#olo worms

So after the taster you had earlier in the week, here it is, the beginning of The Rip's Top 50 Albums of the Year. I know, I know, this is the one you've all been waiting for,  screw Pitchfork's number 1 album, what does a brand new blog think about the last  year, a blog that has thus far not proved itself to have any kind of authority on music? Well, hopefully once the full list is displayed to you in all its splendour and glory, I will have garnered at least a small amount of respect and become your most trusted music source in 2013.

The top 50-41 is released today, with the rest being unveiled over the Christmas period. 

50. Tim Hecker & Daniel Lopatin - Instrumental Tourist

When two of the biggest names in the drone / ambient world came together for a collaborative album, it was always going to be something special. Taking a more improvised approach than the two would usually employ, Instrumental Tourist doesn’t quite reach the heights of their 2011 albums Ravedeath, 1972 and Replica, with tracks sounding like the two are gently sparring rather than a full integration of Hecker’s claustrophobic walls of fog and Lopatin’s warped synths. Nevertheless, it is a rewarding listen and offers a valuable insight into the how two of the present day’s most innovative artists work.

Listen: Tim Hecker and Daniel Lopatin - Intrusions

49. Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror

Where Hecker and Lopatin’s album is one for the mind, Sleigh Bells’ second album is a balls to the wall thrill ride that aims straight for your body. It was my album of choice whenever I wasn’t feeling particularly pumped for the day ahead, and listening to the first single from the album Comeback Kid should be mandatory listening for anyone going through a tough time. Taking more inspiration from 80s power metal than the hip hop of Treats, it’s an album that suggests that the duo may struggle to stretch their sound to a third album, but we should enjoy the sugar rush while we can.

Listen: Sleigh Bells - Comeback Kid

48. The Cribs - In The Belly of the Brazen Bull

Where do The Cribs go after 4 albums of honing and refining their snotty indie sound and the loss of Johnny Marr? Back to basics it would seem is the answer, with In the Belly of the Brazen Bull taking the punk attitude of their earlier albums and combining it with the hooks and choruses that they’ve learnt to use to such effect over the later ones. Come On, Be a No-one is already an indie classic, and without a bad track among the other 13 on the album, ITBOTBB is a perfect synthesis of The Cribs’ sound and cements their position as one of the best British indie bands of the last decade.

Listen: The Cribs - Come On, Be A No-one

47. Shackleton - Music For The Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EPs

An album only matched for length and density by Swans’ The Seer this year, Music For The Quiet Hour / The Drawbar Organ EP is a musical tour de force that clocks in at over two hours. MFTQH is an hour long immersive composition that takes in spoken word discussions of alternate futures, nightmarish drones and a truly wonderful centrepiece in part 4. The Drawbar Organ EP is more fragmented by nature, but no less fascinating, with 10 tracks that explore dub, complex basslines and his most melodic work to date.

Listen: Shackleton - Powerplant

46. Beak> - >>

Geoff Barrow has had a very busy year, working on the hip hop project Quakers and releasing Drokk, a soundtrack album for a film that doesn’t exist. But his real crowning achievement was the second Beak> album, >>, an album that built on the promise of their debut to create an album of exquisite, unsettling krautrocky psychedelia. Highlight Wulfstan II is a brooding, gothic monolith that whilst straightforward in composition, manages to exude a real air of menace, a common thread running through the whole collection, making >> one of the spookiest albums of the year.    

Listen: Beak> - Wulfstan II

45. OLO Worms - Yard Is Open

From a legend of the Bristol scene in the form of Geoff Barrow, to relative newcomers OLO Worms, a band have crafted one of the oddest and most quintessentially English albums of the year in the form of Yard is Open, a collection of tracks that veer from complex synth workouts to straightforward silly little numbers like Eating Every Living Thing, which really should be heard to be believed. Snakes is a beast of track whose rolling synths grow and grow to its climax to show that even when they do something serious, the results are spectacular. It’s too easy to suggest they’re the English Animal Collective, but on this showing it’s a comparison that stands up well.

