Bloods @ Paradiso, Nuggets Night
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Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations
Saskwatch @ The Paradiso
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Band of Horses, Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Band of Horses, Enmore Theatre 22/01/13, a set on Flickr.
iPhone photos from Band of Horses’ Sydney gig on 22 Jan 2013.
In The Pharmacy #24 January 2013
The 23 best tracks I’ve heard so far this year. Nearly 100 minutes of new music and not an inch of fat. The first hour features indie rock, folk, dreampop, garage rock, art rock, psych pop and new wave, while those of you who love all things electronica, from euphoric techno to industrial dance should check out the last 40 minutes.
Torres ‘Honey’
22-year-old Nashville singer songwriter uses distorted guitar and vocals to great effect, building to a point where it feels like it’s about to go over the edge, reigning it in and then taking it to over the edge, before pulling back again. Taking it to the brink rather than bridge.
[Torres]
Bloods ‘Farmer John’
Sydney three-piece take on The Premier’s classic as part of the Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era tribute album Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era
[Bloods]
Ex Cops ‘James’
Bright indiepop in the Pains of Being Pure At Heart mould. Right up my street, although I cringed a little at them rhyming ‘tea’ with ‘quality’.
[Ex Cops]
The Men ‘Electric’
Brooklyn punks The Men remind me of one of those pre-grunge alt rock bands like Green River – all punk energy but with a pop sensibility and a dose of the acceptable end of hard rock. This is from their forthcoming third album.
[The Men]
Merchandise ‘Anxiety’s Door
’
Although they are from Tampa, Florida this sounds very Australian 80s new wave to these ears. Someone should put them in the studio with Nick Launay.
[Merchandise]
Local Natives ‘Heavy Feet’
Back in October Local Natives put out ‘Breakers’, the first taste of their Aaron Dessner-produced forthcoming second album Hummingbird. Although it blended the sound of their excellent debut Gorilla Manor with elements of Dessner’s band The National (mainly in the way the drums and guitars were treated) it felt a little underwhelming; merely good when before they’d been vital.
Like ‘Breakers’, ‘Heavy Feet’ is underpinned by handclaps and moves even more towards the sound of The National, but does this more successfully, maintaining the energy of the best tracks from their debut. This is a song driven along by the rhythm section and Kelcey Ayer’s yearning vocals, with guitars and keyboards mainly adding texture. It might not reach the heights of ‘Camera Talk’, ‘Wide Eyes’ and ‘Shapeshifter’, but it’s made my anticipation for Hummingbird greater.
[Local Natives]
Thao and The Get Down Stay Down ‘We the Common’
Best know her in Australia for providing the theme tune to post-modern rom-com family drama series Offspring, this finds San Franciscan based Thao Nguyen merging her more experimental side with her pop sensibilities. Features a great wordless refrain.
[Thao and The Get Down Stay Down]
Generationals ‘Spinoza’
Scratchy indiepop from New Orleans duo whose ‘Lucky Numbers’ was one of last year’s highlights.
[Generationals]
Spectral Park ‘L’appel du Vide’
Southampton multi-instrumentalist Luke Donovan created the basics of the forthcoming Spectral Park debut album from samples of records he found dumped in the street, manipulating them and adding his own original instrunmnation and vocals to come up with furious 60s flavoured psych-pop concoctions like this.
[Spectral Park]
Foxygen ‘No Destruction’
Last year (back on ITP #12) they were channelling Bowie and Jagger on ‘Waitin’ 4 U’, this time around it’s more Lou Reed circa-Loaded
.
[Foxygen]
Rachel Zeffira ‘Here On In’
Canadian opera singer Rachel Zeffira is half of Cat’s Eye with The Horrors’ Farris Badawan. Here she sounds not unlike the late Trish Keenan on an intriguing slice of noir-ish dreampop.
[Rachel Zeffira]
Low ‘Plastic Cup’
Two songs have surfaced from Low’s Jeff Tweedy produced tenth album The Invisible Way. ‘Plastic Cup’ is the more familiar sounding of them, Alan Sparhawk takes lead vocal and provides what suspiciously sounds like acoustic guitar, while Mimi Parker’s harmonies and wordless backing vocals are essential to the magic.
