Sleephouse Radio

Anyone got a kazoo?

2006-09-15T05:25:00.000-07:00

Sleephouse's extended summer holiday is almost over and I'll be back with a new issue in the near future. Here's a little something to keep you going until then.

Climbing gingerly on the back of the beast of hyperbole, last night I was fortunate enough to witness one of the best gigs I've ever seen in my short little life. It was I'm From Barcelona's debut London show and it was an absolute belter. I guarantee that unless you are a complete stone-cold-hearted bastard there is no way that you will leave their show without a smile on your face.

To the alarming operatic strains of Freddy Mercury's and Montserrat Caballé's 'Barcelona' I'm From Barcelona took to the stage in hail of enthusiasm, confetti and balloons and they just didn't stop until the whole of the audience was either on stage dancing or completely swept away in a tsunami of grinning good vibes. I can honestly say that I've never seen so many hearts melt and faces beam in my entire life.

Here's two songs from last night's performance.

'Chicken Pox'

'Collection of Stamps'

I'm From Barcelona have a few more shows in England coming up in the near future. Here they are:

Friday 15th September @ How Does It Feel To Be Loved?, Jamm, London
Saturday 16th September @ Rough Trade Shop, Covent Garden, London
Sunday 17 September @ The End of The Road Festival

You really need to see this band, and don't forget to bring your kazoo!

Buy their album too. Here's my review of it for Playlouder.com:

I'm From Barcelona: Let Me Introduce My Friends (Mute)

Have A 'Little Heart'

2006-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

Setting Up (Small), originally uploaded by sleephouseradio.

Hey there people! Well, it’s been quite a while, hasn’t it? Sleephouse 8 is coming soon, most probably later in the week. Apologies, but as I’m always telling you—I’m real lazy.

Until then, here’s hoping that this update holds you over. Sleephouse hasn’t been completely idle in the intervening weeks since Issue 7. No, my dear listeners, the summer’s here (almost) and I’ve been out and about. Since the last show I’ve taken in some excellent gigs from the likes of Black Mountain, The Pink Mountaintops, The Shins, The Gossip and Serena Maneesh.

I’ve been drinking heavily and abusing my body in a most grotesque manner, so last Wednesday afternoon’s genteel outing to see Mount Eerie was welcome indeed. Held at the hangover-accommodating hour of 1pm, and a free gig to boot ( though I contributed £3 voluntarily), the show’s venue was, inexplicably, but somehow fittingly, a beautiful old library in the London School of Economics. The very university where Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was first taught the principles of penny-pinching on a grand scale, and from which he would ultimately drop out of, in order to, according to his professor, “form a skiffle band.”

And, though no pouty snake-hipped dancing was in evidence, the gig was a great little intimate affair, with Phil Elverum playing some of his lesser known stuff, in an attempt to not repeat anything from a set he had played at a show the previous evening. He was supported by Geneviève Castrée, who is the wonderful Woelv and Elverum’s partner. The show was put together by the excellent London/Northampton-based collective called Undereducated. They release records, put out zines and organise shows. Make yourself friendly with them at their myspace or their very own website.

Here’s a little bit of film I managed to catch, a performance of the song 'O Little Heart'.

And, in a further attempt to convert you to his cause, here’s my favourite ever Mount Eerie song:

Wooly Mammoth's Absence (MP3)

It’s taken from the Seven New Songs of Mt. Eerie EP. Phil’s website sells loads of goodies, and though this EP is currently out of print, the ever generous Mr Elverum has provided the whole thing for free download. All you have to do is go to this site (which seems to be down right now but I’m sure it’ll come back soon).

I’ll see you later in the week.

Issue 7

2006-04-21T09:20:00.000-07:00

There’s more than a whiff of retro-ism about Issue 7 of Sleephouse Radio. But am I apologetic? Of course not—you have to know your history to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff. And with so many musical thieves out there these days, just waiting for the appropriate opportunity to pass off some old tat as their own work of original genius, you can thank your lucky stars that Sleephouse is here to disseminate the good from the bad. What follows is the good stuff, artists that take from the past but add something new to it in some small way. There’s a genuine lost gem of an oldie too.

To listen, simply download the audio file of the show (by clicking the image below) or use the flash player in the sidebar. This show can also be subscribed to as a podcast by copying the address of the RSS link in the sidebar into the podcast receiver of your choice. It’s all so simple…

(40MB, 43 mins. MP3 file)

1. Jens Lekman: A Sweet Summer’s Night on Hammer Hill (Secretly Canadian)

Nothing adds to the career of a pop singer like a bit of “will he?/won’t he?” speculation. Devotees of this politely spoken Swede were dismayed earlier this year when reports emerged of his intention to quit the music business for an extended period of soul searching and life adjustment.

Thankfully, whether this was actually a fully-formed idea in the mind of Lekman or just a bit of unsavoury media insinuation, Jens now seems to have shelved the plan and is throwing himself into his musical career wholeheartedly. He’s got a spritely US tour in the offing and will hopefully soon follow up his intermittently magnificent album, When I Said I Wanted to be Your Dog, with something truly befitting of his genius. This track comes from the rarities and b-sides collection Oh You’re So Silent Jens and it shows that the young man knows a thing or two about how to make a track sound classic.

2. Sunset Rubdown: A Day in the Graveyard II (Global Symphonic)

Just what a “Sunset Rubdown” involves is anybody’s guess. But as long as it’s soundtracked by this talented Canadian (Spencer Krug, Top Right) and includes a “happy ending” then count me in.

Long before Wolf Parade took the maple leaf to parts unknown, Spencer Krug’s bedroom project Sunset Rubdown has allowed his musical creativity free reign to develop unchecked. To be honest, this made for music that was pretty hit and miss: plenty of towering highs but plenty of indulgent lows too. But let’s not be too hard on the boy, after all he was a member of the first incarnation of Frog Eyes at the same time and one’s creativity can only stretch so far, right?

Sunset Rubdown is a different proposition these days, however. Now decked out with a full complement of permanent band members, and preparing to release the album Shut Up I am Dreaming, it seems they have sharpened their focus dramatically. The songs still meander and sprawl in an alarming number of different directions, but they now satisfy the listener with a distinct sense of purpose. As is evidenced from this song, taken from an album teaser of an EP released on Global Symphonic earlier this year, what was once a sideline could end up overshadowing Spencer's already successful day job.

3. Lilys: With Candy (Manifesto)

When The Shins shot to fame and Natalie Portman uttered those immortal words in the film Garden State: “[They’ll] change your life.” The Lilys frontman Kurt Heasley must have a cursed a blue streak a mile long. The Lilys have toiled in indie mines of obscurity for years now, forever on the lip of mainstream acceptance but always having to settle for the frustrating moniker of cult band.

Well, with their new album, Everything Wrong Is Imaginary, just dropped, hope may come from the unlikeliest of sources, that of a potty-mouthed ingénue helming a two-piece shoegazing band who write songs with titles like 'You Fuck Like Your Dad'. That’s right Annie Hardy of Giant Drag, NME’s latest flavour of the month, is a big fan of Lilys and can be found on her website spouting the following eulogy:

“What am I so excited about that I feel the need to exclaim it?! […]i will tell you what i am excited about: the new Lilys record! […] why are the lilys the greatest? i suppose the bigger question is why don’t more people know and love them? is everyone way dumb or has there been some foul play? i suspect a bit of each. tell your mothers all you want for christmas is the entire lilys catalog. oh, and giant drag’s hearts and unicorns...sorry, they make me say that.”

