Rob & Callum are pulling the crackers on this If There Is Hell Below Christmas spectacular. We leave the standard Pogues, Noddy Holder's and Spector's back in the grotto and pick a collection of yuletide musical oddballs from xmas funk, to mulled wine warm jazz, from tinsel twee to a rock opera re-telling of the Nativity, we find some time to remember the great Captain Beefheart and more besides.
Get your peepers and lugholes round this: a proverbial feast for the senses, electronic cosmic krautrock from Minneapolic psych outfit Food Pyramidwho release their second musical offering Food Pyramid II on the most irritable of all the formats, cassette tape through Moon Glyph.
This is the kinda sound that has the ability plant me to a sofa with my headphones incasing me in the hypnotic rhythms and cosmic blips that float around my brain or has me marching like a machine through the crowded christmas shoppers (I'll need this on the weekend then).
Buy this and check out the other impressive releases on Moon Glyph
I was obsessed over this track for quite a while, it's that locomotive garage country rock and those raw yet tight harmonies that suckered me in.
As for the band, well Garage Hangover will tell you all you should need know here
This EP has been sitting in my iTunes for a couple of months, maybe I wasn't in the mood or maybe was in a manic blogging episode and didn't take the time to take it in, but it kinda passed me by. It wasn't until a friend of the blog Andrew from Voyageurs drew my attention back to 'em suggesting I check out the vids and re-evaluate. I did...
...and boy am I interested again, I hope all that Asian cinema strobing didn't give you a frothy but boys is that wild!
Catholic Spray are a wonderfully clattering garage punk riot of a band and don't deserve my previous ignorance, hear for yourselves and download their free EP on digital label White Moon Recordings, who also put out some other pretty wonderful stuff inc. Voyageurs.
Last week's podcast was all about our favourite album choices of the year, this time we cast our gaze on some of our favourite 45's and digital nuggets of the year twentyten.
Tracklisting
The Radio Dept. - Heavens on Fire
Wild Nothing - Chinatown
Surfer Blood - Floating Vibes
David Vandervelde - Learn How To Hang
Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You
Damian Marley & Nas - As We Enter
Gruff Rhys Johns - Shark Ridden Waters
Teenage Fanclub - When I Still Have Thee
Roky Erickson w/ Okkervil River - Goodbye Sweet Dreams
Toro Y Moi - Blessa
Beach House - Norway
Besnard Lakes - Albatross
Titus Andronicus - A More Perfect Union
Oh No Ono - Eleanor Speaks (Caribou Remix)
Forest Swords - Rattling Cage
Gold Panda - You
Janelle Monae - Tightrope
Big Boi - Shutterbug
Rihanna - Rude Boy
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round & Round
This is the B Side to his limited release single Oblivion on his Pax-Am label; the A Side is the kind of bland that Ryan can be guilty of slipping into (see: Cardinology). This is Adams at his best: a song so addictive you feel like you shouldn't go a few minutes without, I'd be happy to have this on constant rotation... I know people who do!
Madlib has remained a constant on this blog, not because we're obsessed with him (all though maybe falling just short of) but he's been relentlessly releasing dynamite all year. This track is taken from his 11th Madlib Medicine Show out in the New Year featuring a previously unreleased collaboration with the sorely missed J. Dilla.
Ignition (remix) is one of the greatest pop songs OF-ALL-TIME, there are a million and one ways why this can be the case but the number one factor is that it can make any cold blooded grump like myself bounce. Here he is doing that song with The Roots on some American talk show thing. He has an album out soon... spend your money on a better album or Ignition (remix) x10.
I only tend to go for house, dubstep and garage (and no, not garage rock for once) when it has a bit of darkness to it, a sort of ambience, but I think we stopped saying ambient in music a long time ago didn't we? When The XX was played by your boss and he 'totally' loved that 'ambience' that's when we stopped? Nah, we stopped years ago before that, during Royksopp or Air or Massive Attack
Howse's consonant free, caps locked release JSTCHLLN is good for the download, it bounces around one's head with skitty sparse beats and skattered samples, nice to listen to on your headphones as you brain gets ready for meltdown.
Download the album for free on Howse's bandcamp here
Rather than bore you with a run down list that you can't really bothered with and just check who was number 1 and scowl when it's something you didn't like/get, we've chosen to put tracks from a selection of our favourite albums of 2010 onto a podcast for your consideration.
Also let us know your albums of the year or biggest disappointment by leaving a comment on our facebook page or twitter (links to your right).
