The Existential Ennui Review of the Year: the 10 Best Albums I Heard in 2013

Music may have been '70s crooner John Miles's first love, but I can't say for sure whether it was necessarily mine. Certainly music was an early love – I vividly recall as a child listening to the top forty chart show on a crackly transistor radio and taping songs on a separate cassette recorder held close to the radio's speaker – and by Christ doesn't that date me – but whether it came before other loves like comics and books, I couldn't tell you.

What is the case is that like both comics and books (but maybe not films and telly, which have been hardy perennials throughout my life), periodically I've fallen out of love with music. The first time this happened was in 2000, when my eight-year stint as a music journalist came to an end and consequently I couldn't listen to an album all the way through for three or four years. (I'd like to say I learned a valuable lesson about the dangers of turning one's passion into a career, but after leaving the music industry I did exactly the same thing again when I moved into comics, so that lesson probably took at least another three or four years to sink in through my thick fucking skull.) The second time was towards the end of the 2000s, when after a torrid fling with the Franz Ferdinand/Futureheads/Maximo Park-inspired UK artrock/math rock 7" single scene (bit of a mouthful there, and I fear I might have invented the whole thing in my head anyway, but you get my drift) I became consumed by secondhand book collecting and most of my available funds were diverted to the acquisition of the musty old tomes which have fuelled Existential Ennui ever since.

But even in those times when music and I were only at best nodding acquaintances, we never forsook each other completely. If I were to take a stroll along my shelves of CDs, I'm sure I could find a good many from those periods even when I was absorbed by other concerns, although less so, I suspect, my vinyl collection, which is largely confined to specific eras – but more on that in the next paragraph.

And what has all this to do with the Existential Review of the Year? Well, it's an inescapable fact that a top ten albums of 2013 post is an incongruous thing to appear on what's become (admittedly more by accident than design) a books and book-collecting blog; but as I've hopefully elucidated, my passion for music far predates my passion for secondhand books, and as outlined in the Existential Ennui Review of the Year introductory post, more recently that passion has once again become noticeably engorged (I'm so, so sorry) via a renewed interest in vinyl albums. Therefore, my picks of the best albums I heard in 2013 – all of which were released in 2013, unlike my ten best books list, which will follow next week – are below. I can't claim to be any kind of expert in music anymore – if I ever could claim that, which is doubtful – but if nothing else this post will at least act as a personal record (no pun intended), for posterity's sake, of what I was listening to in 2013.

=10. Folly by Kitchens of Distinction (3Loop) / Bloodsports by Suede (Warner) / MBV by My Bloody Valentine (MBV)

 
These weren't the only belated new albums by bands from my late-teens/early twenties (i.e. late-1980s/early-1990s) to be released in 2013, but these were the ones I liked and bought – I guess because all three sound like they could have been released not far off the peak of each band's career. Kitchens of Distinction were responsible for two of the best gigs I ever witnessed – at the Boardwalk in Manchester and the Venue in New Cross (how three men managed to concoct such a beautiful cacophony I'll never comprehend) – and by chance I was at one of Suede's earliest gigs (supporting forgotten baggy band Spin at the Camden Falcon, when Justine out of Elastica was still a member) and their final one (or what was believed to be their final one, at the Astoria in London in 2003). I am, self-evidently, a huge fan of both bands, and their latest albums are fine, fine things. My Bloody Valentine I've never seen live, and in truth I've only ever admired rather than loved them, but I still own You Made Me Realise on 12" and Isn't Anything on vinyl (with the bonus 7", natch), and to my ears MBV sounds just as good as their last album, 1991's Loveless.

One question remains, however: given that I've begun my top ten countdown with a three-way tie, why the bloody hell didn't I make it a top twelve* and have done with it?

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9. Field of Reeds by These New Puritans (Infectious)

I've been buying These New Puritans records since they emerged as part of the aforementioned mid-2000s artrock/math rock scene, but this album is rather a different kettle of fish to their prior post-punk-esque output: a collection of near-ambient quasi-classical compositions on, variously, piano, double bass, strings, wind and drums, with Jack Barnett's quavering vocals (and contributions from Elisa Rodrigues) weaving in and out. In a way it's closer to jazz than rock or pop – shifting time signatures, modulated repetition and a willingness and eagerness to challenge the structure of the song.

