Best of 2011

The Burdz Best Songs of 2011

Well it doesn’t get any easier.  Though given that all my old schticks are in here aplenty – drums, noise, shoegaze, jingly jangly guitars, quirkiness, blues and reverb – it really should be a doddle.  This girl is forever stuck in her groove and that’s just the way I like it.

This list has already appeared on the wonderful Mad Mackerel blog.  It was after all that fishy crew who started on this best of malarkey, but it was kind of them to share mine.  There are some great best of 2011 lists on there – go check them out.

Sadly – and I fear this is because of a mistaken belief in my good taste in music – Mr Mad Mackerel reversed the order.  No, I really did want Cashier No9 as my number one.  Hopefully there is something here for everyone.

1.  Cashier No9  - When Jackie Shone

Gosh, why do I like this?  It’s just got that whole throbbing bass line thing I like.  Layers of sound.  Odd vocals.  And drums.  Of course. Like it?  Love it.  The louder the better.

2.  Other Lives - For 12

Nearly my choon of the year.  Deceptively simple, soaring, swooping and positively swoonsome.

3. Josh and Mer – Where are you

It could so easily have been So it Goes, for both choons have been on a near constant loop at various times this year.  But seeing as I have to choose – and I must, I cannot have the ignominy of not managing a ten two years in a row – then this one wins out.  Not for nothing my Twitter bio suggests I’m not nearly as scary as I pretend to be.

4.  Secret Colours – Faust

A late contender but a worthy one.  This choon is the musical equivalent of a three course meal and therefore ticks all my bluesy-rock boxes.  So long as you like your meat and potatoes with no veg.

5. The RAA – Barnes’ Yard

See?  Stomping, strummy, just a little shoogly and I’m sold.

6.  We were promised Jetpacks – Medicine

Ye cannae beat a wee jangly Scottish band, especially one that throws everything but the kitchen sink into their music.  It should be a mess but it so isn’t.  After a difficult year out, with this track they exploded back onto the music scene and it was like they’d never been away.

7.  Slow Club – Beginners

A knickerbocker glory offering of shoegaze.  With a big dollop of retro on the side and some reverb sprinklings up top for good measure.  Dreamy.

8.  Team Genius – Home

Boy Wonder’s favourite moshing/air guitar choon of the year.  We have pogo-ed round the sitting room to this.  Oh yes.  For those who don’t know, he’s the eight year old, supposedly I’m the responsible adult.

9.  William Elliott Whitmore – Field Song

The man with the voice that sends shivers down my spine is at the peak of his powers.  Occasionally I have to lie in a darkened room to listen to this album – all the better to wallow y’see.  The title track is truly a thing of beauty.

10.  The Low Anthem – Matter of Time

They made it into 2009 and 2010’s list and here they are again.  The grandmasters of less is more, of making a symphony out of a three minute track.

Favourite cover of the year:

Barry-Sean (over at Mad Mackerel) and I share some bizarre commonalities.  There are Killie fans in his family too, and it would appear the influence of Buddy Holly on our musical heritage.   The standout cover version for me this year?  Patti Smith doing Words of Love and making it all her own.

Favourite discoveries of the year:

Actually, this was a rediscovery.  In reprising the career of the late, great Jackie Leven, I found myself falling in love with Doll by Doll all over again.  Gypsy Blood is a great album, and only recently recognised as a modern rock masterpiece.  Aye but it’s the punkish tendencies that make it so.

Guilty pleasure:

Diddy & Dirty Money -  Coming Home 

Yes really.  The year I discovered what makes the young folk tick.  This far though and no further.

Close but no Cigar:

O’Death Bugs http://www.hearya.com/2011/02/02/odeath-offer-bugs-from-outside-new-mp3/

This is a beautifully meaningful song on so many levels.  Especially when you know the back story.

FOUND anti climb paint

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmom5HHvzag&feature=related

Just about my favourite track off one of my favourite albums of the year.

The Barettas Touche http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGEgiq5KQN4

This is the kind of band I always wanted to be in.  Still do.

Peggy Sue Dumbo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3q8Bmq864s&feature=related

Two albums in two years, both of them corkers.  Quirky and winsome.

