Music For Your Tape Recorder

This time last year I was quite excited about La Roux. Here was a band I thought was going to finish what Yazoo started. But the voice and the bleeping began to grate. Music in the early eighties sounded like that because of hardware limitations. Consider these words from All Music Guide on Simple Minds' second album: "It's where [they] ventured beyond the ability to mimic their influences and began to manipulate them." I hope their next effort will endear itself more, but I'll probably forget to check up - which is why it took me till May to find Fujiya & Miyagi's Lightbulbs disappointing. Unfortunately life is too short to spend it listening to stuff again in the hope you might appreciate it second time round.

Only with a band as good as Boards of Canada would I do that. Having devoured Twoism, Music Has The Right to Children and Geogaddi last year, I started searching for In A Beautiful Place..., The Campfire Headphase, and Trans Canada Highway, which were not included in the set I procured (Bought them all since). When I came across Macquarie Ridge, I swore I had heard it before. I listened to it endlessly, trying to remember when I thought I had heard it, before realising it had actually overwritten a memory of hearing Kelly Watch the Stars on a school trip in 1998. That is the genius of BoC.

Last year Dalek i was my now-out-of-print-good-band-your-parents-shunned of 2008. This year it's The Passions. Bet they could only remember through Ashes to Ashes.


January
Boards of Canada - Macquarie Ridge ; The Campfire Headphase (2005)
Roxy Music - Do The Strand ; For Your Pleasure (1973)

February
Neon Neon - Michael Douglas ; Stainless Style (2008)
Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out In The Country ; In a Beautiful Place Out In The Country (2000)

March
The Associates - Tell Me Easter's On Friday ; Fourth Drawer Down (1981) *
Ulrich Schnauss - In All The Wrong Places ; A Strangely Isolated Place (2003)
Roxy Music - Same Old Scene ; Flesh + Blood (1980)

April
Urban Myth Club - Breathe ; Helium (2006)
Thom Yorke - The Eraser ; The Eraser (2006)
Thievery Corporation - La Femme Parallel ; Radio Retaliation (2007)
Fujiya & Miyagi - Knickerbocker ; Lightbulbs (2008)

May
Calvin Harris - I Created Disco ; I Created Disco (2007)
Michael Giacchino - Roar! ; Cloverfield Soundtrack (2008)
The Passions - Strange Affair ; 30,000 ft Over China (1981)
Manic Street Preachers - Bag Lady ; Journal for Plague Lovers (2009) [Review]

June
Wire - Map Ref. 41° N 93° W ; 154 (1979)
Zero 7 - Spinning ; Simple Things (2001)

July
Simple Minds - Shake Off Ghosts ; Sparkle in the Rain (1985)
Bob James - Nautilus ; One (1974)

August
Be Your Own Pet - Becky ; Get Awkward (2008)
Aphex Twin - Xtal ; Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (1992)
New Order - Mesh ; Movement (1981)

September
The Cinematic Orchestra - Channel 1 Suite ; Motion (1999)
Eluvium - Prelude for Time Feelers ; Copia (2007)

October
The B-52s - 6060-842 ; The B-52s (1979)
The Associates - Paper House ; The Affectionate Punch (1980)
Colorpulse - Digital Evening ; (2009)
Level 42 - Something About You ; World Machine (1985)
Steely Dan - Don't Take Me Alive ; Royal Scam (1976)

November
Soundgarden - Black Hole Sun ; Superunknown (1993)
Boards of Canada - Seven Forty Seven (45 RPM) ; (2009)
Phoenix - Fences ; Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix (2009)

December
The Passions - Why Me ; Michael & Miranda (1980)
Heartbreak - Soul Transplant ; Lies (2008)
Cyriak - No More Memory ; (2006)
Everything Everything - Photoshop Handsome ; (2009)
Robin Jap - Keeping Ahead ; Whatever it Takes (2001)

* Took Amazon 4 months to find a copy.