[Low]
Jim James ‘New Life’
‘Know ‘til Now’ was featured back in November on ITP #22, this is the second track to surface from Regions of Light and Sound the forthcoming solo album from the My Morning Jacket frontman. This one is all about the vocals.
[Jim James]
Ólöf Arnalds ‘Treat Her Kindly’
A rare English language outing for the Icelandic solo artist (and erstwhile member of múm). A lovely folky number with strings and accordion (or possibly harmonium). She’s also currently running a campaign over on Pledge Music for her forthcoming album Sudden Elevation.
[Ólöf Arnalds]
Angel Olsen ‘Sweet Dreams’
Half noir-pop / half rock n’ roll croon like a female Roy Orbison, this will leave you haunted. [Angel Olsen] https://www.facebook.com/angelolsenmusic Carmen Villain ‘Lifeisin’
Carmen Hillestad, half Norwegian-half Mexican, US born, London based former model sounds like a heavily-reverbed, lo-fi Cat Power.
[Carmen Villain]
Low ‘Just Make It Stop’
This finds Mimi Parker on lead vocals over brushed snare and some rhythmic piano chords, bass and guitar. Probably as close as Low will ever get to ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’. [Low]
Mitzi ‘All I Heard’
Self proclaimed “garage-disco” from Brisbane four-piece, warm analog sounds and elastic basslines. Catchy as all hell.
[Mitzi]
Darwin Deez ‘Free (Unicorn Kid Remix)’
Air-punching euphoric techno remix of Brooklynite’s forthcoming album track.
[Darwin Deez] [Unicorn Kid]
Javelin ‘Nnormal’
The return of Brooklyn blog rockers now signed to David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label. Robotized vocals and squelchy stuttering electronica, this is less funky than previous releases, but no less engrossing.
[Javelin]
Factory Floor ‘Fall Back’
Eight-and-a-half minutes of Industrial dance from London-based, DFA signed outfit fronted by Nik Colk Void (previously Nikki Colk of Kaito. What ‘I Feel Love’ might have sounded like if Giorgio Moroder had used Front 242 as Donna Summer’s backing band.
[Factory Floor]
Blanck Mass ‘Hellion Earth’
Benjamin Power of Fuck Buttons drops the noise of that outfit in favour of a more straightforward piece of dancefloor electronica.
[Blanck Mass]
Ryan Hemsworth ‘BasedWorld’
Producer du jour from Halifax, Nova Scotia delivers electronica instrumental. Check out some of his mixes on the link below
[Ryan Hemsworth]
Pitchfork: 2012 best year for new albums since 2011!
If you google “the death of the album” you’ll find it’s something both well and ill informed pundits have been banging on about for a few years now. Without getting into merits or otherwise of these articles, I think we can agree that all years are not equal when it comes to great albums. Some years are just better than others. But what of 2012? We could argue that for hours, but it seems fitting that in the year that gave us Nate Silver and gave Moneyball an Oscar nomination we should turn to the stats.
Step forward Pitchfork, the site that seems to be most committed to the album format witho ver 1200 album reviews every year and each one 500-800 words long. They may be too in thrall to the long form record to openly comment on its demise, but surely with their super-anal scoring technique, where each album is given a mark out of 10 specific to one decimal place, we can tell how 2012 fared. Excuse we while I crunch some numbers…
Well, that was interesting. Although they haven’t given a new album a top score of 10 in the last 2 years*, on average, albums are scoring the same across the board. If you were to look at these reviews you would have very little clue that the quality of albums ever changed at all. Here are some stats based on reviews in 2012 compared to the previous two years.
- Total: Pitchfork reviewed 1243 albums in 2012 – slightly more than were reviewed in 2010 and 2011.†
- Brilliant: Less than 1% of albums in each year were awarded a score of 9.0 or above.
- Average: In 2012 the mean score awarded for an album was 7.1 – the same as in 2011 (7.0 in 2010).
