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We could have rattled on for days about our best discoveries in 2011, but we kept it brief. Twice. But then, we had a think. We realised that a year is 8,760 hours and 8,760 hours is a lot of hours and there is no way we have come close to touching the tip of even the smallest iceberg broken off from the infinite ice shelf that is the music world in Bristol, Bath and beyond. And so, instead of releasing an extended ‘Top 86 albums of 2011’ list – and running the risk of having to think up more terrible geographical analogies – we asked some of our favourite artists to do the work for us. Consequently, our list of things to check out in the final weeks of 2011 is burying us. Also, we’re a little worried about SJ Esau’s perception of reality.
Featuring Anika, Zun Zun Egui, Phantom Limb, The Liftmen, SJ Esau, Schnauser, Rachael Dadd, Scarlet Rascal, and The Lonely Tourist.
Anika
Pic: Ellen Doherty, www.duchessphotographic.com
Best five records acquired this year
So, after getting my vinyl collection smashed by a bunch of spineless idiots in Cardiff back in 2009, it took me a while to get back to collecting vinyl. 2011 was the year this finally happened, and here are some of my most important acquisitions of the year.
1 Kleenex/Lilliput – 4 LP Box Set I bought this one in New York back in February. I had been waiting for it to come out and got pretty excited when I finally got my hands on it at Other Music. I think it was one of the most expensive vinyls I ever bought. Unfortunately, it did not remain so...
2 Dusty Springfield I got this one in Bristol, in this secondhand shop on the Christmas Steps. It's in amazing condition and has all the classics on there. It also came with this amazing booklet, with some really interesting 60s photography. I like this.
3 Billie Holliday – 4 Vinyl Collection This I bought in that vinyl shop in Bristol just along from the Christmas Steps. It was under a tenner and has so many amazing songs on there. I love Billie Holiday. She's such an interesting and strong individual. I read her book last year and now respect her even more. Highly recommended.
4 Camera 3 – 'Russians In Space' I acquired this whilst on a DJ trip in LA in February. I was rummaging through records with Peanut Butter Wolf. He has tons of amazing records in his garage. It was a true goldmine stash. We just went through loads, listening to some of the most bizarre stuff. This was one of my favourites that he introduced me to and has since been a staple at all my DJ sets. He was nice enough to give me a vinyl box and some of the 7"s as a birthday gift.
5 Monte Cazazza – 'Kick That Habit Man' Another of the PBW gifts. Truly amazing and another really good one to play live. Always works as a good transition record between old and new or slightly slower and faster records. Or even between minimal wave and garage rock. Very useful in different ways.
Zun Zun Egui
Top five meals on tour 2011
(as selected by Yoshino Shigihara)
1 Boiled lobster with chilli and lemon at Quy Thanh restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Real local restaurant in Ho Chi Minh City. We were the only foreigners in the restaurant; they had strange green-lit fish tank full of shrimps, crabs and fishes. We chose which ones we wanted to eat from the tank and they cooked them straight away. Crazy owner then joined us at the table and told us about Buddha and other cosmic stories. Other customers joined us and we drank together with cheers of 'Yo yo yo!'
2 Buffet spread by Lucie Akerman at How Come... Trinity show in Bristol Amazing food that our friend Lucie cooked. Really gorgeous.
3 Quiche and flans cooked by promoter David from Grenoble in France Really nice promoter who cooked our food and let us stay in a really nice flat. We ate together with all the people from the venue and all the staff before the gig.
4 Falafel and other veggie food cooked by Jon Nash in Leeds Jon Nash plays in a really great band call Runners, and he is also an amazing promoter and cook. We had a good laugh after the show at his place too.
5 Buffet at Poitiers in France This was a great venue with an art gallery inside it... food was a really nice buffet meal with a selection of desserts. We ate at an outside table... a nice summery evening in October...! We love good food and enjoy the tour extra when the food is good!
Phantom Limb
Best gig of the year
Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings at the Bristol Hippodrome It was supernatural.
Best venue of the year
The Thunderbolt in Totterdown Great place to play. Dave Mac has worked hard to maintain the quality and variety. We met Ian McLagan there and hung out whilst he regaled us with stories. Where else in the world can you do that??
Best album of the year
‘Harrow and the Harvest’ by Gillian Welch
Best film or book of the year
‘Source Code’ was pretty good.
