Julian Casablancas

Here's the "trailer" for the inevitable side-project from the Strokes' frontman. We've seen Albert Hammond's eponymous work, Little Joy, Nickel Eye, and now we have Julian's Phrazes for the Young. If the preview's representative of the majority of the record, I'm excited. The teaser video looks like its modeled after the work of Casablancas and Roman Coppola on the video for "Hard to Explain."

a.m.p.m. favourites of 2008

Squeezing as many songs as possible into 80 minutes in order to summarise the best of a whole year of music is a pretty daunting task involving tough decisions and regrettably obligatory omissions. But after much deliberation, here are my favourite tracks from 2008:
01 Why? - Fatalist Palmistry
02 Amadou and Mariam - Sabali
03 Born Ruffians - Kurt Vonnegut
04 TV on the Radio - Family Tree
05 The Walkmen - In the New Year
06 Titus Andronicus - My Time Outside The Womb
07 Islands - Creeper
08 Laura Marling - The Captain And Hourglass
09 Fleet Foxes - He Doesn't Know Why
10 No Age - Eraser
11 Crystal Castles - Courtship Date
12 Lykke Li - Dance Dance Dance
13 Shearwater - Rooks
14 White Denim - I Can Tell
15 Little Joy - Keep Me In Mind
16 Frightened Rabbit - The Twist
17 Foals - Cassius
18 Love Is All - Wishing Well
19 Times New Viking - Drop-Out
20 Ratatat - Falcon Jab
21 Chad VanGaalen - Willow Tree
22 Grand Archives - Sleepdriving
23 Jay Jay Pistolet - Friend

The whole kit and caboodle: ampm2008mix.zip

Thanks to Andy Gilmore for the cover art.

Yet another successful Strokes side project: Little Joy

Little Joy is some kind of awesome collaborative project featuring Fabrizio Moretti of The Strokes, Rodrigo Amarante of Los Hermanos and Fab's girl Binki Shapiro. It all started when Fabrizio and Rodrigo met way back in 2006 at a festival in Portugal and vowed to lay down some tracks together. It took a bit longer than expected, but the guys eventually hooked up at Devendra Banhart's pad in Echo Park and recorded some material. The resulting self-titled debut, released last week, is already one of my favourite albums of 2008 and I've only listened to the whole thing a handful of times.

For some reason the sound here really, really reminds me of Is This It, especially on tracks like 'Keep Me In Mind'. Some selections are decidedly mellower ('Play the Part', 'With Strangers' and closer 'Evaporar') but a Latin vibe permeates the album and gives even the gentlest song, 'Don't Watch Me Dancing', a sweet twist.

Little Joy - Keep Me In Mind
Little Joy - Brand New Start
Little Joy - How To Hang A Warhol

'Keep Me In Mind' live in San Diego: