Tim’s 2015 Picks

1. Fresh Blood (Matthew E. White) – just own it – immaculate production – perfect songwriting – brilliant.
2. Ones and Sixes (Low) – Low are back with some new effects pedals and a drum machine, but their definitive harmonies and lo-fi approach is still evident despite the tactic change. Not a very consistent album, but worth checking out for the first 2 tracks!
3. Highest Point in Cliff Town (Hooton Tennis Club) – I don’t know why there are so many 2015 bands that sound a lot like Pavement, but I ain’t complaining!
4. The Wanton Song (Rose Windows) – now THAT is a cover!
5. Drones (Muse) – blah blah blah, Tim likes Muse. Yeah – I do. I like that they rock, and I like that they make such a great noise with minimal instruments and production. Econo-pop-rock.
6. Music in Exile (Songhoy Blues) – no idea what they’re on about, but I get it.
7. Chappie (Hans Zimmer) – don’t typically like Neill Blomkamp’s movies, but ‘Chappie’ was rather awesome, not least because of Hans Zimmer’s excellent soundtrack. Not easy to fuse contemporary electro with classic Techno and ambient, and make it poignant and powerful.
8. For Use and Delight (Promised Land Sound) – this is a great album, you’ll like it.
9. Hometown (Table People) – only heard one song so far, but me like.
10. Fremm (Bed.) – More Pavement? Yes please.
11. On The Outs (The Rotaries) – dig.
12. Saturn’s Patterns (Paul Weller) – only just heard this, not sure if its worthy of a place on my list yet, but its certainly an exciting effort from the modfather.
13. West Kirby County Primary (Bill Ryder-Jones) – more seBADoh than pAVemENt, but that’s even better! Shame he’s kinda monotonous with his vocals, but a valiant songwritery effort.
14. Tire Swing (Los Elk) – I’m typically turned off by white people playing Afro Pop Indie, but when they sound a bit like TMBG, I have another listen!

Tim’s 2003

Tim’s 2003

I’d be doing myself and my bandmates a disservice if I didn’t put our debut album at #1. What a weird year to be a recording artist – charts filled with the dregs of Britpop, fringe dance music, novelty indie, ghastly pop and a pervasive feeling of rudderlessness! A year later, things started to make sense, but 2003 is a lost year for music IMO.

Albums

1. Good Science/Friendly Gods (Donderevo) – highly acclaimed upon release and championed by no less than John Peel, Steve Lamacq and Tom Robinson, our debut disappeared before it achieved it’s purpose: to destroy the universe. For years I’ve worried that it’s too scattered and unfocussed, jap-pop, Ambient, Folk, Pavement, Weezer and Grandaddy, but it’s actually very much a product of it’s time – post-rock-post-modern toe-tapping space-pop for a schizophrenic and disillusioned era in British music. Turned out to be pretty influential on our hugely successful label mates The Killers, Franz Ferdinand and others.
2. The Lemon of Pink (The Books) – Perhaps the best album of the decade. Inspired, disquieting and beautiful from start to finish.
3. Dear Catastrophe Waitress (Belle and Sebastian) – this band of Scots have always appealed to me, but this was a complete departure from their previously lo-fi indie records. A muscular and dimensional pop album with astonishing production.
4. A Strangely Isolated Place (Ulrich Schnauss) – simply the perfect ambient album. Perhaps my #1 desert island disc.
5. Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts (M83) – the debut album from one of the most influential artist of the millennium. Every epic pop song you hear on the radio with a massive washy synth pad owes a debt to Anthony Gonzalez innovation to create My Bloody Valentine-esque soundscapes that would make Eno shudder.
6. Sumday (Grandaddy) – Jason Lytle is one of my favourite songwriters, and this is his most consistent work to date. Though his lyrics remains in the realms of bleak sci-fi and Ballardian dystopic modern life, Sumday is a joyful album, perfect for a summer drive through forests of discarded computers and broken down androids.
7. Apple O’ (Deerhoof) – Deerhoof seem almost normal now that every indie band in the world has embraced experimental instrumentation and recording techniques, but in 2003 this was a very shocking loud noise, still is.
8. Analord (Aphex Twin) – Aphex Twin’s music is uncategorizable, and this sprawling project covers everything from ambient and electro to drum & bass, though none of those genres can truly claim him as their own. A huge section of Analord is devoted to the infamous ‘Amen’ break, heavily used in early Jungle and Drum & Bass, and a direct ancestor of contemporary Dubstep. The album was released in installments over two years, its final form containing 62 tracks and running for four and a half hours. Aphex Twin is insane.
9. YosepH (Luke Vibert) – Equally genre-defying in the world of electronic music is Aphex Twin’s mate Luke Vibert aka Wagon Christ aka Amen Andrews. He’s among my favourite producers, and his ultra-tight beat making starts with Yoseph. Vibert pays tribute to the heyday of Acid House with this album, but tinged with his signature dischord of uneasy pads and super-tight beats.
10. Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (Explosions In The Sky) – very special ambient music with heart.

