with a little extra coriander and served with cous cous.  

The cous cous I served it with tonight was 150g with a knob of butter in the bottom, zest of a lemon, chopped green chilli and finely chopped coriander with enough boiling water on top to cook it through. 

Primal Scream at the Eden Project

Here is a review I did for Primal Scream....

Watching a band perform a classic album they released 20 years ago against a backdrop that made me feel like I was in the future was a pretty special if contradictory experience. For those of you who haven’t been to the Eden Sessions or indeed the Eden Project before, the setting for tonight’s gig was a natural amphitheatre placed in front of massive bio-domes containing all sorts of tropical vegetation - it’s like nothing else you’ve seen before. 

After hastily making my way across Devon to Cornwall for tonight’s gig, I arrived a little into The Horrors’ set to be greeted by ‘Who Can Say’. The setting seemed strange and distant for a band far more suited to dark and dingy clubs than the bright sunshine and open space they found themselves in.  Nevertheless, there was a sense of them really trying - they offered up a set that included a fair few tracks from their upcoming third album Skying alongside the best from their previous two offerings, the highlight being an excellent version of ‘Sea Within a Sea’. Despite appreciating the effort they went to – necessary to counter the far from ideal, if idyllic surroundings - one couldn’t help but feel that it was lost on a crowd who clapped appreciatively enough, but still seemed slightly unsure what to make of it all. 

Of course the atmosphere changed when Primal Scream ascended to the stage, the audience being right on side from the off, despite not being sure what to make of old Robert Gillespie’s metallic silver shirt.

Being able to start with a song like ‘Movin’ On Up’ is a privileged position for a band to be in, and just then it really hits home how special an album Screamadelica really is. The majority of the crowd, unlike me, were old enough to remember the LP the first time around, and reacted as if they had been transported back to the week of release. 

The whole shebang was worked through fantastically, with the many altered and extended versions of its classic songs being gratefully received, none more so than the lovingly doctored ‘Higher than the Sun’. Bravely, the ‘Scream even played with the tracklisting to get the most from the crowd, ending on a combination of ‘Loaded’ and ‘Come Together’ which had the audience singing long after they’d left the stage. 

Not content with treating us to just one classic record, following ‘Come Together’ the band retook to the stage for an encore of ‘Country Girl’, ‘Jailbird’ and ‘Rocks’ which really topped off a fantastic performance against an amazing backdrop.

The death of the high street record store revisited

Back in January I posted about the decline in high street record stores which you can read in full here. Since then things seem to have become bleaker still, as in the space of a few short months following that post, Exeter lost its Fopp records and now another local independant is following suit. Yesterday I was alerted to the fact that Martian Records on Ghandi St., is soon to be shutting its doors to the public and was having a closing down sale. I mourned the loss of Fopp as HMV really doesn't have the feel or charm that it used to and now Martian has lost its battle too.

Martian Records, along with the now defunct Solo Records were where I spent many hours and many pounds when I was younger and it seems like the excuse of the internet killing music retail has finally won in Exeter. Although I perhaps haven't visited Martian as much over recent years as I used to apart from the occasional trawl through sale and second hand stock or more recently to see a chaotic Computers album launch gig in there, it will still be missed.

Will HMV last out the year?

Rival Schools and Trail of Dead - Electric Ballroom, April 15th 2011

I went to see these bands the other week and here is my review, which is published in full here 

http://www.rockfeedback.com/review/5022/and-you-will-know-us-by-the-trail-of-dead-rival-schools-electric-ballroom-london-1542011/

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Whilst I had a preconceived bias towards seeing two of my all time favourite bands in one of my favourite venues before this gig even began, I was also somewhat fearful that tonight’s gig might not live up to my lofty expectations. It was nearly a decade ago when I first saw each of these bands headlining their own shows, and I was suitably impressed to repeat the experiences a number of times since. So what has changed in the last 10 years? Rival Schools have spent most of this in hiatus, only recently returning with a second album to follow the critically acclaimed United by Fate.  Yet despite an at times perplexing fall from critical grace, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead never really went away, releasing four albums in the period and shifting the line up multiple times since these eyes first gazed their way.

