Albums To Be Excited About In 2010

Artist: Vampire Weekend
Title: 'Contra'
Due Date: January 11th
What Can We Expect? From the songs aired at their KCLSU gig and those recently played on US TV a lot more of the same. Big Summer time hooks, off kilter instrumentation and Ezra Koenig's detailed musings and introspections on his life.
Free Download: 'Horchata'


Artist: Los Campesinos!
Title: 'Romance Is Boring'
Due Date: February 1st
What Can We Expect? Word going around is that this is LC!'s masterpiece. Having grown vastly between their shrill but charming debut and it's follow up 'We Are Beautiful...' this much derided but woeful misunderstood band are turning out to be one of the most intriguing and forward thinking bands around. New single 'There Are Listed Buildings' feels like a condensed version of everything that makes the band great. With a new band member, guest spots from Xiu Xiu and Parenthetical Girls alongside the best album title going this could be an early contender for album of the year.
Free Download: 'The Sea Is A Good Place To Think Of The Future'



Artist: Lightspeed Champion
Title: 'Life Is Sweet! Nice To Meet You'
Due Date: February 1st
What Can We Expect? Produced by Ben Allen (Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley) the second Lightspeed Champion album is set to be a more upbeat and life affirming effort than the depressed escapism of Dev Hyne's debut. Song subjects include much talk of England (Hynes now lives in New York) including a prostitute from Dalston and indie girls from Hackney.


Artist: These New Puritans
Title: 'Hidden'
Due Date: January 18th
What Can We Expect? Lazy bastards will probably liken this album to 'Doing a Horrors' and entirely missing the point that TNP have always been amazing. Nothing has been heard of 'Hidden' yet but expect big big drums, itchy paranoia and the sound of Mark E. Smith being dragged through the back streets of London at midnight.


Artist: Yesayer
Title: 'Odd Blood'
Due Date: February 8th
What Can We Expect? If 'Ambling Alp' is anything to go by an astonishing and baffling piece of brilliance is in the pipeline. Chris Keating showed the world via Simian Mobile Disco that he is a warped genius and that he can turn his hand to anything. Reports coming from recent Yeasayer gigs have told of a brand new sound whilst the bands percussive work on Bat For Lashes 'Two Suns' bodes well for a dance orientated dose of psychedelic pop.
Free Download: 'Ambling Alp'


Artist: Field Music
Title: "Untitled due to practical reasons" whatever that means.
Due Date: February 15th
What Can We Expect? A 20 track double album from the brothers Brewis. Expect head bending melodies, fragile heart break and probably cameos from The Futureheads.
Free Download: 'Measure'


Artist: The Kills
Title: Nothing yet...
Due Date: Early- Mid 2010
What Can We Expect? Speaking to Alison Mosshart recently she said, "Me and Jamie probably have about twelve or thirteen songs written now. The way we work is on acoustic guitars but the whole thing totally changes when we programme in the drums so whatever it sounds like now I know the end product will be nothing like it currently is. I’m hoping it will be out in early to middle of 2010 if we can get things sorted after Christmas.”


Artist: Christina Aguilera
Title: Untitled
Due Date: Tbc
What Can We Expect? This could be amazing or awful. Working with a glitterati of names including M.I.A, Goldfrapp, Ladytron and Sia the 'Dirrty' star is certainly pushing the pop envelope and I can't wait to hear the results. Danny from Ladytron first spoke about working with Aguilera a good few years ago so the chances of hearing this album any time soon might be hopeful but fingers crossed it comes out this year and doesn't sound like a bad Lady GaGa rip-off.

Also due next year:

LCD Soundsystem (Jame Murphy is prepping this for March)
Mystery Jets (Recently showcased new tracks to journalists)
Liars- Sisterworld
The National
Hot Chip
FourTet- 'There Is Love In You'
Errors- 'Come Down With Me'
Foals (Recording now)
MGMT- Celebration
Friendly Fires (Recently spoke of wanting it out for next years festivals)
Kele Okereke (Recording w/ Hudson Mohawke + Armani XXXChange)
Crystal Castles
Blood Red Shoes
Battles
Klaxons (In studio w/ Rick Robinson)
Radiohead(Maybe!)
Deftones

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Radiohead- These Twisted Words

MP3: These Twisted Words

www.wallofice.com

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Radiohead: Harry Patch (In memory of)

From BBC.co.uk
World War I veteran Harry Patch will be buried tomorrow. The former plumber, who fought at the battle of Passchendaele in 1917, gave a memorable interview to Today reporter Mike Thomson in 2005.

Thom Yorke, lead singer of the band Radiohead, was moved by the interview to write a tribute to the veteran, inspired by Harry Patch's words.

The song can be downloaded from the Radiohead website - all profits will go to the Royal British Legion.

Harry Patch (In Memory Of)

I am the only one that got through
The others died where ever they fell
It was an ambush
They came up from all sides
Give your leaders each a gun and then let them fight it out themselves
I've seen devils coming up from the ground
I've seen hell upon this earth
The next will be chemical but they will never learn

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Thom Yorke setlist from Latitude 2009.

Including between song quotes.

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The Record Store: A genuine loss or rose-tinted nostalgia?

///Platform///

So this Saturday is the annual Record Store Day organised by the Coalition of UK indie stores (the grand term 'coalition' and 'indie' really don't belong together do they?). This celebration of all things vinyl and alphabetised has led to a wave of commentators decrying the death of the record store. They don Grim Reaper hoods and look upon teenagers with access to Megaupload and spit bile on them. The stats do tell a bleak tale though, 540 stores have closed for business in the past four years alone and even consumer giants like Zavvi are drawing their last breath. Whilst this is all terribly sad and indicative of a Terminator 2 style scenario where the machines are taking over is it really as terminal as people are making out?

