You’ve seen loads of these lists already no doubt but hopefully this is a little bit different. It’s incredulous how many music journalists and critics just pick their ones to watch artists for the coming year off lists sent out by labels and PR companies. It’s extremely lazy. Sure Little Boots, La Roux, Lady Gaga (Incidentially, ‘Just Dance’ is one of the most infectious pop tunes I’ve heard in an age and probably the only recommendation I’ve ever got my The Script and Westlife loving sister bless her), Passion Pit, Florence and the Machine, White Lies et al deserve a mention but not on nearly every list surely? Here’s a mammoth list for you. So forward into Nialler2009 we go…
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Solid Gold
Solid Gold are a hook-laden, little known (for now) Minnesota synth-pop band who recently opened for The Ting Tings on their US tour. An album called Bodies of Water is just out and the more I listen the better it gets. I just grabbed their album from eMusic. Expect more from me on this one. Plus, this picture…
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Rubberbandits
They started out making hilarious prank phone calls (Hearing Aid is amazing) but these days these mysterious Limerick types are making even-more hilarious songs like the wonderful ‘Bags of Glue’ which was a favourite of last year. ‘Too Many Gee‘ should be an Irish g-funk anthem and ‘Up Da Ra’, well… listen for yourself below. They started gigging recently but expect 2009 to bring more live appearances from the chancers who wear Mace bags as masks and sniff deodorant through their jumpers. Chalk it down…
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The Knux
Two brothers from New Orleans who reside in LA and whose Remind Me In Three Days album sounds like Stankonia-era Outkast played with guitars. Rah Almillio and Krispy Kream are signed to Interscope in the US so expect their brand of rap to infiltrate over here this year.
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Animal Collective
Merriweather Post Pavilion, AC’s ninth album leaked on Christmas Day. Due out next week, it’s far and away the band’s opus with the ever-expanding possibility that mainstream acceptability beckons. What AC have created is their own sonic world, indebted to yes, the Beach Boys and a long way from their early lo-fi and frankly nauseating work. Merriweather is the sound of a band hitting a new plateau in both songwriting and creativity. Oh and it sounds frickin’ amazing. ‘Summertime Clothes’ is my favourite track today. More thoughts here and Darragh’s thoughts are always worth a read.
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Black Milk
A Detriot hip-hop producer who used to make beats for Slum Village released Tronic, his latest LP in late 2008. The Detroit / Slum Village connection means he has been compared to the late great J Dilla and it’s not too much of a stretch on the evidence of the tunes from Tronic which has been called hip-hop album of the year in some quarters.
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Zomby
Released on Hyperdub, the same prestigious label that houses Burial, Zomby’s music is kinda wonky dubstep-tinged electronica. He looks and sounds bonkers. His recent EP is great but he’s also made an album called Where Were U in ’92?, an ode to ’90s rave featuring euphoric piano and ravey vocal samples. As I said, BONKERS.
(from Zomby EP)
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Grizzly Bear
Grizzly bear debuted just enough material to leave me salivating for a follow-up to Yellow House. ‘Two Weeks’ was premiered on Letterman and blew any song that Fleet Foxes had out of the water while Daniel Rossen’s ‘While You Wait For The Others’ was featured an another TV show and his own Department of Eagles LP proved another winner.
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Gran Casino
What’s this? A 13 piece band from Dublin and somehow no-one in this small city I’m acquainted with knows any of the members? Madness. The band kindly sent me their Sun Music EP a month or so ago. It’s fucking great. It’s kind of an upbeat rabble-rousing orchestral rock racket. They’re playing Crawdaddy on the 28th of January.
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Theoretical Girl
AKA Amy Eleanor Turnnidge from Southend, England who has just signed to Memphis Industries, so expect an album soon. I bought her last single in Tower for 99 cent. I’m sure her stock will rise this year.
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Sholi
Recommended by Pedro, this four-piece rock band with a free-jazz tourettes-like drummer from San Francisco. They’ve recorded their debut LP with Greg Saunier of Deerhoof and it’s out in February. The songs are in Persian for the most part.
Sholi – Herjat (cover of a Googoosh song)
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Free Blood
We featured these guys on a podcast in November 2007. They looked like two people with no knowledge of musical instruments who just shouted into microphones but there’s more to them than that. More please.
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Alela Diane
Lovely folk songstress from Nevada City. ‘White As Diamonds’ is taken from her forthcoming album To Be Still.
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Wavves
Noisy, distorted surf-guitar scuzzy rocker. This year’s No Age or Times New Viking? Maybe. Find out for yourself on the 10th of February in Laverys. Belfast and the 11th of February Upstairs in Whelan’s.
