I read an amusing tweet earlier – Any Decent Music, the Scottish music review aggregator site, announced that “those laggards at TLOBF have finally completed their best albums list, so the Best Of The Best Ofs is now wrapped up”. That’s ADM’s epic undertaking which aggregates “best of 2011″ lists and has produced a top 50 from them. Of all the contributing publications TLOBF took the longest to get their list up, which I think says something about how seriously the editorial team took the exercise. Of course, the whole affair shows just how many publications want a look-in at the best albums game: to the music criticism world, they’re what this time of year is about.

At the same time, having an opinion is what us music writers do, and here’s my hat thrown into the ring. I make no claim that I’ve heard hundreds of records in 2011, and certainly I’ve heard a fraction of even the big ones – but this is my list of personal favourites, the records which have made the biggest impact on me and the ones which I’ll forever connect with the developments the year has brought into my own life. As usual, there’s not a lot of crossover with the lists ADM aggregated, but hopefully a few underheard gems which could do for you what they did for me.

#10 Jim Kroft – The Hermit & The Hedonist

Very technically speaking this is rule-breaking choice because Jim Kroft’s wonderful second album isn’t released in the UK until January, but I’m including it because it was put out a couple of months ago in Germany. I fell for Kroft’s music around the time of his first album last year, and by May it meant so much to me that when I was in Berlin I went on a pilgrimage out into the suburbs to see him play live in a sandpit cut into the grounds of a former brewery. It was one of those moments, and in “Canary in the Coalmine” Kroft has articulated the 2011 state of mind better than anyone I know of.

#9 Peggy Sue – Acrobats

Here’s a record I was surprised not to see on more lists, actually. When I caught them at Summer Sundae festival last year I was far from blown away by Peggy Sue, but in Acrobats they have put out a deliciously dark but accessible rock record retaining few traces of their folk past but packed with images of sex, tension and alienation that make it intoxicating in the way few albums are. Deservedly well-received at the time, a lot of people seem to have forgotten about this gem – a shame.

#8 Rebekka Karijord – The Noble Art of Letting Go

Originally released to some acclaim in Scandinvia in 2009, Rebekka Karijord’s The Noble Art of Letting Go went almost unnoticed when it was finally released in the UK back in January, when the country was appropriately frozen up. Herself frosty in that Scandinavian way but at the same time so full of emotion that listening to her was sometimes almost difficult to do, Karijord was in fine singer-songwriter form. Even Ane Brun, whose own album this year left me bitterly disappointed, puts in a great duet performance on this great, unsung effort.

#7 Lykke Li – Wounded Rhymes

Staying on the Scandi scene, I’m of the opinion that the praise heaped on Lykke Li’s second LP is richly justified. While the Swedish pop heroine’s debut was sprawling and scattershot, Wounded Rhymes is the model of the concise and consistent comeback which further confirms her status as one of the foremost thinking men’s popstars. While the likes of “Get Some” gave Li an aggressive punch she’d previously lacked, other tracks reflected the fact that she still maintains a genuine emotional depth that other starlets can scarcely dream of.

#6 Cliffie Swan – Memories Come True

It’s around this point that the dominance of female artists becomes increasingly clear… Cliffie Swan, the Brooklyn outfit formerly known as Lights, really impressed me with this LP, which does an amazing job of reconciling ’70s soft rock in the Fleetwood Mac vein with more recent and scuzzy psych-rock. The result is a dreamy yet powerful and very feminine rock effort which didn’t get a fraction of the attention it deserved. Lead singer Sophia Knapp has a debut solo album out early in 2012, incidentally.

#5 Jookabox – The Eyes of the Fly

Even though Indianapolis madmen Jookabox were breaking up, critics still wouldn’t pay attention to their absolute blast of a final album. While 2008′s Dead Zone Boys was a fantastically entertaining rush through the Rust Belt nightmare of David “Moose” Adamson’s imagination, The Eyes of the Fly is a more concise and significantly improved effort which combines rock, hip-hop and any number of unidentifiable materials into something delirious, energising and completely unpredictable – simply amazing and so underappreciated.

