Single of the Year

I am on a roll with the '...of the year' stuff now.

Firstly, I should mention the criteria the t&g jury (me) were using when the turntable came out and this year's best 7" singles were considered. Any of the following were immediately disqualified..

- Singles released in digital formats only.
- Singles without an authentic 'b side', i.e with another track from the parent album on the b side, or an instrumental version of the a side, or a live version of the a side.

Basically, it is nice to see an effort made. Mentions should be given therefore to Jenny Lewis' 'Carpetbaggers', a great single with an Elvis Costello track featuring Jenny on the b side and all for charity....and Tindersticks' 'What Are You Fighting For?', an exclusive tour 7" with a brand new non-LP track. But in reality, there is a clear and obvious 'single of the year'...

Beck 'Chemtrails'

One of the greatest sounds I have heard this year.

This track is just a blast. Sounding like it is coming from outer space, it is a disorientating but somehow warm and familiar bundle of sound. The reverb dances around, making it seem like the music is going from one ear, through your head, and ending up in the other ear. It seems to float about! The drums and the bassline are old school, the vocal is an otherworld falsetto and it is pure pleasure for the ears, you don't want it to end.....and then when you think it has, you get, from nowhere, a stunning electric guitar break.

Absolutely bloody brilliant. And single of the year by a mile.

Top 10 Albums of the Year

here at last are the T&G top 10 records of the year....and after all the stuff written on here about American bands, the top 3 albums this year are from English, Scottish and Irish artists...

1- Tindersticks ‘The Hungry Saw’

What can I say about this album that I haven’t said already? A creative, vibrant record that is more than a match for any of their wonderful previous albums. In ‘Mother Dear’ it has the most atmospheric, tension filled ballad they have ever written and in ‘Boobar’, the most magical, Spector-ish pop song. Just fantastic. And album of the year.



2- The Twilight Sad ‘Here It Never Snowed, Afterwards It Did’

How do you top making one of the albums of 2007? If you’re the Twilight Sad, you make a mini-album featuring complete re-workings of several songs from that album. ‘Here It Never Snowed…’ took away much of the noise and the pace from the songs, stripping them down and highlighting James Graham’s amazing vocals. Both sounds work equally well and the band are now combining the two sounds at live shows. The album also featured a new song, plus a cover of Daniel Johnston’s ‘Some Things Last A Long Time’. The best new British band to emerge for a decade.

3- The Sleeping Years ‘We’re Becoming Islands, One By One’

Ex-Catchers singer/songwriter Dale Grundle returned in 2008 with this quietly triumphant set of songs about home, memories and heritage. It didn’t get a tenth of the attention it deserved but these are wonderful songs, held together by Grundle’s soothing voice. ‘Macosquin, Coleraine' is one of the songs of the year, a simple arrangement with acousic guitar and handclaps, I can’t stop playing it!


4- Fleet Foxes ‘Fleet Foxes’

A grower. Initially pleasant but unremarkable (the instantly catchy ‘White Winter Hymnal’ apart), the melodies creep up on you and you finding yourself singing them and then wondering what they are. Gorgeous harmonies mixed with old fashioned guitar sounds and of course Robin Pecknold is an amazing singer. How do they top this though?


5- Beck ‘Modern Guilt’

A 33 minute collection of short, sharp bursts of energy. This is a really exciting record that sounds great from start to finish. Highlight is ‘Chemtrails’ which is perhaps the single of the year and sounds amazing played loudly through headphones!


6- Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks ‘Real Emotional Trash’

Most pleasing post-Pavement album from Malkmus. Stunning guitar jams, especially on the title track, which is a complete tour-de-force.


7- The Mountain Goats ‘Heretic Pride’

Really consistent album from John Darnielle and more up-beat than previous offerings. ‘Lovecraft in Brooklyn’ and ‘Sax Rohmer’ are two of the best TMG rockers to date. As ever, lyrically supreme.


8- Jenny Lewis ‘Acid Tongue’

Beautifully produced with plenty of space for each instrument, this is a great old-fashioned sounding record with some gorgeous ballads. Highlight though is the thrilling duet with Elvis Costello.


