Having brought us the warm, breathy ambience of their critically acclaimed third album at the beginning of this year, dream pop duo Beach House have released a brand new song for the winter season. Listen to the unique lulls of Victoria Legrand’s voice soar about above the festive twangs and sweeping organ driven melody of ‘I Do Not Care for the Winter Sun’ below.

Beach House: ‘I Do Not Care For The Winter Sun’

Photographs by Valerio Berdini.

Baltimore’s Lower Dens have confirmed that they’re to support the ever wonderful Beach House on their UK tour this November.

November (all with Beach House)
19 Manchester Manchester Cathedral
20 Glasgow Oran Mor
22 Dublin Vicar Street
23 London Shepherds Bush Empire
24 Bristol Trinity
25 Brighton Concorde 2

The first city based music festival I ever went to was Accelerator in 2002, held by Luger in an old brewery in Stockholm. I realised there and then that I had found the perfect way for enjoying such festivities; of being surrounded by music, bumping into people, and getting that whole festival vibe, but always being able to go home to a real bed (not a tent peg in sight!). I went to Accelerator every year from then onwards, until Luger decided to put more energy into the emerging Way Out West festival in Göteborg.

Even though Luger arranges both Accelerator and Way Out West, the aspect of “festival” at Way Out West is a lot more noticeable. The main area is located in Slottsskogen, a big forest like park in the middle of Göteborg. The concrete and brickwork of Accelerator are replaced by greenery and plenty of open space. The city feel of the festival is instead, to a large extent, moved to nightfall as Way Out West actually could be regarded as two, overlapping festivals. When the forest closes at around midnight, it passes the musical torch to a number of clubs around the city centre. This divide between Way Out West and Stay Out West (the club gigs) are both the festival’s forté, and it’s biggest problem.

The idea of having some of the bands playing at clubs as well as the main arena has been under constant debate each year WoW has been running. Despite the wish to combine the classic daytime festival vibe with the more intimate, urban nightlife of the clubs, chaos inevitably follows as hoards of people leave for these clubs simultaneously. Those more positive to the arrangement argue that the whole city comes alive with the club gigs and that they carry the festival feeling further into the night, free of the dark, damp cold of the late outdoors. This is true, but they do so at the cost of what I personally regard as one of the major joys of a festival; the flow. Even though the aim is to create a vibrant rhythm of music, a feeling of that flow that beats through the entire heart of the city, it requires rigorous planning and constant choices, quite the opposite in practice of what, I imagine, the festival wishes to achieve.

This is also the reason I only saw one club show (Harlem). Standing in line and feeling stressed wasn’t what I was after. I went for the more organic feel and ended up at various, more or less organized after parties instead. (Even though I can’t deny I slightly regret not seeing Fool’s Gold and Surfer Blood).

So what of the music? The best show? Funny question really, as it of course impossible to compare Panda Bear to Wu-Tang Clan, or Beach House to LCD Soundsystem. This is also what it is all about; overdosing on music. And so one of my favourite moments was having brunch to Girls and The Radio Dept. Even though they weren’t the most extravagant and intense of shows, they gave me that complete festival experience of being perfectly comfortable with exactly where I was.

However, amongst Iggy Pop, Pavement, Konono no 1, Paul Weller, Local Natives, The National, Jens Lekman, Broken Bells, Chemical Brothers and a few more, two shows are worth an extra, honourable mention; M.I.A. and Håkan Hellström. Interestingly they both sort of tie it all together, as M.I.A. represents something very present, and Hellström, at least in this context, is part of the past. When M.I.A. entered the stage in a green parka, shades and a sparkly shirt, nothing else really existed from then on. I have to admit, I had low expectations. I thought of her walking off the stage in NYC, I thought of her not caring because I’ve read too many articles about her. Whatever image I had of her, the woman (and the rest of the people) on the Flamingo stage was a ball of directed energy and total dedication. Even I, very often the one standing in the corner with folded arms, couldn’t stand still. Eyes wide open; I was lost in laser beams, beats, and everything I love about music.

The other show was Swedish (and specifically Göteborg) pop darling Håkan Hellström, who has managed to gain national popularity while continuing to win the hearts of longing teenagers. Precisely 10 years ago, he released his first album, and decided to play only that album, back-to-back, live in his hometown. It was a sweet journey down memory lane, but even more a fascinating experience of watching someone who can captivate so many and not loose any credibility. Even though I don’t return to him as often as I did 8 years ago, it was hard to resist the total feeling of collectiveness, when so much else of music experience is based on fragments and exclusivity.

A nice treat for an otherwise miserable Friday afternoon. Baltimore’s  favourite son and daughter Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand of Beach House return with brand new song ‘White Moon’ – lifted off their new iTunes Sessions EP which will see the full light of day on September 13.

The six-track digital only EP includes re-workings of ‘Walk in the Park’, ‘Norway’, ‘Silver Soul’, and ‘Real Love’ from this years critically lauded Teen Dream plus fan-favourite ‘Gila’ from Devotion, the band’s 2008 release. All songs were recorded as a live session in one room with Victoria Legrand on keys and vocals, Alex Scally on guitar, bass pedals and vocals, and Daniel Franz on drums. The session was produced and mixed by Beach House and Chris Coady.

Alex Scally of Beach House:

We recorded these six songs after touring for 12 straight weeks. Whenever we are asked to record stripped-down versions of our songs, we cringe, because for us this means that all of the subtlety and attention to detail will be lost, and a rich song will be turned into a bland, generic song. So, when iTunes offered to have us record a stripped-down live session, we were very hesitant. We found out that we could record with our friend Chris Coady, and we agreed, believing we might be able to make it meaningful. During the week or two of sound-checks leading up to the recording, we worked through the songs and attempted to rewrite them with fewer and different tones. Listeners can judge whether or not we were able to make these ‘stripped-down’ versions mean something.

Beach House will return to these shores in November…

Friday 19 November – MANCHESTER – Manchester Cathedral (£14)
Saturday 20 November – GLASGOW – Oran Mor (£15)
Tuesday 23 November – LONDON – Shepherd’s Bush Empire (£14)
Wednesday 24 November – BRISTOL – Trinity (£12.50)
Thursday 25 November – BRIGHTON – Concorde 2 (£12)

Beach House have announced a series of UK dates for this coming November. The band are about to head out on a North American tour with Vampire Weekend… those kids are going to have a shock…

November
19 MANCHESTER – Manchester Cathedral
20 GLASGOW – Oran Mor
23 LONDON – Shepherd’s Bush Empire
24 BRISTOL – Trinity
25 BRIGHTON – Concorde 2

Discovering that uber-special record label Bella Union are curating a stage at the bloated spectacle that is Hard Rock Calling – a two day festival primarily sponsored by the burger joint of the same name – is akin to finding a lost Klimt buried away between the frozen pizzas in ASDA.

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit harsh – there is some credit to a line up that includes Elvis Costello, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder (shame about the rest of the main stage line up. One word: Jamiroquoi). Nevertheless, it’s a testament to both the prestige that Bella Union have attained as well as the initiative and intelligence of the festival organisers.

The challenge presented is an interesting one: can such a relatively left-field line up of bands draw the audience away from what is primarily a very commercial and mainly MOR-focused event?

Saturday kicks off with Camden quintet My Sad Captains showcasing their strong but stable brand of Brit-Americana and Bella Union’s own Lone Wolf pushing their ambitious melancholic sound. Ostensibly a vehicle for frontman and chief songwriter Paul Marshall, Lone Wolf’s introspective songs really do benefit from a full band unit and provide the first highlight of the day.

Labelmates Mountain Man follow, bravely challenging the noise from the main stage crowd to some success. Although it’s difficult to focus on the beauty of their harmonies they still sound incredible, if a touch compromised by the setting.

The Morning Benders

I’ve reviewed Summer Camp before for this website and today is the first time I’ve seen them since then. The good news is they’re shaping up magnificently, with Elizabeth Sankey coming across every inch an indie-popstar in the making – she’s incredibly confident and charmingly playful with both the crowd and co-Camper Jeremy Warmsley. Best of all, their current body of work to date sounds warm, elegant and tight – an exciting taste of what their debut album is bound to deliver, leaving smiles on everyone’s faces.

As the sun begins to set, it’s almost time for Stevie Wonder’s headlining slot on the main stage and Zun Zun Egui – potentially the most challenging of Saturday’s line up – end up capitalising on the mildly-inebriated early-evening crowd. There’s much for them to dance to the Bristolians’ crazy yelping take on Beefheart-meets-Nusrat.

Onto Sunday and I’m wondering how The Morning Benders will compete with the England-Germany game, showing a couple of hundred metres across the park. Elvis Costello faces a similar challenge nearby too. There are enough of us, however, who don’t give enough of a shit about the football to show these Californian sons a decent welcome. While closer ‘Excuses’ is their trump card – a sweeping anthem for the summer – it sadly serves to emphasise the weaknesses elsewhere in their set, which doesn’t hit the same standards.

John Grant

Pearly Gate Music up the game with a glorious bastardised take on Dylan’s ‘Maggie’s Farm’ with singer Zac Tillman (brother of J.) writhing near-epiletic as he wrings every frustration out of the lyric. There’s a proficient but low-key set from Here We Go Magic to follow but the afternoon’s biggest treat is John Grant.

Playing much of debut record Queen of Denmark, Grant’s acerbicity and pathos, dispelled into lines like “Jesus he hates faggots, son”, “I regret the day your lovely carcass caught my eye” and “I casually mentioned that I pissed in your coffee” is received warmly by an audience who largely appear not to know a thing about Grant. A honeyed capabilty to his vocal draws many to his set but it’s the strength of his songwriting and performance that keeps them there. Ending his set with ‘JC hates Faggots’ and ‘Queen of Denmark’, there’s a palpable sense that many watching have just found their new favourite singer.

It’s left to Beach House to close procedings on the bandstage and fluff up the crowd for Paul McCartney’s headline set nearby. They tear through an efficient set that takes in much of the excellent Teen Dream and sees a glut of swoon boys and girls swaying to Victoria Legrand’s captivating vocal.

Beach House

‘Heaven’ and ‘good sound’ rarely stand together in the same sentence – which isn’t surprising for a club in the basement of Charing Cross train station. The bass in the venue commonly overwhelms any subtleties in the middle frequencies of a band’s sound. Tonight, it seems to work out the disco-layer of Beach House’s Teen Dream, whilst drowning the electronics of White Hinterland’s ‘magic maker’ Shawn Creeden.

Casey Dienel of White Hinterland‘s vocals straddle the purest pop and echo of Elizabeth Fraser, emerging in layers of sublime vocal looping. There’s moments of sea-soaked Animal Collective-esque electronic serenity, and darker sounds recalling Portishead at their deadliest from Shawn Creeden, working a table of pedals – though it all unfortunately dissipates somewhere between the audience and exceptionally high stage. Whilst Dienel’s R&B vibe carries the duo into same territory as Dirty Projectors’ ‘Stillness Is The Move’, their set feels slightly extinguished – like the two candles of their stage set-up, outed due to fire safety.

There’s a new found confidence to Beach House, sounding surprisingly massive in the cavernous surroundings. Unabated by the hiccup that prematurely ends ‘Walk In The Park’, they’re brimming with energy and entirely comfortable – Victoria Legrand seemingly having reached heartthrob-diva status, head-banging at every available moment; and Alex Scally bopping in ying-yang, clearly showing their musical kinship.

The grooves of Teen Dream, aired in full, seem rather richer with the vast bass – ‘Lover of Mine’ enticing the crowd to believe in a fantasy high school disco, against the DIY confetti bi-pyramid backdrops that start rotating during the utterly sublime gothic organs of ‘Gila’. Victoria’s voice swells with energy, en-point in perfection, bar a few notes of ‘Astronaut’ that are quickly forgotten to this swooning writer, charm overriding an odd missed note. ‘Silver Soul’ feels closer to anthem status with it’s utterly divine outro: one of the many things Beach House manage to craft so effectively, evident also in a new song aired.

‘Norway’ captures the biggest cheer of the night, it’s percussive pulses lush and full; Alex Scally’s shoegaze influences bloom during the heart-wrenching guitar solo of ‘Heart of Chambers’, blustering noise to ‘Master of None’. Despite an encore of ‘Real Love’ and ’10 Mile Stereo’, it’s impossible not to leave tonight’s show lost in the enamoured sweetness of ‘Take Care’, reaffirming any belief in love – undoubtedly the key connection Beach House have been creating over the past year.

Photographs by Anika Mottershaw

I don’t know where to start. This time last week I was a sweaty mess of half wrecked excitement somewhere in the centre of Barcelona. Now I’m sitting with the sniffles alone in my bedroom trying to figure out how to consolidate one of the best festivals of my life into a word count below that of the Oxford English Dictionary.

I arrived at Bristol airport at 5am on Wednesday after about three hours of sleep on my friend Sophie’s sofa. I got in the boarding queue early so I could get a window seat, all for the benefits of a solid surface to sleep against, not for the view. Air travel is slowly starting to scare me more and more. Not because of the volcano or Lost or anything. It’s just the bit when you’re sitting several thousand feet above the ground, turbulence bouncing the plane from side to side, and you realise that you paid more on administration fees than you did on the actual flight. That’s when it becomes a bit scary.

But anyway, I was sitting on the plane, head against the plastic, iPod in lap when slowly a line of familiar faces passed through the gangway. I was on the same flight as Los Campesinos! I gave Neil a lift back from ATP the other weekend so he returned the favour when we arrived at Girona airport, an hour outside Barcelona, and gave me a ride in their van into the centre of town.

I left them to check in to their hotel and fumbled my way through the Metro system to my new home. I was sharing an apartment with 5 friends including Joe from the brilliant Copy Haho. I had a quick shower, a cheeky beer, and headed to the Apolo theatre to do some work for my real job.

That night was the opening party of Primavera; a Wichita records party celebrating 10 years of the awesome label. Peggy Sue played first and were breathtakingly good. I’d interviewed them before their show and while I was waiting my turn some Spanish website got them to play acoustic on the roof of the venue (I cheekily filmed it for you guys). It was pretty special.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m still embarrassed to admit that I missed First Aid Kit because I was hungry. I’d been in the venue for about 4 hours and had eaten as much of the band’s rider as was politely possible. I had to go and get some food. In the end my friends and I just went to a place round the corner because they had beer taps on every table. I only had a few chips. I’m such a shit journalist, sorry.

We got back in time for Los Campesinos! and Joe and I (now joined by Richard from Copy Haho) decided to get in the pit. Except it wasn’t really a pit, it was more just a group of Spanish people standing really close to the stage talking and smoking. You can smoke indoors in Spain. It makes it hard to jump about like an idiot because you’re constantly worried about setting your hair or eye on fire.

Neither fear nor apathy could stop us though, and we jumped up and down and punched the air for most of the set. And then they played ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ and the whole crowd went crazy. I felt like I was fifteen again, trying to hold my place at the front of the stage while Chino Moreno bounced and belted his way across it. Except this time it was Gareth Campesinos and five of my mates from Uni, and I’m nearly twenty-five and should know better. It was the best mosh I’d had in years (regular readers will be pleased to hear my bag was safe behind the decks courtesy of Ben from Wichita).

The band finished the set with an encore of ‘Broken Hearbeats Sound Like Breakbeats’ from in the middle of the crowd. How they managed to play as Spanish limbs flew from side to side I’ll never know. After the gig I had to borrow Kim’s deodorant because I smelt like yogurt.

My friend Maria who lives in Barcelona was at a bar round the corner called Tequila Boom Boom. Her exact text was “We’re literally like 1min from apolo. Place called tequila boom boom, across the road from u, next 2 the sex show place with the naked lady sign.” We had to go.

I dragged everyone who was left in Apolo, about twenty odd people; my friends, Los Camp, Peggy Sue, Wichita… All to what was essentially a kebab shop. I could feel their eyebrows rise as I assured them this was the place. Luckily, once you walked through the bit where they sold kebabs there was actually a weird little bar at the back. The walls were lined with moulding fish tanks, the cocktails were two Euros fifty, and they played the Backstreet Boys’ greatest hits on loop. It was fucking awesome.

The next day I had a lie in then went and met Surfer Blood for a quick interview. A trip to the beach followed where I spent approximately twenty minutes trying to sunbathe before sacking it off to get a beer.

The festival site for Primavera is only slightly out of the city in some kind of giant car park by the beach. Like all Spanish festivals, nothing really happens until later in the evening. We got there in time to see Surfer Blood but I had to do another interview which involved me getting lost on site trying to find the press tent and then discovering I didn’t have access to the press tent so I missed half their set. I did get to see the bit where Thomas plays guitar with his teeth though which is infinitely cool.

Ummm… so the best thing about Primavera, aside from the ridiculously awesome line up, is that if you manage to sneak yourself a cheeky guest pass then you get free beer. They have free beer in the guest area. Free beer; possibly the greatest thing ever invented by man.

So, after Surfer Blood I got some free beer. Then I watched Titus Andronicus who were fierce. Then I got some free beer. Then I went to watch Smith Westerns but got sidetracked and ended up in this little Ray Ban tent where Comanechi were playing.

It was hilarious. The tent had a capacity of about fifty so it should have been awesome, except you weren’t allowed to take drinks in and they’d employed this poor muscle heavy security guard guy to make sure nobody leaned on the cabinets of sunglasses which lined one side of the tent. He just looked so panicked when people start crowdsurfing. He was stood there, sweating, with his arms spread out across the glass cupboards pushing us away from the sacred lenses. Nice one Ray Bans. Rock on.

I don’t remember quite what happened next. I managed to miss Wild Beasts. The next band I saw were Broken Social Scene who were a lot of fun. I went with my friend Mark from Bella Union and Beach House. Victoria and I compared muscles (I won, but she’s pretty buff) and talked about their hilarious non-existent beef with Katy Perry.

And then it was time for Pavement. I went to watch them with my bro Johnny who I met at a party once because we were both wearing HEALTH t-shirts. We made brokes (bro jokes) for a bit and then I was talking to this French girl who was the queen bro and it was totally brotal (brutal, if you’re a bro).