Well, the girl does make a point now, doesn’t she? Why haven’t you bought this record already? If you haven’t, and you own a copy of either Oh Inverted World or Chutes Too Narrow, at least do the decent thing and support the band that made all this possible. That band, my friend, is Lilys.

4. Euros Childs: Costa Rita (Wichita)

The Welsh have always have always exhibited a very particular grasp on reality. And before you go burning down my holiday cottage, let me say that I’m almost always a fan of any music that appears from this valley-riven and well-mountained territory. Converted to the power of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci during a particularly extreme doubleheader of gig headlined by a pre-crap Spiritualised at the Sheffield Octagon in 1997, I’ve been a devotee of their mushroom-headed psych pop for a good few years now.

I’ve always seen Euros Childs as the driving force behind Gorky’s and that (perhaps unfair) assessment is born out by the evidence of his first solo album Chops. Mellifluous harmonies ride on the backs of donkeys while Bossa Nova beats help sell ice creams on a British sea front. Hardened cynics may find Childs' world a tad too sugary sweet, but anyone who’s inner child has survived into today’s brutal adulthood will be delighted by an album that flouts reality’s usual conventions with such glee. No album will turn this spring into summer so quickly as Euros Childs’ Chops. Play it loud, open your windows and coax nature into action.

5. El Perro Del Mar: God Knows (You Gotta Give To Get) (Memphis Industries)

Phil Spector’s ludicrously vain afro looms large over many a new hope for music this year. Up and coming acts like The Pipettes and The Long Blondes both owe a certain amount of their studied charm to Spector’s patented Wall of Sound/Girl Group template.

But despite the undoubted talent of the aforementioned artists, no one nails the ethereal calm and otherworldly appeal of the old nutter’s music like El Perro Del Mar and her song ‘God Knows’.

El Perro Del Mar is the gorgeous work of sultry Swede Sarah, who gained a fair amount of deserved attention when she appeared on a split release with fellow countryman Jens Lekman last year. She’s recently signed to Memphis Industries and is preparing to release an album from which ‘God Knows’ shimmies forth. A song so classic the Twelve Inch probably smells of thirty-year-old dust and charity shops, and were there any justice in the world this song would be number one with a bullet. This song aims for great things and hits the target dead centre. If only the beleaguered Mr Spector had done the same. Don’t miss it! Shall I go on? No…you got it, right? Here’s a hint.

6. Mia Doi Todd: My Room is White [Flying Lotus Remix] (Plug Research)

If there’s one genre that Sleephouse has ignored in the past, it’s hip hop. Call me a hopeless indie white boy if you will (hey, I deserve it), but I just don’t feel qualified to direct you to the next big smoking hip hop joint, blood. (Though: Gnarls Barkley--now I like the cut of that young fellas jib, what what?)

But I do know a crispy fried beat when I hear one and if the grapevine is anything to go by then Flying Lotus is set to be the next big producer in the leftfield hip hop world. He might sound like your favourite Chinese restaurant, but the way Flying Lotus chops and dices Mia Doi Todd’s ‘My Room Is White’ would make this song dish of the day in many a fine establishment.

To be fair Mia Doi Todd might have something to do with it as well. Her smoky tones have always eluded me in the past, but the soon to be released remix album, La Ninja: Amor and Other Dreams of Manzanita, from which this song is taken, might just have hooked me. I look forward to investigating these artists further, and should you wish to you can do the same. Set browsers to stun and teleport to Myspace station A or B.

7. Add N to (X): King Wasp (Family Recordings)

Jarvis Cocker has a funny name, a funny dress sense and, on the evidence of the compilation album The Trip (Family Recordings), a bloody funny taste in music too. But like his unlikely moniker and his geek chic threads the music presented on this album just plain works.

Put together in collaboration with his fellow Pulp-ster Steve Mackey, The Trip is fantastic journey through the baroque and freakish record collection of these two northern gentlemen. Lee Hazelwood rubs shoulders with the Birthday Party, while The Fall barge past 60s crooner Gene Pitney spilling his drink all over OMD and The Human League. Yup, it’s hardly your average post party comedown mix. In fact, were you to slip this on in the company of the average popped-out pillhead you’d have to scrap him off the ceiling before you’d got round to the second CD.

A song with particular paranoia-producing prowess is this crawling king snake of a song from late-90s boffins Add N to (X). Originally released in 1997, with a 3D cover illustration no less, this is a true lost wonder that buzzes white hot noise all over Bo Diddley’s gently shuffling ‘50s slacks. Absolute crookedly, crackling genius.

8. Screaming Lord Sutch: Flashing Lights (Family Recordings)

Screaming Lord Sutch might be better known as the perennial comedy vote in British General Elections of the ‘80s: His Monster Raving Loony Party was the only welcome political raspberry any child growing up in Thatcher’s Britain could look forward to on the Election Day 5 o’clock News. I will always thank Lord Sutch for his humour and steadfast commitment in the face of certain defeat and many a lost deposit. He brightened my early life. Little did I know that he’d also been a pop star in waiting in the early '70s, one that unfortunately failed to launch into the famous firmament.

In this second song from The Trip compilation Cocker and Mackey have dug up a great cod-psych work out that, despite the critical panning that all Sutch’s albums received, 'Flashing Lights' is actually a hell of a lot of fun. Consider, too, that it features some supremely muscular session work from the recently Led-Zepped Jimmy Page (who also produced the album) and John Bonham and an unemployed Noel Reading (fresh from his dismissal from the Jimi Hendrix Experience). Even more interesting is the fact that it appears to be the place where the Stones Roses originally plundered their fool’s gold. The cheeky Manc monkeys.

9. Liars: The Other Side of Mt. Heart Attack (Mute)

Emerging from the smoking rubble of the NYC new wave explosion at the turn of the millennium, Angus Andrew and his fellow Liars found themselves missing half their band and a captivating musical direction.

Settling down as a three piece, and trying to live up to the frighteningly gargantuan hype that surrounded their debut They Threw Us All in a Trench… Angus and the boys decided musical salvation lurked in a sound roughly similar to the kiss of an angle-grinder on sheet metal and a hastily thought-out predilection for the occult. Unfortunately critics disagreed with this belief, and their second album They Were Wrong, So We Drowned was widely panned as an unlistenable folly.

They returned this year with a counterpunch of sorts, an album that’s most definitely listenable, and might just be their best work to date. It’s called Drum’s Not Dead and ‘The Other Side of Mount Heart Attack’ is the next single to be taken from it. It’ll be released on April 11th on Mute Records.

That's all for this issue, but don't forget to check out the Sleephouse Notes Blog for updates between times, and don't forget that you can now add Sleephouse Radio to your livejournal friends page. What's next?! Myspace? Why, yes.

Issue 6

2006-03-06T07:19:00.000-08:00

It's said that good things come to those who wait. But you, dear Sleephouse listener, have waited so very long. Therefore, without further ado, I present to you: Sleephouse Issue 6. Please accept my humblest apologies for the delay.

To listen, simply download the audio file of the show (by clicking the image below) or use the flash player in the sidebar. This show can also be subscribed to as a podcast by copying the address of the RSS link in the sidebar into the podcast receiver of your choice. It’s all so simple…

(42MB, 45 mins. MP3 file)

1. McLusky: Lightsabre Cocksucking Blues (Too Pure)

Any excuse to play foaming Welsh punkers McLusky is always welcomed here at Sleephouse. And though they imploded nigh on a year ago now, the greatest hits set, Mcluskyism, proves that the touch of Father Time’s wizened hands shall never dilute their legendary piss and vinegar.