Songs

1. Questions and Answers (Biffy Clyro) – Scottish 3-piece Biffy Clyro have never quite lived up to this, their Sebadoh-esque debut single. They are masterful arrangers, and this song contains some of my favourite backing vocals.
2. I Went To A Wedding (Half Man Half Biscuit) – Nigel Blackwell had been writing hilarious satirical songs for 20 years before this came out – he’s still writing, and still hilarious. This is a particularly pretty example.
3. Eple (Röyksopp) – an incredible piece of quirky electronic music that, at least in Europe, was the soundtrack to the optimistic futurism of the 2000s. If we could’ve gotten a penny out of our record company we’d have commissioned remixes from these Norwegian bleepers, with whom we shared a music lawyer.
4. Hysteria (Muse) – I remember seeing this song on Top Of The Pops and feeling my jaw dropping as I watched Christopher Wolstenholme hammer out that insane bassline. Stunning track from a great British band and one of the greatest basslines of all time.
5. Jessica (Adam Green) – I’d pretty much gotten over the novelty of The Moldy Peaches when I heard this album, and realized that Adam Green is a master songsmith. ‘Jessica’ still makes me laugh – so horribly disrespectful to poor Jessica Simpson!
6. Strict Machine (Goldfrapp) – innovative synth-glam – a huge shift for this strange band.
7. Danger! High Voltage! (Electric Six) – One-hit-wonder? Novelty-band? Yes – and so much more. Just watch the video!
8. I Believe In A Thing Called Love (The Darkness) – another flash-in-the-pan novelty act, but a great song! Check out other singles ‘Get Your Hands off My Woman’, and ‘Growing On Me’.
9. Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickeral Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?) (Sufjan Stevens) – I feel as though I should hate Sufjan Stevens and all he stands for, but I can’t because he’s just fantastic. This self-recorded debut album, is a work of genius. Sadly, it ushered in an age of bland, uninspiring nu folk, but I think this track still stands up despite the twittering rabble of wannabe folkies.
10. זה רעיון טוב (The Apples) – Israeli car-chase funk with sweet cutting? Hell yeah!

Tim’s Top 10 Guitar Solos

As Bob inferred in his list, this was much harder than I expected, and it made me really think about what ‘guitar solos’ mean to me. It seems that my criteria are: emotional impact, melodic innovation and service to the song – i.e. I like solos that get my heart pumping, are as memorable as the vocal melody and are essential to the song’s structure. The best solos are undoubtedly performed by Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, but they rarely meet my criteria. Here goes…

1. Love Of My Life (Queen) [2:18-3:04] My only dinosaur of rock solo. Love him or loathe him, Brian May’s subtlety is matched only by his grandiosity! This solo has the whole spectrum. Perhaps Freddie’s most earnest (pre-AIDS) songwriting, a love song for his wife, to whom he was properly devoted (in every way except sexually!) May’s solo morphs like a specter out of Freddie’s vocal, incredibly expressive and throaty. Unique sound, makes me cry every single time. 😦
2. Freak Scene (Dinosaur Jr.) [0:31-1:02], [1:43-2:24] I love totally discordant solos too, and after a lot of shortlisting, this one was my favourite. Love J. Mascis for not being afraid to put massive solos in punk songs.
3. Paranoid Android (Radiohead) [2:59-3:33] This one definitely checks all three boxes for me  – by the time you get to 3 minutes you’re desperate for the tension to be released and Johnny Greenwood brings it with one of the weirdest melodic solos of all time. The solo is a little later in the Jools Holland video.
4. Run Overdrive (Civil Civic) [whole song/album] Civil Civic’s debut album is instrumental, and kinda has guitar solos all the time like a surf-band. Typically I wouldn’t consider this sort of thing a ‘solo’ but the guitar work is so amazing I couldn’t omit it. The album is superb but you gotta check out some live videos.
5. Förträngda Problem (Bob Hund) [1:33-2:00] Bob Hund always have brilliant and weird solos, often discordant, sometimes emotive but always innovative. This one’s just unexpected and brilliant. (solo is 1:50 in the youtube video)
6. Neat Neat Neat (The Damned) [0:05-0:15] Brian James searing solo on this song represents classic Rock ‘n’ Roll from Chuck Berry onwards. Its one of the fastest, nastiest and sexiest solos ever.
7. Susanne (Weezer) [1:51-2:14] Rivers Cumo’s solos on the first 2 Weezer albums are all insanely good, but this one is my favourite. Its such a melodic (and harmonic!) song, it seems impossible for a guitar solo to take the melody somewhere new – but Cuomo manages it.  ♥
8. I Am The Resurrection (The Stone Roses) [3:47-4:25] I’ve ranted about it before, but it had to be on my list. Horrible song – amazing jam at the end.
9. No One Like You (Scorpions) [2:52-3:26] This one represents the best classic metal solo, and again I had to do a lot of shortlisting. Metal solos don’t really do it for me emotionally, but I had to include one, and this is the best one. Its also my ringtone for when my wife calls me.
10. Love’s Sweet Exile (Manic Street Preachers) [1:42-2:22] I’m not a huge fan of the Manics, but I loved this early single from them. It represents cock rock solos on my list, definitely a guilty pleasure of mine. Its got all the cliches, and it’s twice as long as it should be! Love it!
11. Stockholm Syndrome (Muse) [3:17-3:56] I couldn’t do a top ten solo list without including something from Matt Bellamy. Though totally insane and rather repetitive, he consistently blows my mind with his guitar-work. One of the most innovative guitarists in rock. I love his ethic of keeping overdubs to a minimum – there’s typically only one guitar on a Muse song! 

I know what you’re thinking… but this one goes up to 11.