“I’m not at liberty to talk about the vision for the promotional videos, but I can tell you we blew most of our budget on training that gorilla.” – Ryan Olson.

Twenty-five of Minneapolis’ finest musicians get together to create an album of slickly produced, sultry soft rock inspired pretty much exclusively by 10cc’s ‘I’m Not in Love’. The result? I can only hope to one day voice my opinion better than a friend who asked the question “Why do I want a cigarette after listening to this?” Whether you’re here for Justin Vernon’s appearance (as long as you have two ears and a heart, there’s no shame in admitting it) or Rhymesayers/Doomtree emcee P.O.S. who – and I don’t want to spoil things for you here – is not the collaborator who raps on this album… or the members of Megafaun or The Rosebuds or perhaps just a curiosity as to how an album performed entirely at 69 BPM with the sleaziest saxophone this side of George Michael’s ‘Careless Whisper’ could possibly be one of the freshest-sounding releases of 2010 so far, I can guarantee you will be surprised.

Relayted, which took one year from the band’s conception to the finished record, started as a collaboration between producer Ryan Olson and Solid Gold’s Zak Coulter/Adam Hurlburt. “We worked out rough maps of about 13 songs over the course of a few months. Then I called Mike Lewis and said ‘Get your hair in a ponytail and get over here!” and he came and recorded all of the sax parts over the skeletons of the songs we had,” says Olson. After Justin Vernon heard the tracks, he volunteered his studio for the day and, 28 hours of tracking later – alongside Megafaun and Ivan Rosebud – the record was starting to take shape. The rest of the musicians were tracked between May and December 2009, in Minneapolis, Wisconsin, and some in North Carolina. “We’re all connected through the Minneapolis and Eau Claire music scene, friends who’ve never been able to play all together.”

With so many players in the mix, how does the final result compare to their initial vision? Zak Coulter explains, “Once we decided we were actually going to produce an “album”, what I envisioned came pretty close to what was made, in some parts. In others, it became a whole new ballgame, or what we know as a “world”. Ryan has a great ability to hone in on a certain sound, and after the core group of players was determined, the influx of styles and inspirations mellowed, and we rode the crater’s edge into Gayngs.”

If you have a serious aversion to autotune, even in tasteful doses (the word ‘tasteful’ being used in a purely subjective sense), or think you might find it difficult to digest Justin Vernon’s monologue on the final track (in which he uses the phrase “I promise” no less than twice) perhaps this record is not for you. Ivan Rosebud puts it best when he explains bassist Brad Cook’s inspiration for the glacial bassline on ‘Faded High’. “We just got back from running games on the Halifax courts in Raleigh, NC when he got the call to record the bass for ‘Faded High’. When the line “I want your body on me” came through the speakers, I pushed the preamps and Brad said he was gonna lay a bassline as smooth and funky as the LA Laker great James Worthy’s one-handed spin move to the basket. I think he captured it all in that one take.”

The fact that Ryan Olson claims that “maternity wards” are the most likely ‘social group’ to gain from this record suggests that he is being slightly less than sincere when he describes what the future holds for this collaboration (“GAYNGS is omnipresent, sort of speak, and is headed decisively into a 55 BPM direction.”) We can only hope they will choose a suitably ambitious ’70s pop hit to take their inspiration from next time (if, indeed, there is a next time) because, as Olson points out, when you compare Relayted to what you think it’s going to sound like, it is “freakishly spot on”. This is one of those rare times where someone actually manages to pull off something similar to the experience of D’Angelo’s ‘Voodoo’. Unapologetically sexy music where initial aesthetic satisfaction then morphs into an entirely physical surrender. You are definitely going to want that cigarette.

Before 2010 had even yelped into our hungover ears, we knew which albums we were really looking forward to: Teen Dream, High Violet, Heaven Is Whenever and so on. All great albums, but there’s a lovely element of surprise in being totally taken aback by something you’ve hardly even heard of before, let alone seen climbing the hotly contested rungs of Hype Machine.

Anaïs Mitchell’s fourth album, Hadestown, is a prime example of this – we at TLOBF had always taken a little shine to her earlier folkings, but it’s her folk opera about the Ancient Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, set in Depression-era New Orleans, that’s just blown our minds.

There’s a huge supporting cast on the record – Anaïs plays Eurydice with sweet naivety, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon makes a great turn as the lovelorn Orpheus, Ani DiFranco is the wily but maternal Persephone, Greg Brown plays a gruff voiced Hades that’ll give you the willies, and Ben Knox Miller from The Low Anthem makes an appearance too.

This, ‘Wedding Song’, is one of the album’s simpler cuts though, demonstrating the simple elegance of Mitchell’s retelling of many a millennia-old myth. The opening track to the record, it sees Orpheus and Eurydice singing about how they’re going to pay for their wedding – she’s a pragmatist, worrying about where they’re going to find the money, whilst his head is in the clouds, looking to nature as a solution and steadfastly refusing to answer to her reality. It’s such an incredible song in so many ways – its woodsy tapping and pedal steel sound delicious, and the way in which it sews a thread between ancient, 20th century and modern history isn’t just testament to the universality of experience, but to Mitchell’s sublime songwriting skills. You can’t afford not to listen to this album – ‘Wedding Song’ is just the tip of its charm.

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.

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.

The songs that would eventually end up on Volcano Choir’s debut album started out as musical fragments exchanged between Justin Vernon and instrumental five-piece Collections of Colonies of Bees in 2005. Throughout Vernon’s rise to fame under the Bon Iver moniker, these exchanges continued, until the band Volcano Choir was finally conceived in 2008. Unmap, which is the result of this collaboration, is a series of dream-like compositions which juxtapose Vernon’s unmistakable vocal style against Collections of Colonies of Bees’ own brand of experimental folk music.

Whilst it may be difficult at first to discern any similarities between the songwriting of Volcano Choir and that of Bon Iver, the method of lyric-writing employed by Vernon on the two projects is consistent- recording wordless vocal tracks and allowing the lyrics to write themselves, based on the syllables rendered by the music. Whilst for Bon Iver these sounds eventually became the poetic and heart-wrenchingly nostalgic lyrics found on For Emma, Forever Ago, for Unmap, they are barely developed beyond the sounds initially used to map out the melodies. For those drawn in by the immediacy of the stories on Bon Iver’s debut, this may act as a deterrent, but those who felt a visceral attraction to the textures on the album will no doubt find beauty in Vernon’s every murmur, from the nonsensical phraseology of ‘Island, IS’ to the multi-tracked drone of his humming on ‘Dote’.

The influence of minimalist artists like Steve Reich is unmistakable on tracks such as ‘Seeplymouth’ and ‘Island, IS’, with their use of repetition and the creation of climaxes through the gradual introduction and removal of instruments. The songwriting also borrows from post-rock and drone and could easily fade into the background given enough time, but there’s always a moment to bring your mind back into focus- where the drums drop out and a reverb-drenched vocal line comes to the forefront or a playful guitar line, like the Dirty Projectors-esque build-up towards the end of the aforementioned ‘Island, IS’, returns after an ambient interlude. Although these songs may lack the emotional crescendos found on an album such as Spirit of Eden, there are elements of Talk Talkian brilliance in the way in which the atmosphere, as much as the immediate intentions of the songwriting, is instrumental in narrating the relationship the listener will form with the music.

The production style here is a collaborative effort, sacrificing little of the homely, organic energy found in Vernon’s solo work but introducing a sheen and professionalism that works to bring Collection of Colonies of Bees’ compositions to the forefront. Whilst the use of panning often feels spacious and expansive, the percussive use of instruments- whether it’s the subtle pulse of electronic disturbances, the patter of handclaps or the noise of picks against guitar strings- helps maintain a pretense of total control throughout. It’s undeniable that music of this nature must stem from improvisation, yet these songs never become self-indulgent jams- they never outstay their welcome.

If any one track supports the claim that Bon Iver’s releases and ‘Unmap’ run parallel to each other in an artistic sense, it’s ‘Still’, which sets the band’s ‘Woods’ to music. As Vernon repeats, “I’m up in the woods / I’m down on my mind / I’m building a still / To slow down the time,” it’s the reflection of the emptiness in the a cappella arrangement that makes the song so powerful, yet it’s impossible to argue that anything was lost on ‘Still’ as the auto-tuned vocals soar over glitchy electronics, distorted guitars and cymbal crashes.

To see this album as a follow-up to For Emma or as an excuse for Vernon to indulge his more experimental whims would be a mistake. Unmap functions more as a companion piece and those fans who fell at the feet of Vernon’s previous output should relish the opportunity to hear his voice pushed to almost every extreme and set against some of the most refreshingly inventive arrangements composed this year. This album does not speak in words and even as it closes with ‘Youlogy’, which evokes the spirit of Nina Simone and comes across like a new take on a traditional folk song, the timbre of Vernon’s bruised falsetto does more to stir the emotions than the melodies or the words being sung.

mp3:> Volcano Choir: ‘Island, IS’

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

Now nine years old, Summer Sundae established itself long before the term ’boutique festival’ had become common currency. It may be family friendly, clean and urban (Leicester city centre is within walking distance, and one stage is actually in De Montfort Hall) but it stands well apart from the majority of such enterprises, partly by not being in London but also through the likeable atmosphere and the inventiveness of much of the booking. So much so, in fact, that the festival has in recent years developed a reputation for poor headliners and a lively undercard, something Sunday headliners The Zutons weren’t going to do much against this year.
As it turned out, neither were Friday headliners The Streets. A case of swine flu in his band meant Mike Skinner had to pull a weekend’s worth of gigs at 2pm, and it’s testament to the crowd it attracts that for the most part the news was greeted with acceptance. Of a sort, anyway. Plenty of the official notices were having the first two letters of the word ‘unfortunately’ scribbled out by sundown.

Idlewild stepped into the breach as opening day headliners and pulled off a solid if not spectacular set. ‘Everyone Says You’re So Fragile’ and ‘When I Argue I See Shapes’ is as good an opening one-two as you’re likely to ever get from them. If some of the more recent material doesn’t pass muster in such company though, and the crowd seem a little light and quite a bit unprepared, a charge through ‘Roseability’ and a proper stadium moment in ‘American English’ show Woomble and co can really put their all in when the occasion demands.

Elsewhere the main stage saw a lacklustre Mystery Jets include two new songs that seem more watered down from the retro-eclectic curiousities of their work to date and Beardyman‘s more than impressive beatbox skills running low on stickability ten minutes or so into a 45 minute set. More fascinating fare took place elsewhere. Wild Beasts are growing in live stature all the time, investing a set heavy on Two Dancers with life and peculiar groove. múm can come across as austere on record but live turned out to be by turns spine tingling and actively lively. The performance/spoken word venture Phrased & Confused hosted its own marquee and invited Jeremy Warmsley in for a solo set, incorporating covers of Daniel Johnston and Billie Holliday as well as introducing the secret sixth verse of ’5 Verses’ – one that bore a distinct resemblance to the chorus of a well known lachrymose break-up song by our now non-appearing headliners.

Saturday began with a storming set by the partly local Her Name Is Calla, whose dramatic post-rock slow build and crashing crescendos gradually won over a midday audience in some style. In fact the local bands the festival puts on for the experience did well more often than not. Mr Plow deals, in his own words, with “murder ballads and disaster songs”, cut from a Johnny Cash cloth with a storytelling bent as dark as its humour. The city’s current great white hopes Minnaars will hear Foals comparisons from now to kingdom come but bolt on an electronic undertow and a melodic hardcore dynamic. The main stage was too big for them now, not helped by technical issues, but keep an eye out.

There’s plenty on the second day with energy to spare. It’s too easy to say that as a female fronted trio The Joy Formidable – introduced, for some specious reason, with the third word in the French style – bring to mind prime Throwing Muses, but their cathartically dynamic fuzz tones mark out their own territory. The Kabeedies are full of youthful exuberance and silly dancing to complement their odd janglepop, Broken Records‘ Waterboys/Beirut referencing melodrama again suits the live experience more than the studio and Future Of The Left… well, you’d be well advised to stand back some distance from Falco and Kelson at the best of times. Kids down the front formed a pit, middle aged people at the back were seen grinning at the odd lyrical quirk. As it should be. The Charlatans headlined, but I was watching the ATP film in the cinema tent at the time.