A Classic Education – Forever Boy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVbxCg6i2bg&feature=related

It’s the drums innit?

Coke Weed – not my old man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaGddhshdCI

Or maybe it’s just the all-round oddness…

The Kills Future Starts Slow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwbFcBS86Y

Did I mention I like a bit of down and dirty?  And no one does like it Jamie and Alison.  Should have married her, mate.

Lykke Li – Sadness is a blessing

More shoegaze, quirkiness and downright pop genius.  Oh, and the best video of the year.

Butcher Boy – Helping Hands

http://www.butcher-boy.co.uk/

The line that sold it to me was “on yellow grass and dirty pebble dash”.  Seemingly whimsical, masking a dark heart.  First class.

The Shivers – Kisses

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB4dFGSCrI8

There’s an acoustic and a blues version of this song.  Sometimes I play them one after the other.

And that’s yer lot folks!  Unless of course, you’ve got a best of list you’d like to share?

———-

The Burdz Best Scottish Albums of 2011

This was a darn sight easier than it was last year.  Less good Scottish music around?  Or just fewer album releases?  Or just some outstanding contenders and then a whole group of also-rans?  Possibly the latter, and also some bands just didn’t quite get round to releasing a new album this year.  Yes, I mean you Frightened Rabbit and Twilight Sad (though the latter’s is either just out or about to come out).

Disappointments included the View (please start messing with the formula), Sons and Daughters (please stop messing with the formula) and Glasvegas (please go back to the formula).

And maybe it’s my age but I appear to have been attracted to wistful, lyrical melancholy, as the choices show.  Still found room for a little noise though, so there’s life in the burd yet.  Thankfully.

I got my ten easy peasy.  And have even squeezed a wee bonus in.  So, in no particular order…

Conquering Animal Sound – Kammerspiel

From Glasgow via Reykjavik, this band made a supremely blissed-out, ethereal album that has been a pleasure to listen to all year.  I am especially pleased that it is showing signs of replacing the XX as the chicklet’s bedtime music choice.  Tracer is our favourite track.

Martin John Henry – The Other Half of Everything

A first class debut album from the solo artist.  A voice like caramel combines with perfectly crafted pop.  Easy listening in the very best sense of the words.  Breathing Space is just lovely, not least because it references brochs, circumference and a cat that sits still.

King Creosote and Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine

Much as I like PJ Harvey’s outstanding album, I’m with John Mackay – this album should have won the Mercury.  Elegiac, wistful, melancholic, understated and joyous.  Your Young Voice reduces me to tears each and every time I listen to it.

Jackie Leven and Michael Cosgrave – Wayside Shrines and the Code of the Travelling Man

Sometimes you don’t appreciate what’s under your nose until it’s gone.  Over the years, I have dipped in and out of Jackie Leven’s enormous catalogue but only really sat down and listened to this, his last album, after he died in November.  I was too fixated on his “official bootleg” album One Long Cold Morning which produced my most favourite ever song of his.  Since November though, Wayside Shrines has been getting plenty of plays and To Live and Die in Levenland seems especially poignant now.

the Moth and the Mirror – Honestly, this World

Scotland does supergroups!  And outstanding it is too.  A great album, encompassing everything that is quintessentially Scottish in a band.  Jangly guitars, innovation, harmonies, quirky percussion, catchy melody.  Fire sums it all up nicely.

Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells – Everything’s Getting Older

It’s everyone else’s favourite/best album of the year, but is it the burdz?  Well, if I had bought it on vinyl it would have been worn out by now.  It’s a truly majestic work, the lyrics are to die for, and I love it.  But it’s not my best Scottish album of the year.  This might just be my favourite Scottish choon of the year though – the Greatest Story ever Told.

Sparrow and the Workshop – Spitting Daggers

Set in Darkness said it all really.  So I’ll just post a link to a track I think.  Faded Glory.

Star Wheel Press – Life Cycle of a Falling Bird

I’m a sucker for the raw country, bluesy sound, especially if there’s pared back banjo strumming, piano tinkling and full on moothie action.  Highly original, utterly world weary, very more-ish.  And a conceit and a dry wit in the song titles – Hey Lord (An Existential Inquiry) being a great example.

