Lo-Fi-Fnk on fire.

Lo-Fi-Fnk did this chill remix of The Radio Dept.'s 'Heaven's On Fire' - go check it out! It's seldom bad when interesting artists remix good songs by other interesting artists...


I forgot to mention a few new cool tunes that are hitting the airwaves these days, such as the young Danish outfit 4 Guys From The Future, off the these days omnipresent Tambourhinoceros label. Check out 'Life Is Up To You'. Also Sufjan Stevens is making a serious case to make me buy his new record, The Age of Adz, lately by 'Too Much', which is a really catchy track, although it seems to remind me of an old Elton John tune I remember my parents used to like? I like the electronic direction in which he's going though.


I just got my paycheck, and even though the minuscule size of it means I'm still fucked and going nowhere, I just bought tickets for Klaxons and Foals' shows in Copenhagen this winter. I've also spent some time today signing up for apartments and such in Copenhagen - I'm looking forward to not having to traverse the country all the time to hear the music I like. Surfing The Void, by the way is strangely growing on me, and Foals have just made 'Wear & Tear', a b-side off 'Miami', available for download - check it out!


Now, I think I'm gonna spend a little more of my non-existant money on a few new records! Shit...

Sacrificing euphony for experimentalism.

I don't know what happened in the time between when I first heard Shout Wellington Air Force's debut album, Clean Sunset in spring, and was very thrilled with it, and now. I bought the album last week, and I must admit it really disappoints me. It's kinda like Dirty Projectors, but not quite as eccentric. Still too eccentric to be a pleasant listen in the long run. There's a fine line between being eccentric in a systematized way, such as Battles, for example, and losing structure. Clean Sunset loses structure. A few, very few, of the tunes are pretty good, such as 'Cherry Glands' (sorry, can't find it anywhere) and 'Astrid', but very often, the album becomes a cacophonous mess, topped by toe-cringing vocals. I'm gonna see them together with Sleep Party People tomorrow, that's gonna be interesting though.


One could make the case, that if the late 00's was dominated by indie folk, the early '10s could be the era of lo-fi or shoegaze. A few remarkable albums have hit the shelves this past week, each with a very high Pitchfork-score to accompany them. One is How To Dress Well's ethereal debut, Love Remains, and the other is Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest. The latter got a whopping 9.2 review, and might very well be in my next batch of records.


An album that will definitely be in my next batch of records is Treefight For Sunlight's debut album, A Collection of Vibrations for Your Skull. It's available for streaming through this week at Soundvenue. It sounds pretty promising, but it's gonna be very interesting to see, how it fares after the tenth or twentieth listen. In any case, at first glance, it's a very impressive debut!

Petite Machine.

Among all the exciting new music that is thrust at me every week from various sources, it can sometimes be hard to find time to enjoy one's old classics. It's really necessary to go into the cellar and check up on some of your old wines now and then though, and the same goes for music.

This past week and a bit, it has been Kashmir's 'Petite Machine'. There's such an intenseness to the heartbeat-like drum pattern and the chillingly imperative guitar intro, Kasper Eistrup's exigent lyrics, frantically trying to convince this girl, woman, that she's the only one who can "fix this petite machine", i.e. make him feel alright and at peace. She struggles to be convinced, and Eistrup's anguish eventually leaves him short of words, and in stead, the song explodes into one of my favorite guitar soli, that writhes and wails and cuts like a dagger that is slowly and painfully, but also resolutely torn from the heart.

'Petite Machine', together with 'Ramparts', is a curious letting go of control on Zitilites, an otherwise very subdued record. I love to listen to 'Petite Machine' while walking alone in the streets at night, with that gut-wrenching guitar solo piercing through the silence and darkness of the night like a projector illuminating what goes on deep in the corners and alleyways, illuminating intimate feelings of desperation and pain.

One of the most beautiful renderings of this song is found on the The Aftermath dvd - mmmmh!

The strangest revival.

Oi! I figured it was finally time for a major visual revamp of The Idioteque - out with the old, in with the new, as they say. Anyway, I hope you all find the new look real tasty!


