Obligatory best of 2010 list.

Ok, I know everybody does one of these, but on this occasion I am going to bow to peer pressure and just go with the flow. If you can't, just can't, be doing with the sheer tedium of another self-important, opinionated list, then kindly fuck off. For that matter, what were you even doing here in the first place? Anyway....

THE LIST

1. Geekk – Charlie Barnes

Let's be honest. This was his first time out to bat, and he came out with this fucking album. Jesus, if I didn't give first place to a twenty-one year old writing and recording a prog-pop album with string arrangements, I'd be told by my boss to hand in my pen and gun next time I'm down the station. 

Reading that back almost suggests that its very existence merits it first place; while there's a little truth in that, don't mistake my full meaning for a second- this is a great album, full of songs in varied in mood, style and tempo as can be whilst maintaining the overall consistency that is appropriate for the album format. That's the kicker, of course: this isn't just a great collection of songs, but a great album, and Charlie has, in a perverse way, shown just how intelligent and forward-thinking his music is by working within this supposedly 'outdated' framework and still coming up with something this arresting and innovative.

2. Grappling Hooks- North Atlantic Oscillation

In terms of sheer originality, there is only one contender for the crown: NAO. They are so damn quirky and original, it still shocks me that Kscope had the balls to sign them and put out the album; not only that, but getting Zane Lowe's Radio 1 Record of the Week award fucking blows my mind. Still only a critic's favourite, that's likely to change with album two, which I am ably informed will be released on Kscope next year. Their catchy electronic hooks, which initially belie a much deeper, more progressive- or post- rock feel to the arrangements, draw the listener in, and the substance and quality of the music keeps them engaged. Just a fantastic band in every important way, and one that repays every bit of effort you put into exploring their musical world.

3. Disconnect from Desire – School of Seven Bells

Look, everybody knows School of Seven Bells are phenomenal, but this record confirmed it; a difficult second, that while lacking some of the gleeful experimentalism of Alpinisms (in lieu of greater structure and more traditional songwriting), was still a great record in its own right, and one that can leave us optimistic about album three. Oh, and the artwork was pretty damn cool, too. 

4. Fever - Sleepy Sun 

This record is very fucking simple. It's desert-blues, pure psych freakout nonsense; it's easy to listen to over and over, and the riffs are just as fresh the hundredth time as the first. It makes the list on the basis of a single word: quality. This is a record that oozes quality- couple that with a earnestness about the music (if not the lyrics, which are basically nonsense, as far as I can tell), and it's somehow far superior to the sum of its parts.

5. All Creatures Will Make Merry – Meursault

I was a late convert to the Meursault bandwagon, joining shortly before this record came out. It has so many different aspects to it that the mind boggles; from industrial to shoegaze, via lo-fi folk, and all the more incredible for being recorded in Mr. Toad's living room (look this up and it'll make sense, I promise). I had the good luck of catching them live at Glastonbury festival- where they played a storming set- as well as in Manchester, and the sheer intensity of their live show is such that it actually reflects back on the record on subsequent listens. Whatever genre these guys actually belong in, they should be hailed as Kings.

6. Someone Here is Missing – The Pineapple Thief

As good (in fact better) than either of the last two Porcupine Tree records, the most recent Pineapple Thief LP is everything that is great about modern progressive; splashes of electronics, distortion and delay combined with a deft grasp of songwriting that even allows for all the instruments to be cast aside in favour of sparse acoustic versions. 

In the songs you'll hear echoes of early Cooper Temple Clause, Radiohead, Vex Red, Origin of Symmetry-era Muse, even hints of Mogwai. In particular, if you can get the Extended edition, the album being bookended by the acoustic version of opener 'Nothing at Best' is a delightful contrivance. Overall, it's an album as marked by its technical distinction as its songwriting pedigree; in terms of sheer originality they get beaten, sure, but in terms of the enjoyability or accessibility of this record, they are hard to beat, and I'd not be too surprised if this were my 'most played' album of 2010. 

7. Self-Preserved While the Bodies Float Up - Oceansize

It's very hard for me to be objective about a 'size record, but from initially really disliking this album, I've come around to thinking that maybe it's their best since their masterwork, Everyone Into Position. 'It's My Tail And I'll Chase It If I Want To' is not only the best cut on the record, but may well be my favourite thing they've ever done- it's just fucking mad. 

Back to the record though; I hate using the word 'mature', so, er, it makes them sound old. In a good way. I'm sadly beginning to think that maybe this band will end up never getting the recognition they truly 'deserve', but with Biffy Clyro now fucking massive, and the second generation of bands like In Casino Out drawing influence from them and now starting their own careers, maybe this will change. I sincerely hope it does. 

