502. Bad gateway..

'If it's all the same to you, I'll stay indifferent.'

2011 has seen a return to musical form for artists new and vehemently old. Some of the best new music was cultivated from some old people - over 25 - some, such as the mightily angry Iceage, made Howard Devoto seem a bit Johnny Mathis. Christmas Johnny Mathis.

I listened to more records this year than I have done in many years. All sizes and shapes, it's been a great year for pushing boundaries downstairs, for pressing Play-Doh into pigeon holes and for artists generally fucking about with genres and the levels of expectation associated with them.

Bill Orcutt and About Group showed that the oldies can still (re)mix it with the best of them - making, then breaking, some marvellous music.

Kate Bush. Fuck me.



Without a doubt, '50 Words for Snow,' is the finest record Kate has ever made - and bookends seamlessly, perfectly, with her earlier 2011 offering - the exquisite 'Director's Cut,' where previously released recordings were reworked and made impossibly more beautiful.

In many ways, Kate is the star of 2011...

But she ain't. This woman is...



'Let England shake,' in all its glory, was reviewed earlier this year on this blog. It's magic, will ennoble your soul. Listen to it. Buy it.

More records shone like pissballs in a hallowless sky...hey, hey, hey...

Beach Fossils John Maus
Boston Spaceships Mark McGuire
Chelsea Wolfe St Vincent
Nicolas Jarr Unknown Mortal Orchestra
Leyland Kirby Oneohtrix Point Never
Aidan Moffat & Bill Wells Roots Manuva

Teebs, like Toro Y Moi, Beastie Boys, Frank Ocean, Death Grips, Thundercat, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and The Roots also made wonderful records that took established music forms and injected new throbbing, spilling, life and light into them, creating a zoetrope of sound, revolving beats and spinning energy.

So they did.



And, of course, Jim O'Rourke had a new record out...

Career retrospectives abounded. John Fahey's earlier Fonotone recordings were collected, rather wonderfully, rather idiosyncratically, by those autodidacts at Dust to Digital. The 40th anniversary edition of Can's 'Tago Mago,' was released through Mute and Edsel felched 1985 alloveragain with the sweetest honey in any rock - 'Psychocandy,' by a band from East Killbride...(sick).

However...these were the best archive releases of 2011:

El Rego through Daptone Records, 'El Rego.'

Tav Falco's Panther Burns reissued through Stag-O-Lee records, 'Behind the Magnolia Curtain.'

and, Mickey Newbury's marvellous 'American Trilogy album reissued through Saint Cecelia Knows records.

An incredible year. More records?

Richmond Fontaine Richard Swift
Twin Sister Tim Hecker
Willy Tea Taylor The Spaceape
Bon Iver Carbon Based Lifeforms
Kitty, Daisy and Lewis Colin Stetson
Girls M83
I D A H O Tom Waits

The list, I'm sure you're all beginning to think, is bloody endless. But, it isn't. Good years and shit years spew forth the same number of records as each other. Artists, writers, painters, poets, film makers, cinematographers, photographers, pornographers - all work their collective arses to the nub of the bone to make this world a better place, a more gnarly place, certainly more bitter and twisted, calculating, sometimes, cynical, more full of love, loveliness and lovelessness.

Thank fuck for them all.