I've had the strangest revival the past week or so. It's Interpol. I heard their new (eponymous) album once, streamed somewhere, and categorically decided not to buy it, as little more than 'Lights' and 'Barricade' really fascinated me. "Alright, post-punk-revival's dead for good", I thought. But then I put on Interpol's former album, Our Love To Admire, and thought: "This is a bloody good album, why haven't I heard this since maybe two years ago?". And thus, this past week has been Interpol-revival week. It all started with 'Rest My Chemistry', which is a beautiful ballad about being drunk or stoned or whatever, and seeing something, someone who's, in the magic of the moment, unbelievably youthfully gorgeous; as Banks fragilely croons:

So young, so sweet,

so surprised. 

You look so young,

like a daisy in my lazy eye.

Pretty sweet. Then there's of course 'The Heinrich Maneuver', a highlight since day one, when one of my ex-girlfriends presented Interpol to a then unimpressed me. There's a nice air of aggressiveness to this one. But there are also songs on ...Admire, like 'The Scale', or the impressive closing pair of 'Wrecking Ball' and 'The Lighthouse', that haven't really appealed to me before, but do so impressively this time around.


And then I though of how deservedly critically acclaimed Antics was, and how Turn On The Bright Lights, which I haven't ever even heard, was near the very top of many a decade-in-music list, and I thought: "Maybe I'd better buy the new one anyway...".

New-rave unrenewed - Klaxons reactualized?

Boy was the new-rave craze a strange ordeal huh? Looking back at what many people expected - feared perhaps - would be the next big thing, and the benchmark for the latter part of the 00's, when it arose around 2006 and '07, it seems strange that it vanished almost quicklier than it came, and almost all the bands slightly connected with the moniker disavowed it completely. It was a thorough craze though. I remember when Klaxons came to Roskilde in 2007, and everyone were dressed so neon that one could have thought people had shredded Björk's wardrobe from the evening before into pieces and divided it between them. Face paint was passed around, and people went amok.


So what happened then? Well, people grew older and more melancholic, and started to listen to Band of Horses, and when the absolute poster boys of new-rave, Klaxons, with their psychotically-acclaimed debut Myths of the Near Future, disappeared into LSD oblivion, their scrawny supporting cast of the likes of Hadouken!, Shitdisco, Late of the Pier and such could not raise the bar, and as such, Myths... became the singular epic record of the genre.


So, Klaxons disappeared for years, and when they finally came a-knocking on Polydor Records' door, they were sent back home with a firm "thanks, but no thanks", and fewer and fewer people started to expect that Klaxons would ever reappear. But here they are now, with their new album, Surfing The Void.


Now, how exactly do you handle a legacy and a tumultuous album-birth like that? Apparently, you dress your record in one of the weirdest-as-fuck covers seen in a long, long time. Musically, Klaxons surprisingly allied themselves with metal producer Ross Robertson. An interesting choice for a band, which has perhaps always been indie. I mean, back in 2007, when Iron & Wine were still strange, Bon Iver was still unheard of, glitzy vintage-style trainers weren't at the forefront of every a store and only lumberjacks looked like lumberjacks, Klaxons and glowsticks and genuine vintage trainers were indie. So Ross Robertson? Picture sweety-cutesy James Righton with a sweaty, unhygienic metal buff? Not really. And that's pretty much the signature change on Surfing The Void. Sadly, the often very finesse'y guitar riffs and Righton's dominant synths of Myths... have been replaced by more guitar noise on Surfing... Opener 'Echoes' is very much of a bridge-builder between the two albums though - so much, that it must be either from very early in the songwriting process, or, more likely, a result of Polydor's slamming the door on the band first time around. It is an extremely pleasing track, but it is the albums high.


It's not that the rest of the album is that bad. It has been slowly moving through the past week, from the 'disappointment'-pile into the 'slow developer'-pile, and on some tracks, like the totally mental 'Flashover', the excessive guitar noise does actually work pretty well. Title track 'Surfing The Void' and 'Venusia' are other highs on the album, but it never quite lives up to the promise of 'Echoes', to be honest. A lot really has to do with the lyrical universe, which is really irrelevant to most earthlings, as it takes on almost Matt Bellamy-ish degrees of space fascination.


I don't know what made Myths of the Near Future so legendary, but Klaxons in my opinion don't quite match their early success on Surfing The Void. It's been a difficult task though, and even though Surfing is a bit too noisy, unfocused and uninteresting, it is an honorable sophomore album in any case! New-rave it isn't, but Klaxons have proven able to reactualize themselves on one of the most difficult number twos in a long, long time. 

Beach Fossils, Wild Nothing and new albums.

Oi!

Just a quick word on this new band I discovered this week. They're called Beach Fossils, and they're from Brooklyn, NY. They released their debut album this year, and are now out with the EP Face It/Distance. Check out both tracks in the Forkcast. I especially dig 'Face It'. Might have to get a hold of their album.

Another new cool track in the same sorta direction is Wild Nothing's 'Golden Haze'. A nice wee piece of indie-dream pop, if you ask me.

I got a few new albums this week too, how exciting! One is Shout Wellington Air Force's debut full-length, the highly acclaimed Clean Sunset, which I have heard a few times now, and it's artsy in an introvert, but pretty interesting way. It might take a few listens to get a hold of, but the incentive is their concert with Sleep Party People in a few weeks here in my city.

Now though, I'm gonna throw on my earphones and surf the void!

Jens and Jónsi.

Alright, it's not like this is becoming a wednesday-ly feature or anything, but I just really have trouble finding the time to blog much these days. There'll probably be quite a few posts within the coming week or so though.

There are always albums that I quickly regret not having included on my yearly list, and that's truly the case of Jónsi's debut solo album, Go. As with his previous work with Sigur Rós, this is really slow-moving stuff - it's not the kind of album you're immediately crazy about, but over a few months, it's turned out to be just a masterpiece. There's such a presence of growth, vivacity and luxuriance in this. Take the intense opening pair of 'Go Do' and 'Animal Arithmetic', both very existential, lively pieces, that give way to 'Tornado' and 'Boy Lilikoi', a painful couple of gut-wrenchingly beautiful ballads. Or a track like 'Kolniður', which is a masterpiece of obscure gloominess. Go is an incredibly comprehensive and virilely life-affirming record.

Another Nordic bloke that I've listened quite a lot to as of late is Jens Lekman. His revelation has come pretty slowly, but is now pretty full-fledged. I know how everyone always rave about his best album being Night Falls Over Kortedala, his latest full-lengther, but my initial exposure has been to the inaptly titled Oh You're So Silent Jens, which is, in fact (I just found out), a compilation of three EPs Lekman released during 2004. What really carries Lekman through even the corniest of his arrangements are his lyrical wit; the way he intelligently describes very well known situations. I've often raved about 'Sky Phenomenon', where the sunset to Lekman looks "like someone spilled a beer all over the atmosphere.", and how he can't join the migratory birds on their trek south, apparently because he can't dance the funky chicken. But how about the clavichord-heavy 'Black Cab', where Lekman even risks getting killed by "psycho killer-cabbies" just to get home from a party. Haven't we all been in that situation? Or how about 'Someone To Share My Life With'? Normally, only really black and really gangsta rappers have got the cred to sing about blowjobs and fake orgasms, but Lekman breaks the rules - he "doesn't want a girl, who thinks she has to fake", nor wants "a girl to go down on her knees." He just wants someone to share his life with - how tender.

But there are also high musical proficiencies, often vocal, in spite of Lekman's very poor English and very poor voice, such as the clever acapella-bass of 'Pocketful of Money' and the heartbeat-chorus of 'A Sweet Summer's Night on Hammer Hill', and 'Julie', which is a beautiful little love song (in which Lekman manages to squeeze in "lots of ketchup and mayonnaise" anyway.) Another high is when 'I Saw Her In The Anti-War Demonstration', where Lekman proclaims that "now there's nothing left but love enough to feed a family, but I just want to feed Emily with lukewarm English beer and vegan pancakes". Emily, ofcourse, is a punk Lekman met in this demonstration. It just couldn't be any other way, could it? The best lyrical quote of Oh You're So Silent Jens really deserves to stand alone, it's from 'Pocketful of Money':

I could say that you were pretty -

that would make me a liar.

But you turn my legs to spaghetti,

and set my heart on fire.

Who has never thought that?

New albums on their way, some not on their way, and what else's going on.

Oi! First of all, big congrats to The xx, who won the Mercury Prize today. Awesome, especially after last year's shock-winner, Speech Debelle. Great stuff!


Other than that, I must admit it has been a bit quite as of late. I'm very busy these days, and I have a tough time keeping up with what's going on. I did however order two new albums the other day. One is of course Klaxons newest, Surfing The Void, which I highly anticipate. It's not like I listen to their debut very often, but it is a class album, and it's gonna be very interesting to hear, in which direction the nu-ravers have moved in the post-nu-rave world of the '10s. The other is Clean Sunset by Shout Wellington Air Force, a young Danish art-indie outfit. It was released in spring, and streamed it once off Soundvenue's website. It was pretty good, and they're playing in my town in a few weeks, so I figured I'd give it a more profound shot.


