News: Lana Del Rey to tour Australia

Big-lipped songstress Lana Del Rey is set to undertake her first tour of Australia in the new year.

I must admit, I’m not a massive fan of her work, but her popularity has taken such a massive rise over the past year it’s hard not to know who she is. She has called herself the “gangsta Nancy Sinatra” online and cites Kurt Cobain, among others, as her influences.

Her track “Video Games” saw her explode onto the scene earlier this year, attracting thousands of views on YouTube and sending blogs into a frenzy. Might have something to do with the fact that she’s well aware she looks like a porn actress. Maybe.

Video: “Kinda Outta Luck”

Albums of the Year: #15-#11

Part two of my mammoth list of albums of the year now… Don’t worry, the top ten’s not too far away. Here are some more that didn’t quite fit that high.

#15: Sleepingdog - With Our Heads in the Clouds and Our Hearts in the Fields

Sleepingdog, also known as Chantal Acda, saw her April release predictably shunned commercially (and, incredibly, critically too) - people like hooks, they like sing-a-long choruses, something to jump to when half zoned out on cheap wine. Sleepingdog works in a different way, offering melancholic, seductive beauty by the bucketload - WOHITCAOHITF is more a work of art than an album.

Listen: “Kitten Plays the Harmony Rocket”

#14: You Love Her Coz She’s Dead - You Love Her Coz She’s Dead

Apologies if you’re following this list in order and were expecting a smoother transition; I can imagine ambient piano to a whopping great picture of a wifey with a safety pin in her lip is a bit of a shock. YLHCSD might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but their debut somehow manages to be a roller-coaster of emotion with just distorted vocals, synth and beats. Truly a collection of earworms, no matter how abrasive.

Video: “Leap of Desire (I)”

#13: tUnE-yArDs - w h o k i l l

The stronghold Merrill Garbus has on the Internet’s blogging population is truly nothing short of stunning. After recording her first album mostly on a dictaphone it might surprise some to discover most of that influence has been kept for w h o k i l l, a delightfully quirky foray into actual, real live pop music.

Video: “Bizness”

#12: YACHT - Shangri-La

I was turned onto Portland-based YACHT quite late on in their career (well, with a free download of “Dystopia”, so pretty much this year), so I’m probably not the most qualified to tell die-hard fans how this compares. All I know is that Shangri-La-la-la-la-la has been stuck deep inside my temporal lobe for the best part of the year. And it still brings me very fond memories.

Video: “Utopia / Dystopia”

#11: Wye Oak - Civilian

If this were a list of albums that came out at inconvenient times, Wye Oak would take some beating. It seems that the Internet only caught hold of how good this album was after the title track was featured as Single of the Week on iTunes. Obviously they’re taking a lot of influence from Florence and the Machine’s vocal talent, but who wouldn’t? This is easily individual enough to beat her hands-down.

Video: “Holy Holy”

Listen: Spectrals release rather freaky Christmas tune

Still not afraid to sound like they’re stuck at the bottom of a canyon, dream-pop duo Spectrals have recorded a really quite lovely Christmas-themed track called “It’s Xmas and I’ve Got Everything I Want”.

In the scuzziest Christmas song you will ever hear (and I mean that in the nicest possible way), the brothers from Heckmondwick are sure to soak everything, even the innocent jingle bells, in a large vat of reverb. Fortunately, the vocal harmonies are still discernable, and the tune is actually pretty bloody catchy.

…And then it fades out… and when it comes back in, it sounds like a cassette player’s bad dream. A haunting “it’s Christmas” floats over a desolate soundscape of staccato guitar and amplifier feedback in possibly the most surreal four minutes of music witnessed by man.

You have to hear it to fully understand… But fortunately you can download the track with the wee down arrow to the right of the player. Merry Christmas!

Listen: “It’s Xmas and I’ve Got Everything I Want”

Albums of the Year: #20-#16

And it’s that time of year again. For me, this is the point where I stop blogging and let it die - but not this year! I promise! Ooh, dear…

Anyway, this year has been fantastic in terms of great music. It’s the first year in forever that the winner of the Mercury Prize actually deserved the title. It’s the first year in forever that the Grammy for Album of the Year went to an album universally accepted as good (well, by most people, anyway).

Anyway, the next four posts will sum up my twenty favourite albums of the year. I would point out that I may well have, uh, kind of forgotten some of them released earlier in the year. If I do I’ll note them at the end, all right? Good.

#20: Friendly Fires - Pala

What a year Friendly Fires have had. A successful trip on the festival circuit - they were great at T in the Park in the pouring rain - followed up by an equally successful album. Personally I don’t think it does as well as their eponymous debut but that was a very tough act to follow. While Pala seems unsure and muddled, there are some seriously catchy tunes on it, and you can ask nothing more of a band who specialise in catchy tunes.

Video: “Hurting”

#19: Kaiser Chiefs - The Future is Medieval

I might get a lot of flak for saying this, but I thought this album was genuinely quite good. Sure, the method of release was strange, probably a stunt, and threw the whole concept of album linearity right out of the window, but The Future is Medieval actually, as a whole, is neatly done and a lot of the music across the twenty tracks is more than listenable. Top job.

Listen: “Man on Mars”

#18: Architecture in Helsinki - Moment Bends

Now I’m not suddenly becoming biased since I moved to Australia (yeah, I did, what of it?). This band have been consistently great while simultaneously riding the twee wave in much the same way as Los Campesinos! have done. Perhaps a bit more understated, though. Moment Bends is more than that, though, it’s an evolution for the group. It’s more accessible and, in my most humble of opinions, excellent.

Video: “Escapee”

#17: Jhameel - The Human Condition

Here it is, the “who the hell?” of 2011’s list… but it’s very sad that this guy’s so under-appreciated. Back when I was first pointed to his YouTube channel (which was only Spring or so, not long ago), his videos were regularly only hitting three digits. Now, though, he’s blown up a bit more. Which is fantastic. His music is spectacularly diverse for one guy’s own work. 

Video: “How Many Lovers”

#16: Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness

“What?! Why is LC! so low in your list, you love them!” Yes, I do. I adore this band. I adore the members of the band, they way they formed, the style of their work, their maturing, and how it has peaked. Only I think it peaked with Romance Is Boring, which compared to this was a much more complete and enjoyable work. This, while still lyrically and musically excellent, doesn’t come close to the levels of their last record and so is stuck here. Sorry, guys.

Video: “By Your Hand”

Emerging: Soviet Dance Reunion

He might look like someone who might mug you on the way home from the pub (no offence or nothing, promise), but this seventeen-year-old Scot is an absolute genius with music. Having already received props (and plenty airplay) from Radio Scotland DJ Ally McCrae, I reckon it can only get better for the Dunfermline lad.

Here’s a track from his Soundcloud to show you what I’m babbling on about. It’s called “The Motherland” and has one hell of a drop. You can also download it which is very nice.