Bawley (Hearts) 2011: Top 5 Albums of the Year: Hummer

5. SBTRK - SBTRK / Gil Scott Heron and Jamie xx - We're New Here / Radiohead - The King of Limbs Dubstep/post-dubstep/bass music/the wobble sound/whatever was everywhere in 2011. While the clubs and radio playlists focused on the abrasive bro-step sounds of Skrillex, Nero and Skream there was another set of dubstep artists that were doing something more interesting thing at the other end of the post dubstep spectrum. With more guest singers than a sewing machine convention the success of SBTRKT's debut record is in its cohesiveness. From the soulful Sampha to the poptastic Little Dragon SBTRKT manages to find the best in his collaborators. The record is full of downbeat electronic pop and I love it. On We're New Here Jamie xx chops combines, re-samples and remixes Gil Scott Heron's 2010 album I'm New Here. Coming just before Heron's death the album has the feel of a tribute, but a fearless tribute. Opening track I'm New Here is a highlight as is the gorgeous My Cloud and the hands in the air closer I'll Take Care of U. Using chopped up drum loops (Bloom) and reverb washed vocals (Feral) Radiohead showed that the tools of dubstep could be applied to interesting progressive rock music. The Oxford group further embrassed the genre inviting Jamie xx and SBTRKT (among others) to re-work tracks on the TKOL RMX 1234567 collection.

4. The Horrors - Skying The Horrors have continued progression from goth punks to dark romantic pop masters. Skying has the band trying their hand at the stadium music of the 80's. The Cure, Simple Minds, My Bloody Valentine all the references are checked but this is more than just a re-cast of what has gone before. Skying is a large sweeping beautiful re-imagination.

3. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake The album as modern war document. Inspired by the front line artists of wars past PJ Harvey drags her paint brush across the canvas of war touching on aggression, righteousness, loss and the deep dark red of blood. The albums graphic (I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat, blown and shot out beyond belief - The Words That Maketh Murder) and gloomy (There are no fields no trees, no blades of grass, just unhurried ghosts are there - Hanging In the Wire) lyrics are at odds with the inspiring at times pompous music. Let England Shake is supposedly not a protest album but an observation of wars past and commentary of conflicts present. It is also superb.

2. Bon Iver - Bon Iver Free from his broken heart/log cabin myth Justin Vernon and band have produced an expansive technology assisted (yes, auto-tune) album of love songs. Drawing on place names real and fictional for song titles Bon Iver takes you on a journey one love song (real and fictional) at a time.

1. TV On The Radio - Nine Types of Light Released just days before the death of bassist Gerard Smith Nine Types of Light is a strange TV On The Radio record. Minus the walls of static and subversive lyrics the Brooklyn band seem to be (almost) happy. The new positive agenda is set on opener Second Song made personal on You and then executed with soul on standout track Will Do. The sparse ballad Killer Crane completes the records subdued first half. Before New Cannonball Blues and Repetition increase the pace towards the stadium sized riffs of closer Caffeinated Consciousness. It took me a while to get into this positive version of TV On The Radio but the sheer number of repeat plays has revealed Nine Types Of Light; my favourite album of 2011.

Live Review: Harvest Festival, Parramatta Park, 13/11/2011

The threat of rain has passed and the sun is shining as I join the growing smug of hipsters heading across Sydney's West towards Parramatta Park and the inaugural Harvest Festival.

Entering the site through the arts area means a short tour of the spoken word, comedy and cat suit performance art stages before arriving at the Windmill stage and New Yorkers The Walkmen.

I am not all that familiar with The Walkmen and their choice to start the day with a low key ballad confused me. This pattern continued and I found their set to be nice enough but hard to get excited about.

Harvest Festival promoters had promised a more civilised festival experience - fewer crowds, shorter lines, better food and no under 18s. I sat in the field listening to PVT, pint of cider in one hand plate of Churrasco in the other, and believed they had succeeded.