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Grouper
Hippy dippy, airy-fairy ambient folk music from Liz Harris from Portland, Oregen. Quite beguiling and about as strangely beautiful as the album cover above for Dragging a Dead Dead Up A Hill recently released. I got it from eMusic again.
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The XX
Nice new-wavey lo-fi indie-pop from London. Not much info on them right now but there are solid pop songs on their myspace including this.. WOAH cover of WOMACK AND WOMACK!!
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Marina and the Diamonds
Do I have to mention her again? Awesome.
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Paavoharju
Like the cross-section of two beautiful radio transmissions, this Finnish outfit dabble in the weird and the strange. It sounds broken but it works wonderfully. Their recent album Laulu Laakson Kukista is the one to get.
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Mount Kimbie
– Wonky, dubby electronic music from London. EP dropping next month on Hot Flush. Appears in a chunk of a mix from Electronic Explorations and a Mary Anne Hobbs mix.
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J*Davey
Erykah Badu crossed with Gwen Stefani? Yeh that works… Or as they have it “baby-making music for 22nd century robots”.
Of course, there are loads of other releases to look forward to from the likes of Villagers, Dan Deacon’s Bromst, Beirut, M.Ward, Malajube, Temper Trap, Final Fantasy, Peverelist, Dent May, Phaseone, Stricken City and Amazing Baby to name a few. Check out my column in Friday’s Irish Independent for more. No, you?
Great list, will have a good listen to all
Halogen has an album due in the next few months and his Recycled Broadcast Ep (available as a free download from http://www.maternitymedia.co.uk) is awesome
The new Halogen album ‘Baked’ is released on Monday (5th October 2009). Have you guys heard it yet?
I received a copy.
Are you his PR person or summat?
nah, just wanted to know if you liked it.
Sorry for posting the link twice! I wasn’t sure if Ronan post #1 (which doesn’t hyperlink) was the same as Ronan post #10, (which does) so was just covering my bases to get a reply. Which I did, so hooorah.
Interesting list – Rubberbandits are great fun. But what about Fever Ray?
list-tastic
sweet ass list Niall. Music RULES!
I’ve tried out some Wavves stuff and I’ve decided to put it away in a box with No Age as stuff I can’t get into.
I have though been listening to Grouper and Paavoharju recently and am quite liking that, so I’m putting that in my ears.
On an aside, if nobody is going to bring Passion Pit over to Ireland, I think you’ll have to do it. Nialler’09 Promotions.
Fantastic list – great to have an alternative ’09 preview to get my teeth into
Great list, really like the Paavoharju and Grouper records, lovely stuff indeed. For my money, I think Hudson Mohawke and Rustie (both on Warp) are going to be ones to watch this year- forward-thinking electronica/hiphop, interesting to see where they go with it. FLYamSAM are doing something similar too. Hopefully the Eero Johannes and Sunken Foal albums on Planet-Mu get more of the recognition they deserve, released a little late in the day last year but both are excellent in very different ways.
Nice list Niall. Interesting to see acts on here that aren’t on other lists. Like Fiction Family on my own. They won’t be massive. But they should be great!
The new Halogen album ‘Baked’ is released on Monday (5th October 2009). Have you guys heard it yet?
Tha’ts the criteria I suppose. Artists that I suspect will be doing it for me and not your average BBC.co.uk reader!
thanks.. lady gaga is big in australia… poker face is the tune here! awful stuff
Grizzly Bear for the win!
Hella-Yeah…!
Big up to you for including “Sholi” in that list.
Loving that album at the minute.
Back in September when I was dicking about in Canada, Lady Gaga was EVERYWHERE.
She’s fucking hot and her songs are dirty – so she definitely deserves to win the BBC Corporate-Wank Poll of 2009.
yeh hot to trot indeed.
Pedro – this is for you
there’s a savage four tet remix of born ruffians floating about
http://hypem.com/artist/092born+ruffians
The xx are superb, aren’t they? Caught ’em live late last year – mesmeric. Thanks for the daily listening too – by way of returning the favour we’ve a couple of lists over on Ragged Words here – http://www.raggedwords.com/?q=node/825 and here – http://www.raggedwords.com/?q=node/828. Wavves also feature heavily naturally.
Great alternative list to all the others i’ve seen. Really liked Solid Gold. I have to go see Rubberbandits before I die.
I’m sure I stumbled across Rubberbandits sometime last year and didn’t think they seemed much cop, their MySpace was pretty empty at the time, what a transformation, now they’re sounding -and looking- pure mad fuckers. Defo wanna catch a show soon.
