Top 5 Veil Of Sound-related picks
AVTT/PTTN - s/t - A delightful collection that always makes me smile. Whenever this album starts to feel mainstream you can rely on Mike Patton’s unmistakable tones to drag it into deliciously unpredictable territory.
Claire Rousay - A Little Death - Claire Rousay truly finds cohesion in the randomness on this beautifully patched together collection of field recordings and instrumentation. A fine example of fractured beauty.
Backxwash - Only Dust Remains - A sublime record that couldn’t be rawer or more confessional in it’s delivery. Gone are the metal elements of previous albums but in its place is a tone that is far heavier than any distorted guitar.
Dark Sky Burial - The Sacred Neurotic - Shane Embury’s Dark Sky Burial really finds it’s voice on this album. A truly eclectic but beautifully blended collection hugely enhanced by the collaborations with Carl Stokes previously of Current 93 and Cancer.
Agriculture - The Spiritual Sound - An album that is rightfully appearing on many album of the year lists. Agriculture have transcended the Ecstatic Black Metal tag to deliver an album that takes in noise rock, shoegaze and even a self-confessed heavily disguised love of Slipknot. Utterly essential listening.
Top5 Non Veil Of Sound picks
Nas & DJ Premier - Light Years - This is the HipHop album that the genre needs like someone lost in the desert needs water. A perfectly executed collection of true Rap tracks centered around the original four elements of HipHop, an ancient code that seemed to have been forgotten.
Oneohtrix Point Never - Tranquilizer - A masterful nostalgic exercise in crate digging sample CDs from the 90s and turning them into something completely new and yet equally sentimental. Challenging and warming to an old producer like myself.
VOWWS - I Will Fill Your House With An Army - Some bands are just cool, like Kim Gordon is cool, effortless and potentially dangerous. That’s the feeling I get from this album of Post Punk-tinged Electronic Rock anthems. I implore you to give this band a spin.
Mark Pritchard and Thom Yorke - Tall Tales - I’ve been a fan of Mark Pritchard for around 35 years and on this album I’m a fan of Thom Yorke for around one hour and sixty seconds. Beautifully odd and incredibly produced this twisting, turning offering almost made me listen to Radiohead.
Aya - Hexed - The most wonderfully produced and genuinely alarming Electronic album of the year for me. Simultaneously caring and not caring for the listener and accompanied by Aya’s youthful energetic narrative. I wished I had had this album back when I was 20.
Top 3 Concerts
The Jesus Lizard - Leeds Brudenell Social Club Backxwash - Supersonic Festival Din Of Celestial Birds - Damnation Festival
Top 3 Other Things
- My new Gretsch guitar
- Releasing the 601 and Null Assembly releases
- Interviewing Buzz Osbourne, Dave Lombardo and David Yow in the same year