TV On The Radio open with Halfway Home but the show doesn't feel like it really starts until the band play Caffeinated Consciousness. The crowd has woken up and will continue singing, dancing, cheering along for the remainder of the set. New songs Will Do and Repetition fit perfectly next to older favourites like Red Dress, Young Liars and Staring at the Sun. A TV On The Radio performance has a lot going on and if there can be any complaint it is that Tunde Adebimpe's vocals are sometimes lost in the wall of noise. There are certainly no complaints as everyone in the crowd loses their shit to set closer Wolf Like Me.

Watching Bright Eyes I am surprised how many of the songs I recognise. They are familiar but not fantastic, after spotting a nurse handing out free sunnyboys I move on.

The sun is still high in the sky when Mogwai take the stage. The daylight only seems to highlight the raw power of the band. Pity the other acts across the site as on song after pummelling song the Scottish prog rock group seem to get louder and louder.

In 2008 I missed seeing The National at Glastonbury due to a savage case of food poisoning. In January of this year I came down with whooping cough just days before their Enmore Theatre show. So after two previous attempts and three weeks of self imposed isolation (just in case) I finally get to see The National. The band starts with a stomping version of Anyone's Ghost before the brilliant Mistaken For Strangers gets everyone moving. Front man Berninger's lyrics are complex and full of double meaning but this thinking man's band still know how to have fun. The soaring Bloodbuzz Ohio very nearly carried the audience away. Fake Empire and Mr November had the whole hill dancing. The show ends with Berninger stranded in the crowd shouting the words to Terrible Love. It may have taken three attempts but The National were worth the wait.

45 minutes after their scheduled start time the Flaming Lips appear on stage. Wayne Coyne arrives inside a giant zorb and the rest of the band are birthed from the va-jay- jay of a large orange woman. But just because they are on stage it does not mean the Flaming Lips are ready to play any songs. First streamer cannons, then Wayne Coyne has to walk his zorb over the heads of the audience, then balloons then more streamers. Another ten minutes later the band start to play She Don't Use Jelly, cue more streamer cannons, more balloons and a big sing along. More streamers, balloons and The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song follows before I give up. The Flaming Lips live show has always had a great reputation but for me I would prefer less gimmicks and a few more songs.

Harvest festival had been great so far but the day was always going to be about Portishead. The earlier delays have pushed back the start of Portishead's show. Rather than dull the mood this delay builds on the already high pre-show expectations.

The Bristol group starts with Silence, the teasingly long intro has the band jamming for a good few minutes before we get the first taste of Beth Gibbons' perfect delicate vocals. Mysterons follows and it is one of the few times you hear the band use the samples and scratching of their early 90s material.

Beth Gibbons is a reluctant star - when she is not singing she hides in the darkness. The reticent singer is more than made up for by the video show. Not content with just projecting the on stage action onto the screens, Portishead use stage attached CCTV cameras, mirrors, VHS tapes and analog video processing tools to augment the live images with pulses, shadows and crazy animations.

Wondering Star is Portishead's most beautiful and fragile song. The whole audience falls silent as the band's minimal beat carefully supports the perfect delicate vocals. In contrast Machine Gun is the most assaulting live track I have heard all year. The crushing beat physically turns my stomach, the guitars buzz and synth drone induces paranoia while the laser eyed Tony Abbott projections add a layer of fear - just brilliant.

The guitar riff on tonight's version of Glory Box is superb, highlighting that this the band's defining song should be celebrated as more than dinner party background music.

The main set ends and the band leave the stage with a chaotic version of Threads, before returning for an encore of Roads and We Carry On. A brilliant end to a brilliant set on a brilliant day, more next year please.

Read Silence, TVOTR Remixed

TV On The Radio had a good 2008, releasing the superb Dear Science, putting on amazing live shows and famously getting three songs in the Bawley 100.

Building on this success they are now releasing Read Silence a download only EP containing remixes of three of Dear Science less played tracks.