#4 Mother Mother – Eureka

In 2010 the phenomenal Canadian rock band Mother Mother knocked me completely for six with their ace second album O My Heart (when it was finally released in the UK). When I learned that they had another one on the way, I feared it might not meet my lofty expectations but Eureka is another triumph. Another pop-rock opus with a real sense of humour fronted by a single with some daft rap elements (!), it again proves that Mother Mother are hot property – not least because they’re one of the few bands I’ve ever successfully converted other people to.

#3 Foreign Slippers – Farewell to the Old Ghosts

Very much self-released on a lovably tiny scale, the debut album by Foreign Slippers – the folk-pop project fronted by Gabi Frödén – was a long time coming for someone who fell in love with her first EP way back in 2008. Beyond another free EP there was nothing for almost three years and then there was this – a wondrous, immaculately put together set of emotive, moving, heartbreaking songs produced largely outside the music industry. Brilliantly, though, a couple of songs have seen national radio play in recent months so the future could be bright for this superb project.

#2 The Leisure Society – Into the Murky Water

Away from all this year’s navel-gazing about what “real folk” is and whether Mumford & Sons are Tories and/or the spawn of the antichrist, The Leisure Society were busily getting on with just being one of the best British bands still breathing. Into the Murky Water is another simply stellar effort, a broad-brush widescreen folk opus combining the talents of some incredible writers and musicians. To see them in Kreuzberg was my other Berlin pilgrimage and so worthwhile – that night opened the door to my becoming borderline obssessed with this record all summer.

#1 The Dø – Both Ways Open Jaws

So here it is – the big one, the record which most blew me away in 2011. And from such unexpected quarters – The Dø put out a commercially successful (#1 on the French charts) but ultimately extremely patchy debut in 2008, but I don’t think anyone expected they would come back three years later with something so incredible. Featuring no less than several of the best songs I’ve heard in years, Both Ways Open Jaws is a dizzying journey through rock, electro, hip-hop, ambient and folk which performs the almost impossible feat of remaining amazingly consistent. Those who have heard this staggering LP generally pour on as much praise as I (barring those at Q and Mojo who were baffled by it) but until more people hear it justice won’t be done.

Here’s to 2012, eh?

While Helsinki-born singer Olivia Merilahti and Paris multi-instrumentalist Dan Levy could so easily have sought to repeat their success with more of the same, they made the braver choice. Still as hooked on new and exciting sounds as before but also full of determination to make the best possible music, The Dø have spectacularly surpassed themselves with Both Ways Open Jaws – indeed, they have produced one of the most inventive, accomplished and engaging albums of the year.

Read the rest of the review at The 405

Now here’s an opportunity that doesn’t come around every day. Japan’s premier all-girl punk-pop noisemakers Shonen Knife are celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, and they’re doing so by releasing an album of Ramones covers. Osaka Ramones has got to be one of the most plain fun records put out by anyone all year and I was lucky enough to have Shonen Knife frontwoman Naoko Yamano answer a few of my questions about the project.

Read the full interview at The 405 here

Laura Veirs’ song “July Flame” is one of my favourite things of the last few years – there’s something about that vocal and the atmosphere it creates that is incredible. When its parent album proved to be a real critical success for the Oregon-based singer-songwriter, she didn’t choose to simply do the same thing all over again: instead, Veirs has just released an album of songs intended for children. A while back I gave her a call and asked all about the background and recording of Tumble Bee, which has earned some glowing reviews over the last couple of weeks. My interview is now up over at PopMatters.

Read the full interview at PopMatters

A few years ago after a show in Seattle, singer-songwriter and former computer programmer Jonathan Coulton was approached by two developers from multi-billion dollar videogame empire Valve Corporation. Agreeing to work with them on their new project, Coulton wrote “Still Alive”, the song which closed Valve’s 2007 puzzle game Portal. Featuring the vocals of a deranged artificial intelligence played by opera singer-turned-voice actress Ellen McLain, the piece drew on Coulton’s experience with geek culture and added millions of gamers to his expanding audience. Given the break of a lifetime, what is a self-described “internet superstar” to do next?

