I, I live among the creatures of the night...

This track is Sunday nights in retail; the echoing of the trashy 80's drum machines bouncing off the high corrugated steel roof; rain hitting the grey litter-strewn concrete car-park, now abandoned by fat shoppers leaving only their half-eaten burgers, Argos bags and copies of the Sun.

The video does it justice, Laura Branigan is trapped in a city where the streets are made not of gold but of binbags. But don't knock it - they've got some awesome nightlife, all the clubs have a tinfoil decor and the dress code is strictly pastel leotards (mask preferred). Fake kissing only; heavy petting permitted.

Shit. Had too much to drink again. Check this guy I woke up with!?!

Laura Branigan - Self Control

(As featured on Balearic Mike's awesome new balearic Cosmic Alphonsus Vol.7 mix) (also available at Piccadilly Records)

David Byrne - The Knee Plays

You’ll recognise “knee plays” as those little scenes in Shakespeare and Elizabethan drama where a couple of characters will act out some rather random little comic sketch in front of the curtain, while the bigger scenes are prepared behind them. The Knee Plays is the David Byrne-penned soundtrack to a series of these that were to run between scenes of a theatrical epic called the CIVIL warS, which was to be premiered at the Olympic Arts Festival alongside the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. The Knee Plays has just been lavishly reissued on Nonesuch Records.

In the end, they were the only part of the CIVIL warS to ever be performed, as the funding for the 10-hour play, in which each act had its own set and cast shipped from another country, and which was to feature David Bowie acting alongside kabuki theatre stars, with Philip Glass scoring, was pulled. Shame, it sounds like a hit.

The music for The Knee Plays had to be loud enough to drown out the sounds of the CIVIL warS that would be getting ready behind them. Byrne tried traditional kabuki percussion to match the Japanese dramatic forms on stage (recordings of which are included as bonus tracks on this disc) before taking an inspired 90-degree turn by using a brass band. From this already idiosyncratic musical base, he wrote some spoken word pieces to be read out over the top. “They were certainly unrelated to the stage action”, says Byrne in the liner notes. "But I realized that things that happen simultaneously are often presumed by the heart and mind to be related in some way…When you look up at clouds in the city, and the sound you hear is hip-hop and traffic noises, well, that’s the score for the cloud image”.

Byrne, right, with director Robert Wilson and collaborator Adelle Lutz. Note Byrne's snazzy homemade cardboard slippers.

The story happening onstage is a mimed Japanese folktale about sailing to a strange land, but his words describe all sorts of scenarios. In “The Sound Of Business”, a road movie narrative becomes an antsy meditation on the nature of modern movement and commerce, before dissolving into an oblique list of fictional song titles playing on the car radio, a list almost with its own narrative. “I’d remembered JG Ballard saying once that lists, ads, codes, and instructions manuals are the invisible literature of today”, Byrne says.

David Byrne - The Sound Of Business (zshare link)

I also love “(The Gift Of Sound) Where The Sun Never Goes Down”, a naïve yet oddly wise tale of sounds in a cinema being unable to escape until they are set free by someone opening the doors, "to become forever part of the landscape".

David Byrne - (The Gift Of Sound) Where The Sun Never Goes Down (zshare link)

He cites Dada and Surrealism as being an influence, and I think he gets the original concept of the Surreal absolutely right. Rather than “surreal” being almost outside of reality, as it has come to mean, it is meant to be more akin to our term “hyper-real”, a heightened form of reality where anything can and does happen. Take "Social Studies", where a bird landing on a boat is soundtracked by a think-piece about social assimilation being created by people eating the same food.

David Byrne - Social Studies (zshare link)

The music itself is immaculately performed, and covers a lot of ground. In some pieces, jazzy timbres and rhythms are tempered by a dignified theatricality, recalling the starlit sheen of Gershwin. Elsewhere, Byrne’s interests in commodification are rendered with a kind of glorious Muzak, lift-music lullabies that are not snide or condemnatory but that make an uplifting Surrealistic case for the universality of sound. Optimistic fanfares and music hall oompah also feature, while “Winter” is a beautifully minimal landscape of held chords that sounded amazing as Jen and I drove down a deserted motorway outside Burnley with the rain lashing down.

Big love to my housemate Dave for buying me this for Christmas. Buy it yourself at Rough Trade here.

#1 Most Unlikely Jolene Reworking

Peter Visti's 12 minute reworking of "Jolene" has been on repeat through my speakers and in my headphones for three solid months. Parton's country classic, in all its melancholy top-heavy original has been ground down, torn away and spread into a thick, grey grind of dark materials.

This is a gloriously brutal rehash; the looped guitar that rolls heavy and solitary through the echoes of strings that are only a whisper of the wind pulled through abandoned houses slowly builds into a mesmeric balearic slow dance. It incorporates a minimal, unassuming beat, a slow pulse heralding the eventual influx of programming that sifts slowly through to male vocals that bounce off sheer desolation. The beat hypnotises, infiltrating and occupying the psyche until the harsh snap back to reality twelve minutes later

Visti hails from Denmark and is signed to Eskimo, which is also home to the likes of Lindstrom & Prins Thomas, LSB and Aeroplane. He does not appear to have a website, and only has half a dozen or so releases under his belt. His myspace is a simple personal account, where he mostly waxes lyrical about the joys of parenthood. However, his records are stocked by the likes of Phonica and Piccadilly Records (links on sidebar).

Peter Visti - Dolly

Happy Christmas!

"as the temperature fell, fog froze on the trees and made white bare trees in which the fog appeared ghostly beautiful, as if you could walk into these trees and receive immortal powers of a sort we all want at Christmas: the power to gather our friends and loved ones close around us and prevent suffering and evil and death from touching them"

- Garrison Keillor, Leaving Home

Lord Executor - Christmas Is A Joyful Day

Women Of The Year 2007.

2007 has had some richly varied highlights, but for me the overarching constant was the level of quality from, without wanting to sound too Brit Awards about it, solo female artists. While some artists have outright disappointed (Alicia Keys, Kate Nash, Uffie) and others have yet to show their full potential (Candie Payne, Amanda Blank), these 30 women have made music that my iPod thumb keeps returning to. (I've linked to the myspace pages of a few of the less well known artists - give them all a once-over, you won't be disappointed).

30. Yelle – Irrepressible French cheese-pop chanting, but also soft naïve afternoon grooves.
29. Joanna Newsom – “Colleen” is the only new stuff released this year, but it mines a groove as deep as any funk queen.
28. Eve – “Tambourine” is a risky, brilliant track, and her fluoro-Versace look is awesome.
27. Duffy – Radio 2 incarnate, but some voices just cannot be denied. The Bernard Butler co-writing/producing avoids the cheese-layering production that sadly befell talented singers like James Morrison.
26. Rye Rye – Impenetrable Bmore b-girl stances from a girl who knows how good she is.
25. Alena Diane – Sandstone folk torch songs a world away from pell-mell modernity.
24. Robyn – “With Every Heartbeat” looked like it might not get picked up by the mainstream, and then suddenly it was Number 1. Anything less would have been criminal.
23. Amerie – She’s plainly got the funk up inside her, and you can still hear her hunger.
22. Hanne Hukkelberg – 2nd essential album in two years. A truly unique talent.
21. Tiffany Evans – American Idol reject comes good on the overlooked Timbaland jam of the year below.
mp3: Tiffany Evans - Girl Gone Wild

20. Bjork – Volta may not be my personal favourite of her records, but she is still operating outside her comfort zone as ever.
19. Gwen Stefani – “The Sweet Escape” unforgettably uplifting pop, and the “Now That You Got It” remix was equally insidious sunshine.
18. Stacy Epps – Warm but coughing soulful hip-hop. Check out her verse over one of the best beats of the year below.
mp3: Shape Of Broad Minds - They Don't Know (feat. Stacy Epps)
17. Sharon Jones – Hell hath no fury...
16. Santogold – Effortlessly straddles Switchy squelch-garage and 80’s powerpop.
15. Adele – Going to own 2008. Takes the bruised soul of Amy Winehouse and nurses it back to health; takes the quirks of Regina Spektor and makes them guileless.
14. Julianna Barwick – Hypnotic sylvan loops. Ragas for hissing summer lawns.
mp3: Julianna Barwick - Dancing With Friends
13. Janelle Monaé – Great guest spots on Outkast’s Idlewild, even better on this space-pop classic. A big tip for next year.
mp3: Janelle Monaé - Violet Stars Happy Hunting!
12. Kid Sister – Another one who could go stratospheric. Like Rye Rye she has that ridiculous flow that doesn't show off but just calmly announces its own brilliance.
11. Leona Lewis - Holy shit:

10. Bat For Lashes – Eventually made it this year despite some rather half-hearted promotion from her record company.
9. Tracy Thorn – Her album had the kind of production that tips its cap at the 80’s without pastiche. Metro Area, Ewan Pearson et al go to town with that timeless voice.
mp3: Tracy Thorn - It's All True (Escort extended remix)
8. Feist – Breezy afternoon picnic-radio music.
7. Amy Winehouse – A modern icon. Roll on the Grammys.
6. Roisin Murphy - Classic house and pop sung by unglazed porcelain. Kylie is jealous.
5. Alice Smith – Will her album For The Lovers, Dreamers And Me ever get a UK release? Subtly modern, blatantly sensual.
mp3: Alice Smith - Dream
4. Rihanna – Her album has some high points, but come on, she's here for “Umbrella”. Instantly memorable and still endlessly involving.
3. Kathy Diamond – Her Miss Diamond To You will go down as one of the all-time great lost records. Insane shimmering disco production from Maurice Fulton.
mp3: Kathy Diamond - All Woman
2. M.I.A. – Absolutely attuned to phonetics as all great rappers should be, and a fantastic producer.

1. Ciara – Her album is underrated, she can dance better than any other R'n'B starlet, but she's at the top for “Promise”, perhaps my most listened-to track this year, and the greatest R’n’B slow jam ever recorded. Amazing precise delivery, transcendent production, a furlined future-caramel masterpiece.
mp3: Ciara - Promise

Fuck Buttons

In the space of a couple of months, I've watched Fuck Buttons go from a duo with a support slot in a dingy upstairs room at the edge of Manchester's curry mile, without a proper website or any releases to speak of, to being blogged every three days, signing to ATP Recordings, releasing a dinky little 7" picture disc at Rough Trade and finally, last week - giving up their day jobs. They also premiered the video to "Bright Tomorrow" on Pitchfork a week or two ago.

In Manchester, they used a table in the centre of the standing space to construct an inspiring set up of wires, satin lined suitcases, pocket-sized casios and a fisher-price tape recorder. They sound gloriously noisy, colourful and excited. From the confusion of wires, samplers, keyboards and laptop erupt fireworks; bright infusions of cyclic melody disrupt the brash, gloopy haze of feedback and white noise. Vocals are channelled through the Fisher-price contraption, wedged in the jaws of Benjamin John Power as his screams are distorted into wide grimacing squawks.

I believe they are a band to see live, after nearly standing too close to the table in Manchester, frozen to the spot from fear and excitement, I can't imagine it being batter in any other medium. In headphones - crank it up and have somewhere to be - altered states induced at night. they have signed up for ATPvsPitchfork and will no doubt crop up around the country again soon. check their myspace for dates.

"Bright Tomorrow" works the frequencies, sonic heartbeats charged, synths stuck in a glitch, harmonious keyboard melodies that slide amongst the wreckage of electronic abuse and twisted wires strewn about, fuelling the vocal screech, the metallic strain to hit the build; the hard, fast peak of aural bliss.

Fuck Buttons - Bright Tomorrow

Note: only two Fuck Buttons tracks have been officially released, so its feels a little cheeky to post their entire back catalogue in one fell swoop. Buy the 7", or better still: support them live.

Frode Haltli

Words like "transcendent" and "sublime" get bandied about a great deal in music journalism, but Jen and I were lucky enough to see something recently that we both agreed merited both words - Norwegian accordianist Frode Haltli performing his recent album Passing Images, the concert which closed this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

The record is a series of traditional Nordic folk songs reinterpreted in a contemporary way alongside Haltli's own compositions. Playing on the record and with him in Huddersfield were singer/vocalist Maya Ratkje, viola player Garth Knox and trumpeter (and PIAIL fave) Arve Henriksen.

Knox ranged from sudden dramatic swathes to near-inaudible high-tensile rapture; Ratkje, as well as providing effortlessly soaring passages, contributed an astonishing range of clicks, whistles and ululations to evoke an organic, outdoor sound-world.

