MUSIC FAN’S MIC PRESENTS: Top 50 Albums of 2009

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR: 2009

words: Jamie Milton// Gareth O’Malley

The decade finishes with a flurry. N’Dubz take over the world. Circus freaks take over reality singing shows. America offically gets its first black President. The undisputed kind of pop passes away suddenly. Social networking sites continue to interest the whole of those surfing the web and Music Fan’s Mic gets a makeover. This is our end of 2009 list compiled of all of the writer’s favourite albums of the past 12 months. It represents the “consensus opinion” as much as possible, but it also allows the really special albums to get a spot high up.

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Hard to pinpoint and capable of going in many directions from here, one thing certain about Pains of Being Pure At Heart is their ability to give you a nostalgic rush. Their self-titled debut, littered with charming, hazy twee-punk, showed almighty potential in a fantastic prospect.
———– Giving The Wave Pictures a run for their money in sporting wit and charm, Wesley Patrick Gonzalez and co. show good form in their debut album where the lo-fi melodies are scrappy but the intention is wonderful.
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Glossy pop with a samba twist, Jack Penate’s sophomore effort was one of 2009’s many “where on Earth did that come from?” moments. Swapping the meaningless ‘Torn On The Platform’ for the gloriously sun-tinged ‘Tonight’s Today’ was a good move career-wise and got a lot of unlikely lads on his side.
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Far from the dizzy heights of ‘The Runaway Found’ but needless to say, ‘Sun Gangs’ remains a thrilling, challenging album. Which just goes to show how criminally underrated The Veils really are. Said fact is becoming more and more hard to swallow upon each release, ‘Sun Gangs’ merely adding more to the band’s credentials.
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One of those rare albums that has the power to inspire sheer joy in its listener. We got two mjaor ones this year, one of them the all-conquering ‘Merriweather Post Pavillion’. The first full length album from this Detroit-based band showcased their ability to combine moments of psychedelic experimentalism with pure pop to thrilling effect.
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An absolute gem of a mini-album, ‘Vivarium’ proved that the Scottish four-piece had much more up their sleeves than quite a few of us had previously thought. Wrapping wonderful hooks and choruses around interesting song structures, Twin Atlantic also gave us one of 2009’s finest moments in the epic ‘Caribbean War Syndrome’. The full-length debut is due next year. Let the anticipation begin.
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Sweetly told tales of teenage heartache beautiful delivered in soothing male and female tones. Slow Club are similar to the xx in sounding like a duo so tightly-knit, you can’t get near them. Their voices intertwine with perfection, bolstering the sweet, folk anthems lying within their debut.
———– A more full band affair than on previous works, ‘Crying Light’ may be Antony Hegarty’s most heartfelt work yet. Centering around the thought of instinct and interpretation as well as that ever-present sense of loss than opens up in the frighteningly sad “Here Eyes Were Underneath The Ground”.
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Just one of those voices. Bill Callahan’s deep and well-pronounced vocals are what gives these songs air to breathe. ‘Sometimes…’ could be all about Joanna Newsom for all we know, but it’s difficult to care. Perhaps the warmest and most honest album of Callahan’s to date.
