So lets have a quick look at some of my faves for the year (It’s traditional to do a year in review thing. Isnt it?).

These are some of the songs that are still bouncing around on my  MP3 player playlist and keeping my brain entertained. And yes there are a lot guitars featured below. ( I was only going to pick two three, but it turned into three each month… oh well)

• January: Simone Dinnerstein - Bach Goldberg Variations and Black Mountain - Tyrants and  of course Abney Park - Stigmata Martyr
  I have a short playlist with Simone’s paino tracks and the Glenn Gould versions - very weird. Abney Park are truly wonderful
• February:osh10 - Interview and Vampire Weekend - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and Okkervil River - Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe
  osh10 were charming to deal with and their music is still intriguing me. It’s a coin toss between Vampire Weekend and Okkervil River. Listen to them both… lots
• March:Yeasayer - 2080 and Papercranes - Treasure and My Morning Jacket
  Yeasayer and My Morning Jacket are both still providing quality soundtracks to my day.
• April:The Benthams - Interview and The Childballads and Ian Bland - Drifter
  The Benthams were great fun to work with, Ian is still suprised that I have large chunks of his album on MP3 player.
• May: Terry Riley - In C and Laura Gibson and Jim Bryson
  Laura Gibson was a surprising find, there is a section in my playlist where Laura and Sara Storer (below) trade consecutive songs. It would make a great little concert.
• June:Sara Storer - Land Cries Out and Beirut and Times New Viking
  Sara Storer or Beirut? Beiruit or Sara Storer? Sara by a smidge.
• July:120 Days - So This is Suicide and Charlie Parr - 1922 and Podington Bear
  Charlie Parr, one of the highlight finds of the year.
• August:Me and the Grownups and Moving Hearts - RTE The Late Session and DragonForce - Through the Fire and Flames
  DragonForce, one of those “how the hell did I miss these guys” finds. Ended up with three of their albums virtually the next day
• September: The Morrighan and Chairlift - Bruises and Fleet Foxes - English House
  Chairlift are managing to survive on the playlist even though every third ad on the teleivision seems to be playing them (Christmas will be over soon) and The Morrighan, Jon X sent a CD for review and I still have half of it on the playlist.
• October:Woodpigeon - Songbook / The Sound Of Us Playing Together and Fruit Bats - Slipping through the Sensors and The Secret Machines
  Fruit Bats and The Secret Machines were both just fabulous finds. Lots of interesting stuff still to come from both acts I suspect.
• November:Susanna And The Magical Orchestra and Richie Havens and The Maybes? - Summertime
  The Maybes because it is summertime here in Australia, but I suspect that Richie Havens will still be on the playlist this time next year
• December:Liz Stringer - You Say So Many Things and Dan Wilson - Breathless and Jun Miyake
  Thank God for Rockwiz, Liz Stringer and Dan Wilson both found on the show and are both still on the playlist

If I was forced to pick one act for the year, it would have to be DragonForce. These guys end up being played at least once a day and I just love the amazing, “understated” guitar work. Just brilliant.

Thank you all for your support, emails (there is a comment thingy at the bottom of each page folks) and Jools and I look forward to continuing next year. There is still a ton of music to be heard out there and more being made every day.

Have a good Christmas and New Year, we will be back in mid January(ish)

It has been a busy year with lots of wonderful music - both reviewed and listened to. My MP3 player has had a working out this year. I toyed briefly with an Apple iTouch and those ghostlyghastly bud earphones but was left wanting so I have returned to my modest Sandisk with Sennheiser phones until something better turns up.

Having said that, the top three artists who survived and thus presently inhabit my musical world include but are not limited to American Marc Cohen reviewed very early this year, Pájaros de Plomo from Buenos Aires, from Australia - Pete Murray, from the UK Show of Hands and from Austin Texas The Lovely Sparrows.

Well there you go - I can’t count again. Since life is too short to review music I don’t like it is fair to say that everything that I have reviewed in 2008 had something special going for it. Chose an act, any act and you will find something worth listening to.