- Well Below Average: Almost exactly 25% of the albums in each year were awarded a score of 6.4 or less.‡
Pitchfork’s Top 50 albums critics’ list closely tallies with their highest rated albums of the year, but there are always a few albums that fall out of favour or are bumped higher up the list:
- Timing: For 2012 The best time of year to release an album was October, followed by April: 17 of the top 50 end of year albums were reviewed in those two months.
For 2010 it was May and September (15 out of 50), for 2011 June and January (14 out of 50). - Grower: Grimes’ Visions was the album judged to have improved the most this year – leap frogging 13 albums that scored higher on initial review.
- Unlucky: Whereas Lambchop’s Mr M was judged to have aged poorly, finishing behind 13 albums that scored lower.
- Permanence: Cloud Nothings’ Attack on Memory had the most staying power – the only album reviewed in January to make it inside the top 20 at year end.
- Waning Charms: Twin Shadow’s Confess and Converge’s All We Love We Leave Behind were the biggest losers – scoring higher than 33 albums that did make the top 50 but failing to place.
Personally I love the Lambchop album and find the praise heaped on Visions baffling. You can draw your own conclusions from the rest of the stats, I’ll simply add that I’m going to go out on a limb and predict almost exactly the same results come the end of 2013. An average score of 7.1 and 25% of albums getting a score of <6.5. Plus, I reckon they’ll hand out another 10 this year, either to The Knife, a hip hop artist, or a debut album by a bedroom producer.
NOTES
*Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy.
†Pitchfork review five albums a day each weekday excluding American public holidays and none during the industry down time of the last 2-3 weeks of December when practically no new albums are released. Occasionally, albums in a box set will get individual scores, hence the slight disparity in each year’s review numbers.
‡ I call a score of <6.5 ‘The Everrett True mark of failure’ after the music critic who ranted about “a world full of music critics lazily and cravenly praising everything in their path … for if they don’t, their editors won’t run the review or feature or article. Look around you. It’s already happened. How many reviews graded below 6.5 stars do you think Pitchfork runs?” His opposition to what Pitchfork does so obsessive that he just assumes they rarely give less than glowing scores.
Top 10 Albums of 2012
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2012 has been another great year for new music across many genres, but much of that great music has not necessarily come from great albums. I’ve listened to more new music in 2012 than I have since I left Xfm in 2008. I’ve experienced various levels of disappointment with most of them.
But among the disappointments have been some revelations. Interestingly, only three of these albums are debuts. And one of those is by a band made up of veterans of their respective genres.
10) The Walkmen Heaven
It’s not always good news when a band matures, but The Walkmen have been pulling it off with aplomb for a few years now.
This their sixth album finds them 10 years on from their debut and 8 years since the heady rush of ‘The Rat’. What was their most iconic song now has a rival in its polar opposite ‘We Can’t Be Beat’, a vocal led number with a great wordless sing along refrain. When Hamilton Leithauser sings “It’s been so long at the 2:37, you don’t doubt for a second that he really means it.
Elsewhere, the even more minimal ‘Southern Heart’ provides another highlight while their more familiar scratchy drunken guitar lines and little circular motifs pop up on the likes of ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘Heaven’. An album that delivers more with each listen.
[Listen on Spotify]
9) The Mountain Goats Transcendental Youth
There’s currently a petition to the White House to have Mountain Goats’ mainman John Darnielle made US Poet Laureate. They could do worse than send this, his 14th album, as supporting evidence. It opens with a song for Amy WInehouse (‘Spent Gladiator’) and peaks with one for another less celebrated dead-too-young pop star Frankie Lymon (‘Harlem Roulette’)
The rest of the album finds the guitar-bass-drums set up of his last few albums augmented by a horn section on songs about agoraphobics, fictional gangsters, junkies and Judas all told with what one review called “radical empathy” and another called “deceptively plainspoken poetry”.
[Listen on Spotify]
8) Django Django Django Django
Came to this one late despite several glowing recommendations. These guys share some DNA with The Beta Band (literally in the case of drummer David Maclean, brother of TBB’s John).
A maximalist melting pot of poppy psychedelia, electronica, the twang and rumble of early rock and roll, Krautrock, eastern motifs and delicious harmonizing. This is an endlessly engrossing debut.