———– This year’s Bon Iver by being the album with a back-story (God club, no rock n’roll, dead family members, list goes on…), Girls’ debut was thrusted several steps forward by having some context, simply because said story gives these charming pop songs a vulnerable perimeter.  Not only that but most surprising of all, this drug-fuelled statement of intent shows variety and maturity in an album that most expected to be just happy and clappy with little meaning.
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A sound of old, a band with experience; everything pointed towards ‘Daisy’ showcasing the sound of a band reaching their comfort zone, resting on their laurels. But instead, it was their most fiery, fierce effort for some time.
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Everyone will argue over the exact moment when Spencer Krug had his creative heyday. Anyone arguing in the case of 2009 circa-’Dragonslayer’ might have a head start in the debate. The most accomplished Sunset Rubdown album, undoubtedly. The best work of Krug’s to date? Possibly. No, really.
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Jingle-jangle, happy-go-lucky pop. Everything wrong with Black Kids, right? But it’s everything right with Pomegranates. Their delivery of a tried and tested means of making music is so earnest and well-intentioned you can’t help but fall heads over heels in love with the gasping melodies and rich textures, plentiful in ‘Everybody, Come Outside!’
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It was almost as if Jamie T had “grown up” from the start, such was the wit and wisdom that made its mark on debut ‘Panic Prevention’. ‘Kings & Queens’ retells the days of his not-so-long-ago youth; beer guzzling and trouble causing. But this sophomore release shows more of an intent to speak volume on important issues, be it national pride, world politics, etc.
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A frantic, adolescent take on the highs of youth and life on the edge. “Adventuring is dangerous but danger can be fun” is the reckless motto of the title-track and the music behind is just scavenging and unafraid. Far from slick and professional but quite the start to a potentially fantastic career.
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Scottish album. Released this year. Both these things mean it has to be good, right? Absolutely. The scene up there is thriving, and it’s no wonder when such treasures like We Were Promised Jetpacks consistently deliver the goods. ‘It’s Thunder And It’s Lightning’ set the scene perfectly for quite a diverse debut album: we have the moments of quirkiness (‘A Half Built House’), one of the modt immediate songs of the year (‘Moving Clocks Run Slow’) and everything in between. Jetpacks have liftoff.
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What makes ‘Post Nothing’ such a treat is its die-hard, don’t-give-a-fuck attitude; so endearing, it wins you over in a many of minutes. Forget the countless amount of pretentious music-makers out there today and rejoice a band truly in rock music for the thrills and the spills and little else.
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Swooning romance is what wins The Maccabees’ nearly every teenager’s heart but at the same time as getting pretty girls giddy, Orlando Weeks’ troupe are fine-tuning their inventive breed of indie music that keeps the genre upright after being on its last legs. ‘Wall Of Arms’ shows bountiful progression from 2007’s ‘Colour It In’. Two steps forward.
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Good things came to those who waited for The Boxer Rebellion’s return in January. A more lush-sounding record than its wiry, nervous predecessor, 2005’s ‘Exits’, ‘Union’’s commercial success could not have been any more deserved. A real case of a band triumphing over seemingly insurmountable odds.

