Songs of the year, Number 13: IVVVO - Bleached Butterfly feat. Abyss X

This one off collaboration between Portuguese musician, artist and curator IVVVO and Cretan multidisciplinary artist Abyss X was keenly championed by 6Music's Maryanne Hobbs earlier this year, and received enthusiastic feedback from listeners.

The unforgiving sonic assault and stream of consciousness rapid fire lyrical delivery both hark back to No Wave artists like Lydia Lunch or the similarly uncompromising X. The result is a raw, layered and darkly sexy track which is unforgiving and unrelenting. Once heard, never forgotten. 

Songs of the year, Number 14: Kelly Lee Owens - Sonic 8

Taken from Owens' third album LP.8, 'Sonic 8' is a brooding, uncompromising, nay apocalyptic slice of sparse electro. As with Helen McCookerybook's 'Wake Up', there is a sense of something coming to the boil in this spoken word piece.

"This is an emergency" she states "This is a wake up call". Before asking "What are you gonna do about it?". 

There are references to divide and conquer and to feeling tired while wanting to be free together but she's deliberately opaque in her targets, meaning the track can be taken as a general statement about the world rather than aimed at a specific wrong or issue. As such, it's both statement and work of art.

Songs of the year, Number 15: Lynks - Hey Joe (Relax) [Music Video]

Bristol based, never-knowingly-understated 'drag monster' Lynks has been enthusiastically promoted by 6Music's Lauren Laverne in recent years. The biting satire of 'Hey Joe (Relax)' earned the self proclaimed "Best musician in the entire world" a playlist slot on the station early on in 2022. Needless to say, the sweary bits were cut or bleeped out.

By turns rude and hilarious, this enthusiastic and highly infectious slice of electro pop takes a series of clawed swipes at the wellness industry while also delivering a particularly robust 'fuck off' to an especially obnoxious ex. "Feeling are like arseholes - I don't want yours" they sing emphatically at one point. If Frankie Goes To Hollywood had not been introduced to Trevor Horn, it might have sounded like this.

Songs of the year, Number 16: Helen McCookerybook - Wake Up (and Smell the Coffee)

Helen McCookerybook's post lockdown album Drawing on my Dreams was released in October, and 'Wake Up (and Smell the Coffee)' has been a favourite of mine ever since I first heard it. 

It contains a central allegory towards societal dissatisfaction that, like the coffee, is coming to the boil. The core message is wrapped up in a very stylish slice of sophisticated anthemic acoustic pop which is powered by McCookerybook's choppy guitar work and Anne Wood's beguiling violin. 

It's not so much a song of anger as a subtle call to arms, one that's sung with understated charm. It also feels like a song that has the potential to travel far and wide, being heard and perhaps covered by other artists from a variety of different places. Only time will tell.

Songs of the year, Number 17: Hatchie - Giving The World Away (Official Video)

'Giving The World Away', as the title track of Hatchie's second album, serves to demonstrate the extent to which the Australian artist has moved away from the sunny jangly indie pop (or, as Pitchfork put it, "sparkly shoegaze") of her debut and towards a darker, more complex indie rock that owes more to early nineties baggy, indie dance and the bleaker end of shoegaze. The video for the track only echoes this so it's safe to assume that it's a conscious move, one that leads us to speculate as to what would happen if you mated early nineties Saint Etienne with similar period My Bloody Valentine, released it on Sarah records and then let Northern Picture Library loose on it. 

The muscular, layered and complex 'Giving The World Away' rises above its various influences and incorporates its different elements well. There is plenty of flange and distortion, echoes and fades, piano riffs and solid beats here but there's also Hariette Pilbeams still-charming vocals and a solid chorus that will stay in your head for days. 

A class act.

Songs of the year, Number 18: John Cale - NIGHT CRAWLING (Official Video)

When John Cale released 'Night Crawling' back in the summer he said that its inspiration was 1970's New York and David Bowie, which does come across in this somewhat singular loping slice of textured electro.  It also sounds an awful lot like the more recent works of John Grant and, as such, can be seen to be straddling both the past and the present without any obvious sonic discomfort. 

Deantoni Parks provides extra drums, and Dustin Boyer backing vocals but Cale played all the instruments and it seems to have been something of a labour of love for him. Given the shut-in nature of the past two years, it's understandable that Cale, like so many of us, would become nostalgic for a past when we could roam the streets at night, going from club to club, gig to gig. 

Cale toured in October and as such 'Night Crawling' served to act as something of a calling card and promise of what was to come.

Songs of the year, Number 19: PIT PONY - Supermarket (Official Video)

This tight-as-fuck Tyneside punk band combine attitude and competence with commanding vocals. No one has actually compared Jackie Purver to Pauline Murray yet, but she certainly has a similarly powerful voice. 

Pit Pony's debut album World To Me was released in July and the highly atmospheric 'Supermarket' was one of the standout tracks. There is a palpable sense of tension and of being haunted in the lyrics that only enhances the Stooges-meets-Joy-Division brooding guitars and urgent drums within the track. 

Despite being championed by 6Music's Maryanne Hobbs, it feels as though Pit Pony haven't yet received the attention and praise that they fully deserve. Some of that is bad luck and it will be interesting to see if touring and (we can only hope) festival bookings go some way towards redressing the balance. They definitely feel like a band who would be astonishingly good live.