May 14th, 2008

Prattle-free Podcast of 20071 comment
m posted in General moans, Podcasts on January 10th, 2008

Best of 2007 - Apples in Stereo, Black Francis, Polyphonic Spree, The Aliens, LCD Soundsystem, Spoon, The Crimea, The Shins, Jason Falkner, Manic Street Preachers, Polytechnic, The Rakes, Serj Tankian, fortune drive, Switches, Future of the Left, Maximo Park, Hot Hot Heat, Arcade Fire, Voxtrot.

Tracks from my favourite albums of the year, not in order of preference. Click here for the 2007 chart Podcast, and all the previous ones. This is what’s in it;

  • Apples in Stereo - Skyway
  • Black Francis - You can’t break a heart and have it
  • Polyphonic Spree - Running away
  • The Aliens - Only Waiting
  • LCD Soundsystem - Us v Them
  • Spoon - Don’t make me a target
  • The Crimea - Light brigade
  • The Shins - Australia
  • Jason Falkner - Contact
  • Manic Street Preachers - Rendition
  • Polytechnic - Cold-hearted business
  • The Rakes - Little superstitions
  • Serj Tankian - Lie lie lie
  • fortune drive - Vimto vignette
  • Switches - Drama queen
  • Future of the Left - Small bones small bodies
  • Maximo Park - Our velocity
  • Hot Hot Heat - So so cold
  • Arcade Fire - No cars go
  • Voxtrot - Blood red blood
    		• An outstanding year, musically.

    They’re not in order of preference, and they’re not necessarily my favourite tracks from the albums. I’d already put some of my favourites on previous Podcasts, so I chose some different ones. However, I love every track in this podcast, and enthusiastically recommend each album from which they were harvested.

    You can download the file directly by clicking here, but I’d still rather you subscribed through iTunes, or whatever.

    Albums of 20070 comments
    m posted in General moans, Music on January 10th, 2008

    Right. I’ve been putting this off, because there’s lots to say about lots of albums, and I never get round to it. So, with almost no nonsense, here’s my list of favourite albums from 2007. Why so many? Well, this year I thought I’d rate every track in iTunes, then work out averages for albums, and use that as the basis of a chart. Then, I shunted things around a bit, because some albums hang together really nicely, but might not have as many big-hitting tracks on them. So this, more-or-less, is the result. Most really bad things, or things that annoyed me a little too much, were deleted and therefore not included in the rankings. Other things missed out because I cocked up the years e.g. Sondre Lerche, though I wasn’t overly keen on that album anyway.

    Anyway, stop faffing. Here’s my album chart of 2007. Podcast to follow shortly.
    The top 25;


    1 Voxtrot - Voxtrot     		Simply wonderful. At first, Voxtrot struck me as a bunch of fairly dull indie weaklings. It seems that most people still agree with that initial appraisal, but I don’t. Many reviews have said that the album didn’t live up to the promise of their earlier EPs, but I prefer to think they’ve gone in a slightly different direction. Given the added resources (in terms of time, money and an experienced producer) the album contains more layers than the EPs. Some of the songs are packed with strings, woodwind and layers of guitars, giving the music the kind of gravitas that the lyrics often demand. In other places, they strip it back, and leave Ramesh Srivastava’s fragile vocal stranded, drawing attention to the words and the melody. It’s a beautifully crafted album, with a number of immensely powerful songs, which reward repeated listens. There’s something quite charming about an album whose climactic finale revolves around the line, “I’m just trying to do my best; I’m not afraid of life, I’m afraid of death.” It’s an admirable motto for life, I think. You may prefer to think that it’s nonsense or trite, but I’d have to disagree. It very nearly sends shivers down my spine.

    2 Apples in Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder
    3 Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army

    4 Polytechnic - Down til dawn
    5 Fortune Drive - A modern question

    6 Shins, The - Wincing the night away
    7 LCD Soundsystem - Sound of silver

    8 Rakes, The - Ten new messages
    9 Manic Street Preachers - Send away the tigers

    10 Aliens - Astronomy for dogs
    11 Switches - Heart tuned to D.E.A.D.

    12 Serj Tankian - Elect the dead
    13 Hot Hot Heat - Happiness Ltd.

    14 Jason Falkner - I’m OK…you’re OK
    15 Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

    16 Arcade Fire - Neon bible
    17 Black Francis - Bluefinger

    18 Future of the Left - Curses
    19 Crimea, The - Secrets of the witching hour

    20 Maximo Park - Our earthly pleasures
    21 Biffy Clyro - Puzzle

    22 Electrelane - No shouts, no calls
    23 Of Montreal - Hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?

    24 Bloc Party - A weekend in the city
    25 Wildhearts, The - The Wildhearts

    Here are the rest;

