Top releases, 2009:

The countdown begins, the Two-Thousand-And decade is almost finished: here's the best (in our view) of its last year. A happy New Year to all. Thank you for your continued support and interest, and please enjoy your 2010.

1. The Big Pink - Velvet


2. Ulterior - Sister Speed / Aporia


3. Hatcham Social - Crocodile


4. Fever Ray - Fever Ray


5. Hatcham Social - You Dig The Tunnel, I'll Hide The Soil


6. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump - Buy a Life
7. A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
8. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
9. The xx - xx
10. Lydia Lunch / Suicide - Frankie Teardrop
11. The Horrors - Primary Colours
10. HTRK - Marry Me Tonight
13. R O M A N C E - Another Place / The Art of Losing
14. The Spectrometers - Make Your Own Instrumented Glove
15. Disconcerts - A. Medic
16. Spider & the Flies - Something Clockwork This Way Comes
17. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
18. KASMs - Spayed
19. Electricity In Our Homes - Gymnastics / Motorbike
20. Neils Children - X.Enc.

Tonight we recommend. . .

Shoreditch's Old Blue Last plays host tonight to what promises to be a riotous punk show. Brighton's Bad for Lazarus (led by ex-Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster guitarist Rich Fownes) will be flailing around and making a brilliant racket, preceded by two of London's brightest hopes: blues-punk terrorists Stavin' Chains, and the dark, driving clank of The Murder Act. It's free. Go.

an experiment on a bird in the air pump : BUY A LIFE

AN EXPERIMENT ON A BIRD IN THE AIR PUMP
BUY A LIFE
(BUY A LIFE RECORDS)

You would never guess that this self-released three-track EP was produced by The Charlatans' Tim Burgess: he, by all accounts, is a fairly laid-back kind of guy, and this 7" buzzes with pure, venomous aggression from beginning to end. I can only conclude that the Birds themselves have got a lot of rage stored up, and that they've fortunately (for us) chosen the recording studio as the best place to get it out of their systems - you can hear it in the drumming alone, really. Each of the three sings on one track, the vocal highlight being some fantastic distorted soul shrieking from C-Bird's on 'Only in Death'; X-Bird smoulders in the dark on 'The Silent Hour', and D-Bird's more untrained voice lends opening track 'Smear' a vulnerable edge - not that she sounds any less angry, what with the snarling fuzz of two basses and a minimal tribal beat backing her up. It's certainly a step up from last year's 'These Sins', distilling bits of Hole, The Stooges, and Sonic Youth into a visceral seven-minute punch. Recommended.

Return of T N P S

Almost two years after they crashed their debut album Beat Pyramid into our ears and disappeared into the studio to play with brass instruments and prepared pianos, mystical sound engineers These New Puritans return on 18th January with their follow-up, entitled Hidden. The week before will see the release of the seven-minute single 'We Want War' on 10" vinyl; the 25th January is the date of TNPS's first London show in over a year, at Bush Hall. We're glad to see the return of the one of the most intriguing bands to hit the country in the last few years, and curious to hear the album, even based solely on the tracklisting:

'Time Xone'
'We Want War'
'Three Thousand'
'Hologram'
'Attack Music'
'Fire–Power'
'Orion'
'Canticle'
'Drum Courts–Where Corals Lie'
'White Chords'
'5'

More when it happens.

New Hatcham Social EP

From today, those in London have the chance to be one of only 100 people to own the new Hatcham Social EP, 'Sidewalk'. Each of the limited 10" vinyl copies has different hand-drawn artwork by a fan, a member of the band, or an associate (including members of Electricity In Our Homes and The Horrors); as well as the brooding, shoegazing title track, the EP also features a remix of 'Hypnotised Terrible Eyes', the terrific 'Wild Creatures', the band's lo-fi version of The Beach Boys' 'Surfin' Safari', and a demo of a song called 'King Kong'. (The downloadable version also features a remix of 'Sidewalk' by Tom Furse of The Horrors.) This will sell out quickly; move along to Rough Trade to grab one.

demontré : BRANDENBURG

DEMONTRÉ
BRANDENBURG
(LONDON IS DEAD)

An interesting one, this: we touch down in Brandenburg to the sound of a guitar swooning in middle-distance, and are greeted by a feyly sung/spoken verse before being smacked unexpectedly across the face by its big brother, a spiky post-punk chorus. It's an interesting contrast, which works in an Interpolesque kind of way. The rhythm section is politely inobtrusive, mostly propping up the guitar - which is fine, because the guitar makes some really wonderful shoegazing noises, but frustratingly there really isn't anything (either on 'Brandenburg' or its b-side 'Act.III Scene.V') that sticks in your ear when the music's over. It's difficult not to appreciate the merits of this track, but it's more difficult still to remember anything about it ten minutes later, which is a shame because this is clearly a group with potential and an excellent ear for sound. Now they just need to write a song that'll hold it all together.

'Brandenburg' b/w 'Act.III Scene.V (Days of Yore)' is released on 26th October as a digital download and as a limited edition 7" on 9th November. Watch the promo video here.

Project:KOMAKINO album: European release

Project:KOMAKINO's debut album, The Struggle for Utopia, will finally be available in the UK by the end of the month. The exciting new French label Desire Records is bringing the record to French shops on 26th October, and Rough Trade are set to import it into the UK: preorder a copy from their website here. The release will also include remixes by The Horrors' Tom Furse, Micron 63, Russian post-punk group Motorama, and Ciaran O'Shea of DiscError Recordings.