As ever, and just because we are a bunch of amateurs, we do things late. We have, of course, a best of the year thing happening, do not fear, we shall be declaring it to you with a loving smile during the next few days…first theme is fury, and it goes a little something like this…

Or perhaps Fuzz. We are talking about the dusty glue wave hurricane arriving to these shores as hatched in creative destruction cells all over fertile North American soil, fiery winds carrying sand that peels the skin off your bones, my friend, but don’t the chiselled skeletons continue spinning in a moshpit equivalent of the Dance Macabre? They do, they do.

All of this as heralded by the true master of all things weird, scrunky and wonderful, Mr. DJ Rick who rocks it every week from one of the best sites in the interwebs, the mighty Art for Spastics. You could do way worse than subscribe to it, because it always delivers with love and panache.

At this point in the history of Western Culture everyone has realised that No Age, Times New Viking, Deerhunter and Jay Reatard are hot shit. I think you heard about them in this humble page a loooooong time ago. Now they have signed for big indie labels but still remain true to their sonically damaged roots, they so do blow us away live. Pop tattooed noise knuckles is where it’s at. More greatness: Fucked Up delivered a propulsive sludge prog-hardcore opera somewhere in between Karl Orff and the Boredoms , with a very welcome nod to Pink Floyd that we dutifully reported to you, while HEALTH ripped a hole in our skulls with their speedcore streetfighter moves at a Primavera Sound to remember. Fuck Buttons represented the dice throwing fantasy drone massive, another show where we lost our shit.

We are very much in love with Vivian Girls’ stormy rendezvous of passionate girl pop and lo-fi C-86, Los Llamarada’s psyche trip over under and through primeval Mexican mesas and Sexy Prison’s basement party hyperkinetic what wave. Sic Alps made us wonder how awesome the Beatles would have been if they had been into cough syrup, and Psychedelic Horseshit threw us into a dozen simultaneous silly dances with one of the tunes of the year, ‘New Wave Hippies’. Ever so funny, ever so true.

The latter two bands operate from mighty Siltbreeze HQ, definitive furious record label of the year, they delighted us with U.S. Girls‘ astonishing ‘Introducing’ and drove a spike through our collarbone with its spatio-temporal reverse, insectoid no wave girl gang Titmachine. Hank IV’s psychobilly swing and Factums‘ percussive death trip deserve special mentions.

One day a black sun rose in the sky, it was of the size of a 7” and it dripped blood and tar all over our bedsheets, tough shit they were straight out of the cleaner, yet a messy room makes for unhinged dancing. This our most favourite of formats was indeed nicely represented by the nihilistic synth-fuzz of Catatonic Youth, Finally Punk’s turbo-DIY missles, Mayyors agit-propelled aggro and the so dumb it’s gotta be smart garage from John Dwyer’s latest incarnation, the mighty The Oh Sees. Coruscating indie antics also rock our boat, there you have the Wicked Awesomes and a Jay Reatard/Deerhunter split to kill for. We never managed to get hold of that one in its physical incarnation, life can be painful but we somehow keep going.

This is as far as the list goes, I know I am forgetting things, that means it was a sweet year.

The resurgence of the UK DIY scene truly deserves highlighting- 20JFG have been complaining for a while about the dearth of indigenous bands catering to our taste for alluring and sexily fucked up truly indie jams, well, we better shut up because Lovvers, Shitty Limits, Male Bonding or Pens have arrived to deliver excellence in this propituous 2008. Praise the dark lord, this is only right, or don’t most of the US bands mentioned above sip til inebriation from rich and nutritious sonic reservoirs of British post-punk and c-86? Just listen to JD Twitch’s 60 Minutes of Fear if you need proof.

We are particularly excited about the awesome Graffiti Island, who shall be owning 2009 after blinding us in 2008 with a string of infectious sludge-pop hits. Picture a black cauldron simmering in a damp cellar accessed down precarious steps in a London backalley murder scene more than once, voodoo spices of primeval psychobilly and surfboard splinters retrieved from under the nails of a drowned corpse are wickedly sprinkled into a strange brew harbinger of smudged hallucinations, a gothic noir land which is both Beat Happening and Arthur Machen. Graffiti Island’s music sounds like an esoteric chalk message left in a damp concrete wall for the weird kids in the know to decipher, we can’t think of a bigger praise.

Graffiti Island- Head Hunters

Graffiti Island have first 7inch out on House Anxiety Records in February, closely followed by a 7inch on Sex Is Disgusting (big love to Andy & James). They will have numerous other vinyl and casette releases out next year on american and canadian labels too and hopefully an american west coast tour with Male Bonding at some point in the summer.

This 2008 we have been listening to our fair share of Minimal Wave, either directly from the source, as in the excellent comp Des Jeunes Gens Modernes, or via the frozen melodies of true believers such as Blank Dogs or SSPS. French death funk commandoes Cheveu have an element of synthetic compulsion in their glossolalic muddled post-punk golem outbursts, but then there is much more, a shitstorm of styles stitched together with the anarchic feverishness and strobe-like blinding genius of other agents of chaos Sun City Girls, Butthole Surfers or the Fall, no mean feat: if dusty apocalyptic shit is your thing you should definitely step in this joint, and start a fight to Lola Langusta’s discombobulated strutting.

Cheveu- Lola Langusta

And let us finish this retrospective gazing hopeful into the future, who shall be blowing us away in that 2009 whose gnarly claws already slide surreptitiously through a crack in the torax of this moribund year? Many will, indeed. For now we leave you with the warm drone of one Twin Lion, upon whose music we stumbled most serendipituously in the concrete seafront of the Californian Internet. Every single song in the myspace page of this dude is to become, we foresee, a genuine hit in that weirdo discotheque in whose corner we lurk. If you need but a proof listen to the sunkissed bass rumble which kicks off Safest in Bearhugs, total psychedelic romance in a DIY launderette decorated with west cost melodies, Brian Wilson via Panda Bear for a total heart-throb, and a thousand cycles spinning disjointed in a percussive coda which is the loving dubbed-out Motown Nibiru to Liars’ frightful Ahriman.

Twin Lion- Safest in Bearhugs

Twin Lion’s AWESOME POWER cassette will be coming put in Family Time Music early 09. It’s only the beginning.

Epilogue -
This post is tagged with john carpenter optimo prog