Favourite exhibition/museum of the year
Science Museum: From Oramics to Electronica Music-making machines through the ages. Pretty amazing. Also the original Apollo 10 Command Module kind of takes your breath away.
The Liftmen
Neil
Highlight of 2011
Wolf People guitarists join us on stage for riff-a-thon to 'Beligerence' on last day of tour.
Lowlight of 2011
New album 'Luftwaffe Pond' gets burnt in warehouse fire in London riots.
Strange light emanating from the marshes
We hear that Elijah Wood is a fan.
Herpetological high
The pond just past the old deer park at Ashton Court finally gets sorted out. Neil spends birthday watching Great Crested Newts chuffing (coming up for air).
Scaly terror
Fire destroys 140 acres of Upton Heath in Dorset, home to all six British reptile species. However there were a surprising number of animals recovered from the site when we went down, and first Liftmen sighting of a Smooth snake was noted.
Top gigs
1 Portishead and Grinderman at ATP Phead: perfection in songs, emotion, sound and visuals. Nick Cave: crazed and very funny.
2 Lean Left at the Croft The Ex guitarists totally deconstruct guitar playing, playing detuned strings behind the neck in wild meeting with Vandermaark, Nilsson-Love duo on sax and drums.
3 Thought Forms and Mugstar at Louisiana Kraut meets noise splendour.
4 The Fall and Phosphorescent at End of Rd Mark E does new penguin stance with pincer hands and is seen to smile. Matthew Houck gets the best Jazzmaster twang and sings a poignant and beautiful song about wolves.
5 The Enablers at the Cube Complex stream-of-consciousness post-rock with compelling frontman: all the Cube stood and vibrated.
6 Fleet Foxes at Glasto Jamie employed Zen powers to watch on one leg with sleeping son on shoulders. Beautiful, even with all the beards.
7 Hype Williams at Arnolfini Scary electronica with oiled-up body-builder and relentless strobe. Only just survived.
Rasha
A year that has been slow and fast. A year of travelling across many ponds. Lots of learning, lots of teaching. Affected by riots and revolutions. Eyes glued to the Arab Spring. Packed to the brim with too many things to do and yet the rewards will be reaped in 2012. Looking forward to the re-release of the seconnd Liftmen album 'Luftwaffe Pond' on Twisted Nerve Records after it perished from the London riot fires. Looking forward to becoming a Master.
SJ Esau
Top five bands/artists
1 Gitstamatic
2 Pistachio Affront
3 Jakey Getsome
4 Bulbotroxx
5 Groundhog Dave
Top five films
1 The Murdererer
2 Planet Perineum
3 Bro Slap
4 The Haunted Shop
5 Subjectively Attractive Female
Top five emotions
1 Trans-putrid
2 Hyphenated
3 Oblong
4 Sulphur
5 Scaroused
Top five numbers
1 Five
2 Four
3 Three
4 Two
5 One
Top five local venues
1 Venue
2 Venue
3 Venue
4 Venue
5 Venue
Schnauser
Alan
Best gig
Hyde & Beast, The Louisiana I knew little of Hyde & Beast prior to the gig. They cut an unusual stage presence: three unassuming guitarists, a bass player and drummer who are both well over 6ft tall and a keyboard player. Their 60s/70s-influenced sound (‘White Album’-era Beatles meets early Bowie) was peppered with five-part harmonies, shimmering riffs, neat time changes and an amazing rhythm section, like Ringo Starr playing with Field Music. Concise and sparky arrangements, thoroughly inspired musicianship and some lovely melodies made this my live set of the year.
Best film
'Senna’ (Asif Kapadia) A fascinating, touching documentary about F1 driver Ayrton Senna who died aged 34 in a crash in 1994 at the height of his career. The film pieces together copious archive clips from his career using voiceover interviews with his peers to narrate the story. Engrossing, thrilling and moving but still avoiding sentimentality; as the film progresses towards the inevitably tragic conclusion, it's hard to avoid an uncontrollable feeling of dread and sense of imminent loss. Highly recommended viewing for anyone, not just F1 fans.
Holly
Album of the year
St. Vincent – ‘Strange Mercy’ It’s much darker than her previous stuff. The songs have more space to breathe, and it’s a really satisfying overall. I do think Annie Clark may be bordering on genius. Plus, the guitar line on ‘Surgeon’ has to be one of my riffs of the year!