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An unnerving delivery of near-flawless (alternative) pop music from Gruff Rhys’ many projects gives the man a place in the noughties’ history and ‘Dark Days, Light Years’ saw nothing but a continuation of said feat. Made up in small part of old, banished riffs and melodies from over time that lived to see daylight, it’s yet another accomplished effort from a band that are now expected of nothing but.

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Isolation in America led to ‘Two Suns’; a trip in which Natasha Kahn both lost herself and found herself. Her second record is more accomplished than ‘Fur and Gold’, reaching higher and producing modern-day pop anthems alongside haunting piano ballads.

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In a time when it is feared that the album as a format is on its last legs, it is great when a band decide to make a record that is a complete piece of work. Codes did just that with their debut. ‘Trees Dream In Algebra’ ebbed and flowed with an elegance all of its own. Its thirteen songs showed us a band with true talent. From the uncertainty of ‘Malfunctions’ to the catharsis of ‘4 Winters’, the quartet didn’t put a foot wrong from start to finish. Simply magnificent.

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Stunning artwork does not an album make. But Sholi’s self-titled debut more than fought its corner in terms of making gutsy, shell-shocked post-rock. The musicianship in this is at times astonishing, not least so from Jonathon Bafus’ stunning percussion.

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By equal measures frightening and thrilling, ‘Forget The Night Ahead’ was a document of Graham’s life over the previous few years, warts and all. Having ‘Scissors’ and ‘The Room’ side by side in the tracklisting says it all about this record: the former an abrasive, arresting wall of noise; the latter showcasing the band’s strength’s as songwriters. It may seem an off-putting record at first, but truly wonderful surprises await on repeated listens.
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Doves are still, yet to “make it” and success-wise the best result out of this record was its title track making its way onto nature programmes and Jamie Oliver’s latest cooking show. But Doves needn’t be down-hearted, on ‘Kingdom Of Rust’ they yet again show a band on the brink of something special. And what a beautiful view it is from the brink…
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The Birmingham noise-pop band’s second record was like Marmite to us. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes, its songs are brief, sometimes blindingly so (‘Kingston Called. They Want Their Lost Youth Back’; also the most divisive minute of music recorded this year). The band’s finest moment to date closed proceedings here: ‘The Coast Was Always Clear’ has become their high water mark. A patchwork quilt of a record, yet a natural progression all the same.

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A reservoir is the kind of visual companion Fanfarlo would desire most. Natural, heart-warming at times, the songs and the beauty of the outdoors are a good pair. ‘Reservoir’ has its highs and its lows – not surprising for a band taking their first steps – but the grace of these highs are unrivaled, giving you goosebumps throughout.
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The Electro-Pop wars of June 2009 ended in a landslide victory for La Roux, as Victoria Hesketh AKA Little Boots crashed and burned with the mediocre ‘Hands’. Her opponents, meanwhile, gave us a debut record that recalled The Human League, and Depeche Mode when they bothered to write pop songs. Much more than just a few knockout singles (though we consider ‘Bulletproof’ the best single of the year by a country mile), it showed us that La Roux are in for the long haul.

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Annie Clark decided to show a different side. One half of ‘Actor’ is a perfectly calm sonic headspace, free to roam in luscious acoustic-bred melodies and lie in peace. The other is gritty fury, exposing itself at the most unexpected of moments, helping to make Clark’s latest effort a stunningly unpredictable effort, exposing her incredible craft of songwriting.

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Somehow, Fuck Buttons have made it onto radio (whereby they’re known as “F” Buttons). There’s a reason for that: ‘Tarot Sport’ shows a leaning 0utwards from the thick-sheeted wall of sound coming from last year’s debut, edging ever closer to euro-trance anthems (sort of) and pop hooks but keeping to the signatory “whackz factor”.
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White Denim are now absolute experts in producing their fruitful display of cacophonous garage rock, at times blending in soul and always keeping to pop hooks and jazz percussion. ‘Fits’ shows no kind of shift from last year’s ‘Workout Holiday’ and with good reason – it’s a complete pleasure to see such talents hitting a timely peak that could have been spotted coming from a mile off.
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Staring into the beady eyes of death, the horrible possibilities edge closer to reality as time seems to elongate, prolong. Only this isn’t a concept album about the physical death of a loved one (although it would still work within the context, that’s the beauty of it), it’s one of those break-up albums…Only on this ocassion, it’s sharp, smart and irresistible in its beauty.

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Whilst ‘Jewellery’ will always be notified for its “make-do-with-kitchen-objects-for-instruments” inventiveness, let’s not forget no-one would have raised an eyelid if the songs themselves couldn’t survive on their own two feet. Intelligent, wholesome and energetic punk-pop is transformed into something efficiently unpredictable.

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There is to be no sequel to ‘Silent Shout’, no ‘Slightly Audible Shout’. But Fever Ray’s self-titled debut offering is as close as anything will come to it – pitch black and terrifying. This makes sense, considering Karin Dreijer, the voice behind The Knife, is the heart and soul behind this record. Her glass-like, ice-cold Scandinavian tones make stories of talking about dishwasher tablets sound twisted, with a double-meaning.

———– ‘Embryonic’ is the kind of record that wouldn’t suit any year. This chaotic, loose-ended approach to studio recording doesn’t fit in with anything else released in the last ten years and for that reason but not that reason only, it’s undoubtedly something we should value. The other reason? That warm feeling this album gives you when something beautiful like ‘Evil’ crops up out of nowhere. It’s a teasing, weaving parade of experimentation.