The greatest hits compilation is out now and comes in two handy sizes: a mega-blowout 3 CD odds, sods and rarities version, and the perhaps more sensible straight-up single CD version. A messy, sweary, sonic juggernaut of misanthropy, McLusky were made for days when your boss treats you like shit, you step in dog turd as you trudge home in the rain and then the man at the corner shop informs you that your bankcard has been declined. Listening back to the raw energy of their greatest work only confirms the fact that their demise leaves a hole like an exit wound in the British music scene—and I’m sure that’s just the way the miserable bastards would have wanted it.

2. The Gossip: Standing In The Way Of Control (Kill Rockstars)

If the world in my head ever became a reality, The Gossip would be a top pop band. Their killer single releases would consistently strafe the upper echelon of the billboard charts, singer Beth Ditto would be a regular guest on The View and Oprah, and anyone switching on Cribs would be greeted by guitarist Brace Paine showing off his broken guitar collection and the inside of his empty fridge.

Until such a day, however, we’ll just have to make do with the Portland-based honeys releasing yet another indie label-based album that garners just a little bit more praise and public awareness than the last, not to mention patronage and props from the likes of Le Tigre and Sonic Youth.

Though I can’t say that I don’t miss the old recorded-in-a-leaky-shed Gossip sound slightly, this new taut punk funk version fairly rollicks along, and Beth Ditto’s southern howl could still strip paint from a wall at fifty paces. Hey kids, why don’t you just buy this fucking album? Make this old man happy. I just want to see Brace turn the camera and say, “MTV. This is how we do. Portland-style!”

3. Guillemots: Trains To Brazil (Fantastic Plastic)

Trying to avoid music hype while living in the UK is like trying to run through rain drops without getting hit: bloody hard. And you can trust me—I’ve had plenty of practice. So when the BBC listed Guillemots as one of those bands to watch in 2006, I snorted with derision and continued tapping my foot along to the obscure punjabi nose-flute record I had just ordered from Syphilitic Pigeon Records.

Well, somewhere along the line, I stupidly allowed a rogue mp3 from Guillemots to be downloaded onto my system. A week later, and I’m completely in thrall to their Aztec Camera as-produced-by Belle and Sebastian preppy indie pomp.

Maybe it’s the fact that ‘Trains to Brazil’ pushes all the right pop buttons, exhilaratingly teetering on the edge of cheesy but never fully falling into the syrup, or that it captures the mood of London during the summer terrorist attacks perfectly. Whatever it is, I’m sure Guillemots will find much success in 2006 and I will begrudge them not a jot of it. After all, it’s nice to hear pop that’s actually about something.

4. Man Man: Engwish Bwudd (Ace Fu)

Drifting into the arena of the unwell and crowbarring even more WEIRD into the term New Weird America we have Man Man. This Philadelphia five piece are neither shy of moustaches, facepaint nor mining nursery rhymes for lyrical content. To their credit it all comes off amazingly well--musical pirates sailing the high seas with a wailing Tom Waits tied to the mast while Captain Beefheart sights land from the crow's nest.

Their second album, Six Demon Bag drops on Ace Fu this month, and you can catch their, by all accounts, frantic live show on a short tour, or at the by now essential SXSW showcase at the end of March.

You can also check out an interview with lead singer, Honus Honus, over at the jaw-droppingly brilliant Indie Interviews Podcast.

5. Os Mutantes: A Minha Menina (Souljazz)

In the mid sixties Brazil was ruled by a military junta, while its music scene was dominated by the Bossa Nova and Samba that had prevailed since the 50s. Not unsurprisingly, the younger generation, by now exposed to American Rock and Roll, British Psychedelia and French New Wave cinema, decided a revolution was in order.

Soul Jazz's recently released Tropicália: A Brazilian Revolution in Sound compilation seeks to highlight and celebrate the movement that from 1967-1969 initiated a sea change in Brazilian popular culture. It was a movement of imagination and of revolution, a cannibalisation of foreign music and a new take on Brazilian styles. Spearheaded by Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Ze and Os Mutantes the movement challenged the military government and regular listeners alike. Perhaps most importantly it asked what Brazilians could achieve in the realm of the arts. The answer was “Everything is Possible!”, a sentiment borrowed for the title of Os Mutantes' Greatest Hits collection released years later by David Byrne on his Luaka Bop label, and something very much in evidence when one listens to the music that the Souljazz compilation offers. Os Mutantes, my personal favourite, exemplify the philosophy whole-heartedly, and sound every bit the unhinged psychedelic space warriors that they were. ‘A Minha Menina’ is simply one of the best songs ever, sheer joy and creative zeal transferred directly onto a piece of magnetic tape. If we broadcasted songs like this into space we’d be fighting off extra-terrestrial visitors with a specially constructed, atmosphere-scraping stick.

The super hot news is that Os Mutantes (well, two thirds of them) are reforming for one concert to be held in London. The show takes place on May 22 at the Barbican. Tickets will be, shall we say, scarce.

6. Gilberto Gil: Procissao (Souljazz)

The second presentation from the Souljazz’s Tropicalia compilation comes from Brazil’s current Minister for Culture Gilberto Gil. An appointment roughly approximate to the UK handing the post to John Lennon, and a move whose strange refreshing genius is clear when one reads articles on Gil that feature lines like:

“The minister himself […] sat on the floor, cross-legged and barefoot, cradling an acoustic guitar in his lap.”

And to think, Tony Blair once thought he could nervously strum a Telecaster to get the youth vote. All glibness aside, Gil was not always so popular with Brazilian government bods. The Tropicalia movement was effectively ended when Gil and Caetano Veloso were imprisoned in the 1969, accused of anti-government activities, and forced to flee the country, living in exile for years before being able to return. The movement may have ended in a concrete sense but what Gil, Veloso and others started continues to inspire today. Listening to ‘Procissao’ and, indeed, the whole of the Tropicalia compilation, it’s easy to see why. I therefore recommend this compilation like no other record released this year. This music is essential to existence. Find out more here or you might just expire.

7. Églantine Gouzy: 12h12 (Monika)

After I featured a wonderful song from Monika-based recording artists Cobra Killer a couple of issues ago, a regular listener and friend suggested I check out a compilation released on the very same label earlier in 2005. Well, that compilation was 4 Women No Cry and I’m very grateful for the heads-up.

The compilation does exactly what is says on the tin: four female artists, some great music and absolutely no tears. Of the four it’s Églantine Gouzy that burns brightest, re-igniting the kind of laptop electronica that offered such hope just a few short years back but has of late had to take a back seat to more organic music from, well, anyone with a bongo, an acoustic guitar and some windchimes, really. Gouzy’s Gallic cool very definitely re-enforces the notion that if you’re looking for refreshing computer music the backstreets of Paris might just be the place to begin your search, and with 4 Women No Cry being promised as the beginning of a series of compilation releases, Germany’s Monika records is a similarly worthy port of call.

8. Tape: Sand Dunes (Hapna)

Beautiful acoustic guitar based ambient music straight from rural Sweden. Tape have been going for a few years now, and I’m ashamed to say that I have no previous experience of them until their album Rideau was released at the end of last year. But these three musicians work together to seamlessly weave processed loops into their delicate beatless chamber music, creating a sound that’s as welcome and warming as the morning sun breaking through your bedroom window. Unless, of course, it’s Monday morning and that’s another story.

