List for life.

It's the most wonderful time of the year. A time when all the music magazines are full of lovely Top 10 / 100 / 394,860 albums of the year, largely meaningless cultural analysis of the past year, and woefully inaccurate predictions about the coming one.

So I thought I'd have a go myself.

Here, then, are my Top Ten albums (in order, naturally) of 2009. Hup!

10. Trembling Bells - Carbeth

An unashamed throwback to late 60's folk-rock, 'Carbeth' was nevertheless a thoroughly enjoyable exercise in nostalgia. Fairport are the clear influence here, but what marks this album out as more than a straight tribute is the vein of strange experimentation that runs throughout; the band are unafraid to wander in new sonic directions, a technique that works to occasionally stunning effect.

Standout - 'Willows of Carbeth'

9. Cass McCombs - Catacombs

...In which our young hero stumbles into the middle of the road. Well, not entirely of course. 'Catacombs' sees McCombs paring back his sound to create a largely acoustic album of easygoing - if not always engaging - songs about love and lion-killing. It is a marked departure from his previous work, and the gamble does not always pay off; but when it does, the result is gorgeous.

Standout - 'You Saved My Life'

8. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

Now firmly established as an indie institution, Yo La Tengo surely have no need to further cement their reputation. Yet cement it they have, with an album that continues in predecessor 'I Know You And I Will Beat Your Ass's eclectic, playful approach. This time they add swooning soul strings to 'Here To Fall', and languid funk on 'Periodically Double Or Triple'. There is a sense that, even after 20 years, this band is capable of anything.
Standout - 'Avalon Or Someone Very Similar'

7. Mos Def - The Ecstatic

It's become something of a journalistic cliche to say 'it's been a barren year for hip-hop', but - again - it has. Surprising, then, that the best hip-hop album by a country mile (with honourable mentions to Q-Tip and Raekwon) should come from a man who has spent more of this decade on film sets than in recording studios. 'The Ecstatic' fully lives up to its title - it is a wonder to behold; no two tracks sound even remotely the same. More hip-hop like this 2010, please.

Standout - 'Auditorium'

6. Pastels / Tenniscoats - Two Sunsets

Simply put, this is a beautiful, beautiful album. Yet it seems to have had a rather complex genesis: a collaboration between jangle-rock stalwarts and Japanese folkies, 'Two Sunsets' is the result of a year's pinging back and forth between Glasgow and Tokyo. As you'd expect from the contributing factors, the pace is sleepy and the vocals are, um, charming. But the real strength lies in the songwriting - melodic and honest, this is an album that will steal your heart.

Standout - 'Song For A Friend'

5. A.A. Bondy - When The Devil's Loose

Sometimes, though it pains me to say it, the best albums aren't steeped in originality or wild invention; they are founded on familiarity. Such is the case with 'When The Devil's Loose' which treads carefully in the well-worn footsteps of Dylan, Nick Cave and Conor Oberst. Both joyful ('I Can See The Pines Are Dancing') and desolate ('A Slow Parade'), Bondy gives us what we want - and though it may not be original, it is deeply satisfying.

Standout - 'I Can See The Pines Are Dancing'

4. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion

The critic's album the year, hands down, 'Merriweather...' is a strange, mythical beast indeed. Representing a natural progression from, and consolidation of, the band's earlier incarnations, it is both gloopy and transcendent; propulsive and spacey; intense and playful. 'Also Frightened' and 'No More Runnin'' provide the enormous emotional peaks, and 'My Girls' is simply an astounding pop classic. Who'd have thought?

Standout - 'My Girls'

3. The xx - xx

A remarkable debut, which prompted up-and-coming bands across the country to ask 'Why didn't WE think of that?' Because what makes 'xx' so instantly accessible is its simplicity - bass, guitar, drums, boy, girl, little else. The production, arguably the band's main instrument, is impeccable. Influenced in equal measure by the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Sugababes, The xx perfectly depict a relationship at odds with itself - nervy but heartfelt, strident yet sedate. Stunning.

