My Bloody Valentine [Only Shallow]
Never has noise been so musical as when it is created by MBV. Loveless is an amazing wall of sound at once energising and heat-breaking. I only wish there was more for us to listen to.
Lali Puna [Faking the books]
Lo-fi, downtempo, German electro pop. I only have a small collection of tracks from Lali Puna, but they keep me coming back, again and again. Beautiful suff.
PS - sorry for the loooong break
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Kings of Leon [Cold Desert]
Difficult to beat for a bit of pumped up american rawk. KoL seem to get better and better with every album. Can’t wait for the next one.
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Jedi Knights [May the funk be with you]
Yummy electro to get your week started. Enjoy.
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Isaac Hayes [Walk on by]
Of course I was tempted to post ‘Theme from Shaft’ but this is an incredible cover version of what many would consider an un-coverable song. Who’s the man? That’d be Isaac then.
Happy Mondays [Step On]
Marrying the late 80s rave and indie scenes the Mondays made some of the best party music ever. And Sean Ryder is a poet. And they had Bez.
Gorillaz [Feel Good Inc.]
Demon Albarn is a genius. With Gorillaz he combines hip-hop, art house and pop to make fabulous, interesting, dancebale and most of all life-affirming music. Plastic Beach is not quite as good as these two, but it’s still one of the best albums this year. Check out their Glasto performance for more…
Franz Ferdinand [Take me out]
Bit tricky this one. There was no artist that jumped out at me in F as having an unfailingly brilliant catalogue. There are some great bands in there, but they’re all a bit patchy. Given that Franz Ferdinand edged it because their album Franz Ferdinand is so special. Indie sensibilities with a disco influenced rhythm section. Like a souped up Blondie for the 00s. Never before has a song about the political touch paper for the first world war been so dancebale.
Eurythmics [Sweet Dreams]
Could have been Elbow or Elliot Smith, but I’m on an 80s tip. Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart combined and for a few short moments they made pop music cool again. Love it.
David Bowie (Heroes)
The quality of the Bowie catalogue (think Space Oditty, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes) makes it hard to pick standout tracks. That said, for me, the Berlin-trilogy (Low, Heroes, Lodger) made in collaboration with the godlike Brian Eno are the albums I’d take to a desert island.
Apparently the vocal to Heroes was recorded with Bowie at one end of a long corridor with three mics placed 9 inches, 20 feet and 50 feet away from him. Genius. Anyway the result is kind of magical. Much like all of his music.
[And I know this should really be under ‘B’, but I don’t care. It’s my list :-)]
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Cocteau Twins
C is clearly the category of the amazing lead singer. Liz Fraser has an extraordinary voice, with her refusal to sing real words only enhancing it further. I particularly like posting this track (from the Otherness EP) as I get to pay tribute to its producer, Mark Clifford of Seefeel, who added the kind of shimmering magic that made Seefeel the natural successor to the Cocteaus.
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B is for The Beatles (obviously!)
There are so many good artists in the B’s. But for me it could only ever have been the Beatles. From frantic pop like their high energy version of Twist n Shout to the quiet beauty of Blackbird. Along the way they changed music forever.
With Tomorrow Never Knows they invented much of modern electronic music … in 1966. Enough said.
A is for Aphex Twin
From Digeridoo to Analogue Bubblebath, there is not a more inventive musician in my catalogue. Nosebleed techno to floating ambience, drawing inspiration from asthma, anagrams and all things electronic.
I could have picked any track from his massive body of work, but I picked this one. Enjoy.
Close runners up: Air (but we’ll meet them again later)