Henriksen is simply perfect here. Not only does he make having sloping shoulders look cool (jealous), his own interests – the natural world, acknowledging heritage alongside sonic envelope-pushing – match those of Haltli. His signature sound, a kind of freeze-dried Don Cherry, dovetailed precisely with the coolly alive physicality of this music. But his instrument burst towards other poles, from 808-like robotics on “Lude” to the warmly brash Miles Davis of “Vandring”.

As for Haltli, he wrings every possible sound from his accordion, from piercingly blank high-end to convulsing mumbling; from doom-laden drones to hymnal beauty. The sight of an accordion being played with such sensitivity is mesmerising, the impossible full length of it exposed like a conjurer’s trick, its crenelated curves like some strange Scandinavian mollusc.

The inexorability of its ebb and flow is the perfect visual complement for his work, which folds in every drip of snowmelt and rustle of pine, every faded footprint and half-remembered melody, before unfurling it all in a thrillingly fresh way and yet still on its own terms. This concert was uplifting in a way that only the most wondrous natural sights can usually create – this is music that moves with the logic of starlings, with the half-life of sunset.

Here's a couple of tracks from the record, which has shot straight to the upper echelons of my year's best list:

Frode Haltli - Vandring (alternative ZShare link)
Frode Haltli - Jag Haver Ingen Karare (alternative ZShare link)

60 Watt Kid

This track came upon my person from I'm not sure where. My iTunes keeps playing it without me noticing - apt, I'd say, due to its swirling phosphorescent nature. They are the musical offspring of West Coast art-pop - Animal Collective are an influence 60 Watt Kid wear on their sleeves in 'Ocsicnarf Nas' - but often more mellow. Vocals are warped in sunshine warmth, distorting like heat off the road.

'Ocsicnarf Nas' is impressionistic - colours blurring and smudging into a palette of dancing guitars with spinning skirts; vocals like a tuned-out radio at twilight; a sonic backdrop of dense, ambiguous programming.

'Every Day' is more manic - scrappy garage rock smacked up by bleepy synths and splashes of feedback grind. It is scruffy and frayed, a Fuck Buttons remix of an indie-pop song - squiffy casio exhortations failing to completely obscure the hooks and melody.

Their debut was released earlier this month on Absolutely Kosher (also home to Sunset Rubdown, Frog Eyes, The Wrens, Xiu Xiu) and have a hand-painted limited edition cassette on the way. It's also on iTunes, and the tracks can be heard on their myspace and website.

60 Watt Kid - Ocsicnarf Nas

60 Watt Kid - Every Day

Sam Amidon + HEALTH

Sam Amidon is a New York folk man with a voice the now-sadly-defunct Stylus likened to "a more assertive Kermit The Frog", which isn't far wrong. Some of his stuff, like his ill-advised cover of "Head Over Heels" by Tears For Fears, crosses into wet-tissue feyness and I have to listen to some strident disco to get the wobblyness out of my head. However, "Saro" is easily one of the years best songs.

It's a rendition of an old folk song, so Amidon can't really take the credit for the awesome vocal melody. It's absolutely effortless and timeless; and like all great melodies sounds as if it's been hewn from the natural world rather than forced out of a mind. Particularly affecting is the way the line "for to be alive" falls, a beautiful little moment. To give Amidon his due, its a very moving performance, managing to convey both a resignation to lost love, and the awful time it took to get there.

Sam Amidon - Saro

Sam's album featuring this track, All Is Well, is out in February, and was produced by Valgeir Sigurðsson, who has worked with Bjork, Bonnie Prince Billy, Mum, Sigur Ros, CocoRosie and, er, Kate Nash.

At the other end of the melodious prettiness spectrum we have HEALTH. They recorded their record (and are regulars) at the not-really-underground-anymore underground L.A. club The Smell, which has also nurtured such experimental-hipster-punk luminaries as No Age and Mika Miko. The Smell has a habit of putting on bands with silly names, try these on for size: Heavy Face, Vomit Bomb, Disposable Thumbs, Child Pornography, Bipolar Bear, Pocahaunted, This Moment In Black History, Good For Cows, Toxic Loincloth, Stay Fucked, Mattress, Moth Drakula. Lovely.