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8. Big TV by White Lies (Fiction)

Another escapee band from the artrock scene (there's a theme developing here), although back then they were called Fear of Flying and were somewhat jauntier than their current incarnation (I saw them live supporting The Maccabees, and still have their first two 7"s). But I'm not averse to a bit of melodramatically doomy bombast (within reason), and Big TV, the band's third album as White Lies, is arguably the strongest set of songs they've yet produced. Also, the deluxe double-CD edition comes in the form of a hardback book (the packaging designed by Big Active, from whose website I nicked the above image), which obviously appealed to me.

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7. Factory Floor by Factory Floor (DFA)

Would you Adam and Eve it, yet another band who have their origins in the artrock scene – the very arse end of it anyway. Factory Floor have travelled a long way since then, though. Their 2008 debut single, Bipolar – which, inevitably, I own on 7" – sounded like Joy Division locked in the back of a lorry, but their self-titled debut full-length album finds them almost completely transformed into a Detroit techno act. Kind of – there are still echoes of the neo-post-punk band that was, and the net result is not unlike one of those British techno bands from the 1990s – Bandulu or someone like that. Which is a good thing, in case you were wondering.

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6. Days Are Gone by Haim (Polydor)

An American band for a change, and an all-girl one (three sisters) at that. I tend not to pay much attention to online music journalism, but I did happen to see some sniping from some internet quarters along the lines of Haim – a band in their early- to mid-twenties, remember – being music for middle-aged dads. As a middle-aged dad, let me just state for the record that I've long had a penchant for the kinds of well-crafted, almost overproduced pop songs that Haim are so good at, along with other musical penchants, also dating back to my teens and twenties, for electro, hip hop, fey indie guitar bands, hardcore techno and stupidly fast acid trance. There's room in most sane people's lives for all sorts of music, even those of us on the wrong side of forty and with a seven-month-old daughter.

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5. Fanfare by Jonathan Wilson (Bella Union)

For some reason, every few years I fall for an American male singer songwriter (I mean fall in a musical sense... although they are usually quite good-looking). Previous recipients of my unwanted and unregistered affections have included Ryan Adams circa Heartbreaker (2000), Pete Yorn circa musicforthemorningafter (2001), Josh Rouse circa Nashville (2005) and John Grant circa Queen of Denmark (2010). To that list I think we can add Jonathan Wilson, whose second album, Fanfare, was recommended to me by Lewes-based designer and illustrator Neil Gower on Twitter. Not long before I bought Fanfare I watched a third of a BBC Four documentary (it was very long, and on late, and as I've mentioned I'm a middle-aged dad with a seven-month-old daughter) about the Eagles and found myself musing that I'd like to listen to some more '70s West Coast rock. No need now: Jonathan Wilson's 2013 variety fits the bill perfectly.

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4. Pale Green Ghosts by John Grant (Bella Union)

Speaking of John Grant, his second solo album landed this year, and while I haven't been quite as bowled over by Pale Green Ghosts as I was Queen of Denmark – on which his backing band was Midlake; more on them in a moment – it's still a sterling effort, introducing an electronic element to proceedings. And by and large the songs and lyrics are just as good, especially the title track – imagine Happy Mondays' WFL crooned by a depressed Bing Crosby – and It Doesn't Matter to Him, I Hate This Town ("You know I hate this fucking town, you cannot even leave your fucking house, without running into someone who no longer cares about you") and GMF ("I am the greatest motherfucker that you're ever gonna meet, from the top of my head down to the tips of the toes on my feet").