It was a day when the singer-songwriters made the best of things too. Emmy The Great shook off some recent variable quality festival sets for a a confident, poised set including a cover of the Carpenters’ ‘End Of The World’ and a complete setlist rejig so she could play a request of ‘Canopies And Drapes’. Frank Turner packed out the Rising tent with devotees, but the plaudits mostly go to the genuine one-off that is David Thomas Broughton. Broughton reminds me of cult Northern chansonnier Jake Thackray, all inscrutable Yorkshire baritone and folky acoustic playing. Then again, there’s the intricate looping, the occasional dissolving into complete dissonance, the feedback solos, the studied tics and completely straight-faced expression throughout the theatrics and the songs of heartbreak. So completely apart from the rest of his supposed field, Broughton live is completely captivating.

Sunday brought another unmissable live experience, but I’ll come back to that. The early running was taken up by two local favourites from different ends of the spectrum, only connected by a love of the noise made by loud guitars. Kevin Hewick has more than thirty years’ service behind him and a footnote in one of Britain’s most covered music stories when he recorded demos with the post-Curtis Joy Division with a view to becoming singer in what became New Order. Fronting a power trio he pulls out serrated “grunge for the over-50s” (his words) like a Midlands Neil Young. Maybeshewill meanwhile take their instrumental post-hardcore/post-rock elegance to the main stage and succeed where lesser bands of the same type might have easily failed, the closing ‘Not For Want Of Trying”s quasi-metal riffs feeling like it could level the whole park. Only Micachu and the Shapes‘ static solos and odd time signatures, not to mention Mica Levi’s newly peroxided hair, is more awkward in its surroundings.

Not something that Woodpigeon will ever do, but their delicately arranged chamber folk seems to develop a new full-blooded textured life in the hall, Beth Jeans Houghton joining them (sporting a mighty blonde afro wig) for a cover of Abba’s ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’. First Aid Kit‘s spectral close harmonies enchanted in a short set including covers of Fleet Foxes and Buffy Sainte-Marie, while Teitur beefed up the awkward arrangements of his album by exposing the darker core. All these are leading up to Bon Iver, not even headlining (again: The Zutons! In August 2009!) but what he says will be his last English gig for a good year, while not as perfect in timing and reception as his celebrated End Of The Road 2008 performance, proves Justin Vernon can still tug at receptive heartstrings. Guitarist Mike Noyce can do it too, taking vocals on a stunning cover of Graham Nash’s ‘Simple Man’, but it’s ‘Re:Stacks’ solo and the now traditional singalong ‘The Wolves (Act I & II)’ that really steal the show.

Or at least, that particular show. For this Sunday of Summer Sundae was essentially divided into three parts: pre-Monotonix, Monotonix, post-Monotonix. Some of us were aware, pre-Monotonix, of the Israeli garage rock trio’s insane dance party live reputation, but actually seeing it unfold in the flesh for an hour – in a half hour slot – was quite another thing. People are jumped on, drinks are summarily redistributed, drums are crowdsurfed on or stood on/played while held up above everyone’s heads and a large plastic bin is brought into play before the drumkit, singer Ami Shalev and most of the crowd relocate themselves to the upper tier for an elevated dance party which is brought to a conclusion only when Shalev jumps off the twenty foot balcony into a sea of arms. He then somehow persuades everyone to sit down in silence for a brief lecture on something or other. By this stage Micachu and co are setting up on the stage behind them, or as much as they dare to before the next tsunami of a pit around the band breaks out. Eventually the plug has to be pulled. In the midst of all this I overhear a security person tell another that the venue couldn’t guarantee the insurance to let them set the kit on fire. If you weren’t there, you were being told about it for the rest of the day.

Perhaps part of their allure this weekend is how ridiculous their booking seemed on a day that also played host to the Lightning Seeds (more popular than you’d imagine) and the Heatonless New Beautiful South. But that’s the joy of Summer Sundae – an atmosphere both laid back and rewarding to the more than casual music fan.

Without doubt my most eagerly anticipated release of 2009 is the album from Volcano Choir – an assembly of Wisconsinite royalty: Jon Mueller, Chris Rosenau, Jim Schoenecker, Daniel Spack, Thomas Wincek and most notably Mr Justin ‘Bon Iver’ Vernon.

The album, titled Unmap has actually been in existence in some way or form since before Bon Iver hit the mainstream with the modern day classic For Emma, Forever Ago yet their label Jagjaguwar how shrouded the release in secrecy to avoid it leaking before the 21st September release date.

Finally though, we have a glimpse as to what to expect from the record. ‘Island, IS’ is a stuttering gem of a track, Vernon’s unmistakable aching vocal cooing over the complex loops and rhythms. It does not dissapoint.

mp3:> Volcano Choir: ‘Island, IS’

On a label with such an unapologetically thrilling name (Fire Records), one could expect an exhilarating explosion of the musical sorts to ensue the placement of Duke Garwood’s third album, The Sand That Falls, into one’s CD player; or at least a single spark from deep within this damp mass of tracks?

Recorded in a vast, deserted house, Garwood assumes the position of the meditative recluse, similar to the highly praised (and rightly so) Justin Vernon on his For Emma, Forever Ago LP. However, expecting a family of songs tied together with such a wholly untouched and uncompromising feel was naive of me. Whereas Vernon chose to stack and meticulously intertwine his thoughts like the wood and twigs he collected to start his many fires, and then simultaneously burnt them off cathartically in a burst of affecting songs, Garwood instead, unfortunately, settles on mulling over them, never really seeming to arrive at anywhere notably different.

Supposedly the main target The Sand That Falls was trying to hit was that of the atmospheric kind: to create a spacious album of assorted sounds, steeped in a fractured, lo-fi kind of blues. Yet, these ten tracks never amount to enough, not once summoning up the same degree of humbling existential and natural musings of similar counterparts, The Microphones. Instead, this album falls awfully short and in turn would not sound out of place at an English Yoga club, replacing the mournful Whale cries usually heard within, with the unremittingly dull tone of both Garwood’s guitar and voice.

Maybe the house ‘The Sand That Falls’ was recorded in just wasn’t that exciting. Maybe it was just an ordinary terraced house somewhere in Hull. Maybe Garwood’s nomadic ways saw an end in the Ikea grey walls of the (not-so) living room. Regardless, as the title of this album aptly suggests, The Sand That Falls seems to take an eternity to pass before its final line of “leave no trace” is heard darkly resonating from the speakers. Without any real change of tempo or any significant musical dynamics throughout, each song just seems to blur into the other and the listener inevitably finds himself or herself questioning whether the ten tracks listed on the sleeve are truly there at all.
10%

Duke Garwood on MySpace

So you’re having a bunch of shows in Hyde Park, during the (brief) height of the Great British summer, and what do you do? Why stick it in a tent, of course. Granted, everyone would be eternally grateful if, true to form, it was pissing it down tonight,  but it’s not and it seems a damn shame having to shuffle inside a big old circus tent when it’s so nice lazing around outside on the grass. Which may explain why there’s a fairly small crowd for folk-tress Alela Diane, tonight’s main support act. Those who did head inside were rewarded though, as she delivered a warm, glowing rendition of highlights from her debut To Be Still. With her dad on mandolin duties, and a full band, she pulled of a gloriously golden sound that rivalled soaking up the sun outside.

The tent did, of course, fill up though, as Bon Iver took to the stage around 8:45pm. Opening with a long, anticipation-building intro to ‘Lump Sum’, it was a fairly low-key beginning to the proceedings, even by his low-key standards. But after he’d eased in gently he whipped out that battered old steel guitar and smacked the audience round the face, dropping what must’ve been the track most them bought their ticket for –  the trademark ‘Skinny Love’. It wasn’t wasted early on in the set though, but set a very very high bar for the rest of the show, which Bon Iver cleared easily. And, of course, it was bloody beautiful. There was a rare outing for’ Brackett, W9’, featured on the Dark Was The Night compilation. The warm, fuzzy guitar sounds combined with swelling vocals were lovely to hear live, and then progressed surprisingly well into ‘Blood Bank’, as though the two songs were brothers.

Generally a man of few but always kind a humble worlds, Justin said the past two years had been ‘indescribable’, so he therefore wasn’t going to attempt to describe it. A solo ‘Re:Stacks’ was definitely one of the most heartbreaking moments of the evening, with an entire tent brought to it’s knees by the beautiful rubato delivery on the chorus. ‘Babies’, from the Blood Bank EP was also surprisingly epic, building towards a huge, all-encompassing final chorus. Ending on the warm, amiable  tones of ‘For Emma’, the band leave stroll off the stage to rapturous applause. It seems they’re picked up a few bad rock and roll habits, as there’s more than a pregnant pause before they return. Covering the classic Jayhawks track, ‘Tampa to Tulsa’, Mike Noyce takes over vocal duties, and it’s a full and accomplished voice that comes from this delicate, still-wet-behind-the-ears slip of a boy. ‘Creature Fear’ sends the audience off into the (still light) park, with huge reverberating drums sounds and a final cacophony of sounds, giving this track a new lease of life.

This show is yet another dollop of icing on the Bon Iver cake. Consistently good, consistently challenging, consistently pushing themselves -  they truly are an audience’s bands, and they certainly knocked this show out of the park.

Shellac :: All photographs by Lucy Johnston

From the moment I embarked the 10am train to Taunton, it was obvious this ATP would be a very different kettle of fish to my previous excursion Minehead way. Whilst the journey to The Fans was like being trapped in a feature-length episode of Skins, all flannel-shirted youths sporting Converse and polka dots, the clientele this time was, let’s say, a little richer in years…and volume. But with ATP: Breeders focusing on more established acts than last week’s indie-schmindie extravaganza- over half the bands have been around at least a decade- that’s no real surprise. Neither is it a criticism; in many ways having a line-up I was far less familiar with (being but a twinkle in the milkman’s eye when Gang of Four and X were first around) made this a more interesting experience to review, and indeed, it also proved that these old-timers could show their more youthful counterparts a lesson or two…

Etiquette informs me that if you’ve got nothing nice to say, say nothing at all and in that spirit I shall swiftly pass over The Holloys and expound upon the unexpected charms of Giant Sand. A stalwart of the Americana genre, I was subconsciously expecting a dreary Iron & Wine-esque jam-fest, perhaps with the odd sprinkle of contrived emotion but Howe Gelb’s wry, weathered vocals, compelling stage presence and penchant for discordant piano and ultra-distorted guitar swiftly dispelled my cynicism. Another unexpected pleasure was LA hardcore punk band The Bronx; not normally something I’d go out of my way to see, but their electrifying energy and positive, non-aggressive attitude struck me as a welcome (and very entertaining) antidote to the tiresome faux-anarchical posturing that too often pollutes the genre. Plus, their bassist looks like Andrew WK with a porn-star ‘tache, and that really amused me.

Throwing Muses were a tad disappointing, though Kristin Hersh remains a forbidding presence- steely-eyed, impeccably focused, as if struggling to contain barely contained rage. Their performance was commendably tight  although perfunctionary in terms of emotion, but there was just something a little bland about them- in a weekend full of similar acts, they never threatened to truly shine. It almost looked like Yann Tiersen was to suffer a similar fate- his accordion long-ditched, he’s reinvented himself as some guitar-heavy post-rock type and the first quarter of the set came across as a pale imitation of much better acts. But he eventually hit his stride and by the time he unleashed his jaw-dropping violin skills he was mesmerising to behold,  not so much rearranging songs as deconstructing and rebuilding them entirely. Indeed, La valse d’Amelie, reinvented as a cacophonous symphony of glitchy electronica and frenzied virtuoso strings was so spellbinding I clean forgot Bon Iver had already started downstairs.

