Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room 2009 Album of the year

I'll start the bidding with this desperate and heartbreaking new release.

Anthony and the Johnsons The Crying Light

Stunning


Funnily enough, my own favourite from 2008 was released at the beginning of the year as well...

That might well be one of my choices by the end of the year - I have read lots of good things about it and look forward to hearing it soon.

Already a whole load of possibles are lining up at the starter's gate. For me, I expect U2, Depeche Mode, Morrissey, Pet Shop Boys, Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs (already the package of the year, no question - there is even a board game included!), Client, Bill Callahan and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy to feature in the top 10 list, and that's just ones I know about. There will also be a Foxx or two to contend with. Now I just need to sort my money out ...

Excluding re-issues and Foxx related cds, my top album so far is Depeche Mode - 'Sounds Of The Universe. I think it lacks the few singles that 'Playing The Angel' had, but overall the album has more highlights throughout.

There have been a lot of good releases this year. As mentioned before , Depeche Mode & Pet Shop Boys but for me it's

Yusuf - Roadsinger

I think this may be replaced though when David Sylvians Manafon comes out.

Outside of the Foxx releases, so far in the running for 2009…

You can call my number anytime…

Atomic Orchestra of Radioactive Europe – Nuclear Chocolate
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz!
Little Boots – Hands
Pete Doherty – Grace/Wastelands

No, I’ll call you…

Saint Etienne - What Have You Done Today Mervyn Day?
Bat For Lashes – Two Suns

If you don’t stop calling, I’ll ring the police….

Pet Shop Boys – Yes
Anything and everything by Ladyhawke

But as Scott says – I’m waiting for the new album from Sylvian

Besides the already mentioned Depeche Mode and Pet Shop Boys I will add U2: No Line on the Horizon. A real get back to form album from them.

Yes, judging by the sample clip recently, its possible.

Another one to add to my list is Green Day: 21st Century Breakdown.

animal collective - merriweather post pavilion
dirty projectors - bitte orca

also looking forward to new albums by flaming lips and the fall.

Released tomorrow

Marc Almond - Orpheaus in Exile

http://www.marcalmond.co.uk/orpheusmicro/index.htm

Marc will be signing copies of the album at HMV in Oxford Street tomorrow (Monday 7th) from 6pm

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.

For me, the winner has to be Marc Almond's return to form with the seductive, empassioned and tender thing that is Orpheus in Exile

Just to have Marc Almond still with us is a miracle itself. And to realise it is so because he still has points to prove, messages to deliver and ground to break is deeply moving.

http://thequietus.com/articles/02691-mar...in-album-review

"A Skein of White Cranes" is one of his most beautiful songs ever. Which is interesting, as I consider "Storks" on Heart on Snow to be worthy of the same accolade...



The best Foxx album is A Secret Life.
Garry seems to have forgotten it, otherwise he would have said so too. :p

Still a some weeks left but at the moment this has came staight in at No 1.

The Swell Season - Strict Joy

followed closely by


Yusuf - Roadsinger

David Sylvian - Manafon

& a couple of Johns albums

A Secret Life & Mirrorball

Now that Susan Boyle's album is out, I think that is everything released for this year. Might be one or two seasonal albums I suppose.

I can't establish an outright winner - and wouldn't dare to having not heard the latest Piano Magic, Tom Waits (live) and Jori Hulkkonen yet - but I will try to pick the winner SO FAR.

There are a number of albums I haven't given full attention to yet, including Aidan Moffat and The Best Ofs' "How To Get To Heaven From Scotland", Mark Eitzel "Klamath" (first play tonight - very promising), and David Sylvian "Manafon" (after 5 or 6 listens, I think I really like it but I still don't feel like I know it).

There were very strong sets by Morrissey, Client, Depeche Mode, Pet Shop Boys ("This Used To Be The Future" song of the year?), U2 (although Eno reckons it could/should have been more experimental), Dylan (I mean the regular one, not the Christmas one), and A-Ha (who dusted off the old synths with considerable style).

Of the Foxx albums, "My Lost City" carries the strongest memories, "The Quiet Man" is perfect, "Mirrorball" is summery, and "A Secret Life" is still somewhat secretive although it's the one I play the most.

