diskant.net

Some more lists

2011-12-29T15:41:56Z

I Like Lists

2011-12-27T12:23:25Z

Well, if Dr Proffitt is going to come out of retirement, I guess I should too. Especially since I had nothing better to do on Boxing Day after eating my breakfast pie.

RECORDS

Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will / Earth Division EP
Being one of those annoying people who always prefer the early stuff, Mogwai continue to be my favourite band for consistently releasing albums that are better than the last one. And 12″ EPs without filler.

Nicola Roberts – Cinderella’s Eyes
Always the Girl Aloud most likely to do something interesting, I was thrilled she went down the bonkers Scandinavian pop route, one of my favourite genres.

Annie – Don’t Stop
Slightly less bonker,s but actually Scandinavian, pop.

Wild Flag – Wild Flag
So hyped I was almost put off checking them out, but yeah, they are great.

FILMS

Arrietty
A year with a Ghibli movie is always a good year, and this was almost up to Miyazaki levels.

Super 8
So full of JJ Abrams cliches it’s hilarious, but the train crash scene is one the greatest things I saw on screen all year.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
I was sure this would be terrible but it stands up well and somehow managed to be even more ponderous in a couple of hours than the miniseries.

Upside Down – Creation Records thing
Nostalgia ahoy – so good!

Tintin
Tintin was a Big Thing in our house as children so I was never going to be happy with all the bizarre story changes/additions but it was at least fun.

BOOKS

A Dance With Dragons – George RR Martin
A bit flawed, but after a 5 year wait, I’m just happy to have more story. The TV show (Game of Thrones) was awesome though – at least that will keep us going for the next five.

The Celestial Cafe – Stuart Murdoch
A cross between a memoir and a Belle and Sebastian tour diary (and a love letter to Glasgow). I’d have liked this anyway, but it kept me entertained while sitting in A&E for 2 hours after slicing my hand open so extra props for that.

Nothing To See Here – Anne Ward
A guidebook to the unexpectedly interesting places of Scotland – if you’ve ever considered taking a detour on your journey after spotting a bizarre road sign then this is the book for you. Buy it here.

100 Tiny Moments From My Past, Present and Future – Edward Ross
Fantastic little book of comics, drawn every day for 100 days and documenting tiny everyday moments. Even greater are the little peeks into his past and his imagined future. Buy it here.

ZINES

Burn Collector #15 – Al Burian
One of my favourite ever zinesters, always managing to mix hilarity and melancholy in equal parts. The personal articles are my favourite but also includes some interesting stuff about Berlin, where he’s now based. Buy it here.

How To Be A Ghost – Neil Slorance & Campbell Miller
A cute little illustrated zine about what to do when you’re a ghost. It’s a great read and one of 5 zines inspired by my zine workshop last year – so cool. Buy it here.

The Various Things I Eat by Deth P Sun
Deth drew everything he ate every day for six months. Surprisingly interesting to look through, especially if you’re not American. What is all this stuff? Buy it here.

DIY Times
Packed full of interviews with people doing things the DIY way, whether that’s printing t-shirts, making tables or running Supersonic. Probably my favourite zine discovery this year. Buy it here.

Fire & Knives
Still the only magazine I spend £10 on and consider that a bargain. Great food writing and even better design and illustration. Buy it here.

EVENTS

Mogwai at the Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow
I hadn’t seen Mogwai for a couple of years so this was equal parts nostalgia and jaw dropping amazement at their new stuff. Plus the fun of watching Mogwai while sitting in the balcony of a tiny line dancing venue can’t really be overstated.

Errors at the Barras, Glasgow
It’s been even longer since I saw Errors and I kind of hate myself now. So so good. Their next album is going to be killer. They even upstaged Mogwai who they were supporting as Mogwai were (dare I say it?) TOO LOUD, to the point of distortion.

The Most Incredible Thing at Sadlers Wells, London
I have been getting into ballet lately, like the old person/teenage girl I am, so imagine my delight when the Pet Shop Boys staged a ballet. Possibly the only ballet to successfully combine Communist Russia, paper cutting, the X Factor and pop music, and do it perfectly seriously.

Eska at Stereo, Glasgow
What can I say? Like being transported back to 1998 for the evening, not to mention the minor diskant meet-up. Good times.

Anyone else?

Temporary Resurrection

2011-12-15T02:30:48Z

Hi! Just thought I’d check in to see what was going on over in diskantland, and since it’s mid-December, and since no-one’s written much for a while, I thought I’d add a quick year-end thingmie in case anyone’s still reading.

2011 was the year in which I finally alienated myself from all my friends (by being unable – for reasons that are still unclear to me – to keep in touch with anyone), in which I took up recreational trespassing, and in which I realised that I’m getting old. One of the musical avenues that I’ve always tried to travel down has been the one marked ‘extreme’. I’ve always seemed to be searching for harder, louder, more visceral, or conversely more minimal, quieter, slower – regardless of genre, I’ve wanted to hear the things that are testing the limits. Finding out what these things are and how to get them hasn’t always been straightforward, especially in the days before the internet (as information resource and as lending library), and along the way there have been miss-steps and disappointments, especially in hindsight: reading all about Cabaret Voltaire and the surrounding hype as a wide-eyed teen and then my first purchase of theirs being their pretty embarrassingly lame house LP Groovy, Laidback and Nasty being a notable example. But then this year I’ve realised that a surprising amount of so-called extreme music is actually total crap, and some of it that isn’t crap, that is actually still very good, I just don’t have the patience for any more. I think I think this because I’m getting old and my melody gland is starting to swell up. So this year I’ve found myself rejecting the kind of discordant, confrontational, improvised music that I’ve previously championed, and instead enjoying a lot of music of the kind that might get played on Radio 2. Stuff with nice harmonies, proper tunes you can whistle. Pop music. Good old fashion rock. One of the best tracks I heard all year, for instance (even though it’s from 2007) was Feist’s The Water. It’s devastating! I even bought the last Smoke Fairies album. On vinyl! With real money. This is not something that’s been easy to admit to myself or to the general public, but then I’m not really interested in impressing people with how cool I am, so I’ll just state it as fact.

