Chimpomatic

It's been a crazy old year 2009, not quite the end of the modern world as predicted from the rubble of 2008 but strange nonetheless. And what better soundtrack for utter misery than the New Jersey new boys Titus Andronicus who stole the show for me early on this year. Heavyweights Sonic Youth returned with the solid The Eternal and Doves continued ....read more

Having produced one of the most intense and energy draining albums of 2008, Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power return with a much more user-friendly take on their drone headache and one of the most succinctly perfect dance records I've heard for a good while. Street Horrrising had its fair share of melody and pop sensibility, but that's before a t ....read more

Deerhunter's Bradford Cox continues his creatively lucrative side project with a stunning followup to 2007's Let The Blind Lead Those Who Cannot Feel. Adopting a more introspective addition to day job's astral soundscapes Let The Blind was conceived from the loneliness of a hospital bed and emanated as a whisper from the cracks of Deerhunter's wall ....read more

This debut album from San Francisco duo Girls is so subtly engaging, so quietly addictive that it's virtually impossible to pinpoint exactly when, during the listening process, you fell in love or remember your life without this sound in it. It is the work of frontman Christopher Owens and Chet White and though it comprises twelve startlingly simpl ....read more

Since No Age's exceptional second record Nouns the DIY punk scene has gone mental with a new band emerging every week and if these four songs are any kind of prediction as to Dean and Randy's musical gravitation it looks like their letting everyone else get on with what they started and embracing a more subtle sound with guitar loops and buried voc ....read more

The progression that occurred between this Californian bands first installment and 2008's All We Could Do Was Sing hinted at a road that could take them to the momentous heights of Arcade Fire. Sounding like a raggedy relative of the Canadians they shone with effortless grandeur and lifted their sound way beyond their acoustic starting point to one ....read more

As much as I love this band and would see them play at every given opportunity, there really is no need to make me feel so damn old. Perched high up on the balcony so as not to spill my drink I watched with horror as kid after kid threw themselves willingly into the surging crowd from the edge of the stage and was then tossed around like a limp sea ....read more

Oh boy did I need Kurt Vile in my life. This second album couldn't have landed at a better time. With the beleaguered lo-fi scene experiencing something of a wind-down, Childish Prodigy stands proud as a more muscular sound but one that still maintains the ethos of the DIY scene. You couldn't really call this lo-fi with production as tight as ....read more

I recently invested in a new pair of ear phones. I figured, hey I spend most of my waking time listening to music so why settle for substandard equipment. I was bored of getting half the story, I wanted to hear everything that was intended in a song, I wanted to hear the drummer clearing his throat, I wanted to hear the singer thinking about cleari ....read more

It was relatively late in coming, but the praise that followed Justin Vernon's debut Bon Iver project was unprecedented and warranted. The critics aren't messing about with this new side project featuring Vernon alongside fellow Wisconsinites Collections of Colonies Of Bees - and there has been much frenzied chatter about Unmap for a while now. Whi ....read more

You'd be hard pushed to find a 'best of' list in 2008 that didn't feature this Brooklyn trio's eponymous self titled debut and so the expectation for the followup must have been something of an issue to overcome after such blanket praise. With it's raw punk riffs and flattend-out off-the-cuff-vocals it dazzled with immediacy, excitement and spontan ....read more

Over the years Ray Raposa has trodden much ground with his Castanets. With Cathedral, their 2004 debut for Asthmatic Kitty, Raposa's country roots were laced with noise and free-jazz haze-outs, while 2007's In The Vines welcomed in the warmth with its glistening lap-steel moments. 2008 saw the release of City Of Refuge which increased this warmth t ....read more

The world of DIY noise-pop is a different place now than when we last heard from Ohio trio Times New Viking. In 2008 their Matador debut Rip It Off gate crashed the scene and sounded like a major malfunction in the recording room with red lined production drenching what sounded like good pop songs. It arrived with due critical acclaim but now seems ....read more