SIART's Top 75 of 2013

 

It has been a very quiet year here at SIART. Life conspires to fill my time with work and family activities and has left little to no time for the blog. That being said, I have compiled a list of my favorite records of the year. They are presented in alphabetical order. If pushed to pick a number 1 I would have to say that it is The Phoenix Foundation's "Fandango", a sprawling two disc set of Kiwi goodness  that mashes up indie rock, synth pop, folk, ambient and a few other things into a heady, catchy brew of deliciousness.

    •    Alpine - A Is For Alpine

    •    Arctic Monkeys – Am
    •    Atoms for Peace – Amok
    •    Bettie Serveert – Oh Mayhem!
    •    Bibio –Silver Wilkinson
    •    The Black Angels – Indigo Meadow
    •    Blue Sky Black Death - Glaciers
    •    Boards Of Canada - Tomorrow’s Harvest
    •    Bomb The Bass - In The Sun
    •    Bot’Ox - Sans Dormir
    •    David Bowie – The Next Day
    •    Brothertiger - Future Splendors
    •    Chvrches - The Bones Of What You Believe
    •    Classixx - Hanging Gardens
    •    Edwyn Collins - Understated
    •    Elvis Costello And The Roots – Wise Up Ghost
    •    Crocodiles– Crimes Of Passion
    •    CSS –Planta
    •    Cut Copy - Free Your Mind
    •    Daft Punk - Random Access Memories
    •    Depeche Mode - Delta Machine
    •    Ducktails - The Flower Lane
    •    Empire Of The Sun - Ice On The Dune
    •    Four Tet - Beautiful Rewind
    •    Frankie Rose - Herein Wild
    •    Franz Ferdinand – Right Thoughts Right Words Right Action
    •    Goldfrapp– Tales Of Us
    •    Gramme - Fascination
    •    Holy Ghost! - Dynamics
    •    I Monster - Swarf
    •    Islands - Ski Mask
    •    Jagwar Ma - Howlin’
    •    Jel - Late Pass
    •    Kelpe - Fourth: The Golden Eagle
    •    Latyrx - The Second Album
    •    The Mary Onettes - Hit The Waves
    •    Steve Mason – Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time
    •    Paul McCartney – New
    •    MGMT - MGMT
    •    M.I.A. - Matangi
    •    Midlake - Antiphon
    •    Connan Mockasin - Caramel
    •    Janelle Monae – Electric Lady
    •    My Bloody Valentine – MBV
    •    Neon Neon – Praxis Makes Perfect
    •    New Young Pony Club - NYPC
    •    Nightmares On Wax - Feelin’ Good
    •    Nine Inch Nails - Hesitation Marks
    •    Peace - In Love
    •    Pet Shop Boys - Electric
    •    Phoenix - Bankrupt!
    •    The Phoenix Foundation – Fandango
    •    The Polyphonic Spree – Yes, It’s True
    •    Pond –Hobo Rocket
    •    Poni Hoax – A State Of War
    •    Primal Scream – More Light
    •    Queens of The Stone Age - … Like Clockwork
    •    RJD2 - More Is Than Isn’t
    •    Savages– Silence Yourself
    •    Small Black - Limits of Desire
    •    The Strokes – Comedown Machine
    •    The Suburbs – Si Sauvage
    •    Justin Timberlake - The 20/20 Experience
    •    Toro Y Moi - Anything In Return
    •    Toy - Join The Dots
    •    Unknown Mortal Orchestra – II
    •    Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires Of The City
    •    VANDAAM - VANDAAM
    •    Various - After Dark II
    •    Various - Trevor Jackson - Metal Dance 2
    •    Various - ZTT - The Organization Of Pop
    •    Washed Out – Paracosm
    •    Wire – Change Becomes Us
    •    Yo La Tengo – Fade
    •    !!! - Thr!!!er

Back 2 The Wild

 

Basement Jaxx are back with a brand new track, ‘Back 2 The Wild’. Quintessential Jaxx – a heavyweight groove, catchy as hell, mixing roaring lions, tribal
horns recorded in Kenya and vocals by two Korean Seoul Sisters,
Miss Emma Lee & Baby Chay.