Film of the year
‘Submarine’ (Richard Ayoade) Funny, poignant and visually really beautiful in places (in particular the scenes at the beach). Even though he’s a cocky, narcissistic little douche, I found it hard not to relate to the film’s protagonist, in a weird way – I suppose a lot of people genuinely believed they were the centre of the universe when they were 15.
Duncan
Album of the year
William D. Drake – ‘The Rising of the Lights’ This is an album of exquisitely constructed, complex, Edwardian, psychedelic pop gems, infused with an undercurrent of British melancholic unease. Beneath all the grandiose instrumentation lie melodies and hooks that will get trapped in your head for days, whilst the lyrics darkly allude to hermits kept chained at the bottom of the manor grounds. Highlights include the hauntingly reflective ‘Me Fish Bring’ and the Gilbert and Sullivan meets early Genesis of ‘Wholey Holey’.
Gig of the year
Charles Hazelwood All Stars perform Terry Riley, Steve Reich and ‘Tubular Bells’, St Georges Hall, Bristol Terry Riley’s ‘A Rainbow in Curved Air’, the first piece performed, bubbled and squelched like globs of lava burning through your cerebral cortex for 20 minutes. Hazelwood described that at the premiere of Steve Reich’s ‘Four Organs’ in the 1970s people stormed the stage and begged to be let out as they were pummelled into submission by the non-stop drone. For us, though, it was mainly a matter of staring at the stage in awe as the musicians drew longer and longer drones out of their Farfisa Organs, stretching and elongating until all you could hear was one throbbing pulse. Through all this, the percussionist Joby Burgess managed the impressive feat of keeping time for 17 minutes on maracas without breaking sweat. ‘Tubular Bells’ itself was a joy to hear played live in its entirety for probably the first time since the 70s. Despite a few obvious fumbles as the complex music twisted and turned, there seemed to be a genuine affection for the music.
John
Best gig
Ronin, St George’s I'm lucky enough to play with Schnauser fairly regularly around Bristol. This means I get to see a lot of other great acts, from new bands to bands that are more established. More often than not, there is something inspiring about them, both musically and in terms of their character. It's difficult to keep abreast of gigs with a full-time job, a little girl and Schnauser – when I'm not engaging in these activities I'm either asleep or drunk. The last really satisfying gig I paid to see was a band called Ronin lead by Swiss pianist Nik Bartsch. This was in 2010 at St George’s. Odd time signatures, the biggest and deepest-sounding saxophone I've ever seen, rhythmically complex, Zen. A wonderful display of control and composition.
Best book
Jon Ronson – ‘The Psychopath Test’ This was an excellent introduction to some of the difficulties that surround defining and treating psychopaths and the potential damaging impact they have on society. Amusing and enlightening, with a lightness of touch that despite leaving many questions unanswered was able to challenge preconceptions about madness and illustrate the difficulties in assessing what qualifies for this much-contested diagnosis. You may work with one. You might be one yourself.
Rachael Dadd
Top five shows
1 Sam Amidon, The Cube, Bristol Such an amazing performer in one of my favourite venues. Sam Amidon is many things rolled into one – he'll play a beautiful folk song and then suddenly break into a mad jazz riff, and then tell a bizarre and hilarious improvised story. Go and see!
2 A fundraiser for the tsunami victims, Guggenheim House, Kobe, Japan I played with Tennis Coats, Yamgisan (my favourite drummer – she uses all sorts of kitchenware and objects from daily life), Inadasan (my favourite double bass player) and many other amazing Japanese musicians, all joining in on each other’s songs. I was even joined for one song by a 10-year-old girl from Sendai, where the earthquake hit. She played foot percussion with me. The atmosphere that night was so amazing. Everyone was trying to make each other happy – such a warm feeling amidst the utter sadness from the earthquake and tsunami.
3 Eiko Ishibashi, Guggenheim House, Kobe, Japan Another amazing gig in the same venue as the tsunami fundraiser. I`d never heard of Eiko Ishibashi before but was completely blown away by her piano compositions and songs.
4 The Go Team, Truck Festival I had just finished my set, so I could relax, the sun was setting, it was a rare sunny day this summer of 2011, and although the soundsystem on the main stage was terrible, there were just such huge waves of positivity coming from Ninja (the singer/MC). She’s just amazing on stage, her energy is boundless and she makes everyone feel happy.
5 Deerhoof, Club Quattro, Nagoya, Japan I love Deerhoof. Live, they were so brilliant, such good energy; I love Satomisan's voice, so sweet over the raucous sounds they all make. And Ichi supporting, that was exciting.