9. Psychic Ills: Another Day, Another Night (Social Registry)

Although it’s been threatening to make a come back for umpteen odd years now, I find it entirely appropriate that a genre that’s built on a certain apathetic distain seems to find it so hard to jumpstart a proper movement into motion. 2006, however, might just be the year that shoegazing and spacerock finally makes a ramshackle bid for the mainstream yet again.

Giant Drag may have already gathered a commendable amount of column inches with a more radio-friendly unit-shifter variety, but Psychic Ills are now staking a claim for the more esoteric end of the market. Releasing their debut full length, Dins, on the stonkingly cool Social Registry label, the band drifts in on a hazy reverbed flight of fantasy, repetitive melody line and a mix that keeps the vocals just this side of incomprehensible. Which is as it should be. If everything goes to plan okay we’ll have you chugging cough mixture, wearing cardigans and growing that all-important fringe by Christmas. Just remember to start scouring eBay now for those original Spacemen 3 vinyl releases, it’ll make it so much easier to claim you’ve been into it all along, when you’ve got convincing concrete evidence to back up your scurrilous claims. You lying dawg, you.

Issue 5

2006-01-30T07:04:00.000-08:00

After a relaxing Christmas hiatus Sleephouse Radio is back. I apologise for the delay but January is a slow old month in the world of music and rather than waste your time with a sub-standard show I thought a prolonged break would allow me to cobble together something a little more warmingly wholesome for this, Sleephouse’s first show of 2006.

So a belated Happy New Year to everyone! Try not to worry about wonky religious theocracies and their nuclear ambitions, corporate robber barons exporting democracy at the barrel of a gun or the looming threat of a Bird Flu pandemic. Instead, let me crack the permafrost of the Season of Un-Joy with these delightful indie ice picks (plus written interview with Karl Blau!). Just you be careful though, iPods may look all cool, slick and white but they’re a bugger to find if you drop them in the snow.

To listen, simply download the audio file of the show (by clicking the image below) or use the flash player in the sidebar. This show can also be subscribed to as a podcast by copying the address of the RSS link in the sidebar into the podcast receiver of your choice. It’s all so simple…

(40MB, 42 mins. MP3 file)

1. Ivor Cutler Trio: Good Morning! How Are You? Shut Up! (Rev-Ola)

Ivor Cutler performed his last show in Feburary 2004 at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall at the grand old age of 81. Behind him stretched a life as magical and unconventional as any you’d care to mention. Cutler, the perennial outsider, was born to Jewish immigrant parents in Scotland in 1923. He went on to record numerous albums, a number of John Peel Sessions, be a teacher in an experimental school and also star as Buster Bloodvessel in the Beatles' ill-fated Magical Mystery Tour.

‘Good Morning! How Are You? Shut Up!’ is a contrary old gem from the George Martin produced 1967 album Ludo, and it provides ample insight into why Ivor found much success in his parallel career as a children’s book author. Cutler’s music is always playful, some might even dismiss him as a comedy act, but something about this curmudgeonly Glaswegian shines an enlightening seriousness through even his most unhinged and naive works. It’s as if the true nature of reality can only be glimpsed through a child’s kaleidoscope.

A DVD documentary of Ivor Cutler’s life was released last year. It’s called Looking For Truth With A Pin and it’s great.

2. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: Over And Over Again [Lost & Found] (Wichita)

There’s definitely something to be said about a band that gets off its arse and does it themselves. The year may barely have started but, in the UK at least, it looks as if 2006 belongs to this industrious bunch of New Yorkers. While the music industry bemoans the proliferation of file trading, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah have proved that there’s nothing detrimental about a few well-placed free downloads being passed around cyberspace ad infinitum. In fact, they seem to have built a career on it.

No doubt you’ve all heard this song by now, but with a European tour in the offing and most UK based media screaming themselves hoarse over the band, I felt the time was right to revel in this song’s brilliance once more. Good songs, after all, are good songs. No amount of media saturation can change that. But consider yourselves warned nonetheless.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah’s album gets a Europe wide release on Wichita this month with a tour to follow, details of which can be found here.

3. Destroyer: European Oils (Merge)

If you’ve never heard of either Destroyer or its mastermind Dan Bejar, then you really are a lucky individual. For what awaits you, my dear friend, once your conversion has taken place, is one of most sumptuous and consuming back catalogues in music today. I almost envy the fresh initiate. So much wonder awaits you. Just the new album, Rubies (Released on February 21) alone, is so Dylanesque in scope you may need to book a two-week holiday in which to soak it all up.

Bejar shoots barbed arrows of referenced insight from deep within a '70s glam/MOR rock tradition and over the years he’s created a world that’s uniquely his own. A world populated by reoccurring characters, situations and signifiers. There’s so much going on here, Rubies is an album that would possibly benefit from York Notes. One rather hopes that this time round it will be the album that breaks the man from Vancouver into a wider acceptance. Rubies will certainly be found at the top of my best of 2006 list even though the year is barely a month old.

There’s really no choosing between tracks on an album that I’m so in love with but ‘European Oils’ stands out from the pack by virtue of the fact that it contains my favourite lyrics from the album, lyrics I faithfully reproduce below:

“When I'm at war I insist on a slaughter and getting it on with the hangman's daughter.
She needs release. She needs to feel at peace with her father, the fucking maniac...”

4. Islands: Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby (Rough Trade)

Though many teenage lives fell apart in a frenzy of torn posters and saline, when the Unicorns split in 2004 the smart money always maintained that various members would return to fulfil the promise dangled by the Unicorn’s exceedingly twisted pop. Islands' Return To The Sea satisfies that prophecy and then some.

Of course, the Unicorns remain the central reference point for this music. The vocals still squiggle with mischief and ghosts and skeletons still jump out from behind parping synths. But something new has been added and something has changed. Don’t worry people—it’s all good.

For a start, Nick Diamonds appears to have matured as a songwriter. But not too much—he’s just got better. The production too is cleaner, less muddied. All this makes for better music. What’s new is the rhythms. Drummer Jaime Tambeur and Nick have stated that Islands was started out of their love for African music and this love reveals itself in the way this record jumps and skips on its merry way. A playful incessant beat drives this record on, a holiday calypso vibe that places a cocktail into your hand every time you play the record.

‘Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby’ should keep you in coconut oil until you can get your hands on the album which will be released on Rough Trade at the end of January.

[Edit] Though all news reports point to a Rough Trade January release for this album, no evidence can be gained from Rough Trade as to whether this is the case. One suspects that the release has been delayed (perhaps until March). So just sit on your keisters and hang tight for more news.

5. Karl Blau: Into The Nada [Live] (K Records + Kelp! Monthly)

The sleepy Pacific Northwest town of Anacortes, WA, has become an unlikely hub of underground American indie music in recent years, and proved that isolation and a little DIY ethic can be a powerful creative force. Ostensibly a port town set amid stunning natural beauty, its music draws inspiration from nature as much as it does human relationships. Anacortes plays host to number of wonderful artists, the most famous being Phil Elverum of Mount Eerie/Microphones fame, but it’s Karl Blau that we focus on today and whose mystical music will give you some idea of this town’s signature sound. It’s gentle but awe-inspiring like the landscape which nurtures it.