Everyone was wasted and singing along to every song and having the most fun ever. And they played a totally different set to their ATP performance; they opened on ‘Cut Your Hair’ and ended with ‘Stop Breathin’. Louise (queen bro – I think her name was Louise?) and I needed the toilet so we went to queue for the Portaloos but right as we got to the end of the line the opening chords for ‘Stereo’ kicked in. We ran in front of everyone waiting like lightening and straight back into the crowd BANG in time for the second chorus. It was a total broment.

After Pavement I was wiped, smashed, super happy. I hung at the back of Fuck Buttons with my friend Ed, right near the free beer. Meeting back up with the rest of my apartment pals we struggled our way onto the local bus home just as the skies opened and threw down huge drops of cool summer rain. It was perfect.

After a late start on Friday and a trip to the park I made it to the site in time for Harlem. I love this band. I first saw them a couple of years ago at SXSW and their debut album Hippies is insanely good. It was great to see that they party just as hard live on a festival stage as they do in a sweaty Austin club.

Then I watched Scout Niblett who I hadn’t seen in years. Her new drummer is amazing. He was so excited after each song, throwing his arms in the air cheering; it made me more excited about each song. Not that there isn’t plenty to get excited about in Scout’s dark, jerking, thunderstorm performances. The only problem was that the ATP stage was right next to this set of bushes that everyone had spent the previous day using as a toilet. It smelt like a fucking sewer.

I caught the end of Best Coast including the sing along moment of ‘When I’m With You’, which was ace. I had some free beer. I was unimpressed by Ganglians. And then I tried to go and watch Beach House. It was so insanely (but deservedly) busy for them. Much like the night before when The xx had cleaned the audience from every other stage of the festival, Friday was all about Beach House.  And they delivered. They’re just heart wrenching, dream stealing, soul captivatingly perfect. And they have so much passion and charisma on stage. I just fucking love this band.

Les Savy Fav had to follow, and of course they ruled it with Tim losing a mic to the crowd, begging for it back and then scorching out the audience with a stolen stage light. Although I have to admit, the whole time watching, my smile was still being held by memories of the previous set.

I couldn’t be bothered with Panda Bear after seeing his ATP set so I got more beer and headed to Cold Cave who completely stole the Pitchfork stage. I ran to the front when the opening chords of ‘Love Comes Close’ kicked in and danced like a dick. And then it was time for some band called The Pixies?

To be honest, I was wrecked when they came on stage and all I can really remember is

1. It was awesome
2. I danced like an idiot
3. Someone filmed me playing air guitar :/

Sorry, I’m shit. I do remember that the field in front of the stage was completely rammed – busier than I’ve ever seen it for any band in the past.

I didn’t make it to Yeasayer after. Apparently it was so busy at the Vice stage you couldn’t get near anyway.

The next day, the final day, I met up with No Age for a quick interview before a trip to the beach. They’d been jumped a few days before in Lisbon but Dean was looking OK by the time I saw them. Apparently their sound guy took the worst hits.

I caught a bit of Real Estate, Atlas Sound and Dr Dog who were all good. Avoided Florence like the plague. Saw The Slits who were shit, and then Polvo who were entirely brilliant and tighter than I’d expected. Sadly the ATP stage smelt even worse by that evening.

Grizzly Bear were as charming as ever and No Age kicked fucking noise punk ass. The pit was amazing. For a moment I considered crowdsurfing until I saw some guy fall on his face and remembered my SXSW incident. So I took a video instead.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I tried to watch a bit of Gary Numan but they were having technical trouble setting up the stage so he was pretty late on. I did get to see three songs though, and one of those songs was ‘Cars’. Fuck Yeah!

There’s not really anything I can write here about the Pet Shop Boys except that it was the most fun of the festival. Great stage show, great visuals, great performance and most importantly, great fucking songs. That said, I did meet some boys during their set that kept luring me into singing Brand New songs with them. I say luring; I didn’t need much encouragement. I’d like to see at least one emo rock band at Primavera Sound 2011 please. (kidding)

I ended the festival in the best way you could ever hope to end anything, even your own life. I would die happy if I was watching HEALTH. I have vague memories of bumping into a woman from work and screaming something like “WHEN THEY ‘PLAY DIE’  SLOW I’M GOING TO LOSE MY SHIT” in her face. I really know how to further my career. They ended with new track ‘USA Boys’ after the bruise fest that was ‘Die Slow’. Everything about them is just so good; dynamic, creative, aggressive but completely measured in every move. It was the highlight of my festival.

The next day some bands played in a park down the road from where we were staying. I only saw Real Estate and Smith Westerns. It was fun because it was really relaxed and pretty and I was far too wiped out for much else.

We didn’t go to the closing party that night. I went to bed early so I didn’t miss my 5am start. I’m a loser, I know. And now I’m going to go to bed and dream of Barcelona, and HEALTH, and free beer, and slowly count down the days until Primavera Sound 2011. I can’t wait.

As far as one day multi-venue events go Nottingham’s leg of the sixth annual Dot To Dot is helpfully localised (and helpfully dry, too). The eight rooms in use span five venues – Rock City, Nottingham Trent University and Stealth all have upstairs and downstairs stages – and only the Bodega is a significant distance away, albeit still walkable within ten minutes or so. For someone who usually ends up packing as many bands into a viewing schedule as possible on the offchance, it makes the plan of action taking potential demand into account a lot easier. As it happened, though, as far as I saw (albeit I didn’t venture near the primary room, Rock City’s main hall, towards the end of the day) there wasn’t too much of an issue with capacity, despite the signs warning us to make sure we were at our chosen room twenty minutes ahead of schedule. You’d be surprised at how much space was left in some of the bigger rooms by stage time – by all accounts last year was a feast of one-in-one-out so either fewer tickets were sold or door management has improved.

The preponderance of locals and makeweights for the first three hours, mostly spent popping into various places for a couple of songs mostly on the basis of interesting band name, made such egalitarianism almost into a chore, as most of the alternative genre sphere was covered in poor xerox form – mostly shoegaze, interestingly. Some rose above it – Boat To Row have a summery spark about their very much now indie-folk, while upstairs Burly Nagasaki have their own approach to the art of opening a live set, throwing rock shapes while not touching their instruments at all over a backing track of discordant electro beats. When they properly started, the duo proceed through a litany of short art-rock songs covering the gamut from surf to new wave to something not unlike a downsized Galaxie 500, including probably the weekend’s only bowed saw solo. The Crookes, who have something of a growing reputation and as such playing in an increasingly packed Rock City main room, wear their guitars high and their original rock and roll flavoured jangle-pop lightly, but while they provoke pockets of sporadic dancing in the throng, without a standout song they seem more like one of life’s perennial support bands.

With post-punk fully eviscerated, there are moments in Chapel Club‘s set where you feel they’re only just short of turning into The Departure. There’s more to them then that, the standard Joy Division dark foreboding being laced with a weight of reverberated guitar noise that owes as much to My Bloody Valentine as the Chameleons and, while Lewis Bowman is artfully static behind the mic stand, one of the guitarists regularly indulges in full-bodied string abuse in the style of Johnny Greenwood. Still, you get the feeling that others do this sort of thing better and the market is pretty much saturated as it is. Upstairs at the university LA’s Fol Chen, all in red, started out as a Flaming Lips-style controlled freakout with serrated guitar and a flailing drummer before devolving into warped passages of laptop-bolstered expansive new wave that occasionally recalled the Elephant 6 collective with a lightly funked-up sideline. Really quite impressive all told.

Rock City was pretty much rammed for Blood Red Shoes. As someone who was underwhelmed by Fire Like This, it’s encouraging to see its tracks work so well stripped back to their live basics of Steven’s forceful drumming and Laura-Mary’s deceptively simple powerhouse riffage creating immense kinetic energy. Down the road Washed Out provided a cheese to BRS’ chalk, not only in being live reputation vs chillwave blog sensation but the jolt resulting in going from full-on distorted guitar noise to the sunburnt Balearic wash Ernest Greene creates, here regularly stepping out from behind a bank of samplers, loop stations and sundry things with wires aided by two keyboard players and a rhythm section. Such recreation necessarily smoothes out some of the woozy dreampop that underpins the retro synth sounds but the playfully laidback beats and layered soundscapes envelope the only half full room.

So what was the main standout from a similarly underappreciated set upstairs in Trent Uni by Islet? That the first people to arrive waiting for them to start were half of Los Campesinos!? The regular excursions by members into the audience wielding guitar, bass or tambourine like a jousting weapon? The new song which takes on a reggae lope and just as you start thinking this might not be their best idea speeds up into something else entirely? Or the whole thing, the tribally rhythmic (three members solely on drums during two songs) freakout that, as their forthcoming mini-album (TLOBF review soon) cements, calls to mind all sorts of leftfield influences and touchstones yet ultimately sounds like nobody but themselves? All of the above, obviously.

Then again, others are quite good at that rhythm plus oddness equals unable to tear yourself away equation. Liars, the central trio bolstered by two of Fol Chen, start late due to unspecified technical issues, and what should have been a primal sonic fury of a 45 minutes, heavy on Sisterworld, is let down by a sludge of a mix that nearly wipes out the riff from ‘Plaster Casts Of Everything’. Even Angus Andrew seems muted, or as muted as a wild haired, wild eyed magnetic presence leaning over his mike stand can be muted. Not exactly subdued, though, as despite not taking off, and indeed taking over, as much as hoped for it’s still an object lesson in taking obtuse arrangements and dragging them into some sort of angular shape, darkly emphatic.

Sky Larkin, a late replacement for an AWOL Johnny Foreigner, have a set mostly of promising new songs from their second album, due in August, but are hampered again by the mix, nearly making Katie Harkin’s vocals inaudible. Kudos to her for carrying on after breaking a string despite it being one central to the song’s solo. If Washed Out were surprisingly underattended for their hype Zane Lowe/NME favourites The Chapman Family are positively lonely, although the thirty or so include proportionally plenty of the committed and some people dancing to whatever song was in their heads. It didn’t seem to be the one the band were playing, uncomfortably goth at times but often venomously noisy, bassist Pop less concerned with holding down the bottom end then with flinging body and instrument across the stage as frontman Kingsley ends up on the floor with the mike cable around his neck. The same room, the Rock City basement, is by contrast pretty much full to the brim for local hopes Dog Is Dead, people standing on tables and such vantage points. They’re a slightly confused band, a collision between Mystery Jets’ version of the 80s revival, Hot Club de Paris’ awkward structural harmonies and Vampire Weekend’s high-fret indie danceability, plus the odd sax solo. There’s certainly something very interesting bubbling under if they get time to develop it before the local scene expectation swamps them.

There’s not many bands about whom you can say there’s not enough dry ice about, but Beach House‘s eerieness deserves it. That said, we wouldn’t have been able to see their backdrop of five large rotating silver diamond-shaped figures, and Victoria Legrand seems to be suffering from something given the bit we do get is wafted away by her with apologies. It does little to bring down the mood, her vocal sounding fine if a little shaded amid the emotive ebb and flow of the Teen Dream-heavy set, although ‘Used To Be’ is a highlight, instils a gloriously hazy atmosphere over the packed room, somehow recreating the richly layered atmospherics of the recorded work with one synth, guitar and drums. At one point Legrand breaks out into a brief jig. In this substantial setting it’s the most incongruous thing all day.

Although the music hadn’t quite finished yet, my last port of call – sorry, Yuck, Lonelady and Egyptian Hip Hop – was back to Trent Uni’s main room for Los Campesinos! And to think plenty still refer to them in ‘twee’ terms. Within the first song Gareth managed to break two microphones, indicative perhaps of the increasingly muscular live form that make more sense of the pile-up of ideas and instrumentation. It’s responded to in kind by an up for it audience that appreciates and shouts back when best to Gareth’s personal diary entries of lyrics and really goes mad for ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ (sidenote: Gareth has taken to changing the lyric in that song’s first verse to “I’m dancing like every song he spins is Kenickie”, and every time it gets a noticeable cheer) A triumphant set to close an intriguing day’s watching bands, one of mixed outcomes but when finding something of individual enthrallment and on form proving itself to be a very worthwhile venture.

In this, King Tut’s 20th anniversary year, the venue has managed to book more interesting names than it has in some time, including tonight’s sold-out attraction, Beach House.

The Baltimore duo, adding a session drummer live, weave through a set of shoe glancing, but unselfconscious and charming, pop hooks. Most of Teen Dream, released on Bella Union at the end of January, is on show, opening with the hypnotic ‘Walk In The Park’.

Keyboardist Victoria Legrand’s pure, clear vocals are idiosyncratically different from recordings but nigh flawless, Nico comparisons made by much of the press making relative sense. The synthetic beats and sounds are juxtaposed to the organic feel of her voice. The live percussion is effective, the backing vocals carefully multiplied for ultimate effect. The ethereal harmonies evidenced on record are present live, slithering over the droning, hypnotic soundscape and simple, steady rhythms shown in new songs ‘Zebra’ and ‘Silver Sou’.

‘Norway’, Teen Dream’s lead single, is a highlight, its open/shut hi-hats creating a gentle heartbeat to underlie the track and Legrand’s Chan Marshall-esque high-notes.

Alex Scally’s delicate, undulating guitar work is adept throughout, eerie tones layered beneath a cacophony of children’s keys and typically slow tempos. ‘Heart of Chambers’, with its lilting beats and breathy melodies, still tuneful and on-point, provides solace for those unfamiliar with the newer material.

Undoubtedly one of the main attractions of Beach House is Legrand herself, catcalls of “I love you” are fairly common place, met with humility and modesty from the band. Yet, it’s about more than her pretty visage, fringe coquettishly draped over one eye. Admittedly a difficult set for fans yet to extensively experience the newer material and in less intimate surroundings than their previous Glasgow shows, Beach House still win out. It is clear that, as a majority of the packed audience stand quiet and enraptured, that this plain but incredibly thought out pop music works because, live or in records, it communicates with hearts and souls of those who choose to hear it.

When ‘Norway’ poured out of your computer speakers in the height of blogging madness, there were fanboy yelp’s of ‘this is what we’ve been waiting for!’ rumbling for months and begging for more. A track that essentially spoke of the regular Beach House fabric but beaming with a filigree delight of a huskier, woozier sound ‘Norway’ proved that beyond the catalogues that compared their psych-pop to the likes of Mazzy Star, Galaxie 500 and so on, Beach House had turned they’re gaze skywards and beyond simple echoing harmonies.

In fact that’s the basis of the change, Victoria Legrand has grasped at something more like a sexy mystique on the new record than wide-eyed fragility; her voice spoiling her delicate, bohemian image and newly clipped Alex Scally heralding it with slippery guitar lines. This is the other recognisable change on the album, Scally’s playing on the opening track ‘Zebra’. We follow his sprightly fingers gliding into distorted artworks, backed by organ calls and drum tolls like some eerie instrument of doom. I’m not suggesting Beach House have gone Goth, but there is a wandering dark element that comes as it pleases like a wandering sprite.

As Devotion picked up where their eponymous debut left off, the production along with the hazy melodies remained fairly similar, a change in tone and production is duly noted then on Teen Dream. Where Devotion seemed to respond to the animal emotion, raw production ruled by a gritty bite, the new album professes a soft as butter sound of clarity, allowing the wonderfully husky vocals to take centre stage.

Like an actors mask, the simple lullaby hides the true identity of ‘Take Care’ that, once revealed, shows an untouched depth to the human condition: “I’ll take care of you, it’s true” is drummed sweetly into you like honeying drones floating you into your dreams. There’s a rumbling tenderness in ‘Real Love’ that’s hard to shake, slowed down and oozing sexuality like velvet waves. Harpsichords and hushed beats whirl in some tracks, while ‘Used To Be’ swims in a warm, pleasurable hum.

In the sad yet commonplace ‘one listen’ culture we’ve found ourselves living in, the depth hidden amongst Teen Dream will have many people missing out; returning to this record garners it a strength as you uncover the layers of shimmering nuances and secret delights you have missed the first time round. Highly recommended.

mp3:> Beach House: ‘Norway’

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Have TEN years really gone past? Madness! 10 years ago I was graduating with my whole life ahead of me… I’d never heard of Jens Lekman, Wilco or The National… my entire life sprawled in front of me like a contented cat in front of a fire… Where did that time go? As 2010 (the most sci-fi of all years) sharpens into view, it gives us a chance to look back. To have a think about the albums that have been released in the last 10 years and what they mean to us, how they’ve affected us and how they’ve augmented our lives. Without some of the albums on this list, like Wilco for example, TLOBF wouldn’t have existed. Myself and Mr. Thane would never have met. How scary is that?

So, we got our splendid team of writers to nominate their favourite albums of the last 10 years. This is what we reckon are the best, and must hear, albums since the noughties arrived!