Tracklisting
Race Horses - Voyage to St. Louiscious. Goodbye Falkenberg
Janelle Monae - Come Alive (War of the Roses). The ArchAndroid
Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Bright Lit Blue Skies. Before Today
Caribou - Found Out. Swim
The Books - Thirty Incoming. The Way Out
Arcade Fire - Sprawl II (Mountains beyond Mountains). The Suburbs
Flying Lotus - MmmHmm (feat. Thundercat). Cosmogramma
Gonjasufi - Sheep. A Sufi and A Killer
Wild Nothing - Summer Holiday. Gemini
Deerhunter - Coronado. Halcyon Digest
Tame Impala - Lucidity. Innerspeaker
Nah, I ain't joining in the cartoon facebook thing going on, don't need to - I hate kids innit, I joke. It's all a bit of fun really and got me thinking about some of my favourite cartoons and how some of them have aged really well, not only as something to shut you up as a kid on a Saturday morning to give your parents an extra ten minutes sleep but as really clever and interesting television.
Shuki Levy may not be a household name (despite having sold 14 million records) but chances are you've spent parts of your childhood listening to and probably even today humming some of his music. The Israeli born music composer wrote some of the most iconic cartoon theme tunes of the 80's and 90's, if you can think of a cartoon theme with an earworm that's still lodged in your head today chances are it was written by him. Inspector Gadget, M.A.S.K, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, The Super Mario Super Show, Kissyfur, He-Man, Power Rangers and a ridiculous amount more were all scored by him and some of them are pretty good stand alone songs. Here are three of my favourite cartoon's he scored.
Download: Ulysses 31 - Main Theme
Ulysses 31 was a beautifully crafted French/Japanese cartoon that updated the Greek myth of Odysseus and plonked it in the 31st century with Ulysses played by Devendra Banhart in anime form. Ulysses is so cool the animators of Daft Punk's Interstella 5555 essentially ripped the visual ideas straight from it.
Oh we need to add that the theme for Ulysses is ace, it's like gospel prog rock set in the 31st century, but actually sounds very late 70s. The king of the cartoon theme has and always will be this little beauty.
Download: Mysterious Cities of Gold - Main Theme
I cannot remember much about this cartoon, just that for a kids programme it seemed quite deep, there's some interesting ideas in there and like Ulysses references literature and history, do you get this in modern day cartoons?
Many kid cartoons were essentially episodic adverts for toys and I don't think I'd wanted for a set of toys more than the Wheeled Warriors...
Download: Jayce & The Wheeled Warriors - Main Theme
Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors was for me the most engrossing show as a kid, Jayce was trying to find his Dad who had been taken hostage by the quite creepy vege-baddy Saw Boss (or something like that). It's a shame is that despite the toy's being kick ass, they never took off and the show was shelved before Jayce could ever be reunited with his Father and thus claim victory for the Lightning League.
Still we'll always have this motorik prog cock rock delight.
I'm gonna let you into a secret, one of my fantasy's and I hope you'll understand what I'm trying to tell you: I've always wanted to hang out with Bobby Gillespie with a pile of choice records, a player and plenty of wine, talk about rare soul records and continuously loop a seemingly never ending krautrock record.
I suppose trumping that is getting him to sing on record, he may not own one of the great voices but there is something about his drawl that I find endearing and cool as sex. Add his vocals to the already cool French electronic krautrock sound of Turziand baby we're really cooking.
This'll get your Friday going.
I've been watching I'm A Celebrity... ok I know I'm a pathetic excuse for a human, but I get my megalolz off Shaun Ryder and his ridiculous new teeth, anyway his appearance got me thinking about this track.
John Kongos is a man to dig into, not twisting your melon - man's got tunes.
Missed this first time around; I keep doing this, it's a bloggers worst fear that they may 'miss' something, they'd rather miss a funeral than not be at their macintoshbookprofessional to beat Gorilla vs. Bear, No Modest Bear and Shake That Bear into getting those all important Atlas Sound's 'Collected Anal Noises' MPEGTHREE's onto HypeM first.
Heart Music Group are a music group management thing, they got some good artists in their Tribe and so they put out this wee EP with tracks from Hard Mix, Star Slinger, Baths and Wise Blood, all favourites of the blog.
I'm off to nab MP3's from inside Ariel Pink's brain before he's even formed them into songs, that's how current I'm gonna be baby.
It may be because I'm fed up of soulless passionless alternative music and these lot at least seem to exude something in music, rock n roll and punk that I like to call 'fun'.
