2011 in Music - Albums - Part 2

I was planning to do the '2011 in EPs and mini-albums' section before this but that has (once again) proved more complicated.  This, which is not a second-string selection of albums, hasn't been much better and actually more difficult that the first because I have, in order to limit to a dozen, been forced to be even more ruthless.
Here it is, again in alphabetical order by act/artist and (for now) without further comment:

• Alessi's Ark - Time Travel
• Black Keys - El Camino
• Demdike Stare - Tryptych
• Eilen Jewell - Queen of the Minor Key
• Gill Sandell - Tarry Awhile
• Jackie Oates - Saturnine
• Joy Formidable - The Big Roar
• Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - Smoking In Heaven
• Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't Know
• Low Anthem - Smart Flesh
• Naked and Famous - Passive Me, Aggressive You
• Veronica Falls - Veronica Falls

I might attempt the aforementioned '2011 in EPs and mini-albums' this evening. I have also introduced a new rule for these lists - although I don't think that even retrospectively I have actually violated it - and that is the the same act/artist combination cannot appear in more than one list in a given year with the exception being the 'Live List', if I ever get around to posting one.

Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - Smoking In Heaven

This is an outfit almost as far removed from the 'major label music industry' as it is possible to get. Three siblings, in their early twenties at most, on a mission to subvert the perceived digital obsession of their peers. Not just in a superficial way but from start to finish - one that not inappropriately has an almost religious fervour.
  
Their first true album, the eponymous 'Kitty, Daisy and Lewis', was released on the label 'Sunday Best' in 2008 and consisted mostly of covers that would have seemed quite straightforward in 1958, if not before. Therein lies the catch, and the total deceit, for not only was the music old-fashioned it was entirely performed, recorded and mastered on collected and restored valve-driven analogue equipment of that era. Lewis is the retro-electronic wizard behind most of that part of the endeavour. The result did not meet with critical approval all round; sometimes because it was mostly covers, also because the equipment produces a sound that is to most now rather unfamiliar and because not many artists sing this way any more.
I bought it (on CD, which was a misjudgement of a criminal nature) and yet it was certainly interesting and, once I got used to the sound and styling, really quite appealing. The issue came to a head at Latitude 2010, late on Thursday evening or perhaps early Friday morning, in the Music & Film Tent when, as part of a 'Blues Brothers'-themed film-dance-music performance they were doing some of the live music part. This is, unfortunately, the only half-worthwhile picture I have.  The poor photo is entirely my fault. For some reason I always get off to a bad start.

  Kitty and Daisy a capella at Latitude 2010.

While 'Smoking In Heaven' will do nothing to spoil the bliss in analogue heaven it certainly does address the other critical point; this is all their own new material, new in a relativistic sense. 

Released on May 30 by 'Sunday Best' it will be available on two vinyl formats: 2 x 12" 33 rpm LP, a collectors' edition of 6 x 10" 78 rpm and also on CD. I have no way of playing 78 rpm, and in any case it is a very costly package, but given my earlier comment I shall be certainly be taking the 12" micro-groove option on this one!

Rarely, if ever, has Kentish Town seemed this far south!

Not least @ Latitude - Part 1 - Yuck

To be honest this is not before time. I alluded, in my last post, that the real virtue of Latitude lies in the acts less well known.  Now it is time to give those that I saw a bit of the attention that they so richly deserve. In 2009 I was rather disappointed by the Lake Stage and I said as much. This year it was transformed, without the BBC Introducing branding, but with Huw Stephens still at the helm. To say that it was much better in 2010 would be nothing other than litotes. I don't think, in my four visits to Latitude, I have ever spent so much time there and it certainly wasn't wasted!

I can only remember one act that I saw on that stage last year. That however was a memorable one that has since gone on to greater things - it was Marina and The Diamonds. The first act I saw at Latitude 2009, on the Thursday evening in the Film and Music Tent, was 'Smoke Fairies'. This year, in the same venue, it was Kitty, Daisy and Lewis and given the performance and the reception it garnered it will be interesting to revisit this post a year from now.

As a result of unavoidable scheduling conflict there was no way that I could see all the acts on my list, and I knew this would be the case.

I'm proud of those that I did see and it has nothing to do with my efforts. I just put myself there and they did all that could be asked and then more!

I mentioned here before that I wanted to see them live: I did and so here is Yuck live at Latitude on Saturday afternoon. With a name this good how could I possibly resist the temptation even if the band were rubbish?  The thing is you can't and they aren't!

Yuck live on the Lake Stage on Saturday: likely not the last we'll hear of them I might add.