7Inches - Singles awards of 2010 extravaganza- PT 3 - hello 2011

Finally.... best singles of the year:

Dirty Beaches - on Italian Beach Babe Records - I just hope more people can get their hands on this one, or he does a stateside single soon on someone's label...cool, detached, minimal home recorded awesome, with completely unique world influences.
Tonetta - Get it Going on Black tent Press - Oh Tonetta, where do I begin? Completely inspiring weirdness from Toronto (!?). The videos almost ruin the music they are so freaking amazing. A thousand thanks to Black Tent for putting this and TWO full length albums out now.
Useless Eaters - Mr. Oscillations on Mastermind Records - Everything Seth does is punchy to the point punk pop with a great layer of crisp distortion across everything. I hope it never ends. Everything so far has been on cassette and 7"....I never thought I'd say it, but enough already. I want a full length.
Sore Eros - Blackburn Recordings - Incredible hazy, melodic weirdness in line with the genius of Ariel Pink and Gary War. Completely mindblowingly complex. I have to catch this live this year.
Ariel Pink (round and round) - 4AD - I don't care how many times I hear this, it gets better and better. He works across genres in the most authentic and sincere way, with tons of experimental pop strewn across every track. There's a sad nostalgia to all of Before Today, that title now makes sense.
Sediment Club - on Soft Spot records - I still can't get over the ragged, simple, new wave from these guys. They're playing Jan 2nd.
Bare Wires - on Southpaw Records - So glad they ended up putting out a single from the guys that did Artificial Clouds, a record I played at least once a week because I wanted to. Mathew Melton is a serious bad ass.


RIP: Blessure Grave, Jay Reatard




Greatest Book ever written award goes to Touchable sound from Soundscreen design : A clear winner, no contest really, everything I ever wanted from a book: that it's entirely about the greatest single design of the past 20 years, every page in full color. The closest I'll get to ever seeing a lot of these historic pieces of art.

See you monday, happy new year.

The Sediment Club on Soft Spot Records

Soft Spot Records released a great reissue of AA's 'Essential Entertainment' a while back, which I'm surprised to see they still have copies available? So if you think the Sediment Club is another band from days of old new wave that deserved a rerelease you wouldn't be half wrong. The first few listens of this single I was convinced The Sediment Club was another brilliant unearthed band I'd never heard of from the early 80's. How they are pulling this off so sincerely in 2010 is a god damn accomplishment. Like the first time I heard Gang of Four's 'Entertainment' it's so completely jarring in arrangement and so awesomely nonrhythmic with back and forth vocals and organ? way. I want to hear just how the hell this is working so well over and over. Why is no one else doing this?
The A-Side 'Panic Berlin Fun' is a bunch of elements playing separately but coming together in such a kick in the ass reaction to the no-fi garage punk scene. It's yelling/spoken vocals repeated, crisp barely distorted guitar, with a solid bassline waiting for this jangly whammy bar unplayable riff to keep you guessing. The organ works off this mess of guitar sounds so well. The title of this track reminds me of a store awning on 14th street, 'Funny Cry Happy Gift' it makes no sense grammatically, forget the articles, blast the message out as simply as possible. This is completely out there on it's own in such a genius way.

'No More Earth' is a frank list of things that will be absent when it all ends. The guitar is so haphazard it's on a mission of it's own...it's eerie how much this could have been the best continuation in direction for Go4 that they never tried to explore.

No think tank / no septic tank / no thurston moore / not any more / No (more earth) no (more earth).

It ends with a countdown to 1, and the songs over, all they needed was 2 minutes to completely smash it all apart musically and forget the whole god damn world, to reinvent the direction of music.
An amazing debut single from this band I will definitely be trying to see on the 19th at 13 Thames Street in Brooklyn.

WFMU has a great piece about this band with a bunch of tracks from a recent station appearance...it's a shame what an amazing NYC music resource in free form programming I can't listen to continuously. It makes me want to have a walkman again, just to walk around and tune that shit in.

The Sediment Club are a 4-piece No Wave group from Brooklyn, New York. Their debut EP puts a modern and youthful spin on familiar post-punk tropes, bringing to mind the deranged and bizarrely catchy innovations of the Contortions and early Pere Ubu. Four songs filled with existential ranting, squirrely atonal guitars, and spastic keyboard stabbing atop hypnotic basslines and propulsive drums. Limited to 500 hand-numbered copies.

Get it from Soft Spot Records.