
To be real for a minute, it’s kind of hard to navigate the ever-blurring lines marking witch house, drag, and plain old sludgy electro. And genre-busters White Ring aren’t making things any easier. Their bone-chilling experiments in sound are shapeshifters—gentle, needling, danceable, and paralyzing could describe the Brooklyn duo at any given moment. Here, Los Campesinos! scrub some bleach on “Suffocation” to make it pretty, but the structural stains remain

When I was first approached by BBC Music to put together a list of albums I think should be nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, I was initially hesitant. First of all because I don’t much care for awards, and if I’m honest, have never paid attention to the Mercury Prize. Secondly, because I hardly ever listen to complete albums these days. I want to be an elitist snob and pretend that I do, but most of my music is absorbed via an iPod on shuffle.

Talk about your unwieldy band names. Getting the right amount of anananana is bad enough, but then there’s the double header of Aykroyd not being the simplest name to spell either. The funny thing is that the music fits the name. If you’d asked me beforehand what I’d think a band called Dananananaykroyd would sound like, I’d go with loud and fast. And that’s exactly what we have.

Photo Illustration by Nick Duncan. Click for hi-res version.
2008 is taking it’s final bow and a what a year it has been. While ‘07 was dominated by a slew of indie rock heavy hitters releasing awesome albums (Spoon, Of Montreal, Arcade Fire, Wilco, Radiohead) this is a year where new talent seems to be garnering the most attention. For me at least, this has been a very good thing with 1/5th of my favorite albums this year being debuts and just as many being sophomore releases. This isn’t to say that old favorites didn’t deliver this year as well, as a number of albums on this list are from bands that I’ve listened to and loved for years.

When I saw Los Campesinos! at the Paradise a few months ago, singers Gareth and Aleksandra walked right past me, and I remember thinking “how can they let those children in here!” Like the excellent Eastern Lane, or The Wombats (who recently passed through TTs), Los Campesinos! show us that the young have taken over (again).
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