Autechre’s second release of the year is officially an EP, but is just as long as its companion album Oversteps. In the case of the second half of this EP, you can certainly hear that these tracks are different versions of tracks from Oversteps, continuing the ‘versions’ concept of their previous album, Quaristice.
However, the vibe of Move of Ten is quite different to that of Oversteps. Move of Ten is more beats-oriented. It’s glitchier, and it’s funkier. And, as you would expect from Autechre, it is all brilliant.
Babe Rainbow — Shaved
I have a bit of a hot and cold relationship with dubstep. It always seems like it’s on the cusp of being brilliant, but actual brilliance is thin on the ground. Latterly, a lot of it has sounded highly derivative.
But Babe Rainbow caught my attention. Maybe it’s because he’s on Warp, a label that had seemed to have given up on pathfinding electronic music. But this is exciting. In fact, it reminded me of when I was first discovering Warp and artists like Brothomstates. For my money, Babe Rainbow is the most exciting new Warp artist since Battles.
In that sense, I am surprised that Babe Rainbow hasn’t been getting more attention. Or maybe it just goes to demonstrate why Warp have given up on new electronic artists.
Caribou — Swim
Dan Snaith’s latest is poppier and more immediate than previous albums. It’s a bit of a foot tapper. Things have been stepped up a gear.
But none of the experimental or psychedelic edge of Caribou’s previous albums has been lost. As such, Swim is as good for your head as it is for your feet. Which is exactly how it should be.
VHS Head — Trademark Ribbons of Gold
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. It is so exciting to hear music this strong from a new artist. And it’s especially great to see it coming out on Skam Records, a label that has been largely dormant for the past five years.
Spliced together from samples taken from old VHS videotapes, Trademark Ribbons of Gold mixes the dark nostalgia of hauntology with the futuristic vision of IDM. Part Mordant Music, part Boards of Canada and part Jackson and His Computer Band — but also unlike anything that has ever come before.
This album is absolutely massive, and with the possible exception of Autechre’s releases, the standout of the year.
Jaga Jazzist — One-Armed Bandit
This is Jaga Jazzist’s first album in five years. Releases are few and far between. Apparently being a ten-piece makes it difficult for them to churn them out, though at least it’s alway an event when it does arrive.
I have to be honest. This isn’t my favourite Jaga Jazzist album. But it is still much better than most other stuff going. The band’s tip-top mix of jazz, prog and electronics is almost tailor-made for my ears.
The highlight of the album is undoubtedly Toccata, which builds and builds — no doubt with a bit of inspiration from Steve Reich and Philip Glass.
Around a year ago I wrote a post that analysed the year’s activity on Last.fm. For those who don’t know, Last.fm is a website that tracks your music listening habits. It produces lovely graphs and churns out recommendations as well as providing tailored radio stations for you to listen to at your leisure. I adore the site.
This year, instead of looking just at the past year’s statistics, I have decided to look at my entire Last.fm history. A couple of weeks ago, I hit my 100,000th scrobble (instance of listening to a track). It’s a suitably big landmark.
My 100,000th scrobble happened on 7 December, just over four years after my first scrobble on 18 November 2004. By that time I had listened to 730 different artists. Of these, 18 had 1,000 plays or more. 196 artists had over 100 plays.
My top thirty artists chart looked like this:
And my top thirty tracks were:
There are a few problems with this chart. The top track, ‘untitled (live)’ by Boards of Canada, is actually several different tracks from bootlegged gig recordings. I am quite sure that ‘Xmd 5a’ by AFX should not be that high, as one day I logged in and it showed many more plays than there should have been. It’s still a good track though.
John Cage tracks figure highly because I own three different recordings of Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano. In fact, many of these tracks are high up simply because I own multiple versions, normally because I have the single as well as the album. Shining’s ‘To Be Proud of Crystal Colors is to Live Again’ is actually two different tracks with the same title. All of the Autechre tracks and most of the Jaga Jazzist tracks are here purely on their own steam.
It is obvious that, interesting though they are, Last.fm statistics are far from scientifically rigorous. For one thing, one track counts as one scrobble whether it’s 31 seconds long or 31 minutes long. One website, Last.fm Normaliser, attempts to get round this by weighting your artists by the average length of their tracks. This is also completely unscientific, but it is interesting nonetheless.
This table makes my obsession with Autechre even clearer. Even in the normal Last.fm table they have a huge lead. But by this measure I like Autechre twice as much as any other artist. The biggest climber in the top twenty is Steve Reich, who is number 20 in this table, but number 37 in my original Last.fm chart.
My favourite thing to do with Last.fm data, though, is to analyse it using LastGraph. I did this last year, looking at my Last.fm activity throughout 2007. This time, I am looking at my Last.fm activity as far back as the data goes — March 2005, just a few months after my first scrobble.
The graph is so huge that I can’t include a readable version on this page, but a miniaturised version appears below. Click on it to view it at its original size (Warning: It’s a large file).
I love looking at these graphs. They tell a story about my developing taste in music. But they also, in a way, tell a story about what is happening in my life at a certain point. I can glance at the graph and remember that I had exams during a certain period, or I was working lots in that summer, or whatever. It takes me back. I’m also quite surprised sometimes at which artists appear where on the graph. It appears that my memory was a bit out in a few places.