So whereas my favourite albums of 2011 might once have looked like this:

1. .#: oooooooooooooooooooooooooO
2. Jean-Pierre Cockbingo & Mbandu Mbandu Mbandu: Those Barren Assemblies Vol.3
3. -|-\/\//\-t-: _/////wITTcH___////////___
4. Some 12 year old Hoxton tit improvising on an electro-acoustic beetroot: Live in Williamsburg

Here are my actual favourite albums of the year:

1. The Psychic Paramount: II

2. Snowman: Absence

3. Still Corners: Creatures of an Hour

4. Thee Oh Sees: Carrion Crawler/The Dream

5. Surgeon: Breaking the Frame

6. The Twilight Sad: Acoustic EP

7. Wild Beasts: Smother

8. The Advisory Circle: As The Crow Flies

9. Radiohead: The King of Limbs

10. Mogwai: Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

11. Oneohtrix Point Never: Replica

12: The Beach Boys: Smile

Merry Christmas!

the slow decline of diskant

2011-07-27T11:10:55Z

Hello ever-decreasing band of loyal diskant readers! As you may have noticed, diskant is slowly slipping into retirement. What with all these Facebooks and iPhones and things, there’s just too many other places for us to be posting our thoughts on, and being the incredibly creative and amazing people we are, there are now about 5 million things on the internet run by diskanteers. If you’re missing anyone in particular, try that list of author links on the top right. I may well follow this up with an extensive list of diskant-related blogs you should be reading.

As we’ve built up such an epic vault of awesome content over the last 13 years, there is no way I will ever let diskant disappear, major disasters permitting, but it does cost me a fair bit to maintain so I may have to move over to some more affordable hosting in the near future. So, if everything disappears soon, don’t panic! We’ll be back.

I would hope we’ll still manage a few round-ups and things now and again, as it’s cool to see what everyone’s up to, but I would definitely recommend subscribing to our RSS feed (in Google Reader or whatnot) so that you can hear about these infrequent postings.

Self-promotion alert!

If you’re now lacking some good reading, you might like my new zine distro, pushpin zines. diskant was of course built from the late 90s zine scene and I’ve been continuing my zinemaking ever since, while also recently encouraging a whole new generation of zinesters. At pushpin, you can buy lots of cool zines by my favourite zinesters on my favourite subjects – travel, creativity, Japan and personal stories. If you decide to buy anything, mention diskant at checkout and I’ll send you some freebies too!

THE DOOMED BIRD OF PROVIDENCE – Will Ever Pray (CD, Front And Follow)

2011-06-01T07:45:33Z

I don’t think I will ever feel at ease with Australia. Its just too vast, just too hot. It’s the kind of place where bad things happen beneath a tempered sun that can’t help but influence and direct a person’s behaviour in unhealthy fashion

Originally hailing from such parts The Doomed Bird Of Providence is not so much a band as it is a gang. At last count it was five strong and growing. With this their arsenal of instruments has grown over time and now as they present their debut album their aural vision is as clear and powerful as ever.

Boasting a previous criminal record, when the Doomed Bird Of Providence first unleashed their wares a couple of years ago with their self titled EP on Laily Recordings it was a prized eruption that contained a solid set of songs at the hands of band leader Mark Kluzek which eventually led to low level scandal regarding the selling of goods on eBay.

With Will Ever Pray the message is clear: this band is here to give you nightmares, to saddle you with guilt as the Poms must be forced to pay for previous indiscretions.

The piece opens with vocals distributed like lashes. From here strings soon drop, sinking their claws into proceedings from where they never let go. With this accordion then seeps in as the occasional piano keys drip like blood and guitar parts are driven and tempered.

Something of a concept album possessing a staunch inflicted narrative Will Ever Pray is a two part monster as the first four songs telling tales of early exploration and deportation by ship in and around the Australia region. Then “the massacre of the whole of the passengers and part of the crew of The Sea Horse on her homeward passage from Sydney” consumes the following five track finale. Naturally its downbeat content but ultimately more entertaining and accessible than watching the History Channel. In other words this is a previously untapped fountain of information.

Comparisons do not come easy or necessarily clear in compliment. Obviously the accordion is an instrument that does not get a lot of action in a rocking world and while hardly being Klezmar, its use and execution is somewhat more ghastly than the dark, likeable and comic Tiger Lillies. Likewise the heavy violin strings delivered in an Australian context obviously recall The Dirty Three however when they layer in tandem and echo with guitar it feels akin to darkland Velvet Underground. To this you can perhaps throw into the mix a sense of Tindersticks but ultimately the band is so much more as it offers a sound that it earnest and very much its own. You won’t hear anything else that sounds like this in a hurry.

Of the first half raft it is “On The Deathbed Of Janus Weathercock” which provides the highlight with the detailed description of a man’s demise as all comes together sonically and majestically lending something of a tranquil air to anything but a peaceful demise. The hooks here are the kind that give birth to goosebumps. This physical reaction however may also be as result from the fact that Weathercock was a notorious poisoner.

As the second half of the record begins and the massacre ensues this chapter opens with a ten minute plus instrumental of ringing strings as a queasy sensation prevails and an eventual hook and loop that perversely reminds me of an unidentified staple from my past (sorry to be vague). From here a clap shanty spurs the crew into action as by part 3 there is talk of “slashing throats” and “cutting out tongues” which makes for a horrific snapshot in time. With this part 4 resumes the score motif as delicate piano ticks lend the piece a calm after the storm feel, housing a raindrop like sensation to represent the closure and conclusion of the rain in blood (reign in blood). By the end the devastation feels like jubilation as a change in order feels very much on the cards.

To garner a full appreciation of this record it is beneficial to listen intently as the multitude of instruments all jostle for position while at the same time being given space to breathe. This is a truly tight outfit and very talented musicians playing to their strengths and syncing in the most dogged and accomplished manner.

Curiously this makes for very good public transport music especially trips that are long haul. While sat squashed onto a train with my fellow passengers I can’t help but empathise and liken my plight as I envisage all aboard being driven and dragged to a destination against our wills as the necessity outweighs the enjoyment of our existence and whisks us into bondage, suffering and misery. With this I can’t but view it all as a shared experience and use it as an effective tool to combat the labour of my day.

This is the real deal.

Did ya.

Thesaurus moment: carnage.

The Doomed Bird Of Providence

Front And Follow

DEERHOOF – Deerhoof vs. Evil (Joyful Noise)

2011-03-06T21:36:31Z

You heard Deerhoof? Yeah they’re really great. Here’s a picture:

Really great. You heard new album Evil?

San Francisco’s finest are back with buckets of anti-Evil vengeance. With no outside engineery-type help Deerhoof are a self-recording/self-producing force this time round. Released by Joyful Noise (among others) on cassette, packed with handbaked editing goodness, a collection with all varieties of nonsensical twinkly sonic innovation. Over the duration of several weeks each track was cannily leaked by the band over different sites, and after a good bout of surfing you can access them all from their hub.

Straight off we’re treated to a flabbergasting range of sounds squeezed from guitars which sound like overworked (and underpaid) machines. Six strings act as cash registers and angry hair dryers, doing well to resemble anything but guitars on the glimmering opening track, sung in Catalan.

The Merry Barracks is a sweet droplet of a Deerhoof tune and the album’s standout track. An inexplicably crude bassline begins while the rest of the band plain ignore it to proceed bashing out one of Deerhoof’s most perfect songs to date. Addictive hook, sweet harmony, free noise guitar solo – just perfect. And served up right after is another superlative: probably their sweetest, most heart-wrenching tun;, acoustic guitars a-winding, faint vocals, tender percussion… it’s here.