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More post-pop than anything else, There Will Be Fireworks’ debut displayed a band with an ear for a hook, and the ability to hit sky-scraping heights with little difficulty. Anchored around two eight-minute epics, here was a record that was so much more than the sum of its parts. They’re still unsigned, you know. Fucking criminal.
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Classy orchestration, wonderfully crafted musicianship, all things that make Dirty Projectors appealing to passers by. But what truly makes ‘Bitte Orca’ the band’s finest work yet is its slant towards R n’ B stylings (Solange Knowles has now covered ‘Stillness In The Move’). It also managed to fit in disorderly eruptions (‘Useful Chamber’) and the odd tearjerker (‘Two Doves’). A diverse and thrilling listen.
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Significantly leaning towards more understated and subtle approaches to producing those sure-fire “indie hits”. Arctic Monkeys, four years into an illustrious career, supermodel girlfriends now in tow, released what will probably go down as their most underrated album. Josh Homme, the producer, is written all over it, with gritty bass lines and stunning percussion. A really accomplished and damn brave record to make.
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Cast eyes forward twenty years and HEALTH will probably look innocent and average. But they’re quietly forging the sound of the future and for that, will have quite the reputation come a couple of decades. Their second record, the gutsy ‘Get Color’, takes the listener to darker places that one could ever imagine, sweeping them in towards a grizzly storm of chaos.
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The Northern Irish instrumental juggernaut that is And So I Watch You From Afar produced an absolutely stunning debut record. Often packing more ideas into single songs than most bands do into entire albums, the album was nothing if not intense. Sterling musicianship combined with a knack for a good melody or eleven to create a blistering yet beautiful statement of intent.
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What it took for the Manics to rediscover themselves after the average ‘Send Away The Tigers’ was not a new direction, but simply reconnecting with what they were best at: rocking the fuck out. ‘Journal for Plague Lovers’ recalled their 1994 masterpiece ‘The Holy Bible’, and not just in sound: the band used a notebook of former guitarist Richey James Edwards’ lyrics for the album. The heartbreaking ‘William’s Last Words’ closed what is now considered their finest album since then. They seem to have found their purpose once more, and sound so much better for it.
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Some would claim Future of the Left’s second LP is all about its closer. ‘Lapsed Catholics’, a blatant attack on “the devil” Rupert Murdoch, commences with innocent conversation before conversing into something with teeth. Much of the rest of the record sports spiky Welsh-bred anthems on why Barfly venues are despicable and other such disappointing trivialities. Full-blown passion from start to finish, with guts and gore on show.

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One of the most highly-anticipated debut releases of the year in certain circles, ‘Grammatics’ delivered on its promises, and then some. Heavy on the melodrama, the Leeds quartet’s first album was cohesive and fascinating. A band shouldn’t sound this accomplished this soon, yet somehow it is clear that they have far from peaked. Despite some personnel changes this year, it would come as no surprise to see Grammatics bounce back even stronger than before.
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The token “stunning break-up album” came from the most unlikely of names. Love spilt over Laura Marling was put to use in this most breathtaking of concept albums, accompanied by a moving film. Dripping with clichés it might be, but it conveys the highs and the lows of a troubled relationship with earnestness and maturity.
———– ‘Wolfgang…’ isn’t merely shiny, French-bred pop. It’s Phoenix’s most complete work to date, a record that gives room to a stunning centerpiece, a few hit singles and a few more potential hit singles. The most accomplished display of carefully-crafted pop for some time.
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Krautrock, shoegaze, My Bloody Valentine, fuzz, darkness. Yes, ‘Primary Colours’ fits every one of those overused tags but its finest asset is the mood of contrived beauty that it manages to conjure up. Produced by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, it showed a bunch of mocked has-beens transform into quite the prospect.
———– The world may as well have explicitly declared “We’re expecting a masterpiece“. The sort of one-night-stand, take the money and run approach to discovering new music exploded to new heights in 2009. But you need time to get to grips with ‘Veckatimest’; a gentle, warm and touching record that does everything it was required to do.
———– Not many “get” The xx on first listen. Many even look for excuses to dislike the London quartet/trio. But this is an album that prides itself on experimenting with silence, minimalism, empty spaces. The moment you find those is the moment ‘XX’ wins you over.
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Audacity, wit, sex-obsession; these were all elements that Wild Beasts carried over from their debut ‘Limbo, Panto’, into ‘Two Dancers’. What they added was sensitivity, melancholy and a healthy chunk of reverb. It made for something coherent and at times astonishing.
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Animal Collective’s move towards glossy, instant pop was an extremely brave one. There sat a cult band, renowned for experimenting, provoking their listeners. Word spread and the band were aware of it. So they decided to switch things around a little. Now, nearly everyone has something to say about a band who will continue to chop and change their ever-moving sound. This however, may well have seen them reach their peak.
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Animal Collective: Fall Be Kind EP

