Mix CD #41 - Top Albums Of 2018

Happy December folks!

For a true Music Nerd, December is a special, treasured time of year, nothing to do with either Jesus, Santa or family, oh no. December, the final Month of the year, is the time when we finally get to wave aloft our carefully crafted AOTY lists in a pompous statement of "The Music I Like Is Superior To The Music You Like" belligerence.

So then, here's my own pompous, belligerent list for you to coo appreciatively at. For a year that started out slow, it picked up pace considerably and there ended up being an absolute ton of albums this year. So much so that I had to extend my usual Top 20 to a Top 40 and there was still a lot of albums I was sad to see knocked out of the list. I could have easily done a Top 60 but you'd have got bored scrolling long before halfway.
It's been a particularly good year for Extreme Metal with more albums of that ilk than ever before appearing in my list, pretty high too. I don't know if it's just been a really good year for super heavy stuff or if my personal tastes have just changed a bit? 

For the first time this blog is a double and, as such, I've split it up into two halves so that it's easier to download.
I've also included a Spotify playlist for those that want it. I had to make a couple of minor changes due to availability but nothing that's going to ruin your day.

Like previous years, I've hidden the tracklisting of the mix(es) at the end to avoid spoilers, such as they are. 
The albums are below in reverse order, I hope there's some you agree with and/or some you'll want to check out afterwards.

I guess that's enough waffle, so long for 2018 and I'll hopefully see you all in January! 

Cheers,
Luke
x

You can download Part 1 HERE
You can download Part 2 HERE

You can listen on Spotify HERE

Attention Please Radio (my guest appearance)

My friend and former colleague, Eddie Carter gets mentioned fairly regularly in this blog, either as a reviewer at All The Time I Was Listening To My Own Wall Of Sound or as host of, the Alternative Music radio show, Attention Please on ne1fm, a station localised in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in the North of England. I've been picking a record of the week on that show (a segment cunningly titled the Dunmore Record Of The Week) for a few months now.

Me (L) and Eddie (R)

We've often talked about it but a few weeks ago we finally got organised and recorded a show together. I've picked all but one of the tracks and chatted about each in between. It was a lot of fun to do and I'm pretty happy with the songs I chose.

It aired last night (Monday, 3rd Dec) but it's now uploaded onto Mixcloud so you can listen to it whenever you want, if you want. The songs played are listed below.

The intro song (Gloooorious!) plays under the first bit of chat and is pretty distracting but it's gone by Haken starts. You get to hear my mumbling, Yorkshire drone just fine after that.

Also, I forgot a few album titles, for which I apologise profusely. I'm an old man.


Listen to the Mixcloud stream HERE


Songs
Haken - The Architect
The Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets - Strange
Clutch - What Would A Wookiee Do?
The Cog Is Dead - Blood, Sweat & Tears
(One Band Double Feature)
Toehider - Go Full Bore
Toehider - Old, Old, Old
(80's Spectacular)
Robert Palmer - Johnny & Mary
The Regrettes - Red Light
Polkadot Cadaver - Last Call In Jonestown
Dog Fashion Disco - Magical Band Of Fools
Regurgitator - Crush The Losers
Kick Joneses - Battered And Bruised
(Eddie's Record Of The Week)
Antarctigo Vespucci - Freakin' U Out
The Boy Least Likely To - A Balloon On A Broken String
(Under The Cover)
The Baseballs - Chasing Cars
The Wildhearts - The Miles Away Girl
Agnès Milewski - Lucid Dream
Frontierer - Glitcher
The Gourds - The Way You Can Get
Muscle Tribe Of Danger And Excellence - Old School Blood Trial
Within Temptation - Faster
King's X - Fly

Mix CD #40 - My Slumbering Heart

Following the editing calamity last time, where I deleted half of what I'd already written, I was extra careful while writing the blog this time around. Not careful enough, it seems. I'd almost finished, just had the last couple of bands to type out, tried to delete one little typo and accidentally deleted the entire entry instead. Autosave kicked in instantly and I said some really quite bad words. 

I guess in the end it's worked out better as I've swapped a few things about and included a couple of songs that I hadn't in the previous draft too. Good songs.

Once again there's no theme, some new releases, some from old, revisited CDs and some miscellaneous shit. 