1. Shout Me Out (Willie Isz Remix by Jneiro Jarel)
2. Stork & Owl (Gang Gang Dance Remix)
3. Red Dress (Remixed by THE GLITCH MOB)

It is all great but for now I am really loving Gang Gang Dance’s take on Stork & Owl.

We Could Be Heroes

Bawley hearted artists such as Beck, Elbow, Hot Chip, Peaches, Franz Ferdinand, TV On The Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have recorded covers for an album raising money for charity.

War Child:Heroes is a compilation put together by the organisation War Child, which works to protect children in the world’s most dangerous war zones.

The War Child organisation has long used music to raise money and awareness for the cause. For their latest project War Child:Heroes they asked music legends like Blondie, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Ramones and The Clash to pick new artists to cover one of their songs.

The 15 track CD will be out in most countries on the 16th of February sadly Australians will have to wait until February 21st.

Here's the full track listing:

1. Beck - Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan)
2. Scissor Sisters - Do The Strand (Roxy Music)
3. Lily Allen - Straight To Hell (The Clash)
4. Duffy - Live And Let Die (Paul McCartney)
5. Elbow - Running To Stand Still (U2)
6. TV On The Radio - Heroes (David Bowie)
7. Hot Chip - Transmission (Joy Division)
8. The Kooks - Victoria (The Kinks)
9. Estelle - Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
10.Rufus Wainwright - Wonderful/ Song For Children (Brian Wilson)
11. Peaches - Search And Destroy (Iggy Pop)
12. The Hold Steady - Atlantic City (Bruce Springsteen)
13. The Like - You Belong To Me (Elvis Costello)
14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (The Ramones)
15. Franz Ferdinand - Call Me (Blondie)

Bawley (Hearts) 2008: Bawley crew albums of the year: Nick

5. MGMT 'Oracular Spectacular'

The latest in a long line of masterpieces bearing the signature of super-producer Dave Fridman (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Delgados, Mogwai...). This album was everywhere in 2008: In every shop, every radio and TV station – but deserved to be.

4. British Sea Power 'Do You Like Rock Music?'

'Waving Flags' was the year's best pro-immigration song, 'No Lucifer' borrowed a slogan from notorious British wrestler Big Daddy and 'Canvey Island' drew a complex analogy between a bird flu virus and a devastating flood. Really, what more do you need from a rock record?

3. Lambchop '(OH) Ohio'

Approximately the 10^th (depending on how you count) album from The Best Band In The World That Nobody Has Heard Of. Not a radical departure, more an amalgamation of all the styles the band has toyed with over the last two decades. Wonderful, as ever.

2. TV On The Radio 'Dear Science'

Sharp, funny, angular, joyous, intense. Very, very nearly album of the year....

1. Elbow 'Seldom Seen Kid'

...But in the end it was the songs that won it for Elbow. Guy Garvey writes lyrics that you could write essays about, without a single word out of place, and they work brilliantly. Heartbreaking, life affirming, devastatingly beautiful and utterly essential.

Runners Up:

Bloc Party, 'Intimacy'; Delirious?, 'Kingdom Of Comfort'; Vampire Weekend, 'Vampire Weekend'; Dodos, 'Visiter'; My Morning Jacket, 'Evil Urges'; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, 'Dig Lazarus Dig!!!', Half Man Half Biscuit; 'CSI Ambleside'

Bawley (Hearts) 2008: Top 5 Concerts of the year: Hummer

I don’t quite have the ego to tell you what were the Top 5 concerts of 2008, but I can list the 5 gigs I enjoyed most.

5. MGMT, Carling Academy, Birmingham, 10/11/2008

MGMT successfully blend massive singles like Time To Pretend, Electric Feel, and Kids in to a set of spaced out psychedelic rock providing a mind altering experience you can sing along to. (review)

4. TV On The Radio, Academy 2, Birmingham, 7/12/2008

This show would make my Top 5 for the encore alone, Family Tree, A Method, Let The Devil In and Staring at the Sun: does it get any better? (review)

3. LCD Soundsystem, Enmore Theatre, Sydney, 26/01/2008

Touring on the back of the brilliant Sound of Silver, LCD Soundsystem (with an Arcade Fire cameo) deliver a brilliant set of intelligent dance and post punk music.

