SXSW
13-18 March 2012
Various Venues, Austin, USA
sxsw.com

In a sentence
An unreal number of acts showcase their talents at parties and networking events alongside a film and interactive at the festival I wish I was going to more than any other.

Headliners
The Magnetic Fields (there are no headliners as such, but The Magnetic Fields are probably the biggest band there.

If you only see one band
Firstly, you’re wasting a perfectly good opportunity and I deserve you pass. If you are limited though, winner of sockformation’s album of the year 2010, Cloud Nothings will be unmissable.

Hidden down the order
It’s all about those little hidden acts. There are a band called The Coathangers playing and despite the fact I’ve never heard of them, I’d ensure I was checking them out with a name like that.

Other sockformation favourites
Bez, The Big Pink, Blitzen Trapper, Blood Orange, Bos Angeles, Breton, Cheap Girls, Clock Opera, Daughter, Dutch Uncles, Micah P. Hinson, Jenny O., Michael Kiwanuka, Talib Kweli, Lamb, Dan Mangan, Tashaki Miyaki, Neon Trees, S.C.U.M, Shiny Toy Guns, The Spinto Band, Tall Ships, Theme Park, Therapy?, Tilly and the Wall, Lissy Trullie, Alabama Shakes, Idiot Glee, Zulu Winter, ANR, Jonquil, Niki & The Dove, Spectrals, Yuksek, Royal Canoe.

saturday was the something annual record store day. i’m pretty sure anybody who reads this blog knows what it’s all about. but in case you don’t (or you just happened to come across us after a google search for “asparagus” brought you to this page) it is a day when loads of special editions and shit are released to celebrate the wonder that is going to a record store. it’s all quite good fun really.

my plan for the day was to get down to a couple of the stores and get my hands on a carefully chosen selection from the exclusive product list. top of my list was the roxy music special edition. a double a-side of ‘virginia plain’ and my personal favourite ‘pyjamarama’, limited to just 500 copies. after a slight delay in leaving due to enjoying the comfort of my bed a little too much i was off.

first stop flashback records on essex road. the bus journey may have been short, but all it did was emphasise the need for the coffee industry and the tfl to stop their ridiculous conflict and come together as one.

after wandering about flashback for a while pretending i really was interested in that 1971 spring triple gatefold at just £500 i thought that maybe i’d got the wrong day and it was just a normal saturday. just as i was ready to leave i noticed a small whiteboard with their rsd2011 (as the cool kids call it) releases listed. it wasn’t huge, but i got the toro y moi / cloud nothings double a-side that was midway down on my shopping list.

it was all about rough trade today though, and that was exactly where i was heading next. the queue was long, but fast moving. i was in within ten minutes and ready to find my roxy music amongst the literally zillions of records. obviously, this being me, i failed. i did however end up with the ‘satellite’ 10″ from the kills and a limited edition cajun dance party that had nothing to do with rsd2011. it’s cajun dance party though and you never need an excuse to buy anything by cajun dance party.

as i left i realised i hadn’t eaten all day, but it is worth mentioning the burger and potato wedges i had for two reasons. firstly, i sat next to a young couple who were revising for their a-levels. if you’re reading this, i think you’ll do pretty well because i didn’t understand a thing you were talking about, so assume you’re correct. secondly, i burnt my tongue on the potato wedges and now have a red mark on it. actual red mark.

as i was leaving i suddenly realised i hadn’t taken any photos. so i took one. this is it.

you see the fella with this guy pointing towards him? i got in one of those awkward situations when you walk at the same speed as somebody but you’ve left it too late to speed up or slow down without looking strange. we stayed walking side by side until he carried straight on down commercial street and i turned right up brushfield street to get my bus.

so, my record store day conclusions? i should have got to rough trade earlier. i failed to get roxy music, the white stripes and the beach boys. i turned down saint etienne and ed banger for being too expensive. i bought the kills and toro y moi / cloud nothings. my favourite purchase though was cajun dance party. it was fun. i’ll get up earlier next year.

oh, and i took this photo when i got home.

update: on sunday afternoon, rough trade tweeted that they’d found 30 copies of the clash cd upstairs. i rushed over and picked one up, along with the metronomy 7″, bringing my rsd haul to five.

single review: toro y moi & cloud nothings. i will talk to you / for no reason. 28 march 2011. carpark records
(buy here)

you haven’t read that wrong. chillwave favourite toro y moi has joined up with sockformation favourite cloud nothings to release a split a-side. toro y moi takes the billing on ‘i will talk to you’ and cloud nothings on ‘for no reason’. guess what. it’s fucking ace.

although perhaps not obvious partners in their musical styles, the two work so well together that i would love to think this is an early indication on a joint album. unfortunately i think it is more likely that they were just bored while on tour together. however it came about, i’m delighted it did and it is just further proof that music is awesome. i love shit like this.

album review: cloud nothings. cloud nothings. 24 january 2011. witchita recordings
(buy here)

this was released at the start of last week, but i’ve been really busy so only just got round to reviewing it. i was never going to miss out on this one though. what with him getting sockformation’s album of 2010 for a record that wasn’t even actually an album.

cloud nothings’ actual proper album is all new tracks but keeps his choppy poppy snappy and, of course, lo-fi sound. if you liked ‘turning on’, you’ll like this. if you hated it, you’ll hate this. as for me, i loved turning on and i pretty much love this. not as much, but it’s still a great half an hour of music.

