Adele - 19
British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
Burial - Untrue
Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
Estelle - Shine
Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
Neon Neon - Stainless Style
Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep In The North Sea
Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of The Understatement

Music’s answer to the Nobel Prize trundles in for another year. As ever, it has that “something for everyone” look that seems to emphasize balance over quality. Rachel Unthank and the Portico Quartet take the token folk and jazz spots, and half of the rest constitute a ticklist of prevalent styles. Pop? Adele (tick). Hip Hop? Estelle (tick). Waif with guitar? Laura Marling (tick). Etc etc.

There are really only two serious contenders. Radiohead have never won it before, and that must be regarded as an oversight by the committee. And Percy Plant’s album will appeal to the Mojo set. Burial won’t turn up, so that probably scuppers his chances, and Alex Turner’s already got one which will damage his. Indie bands have won three of the last four which means BSP and Elbow needn’t book holidays. Of the two contenders, my money’s on Raising Sand.

As to whether the thing has any meaning or value (apart from the money and the publicity of course), is still a matter for debate. Having an honours board populated with the likes of the Klaxons, M People, Gomez and Badly Drawn Boy hardly boosts credibility. But compared to the onanistic Brits and the completely arbitrary and pointless Mojo Awards, it does have some class. I doubt whether I’ll bother tuning in, though.

This is quite a good article from yesterday’s Independent on Sunday:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/does-the-world-need-another-indie-band-870520.html

The only thing I wonder is why has it taken the mainstream press so long to cotton on that the world is being sold wave upon wave of generic identikit shite? It’s been thus for many years, with NME churning “best new band in Britain” claimants almost weekly - all of whom have one tenth-hand idea between them.

Still, hopefully the indie-cattle are tiring of being forcefed tasteless straw. Maybe mainstream music is about to get interesting again. I’m not holding my breath.

My first encounter with dubstep was hearing this album back in the late summer of 2005. I’d been an enthusiastic drum and bass fan back in the mid to late nineties, especially the more rhythmically complex and bass heavy stuff such as Photek, Source Direct, Tech Itch, Dom and Roland etc. But as the rhythms got simpler, the music got repetitive. Jonny L’s “Piper” is a minimalist classic, but the problem is, in no time every record seemed to be using that simplistic two-step beat to the point of tedium. The much heralded d’n'b revival at the turn of the decade with the likes of Kosheen and Uncut, was just two-step rhythms with pop tunes bolted on. It wasn’t anything new or exciting. I didn’t fall out of love with the music, just failed to find anything that compared to the “old school” stuff. I still listen to a few of the best albums quite regularly (those acts I mentioned, plus early Omni Trio and E-Z Rollers, Krust, Bukem, PFM, Foul Play etc).

I never really got garage, and I don’t think I ever really understood what grime was. And dubstep was just another term that didn’t have any meaning to me. I liked Mike Paradinas, though, and liked some of the other stuff on Planet Mu which is how I came by a copy of Degenerate, a sprawling double CD – one half new material, and the other a collection of previously issued twelves.

First listen was a real ‘what-the-fuck?’ experience. The rhythms were colossal, but the tempos seemed stilted, and somehow teetering on the edge of collapse, like a runner whose legs are struggling to keep up with their body. The bass tones boomed on grumbled, but apart from that there was very little melodic colour. This was bare bones music, stripped down to the bare essentials. I didn’t really get it, but I was intrigued enough not to chuck it on to the Ebay pile, but give it another bash. And in time it clicked, this strangely tempoed, claustrophobic, slightly forbidding music. I grew very fond of Degenerate, and it was largely because of it that I got into Burial, Boxcutter, Kode9 and others. Even now there’s something primal and strange about the album that I don’t really hear in other dubstep. Kinda like the Charley Patton to other acts’ Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf.

It’s been three years. Hopefully a follow-up shouldn’t be too far away. The track with Warrior Queen on the most recent Planet Mu compilation seems to indicate a move into the same sort of territory as Kevin Martin’s Bug project.

Thunder

Tracks
1-01 Pop Pop V.I.P. 6:55
1-02 Thunder 6:36
1-03 Angels 6:34
1-04 Corridor 6:24
1-05 Cold 3:32
1-06 Venus 5:38
1-07 Gunman 6:08
1-08 Crusher Dub 3:09
1-09 Fire 6:27
1-10 Destruction 0:58
1-11 Lion V.I.P. 5:59
1-12 Slime 4:51
2-01 Canyon 6:03
2-02 Pop Pop 6:00
2-03 Ghost 5:55
2-04 Lion 7:05
2-05 Smart Bomb 5:46
2-06 End Of Line 6:25

Originally issued as Planet Mu ZIQ115CD in July 2005.

Constellation Records have rejigged their website a bit, and have now made available download samples for a few of their forthcoming releases.

What is it with Constellation and singers? Virtually every one they have are majorly idiosyncratic in their style. Some I like a lot - Carla Bozulich’s possessed rawness, Vic Chesnutt’s slightly hicky drawl, Efrim Menuck’s cracked tenor-cum-falsetto and Stuart Staples’ grumpy mumble. But some are really hard work. The singer of new signings the Dead Science sounds like Antony Hegarty sitting on a vibrator! And in the past there’s been the likes of Frankie Sparo who couldn’t hit a note if you gave him a week to find it.