9- The Dodos ‘Visitor’

Innovative sounds, great use of rhythm and simply some great sing-along songs.


10- American Music Club ‘The Golden Age’

New line-up, a lighter touch and a couple of bona-fide AMC classics (‘Sleeping Beauty’, ‘The Dance). A couple of filler tracks too though but this is still more gold from Eitzel.

The T&G 11

TracksandGigs is preparing its 'Album of The Year' list. In advance of this, it has nominated eleven albums to form the 'album of the year' shortlist. Each of these records has given T&G an enormous amount of pleasure this year. The list, in alphabetical order, is...

American Music Club 'The Golden Age'

A few weak tracks here but many strong ones and it features one of Eitzel's most beautiful songs, the incredibly visual and moving 'Sleeping Beauty'

Beck 'Modern Guilt'

Short and sweet, his most cohesive record to date. An exciting, tremendously alive set of songs.

Fleet Foxes 'Fleet Foxes'

Deserving of all the hype. A delicious mix of country, soul, pop and folk. Gorgeous harmonies and a great Summer record.

Jenny Lewis 'Acid Tongue'

Unfairly slated by some, this is a luxurious, rewarding album to listen to. It is also a lovely recording with plenty of space allowed and each instrument given room to breathe.

Micah P Hinson 'Red Empire..'

A warm and inviting country-noir album that is all the better for Hinson finally sounding happy and content.

Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks 'Real Emotional Trash'

Just about his best since Pavement. A guitar masterclass and some great songs too.

The Dodos 'Visitor'

Sweet ballads, innovative percussion and great songs. This came from nowhere but will stand the test of time.

The Mountain Goats 'Heretic Pride'

An album of horror, monsters, death and fun from John Darnielle. Some of his best 'loud' songs for years. A really consistent album too.

The Sleeping Years 'We're Becoming Islands, One By One'

Quietly beautiful folk/pop songs from ex-Catchers frontman Dale Grundle.

The Twilight Sad 'Here It Never Snowed...'

Atmospheric mini-album with the band playing in a completely different style from their debut LP. Including  a stunning Daniel Johnston cover.

Tindersticks 'The Hungry Saw'

Unconcerned with the past, this is a fresh, vibrant piece of music that has formed the centre-piece of the band's shows this year. It has left the band rejuvinated and open to all possibilities for the future. A near-perfect 45 minutes.

Full list soon.

single of the week...

Difficult decision this week with three great singles released, spookily all on nicely packaged white vinyl. 3rd place goes to Beck's 'Gamma Ray', he has already released the best single of the year so shouldn't be too greedy. In second place is Jenny Lewis' 'Carpetbaggers', complete with a thrilling contribution from Elvis Costello but single of the week is...

Low 'Santa's Coming Over'

Santa's coming over? Not yet, he's not. Unless Low know something we don't. They may well do, as they are releasing a Christmas single at the start of November and playing Christmas shows a couple of weeks later. Maybe its a Mormon thing?!

Anyway, this is a great single. Beautifully packaged in a snowflake sleeve and sounding NOTHING like Low's previous Christmas music. This is a dark Christmas song with foreboding drums and dirgy guitar and chanted vocals that make the arrive of Santa seem positively terrifying. It also sounds more like traditional Low than anything they have released in a long time. Bizarrely, the b side is a jolly reggae track.

Great single. Everyone should play this on Christmas Eve!

Record Shops

Not much in the way of new releases during these harsh Summer months. We do have a couple of reviews coming soon but first I want to get on my soapbox.

The news arrived this week that Sister Ray have gone into administration and may have to close. For those that don't know, Sister Ray is a record shop (go to Wikipedia kids) in Berwick Street, London. It used to be Selectadisc which formed part of the TracksandGigs London Record Shop Crawl (which included... Rough Trade Covent Garden, Fopp, (HMV), Selectadisc and Reckless Records), a crawl which has ceased to exist. As recently as ten years ago, my home town of Bedford had two great independent record shops (Andys and Sounds Good To Me), now the only place to buy music in Bedford is WHSmiths and even they seem to be phasing it out.

