A gibbering, capering loon of an album. If this was a person, it would be Wally; drugged to the gills, synapses completely fried and the biggest, stupidest grin in creation plastered across his features. Produced by Andrew Weatherall, Tarot Sport is a monumental surge of glee, a hideous mutant offspring of Mogwai and Kraftwerk. For sheer verve, the best album I’ve heard this year, by a country mile.

The Paisley Underground boasts few survivors, but maverick Australians The Church released a new album this year entitled “Untitled #23″. A very fine album it is too. However, it is to the eighties that I turn for the definitive paisley parade. As a movement, the Paisley Underground was primarily US based and covered a range of country and psychedelic inflected bands who have mostly disappeared without trace. The Church, being Australian and bearing an obvious debt to the Byrds, were on the periphery of the action back then. They quietly continued to evolve and released a series of albums, a few of which are bona-fide classics. “Heyday” delivers a shimmering haze of overdubbed guitars, layered vocals and absolutely brilliant songs. Check this, the video for “Columbus” and reflect for a moment on the glorious alchemy of Ray Bans and Rickenbacker guitars.

When television is dominated by Reality shows, film by Torture Horror and music is made by committee it is a wonderful thing that the Coen Brothers are still working in film. Imagine if you will, the pitch for ‘A Serious Man’….”The film retells the story of Job in the guise of a jewish academic living in sixties America. To make the allegory clear we thought we’d preface the movie with a further allegory set in a traditional Jewish community in Eastern Europe several hundred years ago.”

Of course that scenario never happened and the fact is the Coen Brothers earned their right to make this film with the hugely successful ‘No Country for Old Men’, a film that is no less quirky in it’s own way. ‘A Serious Man’ could easily be subtitled “It’s always darkest before it goes pitch black”.

Our hero, Larry is a man to whom life happens. As a bystander in his own tragedy he is shocked and mortified as his marriage, career and family unravel around him. A film that allows it’s components to breathe and it’s actors to truly inhabit their parts, ‘A Serious Man’ may be the Coen Brothers masterpiece. It is a film of great warmth and humour that bears favourable comparison with the Woody Allen that gave us ‘Manhatten’ and suggests, in a way that approaches profundity, that shit happens to those who let it.

City smart, moody with a whiff of sulphur, Interpol snatched their influences from the new wave. The music of Joy Division, Bauhaus, Television, The Psychedelic Furs and Magazine was ingested and polished to a diamond hard intensity. Spaces were opened up in the arrangements, the lyrics of Paul Banks drew breath and the results, the combination punch of ‘Bright Lights’ and ‘Antics’ announced the presence of a band of sinuous power and sharp intelligence. The third album, ‘Our Love to Admire’ opened up the sound still further at a time when the likes of the Editors and White Lies were still appropriating the original blueprint.

While we wait for the fourth album, check out the video: ‘Evil’ from ‘Antics’

Lloyd Cole – Live!

A filthy night in Brighton is not for the fainthearted, but Lloyd Cole is a talent worth braving the elements for. For those not in the know, Cole’s star burned brightly in the eighties when he was lauded by the music press as one of the most distinctive and literate songwriters around. A string of hit singles and albums followed until seemingly at the height of his success, he disbanded the Commotions and decamped for New York. Predictably the press turned on him and although he continued to record exceptional albums, he was denied the recognition he deserved. Stung by the experience, Cole has spent a decade crafting immaculate songs, releasing the results on a series of self financed albums and touring solo.

To the show then. Two sets, about 35 songs including covers of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Tower of Song’, Kris Kristofferson’s ‘Please Don’t Tell Me How This Story Ends’ and surprisingly, The Killer’s ‘Human’. Cole’s dry, self deprecating wit lifts the audience and the voice being intact, his reworked arrangements of his own extensive catalogue, including a dusting of new material combine to produce a truly remarkable gig. Cole’s is an enviable talent, as a songwriter he leaves other more feted musicians in his dust, as a lyricist he is quite simply untouchable. That he has decided to reject the trappings of the industry allows his music to speak for itself. That it does, eloquently, is no mean achievement in a business where for most performers such a decision would result in at best, a ghastly silence. About time for a critical reappraisal in my opinion…

