This Music Wins Review Of The Year 2011 on Resonance FM

After writing an albums of the year list longer than probably all my posts across the entire year put together, putting together a 90 minute radio show for Resonance FM seemed like a breeze. So, here it is: 15 or so of my favourite songs of the year in Radio Show format. View the written list here.

DOWNLOAD: This Music Wins Review Of The Year 2011 (MP3)

To air New Years Day 10pm (GMT) on Resonance 104.4FM London, and again Saturday 7th January 10.30am.

1. Kuhrye-OO - Soul Handsome

2. Kurt Vile - Runner Ups

3. Mutual Benefit - Auburn Epitaphs

4. Swansea Recreation Centre - First Time European

5. Youth Lagoon - July

6. Woodsman - In Circles

7. Twin Sister - Kimmi In A Rice Field

8. Deptford Goth - Real Love Fantasy

9. Dead Gaze - Fishing With Robert

10. Evenings - Lo-Velo

11. Little Dragon - Ritual Union

12. Conifers - Legs And Arms

13. How To Dress Well - Here In Heaven (Elite Gymnastics Cover)

14. Ricky Eat Acid ft. Arrange - P.S.L.W

15. Dive - Sometime

16. Porcelain Raft - Amateur’s Feeling

17. Braids - Plath Heart

18. The War On Drugs - Come To The City

19. Fleet Foxes - The Shrine / An Argument

And with these musical highlights of 2011 in mind, we can put it behind us. I wish everyone a great 2012.

Resonance FM #25 [Atlas Sound, Kouta, Elite Gymnastics, Ensemble Economique, Jape]

This week, yet another stunning track from Bradford Cox’s Atlas Sound, electronic glitch from San Francisco’s Kouta, a How To Dress Well Cover from Elite Gymnastics and more on this week’s show. Also Ensemble Economique and Jape. Download below or listen live on Resonance 104.4 FM London tonight at 6.30pm GMT.

DOWNLOAD: This Music Wins #25 (MP3)

1. Atlas Sound - Flagstaff (MP3)

2. Kouta - Xanax (MP3)

3. Elite Gymnastics - Suicide Dream (How To Dress Well Cover) (MP3)

4. Ensemble Economique - We Come SPINNING Out Of Control (MP3)

5. Jape - The Oldest Mind (MP3)

Arrange & Ricky Eat Acid - P.S.L.W

As trickles of authentic piano carefully descend from their former glories, these intricacies are simultaneously extirpated and engulfed by a soaring resilience; a down-cast and nostalgic arrangement transcended in itself only by the overwhelming elegiac mood which it conveys. Its strange emotional allure, stark admissions to early 90s RnB, and timeless, heart-wrenching delivery, warrants comparisons to How To Dress Well’s recent cover of ‘Here In Heaven’.

The two musicians in question, Baltimore’s Ricky Eat Acid and Arrange, Malcolm Lacey of Southern Florida, share a common orchestral ground both in their emotional pull and the motifs and intonations which they frequently employ - when taken together, as occurs here, the results are uplifting. We can only hope the duo have more to come.

• Arrange & Ricky Eat Acid - P.S.L.W (MP3)

New: How To Dress Well - Here In Heaven (Elite Gymnastics Cover)

‘Here In Heaven’ stirs up an awkward and bright pink winter-time nostalgia which I’m not sure whether to feel guilty about or to encourage. Keyboard vibes circa 1990s seize the song’s main body and hold it rigid, cascading on repeat, and in slow-motion trickles the overwhelming purple colouration of abstraction as a quivering USA RnB vocal gently rides the wave. Its one muffled and reverberant, as with much of How To Dress Well’s material, and is recorded with a whispery close microphone sound. From Elite Gymnastics’ original, it has had every bit of energy drained, leaving behind the remnants of a heavenly skeleton with little more than a puzzling hint of grandeur, a candle burnt out, to entertain. Something is unnervingly spiritual and cold, yet stark and uplifting. Barely a minute in and it becomes clear, this take couldn’t be more beautiful.

Thank you very much Acéphale Records (Air France, Salem, Korallreven).

How To Dress Well - Here In Heaven (Elite Gymnastics Cover) (MP3)