December 2010
38 posts
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1-2-WTCH-IN-2011: Breton - December
On the last day of December here’s one to watch for 2011, Breton with a track off their Counter Balance EP. There’s rumours going around that Tom Vek is involved with this project, so it’ll be interesting to see whether this is the case or not. Either way it does sound a bit like Vek, aka, EXCELLENT.
DECEMBER by bretonlabs
Greg
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 24th December
I said at the start of this calendar that I didn’t want to repost any of the songs from last year’s Christmas countdown, and I very nearly made it. Today, though, I will admit my failure. I could have posted something new here (that shit Hurts song, for example, or Coldplay’s festive turd of a track), but I wanted to end on a high. As regular visitors to AGCS may have...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 23rd December
Last year I posted Sparky Deathcap’s brilliant interpretation of The Holly And The Ivy in the Christmas Calendar, back when he had just joined Los Campesinos! as a touring member. Now he’s a fully paid up Campesino and the track has received a full band makeover as part of the group’s “Heat Rash“ endeavour. It’s slightly disconcerting hearing an LC! song...
Lightspeed Champion - Bye Bye (EP)
Not much to say, just that you can stream the whole of Dev’s new EP on soundcloud below. Enjoy.
Lightspeed Champion - Bye Bye EP by DominoRecordCo
Greg
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 22nd December
I’m just about to go out and get merry so I’ll keep this short. It’s Christmas Time is by Yo La Tengo and it is good.
Jed. x
Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas Vol. 6 -...
It’s Christmas so let us LAP(land) UP Sufjan. Volume 6 of his Christmas EP’s, Gloria! was recorded in 2006 so it’s taken a while to finally see the light of day, but here it is. Hallelujah!
Sufjan Stevens - Gloria! Songs for Christmas, Vol. 6 by rawkblog
Greg
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AGCS' TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER SIX
Los Campesinos! - Romance Is Boring
The signs were always there I suppose. Despite being branded with the label twee the début album from Los Campesinos! was hardly a joyous affair, with tracks like Knee Deep At ATP and This Is How You Spell “HAHAHA We Destroyed The Hopes And Dreams Of A Generation Of Faux Romantics” lamenting doomed relationships and the rest of frontman...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 21st December
The Futureheads have released a christmas song called Christmas Was Better In The 80’s, and it’s predictably awesome, featuring deranged harmonies, sleigh bells and one of the band’s catchiest choruses in years. Check it.
Jed. x
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 20th December
Last year AGCS writer Greg released a Christmas album under his Greg The Hero moniker, and this year he’s done it again with “Disbelief”, which you can listen to/download here. There’s lots of good stuff on it, but the stand out for me is Joy To Find, with it’s Frusciante-esque guitar noodling and melancholy lyrics about the true meaning of Christmas. It’s...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 19th December
I love Eels, but even their most ardent fan would have found it difficult to listen through lead singer E’s break-up trilogy, the three successively worse records he released over the past two years. Hopefully the new year will bring another GOOD Eels album, but until then let’s revel in the sublime Everything’s Gonna Be Cool This Christmas. Any song which contains the line...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 18th December
I know, I know - this is two days late. But I spent the weekend getting drunk / being hungover and kind of forgot about the calendar. To make it up to you, something of a rarity; a song called Christmas from Dogs Die In Hot Cars, taken from the band’s aborted second album sessions. Lead singer Craig made the unreleased demos available for a short period, but now, as they seem to have...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 17th December
I’ll admit, I’m more familiar with Banjo or Freakout as a remixing outfit than an artist in his own right, but after giving his free Christmas album a listen I definitely want to check out more. Pick of the bunch (to my ears at least) is the subdued Holly Jolly Christmas, which contains neither banjo or a freakout but is nonetheless lovely. Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!
Jed. x
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 16th December
So I’m posting a second Christmas song from Sufjan Stevens, which might seem lazy but with around fifty awesome tracks to choose from it would be a shame not to post another. Especially when it’s a gloriously wonky take on Do You See What I See, replete with burbling electronics and weird cooing noises in the background. This is from his last known festive release “Astral...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 15th December
2009 was a good year for Slow Club. Not only did they release one of the year’s best albums, the excellent “Yeah So”, but they also found time to record a Christmas EP. While they’ve been a bit quieter this year, 2011 should see a new album from the duo and from a few low quality live videos it looks like they might have beefed up their sound a bit. Whatever form it...