Blood Red Shoes

Rivalled only by Fleet Foxes as the alt-folk breakthrough act of last year, Justin Vernon had exceedingly high expectations to live up to and verily, he didn’t let us down- well, for the most part. True, the Blood Bank material seems tepid compared to the glorious peaks of For Emma and once again the vastness of  the Pavillion fought tooth and nail against the intimate, intense emotion at the heart of Vernon’s appeal but when he hit the mark, there’s absolutely no denying his remarkable talent. The swirling keyboards of New Buffalo cover “Emotional Champ” was an interesting hint at a new compositional direction, and  not even the atmosphere-sapping environs could rob ‘Wolves’ and its plaintive, ever-crescendoing refrain of its devastating power- a breathtaking end to a top-quality performance.  Winding up this fine day of music was Pit Er Pat; sounding like the result of a sexy liaison between Gang Gang Dance and Fever Ray, their heady mix of ice-cold vocals and electronic drums got the audience dancing well enough, although it was seriously screaming out for a light-show of some variety.

Saturday was promisingly inaugurated by the Jenny Lewis-endorsed Whispertown 2000- if I’d venture that the rapturous (mostly male) audience reaction was down to their exceptionally short shorts as much as their country-tinged indie pop, their energetic, charming performance and quality songwriting was certainly commendable on its own merits. Unfortunately, it was a high the rest of the day struggled to live up to. Angular boy-girl duo Blood Red Shoes initially piqued my interest with their visceral drumming and suitably moody vocals (one part Howling Bells, one part Kills) but they soon proved themselves one-trick ponies. Ditto Th’ Faith Healers, whose 90′s Krautrock-influenced indie may have admittedly left a more favourable impression if I’d been in a less lethargic state of mind. Scottish indie veterans Teenage Fanclub (a horrific misnomer- they, and their fanbase are all about a hundred years old) were a little better, though their unostentatious performance was far from electrifying- whilst established fans were having a whale of a time, I’d imagine the uninitiated were wondering what all the fuss was all about.

Thank God for Shellac. Steve Albini’s minimalist rock trio may have jokingly grumbled at being superseded in the ranks of Indie-Rock royalty by The Jesus Lizard, but their performance was just as gripping as David Yow and co. Exceptionally talented musicans all, veering between subtle, amelodic instrumentals and ferocious, angular rock-outs, they’re the kind of act that could so easily succumb to pretentiousness, but to their credit remain resolutely tongue in cheek throughout. This sense of fun also applies to The Breeders- having not expected much of them given their reputation for scrappiness live, they ultimately produced the day’s most accomplished set. Much tighter and disciplined than expected, the interplay between Kim and Kelley Deal’s voice works particularly well on their more reserved moments and despite a duff encore, there’s no denying that ‘Cannonball’ is a choon. Pitiful excuse of masculinity that I am, I then went back to my quarters for a “quick nap”, only to wake up nine hours later, having obliviously slept through the double-whammy of Mariachi El Bronx and Holy Fuck. I’m reliably informed they were brilliant. Sad times.

The Breeders

Thankfully, my lengthy repose left me refreshed and raring to go for what was undoubtedly the strongest day of the three. I’m naturally inclined to give the benefit of a doubt to any band with the gall to include a font-based pun in their name, and Times New Viking repaid my faith by being one of the revelations of the weekend. Whilst Rip It Off can be a trial to listen to, with its mercilessly abrasive mix regularly overwhelming its melodic qualities, their live show strikes a far more successful balance of succinct punky lo-fi synth pop and ear-splitting distortion. Plus, at 30 minutes their set was short enough to avoid running their formula into the ground- Heartless Bastards played for an hour but had exhausted theirs in ten. They’ve got a decent front lady in the form of Erika Wennerstrom, her powerhouse vocals and striking vivacity recalling Rhydian from the Joy Formidable, but despite a respectable line in melodies they’ve not got the slightest iota of originality. Perfectly competent, but disappointingly obvious with little to distinguish them from the mire, I soon departed for the much more intriguing Dianogah. Claiming only to have been invited because they’d jump-started The Breeders’ van at the Shellac ATP seven years back, the Chicago three-piece’s atmospheric mathrock-y instrumentals were given extra impetus by their unusual bass-bass-drum set-up, and their sardonic, self-depreciating attitude was never less than entertaining.

Cult Japanese grind-core/noise-pop mentalists Melt-Banana went straight for the jugular with 15 minutes of ear-piercing noise overlaid with a smorgasbord of sound effects, sirens and general insanity conducted in total darkness (but for the torches they wielded). Masters of the disorientating aural assault, they eventually began to coalesce their chaos into songs with identifiable structures and were even better for it- the blistering bass-line of ‘Shield For Your Eyes’, the fractured bounciness of Specials’ cover ‘Monkey Man’ all underpinned by astonishing, if unconventional musicianship. After that exercise in hyperactive brilliance, the normally reliable Deerhunter felt a little sophorific, despite a wonderful spot of guest vocals from the Sisters Deal (Bradford Cox’s obvious joy at performing with them was oddly touching). Another band ill-suited to the sterility of the Pavillion stage, their melodic fuzz was voluminous without being particularly immersive and being still on a post-Melt-Banana adrenalin rush I desired a little punchier. As a result, I went to see…Kimya Dawson? Good logic there, Elmahdi. In fairness, as long as you don’t suffer from a chronic allergy to twee (in which case, you’d be stone-cold dead in 3 seconds) , there’s far worse ways of spending half-an-hour than watching the engaging and likeable Moldy Peaches frontwoman. She invited some fans on stage to contribute backing vocals and impromptu interpretive dance-moves to a set heavily drawn from kids album Alphabutt- which, as the title would suggest, is steadfastly fixated with bodily functions- and used her undeniable charm and emotional sincerity to cover up the pedestrian nature of her songwriting. Must admit her schtick got a little tiresome after a while though- she’s just not varied enough to sustain interest for an extended period.

Deerhunter

One glance at the apocalyptic rainstorm that beset the Somerset coast persuaded me venturing back to town would be ill-advised, so I ended up sticking around for Gang of Four, who, as happy chance would have it turned out to be the most downright enjoyable act of the weekend. Vintage post-punk shot through the heart with a massive dose of funk, it’s the only Pavillion set I witnessed at either ATP which got everyone around me dancing. Jon King is a shameless entertainer, his crazy moves and OTT demeanour only topped by his admirable ability to rhythmically whack a microwave to smithereens with a steel baseball bat, and their hour-long set rushed by in what seemed to be a matter of minutes.

From a review perspective it made sense to now check out Foals‘ headline set at the Pavillion, on account of them being a big popular band people care about, but then I realised enduring 75 minutes of self-important, third-rate Battles wannabes appealed to me less than, say, applying my scrotum to a cheesegrater. So I went and saw Shellac instead. Truth be told, the set was pretty similar to Saturday’s but if anything the band seemed even more focused, Todd Trainer stalking round the stage like a sinister revenant beating his snare drum like a man possessed, whilst Bob Weston flew around pretending to be an aeroplane. There’s certainly worse ways to end a festival.

So, with all thing’s said and done, was this better than The Fans? Well, it’s a close run thing- the first weekend did have an formidable roster and a couple of spectacular performances (not to mention better weather) but the wealth of unexpected gems and a more genial atmosphere- something I’m willing to attribute to the lower proportion of Hoxtonites in attendance- are strongly in Breeders favour. Ultimately, I reckon the old folks just clinch it by virtue of the deeply philosophical conundrum posed to Shellac’s Bob Weston by a particularly astute member of the audience- “If you had to be spit-roasted by Steve and Todd, who’d you have at which end and why?”  A worthy question to ruminate upon whilst we wait the long wait ’til December…

Read our review of the ATP vs The Fans Strike Back weekend here.
Also! Look out for a bumper ATP Photo Special coming later this week!

You can say what you like about Seasick Steve, but his surprise success has opened the way for a renewed interest in roots and blues over the past few years. I have no doubt that without his arrival, it is unlikely that a three piece family band from Indiana playing guitar, harmonica drums and washboard would be getting column inches in the Sunday Papers. Yet here we are, discussing their latest release. The Big Damn Family Band is fronted by Reverend Peyton himself, a Brian Blessed lookalike with a guitar,a twang and a song to sing and ably backed by his wife Breezy providing raspy noises on washboard and his brother on percussion duties. Their stock in trade is the country tinged bluegrass stomper, often infused with rabble rousin, hard drinkin’ rockabilly. When Peyton’s feverish strums really let rip, as on ‘Your Cousins on Cops’, (a song supposedly written in reaction to Peyton spotting Breezy’s cousin in an episode of the police chase programme), or ‘DT’s or the Devil’ it is hard to believe that the ‘Big Damn Band’ is made up of just three people. It comes as no surprise to learn that the band were taken on tour with roots punkers Flogging Molly, and find themselves on the label that first bought us Gogol Bordello.

There’s plenty of mornful slide and fingerpicking here too. It would be easy to dismiss Reverend Peyton and his group as shamlessly retro in their outlook, simply looking to make a quick buck on the new found trend for their style of music. Yet while they do play up their novelty, hayseed factor on the likes of single ‘Mama’s Fried Potatoes’, there is much more at work here, with modern concerns underlying the traditions: ‘The Creeks are All Bad’ takes the traditional fishing song and advises against eating your catch as there are “PCB’s in the Cat Fish, and Mercury in the Bass” while the slide driven stomp of ‘Walmart Killed The Country Store’ deals with global corporations changing traditional ways of life, and taking jobs, leaving many small towns and people unable to cope. While on first impressions The Whole Fam Damily may seem like a gimmick, given the chance the album reveals itself to be thought provoking and a rollicking good listen to boot.

Another man hitching his wagon to the gimmick train is Bob Log III. Here is a man who claimed in the press release of his first album that his frenetic guitar style was the result of having his right hand replaced with a monkey paw, only to concede later that it is just “Very very hairy”. Performing in a jump suit and a helmet with a telephone receiver used as a microphone adds another level to the ‘mystery’ of Log and also accounts for his trademark distorted vocals. Previous records have also featured ‘professional women’ providing ‘breast percussion’ on the self explanatory ‘Clap Your Tit’s’. My Shit Is Perfect is cut from the same cloth as Log’s previous efforts; full of bravado, imploring the listener to turn up his “funky guitar” and his “funky gui-drum” on album opener ‘Goddam sounds good’. Elsewhere he suggests that you might like to “Bang Your Thing At The Ball” or even “Shake a Little, Wiggle It and Jiggle It Too”, requests all delivered over the top of Log’s frenetic funky guitar picking and stripped down beats – think Souljacker era Eels produced by Beck. With a slide. While ‘Bumper Car’ sees Log slow things down, it isn’t too long before he’s back to his breakneck, dirty old one man band best. Fans of Log will be pleased with this record, and while there is nothing revolutionary here musically, Log’s persona and personality keeps the record together. Ultimately however, it is unlikely Bob Log III on record will ever live up to the sweaty, beer and rye soaked live experience. If you are still in doubt as to what Log may sound like, it may help to know that there is a track on My Shit is Perfect called ‘Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump Pow! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump Baby! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump Pow! Bump Pow! Bump Bump Bump’. It does exactly what it says on the tin.