Top five albums
1 Eiko Ishibashi – ‘Carapace’
2 tUnE-YarDs – ‘w h o k i l l’
3 Tennis Coats – ‘Tokinouta’
4 The Magic Lantern – ‘A World in a Grain of Sand’
5 Deerhoof – ‘Deerhoof vs. Evil’
Top five discoveries
1 Hungarian Street Musician – Таланты среди нас, уличный музыкант So inventive, funny, beautiful and musically catchy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k4wFk6iJEs&feature=player_embedded#!
2 Yuri Norstein, Hedgehog in the Fog and other animations http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smDlBmeeWck
3 A film made in the 1930s about Pygmies building a bridge over a wide crocodile-infested river – an incredible feat – especially for the one who’s chosen to swing from bank to bank, attaching the first vine to the tree tops on the far side. Just ignore the patronising presentation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYvaA0Lz70A
4 I bought a ukulele this year and have gradually discovered how much it is actually a percussion instrument.
5 My most recent discovery is holding a box of matches while I strum – very much enjoying this sound at the moment.
Scarlet Rascal
Favourite local bands
TOWNS, Idles, Crybaby
Favourite band names
Mayans, The Rad Bastards
Favourite albums
1 St. Vincent – ‘Strange Mercy’
2 The Horrors – ‘Skying’
3 The Strokes – ‘Angles’
4 Bass Drum of Death – ‘GB City’
5 PJ Harvey – ‘Let England Shake’
Favourite single
Black Belles – ‘Honky Tonk Horror’
Favourite things we discovered this year that didn’t come out this year
The Veils – 'Nux Vomica', iced tea (as in the drink), Rick Brown
Favourite Twitter feed
Geoff Barrow
Favourite ex-Venue music editor
Julian Owen
Favourite venue
The Louisiana Cellar
Favourite bar
Under the Stars
The Lonely Tourist
“This is my entirely vacuous list of self-important drivel.”
Best purchase
An eBay purchase of a guitar. Goods/cash exchanged in a car park in Cardiff. Turned out the bloke was in The Incredible String Band. (He’s there on YouTube... I looked him up after it. Nice bloke, we chatted for ages.) It was a wee bit like a shady drug deal but with the ‘gear’ hidden discreetly in a guitar case... with ‘Incredible String Band not drugs’ sprayed on the side of it.
Most ‘mixed bag’ (for Lonely Tourist) weekend
Rockness: I was booked to play Rockness in Inverness (a largeish festival on the banks of Loch Ness). So, back to the old country. It brought a wee tear to my eye getting the taxi from Inverness station, through the rolling hills, to the Rockness site. Partly the £25 fare. Partly the nice scenery. Don’t know why. I hate the countryside. I like cities. Even rubbish ones.
Musically, my part was so-so. Ear-melting dance tents drowning me out as I’m singing “ignore all disappointments”. We had backstage camping but didn’t get the email that said you have to dress as someone from Stella Street, Wayne’s World, Nathan Barley or Napoleon Dynamite. It was like a war zone, with everyone in fancy dress. I’d play it again in a second.
Best Bristol bands/acts in 2011
There are loads, but for me the following are very deserving of a mention: Minke Whales, The Bad Joke That Ended Well, Howlin’ Lord, John E Vistic. All had great debut albums out this year. Kick Inside’s EP was good and Scarlet Rascal had their first download single out – well worth the wait. More good stuff from Bravo Brave Bats and Peter and the Harmonics too. Loads on the acoustic scene including Gaz Brookfield, who continues to musically kick my arse at every gig I play with him. I see acoustic acts every week who play great sets… Ant Noel, Chris Webb, Sadie Fleming, Leon Fender Walker… too many to mention. Clayton Blizzard continues to enlighten and entertain. Jerry Afraid’s excellent musical off-kilter nuts-ness frightens and entertains (his photography is magic too).
Big Jeff or Steve James?
I can’t decide who has had the best 2011. I’m making them a spreadsheet so they can choose who goes to which gig next year. A rota, if you like. My gigs are compulsory for at least one of them (that’s the rule).
Strangest gig for Lonely Tourist
In the living room of a house in a village in Gloucestershire. A nice lady called Dawn asked me to play. And I did. I also did three sets in the rain at UWE to two dogs running after a ball. That was weird.
Copyright Venue Publishing 2011; Anika pic copyright Ellen Doherty http://www.duchessphotographic.com/
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