A GIRL CALLED SAM

Over the next few days I’ll be posting my 20 favourite songs of the year. Songs are alphabetically ordered and otherwise not ranked.

Amateur Best – ‘Leviathan’

Much as I love Amateur Best’s debut No Thrills there’s no denying it was a bit of a downer, a nebulous concept album about an aspiring DJ that was in actuality an album length examination of depression and mental health. The Gleaners isn’t a complete volte face but generally finds Joe Flory feeling a bit more chipper, never more so than on the truly infectious “Leviathan”. In a series of comics drawn to accompany the record Flory said “If you're feeling a bit shit and you need something to keep you going then you need a mascot to cheer you on. Mine is a unfathomably powerful sea creature that lives inside of me and will never, ever, surrender. That's what ‘Leviathan’ is all about”. The song is just as much fun as that description sounds.

Courtney Barnett – ‘An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York)’

Courtney Barnett has a Malkmusean knack for making the seemingly mundane and nonsensical appear somehow compelling, and although the strength of her tunes certainly plays a big part in this there’s something genuinely captivating about her scattershot approach to songwriting. On a record that sees her debating the benefits of buying organic vegetables and informing us “I much prefer swimming to jogging”, ‘An Illustration of Loneliness’ is one of her more lyrically focused efforts, dealing as the title suggests with a lonely night in a New York hotel, and is a highlight of the excellent Sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

Justin Bieber – ‘Sorry’

On Purpose, Justin Bieber strives for artistic maturity while simultaneously attempting to apologize for his past misdeeds and immaturity. In neither of these goals is he entirely successful, and the former is often hampered by the latter, but when everything clicks it’s clear just how far he has progressed from the likes of ‘U Smile’. Pick of the bunch is the absolutely massive ‘Sorry’, which manages to overcome some admittedly clunky lyrics (“I’m not just trying to get you back on me”, anyone?) by virtue of being so damn catchy.

Deerhunter – ‘Living My Life’

After the visceral thrill of Monomania’s noisy garage rock it’s possible to view Fading Frontier as a bit of a cop out, a regression to the band’s comfort zone and essentially a more accessible update of Halcyon Digest’s dreamy indie-pop; it’s certainly the easiest Deerhunter record to listen to, with songs like the single ‘Breakers’ and closer ‘Carrion’ containing proper singalong choruses most bands would kill for. There’s nothing wrong with a band taking a formula and perfecting it though, and the record’s undoubted highlight ‘Living My Life’ sounds like the purest distillation of the Deerhunter sound as their has ever been.

Dutch Uncles – ‘Be Right Back’

Aside from being one of the best live bands around at the moment, Dutch Uncles continue to create great records and this year’s O Shudder is possibly their best album yet. On a record with many standouts closer ‘Be Right Back’ is the pick of the bunch, a slow burning affair which, with the help of a string section and additional vocals from Stealing Sheep, builds from languid beginnings and lyrics about escalators and fire exits to an anthemic close.

Playlist of songs below (will be updated as each part is posted)

I don't think any record this year has had such an instant impact on me as Wendy did when I first heard it. Visiting Small Wonder's bandcamp after seeing ludicrously monikered emo band The World Is A Beautiful Place And I Am No Longer Afraid To Die post about him on their facebook page, I knew from the moment I first heard Henry Crawford's bruised and tremulous vocal pleading "I'm a weak young thing" on Wendy's opener "Ball Lightning" that this record was something special. The album's seven tracks are often deceptively simple  - "Suddenly, Suddenly" is essentially just two chords - but as in this song's opening couplet of "Watching your father die/4.9 on a scale of 5", the sheer emotional intensity of Crawford's lyrics gives every track an anthemic and cathartic power. Nowhere is this more apparent than on "Until I Open My Wings", a beautiful, fragile piano-led duet that builds to a stunning finale. 

One of my favourite records of 2013, "Human Gain" is probably one of the best 'lo-fi' albums I've come across. The inverted commas are there because listening to the likes of Guy Fawkes and Paid Position it's hard to lump this album in with the work of your standard bedroom producer, Will Vaughan's crystal clear production making this one of the nicest sounding homemade records you'll ever hear. It helps that the songs are great too, varying from the Pavement-esque She's A Waste Of Time to the pop gloss of The Afternoons, while in the exquisite Rabbit Years Vaughan has crafted one of my favourite songs of the year. It's a great album which you should go and buy HERE. DO IT NOW!!

I'm not particularly au fait with all the different genre divisions that make up what is broadly known as 'electronic' music, but I do know that 2013 has been a good year for the genre of music I know as 'sensitive men with synths'. Here's three of my favourite records of 2013 which mixed melancholy with moog.*

Amateur Best - No Thrills

Deptford Goth - Life After Defo

Kwes - ilp.

Despite being an apparently unofficial release, supposedly uploaded to the internet from a stolen laptop (there's some evidence that suggests Jai Paul himself leaked these tracks), Jai Paul's 'album' was one of the years most exciting records. The only official Jai Paul releases remain BTSTU and Jasmine, but if the 16 tracks here are really just the demos for the long-awaited Jai Paul record I can't wait to hear the real thing. You can find the album quite easily if you search for it (I'm not going to directly promote illegal downloads of course), but here's Crush to give you a taste.

<a href="http://trophywifeband.bandcamp.com/album/trophy-wife" data-mce-href="http://trophywifeband.bandcamp.com/album/trophy-wife">TROPHY WIFE by Trophy Wife</a>

If there is one moment on Screaming Maldini’s debut that defines them, it is the quite frankly ludicrous synth break midway through album centrepiece The Albatross. For a moment you can’t quite believe what you’re hearing, a synth line seemingly parachuted in from a completely unrelated song, sounding so hilariously dated that it could have been lifted straight from the Sonic The Hedgehog soundtrack. But for some reason, and don’t ask me how, in the hands of Screaming Maldini it works.

The AGCS Christmas Calendar counts down our 24 favourite tracks of the year.

#1 - Dirty Projectors - Unto Caesar

Here we are at the end of our Christmas Calendar, and at the end of our countdown of the best tracks of 2012. But first a small confession to make; the sequencing of songs on the list, far from being painstakingly, scientifically calculated, was actually pretty arbitrary. SHOCK HORROR! Sure, the tracks are arranged in a loose order, but on the whole I might as well have picked the 24 songs out of a hat to choose the rankings. There was one exception though; there was never any doubt as to what would be #1, because no other song this year has given me anywhere near as much happiness as "Unto Caesar".