end of year.

10. Foot Village - Friendship Nation

9. Girl Talk - Feed The Animals

8. Starkey - Ephermeral Exhibits

7. K-The-I??? - Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow

6. iTAL tEK - Cyclical

5. No Age - Nouns

4. Rings - Black Habit

3. Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

2. Why? - Alopecia

1. Nisennenmondai - Destination Tokyo

So there you have it, my vision of 2008's finest offerings summed up in 10 pictures.
Feel free to tell me if you think I missed anything or if indeed you disagree. In the end there are way more electronic based albums on the list than I would have imagined but I put a lot of thought into it and I feel that these are the releases i've been able to come back to and enjoy more than any other this year. It's been a good one.

Top 15 songs and live acts after the jump.

TOP 15 SONGS

15. Little Trooper - Wasn't Ready

14. Night Jewel - Artificial Intelligence

13. Telepathe - Chromes On It

12. TV On The Radio - DLZ

11. Nisennenmondai - Mirrorball

10. Baby Venom - Eye Patch

9. Pens - Hate Your Calender

8. Human Hair - Happy Birthday

7. Nisennenmondai - Souzousuru Neji

6. Drop The Lime - Hear Me

5. Gentle Friendly - Five Girl Night

4. Arch M - 21st Union

3. Starkey - Spacewalk

2. No Age - Cappo

1. Baby Venom - Frank


TOP 15 LIVE PERFORMANCES

15. Barr @ The Luminaire(London)

14. Fuck Buttons @ ATP vs Pitchfork (Camber Sands)

13. Chrome Hoof @ Dot to Dot (Nottingham)

12. Ex Models @ Dot to Dot (Nottingham)

11. Foot Village @ The Luminaire (London)

10. No Age @ Stealth (Nottingham)

9. Dan Deacon @ Dot to Dot (Nottingham)

8. Banjo Or Freakout @ No Shows Forever (London)

7. Aids Wolf @ The Rainbow (Birmingham)

6. Japanther @ The Old Blue Last (London)

5. Mika Miko @ The Dome (London)

4. Nisennenmondai @ The Hare And Hounds (Birmingham)

3. Glass Candy @ ATP vs Pitchfork (Camber Sands)

2. Dalek @ Supersonic Festival (Birmingham)

1. Why? @ The Regal (Oxford)

Read More...

Summary only...

destination tokyo.

when i woke up friday morning, still slightly hung over from the previous nights adventures at apt. the prospect of meeting four japanese people, three of which being the girls who make up nisennenmondai, seemed like an arduous task. i've never been the greatest small talker, as i'm sure many of you are aware. i get shy and then try to cover it up by making ridiculous observations or talking about bards and loots, or something along those lines. combine that with a hazy head, a night of sleeping on a sofa and the fact that the three girls didn't speak much english i thought i was in for a painful day. that paranoia couldn't have been further from the truth.

i went to meet them all mid-afternoon in the city center, fortunately they were accompanied by katoman who acted as their translator. after some polite handshakes and some relatively pleasant small talk we crammed all of their gear and the five of us in a black cab and headed towards kings heath.
after dropping off some of their stuff at my house and learning that katoman is like best friends with all my favourite bands in the world or something, we headed down to the hare and hounds, where acid mothers temple were already unloading outside. it was quite a surreal situation really, me & these two sets of people who came from 1000's of miles away, only to meet in a tiny town-out-of-town in birmingham to play a gig together. after the hello's and the load in was complete me and katoman went and sat in the back area, leaving all the bands to prepare. we set about drinking the luke-warm red stripes provided.
turns out this guy is pretty much a living legend and does in-fact intimately know pretty much every band we spoke about and he's into almost everything i am, runs a label, a pr company, a punk rock record store, books tours, is in an amazing disco-funk band i am tokyo, you're osaka and is just an easy going, all round great guy.

unfortunately, i completely didn't take into account that i was djing at 10pm at my friend nick's night discord. fortunately, nisennenmondai we're on at 8.30, so i could watch their set then head over to rootys to dj and then straight back to the hare and hounds to escort everyone home. a plan which actually ran fairly smoothly.
i have a fair bit of nisennenmondai's material and it truly is incredible but in no way was i ready for just how intense they were live. they played three songs in just over 30 minutes, spanning various different genres, all with their own unique noisy edge but always unified by a consuming sense of urgency. they took the dance inducing rhythm of chrome hoof, threw in the aggressive progression of battles and topped it off with huge lightning boltesq riffs and still comfortably managed to remain refreshing throughout and never once did it seem as though they were even intending to sound anything like this. i was in awe from start to finish.

so thank you very much for everyone who came down to see them and for capsule for taking the weight of responsibility off my shoulders and allowing me to just enjoy the great company and the amazing performance without the stress of everything else and thank you to capsule for the money to get breakfast, i cooked everyone a huge vegetarian full english this morning, a perfect way to prepare for a day of the mega bus, which is what the band and katoman had to look forward to. grim.

tuck shop later. yay.

Read More...

Summary only...

nisennenmodai moved.

nisennenmondai have now been added to the acid mothers temple show on friday august 1st instead. it will still be at the hare and hounds, i'm not sure of the price now though as the show is being run by capsule. so they're still playing, just a day later and now at least i don't have to risk losing money & considering we'd be up against caspule and a much more widely known japenese noise band at the same venue, in the same week it would be safe to say that losing money would be a certaintey.

Read More...

Summary only...

nisennenmodai.

this is one week tomorrow, if you're into japenese noise/punk or just fancy coming down to check them out, it's only £5. starts @ 8.00pm. it says all this on the flyer. yeah.

Read More...

Summary only...