Best Albums 2009 (International)

INTERNATIONAL ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 2009 (Irish excluded, see post below)

10 - The Juan Maclean - The Future Will Come
A release on James Murphy's DFA Records, this is the closest we came to an LCD Soundsystem release in 2009. John MacLean's offering was one of the dance-punk-electro records of the year.


9 - Bat for Lashes - Two Suns
Natasha Khan's second offering might not have the depth of first album Fur and Gold, but thanks to single 'Daniel', her star went bright, giving her the recognition she deserved.


8 - The XX - XX
A strange mix of electro-indie-pop and melancholic lyrics; should have been gloomy, but rather uplifting. Even better live.


7 - Florence and the Machine - Lungs
Poetry, fairytales and the bizarre from the recesses of Florence Welch's mind; plus some superb pop songs, made this a debut to be reckoned with. Better than the hype suggested.


6 - Wilco - Wilco
The self-titled eighth offering from Tweedy, Kline and co. After Sky Blue Sky, who would have believed they could keep the quality coming? They did.


5 - Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Dark, dark, dark offering from Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife. An electronic morass. Also gave rise to one of the strangest gigs we have ever seen at Oxegen '09. Affecting.


4 - Tinariwen - Imidiwan
Eight-piece electric guitar group, hailing from the bowels of the Southern Sahara Desert, release album of the year contender. Fabulously intoxicating.


3 - Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Swirling, LSD influenced psychedelica album from the ever-intriguing Avey Tare and Panda Bear, featuring Beach Boys-esque Baroque Pop and, well, a slew of other influences. Superb.




2 - Passion Pit - Manners
A joyous, bouncy, electro-pop delight from Michael Angelakos et al, released after the superb EP Chunk of Change. Tracks like Sleepy Head and The Reeling will never, ever leave your head/ears/consciousness after listening. The squeaky vocals were divisive, but the energy is terrific. Best gig of Electric Picnic '09 also, in our estimation.




1 - Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
Best album of the year was a difficult call between Animal Collective/Passion Pit and this Warp Records classic, the follow-up to superb debut Yellow House. Fantastic. (Review below)




Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest
(Warp Records)

IN 2004 Grizzly Bear - then largely the solo project of Ed Droste - released the hypnotic Horn Of Plenty, an atmospheric record dubbed "anti-folk" in some quarters.
Whatever about that baffling label, in 2006 Grizzly Bear released Yellow House, a more complete offering, featuring a full band for the first time.
The journey this quartet have come over the release of these albums is interesting, and relevant to the album. This third offering from Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest, was released earlier in the summer but is already shaping up to be one of the finest of the year.
Veckatimest is definitely the group’s most complete offering in their short career. The band have said they feel it is their most accessible, but that is a debatable point.
This is an album that will take weeks to sink in, but as it does, it will insert claws and refuse to be put to the back of the pile.
Opener Southern Point feels like a folk song, but is suffused with a polka beat, driving it forward. Interestingly the band are one of the few non-electronic outfits signed to Warp, but, for all their folk-indie leanings, there is an electro feel to some of the songs on this.
Fleet Foxes comparisons are inevitable, if a little lazy; although likely to be this year’s best release, as that self-titled debut was last year, there is more complexity here, an element of darkness that does not feature on Fleet Foxes pastoral folk offering.
However, the cheery, uplifting doo-wah of clear album highlight Two Weeks feels like it could have made it onto Fleet Foxes album, if not a Beach Boys one.
The epic All We Ask features an opening spine-tingling central guitar part that Jeff Buckley would have been proud of, while the song itself goes through at least three distinct phases, rising and falling through thumping bass, military drums and soaring vocals.
This is an example of the genre-mixing, experimental rock that Grizzly Bear excel at and shows why this band are Radiohead’s favourites.
Listen to While You Wait For The Others and fail to be impressed, the band coming together sporadically for glorious multi-vocal choruses.
Superb.
RATING 5/5

Electric Picnic 2009 review

(Apologies for taking so long to get something up on the blog about the Picnic, the last few days have been spent recovering from a great weekend! Below is the piece I wrote for the Limerick Leader, pics are courtesy of Tonya O'Neill and Deirdre Cussen, so thanks to them. Looking forward to next year already, and Cois Fharraige this weekend! Cheers.)

THE sixth Electric Picnic festival was a very different affair this year with wellies a necessity rather than accessory as attendees trouped through mud fields that resembled the Somme, and stood in fear as black clouds threatened to rain on the colourful Stradbally parade.

However, although the feted ‘Indian Summer’ failed to materialise, neither did apocalyptic storms and the rain was restricted to showers on Friday and Sunday morning – with those hardy souls that stayed until Monday greeted with the perverse sight of clear blue skies and sunshine.