Yes, record stores are on their way out and a day of in store performances and a new Tom Waits single is not going to change that but (whisper it) does it really matter? Sure, there are record stores I love- Rough Trade East is beautiful, Jumbo and Crash in Leeds are fantastic and Liverpool's Probe another- but I can count the number of records I have bought in there on one hand. Yet I don't feel my musical upbringing has been in any way infringed by doing the large part of my purchasing in HMV or on Amazon. The simple truth is that if an album is £8.99 online (or indeed, free) or more expensive (as they tend to be) in the credible record stores people will take their trade to the cheapest vendor. You may get more satisfaction knowing you've helped out the independent trader but when you're unemployed and scrabbling money together to pay the rent an ethical copy of 'It's Blitz!' is going to be little more than a kick in the teeth.

One of the points that is brought up during nostalgic memory wanks by people like Paul Morley and Stuart Maconie is how the guys working in a record store would be a fountain of knowledge, a running tap of recommendations and a beacon of new music. Go to him and all your 7" desires will be met. However with Myspace, Spotify and sites like Metacritic you no longer need a man looming over a counter to tell you if something is good- you have instant insight at your finger tips. This wealth of information and access to literally every genre of music can only be a good thing for musicians with an open mind and a willingness to experiment. Think about it, if everyone in a city depends on their music being available from one or two independent record stores then the owners of those shops are essentially able to subject a whole generation to their own taste. That's unhealthy and in taking the power back and placing it in the hands of the fans you allow them to dictate their own musical upbringing. Who says Radiohead doesn't sit next to MIA? If you want to mix dubstep with psychadelia in a playlist then go do it. Every step we take towards financial ruin is a step towards an enlightened musical youth in my eyes. It might be nihilistic but surely the ride will be more interesting than every young kid in Liverpool being handed a La's record and his cousin in Manchester getting The Stone Roses debut.

I don't want to see people passionate about music unable to make a living from it (as a freelance journalist I feel their pain) but we must step away from seeing the internet as a big scary monster in this scenario, a wolf coming along to blow the piggy's small shop down. I'm sure when the gramophone was replaced by the record player somebody with a monocle and a pipe stated it to be the end of music, the same way people feared for society when Elvis started shaking his hips. The way music is distributed, consumed and listened to has changed. If history has taught us anything it is that you have to roll with the punches and evolve at every opportunity.

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Valentine's Day Playlist

So tomorrow's the big day, the official Hallmark day of romance- Valentine's Day. Has everyone got someone to send a card? Anyone planning any big gestures? A proposal? Anyone ever been dumped on Valentines? I ask as if I care, I don't really but this is a good opportunity to make a playlist. Below is the ultimate Boring By The Sea Valentine's Mix. You can listen to it on Spotify by clicking here or tell me what is missing by leaving a comment.

• Bright Eyes- 'Lua' (I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)
• Cat Power- 'Sea Of Love' (The Covers Record)
• Friendly Fires- 'Paris' (Friendly Fires)
• Laura Marling- 'New Romantic' (Demo)
• Outkast- 'Ms Jackson' (Stankonia)
• Radiohead- 'No Surprises' (O.K Computer)
• Regina Spektor- 'Us (Soviet Kitsch)
• The Maccabees- 'First Love' (Colour It In)
• The Cure- 'Inbetween Days' (The Head On The Door)
• Those Dancing Days- 'Hitten' (Those Dancing Days)
• TV On The Radio- 'Staring At The Sun' (Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Bastards)
• Weezer- 'Say It Ain't So' (Weezer)
• Eugene McGuinness- 'A Girl My Eyes Shine For' (The Early Learnings Of...)
• Yeah Yeah Yeah's- 'Maps' (Fever To Tell)
• The Smiths- 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' (The Queen Is Dead)

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Grammy Awards 2009- The Performances

Any awards show that gives Robert Plant a handful of awards is clearly living in the boring ages. Never mind though as Radiohead and MIA (With a few friends) turned in amazing performances. Enjoy. x

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10 Wishes for 2009

• Great new albums from Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Franz Ferdinand, Maccabees, Gallows, Arctic Monkeys, Metric, Patrick Wolf, Morrissey, Maximo Park, Klaxons, Bat For Lashes and if we're lucky Muse, The Strokes and Arcade Fire.
  
• The Blur reunion is good- not just some bloated middle aged money grabbers playing to a field of idiots yapping on about how good the 90's were and saying "Haha, it's so funny because now I actually do live in a great big house in the country."
• The British underground to keep producing amazing bands. With albums due from Dananaaykroyd and Sky Larkin as well as the emergence of Pulled Apart By Horses and Favours For Sailors things look bright.
• Touting gig tickets at extortionate mark ups to be abolished. In times of financial difficulty audience numbers are bound to drop, the last thing we need is another obstacle in the way.
• Some good festival headliners. Early reports suggest Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and AC/DC will be the marquee names this Summer. What year is it again? 1984? I will go anywhere in the world if Daft Punk, David Bowie and Radiohead are the weekends main event.
  
• A music based TV show that is not mind numbingly stupid, self conciously 'cool' and musically uninformed.
• Brooklyn and L.A to gift us another set of weird and amazing bands.
• Popular music to be rid of sub-Winehouse copy cats. Sadly as Duffy sold 1.5 million albums in 2008 this looks unlikely.
• Pulp, The Smiths and Pavement to reform. Yeah right.....
• Soulless career bands like Courteeners and Scouting For Girls to fuck of forever please.
  

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