Music Chatter Personal Rambling: bear country felice brothers fleet foxes jack richold meursault samamidon wave pictures wild beasts
by Matthew
7 comments
Toad 2.0
Toad Festive Fifty: 1-10
Part 1: 1-10
Part 2: 11-23
Part 3: 24-36
Part 4: 37-50
Now, I know I played nicey-nicey with the previous parts of this list, and it is certainly true to say that there is barely any real difference between places fourteen and twenty-eight, but at the business end I think that some of it is a bit more definite. Certainly, having thought it over, I think that Now You Are Pregnant is my favourite song of the year. How or why it edges out the superb Wonderful Life I couldn’t quite tell you, but I know it would feel wrong to have put them the other way round.
The other rather obvious point that needs to be made is that, of course, I have no objectivity left whatsoever as regards the Meursault album or any of the songs on it. I didn’t have anything to do with making the thing, of course, but I’ve worked so closely with that album over the course of the last six months or so, since it became a part of Song, by Toad Records, that my relationship with it is totally different to anything else I’ve been listening to. So I am being honest when I feature Meursault stuff so highly, I’m not lying to you of course, but there’s no way I could be objective anymore.
So here’s the final installment of the Toad Festive Fifty. DC will be posting his Christmas extravaganza tomorrow, and that will be the last you hear of Toad for a few days. In between Christmas and New Year I will be going through my album of the year countdown and trying to move Toad over the self-hosting in order to avoid the horrors of DMCA harrassment. This way I can host the fucking thing in China if need be, and they can all just fuck off. So Happy Christmas all, and we’ll try and get things up and running as normally as possible right after the changeover.
1. The Wave Pictures – Now You Are Pregnant There are so things that make this song as great as it is, but I think the combination of wit and pathos with a slightly obscure, but nevertheless touching storyline pretty much sums up what makes this band great.
2. The Felice Brothers – Wonderful Life Maybe this is me getting the Christmas spirit a little early, but there’s an intimate, gentle heartbreak to this song that genuinely chokes me up every time I hear it.
3. Meursault – The Dirt & the Roots Erm, yes, one I have an embarrassing habit of turning up really loud and wailing along to in the middle of the night.
4. Samamidon – Wild Bill Jones I have to confess that I never fully understood what a desperately sad song this was until Sam performed it live at the Bowery this year. Gorgeous. And heart-rending.
5. Meursault – The Furnace The first notes I ever heard by this band were those in the banjo riff at the start of this song. Any wonder I was so instantly taken by them?
6. The Wave Pictures – Leave the Scene Behind Unlike almost everything they’ve re-recorded since working with Moshi Moshi, I actually prefer this version of a song that is in fact quite old. That guitar jangle is just spectacularly good.
7. Bear Country – Coolie Trade Erm, this is an old song, actually, but I only found this year and it’s fucking exceptional so it’s going in. If you have a problem with this, then fuck you.
8. Wild Beasts – The Devil’s Crayon I find the rest of this album just a little too much to take, frankly, but this is a swoonsome masterpiece. Sometimes, though, it’s that one song you catch onto that is enough to really get you into an album that can be a bit much. So I’m off to listen to it again.
9. Fleet Foxes – Tiger Mountain Peasant Song It is a completely over-rated album in my rarely very humble opinion, but this song is an aching jewel.
10. Jack Richold – Lady of the Calico I think the coup de grace, as far as this particular song is concerned, comes with just that tiny, tinu amount of backing vocal. This is Jack’s own recording of a song he wrote for the Nightjar EP.
And here is your final splendid zip file of Toadly goodness for the season. Have fun with DC tomorrow, and I’ll be back some time before the new year to tell you which my favourite albums of the year have been. Happy Christmas Toadlings.
Thanks for the nice words – and I should have fixed that zip link now I think.
gotta agree with that number one.
great stuff.
merry chrimble lovely people.
here’s to a good new year.
Cheers Matthew, this list will make good listening over the next week or two, I shall be able to pick out a few new bands to check out. Kind of missed a lot of new music this year, seemed to have focused on older stuff. Old Tom Waits was my discovery of the year haha. Having said that, I can never remember anything that I’ve bought and when it was released and as such can barely form a top 5 albums/songs of the year!
Oh, and Merry Christmas, seasons greetings and all that.
Matthew – just wanted to say a massive (belated) thank you for putting up some 40 odd (and some are odd!) songs that I wouldn’t have known about but for you – but more importantly – thank you for all your work on here – you’re a true star and you are much appreciated. Thanks.
Cheers mate – much appreciated indeed. It took me two weeks over Christmas to basically sleep off all the work I’ve been putting into this baby all year! Still, better now and ready to get going.
Just a heads up that the link to the zip file doesn’t work (at least for me). Thanks so much for the top 50 list, though – it’s a fantastic summary of everything I’ve missed by being offline over the past few months!