Listen: OLO Worms - Snake

44. Sharon Van Etten - Tramp

After hearing many good things about Sharon Van Etten in a variety of music publications, I made a special effort to see her perform at Latitude Festival without hearing any of her work, and left disappointed and slightly bored. However, as the year has gone on and this album has slowly seeped into my life, I’ve realised it’s an album that packs a real emotional punch that needs the time take it all in. Covering topics of isolation, loneliness and panic attacks, it is a gorgeous collection of tracks, held together by Sharon’s yearning, plaintive vocals, that will resonate with anyone who has loved and lost.

Listen: Sharon Van Etten - Give Out

43. Holly Herndon - Movement

Holly Herndon’s Movement is an album can initially appear intimidating once you learn Holly’s background and the concept behind the album. Holly is a student at Stanford, studying composition and music technology, and has crafted an album around the concept of blurring the line between human and machine. Whilst there are some truly challenging tracks on the album, such as the avant-garde stop start of Breathe, they are interesting experiments and offer an opportunity to observe some cutting edge academic music composition. These tracks are balanced out by Holly’s love of Berlin club life, represented in the standout track Fade, which has drawn comparisons with The Knife for its cold, glacial feel. 

Listen: Holly Herndon - Fade

42. Breton - Other People's Problems

Some will find Breton’s back story a little difficult to stomach and immediately disregard them as a hipster joke, but if you look beyond the South London squat and the ultra DIY approach to working, you’ll find an album that is completely accessible and most of all fun. It does seem to be an odd album to be released in 2012, that may have been more rapturously received had it emerged in 2007 at the height of the nu-rave movement, but tracks such as Edward the Confessor and Pacemaker offer up choppy, processed beats that are both danceable and weighty.  

Listen: Breton - Edward the Confessor

41. Vessel - Order of Noise

The first producer to release an album from the Bristol crew Young Echo Collective, Vessel’s Order of Noise is an assured debut whose closest reference point this year is Actress’ RIP. Another stellar release on Tri Angle records, it’s an album that brings together dub, techno and industrial noise to create an immerse experience that has a deep sense of agitation running through it. It’s an album you could imagine soundtracking those hours after a night out, trudging home in the rain. Like Actress, it is necessary to put some work in as the listener to uncover the subtleties that Vessel builds into his tracks, but an effort that is very much worthwhile.  

Band Lust

OLO Worms "Strays"

Three years of gestation, and finally the debut OLO Worms album drops. The Bristol innovators have spent what seems an age honing their particularly promethean sound: all bleeps, summer, wooze and psychedelia, but it's catchy shit at heart.

Above is the video for 'Strays', featuring wonderful singer-songwriter Rozi Plain on vocals. Think restless, idiosyncratic psych in the Braids or Animal Collective cadre. The album, 'Yard Is Open', comes out next week on their own OLO Records imprint, and is said to be packed with an extra-special OLO Worms 'annual'.

.... I'm away at the moment so all my spare time's being spent uploading OP's writing to Louder Than War, which is cool but I really wish I had more time to do stuff on here / do reviews for Louder Than War myself.

Off the top of my head I've got all these to write about on here but which aint gonna happen so here's a quick "what i been up to" thing ...

Kylesa
 - Cant fucking remember this night hardly at all. Was I even there? Think so.

Eyehategod
 - Groovy. Big noise. Like, really big.

That Fucking Tank, Poino & Big Joan
 - This rocked huge fucking big time styleeeee. Soon got thru my four spare tshirts (that front room at the croft aint made for sell out, hour long sets by bands who invoke a reaction of bouncing none stop) & had to cycle home with no tshirt on under my coat. Brrr, bit not as Brrr as if I'd had a sodden tshirt on. Much as I keep on telling you Big Joan are Brizzle's best live band atm I think That Fucking Tank pipped them tonight. Sick shit, awesome night, bummer for you if you missed it & all I can do is shrug.

All Day Punk Fest - Not a great event but Pettybone's last ever show was one of the years gig going highlights - absolutely blistering set & totes emosh what wiv it being their last ever show an all. Flipping killed it to buggery & back again. Seriously. Half an hour of mayhem down in the basement of new venue Exchange at 6pm. The day never got going again after that. The Computers were good, they have cool skillz when it comes to entertaining. But the rest of the evening was hey ho. Should maybe gone back to the Fleece where I'd started.

