Song Of The Day 27/05/2011: Allo Darlin' - Tallulah

Allo Darlin' are probably my favourite relatively new London indiepop band. Last summer, between the release of their debut album and Indietracks, I saw them a fairly crazy number of times and listened to them even more. Their uptempo songs, like 'Silver Dollars' and 'My Heart Is A Drummer', are some of the best around, and in a small venue are pretty much impossible to improve on, but this song, recorded after the release of their first album for a Hangover Lounge EP and intended for their upcoming second album, was probably the highlight of every set I saw them play that summer. An incredibly intimate ukulele ballad, it can reduce even the most hardened of middle-aged punks to a wistful jelly. I got into Allo Darlin, like quite a lot of people, through their seasonal classic 'Will You Please Spend New Years With Me?' and this song carries on a lot of the spirit and sound of that song, but improving on it in every way. The lyrics are touching and funny and reference the Go-Betweens, which is all you really want in a song, and the understated breathiness of the vocals leads to something that you really can't help but just get lost in and listen to again and again.

In my mind, this is the aural equivalent of something like Annie Hall, with a similar kind of feeling despite the differences in subject. Which is one of the highest bits of praise I've ever put on this blog, and is fully deserved.

Song Of The Day 23/02/2011: Allo Darlin' - Silver Dollars

Allo Darlin' are probably my favourite of the current new wave of London indiepop bands, and are probably the closest to genuine twee that scene can boast. This is one of their best tracks, from their debut album released last year. They're a band that are great at pretty much anything they try - they have a ukulele-only song called Tallulah that can bring entire rooms to a hush, and that may well be a future SOTD - but I think this kind of twinkly guitar-led pop is what they do best. Everything about it is great - the lovely, trebly, chiming guitar part is backed by some fairly basic bass and drum parts that'll get the kids dancing. The lyrics are exceptional too, all about the trials of being in an indie band, with no money. Some of the lines in the song are absolutely brilliant, such as 'I'm even starting to wish that I'd finished a legal vocation. Yeah, my life would be dull, but at least I could go on vacation' and 'though you say we're just friends and that this love is purely platonic, I'm hoping that you'll forget after this round of gin and tonic'. It all adds up to a song I have played a frankly luidcrous amount over the last year.


Allo, Darlin' – Silver Dollars

My Albums of 2010, Part 1 (10-5 & Near Misses)

Seeing as it's New Year's Eve, I thought the time was right to do a rundown of the albums I have enjoyed most this year. Here's the first half, and I'll put up my 5 top albums of the year probably tomorrow.

	10 - Belle & Sebastian - Write About Love Of all the eagerly-anticipated albums this year, perhaps none had expectations so divided. Some people, fuelled by the couple of songs released on a B&S TV show a couple of months early, thought this had the potential to be a true return to their late-90s top form. Others, fuelled by the prospect of songs featuring Carey Mulligan and Norah Jones, thought it would be a further descent into the MOR, continuing along the lines of the second half of 2005's The Life Pursuit. In the end, they were probably both right. Some truly amazing indiepop is tempered by some dross, making for an album that is enjoyable but unmemorable. Hopefully they can get a couple more albums out over the next few years and re-find their stride.
	9 - Wild Nothing - Gemini In my review of Wild Nothing's neo-C86 debut, I said that it was a very good dreampop album with few ideas of its own. The couple of weeks since I wrote that review have slightly softened that position in my mind - it has improved even further with a few more listens, and I do now think that this is genuinely one of the best albums of the year. The accompanying Golden Haze EP is well worth picking up too. And, of course, I still love the cover art.
	8 - Shrag - Life! Death! Prizes! Previously much better live than on record, Shrag are one of those bands that seem to be able to churn out songs that feel like you've always known them. Post-punk (specifically post-X Ray Spex) in attitude but almost twee in melodies, they are the perfect band for a specific mood. This, their second record after they released a compilation of singles last year, is their first attempt at a proper long-player. It's just so fun - Tight in August is one of the year's angsty pop gems. Despite the lack of many potential singles, the like of which their previous record was stuffed with, I prefer this album, as it feels much more mature, without feeling like its anywhere near fulfilled the band's obviously massive potential. This makes me pretty excited for their follow-up, although I think it could be a while in coming as they cement their place in the London live music scene.
	7 - Beach House - Teen Dream Probably the biggest dream-pop album of the year, this record got pretty much universal acclaim form a variety of influential sources. I do think it is a genuinely stunning album. I can see how people might see it as slightly 'boring' and ineffectual, as it is not exactly imposing, but the melodies and harmonies gradually unfold and wrap themselves around you, in a similar way (although obviously not as powerfully) as 'Loveless'. Indeed, the more I listen to this album the more shoegazey I think it is, although with sweeter melodies and less abrasive noise than many albums of the genre - the most similar genuine oldschool shoegaze band would probably be Slowdive, but there are also a lot of other obvious influences among their contemporaries - I definitely think they've been listening to quite a lot of 'For Emma, Forever Ago'.
	6 - Allo Darlin' - Allo Darlin' I got fairly obsessed with this album back in the Spring. They, as with many bands this year, are incredibly open in their influences - in this case, 90s K and Sarah bands. 'Dreaming', the opening song, takes all the best elements of this scene - the boy-girl interplay vocals are straight out of 'C is the Heavenly Option' - and packages it with a ukulele. Some of the songs are weaker than others - I don't normally skip songs, but even I find 'Heartbeat Chilli' virtually unlistenable - but they seem to be able to put their mind to most things in the indiepop spectrum with a remarkable degree of success, and you can't help but be utterly charmed by the album as a whole. I think I definitely overplayed it, as I haven't listened to it much at all over the last couple of months, but there is no way I wouldn't put it up as my favourite British indiepop album of 2010, and there is some very strong competition.

Here are some other albums I heartily recommend from this year, but that didn't make the final top 10.

11 - Sufjan Stevens - The Age Of Adz
12 - Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
13 - Avi Buffalo - Avi Buffalo
14 - Titus Andronicus - The Monitor
15 - James Blackshaw - All Is Falling
16 - Freelance Whales - Weathervanes
17 - Math And Physics Club - I Shouldn't Look As Good As I Do
18 - The Arcade Fire - Suburbs
19 - Free Energy - Stuck On Nothing
20 - Delorean - Subiza
21 - Standard Fare - The Noyelle Beat
22 - Teenage Fanclub - Shadows
23 - Thee Silver Mt. Zion & Tra-La-La Band - Kollaps Tradixionales
24 - Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin - Let It Sway
25 - Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me