Speaking of streaming new albums, I had a listen to the new ones of both Interpol and Röyksopp, none of which impressed me enough to add them to the batch of new records. The new Interpol album, which is by the way eponymous, a strange thing for a fourth release, if you ask me, might make some inroads, but it's just a really long time since I've really listened much to Interpol. As goes for Senior, Röyksopp's new release, it is slightly less heavy than I had expected it to be. I know Röyksopp haven't ever been really heavy duty, but when they release an album that they specifically deem heavier and darker than its predecessor, Junior, I did expect a bit more aggressiveness.


Other than that, I'm still digging Arcade Fire's new album, The Suburbs. They made a really interesting montage-kinda-thing for 'We Used To Wait' - check it out!


Oh, and finally, Radiohead released a new live DVD with fan footage from their gig(s?) in Prague, which is absolutely blasting! Check out 'The Gloaming' which is really nice, and '2+2=5' too!

How Arcade Fire and Bloc Party are really counterpoints.

Indie has become a very broad term in recent years. A good example is Arcade Fire and Bloc Party, both of which would usually be referred to as indie, but two very different bands and fan factions nonetheless. The typical Arcade Fire aficionado would probably dismiss Bloc Party as being superficial, and Kele Okereke as a soulless singer, whilst the generic Bloc Party buff would probably be too impatient for Win Butlers wailing. They, in a way, represent the very different waves of indie that have blurted out of North America and the UK respectively. The UK is dub, electro and wonky influences of London, and Manchester garage, whereas North America is Brooklyn psych and Seattle folk.


This slightly vague introduction owes to the fact, that both camps have released new albums recently, the latter however in form of lead singer Kele's solo effort. back to that later.


I am not a tremendous fan of Arcade Fire. Or, perhaps more well put, I'm no big listener. I do admire their talent, and both their two first albums are genuine masterpieces - it's just sort of on a periphery to me. I've been through their latest album, The Suburbs, quite a few times now, and let's be frank: There are some extraordinary songs on it. Take the fast-paced, no-bullshit 'Month of May', the enigmatic 'Ready To Start', the beautifully moving 'We Used To Wait' and of course the album's definite highlight, 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)'. The lyrical theme of growing up in suburbia is really interesting too, though it seems to slide a bit in some of the songs, but mostly it's very present, especially on some of the above mentioned tracks. I think what ultimately keeps this album from really igniting me is its length. A full 60 minutes is really too much, unless you compose really slow-moving music (The Knife's Tomorrow, In A Year, for example, isn't too hampered by its length of an hour and a half). You kinda lose focus midway through, and although the album does pick up towards the end, there are moments of boredom scattered throughout. All in all, it is a pretty majestic record.


Kele, on the other hand, has really truly placed himself in between two chairs. I absolutely didn't expect much of his solo debut, being as I have never seen him as the interesting and creative force in Bloc Party - I do think both drummer Matt Tong and guitarist Russell Lissack deserve much more of the honor in creating what made Bloc Party so vivid. But Kele misses the target in an other way than I had thought. I was expecting an absolute departure from indie, and a creative (and perhaps brilliant) mess of electronic influences from incomparably vibrant London underground, that lives everywhere around Kele, but, it seems, not truly in him. Some wonky, some dubstep, some UK funky, some dance-punk - some of the same vigorous energy that seemed to seep through every tiny crack of Bloc Party's third album, Intimacy, on tracks like 'Ares', 'Mercury' and 'Zephyrus'. Alright, there is a tee-wee bit of dubstep-influences scattered here and there, but overall, The Boxer, as the album is titled, is a schizophrenic mess. It seems as though Kele hasn't quite taken the leap from being an indie rocker - some of the tracks, such as 'Everything You Wanted' and 'Unholy Thoughts' just sound too much like leftover Bloc Party. That is perhaps a strange thing to criticize from the viewpoint of a huge Bloc Party devotee like myself, but the knish is, it just doesn't work without Tong and Lissack's magic instrumentalisation. Same goes for Kele's lyrics (and voice, for that matter), that have been often criticized by Bloc Party haters. I find they fit very well into Bloc Party's musical universe, but not at all on an album that, at least partly, tries to be aggressive and underground-like. Kele needs to either take the leap full-fledgedly, or return to the gang.