Talisman
 & loads of other twinkly eyed septuagenarian rastafarian GODS all on one stage at the Big Top. Absolutely ace fun, big style skanking. Briz needs more reggae. Awesome evening slightly ruined for my money at the end with a group "hug" singalong of Bob Marley's "One Love". Big Jeff disagreed with me on this one but I was adamant that they should've closed with a team singalong of Talisman's "Dole Age" instead. One Love my fucking arse.

Hardcore Fest - Gnarwolves were fucking class, as were all the other bands. Weird day, saw 16 bands but only knew 3 by name. Coulda done with Jed being there to tell me who they fuck they all were tbh. They spanned the whole cross section of hardcore more or less, not a duff band amongst em I dont think. Ended up face planting a wall at one point when some huge dude next to me got in the way of a lad who was wall bouncing, wherupon huge dude richetted into me & i, in turn, smashed into the wall. Had to go for a little lie down I'm afraid which was a bit lame. Later on my knee got crushed by some other dude, was walking a bit wonky for at least a couple more days after coz of this. I like gigs where I wind up battle scarred. Weird thing was no one other than band members & me arrived till about 8:30 &, like, doors were 3:00. I know it clashed with see no evil but fuck, what's wrong with some people. Priorities dudes, piorities. Gotta be honest, this day pretty much knocked the spots of the Deadpunk bank holiday alldayer imo.


Portico Quartet, Empty Pools & the godawful Scarlet Rascal
 - Crack's third party was a weird one. Still perplexed as to what Geoff B sees in Scarlet Rascal. Is it just me? They are fucking SHIT aren't they? Y'all must know me by now, I never ever hardly ever diss bands as a general rule of thumb but it bugs me a bit when crap gets loads of support & money thrown at em when there's so many much better bands in the city so much more deserving. But then the whole "Geoff B is a god who can never do no wrong" thing has always confused me a bit. Like, enough with the fucking pedestal already yo? I really like him coz he's like a normal but everyone else seems to see him as a flawless demigod. Weird. Empty Pools similar. They too I find kind of normal & am confused at the speed they've become worshipped by, esp, 6music dj's. Portico Quartet were great anyway so that was good at least. Then I went for some fresh air & wasn't allowed back in. Really wanted to see Face & Heel but wasn't allowed back in. "Let me back in" I said to them on the door but I wasn't allowed back in. So I went home to bed.

OLO Worms, Falling Stacks, Sweet Baboo, Ichi


 - Oh, this was a fun night. Cross genre, cross Louisiana & everything. Except not cross the basement. Why no basement gigs at the Louis this year? Falling Stacks were flipping ace even if (or becoz) they wore their big black influence on their sleevies. And Ichi was as much fun & pure entertainment as ever. It's more like you're at a circus when you see him perform, not at a gig. Sweet Baboo was sweet & OLO Worms were as lovillilly bonkers as I was expecting having listened to their album so much prior to the evening.

Hec, I've probably missed other gigs. I shall endeavor to find more time for this in future. I will. (Probably won't). At least I feel a bit caught up now. 

FENCE RECORDS & HOOOPS PRESENT...

DELIFINGER ( http://www.facebook.com/delifinger )

SEAMUS FOGARTY ( http://www.seamusfogarty.com )

*EP & LP LAUNCH COMBO!*

With support from..

THE MIDDLE ONES ( http://www.themiddleones.com )

OLO DJ's ( http://www.oloworms.co.uk )

FRIDAY 20th APRIL 2012 @ CAFE KINO, STOKES CROFT, BRISTOL

7pm - 10.30pm

Tickets are just £5 on the door.

This gig marks the release of the second title in the Fence Records Chart Ruse series – 'Escapes' EP - which is by OLO Worms member, Delifinger. We’re also celebrating the release of Seamus Fogarty‘s debut album, 'God Damn You Mountain' out on Fence Records.

Facebook event HERE.

http://www.fencerecords.com