The Null Device

Records of 2012

And now, as usual, here is my annual list of records of the year: With honourable mentions to: Jherek Bischoff - Composed (a nice set of instrumentals from the other guy from Parenthetical Girls), Carter Tutti Void - Transverse (two former members of Throbbing Gristle and up-and-coming electronic ecstasist Nik Void reinvent the idea of “trance music” along similar lines to New Order's Video 5-8-6), Dead Can Dance - Anastasis (DCD pick up where they left off, with just a little more electronics), DIIV - Oshin (driving, motorik guitar/bass/drums workouts, with reverbed vocals floating above; just barely missed the top 10), Dntel - Aimlessness (Jimmy's latest effort, which sounds more like Life Is Full Of Surprises than Dumb Luck to me), Greeen Linez - Things That Fade (1980s Japanese City Pop-flavoured hauntology from two English blokes based in Cambridge and Osaka), Heligoland - Bethmale EP (five subtle, gently shifting soundscapes from the Paris-based, Robin Guthrie-connected Melburnian shoegazers), Memoryhouse - The Slideshow Effect (Memoryhouse return with a fuller lineup and an album more in a rock/pop idiom than their EPs), Milk Teddy - Zingers (languid yet slightly dishevelled and somewhat leftfield guitar-based rock by a new Melbourne band), Momus - Bibliotek (One of Mr. Currie's two contributions this year, this one without a collaborator, in the cut-and-pasted electronic chanson style he now favours), Peaking Lights - Lucifer (interestingly dubby arrangements of lo-fi electronics, home-organ beats, tape delays and sparse vocals), Saint Etienne, Words And Music By Saint Etienne (the thinking indiekid's Kylie contemplate the meaning of pop music and the passing of time), Sunbutler - Sun Butler (Momus and Joe Howe's second collaboration following Joemus), Swans - The Seer (a record of brutal, transcendent ecstasy which makes Grinderman sound like Michael Bublé by comparison), The 2 Bears - Be Strong (in two words: “Dad House”; in more words: late-thirtysomething blokes who know more about dance music and cratediggers' classics than most flex their production muscles and have fun doing it), Ultraísta - Ultraísta (the Radiohead producer's own effort, which sounds like late Radiohead minus all guitars and Thom Yorke's new-world-order weltschmerz but instead substituting motorik rhythms, layers of warmly detuned analogue synths, fuzzy drones and hypnotic female vocals), WeShowUpOnRadar - Sadness Defeated (somewhat more stripped back than the Nottingham project's previous EP).

Had I to choose an album of the year, it would be either Tigercats' Isle Of Dogs or The Wake's A Light Far Out; two very different records it would be very hard to choose between.

The rerelease of the year would have to be Clag - Pasted Youth, which is more of a retrospective compilation of the Australian twee-punk band's releases and live gigs, long unavailable except on badly digitised MP3s, now remastered and accompanied with liner notes. Were there to be a track of 2012, it would be Peaking Lights' Lo Hi.

For your listening pleasure, there is a mix here.

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