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.

Friday Five

Its hard to recall the last time San Fransisco based Deerhoof had a bad record. They're newest one is slightly weirder than their previous releases but still possesses the likability that many indie-pseudo art rock rock bands try so hard to achieve. A couple other bay area bands have also pop-ed up on my radar: Experimental Dental School and KIT. Both are fairly solid rock acts the former being a straight up guitar/drum duo and the latter being noise rock. Both have that nwe band freshness that I find so appealing. There are also two older tracks down below. I tend to play catch up at the end of the musically; buying/downloading most of what I missed but what was recommended to me. You've probably heard a ton about Shad and No Age but if you haven't you're in for a treat.

Deerhoof - Chandelier Searchlight
Experimental Dental School - Back Porch Floating
KIT - Forest
Shad - I Don't Like To
No Age - Errands

Face Shredders

Last week I caught the indie rock triple threat of Times New Viking, No Age and Los Campesinos! as they made a stop in London at the Electric Ballroom on their Shred Yr Face tour.

Los Campesinos! were technically the headliners and the Ballroom represented their largest indoor gig yet. Unfortunately, the venue sucks balls. It's got the ambiance of an airplane hangar, multiple leaks in the roof and dismal acoustics. Plus the door staff didn't seem to know how the guest list or online ticketholders should be dealt with, forcing everyone to line up together one giant queue. In any case, all three bands were solid and played lengthy sets. Cardiff indie poppers Los Campesinos! offered up a number of songs from new album We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed (released October 27th) along with a handful of classic cuts from debut Hold On Now, Youngster... and all were well-received by the jubilant crowd.

In my humble opinion Times New Viking's performance was the most engaging, but then again they are one of my absolute favourite bands so I'm probably biased. Oh yeah, and No Age were great as well.

Los Campesinos! - We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed
Times New Viking - Drop-Out
Times New Viking - Mean God
No Age - Eraser

Gareth of Los Campesinos! rocking out with Times New Viking:

More Sweet Sweet Video

No Age play in the backyard.



Fleet Foxes crank out the claymation.



Junip, older but overlooked... and Swedish, so you know it must be at least mediocre. Let's play guess the singer!



No Age - Things I Did When I Was Dead
Fleet Foxes - Mykonos
Junip - Turn to the Assassin
Junip - The Ghost of Tom Joad

- BA