Sufjan, !!!, Coma Cinema and massive Bon Iver porn.

Alright, there's some new stuff on the radar these days. Having abandoned his 50 states-project long ago, Sufjan Stevens is now back to making albums like everyone else. Or... Well, in any case, he's just dropped a new tune off his forthcoming release, The Age of Adz, and it's called 'I Walked'. It's somewhat of a departure towards more electronic stuff, which I find very exciting. Sufjan has unquestionable talent, but moving musically as he does on this album could mean we have some really interesting stuff in store!

Coma Cinema is an Southern indie-bloke, who's apparently on his way with a new album (thanks, Pitchfork!). I had a few spins of this track, called 'Business As Usual', which is pretty sweet!

Then there's !!!, among the pioneers of dance-punk. They're out with their fourth album, Strange Weather, Isn't It?. I haven't heard it all through yet (can't decide whether I'm gonna buy it or not...), but this track, 'The Hammer' sounds pretty promising. I never completely invested myself in their second album, Louden Up Now, which I have, but the new one might be worth a go.

Finally, I've been moseying for all the astonishing live clips of Bon Iver that are out there, and I figured I wanted to assemble a few of them.

First of all, he (or they) did a show with La Blogotheque in Paris, that resulted in this extraordinary version of 'Lump Sum'. It works really well with the glockenspiel, and it's slightly the same setup as on the Myspace Transmissions version here, which however applies a vibraphone in stead of the glockenspiel. Also, it has drums.

Also from the Myspace Transmissions are 'Blindsided', and excellent versions of 'Flume' and 'For Emma'. The latter copes really well with the transition from guitar to piano.

Back to La Blogotheque, the vids from there also comprise a very powerful version of 'Skinny Love'. Also 'The Wolves' from this session is awesome.

Daytrotter has a nice little live set, which includes both 're: Stacks', 'Creature Fear' and an(other) great live take of 'Lump Sum'.

And finally to top it all, nothing moves more than this massive take of 'Skinny Love' on Jools Holland - absolutely epic!

Alike and by Oh No Ono, the direction of north and unbought albums.

To unfavorably compare young (or old) bands to Oh No Ono seems to have become quite a norm in Danish music media as of late. Strange, as this is one of Denmark's most talented bands, but perhaps some find there's only room for one real outfit like that in our country. One of the bands that is most often equated with Oh No Ono are young risers Treefight For Sunlight. To some extent, the comparisons and alikeness might be true, but I find it does grow a bit wearisome. Nevertheless, it doesn't seem to slow this young band's impressive tour-de-force of an entry onto the scene - their first single, the lush and feel-goody 'Facing The Sun', was just voted Summer Hit of the Year by listeners of the radio channel P3, and their upcoming debut album is inarguably one of the most interesting releases domestically this fall. Yet another track has hit the airwaves now, with 'Riddles in Rhymes' being tested on acclaimed chart Det Elektriske Barometer just now. To mosey a bit more along the comparison-track, the intro of this sounds a bit like something Jens Lekman could have done. It's the kind of track that seems just an inch over the corniness-limit at first listen, but it is extraordinarily catchy nonetheless. Exciting!


Meanwhile, to stop by the kings of Danish psych-pop for just a sec, Oh No Ono themselves did an amazing cover of Radiohead's 'Weird Fishes (Arpeggi)' at Roskilde '09. I've often tried to sniff out a live recording of this, but have been unsuccessful, until now, but here it is, bloody hell!! It's from a concert in Paris in February, and it sounds like the exact same cover - and the recording is good quality to boot! Go go go go check it out immediately!


Other than that, through the past few weeks I've come to embrace a few albums I got a hold of this spring, but both of which failed to make an instant good impression. Namely they are The Radio Dept.'s Clinging To A Scheme and Gorillaz' Plastic Beach. Especially the former is an extraordinarily pleasant album. Try to check out 'Never Follow Suit' and 'Heaven's On Fire'. On the latter, I am now especially caught by the couple of 'Empire Ants' and 'Glitter Freeze', both really strong and interesting tracks.