It hardly mattered for the near 32,500 fans that made their way to Thomas Cosby’s fields on the Stradbally plains, as those that pilgrimage regularly to the ‘Picnic’ were just relieved to be back, and those that were experiencing the music and arts extravaganza for the first time were wide eyed with wonder, some heard to mutter how they were simply “never attending Oxegen again”.

While the age profile may have met somewhere between the stereotypical notion of the Picnic and Oxegen being on opposite ends of the spectrum – certainly the mix of age was more noticeable this year – the fact that the organisers chose to extend the family campsite meant that many more free-running children were on display, a large crowd of whom were seen crafting toy swords in the Soul Kids area on Saturday, with an exciting series of duels taking place afterward.

Oxegen also scooped some of the top-of-bill acts that would have been more at home at Electric Picnic, and Friday’s line-up in particular was a bit hit and miss.

Main stage acts MGMT and a reformed Orbital failed to galvanise the huge crowds that greeted them, while even Zero 7 failed to turn in an impassioned performance. However, the acts on the fringes more than compensated, Villagers performing to a handful of well-rewarded fans on the Body and Soul stage and hip-hop crew Major Lazer turning in one of the gigs of the weekend by welcoming half of the crowd in the Little Big Tent onto the stage for their finale.

Comic Limerick rap duo The Rubberbandits later packed out this same tent, drawing huge cheers for their inspired blend of rap, hip-hop and showmanship, magicians, people dressed as drug paraphernalia and the Gardai drawing huge cheers.

On Saturday afternoon Ryan Tubridy made his way to the Leviathan area of the Mind Field – a large area that included the Literary and Theatre stages. Tubridy – fresh from his first Late Late appearance – hosted a festival revue, with a bizarre line-up of guests, including former TV3 presenter Lorraine Keane, and was later seen by the Leader in the VIP area nodding his head to the engaging strains of Madness, performing nearby on the Main Stage.

Ska trio White Cholera – featuring David Blake, from Limerick band the Brad Pitt Light Orchestra – performed on the Leviathan stage on Friday and Saturday night, drawing wild applause for their equally wild set.

Back out in the main site, the Tulla Ceili Band played the first of two gigs on the Body and Soul stage, first performing at 4pm and returning almost 12 hours later to close the stage, to the delight of the huge crowd present.

In between East London neo-folk band Tunng impressed on the main stage, while Lisa Hannigan looked a bit lost on the mammoth stage, but then she has played on every other stage and her success warranted such a slot. Limerick duo Size2Shoes played a Saturday lunchtime gig on the bandstand in the middle of the site, the O’Suilleabhain brothers professing their delight at playing at the festival afterward.

A large crowd gathered to hear fellow Limerick band Nick Carswell and the Elective Orchestra perform on the Tree Stage in Body and Soul on Saturday evening – and were moved to a standing ovation for final song From the Ground Up after a passionate and exuberant performance.

Brian Wilson lit up the arena on Saturday night through the strength of the set-list on offer, a Beach Boys greatest hits collection that almost made one forget they were listening in a muddy field in Laois. Wilson and his band The Wondermints brought the house down with spine-tingling performances of Good Vibrations and Surfin’ USA.

Although campers awoke to rain on Sunday morning – causing some to leave for home – the afternoon stayed dry and the evening boasted some of the best music on offer of the weekend, stellar performances from Florence and the Machine, Fleet Foxes, Bell X1 and Basement Jaxx delighting fans, while electro-pop outfit Passion Pit played what many termed the gig of the weekend.

Another superb year for Electric Picnic, despite the weather, and let us hope that organisers keep with the boutique, quirky nature of this festival for as long as possible.

Additions to Electric Picnic line-up!

More news in regarding the Electric Picnic line-up, which is now becoming one of the most complete for this or any year, in our humble opinion.

The superb Passion Pit have been added (yaay!) after an excellent gig at Oxegen earlier in the summer, and releasing the superb album Manners this year. Top quality addition.

Also added are diverse electro act The XX, who release their debut album this week and have been heavily tipped in certain quarters to make a breakthrough. We loved their song Crystallised, see here.
David Kitt also gets the nod (double whoop!) after his most recent album, The Nightsaver (tip for one of the Irish albums of the year) and a jaw-dropping turn in the Body Soul last year with his younger bro' in their Spilly Walker guise. Can't wait to see Kittser do his thang again this year.

Cadenza label boss and Chilean DJ/Producer LUCIANO’s new project AETHER is another of the new additions, "an entire orchestra of live sets, an orchestra of colour, shape, form and sound… with Luciano conducting", as the blurb tells us.

David Geraghty will also appear (listening to his new album as we speak) as will 8 Ball.