= Listen on Spotify

30. Jens Lekman – Night Falls Over Kortedala (2007)
Producer: Jens Lekman | Label: Service / Secretly Canadian
There are not enough songs about pretending to be your lesbian friend’s fiancé in front of her father to enable her to elope with her girlfriend. Luckily Gothenburg’s king of sampling and bombastic romantic swooning Jens Lekman is here to plug that gap with ‘A Postcard to Nina’, both lyrically hysterical with its description of her father’s lie detector, and touching with his promise that “Nina, I can be your boyfriend.” It’s bolstered by huge horns and Jens’ unwaveringly physical, if sometimes sinister, belief in love, where the strings burn with the gut punch of that first infatuation to wry Stephin Merrit-esque wit and an ambrosia bright glow.
- Laura Snapes

29. The Twilight Sad – Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters (2007)
Producer: Peter Katis, The Twilight Sad | Label: Fat Cat
The Twilight Sad find their strength in the control they have over the chaos they are able to produce. Behind every song on this album lays an unfathomable depth of textured noise, but unlike many noise rock bands, it feels as if it has to be there. The Twilight Sad don’t aim to create an abrasive listening experience that you must endure, they aim to fill a room with their power, and their texture, and they succeed. The Twilight Sad shouldn’t soar, most songs falling into what is almost a dark, treacle like mire, but they do, and your life will feel more empty when the noise stops, and you return to silence.
- Daniel Offen

28. The Avalanches – Since I Left You (2000)
Producer: Robbie Chater, Darren Seltmann | Label: Modular Recordings
As an impressionable early-teen, I along with half the nation fell in love with The Avalanches as a novelty-pop band, reciting all the words to ‘Frontier Psychiatrist’ to a bemused friend on the back of the school bus. But the rest of the record wasn’t funny, so I didn’t get it. Years later I returned to it and was mystified in an entirely more alluring way. Perhaps if the hazy range of corny strings, breathy voices, and danceable beats didn’t add up to the sound of some sort of eternal lost summer then they’d be more apt for a second album, but maybe one day The Avalanches will awaken from their eternal slumber and release something just as magical again.
- Tom Whyman

27. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm (2005)
Producer: Paul Epworth | Label: Wichita
With their taut, wiry debut, Bloc Party became poster boys for elements of the British rock scene who explore personal and political issues in roughly equal measure. Sometimes similar in sound and theme to The Rakes’ debut Capture/Release which was released a few months later, Bloc Party’s debut edged that record – and most of the others of the decade – out in terms of quality by being quite so inviting to listeners of different audiences and being so energetically gripping. Like other albums here, Silent Alarm is not just a great album of the decade, but a partial document of what it has been like to live in the decade.
- Andy Johnson

26. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (2008)
Producer: Phil Ek | Label: Bella Union / Sub Pop
Did Bella Union know? As they prepared themselves to release Fleet Foxes, did they have that sneaking suspicion that this was going to be the one? Their first record to be certified gold in the UK, heaped with praise by every respectable reviewer. Amid all the accolades though, it is worth remembering how wonderful the album truly is. Wrapped in a organic warmth, it sounds like vinyl whatever the media, music and voices sliding with an elegiac grace. Despite its wintery overtures it managed for many to soundtrack an entire year, ending with a final refrain of harmony as timeless as the album itself.
- Simon Reuben

25. Sigur Rós – Takk… (2005)
Producer: Ken Thomas, Sigur Rós | Label: Geffen / EMI
Sigur Rós’ all consuming beauty and ghostly grandeur has rarely been in doubt but after the celestial brilliance of their debut, it was Takk, some four years later, that re-imbued Jon Birgisson with the ethereal warmth that had seemed to have escaped him. Still evoking all of the snowflake imagery their debut conjured, the twin hit of ‘Glosoli’ and ‘Saeglopur’ cascaded the weight and vulnerability to slide you into an introspective hole but it was the playful melody of ‘Hoppipolla’, gloriously sidling alongside the album’s heavier bombast, that gave it its intermittent, resplendent starbursts of optimism and made Takk quite special.
- Reef Younis

24. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning (2005)
Producer: Mike Mogis | Saddle Creek
Marketed as a double release, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning could potentially have been the mundane, standard Bright Eyes album of the two. Yet, where Digital Ash In A Digital Urn failed to coherently connect, I’m Wide Awake was Conor Oberst doing what Conor Oberst does best: writing melodic, emotively orchestrated and beautifully shaky bluesy folk songs. ‘Lua’ and ‘Poison Oak’ showed Bright Eyes at their lyrical, downbeat best, with ‘Road to Joy’ and ‘Another Travellin’ Song’ settling the balance. Filled with honest anecdotes, this was a ‘social commentary’ album that somehow sidestepped the label of poor man’s Dylan, the naval gazing mopery of Ryan Adams or indeed the pretension which may have befallen Oberst in recent times, instead producing sentiments and sounds far beyond his then-24-years.
- Lauren Mayberry

23. The Knife – Silent Shout (2006)
Producer: The Knife | Label: Rabid Records
In what truly was a great decade for Swedish music, Stockholm siblings The Knife stood apart from all their contemporaries (albeit shrouded in shadows and secrecy) by crafting sinister sounding, moody music for the indie set. Their sound is equal parts tension and melody, with the bulk of the menacing, beat-driven arrangements handled by Olof Dreijer, while Karin Dreijer Andersson’s angelically ominous vocals adds some humanity to music that often sounds sterile and bleak. Silent Shout proved to be an innovative, compelling album that continues to offer us clues to questions that the perpetually reclusive band will never answer themselves.
- Erik Thompson

22. Björk – Vespertine (2001)
Producer: Björk, Thomas Knak, Martin Console, Marius de Vries | Label: One Little Indian
Less caustic than Homogenic and shorn of the carnival of Post, Björk’s fourth album initially seemed something of a retreat from the vigour of its predecessors. Glacial in tone and possessed of an introversion a world apart from the pantomime of ‘It’s Oh So Quiet’, this was Björk looking inwards, openers ‘Hidden Place’ and ‘Cocoon’ inviting us into an amniotic half-light of music boxes and whispers that enchants and unnerves in equal measure. Fragile yet hauntingly affecting, there’s a beating warmth behind the ice that makes Vespertine easily the best of her work.
- Christian Cottingham

21. The National – Alligator (2005)
Producer: Peter Katis | Label: Beggars Banquet
The National is really the Matt Berninger show – the jaded lothario with the silver tongue. He’s like a filthier Robert Lowell (‘my mind’s not right’), or a New York Stuart Staples; and like Staples you pray he doesn’t find contentment – what would he write about? Every track burns. The band find a rough and rich romantic tumble to underpin some great vocal performances and some of the finest lyrics anywhere this decade. I could pick a hundred but I think if I was ever to write something as perfect as the chord change coupled with ‘we’re the heirs to the glimmering world’ I could die happy.
- Matt Poacher

20. At The Drive-In – Relationship of Command (2000)
Producer: Ross Robinson | Label: Grand Royal / Fearless
At The Drive In had been building a following with their incendiary live show since the mid 90’s, but they really exploded into life when Relationship of Command appeared in 2000.

A brutal hardcore assault from start to finish Relationship of Command was a phosphorous blast in the face. Taking the directness of punk, elements of Fugazi’s hardcore, and Cedric Bixler’s incandescent roar – At The Drive In were a shot in the arm for a world that strangely embraced Oasis’ Standing on The Shoulder of Giants as one of best the releases of the year.

Dismantling ‘One Armed Scissor’ on Jools in a whirling frenzy, Iggy Pop cropping up on ‘Rolodex Propaganda’ and the opening blitzkrieg of ‘Arcarsenal’ were just some of the many highlights.

The band’s split shortly after the albums release and the subsequent formation of prog-leaning The Mars Volta by Bixler and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez meant that the promise of the most exciting band to surface in the early 2000’s was never fully realised.
- Sam Shepherd

19. Beach House – Devotion (2008)
Producer: Beach House | Label: Bella Union / Carpark Recordings
Devotion, the second full-length from Baltimore’s Beach House, is full of desire and loss, laden with lovelorn pop songs. Released in 2008 on Bella Union in the UK and Europe and Carpark, the Washington label home to Dan Deacon and co, the duo’s penchant for delicate, clever and bright songwriting was made clear. Their 2006 self-titled debut had displayed organist/vocalist Victoria Legrand’s ability to wind a wistful and poignant melody over multi-instrumentalist Alex Scally’s crisp soundscapes, but this ability was inarguably honed on Devotion. Legrand’s classical training is downplayed but evident in her abilities, complimenting the autumnal sonic feel. From the sparse percussion of ‘Turtle Island’, to the glittering organs of first single ‘Gila’ and the deliciously home-made Velvet Undergound feel of ‘Some Things Last A Long Time’, this record surrendering none of that Beach House charm, their sound sweet but with a that inevitable hidden bite.
- Lauren Mayberry

18. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavillion (2009)
Producer: Ben H. Allen / Animal Collective | Label: Domino
The words ‘adobe slats’ have taken on unprecedented profundity since December 2008, when Merriweather Post Pavilion first leaked onto the web, sparking fervent blogging activity and file-sharing, creating an ever-spiraling hyperbole for what has been dubbed the band’s most accessible album.

So I’m sure that you’re already fat off all the acclaim and Pitchfork-heralding this album has inspired, having being fed adjective-upon-bloated-adjective describing the heavily layered tribal rhythms, swimming in the sounds of frogs chirping or caves dripping, and culminating in the euphoric pulse of ‘Brothersport’ or the undeniably intense and ethereal swirling mass of ‘In The Flowers’.

As Hipster Runoff’s ever-amusing ‘Carles’ put-it: “Animal Collective are a band created by/for/on the internet”, and one would only have to set up a Google Alert to see this as not only true, but instrumental in propelling the band’s progressive sounds into the Billboard Top 20, and raising the bar for all modern pop music to come.
- Sam Parfitt

17. PJ Harvey – Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea (2000)
Producer: Rob Ellis, Mick Harvey, PJ Harvey | Label: Island
Nominated for the Mercury Prize in 2001, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea marked a turning point for PJ Harvey: this was, undeniably, a pop album. But pop, according to Polly Jean Harvey, is no bland, straightforward affair. Packed with reverb and lush layers, Stories From The City was a beautifully melodic reaction to previous releases Is This Desire, Rid of Me and even arguable breakthrough LP To Bring You My Love, all of which possessed a certain unnerving, extreme and dark undertone. The songwriter’s vocals were more relaxed, as gorgeous as Harvey has ever sounded, but the passion-fuelled lyrics remained, complimented by the simple, driving rhythms and expertly executed riffs. With hooks evident from the first chords of ‘Big Exit’- potentially the paramount opening track of her career-, Harvey created an accessible, welcoming version of herself whilst maintaining all the elements which made her so revered, from ‘Good Fortune’ to ‘Beautiful Feeling’ and beyond.
- Lauren Mayberry

16. Low – Things We Lost In The Fire (2001)
Producer: Steve Albini | Label: Kranky
In spite of the austere title, Things We Lost In The Fire just so happens to be Low’s most exquisite and accessible work. Recorded by Steve Albini back at the beginning of the century, it uses a blend of hazy guitars, delicate percussion and truly heartbreaking vocal melodies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker to really shine. Bitter-sweet ‘Sunflower’ and ‘July’ radiate a tenderness that, despite their undoubted quality, was sorely lacking from previous offerings. Even the bleaker tracks, like the edgy, overwrought ‘Whitetail’, and the sinister lullabies that are ‘Whore’, ‘Laser Beam’ and ‘Medicine Magazines’ have more emotional exigency, driven by their ominous interweaving harmonies. Finale ‘In Metal’, grows from a downhearted elegy into one of the group’s most uplifting tracks, reflecting the progression of their music. Sure the lyrics may seem menacing, but it exudes a warmth and hopeful tone which not only make this their most direct and gripping set of songs, but also one of the finest and affecting albums of this decade. Just beautiful.
- Ama Chana

15. Interpol – Turn On The Bright Lights (2002)
Producer: Peter Katis, Gareth Jones | Label: Matador
Anyone who dismisses Interpol as purely a derivative rip-off of Joy Division clearly hasn’t been listening enough. There are few bands that can claim to have come to prominence and influenced the decade with such a bang. Of course, there are thousands of third-rate unsigned mate’s bands that try treading similar ground, but that can’t take away from the splendour of Turn on the Bright Lights. That the two follow ups didn’t quite match up was inevitable given the quality through – from the thudding brilliance of ‘PDA’ to the frenetic energy of ‘Roland’, there’s not a foot put wrong throughout. Downbeat whilst being danceable and filled with some of the better lyrics of the past 10 years, the album pivots on Paul Banks’ unique monotonous droll and still sounds more fresh and exciting than most of the crop of current hopefuls.
- Matthew Britton

14. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven (2000)
Producer: Daryl Smith | Label: Kranky / Constellation
Lift Yr Skinny Fists… was the sound of a band absolutely at the heart of its own sphere of possibility: a summation of all that bluster and pomp and urgency that drove ‘F#A#’ and ‘A Slow Riot…’ The band also added new broad layers of dissonance and queasy ambience to their already dense palette and there was a self-confidence about the whole enterprise, as if they damn well knew that this was a defining album- and for once here was a double album that absolutely demanded the form. From the opening triumphal waltz of ‘Gathering Storm’ through Ephrain’s astonishing screwdriver-driven wailing guitar on ‘Monheim’ to the treated voices that close ‘Antennas to Heaven’ this feels like a record big (in every sense of the word) enough to warrant end of decade plaudits.
- Matt Poacher

13. The Flaming Lips – Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)
Producer: The Flaming Lips, Dave Fridmann, Scott Booker | Label: Warner Bros.
Having already released The Soft Bulletin in 1999, it was almost unthinkable that The Flaming Lips would be able to match the majesty of what, at the time, was their most accomplished work. However, with the band on form and taking a slightly more electronic direction, they quickly went about consolidating their position as one of America’s finest bands. Wayne Coyne reached spectacular heights with his lyrics. The allegory of the pink robots is inspired, whilst the simply stunning ‘Do You Realize?’ made jaws drop, hearts pound, and eyes water. That song in particular showcased the Lips’ capacity to inspire, delight, and break hearts within the space of a few minutes. This year it was picked as Oklahoma States’ official rock song, which isn’t bad for a bunch of Fearless Freaks.
- Sam Shepherd

12. Broken Social Scene – You Forgot It In People (2002)
Producer: David Newfeld | Label: Arts & Crafts
You wonder if a record as huge and as rammed with disgustingly talented personnel as You Forgot it in People could happen today – appear fully formed out of nowhere, fit to bursting. Each nuance would be hyped and dissected before release, each member ransacked, interviewed, profiled. As it was, it seemed to drop out of the sky, and so perfectly timed. A suite of 13 beautifully crafted pop songs, ripe and tumbling over themselves with invention. And exactly how did they fit this many people and so many ideas into the space of one record? The truth is they didn’t, and it’s the secret to the albums rolling, almost improv-feel magic (‘come in after this, here we go Kev’)– these cavernous songs are still fresh and new now, things spill out of them and multiply into the middle distance.
- Matt Poacher

11. The Strokes – Is This It (2001)
Producer: Gordon Raphael | Label: RCA
The key to the Strokes’ debut album, Is This It, is the slacker attitude that permeates the record. The album’s title and title track certainly suggest as much. When Julian Casablancas asks the titular question, he’s wondering if it’s the end of a relationship, but he may as well be asking the question of himself, of the band, of the whole post-punk reawakening that occurred at the beginning of the decade. The question isn’t answered by the end of ‘Take It or Leave It’, either. Yet, it doesn’t matter because the care-free, shit-kicking ride was the reason behind it all, anyway. There is no explanation, and you squares don’t get it. Indeed, as Casablancas proclaims on ‘Last Nite’, “I said, people they don’t understand/ No, girlfriends, they can’t understand/ Your grandsons, they won’t understand/ On top of this, I ain’t ever gonna understand.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
- Steve Lampiris

10. Of Montreal – Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (2007)
Producer: Kevin Barnes | Label: Polyvinyl
Just how good this album is came as a huge surprise, even to long-time fans of the band. Eight albums into their career, of Montreal were already a pretty damn hot band. It’s just, there was nothing really that hinted at how hard-hitting this album would be. Previously they’d flirted with songs of this intensity, but never before had Kevin Barnes committed something of such beautiful and cutting honesty to record.

It’s the candidness that really makes it. No break-up album has ever so perfectly tapped into the psyche of a man staring into the bleakness of impending loneliness, the thoughts that cross and overlap and where nothing makes sense, “how can I explain? I need you here, and not here too.” The album’s bleakest points, lyrically, are underpinned by bouncy-rubber-ball basslines and Human League synths – see the wonderfully titled ‘Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse’ with it’s chorus of ooohs, or the massively Bowie-influenced ‘Suffer for Fashion’ for further evidence.

So there’s all that crap about manic depression, and bisexuality, and Barnes turning into a forty-year old “black shemale” called Georgie Fruit, and that’s all well and good, but somehow, despite the complicated “biographical” story Barnes is trying to tell, it remains to me deeply personal. I’ve never, to my knowledge, transmogrified into a transexual African-American. This album’s biggest triumph is, possibly, that of Montreal almost make me think I have.
- Adam Nelson

9. Joanna Newsom – Ys (2006)
Producer: Joanna Newsom, Van Dyke Parks | Label: Drag City
Maybe it was the tumbling flow of imagination, of words and lyrics meshing into stories. Maybe it was the sensual orchestrations, the rambling length of songs that somehow never got tiresome. Or maybe it’s the quirky way she said “meteorite”. Against all expectations (an album of five songs, most of them nearly 15 minutes long and by the way, it’s played mostly on a harp), a lot of us fell deeply in love with an unlikely album.

Joanna Newsom’s “Ys” was a powerfully feminine collection of songs, full of fascinating imagery, evocative story-telling and utterly gorgeous music, the equal to Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” where the idiosyncratic nature of the lyrics is never forced, or just for effect – it is always to enhance the tale and the emotional resonance with the listener. The songs are rammed with words and phrases as each individual tale unfolds, none more powerful than the epic “Only Skin”. The moment where Bill Callahan’s vocal emerges in the song’s twilight is akin to a sinister, creeping tendril, never failing to send the hairs on the back of the neck skywards.

Three years on, we still wait for a follow-up, but should be thankful that Newsom is not rushing her return, especially considering the transition made from her debut to “Ys”. This album shines as a beautiful connection with folk stories of old and the nature that surrounds us, and when all the noise has abated will continue to sparkle.
- Simon Reuben

8. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver (2007)
Producer: James Murphy | Label: DFA
Where the self-titled debut was a warning shot across the bows, Sound of Silver was the nuclear explosion. The exquisite blending of dance, disco and rock n roll, it was the sound of one man’s adrenaline fuelled rush through 50 years of music.

I remember hearing the opening, pulsing, beats of ‘Get Innocuous!’ and being floored. I literally stopped what I was doing to pay complete attention to the music. It was amazing. That noise, those beats, the cowbell. It was also an album that mixed the good times with intelligence. The tongue-in-cheek of ‘North American Scum’, the end of an era defining ‘New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’ – it was astonishing stuff.