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3. Antiphon by Midlake (Bella Union)

John Grant's one-time backing band, now minus their original frontman (Tim Smith, who left towards the end of 2012) and consequently forging a more adventurous, even psychedelic, direction, which I for one am thoroughly impressed by. Midlake's rural meditative folk rock – made in America but with a British feel – had become pretty intense by the time of 2010's The Courage of Others, which unlike The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006) was a difficult album to love (although achievable given time). By comparison Antiphon – especially the swirling title track – has a real spring in its step – or at least as spring-stepped as an album made by a bunch of beardy blokes bowed furrow-browed over their instruments gets. I saw Midlake Mk. I at the Concorde in Brighton five or six years ago, and it's fair to say that for the most part they struggled to connect with their audience. I'd be intrigued to see what they're like live now.

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2. Tell Where I Lie by Fossil Collective (Dirty Hit)

An English Midlake? Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised if Fossil Collective's Dave Fendick and Jonny Mulroy had been listening to Midlake since their former band Vib Gyor split in 2010. Certainly they've cast off the more Radiohead-like stylings of their previous incarnation in favour of the sort of deep-in-the-woods introspected folk rock that I'm a sucker for. There are six tracks on this album that I'd rate as the loveliest things I've heard all year – Let it Go, Under My Arrest, Wolves, Monument, On and On and The Magpie – and if the other four don't quite live up to those, they're still eminently listenable – so much so that I reckon I've played Tell Where I Lie more times this year than every other album bar one.

And that one is...

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1. Arc by Everything Everything (RCA)

I'm not sure why this album has been so comprehensively overlooked in the 'albums of the year' lists that I've seen. Maybe it's because it arrived right at the start of the year and everyone figured it was released last year... or maybe the critics and independent record shops who assembled those 'albums of the year' lists genuinely thought it wasn't up to much. If that is the case, for my money, they're mistaken. Opener Cough Cough is deceptive in that it's the type of jerky math rock (Everything Everything are another band who emerged at the tail end of the mid-2000s artrock movement) that characterised their debut LP, Man Alive (2010), but the songs thereafter, once you've allowed them to sink in, are of a different stripe, possessed of a depth and raw emotion that I find really affecting. The complexity of Everything Everything's compositions was always apparent, but in slowing down the tempo they've made the richness and traditional verse-bridge-chorus structure even more evident. In other words, this is a terrific set of pop songs (with even more on the deluxe double-CD version), not least closing single Don't Try, which is my song of the year.

Next, it's back to those musty old tomes at last, with a big(ish) long(ish) list of the books I read in 2013.

*Or even a top fifteen. That way I could have got Savages' Silence Yourself, Pet Shop Boys' Electric and Franz Ferdinand's Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action in too.

The Existential Ennui Review of the Year in Books, Blogging, Babies, Records and Comics, 2013

What's this? Only the 6th of December and already I'm beginning my traditional, tedium-inducing, widely reviled, multi-post look back at the year that was? After all, for the past couple of years I've tended not to begin the Existential Review of the Year in Books and Comics (as was) until deep into December, posting the third and final missive either on or just prior to the 31st. So what in the name of blistering fuck is going on this year?

Two things. The first is that my intention this time is to down tools and step away from the blog for the festive period, knocking off well before Christmas Day and not posting anything until the new year. Quite frankly, my dears, what with one thing and another, I'm bloody knackered, and though blogging isn't, I don't think, the root cause of that (I'm looking at you, work...), it couldn't hurt to take a short break from it anyway. (Some unkind souls might suggest a more permanent one is in order.)

The second is, and related to that intention, having scaled back the number of posts in the Existential Ennui Review of the Year from a preposterous six in 2010 – the year I instituted the Review – to a marginally more sensible three apiece in 2011 and 2012 – an introductory survey of the year, a big long list of all the books I read that year, and my pick of the ten best books from that list – this year I'm planning a patience-testing five posts in total: this introductory one wot you is reading right now; the aforementioned big long list of books; its attendant ten best; and two others to be revealed further down this post. And given that these days, with the various demands on my time, I'm not able to post as frequently as I'd perhaps wish (although still more frequently than others might prefer), I figured I'd better get cracking if I've a hope of finishing before Christmas.