Standout - 'Shelter'

2. The Low Anthem - Oh My God, Charlie Darwin

Faintly ridiculous title aside, this record is a serious statement of intent from a band who seem to be hitting their stride - and how. 'Oh My God...' riffs on the themes of evolution, apocalypse, lost loves and seafaring, but never feels overplayed. The songs themselves veer between intimate, hushed hymnals and all-out Springsteen-esque rockers, such as the frankly jaw-dropping 'Champion Angel'. This record marks the beginning of a new, scared, Americana.

Standout - 'To Ohio'

1. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers

Last year's 'Limbo, Panto' had plenty of the latter, to put it politely. But no-one could have predicted that, less than a year later, this band would come up with something so - astonishing. 'Two Dancers' is immaculately played, lyrically intriguing and very, very listenable. The band describe their sound on this album as 'downbeat erotic music', and I guess that's fair, but there is so much more here. The two-part title track sums up the bands duality: falsetto and growl, fever and comedown, all played out in a kind of languid suburban wet dream. There is a mesmerising fluidity to this album; one can only wonder what they will come up with next. On the basis of 'Two Dancers' though, it could be that Wild Beasts become the best English band since The Smiths. They certainly have the means.

Standout - 'We Still Got The Taste Dancin' On Our Tongues'

Read, sleep.

...Has been my lifestyle recently - which would explain the lack of posts. In the last two months I've read:

'Pet Sematary', 'Dan Leno & The Limehouse Golem', 'The Comedians', 'To The Lighthouse', 'The Island of Doctor Moreau', 'The Wild Duck', 'The Deep Blue Goodbye' ... and 'Sophie's Choice'.

Exhausting.

Re-up.

I am still here - just. Lots of new posts coming soon. This is all 'a bit Twitter' (bitter?), sorry about that.

Moving.

I am moving out next week, September the first. On September the first, 2008, I moved out as well. Coincidence? I think so. Both me and Rosie are flying - or at least fleeing - the nest within the next month - Rosie's got a place at Portsmouth Uni; we're going down there on Thursday to check it out. Personally I'm really looking forward to living with Karim, Jay and Julie, should be miles of smiles. Don't know whether Rosie's so keen on moving so far away though.

Am also putting together a scrapbook of all my recent travels, it's amazing how much you forget, and how much it meant at the time - a lifetime of temporary relief...

Gigging lots recently too; it is good, creativity is in full swing. I keep breaking strings.

Review of Mos Def's 'The Ecstatic' to follow shortly.

Summer slumber.

I wish Autumn would bloody well hurry up. There, I said it. I want days on end of cold, rain, mist, or any form of precipitation really. Bring it on, please. I have a big new coat to wear. I want to hibernate til it hurts.

Anything is better than this bright warm greyness we are currently 'enjoying'. I can't sleep in the Summer; hence why I am wide awake and writing at 7.35am. That strange acidic tiredness that happens when you sleep out of time? When your ribs feel like glass tubes and your eyes sting? That's my Summer.

Don't get me wrong, it's been good, if strangely stillborn: I haven't actually done an awful lot, apart from writing. Which I guess is a good thing. Yesterday I went to Bradford-on-Avon by myself and drank loads of coffee and finished 'Love In The Time Of Cholera', and took pictures of this beautiful old barn (see above).

I suppose the main feature of my Summer has been loneliness. No, that's the wrong word. Alone-ness? At least, nobody's been there to share it with me; I wish somebody had been. Most of my friends have paired off with someone by now. I can't see how that's going to happen for me anytime soon.

Review: The xx - 'xx' (Young Turks)

....You know you’re getting older when a new band cites The Sugababes and Aaliyah as two of their key influences.

Based on that, you might expect The xx - yes, it is a very silly name - to be standard chart-fodder, that everyone will have forgotten in about a week’s time (I would name some bands at this point, but I have forgotten their names. You see?). However, there is much more to them than an off-the-cuff Mariah Carey reference on their Myspace page. As other reviewers have cleverly pointed out, they’ve clearly been listening to The Cure circa ‘Seventeen Seconds’; The Jesus And Mary Chain circa ‘Darklands’; and whole a lotta Burial. And it shows. So what have they created here? Doom-pop? Goth-step?