You can tell great albums by their legacy. Most of the indie world has spent the years since Sound of Silver desperately trying to emulate its greatness. Sure, the Nike project smelt a bit, but the fact John Cale graced us with an amazing cover of ‘All My Friends’ should be enough justification of greatness. And yes, the detractors will point to James Murphy’s Bowie fascination, but that’s fine. This was an album that freshened up a dying genre whilst creating a few new ones whilst it was at it. At the end of 2007 there was only one album of the year, only one work of art that everyone could agree on: Sound Of Silver.
- Rich Hughes

7. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)
Producer: Justin Vernon | Label: 4AD / Jagjaguwar
Who hasn’t wanted to escape the evils of the real world at some point in their life? The monotonous routine, the sprawling smog and traffic jams, the all engulfing maze of the concrete jungle. Why not decamp to the wilderness, live off the land, fight a grizzly and wear heavy work plaid shirts? Justin Vernon (aka Bon Iver) took just such a voluntary exile to a Wisconsin wood hut and returned with For Emma, Forever Ago; an album made and played out to the stars and the wolves.

An all-American Junglebook, it was a debut that absorbed its secluded surroundings with words swirling over valley chasms, bouncing off steep gorge walls and rolling across a moonlit canopy of fir. Vernon’s vocals ached and agonised with the contentment isolation as ruminative melodies intertwined with his now bewitching, hallmark vocal. Blindsided picked tentatively at Neil Young, the simmering mantra of ‘The Wolves (Act I and III)’ injected a small swathe of Spiritualized grandiosity and ‘Creature Fear’ hinted ever so slightly at the downbeat intensity of Elliott Smith.

If you listened closely enough between the swells and fades, you might have heard the crackle of a log fire. Immediately arresting and eerily superb, this was the real remote part.
- Reef Younis

6. Radiohead – In Rainbows (2007)
Producer: Nigel Godrich | Label: Self-released
For the media, In Rainbows presented a problem. We all got it at the same time. The mainstream press prematurely spurted their views, foolishly scribbling during that initial listen (I am sure Pete Paphides of The Times regrets quoting hearing “I’m in the middle of your kitchen” on ‘All I Need’, and let’s not speak of Morley’s attempts at a live blog). This time, the blogs got it right, TLOBF’s editors wisely allowing a week for its writers to assess the album, as there was no point rushing things. For once, everyone was listening, in a truly communal experience.

And what an album, the perfect blend of all facets of their character and imagination, the static, frantic drums of ’15 Step’ taking us back to Kid A, the rolling, rhythmic guitar of ‘Bodysnatchers’ the finer moments of The Bends. And as usual with Radiohead, it was all in the details, the little touches. The wail of children on ’15 Step’ elevates the track with a sudden burst of adrenalin whilst the snap of snare drum leading to the crescendo of ‘All I Need’ heralds one of the finest moments they had committed. The monotony of ‘Videotape’ ends the album perfectly, urging you back to the album’s militaristically tight opening to start the whole process again.

The gimmick surrounding its release did not hurt sales, whatever you paid for it. Most of us bought the physical release, and a few of us dug deeper and bought the deluxe version. But all of us got to enjoy the moment, free from the jaundiced filter of opinion and critical analysis, judging the contents on their own considerable merits. Possibly the most exciting album launch of the decade, and certainly the one we all got to mutually share collectively.
- Simon Reuben

5. The National – Boxer (2007)
Producer: Peter Katis | Label: Beggars Banquet
82 years after F Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, one of the few things that had altered the pursuit of the American Dream is that prohibition is no longer in force. It’s evident from 2007’s Boxer, where Matt Berninger’s numerous alter-egos slip a slug of contraband into a bottle of lemonade, stand at the punch table swallowing punch and feel intoxication ebb from their centre like a drop of ink in a glass of water in pursuit, or perhaps avoidance of an ideal. But The National never use alcohol as a simple metaphor for escapism; that would be gauche. Instead it’s a prop, a tangible detail of the periphery of the awkward everyday acts in which the 12 songs here lay their scene. Despite having lost some of the lyrical abstractions from Alligator to move into a universal domestic reality, the lyrics here are chronicles of what happens away from the action – sometimes equally funny and pathetic, such as “I leaned on the wall, the wall leaned away” from ‘Slow Show’ to the recognizable conversational awkwardness and disconnection of “standing in an empty tuxedo with grapes in my mouth” in ‘Ada’. Painted by green gloves, being pink, middle class and blue-blazered is a portrait of capitulation to adulthood, of masculinity, set to a panoply of immeasurably beautiful horns, propulsive drumming, and pattern-weft guitars that form a backdrop to Berninger’s arc as subtly, yet on inspection, exquisitely detailed as a set piece from Mad Men. Matt’s joked that his resonant tones have been compared to every different type of whiskey – it’s a fitting simile, not least because of the addictive quality of it, the warmth, and the fact that every sip destroys you just a little bit more. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
- Laura Snapes

4. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois (2005)
Producer: Sufjan Stevens | Label: Asthmatic Kitty
Since its release and subsequent critical adoration in 2005 the second in Sufjan Stevens 50 states project is a record that is genuinely era defining and so befitting of the term Magnum Opus that you expect it’s graceful sprawl is the main reason for him discontinuing his 50 states project (if rumours are to be believed).

From the opening chords of ‘Concerning the UFO Sighting’ to the lo-fi fuzz of ‘…Metropolis’ this is an album that boasts numerous classics that which now can be considered indie staples. There is also a case for Illinois to be considered the most influential record of the noughties although the countless banjo toting imitators are yet to provide a fitting heir. Building on the solemn, minimal folk of Seven Swans, Sufjan added lush orchestration and an an ambition that came as close to possible to realisation.

And so to those highlights; ‘Chicago’ is as transcendently beautiful as upon first listen, ‘Casimir Pulawski Day’ heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measure (even I want to take up the banjo after listening) and ‘John Wayne Gacy Jr.’ takes the most gruesome subject matter and injects it with now trademark warmth and humanity. Proof perhaps that in a decade dominated by the religious right in the US and a growing form of particularly strident atheism in pop culture, that infusing your work with your beliefs didn’t have to mean preaching and could make it even more powerful. Christianity apart though, where on earth will he go next?
- Andrew Grillo

3. Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)
Producer: Jim O’Rourke, Wilco | Label: Nonesuch
“I am an American aquarium drinker. I assassin down the avenue…”

TLOBF’s third favourite album of the decade opens with what may be its greatest lyric. A postmodern take on Iggy Pop’s “streetwalkin’ cheetah” for the new millennium (how long has it been since you last heard that phrase?), the line works as a microcosm for the album with which Wilco made their name, and encapsulates the uncertainty with which they entered the 21st century.

Their first album with drum genius Glen Kotche, the self-produced Yankee Hotel Foxtrot is the sound of a band in flux; Jeff Tweedy’s scattered imagery – taking on the media, religion, and what exactly it means to be an American – is laced gracefully across some of the band’s most testing and endearing melodies. Paranoid lullabies like ‘Radio Cure’ and ‘Poor Places’ sit alongside the hymnal ‘Jesus, etc.’, the lyrics of which (“Tall buildings shake, voices escape singing sad, sad songs”) make an obvious case for why so many Americans held YHF to their hearts after September 11th – coincidentally, until Reprise dropped the band, also the album’s original release date.

Meanwhile, in the album’s latter half, the sumptuous pop of ‘Heavy Metal Drummer’, ‘Pot Kettle Black’ and ‘I’m the Man Who Loves You’ make for a perfectly-timed triptych which saves the album from caving in on its own dystopian vision; the former’s breezy nostalgic acoustics could be picture in reverse on the dashboard of R.E.M.’s ‘Nightswimming’, while the latter is one of the most riotously uplifting moments in the band’s catalogue.

The album paints a desolate picture – albeit one in which, in true patriotic fashion, there’s always a glimmer of hope; the Stars and Stripes may be reduced to ashes, but still the band salute. I had reservations about so many things this decade, but not about Wilco.
- Alex Wisgard

2. Arcade Fire – Funeral (2004)
Producer: Arcade Fire | Label: Rough Trade / Merge
Funeral is the sound of winter’s past, of tragedies endured, of hope reclaimed. It’s an album that pulls at the heartstrings without sounding overwrought, an album that can make you dance (and maybe even jump around a little) without ever sounding basic or simplistic. And although it’s not the most immediate of albums, it’s one that pays back perseverance a hundredfold- at first, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about, but when it finally “clicked” it was as an epiphinal moment as I’ve ever experienced. Opener ‘Tunnels’ is sheer perfection in song form- gloriously evocative both musically and lyrically, it’s beautifully put together; the sharp piano chords piercing the muted, shimmering production like children stomping through the snow, the crisp, sustained report of the snare drum and the breathtaking harmonies of the coda (which for my money is the single most sublime minute of music committed to record this decade). Some would contend the jerky, ramshackle chaos of ‘Laika’ or ‘Power Out’s scintillating assault on the senses is where Funeral excels, and it’s certainly an understandable point of view, but for me it’s all about the emotional rawness of ‘In The Backseat’ (an elegy to lost loved ones) or the sheer, unrestrained anthemic vitality of ‘Wake Up’. Perhaps the album is short on subtlety but there’s something endearing about a band so willing to wear their hearts on their sleeves- ‘Crown of Love’ is permeated by an earnestness that would be unpalatable in lesser hands, but it’s underpinned with such achingly beautiful passion it’s transformed into something truly joyous (and that cathartic orchestral-disco breakdown must rank as one of the most wonderful climaxes ever).

Meaningful and moving without collapsing under the weight of its own self-seriousness (a fate Neon Bible didn’t entirely avoid), it’s clear with Funeral Arcade Fire weren’t trying to be cool- you just need to look at any publicity photo for proof of that- they weren’t trying to capture the zeitgeist or jump on whatever bandwagon was rolling through the indie scene at the time. They were just a bunch of guys (and girls) putting all their hearts and soul into their music, wrapping it up it sumptuous arrangements and producing what remains a peerless testament to the joy and wonder the best music can elicit.
- Adam Elmahdi

1. Radiohead – Kid A (2000)
Producer: Nigel Godrich, Radiohead | Label: Parlophone / Capitol
Has there even been a band who’ve topped a strong first decade in such a magnanimous, definitive manner? In the late-90s, Radiohead were already being described in such certain terms as “the most important band on the planet”, OK Computer was near-universally lauded as the best album of the decade, a tour-de-force from a band at the height of their powers.

Height of their powers my arse. Going into the noughties, Radiohead were a band with everything to lose. It seems silly to even speculate about this now, but the potential for them to release albums of ever-decreasing impact and slowly fade into old age was pretty high, especially when you consider the stories of in-fighting and enmity within the band that leaked during the touring and recording before Kid A’s release. In retrospect, “doing a Kid A” was the only way to go.

Funny, isn’t it, how “doing a Kid A” has become such common lazy journalistic parlance for “a band changing their sound a bit”. Because the thing is, Kid A doesn’t really represent a massive leap from their previous work. Revisiting OK Computer with Kid A in mind reveals not a band at the height of their powers, but a band awkwardly trying to figure out what the hell those powers even are. “Doing a Kid A” should really refer to those rare occasions when a band tops an exceptional album with a truly, truly essential one.

And essential it is. Even only 9 years on, it’s easy to underestimate the impact and influence Kid A had on just about everything since. Not simply in the kind of music people were making, but the kind of music people wanted to listen to. The most important rock band of the ‘90s were suddenly responsible for a re-invigoration of serious dance music, and though I barely dare venture to suggest it, the huge popularity of dubstep in the latter half of the decade still feels as though it owes some debt to Radiohead making it not only acceptable, but necessary to indulge in that end of the musical spectrum. With one album, Radiohead shattered the elitist rockism that had reigned the ‘90s, from grunge through britpop to Radiohead themselves. The upshots of this were many, the downsides were bands like Keane thinking that having a synthesiser made them a radical creative powerhouse.

And yet, all this context is just bollocks, isn’t it? It might look good and sound good, but really, if you listen to Kid A and are sat there thinking about how different the musical landscape of the noughties would have been without it, then you probably don’t deserve to be listening to Kid A. The simple, undeniable fact is that Kid A is one of the finest albums ever written, recored and released. It transcends context and biographical waffle, it makes everything else into an irrelevance. It’s Kid freaking A.
- Adam Nelson

Want more lists? Check out our “Best of 2009″ feature here.

It’s one of those nights – a show that, if justice is done, will seem inconceivably small in twelve months. The Fleapit, tucked away down Columbia Road in London’s East End, plays host to this hush-hush gig from Baltimore’s Beach House, showcasing their third LP Teen Dream.

It’s gazing-into-irises intimate, and before any sense of reality has settled, “Walk In The Park” is swelling with self-confidence, in both sound, songwriting and Victoria Legrand’s heart-wrenching vocal charm. With most of tonight’s set coming from the new record, the band’s progression is shining with a pristine clarity. Alex Scally’s slide guitar swoons through “Norway” – which must be the perfect dream-pop single. The band’s ‘oldies’ have inherited a rich brilliance; “Gila” and “Master of None” haunt with a near-divine melancholy, dispelling any concern that Beach House can’t pull being a great live act.

The live band as a three-piece make the most of their appendages to fill out their reverb-soaked ethereal sound, especially with Scally playing both his guitar and a foot-organ simultaneously. There’s a backing track adding the odd vocal harmony, but with Daniel Franz on drums it’s not a heavy reliance – and, of course, Victoria’s voice holds the audience. Her alto and love-or-heartache lyricism, delivered with this strong an assurance, are enough to besot any member of this audience. It’s clear she’s thoroughly enjoying herself too, swaying behind her keyboard amid a stage set of two white furry trees, doubling up as lights decorating this art space – with an exhibition sharing the space, rather aptly titled “Astroland”.

Closing on the reassurance and uplift of “Take Care”, the crowd is left a little wanting after an all to brief nine songs. But with sweat and heat of the venue, the brevity feels fitting with the occasion. Beach House are back in the new year – twice, in fact, including a coveted support slot with Grizzly Bear. With a record of Teen Dream’s strength, and with some of its finest moments missing from tonight’s set, it’s an irresistible prospect.

Photography by Crazybobbles (except 3 & 4, by Anika Mottershaw)

The Norwegian Tourist Board may never send a thank-you note to Baltimore pop duo Beach House, but if they did, it would be well deserved. After all, it was their song of the same name which lately had people all across the globe remembering the rangy country north of Sweden as more than a world of war, climate change and economic crisis.

Last month, ‘Norway’ appeared on nearly every music blog the Internet was home to. An indication not only of the high quality of the song but also the greatness of Beach House’s 2008 full-length Devotion and the air of excitement that surrounds its follow-up. What can we expect next from the magical sounds pouring from the hearts and minds of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally?

When I met the band last week in Berlin, busy promoting their new album Teen Dream (out on Bella Union January 25), they appear a bit jet-lagged and sleepless as well as still fascinated by the hour long conversation about music that started at 5am in their hotel room on the same day. I also find myself immediately fascinated by the appearance of their haunting singer, and hobby palmist, Victoria and her male counterpart Alex, who is constantly either playing with a banana, a metal scissor or offering me fruit. He also seems to change his clothes every two hours. But it’s the benevolence and natural sympathy in the way they treat each other that stands out the most.

Alex – half caringly, half jokingly – on Victoria, “She’s undateable.” Victoria on Alex, “He’s a very supportive person.” Alex on Victoria again, “I’m more like (her) super fan.”

So how does it feel to be the artists behind the global blog sensation of the season? “It’s really to cool to see that many people on the Internet enjoying our song”, says Alex , “but do people really read blogs? Or is it just the bloggers reading each others four times a day?” Surprisingly the self-declared Internet band and obviously convinced blog readers, Beach House “decided” to love the Internet only two months ago. And there’s nothing wrong with their long kept absence claims Victoria, “Come on! We have three records and are just getting into the Internet. I do think it’s unhealthy to read the Internet though. It is as good as it is bad.”

Even when the Internet showed it’s ugly side, leaking the record early in November, it didn’t make Alex recoil in horror, “It (the leak) happens to every record now and it’s actually only good for us since we’ve always been an Internet band. Now people in the Internet are talking about it and hopefully more people will come to see us and enjoy our shows,”, although “it hurts for a moment to get something leaked, because you put so much care in it and then it’s gone”, as Victoria admits.

Leaving the Internet aside and moving away from the offer of bananas, we slide the conversation onto handwriting, Zodiacs and telepathy, leading to a discussion on what the musicians’ teenager alter egos used to dream of:

Victoria: I wanted someone to fall in love with me. I don’t think it would but I wanted it to happen.
Alex: I think teens just don’t really know what they’re doing. Teenagers are confused as hell but have so many feeling.
Victoria: When you’re a kid you want to be an astronaut but by the time you become a teenager you just realize that you are lost in space. You’re in love with yourself but you don’t even know it since you still have a nursery ego. And then you realize you’ll not know yourself for the 15 more years. I’m just getting to understand myself at 28.
Alex: Being a teen is really intense. Think of the way you love things – the deep passionate unconditional love you have for a certain artist, shirt or object like posters or skateboards. You can listen to an album 15 times straight…
Victoria: You can’t really have sex.
Alex: But you make out really hard.

Their goal was then to recreate this pure, unconditional teenage passion and write a superlative “make-out and hard grinding record”, as Alex explains with a bright smile on his face. Surprisingly this attempt was realized in a state of “isolation and disappearing” by taking all their instruments and producer Chris Coady to a converted church in upstate New York to record Teen Dream in a month. Far away from their usual environment and grind of their daily life, they performed a balancing act, making their new material “huge without killing the feeling”. This diverse approach helped the album progress, Victoria adds, “The real feeling is primarily based on feeling. God doesn’t feel right.” And it didn’t need Him. However, it was the Internet-omnipresent ‘Norway’ that pushed the duo out of their comfort zone and asked the toughest questions:

Alex: We recorded ‘Norway’ first singing it acoustically on a train and it had all of these magical feelings to it. Then we wanted to make it into a full electric song and still use the same chord progression. For some reason when it went electric it felt way too dark. So we tried to build it up, kept changing it and adding instrumentation to it. But it just lost the feeling from the beginning. After playing around a lot and working with different motives we finally realized how to keep the song and its energy alive, even though it was now electric and had another chord progression but keeping the same melody.