Karl Blau has played with a number of musicians over the years, from the aforementioned Phil Elverum to Seattle’s Laura Veirs, but this month sees the release of his latest solo work, Beneath Waves on K Records. I took the opportunity to send Karl an email and ask him a few questions about the album, the local Anacortes scene and the fantastic mailorder record club, Kelp! Monthly, which he runs.

Sleephouse: Could I ask you directly about the song "Into the Nada"? Is there a story behind it at all? Is there anything you'd like to tell us about it?
Karl Blau: There is a story behind this song: the music was crafted directly from this African pop song that eight or so years ago a friend gave to me on a mix tape unlabeled. It is a total rip-off of this song. I need to give credit to the artist/s, but I'm still searching. Maybe one of your listeners can decipher the roots?

In fact, the first time I recorded this song, I transcribed the recording directly onto the recording device for the first track and then just tracked over it and eventually removed the original. The lyrics came to me quickly; I wanted to match the African language.

Specifically, it's talking of singing: "When it's with nothing that you have so much to give / And it's in nowhere that you've found your place to live" etc. "Vocalise into the nada," I think of as singing out into nothing and the satisfaction is implied there. This song is a celebration. Being alive is the gift; singing is saying "I believe this is happening.”

You live in Anacortes and there's a great independent music scene there. What does the place mean to you? Would your music sound the same if you didn't live there?
I am very excited to be more and more part of the community of Anacortes. I find myself touring or preparing for this most of the year, so when I can be at home and walk through the town with my family, I feel great pride. I am smiling with people, some of which I've known for a decade, and I go to shows and see kids and parents and elders—this is quite fulfilling.

I may have a somewhat unique perspective on music, I try to not try for anything when I am writing or recording so I am heavily influenced by surroundings and the wind is sure to get into the microphone.

Living in town is nice. I think it's awesome that there is a perspective that Anacortes has this amazing scene of music, but here in Anacortes, there is the baker, the photographer, the accupuncturist, the musician, it's real low key.

Tell us a bit about recording the album. You recorded it at the Department of Safety (Anacortes’s amazing gig venue and creative space). You must have had a great time recording it there.
Recording Beneath Waves was magical. I practised the songs with two groups at the Department of Safety. One was a ROCK band—Laura Veirs, Dave Matthies on guitar, Nate Ashley playing bass and lead guitar—and the other was an ORCHESTRA—Alex Mahan on bass, Steve Moore performed the Wurlitzer and trombone, Johanna Kunin played keyboards, Dave Matthies played guitar with Eddy Blau, and Alex Blau played keyboard and tambourine. We recorded it there live—except the vocals—and then to Vibe Control Studio for mixing. Dave Matthies (of the Gift Machine) is a wizard at sound production, and it's heavy thanks to him that this record was made.

What can you tell us about the album? Do you see it as a departure or a progression from your previous recordings? What can people expect?
Beneath Waves is a rerecording of the four-track album Dark, Magic Sea more or less. These songs were written while I was working at my family's oyster plant. My father died, my baby was born, and it encompasses a period under the influence of heavy emotions. Beneath Waves is taking these very intimate songs and giving the energy to a group of trusted artists to add their influence. It was risky, but I need to feel like something can come out of it that is powerful.

Tell us a bit about your Kelp! Monthly mailorder club and what prompted you to start up this enterprise?
Kelp! is music and packaging produced by me so that people may subscribe to a certain number of releases and get these mysterious packages regularly. Kelp! started out because I wanted to record everything and have a venue to make available my past recordings. Oops, Ciel, my daughter, is flicking the lights on and off. I guess I should go.

Anyway, you can check out www.kelpmonthly.com for lots more info and songs.

What does the rest of the year hold for Karl Blau?
Touring like crazy. I am really looking forward to we, the people, rising up against our oppressors. I'm really serious. ●

The song I play in the show is a live version of “Into The Nada” which appeared on a Kelp! Monthly release (You can listen and then buy it here). Karl has rerecorded the song for inclusion on his new album. You can download the album version here as a sampler for the album Beneath Waves. Karl is playing small number of North American West Coast shows to promote the record, and the tour culminates in a Beneath Waves release party at the Department of Safety on Saturday, February 11.

6. Love Is All: Make Out Fall Out Make Up (What’s Your Rupture?)

Time was when a good review was a good review. These days it’s a bloody curse. One wonders how quickly members of Love Is All will tire of Pitchfork’s tag “The First Great Band of 2006”. Regardless they shouldn’t worry—the blogs are all over their record Nine Times That Same Song. And with good reason. My blogging barometer is reading “hot” with only the odd twinge of the needle towards “changeable”.

Calvin Johnson, leaning down from the mountain, described Love Is All as "a spiraling cacophony that drives one to the dance floor to pogo like a maniac." And the old soothsayer’s not wrong. This Swedish five-piece slap drums, keyboard, guitar and even saxophone together and come up with a enthusiastic brew of indie pop that have you shaking your denim clad tush in even the greasiest of indie clubs. Just be careful not to get your studded belt caught in the hair of that weird cider-drinking goth guy—he’s called Ian and he’s never touched a girl before, the excitement might kill him. The mix is lo-fi but just right. As the volume increases the sound bleeds through the speakers, distorts and whips up the frenzy just that little bit more. In the dark days of January music like this really helps.

7. Pierre Bastien: Eke (Rephlex)

Often ideas and concepts have far more appeal in the mind than the reality of them being put into practice. Take Pierre Bastien, he’s been making music for over twenty years with the help of a mechanical orchestra he calls the Mecanium. Surely what greets you on record could never compete with the mental image of a man sat on stage playing keyboard and trumpet surrounded and accompanied by a small army of whirring Mecano robots?

But Pierre Bastien’s album Pop is at least as good any image that may have just formed in your head. A fragile hypnotic “craftwerk”, for 43 minutes the inner mechanisms of his clockwork workshop are laid bare, as the ‘ickle machines thrum plinky microbeats and Pierre overlays them with the merest hint of smoky leftbank free jazz. It’s easy to see why after a career of working with some of the greats in European experimental music (Pascal Comelade and Robert Wyatt to mention but two) Bastien has, for his last two records, found a home on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex label. Bastien is the handmade analogue of modern electronic music. In fact without the prior knowledge of Bastien’s methods you’d be hard pressed to separate this album from one made on a laptop. Indeed Pop is an album that’s as thought provoking as it is soothing; as enjoyable in sound as it is in concept.

8. Telefauna: Phantom Limb (Self Released)

Even now a lot of people still maintain that Jimi Hendrix died by choking on his own vomit. I can exclusively reveal however that it was actually for the crime of Wah Wah pedal abuse for which Jimi was prematurely taken from us. Yes kids, the poor man put his Cuban-healed foot on that most oppressive of pedals just one time too many and the next moment he was gone.

Fortunately for Telefauna, their career is still so young that even ‘Phantom Limb’'s Wah Wah-drenched criminality can excused for the foreseeable future. In fact, it’s a damn fine song and one that announces the arrival of yet another bunch of youthful upstarts from the absurdly busy creative hatchery that is the Canadian music scene.

Quite what is being put into the water over there is anyone’s guess but you’ll wanna get yourself over to the band’s website and find out all about their debut EP before the pancakes get cold or the maple syrup congeals. (Boom boom…seriously, someone just tell me to stop.)

9. Panda Bear: Comfy In Nautica (Uunited Acoustic)

Judging from this song, it’s only a matter of time before Panda Bear (of the Animal Collective) grows a beard, gains 200 pounds, buys himself a piano in a sandpit and becomes Brian Wilson Part II – The Resurrection Reloaded.

