Category Archives: General

Tracks of 2009 – pt. 1 – Busking it

After much soul searching, some blog eating posting and a bit of prevarication here’s the first music of 2009 post. Yet again I’m going to go for a different format to before and so I’m just going to use youtube this time.

This first collection of tunes are all bands from these isles and like a lot of bands I like their names begin with M (see also Madness, Misty’s Big Adventure and Moondog) – somehow I’ve wound up with a loose theme which is that all of these videos show them busking or performing in a bandstand.

Micachu – Curly Teeth

Watch this video on YouTube.

Micachu’s debut got held up the other day as one of the albums that the mainstream missed last year. I’m a bit perplexed by that, Micachu are easily the best known of the acts I’ll mention here and only because they’re on a major label. I think anyone who believes that producing a decent album or song alone will get you noticed is ascribing magic powers to the works of critics and the internet. Both the great unwashed and washed alike will like what they like when they like and anyone who despairs at them for it misses the point. Maybe the BBC are just grumpy their own hype had no effect. <RANT OVER>
On the actual music, well it’s oddball instrumentation with wailing vocals and production from Herbert. Impressively it’s not all about the studio wizardry as this live performance shows that the songs are fed as much by musical efforts as those in production.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Pt.1

Watch this video on YouTube.

God I love Meursault. I saw them live twice in London, but must catch them back home in Edinburgh some time. Most of my experiences of their live shows have been akin to this performance, stripped back and haunting. This song is determinedly earnest but an absolute joy as they segue from handclaps to wailing vocals.

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5 years of London does not equal 5 years of playlist

It’s time for my annual X (X being 5 this year!) years post in London post (well, almost a month over, but hey). This year I’ve made a Spotify playlist of music that I associate with London having listened to it whilst here, or as I’ve roughly titled it London’s Track Record.

The idea here is that these are the songs I most remember from the last 5 years, I’ve put it all in a rough order of when I listened to it first.
You can link straight to songs below, and I’ve whacked some comments alongside justifying my choices. Do please comment and nag if you need an invite for Spotify, I have some to spare.

Enjoy. I blame Pitchfork for making me get all musically retrospective with their P2K feature. Proper were the 00s a good decade for music posts to follow…

London’s Track Record

Ratatat – Spanish Armada

My main listenning on train south was Ratatat’s debut album which had obsessed me for a while, if I hear the last few songs I always feel like I’m heading south for some reason.

Fridge – Cut Up Piano and Xylophone

My initial commute to work was cross-town from my aunt’s house in Leytonstone. I found myself with a good hour or more to fill so would read and listen to music a lot in the mornings and evenings. One morning I was changing trains at Gospel Oak when I hit this track just as I descended the stairs to get the train. It felt weirdly apt and set me up for the day

Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy Jr

I doubt it’s possible to really have been an indie kid and missed Sufjan, but for a while I was rapt and remember spending a lot of my first London summer relaxing and listening to this whilst reading.

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St Vincent – just a damn fine Actor

stvincentactor This week I have been mostly listening to the new St Vincent album, Actor. I originally tripped up over her first album Marry Me on emusic, having seen it reviewed on Pitchfork. Marry me was stuffed full of lengthy, wordy songs with her clear and crisp vocals matched with equally clear and crisp guitar and light orchestration which made it at times feel like some kind of Broadway musical. If anything frustrated me it was a slight lack of edge, but I still loved what was there.

Then, smack out came her new album Actor preceded by the single Actor Out Of Work, which hinted at but didn’t reveal the fine balance that the Actor would tread.

Watch this video on YouTube.

For St Vincent it’s indecently loud, with NOISE everywhere, little wonder the others in the music video are crying. There’s also distortion everywhere, and it’s distortion that this album really specialises in. [1. At times, having just installed a new sound card, I was getting concerned my drivers were installed wrongly and malfunctioning.] One track that’s really come to be my favourite is Marrow, where the noise and distortion is combined with horns to create a fascinating funky backing to the kind of pitying lyrics that I’m more used to hearing from male vocalists. [2. maybe because I listen to more of them]

In a rare move, critical judgement of this album is similarly positive elsewhere though I am perplexed by an NME review that seems little more than a list of name checks.