Thursday, March 01, 2007

Best of February

It’s the first of March. Saint David’s Day for those unaware of all things Welsh. Anyway, time to cast my mind back over what I was liking in February.

Album of the Month

Alasdair Roberts – The Amber Gatherers

No contest here. I waxed lyrical about it last week. But there hasn’t been an album in ages that I’ve listened to so consistently and still loved it. I can’t recommend this highly enough. I’ve gone out and got more of his albums since. I love it when you ‘discover’ an artist who already has a decent back catalogue. Not so good for the bank balance though.

Download: Alasdair Roberts - River Rhine

Buy The Amber Gatherers.

Songs of the month

The Early Years – Say What You Want To

The storming lead track from The Early Years' cracking new Great Awakening EP. I was looking forward to this one and I wasn’t disappointed. All new material and not a duff track on it. As I said in my live review, I love the way they combine the populist and the experimental, and that can be heard on all four tracks on this EP. All different. All good. Check them out.

The Barker Band – Heart Like Mine

I first came across The Barker Band on a compilation last year with this song. Now it’s come out on 7 inch, and it still sounds brilliant. If you’re looking for some decent British country music, look no further than these kids.

Amp Fiddler – Faith (Jazzanova Remix feat. Miss Yolanda)

As I said in my Downloader review, Amp Fiddler's original is OK, but it gets very good indeed when Jazzanova take things a bit deeper, stretch it out, add some wicked basslines and bring in MC Miss Yolanda to lay down an ace dancehall vocal on top. Even at over seven minutes, it’s not a moment too long.

Jamie Woon – Wayfaring Stranger (Burial Remix)

In ten month’s time, this is surely going to be one of the remixes of 2007. Dubstep scene leaders Burial take Jamie Woon’s already excellent version of Wayfaring Stranger (see previous post) and make it into a monster.

Kate Nash - Birds

So the much-hyped Miss Nash got her long-awaited debut 7 inch out a few weeks ago. Its two sides polarised a lot of fans. I'm with those who say that Caroline's a Victim isn't much cop, but there's something about this simple flip-side tale of teenage love on London transport and birds shitting on people's heads that I really like.

The Shins – Australia

I haven’t loved the new Shins album as much as I thought I might. But I love this song.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy St. David's Day!

Anonymous said...

You don't know how much I needed 'Say What I Want To' by The Early Years, I've been hunting for it all over the web and finally!!! I've found it. Thank you so much!