Of course all the hard work got carried out with the motivation to ensure, “that there’s nothing [put] out we don’t believe in”. Alex even goes a step further proudly stating, “This is the first record I am happy with. On the other ones I thought, ‘Well, that song didn’t work out. That song sounds like shit. Oh man, that was a bad take.” This spontaneous summation amuses Victoria…

Driven not only by such joyful moments, but by an obsession to create “music you listen to again and again and every time you go further and further into it”, Alex dreams about people having the same experience with Beach House. Listening to the music and taking them far beyond the spheres of today’s omnipresent pop music, which feels “like beer and cigarettes” as Victoria points out with a disappointment, which is only topped by the one which follows when I tell them that the promo copies of Teen Dream have been genre-tagged as easy listening.

“People are getting fired! It’s not even rock, just pop, really. One lesson we learnt from making this record: You can’t trust anyone!”, the female singer makes clear. “We are not acoustically folk musicians. It’s too heavy.” “It’s challenging listening.”, concludes Alex already typing a complain E-mail into his laptop.

While the label executives might not be having their best time, the planets still seem to be guiding Alex and Victoria’s project into a perfect alignment, since Teen Dream appears to be a little masterpiece all on its own. The band manage to let both the mysticism and abstraction of their sacral part-time exile and the ongoing naïve excitement and love with which they treat each other, to pour into ten exceptionally beautiful tracks, each easy to access but still continually challenging, with new avenues and components to discover.

Teen Dream is released 25th January via Bella Union. The band are touring the UK throughout February, check their MySpace for details.

Live photography by Crazybobbles

mp3:> Beach House: ‘Norway’

Talk amongst the lucky few who have managed to hear Teen Dream, the hugely anticipated follow up to 2008 album Devotion, would suggest that Beach House have made the record of their career. Judging by ‘Norway’ – the first taster of the record and indeed first single (7″ inch vinyl is released on 11th January) the rumours are true. Perhaps their most mature and focused 4 minutes to date, even after the first play ‘Norway’ reveals itself as a sure fire future classic.

Teen Dream will be released on January 25th via Bella Union in the UK and Sub Pop in the States. Early days obviously, but it wouldn’t suprise me come this time next year Teen Dream will be sweeping the board of many a year end list. Essential listening – download below.

mp3:> Beach House: ‘Norway’

Coming in at just under forty minutes, the second album from Ola Podrida, the nom de plume of David Wingo, is nine tracks of golden folk fodder. The Texan singer-songwriter has created a sophomore LP of subtle, ambient songs, full of quietly restrained emotion, giving the listener space with abstract sounds and images that are then personalised by Wingo’s intimate delivery.

The cinematic feel of the album is no coincidence, Wingo best known for creating soundtracks for director David Gordon Green, including the horrendously underrated and beautifully orchestrated All The Real Girls. Wingo continues to write scores for a number of directors, including Jared Hess of Napoleon Dynamite fame, and has shared stages with Beach House, Fleet Foxes, Explosions in the Sky. That said, the man’s CV should not be more heavily discussed than his current musical output.

Describing the album as “unsentimental love songs”, Wingo has used atmospheric layering, texture and poeticism to tread an American folk trail familiar to Iron and Wine et al, but with a certain uniqueness. Opening track ‘The Closest We Will Ever Be’ has down-stated beats and sun-drenched reoccurring countrified guitar hooks. ‘We All Radiant’ gives more to the percussion section, with atmospheric, shimmering cymbal sounds adding to the swell, creating a steady build to meagre burst. Lyrically, this seems to be an album of songs for loves won and lost, recalling (mis)adventures of a Southern youth. Since his 2005 self-titled debut, Wingo has honed his skills as a wordsmith, the album lyrically adept throughout. ‘Your Father’s Basement’, the first single from the record, is poignantly poetic and reminiscently dark (“Bet your dad keeps some booze there, in a place he thinks we’ll never find”). Delicate percussion compliments the layered vocals.

Belly of the Lion, although mostly downbeat, has its more raucous moments, ‘Monday Morning’ bringing quavering electric guitars and Explosions In The Sky-esque vibrating reverberations. ‘Donkey’ possesses that familiar Sufjan banjo-like sound, building to a brass fanfare. The melodies push the singer’s range to the upper limits, leaning toward a tone similar to Ladyhawk, then falling to a quieter, more delicate Nick Drake-like tone. Containing the album title, ‘Donkey’ is a musical and lyrical highlight: “When the evening light is fading, I’m still waiting for your wayward kiss. In the belly of the lion, I am trying to remember what we missed.”

Recorded at home, the record exemplifies an organic yet balanced sound often so difficult to come by, the warm voice close in the speakers, teetering towards Will Oldham at times. Deceptively simple and measured throughout, Belly of the Lion lays out an emotional landscape through its evocative imagery and measured attention to detail, carved by a knowing hand.

Buy album from Amazon | [itunes link="http://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/lakes-wine/id333923332?uo=4" title="Ola Podrida" text="iTunes"]

Following in the footsteps of Hole and Spiritualized, Grizzly Bear are the latest in a long line of bands to interpret ‘He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)’, written by Carole King and renowned songwriter Gerry Goffin in 1962 as a response to singer Little Eva’s defence of the domestic violence she experienced at the hands of her boyfriend. As Daniel Rossen, Ed Droste, Chris Taylor and Christopher Bear close their show at Bristol’s Anson Rooms with their interpretation of the song, it takes on a new meaning similar to that inferred by former Sleater-Kinney luminary Carrie Brownstein about Bon Iver’s debut album – “it’s like being punched in the heart, in a good way.” Grizzly Bear are a genuine example of the sum being greater than its parts, particularly live – their awkward, almost broken-sounding chord transitions combine with visibly manifested classical sensibilities and perhaps the greatest group male harmonies since the Beach Boys to create an otherworldly experience, one whose urgent, crashing punctuations deliver an indescribable emotional blow. Laura Snapes met bassist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor before the show to talk orchestral accompaniment, essential classical composers and finding yourself caught off guard by your own music.

Did you get to see any fireworks last night?
Yeah we did see some fireworks, we saw some kids… we were at another university, Leeds, and kids were setting off fireworks. I researched a bit about the holiday, trying to figure out what it’s about. We have fireworks on 4th July on our Independence Day from your fair country!

So you played with the London Symphony Orchestra last week at the Barbican – how did that come about? I know Nico Muhly did the arrangements for you.
We did a thing with the Brooklyn Academy of Music [BAM] symphony there, and actually this guy we’ve known for a while came through to see it and he’s actually the programmer at the Barbican, for events, so he came through to that show to see it, liked it, and suggested that we do this. So we did!

There seem to be quite a few bands doing this at the moment – you mention the BAM, who worked with Sufjan on that amazing ‘BQE’ project, and it was recently announced that Dirty Projectors are playing with the LA Philharmonic at the Disney Hall in February..
We did that – I wonder if it’s… Yeah, we did that.

Do you think these spate of indie bands working with orchestras is a raising of ambitions, or maybe a counter-movement against much of the indie music that’s come recently? Bands seem to be continually raising the bar.
Well… A lot of these organisations contact the bands, so from my understanding it’s more of their attempt to bring classical music to a younger audience, it’s not like we go out searching symphonies! I don’t think Dave Longstreth from Dirty Projects wrote an email to LA Phil’ and said, “Hey, will you guys play with us?” They asked us, it’s a really cool thing. I played in symphony for eight or nine years and there’s so much amazing classical music out there that no-one ever checks out, they just know like, Vivaldi, Mozart, maybe they know Bach and Beethoven, but generally it doesn’t seem to go farther than that, because, oh man, there’s so much cooler stuff that would be really great if people knew about it. So I think it’s just their attempt to do that, to revive the classical music world a little bit by bring in a younger audience to meld the two together and stuff.

I think for this London show, more specifically, it was actually the promoter’s sort of vision, to, I don’t know, to just see it. I know he’s a fan of the band. He actually used to work for a label which was one of the first labels that tried to sign us. We had a meeting with them a long time ago, then years later he shows up and he’s the promoter and the events director at the Barbican, so it’s weird the way that all turned around. I think that was more his interest in music. That’s a really long-winded answer, but I don’t think that raising the bar really has anything to do with it.

You mention people’s lack of knowledge of classical music – I’m as guilty as anyone else for knowing of the really old composers that you just mentioned, and then nothing in between up until this new wave of young classical composers – Nico Muhly, Peter Broderick, the European vein with Hauschka and so on – who else would you recommend?
Oh we don’t even have to go that far! Nothing I mentioned is even within the last 200 years, so there’s an amazing wealth of 19th and 20th century composers – you know, anyone from Wagner to I think some people know Stravinsky, Debussy, there’s Bartók– these are the big ones, and then going up to wherever you wanna draw the line, but Stockhausen with electronic music, which very much to me feels like an extension of the classical music genre that reached into electronic music. But I mean there’s Alban Berg, oh man…! There’s so many! Those are the heavyweights; there are others that I’m forgetting. Those would be really important to check out.

Have you listened back to a recording of the show since?
No! I’m really, really excited about hearing it. I’ll probably be mixing that in February or something, so we’ll just have it for ourselves to give to friends, show the grandchildren. To hear what it sounded like for us too, because we don’t really know.

The critical reception for the show was really good – I read Ed, I think, saying that he used to read press but doesn’t any more, but he was retweeting links to reviews of the Barbican show – was the reception to something like that more important to you than usual?
That’s not true?? Oh my god! Hahaha, did he say he didn’t read press?! [Laughs really hard!] I actually don’t read press! I just worried about it. I don’t really keep up with that kind of stuff. I find it kind of bad to read, because it either pumps you up or deflates you. It’s really not good for someone that’s trying to be creative to have…unless you really don’t care, at all. But then if you really don’t care, then why are you reading it, because that would just be self-indulgent, really. Right?

Click here to view the embedded video.

You get to tour with some really great bands – Beach House and St Vincent, for example. How do you know those guys?
I came across Beach House’s album years ago, their first one, and I was really, really excited about it. I went up and introduced myself, and told them that their music meant a whole lot to me, and then a little while later I was trying to show the band, and they weren’t listening to me, and then they finally came around and checked them out, and everyone decided that they love them. We asked them to go out on tour with us, and we became friends after going out on tour. And now I consider us really close buddies!

I saw you at Green Man when Victoria (Legrand, Beach House vocalist) came on to sing ‘Two Weeks’, that was beautiful.
Oh yeah, yeah! We like to have her sing with us if it’s a possibility, that was fun.

Their new album is supposed to be a drastic departure from what’s come before – have you heard it?
I’m just going to say it’s amazing and hopefully it blows people’s heads away, in the best, most friendly way!

And how do you know Annie (Clark, aka St. Vincent)?
We liked her music and so we thought it’d be awesome if she’d be down to come out with us, which she was! So we’re very lucky because she’s great.

Orchestras aside, live you always seem to take real pride in rearranging your material. What’s the process from getting an album from record to the stage?
Basically the arrangements on the record, sometimes we can play live a lot of the songs from the album that are truer to the recording. Stuff from Yellow House – a lot of it was written in the recording process and never was actually played, so when it came time to actually play the songs we had to really change around the arrangements to make it do-able, I guess. Just because there’s so much layering sometimes that would happen on Yellow House or whatever – four people can only do so much! We had to figure out what four pairs of hands to do.

Ed said that you’d never play ‘Central And Remote’, ‘Reprise’ or ‘Campfire’ again live unless you have an orchestra – is that why?
Yeah, they’re really silly for four of us to play! It really doesn’t work. It’s so much based on arrangement; it’s not like a song song. Neil Young songs can be stripped down to be just Neil Young, and that’s amazing, and those songs aren’t anything close to that, not at all. It’s a limitation to the song – they’re more recordings than songs.

You guys had three or so entries in Pitchfork’s decade charts – what does that kind of recognition mean to you?
In the what?

You had two entries in their 500 best songs of the decade and an album in the 200 best albums of the decade.
Oh. I didn’t know.

It seems like they were quite culpable of fanning the fires of gossip when Jay Z and Beyoncé came to your show…
It was really cool that that happened, but at the same time, I don’t really need people gossiping about it. It doesn’t really do any good, I don’t think.

This might be taking it a bit far, but I interpreted it as some people being almost subconsciously racist that people were so surprised to see him at one of your shows.
Hmm… That’s probably going too far. I think the novelty of it was that one, it’s not only one of the most famous musicians in the world, but two of them! And then from a different genre as well – so I think it was an open-minded nod from another genre.

That’s a great compliment he paid you too, about indie having a lot to teach rap.
Yeah, that was amazing. I couldn’t believe it – I’m such a huge fan, I remember thinking a lot about hip hop and R’n’B when producing this last record, and really trying to get as much of that to work without sounding forced, and I don’t think it comes across but, whatever, the fact remains.

What kind of stuff were you listening to?
To rhythms, more steady rhythm, heavier drums and stuff like that.

Chris Taylor performing at Barbican, London 31st October – by Crazybobbles

The heavy rhythms live really add to the transcendent feel of it all. I read one of you saying that you don’t think you’re really suited to playing festivals…
I don’t think it was me who said that, but yeah, I don’t know, I think there’s a lot of bands that could say that, but they’re still perhaps trying to pull something off that’s fun to watch. So just in general, it isn’t really an ideal place for music to be about the music, it’s not all about the music, you’re kind of playing a really, really chaotic dinner party at a huge banquet hall. Like a jazz band playing in the big huge grand ballroom whilst people eat and have cocktails – it’s sort of like that, but with way less clothes and more beer. From what I can gather, and I don’t know and I don’t pretend to know, because I haven’t attended a festival like that as a spectator, but I feel like a lot of it is like the social aspect of hanging out with your friends, which is rad, and seeing bands that you like in a chill, kind of low expectation sort of way, and it’s more about fun and less about presenting your craft in an optimal environment. So I don’t know that we’re any less suited to it than any other bands that are playing festivals these days, but it’s fun, we definitely have fun doing it, it’s a different vibe. It’s not like going to a concert obviously. You’re camping, hanging out, running around with your friends. It’s fun, you’re having fun. It’s a lower pressure situation.

The emotion of your music produces a lot of group interaction at festivals that you wouldn’t necessarily get at a concert, like at Green Man this huge group hug started in one corner of the crowd, which built and built –
Really?!

Yeah! It was amazing, there were guys crying, so much love between people who didn’t know each other, feeding off your music.
Oh my god. That’s so sweet! Really?! [Sounds genuinely incredulous] Jesus, that’s so sweet. So sweet! I don’t… I’m… I wish I would have heard about that, that’s great.

With that kind of emotion and your songs meaning a lot to a lot of people, do you ever get caught off guard by what you’re doing, like the emotion taking you by surprise – that of other people, or the original meanings of the songs?
Some of the songs in particular come from a very personal place, and I have been caught off guard thinking about it more than usual, and it does mess with me a little bit on stage. This kid sent us – he threw this little note on stage before a show the other day, and asked us to play ‘While You Wait For The Others’, and he had had a loss in the family that was the same… in a similar way to a loss I experienced in my family, and we dedicated this song to him. I remember playing through it and thinking about his situation and having been there myself, I was really choked up. It was really tough not to lose it a little bit – that was really hard. I wouldn’t say that it’s because our music is impacting me emotionally, more it’s just where it might be coming from, where it comes from can be… well it is close to home, and it’s a matter of whether you’re thinking about it or not to that completely having yourself open sort of way, you know? But yeah, I feel that what keeps playing the set interesting and fun for me every night is actually remembering where the songs come from, and presenting that story in whatever role I play in the band to help in presenting it. That’s the only way to keep the music sounding like, musically from the heart, is to think about where it came from or where you might wanna take it. That’s in your head, you know? These sort of inspirational cues. Because you’re playing the same songs every night, so to find a way to keep it refreshing for yourself so that it doesn’t sound dull to the audience. That’ll probably all be summed down into two sentences, but um…

Click here to view the embedded video.

When you come back to the UK in March, are you going to be playing anything new?
There’s actually no time to make any new material, we’re on the road until then. We actually have one month off in February, and I don’t think any of us want to see each other for that month! We’ll just want to have our own time.

This is just a silly question, but I wondered if there was a point until which that you had to have day jobs, and what were they?
Yeah, I had a day job. The last job I had was working at a coffee shop actually with Kyp Malone from TV On The Radio, and that was the last job he had. That’s where I met him and a lot of other nice musicians in Brooklyn. No-one else at the time had any other jobs, I don’t know what they were doing. I was making coffee, I make a really good espresso!

You’re doing Terrible Records, right?
Oh yeah!

I heard the one song you put out, which I really enjoyed, but it did seem to very much cohere with Grizzly Bear’s sound – what was it about it that made you set it aside and release it yourself?
Maybe it’s because I produce the band and that can be affecting of things and I also play a lot of instruments on the records. I had this song I wrote during [the production of] Veckatimest and no-one in the band really liked it, so I decided to take it my own way. It’s just the first song I ever finished, it’s not a big deal. It took me like 16 years to finish a song. Not that song! But I’d been trying to write songs for that long and I just can’t do it. Just finishing it is difficult, I think I knock it down and think it’s garbage before I can ever finish it. That’s why I started producing other people’s records, because I can remove that responsibility, and now that I put my own music out there, it sort of in some ways my worst nightmare. Now I am under criticism, and I actually didn’t want that. I really am very disillusioned by this press and review thing. I think it’s really horrible. I think when people are finding themselves… I wonder if people find themselves in a situation where it’s like…all of a sudden, all of your shallow stuff dissolves and you think about, why did I hate on that person? All the mean things you may have done – did you really mean to do that? There’s just a lot of internet…

Do you mean the press and the internet?
Yeah, basically what I feared is what I’m dealing with it now, it’s going to be a further thing. That’s why I call it CANT because I can’t finish anything. Now it’s going to be even harder for me to finish a song because I’m under open fire and I don’t want it to be about that, and I just want to put out songs and share something that I thought I liked and thought was pretty. I didn’t want it to compete, I’m not a competitive musician at all, I hate that about music, when that side comes about. So yeah, it’s going to be interesting to see if I can put out more stuff.

