One of those rushed weeks, I’m afraid – it looks like I won’t be able to construct a Wild Mercury Sound 2012 chart ‘til next week now, if you can bear the agonising wait. Lots of links and clips to be getting on with here, though: please make sure you have a listen to the new Sun Kil Moon and Plush tracks, and check the clip that Neil Young scholars are claiming shows the first time he’s collapsed onto the floor and wiggled his legs in the air mid-solo.
Three more things to flag up: one, the new Low album, produced by Jeff Tweedy, heavy on piano, focused on the uncanny beauty of their aesthetic, after a couple of listens feels perhaps like their “Harvest”. Two, the Splashgirl album, which is doom piano jazz and the first record I’ve come across to truly hit that zone since the last one by Bohren & Der Club Of Gore. And three; one of my favourite tracks of 2012 now has a video. If you still haven’t heard Spacin’s “Sunshine, No Shoes”, here’s another chance…
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1 Splashgirl – Field Day Rituals (Hubro)
2 Plush – Dream Deferred (www.liamhayesandplush.com)
3 Jim James – Regions Of Light And Sound Of God (V2)
4 Low – Plays Nice Places EP (Sub Pop)
5 Conny Plank – Who’s That Man: A Tribute To Conny Plank (Sampler) (Grönland)
6 Tomahawk – Oddfellows (Ipecac)
7 The Flaming Lips – The Terror (Bella Union)
8 Jamie Lidell – Jamie Lidell (Warp)
9 Various Artists – Copendium: An Expedition Into The Rock’n’Roll Underworld (Faber/Ace)
10 Mark Lanegan/WhoMadeWho – Below The Cherry Moon/Deep Black Vanishing Train (http://wmwlanegan.com/)
11 Alexis Taylor – Nayim From The Halfway Line (Domino)
12 Black Twig Pickers – Rough Carpenters (Thrill Jockey)
13 Spacin’ – Sunshine, No Shoes (Testoster)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNtjlzw0yOw
14 Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – Jama Ko (Outhere)
15 Low – The Invisible Way (Sub Pop)
16 Lloyd Cole/Hans-Joachim Roedelius – Selected Studies Vol 1 (Bureau B)
17 Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Push The Sky Away (Bad Seed Ltd)
18 Tom Morgan – Orange Syringe (Fire)
19 Matmos – The Marriage Of True Minds (Thrill Jockey)
20 Endless Boogie – Long Island (No Quarter)
21 Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Fuckin’ Up (Live in Bridgeport)
22 Sun Kil Moon/The Album Leaf – What Happened To My Brother (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/tracks/14646-what-happened-to-my-brother/)
23 Matthew E White – Big Inner (Domino)
24 Dan Friel – Total Folklore (Thrill Jockey)
25 Dawn McCarthy & Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy – What The Brothers Sang (Domino)
Picture credit: Pieter M Van Hattem