[Listen On Spotify]
7) Beach House Bloom
How do you follow an album as near perfect as Teen Dream? Beach House’s answer is clearly “with more of the same”.
While Bloom may not have quite as many peaks as its predecessor, it is still a masterclass in electronic dreampop, with the likes of ‘Lazuli’, ‘Myth’, ‘Other People’ and ‘Wishes’ among their very best.
[Listen on Spotify]
6) Bowerbirds The Clearing
Boy and girl record two albums of rough-edged folk music, one falls seriously ill and nearly dies, she recovers and they build a house / recording studio / art space in the woods of rural North Carolina. Somewhere in there they also split up and reconcile while also spending time recording their more polished but no less charming third album at Bon Iver’s studio in Wisconsin.
It’s understandable why issues including a preoccupation with mortality, belonging, and balancing the domestic rural idyll with the life of a touring band permeate these songs, but these themes are tackled with some of the most straight-up beautiful music of 2012.
[Listen on Spotify]
5) Hospitality Hospitality
Released back in January, the gentle charms of this near flawless album seem to have been forgotten by many despite a bunch of glowing reviews at the time. For shame.
This collection of glowing indie pop songs may not be breaking new ground but there’s a timelessness to Amber Papini’s songwriting that will find you coming back to this collection for many years.
[Listen on Spotify]
4) Dirty Projectors Swing Lo Magellan
Despite owning a couple of their previous records, I’ve often found Dirty Projectors’ music something to be admired rather than embraced. They’ve often had the odd moment of brilliance, but the idea of listening to one of their albums the whole way through rarely appeals. This made Swing Lo Magellan one of this year’s greatest revelations.
David Longstreth channels everyone from Led Zep to the Beatles to The Beach Boys to The Velvet Underground to Talking Heads, weds it to his taste for West African guitar styles, polyrhythms and layered vocals, throws in some judiciously placed strings and raises the quality of the songwriting exponentially. In ‘Gun Has No Trigger’ he has crafted a production the equal of any of John Barry’s classic Bond themes.
[Listen on Spotify]
3) Tame Impala Lonerism
Whereas their debut Innerspeaker was a stone cold retro-rock classic packed with 11 great late-60s indebted songs that sounded like it could only have been made in a valve-tastic analogue studio, Lonerism is a slightly different beast.
Although the overall psychedelic feel and Kevin Parker’s Lennon-indebted vocals remain, the production techniques reveas itself to be much more modernist in its approach. It’s the striving for the warmth and breadth of those analogue recordings the late 60s by combining instrumental chops with the modern production tehcniques of electronic music, coupled with the excellent songwriting that make Lonerism work.
[Listen on Spotify]
2) Grizzly Bear Shields
Brilliant though Veckatimest was, it’s a shame that this wasn’t the record that introduced most people to Grizzly Bear. Those that have written them off for being difficult or wilfully eccentric may have found much more to love within the grooves of this their fourth and most accessible album.
Lush and multifaceted,Sheilds moves seamlessly from the crunching Led Zep riff of ‘Sleeping Ute’ to the piano and snare-led ‘A Simple Answer’ to the warm and enveloping ‘Yet Again’ to the fretless bass and electronic effects of ‘Gun-Shy’, this album worms its way into your heart not just your brain.
[Listen on Spotify]
1) Divine Fits A Thing Called Divine Fits
Spoon’s Brit Daniel, Wolf Parade / Handsome Furs’ Dan Boeckner and New Bomb Turks’ Dan Brown team up for the album that had me returning to it the most this year. Scratchy guitars, supple bass lines, new wave keyboards and some of Boeckner and Daniel’s best ever tunes.
Not only is this my favourite album of the year, in ‘Baby Gets Worse’, ‘Flaggin’ A Ride’, ‘My Love Is Real’, and ‘Like Ice Cream’ it also includes some of the greatest individual tracks, while their take on Boys Next Door’s ‘Shivers’ ranks amongst 2012’s best cover versions. And how iconic is the album artwork? The whole package.
