This Diary Isn’t For You - (12 x) 12" Of Pleasure

[Jimmy Dread]

So it's March now and there's still virtually bugger all that's been released this year I genuinely give a frig about. My nascent 2016 chart consists of precisely 6 entries, and even then two of them I'm thinking of ditching. Fair enough, I still haven't heard the new Ginnels split LP which I'm sure would make it in with little effort, but nothing's really done anything for me at all this year. That is, apart from this:

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Up To Anything by The Goon Sax

In which 3 Brisbane teenagers decide to rip off early Go-Betweens, Big Star and Modern Lovers in one fell swoop and make perhaps one of the best indie-pop kitchen sink LPs in many a year. In fact, it might be one of the best records of the ilk I've heard since A Country Life. Shot through with just enough amateurism to appeal to these duff old ears, but with a bravado which takes it beyond the average 6th form indie bollocks that plagues many a Camden pub. At times brutally sad (Sweaty Hands in particular, which sounds like some Marine Girls lyrics set to a Minutemen track) with the standard indie motifs of unrequited love (Susan - ironically the name of a girl all my mates thought I fancied but she smelt of chips - being a prime example), part-time jobs (Target) and getting your hair cut (Home Haircuts, which contains the immortal epithet: "I go to the barber to get shawn / and I leave looking nothing like Shane Warne"), what could otherwise be an indie-angst-by-numbers record (Making The Worst is as close as it gets to that) instead ends up being a teenage tour de force, which could well see (as with 2015) my favourite record of the year being made by a band young enough to be a bunch of noWaxJnrs (I'd be their manager if that was the case, natch).

Listen to the whole lot here. Patman and the good Lady G will love it, Norm might appreciate it given his love of the Verlaines (in fact anyone who has a penchant for Flying Nun stuff should give it a spin), and it might not be twee enough for twee-fu Tom but he'll certainly get a giggle out of it. People who loved the Courtney Barrett LP from last year may dig it too (but start with Anyone Else and go from there). I'll leave the rest of you to your trap beats (whatever they are) and the latest Kenny Lemarr 'record'.

KEY PICKS - Up To Anything, Sweaty Hands, Susan, Maggie.
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[Patman360]

Cheers for the heads up! Tried to give it a stream earlier but I'm travelling along the west of Ireland so I lost internet after the first track and it hasn't loaded since, judging by the start though I'm sure it'll be a cracker once I get my hands on it fully!
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2023
2022

[Jimmy Dread]

[Norman Bates]

[Norman Bates]

[Jimmy Dread]

After a right old slow start to the year I'm starting to discover some records which are really making my fuzzy old ears prick up and take notice. As well as a soon-to-be-released debut EP by an(other) Aussie band called Loose Tooth which looks extremely promising (check their bandcamp), I've been spending a large part of Easter Sunday bopping along to this...

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Maple Key by Le Super Homard

A 3-piece band comprising of 2 French brothers and an English chanteuse, they sound like a heavenly cross between Saint Etienne, Stereolab c. Emperor Tomato Ketchup (although somewhat more kitsch - perhaps even Free Design-esque) and early Broadcast. There's a definite nod to 60s Gallic pop, some baroque electronica and even - in stand-out track "Dry Salt In Our Hair" - a doff of the beret to the kind of indie-pop bands that wouldn't sound out of place on Elefant Records. It's only an 8-track, 20-odd minute affair, but it's crammed full of enough wonky Farfisa Compact solos, soft psych journeys into fields filled with paper kaleidoscopes and trips to the moon in multi-coloured bouncy bubbles like the ones you would have seen on the set of The Prisoner to turn on anyone similarly inclined.

Stream the whole blinking lot HERE
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[Norman Bates]

[Jimmy Dread]

I'M ON A ROUNDABOUT! I'M ON A ROUNDABOUT!!

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Snack Fans by Dog Chocolate

Picked this LP up earlier in the week from Rough Trade, Nottingham after literally hearing it the day before via a leak, then on repeat whilst driving up the M1. It is a fucking hoot from start to finish. Stylistically, it's a cross between Mclusky and Danananakroyd with what sounds like the guy from Art Brut on vocals. Now that may not mean anything to the 2 or 3 people who may end up reading this. Frankly, I couldn't give two shits. Call it Math Rock meets Noise Rock if you want to pigeonhole it. Fact is - the album is funny as fuck. Especially tracks such as Con Air where whoever the vocalist is remembers sneaking into seeing the Nick Cage flick when underage and swears a little bit before shouting his head off. It's over in less than 60 seconds. Elsewhere you'd got Roundabout, which more likely than not is about Hemel Hempstead; lead 'single' (like that would ever happen) Plastic Canoe in which the many benefits of having "cable ties! gaffa! and all purpose glue!" to hold this fella's boat together (sample lyric - "plastic itself is an incredible material! It's made from a rotational moulding process using polyethelene granules") belie the fact that all he does is sit in his raft and admire the rigidity of what it's made of; and Be A Bloody River which sounds like a massive Mclusky/FotL rip-off.

Suffice it to say the whole LP - clocking in at just under 30 minutes - is a riot from start to finish and if you don't like it then I'll kick yrrrr teeth in.
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[Grzywa]

[Jimmy Dread]

Hello. As you may not be aware, I have been learning the steel pan for some time now. This fascination was started during a holiday in Barbados, was fuelled by listening to the busker whilst casually walking down Portobello Road one Sunday morning (just past the covered market near Honest Jon's - this fella's always there) and extended thanks to Satie's PM he sent me just before he parted these shores to check out Steel 'An Skin's Reggae Is Here Once Again (great LP - well worth a spin). And now after listening to the below umpteen times in the last 72 hours it's reached its zenith with this ABSOLUTE stonker of a record, undoubtedly one of my personal highlights of 2016 thus far:

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55 by Bacao Rhythm & Steel Band

In which a mysterious German outfit (think Boney M, but like 100 times more 'hip') decide to combine classic Caribbean steel pan with some of the hardest 70s funk grooves in decades. The LP's a mix of funk standards and originals, with the covers varied and tighter than a Scotman's wallet (Jungle Fever, Tender Trap, Love Like This, John Holt's Police In Helicopter, and somewhat inexplicably a rather natty version of 50 Cent's P.I.M.P.). The originals, in the main named after Trinidadian roads or locations (Laventille Road March, Beetham Highway Ride, Port Of Spain Hustle) are equally as good, with the funk at the forefront and the steel pan buried in the middle of the mix so it doesn't overawe the grooves. And what funkin' grooves they are: a funky reggae party if you will, and nowhere is this more apparent than on Tropical Heat, which has the vibe so spot on it almost seems rude not to have some rum punch whilst listening. And if there were ever a 70s-style cop shop with a Dread Detective (in fact that's not a bad name for the show - I'll get to work on a pilot) then Dog Was A Doughnut wouldn't be a bad theme tune. But don't let the Caribbean overtones sway you into thinking this record is exclusively for JA skanks like me - it quite simply is one of the best funk LPs of the 21st century. Period. As they say.

What we're left with then is nothing short of a steel pan equivalent of the Incredible Bongo Band for the 2010s, and anyone who loves their version of Apache will lap this up. I'm looking the funky bone brigade especially here - Gabe, Norm, Joy, Pa - who I think will dig it and are all invited to my debut performance on this year's noWaxSoundSystem float at the Notting Hill Carnival. Have a hunch Gowi might dig it too.

PICKS - Laventille Road March, Bacao Suave, Jungle Fever, Tender Trap, Port Of Spain Hustle
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