MAPSADAISICAL’S TOP LIVE EVENTS OF 2010

 

 

 

I went to just under a hundred gigs or festivals last year. You may well have seen me, the scruffy bearded fella down the front with notebook and camera. Quite a number of those hundred, as you can probably remember, were at London’s Cafe Oto. The impact that Cafe Oto has had on London’s live music scene continues to be immense – it has become a home from home for me, to the extent that they even finally gave in and let me put on a couple of nights there with the rest of the Otobahn posse (sadly for the likes of Konntinent and Regolith, I’m disqualifying those events on the grounds of possible, indeed likely, bias). If there was an award for venue of the year, I’d clearly be handing it to Hamish, John and the rest of the Cafe Oto team, along with my huge thanks for the efforts they have put in to the programming and running of those events. Inevitably, they also figure in the list below, a list which was actually as hard to pull together as the albums list was last week. These truly are great times for live music in London (and, although it is hard to imagine that these places exist, beyond). I’ll see you in the front row some time in 2011, no doubt.

Sohrab, A Hidden Place (Touch)

The latest artist signed to Touch is an unquiet heart from Tehran named Sohrab. Touch say that he is “like so many, displaced within his own country and occupies a similar internal cultural isolation”. The whole issue of his displacement inevitably takes on more significance when you hear his debut release. I’ve written about it over at The Liminal.

The Liminal’s Labels of 2010

I’ve probably tried everything bar doing it by the colour of the sleeve, but I currently arrange my LPs by record label. Admittedly, if someone put a gun to my head and demanded that I locate every LP by every member of Emeralds currently in my possession, I might have a problem, but I’m banking on that being a highly unlikely thing to happen. So many labels have such a strong ethos, from the sort of music they release through to sleeve design, that to an extent that these labels feel like a canon of work, as much as the cumulative catalogue of any individual artist could. I would no more separate my Olde English Spelling Bee LPs than I would split up my Impulse jazz LPs, for example. Over at The Liminal I (with help from the rest of the team) celebrate those labels, those curators, who have done so much to shape our record collections in 2010.

MAPSADAISICAL’S TOP 20 ALBUMS OF 2010

Is it that time already? It seems like only twelve months ago that I was assembling my favourite albums of 2009 into some sort of order, for reasons which always seem to escape me. This doesn’t get any easier, especially when so many labels have been keeping such a strong curatorial hand on the tiller – the likes of Type, Important, Touch, Thrill Jockey, Pan, Olde English Spelling Bee, Tompkins Square, Not Not Fun, Room40, and Honest Jons have all had years to remember, even if it seems a little hazy already from my point of view. Maybe I’m just getting a little misty-eyed now. For on both a musical, and a personal level, 2010 has been a pretty special year. Thanks to all those friends, tweeters, and readers for making it so, as well as to all those in the exhausting roll call below (you can also see the collective wisdom of The Liminal team over here).

The Liminal: A Spotify playlist

The good people over at The Quietus asked us to put together a playlist to gently introduce people to The Liminal. After a long day scratching around in Spotify’s darkest and grubbiest recesses, we’ve come up with this. Enjoy.

Machinefabriek – a year-end round-up

Have I actually written about any Machinefabriek releases this year? He is having a relatively quiet year, I guess. According to Discogs he has only had 14 releases this year, including CDs, cassettes, and the format he has done most to single-handedly keep alive, the 3″ CD. To put that figure into context, there were 21 in 2007. I discuss four of the most recent ones over at The Liminal.

The Tapeworm Unleashed In the East, Cafe Oto, 9/12/10

My review of The Tapeworm label’s Unleashed In The East event, featuring Philip Jeck, Randy Gibson, Cathi Unsworth and more, is now up over at The Liminal.

gLASSsHRIMP radio show 30th November 2010, including live session from Clang Sayne

This has taken a little longer than planned, but I’m now delighted to be able to listen back to the excellent Clang Sayne session from last week’s radio show. You can too, obviously. There were also some rather choice records on that show, if I do say so myself.

ATP’s Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Butlins Minehead, 3-5/12/10

As bands were being added to the bill of Godspeed You Black Emperor’s Nightmare Before Christmas, I began to forget who was actually curating this festival. Was it Godspeed? Was it The Wire magazine? Was it The Liminal, where you can read the rest of my review and see some of my photos?

The Liminal: Peripheral Visions

The Liminal is no longer dancing on the very edge of perception. It is over there, look. A significant amount of my “work” will be featured over there from now on, so do grab the RSS, follow it on Twitter, like it on Facebook, or whatever method suits you best.