Is that what you’re aiming towards or is the label going to be more dedicated to releasing other people’s records?
Oh yeah, yeah. Releasing my stuff was kind of half the reason. I was like – I like to make my own music, so if I’m going to release it I’m going to put it out on my own label. And then I thought, if I have a label, then I can other people’s stuff as well.

The B-side to your song was an Arthur Russell song, right?
Yeah, he’s like my favourite musician of all time, pretty much. I’m friends with the guy who puts out his records and I worked on the last Arthur Russell record (Love Is Overtaking Me).

Did you see the film about him that came out recently?
Yeah, ‘Wild Combination’. That’s a cool movie. He’s my favourite, and I asked Steve who puts out his records – me and him geek out over Arthur Russell all the time, and was like, man, it would mean a lot to me if I could maybe do a little split, to release a track. I’m trying to do a collection of all my favourite artists right now in this split 7” series – there’s going to be 20 of them – and yeah, Arthur Russell is my favourite and I thought it’d be a fun way to take it off. For me it was just a fun thing to do.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you got any more production work lined up?
I’m currently producing Jamie Lidell’s record, which will be done by mid-December, and there’s three EPs lined up for my label that are going to be excellent, I’m really, really excited about them.

You did the first Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson one right?
Yeah, and Kyp Malone did the new one.

Were you around during the making of it?
No, I wasn’t at all. I sort of edited it, they asked me to help edit – to line the drums up. The recording sessions were really messy, and basically I did a bunch of really tedious digital editing, cleaning – trying to make it not sound like a wreck. They were like, “it sounds like a wreck, can you help us out?” So I said, yeah, I’ll try, so I sat down at a computer for twelve hours and did what I could and had to call it a day. It wasn’t really a record that I really wanted to uh… It was very late in the stages.

How did you get involved with the first one?
He’s a friend, me and him, we were just hanging out in the backyard and talking about it, going over demos and sitting writing notes. Sitting in the sun… It was a really pleasant experience – his last one was a very dark experience, which is sad.

You said earlier that you’re disillusioned with the press and things like that – do you think that it’ll have any effect on the next record? Whether the acclaim for Veckatimest has added a weight of expectation to its follow-up? Do you think you’ll go away for a while before coming back with a new recording?
No, I think what’s going to happen actually is… I think that all the nice compliments that have been thrown around about Veckatimest – that really freaks me out. It’s just too complimentary, it’s not fair, it can’t possibly be true. I don’t know – I think I’ll care even less about what those types of people think.

Teen Dream will see the light of day via Bella Union on 25th January. That’s the artwork right there… imagine it on the vinyl version. Nice.

Tracklisting is:

1. Zebra
2. Silver Soul
3. Norway
4. Walk In The Park
5. Used To Be
6. Lover Of Mine
7. Better Times
8. 10 Mile Stereo
9. Real Love
10. Take Care

When the names of the artists involved in the New Moon Soundtrack started to filter out over a month ago, it was obvious that Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor for the film, was trying to attract an entirely new audience than the one that is so feverishly dedicated to Stephanie Meyer’s books. I find it fascinating to think about a 13 year old girl getting introduced to the majesty of Bon Iver, the haunting melodies of Grizzly Bear, or even the utter brilliance of Thom Yorke through their contributions to this soundtrack. However, it’s ultimately a shame that a majority of the songs chosen for the album don’t necessarily reflect these stellar artist’s best work. A lot of these tracks sound like castoffs that didn’t quite make the cut on far superior records, a veritable B-squad of songs from A-list artists, if you will. And while I certainly hope that the 13 year old girl hearing Lykke Li for the first time goes beyond this soundtrack and explores her wonderful debut album, I know that for some young listeners their experimental musical journey will begin and end with this soundtrack, and that would certainly be a shame.

Not that there aren’t flashes of prowess found on New Moon, like the fuzzed-out, retro catchiness of ‘Friends’ by Southhampton’s Band Of Skulls, which shakes the record up a bit after the flat, somber wistfulness of Death Cab For Cutie‘s ‘Meet Me On The Equinox.’ Thom Yorke’s much hyped contribution sounds pretty much like I thought it would, exploring the same quivering electronica that was featured on The Eraser. But even a substandard Yorke song soars above most of the other contributions to New Moon. Lykke Li’s ‘Possibility’ eventually becomes a moving song, but just takes far too long to get there, losing my interest along the way. The Killers ‘A White Demon Love Song,’ is a musical mess, seemingly trying to be three or four different songs all at once over the course of it’s three and a half minutes, but never coalescing into anything memorable.

Anya Marina‘s ‘Satellite Heart’ is pleasant enough, but the focus is placed squarely on her rather sophomoric lyrics and puerile rhyme schemes, with a spare musical arrangement layered too far underneath her vocals to save the song. The lively histrionics of Muse‘s ‘I Belong To You’ is given the New Moon Remix treatment, essentially turning Matt Bellamy’s guitars up a bit and toning down the jaunty piano line that is threaded throughout the song, while also completely doing away with the two minute French-ified coda found on the original. Only die hard fans will find much of a difference between the two versions, and I truly feel for any Muse completest buying this album specifically for their contribution. Bon Iver & St. Vincent team up for the doleful ‘Roslyn,’ which sounded a bit better on paper than it actually does on record, with the song floating along forlornly, but in the end being unable to achieve the emotional impact of either artist’s other work. The same is true of ‘Slow Life,’ by Grizzly Bear (featuring Victoria Legrand), which hints at the grandeur found on the sublime Veckatimest, but never quite reaches those heights.

And that is essentially where New Moon fails most; for while collecting these venerable artists together on a soundtrack sounds like it can’t fail, there ultimately isn’t any real consistency to these contributions, and the album has a disconnected sound to it, like a mix-tape gone off the rails. And while these songs have a built in appeal simply because of the bands that are involved, none of the contributions truly reflect the unique skills of these artists. So, for those of us who have their actual albums, we’ll simply go listen to those instead. But for those that are getting introduced to these talented artists for the first time by this soundtrack, here’s to hoping that they dig a little bit deeper than this and discover the true beauty found in the songs that got all of us interested in the first place.

Long time TLOBF favourites Beach House have confirmed release plans for their third album.

Entitled Teen Dream, it will see the light of day via Bella Union on 25th January.

Unfortunately we couldn’t make it to the listening party last night, so can’t tell you what it’s like… epic TLOBF fail…

However, Bella Union themselves are calling it their “career-best”, so it’s definitely worth looking forward to.

News just in. So excited by this, I fell off my chair.

The fantastic Grizzly Bear will continue their current run of success with their largest London headline show to date next March at the Roundhouse.

Grizzly Bear released Yellow House in 2006. It was a slow, steady and stunning ride—boundless in scope and elegance. Given the album’s otherworldly charm and staying power, it’s hard to believe three years have gone by. There is an unbelievable clarity of sound and vision to new album Veckatimest: vocals (a duty now shared by all band members) are sharper and more complex, arrangements are tighter, production is more venturous and lyrics more affecting. Having opened the creative dialogue at such an early stage, Grizzly Bear was able to realize these 12 songs together as a band, making it their most collaboratively compositional album to date.

This yielded an unexpected mix of material that feels more confident, mature, focused—and most of all, dynamic. Veckatimest is an album of the highest highs and lowest lows—an unbelievably diverse collection of songs that celebrates the strength of each band member, and the power of the whole. It was well worth the wait.

A Special Edition of Veckatimest will be released on November 2nd on Warp Records, adding 7 live session tracks and a photobooklet to this acclaimed album.

Tickets for this special show taking place on Saturday 13th March 2010 are priced at £18.50 + booking fee and go on sale this Friday 16th October at 10am from www.atpfestival.com

I’m running a little late tonight. Work was a bit mental and it’s about quarter past 8 by the time I get to Highbury & Islington. That pretty much scratches any plans of getting a decent seat at the Chapel tonight. Gosh darnit! So Plus One and I head straight upstairs to the Chapel bar. We debated a bit beforehand if, indeed, it had a bar. We were under the false impression that the venue doesn’t have a license for alcohol anymore, and that was one of the reasons this, literally divine, setting was closed in the first place. We were wrong. It does. Very cosy too I might add.

So, by the time we do make it inside the main performance area, Vetiver, the co-headliners for this evening, are drifting through their set and are seemingly almost as hotly anticipated as Beach House. Looks like everyone has a penchant for a taste of their laid back Americana folk. Their sound was an invitingly warm one, with tender tones of guitar lines floating hazily within made the grey stone cold walls of the church, making it feel like it opened into a big grassy field. This is the stuff of sunny days and ear-to-ear, Cheshire-size grins. ‘You May Be Blue’ in particular took to me a faraway place. Although the incredibly uncomfortable pews we’re sitting on quickly bring us back to earth.

But there was little doubt when Beach House took to the er… altar that they were the ones the majority wanted to see. It seems they’ve managed to find their comfort zone just outside of the hazy dreams of their catalog. There’s a pindrop silence as the band get into their groove. “This first song is called…. Silence…” says keyboardist/singer Victoria Legrand. People want to laugh but it’s restrained. It’s awkward. I guess there’s an unwritten code of conduct while watching gigs in a church. Without even trying, they’ve created a natural quiet akin to a Holy Communion which set the scene perfectly. People are respectful and appreciative and that’s just the way I like it (as opposed to rude and obnoxious which I’m sure there are some fans of out there).

This evenings mass is treated with a selection of choice cuts from Beach House’s self-titled and Devotion records. ‘Apple Orchard’ was the first of many tightly woven soundscapes. Guitarist Alex Scally takes control of the fluid slide guitar and laptop-aided drumbeats, while  Victoria’s detached heroin-chic demeanor yet soulful vocals float over her fuzzy organ riffs. ‘Gila’ is an achingly atmospheric song from the heart and ‘You Came To Me’ is knotted around some pretty grand mournful organ lines. Particular highlight was the faint ‘Heart of Chambers’, sounding heart rending with Victoria’s voice much more akin to Chan Marshall’s breathy drawl but more other-worldly. They played a handful of new songs too which promised a bright future. One new song in particular sounded like a carousel sweeping through an ancient fair ground. It sounded delicious. Downside of the evening though, was that it all seemed a tad too short but I am a firm subscriber of the notion that it’s better to leave us wanting more rather than outstaying your welcome.

Waking up to the sight of mist curled around the sleepy bosom of the Brecon Beacons is a festival sight so incongruously lovely that it feels as though Dylan Thomas’ words are the poles supporting our tents. There’s a poem of his, ‘Fern Hill’, that fits the weekend quite aptly – it starts bright with childlike wonder at “the night above the dingle starry” and being “green and carefree…green and golden” – as with most festivals, the sight of adults revelling in youthful abandon is a common one – but the extent to which innocence and charming guilelessness appear a permanent state of mind for many of the bands playing eventually induces a malaise at the intolerable niceness of everything on offer. The setting, jolly ambience and organisation are perfectly fine – as is the refreshingly relaxed attitude to BYO (that’s ‘Bring Your Own’ alcohol for you older types) – but musically, the weekend’s inoffensiveness undergoes a kind of dialectical transformation to become the most heinous Swellsian insult possible, to the extent that even much loved performers like Bon Iver become something of a chore to watch.

Green Man is a festival that can certainly take risks – knowing Animal Collective’s penchant for scientific, inconclusive live renderings of their records makes them a risky proposition for a Friday night headline set at a folk-oriented festival, and it’s similarly daring to put formerly troubled ‘60s psychedelic musician Roky Erickson so high up on the bill to bark his grouchy 12 bar blues, but both sets are packed (even though the main joy inherent in Erickson’s set comes from figuring out if he’s really singing, “Pritchard, give me head again”). Heads down, Animal Collective perform a constant, steady application of sound that burbles like the euphoric head rush near-drowning is said to induce. Unsatisfying as many well-studied fans of Merriweather Post Pavilion find their set – a shy rendition of ‘My Girls’ blooms understated from the rush of sound a few songs in – there’s surely something to be said for the boldness of continuing to play such a well-loved album in this esoteric and oft criticized style. Easily the best day of the weekend, Friday’s more inventive highlights include the fluorescent Rorschach blooms and roars of Gang Gang Dance and Wooden Shjips’ heavy, bleary eyed textures. Where they could easily elongate their songs into 12-minute smorgasbords of drone and incoherence, they’re surprisingly brief as well as far too quiet. It should be impossible for audience members to talk over them and still hear themselves, a problem which reoccurs throughout the weekend – with no houses or towns nearby, the volume should be erupting from the peaks of the surrounding hills. Luckily though they’ve got a brilliantly unrecognisable cover of Neil Young’s ‘Vampire Blues’ and authenticity on their side, which is more than can be said for Cate Le Bon’s Saturday morning set.

Gang Gang Dance

After a few songs we hit the biliously clichéd “bastard lovechild of X and Y on acid” of folk music – singing of tides coming in and being left on the shore by a lover, ‘Out to Sea’ is turgid, dreary and performed without a smidgen of humour, and the rest of her set fails to pick up with a shamanistic drone number that runs on autopilot. The Leisure Society perform an untitled new song, the chorus of which repeats, “If we only knew the answers we could print them up onto t-shirts” over a muted tropical organ rhythm. Even given the sublime songwriting on their debut, The Sleeper, musically it’s an ambitious song by their standards, and highlights the inventiveness that comes through on their cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’. Yet there’s no escaping the fact that they perpetuate the lull of Saturday afternoon, which doesn’t alleviate during Peter Broderick or Beach House’s sets. It’s undeniable that Peter Broderick’s records and work with Efterklang are gorgeous and poignant, and there are moments live where he plays violin like a bird bone fragile Arthur Russell, but his in between song chatter is symptomatic of the lack of subtlety that runs through a great deal of the music on show this afternoon. On the motivation for writing his last song, he says, “it came from something I saw written on a bathroom wall, which said, “You’re probably stupid”. I never write on bathroom walls, but I got out my pen and added, “But you’re probably beautiful.”” Being up to the eyeballs in insipid sentiment and polite loveliness, things don’t bode well for Beach House, who labour over what seem to be the same few piano chords for the duration of their set – if they were playing a headline gig on their own terms then this might well be quite beautiful, but it’s the pitching of the day that renders it an undynamic burden.

All is not lost though as Beach House vocalist Victoria Legrand joins Grizzly Bear later on to sing the “ah-ah-aaaah-ah” parts of ‘Two Weeks’. Live, Grizzly Bear manage to pull off what it seems remains just out of grasp for a great many of the bands this weekend. Whether it’s the oblique resonance of the lyrics, the gut punch of Chris Taylor playing clarinet through a bass pedal or an absolute grasp and confidence in what they’re doing, they’re faultless. A group of guys near the front start a mass bear hug during ‘While You Wait For The Others’ and attempt to extend it across the whole crowd – the rest of the audience don’t bite, but it’s heartwarming reassurance that there’s no need for mawkish over-emphasis on emotion to get through to people.

Bon Iver

Happily, the band playing the main stage early Sunday afternoon seemingly couldn’t give an organic Goan fish curry as to whether they touch anyone or not. “We’ve noticed that to play Green Man, you’ve got to have an animal in your band name,” says Zun Zun Egui frontman Kushal, in pretty much the only instance of any band daring to make a joke at the festival’s expense. “Just look at the programme. So for this weekend, we’ve renamed ourselves Sexy Worm.” Yelping and howling in tongues like Melt Banana being fed poisonous frogs to the beat of polyrhythmic tribal drums, they’re on far too early in the day, but provide welcome noise respite before Scott Matthews’ bedwetting dirge. His first song could be a collaboration between Coldplay, Newton Faulkner, Snow Patrol and David Gray, such are its myriad chord changes, syncopated drum bursts and challenging lyrics… It’s music to read Dan Brown books and fall asleep to, the sound of ‘That’s Life!’-reading housewives sobbing into a cup of cold tea, and not even nuanced enough to nestle between Dulux’s ‘Magnolia’ and ‘Butterscotch’ swatches.

A performer who doesn’t seem to have undergone the complimentary humour lobotomy at the entrance gates is Jessica Larrabee from She Keeps Bees. If you watched Jonathan Ross interviewing Miley Cyrus, you’ll remember his look of equal parts tentative hysteria and sheer terror as she failed to stem the flow of verbal diarrhoea emanating from between her slightly weird gums – it’s a similar situation with Larrabee, to the extent that it’d be infinitely preferable to watch her in the stand up tent than to have to sit through their uninspiring bursts of garage rock (their sound recalls Lenny Kravitz more than once during their set) before getting to the next joke. Highlights include, “I know what you’re all thinking. When did Cat Power get fat?” and a story of her begging drummer Andy to “GIMME THE QUIDS!” to let her investigate the culinary delights of the food stands.

She Keeps Bees

Aside from a few pockets of blistering heat, the threat of rain has hung heavy in dark clouds over most of the weekend, but it doesn’t actually start until the Dirty Three come on stage, and fits their perversely apocalyptic sense of humour neatly. “It’s great to be back in Scotland,” jests Warren Ellis, who’s on excellently inebriated avuncular form. Jim White plays tentatively over the start of ‘Some Summers They Drop Like Flies’ whilst Ellis yells at photographers, punches the air, and windmills his arms, all the while looping his violin and playing with his whole body – even without words, this carries infinitely more feeling than the “my lover left me on the shore” crap from earlier on. “We haven’t released an album in four years because we’ve been having problems making one,” he says, before offering 50%, no, 40% of the songwriting royalties to anyone who sends in workable ideas. “Not too many chords – we’re not an emo band contrary to what you might think, nor one of those bedwetter bands.” But if he is telling the truth, you’d never tell that they’re apparently losing creative momentum, ‘Indian Love Song’ (apparently “Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ in reverse, down an octave and up a third.”) is as blistering now as it was when it was written 16 years ago.