Yet the energy behind Rival Schools tonight seemed at odds with their long vacation, with songs from new album Pedals  blending seamlessly with those from their aforementioned classic debut. Playing the opener of new before moving to the opener of the old, their hour long set brought together the best of both records, actually making their new album sound like it could have come out the year after their first. When played back to back, ‘Undercovers On’ and ‘Good Things’ took me back to a time when bands like Rival Schools and their British counterparts in bands like Hundred Reasons and Hell is For Heroes were ruling the rock world. I was engrossed in my memories which were only shattered for a moment by Walter likening their touring habits to Bon Jovi, followed by an impromptu verse of said band, before closing with signature tune ‘Used for Glue’.

In terms of sheer performance, having seen Rival Schools perhaps 6 or 7 times, I’d say this was the best of the bunch - perhaps it was the inclusion of a raft of new songs, or simply because the band had put their differences to rest, and decided to just enjoy themselves again. Whatever the reason for their new found invigoration, it made it extremely easy for the audience to follow suit.

By contrast the start of Trail of Dead’s is slightly slow to get going, the crowd seeming somewhat ambivalent towards the trio of songs from new LP ‘Tao of the Dead’ they used to open.  However, after these three songs, they decided to take us back with ‘Will You Smile Again?’, at which point everything seemed to come to life.  This was as close to a Greatest Hits set as a band like Trail of Dead can ever hope to have.

The rest of their set drew almost exclusively from their first four albums, the highlights of which included an excellent, reworked version of ‘Relative Ways’ and a closing rendition of ‘A Perfect Teenhood’ with enough raw energy still present to blow me away.  On stage the band reminisced of their first UK show at the Highbury Garage, and mused on the reasons they seemed to be more liked over here than on the other side of the Atlantic.  Put it down to better taste, I guess.

I came away feeling I’d witnessed two bands still pouring the same amount of enthusiasm and vigour into their live performances as they ever have, with any prior apprehension I may have had that the pair may have past their best before date proved emphatically wrong. 

Music Diary Project Day 5

I'm a little bit late in putting Friday's entry together, and I do so with a slight hangover, and by slight I mean horrific.

Friday began with listening to the Beth Ditto E.P. on the way to work, it's only four songs, so I managed the whole thing, it's a really great few tracks and I think she just has a fantastic voice. Following this I managed to squeeze in Band of Horses - Is there a Ghost? before arriving at work.

I was just blown away by how much it felt like summer yesterday, and when I got in I put on Weezer - Say it Ain't So while I got ready to go out.

So yesterday evening I had a radio show on phonic.fm, I do it every other Friday 8-10pm and here is a list of what I played (this may not be in the exact order though).

Paper Planes (DFA Remix) - M.I.A.

L.E.S Artistes - Santogold

Sun Hands - Local Natives

Postcards From Italy - Beirut

Litigation - Mariachi El Bronx

Surprise Hotel - Fool's Gold

Fools Golld - The Stone Roses

Learn to Lose - Hockey

Kiss Of Life - Friendly Fires

Time Bomb - Dismemberment Plan

Australia - The Shins

Float On - Modest Mouse

Walking On A Dream - Empire Of The Sun

Pot Kettle Black - Tilly & The Wall

Pump It Up - Elvis Costello

Train In Vain - The Clash

If You Got The Money - Jamie T

Suffragette Suffragette - Everything Everything

Young Love (Ft Laura Marling) - Mystery Jets

This Orient - Foals

Fine + 2 Pts - Minus The Bear

Young Blood - The Naked and Famous

Sister Saviour - The Rapture

Drunk Girls - LCD Soundsystem

Da Funk - Daft Punk

After that I got very drunk and let my friend down. Sorry.