We were promised Jetpacks – In the pit of the Stomach

This band has got a hold on me and no mistake.  Can’t explain it, just love em.  It’s like they throw in some classic rock ingredients, add a few bells and whistles, mix it together frantically, then bake it hard.  The resulting creation is invariably a triumph.  Such precocious talent deserves a big, nay huge audience.  They might just get one, given I’ve even heard the Big Chicklet playing the album. Act on Impulse

FOUND – factorycraft

The Burdz best Scottish album of the year, based simply on the number of plays.  Constantly sought out on the ipod, shuffled to on the laptop, with tracks often replayed, and occasionally the whole album listened to and then listened to again.  Simply the most creative band around right now in Scotland.  Lang may their rum leek.  Or something.

Hard to pick just one choon.  Anti-climb paint?  Blackette?  You’re no Vincent Gallo?  Has to be I’ll Wake with a Seismic Head No More.  Though I might change my mind tomorrow.

Ah, yes I promised you a bonus.

Will somebody please, please give Aerials Up! a proper, grown up record deal?  Saw them at the Wickerman Festival last year and loved them.  Then saw them again supporting Airborne Toxic Event in Glasgow.  Both times I liked.  A lot.

And I’ve bought their first EP.  And now their second.  An album would be nice.  And I reckon we’d all like it.  Or at least, I would, and I’d definitely have had them in my best ten of the year.  If only they had an album to include.

Meantime, there’s this – Superglue.

———–

Yes, it’s lists time again.  And we have some damn fine best of 2011 lists heading your way this year.  Mine, of course, will be a disappointment in comparison.

We’ve already had John Mackay’s excellent selection of choons (scroll down to find it).  Now it’s the turn of Set in Darkness.

Who him?  He describes himself on twitter (@setindarkness) as loving “hills, bikes, trains, football, computers, doctor who, books, scotland, rugby, music, kids, football and wife. In exactly that order.“  Occasionally he’s funny and witty too.

A long time in gestation, with a little hand-wringing along the way and at the last minute, a demand to change the rules.  Some folk… but absolutely, definitely worth the wait.  There are even albums in here I’ve not yet discovered.  Eek!

So not Set in Darkness’s top choons of 2011 but his best albums of 2011.  Oh and a few highlights from 2010 too.  Enjoy.

The Set in Darkness Top Ten Albums of 2011

My finger is off the pulse these days that I lot of what I listened too, whilst new for me, was from 2010.  I’m always searching
for new music, but it is new for me, doesn’t have to be new to everyone else.  There is nothing better than finding a new fave band
and finding they have an extensive back catalogue.  Witness Number 7 in my list who I only heard of this year, but have released seven albums and have been going since 2004…

10. The Son(s) – the Son(s)

I’ll start now by saying I’m not very good at describing why I like the music I do, I rarely find that words come close to explaining the music.  Let’s just say that whilst its 10th on the list it is very awesome, laid back guitar based music with a great lazy vocal that
carries you along. Beautiful.

9. Lupen Crook – Waiting for the Postman

I’m a long time fan of Lupen Crook, with or without the Murderbirds. Each new album takes the post-punk folk rock artist in a slightly different direction.  I have to say that this is not one of their best albums otherwise it would be in the top 3 but it is still mighty good music.

8. Martin John Henry – The Other Half Of Everything

Martin John Henry is from Glasgow, and this is a beautiful Scottish album.  I was sold by the cover which sets the tone of the
album, songs of holidays, maps and Lanarkshire graveyards. “Take my heart, take my lungs as a map of where I’m from”. Compiling this list I realised I’ve not listened to this album enough.

7. Beerjacket – The White Feather Trail

Apparently Beerjacket have a long history going back to 2004 but I only heard of them in November and played this new album, The White Feather Trail 10 times in a row.  More poppy than I normally like, but this just so simple it is wonderful, with intricate instrument playing along with great pop tunes.

