Now seems to be the appropriate time to be sharing this record, given its title.  The echo of the summer is heard louder than the echo of Sin Fang’s last album, Clangour, a delightfully scatty collection of ideas.  This one is more focused, more of an album and more folky.   

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 21 March 2011

Another one where serious questions have to be asked about this writer’s taste and dedication as to why it wasn’t posted 6 months ago.  Burst Apart is a sonically stretching follow-up to the cathartic Hospice (another of 2009’s sleeper hits) that elevates the themes to something less likely to make you bawl but soar instead.  The epic opener I Don’t Want Love sets the album off at the right pace as a heartfelt and yet self-undermining protest and the rest of the album continues just as brightly.  Great stuff.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 10 May 2011

The Rip Tide is an excellent album that, much like the rest of Zach Condon’s discography is something of a slow burn (whilst being characteristically recognisable).  Not sure why it took so long to get round to it here but with tracks like East Harlem and the title track, it’s strong enough to comfortably slot into the end of year lists.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 30 August 2011

I Want That You Are Always Happy is the full debut album of Australian septet, The Middle East.  It follows their sumptuous EP (cleverly titled The Recordings of the Middle East) from last year and follows that up with more downbeat folk that doesn’t sound dissimilar from what the blender would sound like if you threw a Fleet Foxes CD in there with a Low Anthem record and a Jet minidisc.  Just kidding about the Jet (ah, the fate of poor Australian bands) so maybe replace that with some barley.  Yes, that’d go quite nicely.  Much like this album.  Won’t hit the end of year top 25 but it’s a pleasant enough record.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 

Landing right at the beginning of this year, HotSpotMusic missed out on Anna Calvi.  Despite having the unfortunate albatross of one of the BBC’s Sound of 2011 acts hanging round her neck (although this was perhaps offset by Brian Eno referring to her as the best thing since Patti Smith), her tightly composed debut is a grand work.  There are definite elements of PJ Harvey but it is the dark, dense power of this album that makes songs like Desire and The Devil stand out amongst other contemporary female performers such as Florence & The Machine or EMA.  This has only spun a few times but it may well get a few more… and if that’s not enough, she’s covered Wolf Like Me too.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 17 Januaruy 2011

Trust Bjork to release her latest album not as a traditional record but as an ever unfolding series within an iPad app.  Always at the forefront of music and innovation, Bjork’s album was beautiful and somewhat revolutionary.  The music in it was less pioneering than the format perhaps, but that’s only because we set such high expectations on her.  Sumptuously constructed and genre hopping, Biophilia is an experiment in what sound represents in the third millennia and it delivers strongly.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 11 October 2011

Six years after Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!’s definitive, eponymous debut and four years after the disappointing, loud and nonsensical followup, Some Loud Thunder, came Hysterical.  A marvellous collection of quirky indie pop that returns to the lighter side of CYHSY! whilst bringing a more well-rounded maturity to the track list.  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 

Much has been said of Real Estate’s ability to effectively simulate the halcyon days of the past.  But in today’s nostalgia-addled, originality whirlpool that is no longer the key skill - what makes Days really work is the consistently enjoyable songwriting.  Clearly a homage to early REM jangle as much as it is to the summer houses of their youth (and the guitar effects pedals that take them back to both those time periods), the ten tracks here are the equal elixir for memory and ignorance.  A great follow-up to 2009’s self-titled debut from the New Jersey based trio.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 18 Oct 2011

A universally epic sound, gradually swelling songs in a rare-double length LP and the controversial use of a saxophone marked out M83’s return to the public sphere.  Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming could have been the album title for about 40% of all indie releases since the summer of 2010 but at least Anthony Gonzales’s effort tries to capture the urgency in the beginning of that statement whilst letting the latter drift as your imagination wanders the way of the second part of the album (i.e. into the distance).  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 18 October 2011

Wild Beasts are one of those bands who have very slowly progressed into being silently quite brilliant with each album.  The British band’s sound has evolved from simple pop songs to rather complex and thoughtful compositions still backed up by the marvellous (and impressively replicable in a live setting) Jeff Buckley-style warble of lead singer Hayden Thorpe, only now with more nuance and subtlety in its delivery.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 10 May 2011

Oh Panda Bear, how were you ever supposed to live up to expectations on Tomboy?  The critical success of Person PItch weighed heavily and the seemingly-forever postponed recordings (due in part to the success of Merriweather Post Pavilion and Animal Collective’s touring) that led to the release of this album 4 years later didn’t help.  Tomboy is certainly not a bad record, indeed there are quite engaging tracks in there, but really not enough to keep you returning and certainly nothing nearly as inventive as he’s delivered before.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 11 Apr 2011

The inimitable Laura Marling’s third album was once again a marked progression from her previous work and surely solidifies her position not only as one of England’s brightest young talents in indie/folk but one her best songwriters too.  

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 12 Sep 2011

Already the recipient of the Mercury Music Award this year and likely to be right up there in a lot of end of year lists, Polly Jean’s latest album is an epic barnstormer.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 15 Feb 2011