Killer Queen

Thanks for voting in the poll to find out which album the @lpgrp community would play communally in February. The theme was Bella Union.

The winning album was Queen of Denmark by John Grant. This will be played by all who fancy joining in at 9pm, Sunday 3rd February. Press 'play', listen, tweet, enjoy the banter.

Some results:

1st (16 votes): John Grant's Queen of Denmark
2nd (13 votes): Midlake's The Trials of Van Occupanther
3rd (11 votes): Lift to Experience's The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads
4th (7 votes): Fleet Foxes by Fleet Foxes
5th (6 votes): Dirty Three's Ocean Songs
6th (5 votes): Hearts by I Break Horses
7th= (4 votes): Lanterns on the Lake's Gracious Tide, Take Me Home & Andrew Bird's Noble Beast

The (Rock and) Roll of Honour - Previous @lpgrp Winners

Here are all the previous @lpgrp themes and winning albums:

January 2011  'Great album' - Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
February 2011 'Debut' - Portishead - Dummy
March 2011 'Women' - PJ Harvey - Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea
April 2011 ‘Neither North America/UK’ - Kraftwerk – Trans-Europe Express
May 2011 'Sophomore' - REM– Reckoning
June 2011 ' 1980s Alt-Rock Classics' - The Smiths– The Queen Is Dead
July 2011 ‘1967' - Tim Buckley - Goodbye and Hello
August 2011 '1990s' - Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
September 2011 'Folk' - Joni Mitchell– Blue
October 2011 ‘First album Purchase’ - The Teardrop Explodes– Kilimanjaro
November 2011  'Movie Soundtracks' - Various Artists– O Brother Where Art Thou and Various Artists– Lost in Translation
December 2011  'Solo Projects From Band Members' - Ryan Adams– Heartbreaker
January 2012  'Best Album Of 2011' - PJ Harvey– Let England Shake
February 2012  'Live Albums' - Johnny Cash – Live at Folsom Prison
March 2012 '4AD' - The Pixies – Doolittle
April 2012  'Alt-Country Classics' - The Decemberists – The King Is Dead
May 2012  'Scotland' - The Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy
June 2012  '2000s' - Sufjan Stevens– Illinois
July 2012 '1979 or 1980' - The Clash– London Calling
August 2012 'North of England' - The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace
Sep 2012 'Rough Trade' - British Sea Power - The Decline of British Sea Power
Oct 2012 'Act contains siblings' - Boards of Canada - Music Has The Right To Children
Nov 2012 'Australia' - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - Murder Ballads
Dec 2012 'My most played album' - Neil Young - After the Goldrush
Jan 2013 'Best Album of 2012' - Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Feb 2013 'Bella Union' John Grant - Queen of Denmark
Mar 2013 'Concept Album' David Bowie - The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars
Apr 2013 'Reggae' The Congos - Heart of the Congos
May 2013 'One Album Wonders' Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth 
June 2013 - 'Mini-Albums' - The Pixies - Come on Pilgrim
July 2013 - '1981' - The Cure - Faith
Aug 2013 - 'Creation Records' - Sugar - Copper Blue
September 2013 - 'Post-Punk' - Public Image Limited - Metal Box
October 2013 - 'Eponymous' - The Band - The Band
November 2013 - 'Ireland' - Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
December 2013 - 'Factory Records' - The Durutti Column - The Return of the Durutti Column
January 2014 - 'Best Album of 2014' - Bill Callahan - Dream River
February 2014 - '1960s Psychedelia' - Love - Forever Changes
March 2014 - 'John Peel's Record Collection' - The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow
April 2014 - 'Canada' - Cowboy Junkies - The Trinity Session
May 2014 - 'Synth Pop & New Romantic' - New Order - Power, Corruption and Lies
June 2014 - 'Mercury Nominated' - Tricky - Maxinquaye
July 2014 - 'All Girl Bands' - The Raincoats - The Raincoats
Aug 2014 - 'Africa' - William Onyeabor - Atomic Bomb

I have seen the future, and it works...

Here's the (hopefully) up-to-date list of forthcoming @lpgrp themes:


Sep 2014 Soul & Funk
Oct 2014 1968
Nov 2014 Hip-Hop
Dec 2014 Foreign Language Albums
Jan 2015 Best Album of 2014
Feb 2015 "I've seen them play that live!"
Mar 2015 Folk Rock

Oh you don't get me I'm part of the union...

Greetings all...

February's @lpgrp session's theme will be Bella Union.

Bella Union, as all music lovers will know, is the (fabulous) independent record label set up by Cocteau Twins Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde back in 1997.

There's obviously a finite number of albums on Bella Union so we shall make this a straight vote this month - with no nominations. Treat, if you will, the Bella Union back catalogue as your shortlist. The best one I can find online is via the Rate Your Music pages.

Please send me the titles of your TWO favourite Bella Union releases by 6pm, Wednesday 16th January. Either send me a DM or an ordinary tweet (mentioning @lpgrp) with your choices.

The Bella Union listening session will be 9pm, Sunday 3rd February.

Allelujah

Here are the results of the annual @lpgrp poll to find its Album of the Year. The good folk of @lpgrp were asked to vote for five albums and, from that list of five, choose one favourite. The ‘favourites’ gained three points; the other selections each gained a single point. Remarkably, 162 different albums gained votes.

This is the Top 25. If scores were the same, preference was given to albums with more ‘first choice’ votes. There are two numbers in brackets. The first number is the final score while the second number – marked with ‘*’ – indicates the number of ‘first choice’ votes attained. 

The winning album, Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s  Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! will be played communally at 9pm, Sunday 6^th January 2013. 

Thank you for voting!

1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend! (16/2*)

2. Six Organs of Admittance – Ascent (12/3*)

3. Chromatics – Kill For Love (11/3*)

4. Sharon Van Etten – Tramp (10/2*)

5=. Dexys – One Day I’m Going to Soar

5 =. Gravenhurst – The Ghost in Daylight (8/2*)

7=. Richard Hawley – Standing at the Sky’s Edge (7/2*)

7=. Ty Segall Band – Slaughterhouse (7/2*)

9. Django Django – Django Django (7/1*)

10 Field Music – Plumb (7/0*)

11. Shearwater – Animal Joy (6/1*)

12=. El-P – Cancer for Cure (5/1*)

12=. Father John Misty – Fear Fun (5/1*)

12=. Lower Dens – Nootropics (5/1*)

12=. Mountain Goats – Transcendental Youth (5/1*)

12=. Trembling Bells feat. Bonny ‘Prince’ Billy – The Marble Downs (5/1*)

17. Anais Mitchell – Young Man in America (5/0*)

18=. Allo Darlin’ – Europe (4/1*)

18=. Leonard Cohen – Old Ideas (4/1*)

18=. Death Grips – The Money Store (4/1*)

18=. Go-Kart Mozarts – Hot Dog Streets (4/1*)

18=. Amanda Palmer – Theatre is Evil (4/1*)

18=. Alexander Tucker – Third Mouth (4/1*)

18=. James Yorkston – I was a Cat from a Book (4/1*)

25. Woods – Bend Beyond (4/0*)

My Top Five - @ricardopollardo

As promised on Twitter, I have finally finished the favourite fifty on
the blog (iprefertheiroldstuff.com), and here's basically what I wrote
about the top 5;

5. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead - Lost Songs

Trail of Dead are one of those bands that I have a long held soft spot for, from first hearing “Prince with a Thousand Enemies” on the John Peel show in 1997, I have followed the Texan art-rockers ever since. Even their widely derided fifth album So Divided holds a place on my CD shelves (admittedly it doesn’t get the same amount of replay as the other 7). So whenever a new album appears I’m all over it like a cheap suit! The last couple of albums have been tinged with a fair amount of prog but newie Lost Songs harks back to their early few albums in that it eschews the more fantastical elements and has been stripped back to an album full of downright bangers! In fact you’ve got to go back to their peak around albums like Madonna or Source Tags & Codes to see a similar album structure to Lost Songs, and all the better for it! Regardless of how good recent albums have been, those two albums are up there as the best in their ouvre.

4. Crippled Black Phoenix - (Mankind) The Crafty Ape

In 2010 I, Vigilante the third album from post-rock/prog collective Crippled Black Phoenix made it to number 5 in my end of year favourite 50. With their latest (Mankind) The Crafty Ape they have  moved up a place to number 4! This 85 minute double album was one of those rare albums that I needed to listen to every day for a week so after I first got it, not something that happens very often these days. One thing I didn't discover until I listened on headphones was, what I thought was five minutes of silence at the end of the last track is in fact the quiet sounds of a thunderstorm, rain pattering on a roof, gradually fading out. Giving, in headphones, a marvellous feeling of closure to what is their finest album to date. Also, while writing this I have just discovered they have just released a new 50 minute EP called No Sadness or Farewell! Like I didn't have enough new stuff
still to listen to! :-)

3. Goat - World Music

Off the wall, joyous chaos from Sweden's Goat. I wrote more about this album in a review a few months ago (http://wp.me/p18xN5-Bj) but in short; Imagine, if you will, a strange universe where Can, The Go! Team, Grails, Comets on Fire, Alexander Tucker and A Hawk and A Hacksaw are all trapped in a room with an infinite array of instruments and a large helping of psychedelics. It would not be a huge stretch of the imagination to see this album as the result of such a get together.

