The Best Unsigned Bands Of 2011
Here at AGCS we love new music, and so it’s only fitting that we should start off our calendar with a compilation of the great music made by new, unsigned acts this year. But it’s more than that; this is a taste of what’s to come in the run up to Christmas. We’ve got features and exclusives from several of the acts on this compilation going up over the course of the calendar, starting tomorrow with a very special gift from TeamABC. The compilation can be streamed (and downloaded) below. There’s a track-by-track guide “after the jump”, as they say.
The AGCS Christmas Calendar Is Coming…
Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, and AGCS has been hard at work putting together a brilliant advent calendar. In previous years the calendar has taken the format of posting a Christmas song every day, but this time round we’re trying something more ambitious (also, we were running out of Christmas songs). This years calendar is set to feature interviews and exclusive articles from some of our favourite bands, essays (read: rants) on the year past, as well as pieces about 2011’s best albums. Oh, and if we do come across any great Christmas songs, we’ll be sure to put them up as well.
To get you in the spirit, I’ve pared down the 24 tracks making up last years calendar playlist to a slimline, ten track compilation of brilliant Christmas songs. If you can find a better collection of festive favourites than this then I will eat my paper party hat. But you won’t find better, because as I said: this playlist is AMAZING!
Anyway, be sure to check back tomorrow, and every day until Christmas Eve, as we’ve got lots of great stuff coming up. I can’t wait!
TRACK BY TRACK: Los Campesinos! - Hello Sadness
“Before we went to Spain we sat down to discuss what direction we wished the album to take and without restricting ourselves too much with particular rules or dos and don’ts, we all conceded we wanted it to be a more direct and poppier affair then the last one.” - Gareth Campesinos
So, what happened? In short: Shit happened. Gareth broke up with his girlfriend before recording and the finished record is fueled by the resulting bile, vitriol, self-loathing and - you guessed it - sadness. Direct? Poppier? No way. But that doesn’t stop it from being brilliant. For a track-by-track guide to their most complete album yet, read on…
Review: Los Campesinos! at KCLSU
Photo by Treesiepopsicles.
Considering they’re just written their most miserable set of songs yet, Los Campesinos! seem pretty happy tonight, but then they’ve got every right to be. Every old song they play inspires mass singalongs, while even the new tracks, sent to those who preordered Hello Sadness just three days ago, are received like old favourites. As a visibly choked Gareth thanks the sell out crowd and introduces set closer Baby I Got The Death Rattle, he self-deprecatingly mocks the band’s decision to close with “a new track that most of you haven’t heard”, yet somehow it works.
Review: Johnny Foreigner Vs Everything
“We’ve made the record that sounds like we do in our heads … there’s nothing we’d change or tweak, nothing we’d rewrite or remove. It’s exactly as perfect/imperfect as we are, and if it fails IRL, then it does so as proof we just aren’t good enough.
Heavy.”
Alexei Berrow, Johnny Foreigner
Heavy stuff indeed. And while there’s nothing new about bands proclaiming their new record is the best thing they’ve done, a massive progression blah blah blah, the words above are different; almost threatening in fact. It’s fitting that a record entitled “Vs Everything” should be launched in such a confrontational manner, but boy does it make it hard to review it in any kind of perspective. No bland press release for Johnny Foreigner, but a heartfelt declaration that this is them going all in, and that their future as a band depends on the result. When a band says things like that, you’re going to expect a masterpiece right?
REVIEW: Katie Malco And The Slow Parade EP
I don’t like folk, and I can say that to people (and indeed have said it to people) with some strength of conviction. But then if I pause to think about it, about the Jeffrey Lewis and Slow Club records I own, or the fact that my favourite album of the year so far is the decidedly folk-y “Let England Shake”, I realise that’s not entirely true. I mean, I definitely like at least 4 folk records! On the whole though, there’s no denying that I have certain ideas about what folk is and a definite sense that it’s “not for me”.
Screaming Maldini Set To Start Work On Debut Album
I love Screaming Maldini, the pink and white attired, quirk-core hitmaking machine, so the news that they’re due to start recording their first full length record next week has got me pretty damn excited.
I first became aware of the Sheffield sextet whilst i was compiling last years AGCS Christmas Calendar, and stumbled across their festive smash As Dew In Aprille. Since then I’ve caught them live at Tramlines festival and tried very hard to play their 3 EPs to death but they JUST WON’T DIE. Basically, they’re one of my favourite bands around today and I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
And if you’re new to Screaming Maldini, here’s a song to get you started…
teamABC - Complaints Dept.
teamABC are a band I stumbled across some time last year through some nice words on Johnny Foreigner’s Formspring account, and as usual Lex didn’t let me down. I downloaded their free “20 Songs By teamABC” compilation (still available here) and from the first track, the unashamedly exuberant Another Fight, Another Defeat, I was hooked. I ended up downloading all the EPs and albums on their bandcamp and eventually ended up buying the beautifully packaged “teamABC Collection”, a handmade 6 CD set of everything they’d recorded up to that point. In short, they’re one of my favourite bands around at the moment and I think they deserve a lot more recognition.
REAL-TIME REVIEW: “Paradise” by Slow Club
My copy of Slow Club’s new album “Paradise” arrived in the post this morning, and I’m just about to listen to it for the first time. Below I will be writing my first impressions of the record, in another of AGCS’ ever popular real-time reviews.
Is reviewing a record on the impulsive reactions provoked by the first listen a worthwhile pursuit? Perhaps not: the list of albums I have hated on first listen but gone on to love, and the reverse, would be a long one. But to quote David Byrne in Seen And Not Seen, “first impressions are often correct” - and that certainly proved to be the case with the last of Montreal album. Here’s hoping Slow Club’s record can provoke a better reaction than that!
Anyway, let’s not get bogged down in the theory. Suffice to say, this does not aim to be an exhaustive review but my first impressions of the record on my first listen. Without further ado, then, let’s press play on “Paradise”…
PJ Harvey’s “Let England Shake” Wins The Mercury Prize
It’s fair to say the Mercury Prize isn’t always the most reliable judge of what constitutes an interesting, innovative or even remotely listenable record (see: Klaxons), but on this occasion they only went and got it right! OK, so it would have been nice to see either Metronomy or Everything Everything get a sales boost for their very good albums, but Let England Shake was just so far ahead of the rest it really couldn’t have been anything else. Not to say “I told you so”, but here’s my initial, gushing 10/10 review of the record.
Jed. x
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