Midway through we’re treated with a vicious cover of the theme tune to a dusty old Greek film whose name you won’t know and don’t need to. A shrieking, glittering delight, perfect clear guitar chimes a pierced line, chasing an abrasive riff. The album’s last third sees Deerhoof doing their best to write some convention into the tunes, with some beautiful instances of pinching a tight harmony at the ends of phrases.

Irrelevance is on my mind. Explorations are interesting in themselves but it might give the impression of a breathless trip round an ingenious mini-golf club, a toy theme park and finally a sweet shop of red herrings. Did we fall into any catchy cobblestone steps on the way? You bet we did. What did we learn? Err, rhubarb and custard, liquorice… Plus a stomach full of smarties.

Deerhoof do their job though serving their trademark sweet and sour, a dish delirious with saccharine rips of kitchen scourer. Disjointed, sloppy drum beats are the order of the day, the magic stick wizard Greg Saunier otherwise taking a back seat for songwriting to steer the album. All is in order but the deer and the hoof haven’t let go of their tedious habit of allowing an album to peter out as per usual in a weak mesh of synths and melodramatic vocals.

Apart from some questionable diversions, a truly first rate, top mark, 5 sticky gold stars to slap on their progress report – and a big smiley crayon face – I am truly in danger of gushing at every sparkly track and not letting it to yourselves; Just like that sweaty taxi driver who never lets you get out and see for yourself – arms obsession hairy. You should be happy that there’s too much sweet Deerhoofy goodness that I haven’t mentioned.

Joyful Noise

Pascal Ansell

Glaswegian Grand Prix

2011-02-18T12:13:34Z

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJZQ9xBrkWo

I’m always impressed by Mogwai’s ability to celebrate Glasgow without it degenerating into patriotic flag-waving idiocy. Their video for Mexican Grand Prix is a case in point. I think anyone who’s ever spent even 24 hours in Glasgow can’t fail to enjoy this -- if you actually live here, it’s even more awesome (plus you can play ‘spot my mate’). See also Findo Gask’s One Eight Zero video below for West Enders. Glasgow = THE BEST.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHFcX550G8o

JOAN OF ARC – Oh Brother (Joyful Noise)

2011-02-12T13:10:22Z

Even if all that was caught on tape was an indiscreet sample of midday farting, I’d leap at the chance to review anything that shaggy rhythm monkey / god Zach Hill would wave his sticks at. Thankfully Oh Brother catches more than a mere guff of his rhythmic arse cheeks. Zach is just one of the many collaborators on what seems to be an Almost Joan of Arc release, JOA being kings of complicated floppy-haired indie rock.

If this is “indie-rock for the initiated” as Mr Press Release would have it, where are we going with new music? Free improv and electronic meanderings are making their steady invasion, I can only hope, into the cardigan armpits of guitar-slingers.

Oh Brother is four movements of roughly 20 mins each – movements, of what? Drones, Sonic Youthish plod plod plodding + jangling guitar, metronomic kraut rock, and mashes of unloosed improv, seething arrows pointing at all angles. Although well edited, this is in effect a series of long jams which are interrupted, cut clean and diced between fairly interesting interludes of electronic spasms and ad-lib drumkit drooling. One thought popping up a bit too regularly is that the ideas aren’t worth the space they’re given. Too much assorted veg, begging for more meat.

More to be said about the editing, above all the album’s deftest of fingernails polishings. Clever segues are brought on by synthy blips, an acoustic guitar section opens the window for fresh direction, brightly signalling yet another segue, that of the third movement’s sheet of crash symbols and rippling feedback. Yet I’m enjoying the ideas more than their execution. Is there any real, exciting development of concept? Most of it feels like the culminations of bygone jams.

And Zach? He has some moments: classic skipping beat that twists i’ ‘nan ‘dout of conventional rhythm at the cock crow of movement #4, then there’s some appetising all-out, ruthless free gorging of the kit scattered around the entire LP. The excessive is contained, that is I suppose the aim, but there was much lacking from the excess in the first place.

Chopped up and blended into lumps of obsessions, it’s partly lacking cohesion, more bedroom fantasy than triumphant chronicle of vision. It works; just, kind of, not really, but is fun all the same.

http://www.myspace.com/joanfrc

Pascal Ansell

2010 catch-up: Personal Highlights

2011-01-02T11:08:35Z

Two of my bands did their final ever shows. Sunnyvale, with diskant’s Mr Simon Minter, reformed for the tenth anniversary of our festival Audioscope, which was a total ball and a delight to play the songs again. And From Light To Sound collapsed after the entire rhythm section left, which felt a bit premature. Have a listen over here if you like, you can download all our stuff for free. Still, got a new band now called Listing Ships, which is kicking off with recording and gigs in January. So hopefully that’ll be my event of 2011… (Stu Fowkes)

Moving to Berlin and making a racket singing Brahms’ Requiem and joining a klezmer band. (Pascal Ansell)

2010 was a big year for me - my third year of self-employment and filled with great things. A few standouts were the release of my own signature line of welly boots courtesy of Plueys (for reals, people are walking around with my name on their footwear!), the Zine Workshop I organised in Glasgow and getting a fold-up bike just in time for Summer! But best of all was returning to Japan for an all too short 10 day trip. We spent some time getting to know Osaka, visited the inspiring Design Festa in Tokyo and I even got my photo taken with a giant pink dancing bunny. Doesn’t get any better than that. (Marceline Smith)

Because we hate sleep, personal freedom and not being covered in someone else’s urine, vomit and faeces, my wife and I had another child. He’s awesome though, so it’s ok. (Alex McChesney)

There have been too many great things going on this year. My advice: try to do at least one interesting, chat-worthy thing each day. (Simon Minter)

My new year’s resolution was to do one cool thing a week and in the end I managed to meet this in fifty of the fifty two weeks. As part of this I became a member at both the Southbank Centre and BFI which has paid with highlights such as seeing talks by Slavoj Zizek, Bret Easton Ellis, John Waters, John Landis and Darren Aronofsky. Also the London Film Festival, London Literature Festival and London Word Festivals all provided major thrills. Probably the best event was taking dad to Wembley to see Millwall in the play off final for a second year running but this time we actually won! (JGRAM)