Released on 37 Adventures on 12th April 2013.

 Basement Jaxx

 37 Adventures

Purple Crush

Psymun is a guy from Minneapolis making great instrumental hip hop. He's got a new EP out called "Purple Crush" which you can grab for free from his bandcamp page. Listen here then go get it. You'll like it....

Top 74 of 2012

 2012 - A slow year on SIART as far as posts go... Still, I listened to plenty of music this year, and seeing as how it's been a few years since I've done a best of list I decided to get into the year end spirit and offer up the records that made my year brighter. I haven't ranked them, but the top 5 would probably be my faves of the year. And yeah, it's 74, not 75. That is just the way it worked out. The one record that should be on here but isn't is Unknown Mortal Orchestra's self titled album from 2011. I discovered it the last week of 2011 and played it almost all of 2012. Still listen to it regularly. Can't wait for their new one next month - should make 2013's best of!

    1    Violens - True
    2    Whomadewho - Brighter
    3    Tame Impala - Lonerism
    4    TOY - Toy
    5    Pond - Beards, Wives, Denim
    6    Metric - Synthetica
    7    Bob Hund - Later Som Miljarder
    8    Donald Fagen - Sunken Condos
    9    Flying Lotus - Until The Quiet Comes
    10    Lupe Fiasco - Food & Liquor II
    11    Divine Fits - A Thing Called Divine Fits
    12    Smile - A Flash In The Night
    13    Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs - Trouble
    14    Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Meat And Bone
    15    Com Truise - In Decay
    16    Menomena - Moms
    17    Sam Sparro - Return To Paradise
    18    Breton - Other People's Problems
    19    Orbital - Wonky
    20    Thee Satisfaction - Awe Naturale
    21    The Time & Space Machine - Taste The Lazer
    22    Plug 1 & Plug 2 present First Serve
    23    Allah-Las - Allah-Las
    24    John Cale - Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood
    25    The 2 Bears - Be Strong
    26    Gotye - Making Mirrors
    27    Lovelock - Burning Feeling
    28    Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe
    29    Scissor Sisters - Magic Hour
    30    Santigold - Master of My Make Believe
    31    Kimbra - Vows
    32    Amadou & Mariam - Folila
    33    Barry Adamson - I Will Set You Free
    34    Fac Dance 2 compilation
    35    Chromatics - Kill For Love
    36    Crocodiles - Endless Flowers
    37    Daphni - Jialong
    38    The Darcys - Aja
    39    David Byrne & St. Vincent - Love This Giant
    40    Frankie Rose - Interstellar
    41    Graham Coxon - A+E
    42    The Herbaliser - There Were Seven
    43    Hot Chip - in Our Heads
    44    Jah Wobble & Keith Levene - Yin And Yang
    45    John Talabot - fin
    46    Mark Lanegan Band - Blues Funeral
    47    Miike Snow - Happy To You
    48    Phenomenal Handclap Band - Form & Control
    49    The Raveonettes - Observator
    50    St. Etienne - Words and Music By...
    51    Spoek Mathambo - Father Creeper
    52    Stars - The North
    53    Tanlines - Mixed Emotions
    54    thenewno2 - Thefearofmissingout
    55    Yeasayer - Fragrant World
    56    Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE
    57    DJ Food - The Search Engine
    58    Big Boi - Vicious Lies and Dangerous Rumors
    59    Bear In Heaven - I Love You, It's Cool
    60    Chrome Canyon - Elemental Themes
    61    Solid Gold - Eat Your Young
    62    Jason Lytle - Dept. of Disappearance
    63    PIL - This Is PIL
    64    Reptar - Body Faucet
    65    Robot Orchestra - Beat The Odds
    66    Shawn Lee - Synthesizers in Space
    67    Sweet Billy Pilgrim - Crown And Treaty
    68    Todd Terje - It's The Arps
    69    Zombie Zombie - Rituels d'un Nouveau Monde
    70    Lindstr繪m - Six Cups of Rebel/Smalhans
    71    BNLX - LP
    72    Actress - R.I.P.
    73    Grimes - Visions
    74    Four Tet - Pink

Tis the season...

