posts

I asked:

2025 might be a tough year, but I am going to try and blog every day. It means that now and then I might be writing a post like this one, where I am writing for the sake of continuing the streak. If I find myself doing that too often then I will take the hint and stop trying!

Bolis Pupul (the stage name of Boris Zeebroek) is an artist on Soulwax’s Deewee label. “Letter to Yu” is his debut album, inspired by a trip to Hong Kong to investigate his family history. It investigates themes of place, family, and identity. We are exposed to everywhere all at once but we’re also all from somewhere, even if it’s somewhere we might not recommend or understand.

“Tiger’s Blood” is a glorious bundle of songs that writhe with brains and heart, with love and friendship, and many other complements and opposites. The music is mostly alternative AOR with a distinct country twang. The lyrics were pretty impenetrable to me, at least until I looked them up online (and they’re also on the back of the poster that came with the LP), but they’re mostly songs of hope and happiness. It was satisfying to listen to an album this care-free, even if there is a hint of darker times in the background.

Acopia are a band from Melbourne Australia with that time honoured line up of one girl and two guys. This eponymous album is their second and it’s full of slinky electronic ballads that echo classic 90s trip hop. It’s got that same downtempo downbeat vibe, the sorts of songs that revel in sadness but also the joy of a killer bass line.

One album that’s lurking in the periphery of my understated classics series is “Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You” by Big Thief. “Bright Future” is the latest solo album by Big Thief singer-songwriter Adrianne Lenker and it is just as good. Intimate and intricate, it draws the listener in as Adrianne sings live with a very small band. At times you can hear breaths drawn and the sound feels like a small space that you are cocooned in: this could be sound engineering (spatial audio would have us believe anything is possible) but it’s most likely equipment set up intelligently in a cosy studio.

It’s interesting that an album sung entirely in Italian ended up being one of my favourites of the year, but perhaps not surprising given well written and arranged these songs are. They’re just the right side of electro-pop but also with an air of sophistication.

What do you think of when you think of the colour blue? The sea? Perhaps the sky? Maybe it makes you think of blue stones like sapphires, or flowers such as forget-me-nots? Maybe the colour blue is the glow of a phone screen on someone’s face (maybe yours) in the dark? Blue gathers at the edges of the harsh white LED light that has come to dominate our night time existence.

I don’t know very much about MGMT these days. I haven’t read any interviews about their albums. The video to the single “Nothing to Declare” was brought to my attention by the YouTube channel Justin Hawkins Rides Again. In it he points out how melodically interesting the song is. To be honest I was more than a little bit in love with the video.

Nonetheless is the fifteenth album by the Pet Shop Boys. As seems to be a common theme with this top 10 so far, it’s an album that initially underwhelmed me. Well, perhaps “underwhelmed” is a little unfair, it was more that it didn’t seem to have much to it to distinguish it from their previous albums, and there have been some palpable duds in the previous fourteen.

The first time I listened to this album, I was still off work sick with Covid, but well enough to go out for a walk on what was too hot a day to stay inside the house. I remember it well, recovering from illness does tend to make these things more vivid, but more because I thought it was brilliant, but all out of order. I was, of course, completely wrong.

Yard Act are a post-punk band from Leeds. “Where’s My Utopia?” is their second album. I first encountered Yard Act in a review of this album, which sent me to look at the excellent video to their non-album single “The Trenchcoat Museum”. I enjoyed the metatextual references both in the video and the song, so I eagerly added “Where’s My Utopia?” to my library.