Rival Consoles - After Ed
Here comes the first taste from Kid Velo, the second offering from London based Rival Consoles. I’ve heard a lot of the album and (unlike After Ed) it’s mostly-full-out-unashamed-pop-songs-with-synths, we’ll keep you posted with all the deets as it’s going to be a BIG ONE, as Westwood will soon be saying.
Greg
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 14th December
Due to internet problems this is a day late, for which I am very sorry. Hopefully you can dry those tears though and enjoy Getting Ready For Christmas Day, a brand new release from Paul Simon. I’ll admit I was expecting this to be awful, but while the track is no Graceland or Mother And Child Reunion it’s still pretty sweet, even taking into account some clunky lyrics about Iraq....
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 13th December
I’ve made no secret of my love for Johnny Foreigner on this site, and so it could only be good news that they’ve decided to record a Christmas song, entitled Santa Fucking Claus. Surprise surprise, it’s the fucking BOMB, with Alexei and Kelly’s vocals sounding stronger than ever over a heartbreaking acoustic lament. Johnny Foreigner do the fast shouty thing, and they...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 12th December
In October I had the privilege of seeing Bear Driver play in Sheffield, and it’s safe to say they blew me away. Now they’ve done it again with the release of this cover of The Snowman’s Walking In The Air, managing to transform the interminable Aled Jones original into the soundtrack to an epic western movie. It’s properly ace, and there’s not a whiny Welsh...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR:11th December
Today we’ve got an interesting twist on Christmas classic Silent Night courtesy of Krautrockers Can. For once, just listen to the synthy goodness.
Jed. x
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AGCS' TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER SEVEN
Vampire Weekend - Contra
Let’s face it - “Contra” didn’t capture the public’s imagination in quite the same way Vampire Weekend’s self-titled début did. Their headline performance at Latitude festival, a good seven months after the release of their sophomore album, was notable for the crowds complete indifference to the likes of White Sky and six-minute,...
Stephen Brodsky Goes Solo
Stephen Brodsky, vocalist and guitarist with the criminally underrated Cave In, has launched a fledgling solo acoustic project and last night I had the pleasure of seeing him support Scott Kelly of Neurosis at The Firebug in Leicester.
During their 15 year’s and counting, Cave In have gone from ball-crushingly heavy metalcore to quasi-psychedelic space rock and back again, but...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR:10th December
Unsurprisingly for a band who chose the moniker Screaming Maldini, the Sheffield sextet couldn’t just cover any old Christmas song. In fact, they had to pick a VERY old one, covering the 15th Century Middle English lyric poem (thanks, Wikipedia!) As Dewe In Aprille. It manages to be simultaneously wilfully obtuse and devilishly catchy, although the end result definitely leans toward the...
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AGCS' TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER EIGHT
Ben Folds and Nick Hornby - Lonely Avenue
Way too many reviews of this rather great album Harped (insert HarperCollins joke here) on way too much about the run up and the respective artists previous work but I think most of us have heard of About a Boy and Ben Folds Five so let’s talk about songs.
The thing with Folds is, even his weaker songs are always going to be better than most...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 9th December
“On the sixteenth day I opened up the window, found a lump of coal and rammed it down my stupid, greedy throat…”
Who else could it be but Los Campesinos! with their brand spanking new Christmas song, released to coincide with today’s very exiting “HEAT RASH” announcement. Suffice to say, it was worth the wait, and I’m looking forward to owning my...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 8th December
So I’ll let the music do the talking today, as I’m feeling lazy/tired. I know, rubbish, right? Anyway, without further ado, here’s Fun with Believe In Me.
Jed. x
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Fourteen Actors Acting (with Owen Pallett)
Fourteen Actors Acting is a video gallery of beautifully shot black & white shorts featuring ‘classic screen types’ such as Tilda Swinton, Michael Douglas, Natalie Portman and Matt Damon.