So there we have it. 100,000 scrobbles; four years of tracking my music listening habits.
Yesterday I promised that I would finally get round to posting my top three albums of 2007 today. I almost forgot about it because I was having so much fun writing my dissertation (true story). But a promise is a promise, so I am staying up extra late. I’m sure it won’t take long…
3. Shining — Grindstone
This must be the most overlooked album of the year. I should point out, in case you were confused, that I am talking about the Norwegian electro-jazz-prog metal band, not the Swedish suicide-themed death metal band.
I discovered Shining because some of their members used to be in Jaga Jazzist, another Norwegian band that I love. But while Jaga Jazzist are known for their quirky electo-jazz stylings, Shining have increasingly forged a path into the altogether darker territory of progressive metal.
But it’s not just that — it’s a cartoon version of metal. Jazz instruments play as big a role as guitars, and the whole lot is backed by whacked out singing and interspersed with ambient interludes. In short, expect the unexpected.
If it all sounds a little bit overwhelming, as though they have over-egged the pudding, do not fear. Although light moments are mixed with the darkness of metal, it is far from a scatter-gun approach. Everything is meticulously arranged. In fact, it is the multi-layered nature of the tracks and musicianship of the band members that impresses me the most about Grindstone.
I think it is an utter travesty that Shining are not more well-known.
Video: ‘Winterreise’ — not an official video, but it has kind of been endorsed by the band.
2. Radiohead — In Rainbows
So much has been made of this album, but not much of it has been about the music itself. I am a serial offender here as well.
I was disappointed at first. If you have been reading this blog for long, you will know that I quite like exploratory electronic music. I am much more of the Kid A stripe of Radiohead fan than The Bends kind. So I initially found In Rainbows to be a let down. It seemed too safe for a band as good as Radiohead.
It sounded little different to Hail to the Thief. It rather does suggest that Radiohead have found their equilibrium. The post-OK Computer explorations were just that: explorations. Now they have found a happy medium, and every future Radiohead album will pitch its flag in this middle ground.
But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is strange to hear Radiohead sounding so comfortable — but over time I have come to see that as one of the greatest strengths of In Rainbows. Probably for the first time in several years — the first time ever? — Radiohead don’t sound tetchy or fed up or lost. They are at ease. They are just making great music.
In Rainbows makes Kid A sound immature and Hail to the Thief sound downright shambolic. Not that I am announcing that I now dislike Kid A — it is probably still my favourite album. But In Rainbows has a craftsmanship to it. It has been constructed, not thrown together. Kid A had ideas. In Rainbows has songs.
So the experimentation has gone. Or at least it is taking a back seat. So there is nothing aurally exciting like ‘Everything in its Right Place’ or ‘Pulk’. But there is now pure beauty: ‘Nude’, ‘Videotape’ and ‘Reckoner’ are now among my very favourite Radiohead songs.
What makes In Rainbows stand out as a great album is Phil Selway’s drumming. Time and again he has been the essential element in a Radiohead song, most notably in ‘Pyramid Song’. Today he is at the top of his game, providing unusual but immediate drumbeats. He’s obviously had to up his game since the rest of the band started using drum machines!
If I have a complaint, it is about ‘Arpeggi/Weird Fishes’. Not that it’s a bad song, but I much prefer the original ‘Arpeggi’. It doesn’t sound as powerful as the original live version, as the guitars make the arpeggios sound rather muddied.
And great albums don’t have songs as weak as ‘House of Cards’ and ‘Bodysnatchers’. The latter also has a line that has been stolen straight out of Pulp’s ‘The Fear’, right down to the way it’s sung. Not a high crime, but rather off-putting.
Discbox purchasers got a second CD, and amazingly the music is pretty much at the same high standard as on CD1. ‘Bangers + Mash’ in particular is a great, fun song. It should have been on CD1 in place of ‘Bodysnatchers’.
Videos: lots — mostly live performances
1. Battles — Mirrored
I have been going on all year about how great Battles are, and truth be told I don’t think there’s much else I can really say about Mirrored. Suffice it to say that it is great to hear someone genuinely pushing the boundaries and showing everyone what really can be done with technology when you put your mind to it.
This is my iTunes music, sorted by play count, to see what tracks I play the most.
Even more than Last.fm, this is very biased towards what I have been listening to for the past year because I didn’t get round to ripping most of my CDs until last spring. Music that I had on iTunes before last spring (‘Smear’ by Jonny Greenwood, ‘Antiquity’ by Team Doyobi, Squarepusher’s Breezeblock session) also gets a bit of an unfair look-in, although I love them all.
As with Last.fm, there are only a few albums represented at the top, because I tend to listen to whole albums rather than individual tracks. Some tracks (‘Glósóli’ by Sigur Rós, ‘Oscar See Through Red Eye’ by Boards of Canada) would have been much (possibly fifteen-or-so plays) higher, but I had two versions of them!
As usual — apart from Jaga Jazzist and Team Doyobi — there is a heavy Warp bias. Doh!
Anyway, here’s the meme blah:
1) Sort by ‘Play Count’.
2) Take screenshot of the top and upload to flickr.
3) Link back to where you first saw this meme.
4) And leave a comment so they know where to look.
5) Include these instructions.
Comments closed