Read the rest of the review at PopMatters

Unsung Heroes is the new semi-regular feature on Wordcore in which I extoll the virtues of an artist I just don’t think gets listened to or recognised enough. This time around I bend the rules to introduce a badly-kept secret: the bruised and powerful “folk” sounds of Daughter.

Some clever soul on Twitter the other week commented that next time they had the chance, they’d ask someone what it was like to be a man in a band. It’s a wry joke but one with a real point behind it – in 2011, the incredible emerging artists seem much more often to be women (or bands heavily involving women) than men. Without wanting to conscript Unsung Heroes into the sex war, that tweet is on my mind as I choose to highlight this particular artist.

Daughter is largely the brainchild of singer-songwriter Elena Tonra, joined on various instruments by Igor Hafaeli, on drums by Remi Aguilella and on bass by Kevin Jones. The new EP The Wild Youth is out this month – I’m lucky enough to have an advance physical copy bought on the tour. Quite simply, it’s four songs of the most grippingly emotional music released all year.

It was “Youth” that really got me on board. This phenomenal track blends electric folk with the most dramatic splashes of pounding drums and Tonra’s bewildering vocal. But maybe the lyrics are what really make it: I for one feel like a member of “the wild youth [...] chasing visions of our futures”. In lines like those, the song feels absolutely like a product of these times but there are also ruminations on the timeless themes of lost love and self-destruction.

It wasn’t always so. No, one of the most compelling things about Daughter is that here is a project whose development can be traced right back, through early material that is fairly readily available. For one thing, there is a freely available Demos EP online which showcases an even more stripped-down sound that pre-dates not only the new EP but also its similarly impressive predecessor His Young Heart.

Go back further still, and there are even earlier demos that have been floating around YouTube for some time. Most striking among all this is the song simply called “Twat”. It shows that Tonra’s penchant for one-word song titles goes back a fair way, but at first glance it seems an incredibly immature title for what one would presume is a pretty primitive song: and while there’s an element of truth in that, the reality makes perfect sense and is well worth a listen.

Both His Young Heart and The Wild Youth are available on Bandcamp and at the live dates – speaking of which, there is a special set of Christmas shows coming up in December. Taking place in Bristol, London and Manchester and featuring support from the likes of Kyla La Grange and Bear’s Den (among others). I might have to be there – take a listen to what Daughter has put out so far and you might feel the same.

Released in France back in March where it reached #14 in the chart, Both Ways Open Jaws is the second album by experimental pop duo The Dø. I’m lucky enough to be reviewing the record on its forthcoming UK release, and an early favourite is this incredible track “Too Insistent”.

For a band that claimed they would never write a love song, Manic Street Preachers have inspired some strong emotions. For a band that also claimed they would record one album and break up, they have been doing so for 25 years, being met variously with adoration, derision, acclaim and scepticism. Having formed in South Wales in 1986 as four idealistic upstarts, the Manics became three elder statesmen of British rock, a cult force with international recognition and an uncommonly devoted fanbase.

Read the rest of the review at The Line of Best Fit

Our often deep-seated cynicism about cover albums isn’t without justification. Routinely deployed by creatively exhausted bands to fulfil contractual obligations in the absence of new material, tribute records can be a dispiriting prospect. Then of course there’s the prospect of Japan’s premier punk outfit raiding the back catalogue of the Ramones…

Read the rest of the review at the 405
My interview with Naoko Yamano of Shonen Knife is coming soon

Ley Lines is a new festival which comes with a reassuring sense of ambition and renewal. Moving from venue to venue in Oxford’s cultural hub, it feels like things are on the up; drawing bands from around the country to a varied set of venues, this is surely the most exciting new live event the region has seen in some time.

An event I’d been excited about for some time, the inaugural Ley Lines urban festival in Oxford two weeks back was a great thing to cover. Featuring photos from Stevie Denyer, my TLOBF review includes thoughts on the likes of Jamie Woon, Catherine A.D. (pictured), and much-hyped acts Alt J and Theme Park.

Read the rest of the review at The Line of Best Fit