6. FOUND – factorycraft

If I may draw parallels to other bands, anti-craft paint is not unlike Franz Ferdinand. I’ve got nothing to add except that I bet they are great live.

5. sparrow and the workshop – spitting daggers
A brilliant second(?) album from another band from Glasgow.  The single, Snakes in the Grass is a work of genuis and the rest of the album is filled with bright, sparky tunes and great female vocals.

4. Adam Stafford – Build a Harbour Immediately

Indie pop (which is my favourite kind of pop) album which transforms into a piece of wonder half way through – when you are not looking. Whilst you can categorise the start of the album, the only thing you can say about the end is that it is different. But good
different, well, excellent different really.

3. King Creosote & John Hopkins – Diamond Mine

From the first seconds of the first song, First Watch, which is just background talking, this album had me hooked. Music turned into pure wonder. Bittersweet and uplifting sound, I couldn’t help feeling better whenever I listened to this.

2. PJ Harvey – Let England Shake
What an album from Polly Harvey who I’ve loved since I bought the CD single of 50 ft Queenie from 1994.  The new album is great, great music but is also an important story of the world today.  I often miss the meaning of albums unless I read about it afterwards, but the meaning of Let England Shake is clear, sharp and deep.  Anti-war and a lament. An important album.

1. Aidan Moffat and Bill Wells – Everything’s Getting Older

I think the Burd herself put me onto this album mid way through the year, and a quick google search proved me right.  Kate likened this to an aged malt whisky and I can’t argue with that because I love a good malt.  I need good lyrics and these are the best.  I actually had this down at number 6 but each time I came to the next album I thought this one was better until it ended up at No. 1.

So there you go, what do you think?

Close but no cigar…

So, onto the albums that just missed out:

Zoey Van Goey – Propellor Versus Wings;  Tom Vek – Leisure Seizure;

Sons and Daughters – Mirror Mirror; Death Cab for Cutie - Codes and Keys;

David Thomas Broughton – Outbreeding;  Radiohead – Kings of limbs;

Emily Scott – I Write Letters I Never Send;  Okkervil River – I am Very Far

Monoganon – Songs To Swim To; and

The OK Social Club who don’t have an album out as far as I know but get a special mention because their drummer is my son’s
guitar teacher and is a very excellent music teacher.  Totally recommended.

Albums I wish I’d discovered earlier…

Can’t start without a mention for Endor, whose eponymous album was a real highlight for me this year and would have made the top ten for sure had the album not come out in 2010.  They were exceptional live at the Wickerman Festival where sadly far too few people were in the tent to see them.

Another band missing out of the top ten because they released their album in December 2010 were the Savings and Loan, whose single Catholic Boys in the Rain was on constant play throughout February.

——

First up is early bird John Mackay. John is originally from Caithness and his fellow teuchters had the good sense not to elect him when he twice stood as a parliamentary candidate for Labour in the Far North.  His working day involves looking at numbers on computer screens. His own time is spent running, watching too much sport and trying to be and thinking he is a working-class renaissance man (he’s not).

And listening to great music, I hasten to add.  You can find John on Twitter at @john_mackay.

John Mackay’s Ten Best Choons of 2011

It’s fair to say my 10 favourite songs this year are not as cutting edge as they would have been 15 years ago.  I make no apologies for this, though, as I simply don’t have the time to listen to as much new music as I used to.  That said, I am still a music nerd but not as much as a music fascist as I was in my teens and and early 20s.  For example, I have recently relaxed my rule of not discussing music with anyone who can’t name all of Neil Young’s albums in chronological order.  I’m joking (kind of).

This would have been really easy last year as Ambling Alp, Madder Red, I Remember, O.N.E  and Love Me Girl by Yeasayer would have made up half the list.  Some of the songs chosen this year are undoubtedly not ten of the best tracks of 2011 but come from my favourite albums.  So be it.

1. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – John Taylor’s Month Away

Both my parents come from crofts that look out to the North Sea and I have spent days staring out there and just wondering. Unsurprisingly, Fisherman’s Blues is amongst my favourite albums and I am a sucker for songs about the sea.  This particular song makes me think about the months away my forebears have spent at sea.  It nearly brought a tear to this cold-hearted Calvinist’s eye. So good it could almost be from James Yorkston’s When The Haar Rolls In.  Almost.

