Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room 2009 Album of the year

And then there's this one.

David Tibet's first album for three years, and an absolute masterpiece, even by his standards

CURRENT 93 - ALEPH AT HALLUCINATORY MOUNTAIN

You don''t listen to this kind of thing - it happens to you...

It's always a relief to hear music by artists that steadfastly refuse to compromise and continue to experiment with their audience and its expectations.

I'm think I have found a spiritual home in the world of David Tibet. First discovered him on the Touch 'Meridians 1' project

2009…in no particular order

Burial & Four Tet Moth
So scarce as a 12” single it’s only really available illegally. You’ll not hear a more gorgeous slice of dark electronica like this for a long, long time. Beg, borrow, steal, download, score crack and sell it on to get a copy. Then, only listen to it on headphones, at night, whilst walking city streets in rain or taking a night bus. Don’t ask me I don’t make the rules.


John Foxx My Lost City
I’m a sucker for found sounds, analogue tape, hiss, noise and stories of east London. Here’s an album of found sounds, analogue tape, hiss, noise and stories of east London. If I was a mental patient or Charles Manson, I’d probably believe Foxx was talking directly to me through this album…and The Beatles…or summat.

Living in east London, I regularly find myself wandering the same streets and places that are submerged in the text of My Lost City – Shoreditch, Spitalfields, Fournier Street, Holywell Lane, Commercial Road, The Barbican, Brick Lane, Christ Church, Brushfield Street, Brune Street etc…the ghost town that Foxx recognised straight away; ‘Post industrial, empty . . . blackened buildings patterned on versions of architecture from ancient Rome’ are still almost there despite future Olympic and Square Mile utopias trying to erase its existence.

My Lost City is the hiss and spit of tape noise, the voice of Foxx splintered through long delays, tape loops and echoes into urban (imperfect) hymns to a city of disappearances …London.

Album of the year and time for my meds…this album has spoke to me so much, I’m off to start a large, incongruous family in the middle of Calif…Hackney.


David Sylvian Manafon
Dave hires the Wire magazine Fantasy Football Improv Dream Team and strikes gold. Wry and darkly humourous observations are told over the sound of electronics, guitar, double bass, no-input mixer (?), piano, saxophone and turntables among other things.
Small Metal Gods is quietly and discreetly, his very own Anarchy In The UK manifesto. He’s burning bridges (again) and building new ones too;

Small metal gods
Cheap souvenirs
You’ve abandoned me for sure
I’m dumping you, my childish things
I’m evening up the score

Like the preparations for a journey that started with Brilliant Trees, Manafon feels like the start of something new;

It’s the farthest place I’ve ever been
It’s a new frontier for me

Us too Dave, us too. The adventure continues.


Atomic Orchestra of Radioactive Europe – Nuclear Chocolate
It opens with a menacing hum and the worries of a 1950s suburban American housewife on the effect of nuclear power-plants on her home. She’s reassured, possibly by hubby that nuclear power-plants are as harmless “as a chocolate factory”. Yeah, right – that sounds familiar. It sounds so retro, so 1950s and so – now. Whilst all this placating of housewife is going on, an unnerving sound of analogue insect noise or foreign radio chatter is sneaking up behind the menacing hum….and then it all goes a bit Dark Star.

Terra In Fission – hard to say – imagine a Tim Burton stop/start animation film of a 1950s toy robot, menacingly (there’s a lot of menace on this album), clockworking and clanking its way deeper and deeper through sub-basement after sub-basement of a nuclear plant whilst all the corridors are filled with the red flashing lights of sirens….that’s what it sounds like. No, really. On the other hand, Atomic Flower would accompany one of those 1950s (despite the 70s analogue feel – this album is real 1950s Cold War atomic feel, and the beautiful artwork enforces this) USSR films, that probably had titles like “NUCLEAR POWER TO THE PEOPLE!” or something like that – we see happy comrades doing ‘synchronised plutonium’ moves with nothing more than a test-tube and a happy smile for the camera – ah! The good old days!

The Burn has no such naivety about it – it’s the sound of a ticking bomb in a 20 Jazz Funk Greats scored by Giorgio Moroder kinda way. If I was in a field in the late 80s off the M25 again, chances are I’d probably dance to it. But that’s just me. Toxic Clock is more ticking menace – think of furnaces and dangerous chemicals (there’s so many love songs, perhaps a hymn to furnaces and dangerous chemicals is a bit more honest in these enlightened times of devolution) . Can’t say it helps – but it worked for me.