The line-up for the dance orientated Little Big Tent has also been released, consisting of THE HACKER, OPTIMO DJs, SWITCH, ZOMBIE NATION, DUKE DUMONT, AEROPLANE DJs, EBONY BONES, ARVEENE & MISK and JAPANESE POPSTARS to an already stuffed programme.

Woop! For a full A-Z listing of the line-up see here.

Tickets are still on sale for 240 big ones and available here. Stay tuned for more news and a large colour feature that is presently being prepared for next week's paper (hopefully!)

News, bits and pieces - return from holidays

Apologies for the lack of updates on the site, unavoidable due to my being in Southern Spain, although we did let you loyal readers know that Lisa Hannigan is coming back to Limerick in August, see post below.

Anyway, a few other bits and pieces for you here, including additions to the Oxegen line-up and more. Back with a longer post later.

See pic above for one of the additions to Oxegen we are getting excited about, electro-fun band Passion Pit, of which we are currently listening to their debut album Manners. They play the Hot Press New Bands stage along with:

LITTLE BOOTS, THE MACCABEES, SPINNERETTE, THE AIRBORNE TOXIC EVENT, THE TWANG, HOWLING BELLS, PATRICK WOLF, THE HOURS, WALLIS BIRD, DINOSAUR PILE-UP, HOCKEY, CAMERA OBSCURA, MUMFORD & SONS.

Confusingly, there is also an IMRO NEW SOUNDS STAGE at the Punchestown monolith festival, on which David Kitt, Director and Villagers will perform, the latter which we are pretty excited about. Not sure how David Kitt would feel about being described as "new sounds", but his latest album, the Nightsaver, is absolutely cracking, go get it now. Also playing are:

Heathers, The Joy Formidable, The Flaws, Yes Cadets, Cashier No.9, The Mighty Stef, Ruth Anne Cunningham, General Fiasco, And So I Watch You From Afar, Concerto For Constantine, Dark Room Notes Blood Or Whiskey, The Chakras and many more.

In other news, Sheffield rascals the Arctic Monkeys have announced that they are to release their as yet untitled third album on Friday August 21. The album was prodcued by Josh Homme in the Mojave Desert and Los Angeles and James Ford in Brooklyn apparently, and the track listing is as follows:

1. My Propeller

2. Crying Lightning

3. Dangerous Animals

4. Secret Door

5. Potion Approaching

6. Fire And The Thud

7. Cornerstone

8. Dance Little Liar

9. Pretty Visitors

10. The Jeweller’s Hands

Loads of dates announced (including the Reading and Leeds Festivals), but no Irish ones as of yet. Stay tuned.

Here at home, The Duckworth Lewis Method are to release their self-titled debut album - one devoted to their love of cricket. This amusing project is the brainchild of Neil Hannon (The Divine Comedy) and Thomas Walsh (Pugwash) - Lewis and Duckworth respectively - who have combined to produce an album telling of their love for cricket.

Mastered in Abbey Road Studios, all the songs are either "loosely or tightly connected to the beautiful game of cricket," we are told, and are "wonderfully crafted pop songs for cricket lovers and non-lovers equally to enjoy".

‘The Coin Toss’, ‘The Age Of Revolution’, ‘Jiggery Pokery’, ‘The Nightwatchman', ‘Test Match Special’ and ‘The Sweet Spot’ are just some of the track names.

Featuring guest appearances from Phil Jupitus, Alexander Armstrong and Matt Berry - and Cathy Davey - this intriguing project gets a release on July 3.

Some random thoughts..

Busy week this week, Size2Shoes on Tuesday (see below), Kyon and Rarely Seen Above Ground on Wednesday, and the rather excellent Belltable Sessions on Thursday. Best one yet? Possibly. I will have pics and some video footage up later.

Listening to a few albums this week:

Doves - Kingdom of Rust (a real grower, some interesting and dark electro beats in the mix)

Red Eskimo - The Grey Death Billow (I'm going to be talking a lot about this album from the Brothers' Delaney (Limerick boys, whoop!) in time, very impressive early impressions - a bit like Midlake meets Sigur Ros/Royksopp/The Shins' bastard children - in a good way - launch in Dolan's Warehouse on Friday May 8)

Passion Pit - Chunk of Change (2008 EP from hotly-tipped American electro outfit, debut album Manners due in May)

...And So I Watch You From Afar (Bizarre post-rock from this interesting Northern Irish outfit, Mogwai-esque I think, on first impressions)

Mogwai - The Hawk is Howling (The hawk certainly is howling on this superb album from the real deal - visceral, mind-blowing, dark and epic all at the same time)

Also seems Delorentos are now not splitting up after all, which is interesting. Seems Ronan Yourell realised what he would be missing out on and came to his senses. Hoping to have an interview with one of the boys in the coming weeks, watch this space.