2010 catch-up: Bands

2011-01-02T11:07:30Z

STEAM POWERED GIRAFFE
One of the unexpected pleasures of San Diego, California — as well as one of the most eclectic and creative musical acts I’ve ever seen — is the “old-time robots meet the harmonies of Freddie Mercury” pantomime performance group, “Steam Powered Giraffe.” Now I know what you might be saying. “Wil, I’ve seen a lot of ‘old-time robots meet the harmonies of Freddie Mercury’ pantomime groups… are you sure this is one of the best?” Indeed I am. First off, their pantomime is flawless — their herky-jerky motions truly mimic the actions of an animatronic theme park doll. On top of that, their music is both fabulously rendered (and quite catchy) and hilarious! I’ve caught them live several times and they never fail to impress. For readers who may live some distance away from San Diego, and have trouble catching the Giraffe live (I presume this to be about 98% of Diskant’s audience), you can get a gist at http://www.steampoweredgiraffe.com. (Wil Forbis)

Merzbow
Oh deary me… After having given my internet music purchasing ethics a good check, I’ve spent a lot of money on Mr Merzbow this year. Thus far he is is most stunning in the long motif-spotted jams like 1930 or Turban Shell Blues, but I’ve been taken to similarly ecstatic places with albums like the pulsing Tauromachine and swirling rain-drenched Merzdub. He never really stops. To me, his colossal discography is encouraging in that I know he’s uncollectable; to some extent I have to make my own Merzbow. Paul Hegarty’s book Noise/Music: A History has a fantastic chapter devoted entirely to Merzbow which I keep coming back to as I scrape a little more into his copious back catalogue. (Pascal Ansell)

The Besnard Lakes were my late discovery of the year – totally fantastic band. Like the Arcade Fire I can actually connect properly with. Loads of lush detail and warmth in the arrangements, and their last two records are like a fantastic art-rock Beach Boys or something. (Stu Fowkes)

BILLY CHILDISH
Within the first few months of the year I had already seen Billy Childish four times in various capacities as the ICA put on an exhibition by him. The first event I attended was a book burning at his L-13 Aquarium gallery after Penguin had issued a cease and desist order against a publishing of a book of his poems. Later I attended an evening of his Chatham Super-8 movie club before the season ended with a gig with his Vermin Poets band followed by a set by his Musicians Of The British Empire outfit (basically him, his wife on bass and Wolf from the Buff Medways on drums) as they tore through much of his back catalogue all culminating with his cover of “Fire” by Hendrix. This gig was the just perfect evening as such a stripped down sound offered so much in return revealing him to be a much underrated musician as the whole ICA event in general helped solidify what an original treasure the man is. (JGRAM)

Flying Lotus
Awesomeness x 2 this year: Cosmogramma triumphs in a hyper-genre mush, and the following ultra synthy EP Pattern + Grid World doesn’t do too badly either. Have a listen to Camera Day off the latter EP. (Pascal Ansell)

2010 catch-up: Live Music

2011-01-04T15:52:26Z

Audioscope
This year was the tenth year it’s been running. A frightening yet pleasing milestone. Highlights this year included Wire being very nice chaps, Felix and Rome Pays Off being welcome breaks of blissful quiet in amongst the noise, and Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element (featuring me) playing our great one-off comeback show to a rapt audience of, oooh, twenty people. (Simon Minter)

Lightning Bolt
Thrilled to interview Brian Chippendale when LB played at the Brudenell in Leeds after desperately borrowing an mp3 recorder from the uni Language Centre to help “with my German degree”… Also really enjoyed this year’s Earthly Delights LP: the usual frantic cartoony cacophony. (Pascal Ansell)

LED BIB/GET THE BLESSING
The event that gave me the real Goosebumps and hairs standing up moment was called Avant! Noir which was part of the London Word Festival and featured four modern noir writers (Toby Litt, Courttia Newland, Ray Banks and Cathi Unsworth) doing readings while accompanied by Led Bib then Get The Blessing in addition to a comic strip being shown on screen at various points. It all made for a smoky night of perfection which culminated in both bands onstage facing off against each other attempting to blow the other offstage with their playing. It was the most powerful musical performance I saw all year. If only all music was like that. From a more straight ahead rock perspective the Mission Of Burma set at Dingwalls was easily the best set I witnessed this year which even saw me drunkenly air guitar. (JGRAM)

The Yummy Fur, Stereo, Glasgow
This was easy since I went to just one gig in 2010, and in the middle of December too! I mentioned my plans to see The Yummy Fur reunion show in last year’s catch-up, but I managed to catch an awful cold from a snow-filled train journey, adding to my lengthy list of Yummy Fur near-misses by ridiculous circumstance. Thankfully, they gave me one last chance and despite all efforts by fate to nobble me by cutting off my entire water supply for a week (seriously, we now have some of those disaster zone bottles of emergency drinking water courtesy of Scottish Water), I finally made it to a proper Yummy Fur gig. Of course it was amazing in every way. The audience was full of old-skool Glasgow lo-fi fans, the band members were on good joke form, and the tunes! I think they played everything I could possibly have wanted, though I would have happily stood there while they played their entire back catalogue from beginning to end. I’m generally against nostalgia-driven reunions but this was more like righting a 15 year wrong. Seems I can die happy now. (Marceline Smith)

Ausland in Prenzlauer Berg, Berlin
I generally don’t bother to even look up who’s playing – it’ll always be some incredibly weird but very fun stuff. If you’re “in the near”, turn up and you’ll have a good night of avant-garde brilliance in one form or other. Link (Pascal Ansell)

Ahem. I went to six festivals this year, and I have to say the one I enjoyed the most by far was Download. Not least because AC/DC live was one of the best things IN HISTORY, but also nice to see RATM, Dillinger Escape Plan, Cancer Bats, and relive my teenage years with Deftones. Ace crowd as well, loads of fun. Sadly, next year’s headliners are Linkin Park and System of a Down, so unlikely to go back in 2011. (Stu Fowkes)

Jonatan Nästesjö
Beautiful ambience in a freezing cold church in Leeds. (Pascal Ansell)

2010 catch-up: Websites

2011-01-02T11:05:40Z

Some stuff we enjoyed on the internets in 2010.