So, let's kick off this year's introductory survey with by far the biggest event of 2013 chez Louis XIV, the Sun King:

An outsize picture book. No, wait:

Edie! Yes, 19 May 2013 saw the birth of a tiny, mewling, blue, gore-covered creature which on closer inspection stood revealed as a little baby girl, and which on later reflection I realised was, er, mine* (and Rachel's, obvs). (*Unless there's been a mix-up at the lab, which is always a possibility.) Since then Edie has grown into a much larger, mewling, blue--I mean beautiful, bouncing – literally, when she's in her door bouncer – bundle of fun... except when she's overtired and grouchy, when she's a complete pain in the posterior. But hey! That's babies for you. Not unexpectedly, her arrival, although in and of itself a thing of deep joy, has had an adverse impact on both my reading and my blogging. As you'll see when I unveil the big long list of books I read this year, it's neither as big nor as long as previous years, and as for the blogging, well, I've barely topped 100 posts to this point.

But though those posts have been fewer in number, I like to think they've been higher in quality – or at least kid myself that that's the case; with the odd exception, usually for reference purposes for new posts, I rarely go back and reread them, and I can't be fucking arsed to go and check now, so the reality may be somewhat different. Scanning the 'Previous Posts' list in Existential Ennui's sidebar, of this year's crop I reckon I could probably stand to read the closing Great Tom Ripley Reread essays again – the extended gap in the middle aside, that series turned out quite well, I thought – and maybe some of the Elmore Leonard ones, of which there were quite a lot – see below; and latterly I enjoyed writing about James Mitchell and Ian Mackintosh; and the two new permanent pages I established, British Thriller Book Cover Design of the 1970s and 1980s and the Patricia Highsmith First Edition Book Cover Gallery, aren't too shabby I guess (and neither is the still-expanding Beautiful British Book Jacket Design of the 1950s and 1960s). Otherwise I've little wish to rake over my foul droppings for the year; feel free to scroll down the sidebar yourselves.

As for books, for some inexplicable reason, around the time Edie was born, I found myself in the grip of an urge to read loads of Elmore Leonard, an impulse which was further spurred when in August the author unexpectedly fell ill and then died. As a result I ended up buying (and blogging about) a lot of Leonard first editions – some of them signed, no less – but by and large – the insane book splurge otherwise known as the Jones-Day late-summer holiday aside – this year I've made a concerted effort to cut back on the number of secondhand books I buy. (Baby milk and nappies are sodding expensive, y'know.) Fear not, however: I've more than enough books in reserve to see me through at least 2014, if not beyond, and I dare say I'll still be acquiring the odd one here and there.

Of course, inveterate hoarder that I am, it's virtually impossible for me not to be collecting something, and more recently that something has been vinyl albums – new ones, I hasten to add, not old ones, of which I already have rather a lot. See, although I've never stopped buying albums, for the past ten years I've been getting them on CD (you'll doubtless be unsurprised to learn that I still prefer a physical format to downloads). (Side note: for a few years in the mid-to-late 2000s, at the peak of the indie artrock scene, I got hooked on 7" singles, and have a decent collection of those... but that's a tale for another time.) This year, however, belatedly, I realised that unlike in what seemed like the dying days of the vinyl album in the 1990s, when they were being shoddily pressed and sounded dreadful, now they're being pressed on heavy 180 gram (so-called 'audiophile') vinyl, and as a consequence sound really good. And not only that, by and large they come with a CD or a download code included.

I can't see myself ever returning to the days when music was my overwhelming obsession – before it became my job for seven or eight years in the '90s and consequently killed that passion stone dead for three or four years after that – but at least the flames of my ardour have been slightly rekindled, and so this year as part for the Existential Ennui Review of the Year I've decided to post my ten best albums. And yes, I know this is supposed to be a books blog, but I have touched on music before – here and here – and anyway it's my blog and I'll do as I damn well please.

And one other thing which it damn well pleases me to do as part of this Review of the Year is post a ten best comics list. I can't claim to have read every single comic book released in 2013 – certainly I don't think I've read a single graphic novel, or much in the way of small press and indie stuff – and I don't believe I've managed a single post on comics this year either, not even a Notes from the Small Press – but I have continued to buy a fair number of, for want of a better word, 'mainstream' comics, i.e. those published by Marvel, DC – albeit very few from either of those companies – and Image. So I'll be picking my best of those in the next post.