    26 Mark Ronson - Version
    27 Super Furry Animals - Hey Venus
    28 Art Brut - It’s a bit complicated
    29 Radiohead - In Rainbows
    30 Mando Diao - Never seen the light of day
    31 New Pornographers - Challengers
    32 Malcolm Middleton - A brighter beat
    33 Patrick Wolf - The magic position
    34 Air Traffic - Fractured life
    35 Stars - In our bedroom after the war
    36 Fields - Everything last winter
    37 Nine Black Alps - Love/Hate
    38 National, The - Boxer
    39 Gruff Rhys - Candylion
    40 The good, the bad and the queen
    41 Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the rings
    42 Wombats, The - Proudly Present A Guide To Love, Loss & Desperation
    43 Modest Mouse - We were dead before the ship even sank
    44 Hives, The - The black and white album
    45 Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
    46 Interpol - Our love to admire
    47 Foo Fighters - Echoes, silence, patience and grace
    48 Jackdaw4 - Bipolar Diversions
    49 Architecture in Helsinki - Places like this
    50 Hoosiers, The - The trick to life
    51 Pigeon Detectives, The - Wait for me
    52 Flash Hawk Parlor Ensemble - Plastic bag in the tree
    53 Tim Armstrong - A poet’s life
    54 Pepe Deluxe - Spare time machine
    55 Bravery, The - The sun and the moon
    56 Beirut - The flying club cup
    57 Buffalo Tom - Three easy pieces
    58 Euros Childs - Bore Da     		59 Cribs, The - Men’s needs, women’s needs, whatever
    60 Reverend and the makers - The state of things
    61 Jakobinarina - The first crusade
    62 Shout Out Louds - Our ill wills
    63 Rooney - Calling the world
    64 Mumm-Ra - These things move in threes
    65 Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero
    66 Calvin Harris - I created disco
    67 Ash - Twilight of the innocents
    68 Rilo Kiley - Under the blacklight
    69 Hours, The - Narcissus Road
    70 Bjork - Volta
    71 Zita Swoon - Big City
    72 Robocop Kraus, The - Blunders and mistakes
    73 Mystery Jets - Zootime
    74 Ginger - Yoni
    75 Hoover’s Ooover - Futoshiki to Sono Kai
    76 Concretes, The - Hey Trouble
    77 Fountains of Wayne - Traffic and weather
    78 Unkle - War stories
    79 Charlotte Hatherley - The deep blue
    80 1990s - Cookies
    81 Ghosts - The world is outside
    82 Warlocks, The - Heavy deavy skull lover
    83 Kaiser Chiefs - Yours truly, angry mob
    84 Cult, The - Born into this
    85 Panda Bear - Person pitch
    86 Battles - Mirrored
    87 St. Vincent - Marry Me
    88 Port o’Brien - The wind and the swell
    89 Dykeenies, The - Nothing means everything
    90 Lethal Bizzle - Back to Bizznizz
    91 Air - Pocket Symphony

    Prattle-free Podcast 244 comments
    m posted in Podcasts on October 11th, 2007

    Jakobinarina, Soulwax, Future of the Left, Ting Tings, Hoover’s Ooover, Little Ones, The Bravery, Rooney, King Jacks, Wannadies, Pepe Deluxe, Eberg.

    Not exactly great to be back

    Hisashiburi. It’s been a while since the last podcast. This is partly due to a lack of enthusiasm, partly due to taking a few weeks out to enjoy China, and partly because I’ve been listening to virtually nothing but Voxtrot. More of China in another (we)blog post at some point.

    Still, some good things have arrived over the last couple of months. Radiohead just put out their new album, and it turned out to be very good indeed. I haven’t included any of it here, because you know where to get it (from their website) and you can get a copy of the whole thing for 46p including fees. So you might as well get it, if you’re interested. It costs less than a can of Coke, and is ethically purer. Also, the squawky bloke out of Mclusky has produced an album, I belatedly stumbled across Icelandic bleep-merchant Eberg, and I’ve booked up quite a lot of gigs. Oh, and I saw “I’m From Barcelona” which would’ve been a life-changing experience, if I weren’t such a miserable bastard.

    Download/subscribe to number 24 from here. Is it good enough for what you’re paying?

