HotSpotMusic.

Tramp is a ridiculously good album from Brooklyn’s Sharon Van Etten, that was released just this week.  In a sense the album title should be swapped with her previous record, Epic, since this is not an austere collection of tunes but a rather soaring and complex masterpiece that maintains the emotional majesty that is her hallmark but adds new depth to the music itself.  Produced by Aaron Dessner of the National (who, along with some of his bandmates and other luminaries such as Zach Condon, makes guest appearances too) this is a real step forward for Van Etten and is one of 2012’s leading albums to beat.

Another one where serious questions have to be asked about this writer’s taste and dedication as to why it wasn’t posted 6 months ago.  Burst Apart is a sonically stretching follow-up to the cathartic Hospice (another of 2009’s sleeper hits) that elevates the themes to something less likely to make you bawl but soar instead.  The epic opener I Don’t Want Love sets the album off at the right pace as a heartfelt and yet self-undermining protest and the rest of the album continues just as brightly.  Great stuff.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 10 May 2011

Landing right at the beginning of this year, HotSpotMusic missed out on Anna Calvi.  Despite having the unfortunate albatross of one of the BBC’s Sound of 2011 acts hanging round her neck (although this was perhaps offset by Brian Eno referring to her as the best thing since Patti Smith), her tightly composed debut is a grand work.  There are definite elements of PJ Harvey but it is the dark, dense power of this album that makes songs like Desire and The Devil stand out amongst other contemporary female performers such as Florence & The Machine or EMA.  This has only spun a few times but it may well get a few more… and if that’s not enough, she’s covered Wolf Like Me too.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 17 Januaruy 2011

Wild Beasts are one of those bands who have very slowly progressed into being silently quite brilliant with each album.  The British band’s sound has evolved from simple pop songs to rather complex and thoughtful compositions still backed up by the marvellous (and impressively replicable in a live setting) Jeff Buckley-style warble of lead singer Hayden Thorpe, only now with more nuance and subtlety in its delivery.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 10 May 2011

Already the recipient of the Mercury Music Award this year and likely to be right up there in a lot of end of year lists, Polly Jean’s latest album is an epic barnstormer.

Part of the 2011 winter clearout - albums not reviewed when they came out but still worth sharing before the end of year lists hit.

Original release date: 15 Feb 2011

I hate Christmas records so much.  But this is a Christmas record with Emmy The Great and Northern Ireland’s Ash’s Tim Wheeler.  I am feeling so conflicted right now.  And that is why I will leave it up to you, dear reader, and your impeccable taste to make the judgement on this one.  I do urge you to at least listen to Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing), an inspired Wheeler take on the Ramones.  Now go buy your turkeys you miserable scrooges.

On the Merge website for the long awaited debut album from WILD FLAG (which finally hits the virtual, floating shelves today) you’ll find the following description of the band: 

What is the sound of an avalanche taking out a dolphin? What do you get when you cross a hamburger with a hot dog? The answer is: WILD FLAG.

Now I’m no expert on any of those things but this sounds more like a large metallic ladder (mostly used in large construction projects) falling on top of a bouncy castle.  Why? Don’t ask why.  The Portland supergroup of former Sleater-Kinney, Quasi, Jicks, The Minders (+ many more) members form a raucous crew and on Wild Flag (no shouting on the title) there are some pretty wild jams & psychedelic moments… it is definitely the product of a 70s punk muse.  Whilst all of them have been making music for a while, the record sounds fresh and lively, indeed Endless Talk sounds like the empassioned and youthful yelping of The Long Blondes, not the more distinguished pedigree of Wild Flag whilst Glass Tambourine is the ever-shifting striking single.  A most enjoyable album.

The Whole Love opens with Art of Almost - a ripping, epic, 7-minute long experimental rock track that breaks you in to the latest Wilco album like Jack Nicholson enters a room, axe-first.  And it’s a shining example of the direction Jeff Tweedy & co have taken here - exhilaratingly mixing their experimental tendencies whilst managing to maintain a sense of craft and songwriting.  Standing O, One Sunday Morning and I Might are all fantastic songs that could’ve been picked from different albums in their catalogue (although the one it most resembles is 1999’s study of meticulously crafted pop-americana Summerteeth).  And yet every single listen to the album reveals something new that makes it well worth repeated spins.  It’s bound to earn them continued tags as the American Radiohead (despite Radiohead’s muse taking them in quite a different direction in the last decade) which is something they’ve dealt with since 2002’s career-defining Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.  This is easily Wilco’s best album since then and in places touches those great heights.