8

coming up over the christmas period i’m with the family and all that jazz for most of the time so posts might be a little irregular. i’ll be trying to do a couple of features though and a few spotify playlists. first off, this one. i’ve chosen my favourite track from each of the 2010 albums of the year i picked, other than those that aren’t on spotify. as an extra bonus i’ve put in my choices from my favourite three eps from 2010 as well. what’s more, my two favourite singles that aren’t on any of those records (still with me?) are here too… that’s ‘the sea is a good place to think of the future’ and spanish sahara’ by the way.

sockformation’s top ten albums of 2010 and then some other tracks as well (spotify)

the above is a picture of how i prepared myself to decide on my favourite ten albums of the year. i’ve sort of been thinking about it for a while and in the end sat down, made a list off the top of my head and by checking itunes and my last.fm from the past twelve months. that sort of thing. a few i’d forgotten about came back into the running and i got down to a short list of 30something. i succeeded in getting it down to ten. sort of. i have given an honourable mention to one outside the top ten as well because it just wouldn’t have been right not to. you’ll probably understand why when you see what it is. rather than a chart, this is a collection of the top ten in no order (actually, fuck that – i’ll post them alphabetically) other than number one. there always has to be a winner. one other thing to note is that this is just albums. three of my favourite records of the year are eps but i decided to exclude them. i expect i’ll make a post about some of my favourite things of the year in general over the next fortnight and summer camp, spectrals and girls will all feature heavily in this.

with apologies to those that just missed out, including but not restricted to mount kimbie, los campesinos!, kele, yeasayer, abe vigoda, blood red shoes, sleigh bells, girl talk, janelle monae and (the last album to be dropped) foals, here is the albums that are between my second and ninth favourite of 2010.

arcade fire. the suburbs. august.

brilliant story telling album, that just reaffirmed arcade fire as one of the most reliable bands for delivering quality with every record. buy here.

bombay bicycle club. flaws. july.

i cannot tell you just how many time i have stuck this on during my journey to work on a miserable morning and it has cheered me right up. buy here.

the black keys. brothers. may.

one of my gigs of the year and, to me, their most accesible album is also their best. buy here.

crystal castles. crystal castles (ii). april.

another band that excelled live. maybe not quite as good as the debut, but ‘celestia’ is one of the most beautiful yet thrilling things i have ever heard. buy here.

flying lotus. cosmogramma. may.

he’s in even more experimental mood than usual and when flying lotus experiments, the results are always both interesting and superb. buy here.

gayngs. relayted. may.

there is no way this album should work. ever. it does though. now you get twenty odd mates together and write an album inspired by one track from 35 years ago and see what you come up with. buy here.

mystery jets. serotonin. july.

the eel pie island boys have now made the perfect indie pop album. this is. fuck knows how they’re going to improve on this, but i can’t wait to hear them giving it a go. buy here.

no age. everything is borrowed. september.

a cleaner offering than nouns hasn’t meant that no age have lost any of their edge. this may be clean, but is also wonderfully dirty. buy here.

wavves. king of the beach. august.

the best of the lo-fi chill wave type albums that all but took over the world this summer. josh’s favourite album by the way, since you ask. buy here.

let’s have a bit of a drum roll then. the best album of the year isn’t even an album in the regular sense. it is a combination of previous eps and releases from a teenager with a talent for making the unlistenable listenable. when you can’t really make out the guitar, it doesn’t matter because you’re enjoying his voice. when the lack of production and lo-fi sound cracks through the speakers it doesn’t matter because that tune is perfect. i have listened to so little else over the last few weeks that even now as i write i can hear ‘water turns back’ in my head so perfectly that it is as if i have the album playing now.

cloud nothings. turning on. november (i think?)

if you don’t already own this, you need it now. let’s see if first album proper, due next year, will hold the same position this time next year. buy here.

and finally the special mention. i couldn’t leave this out, despite it not quite reaching the heights i hoped it would. i’m seeing the film on tuesday, and i’ll let you know if this goes from an 8/10 album to 10/10 like i hope it will. i love you thomas bangalter and guy-manuel de homem-christo.

daft punk. tron:legacy soundtrack. december. (buy here)

what have i missed? what shouldn’t be there? let me know in the comments. by the way. i am fully aware that the ’0′ at the end of the ‘top10′ text on the cover art graphics is slightly cut off. i noticed after i’d done the last one and couldn’t be fucked to fix it, so live with it.

i don’t write about individual artists enough anymore on here. now and again i’ll post up a quick track, but i usually only talk about an act as part of an album or gig review. well that is going to change. right this minute in fact.

like more and more of today’s musicians dylan baldi, aka cloud nothings, started recording at home. in this instance it was in the basement, rather than the traditional bedroom but the rest of the story is familiar. home computer? check. dropped out of school? check. release a few recordings and eps that cause buzz? check.

everything seems to be in place for cloud nothings to take off in 2011. his first proper-type release ‘turning on‘, which brought together most of his previous bits & pieces, came out a few weeks ago and i haven’t stopped listening to it since sunday evening. i think i’m addicted to it.

the music itself is the epitome of lo-fi. at times you can barely make out baldi’s voice, or even the strum of his guitar, beneath the rough and rusty production. that is part of the charm, but you get the feeling that when his debut arrives in the early part of next year the quality of his voice and indie pop tune around it will be enough to survive the production.