The finale is Mushroom Air, and with a title like that, it can only mean ‘THE END’. It’s the soundtrack to restored footage of Christmas Island tests – it’s the build-up and the cutting to the aftermath of ash falling into the sea, views through goggles from a Navy battle cruiser that doesn’t have the education to be far enough away from the fallout, a little too close to the main event. That’s what Nuclear Chocolate tastes like – try some today!


Robin Guthrie & John Foxx Mirrorball
Apparently this album has caused much heated debate, the like of which has not been seen since Princip decided between Sachertorte or Cheese and Onion at Schiller's café. Why? Yes it sounds a bit like the Cocteau Twins – experts are currently gathering in Geneva to fathom this out, but, between you and me – I think it might have summat to do with the fact that Robin Guthrie’s on it – shhh! Keep Mum! Remember – “Loose Lips Sink Ships” and all that.

Asking Robin Guthrie to not sound like Robin Guthrie is a bit like asking Clint Eastwoood to become a character actor – it can’t be done. You get Clint Eastwood in because he’s Clint Eastwood. Everyone knew exactly what this album was going to sound like before it was even recorded – and that’s no bad thing is it? It’s art for arts sake – don’t listen too deeply, just listen – it’s gorgeous.


School of Seven Bells Alpinisims
Technically 2008, but it wasn’t released in the UK until 2009. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. It’s prog/ it’s not, it’s folk / no it isn’t, it’s pop / no it’s experimental – it’s…blimey – I’ve no idea. It’s the sound of summer, that’s what it is. Half Asleep should have been a number 1 single.


Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz!
Former NY indie darlings swap geetars for synths and the results are astounding. Pure electro pop with a really nice hard, warm edge to it. Hard to believe that its praises haven’t been sung round here – give it a listen if you can.


Múm Sing Along to Songs You Don’t Know
The loss of their lead singer a few albums ago and a shift away from the heavily electronic and darker territory on albums such as Summer Make Good, Yesterday Was Dramatic–Today Is OK and Finally We Are No One – has meant that this newer, brighter, and dare I say it – ‘poppier’ Múm has been critically ignored.

Which is sad really, as this is a real gem of an album – it’s much warmer, ‘quiet camp fire on a summer evening with a few friends and lots of alcohol’ warmer – the lyrics are even more insane than usual which just adds to the whole event and the music has shifted 90 degrees towards a fusion of organic electronic somewhere between Unhalfbricking and Cobra and Phases… – you almost get a sense of where they’re taking you through the last album Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy , and this one, but you know that there’s still more surprises in store. And if they’re like this – more please!


Pete Doherty Grace/Wastelands
Pete Doherty's debut; Grace/Wastelands - superb. Bound to bring new followers, very upbeat and much more adventurous than the last Babyshambles recording Shotters Nation. Some strong songs throughout but he’s still very much a slave to his influences. Last of the English Roses starts off like Straight to Hell-era Clash with slow dub drums and melodica, but then the chorus comes in and its Village Green...-era Kinks - but it all holds together so well.

Gazza

Interesting - thinking about it, most of the music I have been into this year, has either been old, or a reissue. And I'm not counting a reissue as a 'new' release.

For me, there hasn't been a great deal of music to get really excited about this year. Disappointed and disillusioned by the John Foxx releases this year (barring the TPOE reissue), and with many of my other favourite artists taking forever and a day to release anything new, my albums of the year would have to be...

Little Boots - Hands
I've barely had this a week, but it just clicked right away.

Hands is one of the most refreshing, uplifting and infectious debut albums I've heard in a very long time. Ignore the pointless comparisons to La Roux or Lady Ga Ga - this is no one-off wonder or retro throwback album. Yes, it does have a certain early 80s feel to it in places, thanks to the use of vintage synth sounds, but it offers so much more, totally blowing the aforementioned right out of the water, for me at least.

Here is genuinely a talented young lady - not only a great vocalist and highly skilled keyboard player, but a fantastic and creative lyricist - evident on tracks such as "No Breaks", the clever "Mathematics" and the superb duet with Phil Oakey, "Symmetry" - clearly the highlight of the album, which also reminds us what a stunning vocalist Oakey still is. Sadly the singles such as "Remedy" and "Earthquake" do give a slightly misleading impression of the album, although as they have proven, they clearly have a commercial and contemporary edge.