words: Jamie Milton
originally scribed for gigwise

Let’s cut the clichéd expressions some slack. There are very few times when you can bring out the “…and look at you now!“, pre/post-makeover shot from not-much-of-a-looker to hubba-hubba-God-bless-Rimmel-London, but now’s one of them. Animal Collective started 2009 as a cult band, celebrated by the majority of their listeners who knew their beloved were on the fringe of something much greater. And alas, here they are now, rounding off a year of critical acclaim and tolerance of the word “hype”, certified as a band who polarize opinion. Now, everyone has something to say about Animal Collective.

And now for something completely different.
The trio were accused of streamlining their music on ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion‘, creating pop songs (“heaven forbid!”) and selfishly waving goodbye to the experimenting guts that defined the band in the past. Here, we witness a return to methods of old on ‘Fall Be Kind‘, a merging of the glossy, velvet tongue from the latest album with a more tasteful knack for variety and alternatives, such as that found on ‘Feels‘.

EP’s are very often a means of re-assuring a group of fans who might have felt let down by a previous release. ‘Fall Be Kind’ does seem to attempt that, not least achieve that, only offering three minutes of rich, succinct pop in the climax of ‘What Would I Want? Sky‘. That may be the finest three minutes the band have recorded to date; Avey Tare’s vocals float on its back above the Grateful Dead samples and the bells and the cries – the line “I should be floating but I’m weighted by thinking” encompassing what Animal Collective always have been and always will be about.

But the rest of this collection of songs tilts its head towards elongation and the switching of one mood to another. Take ‘Graze’ as the perfect example: the opener breathes warm synthetic air around you for the first half before erupting into a, brace yourself, pan-flute solo. And yes, it might be the best (the only) pan-flute solo recorded in history but most importantly it shows the group succumbing to their ways of old whilst completely re-inventing their scope of sound at the same time.

But ‘Fall Be Kind’ does make every effort of maintaining its two feet in the headscape of ‘Merriweather…’. The theme of daily life, routine, normality that defined January’s album resounds in ‘On A Highway’. Exposing perhaps Avey Tare’s most personal batch of lyrics to date, telling the tale of a band touring, becoming anxious, sleepy. He talks of letting “some hash relax me” and his envy of “Noah’s dreaming”. It’s a removal from the natural/nautical imagery that seems to creep into every one of the band’s rhyming couplets. A very exclusive tale of coping with monotony.

And quite significantly this shows Animal Collective continuing to break the doors down, to evolve into something they never thought themselves capable of a few years back. The decade has been theirs in which to progress forward from leftfield acoustic-bred lullabies to glossy displays of summer-pop. Realistically, you can only expect them to continue to do the same. And of course, await the clichéd expression (every review of this EP should have one); ‘Fall Be Kind‘ rounds off the year of their lives on an absolute high.