Dirty Three

Those frustrated by the sweet and overly sincere acoustic balladry of the weekend breathe a collective sigh of relief as the first few notes of the dark groove of Wilco‘s ‘Bull Black Nova’ pulsate throughout the arena. The tension mounts until Nels Cline – a man so familiar with his instrument, he could tell you which chord would sound if he were to throw his guitar against a brick wall – slowly increases the intensity of his playing until all that can be heard behind Jeff Tweedy’s raspy cries of “OH, PICK UP!” is the sound of a Jaguar being brutally contorted into a screech that would make the majority of the weekend’s acts wet their proverbial musical pants.

“If you can’t play these songs at a folk festival, when can you?” jokes Tweedy, after a relatively mournful rendition of ‘Deeper Down’. By relatively, I mean that even a song like ‘Via Chicago’, essentially an acoustic ballad in its original incarnation, is completely reinvented in this live setting. Glenn Kotche’s assault on his drum kit during the second verse creates a tunnel of noise through which Tweedy seemingly obliviously travels through, refusing to fight the urge to increase his volume but, instead, continuing his heartfelt murmurs through to the other end, to be met by a huge cheer when the original beat comes back in.

“That guy who said he loved me,” Tweedy announces as he points into the audience, “this one’s for you.” The highlight of the set for anyone basking in the bromance of the hour comes in the form of this next track, too. Definitely a candidate for the ‘should-be-much-longer’ track of the year, ‘Wilco (The Song)’, with its tongue-in-cheek, anthemic lyrics, inspires the rowdiest sing-a-long of the weekend, at least in the front few rows.

Wilco

It’s a subtle “up yours” to those branding Wilco as ‘dad rock’, or in fact anyone who has attempted to pigeon-hole the band at all, that the set is arguably the most diverse of the weekend. The Queen-style clap-along during the 15 minute rendition of ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)’ sits just as comfortably next to the wanky guitar battle between Pat Sansone and Nels Cline during ‘Hoodoo Voodoo’ (originally a collaboration with Billy Bragg) as it does next to the croons of “Jesus, don’t cry. You can rely on me, honey,” (with perfect harmonies provided by bassist John Stirratt) of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot favourite ‘Jesus, etc.’.

Wilco return to the stage for a short encore of two songs from A Ghost Is Born and, although the 75 minute headlining slot proves too short to properly satisfy the hardcore Wilco fans, it’s long enough to pack in Cline’s 3 minute guitar solo during ‘Impossible Germany’; to see Glenn Kotche stood atop his drum stool, arms high in the air before jumping down to hit the first cymbal crash of ‘I’m the Man Who Loves You’, as well as Pat Sansone’s windmilling and Jeff’s high-pitched scream during ‘I’m a Wheel’ and the rock-solid foundations provided by John Stirratt’s bass-playing and Mikael Jorgensen on keyboards (that’s not to say they don’t also have their moments). Much like their stage predecessors Dirty Three, the years of playing together have left Wilco as a tight unit, completely aware of every nuance of each other’s execution and in a completely different league, performance-wise, from almost every other act at the festival.

The Green Man Festival

“I can’t. Get out. Of what I’m into with you.” Comes the pleading refrain, the beautiful prison built from love, the acceptance of a commitment to the agonies and pleasures of throwing yourself into another person, a piece of bittersweet romantic honesty that floats so delicately out of the tail section of All We Ask that it almost seems possible to cup it out of the air and hold it to your chest. It’s easy enough to allow moments like this to float by, unnoticed. There is after all, a plethora of sweet, gentle melodic peaks and dramatic, rolling troughs to choose from besides. You don’t get smoke without fire. Veckatimest is here and crackling away under the billowing clouds of hype and hyperbole there’s a flame burning. Grizzly Bear have written an album with a beating heart.

Veckatimest is the third full-length album from Brooklyn-based chamber-pop merchants Grizzly Bear. In recording this album, the band worked with  classical composer Nico Muhly, visited upstate New York, a church in Brooklyn and an uninhabited island called, in the language of the Native Americans, Veckatimest. In many ways, it’s a logical ancestor of Yellow House, with the wind-tunnel folk more dramatic at times and studded with strong-willed, would-be alternative pop classics straining at the leash and glistening with studio sheen. Chris Taylor’s production on Veckatimest has all of the depth and quality that the sound has always begged for. The leaked transcode of this album was a particular shame, the sound on Veckatimest proper is as crisp as a morning frost.

Early on, the highly approachable and ultimately heavily addictive pop ballad ‘Two Weeks’, featuring Beach House’s Victoria Legrand on backing vocals lays out the sorts of progressions that Grizzly Bear have made from Yellow House. Daniel Rossen’s bouncing ditty makes a tight grip, while Ed Droste delivers a series of falsetto-laced assurances ”Just like yesterday, I told you I would stay/ Make it easy, Take your time.” The accessible pop pieces are counterbalanced by an expected amount of brow-furrowing noise based drama and other-worldly vocal meditations on loss and self-doubt ”I’m cheerleading myself, I should’ve made it matter. Go on, let it go- it doesn’t mean a thing..” Indeed, it’s that buoyant sense of optimism established on ‘Two Weeks’ that becomes tinged with cynicism and fatigue as the album progresses, as commitment to the mutually assured imprisonment of a relationship wanes ”If it’s all or nothing then let me go. There was time, it took time/There is time, so much time/There is time, so much time” These resonant post-modern love songs puncture with a powerful verve and clarity.

From time to time albums do exactly what they are supposed to do. No more, no less.  The bar is already fairly high, it might just have been raised again. Veckatimest is deep, it’s rich, it’s soulful and on more than enough occasions it’s just good, old-fashioned, spine-shudderingly beautiful. From an album such as this, what more could one really ask for? Veckatimest fulfills itself, a sincere and beautiful album, a classic of 2009.
100%

Grizzly Bear official website

Now, I would have posted about this a couple of hours ago but I’ve literally only stopped listening to ‘Cheerleader’, the new Grizzly Bear song the kind folk at Warp Records sent over earlier this afternoon. Yes, this is the first taster from one of the most eagerly awaited albums of 2009 – and (thank fuck) it doesn’t disappoint. Not one bit. As can be expected from team Grizzly, the track is sonically luscious, washing over you in a sea of spring reverb, mellotron and gorgeous harmonies. Production wise – I guess it’s a steady continuation from last years Grizzly Bear off-shoot project Department Of Eagles.

Veckatimest is released via Warp on May 25th and features twelve new songs including ‘Two Weeks’ which features vocals from friend of TLOBF Victoria (Beach House) Legrand.

On the live front, no UK dates have been announced as yet – but if you’re lucky enough to be at SXSW this week the band will be performing tomorrow (19th March) at Central Presbyterian Church (at 8:30pm) and Friday (20th March) at Cedar Street Courtyard (at 11:45pm). The band have also just confirmed their appearance at this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in July. Lucky.

mp3:> Grizzly Bear: ‘Cheerleader’

As previously reported here, the new 4AD compilation Dark Was The Night will be released next month and comprises of 31 exclusive tracks curated by The National’s Aaron and Bryce Dessner and the AIDS charity Red Hot.

‘Knotty Pine’ by The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne is just one of the many, many highlights on this fabulous set and has just been made available as a free download.

Also, as of yesterday, 4AD began a track-by-track premiere of the record. From January 15 through February 15, each track, in order will be streamed for one day only at www.myspace.com/DarkWasTheNight as well as on the relevant band’s MySpace page.

Tracks to look out for are Antony Hegarty’s stirring take on the early Dylan classic ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’, ‘Cello Song’ by The Books and Jose Gonzalez, ‘Deep Blue Sea’ from Grizzly Bear and a cover of Nina Simone’s ‘Feeling Good’ by My Brightest Diamond – which really shouldn’t work but does in a quite fantastic way. Oh, and there is a stunning reworking of Bright Eyes’ ‘Lua’ where Coner Oberst is joined by Gillian Welch on vocals. Basically, there isn’t a duff track over the whole 2 discs.  Definitely an essential purchase for 2009 and for a great charity  to boot. Pre-order here.

Tracklist in full:

‘THIS DISC’

1. “Knotty Pine” – Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
2. “Cello Song” – The Books featuring Joses Gonzalez
3. “Train Song” – Feist and Ben Gibbard
4. “Brackett, WI” – Bon Iver
5. “Deep Blue Sea” – Grizzly Bear
6. “So Far Around The Bend” – The National
7. “Tightrope” – Yeasayer
8. “Feeling Good” – My Brightest Diamond
9. “Dark Was The Night” – Kronos Quartet
10. “I Was Young When I Left Home” – Antony with Bryce Dessner
11. “Big Red Machine” – Justin Vernon + Aaron Dessner
12. “Sleepless” – The Decemberists
13. “Die” – Iron & Wine
14. “Service Bell” – Grizzly Bear + Feist
15. “You Are The Blood” – Sufjan Stevens

‘THAT DISC’

1. “Well-Alright” – Spoon
2. “Lenin” – Arcade Fire
3. “Mimizan” – Beirut
4. “El Caporal” – My Morning Jacket
5. “Inspiration Information” – Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
6. “With A Girl Like You” – Dave Sitek
7. “Blood Pt. 2″ – Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
8. “Hey, Snow White” – The New Pornographers
9. “Gentle Hour” – Yo La Tengo
10. “Amazing Grace” – Cat Power
11. “Happiness” – Riceboy Sleeps
12. “Another Saturday” – Stuart Murdoch
13. “The Giant Of Illinois” – Andrew Bird
14. “Lua” – Conor Oberst with Gillian Welch
15. “When The Road Runs Out” – Blonde Redhead & Devastations
16. “Love Vs. Porn” – Kevin Drew

mp3:> The Dirty Projectors and David Byrne: ‘Knotty Pine’

Papercuts have announced not one, but two pieces of news this week!

Not only do they have a new album coming out on April 13th called You Can Have What You Want, which is the third album from Jason Quever’s band, but they’ve signed with Memphis Industries in the UK!

Marvellous. The new record features collaborations with our mate Alex Scally of frequent Papercuts tourmates Beach House. The tracklist looks something like this…

01 Once We Walked In The Sunlight
02 A Dictator’s Lament
03 The Machine Will Tell Us So
04 A Peculiar Hallelujah
05 Jet Plane
06 Dead Love
07 Future Primitive
08 You Can Have What You Want
09 The Void
10 The Wolf

Beach House suit London’s Cargo. It’s a cavernous space with speakers in the various bars and seating areas, filling the whole venue with the sound of whoever is playing. In the main room an enormous mirror ball coats the vaulted walls in flickering specks of light. On the right night, it’s a very atmospheric place, and on this freezing London evening Cargo is the perfect setting for a packed out headline show from Bella Union’s Baltimore based duo.

Beach House make warm, intimate, fairylit music. Their sound is an embracing drift played on organ, guitar, drums and vocals. They open with the first two tracks from their recent stunningly beautiful album Devotion, ‘Wedding Bell’ and ‘You Came To Me’; two heart-stopping slow-motion poems that float along on muted drums and gentle slide guitar, droning organ and captivating voice of singer Victoria Legrand.

Legrand sways like a rag doll, her fright wig hair ever more extravagantly unkempt. Song after song rolls from the speakers, each every bit as beautiful as the last. The start of ‘Gila’ draws a gasp from the crowd, and ‘Master Of None’ sounds so perfect I want to breath in the sound just to hang on to it a little longer.

This dreamy pop music is a slow revelation. The only low point in the performance is that it ever has to end, leaving the audience warmed through, washed up and wanting more on the rainswept Shoreditch streets.

Beach House on MySpace

Photograph by Rich Thane

Victoria Legrand of Beach House recommends… “Battle Cat” by Adventure

“If it was possible to embody a combination of a superhero, an intense teenage crush, a sorcerer, a prism, a starship, a storm, an ocean, swirling colours melting on fire, stupefied androids staring at God, and miniature dinosaurs wreaking havoc upon a miniature nation – and to experience constant, relentless, intense emotions in all these situations – that would be how this song makes me feel. It’s like the deepest level of emotion and intensity possible in a video game. The sounds feel like they’re coming at you and around you like hundreds of tiny meteor spaceships of electronic passion, love and ecstasy.”

mp3:> Adventure: ‘Battle Cat’

Beach House are a Baltimore-based duo made up of Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally. Their self-titled debut was scored 8.1 on Pitchfork with sophomore album Devotion receving rave reviews across the board. The pair are currently hard at work on their third album which is expected Spring 2009.

Beach House on MySpace

Bon Iver

We’ve known about this for a few weeks now but for some reason haven’t posted anything about it… *slapped wrists etc* 4AD Records and AIDS charity Red Hot have joined forces with Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National to produce a whopping 32 track album of original material from all your favourite indie superstars. Yup, you’ve guessed it – Bon Iver, Arcade Fire, Beach House, The Decemberists and of course The National all feature. It is certainly set to be one of the must have records of 2009.

Some info from the label below, plus the complete lineup.. Tracklisting so far, hasn’t been revealed.

Dark Was The Night we can confirm will be released on February 16th (Worldwide) and 17th (North America) 2009. Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National produced the album, with John Carlin (founder of the Red Hot Organization) its executive producer. A total of thirty-two exclusive tracks have been recorded for the compilation, which will be available as a double cd, triple vinyl and download album, with profits benefitting the Red Hot Organization – an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS.

Red Hot was founded on the premise that even without a cure, AIDS remains a preventable disease – using music as a great vehicle to raise both money and awareness for it. This is also the twentieth year of Red Hot as well as their twentieth compilation.

The complete list of artists (in alphabetical order) that recorded tracks for this release are:
Andrew Bird
Antony + Bryce Dessner
Arcade Fire
Beach House
Beirut
Blonde Redhead + Devastations
Bon Iver
Bon Iver & Aaron Dessner
The Books featuring Jose Gonzalez
Buck 65 Remix (featuring Sufjan Stevens and Serengeti)
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues
The Decemberists
Dirty Projectors + David Byrne
Kevin Drew
Feist + Ben Gibbard
Grizzly Bear
Grizzly Bear + Feist
Iron & Wine
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
Kronos Quartet
Stuart Murdoch
My Brightest Diamond
My Morning Jacket
The National
The New Pornographers
Conor Oberst & Gillian Welch
Riceboy Sleeps
Dave Sitek (TV On The Radio)
Spoon
Sufjan Stevens
Yeasayer
Yo La Tengo

Pretty awesome huh? I’m particualry looking forward to the Ben Gibbard and Feist collaboration.. More news as and when we get it.

It’s that time of year again… We’re making our list and checking it twice, trying to find out who’s been naughty or nice. Yes, it’s our Album of the Year! More coveted than a shiny penny, more famous than the winner of last year’s X-Factor and guaranteed to start debate!

This year, to shuffle blame away from TLOBF HQ, we’re getting YOU, yes, YOU the reader, to vote for the albums YOU think are the best 2008 had to offer. We’ve whittled down a mammoth list of prospective albums to a mere 50. It’s tough work, but someone had to do it.

So, mouse button at the ready – get clicking! You can pick as many albums as you like, there are no limits. If you feel it’s worthy of “Album of the Year” status, then do the right thing and cast your vote.

If you need some help making that all-important decision, you can read our take on the albums listed in our 2008 archive here.

The poll will close on Friday December 12th.

There is a prize up for grabs for one lucky reader. Some very kind record companies behind the following 50 records have offered up a selection of prizes including: ultra-rare vinyl, posters, t-shirts and CDs by some of the nominees, plus a pair of tickets to see the sold-out Fleet Foxes show at London Roundhouse in February 2009. To be in with a chance of winning this mammoth and hugely exciting prize, enter your details at the bottom of this page. The lucky winner will be notified via email. Competition closes on Friday 12th December.

[polldaddy poll="1128287"]

Beach House are back with a brand new single ‘Used To Be’ which comes out via Bella Union on 27th November. Putting it bluntly, you really should buy it – it is without doubt the best thing they’ve recorded thus far and could well be one of my favourite singles of 2008. Like, seriously.

To coincide with the single release, Victoria and Alex are flying over to Blighty for a one off London show at Cargo on 2nd December. It promises to be a corker of a show and a sneaky chance to hear some brand new material from the duo’s as yet untitled third album which they are due to finish recording early next year. Exciting times indeed.

We have not one, but TWO pairs of tickets to give away for the show. The two winners will also receive both Beach House albums (self-titled and Devotion), a copy of ‘Used To Be’ on 7″ AND a Beach House T-Shirt. Sweeeeeet! To be in with a chance of winning simply answer the following question..

Which US State do Beach House come from?

Closing date is Wednesday 26th November. Email your answers to competition@thelineofbestfit.com including your name, address and a contact telephone number.

Winners will be notified by email.

School Of Seven Bells is the collective work of Benjamin Curtis, ex-guitarist from the Secret Machines and identical twin sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza, previously of ambient post-rockers On! Air! Library! and occasional collaborators with Prefuse 73. The band themselves are named after the mythical South American pickpocket academy, the School Of Seven Bells which may or may not have existed in the 1980s, according to a late night documentary Alejandra once caught on US television.

Rich Thane says they sound like “the Postal Service having sex with Beach House”. We have yet to get reports of what those bands think about it…

See for yourself as the band will be in the UK for two special London dates from tonight, as part of the Sonic Cathedral nights.

School Of Seven Bells UK Dates:
Tue 28 October London Old Blue Last www.soniccathedral.co.uk
Wed 29 October London The Social www.soniccathedral.co.uk
Thurs 30 October London Pure Groove 6pm www.puregroove.co.uk

Look our for a track on this months Mixtape, but in the meantime, you can quench your thirst over at their Myspace page.

One of our favourite acts on TLOBF, Beach House, have announced a one-off date at London’s Cargo on December 2nd with ATP Concerts.

As a bit of a taster, they’ve recently recorded a live, one-take version of their new single ‘Used to Be’ (which is out on 27th Nov via Bella Union) in a tiny cove on a Beach in Australia. It’s ace:

Click here to view the embedded video.

p.s. Sorry Alex for chopping your head off in the thumbnail!