Felt: a Photographic History of the Band (First Third Books, 2012)

Let's begin the working week with some meandering musings on music.

It's probably true to say that the bands who've meant the most to me over the years have been the more obscure ones. Oh there are very well known bands that I've fallen for too: The Smiths, The Stone Roses, Crowded House; a few others. But it's the "lesser" lights that I've loved the most – bands that rarely, if ever, troubled the Top 40; bands whose gigs attracted crowds numbering in the hundreds rather than the thousands; bands who nevertheless commanded devoted followings who would buy every single seven inch and twelve inch and album (this is pre-the download era, you understand, when formats such as "seven inch" and "twelve inch" and even "albums" were still prevalent), without question, seeing merit in even the duffest of tracks and most incidental of B-sides. Bands like McCarthy, Kitchens of Distinction... and Felt.

Felt, if you've never heard of them – and it's a fairly safe bet that you haven't – were an English guitar band active throughout the 1980s. Ostensibly they were what's usually referred to as an "indie" band, but that only goes partway towards describing their music. Sure, most of their records – ten LPs (not counting compilations) and a dozen or so singles – were of a jangly guitar nature, but they also released an album comprised of instrumental tracks in varied styles (Let the Snakes Crinkle Their Heads to Death, Creation Records, 1986); an album with two extended keyboard instrumentals on the B-side (The Pictorial Jackson Review, Creation, 1988; the A-side consisted of short guitar pop songs recorded on 8-track); and a cocktail jazz album (Train Above the City, Creation, 1988).

So they were an unusually experimental and ambitious (musically, anyway) band – much of that ambition coming from founder, songwriter and lead vocalist Lawrence (Hayward, although his surname is rarely used). But that wasn't why I loved them (well, not entirely): I loved them for their very British take on the pop song; for the way those songs – "Penelope Tree", "Primitive Painters" and their defining (to my mind) moment, "Ballad of the Band" – frequently boasted passages of soaring beauty – delicately picked, dazzlingly lovely melodies and cascading guitar and keyboard lines; for Lawrence's quivering, half-sung, half-spoken vocals and poetic, often brutally honest lyrics; and for their carefully, artfully constructed air of mystique.

All of which is why my curiosity was piqued when I heard about this:

Felt, published by First Third Books in a limited, numbered, A4-size cloth-bound hardback edition of 1,000, all signed by Lawrence.

It's a handsomely produced collection of photographs of the band – some promotional, some personal – presented in roughly chronological order, with commentary by Lawrence. The photos are splendid enough taken on their own, but Lawrence's deadpan captions lend the enterprise a sublime absurdity, as he details his efforts to keep order in the ranks (despairing at the alcohol-fuelled antics of certain band-members; enforcing a "no smiling" policy during photo shoots and ensuring there were no double-chins in pictures by shouting "d-c, d-c!" before the shutter clicked) and retain absolute control over how Felt were perceived (not always successfully, it must be said).

Occasionally these endeavours verge on the hysterical: Lawrence eulogises the band's "neat, groomed, yet still tough" look in one set of fey pictures, and when asked to participate in a book about Creation Records is astounded by the lack of interest by other artists in the "crucial decision" of which photos should appear in the book, leading to, for them, "dire visual representation". But mostly his captions demonstrate an admirable (and largely thankless) commitment to Felt as a concept and an ideal – a commitment which helps to explain why the band were so special, and why they're still held in such high regard by fans of a certain age. Although, as ever with music, it's often simpler to let the songs speak for themselves:

Felt is still available from First Third, priced £39 plus p&p, although if you'd like to get hold of a copy, I'd advise you to get your skates on: my one is number 637, which means there are probably only a couple of hundred left now. Better yet, if you're unfamiliar with Felt and are intrigued by the YouTube clips above, Cherry Red Records have most of their albums available on CD. 

Addendum: Felt – which is to say Lawrence – had a knack for coming up with evocative song titles, but it occurs to me that one in particular has come to embody my exploration of twentieth century authors over the past few years...