8. Growing Pains – Dinosaur Pile-Up 

GRUNGEGRUNGEGRUNGEGRRRRRRILOVEGRUNGE. 

Seriously though, the first indication that grunge is coming back, and damn am I ready, especially if it all sounds as good as this. What music writer, musician, or general layabout can't sympathise with lines like "my rock n' roll's been causing all sorts of trouble/bless my poor mother, she always knew something was going on/with her son..."? 

9. The Octopus - Amplifier

This is only so low because the general release is next year (January), but I got mine now, so I slotted it in even though I've not fully marshalled my thoughts enough for a review yet. Its inclusion in this list should convince you of its quality, though. 
 

10. 3am, the Beautiful, the Bittersweet - Fears

This is tacked on the end because I only just realised it came out this year. I've actually had some of the songs for nearly four years, so it almost skipped my mind. It's essentially a download compilation of Terry Abbott's work as Fears, and if I actually counted it as a full album, it'd be at Number One, simple. If you want to know what all the fuss is about, check out my review in the archives, or find a copy of the album and have a listen for yourself. 

Honourable mentions:  

Pale Silver & Shiny Gold - Sad Day for Puppets

SDFP's second turns out to be just as good as their first- a storming grunge-shoegaze concoction whose best cut, 'Monster & the Beast' is up there with the best tracks released this year. Heartbreakingly good.

Small Craft on a Milk Sea – Brian Eno 

How the fuck does he still stay relevant? 'Paleosonic' and 'Two Forms of Anger' prove he's still got it; not only that, but he's got more left to say. 

British Brains (EP) - RIBS

Another first outing, Boston-based RIBS take that industrial-grunge template briefly championed by Vex and TCTC and shake it up with a bunch of stuff that's happened since, not to mention some shades of trip-hop. Were it not an EP, it'd be in the list above. 

Brothers - The Black Keys

Speaking of bands who've 'still got it', there's this. Not as lo-fi as their previous efforts, and perhaps a little less riff-heavy than Thickfreakness, but 'Ex-Girl' is undoubtedly one of my tracks of the year, and for the sheer pop joy of 'Tighten Up' they deserve a shout. 

Scratch My Back - Peter Gabriel

I know it's covers, but it's Peter fuckin' Gabriel, ok? Though there are admittedly a few weak patches (er, 'Street Spirit' what?), it deserves to be here for the covers of Magnetic Fields' 'The Book of Love' and Bowie's 'Heroes', which are so beautiful that they make me stop whatever I'm doing just to listen whenever I hear them. 

Well, that's it. Hope you enjoyed it! Check back in a few days for a review of the elusive Octopus (nearly a week in the making, seriously).

Sleepy Sun- Keeping Santa Cruz Weird...

This was published in the last print issue of HV, but I thought I'd put it up here...

On the eve of their set at the Edinburgh Fringe, HV managed to get Sleepy Sun’s frontman, Bret Constantino to take a break from his busy day and have a chat. An hour was then pleasantly passed talking about everything from downloading, “I wrote papers about it in college,” to life lessons, “it’s basically about prevailing over what you’re faced with,” to rather controversial vinyl fanboyisms- “CDs will soon be obsolete- they don’t last anyway! Ten or fifteen listens and they’re scratched.” Sleepy Sun, touring their recent ATP-released Fever record, are going from strength to strength, playing a string of European festival dates before returning to the States to play at ATP in New York. 

“We’re having the time of our lives!” is the answer I get to my first question, which is encouraging in a role where you often hear mainly doom-and-gloom from emerging artists; apparently, life on the road suits this band- “every job or lifestyle has highs or lows- we face the same problems as everybody else, just on a different canvas… we don’t have a ‘home’ to go back to, but it’s quite liberating to have no anchor.” Bret elaborated, “you get to see a lot of the world, and it’s a good experience. Hopefully it’ll be the fuel for the new record…”

Pre-empting my next question, he was eager to talk of their plans for the follow-up to Fever- “we’re pretty much touring ‘til the end of the year… but we’re already marking off time for it.” A well-earned rest then? “we do our fair share of partying. There are certain legs of the tour where we are more exhausted than others.” I asked whether that been the best part of the tour, and he explained that it was different for different members of the band, but for him, “meeting people is one of the best things about touring” and reflected that “being in comfortable and uncomfortable situations builds character.”