... for posting my fave little compilation of Christmas music - hope you enjoy it!

Holiday Cheer from siart on 8tracks Radio.

Enjoy this little Xmas mix tape. It has a bunch of fun holiday music, both traditional classics and some leftfield gems too. A great soundtrack for whatever you are doing - decorating, dinner, cocktails. Happy holidays from SIART!

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
Christmas in Hollis: Run D.M.C. - Very Special Christmas
White Christmas - The Drifters
Happy Christmas - John & Yoko and The Plastic Ono Band with the Harlem Community Choir
Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding
Wonderful Christmas Time - Paul McCartney
Sleigh Ride - Ella Fitzgerald
Do They Know It's Christmas? - Band Aid
Blue Christmas - The Platters
Christmas Song - The Raveonettes
Happy Christmas - The Maytals
Happy Christmas - Pretenders
The Christmas Song - Marvin Gaye
Last Christmas - George Michael
Christmas Ain't Christmas, New Years Ain't New Years Without The One You Love - The O'Jays
Christmas Time Is Here Again - The Flirtations
It's Christmas Time - Yo La Tengo
All I Want For Christmas - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Christmas Reindeer - The Knife
Soulful Christmas - James Brown
White Christmas - The Flaming Lips
Christmas Rappin' - Kurtis Blow
I Was Born on Christmas Day - Saint Etienne
Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
Christmas Wrapping - The Waitresses

Hush Delirium

 If you are a fan of ambient/drone/instrumental/shoegaze music listen up - this is some very nice stuff!

Hush Delirium is an art / music project created by Mark Gardener (Ride) and artist Simon Welford. The concept is simple - the musicians involved in the project each create a piece of instrumental music that is supplied to Simon Welford. He then uses that piece of music as inspiration to create artwork that he feels is representative of the piece supplied. Once all the art is created it is then exhibited in gallery style exhibitions with the music being played at the same time, giving visitors to the exhibitions the complete ‘Hush Delirium’ concept.

The line up of talent involved at present includes Mark Gardener (Ride), Aziz Ibrahim (Ian Brown, Stone Roses, Paul Weller, Simply Red), Dean Garcia (Curve / SPC ECO), Adam Franklin (Swervedriver), Perry Pelonero (A Star / Bliss City East / SPC ECO/ Project Morpheme), Jaq Gallier, Chatham Rise (Minneapolis hoegaze band), Her Vanished Grace (New York dream pop band) and The Cult of Dom Keller (Nottingham psychedelic rockers).

The project is offering up a 9 track free download at their Bandcamp page and it is well worth checking out! Connect with Hush Delirium on Facebook.

The Stars

Catching Flies is a 21 year old producer from London. He is very fond of vinyl crackle, but doesn’t like pigeons. His tunes are lovely and laid back - kind of puts me in the mind of Onra or Bullion. You can nab this EP for free from his Bandcamp or from Facebook...

!K7 27

Venerable dance label !K7 turns 27 years old this year. As part of the celebration they are giving away a free single every Tuesday for the next month. Two songs from two different bands. First up is When Saints Go Machine b/w Motor City Drum Ensemble - very nice! Stream or down load the tracks below...

Fallout & Fire

R. Ring are The Breeders’ Kelley Deal and Ampline’s Mike Montgomery. Misra Records will release their debut 7” “Fallout & Fire” b/w “See” on October 30, 2012.

Swim & Sleep (Like A Shark)

Unknown Mortal Orchestra are one of SIART's favorite indie rock acts. Their debut album pulled me in with it's sinewy guitars and bumping beats, blending smoky psychedelia and soulful grooves. The band has just signed with Jagjaguwar to release it's new album in 2013. They have just released a teaser called Swim & Sleep (Like A Shark) which picks up where the album left off. Nice beats and a tasty ass guitar riff. Enjoy!

Killer

2:54 are sisters Hannah and Colette Thurlow. They will be opening for The xx on their upcoming US tour. This is their cover of the Seal classic "Killer"...

TOY