The Condo Fucks were a cult garage rock outfit from New London, Connecticut with a passion for covers (as previous releases Condo Fucks City Rockers and Straight Outta Connecticut jokey titles suggest). Reformed just before Christmas for some shows in New York, the band went back into a recording studio, or, judging by the lo-fi nature of the recordings an abandoned garage and laid down a set of 11 covers, including the likes of the Beach Boys, Richard Hell, The Kinks and Slade. Except of course, these records only ever appeared in the sleeve notes for Yo La Tengo’s 1997 album I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. The fact that the new album goes out under the title Fuckbook also plays on the previous Yo La Tengo covers album, Fakebook is another indication as to their true identity. Hilarious. Or not. The album even comes with a sticker proclaiming ‘This is NOT the new Yo La Tengo record’. So far so gimmicky. As for the album itself, it rips through the impeccably chosen covers in little over half an hour, warts and all and sounds like everyone involved had a whale of time. ‘Dog Meat’ surges by on a trashy surf vibe, while Small Faces cover ‘Whatcha Gonna Do About It?’ takes great delight as it falls apart half way through, feedback wailing, drums and cymbals crashing before coming back in to the muscular pop again to close. ‘Accident’ follows up much in the same manner, all heavy garage rock vibes swathed in fuzz and sneeringly delivered, ready to fall joyfully off the rails at any minute. Essentially this is a thirty minute tribute to what has gone before- a joyful, exuberant palette cleanser of a record that Yo La Tengo probably wouldn’t have been able to make without the ‘freedom’ of their alter egos.

Despite tricksy marketing, all three of these artists have managed to transcend mere gimmickry, while sharing a few common values – that music should not be taken to seriously and be full of energy. While all the records here can stand in their own right, one can’t help but think it is in the live arena that these bands will really excel.

The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band: The Whole Fam Damily 73%

Bob Log III: My Shit Is Perfect 75%

Condo Fucks: Fuckbook 79%

It’s been a good year for roots music. Just look at Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver and The Acorn, let alone Alison Krauss and Robert Plant winning the top Grammy for their take on tradition. Definitively, modern roots music has found a significant number of new ears in the UK lately, and as such the beloved mainstream has shifted slightly from guitar bands to more acoustic, folk-based acts. Folk music, generally, emphasizes space over time, as to me, the genre and its myriad cohorts write with honesty and respect, careful of the traditions that are being appropriated. It doesn’t mean any other style doesn’t incorporate such descriptions, as everything does, but taken on its own folk music does sound honest. Take Neil Young’s Harvest Moon, or Cat Stevens’ Tea For Tillerman. Both albums strove to present bare-necked, plaintive examples of their originators strengths, and did so perfectly. Fleet Foxes have done the same, as has Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens, along with scores more on both sides of the pond. But the passageway is crowded, and a lot of mediocrity undoubtedly reaches the mass.

Take Woodpigeon, with their sophomore UK release, Treasury Library Canada. On their first, September’s Songbook [reviewed here], the Calgary-based collective restrained their accompaniment, leaving the songs in the auspices of songwriter Mark Hamilton to explore with, creating soft-spoken, Seven Swans-era (Sufjan Stevens) ballads that spoke of a gifted songwriter. But those tracks were too plaintive; pretty but unrewarding, leaving too much unsaid to fully grasp every message brought forth.

Treasury Library Canada, however, is much different and consequently, much better. For one, it is a more electrifying, beaming with more strings, choral wafts, banjos, mandolins, pianos and once again, strong songwriting. Hamilton is a clever vocalist, packing screams worth of imagery into whispers, careful not to reveal too much to ruin the mood. But on this set of fourteen, he unveils a patchier set of grass in front, giving more room for the band to rabble-rouse behind him. On ‘Piano Pieces for Adult Beginners’, there are moments when Woodpigeon pull off being a rock band, and are better off for it. Bells protrude through ratchets, scoffed snare blasts and, as the title promises, simplistic piano prods. It is very sly, very mature and very good. Not once did Hamilton attempt such musical breadth on Songbook, not that he desperately needed to. I guess, here, he is more ready to experiment. And it’s all equally lovely. It’s rowdier, but still saccharine and soft-spoken, creating a clever and impressive equilibrium only the greats master. And as such, there is something greater afoot, something much more than another foray into folk. This is better than that. Treasury Library Canada stands on its own, regardless of genre and association, of a powerful set of storytelling that gushes honesty, respect and a grasp of being intensely personal.

Folk music is better off with Woodpigeon around. They challenge convention, without any loss of honesty or respect. This is why the aforementioned are adored, and soon enough, why Woodpigeon will join them alongside.
85%.

Woodpigeon on MySpace

Dark Was The Night is a fundraiser for the Red Hot Organization, an international charity dedicated to raising funds and awareness for HIV and AIDS, comprising 31 exclusive tracks. Moreover, though, much like a previous Red Hot effort, 1993′s No Alternative (Nirvana, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Jonathan Richman), it acts as a snapshot of a certain time and place in North American alternative music (Stuart Murdoch, Devastations, Riceboy Sleeps, Antony Hegarty and Jose Gonzalez company excepted). The record takes in a healthy cross-section of the major players in the scene over the last couple of years; a period of unbridled creativity and critical hosannahs shone upon the music that not so long ago would have been quietly left to fend for its own cult following on the underground. So how do you approach something like this, with no thematic link or stylistic even keel, just a hell of a lot of proven quality intended, as the producers Aaron and Bryce Dessner (of The National) have reinforced, merely as a showcase for “the best in independent music, with an emphasis on traditional themes played and arranged in a contemporary way” (whatever that means)? By throwing traditional review narrative form out of the window and tackling it sequentially, I guess.

So… Dirty Projectors kick off with a David Byrne collaboration that he may have written the words to but in recording doesn’t seem to include David Byrne on anything more than backing vocals, although ‘Knotty Pine’ seems to funnel the wired shuffle of Talking Heads’ first couple of albums to a more straightened out version of Dave Longstreth and co’s eclectic culture surfing. Nick Drake’s ‘Cello Song’ is given The Books’ elegant glitch-folk treatment with Jose Gonzalez on restrained vocals, drifting gorgeously on a digital looped bed. Feist and Ben Gibbard come together on a spare, chiming countrified version of ‘Train Song’ (made semi-famous by Vashti Bunyan) that sounds more like Nancy & Lee than either’s proper work. The development of Bon Iver from solo project to full band expansion while keeping that necessary intimacy continues on ‘Brackett, WI’, brittle guitar and heavenly harmonies this time joined by organ and prominent bass; it wouldn’t have been out of place on the Blood Bank EP. Folk standard ‘Deep Blue Sea’ originally appeared in home recorded lullaby version on Grizzly Bear’s Friend EP last year and reappears fleshed out and warmer, Dan Rossen’s vocals and fingerpicking augmented by woodwind, electronic distortion and percussion. If their forthcoming album takes after this it’ll be unstoppable.

The National themselves take the spotlight next, ‘So Far Around The Bend’ less outwardly emotive than usual in a sawing back porch strum with decorative woodwind frenzy and a song about a woman lost and alone through choice in New York, apparently “praying for Pavement to get back together”. Yeasayer do their expansive otherworldly rhythmic thing a lot better than usual on ‘Tightrope’, and it’s far easier to get excited about than another version of ‘Feeling Good’, especially as My Brightest Diamond adds little to the original arrangement. Title track honours are left to avant garde San Franciscan string section the Kronos Quartet, and once four minutes of plucked string bending has sufficiently tested your patience Antony appears with Bryce Dressner on backup for a fairly perfunctory, vocal pyrotechnic-free version of Dylan’s ‘I Was Young When I Left Home’. Justin Vernon returns with Aaron Dessner backing him up on ‘Big Red Machine’, which pitches Vernon’s multitracked falsetto against insistent piano hammering. It’s an odd juxtaposition but no less intriguing for that. Hard to tell if ‘Sleepless’ is much of a preview of the Decemberists’ rock opera direction, given the stately nearly eight minute rumination sounds like it could have been an offcut from Castaways And Cutouts. Iron & Wine’s Sam Beam gives himself sixty-seven seconds on ‘Stolen Houses (Die)’, which means he’s reduced to vocal and guitar and so can’t ruin it with the soft rock settings of late, while Grizzly Bear and Feist both reappear with a reworking of ‘Service Bell’, originally from the former’s Horn Of Plenty debut album, which with its percussion loops and doo-wop backing vocals actually sounds more like Rossen’s Department Of Eagles, before the first disc closes with something of a war of choral folk attrition, more than ten minutes of Sufjan Stevens. ‘You Are The Blood’ – another cover, apparently – throws a curveball of electronic bleeps for its first thirty seconds and continues in a pattern of underlying electronic effects, samples and and found sounds in the background in a way he hasn’t explored since 2002′s Enjoy Your Rabbit, over which gradually develops a pattern of sympathetic male-female harmonies, cinematic brass and galloping drums before breaking down into cutting up his own vocals and instruments, veering off into heavily reverbed George Harrison piano-led contemplation for a bit, then back to the laptop, then explodimng into joyful brass-led fanfare, then distorted guitar solo over glitches, then solo piano voluntary, then a bit of everything to close. Phew. There’s as many ideas in this one track as those that have followed Sufjan’s path have ever had, and whether one-off playful experiment or signpost as to where he goes whenever he next deigns to record an album – three and a half years since Illinois now – it’s a masterstroke.

Still with it? Good, on to CD 2, which at least initially is something of a disappointment. Even Arcade Fire’s ‘Lenin’ turns the bombast down but ends up sounding more like their pre-Funeral EP, reaching towards something distinct without quite making it. Chief offenders are Beirut, still in underwhelming French mode, and My Morning Jacket, who turn in a song that sounds almost exactly like a British 80s AOR hit that I frustratingly can’t place (helpful, I know). As with most things it takes Dave Sitek to turn things around, who gives the Troggs’ ‘With A Girl Like You’ the fuzzy, synth layered production treatment he’s recently given Telepathe, plus horns and Sitek’s vaguely threatening lower register. Never mind knocking out a cover, Buck 65 reworks a track that’s already been on this compilation, turning Sufjan’s epic into the queasy, gospel choir aided ‘Blood Pt 2′, while the New Pornographers look inside themselves and knock off a version of their own Dan Bejar’s Destroyer’s ‘Hey Snow White’ that allows them to really indulge their AM radio rock fantasies and Yo La Tengo are in one of their relatively subdued Velvets moods on ‘Gentle Hour’. It says here Stuart Murdoch’s ‘Another Saturday’ is to the tune of traditional Scottish folk song ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’; whatever, it’s the type of ruminative, personal acoustic lament Murdoch hasn’t recorded in some time, and with references to his church background.

Riceboy Sleeps will be a new name to most but lead member Jónsi Birgisson of Sigur Ros won’t be, the eight and a half minutes of slowly shifting and drifting ambient waves almost daring the listener to use those ‘glacial’/'pastoral’ descriptions that have long since been deemed passe when describing Birgisson’s main project. An alt-countrified run starts with Cat Power’s interpretation of ‘Amazing Grace’ which is – shock! – Memphis bluesy and continues with Andrew Bird taking the warmer approach of his current album on as he grants the Handsome Family’s ‘The Giant of Illinois’ lush orchestration alongside his own multi-layered violin plucking and sawing and shimmering guitar, before Conor Oberst scratches a bluegrass country itch duetting with Gillian Welch on a reworked ‘Lua’. It suits him. Blonde Redhead are also in stripped back mode collaborating with shimmering Melbourne outfit Devastations, a laid back, comely Kazu Makino sounding oddly like Black Box Recorder’s Sarah Nixey against distorted piano, and it’s left to Kevin Drew to bring the whole charabanc home with the yearning slowcore of the Low-esque (if not Low-esque titled) ‘Love Vs Porn’.

So no, it doesn’t all work, and even by the nature of “previously unreleased tracks” for something promoting the fresh pickings of the very best available there’s quite a few reworkings and covers. However, despite the first CD being clearly the stronger, the hits clearly outweigh the misses, showing a new possible direction for some (Oberst, Sufjan), bringing the best out of others (Yeasayer, The Books) and doing what it should do, reasserting the claims of some of its most lauded (Bon Iver, Grizzly Bear, The National, The Decemberists). This is where – oh, let’s say it – hipster music largely stands in early 2009, and we’re all the better for it.
79%

Dark Was The Night

Ah, the changing of the seasons, the early stirrings of a new calendar year and a new Rough Trade Counter Culture compilation, the seventh annual collection by my reckoning. Not only a reliable overview of what made waves, stirred critics and got those in the know genuinely excited in the previous year, but also a sobering yearly reminder that you don’t know as much about new music as you think you do. Sure, you like to imagine your finger is on the pulse of the cutting edge at the zeitgeist or something, but then you get the new Counter Culture, glance at the tracklisting and go “Indian Jewelry? Alva Noto? Koko Von Napoo? Who are these people?”. But Rough Trade prides itself on being ahead of the wider game – Counter Culture 07 included Vampire Weekend, Glasvegas, No Age and Fucked Up, all of whom made far bigger impacts in their own ways and scales in 2008.