I did finally hear Arcade Fire's new album, The Suburbs. I'm gonna give it a few more spins though, before trying to sound clever about it, but they are one talented bunch of musicians... I did not yet get a hold of Klaxons' new album, Surfing The Void, released this Monday. I'm waiting for the release of Junip's debut album, so I can order both and a few more at the same time. I also didn't yet get Trentemøller's Into The Great Wide Yonder, which honestly didn't impress me the once I've heard it through. One track deserves mention though, and that's 'Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!!'

Three new bands, two new albums, a parakeet and a guy called Troels.

I've literally got like loads of new stuff I want to thrust at y'all, but I'm gonna save a bit for later on. I got two new albums yesterday, Kele's The Boxer and Arcade Fire's very acclaimed third album The Suburbs, which I haven't heard yet - it's an hour-long monster, so that'll have to wait 'till I get back from Portugal in a week and a half. I hate to listen to new albums unconcentratedly. I spun through Kele's album yesterday, and it wasn't better nor worse than I had expected. More on that when I get a bit more into the bits of it.


I ran into quite a few interesting new names that I wanna share. One is Canadian outfit PS I Love You (yeah, that name is emo). Check out '2012', which is a kinda nice little piece of noisy indie rock.


Junip is the name of José González' new project, and their album is gonna me one of the most interesting releases this fall. Check out their myspace for a few tunes!


The third new name I want to share with you is Maximum Balloon, who are contenders on Soundvenue's High 5 list this week with 'Tiger'. They too have an album coming up this fall, which could contain some nice party tracks.


In the video department, iconic electro-minimalists and kings of portamento Ratatat, who released their fourth album, LP4, in late spring, and they made this awesome video for the groovy track 'Party With Children' - make sure to check it out!


Finally, Danish electro-wiz Troels Abrahamsen has dropped a few outtakes from his spring album BLCK, as kind of an apology for canceling his tour this fall. The good thing is, he's canceling his tour because he's busy working on VETO's third album - doesn't that sound intriguing? I sure do think so, and I'm very excited to see, in which direction they're going. In the mean time, check out the new stuff on Troels' blog - I especially dig 'I Don't Have To'!


So long fellers! I'm off to a week and a bit in the sun, and I'm happy to escape my tasteless flattie that's at the moment blaring U2 into the entire apartment. Who's Bono anyway?

The year in albums, august 2010 - 4/4.

#4
THE NATIONAL
Boxer
The National is a really slow moving band, and it took them four years to carefully carve out their masterpiece, Boxer from 2007. The National being The National, honestly there isn't much to say, many superlatives to attribute to this album, other than it being straightforward astonishing. The rich and moving arrangements, anchored by Bryan Devendorf's unsurpassed drumming, are the perfect backdrop to Matt Berninger's charismatic and very powerful baritone. The beginning of the album is pretty straight on, with the philosophic 'Fake Empire' and the annoyed 'Mistaken For Strangers', but what really truly makes Boxer shine is the impressive array of beautiful ballads. There's the magnificent couple of 'Green Gloves' and the poignantly anxious and almost incomprehensibly fragile 'Slow Show', the album's key track and an absolute masterpiece. But look a little farther down the track list and you'll find 'Ada', which is a true gem - a song that combines the band's folk roots with their knish for adding delicate sprinkles of horns and brass. More than anything, Boxer is just an incredibly pleasant album by one of the most talented bands in indie.

#3
OH NO ONO
Eggs
This, now, is a real coming of age. Whereas this Danish outfit's first album was sort of bland and uninterestingly poppy, from the first second, Eggs clearly marks out new territory for this silly-turned-psychedelic motley assembly of amazing musicians. Opener 'Eleanor Speaks' is a pompous, oriental-inspired track, which sort of readies the listener for the journey that Eggs really is. From here on, one ingenious, masterful track gives way to another and yet another. Oh No Ono utilize a remarkable amount of instruments and timbres, and nowhere has the band compromised anything. I am a big fan of thorough mixes and lush, vivid productions, and listening to Eggs in my phones is really a treat for the ears. There's the baroque and beautifully lurching 'Swim', the dramatic 'Icicles', the kraut-influenced 'The Wave Ballet' and 'Beelitz', the uplifting 'The Tea Party', but also lesser escapadic and experimental, but nevertheless absolutely well-crafted, pop-tunes such as 'Internet Warrior' and 'Helplessly Young'. But the highlight of them all might very well be the painful 'Eve'; a real flip-off to the ones who hoped Eggs would be another over fresh indie-pop effort. I am very impressed by how, on this track, this young band throws off every harness in which they've ever been, every template of radio-friendly pop they've ever followed, even every instrument they've ever played (as the track is completely electronic), to really utter their inner torments, beautifully expressed by Aske Zidore's marvelous voice and a ballad seldom paralleled in anguish and sincereness.