2. El-P - Cancer 4 Cure

Five years after I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead, Brooklyn hip-hop artist El-P (aka Jaime Meline) returns with the spectacular Cancer 4 Cure. I am not a massive hip-hop fan, my tastes are usually more rock/guitar oriented, but now and again certain hip-hop artists really light my fire so to speak. Roots Manuva, The Roots, Cypress Hill (many years ago!), Jurassic 5, Buck 65 and more recently Death Grips and Doc Waffles are pretty much the only other hip-hop acts that grace the shelves of my CD collection. But since its release back in May this CD has been (and still is) consistently blowing me away each time I listen to it’s dark but downright groovy beats and sharp as a razor, spat out rhymes! Seriously, listen to this album, you can thank me later!

1. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

Following their reunion last year I was not expecting to see any new material released, yet in October we were treated to the news that a new album was imminent and two weeks later this appeared, fully formed and fearsome! The furious building guitars of the first epic track Mladic convinced me immediately I had my potential favourite of the year right here, and numerous enraptured listens later, nothing has given me cause to argue with my initial reaction. This is, for me, the album of the year.

For the other 45 albums from my fifty, please have a look here; 50-31
(http://wp.me/p18xN5-Ct) and 30-11 (http://wp.me/p18xN5-Dc)

Cheers,
Rich Pollard (@ricardopollardo)

My Top Five - @SessionBlogger

Those beautiful people at @LPGrp have asked their twitter followers to gas about their Top 5 albums of 2012 in a blog post. So, without further ado, and in descending order to provide a bit of excitement (even though you're just going to scroll down to No.1 first to have a peak - that's what I'd do anyway!) here are mine :


5. 'Other People's Problems' by Breton
I feel Breton were cruelly denied a shot at the Mercury Prize with this album as it's a beauty. There's nothing I've heard in the last few years that compares to it genre-wise. I suppose, if you're looking for a comparison, they sound a bit like the Audio Bullys, only better. Oh and there's a new band called The Neighbourhood but they're nowhere near as good.

If you want a starting point, listen to their song 'Jostle', it's a corker.


4. 'Django Django' by Django Django
A fellow Blogger introduced me to this lovely band and we went to see them together at Xoyo in London earlier in the year. When I first heard 'Waveforms' and 'Default' they blew me away and live they're equally as good.

Unfortunately there's no massive Django Django love-in in my household as my wife just reckons they're a Beta Band / Hot Chip rip off. I can definitely see similarities, to be honest, and it will be interesting to see what direction they go in on their next album.


3. 'Given to the Wild' by The Maccabees
Released around the same time as the Django Django album, this was less instant than that but after a few listens I couldn't put it down.

Apart from the obvious classics on there like 'Pelican', 'Ayla' and 'Feel to Follow', songs like 'Forever I've Known' are just so beautiful. I just love the way their music builds up slowly and then...erm...ahem...goes sort of 'pow!'

Anyway, moving swiftly on...


2. 'Jake Bugg' by Jake Bugg
Again, I was introduced to Jake Bugg's 'Lightning Bolt' by a fellow Blogger on twitter (aren't blogging & twitter great?!) and I haven't looked back since. Again it was so fresh sounding and just didn't sound like anything else around at the time.

I was so excited about the album release, the most excited I've been about a release in ages, and it didn't disappoint. How someone so young can write something that good is beyond me.  My songwriting skills at that age were pants (still are, to be honest). It's surely already an early contender for next year's Mercury Prize. I reckon Foals will win that though - you heard it here first!*

*please comment below if you've heard this statement elsewhere and I will adjust the number. Thank you for your co-operation.


1. 'Standing at the sky's edge' by Richard Hawley
What an amazing album, eh?! The only thing that would have stopped Mr. Hawley winning this accolade would have been if Cashier No. 9 had delayed the release of 'To the Death of Fun' by 6 months and released it in 2012 instead (that's my most listened to album this year). But it would be unfair to bring that up, even though I already have. Let's move on, shall we?

This album has everything - dirge like guitar sounds ('Leave your body behind you'), beautiful ballads ('Seek it') and two opening songs around the 7 minute mark, without any boring filler bits between them - you don't get that very often nowadays, do you?! But Mr. Hawley pulls it off.

Oh and live, Richard (can I call you, Richard?) is amazing, one of the best live acts I've seen and bloody funny too. After I saw him play Brixton in September, I tweeted how much I loved him (in a man crush kind of way). He never replied, don't blame him. Unfortunately the restraining order means I'll never be able to see him live again but that night will remain here forever *taps heart*

So, there you have it. Thanks for reading and, if you haven't heard any of the above, I recommend you give them a whirl.

Before I go I'd like to thank my wonderful hosts for having me on their blog.

God bless @LPGrp and all who follow them.

Bye
x