This year Counter Culture is very much a set that starts softly and carries a big stick. Department Of Eagles’ humming, close miked meditation on loss ‘Classical Records’ followed by reliable old Bon Iver and the still goosebump facilitating ‘Flume’ which is unsettling, but in a good way. The pastorial new Americana continues into the band Steve Lamacq reckons could be this year’s Fleet Foxes, The Low Anthem, whose ‘Charlie Darwin’ is all minimal guitar and spectral high harmonies. Then there’s last year’s Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes, who contribute the well worn but still ghostly ‘White Winter Hymnal’, sandwiching Dane Peter Broderick’s spiralling acoustic picking and multitracked vocals. And just as you suspect it might seem a touch one-paced if it’s all going to be like this, El Guincho shifts seamlessly in to affix its own self-harmonies and Beach Boys backing vocals to a summer party vibe. ‘The Lullaby (Mountain)’ is an odd choice to isolate as The Acorn’s representative from the much loved round here Glory Hope Mountain, not least as it’s almost entirely percussion free and features Casey Mecija on vocals rather than Rolf Klausener, but it fits the mood, especially when followed by the widescreen orchestral yearning of Headless Heroes.

As with so many things, Bradford Cox provides the sudden jolt. Atlas Sound’s ‘Recent Bedroom’ a shogazey waltz of yearning and the point at which the first CD devolves into exploring the new American (for the most part) whirring bedroom underground, progressing from lo-fi to acid fried synth abuse. And the best of your homegrown lovelies are: Sic Alps, who in their reverb-friendly garage duo sound like they can barely holding ‘Sing Song Waitress’ together, Crystal Stilts’ narcoleptic twang, High Places’ swirling tribal fuzzy glitch on ‘Vision’s The First…’, Zombie-Zombie’s motorik schlock horror imagining Suicide did get that John Carpenter film score gig and the Vivian Girls, who hope you’ve never heard of the Shop Assistants. ‘Chrome’s On It’ falls the wrong side of the precarious inventive/self-involved balance that is Telepathe but no matter, job done so far.

Any thoughts that disc two might ease you in are immediately dispelled by Chris Corsano’s borderline ridiculous percussion loop ‘What Movement Helps You When You Are Trying to Run Out A Batsman?’, one man making the sound of several sets of cutlery in a fast spin dishwasher, and the ever reliable Boris’ manaical psych-metal assault ‘Laser Beam’. Times New Viking and HEALTH fly the flag for The Smell’s reappropriation of No Wave, The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart fuzz up C86 alt-pop goodness and Gun Outfit seem to be largely hitherto unheralded ones to watch, coming across as a more homely Meat Puppets. That they turn out to be from Olympia, Washington, home of K Records and the International Pop Underground, figures.

Again, things subtly but surely change over halfway through, heralded this time by the Krautrock rhythms, wheezing drone organs, spiralling guitar and deadpan vocals of Indian Jewelry’s ‘Temporary Famine Ship’. From there it’s off into the twilight world of dubstep with 2562, the ultra-filtered samples of Flying Lotus’ ‘GNG BNG’, Tobacco roping in Aesop Rock to rhyme over woozily surging electro, Yo Majesty’s confrontational rapping over party 8-bit and the droning, hazy beats of Salem’s ‘Redlights’. Alva Noto recreate the sound of a malfunctioning dot matrix printer plus beats and a man endlessly running through numbers in French and whatever the hell Shit And Shine’s warped beyond repair ‘Shit No!’ comes under, before Mark Stewart proves he’s become no less agitated or experimental since The Pop Group, taking the Yardbirds’ ‘Mr You’re A Better Man Than I’, removing the vocals out of harm’s way then repeatedly running the rest into a wall of low-end.

As the year’s collection comes to an almost swooning finish with Pablo’s digging the crates referencing Steinski-esque sample cut-up ‘Record Shop’, it seems everyone involved has done their job particularly well this year. Of course, if you love every one of these 44 tracks then Mr, you’re definitely a better man than I. But, in a year that’s supposedly been mediocre for musical invention and forward thinking, it’s a clear evocation of ability, continued excellence and at heart why we continue to do this thing called new music hunting. A lot of love and effort has clearly gone into making all this just so, and repaying their desire to help us listen, repeat and understand is the least we can do.
85%

Rough Trade

On Sunday night, from under a giant, Iron Maiden-worthy papier-mâché dragon, Bon Iver bid an emotional end-of-year farewell to London. (They were playing the Apollo Victoria, where there is a nightly run of Wicked, and there were unsettling, vaguely apocalyptic props clustered around the stage.) On sale at the show was their new four-track EP, Blood Bank. It is pressed on satisfyingly weighty vinyl, stickered with what looks like a picture of fluffy nimbus clouds and packaged, complete with lyrics sheet, in a beautifully designed sleeve that seems to say, quietly, because Justin Vernon is a quiet guy, “Buy me; please don’t leak me”. 

The title track, already a live favourite, is far more restrained on record but will no doubt slip easily into the Bon Iver canon as a quietly smouldering classic. It’s all slow-building, pounding beats with a forceful, near a capella middle section. But the contrast between the intro and quiet vocal section, which is so striking live, slips into the recorded version far less dramatically. The finale is full of strident layered vocals and distorted guitars. Beautiful as it is, for those who already file Vernon alongside Chris Martin, there is little in this song to persuade them otherwise.

“Beach Baby” is a quiet, calm interlude, a bit like “Skinny Love” minus the most urgent, heart-wrenching depths. A low acoustic strum provides a foundation for Vernon’s stripped-down voice, before a drowsy, almost tropical steel guitar line slides in for an extended closer. It is a delicate song, over almost as quickly as it begins.

“Babys” fades in on brittle but not unjoyful eighth notes that sound as though they are being pounded out of the higher registers of a charmingly cheap piano. When the vocals eventually appear, Vernon sings, enthusiastically, about “multiplying” – the deliberately misspelt title is clearly a plural rather than a possessive. Behind an intermittent chorus of layered voices, the pounded eighths fade in and out, drifting between rhythmn and polyrhythm, harmony and dissonance, then die away in a confused crush of keys. However awkward this description sounds, it may be the most straightforwardly upbeat Bon Iver tune to date.

“Woods” may have started out as a one-liner – Justin ripping it on Auto-Tune – but it is worth the price of the entire record and then some. It sounds like what might have resulted if Aretha and Prince had been locked into a small room together in 1987 – one vocal thread yelps an extended, falsetto gospel solo to the heavens whilst the second, which is itself duplicated and layered throughout the lower registers, is all cool control, cybersex and Camille. It is brave, too, mutilating that sacred voice – practically Bon Iver’s entire raison d’être – and coming up with something that is still overwhelming and profoundly human.
82%

mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Blood Bank’

Bon Iver on Myspace

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’

Photography by Simon Godley

Tom Waits @ Le Grand Rex, Paris, July 25
The smoke of 1,000 Gauloises curled round Le Grand Rex’s art-deco facade in anticipation of Tom Waits, who was in Paris for two nights on his Glitter & Doom tour. Waits prowled the specially constructed circular stage like a demented carnie, injecting all of his 58 years of experience into a remarkable performance that swung from gypsy-folk to vaudeville to gentle jazz crooning. Sawdust billowed around him as he stomped his way across a circus ring of his own making. Skipping effortlessly through an extensive back catalog, Waits prompted the crowd to croon along with “Innocent When You Dream” before morphing into a human mirrorball, simply by swapping a hat, for “Eyeball Kid”. When a shower of glitter fell around spotlit Waits at the climax of “Let It Rain”, it felt as though the audience had been transported into the ringmaster’s own peculiar, magical universe. An outstanding showman giving his all in a beautiful venue on a warm summer’s evening – I’m pretty sure it doesn’t get better than that.—Ro Cemm

Wave Pictures @ the Borderline, London, July 30
The most striking thing about seeing the Wave Pictures live is just how amazing – as in, virtuoso level – a guitarist David Tattersall is. On record it’s easy to be sidetracked by the sharp, funny lyrics and almost overlook the musicianship, but live, it practically smacks you around the head. Nearly every song in their set had a brilliant guitar solo – always a genuine, worthwhile musical addition, never an excuse for a show-offy noodle. David was so engrossed in a particularly captivating break during “Tiny Craters in the Sand” that he didn’t notice when his whammy bar fell off, and looked most surprised when it was handed back to him afterwards. Part of the delight of the Wave Pictures is that they are such unassuming individuals, yet produce such a lyrically and musically brilliant performance. They are a band that can renew your waning faith in live music and leave you dashing for the last train home with a huge, foolish grin on your face.—Jude Clarke

Björk @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, April 14
The problem with being such a prolific attender of gigs is the inevitability that they stop being as special as they used to be. So it is pretty unprecedented for me to stagger out of a venue open-mouthed with incommunicable wonder, but that is exactly what I did on this unforgettable April night. Clad in a headdress made of multicoloured pom-poms, the irrepressible Icelandic pixie queen skipped onto stage to the tribal percussion of “Earth Intruders”. It was a spellbinding introduction to a show that, flat Antony Hegarty duet apart, was never less than enchanting. It’s hard to pick highlights from a night comprised almost entirely of them, although Toumani Diabaté’s stunning kobe on “Hope”, a bewitching rendition of “Hunter” and a glorious “Who Is It” all deserve special mentions, as does Björk’s fantastic 10-piece all-female brass section The Wonderbrass. But it was the unabashed techno-singalong of “Hyperballad” and the sheer jaw-dropping spectacle of “Declare Independence” that made the night transcendental, the latter’s mix of earth-sundering bass, silver confetti and arching lasers one of the finest closing numbers I’ve ever seen. Björk, I know you’re old enough to be my mother, but will you marry me?—Adam Elmahdi

Photography by Fleur Neale

Neil Young @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, March 8
In hindsight, I can’t believe I debated whether to go or not. Sure, the ticket prices were a bit steep, but you got some history for your cash. On the night, the set was split in half: first acoustic, then electric. I never thought I’d prefer the acoustic set, but to hear “A Man Needs a Maid”, “Harvest Moon” and “Ambulance Blues” so crystal-clear and in the flesh surpassed all my expectations. There were too many spine-tingling moments to distill into one paragraph. “Mr. Soul” sounded as fresh as it must have 30 years ago – God only knows what it was like then, because even now it sounds like a tear in the face of music. That was before I was floored by “Down by the River”: a wall of guitars cut through the years, trashing my sense of awareness and sucking me inside the sprawling anthem. It was only then that I truly realised I was in the presence of a living legend.—Rich Hughes

Photography by David Emery

Bon Iver @ St Giles Church, London, June 4
By June, Justin Vernon had watched the Bon Iver phenomenon flicker into being, ignite and roar through the music world. Still, through months of media and audience hysteria, he remained steadfastly modest. For a man concerned with all that is solid and enduring, a church whose history stretches back 900 years was a fitting venue for the last performance of his first UK tour. Three hundred lucky souls squeezed into pews and aisles, crammed into corners and dangled off balconies. Three hundred rocked back and forth, shivered and clasped hands with their neighbours to the strains of “Skinny Love” and “Flume” as Vernon’s crystal-clear vocals reverberated with an otherworldly significance; 300 filed out shiny-eyed and with a catch in their throats. Early Bon Iver gigs had left me with the thrill of discovery and later ones with the warm satisfaction that comes from a display of brilliant craft and flawless delivery, but that night has earnt an eerie, mythological place in musical memory, as though marking the time that Vernon crested an unfeasibly high peak and looked down on the world below with serenity and joy.—Emily Moore