There's also quite a few from albums that are Free Download/Name Your Price on Bandcamp (Astronoid, Retirement Party, Cybernetic Witch Party, Sad Hill plus others) this month. I'd like to name my price as more than nothing on more occasions than I currently do but my money gets sucked away into other, more mundane things so, for now, I'll just have to listen to free stuff and feel a bit guilty about it.

Anyway, there's a ton of really great songs (in my opinion) on the mix this month so I hope you listen to/enjoy it.

Cheers

Luke

x

Tracklisting

Rilo Kiley - My Slumbering Heart

Hedshel - Drown You

Just Friends - Supersonic

T.S.O.L - Satellites

Beachbuggy - Touch My Stuff (You Can Die)

Astronoid - Up And Atom

Driven Serious - Ballad Of Bones

Janus Stark - Clique

A Sound Of Thunder - Charles II

Gama Bomb - Alt-Reich

Mitski - Washing Machine Heart

Thunderhead - Make It Hard

Sad Hill - Heart Attack

Black Mirrors - Lay My Burden Down

26 Miles Per Hour - Bullet Proof

Froglick - Skippy

Retirement Party - Are You My Mother?

Cybernetic Witch Cult - Sagittarius A*

Ty Tabor - Somebody Lied

Hugh Reed & The Velvet Underpants - Car Nicked

Alice Donut - The Son Of A Disgruntled X-Postal Worker Reflects On His Life While Getting Stoned In The Parking Lot Of A Winn Dixie LIstening To Metallica

You can download the mix HERE and read my ramblings below. Ta

Mix CD #39 - Kid In The 80's

And lo! They all did bear witness to the eventual arrival of a new and shining blog. As one they gazed upon its wonder and saw that it was the thirty ninth of it's kind, throughout its majesty lay a partial theme of sorts.

Yeah, this is the 39th mix, that's a bit late due to me losing a goodly portion of what I'd written due to the fecking up of Chrome not once but twice. It's not a themed mix, just the usual 'Here are some good songs, look!" Some of the songs are connected though and I shall now unfold the uninteresting tale of how so.

I love the photo I've used this month (just look at the mind-blowing joy on that kid's face! Also, I had pretty much all of that Star Wars stuff and it was ace) and the Mrs. Fletcher song seemed to fit it perfectly, so I stuck them together and here we are. The partial theme comes from the fact that I also had a few other songs waiting for inclusion that had geeky song matter, song titles or band names so I bunged a few of them into the mix as well. I did toy with the idea of doing a wholly Nerd based mix but there were other songs I really wanted people to hear so I abandoned that for now.

I hope you enjoy the songs, feel free to read what I've said about them and keep yourself alright,

Cheers,
Luke
x

Tracklisting
Mrs. Fletcher - Kid In The 80's
Adam West - We've Got Cake
Killing Heidi - Mascara
Thrashist Regime - Headshot
Kiefer Sutherland - All She Wrote
Edna's Goldfish - Trace Your Steps
Dreadnought - Transpiration
Thundering Asteroids! - I've Got A Thing For The Goblin King
30 Amp Fuse - Over The Hill
Bleachers - Like A River Runs
Sick Shit - Trichotillomania
Soup Or Villainz - I Can Teach You Magic
Which Witch Is Which - You Get What Anybody Gets
Morpheus Rising - Touch The Sky
Mudshark - It Won't Shine
Cloud Cult - Everything You Thought You Had
Amyl And The Sniffers - I'm Not A Loser
Tricklebolt - 1996
Bloods - Best Friend
Patterns Of Decay - Tricksy Hobbitses
Pence Eleven - Miss End Of The World

Let THE MUSIC flow through you, young Jedi

Mix CD #38 - I Keep Myself To Myself

Good Heavens, I'm on time with a blog update!

I'm sure you've been sat in the dark, incessantly clicking refresh for the last couple of weeks, awaiting yet another masterpiece. Well, here it is, the 38th masterpiece. There's a mix of new releases that I've been enjoying and older stuff that I have also been enjoying. Again, there are about a half dozen songs from CDs I rediscovered rummaging through storage crates in the attic, Stony Sleep, Soul Coughing, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and a couple of others It's been a slog, copying thousands of albums to iTunes but it's been fun too.

Have a read, have a listen and I hope you find something new/good.

Tracklisting
The Boy Least Likely To - I Keep Myself To Myself
These Wicked Rivers - Testify
War On Women - Divisive Shit
Street Dogs - Lest We Forget
Soul Coughing - Soundtrack To Mary
The Voluptuous Horror Of Karen Black - The Teather Penumbra
Twin Atlantic - I Am Alive
Sojourner - Homeward
The Crocketts - On Something
Smack Mammoth - Loner
Ophidius - Discerning The Transmundane
The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band - Beautiful Zelda
Stony Sleep - I Only Love You For Your Saville Row Boxer Shorts
My Indigo - Lesson Learned
The Mark Of Cain - Call In Anger
Witch Fever - Toothless
Troldhaugen - It's Morphine Time
DNF - 3rd Degree Bernie Mac
The Winter Hill Transmission - Satellites
Sonseed - Jesus Is A Friend Of Mine

You can download the mix right HERE if you want.

Mix CD #37 - Earn Your Stripes

For the last few years, since I moved house, the majority of my CDs have been kept in crates in the attic. I had the albums I wanted at the time ripped to iTunes and never bothered with the discs after that. Over the last 4-5 weeks, I've been tidying up there, restacking stuff and going through all the crates of CDs, a lot of which it's been 10-15 years since I listened to them last. I've rediscovered old favourites, re-assessed albums I'd once passed over and even found a few that I had no idea I even owned.

During those last few weeks, I've ripped the CDs and added around a thousand more albums or so to iTunes. I was concerned that I was starting to run out of things to include on these mixes but, as you can imagine, doing this has massively bolstered my stockpile of songs to sift through. There's about half a dozen tracks of rediscovered stuff on this mix. Feel free to guess which ones.

I really like the album cover I've pinched this month, I think it ties in well with the title. Together they convey the message that the difference between a good soldier and a great one isn't just a skill and propensity to kill but to maintain some humanity and compassion as well.

Tracklisting
The Generators - Earn Your Stripes
Sasquatch - Seven Years To Saturn
Folly - The Weak And The Wounded
Kim Seviour - Fabergé
Snuff - Hey Boff
Marmozets - Like A Battery
Hundred Reasons - She Is Poison
Medulla Nocte - Problem To The Solution
All About Eve - December
Brad Sucks - Thanks For The Add
Mo-Ho-Bish-O-Pi - Hear The Air
Slugdge - The Chapter For Transforming Into A Slug
Elliott Smith - Memory Lane
The Bluetones - Marblehead Johnson
Dr. Frank - Knock Knock (Please Let Me In)
Fell At Ten - The River
Robert Johnson - I'll Believe I'll Dust My Broom
Cheap Heat - A Chip On The Shoulder
Skarlett Riot - Warrior
The Crimea - Someone's Crying

You can download the mix HERE if you want.
You can read fascinating little nuggets of ramble about each track below too. If you like.

Mix CD #36 - Welcome To Gunville

This mix was originally going to be a themed one, a contentious theme that you can probably work out from the mix title, which hasn't changed.
I started compiling songs that were both pro and anti-guns so as to try and be objective but then I got to thinking, I live in Bishop Auckland, a small town in the North of England and I spent the majority of my life in York, a small city in the North of England. I have about as much real knowledge on firearms as Donald Trump does about tiggy hido so it didn't really seem right for me to get involved too much. Also, I didn't want grief from either The Snowflakes or Team America World Police. Thusly, I bottled it. 

As I said, the title remained and a couple of the tracks but other than that it's now just an unthemed mix of music, both new and old, that I've been liking lately, as per the norm. Hopefully you shouldn't something you don't hate.

So yeah, here's the 36th mix, have a read, have a listen if you want and I hope you like it.

Cheers,
Luke
x

P.S. For what it's worth, I think there's probably a bit of room for compromise on both sides
.
Tracklisting
The Urge - Welcome To Gunville
Samarkind - Thru That Door
Master Boot Record - CLS.NFO
Eureka Machines - Let Me Tell You All About Myself
öOoOoOoOoOo - I Hope You Sleep Well
Million Dead - Smiling At Strangers On Trains
Not Scientists - I Don't Feel So Crazy
Echobelly - Pantyhose And Roses
Torche - Hideaway
NOFX - The Decline
Garfunkel And Oates - Happy Birthday To My Loose Acquaintance
For Love Not Lisa - Daring To Pick Up
Andy & The Odd Socks - Unique
Toehider - How Much For That Dragon Tooth?
Jackdaw4 - Deep And Meaningless
Bearsuit - Itsuko Got Married
[Spunge] - Ego
Owl John - A Good Reason To Grow Old

You can download the mix HERE should that be your fancy

Mix CD 35 - We Love You! - The Best of Regurgitator

Eighteen years ago, July 2000, I got the opportunity to travel to Australia, specifically Adelaide plus a few days in Sydney, for a couple of weeks. It was a bit daunting travelling so far on my own but who knew if a chance like this would come around ever again? I plumped up the courage and booked the flights.

Other than a couple of notable bands like Shihad and Frenzal Rhomb, I didn't really know much about Australian (and Kiwi) music and assumed it was all going to be Pub Rock bands along the lines of AC/DC, Jimmy Barnes, Screaming Jets etc. It turns out I couldn't have been wrong and they had a strong, vibrant music scene and a ton of fantastic bands. One thing I found, and I think it's probably still true today, is that a lot of bands had an almost naive charm about them; an exuberance for music that hadn't been neutered with cynicism like so much UK (and US music) I think that joy comes through in a lot of the music.

With help from Mardi (the person I visited), Alternative music radio station, Triple J and the pushy bloke at the record store in Glenelg, I ended up leaving with a suitcase full of CD's by bands like the aforementioned Shihad and Frenzal Rhomb plus Grinspoon, Skulker, Nitocris, You Am I, The Whitlams, Something For Kate, 28 Days, The Superjesus, The Mark Of Cain, Powderfinger, Killing Heidi, Sunk Loto, Blood Duster and some others I forget. One band though has stayed with me above all the others through the years, and that's Regurgitator.

(L-R) Martin Lee, Ben Ely and Quan Yeomans

As a band name, Regurgitator perfectly represents the band as Punk, Hip Hop, Pop, Folk, Funk, Metal, Synth Pop, Disco and all manner of musical genres are thrown in and then spewed out as the intermingled concoction that's Regurgitator. For all their large repertoire of styles, each song is always instantly recognisable as Regurgitator, this gives their albums a sense of cohesion it could quite easily lack. The fact they have a knack for big, memorable hooks and a wicked sense of humour probably contributes to that.

Originally formed as a side project by Quan Yeomans of Zooerastia, Martin Lee of Brazilia and Ben Ely of Pangaea. Both Quan and Ben take lead vocals though I didn't realise just how many songs Ben sings until compiling this, er, compilation, Once they were signed and their first two EP's (Hamburger and New) were successes, Regurgitator became the trio's main focus. their first three albums (Tu-Plang, Unit and ...art) were their most successful and are generally considered their best
During that time 'personal differences' were causing tension between Martin Lee and Quan that, eventually, saw Martin leave the band.

Their fourth album, Eduardo and Rodriguez Wage War on T-Wrecks, was more Hip Hop influenced than either Unit or ...Art and the first to feature new drummer Pete Kostic. He was originally a temporary fill-in as he was still in the band Front End Loader, though he eventually became a permanent member.
Their next album was recorded somewhat differently; the band, a producer, an engineer and a VJ were locked into a big glass room in the centre of Melbourne for three weeks, unable to leave until the album was recorded.  The whole thing was filmed and broadcast as Band In A Bubble, a kind of a Big Brother type programme. The result was the album Mish Mash! Personally, I think it's probably their best album so maybe the process worked!

(L-R) Seja Vogel, Ben Ely, Pete Kostic, Quan Yeomans

Following that, they added Keyboardist/vocalist, Seja Vogel and this line up recorded their sixth album, the excellent Love And Paranoia. I thought she added an interesting dimension to the band. Unfortunately, this is the only album of theirs she plays on,

They released a further two albums, SuperHappyFuntimesFriends and Dirty Pop Fantasy, both quite eclectic, before going on the dreaded indefinite hiatus in 2013. Thankfully this didn't last too long and they started touring Australia again in 2015. Hopefully, there'll be a new album at some point soon.

I did manage to see them live on their 2003 UK Tour and they didn't disappoint and were a lot of fun. The venue was pretty small (300 capacity) and there were about half a dozen VERY excited Australians down the front. After the show, Quan and Ben stood by the main door shaking hands and thanking people for coming as they left. Before that Ben was stood in front of me in the queue to sign up to the mailing for one of the support bands, Electric Eel Shock from Japan who were, quite frankly, sensational and wiped the floor with every band on the bill that night, including Regurgitator.

(L-R) Ben Ely, Quan Yeomans, Pete Kostic

This mix will be one of the most eclectic Rock albums you'll probably ever hear, but also jam packed full of some of the most enjoyably catchy songs too. Almost all of them will get stuck in your head if you let them.  I've tried to take songs from their entire career so there are quite a few that should be here that I had to cut so the mix would stay to length; I'm sure there's plenty of songs that another fan of 'The Gurge' would be apoplectic about their omission  As with all these band specific mixes I've done, take it as an introduction to the band and expect there to be a wealth of quality material on the full albums. If I can make even a couple of new Regurgitator fans with this then I'll consider it job done.

There's a couple of tracks I would most definitely have included if I hadn't already used them on previous mixes.

"Mountains" was previously used on Mix #12 - The Elephant's Graveyard

"I Sucked A Lot Of Cock To Get Where I Am" was previously used on Mix #21 - NSFW

Tracklisting
We Love You!
Happiness (Rotting My Brain)
Everyday Formula
! (The Song Formally Known As)
My Ego
The Lonely Guy
Future Is Plastic
Music Is Sport
Uncontactable
Romance Of The Damned
If This Is The Blues Why Do I Feel So Green?
Answering Machine
Blubber Boy
Couldn't Do It
So Tuff
Miranda July
Don't Go To Sleep
I Like Your Old Stuff Better Than Your New Stuff (Live)
One Day
Hullabaloo
Drinking Beer Is Awesome!
Crush The Losers
Miffy's Simplicity
Metal Is Big In The Baltic States
Fun Fun Fun
I Wanna Be A Nudist
Black Bugs
Fuck The Goddamn World


You can download the mix HERE if you want, no worries. There's blurb about every track below if you fancy a read too.

THIS is their Facebook Page
And HERE is their Spotify Page
HERE's their website for more info, merch, CD's tour dates and all that.
They've got a fair bit up on Bandcamp, the majority of which is Name Your Price, HERE
There's a great interview with Pete Kostic you can listen to on, Australian Podcast, Long Gone Loser HERE

Cheers,
Luke
x

Mix CD #34 - Battered And Bruised

Happy Valentine's Day! Here's the first non themed blog of 2018 and it's full of wildly inappropriate Valentine's songs about loneliness and divorce. There's no subtle hinting to my beautiful wife, just coincidence and very poor timing.

I wanted to get it out and finished a while ago but I've been having personal issues that have meant I've been off work and staring at a screen for large amounts of time isn't conducive to a good time.  I've been working on it for far too long and changed it around a ton but it's finally done, finished and ready for your massive enjoyment. So enjoy massively please ta!

Tracklisting
Kick Joneses - Battered And Bruised
Jackie On Acid - More Like Television
Enuff Z'Nuff - Wheels
Bloodywood - Tunak Tunak Tun
The Class Assassins - For The Kids
Jesper Binzer - The Bumpy Road
Starcrawler - Ants
Skyscraper - Man Made Hell
One Minute Silence - For Want Of A Better World
Bull - 12 Minute Album Ender
Flora Greysteel - Emily Tries
Tom Keifer - It's Not Enough
Shelter - Spirits Blinded
Dire Straits - Skateaway
The Dollyrots - City Of Angels
Drama Club Rejects - Too Much Too Often
Dunes - Everything Is OK
The NX - Swingers & Roundabouts
Sloan - Can't Face Up
Baleful Creed - Levy
Harry Nilsson - Don't Forget Me

You can download the mix HERE

Mix CD #33 - Top Albums Of 2017

Hello and welcome to the first Sapphire Bullets blog of 2018! 
It's weird that we've reached 2018 already, it barely seems like any time at all that now was when the future was in dystopian, Post-Apocalyptical Sci-fi's. Sadly the future is very underwhelming and 12 year old me wouldn't be at all pleased. Back To The Future II was set nearly 3 years ago now and, where we're going, we most certainly still need roads.

Hopefully, reading this blog will assuage the pain of not having a flying car that runs on vegetables somewhat. As you can see it's a roundup of my favourite albums, in order from 20 down to 1 (there's actually 22 tracks not 20 but why will become evident should you read on). Much like last year, there's been an absolute ton of fantastic music and there were quite a few albums that I hated not to include. I'll bung some honourable mentions down at the bottom.

With it being more of a chart this time the format is slightly different. I don't want to post the track listing of the mix first and ruin your sweet anticipation of what's come where so, instead, I'll post it after the last entry along with the download link. I've also included a Spotify link for the first time if that's of use to you.

So yeah, here's my top 20 albums of 2017. Enjoy!