#2
ARCTIC MONKEYS
Humbug
Speaking of comings-of-age, here's yet another one. A lot of (now perhaps former) die-hard fans of this Sheffield foursome were disappointed when Humbug came, almost exactly a year ago. I, however, found it a refreshing new start for the still young band. Granted their debut Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not is still an unbeatable album in many ways, Humbug really showcases the Monkeys' talent for songwriting, rather than just their attitude. In many ways, the ballads of the band's two previous albums have been among those albums' most longevous tunes, and on Humbug, Alex Turner and co. turn down the tempo a notch, and turn the murkiness up. The album is refreshingly oblique, but, especially owing to Alex Turner's voice, you're not at any time in doubt about the band in question. 'Potion Approaching' rocks, 'Fire and the Thud' creeps passionately, 'Cornerstone' is cornily touching and 'Pretty Visitors' wallows in malicious energy. There's no 'I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor' here, but there's a sincereness and maturity that suits the Sheffielders very well, and could well brace them for a longer and more immersive career than their debut album's straightforwardness indicated.

#1
BON IVER
For Emma, Forever Ago
In many was, I have dreaded the day I eventually would have to apply words to this extraordinary masterpiece of an album, and I've pondered for a long time, what exactly makes these 37 minutes unlike anything else. Ultimately, I think it's got a lot to do with both the intimacy and the urgency that envelops Bon Iver's tragic tale of love lost. I mean, this is so raw. The random surrounding noises that recur throughout the album make you almost feel like you're there with Justin Vernon in his cabin in the heart of Wisconsin winter. You're the one brewing him coffee, and tossing a new log on the crackling fireplace, while he, immersed like a madman on a killing spree, squeezes out his innermost feelings on this iconic album. It is so intense, and so vitally imperative. For Emma, Forever Ago is essentially the breakup album of breakup albums, but the astonishing thing is, you get into the album's painful mood regardless of anything that surrounds you. There's a continuousness to this - Vernon's feelings assemble and dismantle themselves in this his excavation, as explained on the closer 're: Stacks'. The album is coercingly undivisible. 'Flume' and 'Lump Sum' build up to the emotional climax that is 'Skinny Love', followed by 'The Wolves', which is Vernon at his emotional low. Nothing in the world gets more grieving and bereft than this. Enter the albums second half, where, through 'Blindsided' and 'Creature Fear', Vernon manages to reassemble himself, and, although still in much pain and anguish, tries hard to move forward in some, in any, way, enabling him to reach some sort of conclusion on 'For Emma' and 're: Stacks'. Vernon's lyrics are often pretty indecipherable, but nevertheless his chillingly agitated melodies and arrangements tell the whole story. It is not yet a happy man that exclaims that "your love will be safe with me", lets his guitar ring out, turns off his equipment and leaves. It is not a man at peace, but it is a man who has tried his hardest to weep, cry, holler, sing and fight his way out of pain. The message and the agony of For Emma, Forever Ago is universal. We've all had our Emma, or even two or three of them. We've all had the woman, the girl, the man, the boy who has painfully and slowly exited our heart. Whoever Bon Iver's Emma was, it is perhaps thanks to her that the world has been enriched by this unequaled and utterly brilliant magnum opus.

The year in albums, august 2010 - 3/4.

#8
THE XX
xx
The list is littered with debut albums this year, but none of them are perhaps more of a statement than xx. It's only barely a year since the already iconic cover hit the shelves, but already new bands, or even old bands' new albums, are being spoken of to be in lieu of xx, to reminisce it. That's pretty impressive, considering the band's main philosophy seems to be the good old 'less is more'. Here is no plethora of guitars, sea of synth blips and blops or armories of percussion. The magic opener 'Intro' is basically nothing but a beautifully reverbed guitar, a bit of sample drums here and there and the bands' two intimate vocalists, their yin-and-yang'ish vocal work being a recurring pleasure on the album, eggingly ooing and humming, all on a bed of mellow synth strings. 'Intro' delivers the message perfectly: There's no fucking around. Xx is a remarkably secure and profoundly original debut, rightfully shortlisted for this year's Mercury Prize, and the first near-half of the record, all the way up to and including the touching 'Heart Skipped A Beat', is absolutely impeccably masterful. What eventually sends xx all the way down to the eighth spot is the continuation of the aforementioned sentence: The album does seem to wane considerably in quality, and although 'Basic Space' and 'Night Time' are decent tracks, the back-end 6 tracks just don't hit the nail on the head the same way the five first do.

