50 Years of Tunes - 2014 - Sharon Van Etten "Are We There"

Wrapping up my 50 years of tunes with my stand out album of 2014. I absolutely adore Sharon Van Etten and her most recent album is packed with outstanding songs.

Heartbreaking, spellbinding and simply wonderful.

2014 - Sharon Van Etten "Are We There"

Released: May 2014
Label: Jagjaguwar
Producer: Sharon Van Etten

Track List:

1. "Afraid of Nothing" 4:05
2. "Taking Chances" 3:50
3. "Your Love Is Killing Me" 6:18
4. "Our Love" 3:53
5. "Tarifa" 4:51
6. "I Love You But I’m Lost" 4:19
7. "You Know Me Well" 4:32
8. "Break Me" 4:01
9. "Nothing Will Change" 3:16
10. "I Know" 3:36
11. "Every Time the Sun Comes Up" 4:23



.

Musical Advent Day 25: Meilyr Jones - Refugees

Happy Christmas everyone! Whatever you do I hope you have a lovely day.

This is my song of the year. It was the first of three tunes release by Meilyr Jones this year and really blew my socks off. Meilyr was formerly singer in a band called Race Horses (who were previously known as Radio Luxembourg) who were pretty great but he's taken things to a whole new level if this song is anything to go by. One of my tips for the top in 2016.

Musical Advent Day 24: Sauna Youth - Transmitters

For those of you who've been with me from day 1 this is the final part of the Lindsay Corstorphine trilogy. Sauna Youth were the first of the three bands I heard and this single is probably the best thing they've done so far. A band I hope to see live next year and one I think could be a favourite for a long time to come.

Musical Advent Day 23: LoneLady - Hinterland

I'm writing these a few days in advance so I'm not sure if I've published my Top 5 Albums of 2015 yet but I can certainly say the LoneLady LP did pretty well. Another case of an album so good I struggled to pick my favourite song, Hinterland is the title track and I think the tune that really won me over to LoneLady's sound. It's sparse and spiky and magnificent.

50 Years of Tunes - 2013 - Low "The Invisible Way"

Low have been working their way into my affections since I heard Just Like Christmas from their 1999 Christmas E.P.

I have only recently begun working my way through their back catalogue so I have plenty to discover but all the albums I've heard so far have been consistently marvelous.

The Invisible Way was the catalyst for me finally seeing them live. I had to drive all the way to Cambridge to do so but it was totally worth it.

2013 - Low "The Invisible Way"

Released: March 2013
Label: Sub Pop
Producer: Jeff Tweedy

Track List:

1. "Plastic Cup" 3:01
2. "Amethyst" 5:20
3. "So Blue (So Young)" 4:23
4. "Holy Ghost" 3:06
5. "Waiting" 2:37
6. "Clarence White" 3:47
7. "Four Score" 2:56
8. "Just Make It Stop" 4:08
9. "Mother" 2:52
10. "On My Own" 5:43
11. "To Our Knees" 3:08



.

Musical Advent Day 22: The Leisure Society - Tall Black Cabins

Most of the tunes in my Top 25 are from albums that I've also enjoyed but this is a song that caught my attention in isolation. The tall black cabins mentioned are the net drying huts used by local fisherman on The Stade in Hastings, an area I know quite well. It's a beautiful song but the link with a place I know made it resonate all the more.

Musical Advent Day 21: The Wave Pictures - Pea Green Coat

Into my top 5 songs of the year now.

The Wave Pictures have been pushing out great tunes at a rate of knots for some time now but this years collaboration with Wild Billy Childish was a real high water mark. Pea Green Coat wasn't on the album but it's the tune with the most obvious Childish influence and a firm favourite round these parts.

Musical Advent Day 20: Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love

I got into Sleater-Kinney just after they went on hiatus, the best part of 10 years ago, so was particularly excited by their return to recorded & live music. This is the title track from their latest album and pretty much picks up exactly where they left off. They can do no wrong in my book and this is a corker of a tune.

Musical Advent Day 19: Joanna Newsom - Sapokanikan

This came a little out of the blue, after a gap of some five years since triple album Have One on Me. It almost sounded too good to be true but the more I heard it the more I liked it.

Top 25 Albums of 2015 - No.5 to No.1

The final part of my Top 25 Albums of 2015 neatly provides my first Top 5 summary of 2015. All five of these albums were contenders for the number one spot at some point in the year. The fact that Sleater-Kinney, one of my very favourite bands returning after a ten year hiatus, only come fifth underlines this.

5. Sleater-Kinney "No Cities To Love" - Pitchfork review - No Cities to Love is a disarming, liberationist force befitting the Sleater-Kinney canon. Fervent political leftism has been implicit to this Olympia-born trio since they first inverted Boston's "More Than a Feeling" on a 1994 comp and that goes on here as well; we desperately need it. It is astonishing that a radical DIY punk band could grow up and keep going with this much dignity and this many impossibly chiseled choruses. No Pistol, Ramone, or unfortunate mutation of Black Flag could have done this.

4. Thee Oh Sees "Mutilator Defeated At Last" - Pitchfork review - Thee Oh Sees have one type of song that is consistently great. It’s the fast and heavy track that combines the creepy and ugly sensibility of the Cramps with krautrock's streamlined sense of repetition. Mutilator delivers plenty of these songs. "Withered Hand", "Lupine Ossuary", and "Rogue Planet" each strikes that perfect balance of druggy alienation and soothing forward motion, of sublime rhythmic focus and freaked-out guitar violence.

3. Ezra Furman "Perpetual Motion People" - Guardian review - It rages along at a cathartic intensity that perfectly matches the lyrics. Haunted Head evokes the tumult of a bipolar mind in manic mode, the opening Restless Year and Lousy Connection are part painful self-examination, part triumphant Rebel Rebelish rallying cries.

2. B.C. Camplight "How To Die In The North" - The 405 review - This will be a lot of people's first encounter with BC, so let's get one important thing out of the way: he sounds a lot like Brian Wilson. Not just in voice, but in tone, delivery and arrangement too. It's a little disconcerting at first, but go with it: there is treasure in abundance on this record. The theatrical influence is undeniable, from the torch-song opening of 'Good Morning Headache' to the deliciously overwrought chorus of closer 'Why Doesn't Anybody Fall In Love'. It is light years ahead of his previous two albums.

1. LoneLady "Hinterland" - The Quietus review - Hinterland is playful – a vibrant and urgent combination of genealogy and vision – and it is this that truly makes it a masterpiece. Not only does Julie Campbell have the creative chops to create such richly evocative music, but she does it with a wink and a smile. Hinterland feels like a thesis on Manchester and its musical lore. By simply adding the rhythm of her shoes hitting the pavement, she's transformed a nostalgic archive into tightly executed, profoundly new, dance music.

.