Tim's TOP 10 SONGS OF 2011

1. How To Dress Well - Suicide Dream 2 (Elite Gymnastics Baptism)

How To Dress Well's 'Orchestral Versions' EP Just Once produced at least a few gorgeous remixes, but none of them stuck with me as much as Elite Gymnastics' – themselves responsible for two of my favourite records of the year, Neu '92 & RUIN. The genius of EG's rework lies in the link it draws between HTDW's sparse, emotive take on r&b, and the similarly night bus atmospherics of UK dance music, particularly Jungle and UK Garage, transforming the original into an unlikely banger complete with piano-house stabs and breakbeats.

2. CSLSX - Keep On Shining

Even if chillwave was effectively pronounced dead sometime midway through last year – or if, in my opinion anyway, it was always just a misguided way of lumping together a few of the earliest visible proponents of a recent tendency in underground music towards retro-maniacal electronic pop re-appropriations – CSLSX are a pretty good example of how the micro-genre might conceivably mature. Maximalist in just about every respect, this mysterious Philadelphia group hit it out of the park with this impossibly breezy luxury-disco gem.

3. Magic Touch - Clubhouse
from I Can Feel The Heat 12" (100% Silk) 

For me 2011, as it seems like it was for much of the internet-underground, was the year I sorta discovered house music. 100% Silk put out such an indefatigable stream of game-changing releases that I had to make a conscious effort not to include too many of their tracks on this list in the interests of diversity. 'Clubhouse' is classicist house heavy on the analogue 4-4, outrageous synth stabs, and high-camp clipped vocal samples. Boomkat notes: “It's like being back in '93... Recommended!”

4. Greatest Hits - L Train Girl
from Girl Crazy EP (Maman Records)

Another great band that were disappointingly unproductive this year, Greatest Hits' 'L-Train Girl' channels the spirit of Scritti Politti and is an utterly gleeful, sugar-rushed piece of neo-new-pop.

5. Blawan - Getting Me Down
from Getting Me Down 12" (self-released)

Music this year seemed more impossible than ever to keep up with; no matter what corner of the internet you were living in, there were always a thousand other interesting things going on you couldn't keep tabs on. If this edit of a Brandy track is anything to go by it was also a really great year in UK bass music, which I unfortunately only heard in drips and drabs this year.

6. Real Estate - Out Of Tune
from Days (Domino)

Days is up there in my favourite albums of this year and 'Out Of Tune' really highlights what is so great about it: that lackadaisical guitar jangle, and just the right combination of effortless and evocative. Heavy summer-vibes indeed.

7. Octo Octa - I'm Trying
from Let Me See You 12" (100% Silk)

Another 100% Silk highlight from this year, 'I'm Trying' mines darker rave zones and is less overtly retro than much of the rest of the catalogue. Oh and it's based around a vocal sample from Amerie's 'One Thing'.

8. John Maus - Keep Pushing On
from We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon Music)


We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves was one of the most distinctive and one of the best albums of the year. It's difficult to overstate how much I think a figure this uncompromising is needed in music right now, I mean, this is a guy who quotes Adorno when describing his own music: “authentic works are those that surrender themselves to the historical substance of their age without reservation and without the presumption of being superior to it”.

9. Teams - Mile High

Just another bleached-out, post-internet jammer from Sean Bowie in a year full of them. This one charts a path from hyperreal glam-funk to disco-bliss and back again.

10. Drake - Over My Dead Body
from Take Care (Young Money)

Such a clear highlight from Drake's actually pretty solid (despite its nearly 80 minute run-time) album Take Care, the strength of 'Over My Dead Body' lies in its unapologetic prettiness, that is before Drake comes in and ruins it (I mean, makes it even better?).

Max's TOP 10 SONGS OF 2011

1. Royal Headache - Never Again
from Royal Headache (R.I.P. Society/Goner)

Some records are great without making you want to be a part of them, and that's fine. It doesn't make them less great. But some are so exuberant and rich and alive-sounding that they make you want to sing along to every song at every show and be involved and there's something so special about records like that and what I'm saying is that Royal Headache's debut album is like that. There are so many great cuts from the album, but this opening track - Never Again - is extra frenetic and just a perfect introduction to my record of the year.

2. Total Control - One More Tonight
from Henge Beat (Iron Lung)


A couple of reviews of Total Control's Henge Beat have talked about the album's take on retrofuturism, and that approach is certainly one of the most interesting things about the album. Luckily, as well as being interesting, it's also full of great songs that reference enduring classics like Eno, Talking Heads and Joy Division. There's something so intriguing and also unsettling about this song's repeated refrain of "A burst of laughter / introduces your friends"; it's kind of genius.

3. John Maus - Believer
from We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of Ourselves (Ribbon/Upset The Rhythm)

There was nothing else this year (or any other year, really) that sounded like John Maus's cavernous space-synths & death metal vocals, and this closing track from his record is such an anthem.

4. Ford & Lopatin - Emergency Room
from Channel Pressure (Mexican Summer) 

It's such a pleasure to hear a band employ artificial textures so gleefully; everything about Channel Pressure sounds synthesised & mechanical. But even though Ford & Lopatin clearly have so much fun assembling their plastic beats, they never forget to write hooks and beats that stick in your brain, and that's just what Emergency Room does.

5. Kurt Vile - On Tour
from Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)

Smoke Ring For My Halo is the sweetest & gentlest release by Kurt Vile so far. Even so, he fits in some terrifically macabre imagery on songs like On Tour, my favourite from the record: "On tour. Lord of the Flies."

6. Ghost Wave - Hippy
from Ghost Wave EP (Arch Hill)

I will never not love New Zealand bands who play Flying Nun-inspired garage punk. All of Ghost Wave's debut EP was great, actually, but Hippy's minimalist guitars and brilliantly unexpected bridge refrain is basically as good as it gets.