[Listen on Spotify]
101 Medications – Best of 2012
In The Pharmacy’s top tracks of 2012
Six hours of music featuring some of the best songs from 2012. These are in order of what makes the best listening experience rather than ranked from first to one-hundred-and-first. Keen followers of the In The Pharmacy cloudcasts will find some tracks that weren’t amongst the 357 tracks featured this year. They may also note that while psych-rock, psych-pop, electronica, electronic pop, hip hop and all things retro still get a look in, this list tends more towards the indie rock end of things. I make no apologies for this, these were simply the best tracks of 2012, imho*.
*It’s a Spotify playlist so a few of my favourites weren’t available (notably tracks from Lambchop, Ladyhawk, Kate Boy, Ceremony and Mungolian Jetset) but that just made it easier to get the list down to 101.
In The Pharmacy Cloudcast 23
The 16 best tracks from the last four weeks. For a minute there, it looked like there weren’t going to be enough great tunes to make another cloudcast in 2012, but while it’s taken an extra two weeks, I hope you’ll agree that these tracks are more than worthy of your attention. What you’ll hear:
- a husband and wife duo channelling The Cult and the Jesus and Mary Chain
- baroque psych pop from the Netherlands (and Los Angeles)
- electropop from Sweden
- proggy indie rock from Oxford
- moody analogue electronica from Adelaide
Plus a bunch of 80s references from Vangelis’s Bladerunner score to The Cure and gothy post-punk and a Fleetwood Mac cover for good measure.
Haunted Hearts ‘Something That Feels Bad Is Something That Feels Good’
Married couple Dee Dee Penny (Dum Dum Girls) and Brandon Welchez (Crocodiles) team up for their new project. Pitchfork compared this to Automatic-era Jesus and Mary Chain and while I get that, you’d have to be deaf not to hear the influence of Billy Duffy on those guitars.
[Haunted Hearts]
Pacific Air ‘Float’
Los Angeles duo (who recently changed their name from KO KO) with insanely catchy, effervescent pop tune.
[Pacific Air]
Girls Names ‘Hypnotic Regression’
Third appearance this year for the Belfast band whose gothy post-punk is almost Krautrock in its rhythmic insistence, with flanged guitars and basslines that recall the early work of The Cure.
[Girls Names]
Kate Boy ‘In Your Eyes’
Swedish electropop duo indebted to The Knife follow up their debut track ‘Northern Lights’ (featured in ITP #22) with another instant classic.
[Kate Boy]
Majical Cloudz ‘What That Was’
Montreal musician Devon Welsh contributed to the Grimes album, but this is much more wistful stuff. This sounds like one of those lost early 90s pop bands like Poppy Factory.
[Majical Cloudz]
Chromatics ‘Cherry’
Portland electronic band follow up this year’s Kill For Love album with a new tune. It’s 80s paleofuturism in the vein of one of M83’s more atmospheric moments
[Chromatics]
Grave Babies ‘Over and Underground’
Gothic post-punk with strong melodic pop bent from Seattle-based NIN and Nirvana fan Danny Wahlfeldt.
[Grave Babies]
Jacco Gardner ‘The Ballad of Little Jane’
Dutch baroque psych pop.
[Jacco Gardener]
Maston ‘Young Hearts’
Baroque psych pop from Los Angeles.
[Maston]
Mean Jeans ‘I Miss Outerspace’
Melodic punk from Portland
[Means Jeans]
Pet Moon ‘Hold The Divide’
Proggy indie rock from Oxford led by former Youthmovies Soundtrack Strategies frontman Andrew Mears.
[Pet Moon]
How To Destroy Angels_ ‘Ice Age (The Soft Moon Remix)’
What was the quite lovely minimal stand out track from the An Omen_EP gets a bruising atmospheric makeover from San Francisco neo-post punk types The Soft Moon.
[How To Destroy Angels]
Rites Wild ‘Rites Wild Theme’
Adelaide’s Stacey Wilson makes moody analogue electronica.
[Rites Wild]
Mountains ‘Living Lens’
Atmospheric instrumental droning – but much better than that makes it sound.
[Mountains]
Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Blue Drive’
This is an old Daniel Lopatin track that’s part of the recently re-issued Rifts compilation that collects all his early work under the Oneohtrix Point Never name. This could be lifted directly from Vangelis’ Bladerunner score, it’s that good.