#7
DELPHIC
Acolyte
Delphic's debut album Acolyte is, I think, best described as a 51-minute long roller coaster ride with numerous spins, loops, twists and turns. Not that the sound of the album twists and turns all that much - through the entire length of the album, we are treated with aggressive, potent, indie-electro that can be both straight-to-the-bone rocking like on 'Clarion Call', slow and persuasive like on 'Counterpoint' and 'Remain', hit list potential like on 'Doubt', or just plain epic like on the behemoth 'Acolyte', the title track itself, around which the album seems to revolve. To continue the roller coaster reference, 'Acolyte' is the wildest of the bunch. This is the Kingda Ka. The way the track transmorphs at 5:35 to an even more eclectic climax than the one just passed, that's just pure excellence and gut. I have always been fond of bands that understand to employ synth arpeggiators, think homegrown bands such as Marvel Hill and Spleen United, and Delphic is definitely band music, and as such, could be construed as 'rock'. It is however, almost as electronic as rock will ever become, and it appears clear, that the Manchester foursome is at their most comfortable when they're nudging their potmetres. As such, Delphic present a refreshingly new take on the perennial merging of indie and the dancefloor, although Acolyte seems to have ended up as more of a listener's album than a party album. There are very few sub par tracks on this album, which deserves to be mentioned among this year's best debuts, if the indie-folk and lo-fi geezers dare.

#6
THE TEMPER TRAP
Conditions
Watching indie develop has been one of the most exciting things in music through the past decade. We've seen indie-pop like Phoenix and Vampire Weekend, indie-electro like Hot Chip, indietronica like a plethora of bands, indie-folk like Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and so on and so forth, indie-psychedelica like MGMT. We've had dance-punk, we've had new-rave, we've had shoegaze. But how about indie rock? Well, that has become sort of a weak term, since many of the acts considered indie aren't considered rock, and many of the acts considered rock aren't considered indie. Rock has been left to giants of post-punk revival (such as Interpol), garage-revival (such as The Strokes and Arctic Monkeys) and new school rock'n'roll (such as Kings of Leon). Indie rock has been left to very few bastions, including Bloc Party, who themselves turned considerably electro on their last album. Enter The Temper Trap - a young, talented foursome from beat city, Melbourne, VIC. These guys fill just exactly the void I've drawn up above: They're decidedly indie, and they're most definitely rock. And fortunately, they do their thing in brilliant style on their debut album Conditions, a refreshingly simple album of... Yeah, indie rock music. Standout tracks such as 'Rest', 'Sweet Disposition', 'Fader' and the orgasmically intense 'Science of Fear' should leave no doubt about the amazing dynamics of this band - this is Kings of Leon without all the American rock'n'roll wank that makes them dull. A superb album!

#5
FOALS
Total Life Forever
So, atop these three young, debuting bands hovers the sophomore. However a Mercury Prize-shortlisted sophomore, a very deserved honor for Foals' Total Life Forever, a real slow-burner, on which all reviewers seemingly agreed to emphasize the need of hearing the album a dozen times before it sinks in. The Oxford-fivepiece showcased a lot of their talent and potential on debut album Antidotes, and has followed that up by expanding musically in almost every direction possible. It's their newfound groove and swagger on 'Miami', 'Total Life Forever' and 'This Orient'. It's their subtle yet delightful employment of electronic wooti-wooti on 'Alabaster' and '2 Trees'. It's how front man Yannis Philippakis has turned from whinesome yelper to actual singer. And it's their powerfulness on 'What Remains', 'After Glow' and the majestic 'Spanish Sahara'. The album starts out promising, but with this iconic and extra terrestrially impressive track, it really takes off, and rockets Foals into the upper echelons of art rock. From here, Total Life Forever doesn't look back, and the bottom two-thirds of the album is an overabundance of well-written, characterful and catchy songs. It contains a lot of the parts that make an album a truly great one - the tracks' ability to stand out for themselves, and to reveal themselves to you in vastly different paces, and the constant alternation between intensity and sensitivity, between gumption and pensiveness.