One of my favourite blog discoveries this year was magculture, which covers both mainstream and independent magazines. If you think print is dead, a read of this will have you coveting all kinds of weird and wonderful publications. I also loved Vending Spree, the new blog by TMN writer Matthew Baldwin, who is eating everything in his work’s vending machine and writing about it in a way that has made me “actual LOL” many times. I also joined infamous teen-bullying site Formspring, which can be used for good in the hands of adults – it’s been lots of fun answering questions (please do ask me one!). And finally, I am slightly obsessed by Everyday Cute, an insanely fun and adorable website by one of my favourite illustrators. Oh go on, you know you want to dress up a cat. (Marceline Smith)

I recently became the proud owner of an iPad, and as such read Podgamer religiously for scathingly honest game reviews and freebie notifications for all flavours of iThing. (Alex McChesney)

Facebook. My year began with my Facebook Cull which saw them threatening me in June with legal action before experiencing my worst cinema experience of the year in October watching The Social Network (decent film but awful audience) which has all in all resulted in one of my 2011 resolutions being to zap my profile. Of course the door remains open so it is going to be a real cold turkey battle of wills to see how long I can stick to it. I managed to catch Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network scriptwriter) in interview who explained how Zuckerberg has created a whole new method of human interaction over the year I have slowly/gradually found the website depressing me as it consistently rubbed reinvented versions of my friends in my face via the newsfeed. By the end of the year I had hidden the majority of people from the feed anyway. It just all makes my head pound and I couldn’t get enough! I’ll stick with Twitter though as I love the ego trip that is the followers concept. (JGRAM)

Byte.fm – quality alternative radio from Hamburg – huge whopping recommendation for the afrobeat hour, Tropeninstitut, (Saturday, 18hr). theneedledrop.com- I like this dude’s video reviews – passionate about music and he knows his stuff. (Pascal Ansell)

The websites that have given me the most joy ths year: www.thingsmagazine.com, www.flickr.com, www.litmanlive.me, www.enemiesofreason.co.uk, plus my dangerous addiction to buying guitar effects pedals on eBay. (Stu Fowkes)

2010 catch-up: Gaming

2011-01-02T11:02:55Z

The most fun games we played in 2010.

Picross 3D
I love the original Picross in a rather pathetic manner, replaying it at least 3 times now. It’s basically a puzzle game, a bit like a cross between Sudoku and Minesweeper. Anyway, I bought the new game for the plane trip to Japan and it’s very addictive. Instead of working on a flat grid, you now knock away cubes to reveal an object. I say ‘object’ as if these are in any way recognisable – even once they colour it in and go ta-da! I’m usually going oh, yes, it’s um… OH ‘man looking through window’, of course. Still fun though. Even better, each completed ‘object’ is added to one of many themed landscapes, and again, I say ‘themed’ like they’re not totally hilarious stuff like ‘things with sharp edges’, ‘things that come out when it rains’ and my favourite ‘things required for relaxing by a fire’. The in-game music is also so incredibly brainwormy, I can quite literally whistle the songs from memory. I do however, have one very big problem with this game, which is that they’ve tried to fun it up by having a…a…one-eyed cubeduckchickalien (srsly, WHAT IS THIS?!) around at all times being weird and wrong. The sarcastic way it double-takes when I complete a level makes me want to punch the screen. Also, I bet they’re really regretting the 3D title now actual 3D gaming is all but upon us.

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
I got a bit hooked on running round Venice sticking knives into people in AC2, and this one is based across the whole of room so it’s TOTALLY MASSIVE and great fun. (Stu Fowkes)

Minecraft
It’s the middle of the night and I’m sheltering in a tiny log cabin that I hastily built myself. Inside, the only light comes from the furnace in which a few logs are smoldering. Through the sole window there’s just enough of a moon to see the falling snow, the outline of the hills in the distance, and something that’s moving around out there. I’m cold and hungry, I daren’t leave until the sun comes up, and I’ve just experienced the strongest sense of place that I’ve ever received from any videogame, never mind one written by a single developer, which is not even finished, and has graphics that, from some angles, can look like products of the 16-bit era. If I ever get my finger out and start writing properly again I might do a full-length piece singing the praises of Minecraft but for now you’ll just have to trust that it makes all other videogames seem silly and pointless. (Alex McChesney)

Angry Birds
Always Angry Birds. Although Cut The Rope, for a while, was a close second. (Simon Minter)

FIFA 2010
In January I bought my friend’s Nintendo DS from him and proceeded to buy a number of games for it off the internet but in the end I only really got around to playing FIFA 2010 with any regularity (I never even took WWE out of the box). For what is a handheld console the information held in the programme is astounding and the game play impressive and fluid as it proves for me the best revision tool towards football while allowing me to conjure up crazy results in peak performances for my beloved Millwall. (JGRAM)

Sushi Cat
Basically a bit like pinball, but with a fat cat and lots of sushi. The cut scenes are hilarious and provide both backstory and important situations that require becoming very fat through the eating of sushi. The gameplay itself is really fun but not too difficult, great for short breaks. Plus they released a sequel recently, and it’s still all free. Get it for the iPhone or play it online. (Marceline Smith)

2010 catch-up: Fanzines & Magazines

2011-01-02T10:59:46Z

Fire & Knives
I have been eyeing up this independent literary food magazine for a while, but at £9.50 an issue it’s not exactly an impulse buy. I finally picked up a copy of #4 at the ace Analogue Books in Edinburgh and realised it’s well worth the money. Proper interesting articles plus nice illustration and photography in a handy sized package. What more do you really want? Subscription now ordered. (Marceline Smith)

I’ve been reading Newsweek quite a bit this year – it’s better than Time. Also The New Yorker is bloody brilliant. (Stu Fowkes)

VICE MAGAZINE
I still have a subscription with Vice Magazine and visit their website daily. It continues to churn out interesting stuff while exhibiting stupid hairstyles. In March I found myself having cross words with them regarding missing issues before realizing I just allowed my subscription to lapse. For months I expected to see my emails in their letters page but happily they didn’t appear. The comedy and film issues were genuinely great, their best in years. (JGRAM)

Does anyone read paper magazines any more? Here in the US they’re not much more than expensive advertisement-delivery tools anyway. I did buy a copy of The Wire a few weeks ago, though. Wanky as ever, I still kinda love it. (Alex McChesney)

Treasures of Sky Mall by Gemma Correll
I bought a lot of zines in 2010 (check out Etsy’s Zine section) but this was possibly my favourite. Anyone who’s ever spent time happily ridiculing catalogues like Sky Mall and Innovations will love this – some of the funniest/stupidest products as drawn in Gemma’s own style. Of course she goes mostly for the pet related items which makes things even funnier with her trademark cats and dogs looking slightly bemused by the madness. Seems to be sold out but check her shop for new zines. (Marceline Smith)

2010 catch-up: Books

2011-01-02T11:01:56Z

Our favourite books of the year.