With such a diverse range of influences, you might expect their debut to be a little over-fussy. In fact, they’ve gone in the other direction, creating a skeletal, barely-there sound which is nonetheless thoroughly immersive, and frequently verges on being very special indeed. Actually I’d go so far as to argue that the middle triumvirate here – ‘Heart Skipped A Beat’, ‘Fantasy’ and ‘Shelter’ – are flawless. And the rest of the album comes eye-wateringly close too. The singles ‘Basic Space’ and ‘Crystalised’ combine tired boy-girl vocals and minimal guitar lines beautifully; the former sounding like ‘Close To Me’ on a double-strength dose of Nytol. Most of the songs on this album come across as half-finished, like demos, and they stop unexpectedly with little fanfare. Yet there is a real freshness about this sound – it’s bleak, yes, but it’s pop music, when all is said and done, and it’s pulled off with considerable panache.

Very rarely is a debut album perfect though, and this collection has a couple of flaws. Firstly, some of the lyrics are rather simple, verging on the banal; noticeably average. Sure, I guess you could argue that creating atmosphere is more important here, but I’d still prefer something to get my teeth into. And occasionally the vocals veer into show-off territory – I’d much prefer a ‘high’ than a ‘high-ee-i-ee-iiigh..’, for example. It just doesn’t fit with the band’s less-is-more aesthetic, and it grates; at their worst, The xx sound like a heavily-sedated Subways. However, on the vast majority of ‘xx’, they sound an awful lot like that darned elusive Future Of British Pop – slinky, nervy and extremely damn tuneful to boot. This is an excellent debut, but it's an album to build on rather than rest on. The future is bright for this band - even if they don’t seem to think so.

(8/10)

Review: 'Moon'

I have never been fascinated by space travel. Sure, I wanted to be an astronaut when I was younger - but only because everyone else did. I imagined it to be similar to a pilot's job - hours upon hour of gnawing, grey tedium, suddenly and briefly punctuated by snippets of visceral, pant-wetting terror. All accompanied by vacuum-sealed beef bourgignon. The idea of being blasted in a tiny fire-farting rocket with two massive (and eminently flammable) fuel containers lashed to either side, towards a frozen airless sphere of rock, whilst wearing a Michelen Man suit, did not exactly fill me with awe and wonder. Plus, what would you do when you got up there? Wander about, play a bit of golf, collect some rocks, go for a dip in the Sea of Tranquility? That's not even enough activities to fill a sunny Bank Holiday, let alone a Massive Space Mission. Anyway, the long and short (though mostly long) of this preamble is that 'Moon' (dir. Duncan Jones, a.k.a. Zowie Bowie...) comes closer than any other film to portraying what I picture space to be like.

Filthy, bored and alone on a far-flung base on the dark side of the Moon, Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is coasting towards the end of his three-year contract with an enormo-profit energy company, who are somehow harvesting and using lunar minerals to generate power. With only a helper robot - GERTY (voiced by Kevin Spacey and given facial expressions by a series of emoticons) - for company, Sam is finding the last fortnight a little tedious to say the least. He also suspects he may be going slightly crackers - and who wouldn't, being stuck in a white box with Kevin Spacey for three years - or indeed any length of time? He begins to see things - figures on screens, girls in chairs, that sort of thing. Then, on a routine repair mission, Sam crashes his lunar rover and loses consciousness. GERTY wakes him up back on the station, but it quickly becomes apparent that all is not what it seems. And indeed, when Sam breaks orders to investigate the crash site, he finds a body inside the vehicle - it, too, is Sam Bell.

What follows is, well, hard to follow. The two clones form an uneasy comradeship, neither entirely sure who the 'real' Sam Bell is, and both detremined to find out. Over the course of the film, one Sam deteriorates dramatically; it is implied that he is suffering brain damage; whilst the other walks around in new uniform, boxing, skipping etc. Their relationship is built nicely, with both men gradually coming to accept a truth which is unfurled plausibly (well...) towards the end; though much is still left to the viewer's discretion.