Photography by Mike King

Photography by Chris Boland

Leonard Cohen @ Glastonbury Pyramid Stage, June 29
Forced out of retirement because of an evil manager who reportedly embezzled him out of $5 million, Leonard Cohen was back, literally performing for his livelihood. Most acts would struggle on the 80,000-capacity Pyramid stage, but Leonard Cohen immediately transformed the rubbish-soaked field into an intimate coffee house, performing one classic after another in his trademark whispered, weighty way. Each song was triumphant, from a singalong-to-the-heavens “Hallelujah” to a gorgeous, haunting “Suzanne”. Cohen lowered his cap and bowed to the audience after each song in gratitude. It is difficult to describe precisely how, but it transformed me. I have never seen a gig like it and quite possibly never will again. Kudos to you, Leonard.—Shain Shapiro

Photography by Valerio Berdini - another date, same tour

Elbow @ De Montfort Hall, Leicester, October 16
“We haven’t played a gig this good in years,” Guy Garvey said as Elbow left the stage, and you could well believe him. That night, every song was played to its utmost strengths – the brass stabs at the beginning of “Starlings” were never more fanfare-worthy, “Mirrorball” never so cascadingly lovely, “Newborn” never so heart-wrenching and “Grounds For Divorce” never so vituperative. Everyone in the room sang along, attempting to restrain themselves from punching the air as Garvey cajoled them and himself into greater vocal heights. Some artists struggle with the leap from small venues to huge halls, but Garvey thrived on it: swapping banter with the crowd; leaning forward on the mic stand as if to make a physical, literal connection with the audience; projecting that voice of bruised experience and heart right around cavernous De Montfort Hall. On their post-Mercury Prize victory lap, Elbow had nothing to prove and they played as though they were on top of the world. (Which, to be fair, they were.) The crowd knew it, too, singing back on the mini-anthems, deathly quiet on the wracked ballads. Guy passed on a marriage proposal before “Mirrorball” and, on receiving the good news afterwards, declared, “Thank fuck for that!” He bid the happy couple, “Congratulations – now here’s a song about gut-wrenching heartbreak” before launching into “The Stops”. Like pre-encore closer “One Day Like This”, whose televisual ubiquity has not dented its emotional heft one bit, the whole set was at once gorgeous and triumphant.—Simon Tyers

And the rest…

2. Radiohead @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 3
3. Tindersticks @ End of the Road Festival, September 14
4. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
5. Neil Young @ Roskilde Festival, nr Copenhagen, July 5
RC

2. Envy @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 18
3. Betty and the Werewolves & The Research @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 5
4. Fleet Foxes & J Tillman @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
5. Holy Fuck @ 100 Club, London, April 8
6. Melt-Banana @ Soul Tree, Cambridge, June 24
7. Port O’Brien @ Concrete + Glass Festival, 93 Feet East, London, October 3
8. The Resistance, Holy Roller & Fuck Dress @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, October 11
9. The Death Set @ Reading Festival, August 23
10. Volcano! @ the Portland Arms, Cambridge, November 16
JC

2. Sigur Rós @ Latitude Festival, July 19
3. Sunset Rubdown @ Luminaire, London, May 22
4. Joanna Newsom @ Latitude Festival, July 20
5. Wolf Parade @ Electric Ballroom, London, December 1
6. My Bloody Valentine @ Roundhouse, London, June 20
7. The National @ Olympia, Dublin, May 15
8. Of Montreal @ Koko, London, October 16
9. Wildbirds and Peacedrums @ Luminaire, London, June 5
10. I’m From Barcelona @ Scala, London, November 25
AE

2. Jens Lekman @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
3. Fleet Foxes @ the Junction, Cambridge, November 11
4. Band of Horses @ Shepherds Bush Empire, London, July 8
5. Rolo Tomassi @ Portland Arms, Cambridge, September 29
6. Elbow @ Corn Exchange, Cambridge, October 6
7. Johnny Foreigner @ Barfly, Cambridge, May 6
8. James Blackshaw @ CB2, Cambridge March 29
9. Fuck Buttons @ Barfly, Cambridge, February 7
10. Battles @ EITS ATP, Minehead, May 17
RH

2. Young Marble Giants @ Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 28
3. My Bloody Valentine @ the Roundhouse, London, June 23
4. Shearwater @ St Giles Church, London, November 22
5. Edwyn Collins & Roddy Frame @ the 12 Bar, London, July 29
6. The War on Drugs & Bowerbirds @ the Windmill, London, August 20
7. HEALTH & Skeletons @ Luminaire, London, May 1
8. David Thomas Broughton @ Red Eyed & Blue, the Wilmington Arms, London, May 13
9. Wave Pictures @ the Enterprise, London, March 11
10. Fanfarlo @ the Nash Room, ICA, London, April 25
EM

2. The Gaslight Anthem @ LA2, London, December 5
3. Sigur Rós @ Westminster Central Halls, London, June 24
4. Bon Iver @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London, September 11
5. Shearwater @ Bush Hall, London, September 17
6. Frightened Rabbit @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, New York, October 17
7. The Revival Tour @ Blender Theater, New York, October 13
8. Hauschka @ King’s Place, London, November 11
9. Billy Bragg @ the Roundhouse, London, March 4
10. The Hives @ Brixton Academy, London, April 18
MP

2. The Burning Hell @ Cafe Zapata, Berlin, October 15
3. Jeffrey Lewis & Los Campesinos! @ Lee’s Palace, Toronto, May 29
4. Stevie Wonder @ O2 Arena, London, September 11
5. Slayer & Mastodon @ Hammersmith Apollo, London, October 30
SS

2. Johnny Foreigner & Dananananaykroyd @ the Charlotte, Leicester, October 1
3. Bon Iver @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
4. Dirty Three @ End of the Road Festival, September 12
5. Okkervil River @ Truck Festival, July 19
6. Of Montreal @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 10
7. The Acorn @ End of the Road Festival, September 13
8. Future Of The Left @ This Ain’t No Picnic weekender, KCLSU, London, September 27
9. The Mae Shi @ Summer Sundae Festival, August 8
10. Ballboy @ Indietracks Festival, July 27
ST

Well… we’re sorry for the delay, but the two Rich’s here at TLOBF Towers have been burning the midnight oil, counting each of the votes… And now we’re ready to announce it!

According to you, the lovely, well-dressed and gorgeous readers of TLOBF, the album of the year IS:

Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight (FatCat)

Woo hoo! We’re hoping for a statement from the lads sometime soon, so we’ll update this article as and when.

In case you were wondering what fleshed out the rest of the top 10, here you go:

2. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago (4AD)
3. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes (Bella Union)
4. TV On The Radio – Dear Science (4AD)
5. Simon Bookish – Everything/Everything (Tomlab)
6. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend (XL)
7. Deerhunter – Microcastle (4AD)
8. The Dodos – Visiter (Frenchkiss)
9. Elbow – The Seldom Seen Kid (Polydor)
10. Johnny Foreigner – Waited Up Till it was Light (Best Before)

An excellent choice of albums there folks!

The winner of our awesome goodie bag of musical loveliness will be notified by the end of the week.

In case you’ve missed out on all our Frightened Rabbit features over the past 12 months, you can catch the album review here, and our Twilight Sad v Frightened Rabbit two part interview here and here.

And it’s a Merry Christmas from those fine folks over at 4AD… they’ve given up for grabs a FREE label sampler featuring some of the finest acts of the year. Those include TV on the Radio, Bon Iver, The Mountain Goats and It Hugs Back:

Go to this link to enjoy said treats: http://www.4ad.com/features/2008/

TV On The Radio “Golden Age” (taken from Dear Science)
Deerhunter “Nothing Ever Happened” (taken from Microcastle)
Department Of Eagles “No One Does It Like You” (taken from In Ear Park)
Anni Rossi “Ecology” (taken from Afton EP)
Stereolab “Neon Beanbag” (taken from Chemical Chords)
Atlas Sound “River Card” (taken from Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel)
It Hugs Back “Work Day” (taken from forthcoming album Inside Your Guitar)
Minotaur Shock “My Burr” (taken from Amateur Dramatics)
Johann Johannsson “Melodia (i)” (taken from Fordlandia)
Bon Iver “Skinny Love” (taken from For Emma, Forever Ago)
The Breeders “Bang On” (taken from Mountain Battles)
The Mountain Goats “Sax Rohmer #1″ (taken from Heretic Pride)

Ho ho ho!

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"]

This album is a hard one to review. Oh yes. Not because it’s bad, its brilliant, and I’m so impressed by That’s The Spirit (Ottawan native Ben Wilson, with some help from a few good friends) that to put into words how much i like this album would take up 3 pages and probably only consist of the word ‘incredible’. And that wouldn’t make a good review. When I do try, whenever I get a good point in my head, I automatically forget it because im too lost in the music. This album feels like an album. It isn’t a collection of songs loosely bundled together. It’s a positive cloud of music, something almost tangible. When Staying Places is playing, an atmosphere is created that is ethereal, almost dream-like and at the same time, a focused concentration of well placed instruments and vocal lines. In fact, if I wasn’t woken up slightly by the vintage piano introduction of ‘It’s Curtains For You’ (a track that drifts across your mental horizon halfway through this release, and then leaves after less than two minutes), Staying Places would have me in a trance from start to finish.

Anyone familiar with the current trend of Folk/Americana/Alt-Indie sweeping over the American and Canadian music scene will probably not be surprised by what they’re hearing when they first play through Staying Places. Well written music, gently sung, with obscure and ornate instruments popping in and out to add colour to what are essentially simple 3 minute minus pieces of music. For the uninitiated, expect from ‘Staying Places’ surprising and inventive songs that will mature greatly over multiple listens. One of the best parts of Ben Wilsons opus is the way that every time you play through the tracks, you hear them in different ways. A bit hard to describe, but you just notice something new every time. For example, the main thing I noticed on the first listen of ‘Always Coming Back’ was the way that it contrasted quite strongly to the first few tracks purely for having an afrobeat, stomping drum line. Second time through it wasn’t so much a “party” song, and I bypassed it completely only to get hung up on the sweetly plucked guitar lines in ‘Epic Advice’. It’s like there’s too much music for one album, and it’s constantly fighting for prominence. This competitiveness means that the next time your brain clocks onto a particular element of a track, or a song as a whole, you can be guaranteed that it won’t sound quite the same as the last time you heard it. This shows an astounding ear for song crafting. Not even songwriting, song crafting. It feels almost like Ben shaped the songs physically, putting little pieces in here and there to surprise or amuse, rather than just being sat in front of a mixing desk or apple computer.

Moving on, if I was to attempt to summarise the lyrical content of the album, I would probably refer you all to his press release. And before you shout out loud at such lazy journalism, its obvious to anyone that the best person to tell you about that is the artist himself (or at least his pr team), and as it was summarised so excellently, I would only butcher and misinterpret.

“From one angle, it’s a snapshot of the mind of the postmodern traveller – always wanting to be somewhere else, constantly in search of that idyllic exile, in a shrinking world with exhausted global space….From another angle, though, it’s a personal reflection of that age-old conflict of putting down roots versus extending branches – the comfort in routine, versus the challenge and excitement of the unknown and uncharted. From any perspective, Staying Places is meant to be a soulful, optimistic album for explorers and armchair travellers alike.”

There. But come on Ben, how was I supposed to guess that? Listen to the lyrics and actually put some effort into a review? Oh….that’s quite an idea!

…good answer.

Highlights of this album are many and commonplace, too many to go into without requiring a full dissection of the album. Clever use of natural reverbs, the way the almost brit-pop guitars of ‘Every City’ sit perfectly with Ben’s vocals, delivered with a soft throat comparable almost to Mike Love of Beach Boys fame in places. Indeed, comparisons to Brian Wilson may even be used when considering the composition of the album, which is always high praise. Shades of Grizzly Bear and Menomena can be found singing through at times, especially on ‘Unmake Me’ and ‘Orienteering’ respectively, to offer another two points for relation. However, it’s much easier (and feels a lot more validating) to say that this is a spotless, near-perfect release. Maybe I’ve just fallen in love with it, but i can see this album staying just as strong over time as it is now. It certainly packs a punch, albeit a punch covered in the fluffy woolen glove of spaced-out folk.