Tara Rodgers’ Pink Noises
A collection of interviews with women working in experimental / electronic music (I think based off of a website of the same name). It’s become an important correction to a problem I hadn’t thought existed – not just the under-representation of women artists (I expect that, without accepting it), but the way that the whole way of talking about electronic music has erased them. I’ve learned a lot even from the names on the Contents page. The interviews can be approachable, technical, gossipy and always interesting. The book shouldn’t have to exist, but I’m glad it does. (Stan Tontas)

Music, Society, Education – Christopher Small
Very dull title for a very interesting book. Singing in choirs makes me realise how ridiculously elevated you’re positioned in concerts, how incredibly formal the end-product of friendly weekly rehearsals aspires to be, and the depressingly frequent conversations with people who think they “could never sing”. An encouraging book for anyone interested in music’s role in education and the average person’s capabilities. (Pascal Ansell)

JONATHAN AMES – THE ALCOHOLIC
At one stage around October it felt like Jonathan Ames was everywhere I looked. It was listening to an interview with him on the highly recommended WTF podcast that really exposed me to what the man is about which appears to be David Sedaris crossed with Charles Bukowski via Woody Allen. Obviously being a writer he has been an alcoholic and after skimming through a couple of his short stories books this graphic novel of his boozy experiences really proved an incredible piece of work that left me in mixed minds but wholly in love with the guy. Of course Ames is currently best known for being behind HBO series Bored To Death which brings a life affirming fantasy life to being a writer. (JGRAM)

Stephen Batchelor – Confession of a Buddhist Atheist
A buddhist monk for many years, Batchelor became gradually disillusioned with the mystical aspects of the religion, and set out to strip the teachings on which it was based from the dogma they had accumulated over the centuries. Equal parts memoir, travelogue and philosophical archaeology. (Alex McChesney)

A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
I got this for Christmas and it was all I could do not to sit sit down and read the whole thing from cover to cover, enormous though it is. As previously established, I’ve been a space nut since I was very small (wait, I am still very small) and this book is just a joy. It describes NASA’s Apollo program in great detail, going through each mission from the disastrous beginnings through to the six Moon landings. While sometimes bogged down by technical language and military customs, it does a great job of explaining how it all succeeded and introducing all the people who made it happen. The actual moon landings are exhilarating to read about and each mission comes with so many problems overcome that you can understand why we’ve never been back (yet), though reading about NASA’s plans at the time for moon bases and manned missions to Mars makes me so sad. The book is also the source material for HBO’s rather great TV series From the Earth to the Moon, which is well worth checking out. My only disappointment is that Chaikin hasn’t yet done a book about the Shuttle missions – come on man, get to it! (Marceline Smith)

Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha
The field of evolutionary psychology has taken a largely dark look at the biological roots of modern man’s behavior. Why do men sleep around? Because sleeping with 250 floozies does more to ensure the propagation of their genes than having a nurturing wholesome relationship with one woman. Why are humans violent? Because we’ve been programmed towards aggression by a millennia of survival of the fittest evolution. “Sex at Dawn,” by authors Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha, takes an alternate look at the school of evolutionary psychology. They argue that for much of man’s history, hunter/gatherers lived relatively pleasant lives of limited threats, plentiful food and lots of lots of sex! It was the advent of agriculture, 10,000 years ago, that bloodied man’s behavior. And their arguments — based on historical studies, analysis of other primate cultures and the fact that there are observable hunter/gatherers still around — make a lot of sense! It should be said that “Sex at Dawn” is not simply a starry eyed laudation of the noble savage at the expense of modern man. Hunter/gatherers had plenty of flaws, and their egalitarianism was more the result of environment than inner virtue. But the book — easily approachable by nonscientific types — provides plenty to think about. I interviewed one of the authors for Acid Logic (Wil Forbis)

Been re-reading older stuff this year, so things like Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury and The Outsider by Albert Camus have been lighting my fire, as it were. (Stuart Fowkes)

The third edition of Jeffery Zeldman’s ‘Designing With Web Standards’. It totally nails the point of creating websites in the correct way. It also explains things in a way that will convince people whodon’t see the point. (Exciting stuff, no?) (Simon Minter)

Karen Armstrong – A History of God
Interested in Sky Fairies? Ya psycho! Perhaps best read in long stretches – incredible introduction to one of the most problematic words I can imagine, and how culture has made God their own. (Pascal Ansell)

Mountaineering Holiday by JS Smythe
This year I have mostly been reading expedition and travel books, preferably rambling monologues by over-privileged English Gentlemen. This one is from 1939, just days before WW2 broke out and describes a, well, mountaineering holiday in the French/Italian Alps where Mr Smythe climbs various mountains and describes them pleasantly with breaks to pontificate on the horrors of motor cars, war, tourists, foreigners, people who climb too slowly, people who walk too fast and women in breeches. I especially enjoyed the parts where he describes other less experienced climbers they encounter and basically says, well, they’re going to die if the weather changes. Nice. Might look him up and see if someone eventually pushed him into a crevasse. It also contains an anecdote about a man caught smuggling drugs through customs under his top hat. You don’t get that kind of thing these days. (Marceline Smith)

2010 catch-up: Television

2011-01-02T10:58:52Z

LOUIE
Louie starring Louis CK absolutely blew me away. The Guardian described it as “Seinfeld with a gun in its mouth” but the show was so much more. For once here is observational humour delivered in resigned manner but served without losing face. In other words like Woody Allen only without the sense of defeat. Again here was something new for once offering a genuinely fresh take on conventions bravely investigating and addressing fears and humiliation while at times even being so bold as to not be funny which being a comedy is something of a bold move/decision. It was also the first TV show within which I have ever seen a glory hole. Louis CK knows what it’s all about. (JGRAM)

Doctor Who has been great ever since new showrunner Steven Moffat brought on a younger, more eccentric Doctor. And the idea of stranding him on Earth, a-la the Jon Pertwee years, and requiring him to save the day using only his wits and the help of his new companion (Martin Freeman) has genuinely invigorated the show. (Did you see what I did there? Did you?) (Alex McChesney)

Wonders of the Solar System
My Twitter friends spent a good deal of time this year debating the general hotness of Prof. Brian Cox without bothering to mention that he was presenting a TV show about the Solar System! Priorities, people! I love the Solar System, having been one of those kids who wants to be an astronaut. I have a telescope and everything. Anyway, having immediately caught up on iPlayer, this was awesome, and definitely my favourite find of the year. He gets to travel all over the world to weird and wonderful places that help explain some of the amazing details of our solar system, from Saturn’s rings of ice to Titan’s liquid methane seas. He even gets to fly up to the very edge of the atmosphere. And Saturn is still my favourite planet if you’re interested – it’s totally got the best moons. (Marceline Smith)

An emotional attachment to Coronation Street has snuck up on me this year. I realised this when they brought back Vera for Jack’s death scene. Trailed in advance, crudely shot and crassly sentimental but the force of 25 years’ casual exposure to these 2 characters won me over. Was I weeping because for them, or for the lost years of my childhood they represent? (Stan Tontas)

Northern Exposure
I’ve been watching all of the DVD box sets. Love it. Heart-warming! (Simon Minter)

Futurama
If you weren’t aware, and if you live outside the US you probably aren’t, there was a whole new series of Futurama in 2010. Bringing back a canceled show is a bit risky but this is pretty much brilliant – a few clunker episodes at the beginning but also some of the best Futurama episodes ever. Go find! (Marceline Smith)

I haven’t really watched any TV programmes this year, so my default vote goes to Columbo, which is the best thing ever to have been on telly. (Stu Fowkes)