The Stone Roses by Sarah Gainham: the Inspiration for the Manchester Band's Name? (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1959)

This final Sarah Gainham spy novel I'm showcasing was again recommended to me by spy novelist and espionage aficionado Jeremy Duns. But our tweeted conversation about it largely centred on the influence it had on a legendary – and recently reformed – Manchester band dear to both our hearts rather than on the novel itself...

The Stone Roses was first published in hardback in the UK by Eyre & Spottiswoode in 1958, under a striking photographic dustjacket by Christopher Macartney-Filgate, who may, or may not, be related to the filmmaker Terence-Macartney-Filgate (now that's what I call in-depth, detailed research). Set in Prague in 1948 (most, if not all, of Sarah Gainham's early thrillers are set in the past), shortly after the Communist Party coup d'état, the novel is narrated by Toby Elyat, a journalist who is sent to Czechoslovakia to cover the rigged May elections. But Toby has a parallel mission: to find the missing brother of a beautiful female Czech specialist in English affairs – a mission which will see him tangle with the Russian MVD...

Copies of the first edition of The Stone Roses are fairly thin on the ground; AbeBooks currently has around twenty copies of the novel listed for sale, but only five of those are the Eyre & Spottiswoode first, ranging in price from £12 to £20. Frankly, I'm surprised there are that many, because for fans a certain iconic late-1980s/early 1990s Manchester band, The Stone Roses boasts a special significance.

Legend has it that John Squire, guitarist and co-songwriter in – of course – The Stone Roses, decided to name his band after Sarah Gainham's fourth novel after either seeing a copy on his mum's bookshelf or finding a battered paperback himself. Now, that may, of course, be complete bollocks – there are at least two other rumoured origins of the band's name floating around out there – but Squire being a cultured, artistic sort, and in the absence of a firm denial either from him or from fellow bandmembers Ian Brown, Mani or Reni, it strikes me as an entirely plausible explanation for their name.

But why, you may be wondering, should all this be of interest to me (or indeed to Jeremy Duns, who made me aware of the Roses connection and got me interested in Gainham in the first place)? Well, I was – still am, I suppose; I'm certainly intrigued by the prospect of new material from them now they've reformed – a huge Stone Roses fan (as, I believe, is Jeremy). I was a student in Manchester during the Roses' – and the Happy Mondays, and the Inspiral Carpets (who, it seems, have also reformed, and with their original singer, no less) and the rest – heyday, from 1989 to 1992, making the pilgrimage to the Hacienda every week, seeing all the leading lights live at various venues (G-Mex for the Mondays, the International 2 for the Inspirals, the Uni for The Charlatans...). I was at Spike Island, the near-mythical Stone Roses gig near Widnes, and me and a mate once even followed vocalist Ian Brown when we happened to see him on a Manchester street. (He went to the bank, and then into someone's flat. Brilliant.) So if Sarah Gainham's The Stone Roses really was the inspiration for the band's name, then to own a first edition of it is, to a Roses enthusiast such as myself, a fine thing indeed.

Anyway, that's it for Sarah Gainham for the moment... but that's for from it for the spy fiction. Because quite soon it'll be spy fiction (almost) all the way on Existential Ennui, as I embark on a series of series of posts on... well, various spy series. The identities of the authors of those novels shall remain, for the moment, and appropriately, given the subject matter, a secret, but I can reveal some other surnames you'll be encountering before too long; names such as Behrens, Calder, Christopher, Drake, Durell, Fedora, Helm, Rees, Russell, Wilde, and, er, "anonymous".

Alongside all that there will of course be the usual scattering of Violent World of Parker cross-posts, the first of which, a review of Richard Stark's Lemons Never Lie, will, likely as not, turn up ahead of the spy fiction. And there may even be a post – or possible even two posts – before that, depending on what the weekend brings. I'm assisting me mum with her inaugural Beckenham Book Fair on Saturday, at the Elm Road Baptist Church (opens 10.30am), so that may be worth a missive, and on Sunday I'm planning on attending the London Royal National Hotel and Holiday Inn Book Fairs – the two biggest such events in the country – for the first time, so again, if that proves fruitful, I may sling up a post. We shall see...