8.7

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Top 5 Songs of 2009 – The Writers’ Say:

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And so it begins. The ‘statements‘, the overblown reactions of “I can’t believe your opinion is not of complete parallel to mine!“, the meaningless ranting attempts to find a definitive ‘album of the year’. We begin our yearly conclusion in understated form. A select few of the blog’s writers volunteered us their top five songs of the year so we dressed each five up in Photoshop and decided to publish them right here, right now. Subjectivity is bliss…
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CAL STANNARD (of 2STEPS glory)
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mp3: Los Campesinos! – The Sea…
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mp3: The Horrors – Sea Within A Sea
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DAVID MOLLOY

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mp3: Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
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mp3: LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou
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GARETH O ‘MALLEY

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JAMIE MILTON

mp3: jj – ecstacy
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mp3: Washed Out – Belong

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Initial Thoughts: Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind EP

It seems funny that Animal Collective choose to release their music for the grimmest of months. January and December – the start of winter and the end of warmth. Their songs are sun-appropriate, uplifting, life-affirming and yet every time I listen to ‘Merriweather Post Pavilion’, it works best when I’m chilly. ‘Fall Be Kind‘ sweetly infuses abstract patterns with the deep bass notes and striking vocal harmonics that helped define the previous album. Only on ‘Fall Be Kind’ we get to see a real significant shift towards less pacey, pop-orientated territory. It’s not their most accessible work to date – ok, it’s nothing on the band’s early material, but it certainly falls back on old times after the infectious instant likability of ‘MPP’ allowed certain “sell out” accusations to gather force.

In many ways these songs sound more comfortable when associated with ‘Feels‘; they’re elongated, evolving and far from straight to the point. Opener ‘Graze‘ allows an almighty sound shift in its latter half, from smooth, deep cries of triumph to tip-toeing percussion and a tribal party spirit. This isn’t quite ‘Feels’ with more gadgets though: ‘What Would I Want? Sky’ is very much amongst the three-piece’s latest work, crafting a Grateful Dead sample with an exquisite vocal performance from Avey Tare. There are lyrics, there’s a hook that keeps and it’s all formed with samplers. This is more Brothersport than Leaf House.

But it’s still a sure-fire exit from the material of late. And that sort of move could be judged as moronic or merely, the right thing to do. Animal Collective are never going to be chart toppers. More likely, they’ll be a group looked upon in decades to come as innovators, opinion-splitters, forward-thinkers. And so to continue upon this route of shortening the song length, tightening the ropes, would be a poor choice. After all, when have Animal Collective ever decided to stick to the same sound over the course of more than one release? Never.

Initial thoughts rating:

8.5

Take Three
- Graze
- What Would I Want? Sky
- I Think I Can

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Incoming: Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind

December 2009

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Battle Of The Remixes: Florence/XX vs. Animal Collective/Phoenix

photo source

“Remix” can be a very broad term. First of all, there’s plenty of remixes around where existing sounds are shuffled around, broadened, or heightened in pace and volume. Otherwise, remix can essentially mean “to rework” and this is usually achieved by well known acts giving remixing a go, putting the stamp of their own sound on the track. The two latest “hot” remixes are perfect examples of such, one to an extreme more than the other. Animal Collective/Deakin’s take on Phoenix’s centerpiece on ‘Wolfgang…’, ‘Love Like A Sunset’ moulds together summer-breeze vocals with Thomas Mars’ existing, relaxed stance. With the Xx, their take on Florence and the Machine’s cover, ‘You Got The Love’, involves removing all but Florence Welch’s powerful vocals and the harp patterns now ubiquitous with her sound, and completely morphing all that remains into a break-neck, 3am dubstep classic.

