ST. VINCENT - LOS ANGELES - LIVE @ ROSKILDE FESTIVAL 2018

This is St. Vincent performing 'Los Ageless' at Roskilde Festival in 2018. You can watch her full live set from Austin City Limits set from October 6 2018 here.

Fantasy Festival number 18: The Lineup

otta: Finnish/British musician otta's debut EP was released earlier this year. Including as it did the broodingly minimalistic 'Near Enough A Woman', it's fair to say that this young songwriter has created a stir amongst those with an interest in slightly jazz influenced understated songwriting. You can find out more on otta's Bandcamp.

Jess Williamson: Texas born, LA dwelling singer/songwriter Jess Williamson is rooted in country but she also inhabits a wild, sweeping soundscape that goes beyond Americana. You imagine prairie winds but you can also sense speakeasy's and dark and seedy LA streets. You can find out more here.

Ailibhe Reddy: Irish singer/songwriter Ailibe Reddy could perhaps be described as urban folk. Her songs have a tradition of folk songwriting behind them, but her concerns are of the urban life: Tube trains, shame, relationships. There is noise and grit in the mix, and she is certainly a songwriter for our times. You can find out more here.

Tancred: Jess Abbot's fourth album as Tancred, Nightstand, was released in 2018. In equal measure pared down and intimate confessional and brash guitar led indie rock swagger, it deserved a greater degree of success than it had. Those of a certain age might think of early Liz Phair or, more likely, Mary Lou Lord, but Abbot is her own woman and transcends all comparisons with the quality of her voice and her songwriting. You can find out more here.

The Coathangers: The garage rock band from Atlanta, Georgia make catchy, thrashy, occasionally sixties girl group esque songs that will remind you of both the Shondells and the Rondelles, as well as - inevitably - the Girls In The Garage series. You can find out more here.

Tei Shi: Colombian-Canadian singer, songwriter and producer Valerie Teicher Barbosa makes harmony based, R&B flavoured indie pop, with a slyly subversive edge. You can find out more here.

Harkin: Katie Harkin began her musical career in Leeds as one half of teenage indie punk band Sky Larkin. Since then she's collaborated with members of Wye Oak and Wild Beasts and become a member of the Sleater-Kinney touring band. Her debut self titled album was released in early 2020 and was a series of crisp, hook based songs in the indie rock tradition. She will be back to promote the album, it is to be expected, in 2021. In the meantime, you can find her on Insta.

Nadine Shah: South Tyneside singer, songwriter and musician Nadine Shah has just released her fourth album, Kitchen Sink, a series of highly timely observational vignettes taken from a life where she has often felt like an outsider. All her rage, all her anger, all her talent for observing and crafting songs that pierce modern mores like arrows, comes out in a series of unforgiving bluesy rock anthems. She is astonishingly good live, and you can find out more here.

Imogen Heap: Singer, songwriter, producer and sound engineer Imogen Heap is as known for her inventive use of technology (her musical gloves being one example) as for her music itself. To see her  live is to experience music technology development in action, but - both as a member of Frou-Frou and in a solo capacity - she has also written some damn good left of centre pop tunes. You can find out more here, and watch her weekly livestreams here.

St Vincent: Singer, songwriter and producer Annie Clark has been making music as St Vincent since 2006. Hers has been a low key rise, not indicative of superstardom, but well respected and highly influential, garnering respect and headliner status. Each of her albums has a distinct musical identity and hinterland of its own, with 2017's Masseduction having a sexy, slinky quality to it that veered from the unbearably sad to the joyously hedonistic. Hers is a big, complex sound, a sort of baroque art pop, never the same, but always unmistakably her. You can find out more here.

End of year list with a difference

I thought I'd try taking a departure from the usual end of year lists format this year, having not done one since 2014 because:

A.) Florence + The Machine would have won everything in 2015, and that would have made for a pretty repetitive blog post

B.) 2016 was such a weird year it required a different approach.

So, 2017... 

I remember writing in my diary at the end of 2015 'Well, thank God that's over' or words to that effect, little knowing the horrors 2016 would bring, and indeed, 2017...

One last thing:

Because I didn't do a list in 2016, the rule I'm working to is: If it was released in 2017, or if it was released in 2016 but I didn't hear it until 2017 then it's OK to include it. 

Favourite article of the year to write (By me): Women and music festivals, again (The F-Word)

Perhaps this is a little misleading... It wasn't so much a case of 'enjoying' it as being gripped by a hurricane that wouldn't let me go until I'd finished it, 48 hours later. And it led to a whole series of posts on here as well, plus 7 fantasy festival bills I'd like to see.

Expect to read more on this issue, and related issues, in 2018.

Favourite article of the year (Not by me): What I learned from a year of dumpster diving in Australia (Medium)

You will be staggered by this... really staggered, and possibly inspired as well.

