1. Album: M B V
    Artist: My Bloody Valentine

    mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv mbv

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  2. Monday Miscellanies have been on a bit of a holiday over the last few weeks as other miscellaneous items have taken unwarranted precedence.  But it’s back and marginally worse than before better than ever!  This week we’ve got a few tracks from some of the big releases of the past few months including Ducktails, The Joy Formidable and Veronica Falls. 

  3.
    Album: Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics
    Artist: Yo La Tengo

    Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics does exactly what it promises and does so in a charmingly shambolic way.  The tracks on here, all recorded over a number of years in fundraisers for Jersey-based radio station WFMU, show YLT in a different light - a band willing to make a mess and have some fun.  The fact that they hadn’t rehearsed any of the songs on here shows (although the band clearly know some of them better than others) and this collection is for only the most ardent of fan.  But it’s clearly popular enough since they keep on going - the track playing here is I Saw The Light, not on this record but recorded for WFMU’s latest drive.

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  4.
    Album: Fade
    Artist: Yo La Tengo

    Fade feels like the Sunday afternoon album of Yo La Tengo’s career.  The latter-day effort is slow, soft, undemanding and simple.  As such, it risks fading into the background but never quite does so due to it’s not inconsiderable charm. It sounds a lot more like a C86 mixtape than the sprawling eclectic indie rock of their weekday albums, refining the gentler sound heard on more recent releases.  There’s enough intrigue in the songs hidden away to keep you hearing more on each listen and you’ll happily while the hours away with this as your soundtrack

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  5.
    Album: Light Up Gold
    Artist: Parquet Courts

    Light Up Gold is a hard album to write a review for because it seems, although not widely known (yet), nearly all the things to say about them have already been written, either directly or vicariously. Cut and paste a cliche, a list of bands they sound like and there you have it. But the great thing about this record is you don’t need to read all that - it’s a very accessible first album - just turn it on and enjoy. It has all the ingredients of a defining cult classic (witty lyrics, laid back style, lo-fi production) and mines a rich vein of influences latching onto the sonic angst of youth throughout the ages. Whilst it might yet become that classic, in our cluttered era of music releases it has to fight amongst the crowd. But then again, in another era it might never have made it out (the original cutting was self-released) so we should be thankful for that. Even if they burn out after this, Parquet Courts will have contributed a very good debut album to the canon of indie rock.

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  6. 30 is the new 20….. so for the thirtieth edition of the miscellanies we’ve got a fine array of new tracks…. including a new personal favourite by Teleman (Django Django & Alt-J fans will want to watch out for these guys.

  7.
    Album: Life Is People
    Artist: Bill Fay

    You may not have heard of Bill Fay unless you’re either a devout follower of either sixties folk heroes or end of year lists.  Because Life Is People is his first record of new work for over forty years and garnered some significant acclaim last year from music critics taken aback by the honesty and vitality of his songwriting.  This is no surprise to some fabled musicians in current circulation such as Nick Cave and Jeff Tweedy who’ve been idolising and referencing Fay for years.  In fact, the latter has covered him at past shows and Bill Fay returns the favour with the stunningly intense version of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’s Jesus Etc..  On first listen, this is a standout track due to its familiarity but listen more and you’ll hear tremblingly tremendous agony and introspection throughout.  

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  8. Self-proclaimed hindi-rock from Elephant Stone and some new sounds from notorious Berlin-based prog-rock-sunset-lover Sridhar bookend this week’s miscellanies to give it a distinctly Indian theme.  But also in there you have Jens Lekman’s tale of fans helping him out during Hurricane Sandy and a new James Murphy-produced Pulp recording.

  9.
    Album: Summer Teeth
    Artist: Wilco

    Circumstances today led me to listen to and read a lot about Wilco.  And I was surprised to learn that they hadn’t yet been indicted into the scriptures of the Sunday Sermons (although Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was named the 7th best album of the 2000s a while back).

    There are many contenders for Wilco’s finest hour but Summerteeth is the one that gets the nod today as it’s the one that got me into Wilco in the first place.  Back in the late 90s the term alt.country would probably have scared me if I’d heard of it (that revelation was to come a few years later) but I didn’t release that Wilco, with this album of varied pop songs, would classify.  

    That’s one of the great things about Summerteeth: you don’t have to classify it, you just have to listen to it and enjoy it.  There’s the plaintive and dark, in Via Chicago and How To Fight Loneliness, to the simple and fun of ELT and A Shot In The Arm.  Not only catchy but poignant, it was the perfect launching point for me to begin loving the band and for the band to build on it to develop the aforementioned classic three years later. 

