2013: Personal Best

Photo by PZS

Noteworthy Albums:

* click album names for tracks *

Vision Fortune - Mas Fiestas con el Grupo Vision Fortune (Faux Discx/Gringo)

Pissed Jeans - Honeys (Sub Pop)
Mazes - Ores and Minerals (Fat Cat)

Hookworms - Pearl Mystic (Gringo)

Thee Oh Sees - Floating Coffin (Castle Face)

Fists - Phantasm (Gringo/Hello Thor)
Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold (What's Yr Rupture)

Shopping - Consumer Complaints (Milk Records)
Just Handshakes - Say It (Bleeding Gold)

White Denim - Corsicana Lemonade (Downtown)
Bill Callahan - Dream River (Drag City)

Factory Floor - Factory Floor (DFA Records)

Julia Holter - Loud City Song (Domino)
Pond - Hobo Rocket (Modular)

Quasi - Mole City (Domino)

The Space Lady - Greatest Hits (Night School Records)

The Julie Ruin - Run Fast (Dischord / TJR)

Mariam The Believer - Blood Donation (Moshi Moshi Records)
Kurt Vile - Wakin On A Pretty Daze (Matador)

Julianna Barwick - Nepenthe (Dead Oceans)
The Mantles - Long Enough To Leave (Slumberland)

Larry Gus - Years Not Living (DFA Records)

Au Revoir Simone - Move In Spectrums (Moshi Moshi Records)

Deptford Goth - Life After Defo (Merok)
No Bra - Candy (LP on Address)

A Grave With No Name - Whirlpool (Lefse Records)

Gun Outfit - Hard Coming Down (PPM)

The Haxan Cloak - Excavation (Tri Angle)
The Growlers - Hung At Heart (Fat Cat)

.. There is so much more that's interested me, but I'd feel weird including an album I haven't listened to more than twice - I need to do some serious catching up.

Noteworthy Songs:

Sauna Youth - False Jesii Pt II
Primitive Parts - Another Night / Dust

Elenor Friedberger - Stare At The Sun

Upset - Oxfords and Wingtips

The Pastels - Check My Heart

Withered Hand - Black Tambourine
Virginia Wing - Donna's Gift
Teardrop Factory - Vanity Unfair
Witching Waves - Barber
Slowcoaches - Total Block
Tense Men - RNRFON

Girl Called Johnny - Heaven Knows

New Finds:

Ed Schrader's Music Beat

Claw Marks

Occult Hand
Warmhammer

Men Oh Pause
Androgynous Mind

The Wharves

Good Throb

Zombie Crash

PKN
Joey Fourr

Nu Sensae

The Best of 2013:

Supernormal Festival (all of it)

Tramlines (aka Sweatfest '13) at Tye Die Tapes HQ w. Slowcoaches, Omi Palone, Collider, Fawn Spots, Feature & Pjaro

Ed Schrader's Music Beat at TDT HQ (especially the Bowie ad-lib)

Seeing The Breeders for the first time (twice!)
Daniel Johnston at Protein Gallery

Lydia Lunch terrifying & charming everyone at the 100 Club
The London screening of Kathleen Hanna doc 'The Punk Singer'
Primavera (but not the cold weather)
White Denim at Village Underground
First and second visits to Amsterdam
Cribsmas

Looking forward to in 2014:

An album from Omi Palone!
New Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks record

New York trip
The Space Lady World Tour (!)
Portugal & Barcelona
Potential UK tour w. Feature

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One Beat - Best of 2013 Playlist

I now spend so much time speaking to other (much more capable) writers about new music, that I'm left with pretty much no time to actually keep up with my own writing. It's a small price to pay though, as this little playlist will show.

So here is a selection of a few of my favourite tracks that I've worked on from the past year. (Note: I've picked solely from my freelance roster rather than including the [PIAS] Cooperative stuff too, simply because otherwise it would go on for HOURS and HOURS. Expect that little round-up to appear online soon.) It was also strange to realise that I'd already written about so many of the bands long before I got the chance to work with them. Seems being a massive fangirl does pay off sometimes, who'd have thought?!

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