2010 catch-up: Films

2011-01-02T10:57:47Z

The best films we watched in 2010.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
Hate me now, if you must. In a universe almost but not exactly identical to ours, I’m disgusted at someone else for liking this film. Well, I call it a film, but it’s not much more than two hours of rapidly-edited geek wish-fulfillment fantasy. It cynically manipulated me, and I fucking loved it. (Alex McChesney)

ENTER THE VOID
My jaw literally hit the floor several times over one Friday night when I found myself subjected to Enter The Void. I went in expecting to see something that might blow my socks off but I was expecting to have a headache within a minute after experiencing the most intense opening credits of any movie ever. From here the visuals of the piece stunned me as the main character drifts above the streets of Tokyo for two and a half hours revisiting his life and of those around him and seeing where life is taking everyone. This was transgression to the max via lots of neon lights, bad taste and negative suggestion in a combination of the David Lynch sensibilities of Inland Empire crossed with Peep Show set in Tokyo with plenty of sexy time, an Eraserhead element ultimately looking towards a 2001: A Space Odyssey pay off and finale via copious amounts of hallucinogenic drugs. A film that recurringly smacks the viewer over the head there genuinely were moments in this movie that I never expected to see on screen including a “no he just didn’t” ultimate temptation. The film certainly put me off ever visiting Tokyo. After the viewing I attended director Gaspar Noe did a Q&A where he appeared wholly amused by our shell-shocked expressions. My other favourite movie moment was seeing a double bill of The Warriors and Repo Man at the Prince Charles cinema. (JGRAM)

Another Year by Mike Leigh is a beautiful film. It’s classic Leigh in that it’s slow-moving, nothing happens, it’s full of shots of grim bits of Britain, but it’s got great characters that have time to breathe and develop, and the most amazing undercurrent of sadness running through the whole thing. (Stu Fowkes)

Rinco’s Restaurant
I went back to Japan this year and amongst all the usual kind of blockbuster movies on the flight, I discovered this gem. It’s a Japanese film about a girl called Rinco who loses her voice and starts a restaurant in her mum’s shed, and all the meals she makes change peoples’ lives for the better. That could of course be terrible (the trailer is not entirely awesome) but it’s all very Japanese and charming and very twee. It also has some great stop-motion animation and songs and a flying pig. Do see it if you get the chance! (Marceline Smith)

Land of the Lost
I’ve long been rather frustrated with what I’ve termed the curse of Saturday Night Live: comedians are hilarious on the long-running comedy show and then go on to star in feature films that are complete and utter drivel. Adam Sandler, for example, was featured in a number of terrific, almost Dada-esque sketches on SNL, then went on to find success with drek like “The Waterboy.” I’ve largely avoided the films of Will Ferrell for this very reason. And the previews for most of his recent films haven’t really enticed me. But I did come across the campy remake of classic kids television series “Land of the Lost” recently and you know what? It wasn’t bad. Ferrell’s playing his standard character — an overconfident idiot — but he can still mine the archetype for plenty of laughs. Danny McBride, one of the best things to happen Hollywood comedies, is also along for the ride. And the movie’s sarcastic sendup of science fiction clichés is solid entertainment. Plus, “Land of the Lost” has one of the best uses of banjo in a movie theme song ever, surpassing even “Deliverance.” (Wil Forbis)

American Splendor
Cleveland’s Harvey Pekar, writer of bittersweet-mundane comics, died earlier this year. This film about his existentially-challenged 70 years could easily get carried away trying to stuff in persistent meta- perspectives (like the guilty Synecdoche New York) as it involves everyone significant in Harvey’s life as well as actors playing them. Luckily things don’t get too clever for their own good. A moving account of cancer, banality and dissing David Letterman on air. (Pascal Ansell)

Ponyo
I hate you Disney. While Ghibli’s latest animated film came out in the summer of 2008 in Japan, and a year later in the USA, we had to wait until February 2010 for a cinema release. And they wonder why piracy is such a big issue these days! There was also no option to see the original subtitled version but the dubbing was mostly fine (certainly nowhere in the league of Valley Girl Princess Mononoke). As with all the Ghibli movies, I was pretty much sucked in from the start – there’s not a huge amount of plot but it’s all so fun with some glorious scenes like Ponyo running over the waves made by giant fish, and a great mix of the everyday and the unexpected. I suppose it’s a cross between Totoro and Howl’s Moving Castle which is alright by me. (Marceline Smith)

2010 catch-up: Singles & Songs

2011-01-02T10:56:23Z

Our favourite singles and songs of 2010.

Oriol – Spiral
Beauty! Gilles Peterson needs to sort out his playlists – this was hard to find after listening to his outstanding Worldwide show on Vienna’s FM4. This is a pretty daring four and a half minutes of tidy electro-funk. Wait for the sublime little breakdown; more of a collapse, tumbling down into glittering cement clouds. (Pascal Ansell)

Pet Shop Boys – 1986 Remixes
Despite the fact that Pet Shop Boys are still releasing great music, I can’t stop listening to these remixes. Taken from some dodgy megamix CD in their pre-fame Bobby O days, these versions are so bombastically 80s, they’ve come full circle and sound totally 2010. I guarantee this version of West End Girls would fill any dancefloor. Literally amazing. (Marceline Smith)

GRINDERMAN – KITCHENETTE
Even though the second Grinderman record was at times patchy the majestic Kitchenette was a wonderfully lumbering piece of nasty that served to both belittle the advances of a competitor while engineering equally willful and pathetically visceral gestures. As a swirling cacophony of driven distortion it lends an erratic and disorientating frame to proceedings as it was the lines “what’s the husband of yours ever given you, Oprah Winfrey on a plasma screen and a brood of jug-eared, bucktooth imbeciles, the ugliest kids I’ve ever seen” that suddenly captured me as I stood on a packed Central Line glaring at a battered family with a father figure who plainly had been something in his time but now only had a studded earring remaining from his rebellious era. Perhaps I’m just too bitter. Elsewhere I came really close to choosing Infinity Guitars by Sleigh Bells (Royal Trux done on an iPhone), Runaway by Kanye West (a celebration of misanthropy) or Rainbow In The Dark by Das Racist (an ethnic Beastie Boys via Kool Keith/Dr Octagon). (JGRAM)

To quote a tweet of mine from a couple of weeks ago – this is the digital age, after all – “Ladies and gentlemen, this is scientifically proven to be the best song ever written: [Spotify link]” (Simon Minter)

‘Disaster’ by The Besnard Lakes soundtracks my year nicely. (Stu Fowkes)

Staff Benda Bilili – Poliomyelite
Memories of WOMAD festival and working on the Oxfam clothes stall. I whisked myself off to the main stage for a quick peep and was delighted by this moving song about polio, of which the band members suffer. (Pascal Ansell)

2010 catch-up: Albums

2011-01-02T10:54:11Z

Our favourite albums of 2010. Although, as with all of the catch-up, not necessarily released in 2010.