What makes this extra neat is that the music was composed by Owen Pallett, and recorded in Prague by the Czech Symphony Strings.
The process of writing the music for each video was instinctive,...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 7th December
The past three days have seen the AGCS Calendar share three brand new Christmas songs (well two of them were covers but you know what I mean), and with that in mind perhaps it’s time to go digging into the vaults. They Might Be Giants are a band I haven’t really made the effort to get into but what I’ve heard I’ve liked, and today’s track Santa’s Beard is...
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AGCS' TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER NINE
Hot Club De Paris - The Rise And Inevitable Fall Of The High School Suicide Cluster Band
OK, first things first - I know this is technically an EP, and as such should be relegated from an ALBUMS of the year list, but let me explain myself. You see, in these six tracks Hot Club De Paris display more creativity than I’ve found on all but a handful of this year’s albums and have come...
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AGCS' TOP TEN ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: NUMBER TEN
ARCADE FIRE - THE SUBURBS
“The Suburbs” is a flawed album. Let’s get that out of the way to start with. Critics talking of the record’s sprawling ambition were really referring to it’s sprawling tracklisting. Don’t get me wrong, I love plenty of long records, but it speaks volumes that I’m looking at the back of the CD booklet now and I genuinely...
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ACGS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 6th December
The website is finally back online!!! It’s a Christmas miracle!! And while in five minutes time it’ll be the 7th December there’s still just enough time to open today’s door of the advent calendar to find Hold Your Horse Is. The Hampshire four-piece have recorded a cover of Paul Mccartney’s interminable Wonderful Christmastime but have somehow, and god knows how...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 5th December
I learnt something today, while scouring the internet for some decent Christmas songs. You see, despite having watched (and thoroughly enjoyed) two seasons of excellent HBO comedy “Bored To Death”, I was completely unaware of the fact that the show’s lead Jason Schwartzman used to be the drummer in the OC-soundtracking-and-frankly-pretty-mediocre Phantom Planet. Since his...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 4th December
The perpetually awesome Moshi Moshi label have just released a Phil Spector-aping Christmas record, entitled “A Christmas Gift For You”, and it’s really worth checking out. In addition to excellent contributions from Hot Club De Paris and Slow Club, there’s this lovely cover of The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping by Summer Camp. I can’t say I’m too familiar...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 3rd December
The triumphant return of Sufjan Stevens was definitely one of this year’s musical highlights, with the release of both “All Delighted People” and “The Age of Adz” giving us over two hours of brand new Sufjan-y goodness. What better way to celebrate then with the hauntingly beautiful That Was The Worst Christmas Ever!, from his 2003 Christmas EP “Ding!...
LIVE REVIEW: Arcade Fire at O2 Arena
“I wanna try experiment on this song” Win announced, about half way through Arcade Fire’s set at the first of two sold out shows at London’s 02 Arena. “Everyone on this side stand up; just everyone in the place stand up”, he went on, as us on the floor shockingly realised that people were actually sat in the first place. “Now, let’s just all pretend...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 2nd December
The Dismemberment Plan are one of those bands I’ve heard a lot about in the “blogosphere” but have never got around to listening to. I have no idea whether todays addition to the calendar, This Christmas, is representative of their sound but if it is then my new year’s resolution is to check out more D-Plan. It’s properly good, featuring a simple guitar line...
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LIVE REVIEW: Johnny Foreigner and Stagecoach at...
So last night I battled my way through the snowy Sheffield streets to see Johnny Foreigner and Stagecoach, and while I may now be dying of hypothermia I’d say it was definately worth it.
With first support Eagulls having to pull out due to the weather conditions, it’s not a long wait before Stagecoach take to the stage. I’ll be honest, I had never heard of Stagecoach before...
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AGCS CHRISTMAS CALENDAR: 1st December
I’m currently in Sheffield surrounded by a good half a foot of snow, freezing to death, while watching a repeat of The Cube on ITV2. Could there be anything more festive? (I mean the snow and the freezing cold obviously, Philip Schofield is about as festive as cholera). Anyway, what better way to start off our advent calendar then with everyone’s favourite miserabilists...