This is what sets the two apart – ‘Love Like A Sunset’’s remix is ultimately what one would class as a classic example of re-working a song and introducing it to new territories. ‘You Got The Love’’s re-working is less a remix and more a new The Xx song, for the only elements in the song that aren’t warped or de-tuned or turned into obtuse, industrialised rhythms are the vocals of Oliver Sim and Romy Madley Croft. Gentle but sinister, it’s the more unpredictable of the two we’re comparing, and it’s another teaser of just what these youngsters are capable of. Animal Collective’s effort is far more of what one would expect, but sits pretty as easy listening material.

But ‘You Got The Love’ has instantly been morphed from an incessant, obnoxious pop song — sung by an over-excited pop singer who has yet to find her feet– into the kind of song that would suit 2010-onwards perfectly – ideal for the darkest hours. The best remix I’ve ever heard. (JM)

mp3: Phoenix – Love Like A Sunset (Animal Collective Remix)
mp3: Florence and the Machine – You Got The Love (The Xx Remix)

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Words With: Wild Beasts

Interview with Wild Beasts
words: Jamie Milton with Tom Fleming
Full feature to appear on gigwise.com
photo credit: Lucy Johnston // flickr

Jamie: The thing that we should talk about is ‘Two Dancers’. Have you seen the NME review (album of the week, 9/10 score)?Tom: Yeah I was slightly surprised, it’s nice that they’re taking us seriously which is cool. It was quite an in depth review.

Yeah it’s not often they give a 9 out of 10 and no matter what people say, the magazine is still taken seriously. Does it matter to you, to get good press or a good review?
The thing is it makes a difference to how many people it can reach. That’s something I’ve learnt. I mean we didn’t set out and say, “We’re gonna make a critically acclaimed album” but I’m noticing how much difference a good review makes and how much people’s opinion’s matter and how much the course of opinion matters.
Everyone’s a critic themselves. Obviously our music is the biggest extension you can have for our own opinions on music so it’s nice that it’s well received.

There’s something about Wild Beasts sound, it’s quite divisive between audiences, with Hayden’s falsetto especially but if you’ve got lots of critics championing the album it certainly will help.
Absolutely yeah, if you please everybody you like nobody. We just want to do what we want to do and people can decide for themselves. But it’s very, very nice that it’s going down so well.

Obviously the first impression is very important and a lot of people don’t take Wild Beasts too seriously the first time they set ears on them. Have you ever had any bad experiences with supporting a band where people just haven’t heard you before?
Not so many, there have been a couple, maybe. I think as far as those experiences go I think we’ve been pretty lucky. I think some bands have a really rough time when they’re supporting people. If nothing else, we’re a “sit up and pay attention” band, we have the “what the fuck” factor at least. But that’s the test this time with ‘Two Dancers’, we no longer have this “what the fuck” factor, we’re no longer a new band and we’re no longer young.

It does feel like you’ve evolved your sound quite quickly. The general consensus seems to be that you’ve matured a good five albums worth in the space of one.
That’s awesome. We learnt a lot from making the first record and we were writing as soon as it came out. The first album had quite a lot of old songs in a lot of ways, a lot of people’s first albums are like that. We’ve taken our time with this and we’ve been a lot more deliberate. We’ve taken our time to make a record with a theme, with a purpose, I suppose.

How would you describe that theme? I’ve tried to get my head round it, there’s quite a lot of melancholy and sexual references.
Yeah, they’re both dead right. The ‘two dancers’ theme that underpins it is this idea of something always being out of reach, that it’s always beyond your control, leading this formalised, abstract pattern. As if your life is proceeding without you and this album covers the joys and the frustrations of that. There’s a lot of loss and reconciliation, I suppose and it ends indefinitely, unsure. Whether the reconciliations are real of imagined it’s kind of up to the listener, I guess.
It’s kind of a more grown up record than the first one. The first one was littered with sex as well but here we’ve given a more grown up take on it. We’ve learnt that the world can be a difficult place to live in but there’s no need to wallow in that.