Eels – Electro-Shock Blues (1998)

Why it’s taken me so long to get round to Eels is anyone’s guess. Perhaps it’s the fact that there is so much choice. ‘Daisies of the Universe’ for example soundtracked a whole summer back at the turn of the decade while ‘Blinking Lights And Other Revelations’ continues to give up it’s secrets four years after it’s release. ‘Beautiful Freak’ too is a wonderful album – check out ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ or ‘Susan’s House’. However after a period of suitably dark introspection aided by the sudden appearance of ‘Baby Genius’ on the Squeezebox random playlist, I can’t ignore ‘Electro-Shock Blues’ claim for inclusion a moment longer. Created after a year of personal tragedy, the subject matter, mental illness, is sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes harrowing, but there is a tenderness about Mark E’s writing and delivery that promises redemption and better times ahead. Look no further than ‘PS you Rock My World’ for proof. In the meantime, here’s a video to enjoy…

Psychedelic Furs – Talk Talk Talk (1980)

The Psychedelic Furs delivered on the post punk promise with verve, this, their second album sprints from the traps like a whirling dervish, a cacophany of guitar, sax, drums and Richard Butlers trademark rasp combining to set the listener up for perhaps the most extraordinary song of the era in ‘Pretty In Pink’; a collision of bowiesque glamor, primitive technique and inspired lyricism resulting in a song that defined a decade. Other tracks jostle for positions, the amphetemine fury of ‘Into You Like A Train’ giving way to the Dylanesque ‘Mrs. Jones’. The Furs were the cream of the crop and deserving of so much more than they eventually got. In Richard Butler they had the original doomed romantic blessed with the archetypal voice like sand and glue. Check out the video for the single version of ‘Pretty In Pink’

Rickie Lee Jones – Balm in Gilead (2009)

A perplexing, iconoclastic talent; responsible for one of the best and most heartbreaking albums of the eighties, or maybe any decade in “Pirates“, Rickie Lee Jones does exactly as she pleases with zero regard for the vulgar business of commerce. “Balm in Gilead” continues the return to form that began with “The Evening of My Best Day” and the gospel(s) inflected “Sermon on Exposition Boulevarde”. As usual with Rickie Lee, the tunes make themselves known slowly, fingerclicks, sketchy chord progressions gradually revealing their hooks. Pop? Jazz? Soul? Country? What the hell am I talking about! Genius. Rickie Lee Jones is one of the last of an old fashioned kind of artist, the type whose talent gave them no choice, the type that dedicated their life to their music. Comparisons are very rarely fair, but Rickie Lee Jones as singular as she is, gives Van Morrison, at his best, a run for his money.

Here is a version of “My Funny Valentine” – stoned, immaculate as somebody once said….

Max Richter – Memoryhouse

A reissue of the astonishing debut recording from Max Richter, a composer whose mastery of tonality and melody place him alongside Arvo Pärt, Henryk Górecki and Michael Nyman in the modern classical catalogue. there are other elements of Max Richter’s work that recall Gavin Bryars, John Cale’s soundtrack projects and even Brian Eno in his use of electronics and ‘found’ voices. Memoryhouse is an invocation of old Europe, the ghosts of Sarajevo, even Versailles can be heard, orphaned voices reaching through the static, the faded grandeur of fallen empires and doomed campaigns. This is a work about reclaiming lost beauty, breathing new life into a past which has been devalued, a history that has been forgotten.

This video is from his album “Songs From Before” – see what you think…

Richard Hawley – Truelove’s Gutter (2009)

In which we enter a world of gentlemen’s hairdressers and brylcream, bakelite trimmers, a little something for the weekend. Outside, a fine drizzle and the lights reflecting off the soaking cobblestones. A bus hisses by, the smell of diesel hanging in the air, kaleidoscopic patterns in the rain filled gutter. Richard Hawley evokes the pre Beatles era of Matt Munro and his much maligned ilk with uncanny precision. The orchestral arrangements are sublime and he has the voice to carry it off without descending into parody. This is an album crafted with love and affection and the result is startlingly beautiful.