Music of the day

A list in time

Its the time of year for those dreadful end of year lists. They are much more fun to write than to read. Fortunately, since the ratio of readers to writers here is very low the amount of fun in the world is going to be increased.

So here we are in no particular order and indeed no particular concern that the album was actually released during the year.

• My Morning Jacket, Z. A new favourite as I just got this for Christmas and it was a fortunate mistake too as a magazine CD had it mislabelled.

• Kate Bush, Aerial. Can any album live up the expectation of so many years wait. I don't know, but this album is certainly better than I was expecting. It's as good as my favourite Kate album The dreaming.

• Elbow, Leaders of the free world.One of the best bands around, there is no need to say more.

• Sigur Rós, Takk.... Glorious, joyous music. I still probably prefer () though.

• Alex Parks, Honesty. Great album, great voice and great tunes.

• KT Tunstall, Eye to the Telescope. This is going to be a favourite for long time to come.

• British Sea Power, Open Season. This band just gets better. So OK, its only their second album.

• Feeder, Pushing the senses.

• Leaves, The Angela test. Second Icelandic band in the list. Like Coldplay without the whine (a bit unfair, I do quite like Coldplay).

• Mercury Rev, The secret Migration. I've not listened many times to this record but it has impressed me each time.

• Sophie Barker, Earthbound. Surprise of the year, lovely, lovely, lovely.

A mention for the best title: Keep music miserable by Lowgold, a good motto for next year.

Happy New Year!

posted by Steve @ 8:25 pm 0 comments

The Bedford

Another visit to the Bedford. It looked a very good line up, acts I'd either seen before or have wanted to.

In the order I remember them, we first had Haley Glennie Smith. Amazing voice. She has a couple of tracks on the soundtrack album to the film Stoned about the Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones. Her tracks are Love in vain and Come on in my kitchen.

Not seen Alexis Strum before. She was fairly good but I don't have anything special to write about her.

I'd seen Claire Toomey before and written about it here. I didn't say then but I was a little disappointed with how the band sounded on the previous occasion. However this time it sounded a lot better; its not the ideal environment for a rock band as just as you get going you have to stop and then start up again in the next set. However this time I could really imagine how they would sound at a bigger show.

Surprise find of the evening was Mozez who I'd not even heard of before. Smooth soulful vocals, interesting music too.

posted by Steve @ 10:26 am 0 comments