You yourself, you seem to feature more vocally. Was that to suit the sound a little more or was that you stamping your authority on the recording process?
Going back to the first record, I think me and Hayden realised that we’d both become two characters, representing different poles of the album. I mean, the songs are written very quickly, we only have four pairs of hands, and there was a lot of instrument swapping so that’s how the songs seemed to work. Usually if I had some lyrics, I sang them and if Hayden had some lyrics, he sang them. That was because of time constraints more than anything but it seemed to work fairly well.
All the writing is credited to Wild Beasts because it’s very much an open process.

Do you tend to write on your own and then meet up and discuss and work on the pieces?
Yeah usually songs will be preceded by something very rough and we’d try to bring it out. We practice an awful lot so we tend to play it out, each of us suggesting one thing or the other: “I see that, I’ll raise you this…”, that sort of process.
Some songs went through loads of different versions, different rhythms and arrangements. ‘Two Dancers’ (parts 1 and 2) are great examples of ideas changing throughout. The melody from those two songs reappears at the end of ‘Hooting & Howling’, which is partly based around the chords of those songs. And synth sound in those songs is very similar to the opening synth sound at the start of the album and also features in ‘This Empty Nest’ and ‘Underbelly’ later on. All the songs partly inform eachother, and that song itself became a focal idea, lyrically and musically, like ripples on a pond.

“We’re growing in confidence”

Do you want to try and different sounds and atmospherics as you move on to more records?
Well I think it’s a logical progression. For this record, we knew better than we did for the first record. We’ve got an idea where we’d like to go. To be fair, we’re growing in confidence. This was a big learning curve for us again.

Even as you progress, you’re still a very difficult band to pigeonhole. ‘Limbo, Panto’ has this very old-fashioned feel to it, this one less so. Are there any contemporary influences that help define your sound?
We listened to a lot of dance and electronic music. When we recorded, everything was done with click-tracks and we tried to incorporate dance structures, not like verse/chorus but more a slow build and slow progression. There was also an influence of dark folk music. I think it’s fair to mention bands like Junior Boys, who we’re big fans of and Talking Heads and we’ve recently discovered Talk Talk.

Structurally there are moments in a song when it will suddenly change, for example the closing section of ‘This Is Our Lot’. Do you always check a song to see if it’s interesting throughout? Do you attempt to add new things in all the time?
We definitely try and wrong-foot people and keep people on their toes. The biggest pleasure of music is surprise. Whatever type of music it is, there needs to be a shock factor, something you’re not expecting. At the same time, we try and be concise because at nature, we’re a pop band.

Favourite records:

I mean there’s obviously been a lot of fuss over the Animal Collective record and I don’t think it’s as good as some of their earlier work but I do like it.

I think there’s been a backlash towards it.
Yeah, there was so much good juice spilt over it that there eventually was a backlash. I read Everett True’s article, his attack, which seemed a bit unfair. I’m sure if we get a lot of good reviews, there will be a backlash too.

Yeah I’m sure he’ll be scribing his “defending the indefensible” article when you get popular enough.
(Laughs) I wish I could name some more records but I’m terrible with new music because I’m so busy making stuff. Oh, the new Junior Boys album, that’s excellent. It amazes me they’re not more popular, they write great pop songs. I think there’s a new Joanna Newsom record coming out this year as well which is obviously going to be an event for the wee, little indie boys like myself.

‘The fascinating ‘Two Dancers’ is out on Monday, this is what we thought of it.

mp3: Wild Beasts – The Fun Powder Plot // alt

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JAN: LYRICS OF THE MONTH

I C I C L E S

LYRICS: Jan ‘09 Best-Of
words: Jamie Milton, Alex Kapronas, Antony Hegarty, Avey TareWe had a ‘lyrics of the week’ feature going on a while back but we sort of left it lagging due to our inability to find the very best lyrics. We found ourselves wanting to use the same artists over and over again and we saw it as a bit of filler in terms of blog material. But we still adore the good written word. January was excellent musically but only a couple of times did we stop in our tracks, and rewind to listen to a certain sentence one more time.
Here are those couple though:

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