Kudos also to Glen Johnson (of Piano Magic) for his album "Details Not Recorded".

However, three stand above all these for me:

Jarvis Cocker "Further Complications" - wherein an almost Grinderman-esque old-enough-to-know-better Jarvis rocks out a bit, sleazing along an ever more self-aware, confused, honest and sensitive trajectory. Or is that just me?

Marc Almond "Orpheus in Exile" - the character of Vadim Kozin might not even exist for all I know but Marc inhabits these wonderful songs as though he created him.

and the winner so far is:

Bill Callahan "Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle" - I feel like I never know what to say about Bill (some may know him as Smog or (Smog)). This record feels a bit darker than the last one (possibly due to the split with Joanna Newsom), but his humour has always been black and dry so it is hard to tell for certain. He has described these songs as looking at the same event from different perspectives. The arrangements are gorgeous and varied, lots of strings, sometimes comforting and scary in the same song. Key song "All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast".

Back at the beginning of the year one of the most significant things for me was re-discovering the albums of Dead Can Dance. So much great work to choose from, but Within The Realm Of A Dying Sun (’08 re-master), just completely entranced me, still powerful after 22 years since its initial release.


The debut albums of 2009 that were highlights for me are:


A Secret Life, yes, no apology, and no surprises over this album being my number 1 choice of new material from John. From out of all of his new work this year, his change of directions, or him just happily jamming away with his friends and seeing what sticks to the wall, ASL is the one for me, with its almost (but not quite) unassuming manner, it is at heart a gently potent work. It ‘quietly’ breaks the tradition of John’s upfront electro, taking him and his collaborators into a more static and mesmerising place, a gauzy landscape filled with familiar hints of Foxxian regret and longing. It left me with a desire to hear more, and later in the year I found myself on a small quest to listen to other drone and minimalist artists.


Empire Of The Sun: Walking On A Dream

This is as poppy, and as soppy, as I’m likely to get with music these days! It was one of those random finds, found myself in a queue at HMV, this CD was on display at the counter, its cheesy but intriguing cover and Ballard title made me look it up later online, and a link to a couple of YouTube video singles had me instantly hooked. To be fair its not a consistently great album, I’m completely in love with two of the tracks, We Are The People, and The World, and I like four others, and the rest are okay, but that’s only six out of ten, well, that’s bordering on a failure for me! But there’s a real magic in the formula of these two guys together, the ethereal androgynous voice of the singer Luke Steele, and the warm keyboards of the music, which alternates from bouncy pop, to echoes of faraway sunset memories. The diamond on this album is We Are The People, such a beautiful song of sweet regret, or a tale of long-lost or unrequited love, it’s the haunting vocal chorus that is the heart of the song, as it sweeps you up and encourages you to just insert your own name/time into its story, that fleeting period in your youth when you had your first crush, did you act upon it, or did you just shy away…


Wooden Shjips: Dos’
Good summer grooving with the San Francisco foursome, okay, I don’t ‘groove’ necessarily, but a great album to be mentally sucked into. Psyche garage trance rock for a long summers evening with a beer in your hand, as your thoughts climb high up into the endless blue above, raise your tiny fists to the sky and rock against the machine, open the doors of perception and let yourself in…


The Pleasures Of Electricity…Plus
(I think I may have said a small thing or two about this re-release in another thread!)
So glad that the decade changed from how it began with me failing to see clearly the horsepower residing under the hood of the Pleasuremobile 2001. Back came John the mechanic to polish it all up lovingly with his leather chamois, and thus the decade ended with me enthusiastically embracing the cool, cool, chic of the Pleasureplus 2009 design.


Celer: Engaged Touches

I’ve got to thank A Secret Life for unexpectedly guiding me in the direction of a group like Celer. During the summer I was eager for more subtle drone and delicacy, and I came across a sample of Engaged Touches, which intrigued me, but I let it pass, and then In September the full version just happened to be on a disc that I was given. Realising that I really needed to have the physical CD album, it was all sold out when I went back to look for it, but just recently I’ve managed to track it down, overpriced, but very welcome!

