That was the year that was...Neatly sidestepping inevitable libel charges by eschewing the annual ‘worst of...’ list, our writers pick out the prime cuts from the rotting carcass of the year gone by. Mmmm... Enjoy.
by Barnaby Smith, first published in LondonTourdates #037 ,12th December 2008
Best Concert
Liam Finn
Barfly
24 June
This is very tough indeed.
I have been to a lot of things this year. It is very tempting to go for Nick Cave at Hammersmith Apollo in May but then again everyone knows how much of a phenomenon he is, and has done for years. It is even more tempting to choose Lupe Fiasco’s momentous one-off display of hip-hop’s most imaginative forms at Somerset House in July. But then again, he is already an established talent and no one expected anything less from the little magician.
So, it falls to one packed night in the more humble Barfly, when Liam Finn performed a re-scheduled show that shocked a small crowd into awed submission as his explosive talents were fully revealed. Fierce electric guitar lines are looped around and on top of each other before the bearded prince leaps on a drumkit to bash the living shit out of it. Plus let’s not forget his gorgeous songs, very much made in the image of his father.
Anyone bored with live music, as I really should be after possibly up to 100 shows this year, should experience Liam’s show. Also Vetiver at St Pancras Church was great too.
Best Album
Cass McCombs: Dropping The Writ
Domino
I don’t really know where to start with this LP.
Released in the States in 2007, this was snuck out on Domino in February and it is an album of perfect balances. McCombs is heartfelt but opaquely so, avoiding any sort of sentimentality, obscure but not inaccessible and not beholden to any sort of style or pattern. The plaintive ‘Full Moon Or Infinity’ is countered by the pace and virility of ‘Lionkiller’, while everything McCombs does is encompassed in the unparalleled ‘Petrified Forest’.
A singer-songwriter who both defines and transcends that much-maligned label. Big shout-outs must also go to Liam Finn’s I’ll Be Lightning, David Vandervelde’s Waiting For The Sunrise, Ryan Adams’ Cardinology and Howlin’ Rain’s Magnificent Fiend. They are all bloody foreigners, of course, and indeed the truth is that aside from Wild Beasts’ fantastic Limbo, Panto it was a pretty sorry year for the UK. Best single of the year must be Kelley Polar’s extraordinary ‘Entropy Reigns (In The Celestial City).
Disco never, ever tasted so good.
Photo of Liam Finn: Rachel Lipsitz