Lots of great stuff coming up next year but in the meantime, treat yourselves well and have a very joyful and safe Christmas and New Year.

Cara Dillon

These days she is doing her own original material as well as traditional stuff, and it’s the traditional stuff that I have been playing. Her version of “Black Is The Colour” is just brilliant.

Head over to www.myspace.com/caradillon and play it. The piano arpeggio that starts it sets a mood that puts me in mind of George Winston and Windham Hill, then a touch of organ and then Cara’s slightly breathy voice. It hen builds to a beutifull y arranged crescendo of overdub harmonies and … just go and listen to it. You won’t regret it.

Highly Recommended

Websites at http://www.myspace.com/caradillon and http://www.caradillon.co.uk/

Skillet

Oh god, Skillet are a Christian band. You wouldn’t know from their playing though. I have had “Comatose” floating around the MP3 player for a while now and it is a ripper and only discover. I only discovered their beliefs when I looked up their bio and spotted this bit

Skillet’s music is a mixture of hard rock, funk, punk,metal and industrial fused together with pure energy, and a strong love for the Lord, all thrown together in the pan! They formed as a group back in the late ‘90’s, and have produced many popular albums in their music ministry, much to the delight of their youthful fans, who not only get to enjoy fine hard rock music, with interesting sparkles of funk and punk, but also are encouraged, enlightened, fed with Christian messages about the Gospel, which point to Jesus.

I have just had another listen to “Comatose” and I cant hear any overt proselytising. All I can hear is some amazing string arrangements, really crunchy guitars and some very addictive hooks. Check it out and see what you think.

Recommended

http://www.myspace.com/skilletmusic and http://www.skillet.com/

The Either/Orchestra

It finally had to happen… yep a jazz big band. No don’t panic, it’s not going to hurt a bit. The Either/Orchestra is an amazing jazz group from Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. They fired up in the mid Eighties as a “small big band”, with three saxes, two trumpets and one or two trombones.

This is a band with some fairly left of centre approaches to the whole big band thing. Just when you think you have it they just change direction and you as the listener get to take a fairly amazing ride.

While deftly mixing idioms, E/O consistently meets the expectations of the best large-ensemble jazz; the band’s members solo with both passion and skill, navigate complex charts, and swing with abandon.”

The E/O began performing original arrangements of Ethiopian songs, inspired by a compilation called “Ethiopian Groove: the Golden 70s”. In 2000, after three of these songs appeared on their album “More Beautiful than Death”, they scored an invitation to play at the Ethiopian Music Festival in Addis Ababa in 2004.

I assume they went down a treat, the recording is a gem.

Recommended
Websites at http://either-orchestra.org/ and http://www.myspace.com/eitherorchestra

First there’s this one…

We all Do vocals on various songs, and we switch instruments a bunch.We also use instruments such as ukulele, and mandolin, organ, and kool shades, and hot keyz., and african thumb piano. Everybody Does everything

and this one…

Fewn is Arthur Bond, April Brennan, Matt Brewster and Dan Jircitano. Two of them live in the same house, three of them live in the same city, and four of them live in the same state. They met at college. They don’t know what they’re doing.

I’ll be honest this is one of those bands that don’t leave much middle ground. You will either love them or hate them. They are basically driven by passion rather than fabulous technique.

Me? I love them. They brighten the day every time they show up on the MP3 playlist.

Recommended

Websites at http://www.awkwardcore.com/fewn.html and http://www.myspace.com/fewn

Liz Stringer

It’s turning into a catch up week. I just realised that I wrote up Dan Wilson and forget to write up Liz Stringer who was on the same Rockwiz episode.

Liz Stringer (who I might add plays guitar, five-string banjo, blues harp, lap steel, vocals… the words “over achiever” pops to mind.) walked out onto the stage and just wiped the floor with my head. Smart lyrics, great guitar and a voice to die for. My first reaction was “where the hell did that come from?”. I have the song playing in the background as I am writing this and I have to say she is quite awesome.