'Moon' owes an obvious debt to '2001: A Space Odyssey'. GERTY is the vocal spit of HAL, albeit slightly less mechanically malevolent, and the visuals are pleasingly lo-fi and CGI-free. However, unlike '2001...', there is no gosh-wow-isn't-space-big moment here: everything unfolds on a deliberately small scale; the drama, although it occurs in space, is intensely human. The only place Sam wants to boldly go is home to his family. The simple visual style makes a refreshing change from recent sc-fi thrillers (the recent 'Star Trek' relying far too heavily on computer effects, ironically enough), and the storyline is absorbing without tipping over into ridiculousness. Rockwell is fantastic as both Sam Bells, and whilst the film may be lacking an iconic moment to remember it by, it deserves a high placing in the end-of-year lists. A space oddity, in a very good way.

(9/10)

Czech Mates.

Well, I'm back from the Czech Republic, where I've been teaching English for the last week. The trip splits itself nicely in two: we spent a couple of days in Prague, before heading to Janske Lazne, a small and beautiful spa town near the Polish border. I was part of a little team from our church, which also (thankfully) included Emma (otherwise I may have gone crackers). We all taught younger people; I took on a class of 6 between the age of 11 and 14. Teaching was difficult yet ultimately rewarding; though I certainly won't miss the staff meetings at 7.15 in the morning... Afternoons were officially 'free', but I spent most of the time frantically re-planning my lessons before the next day. However, we managed to fit in a hike to the top of the tallest mountain in the Czech Rep., and lots of coffee-drinking and cake-eating (caffeine and sugar becoming increasingly vital resources towards the end of the week). Overall, a really lovely time - I made some wonderful friends, as well as being able to enjoy my time with old ones.

Wandered around town this afternoon - library, record stores, cinema (to see 'Moon' - review to follow shortly). Nice, if a little rainy... 'Bona Drag', a cup of Earl Grey and a Wagon Wheel are helping though.

Blurred visions.

This always happens, with things like this. I begin them with enthusiasm, commitment, dedication etc. - all of which wears off in a month or two, and neglect sets in. Looks like almost three weeks since I last passed this way. Never mind, at least I have some newsworthy things to write this time.

Yesterday I returned from my fourth, and best, Glastonbury Festival. Why best? Well, mainly because of the music. Here, for the record, are the bands I saw: The Volt, Golden Silvers, Lay Low, Regina Spektor, N*E*R*D, Fleet Foxes, The Dead Weather, The Specials, Neil Young, First Aid Kit, The Low Anthem, Bombay Bicycle Club, Spinal Tap, Dizzee Rascal, Crosby Stills and Nash, Bruce Springsteen, Status Quo, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Alela Diane, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, and Blur. It was, as you can imagine, quite a weekend.

It was also great because the atmosphere was so friendly, and because the weather held more or less, and because I had some wonderful friends to see everything with: Mike, Kayleigh, Nat, Emma and Simeon were brilliant company, making what was already a great weekend into my favourite festival ever. I'm considering skipping the thing next year - although the idea of a special 40th anniversary festival is quite appealing, this one was more than special enough.

And for the next few weeks I have little to do aside from writing and reading. Perfect.

Another short piece of writing about escape and regret.

I miss it so much some days.

Today is one of those days.

Shelf life.

I had a strange wake-up call today. Firstly, Elizabeth Bowen's 'The Last September' leapt from my bookshelf onto the floor. Then her 'Collected Stories' followed suit, making a considerably louder crash. Strange, I thought. Then a few seconds later, the entire bookshelf cracked and buckled under the remaining weight, and one screw came away from the wall completely, sending the rest of my books flying on to the top of my wardrobe, on the floor, into the bin...

It is a sign, perhaps, that I need some new shelves. I don't intend to stop buying books anytime soon.

In other news, I have a job at the land of drudge - though I am enjoying it slightly more this time around. At the age of 18, I seemed to be much more angry and frustrated at the job; now I just feel a kind of resignation about the whole thing: It Is A Job. Nothing More. Think Of The Money. Well, me and Jess had fun(?) last night anyway, just arsing around as you do.