Hands is a fantastically produced album. There's a real depth to the music and lots of smooth layers of sound to enjoy, with Victoria Hesketh's sublime vocals remaining centre stage. Only perhaps "Ghosts" and "Tune Into My Heart" lack the instant appeal of the other tracks, but "New In Town", "Click", "Meddle", and "No Breaks" are some of the album's best tracks, which leave you yearning for more. My digital version also has a track called "Magical" which is another wonderful piece of upbeat pop that gets played on repeat.

There is also a very sensual feminine quality to all of the music here, as Miss Hesketh's personality shines through. It's an emotional journey, regularly dwelling on love and relationships, but it's also fun, playful and sexy - it's totally seduced me, anyway!


Simple Minds - Graffiti Soul
Clearly a return to form for Simple Minds, by my books at least. Although they'll never go as experimental again as I'd like them to, this album proved to be a short, but enjoyable and uplifting listen.

It begins with the epic "Moscow Underground", which to my ears is the best thing the band have done in a long, long time. It has everything – mood, atmosphere, energy, and at last, a positive nod back to the band's formative years. You can pick out any Simple Minds track from 1979-82 and somehow it still sounds relevant today; a testament to that period towards the late 1970s when innovative rock and pop music flourished, spawning a generation of influential acts.

On first inspection, Graffiti Soul sounds like an album of greatest hits that never were. While Simple Minds clearly sound like Simple Minds again, there is a sense of over-familiarity to much of the music here, but it does retain that classic SM vibe.

Things really pick up with the album's title track, which continues with the style and sound where "Moscow Underground" left off. "Blood Type O" is one of the album's most interesting songs, and we're back to the sound of 1985's Sparkle in the Rain for the closing number, "This Is it", an energetic, upbeat driving piece guaranteed to get even the most stubborn of feet tapping- arguably one of the album's strongest tracks; certainly the most catchy and memorable.


Depeche Mode - Sounds of the Universe
Maybe not the "return to the sound of Voilator" as it was mooted, the misleadingly titled Sounds of the Universe sees Dave Gahan and Martin Gore singing together more than on any other album, and singing better, with their vocals really taking centre stage, against a minimalistic backdrop of analogue bleeps and warbles.

Despite the use of vintage synths, this album was clearly not trying to recapture old glories; far from it. Sounds of the Universe is a very modern sounding album, and just as different from Playing the Angel as that album was from 2001's miserable Exciter.

"Fragile Tension" and the offbeat "Hole to Feed" I found to be instantly enjoyable, but the best track for me is "In Sympathy."

Sounds of the Universe is perhaps an album of two halves; the first clearly being the better. Overall I found this set of songs quite pleasant and addictive.

So while this album may not be anything mind blowing or revolutionary, it's not bad at all, and you have to admire the band's staying power - especially given their gradual implosion in the mid-nineties. Depeche Mode have matured nicely, and managed to remain relevant with every release, despite the long gaps between them - and this CD is testament to that.

Well I never expected that. Takes an awful lot to stump me, shock me, surprise me, but Mr. R. Beach has certainly done that. Thank you very very much Garry. You have made my day & it's only just begun.

Shouldn't it be disqualified for not being a new release?

You mentioned this before in the 'What are you listening to' thread,
I'm very intrigued, can you point me to any samples online?

Hi Core,

Sadly I can't, no! AOORE were regarded as an "active threat to the people" by the Stasi sometime in 1978 and disappeared underground...BUT if you email Mr.Ilektrik - I'm sure he can assist!

To be honest, I can’t tell if it was recorded in 1959, 1969 or 1979. I received it in the year of our lord two thousand and nine – and that’s good enough for me!

I’ve no idea how many members of the Orchestra there were or whether the rumours that the whole project was the work of revolutionary technicians at a Soviet state-controlled radio station are true.

I'd like to vote for Shifting City as its new to me. But yes, I know i'm 12 years too late

So I'm going for the new artist that has made the biggest imperssion on me this year - Little Boots with Hands .

I might be adding the new Mesh album to my list...

All you need to know is that I have their archive of tapes.