7. Panda Bear - Last Night At The Jetty
from Tomboy (Paw Tracks)

Tomboy might not have captured the zeitgeist the way Panda Bear's debut did, but if you're asking me (and I guess you could say that you are, in a way) Last Night At The Jetty is as good a song as he's ever written: sweet, wistful and sad.

8. Twerps - Dreamin'
from Twerps (Chapter/Underwater Peoples)

80s jangle-pop might be the last aesthetic that can possibly be mined from that exhaustively revised decade, but it's kinda surprising that it's taken this long to happen: it's such a listenable sound. On their debut album, Twerps ditched the scrappy milkbar punk that they'd been messing with to write some extra grown-up songs with strings and everything; super impressive stuff.

9. Real Estate - It's Real
from Days (Domino)

It's just so easy to love Days, the second album from Real Estate. It's catchy and melodic and totally sincere, and this song from it features expertly deployed whoa-ohs; everything's there, really.

10. Guerre - Millennium Blues
from Darker My Love (Yes Please)

You could say that 2011 was "the year of new R&B", or whatever, but as with so many microgenres, it only really happened at all because a handful of talented practitioners. Guerre is one of the best.

HEY MOON

MP3: John Maus - Head For The Country

New video for one of the most retrofuturistic (and borderline funky) cuts from one of our most jonesing-est albums of this year, John Maus'We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves. It's finally due new week on Upset The Rhythm and Ribbon Music. Video by Jennifer Juniper Stratford.

(via GvsB)

HEAD FOR THE COUNTRY

MP3: John Maus - Believer

It's old news, but John Maus' new record We Must Become The Pitiless Censors of Ourselves will finally see release on June 28. This video's been around everywhere today and highlight's Maus' dark pop religiosity and weird sense of the uplifting, the ambiguous acid colour filters of Jennifer Juniper Stratford fulfill some of the lonesome fantasies and synthetic divinity of this song, one that is apparently usually the closing number in his live sets. "Believer" is also up on Upset the Rhythm's Soundcloud along with new Sun Araw, Gentle Friendly and more.

buy

PRMNT ▲ / SUMMER 2K10

Stellar OM Source - Dynamic of Here
I don't mean to "blow my own horn" BUT this is pretty awesome for a small post-industrial town in Northern England amirite? Here is a list of live shows happening here in Spring/Summer thanks 2 PRMNT VIBES aka me. Not sure how many Newcastle upon Tyne readers are our there but consider this a heads up (also heads up re: new (sort of) Stellar OM Source):

GOLD PANDA (LONDON) / DAM MANTLE (LONDON) / SEAMS (LONDON) / MORGELLONS (NCL) / TOTEM RECALL (NCL) / JUNEAU PROJECTS (LONDON) @ HOULT’S YARD, APRIL 15

Film: STREET TRASH (1987, James Munroe) @ STAR & SHADOW, APRIL 17, 7:30pm

A GRAVE WITH NO NAME (LONDON) @ THE TELEGRAPH, APRIL 23

TALK NORMAL (BROOKLYN) @ STAR & SHADOW, APRIL 30

THE BLESSINGS (GLASGOW/LUCKY ME) @ STAR & SHADOW, MAY 15

GANGLIANS (SACRAMENTO) @ HEAD OF STEAM, MAY 19

STELLAR OM SOURCE (NETHERLANDS) / MITHRAS (LONDON) @ STAR & SHADOW, MAY 21

ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER (NYC) / TOMUTONTTU (FINLAND) @ VENUE TBC, MAY 30

Film: HAUSU (1977, Nobuhiko Obayashi @ STAR & SHADOW, JUNE 9, 7:30pm

BRILLIANT COLOURS (SAN FRANCISCO) / LA LA VASQUEZ (BRIGHTON/LONDON) @ STAR & SHADOW, JUNE 11

JAMES FERARRO (CALIFORNIA) / MONOPOLY CHILD STAR SEARCHERS (CALIFORNIA) @ VENUE TBC, JUNE 13

HARLEM (TEXAS) @ HEAD OF STEAM, JUNE 14

Film: VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS (1970, Jaromil Jires) @ STAR & SHADOW, JUNE 16, 7:30pm

STREETS OF RAGE (GLASGOW) / BLUE SABBATH BLACK FIJI (GLASGOW) @ THE TANNERS (NARC FEST), JULY 17

CALVIN JOHNSON (OLYMPIA) / LES COX (SPORTIFS) @ MORDEN TOWER, AUGUST 5

JOHN MAUS (HAWAII) @ VENUE TBC, SEPTEMBER

[PRMNT Vibes Facebook]

Glitter pills

John Maus - Heaven Is Real
Strange how an afternoon can change so much, all I did was open up a beer and put on John Maus’ Love Is Real for the first time and it feels like some revelation, or at least a query, how the fuck did I miss this record this year? I should’ve known when my buddy Shea said it might be on his Top Ten for this year (nerd). I feel like both he and I like this because it's oh such an interesting sound and very weird but with beats, too, coming off strange and spacey enough with the dark but humurous tones that make most art so great. Maus' distant voice singing about homosexuals and love letters and worlds coming apart sounds so far off it could be Ian Curtis in another dimension (it’s certainly got a milky way of synths strewn across it), like Ariel Pink’s AM radio tuner’s picking up some intergalactic shit, soundtracking our prom nights and night drives with beers and marijuana cigarettes, kitsch but sincere and in touch somehow with our conditions, “Times is weird my friend, times is weird”, and yes indeed they are so hit the guitar solo and wail away for one last time.