Its a sad state of affairs and we all know and hate the reasons for it, but what can be done? Probably...not a lot. The record shop as we knew it will die. Rough Trade East and Pure Groove are the last bastions and will go down fighting. In the meantime you, music lover, can do this:-

- Buy from online indy record shops. There are some great ones out there. TracksandGigs supports Norman Records in Leeds and Piccadilly Records in Manchester. Most of the stuff reviewed here are bought from them. Don't give Amazon or HMV your money, they don't need it. If you buy from NR or PR you get a friendly, fast, efficient service and you get a great email every week with lots of recommendations.
Find them here...
www.normanrecords.com
www.piccadillyrecords.com

- Rediscover sound quality. MP3 sounds awful. You know it does, I know it does, sometimes we put up with it but if you buy something on itunes and like it, surely its better to buy it on vinyl or even cd so that you can hear it properly, as the artist intended it to sound, not compressed out of all recognition.

- Don't steal music. If you like the sort of artists that are reviewed on this page, every sale does actually matter to artists like this.

What can record companies do? They seem to be doing very little, but some do and TracksandGigs likes these ideas...

- Some record companies (Secretly Canadian and Jagjaguwar) will give you a free mp3 download of an album when you pre-order it. This is a great idea as it stops people who cannot wait for an album to be released 'needing' to turn to illegal downloads.

- The new Beck album on vinyl comes with a free 320kps high quality download that sounds like it is being played on vinyl, with the sound of the needle hitting the record included. This is one of the best ideas I have ever heard. We all prefer the quality of vinyl, but we like to have an album on our ipods too, so this gives you both and with a neat twist.

In the meantime, lets hope Sister Ray finds a buyer.

Beck 'Modern Guilt'

To some, Beck Hansen's output since 1996's classic 'Odelay' has been inconsistent but to me, it has been consistent in terms of quality whilst being wildly diverse in terms of style. Each album, from the lo-fi, downbeat tunes of 'Mutations' and 'Sea Change' to the Prince-esque 'Midnite Vultures' has had plenty to recommend it and 2006's 'The Information' came closest to mixing all of the styles together. Maybe only 'Guero' saw Beck needing to call on the goodwill he had built up with the amazing run of excellent albums he made in the 90s.

One of the few criticisms that could be aimed at 'The Information' is that it was a bit too long at sixty minutes and there were inevitably a couple of fillers. Well, 'Modern Guilt' is only 34 minutes long and was recorded very quickly, along the same lines as 'Mutations' where Beck wrote one song a day for two weeks. It is produced by Brian 'Danger Mouse' Burton and it is a blast to listen to.

Musically the album is full of beats, basslines and rhythms with some piano over the top. The songs are mainly short bursts of energy, never outstaying their welcome. Over the top of all this, Beck's voice sounds detatched and ghostly, creating a fabulous mix of sounds. 'Chemtrails' is the standout track, a mix of an awe-inspiring drum sound, surf guitar and a haunting vocal from Beck ("so many people....where do they go"), just when you think it has gone as far as it can, it ends with an electric guitar coda that almost (but not quite) overshadows the drumming. This is brilliant and the best single song Beck has recorded for many years.

Its tough to beat this but he gives it a go. 'Walls' has an old-school synth sound that will be spinning round your head all day and the title track is similarly catchy. Ultimately though, the individual tracks come and go very quickly and the album works best as a whole, you won't find yourself skipping tracks on your ipod. Although, you may want to give the astonishing final song repeated listens. 'Volcano' is dark and brooding and Beck's words and singing make this something like his very own 'Not Dark Yet'. You could enjoy the song very easily without even listening to the words but once you have listened, the song shows itself to be both terrifying and searingly beautiful. Reflecting on his relationship with his craft and with people in general as well, this is a sad but soothing song and another career highlight.

"I don't know if I'm sane / But there's a ghost in my heart/ Who's trying to see in the dark/ I'm tired of people who only want to be pleased /But I still want to please you"

For me, this album isn't a return to form because Beck never lost form but it is one of his best albums to date. Mixing the exciting sounds of 'Odelay' with the reflection of 'Sea Change' and creating something genuinely new and exciting.

9.0

['Modern Guilt' is out now on XL]