Canada, it seems, has its share of great artists making great music that combines quality songwriting and a skilled hand for lo-fi, delicate production. Sadly though, all we hear about on UK shores is Broken Social Scene and their in-house bands. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Broken Social Scene are incredible songwriters and musicians, but if there was any justice in this world, Staying Places and indeed Ben Wilson would be household names in Blighty as much as Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Feist, Emily Haines et al. are. Fans of the previously mentioned should check this gentleman out, because he makes top drawer folk music, and can easily stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Bon Iver and Iron And Wine. And for a debut effort, this is an undeniably evocative and accomplished collection of songs. Let’s just hope the postmodern traveller in him doesn’t decide to settle down before he gets his music (and himself) over to Great Britain to chart the uncharted some more.
85%

mp3:> That’s The Spirit: ‘Orienteering’
mp3:> That’s The Spirit: ‘Every City’

That’s The Spirit on MySpace

I rarely get any use out of MySpace nowadays – I’m either being spammed by some American cheerleader called ‘Brandy’ who thinks I’m really ‘hot’ and wants to get to know me a little better (when it’s most likely a Nigerian scammer planning to take all my money and/or kill me) or I’m being persued by some band or another who’s influences are Oasis, The Fratellis and Razorlight. *shivers* Really, it happens.

But without MySpace I wouldn’t have discovered this nugget of info. Posting on her blog, an excitable Sarah Siskind has just announced that she will be the opening act for the European Bon Iver shows in December. Oh yes.

Those of you that aren’t familiar with Siskind’s music will almost certainly be interested in knowing not only have Bon Iver been finishing their recent shows with her wonderful ballad ‘Lovin’s For Fools’ but her double EP Studio. Living Room was a huge influence on Justin whilst he was recording For Emma, Forever Ago. Check out the aforementioned track below. It’s a belter. And it might just make you cry. A little.

Those dates then:

December
3 – Dublin, National Stadium
6 – Belgium, Gent Vooruit
7- London, Apollo Victoria Theatre

mp3:> Sarah Siskind: ‘Lovin’s For Fools’

We’re still on a bit of a Bon Iver high here at TLOBF Towers. After last weeks epic show and the announcement of an all new London show in December and what not. Anyhoo – just stumbling around the interweb and I found this. Via MySpace no less – a live session Justin and the boys did a week or so ago. It features four live tracks from the much loved For Emma, Forever Ago – the title track (which is also the new single), ‘Flume’, ‘Blindsided’ and ‘Lump Sum’. The version of ‘For Emma’ is especially lovely – a little more stripped back than the one heard live last week. Also, if you wander over to the MySpace page – you can watch all the videos plus some interview footage to boot. Neato.

Grap the EP here.

It’s been quite a year for live music, 2008; an emotional roller-coaster of euphoria and heady nostalgia and all sorts of superlatives you might reach for to try to describe a clenched throat that doesn’t know if it’s holding back ecstatic cheers or warm tears.

There was the 12 Bar last month, a fragile Edwyn Collins leaning into the protective, wiry shoulder of Roddy Frame, straining resistant limbs and lips into familiar old shapes for a tiny crowd of shiny-eyed Dundonians. There was the Roundhouse a few weeks before that, Kevin Shields’ mouth yawning wide and silent into the din, my skin rippling as though the waves that buffeted the front row were real and not mere sound. And there was the holy still air of St Giles church, in the balmy early days of June, when Justin Vernon raised a guitar to the heavens and 300 faithful erupted into triumphant thanksgiving. It’s pure luck to be granted one such fleeting, epiphanical moment a year, never mind two from one quiet Wisconsinite. Iconic performances seem to have littered the summer months like chewing-gum wrappers, and now another has just fallen at our feet and blown past, reminding me of Winnaretta Singer’s line about the rare and particular breed of music that reminds us that we have “a reason for living on this rock: to live in the beautiful kingdom of sounds.”

Bowerbirds

The night belongs to Bon Iver, but it begins with Bowerbirds, old friends of Justin who seem to suffer slightly from always being the bridesmaid and never the bride. Their album Hymns for a Dark Horse is inarguably one of the year’s best – sparse but pure of tone, dissonant and often downright sinister, but satisfyingly full of glowing harmonies. Phil and Beth are both graced with idiosyncratic voices you’d not imagine would mesh easily with any other, never mind each other, but through some weird alchemy they are a graceful and captivating pairing. Still, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them fulfil their considerable potential live. Cranked up to fill a 2,000-capacity hall, their sound is inevitably heavy-handed and a bit crude, and a noisy crowd obscures the sound for all but those in the front. The miniscule variations in pace and tone that, on the album, reward infinite listens – Mark’s calmly confident presence on drums as opposed to Beth’s looser, more instinctive hand; Phil delicately sliding words on and off the beat – are near-inaudible. Phil moves the set along pacily, managing a difficult situation as best he can. “Matchstick Maker” is introduced as “the quiet one”; as he turns to Beth to start the song he seems to shake his head with a frustrated laugh. It’s gorgeous and understated to my ears, just about filtering through the chatter, but then I am barely two metres from the speakers. Mark joins the harmonising on new song “Teeth”, a three-part vocal wonder of Beach Boys magnitude that fills the hall more robustly and bodes very, very well for the future.

When Bon Iver come on stage, the crowd goes eerily silent. It’s a moment, and a date, heavy with import; it feels as though the weight of history is on them. They slide into “Flume”, all clarion electric guitar and full-throated vocals. It’s a big sound, a confident, almost stadium sound, all the quiet soul-searching and introversion of the past few years blossoming into a glorious hope and confidence in the future that they can perhaps only now begin to express. Justin crackles with energy, thrashing around in a long, noisy finale to “Creature Fear”. He bounces between one of the ten or so guitars piled behind him and a keyboard in front, building up a massive wall of reverberating sound that echoes through “Lump Sum” and “Creature Fear”. New song “Blood Bank” crashes in like Neil Young at his most pounding and epic, all four-to-the-floor drums and Hammond-effect keyboard rising into high, throbbing dissonance. The crowd quiets for Mikey Noyce, the baby-faced, angel-voiced guitarist, to sing “Simple Man” (“We’re gonna do some covers for you now,” Justin announces half-jokingly, “cos we don’t have all that many songs, you know?”). By the time they kick into closer “Skinny Love” – as raw and assertive tonight as the album version is quietly brooding – there are three drummers on stage, all burning with fierce energy. The screams and applause, 2,000 pairs of arms raised high, maintain a hysterical pitch as the band retreat and re-emerge for an encore. With the first bars of “For Emma”, there are cheers and suddenly hundreds are clapping along in time – faintly embarrassing but for the genuine adoration behind it. Band and audience rollick through the song with joyful abandon. Then there’s a hush as Bowerbirds emerge. They gather round an old-school chrome mic. Justin is holding an acoustic guitar.

Bon Iver have covered Sarah Siskind’s “Lovin’s For Fools” many times by now – always in closing, always near-a capella, mostly with Bowerbirds but also, once, with Siskind. Youtube clips like this one have been flying around with abandon. The song distills much of what is so special about this band: the way they reach for strength through vulnerability; the way they reveal the agony and ecstacy at the core of humanity. There is nothing more that a mere description of the timbre of a voice or the pluck of a string can convey.

Set list
Flume
Lump Sum
Creature Fear
Blindsided
Blood Bank
Re: Stacks
Simple Man (Graham Nash)
I Believe in You (Talk Talk)
Skinny Love
The Wolves (Act I and II)
For Emma
Lovin’s For Fools (Sarah Siskind)

More photos

mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Flume’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Lump Sum’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Re Stacks’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Creature Fear’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver & Sarah Siskind: ‘Lovins For Fools’ [Live in Nashville]

Last night Bon Iver played the biggest show of his career to date at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire. One of the most mesmerising shows TLOBF has seen in a long, long time. We think Justin was as moved as the few thousand people who witnessed it. Review coming soon – I for one am still finding it difficult to string a coherent sentence together… In the meantime – we have great pleasure in announcing this ‘lil tid bit. Literally just hit our inbox..

London, Friday 12 September 2008 – The critically acclaimed Bon Iver have today announced that they will be one of the first live music acts to perform a very special and intimate show at London’s Apollo Victoria Theatre on the 7th December.

Bon Iver (an intentional mis-spelling / adaptation of ‘Bon Hiver’, French for ‘Good Winter’) is the work of Justin Vernon, a former member of Wisconsin quartet DeYarmond Edison. Vernon, who wrote the material in 2006 whilst living in a log cabin, used very little equipment – just a couple of microphones, a baritone guitar, two drums, a horn, a reverb pedal. These few items, when combined with enough space, allowed the songs that form this record become far more than sum of their parts.

Vernon explains : “I recognize that the record is enigmatic and special in a strange way. I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there.”

And there was much rejoicing!

Damien Jurado

Jagjaguwar and Dead Oceans, the consistently fine spin off labels from Secretly Canadian have oodles of interested signings and new releases coming up – so, in a condensed form, heres everything in one bite sized-ish post. Here goes…

Bon Iver

Signed in the US to Jagjaguwar (4AD in the UK) Bon Iver appeared on New York radio station WMYC this week. You can stream the appearence below, which features mega performances of ‘Creature Fear’ and spine tingle inducing rendiditon of ‘Flume’. Plus a chat about the album, which to be fair doesn’t really reveal too much. Just the same old “so I hear you recorded this in your fathers log cabin” etc etc.. Still worth it for the songs though – listen below:

If mp3′s are more your bag, then you can still grab the A-M-A-Z-I-N-G live session from Daytrotter.

mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Flume’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Lump Sum’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Re Stacks’ [Daytrotter Session]
mp3:> Bon Iver: ‘Creature Fear’ [Daytrotter Session]

Also, watch this recent footage of Bon Iver and labelmates Bowerbirds perform Sarah Siskind’s ‘Lovin’s For Fools’ shot at the Bowery Ballroom in NYC. Hopefully they’ll perform it together at Shepherds Bush Empire next month – Bowerbirds are supporting Bon Iver at the sold out show on 11th September. Speaking of Bowerbirds, Brooklyn Vegan has some real nice shots of a recent show of theirs, here.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Women

Jagjaguwar will release Women’s self-titled debut full length on October 7th, 2008 throughout the world (January, 2009 release in the UK, and Canadian label Flemish Eye is releasing the record in Canada.) The band will tour the U.S., Canada and Europe in support of the album throughout 2008, and tour dates will be announced soon.

The band’s debut was recorded by Sub Pop and Flemish Eye artist Chad VanGaalen over 4 months on ghettoblasters and old tape machines in his basement, an outdoor culvert and a crawlspace. Sometimes light and spacious, at other times eerie and dense with an ominous weight, Women hint at the Velvet Underground, Swell Maps or This Heat; a lo-fi masterpiece cloaked in layers of vibrato and guitar wash.

mp3:> Women: ‘Black Rice‘
mp3:> Women: ‘Group Transport Hall‘

These Are Powers

After witnessing the chaos and energy of a These Are Powers live set, Dead Oceans were immediately enthralled with this band, and after a long courtship and some hot and heavy dating, they have finally announced the start of a long and fruitful union. First, Dead Oceans will re-release Taro Tarot and Terrific Seasons in October 2008, followed by an LP of new material in the first part of 2009. The band will support the re-releases with tours of both North America and Europe this autumn.

mp3:> These Are Powers: ‘Cockles’

Secretly Canadian have a couple of decent releases coming up too.. David Vandervelde’s sophomore album Waiting For The Sunrise is released next week in the States (22nd Sept in the UK) – fairly decent easy listening fare. Look out for a review soon. Also, Damien Jurado is set to release his new LP Caught In The Trees on 9th September in the States (27th Oct in the UK) – judging by the lead track ‘Gillian Was A Horse’ we’re in for some what of a treat. I can never understand though why we have to wait so long for UK release dates..