    Jakobinarina - This is an advertisement
    Went to a 6Music-sponsored gig at the Fleece the other week, which was headlined by the amusingly dreadful Cribs. There were two support bands, of which Jakobinarina were the second and the best. They’re not likely to change the world, but they’re good fun and the album is 20% brilliant, 30% good and 47% OK (3% margin of error).

    Soulwax - NY Excuse
    An old one, but I seem to have been playing it at enormous volume in the car recently, so I think you ought to enjoy it for yourselves. I seem to remember the woman is Nancy Whang, of LCD Soundsystem (and possibly the partner of one of the Dewaele brothers). I’M GETTING LOUD WITH YOU!

    Future of the Left - Manchasm
    Hooray! Andy Falkous, out of Mclusky, is back with another noisy band. Ridiculous lyrics remain, including “Colin is a pussy, a very pretty pussycat” or something similar. Great song, I think.

    Ting Tings - that’s not my name
    Crap sound quality on this one, I’m afraid. I got a clearer version, but it’s a different recording/mix, which I think is weaker than this one. Great song, which only seemed to go out on 7″. No doubt it’ll reappear.

    Hoover’s Ooover - something in Japanese
    I don’t have a translation of the name of this song. Been listening to them a bit more, due to recent Japanese flight bookings. Liked them since they appeared on the outstanding Adam & Joe Go Tokyo a few years ago.

    Little Ones - Lovers who uncover
    This has been around for ages, I think. It’s worth it just for that shouty bit in the middle.

    The Bravery - Angelina
    I was fairly surprised they bothered with a second album. Not many people noticed it was released, it seemed. Among the OK songs on that album, was this rather popmungous tunefest.

    Rooney - Stay with me
    This came out years ago, and must’ve got some play on radio somewhere, because I remember liking it. Doesn’t do a great deal, but it’s got a nice feel to it. Rooney have returned with another album, which is pretty much 100% pop, and occasionally slightly embarrassing. Still, I’m going to see them play in a few weeks’ time, so I’m revising.

    King Jacks - nothing lasts forever
    I don’t think they’ve actually released anything yet, but this is a song by a new London band, who will doubtless flower into the latest Libertine Monkeys copyists. Anyway, this song reminds me of Milburn’s “What you could’ve won”, and I appear to be the only person on the planet who thinks that’s a very good thing indeed. Not sure if this is quite as good as that, but I like it anyway.

    The Wannadies - Hit
    I’m not going to have any argument about this. Hit is one of the greatest singles ever recorded. Its place in the historical pecking order varies on a daily basis, but it remains a brilliant, brilliant song. Included here for no reason other than it’s fantastic.

    Pepe Deluxe - Mischief of cloud six
    Er, what? (”I say yeahyeah”) Mmm? Sounds like Mike Flowers Pops. Ridiculous thing.

    Eberg - Twinkle Tune
    Icelandic man whose album features a song about moving to Wales. But it’s this one that really marks him out as being more than just another icelandic bleepyscratchysoundscape merchant. Some lovely noises, and the video features lots of Icelandic landscape shots. Have a look on youtube.

    Click here to download the file directly. I’d rather you subscribed, though, so I can see what platforms people are using, etc. Feedburner seem to have changed their service, so you might just have to copy the URL (http://feeds.feedburner.com/Prattle) into your chosen RSS reader or Podcast software e.g. iTunes.

    Zaijian/Sayonara.

    ShanghaiComments Off
    m posted in General moans, Holiday on August 21st, 2007

    Basically, it’s like being in space. Or rather, it’s like being in the idea that the 1950s had of space. I mean, look at it.

    HuntComments Off
    m posted in General moans on July 4th, 2007

    This is getting a bit silly, now. They’re treating the garden like a solarium.

    pair

    When the mother noticed me, she leapt into a bush, leaving a confused youngster stood on the lawn, trying to figure out what it’s meant to be scared of.
    pair

    Moles, hedgehogs, squirrels, frogs, foxes… We just need some badgers to complete the set. hurhur… “set”. Like a badger set. Do you see?

    BereftComments Off
    m posted in General moans on June 27th, 2007

    TV’s gone for repair. Now what?

    MembraneComments Off
    m posted in General moans on May 7th, 2007

    Ha! I’ve caught one of the suspects for The Great Weedproof-membrane Disruption of 2007. At least, I’ve caught him on camera. Here he is, visibly taunting me in the garden on Saturday.


    Digger


    Last 10 MP3s I listened to (it goes blank after about an hour of inactivity);

    Link to my last.fm Profile Page

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