Song, by Toad Festive Fifty 2009 – 21-35
21.FOUND – Enough About Human Rights
I’m not sure if anyone, not even the band themselves, likes Enough About Human Rights best from their excellent Let Fidelity Break EP, but I do. There’s just something unexpected about this song, for some reason. The fact that it is in fact a Moondog cover probably has a lot to do with that, but the hectic, percussive energy FOUND pile into their version just makes me grin every time I hear it.
22.Timber Timbre – Demon Host
The ‘ohs’ in this song take the spectral folk of Timber Timbre and give it a pleading, forlorn quality which imbues it with just a little more pathos than some of the others on the album, and this makes it extra special, in my view.
23.FOUND – You’re No Vincent Gallo – Toad Session
Honestly, I could put pretty much their entire session in the top ten of this list quite easily. It was one of the best things I have ever seen, I think it’s fair to say. Without all the stuff added by the full band I found myself so much more impressed with Ziggy’s voice, with the gorgeous tones he got from his banjo… with pretty much all of it, honestly. Gorgeous.
24.Broken Records – Lessons Never Learnt
This may have been on an earlier release, but it was on this year’s(ish) Out on the Water EP, so I am putting my foot down and saying that it counts. In any case, a really surprising song to come from a band like this, and I think that little down-up of the cello absolutely makes it.
25.Trips and Falls – Breaking Up With My Mormon Missionaries
These guys were pretty much the revelation of the year for me, in all honesty. So much so that we’ve offered to release He Was Such a Quiet Boy on Song, by Toad Records, and it should be coming out in early March. Their music is just fucking creepy, to be honest, and the male/female vocal interplay on this track in particular really is odd. Add that repetitive descent on the strings and this really is an unsettling song. And a brilliant one.
26.Jesus H. Foxx – Elegy For the Good Times
It didn’t grab me as my favourite track from Jesus H. Foxx’ debut EP Matter right off the bat, but I think it is. The cornet, the harmonies, and that simple, repetitive rhythmic underpinning for the whole thing… it all just works incredibly well together, and there’s a sophistication to it which never ceases to surprise me when I think that this is the band’s first release, with their current lineup that is.
27.The Pictish Trail – You Covered the Earth With Your Thumb (Toad Session)
I love the Toad Sessions. They really can provide some amazing recordings, and with Neil so kindly recording and mixing all of the ones we’ve done so far this year we really have had some incredible stuff. Johnny Pictish is about the nicest guy ever to set foot in our house, and his session really was good. The slow build of this, and the prominence of his vocal really are gorgeous.
28.Navigator – Change
An oddly melodic tune from one of the most belligerently low-fi albums I think I have ever heard. It took a while for the sense of ‘whoooah, what the fuck?’ to subside when I first heard this record, but it is absolutely brilliant. Fuzz or not, this is just a stone-cold pop gem and one of the most catchy riffs of the year.
29.The Builders and The Butchers – Golden And Green
Mental and ferocious brilliance. When these guys hit their stride their ramshackle old jalopy threatens to shake loose its wheels altogether and crash into a ditch, and those are almost without fail their greatest songs. This is just like that.
30.Titus Andronicus – Fear And Loathing In Mahwah, NJ
I don’t know whether I just like how raucous this song gets, or whether I like how quiet it is half the time, compared to how raucous it gets when it cuts loose. Either way, this is one of the best play it loud soungs of the year.
31.Sparrow & the Workshop – Into the Wild
I heard this EP so close to doing this list that Horse’s Grin could as easily have been here instead, but such is the slightly arbitrary nature of these things that you’re getting this one. Maybe it’s something about the storming ending which gets me – Nick is getting to really have a right bloody go on his guitars these days, and Jill is proving that her voice is easily powerful enough to step up and match it. This is full on rock ‘n’ roll, and it’s superb.
32.Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (I)
Yes, more Wild Beasts. I don’t know how this happened – it wasn’t exactly deliberate, I just kept ordering and re-ordering my list and their songs kept on sticking in there, often at the expense of stuff I thought I liked better. This one’s more downbeat, but again that guitar sound and gorgeous voice produce something atmospheric and yet still insidiously infectious.
33.Alela Diane & Alina Hardin – I Have Returned
This whole EP is simple and absolutely gorgeous. Again, I could have picked pretty much any of the songs from it, but there’s something about this one which seems to have captivated me just that little bit more. The vocal interplay between the two is as lovely as with any song on the EP, but maybe there’s something in the roll of the verses which does it. Then again, maybe it’s just arbitrary and I might pick a different one this time next week.
34.Meursault – Nothing Broke
A different version of this was on the band’s MySpace page the first time I ever heard them and it made a really strong impression on me. They recorded it for their Toad Session back in August last year, and now this gorgeous piano and harmonium version for the truly stunning Nothing Broke EP. If anything, the only reason this song is so low on this list is down to the fact that it’s so familiar by now.
35.Timber Timbre – Lay Down in the Tall Grass
This song shows just how simple most of this album is – the barest hint of percussion doing nothing very complex, a simple organ riff repeating throughout the song, and vocals. There’s other stuff there too, but really very little of it, and that kind of subtle touch is what makes this such a special album.