[Oneohtrix Point Never]
Julia Holter ‘Gold Dust Woman’
Many have raved about Julia Holter’s 2012 debut album Ekstasis. Some of us have failed to get excited about it as, although it sounds great, there’s a distinct lack of tunes. Here, she rectifies this by borrowing one from Fleetwood Mac.
[Julia Holter]
In The Pharmacy Cloudcast 22
Sixteen great songs from the last two weeks. Indie rock, indie pop, electronica, psych-rock, and sunshine pop. You’ll hear the influence of artists such as Radiohead, The Byrds, Hot Chip, LCD Soundsystem, The Velvet Underground, Richard and Linda Thompson, and The Knife, plus the tracks show exposure to genres including classic 80s indiepop, post-hardcore, shoegaze, dreampop, quiet storm and gospel.
The Evens ‘King of Kings’
Iain MacKaye and Amy Farina return six years after their last album with the first taste of The Odds, pretty much picking up where they left off with drums, baritone guitar and twin vocals. Can’t wait for the album and really hope they’ll make it out to Australia when they tour.
[The Evens]
Of all the bands updating that 80s indiepop-jangle that eventually mutated into shoegazing, Veronica Falls are the best. You can place them on that axis that runs through the Beatles / The Byrds / Velvet Underground / Orange Juice/ The Pastels / The Smiths / The Primitives / The Shop Assistants / My Bloody Valentine / The Charlottes.
[Veronica Falls]
Kate Boy ‘Northern Lights’
Superior electropop heavily indebted to fellow Swedes,The Knife.
[Kate Boy]
Free Energy ‘Dance All Night’
Catchy mid-tempo rocker with a stadium feel from the power pop / new wave / classic rock hybrid. Taken from their forthcoming second album, Love Signs.
[Free Energy]
On a long term creative peak, Hoboken’s finest add mournful horns, strings and cowbell to their Velvet Underground-and-Krautrock-rooted indie-rock. Should win over a few fans of The National with this one.
[Yo La Tengo] Sally Shapiro ‘What Can I Do’
Sunshine indiepop from Sweden.
[Sally Shapiro] Suuns ‘Edie’s Dream’
Psychedelic pop with Radiohead guitar textures from Montreal band.
[Suuns] Jim James ‘Know Til Now’
First taste of the My Morning Jacket frontman’s solo album. A soulful slow jam that’s like a hypnagogic take on the mid-70s quiet storm sound.
[Jim James] Widowspeak ‘Ballad of the Golden Hour’
Subtle indie rock with breathy female vocals that builds into a mini-epic. A real grower.
[Widowspeak] The History of Apple Pie ‘Glitch’
London band with a distinct Pixies influence on the guitars and a vocalist with a hint of Tanya Donelly.
[The History of Apple Pie]
Tyvek ‘Wayne County Roads’
Garage rock from Detroit.
[Tyvek]
Joe Flory, previously recording as Primary 1, returns as Amateur Best with this soulful slice of melodic, layered electronica.
[Amateur Best]
Pat Jordache ‘Steps (Damaged Goods)’
“Hello, my name is Pat Jordache and I used to be in a band with Merril ‘Tune-Yards’ Garbus. I like early Talking Heads records and David Bowie’s Scary Monsters album (especially the title track)”.
[Pat Jordache]
Dutch Uncles ‘Fester’
Manchester band come over like Hot Chip with the quirk turned up to 11 on the first track lifted from their forthcoming third album Out of Touch In The Wild.
[Dutch Uncles]
Paradise ‘Blue Flower’
A song originally by German art-rock types Slapp Happy (it’s on Sort Of, their debut album from 1972), introduced to my generation via Mazzy Star’s 1990 shoegaze cover version and now resurrected for another generation by this London based duo (we’ll skip over Pale Saints unnecessary effort from 1992).
[Paradise]
Angel Olsen / Marisa Nadler ‘Withered and Died’
Two great feamles singer-songwriters (both of whom have featured solo in earlier In The Pharmacy cloudcasts) team up to take on this track from Richard and Linda Thompson’s classic I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight (1974).
[Angel Olsen / Marisa Nadler]
In The Pharmacy 