2. Hot Chip, Carling Academy, Birmingham, 29/10/2008

From Max Tundra’s bizzaro support slot, to the indie disco of Over and Over and the emotional sing-along closer, this show was the most fun I had inside all year. (review)

1. Glastonbury, Worthy Farm, Somerset, 26-29/06/2008

Glastonbury + Sunshine = My number one concert of the year. (review)

Live Review: TV On The Radio, Academy 2, 07/12/2008

Back in September I declared TV on the Radio’s Dear Science my album of the year. After tonight’s show they may well be my live act of the year.

Tonight at Birmingham’s Academy, the bands are playing on the smaller Academy 2 stage. First up, London band Big Pink whose fuzzed out pop songs get a subdued but positive reaction from the crowd.

TVOTR’s decision to start their show with a few older tracks alienates some of the audience, but as soon as the drums of Wolf Like Me kick in everyone loses their shit and the band is instantly forgiven.

Golden Age and Dancing Choose keep everyone dancing, no one more than front man Tunde Adebimpe who has sweat pouring off his face.

On the Dear Science album DLZ is effortlessly cool, but tonight’s version is fierce: the lock step beat drags you in while guitars bring up a wall of noise and Adebimpe literally spits and sprays rage-filled lyrics.

The bearded Kyp Malone is everything Adebimpe is not. He barely moves, barely blinks, barely has a care in the world but on Province, when Malone’s falsetto vocal joins Ademipe’s midrange rhyme, you can’t imagine them ever being apart.

The five piece band and all their paraphernalia barely fit on the smaller Academy 2 stage meaning it is only when they leave the stage that the audience get a look at the mop-topped drummer Jaleel Bunton and bass player Gerard Smith.

Obviously the crowd want to see more, and the screams of encore are answered when the band return to play Family Tree. There is a short pause as the drum kit is dismantled, its parts distributed around the band’s five members who strike cymbals, crash drums and hit rhythm sticks right through A Method before going straight into Let The Devil In and closing out with the brilliant Staring At The Sun.


Family Tree:

Dear Science, Is it too early to declare my Album of the Year?

It has taken a full week of listening before I could even start writing this review of Dear Science: what is there to say about something that is so damn good?

Dear Science is TV on The Radio’s fourth album and it sees the band continue to hide their nihilistic message in falsetto vocals and diverse uplifting music that is polished beyond perfection.

Opener Halfway Home is a not a big jump from TVOTR’s earlier work; b-b-b-bar-bar, b-b-b-bar-bar lyrics, hand claps, awkward percussion, fuzzy synths and buzzing guitars.

Dear Science highlight Dancing Choose has vocalist Tunde Adebimpe spitting lyrics about the newspaper man, his squashed toes and a cramped dance floor while the band lays out some skronking horns and high-hat. The result: electro-funk on speed.

On the bands 2006 release Return to Cookie Mountain, guitarist/producer David Sitek looked to fill every space of every song with layer upon layer of sound. On Dear Science, he strips back these layers giving lo-fi delights like Stork & Owl and Love Dog the room to swirl around inside your head, while Family Tree - a string filled (forbidden) love ballad - provides the perfect comedown from Golden Age’s funk laden optimism.

TVOTR sign the album out with DMZ - a hate anthem for the apocalypse, and the euphoric Kip Malone-lead Lover’s Day, a track that is so sexy it should come with it’s own morning after pill.

Dear Science is more accessible and more consistent than anything TVOTR have done before; this doesn’t mean they have gone plain, boring or commercial - far from it. (Album of the Year)

The Golden Age

Mini Post: With new releases on the way from Bloc Party, Deerhunter, Mecruy Rev, and Deftones the next few months could be the beginning of the new Golden Age, or this could just be an excuse to post a link to the new TV on the Radio single Golden Age from the album Dear Science, due out on September 23rd.