Steven Malkmus and his assorted Jicks returned recently for album number five, Minor Traffic.  Written as he was reuniting Pavement and exciting indie rock nerds the world over last year, they then hit the studio with none other than Mr Beck Hansen whose producer credits are beginning to appear rather distinguished.  Beck’s touches make Minor Traffic a more accessible affair as Malkmus’s licks and rasping tongue are contained within a more cerebral cage than the wandering, rock-out sessions that produced Real Emotional Trash.  That’s not to say this is not a fine album, indeed it contains a healthy serving of his signature style, but it is a grower as it takes several listens to unfurl all the packaging.  

The thing about the new Girls record is that it’s just so very, very good.  From start to finish it’s quality.  In a way you could see this coming - the progression from the debut album Album (yes) to last year’s Broken Dreams Club EP was astounding (especially given the catchiness and enjoyment that the former offered) and this is one step further.  It is aided immensely by some excellent production that makes its epic sound appear age-old, like one of those fine, old, grand records from the 70s.  But mostly it is in the songs themselves, the ability to be sharp and fun at one minute (see Honey Bunny) and then sentimental and extravagant the second (see the in-no-way-descriptively-titled Vomit).  Girls are one of the finest new bands out there and this is just one more piece of evidence to prove that.

At times, Strange Mercy can have the appearance of a Ming vase - simultaneously fragile and beautiful. But whilst they are both something to admire, that’s a false allegory. It’s just the composition, as mesmerisingly complex as the carbon atoms that construct diamonds, that makes it surprisingly robust. Strange Mercy has elements of the Dirty Projectors, PJ Harvey and a dash of Prince (just listen to how the guitar is used). And, to be fair, quite a bit of Annie Clark (the one woman band behind the St. Vincent moniker). With each album she gets better and better, more inventive and more bold. As she sings on one track, for St. Vincent it might well turn out to be a Champagne year.

In the week that sees Michael Stipe, Peter Buck and Mike Mills call it a day after three decades it only seems fitting to pay tribute to them with a Sunday Sermon and perhaps one of their finest albums.  Life’s Rich Pageant was originally released in 1986 but this is the Super Deluxe Mega Directors Cut With Extra Cheese Edition, released only a few weeks ago and containing a bunch of extra demos of some tracks that made the final cut and some that didn’t.  What I love about Life’s Rich Pageant is that it acts as a bridge and crystal ball from the R.E.M. that first gained attention with their jangly melodic style and the slightly more hardened pop-rock that defined their most populist 90s period.  So don’t lament the loss of a band that (despite this year’s enjoyable Collapse Into Now) hasn’t really been as good as this for a long time, but enjoy this and then trawl the archives to remember why we care in the first place.

Slave Ambient is a powerhouse of a record. Anyone who has heard preceding single Baby Missiles could expect that already. That song itself is the perfect road trip track - literally a driving track, you’ll find yourself accidentally up at 120mph without even noticing (imagine now the wise traffic cops cunningly using Shazam). It, and the rest of the album, manage to soak up American rock music from the 80s like Huey Lewis and the more obvious touchstone, Bruce Springsteen, and by splicing that with a foreground of shimmering guitars it sounds fresh. But what it sounds most like is: anthemic. And managing to achieve that despite the lack of significant singalongs or Arcade Fire-style vehemence, it is perhaps something of a micro-manifesto for rock in this decade; cultivated and powerful but with nothing to direct it at.

Blood Orange is the latest incarnation of Dev Hynes, the man formerly behind Test Icicles and Lightspeed Champion. With each shedding of his musical skin, Hynes’s act is part snake and part chameleon, changing his act to blend in with the prevailing trends - not to get lost in the background but to be heard and to be current. On Coastal Grooves he keeps the whimsy of Lightspeed Champion whilst dropping the tweeness and drops the chaos of Test Icicles whilst retaining the ability to find the right riff for the right song. As such, this album should feel like a mutation, a twisted, contrived image of ‘freshness’.  It’s to Hynes’s credit that it doesn’t. It feels like it’s own piece of work; unique and interesting, sampling the guitar work of 50s rock and roll but still modern sounding. And certainly befitting it’s own title.