Favourite tattoo of the year: This one from The Studio in Manchester

Such a collision of difference reference points, and no one else will have one like it. Genius.

Favourite disclaimer of the year: Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, Duke of York Theatre, London

Favourite foul mouthed ear worm of the year:

A tie between St Vincent's 'New York' and Peking Duk/Icona Pop's 'Let You Down', both of which feature copious and enthusiastic use of the f word.


Favourite anti-Donald Trump song of the year:

Grace Mitchell 'Kids (Ain't Alright)' did it for me in the end, conveying as it does a real sense of bewilderment and 'What the fuck just happened?!'. That said, favourable mention (obviously) goes to Arcade Fire and Mavis Staples for 'I Give You Power', which they had the foresight to release on inauguration day.


Favourite double edged single of the year:

Natasha Kmeto, 'Pour Down/Free For Tonight'

Side A: Full on rainbow coloured lust on the dance floor

Side B: An equally killer dance anthem but with the underlying razorblade in the floss that it was a song pointing to the fragility of LGBTQI spaces

Favourite breaking artist of the year:

Overcoats.

The New York duo more than punched above their weight this year, with an impeccable debut album and strong singles. Their tours in the US are now headliner tours and are getting longer and longer. Let's hope we see them in the UK soon.

Most fully realised psychogeographic album of the year:

EMA, Exile in the outer ring

A dystopian postcard from the US mid west. 

Most eerily prescient album of the year:

This is a tie between Kate Tempest's Let Them Eat Chaos and Father John Misty's Pure Comedy. The former hinted, in various ways, at a number of societal factors that were all about to converge in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower disaster, whereas the latter clearly signposted the warning signs of a US that had just elected Trump president.


Favourite video of the year:

Georgia, 'Feel It'

Favourite 'Where the hell did that come from?!?' album of the year:

Kelly Lee Owens, Kelly Lee Owens, as signposted by Piccadilly Records.


Favourite gig of the year:

A tie between Gothic Tropic at The Castle Hotel as part of the Manchester leg of Dot To Dot, 26th May 2017 and Honeyblood at Gorilla, 21st December 2017 (review currently in progress, stymied by Christmas...)

Band to watch in 2018:

Pearl City

They provided strong support to Honeyblood at Gorilla on 21st December and are a Manchester duo who used to be known as Bernard & Edith and now appear to have renamed themselves after a mancunian Chinese restaurant. They sound a bit like Kate Bush fronting a dark wave band... Am expecting good things. 'Flames' is out now.

Albums of the year:

15) Wolf Alice, Visions Of A Life
14) Jesca Hoop, Memories Are Now
13) Bully, Losing
12) Rews, Pyro
11) Pink Milk, Purple
10) Zola Jesus, Okovi
9) Kelly Lee Owens, Kelly Lee Owens
8) Noga Erez, Off The Radar
7) Honeyblood, Babes Never Die
6) Wild Ones, Mirror Touch
5) Helen McCookerybook, The Sea
4) Gothic Tropic, Fast or Feast
3) St Vincent, MASSEDUCTION
2) Overcoats, Young
1) XX, I See You 

Songs of the year:

I have made a Spotify playlist of these songs, but Helen McCookerybook's most recent album is not available on Spotify so I have included a link to the song on YouTube instead.

20) Grace Mitchell, 'French Becky'
19) Halsey and Lauren Jauregui, 'Strangers'
18) London Grammar, 'Truth Is A Beautiful Thing'
17) Rews, 'Miss you in the dark'
16) Daughter, 'Burn It Down'
15) Beth Ditto, 'Savoir Faire'
14) Wolf Alice, 'Beautifully Unconventional'
13) Bipolar Sunshine, 'The Scientist'
12) Noga Erez, 'Noisy'
11) Georgia, 'Feel It'
10) Honeyblood, 'Sea Hearts'
9) Lorde, 'Liability'
8) Wild Ones, 'Parathesia'
7) Helen McCookerybook, 'Big Brother'
6) XX, 'Replica'
5) Overcoats, 'Nighttime Hunger'
4) Gothic Tropic, 'Stronger'
3) Natasha Kmeto, 'Pour Down'
2) St Vincent, 'Los Ageless'
1) Miya Folick, 'God Is A Woman'

St. Vincent - "Los Ageless" (Official Video)

Late contender for single of the year for me.

Or just a great dance madly around the living room kind of record.

The album, MASSEDUCTION, is great as well and I really don't understand why it's not in any of the steady flood of end of year lists coming along this month. Except perhaps that it was only released in October?

As a general rule, my personal end of year list doesn't often cross paths with the general ones, partly because I'm a bit slow on the uptake with some albums, but also because I think I operate in some musical twilight universe where my ears operate differently or something... Which worked OK as an approach when I was a fanzine writer, but was less useful as a music journalist. Sigh...

St. Vincent - New York (Official Video)

From the new album, which is out now.

This song is such an ear worm...