Zach Hill – Face Tat
Rhythm is simply a different matter to Zach Hill – his latest provides once again more dizzying beats and elated listening. Face Tat is a pancake mix of anthemic crunchy finales and impulsive noise-fuelled diversions. No Age make a blistering contribution on The Sacto Smile. There is the danger of this album becoming a little trigger-happy in ingenious little bits of potluck editing but the result is far from annoyingly choppy. (Pascal Ansell)

Pulled Apart By Horses – Pulled Apart By Horses
This is here because it’s a remarkable achievement to get even 20% of the energy of the PABH live show onto a record, but the recording is spot on – just messy enough and more than loud enough to keep it sounding exciting from start to finish. Great guitar tone on it too (*waggles glasses*). (Stu Fowkes)

Charanjit Singh – Ten Ragas To A Disco Beat
Is it wrong that my album of 2010 was actually recorded in 1982? Ah, but you see, when Bollywood film composer Charanjit Singh started messing around with an 808 and a synth he didn’t realize at the time that he was inventing Acid House, and so although it was recorded in 1982 it actually sounds like it’s from… ooh… 1986 or so. Some have stroked their chins and eyed Richard D. James suspiciously, but so far this seems like the real deal, and would be a good record whatever its origin. Don’t listen to it too often though, or some of those endlessly-looping basslines will play in your head until you smash it against a wall just to make them stop. (Alex McChesney)

Errors – Come Down With Me
Managing to continue their reign as my favourite band from Glasgow who aren’t Mogwai (I know!), Errors pulled out an awesome second album that completely trampled over their brilliant debut. A much more cohesive album, it includes all my favourite types of electronic music in one stupidly addictive package – try Supertribe for starters. Due to some incredible lack of judgement, I somehow haven’t picked up the remix album, Celebrity Come Down With Me. With that title, how can it not be amazing? (Marceline Smith)

The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night
2010 is the year of The Besnard Lakes. I got both their records, and they’re both totally brilliant. They’re like the Arcade Fire that I totally connect with, and there’s so much going on in the arrangements and individual parts that I can lose myself in it. BUY THIS NOW. (Stu Fowkes)

NEIL HAMBURGER – HOT FEBRUARY NIGHT
My birthday treat this year was seeing Neil Hamburger at the Soho Theatre. The show came a few days after the moronic crowd at Reading had booed him offstage so unsurprisingly he wasn’t at his most chipper. After the show I discovered he had a new record out and upon hearing it finally this was THE Neil Hamburger record I have been waiting for. Recorded when fatefully opening for Tenacious D this is Neil at his nastiest and most effective. Needless to say he is generally hated in his performance which only serves to make him work that much harder. In an era of so much meta comedy and bad taste on purpose Hamburger is truly refreshing as he polarizes people with his act in shambolic fashion while he states what many of us wish we had said first revealing a dark degree of buried bile within our own being. He does not glorify bad taste, only enhances it. This record gave me most smiles. I also really liked the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. (JGRAM)

Konono N°1 – Congotronics / Assume Crash Position
Monotony has a bad rep! I couldn’t believe how homogonous the Congotronics LP sounded. Things change, slowly develop of course but… Their sound is so incredibly uniform and so spot on. (Pascal Ansell)

Melvins - Nude With Boots
know it didn’t come out in 2010, but I’ve finally grasped Spotify now and realise that it renders release dates somewhat meaningless. These days, you think of something, new or old, and there it is to listen to straight away. In the case of this album, it’s pretty much the apogee of the kind of stoner-infused hard indie rock that I love so much, and it’s recording is superb. Sharp, heavy and super-powerful. (Simon Minter)

Robyn – Body Talk
Robyn has been doing a great job of uniting everyone with actual proper pop music, not just the sort of pop music that only hipsters like. Point in case, both Popjustice and our own noise-mentalist Justin’s Anti-Gravity Bunny rated it highly in their albums of the year. Not only is Robyn a great popstar with all that entails, but her songs manage to be full of both sweet vulnerability and mischievous fun. Plus, Body Talk was actually a collection of 3 albums she released this year, laughing in the face of your usual record label practices. Go Robyn! (Marceline Smith)

Cancer Bats – Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones
Cancer Bats rocked harder than anyone else I saw this year, and this is a great, proper metal record. By which I don’t mean teenage comedy metal but proper ‘HAVE SOME OF THAT’ hardcore. (Stu Fowkes)

Brian Wilson – Smile
If you haven’t heard this before and if you like the Beach Boys then take this out of the library, steal it from your friend’s cd stash, hold up your local record shop. I sung Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Brahms’ German Requiem this year, then Smile arrived and stuck in my head with a similar ecstasy. It is one of the most obvious personal manifestations of God in music imaginable. But its origin doesn’t matter – just listen to it. (Pascal Ansell)

2010 Catchup

2011-01-01T17:22:16Z

Happy New Year, diskant readers! I know there are at least 5 of you out there.

2010 was a very quiet year for diskant – we’ve all been involved in other projects, from blogs, bands and labels to organising festivals and running our own businesses, not to mention jobs, kids and moving countries. You can always see what we’re up to individually by clicking those author links on the right sidebar.

However, we have made the effort to bring you a catch-up of all our favourite things from the last twelve months – our best albums will be up tomorrow, followed by books, films, zines, TV, gigs, events and more.

And we’re not planning on going anywhere – if you do enjoy diskant then make sure you subscribe to our RSS feed to get the latest posts whenever they appear.

Links for 2009-10-20 [del.icio.us]

2009-10-21T00:00:00-07:00

Shellac - The Futurist
Even if Shellac don't count you as a friend, you can still have a listen to The Futurist.

Links for 2009-09-20 [del.icio.us]

2009-09-21T00:00:00-07:00

Hey Zinesters!
Karren Ablaze! gets to write about zines for The Guardian

Links for 2009-07-23 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-24T00:00:00-07:00

UK DIY
Nice review of the UK DIY exhibition and where zines fit into the new wave of craft.

Links for 2009-05-22 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-23T00:00:00-07:00

The art of being heavy
Creative Review talk to Sunn 0))) about their record artwork

Links for 2009-05-14 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-15T00:00:00-07:00

Stuart Murdoch
The Pop Cop chats to Stuart about his new musical God Help The Girl

Links for 2009-05-06 [del.icio.us]

2009-05-07T00:00:00-07:00

GIRLS GUIDE TO ROCKING
Blog for Jessica Hopper's new book helping young girls start bands.

Links for 2009-04-28 [del.icio.us]

2009-04-29T00:00:00-07:00

Boyracer
Nice little mp3 history of Boyracer