What at first resembles a man sat in a busy abattoir spanking a bucket with a Koi Carp through a delay pedal quickly manifests itself into a pure hit of sunshine joy. Built around the simplest of vocal lines ‘Comfy In Nautica’ easily insinuates itself into the heady pantheon of the Animal Collective’s best work. Panda Bear currently resides in Portugal and it’s clear the climate and relaxed Iberian surroundings are doing him no harm whatsoever.

You can buy the CD/7 Inch from Boomkat, Other Music and various other reputable stockists.
[Panda Bear photo by Hana Macdonald]

Issue 4

2005-12-22T17:07:00.000-08:00

"He's making a list. He's checking it twice. He's gonna find out whether it correctly adheres to the strictly defined editorial policy…eh? Excuse me?"

Yes kids, it's that time of year again. The festive beast is at our backs once more, and while bloggers have been feverishly posting Best of Year lists with an ever increasing desperation (Hello Mum!), scandal rocked the music publishing world when The NME was accused of fixing its Best Of Year Poll for commercial reasons. Well, here at Sleephouse I can assure you that no such thing occurs. Chance would be a fine thing. Here's my review of 2005. It's untouched by economic considerations of any kind. It's also untouched by anything I've ever played in Sleephouse before, so for a complete best of year list: just play every episode back to back and miss out anything that wasn't released this year.

To listen, simply download the audio file of the show (by clicking the image below) or use the flash player in the sidebar. This show can also be subscribed to as a podcast by copying the address of the RSS link in the sidebar into the podcast receiver of your choice. It’s all so simple…

(42MB, 45 mins. MP3 file)

1. Destroyer & Frog Eyes : An Actor's Revenge (Merge)

Throughout 2005 most critics marvelled at the brilliance of the Canadian music scene, placing Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade quite correctly in their best of year lists, but way back in January two of my favourite Canadian bands got together to record an EP's worth of music and no one batted an eyelid.

Over the course of his six or so albums Destroyer's Dan Bejar has quietly become one of the most pleasingly idiosyncratic stylists in indie music today, while Victoria-based Frog Eyes warped minds, and possibly eardrums, in 2003 with their breakthrough record The Golden River. Notorious Lightning And Other Works sees Frog Eyes backing Bejar's barbed hipster reportage with their trademark scraped guitars and wayward bluster. It's all delightfully messy, and the recordings devilishly unleash songs that were previously, and perhaps unfairly, sealed the antiseptic MIDI synth production on 2004's Your Blues.

Destroyer releases his new album Rubies in the New Year and it's an absolute cracker. Stayed tuned to Sleephouse for more updates on this elusive songwriter's latest opus in the next issue. Or you could go here for the best goddam blog entry I've ever read.

2. The National: Mr November (Beggars Banquet)

Providing proof positive that there still remain heroes for the 30-something raincoat-wearing indie rock fan to look up to, The National's studied six-string misanthropy cut through 2005 like a knife. Refreshingly unconcerned with trends and fads, the boys from this New York-based outfit simply mounted the stage and did the business.

Their album Alligator is a shady beast indeed, lurking on the periphery, dappled with the light and shade of The Tindersticks and Nick Cave, but brimming with the stadium-bating confidence of The Walkmen and even (though I hate to say it) early U2.

'Mr November' was my favourite track of the year bar none, and made me want to drive very fast down a deserted highway in search of a possibly dangerous future. And I don't even own a car.

3. Vashti Bunyan: Here Before(Fat Cat)

The story of Vashti Bunyan's return to music making after a 35-year-hiatus has warmed many a heart during 2005. Few would have predicted that a 60-year-old forgotten folkie would have captured the zeitgeist in the way that Vashti has this year. I spent the majority of 2004 tucked up with the startling Just Another Diamond Day re-issue, but even I never imagined her return to record would prove so vital.

Perhaps fired by an impressive list of collaborators (Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Mice Parade, Adem and producer Max Richter), and buoyed-up by the experience of recording the magnificently playful Prospect Hummer EP with The Animal Collective, Lookaftering sees Vashti casting aside her much publicized lack of confidence and producing an album every bit as good as its predecessor. 'Here Before' sums up the triumphant formula of the album perfectly: Vashti's haunting voice and plucked folk stylings delicately colliding with a modern production so deftly handled it already sounds classic.

4. Lau Nau: Kuula (Locust)

One of the strangest tributaries of the flood of the weird folk music that engulfed 2005 was surely to be found in Finland. Prior to 2005 my only other previous experience of Finnish music was restricted to 22-Pistepirkko and Jimi Tenor, but this year it's been a pleasure to dream my way through nearly a dozen psych-folk albums by bands whose consonant and vowel combinations correctly memorised would catapult me to unrivalled supremacy in the Scrabble world were proper nouns from foreign languages acceptable.

'Kuula' comes from the album Kuutarha (Locust), and is the solo work of Laura Naukkarinen, a key mover in the Finnish scene and member of a good number of its bands including Kiila, Kemialliset Ystävät and Päivänsäde.

Everything you will ever need to know about Finland's politely invading psych-folk warriors is covered in this great Pitchfork article. And cheap european flights to Finland are available here. Book now to avoid any Folk backlash-related disappointment.

5. Arthur Russell: This Is How We Walk On The Moon (Phillips)

While not originally released this year, this decade or even this century, Arthur Russell 's back catalogue has proved to be an endearing personal soundtrack for 2005. I discovered him in January when the fantastic album World Of Echo was re-issued, and since becoming familiar with his ethereal magic, I've noticed his name everywhere: bubbling under people's influences and hidden away in discerning record collections, a Nick Drake-like figure on the brink of a huge posthumous breakthrough.

Russell was an early dance music producer and innovator in the late '70s and '80s, but it's his gentler delay-drenched solo work that's really startling. Working solely with cello, drum machine and the odd bit of sparse orchestration Arthur Russell's albums (World Of Echo, Another Thought and Calling Out of Context) are truly lost shards of wonder. That he escaped a mention in LCD Soundsystem's 'Losing My Edge' is perhaps even more amazing.

6. Jan Jelinek: Im Diskodickicht (Scape)

Truly groundbreaking electronic music has been a bit thin on the ground this year. But Berliner Jan Jelinek's album is one of the few in this genre which truly stood out. Part of the problem seems to be that pop and RnB producers have taken over from the left of field artists, and now innovate directly onto MTV and straight into the mainstream.

This was not the case for Jelinek however, who copped a few tricks from his country's krautrocking history books and produced Kosmischer Pitch (Scape Records), an album of steadily shifting, mesmerising loops that wrap themselves tightly around your brain and beg for your undivided attention. This is definitely not just background music.

7. P:ano: Covered Wagons (Mint Records)

Brian Wilson may have resurrected a live facsimile of his Smile album and toured it around the world, but anyone searching for the true spirit of classic-era Beach Boys need have looked no further than 'Covered Wagons' by P:ano. Bursting out everywhere with beatific brass and mellifluous harmony 'Covered Wagons' is just one of the reasons why Vancouver's P:ano should not remain a local secret for too much longer. They've recently released their second album in a year, Ghost Pirates Without Heads, but this song comes from the spring-released Brigadoon—neither of which you'll wanna be without.

8. M Ward: Hi-fi (Merge)

It feels just plain wrong to write about M Ward's Transistor Radio as being one of the best albums of 2005. Truly a man out of time, M Ward's output proves the argument that thousands of years from now no one will be able to tell who came first: The Beatles or Beethoven.