This album is a particular highpoint in a direction of work that the musical partnership of Will Long, and Danielle Baquet-Long (who unexpectedly passed away in July from heart failure) had been evolving throughout a few of their previous albums. Some of their work is misleadingly (or lazily by reviewers) listed under ‘new age’ WTF, (but then I’ve also seen ASL wrongly referred to as such). Engaged Touches is emotive minimalist electronica, with its field recordings of endless train travel through a distant and foreign landscape. Its unashamedly romantic strings that become a recurring theme throughout the album create a deep feeling of longing, it is hugely touching and somewhat poignant, and quite simply a beautiful experience.


Lotus Plaza: The Floodlight Collective

I’m sneaking this one in at the last moment, Only played it a few times since I got it in October, as its got such a summer sound I was saving it till spring and next years warmer months, (as if!), have been stuck at home ill recently so it’s been on repeat a lot this last week.

In some ways this album just sweeps right over you, with its bright colourful elements all whizzing past, but I like its enthusiastic warmth, it’s cocktail of garage guitar, hazy dreampop, vaguely psychedelic and ambient moments. Perhaps there’s the risk its heady blurry appeal might not be lasting, time will tell, but right now in the midst of all the snow outside, and the cold indoors, its musical textures and colours are very uplifting. A few of the standout tracks are the jangly Whiteout, the shimmering Antoine, and the spacey title track The Floodlight Collective.

Nice choices Core but I have to say that "We Are The People" is my most hated song of the year bar none! But hey different strokes for different folks.

I think for me it has to be the Pet Shop Boys album "Yes" as it is a masterpiece from start to end and shows that messrs Tennant & Lowe are still top of their game. Without doubt one of the greatest artists this country has produced.

My fave tracks are "Love Etc", "Did You See Me Coming", "Vulnerable", "Building A Wall" and "King Of Rome".

"Fundamental" was a hard album to top and did this succeed in doing this ...... Yes!

Other contenders were the remastered editions of "Pleasures Of Electricity" an album I did n't buy first time round and got it for Christmas and is, for me one of John's best pieces of work, also Gary Numan's "The Pleasure Principle" an album that has stood the test of time and how is it "Cars" still sounds so fresh??

Another album I liked was the second album by Northern Kind which is called "Wired", a synth duo that has evolved from the Myspace scene and started to get noticed and even secured a support slot on the recent Kajagoogoo UK tour. Their music has some great influences, notably Yazoo & early Depeche Mode.

Keep an eye out for them in 2010!

Gary

Official Gary Hunter Homepage

If it's not too late, I'm going to add Morrissey's Years of Refusal to my list.

I can't stop playing it - and that's the first time with a Moz album for ages. I have sat on the fence with this until now, waiting for it to disappoint me, but it defiantly refuses to do so.

Your Were Good In your Time really stands out as one his best ever compositions

Despite his admittedly inconsistent output, I am a massive Luke Steele fan (one of my all-time fave albums is The Sleepy Jackson's "Lovers"), so I was delighted to see his latest project Empire of the Sun get a shout-out here. Thanks, Core Memory!

Nobody here in the States seems to have paid any attention to EOTS, so recently when I heard "We Are the People" in the background of a TV advert for Vizio, I was so shocked that I almost fell off my chair—good thing I was sat on the floor! I hope the exposure sparks enough interest and makes Luke Steele enough money to assure that he can keep following his wayward muse and perfect his crazy popcraft. Yes, "EOTS" is an uneven album, but I enjoyed it and I think the highs are very high and the lows are, well, still nothing quite as low as the majority of what I've heard this year, most of which has been pretty low indeed.

The CDs I most looked forward to in 2009 were David Sylvian's "Manafon," the charm of which quickly wore off for me; Rowland Howard's "Pop Crimes," which has one or two great songs but is a little too slapdash to have won me over as a whole (I was really bummed out to learn of his death a few days ago); and HTRK's "Marry Me Tonight," which I still unabashedly love. However, the CD I keep coming back to is Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions' "Through the Devil Softly." It's a good mood piece and all, but there's a lot out there that I didn't get to hear, so I don't think it deserves "album of the year" status. I bought very few 2009 releases—John Foxx's output having basically eaten up most of my CD budget in an economically challenged year . . .

I missed one. Savoy Grand "Accident Book". Slipped out at the end of November. Have only just discovered this, to my shame. Without hearing it, I can guarantee it was/will be/is amazing.