My Top 10 LPs of 2008:
Andrew Liles & Daniel Menche -The Progeny of Flies
best album ever made about the life-cycle of small winged insects… Liles is also heavily involved in the ongoing C93 reissue program – his remix of Nature Unveiled is well worth hearing…
Current 93 – Birth Canal Blues
the End is nigh, apparently – but hopefully not before the release of the next album…
Death In June – ‘Black Angel – Live!’
DIJ’s Greatest Hits, unplugged… ‘Symbols of the Sun’, my favourite song of the year, was on this recording, probably my favourite album of the year…
Death In June – The Rule of Thirds
Douglas P confronts mortality on this elegiac album of pared-down acoustic songs…
Down In June – Covers… Death In June
sort of like the Cardigans do Joy Division – love me love me, say that you love me, you wolf-grey Adonis, you…
Various Artists – Auteur Labels: Les Disques du Crepuscule 1980-1984
this Belgian label ruled amongst black polo-neck-wearing youth in the early 1980s – here’s all the best stuff on a single disc…
Various Artists – John Barleycorn Reborn: Dark Britannica
era-defining collection of wyrd folk from around the British Isles…
Various Artists – We Rise Above
superb introduction to new Russian netlabel Lomeanor, specialising in neofolk, neoclassical and dark ambient…
Various Artists – Where Tattered Clouds Are Stranding
terrific double-disc compilation of neofolk and dark ambient from around Europe…
Various Artists – Wilde Jaeger
subtitled Alpine Myths and Masked Rites, this was a bizarre collection of neofolk, black metal and dark ambient, with superb sleeve/booklet photography… and you thought Austria was all Klimt and Wiener schnitzel…
Most played album which wasn’t a new release: Various Artists – Ultra-Lounge vol 1: Mondo Exotica
Martin Denny, Les Baxter et al transported me back to the space-age optimism of the 1950s…
Best TV show: Fringe
The X-Files upgraded and redefined for the 00s – and one of the leads is a statuesque Melburnian…
Best film: Australia
Big, bold, brash and populist – but enough about me… this might be the most important Australian film of the 00s – and very interesting to witness the ongoing spat over its merits between academics in the Australian press…
Best book: Drew Daniels – 20 Jazz Funk Greats
One half of Matmos writes a brilliant book about TG’s most poptastic LP – all music journalism should be this good…
Best live performance: Patti Smith & Philip Glass, Melbourne, Oct 2008
Smith, Glass and Lenny Kaye rocked the house in a tribute to Allen Ginsberg…
Favourite Australian public moment: PM Kevin Rudd says “Sorry”
Best tram ticket: the one with the Medieval Imagination design
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Comments (1)
23 lizards eating each other February 16, 2009
DO WANT ‘The Progeny of Flies’.
Liles is an awesome musician.
I’ve no idea why he is less known than Current 93, Tony Wakeford or Nurse With Wound.