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  10.
    Album: World Music
    Artist: Goat

    Goat’s World Music has cultish overtones - a dark foreboding nature that binds a madness of sound together as one psychotic but defining and sharp experience.  It takes in influences from all over the musical genresphere with elements of psychedlic rock, tribal rhythms, funk and post-punk all coalescing to an enrapturing cacophany.   Whilst that might seem like just throwing out genre labels in a vain hope to try and capture the essence of Goat, it’s this very oppressive mix that grabs you and somehow, somehow manages to make sense of the madness.  When you find out that the band themselves hail from a commune in the North Swedish hamlet of Korpilombolo you wonder what else is going on up there, starved for sunlight.  Listen to World Music and you might just feel compelled to follow the chants and beats to find out, it’s really that fantastic.

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  11. 2012: The Best of the Rest

    Ok ok… just one more thing before we officially put last year to bed.  

    The ‘Best Of’ list is always a hard one… difficult decisions, the likes of which the world can  never truly understand, have to be made and some much loved works fade into non-list-bearing ignominy.  But they don’t deserve that, no one does.  

    So, here’s to the almost-rans of 2012, an illustrious list that features (in no particular order) Cloud Nothings, The Tallest Man On Earth, Electric Guest, Frankie Rose, Sinkane, Lotus Plaza, Jens Lekman, Purity Ring, Frank Ocean, Maps & Atlases, Fenster, I Like Trains, Lord Huron, Bob Dylan, Diiv, The Walkmen, Moon Duo, AC Newman, Holograms, Beach House, La Sera, Liars, Shearwater, The Magnetic Fields, Twin Shadow, Parquet Courts, Woods, Darren Hayman And The Long Parliament, Chromatics, Ty Segall (ok, so he had three albums in 2012, one of which made the top 25), John Maus, School of Seven Bells, Hospitality, Conveyor, Milagres, Ariel Pink, Flying Lotus, Crocodiles, Chris Cohen, Alabama Shakes, Radiation City, Melody’s Echo Chamber, David Byrne & St. Vincent and quite probably MANY, MANY more.

    And here it is in another lovely SoundCloud playlist:

  12. The first miscellanies of 2013 is also the first from HSM’s brand new SoundCloud account (go get following).  Other than that, it’s back to business with a great new track from Eels, sneak previews from the Phosphorescent and Local Natives album and a jazzy little track from UK-beatmaker Vanilla.   

  13. Best Albums of 2012

    So here we are again folks…. list time.  A little later than planned (I did want to do it on January 1st - there’s the whole month of December out there listmakers!) but here we are.

    And what a list.  It was hard enough getting it down to a top twenty five let alone a top ten, five, three or number one.  But unlike DiS, who somewhat took the easy way out by claiming five equally placed top records, it’s been whittled down to the list you see here.  If you’re a reader of this blog you know what I like and you know what you like and hopefully there’s some crossover, particularly within this list.

    As for themes within this list, apart the lowest ever reviews-to-records ratio that this blog has endured in its short and tumultuous time, there are few.  Simply amazing songs, songwriting and production from across the genres of indie rock, pop, blues, folk, goth rave, soul, punk, psychedelia, house, garage rock and the like.  Perhaps the one overarching theme is of an uplifting yet wry take on the world.  One that carriers the spirit of 2012 and HSM quite nicely indeed.

    So, are you ready? Good, then let’s get started: 

    25. Spiritualized - Sweet Heart, Sweet Light
    24. Crystal Castles - III
    23. Jack White - Blunderbuss
    22. Actress - R.I.P.
    21. Richard Hawley - Standing At The Sky’s Edge
    20. John Talabot - Fin
    19. Alt-J - An Awesome Wave
    18. Mac Demarco - 2
    17. Cat Power - Sun
    16. Chairlift - Something
    15. Ty Segall & White Fence - Hair
    14. Dan Deacon - America
    13. Sharon Van Etten - Tramp
    12. Foxygen - Take The Kids Off Broadway
    11. Gashcat - Reunion

    image      10. Bobby Womack - The Bravest Man In The Universe

          The painful and proud realisations of one of music’s elder statesmen.