Lots of good things have happened recently, the weather has been wonderful for football and sunbathing and lemonade-drinking - but a lot of confusing things have happened too. I've concluded that spending some time away, by myself or with a couple of friends, would be a very good thing, just to sort my head out. Time to break out the tent. And the cordless drill.

The Stephens; The exhale.

Sometimes this thing is just going to be a straight diary. Mainly so I can remember the things that have actually happened in my life - so that when people ask me what I've been up to, I won't have to improvise with stories about giant winged creatures and Nutella.

Friday night was lovely - Jay's birthday, and we all sat around outside a restaurant eating, smoking and being witty about both Stephens King and Fry. Must have been quite a sight, a bunch of guys in their early 20's in suit jackets trying to be all laconic and sophisticated. Then afterwards we all went to the pub and got royally pissed.

Then, yesterday, I finished my final essay. Celebrated with pizza and beer and two episodes of The Wire. Could my life BE any more exciting? Well yes, yes it could. I'm working on it, don't worry.

(The picture at the top is by Adam Chodzko - if you like your art sarcastic AND beautiful, check this out: http://www.adamchodzko.com/)

Right noise.

We've reached a strangely suspended time in the year. On Tuesday I celebrated (somewhat prematurely) the end of the second year at university, even though I still have an essay due in eight days' time. So, everyone is still here, now suddenly without structure or goal, whilst the rain pours outside. We still haven't tipped into summer yet.

Today I went back to my old school, carrying boxes of exercise books for my mum. And, dressed in green, I felt appropriately like Godzilla - blundering down tiny familiar corridors and trying not to crush the tiny objects underneath my feet. There were some kids doing recorder lessons in my mum's classroom, who regarded me with with a mixture of awe and fascination - she tells them about our family, just as they tell her about theirs I guess. A lot has changed at St. Philip's; but some bits remain exactly as I remember them - that's comforting in a way. I also remember when 21 seemed unfathomably old.

I also found a kite today, on top of the wardrobe in the spare room. As soon as all of this is over, I'm running away with it to the beach. And never coming back.

Dead lines.

Morning. No it isn't. Never mind. Today I am wearing a bright t-shirt, on a bright day, attempting to convince myself that it is, finally, summer. Coffee and The Fall help too. Totally wired, indeed.

At the moment I feel like getting on a train and going somewhere new, even if just for a day. I always get like this just after returning from travels - trying to capture a little bit of the thrill that I always get from heading out on my own. Unfortunately, money and work get in the way, as always. Still, flights to Vienna are cheap at the moment.

As well as essays, some bad things have happened this week. Which meant drinking myself into oblivion on Tuesday; maintaining the illusion of jollity for everyone else's sake. I told Nat what was going on, but we were both too drunk for it to mean anything - it got lost in the smoke. Probably best.

Now I'm off to buy a glass cabinet with Simeon. I'm not sure why - hopefully everything will become clear in time. I do enjoy hanging around with optimists.... but only sometimes.

Boomchip.

Amsterdam was amazing. Of course it was. The perfect combination of people, the perfect place to go, and the perfect time to go there. It really is a beautiful, and incredibly laid-back city - I reckon the more canals a place has, the more relaxed it is: I call it the Barge-o-meter.

Queen's Night - and the day that followed - were pretty unhinged, with truly heroic levels of substance abuse, 16 straight hours of techno, a shopping trolley full of Grolsch, AND a royal assassination attempt. The rest seems pretty tame in comparison, but it was truly a pleasure to see everyone again - so nice to chat and smoke all day with such good friends. We did a few of the touristy things (Van Gogh Museum, Nemo Museum, Red Light District etc...) but, as ever, it was the smaller things that meant the most: going to Tessa's cheese shop for a tour and samples; barbequeing underneath the sunset on a barge, whilst cruising the canals; even just sitting around in the pub and reminiscing about Turkey. We've made plans to meet in Vienna next, at CHRISTMAS - personally I can't think of a better place to be... see you then.

I also somehow charmed a pretty French girl on the plane over, mainly by being a bumbling Brit and getting my seatbelt all wrong. She laughed, and I noticed she was reading a book on 'British Culture', which certainly got the conversation flowing. Her English was great; she'd been doing ERASMUS in Bristol for the last seven months. We swapped numbers - so watch this space, I guess.