Oh – and one last thing, Dead Oceans new signings The Donkeys will release their staggering self-titled debut on September 8th. It really is quite fantastic – download an mp3 below and see for yourselves. Country-rock at its very finest. Look out for a review nearer the time of release.

mp3:> David Vandervelde: ‘I Will Be Fine’
mp3:> Damien Jurado: ‘Gillian Was A Horse’
mp3:> The Donkeys: ‘Walk Through A Cloud’

Land Of Talk are to release their new album Some Are Lakes on October 6th. The follow up to last years Applause Cheer Boo Hiss will be released by One Little Indian in the UK and Saddle Creek in the US. The album was recorded in Montreal with Justin Vernon (Bon Iver) – which I’m sure, is going to make the album sell a few extra units..

Some Are Lakes track listing:
1. Yuppy Flu
2. Death By Fire
3. The Man Who Breaks Things (Dark Shuffle)
4. Some Are Lakes
5. Give Me Back My Heart Attack
6. It’s Okay
7. Young Bridge
8. Corner Phone
9. Got A Call
10. Troubled

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.

Bon Iver. Photograph by Sarah Cass.

The reputation of Justin Vernon, aka Bon Iver, precedes him like a particularly florid trumpet fanfare. Never mind the insular indie music press – if you’ve opened a Sunday supplement or flipped past Jools Holland recently, you’ll have seen his emotionally wrenching debut For Emma, Forever Ago hyped almost beyond the limits of logic or sanity. The tale of For Emma‘s creation entered modern mythology pretty much immediately: Vernon had spent years chasing success with a number of bands, most lately Wisconsin four-piece DeYarmond Edison (true), endured a difficult breakup (true) and a nervous breakdown (untrue), retreated to a remote log cabin (true) and spent three icy months in total isolation, his only sustenance a few bits of melted snow and a deer he killed with his bare hands (almost true).

It hardly matters now what actually happened and what’s just wild exaggeration. Without even planning to record an album, Vernon emerged into the spring of 2007 with nine tracks of atmospheric, minimal acoustic guitar and octave-spanning vocals, layered into an intensely personal, primal sonic epiphany. (He’s said, beautifully and a little spookily, “I recognise that the record is enigmatic and special in a strange way. I can’t take full credit for it, and I was the only one there.”) He self-released For Emma to instant Pitchfork acclaim, was picked up by Jagjaguar in the US and 4AD in the UK and took this year’s SXSW by storm. Still, he’s a thoughtful, funny, humble soul who is more interested in international politics and music with a conscience.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the cabin experience. It seems quite distant by now from the music itself.
Well, that’s what I like about this whole story picking up. As much as the story’s about me, the reality is that I’m down here and the story’s out there and I can get out of the way a little bit. It’s created its own enigma, it’s created its own path, and I can enjoy it for what it is. It could be really weird if I didn’t have the right perspective on it. I think I would go insane if I didn’t.

Maybe because we’re city people, we’re fixated on specific details, like the cold – which you grew up with, I’m sure for you it’s not that big a deal – and the deer. Did you find it strange that people latched onto it and romanticised it?
Surprised, no. Caught off guard, yeah. I just didn’t think it would get to this point. I didn’t think I’d be sitting here talking to you, in London. But it makes sense. To me it was just a couple of months. I mean, I don’t want to take away from it, from the fact that it did feel special, as far as the courage it took to take the time off and to leave some stuff behind. That’s the part that feels very real, kind of sacred. But the other stuff, the enigma and the story – it’s a good metaphor, moving to a cabin in the woods. But for the most part I think it’s just people wanting to take control of their life and make a decision that’s hard to make, that’s bold and that requires a lot of courage to change your life. At the end of the day, when it all boils down in the pot, that’s what’s ringing true to people.

How does it feel to watch this thing take on a life of its own?
I let it go. I don’t really have time to get caught up in that. But I think the interesting thing, the thing that’s really touching and special about it, is that when I made these songs, they were done in such a specific way, with such specific vibes and cadences and notations and references, and odd ones at that. So the fact that people are coming back to me and saying, “That’s what got me” – I’m like “That’s pretty weird, man”, because I’d never thought in a million… I’d thought that was very hidden and majestic, and the fact that it’s reaching you in the capsule that I set it out in, that’s crazy to me. That means that people operate on levels outside of what you think would be mainstream.

After a storming performance at ATP vs Pitchfork (words such as “heart-piercingly beatiful”, “magical” and “entrancing” have been thrown around), Vernon heads to London’s Forum. At 7.30 on a Friday night, the venue is packed to its 2,000+ capacity. He’s backed by a second guitar and drums, all three men singing in glorious falsetto harmony to transform the album’s intimate reverberations into all-encompassing wall of sound. There’s a twinge of gospel about Bon Iver live, a potent blend of the joyful and the melancholy. After the set, the applause and cheers roar out for ages. Vernon gives half-embarrassed waves and thumbs-up signs as he packs up. It sends the crowd into a frenzy. There are screams for an encore long after he’s left the stage.

It seems like quite a jump to translate songs like yours, where it was originally just you on your own, to the stage, and for everyone to sing along. Have you learned anything as you play them live that maybe you didn’t see in them at first?
I think you get to know them a little bit. These songs are mysterious enough where you’re still learning about them. They’re like people almost. You get to know them and you become familiar with them but they can still surprise you.

I’ve heard you didn’t go about the songwriting in a very conventional way. Is it right that the sound came first – you were sort of singing without words – and the lyrics came later?
Yeah. Imagine drawing a picture. If you’re sitting with a blank piece of paper and you start drawing lines, freely, going with your gut, eventually you realise that you’re making something. And that result is so interesting because your hand and your gut and your mind made that shape, but you didn’t necessarily know you were going to sit down and draw a house or a circle or something. But you made it for a reason. I’m not talking about fate – I think it’s subconscious. So you set down a form of a song and you start humming ideas and not only do you go “La la la”, you toy with the sounds of words.

So the shape and the sound and the cadence of the words followed the music very specifically.
Yeah. I would listen maybe 10 or 12 times, on different days, and on different days I would get different messages and they would all compile into these meanings, these songs that felt very complete.

Had you ever worked like that before?
I didn’t write like that before ever. It was very surprising. I used to just sit down with a guitar and write. And this was very fragmented and layered. Like one line times eight at a time. It was really freeing.

Those layers are really interesting because if you’re on your own with a guitar you could have ended up accompanying yourself in a very straightforward way, whereas the album never sounds like a man who’s on his own. Was it, consciously or unconsciously, a companionship thing? Sort of building a fellow human presence?
Yeah, I like that. I know there are a lot of kind of DIY records out there, where one person plays all the instruments, but I think I was conscious of those kinds of records being done already. Well, I didn’t even know I was making a record! But I think I was conscious of not having it sound like that, of really pushing my voice to make it sound like a female, or really low. But you know, when I was writing the album, I didn’t think that it would be made into a record. I thought that maybe these would be demos; maybe I’d be lucky enough to get a record deal and take it to a CBS orchestra and rerecord it, but it didn’t happen that way. So this is the record of this event, and that’s kind of cool. Maybe in 20 years I’ll redo this record that way, because at one point that was the intention and it’s just diverted.

Justin Vernon is a man with strident political views, part of the grand old American tradition of Guthrie and Dylan that views outspokenness as an artistic duty. Luckily he’s got the brains to back it up, with a degree in world religious studies and a thoughtful, articulate manner. “I’ve always been geared towards humanism, the ungraphed human condition,” he muses at one point. But he’s not without a sense of humour or a hilariously unexpected profanity. “I actually just pulled out my senior thesis the other day,” he goes on, shyly. “It’s kind of corny. It’s called ‘Leaving God, Finding Religion’. No no no, ‘Leaving Religion, Finding God’. Cos the reverse would be pretty fucked up, wouldn’t it! Ha ha!”

To me this record touches on a lot of aspects of the noble side of America, like the founding myth, the frontier, Transcendentalism, that haven’t really been part of our vision of America recently. With the election in sight, it feels like a bit of a turning point for Europe’s understanding of America.
I hope so, man. I think about that a lot. Not necessarily in regards to this record, but I talk to musicians at festivals and think about music and what it did in the 1960s, what music meant to culture, to western civilisation. It was a serious thing. I think somewhere around the corner, and I don’t know if it’s in three years or next year or 10 years, I do feel a rejuvenation in patriotism in America among young people. Because patriotism was so not cool around 2001. All of a sudden it had been commodified into bumper stickers on your car – fucking “Save America”, “God Bless America”. But in the last eight years, with the George Bush presidency, not only are people involved in politics but they are starting to become involved in the heart of America, that rejuvenation and that idealism. When you see Barack Obama speak, for instance, it’s not just a political thing. You feel the emotion. It’s something that isn’t just on paper.

It’s a different understanding of patriotism, isn’t it. It’s an optimistic kind and a very active kind.
It’s a responsible one. Because you live in a country that’s free, you ought to have some responsibility for that, some accountability. It’s been impossible in the last eight years to feel very American and feel good about it one ounce.

It’s easy to look back on the history of music and read musicians as speaking for the time, but that’s kind of culture’s job, isn’t it? The idea of responsibility is really important. Otherwise why would you pick up a guitar.
Exactly. And the 1960s did so much for awareness. It armed people, and it’s still arming people. People still listen to music from the 1960s now for the first time and it arms them with a mind, with the knowledge that they can make their own mindset. I think if there’s going to be a next step to that, it is taking that armed psyche and turning into into something that’s manageable and bendable and mouldable. I mean, I’m a dreamer too, so it could not happen and we could be fucked! I just feel like something’s going to happen soon. I just don’t know what.

What do you see the next 12 months holding for you?
I think I need to… well, I don’t need to make a record. It’s having courage and responsibility and following through to find the right perspective. To find the time and the honesty – because it takes hard work to be bold and to be honest and to approach yourself in a way that’s real. I really think that people are good people. But when you walk around in a big city, it’s like everyone’s like holding a mirror in front of their face. And instead of looking at them you’re looking at them looking at you. You know what I mean? So I think it takes a bit of courage to stand outside of that sort of vortex and create something normal and natural. I’ve toyed with the idea of moving somewhere – I think that would be fun. It would be cool to go to Australia. But at the same time I think I ought to be able to sit in my bedroom and do the same thing.

A lot of bands I’ve talked to at a similar point in their career are very concerned with the idea that now they’ve got a successful record, there’s all sorts of pressure on them. The industry all of a sudden is affecting their output and they’ve got to fight against that. It doesn’t sound as though that’s too much of a concern for you.
It isn’t. You have to look at that and set it aside because it’s not real. The industry exists because of you, you know what I mean? It exists because of you and the music you make. It’s not a selfish thing. You make music for yourself, and you hope that it resounds with others. Or you make music for others and you hope it resounds with you. It doesn’t matter. As long as you’re not making music to sell records. That sounds sort of punk, but that’s not my reasoning. The fact of the matter is, if you’re not concentrating on why you started playing music in the first place, what are you doing? You’re part of an industry and you’re doing a job and that’s not what is mystical or magical about putting records out in the first place. So it’s kind of easy. Or it’s not easy – maybe I’ll fail. It’s all about perspective. So I’m using my off time on the road to – not to write, but just to start balls rolling. Set them down the hill and see what they look like when they get down there.

Bon Iver live in Europe:
31 May – Primavera Sound, Barcelona
2 June – SoundTrack 08 @ Crawdaddy, Dublin
4 June – St Giles, London
11 September – Shepherds Bush Empire, London
13 September – End Of The Road festival, Dorset

mp3:> Bon Iver – Skinny Love

Links
Bon Iver [myspace] [us label] [uk label]
[Download Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago]