{"id":4941,"date":"2009-12-13T11:01:06","date_gmt":"2009-12-13T16:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/?p=4941"},"modified":"2009-12-13T11:01:06","modified_gmt":"2009-12-13T16:01:06","slug":"best-of-2009-top-10-for-hexadactyls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/13\/best-of-2009-top-10-for-hexadactyls\/","title":{"rendered":"best of 2009 (top 10 for hexadactyls)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Again, to my own rules; what I discovered this year, and not necessarily ten:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spoils \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alasdairroberts.com\/\">Alasdair Roberts<\/a>. Alasdair&#8217;s transformed from a good (if somewhat doleful) Scottish folkie to a full-on demented psych-folker with this record. <em>The Wyrd Meme<\/em> EP is nifty too.<\/li>\n<li>Banjo \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/billyfaier.com\/\">Billy Faier<\/a>. I know this album was recorded in the 1970s, but it&#8217;s as far away from tedious lick-based picking that most people link to the banjo. The fact that Billy&#8217;s giving it away free now doesn&#8217;t hurt, either. It&#8217;s kinda prog banjo, if you must.<\/li>\n<li>Old Dog \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/chriscoole.com\/\">Chris Coole<\/a>. Chris has been recording for more than a decade, but this is his first solo album. Fabulous songwriting (<em>Old Dog<\/em>, and <em>The Bottle Got the Best of Me<\/em> is sounds like something that Porter and Dolly should&#8217;ve sung), brilliant playing, and all this from a man who can smack himself inadvertantly on the nose with his own coffee grinder.<\/li>\n<li>Signal Morning \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/thecirculatorysystem\">Circulatory System<\/a>. Only five years late. Worth every minute.<\/li>\n<li>Clifton Hicks \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/cliftonhicks.com\/\">Clifton Hicks<\/a>. Zero production; just a guy singing along with his banjo. But both so well.<\/li>\n<li>Hypersomnia \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.entertainmentforthebraindead.com\/\">entertainment for the braindead<\/a>. Julia Kotowski makes achingly beautiful lo-fi noises.<\/li>\n<li>Sing the Greys \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frightenedrabbit.com\/\">Frightened Rabbit<\/a>. Visiting Scotland, and having a crappy job over the summer, made this my singalong-driving album of the year. <em>The Midnight Organ Fight<\/em> has a high nift-factor too.<\/li>\n<li>Yours Truly, The Commuter \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/jasonlytle.com\/\">Jason Lytle<\/a>. Probably better than anything he did with Grandaddy. His <a href=\"http:\/\/jasonlytle.bandcamp.com\/\">free christmas album<\/a> of piano music is pretty spiffy too.<\/li>\n<li>Lord Cut-Glass \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lordcutglass.com\/\">Lord Cut-Glass<\/a>. I didn&#8217;t get into the Delgados when they were around (silly me; there was some fine fine music in Scotland while I still lived there), but Alun Woodward belted out a classic this year. Bought on a whim (a small Scottish coin, or unicycle) at Monorail in Glasgow, it&#8217;s a favourite when stuck in traffic on the 401.<\/li>\n<li>Waxing Gibbous \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.malcolmmiddleton.co.uk\/\">Malcolm Middleton<\/a>. Who knew that miserabilism was so much fun? Actually, it was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wurEBzyeBZg\">Devil and the Angel<\/a> from his first album that got me back into his work.<\/li>\n<li>Love It Love It \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/nanagrizol\">Nana Grizol<\/a>. And I do love it; noisy punk from the friends of Elephant Six. Technically the new album <em>Ruth<\/em> comes out next year, but it&#8217;s out already if you&#8217;re not hung up on physical media.<\/li>\n<li>These Four Walls \u00e2\u20ac\u201d <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/wewerepromisedjetpacks\">We Were Promised Jetpacks<\/a>. Scottish &#8211; yeah!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Quite a bit of Scottish content in there, I know.<\/p>\n<p>Some late arrivals and miscellaneous:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I was probably supposed to like <em>Goodnight Oslo<\/em> by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.robynhitchcock.com\/\">Robyn Hitchcock<\/a> &amp; The Venus 3 more than I do, but there was so much music this year it kind of got buried.<\/li>\n<li>My sister\u00c2\u00a0 (<a href=\"http:\/\/wendyarrowsmith.com\/\">Wendy Arrowsmith<\/a>) has a new album out, <em>Seeds of Fools<\/em>.<\/li>\n<li>Dunno what <a href=\"http:\/\/www.friendlyrich.com\/\">Friendly Rich<\/a> was thinking releasing <em>Pictures at an Exhibition<\/em> so late in the year. It&#8217;s a twisted jazz take on Mussorgsky, and nothing to be modest about.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Again, to my own rules; what I discovered this year, and not necessarily ten: Spoils \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Alasdair Roberts. Alasdair&#8217;s transformed from a good (if somewhat doleful) Scottish folkie to a full-on demented psych-folker with this record. The Wyrd Meme EP is nifty too. Banjo \u00e2\u20ac\u201d Billy Faier. I know this album was recorded in the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14],"tags":[1535,1014,47],"class_list":["post-4941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choons","tag-1535","tag-best-of","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQNZZ-1hH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4941"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4953,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4941\/revisions\/4953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scruss.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}