Solid Gold sound deadly, will have to get that record. And Zomby just sounds bizarre in a wonderful way. Ahhhh, a whole year of new discoveries, can’t wait!
Has anyone heard the Cock’n’BullKid? I think she’s worth keeping an eye on, bit fun and unusual…
Yeh hoping the Rubberbandits will sort out some shows. I have a feeling there will be at least a support slot soon, finger crossed.
Solid Gold album is sporadically brilliant but the rest is getting better.
Jim Carroll was on about the Cock’n’BullKid over the Summer and what not but she strangely didn’t pop up in ANY list I’ve seen in the last couple of months.
yup yup Paavoharju, Grouper and Wavves are all sweet . I’m looking forward to “Telepathe” and “Patrick kelleher” debut lps and a new “ducktails” release is coming out soon to.
Do you like that remix man..!?
It didn’t do it for me.
It’s on the “Little Garcon EP.”
Have you heard any Hudson Mohawke yet?
Obviously I’ve totally heard of all of these, and I’ve totally slept with half of them, so the list isn’t much use to me. But I shall bookmark it all the same, y’know, *cough* just in case I… forget.
Yeh i’s deadly/ Haven’t heard them. good name tho.
I’m still mighty confused as to how Born Ruffians didn’t become huge this year. I spent large portions of the “summer” listening to them, and I was sure that Four Tet remix (I assume you’re linking to the 8min ‘I Need A Life’ mix) would be all over the place. Any time I’ve played a track of theirs I’ve had people coming up to ask me who they are though. Just haven’t gotten the hype, I suppose.
KDamo, it was my number 1 album of last year.
How everyone creamed themselves for Vampire Weekend and ignored Born Ruffians is confusing.
Born Ruffians’ Red Yellow Blue is a much-much better record than Vampire Weekend.
They’re also a ferociously good live band.
Each to their own I guess.
Nialler – Hudson Mohawke is a new Warp signing from Scotland.
Record is limited to 400 in the UK & Ireland.
I was just listening to Hudson Mohawke. Where have Iheard Bopgunn before?
Oh its a Heralds of Change tune.
Grizzly Bear indeed. Scarily good band! Also that Gran Casino EP is brilliant. Who was on your list last year Nialler so?
I didn’t do one last year , just said how much I was looknig forward to the M83 and Cadence Weapon albums by the look of it
Rubber Bandits (embarasment to Irish music) and Zombie is pure tripe.
Everything else in the top 10 sounds pretty good. Grand Casino and Grizzly Bear in partic
Tthank christ you didn’t feel the need to put the overly average little boots in your list. As much as i love mediocrity, it’s one step too far
I’ve no problem with Little Boots at all tbh. She’s imbued with a kind of DIY charm I like.
I went to see the Rubberbandits on Dec 28th and it was the finest live show I’ve ever seen from an Irish act. They are seriously slick. Impressive costumes, dancers, skits.
I don’t know – still not bothered about her… more hype about Little Boots than substance. Maybe the album will be more impressive – maybe…
Agree with James Molloy, comedically, visually, lyrically and musically The Rubberbandits are genuinely an Irish act to get excited about…ally
They won’t be to everyone’s tastes, i.e people with a very acute sense of humour and a fetish for political correctness. Any act which splits the public down the middle has to be worth checking out. Oh, and they are in the I.R.A
The Rubberbandits are too good. I missed their live show but they are breaking a lot of new ground everytime they post something on their myspace.
I agree with the above, rubber bandits are surely the most exciting thing going on in Ireland at the moment. I don’t know who puts their tunes together but its seriously top notch stuff. They might come across as a pair of messers but Ive a feeling they take what they do very seriously indeed. There is just too much attention to detail going on for it not to be. I intend catching them live in 2009 even if it means traveling to Limerick for it. Unless you know something we don’ t Nialler judging by your ‘I have a feeling there will be at least a support slot soon, finger crossed.’ comment above.
They do the music themselves. The have it here in their myspace blog http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=139893844&blogID=362051714
I saw both Solid Gold and Little Boots in November and don’t remember getting home from either gig… As a result of being a drunk I don’t know if either of them are any good?
Cracking list – The XX have made a few great tracks (despite the embarrassing name), and I’ll definitely give a listen to some more of your choices
Completely agree with the PR sentiment!
Shameless pluggery perhaps, but here is my own list – please feel free to comment: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=10837323&blogID=461682005
Richard
from
London
hi,
here you have posted very nice videos on the music.
About my self i am a lover of music, that’s why i like your post very much.
Anyways thanks for sharing the information.