A songwriter so much in the classic mould, that simply playing one of his mp3s turns your computer into a wood-panelled valve radio, Ward's records consistently come up with the goods for anyone patient enough to give him a proper listen. Transistor Radio begins with his Fahey-like instrumental reworking of The Beach Boys 'You Still Believe In Me' and gently fades out with his take on Bach's 'Well Tempered Clavier'. In between Ward's songwriting reassures your fragile soul like an old friend even while his voice raises the hairs on the back of your neck like a cold draught in the night.

Now, if you haven't just swallowed back a little bit of up-sick after the last couple of paragraphs, maybe you'll wanna go and check out M Ward's performances for KRCW here and here. You can, of course, buy all the albums from very fine and upstanding people at Merge Records.

9. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone: Cold White Christmas (Tomlab)

This last song is a Christmas gift from Casiotone For The Painfully Alone and Tomlab Records to you, the listening public. This seasonal nugget is available for download from the Myspace.com profiles of both Casiotone and Tomlab Records until December 26th. So I suggest you get yourself over there quick.

I've been a fan of Casiotone's whinsome organ-driven indie soap operas for a good while now and so when I discovered this song I took the opportunity to shoot Owen Ashworth an email to ask him about 'Cold White Christmas' and his forthcoming album.

Sleephouse: Where does the song 'Cold White Christmas' come from? When did you record it? Is it going to be on the new record?
Owen Ashworth: I recorded 'Cold White Christmas' in early August. The tracking and mixing was done at Pan American Recording Studio in San Francisco. Jason Quever from The Papercuts engineered the session and played the drums and Alex deLanda, also a Papercut, played the bass. I played the pianos and organs and sang it. 'Cold White Christmas' is one of three songs I recorded with Jason for the new album. The rest of the album was recorded with Jherek Bischoff in Seattle, except for the last song, which I recorded myself.

When is the new record due? Have you finished recording it? Have you settled on a title yet?
The new album is called Etiquette and it will be released on March 7, 2006. I finished it in September.

I've noticed that you seem to be using more instruments and orchestration on the most recent recordings, are you stepping away from the solely keyboard-driven stuff? Do you feel that you've taken that sound as far as you can? And was this change motivated by the re-recordings you did for the Tomlab Alphabet series?
When I started writing and recording for Twinkle Echo, I knew it was the last Casio album I was going to make. I finished my trilogy and I was ready to try different things. Jherek Bischoff played contrabass on one song on Twinkle Echo, and he would have played on more if logistics had worked out.

That "Alphabet" single was the next thing we recorded together, but at that point we were playing shows together as often as possible and I was writing new songs with him in mind. I was writing on a piano and a Korg EM-1 sequencer/drum machine that I named Baby Cousin. I was living in Portland last winter and every few weeks I would drive up to Seattle with Baby Cousin to work on arrangements with Jherek. There are two songs on Etiquette that use Casios, and in both cases it was by Jherek's insistance. I wanted to use string arrangements.

What are you planning for Christmas?
I'm going to listen to my Charlie Brown Christmas CD and probably drink some egg nog.

Best record of the year?
I didn't buy too many new records this year, but I liked that Antony and the Johnsons album a lot.

What will you remember most about 2005?
2005 was kind of a big year for lots of personal reasons that don't belong in this interview. I can tell you that I did a lot of growing up and I made a really great record.

What does the next year hold for you? I know you're planning a tour...
I'm moving to Chicago in early January, and I'll be on tour for most of the Spring, and probably again in the Fall. I will probably get really famous and have to stop being so nice. Just kidding.

----------

That's all for this year folks. I'm sat in a little farmhouse in Norway as I type this entry and I long to rush outside and frollick in the crisp white snow. So without further ado, I'll wish you a happy and relaxing festive season and I'll see you back here for Sleephouse 5 in January. Take care.

Issue 3

2005-12-07T08:03:00.000-08:00

In these last few weeks London has become a cold bitter wasteland. Winds whip in from the north and my tiny flat assumes the all the life preserving qualities of a carpeted Frigidaire. Only the hot air kickout of my computer fan provides warmth and so I keep working, huddled close to the screen, bringing you the newest issue of Sleephouse.

To listen, simply download the audio file of the show (by clicking the image below) or use the flash player in the sidebar. This show can also be subscribed to as a podcast by copying the address of the RSS link in the sidebar into the podcast receiver of your choice. It’s all so simple…

(44MB, 48 mins. MP3 file)

Here’s this week’s artist info:

1. Broken Social Scene: 7/4 (Shoreline) (Arts & Crafts/City Slang)

The chugging guitars, lolloping brass and pummelling crash cymbals of ‘7/4 (Shoreline)’ signal the return of one of the most unlikely success stories in recent years: An eleven strong Toronto collective that conquered the world. Or at least should have.

You Forgot It In People made a huge splash in indie world, but it passed by the "Great Unwashed" unnoticed. No crass car commercials hammered the songs down our throats, no stick thin socialites feigned interest while Broken Social Scene headlined The Bait Shop, and no political leaders waltzed their way to victory with ‘I’m Still Your Fag’ as their campaign song. And, actually, now that I think about it, thank heaven for that, we’ll keep this band for ourselves.

Their new album is out now in North America, but it gets a Europe-wide release in January on City Slang. It’s simply titled Broken Social Scene, but it’s anything but simple. An album more densely packed with ideas you’ll be hard pressed to find.

Broken Social Scene have an extensive Europe, North America and Australia tour lined up. Be warned though: tickets will be as rare as rockinghorse shit.

2. Caribou: Hello Hammerheads (Domino/Leaf)

Musical boffins don’t come better qualified than Dan Snaith of Caribou, a man whose 2005 has not only included a lawsuit-hastened change of name and the release of a career-peaking album, but also the completion of a PhD in some kind of head-scratching Mathematics.

Recognising that it’s still a tad early in the calendar for the best of year lists, I’ve been searching for an excuse to feature Caribou’s excellent Milk Of Human Kindness album on Sleephouse for a while now. Thankfully that excuse is conveniently provided by the release of a DVD collection of animations used by Caribou in his live show.

It’s entitled Marino and it was released at the beginning of November by Domino or Leaf - depending on which side of the pond you live. It not only includes videos for almost every song from Snaith's two most recent records, but also comes with an EP’s worth of material left over from the Milk of Human Kindness sessions. And with Snaith’s sound growing to encompass everything from electronica, folk, shoegazing and krautrock, your home entertainment system will never be better utilised. This DVD is the reason you installed surround sound.

Sample Caribou's music with free mp3s from the Leaf Label

3. Cobra Killer & Kapajkos: Heavy Rotation (Monika)

On any normal record Berlin duo Cobra Killer would meet you head-on with an explosion of sample heavy metal box electro. But this is no ordinary record. This is genius.

Aided by hitherto unknown mandolin wranglers Kapajkos, Cobra Killer have plundered their back catalogue and reconfigured an album’s worth of songs as coked-up, blood-sucking Romanian folk tunes. Or something. Weird folk music is bloody everywhere right now, but unlike the majority of recent beardy snoozefests, this record is so fresh it wriggles. And hopefully you will too, as woozy malevolent melodies dance magnificently around these two girls’ thoroughly modern lyrics.

For my money Das Mandolinenorchester is by far the best work these two have ever produced, and it's an inspired record that craves your attention. Or one rather gets the feeling that these two girls might turn nasty.