Sleepy Sun’s sound spawns instant associations as well as questions; what influenced them more- their environment, or bands like The Grateful Dead and guitar players like Hendrix and Santana? Turns out that it’s a mixture, as these things often are; Bret was more than happy to tell me about how his early life and the band’s formation had influenced their music: “I grew up in a very small town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada- rural environments are a huge influence on me obviously, recreating that peaceful and serene… vibration, I guess.” Unlike the other band members though, music wasn’t his focus until rather more recently- “I’ve always been into music, but I was a late bloomer. I didn’t start playing until college in Santa Cruz when I met the band. The environment there is special” Special? “well, there’s a famous bumper sticker that says ‘Keep Santa Cruz Weird’- it’s that kind of atmosphere.”

Lyrically, Fever lurches between the oblique and enigmatic to the simple refrains of a song like ‘Oh Boy’- so was there a consistent theme to the lyrics on the album? “Spirituality is a common theme. The lyrics are directly inspired by the melodies- I try and create some rhetoric out of them, describe what I’m hearing or what the music makes me feel. There’s ambiguity; the listener can derive different meanings. Spiritual experience, relationships, fear and the feeling of being overwhelmed, states of consciousness, love and things larger than I can possibly imagine; these will always find their way into songs.”

Bret talked of their slightly unconventional approach to the songwriting, where the instrumentals weren’t all planned out in advance, and left to await the vocals- indeed, from the construction of various tracks on the album, it’s clear that each cut’s genesis was different to that of the last. “They take form in a lot of different ways, from a concept or from a guitar riff or a drum rhythm pattern, and then we feed off each other; we try not to define roles. The drummer can pick up a guitar or vice versa. [That way] everyone’s got their own essence in different parts… that’s where we get the dynamic.

This seems obvious when you look at the desert-at-night quasi-prog of ‘Desert God’; with its fluid transitions and repeats upon themes and motifs, the song develops in a conspicuously natural, organic fashion. “Oh yeah, that song took different forms- it kept evolving and didn’t take definite shape until the day we recorded it.” Was I right there in suggesting an element of progressive rock to the band’s sound, I wondered? Lavishing praise on Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon opus, Bret said of ‘Money’- “I dig singles… but I’m attracted to the concept of having an overall theme or a sense of continuity- telling a story.” Did this affect individual songs on the album at all? “Yeah, each song should be a journey where the listener experiences transformation.”

Though Sleepy Sun has apparently only been a serious band for “two or three years”, they have already had some clear career highs and Bret obliged with a couple of stories. “When we played Primavera was the first. It was a beautiful setting, and we got to see Neil Young and Sonic Youth later… everyone was smiling and having a great time. We also performed with a children’s choir at SXSW this year- there was just an ecstatic sense of joy in performing.”

Bret isn’t sitting on the fence over downloading; Sleepy Sun gave away their debut, Embrace, free “for about a year” before ATP picked it up. He explained, “we just wanted people to hear it and react to it… that ended up working really well for us.” When it comes to downloading others’ music, he’s no less candid- “I download music, but if I really like it, I’ll go out and buy it.” He added that he couldn’t afford to buy all the albums “his ears demanded”, but shrugged “If I had the money, I’d pump lots of it into the industry by buying records, but it’s better to go to a show and buy a t-shirt or a poster anyway.”

He’s similarly black and white about what makes a great band- “mak[ing] a connection with the audience… you have to try and reach them in some way.” Winning them over in the first place is important, Bret says, because if they aren’t receptive then you can’t connect at all; but how do you do that? “The fact that we believe in our music can be very convincing. People can tell right off the bat if it’s a genuine expression, real or fabricated. We just try and conjure positive energy and entertain.” So, clearly the band have learned their Stagecraft 101 well, but I had to ask- is there any life or career advice he would give to his younger self that he’s learned along the way? “Uhm, life is much simple than sometimes it’s made out to be… sometimes you need to breathe and forget the extraneous distractions.”

With that, we were out of time. Time for the Closing Question: what does Bret love about music?

“Wow, ok. Let me think a sec… I love that it can be anything- everyone hears everything differently. Nothing is the same from person to person. Listening to music with people is fascinating- you can learn a lot about a person that way.”

The final word- how should I convince my friends to listen to his band?

“We’re nice people!”

This story warmed my heart...

Checkitout: http://songbytoad.com/2010/07/thank-you/#comments

Now that's a lovely story.

Allllllllllso, I will be posting links to a bunch of stuff I've been upto of late- for the non lazy, click the link on the right of the page- including an interview with SVIIB, fuckloads of album reviews, and interviews with Sleepy Sun (whose album Fever is fucking incredible) and the ever-excellent Sad Day for Puppets. I'm hoping to snag an interview with Oceansize about their new album, but that's proving harder to arrange...

Oh, also a copy of People in Planes' second, but-not-very-recent-anymore album Beyond the Horizon dropped through my antiquated letter-box this morning, so I will write things (hopefully good things) about it as soon as I'm free to do so. 

Now to record an EP.