Seriously, head to   http://www.myspace.com/lizstringermusician and have a listen to “You Say So Many Things”. What a great song. and if you weren’t lucky enough to see the show, there is a clip at the Rockwiz site.

Highly Recommended.

Websites at http://www.myspace.com/lizstringermusician and http://www.lizstringer.com/

As an aside, the duet that Liz and Dan performed at the end of Rockwiz is a ripper. If you have heard Robert Plant and Allison Krauss doing “Killing the Blues”, you will love this version. Don’t miss it.

Marina and the Diamonds

A friend overseas sent me a review from the Guardian of “Marina and the Diamonds”. Paul Lester wrote a “New Band Of The Day” piece about them/her back in September.

Here is a bit of it…

Female performer with quaint Christian name and inanimate-object appendage alert! Marina and the Diamonds are the latest “and the” band, if indeed they are a band. Some of her/their songs are full-band performances even though on her MySpace, under “band members”, it simply says “me”. So we’re not sure who or what Marina’s Diamonds are, but then it took us quite a while to work out what Florence’s Machine was, let alone Joe Lean’s Jing Jang Jong.

and so on.

There are three wonderful tracks over at http://www.myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds, self produced in her bedroom with really strong and even stronger (and stranger) lyrics. Just listen to them in order. “Obsessions” is my favourite. Lo-fi production and highly entertaining ideas and quite frankly Marina sounds like an she is a cross between Nina Hagen and Kate Bush. So we are talking way left of centre iconclast.

“Perfect” says thatch.

Lets face it, left of centre is good, iconoclasm is good, so she must be fabulous… well that’s the way my brain works.

Highly Recommended

Website at http://www.myspace.com/marinaandthediamonds

Jun Miyake

Jun Miyake is fearless. Play the track “Alvirverde” (It’s the first track over at Myspace) and you will see what I mean. The track starts with a beautifully played and recorded bass, then the drum machine percussion kicks in. And before you have a chance to register what is going on, there are these amazing intimate vocals , almost whispering in your ears. That’s just the first 16 bars or so.  It gets better and better as Jun plunders another dozen or so music styles - simultaneously.  This is seriously cool music.

Is it another “hard listening: piece? Probably, you can’t just throw this on in the background, it insistently tugs at your consciousness. It demands your full attention. It’s not good MP3 player music while you are walking around.

Here is some background…

Soon after he came back to Tokyo from his study in Boston and New York,
He started to work as a Jazz trumpeter, his style of playing was immediately respected and offered chances to make solo albums with people like Ron Carter, Al Foster, Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, etc as well as Japanese top musicians.The success of the albums were’t just for his playing. He started to get offers of composing for commercials, his work quickly became so popular that at one point, he found himself writing music for more than 300 commercials a year for the biggest clients in town.

He also work for movies and features film credit among which Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday”, as well as collaboration with contemporary dance and theater pieces with Pina Bausch, Robert wilson, Philippe Decoufle, etc. His ability to blend the most seemingly disparate element of music garnered him several awards.

Lets face it Jun is a lunatic, his music is like a mystery tour wandering through genres and styles as the whim takes him. The arrangments are amazing as is the musicianship.

Highly Recommended

Website at http://www.myspace.com/junmiyakehome

The Weather Machines

The Weather Machines (the musical alias of Jason Ward), produce an infectious brand of guitar-driven, indie pop-rock. You will find yourself tapping your foot almost immediately (and unconsciously) and the more extroverted of you may even be playing air guitar by the time the song hits the chorus.

There is a really interesting demo of “Stains Of Saints” over at http://www.myspace.com/theweathermachines (it’s currently the last track). It’s raw, unfinished unpolished and totally compelling. Do give it a listen.

Websites at http://www.myspace.com/theweathermachines and http://www.theweathermachines.com/