Grab your German dictionary and head over to Monika Records for more information on Das Mandolinenorchester. [Photo by Gill May]

4. Grizzly Bear: Fix It (Rumraket)

Can you be part of a local scene if you never leave your bedroom? It’s a question that those who wish to overemphasise Grizzly Bear’s Brooklyn roots really should ask themselves. Judging from the back story, and, indeed, the actual sound of this record, their debut could have been produced anywhere, provided of course that there was access to a home recording setup and the odd inspirational bong lying around.

Grizzly Bear started out as the bedroom project of Edward Droste and was partly realised during an impressively misanthropic-sounding 15 month domestic shut-in. By the time his friend Christopher Bear (apparently no relation to The Animal Collective’s Panda Bear) added guitars and vocals Horn of Plenty was complete. It’s a quietly rewarding debut of cracked folk and hushed indie pop and on this evidence future Grizzly Bear releases promise much.

Horn of Plenty is being re-released by Efterklang’s Rumraket record label here in Europe and comes backed with a stunning remix album, which you’ll find out more about if you read on….

5. Grizzly Bear: Don’t Ask [Final Fantasy Remix] (Rumraket)

That the Horn of Plenty remix album improves on the original version is—although perhaps slightly unfair to Grizzly Bear—not really all that surprising when one takes a quick glance down the list of contributors. Ariel Pink, Safety Scissors, Simon Bookish, Dntel, Hisham Bharoocha and Rusty Santos, Castanets and The Soft Pink Truth are just a few names that bend and twist Grizzly Bear’s original material into magnificently different starry shapes. And although some songs make repeat appearances and the range of interpretations is diverse, the remixes hold together to form an album that easily holds its own as a complete long player.

Final Fantasy is one Owen Pallett, a man who gains instant cache in the grave digging community for arranging strings for every undertaker’s favourite indie rockers The Arcade Fire. Owen’s violin traps Grizzly Bear’s ‘Don’t Ask’ in its wintry clutches, and transports it to a windy plateau of sorrow. I wouldn’t recommend listening to this song on the radio while shaving with a cutthroat razor in the bath, just in case its mournful tone gets the better of you, but I’m sure you’ll agree that it’s a quite sublime piece of aching beauty nonetheless.

‘Don’t Ask’ is a more than good enough reason for moving your mouse over to this link and investigating how you can get your hands on the whole goddam Horn of Plenty/Remix package.

6. Dreamies: Program Ten [Excerpt] (Wilmington Studios)

In 1972, Bill Holt, inspired by the Beach Boys and The Beatles ‘Revolution #9’, decided to quit his corporate job with 3M and retreat to his basement with a guitar, a moog, and a reel-to-reel tape machine. When he emerged a year later, he was on the verge of bankruptcy but his album, Dreamies, was complete. Eventually released in 1973, the album made little impact, but its cult status has grown every day since.

At once both of and ahead of its time, Dreamies is an incredibly interesting sonic document, an pean to the kind of '60s ideals that only became a reality for the average person during the 1970s. It’s basically two 25-minute aural collages that weave together droning acoustic guitar phrases and bubbling moog blasts with news reel snippets and amazingly melodic West Coast harmonies. This is musique concrete as played by the Byrds or ‘70s folk opportunists America.

The album is now available on CD or the more authentic choice of vinyl (just get up off the beanbag and turn the bloody thing over!). Hopefully the time is right for Bill Holt to gain the mass recognition he so rightfully deserves.

Bill Holt currently runs a website that produces strange little chunks of political satire and ambient weirdness—it’s like The Daily Show on very subtle acid and it very definitely merits your attention.

7. Michael Johnson: The Natives Going Under (Must Delicious)

At the beginning of the year, Amanda Petrusich wrote an article for Paste Magazine that attempted to sum up a movement in American music that has gained real precedence in recent years. She spoke of “a handful of pioneering musicians… catering mostly to the twenty-something/T-shirt-and-Pumas set, but playing a new, weird kind of Americana, punctuated by twittering Moog synths and prickly classical guitar, harp strums and free-jazz sax wails."

Among the bands sited by Petrusich as part of this New Weird America movement are The Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Sufjan Stevens and Holopaw. And while most of these bands are pretty well known by now, she also reserved high praise for someone less well known: one Michael Johnson.

Familiar to some as Holopaw’s drummer, Johnson is actually much more important to the Florida neo-folksmiths than this simple album credit suggests. Holopaw have always stood out for the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach they take when constructing their music, and Nonsense Goes Mudslide, Michael Johnson first solo effort, proves just how much influence Johnson has on this aspect of the group’s work.

Nonsense Goes Mudslide is a quite astonishing record. A veritable overflowing junkshop of sound, the album twitters with laptop beats, acoustic guitars, vintage moogs, sampled brass and sun kissed vocals. If New Weird America is becoming the Main Street of independent music then Michael Johnson’s Nonsense Goes Mudslide is a Thanksgiving Day parade turning back on itself and tripping over each other when the marchers get comically lost in a back alley.

And if that doesn’t convince you that it’s worth checking out, perhaps this wonderfully sweet note from Michael himself will melt your icy heart:

“Nonsense Goes Mudslide, my first record, has been received well critically, but received not at all consumerly. If you want to buy a copy, it's available direct from Must!Delicious at malc@mustdelicious.com. $10 ppd, I believe. Drop a note so I don't feel too bad about bankrupting him. It's also available at Tonevendor and Insound. If you downloaded it, you owe me a beer.”

8. Indian Jewelry: Lost My Sight (Girlgang)

Most people give MySpace a pretty bad rap, but if it wasn’t for this vanity-driven hall of mirrors I would never have been able to plunge my head into the wailing noise washing machine that is Indian Jewelry’s ‘Lost My Sight’, a choice find from some psyched-out LA mentalists cast from the same mould as Sun City Girls, Boredoms and Suicide.

I have to confess I know very little about this band aside from the fact that this track comes from the album, Health and Wellbeing, released this spring, and it’s very much worth checking out if you’re interested in where the margins of modern American music lie right now.

9. AIDS Wolf: We Multiply (Lovepump United)

Fans of raw throats, vicious hardcore and patently silly band names will think Christmas has come early when they discover AIDS Wolf. Actually, it hasn’t--the album, The Lovvers LP, is not out until January. So I guess technically for them Christmas has actually been delayed. But what are you gonna do? Everyone just cross your fingers and hope that Goblin Cock album keeps you going past the Winter Solstice.

Seriously though, Aids Wolf are far more than the previous pithy paragraph suggests. Don’t ask me how—I thought I’d heard enough noise to last me a lifetime—but they’ve successfully managed to breath fresh excitement into a genre I have penchant for calling Spazzcore.

True, ‘We Multiply’ might kick your ass and leave you cold the first, second, or even third time around but something like a coherent structure will reveal itself after significantly prolonged exposure. And blow me if it isn’t an addictive little bugger—I have an unhealthy tendency to keep this song on repeat for hours, which is probably why my brain is mush and writing this is such hard going.

Key members of AIDS Wolf are also responsible for the Montréal based Seripop. Which is very cool—and unless you wanna have your hipster status revoked, you’ll wanna check it out. Thankfully it is explained by a good friend of Sleephouse here. Phew, I though I’d lost it there for a second. Nope--still cool.

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Please remain cool until Sleephouse returns in around two week’s time (I promise).

Xo daddio.