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          9. The Divine Fits - The Divine Fits

          Wearing the supergroup tag pretty well, The Divine Fits is a slick and solid album.

    image      8. Grizzly Bear - Shields

          Nothing more or less than you’d expect from the boys from Brooklyn: shimmering, epic and beautiful sounding pop music.

    image      7. Father John Misty - Fear Fun

          Throwing off the morose and abashed side of his persona, Josh Tillman’s Father John Misty is hilarious and heartfelt.

    image      6. Django Django - Django Django

          Ever complex and inventive, Django Django’s debut record is a sparse but funky affair.

    image      5. Japandroids - Celebration Rock

          Simple the sound of rock music done right.  Very right.

    image      4. Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

          Translating the Dirty Projectors’ baroque sound into something more accessible proved to be a stunning success.

    image      3. Grimes - Visions

          An ethereal, sensual release, Visions fulfils the promise of Grimes’ previous releases.

    image      2. Tame Impala - Lonerism

          Making a psychedelic rock record sound fresh and exciting in 2012 is no mean feat and Tame Impala do it with such verve and aplomb

    And finally, introducing HotSpotMusic’s favourite album of 2012:

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    Kishi Bashi’s debut release, 151a, wins this year’s prize (there is no actual award nor cash prize) as HotSpotMusic’s best album of 2012.  And it wins for the simple fact that, amongst very tough competition, it was the one record I kept coming back to over and over again.  It’s only nine tracks and thirty four minutes but within that short time it manages to transport you to another world, a world that is a complete melange of chaos and creativity but one where the end result is one of pure beauty and joy.  It’s not been featured on many end of year lists and that’s a shame because, in this humble writer’s opinion, it’s an epic, orchestral masterpiece.

    So there you have it: 2012’s best releases in a nutshell.  And now here they are in a lovely playlist: 

    https://soundcloud.com/hotspotmusic/sets/hotspotmusics-best-albums-of

    Here’s to 2013.

  14. It’s still Monday somewhere in the world, so to welcome your writer back from holiday and take HotSpotMusic into 2013, here’s a little playlist to light up your New Years Day.

  15. Top Albums of 2011

    [On reviewing and preparing the Best Albums 2012 list, I oddly noticed that I never actually pressed Publish on the original 2011 post.  So here it is, in full, the best albums from well over a year ago, still standing the test of (internet) time.]

    As always, there’s a billion other lists out there and a billion other opinions.  What we all really care about is the countdown anyway…. you’re going to read a diversity of thoughts on this year’s music and discover a lot from all over the place this month.  

    As for the quality this year, the top ten is brilliant.  There are some groundbreaking, heartbreaking and sound-barrier-breaking records in there from across the musical spectrum.  And beyond that there was a constant tsunami of great releases.  

    So, without further ado, here’s the HotSpotMusic list for 2011:

    25. I Break Horses - Hearts
    24. Braids - Native Speaker
    23. Unknown Mortal Orchestra - Unknown Mortal Orchestra
    22. Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls 
    21. Summer Camp - Welcome To Condale
    20. R.E.M. - Collapse Into Now
    19. Pepper Rabbit - Red Velvet Snow Ball
    18. TV On The Radio - Nine Types Of Light
    17. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
    16. Smith Westerns - Dye It Blonde
    15. Wild Beasts - Smother
    14. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
    13. The Antlers - Burst Apart
    12. J Mascis - Several Shades of Grey
    11. Destroyer - Kaputt

    image 10. James Blake - James Blake

    A stunning album of spacious and potent music

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     9. Radiohead - The King of Limbs

     A complex, layered, innovative, compelling, varied, exciting and abrasive album

    image 8. Yuck - Yuck

     A brilliant record of fuzzy, lo-fi production enriching some great pop songs

    image 7. The Decemberists - The King Is Dead

     Colin Meloy seems to have struck on a golden formula through simplicity.

    image 6. M83 - Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

     A universally epic sound & gradually swelling songs in a rare-double length LP

    image 5. tUnE-yArDs - W H O K I L L 

     A triumphantly cacophonous concept album of uplifting sounds.

    image 4. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins - Diamond Mine

     A contemplative masterpiece, it’s a beautiful, slow soundtrack to a sad life.

    image 3. Wilco - The Whole Love

     Easily Wilco’s best album since YHF and in places touches those great heights.

    image 2. Girls - Father, Son, Holy Ghost

     Just simply a very, very good album. Rich in production and rich in songwriting.

    And finally, introducing HotSpotMusic’s favourite album of 2011:

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    A culmination of several years of touring and writing albums has finally got Annie Clark to the apex.  Strange Mercy is a beautifully complex, fragile and beautiful record that is undeniably brilliant.