Whilst our chums Beach House were touring the UK a couple of months ago the folk at Black Cab Sessions managed to lob them into an unsuspecting taxi to film a version of ‘Heart Of Chambers’ from the much-loved Devotion LP. With the accompaniment of acoustic guitar and floor toms rather than the usual farfisa organ and reverb sodden slide guitar; the performance spawned a whole new dimension to the trademark Beach House sound – turning the track into a jaunty folk number. Suits them too so it does. Check out the performance below.

If we’re to quote The Cranberries (and why shouldn’t you?), “Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t we?”. As we’ve past the halfway point in this year of 2008, it seemed like a good time to look back. What have been the musical higlights of the year so far? We’ve had some absolutely corking albums released, from Fleet Foxes genre defying debut, to Elbow’s continued cultured and heartwarming release. It might surprise some of our readers what’s ended up on this list but one thing this exercise has made us realise, is that come the end of the year, there’s going to be a big pile of albums under the ‘Excellent’ heading…

So how did we decide on the final 10 albums? We asked all of our writers to email in their favourite 5 releases of the year thus far. Each album voted for was then given a point and entered into a highly technical spreadsheet – which left us with the following records…

The Wave Pictures Instant Coffee Baby [TLOBF Review]

Indie-rock as witty and consummately British as the erection you’re creepingly becoming aware of as you sit drunkenly a bit too close to a pretty girl on a couch.
Tom Whyman

This album still entrances, amuses and delights me, seven months after first hearing it. The naïve-yet-profound lyrics have a unique charm, perfectly matched by their jangle-indie setting. One of the most refreshing releases in many a year: wonderful stuff.
Jude Clarke

Instant Coffee Baby is the album that has probably received the most repeated plays so far this year. The songs are packed with witty, lyrical nuggets – with each listen you pick out ones you’ve previously missed. Perhaps not a perfect album (it could do with a couple of songs shaved off the end) – it is still totally satisfying, and one of the best indie pop records you’re likely to hear this year.
Rich Thane

Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes [TLOBF Review]

Quite extraordinary, otherworldly lay ‘hymns’ from an amazing new act that are unlikely to be 5 minute wonders. This album beautifully showcases their gorgeous sound-drenched sound.
Jude Clarke

I have no doubt that in years to come, this flawless debut will appear amongst Revolver, OK Computer and Nevermind in those annoying ‘Best Album of All Time’ lists that crop up year after year. A band hasn’t excited me this much since…well, I really can’t remember. It truly is a work of art and without doubt, one of the greatest debut albums I’ve ever heard – and what excites me more, is that I strongly believe they have so much more to offer. Go and buy the album, see them in concert, buy the t-shirt. Whatever. Just let them into your life. Now!
Rich Thane

This is, without doubt, one of the best albums ever, let alone this year. An offering from a band that have found a huge place in my life.
Rich Hughes

Frightened Rabbit Midnight Organ Fight [TLOBF Review]

So, what’s so great about yet another white, male, 20-something, indie rock band, then? How about: Great production decisions, a concentrated lyrical direction, stellar songwriting, Scott Hutchinson’s voice walking the line between warble and sublime melody, melody and lyrics walking the line between bleakness and euphoria? My favourite music makes me giddy, supremely confident in myself, and in love with life, in all it’s ugly, beautiful, dreadful glory. And, I suppose, all of that is what makes Frightened Rabbit and The Midnight Organ Fight so great.
Simon Gurney

Utter perfection. These guys deserve to be fucking huge. But the foul language and dodgy subject matter will always prevent that from happening. Maybe that’s the point? The album also has my favourite lyric of the year so far: “You’re the shit and I’m knee deep in it”.
Rich Thane

Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago [TLOBF Review]

What more can I say about this mysterious, mystical, raw, emotionally epiphanical dream of a record? Its popular resonance has single-handedly revived my faith in the essential goodness of humanity – a sentiment I’m sure its creator would agree with.
Emily Moore

So I’ll forgive and forget the fact that it manages to sit next to Bon Jovi on my ipod. I’ll even forgive the fact its only 37 minutes long. Which may be a good thing, as the delicate, claustophoic beauty of this album has been unequalled by anything else so far in 2008, and is all the better for its brevity. No fancy tricks or gimmicks, just great songs packed with emotion and a fizzling intensity.
Simon Reuben

There are less than a handful of records from this decade that I could happily choose as a desert island disc. The fact that two have been released in 2008 (the other record being Fleet Foxes) that I would literally die for proves this year has been the best year in music in – well, god knows how long. For Emma, Forever Ago is a work of unadulterated genius. The sincerity and honesty within it’s nine songs floored me from the very first time I heard it – that was nearly 12 months ago and even now I’m still finding new sounds and textures and emotion to wrap myself up in. Justin Vernon has created a stone cold classic, and easily one of the greatest records of the 21st Century.
Rich Thane

Elbow Seldom Seen Kid [TLOBF Review]

Oh my. What an album. Has there been a more consistent band in recent times? Guy Garvey’s found love and want’s to tell the world about it, but he’s also lost a friend and discovering Richard Hawley’s perfect croon. This is an album to fall in love with everytime you listen to it. It’s not here for the shorthaul, but, like the rest of their material, it’s here to amaze and touch you on each repeated play.
Rich Hughes

Johnny Foreigner Waited Up Till It Was Light [TLOBF Review]

Best indie-pop record since Slanted & Enchanted or (at a stretch) Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? And plus it manages to take in Cap’n Jazz too. I literally couldn’t ask for more, which is why I gave it (sort of) 100%. 100% is a score I suppose usually reserved for shimmering brilliance but to my mind its equally applicable to this sort of joyous, perfectly imperfect shouty pop amazingness. ” CAN’T LOOOOSSSE YOU IN CROWDED ROOMS!” etc.
Tom Whyman

And I thought they were amazing live! This is all that the Los Campasinos! album should have been. Full of energy and youthful vigour, I felt 10 years younger just listening to it. This is everything an indie-pop album should be about.
Rich Hughes

Bonnie Prince Billy Lie Down In the Light

Going back to the country, the bonnie prince lightens up and delivers an understated masterpeice.
Ro Cemm

It may have been released to a distinct lack of fanfare, and it’s no I See A Darkness. But it’s an intricate, warmly rewarding album, and an eighth note from Will Oldham is worth a career’s worth of songs by most bands around today.
Emily Moore

Sun Kil Moon April [TLOBF Review]

Mark Kozelek’s style of songwriting, from the early days in Red House Painters and then this most recent Sun Kil Moon album April, has always sounded to me like the aftermath of a broken nose. As strange as it may seem, that is always what his music evokes for me; a heady, muffled and painful throb. His soft, weak (but not in a bad way) voice dipping away into the rest of the instruments, guitar repeating it’s litany, calling to mind the slow powerful transformations found in minimalism, a thrumming quality that overtakes my mind, a style that gives me a temporary head cold, where just the music and melancholy survive, everything beyond that is a haze.
Simon Gurney

The Red house painter man returned to form on this melancholy work, the guitar work is right up there with his best work for a while, and moved away from the cover versions he had been known for.
Ro Cemm

Mesmerisingly beautiful. That’s all I’m going to say.
Rich Hughes

Beach House Devotion [TLOBF Review]

An otherworldly album that manages to wonderfully create its own atmosphere and feel. Shimmery summery haze-pop of the highest order.
Jude Clarke

In an age where second albums suffer from lack of ideas, imagination and focus – Beach House returned in 2008 with a renewed sense of vigour for their sophomore effort. The original ‘Beach House’ bluebrint still remains, but this time with an added pop sensibility and a more luscious production that you want to dive into and wallow around in for hours. When it comes to dream pop – nobody does it better than Beach House.
Rich Thane

Keyboard Choir Mitzen Head To Gascanane Sound

[TLOBF Review]

Like the sound of a thousand planets crashing into one another, this is one of the most adventerous and thought provoking debuts of the year so far. Their intelligent use of samples, spoken word interludes and their own sense of brooding power combines wonderfully to create an album that could best be described as a more accessible Fuck Buttons. But that does these guys an injustice. They’re their own band, creating their own fantastic sound.
Rich Hughes

Honourable mentions:
Stephen Malkmus and The Jicks Real Emotional Trash [TLOBF Review]
The Silver Jews Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea [TLOBF Review]
The Duke Spirit Neptune [TLOBF Review]
Los Campesinos Hold On Now Youngster [TLOBF Review]
HEALTH Disco [TLOBF Review]
El Perro Del Mar From The Valley to the Stars [TLOBF Review]
These New Puritans Beat Pyramid [TLOBF Review]
The Black Keys Attack and Release [TLOBF Review]
Portishead Third [TLOBF Review]
White Denim Workout Holiday [TLOBF Review]
Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing [TLOBF Review]
British Sea Power Do You Like Rock Music? [TLOBF Review]
M83 Saturdays = Youth [TLOBF Review]

You can buy any of these albums, plus a whole load more in our brand spanking new online store. Click here to visit.

It’s nice to suddenly find yourself at a gig that’s gone from being a slightly obscure “up-and-coming” type show to a full blown queue-round-the-block hot ticket in the space of a few weeks. Tonight’s sold out ULU Bella Union showcase is exactly that, with Fleet Foxes garnering 5/5 reviews in every broadsheet and monthly magazine going. Fame, it seems, is looking over their shoulder, and tonight’s gig feels like a significant moment in their rapid rise.

But first, Beach House, playing songs from their new album Devotion. Their organ-led music breathes down from the speakers, languid and summery like an endless afternoon spent walking on some distant coastal peninsula, reverb drenched vocals lingering over picked guitar strings and delicate rhythms. There’s a sense of time standing still, or at least oozing along at a glacial pace, that seems to link directly with the vague sense of boredom that total freedom can bring – a barely tangible lack of urgency that seems bourgeois, somehow. This is by no means a bad thing, and bands as disparate as Broadcast and Fiery Furnaces create the same odd sensation. If it’s possible to be both utterly absorbing and oddly disconnected at the same time, Beach House are the band to do it.

Beach House by Lucy Johnston

Fleet Foxes take the stage to deafening applause that borders on feverish anticipation, and seem genuinely taken aback by the scale of the response. They ply simple, heartfelt, deeply American harmonies from a the long lineage of Americana that you can trace from the blues masters through wholesome 70′s stuff like Crosby, Stills & Nash and Neil Young to recent bands such as Whiskeytown, Akron Family and Iron & Wine. They are unreformedly traditional band in instrumentation and approach, aeons away from the various electro/indie/rave hybrids that continue to darken our doorstep here in mucky London.

Fleet Foxes clearly have something special, not least in the charisma of their pale-eyed, boyish frontman Robin Pecknold, who regales the audience with self-concious banter about how awesome the band’s driver is and how headlining sold out London shows is such a difference from writing songs in his parents’ basement. His songs are tales of the simple life, fresh and honest and played with care and humility, and often sung in a thick harmonic voice chord by four of the five members. There’s a sense that these songs are everything they should be – everything in it’s right place in lyric, melody and arrangement – an unpretentious kind of perfection.

Both of these bands deliver performances that bring out the very best in their songs and have me scrambling for their albums when I get home. Fleet Foxes might be the ones in the limelight at present with their honest, charming songwriting but it’s the sweet, resonant melancholia of Beach House that reverberates around my memory as I walk out into the spitting summer rain. One thing’s for sure, both of these bands are essential listening for 2008.

Video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tiger Mountain Peasent Song [Live at London ULU]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Winter White Hymnal [Live at London ULU]

Click here to view the embedded video.

He Doesn’t Know Why [Live at London ULU]

Click here to view the embedded video.

Crayon Angels / Oliver James [Live at London ULU]

Links
Beach House [myspace] [tour diary] [album review] [20 questions]
Fleet Foxes [myspace] [album review] [ep review] [interview]

A late night concert (10 pm) at Bottom of the Hill’s intimate setting proved to be an apt time and place for the Baltimore duo Beach House. The two disco balls churning on their axes inside wooden boxes alongside Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally pooled red, blue, and green lights on the short ceiling. It looked like how the moon can reflect off the ocean onto creaky docks jutting out from the shoreline. The pooling swirls of changing lights coalesced on the roof as the droning organ sounds coming out of Legrand’s keyboard. Papercuts’ creator, Jason Quever, accompanied the duo on drums.

His light drum flourishes utilizes light floor tom brushes. At their loudest it was muted and subtle with the bass drum serving as the heartbeat and the restrained bass and cymbals only showing up during peaks of drama. Quever pushed Beach House’s autumnal charm forward into the wintry landscape of this year’s wonderful sophomore release, Devotion. Curiously he didn’t play as an opening band for this date on their spring tour. Papercuts’ intricate sounds would have interlocked better than the two incongruous openers of the night – Best Wishes and Anaura.

San Francisco’s Best Wishes were tinged with a bit of film noir but not in the way Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds plunge those depths. They tried to cull the type of open road wooziness that Silver Jews inhabit so well. Songs like ‘In the Well’ followed the story of a man throwing his wife into a well. The band assured the audience that the wife survived in the story but nobody seemed to be listening. Percolating percussion and slide guitar reverberated on this and other song but each one lacked the drama the subject matter craved. Slide guitars and delay pedals on ‘Cry’ and ‘Stones’ circled the band’s skeletal percussion like a post rock band picking over the bits of something Gang of Four or The Fall may have possibly constructed. The moody scavenging off their self-released self-titled EP left much to be desired.

Next on the docket was another San Francisco band called Anaura. Their poppy indie rock sound was greeted with scattered laughs mainly due to Alex Hillmer’s off key lead vocals. The combination of the keyboardist’s awkward tambourine bopping and the band’s paltry union of Spoon’s sparse instrumentation and Supergrass’ garage veracity felt uninspired. ‘Worse for Drink’ supplied some interesting harmonies if you got past the blatant Smiths cribbing. Thankfully both sets were over quickly so the audience could bask in the rich intonations of Legrand’s deep Nico-like voice and Scally’s hazy entrancing guitar work.

The confines of relationships were italicized on Beach House’s newest release as though the record’s title, were a prison you could never escape. Legrand’s vocal delivery seemed to cater to that interpretation as they traversed a set in favor of new showing off their entrancing new material.

‘Wedding Bell’ started the set with brushes of sashaying percussion and warm electric ambling. Harpsichord oscillations echoed the stage. When the tension arose and a high register Shepherd’s scale popped into the mix, Legrand’s voice became desperate, as though a wedding bell is some sort of strange hypnosis. “Your wish is my command” indeed. ‘Gila’’s programmed beat came next where Scally’s guitar work took the reins. It’s easy to be transfixed by Legrand’s virtuso pipes but her counterpart added his own subtle flourishes to the chiming track. ‘Holy Dances’ waltzing beat (supplied by a solemn Quever) lulled the audience into a peaceful coma. Speaking of sleeping, the only detractor for having such a late concert with such hypnotic music is the fight to keep your eyes open.

To assure fans didn’t nod off and miss something, the duo sprinkled in old favorites from their beautiful self-titled debut. Legrand’s falsetto cooed the the back-to-nature lyrics of ‘Apple Orchard’ with a dramatic inertia, “let’s lie down for awhile / you can smile / lay your head in the old old fashion”. ‘Master of None’, with its interlocking organ drones also turned out to be a perfect addition to the set. Despite a overly languish ‘Some Things Last A Long Time’ (a Daniel Johnston cover) the band received a sleepy-eyed encore.

Legrand beamed shyly and thanked the audience, but chided them like a shrewd mother. “You should be asleep so this next one is a lullaby”. After playing the ringing ‘Lovelier Girl’ the band vacated the stage, leaving us with only twinkling memories of their beguiling set.

Setlist:
Wedding Bell
Gila
Holy Dances
Apple Orchard
You Came To Me
Some Things Last A Long Time (Daniel Johnston cover)
Turtle Island
Master of None
D.A.RL.I.N.G.
Heart of Chambers

Encore:
Lovelier Girl

Click here to read an exclusive Beach House UK tour diary

mp3:> Beach House – Gila

A Saturday night line-up of Fuzzy Lights, Beach House and The Resistance enticed my first visit to the Barfly, previously the Loft, since the venue changed hands. Few impressions remain of anything that marked this proprietary shift. Any new licks of paint have been blurred in memory through an ill-paced four pints. The formless black and white Barfly logo, painted in front of the beer pumps, seemed to be the only decorative indication of new ownership.

A few posters indicated that a new level of attractions – and ticket prices – might be coming to the Chesterton Road venue in the future. £5 for these three performances represented good value. The presence of two local bands, together with the flitter and chatter as people passed between stage and audience, was a warm reminder that Cambridge does have its own peculiar mixture of bands, enthusiasts and bystanders. Fuzzy Lights were enthusiastically received. Now a five piece and appropriately international for a band from Cambridge, their instrumentals were pitched between ambience and melodic drama. The swell of the violins and frenetic guitars built up to sweeping effect; one song featured Xavier’s vocals. They also looked like they were having a great time and I was left wanting to see them perform a longer set.

The Resistance, headlining, were a completely different stage proposition. Frequently hailed as the best band in Cambridge, I’ve seen them twice and can’t quite get a grip on what the fuss is all about. The flyer promised the same singular aesthetic despite the change in personnel. The EP features songs that make reference to Nico and Velimir Khlebnikov. However any radicalism seems more at the level of posture rather than a slap in the face of public taste, despite the real sense of urgency that the combination of electronics and guitar can build.

Beach House, a duo from Baltimore playing warm keyboards and slide guitar, created intriguing languid songs that occasionally stopped abruptly. Despite problems with the sound – a strange buzzing caused by the electronics in the mid-stage pillar – their set achieved an intimacy that was perfect for a small venue like this, or for the season now the nights are drawing in. Something in the waking-dream pace of the set and the woozy fragments of the lyrics (“Jack of all trades / Master of none“) was unusual and affecting.

In all, an encouraging and worthwhile evening and I hope that many lie ahead in the Barfly.