Time for tea and snooker.

I wanna go backwards.

Yesterday was a funny one. Cups of tea and laughing with Emma and Hannah, and some new travelling plans (Czech Republic in July) - it's always the old friends who are somehow still the closest, no matter how far you drift. Then pub with Jay and Rosie; discussions about aliens and dreams and chicks vs. ducklings...

Today was a wet one. But only weather-wise. Tutorial with Carrie went well; seems I have the measure of this Sudden Prose nonsense after all:

"To Those of You That I Have Inadvertently Blanked in the Past,

I am sorry. I did not mean it. At least I did not mean it meanly - when you sailed past me, serenely, in your Land Rover Discovery, and I was somewhere else entirely. And you so pleased to see me.

No amount of frantic waving, honking or yelling could get me to look around and, let’s face it: we both ended up looking a little foolish. You probably more so. I am a serial blanker, you see – you weren’t the first, you won’t be the last, but you can call yourself the best if it makes you feel better.

Now fuck off and leave me alone."

Tomorrow will be a tiring one. I'm travelling to Amsterdam until Sunday to see all the folks I met in Istanbul during my time there - can't wait to see if there's more to the place than smoking and cycling - although I'm sure there'll be a fair bit of that too. Also really looking forward to seeing this bunch of people with whom I have such a strong, strange connection; under any other circumstances, I doubt we'd ever have met. Yet, after 5 months travelling and living together in Turkey, we developed a pretty amazing bond with each other. I'm hoping we can all just pick up where we left off.

Dr. David Starkey: Mind Of A Tyrant.

On 'Question Time' this week: "We do not make a great fact about Shakespeare, like the Scots do about that deeply boring, provincial poet Burns, and we do not have national music like the awful bagpipe. The Scots, the Welsh and the Irish are typical small nations with a romantic 19th century-style nationalism."

Wow, Doctor - way to alienate a sizeable majority of your viewing audience. What buffoon let him on Question Time anyway? He's a HISTORIAN, for God's sake; they're hardly the most qualified of people to discuss current affairs....

In fact, there are so many awful things about the above quote, that I'll just sit back and let you bask in its overwhelming wrongness.

Speaking of history, yesterday I interviewed a bloke about his childhood, which he spent living in a double decker bus (see above). It was fascinating to hear about my neighbourhood as it was in the 1940s - rationing, rag-and-bone men, practical jokes, pedal-organs, and summers that lasted for eight months. But the bus was most interesting: his father had bought it as an act of desperation - the family had nowhere else to live. And over a period of years they converted it into a fully functional home, with running water, heating etc., only for the council to forcibly re-house them on the grounds of 'sanitation problems' - though from what I saw in the photographs, it looked clean and pleasant enough. I suspect the council just didn't want them there. Back then it was not considered strange for families to move into rail carriages and buses; the result of a post-war lack of housing of course - but there is something undeniably seductive about that way of life, to me anyway.

He also spoke movingly about the last time he saw the bus, by sheer coincidence, in 1988. It was sitting in a field surrounded by barbed wire, awaiting the scrapheap.

The cave in.

Christ, has it come to this? I thought I would never embark on a blog - partly because it seems like a lot of work, and partly because 99% of blogs are written by dribbling, navel-gazing, flag-waving, narcissistic, light-deprived, pseudo-manic-depressive tossers. So in fact, I should fit right in. Boom tish.
To be honest I don't know why I've started this now, on the 24th of April, 2009. Maybe something interesting will happen soon to jazz it up a bit. Until then, you'll have to put up with my oft-introverted musings on things.

Earlier I wandered around town with Molly and we sat on the sun-warmed paving slabs outside Bath Abbey, drinking caffeine and listening to somebody playing the guitar in the middle of the square. Then we did our (admittedly rather surreal) shopping and went our separate ways. It was perfect.

Right now I'm listening to 'I See A Darkness' by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, and wondering if anyone will make an album quite as beautiful again. There's just something about it.

And later on I am interviewing a man who lived in a double-decker bus in his youth. More on that next time. Jeez, what a fucking cliffhanger.