Anyway, HEALTH (why the block capitals? Smell-brand silliness again) may look nu-rave and even sound it on the Crystal Castles remix of their "Crimewave", but they actually play a brand of punk that fans of Liars and Black Dice will dig, garage rock meets noise bursts meets electronic noodles with tribal drumming and eerie vocals. I love "Perfect Skin", in which titanic chords call on the po-faced monolithic riffage of metal to slowly lay waste to the landscape. The way they fall fractionally off the on-beat is just great. Turn this one way up.

HEALTH - Perfect Skin

Hello blues, whatcha doin in here so soon?

The cold has set in good and proper up north. I get wrapped up to go outside - hats and coats and scarves. The last two days, Sheffield has been draped in a thick grey misty rain that settled as fog this morning. It was cold, and everywhere sounded empty, voices echoing hollow in the morning chill. This is the weather for blues, for the down and out blues infront of wide log fires - since I don't have a log fire, I'll settle for the blues.

Bessie Jones was the principal in a special form of gospel singing called the 'ring shout' which was practised on the St Simon's Island where she lived with her husband. This song was one she'd learnt as a girl, along with lots others from her grandfather - an African ex-slave. This one she made up "when she was young and still 'out in the world'(not a church goer)"

Alan Lomax discovered her in 1959, and she later convinced him to record her music and her biography. 'Beggin' The Blues' is featured on the 2CD Alan Lomax Songbook, it was recorded in 1961 and as a result, the recording is pretty much spotless. Lomax captures her voice in sharp focus and almost unbearably close-up. She sings completely a capella here - her voice is rich and powerful but tied down and softened for this personal lament, tarnished by a beautiful lilt that carries off the last syllable into a dark blue wilderness.

Bessie Jones - Beggin' The Blues

Life Force

Recently I have been enjoying the pleasures of rediscovery, spending half an hour here and there rooting around in a shoebox full of electronica and avant-rock promos from the last three years. I keep chancing upon albums buried in my memories, blurred undeservedly into a generic subset of mediocre strings and electronic mutterings.

The Life Force Trio are one of the things is listened to the most. This one track (in tribute to Alice Coltrane) stood out the most and I am glad to find it again. Unfortunately the album has terrible artwork and an even more hideous title: The Living Room. Well done guys, you really convinced us all that your good album was actually some flaccid lounge bullshit. (No points for imagination either - it was recorded in a living room)

They were conceived by Carlos Nino, who was also part of AmmonContact and Hu Vibrational among others. As far as I can tell, they've only ever released this one full length on Plug Research, with a guest appearance forDwight Trible and a 7" here, 12" there.

'Alice!' is six minutes of strings gliding; soaring like starlings over the high notes; caressing and adorning the helpless looped melody as it falters, is retrieved and heaps around and upon itself - a beautiful tangle of wind, string and the carefully disguised hum of programmed monotones.

Alice! - The Life Force Trio

And the footprints on your ceiling are almost gone...

This track is from a compilation released about two years ago called Back to California. It's the only track I really listen to, but I'm glad I found it, even if the rest are twangy white man country. But this one song, it never fails me.

'Trouble' is originally a Lowell George track; this version is by Nicolette Larson and was recorded live. What makes it more exciting is Van Dyke Parks on piano; you can hear him counting her in. She's most famous for being Neil Youngs woma' for a while, and recording a cover of "Lotta Love". She died in 1997 from a cerebral edema at the age of 45.

It always picks me back up, every little bit, one play is never enough. The gutsy drawl of Lawson adds bite to the lyrics, which carry the perfect sentiment. Parks' piano follows her voice, tracking the parts where she drags the heavier parts from the pit of her stomach, and when they linger on her tongue and in her mouth.

I find it impossible not to join in as she bawls: "You're an island and oooon yourrr own!", or the determined but soft drawl of "and your eyes are tired; and your feet are too; and you wish the world were as tired as youuuu"

I listen to it when I feel exhausted, and feel guilty for being so pathetically tired, because I've just worn myself out doing things I like and nothing I don't. Drag yourself out of bed to this, your day will be all the more productive. I think I'll need it tomorrow, so I'm gonna write a letter, and I'll send it away, put all the troubles in it I have todayyyyy...

Nicolette Larson - Trouble