Diamond Mines, the album this is from, should have won the Mercury.

2. Lana Del Rey – Video Games

One of those songs that makes you stop and listen.  And once you listen you think you must have heard it before because it seems as if it’s always been with you.

I admit I was one of those caught up in the hype about Video Games when it went viral in the summer and tweeted links to its video a few times, months before it was released as a single.  It’s a song about being ignored, which when you see singer Lizzy Grant, is something you can’t imagine she has ever been.

3. The Felice Brothers – Fire At The Pageant

The Felice Brothers are a brilliant band and one of the best live acts you could ever wish to see.  The biggest musical disappointment of my year was the postponement of their Glasgow gig until March.

Fire At The Pageant is the first track on one of this year’s best albums – Celebration, Florida.  Rootsy, shambolic and with a story to tell – you almost feel like you’re at the Deep South equivalent of some sort of stramash.

4. Keren Ann – You Were on Fire

This is no Lay Your Head Down from Keren Ann’s eponymous 2007 album, but what it is, is just a beautiful song.  Lyrically there is a nod to Leonard Cohen and to me it is a little reminiscent of Famous Blue Raincoat.  Though obviously the arrangement is not as sparse as that masterpiece.  Again, from another fine album.

5.  The 2 Bears - Bear Hug

Like Video Games, this single will appear in lots of end of year lists.  The Bears, Joe Goddard and Raf Rundell, have released so much good original material and so many remixes this year that I was spoilt for choice.  But it would have been a bit churlish not to include this instant classic.  Bangin.  Or whatever it is the youth of today say.

6. Emily Barker & The Red Clay Halo - Ropes

Laura Marling’s new album is as poor as her first one.  We can only hope her excellent second album wasn’t a career anomaly. Those disappointed by her recent output should make a beeline for Emily Barker instead.  This song is, for me, the standout on her album, Almanac.  The story of a relationship, it is a thing of wonder.

7. Roots Manuva – Skid Valley

Seeing Public Enemy live in North London in the summer was both a highlight and a disappointment.  A highlight because it is one of the most powerful live performances I have seen.  A letdown because there weren’t enough working-class black kids there and Chuck D’s political message was wasted on a bunch of white, middle-class, cultural tourists.  The gig was in the aftermath of the riots but at £30 a ticket, there was unlikely to be too big a turnout from the estates within a few miles of the Kentish Town Forum.

Listen to the lyrics of this song by a rather more understated UK rapper than Chuck D and you may get some sort of understanding of the detachment taking place in Britain today.  Trouble foretold.

8. Gillian Welch – Silver Dagger

I honestly could have picked any track from The Harrow & The Harvest but settled on this.  Everything you would expect from Welch and David Rawlings and I have listened to it over and over again.  Welch’s voice, the harmonies, the lovelorn lyrics, the guitar and harmonica playing – all are perfect. The Harrow & The Harvest is on a par with Time (The Revelator).  Yes, it’s that good.

9. The Silver Seas – What’s The Drawback?

I’m pretty sure you have to be in your mid-30s to like bands such as The Hold Steady and The Silver Seas (speak for yourself – Ed’s note).  Knowing, world-weary and witty lyrics coupled with music that is fairly middle-of-the-road but stays poppy enough to make sure it doesn’t take itself too seriously.

I would have hated this when I was a teenager.  And rightly so.  But the Silver Seas are a great band making great, uncomplicated, feel-good music.

10. PJ Harvey – The Colour Of the Earth

This is from the album that won the Mercury.

The first PJ Harvey album I got into was Rid of Me and I think the chances of her making an award-winning anti-war album 18 years later were as unlikely then as Damon Albarn, my musical idol in 1993, writing critically acclaimed Chinese operas.

This song is the last on Let England Shake and is a collaboration with Mick Harvey, the former Bad Seed and the Australian producer of the album.  Musical and lyrical depth that do justice to the subject matter of a fallen Anzac soldier.  It is a remarkable song from a remarkable album.