The Thrill Pier Ian's 50 favourite albums of the past ten years - 50 to 41

	50. Iron And Wine - The Creek Drank the Cradle (Sub Pop) 2002 Top track: Upwards over the mountain
	49. TV On The Radio - Dear Science (4AD) 2008 The record that TVOTR were always threatening to make. Fusing disparate influences to create magnificently towering music had always been the band's stock in trade but they'd never managed to pull it off more regularly than the odd song here and there before they took a misstep. This was the first consistently strong release they'd put out since their debut EP and a genuinely pleasant shock after the poor Return to cookie mountain. Top track: Halfway home
	48. Parenthetical Girls - Entanglements (Tomlab) 2008 Zac Pennington as a lyricist has something of a one tracked mind but his priapic songs were set against some of the most gorgeously arranged songs of the past decade. Top track: This regrettable end
	47. Wilco - A ghost is born (Nonesuch) 2004 A.K.A. The last time Wilco were great on record. Probably the album where Wilco sounded closest to the band that had made their previous record. When you consider that the last record that Wilco released prior to this one was Yankee Hotel Foxtrot that can only be a good thing. Top track: Spiders (Kidsmoke)
	46. Yo La Tengo - And then nothing turned itself inside out (Matador) 2000 Top track: Cherry Chapstick
	45. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (Sub Pop) 2001 The Shins career path can be quite easily summed up. Album one, great; album two, not as good; album 3, pile of balls but they sold a load of them. That first record though, gentle country pop with a hint of psychedelia thrown in as required, wow. And no, "New Slang" won't change your life but it will do something for you. Top track: Caring is creepy.
	44. Buck 65 - Talkin' Honkey Blues (Warners) 2003 If you ever wondered what Tom Waits would sound like if he made a hip hop album then this is probably the closest thing that you'll ever find to it. Richard Tefrey has a gravel voiced way with words who brings pathos, humour and pride in a job well done to his tunes. Those more into hip hop than I might pick one of his earlier records but as far as I'm concerned this is the best Nova Scotian white boy underground hip hop album of all time. Top track: Roses And Bluejays
	43. The Hold Steady - Boys and Girls in America (Vagrant) 2006 I think keyboardist Franz Nicolay summed The Hold Steady up best when on the DVD accompanying their live album he said that the band writes grown up songs about grown up things, even when they're about kids. Never more was this more true on this album when after two albums somewhat or all concerned with the exploits of Gideon, Charlemagne and Holly Craig Finn turned his attention away from them. Top track: You can make him like you
	42. Jeffrey Lewis - The last time I did acid I went insane and other favourites (Rough Trade) 2002 Top Track: The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song
	41. LCD Soundsystem - Sound Of Silver (DFA) 2007 "Oh wow," said the world, "LCD Soundsystem can actually make a proper and album and not just stick a bunch of singles together like they did last time, and it's really fucking great." And how Top track: Someone great.

The Thrill Pier Ian's 50 favourite albums of the past ten years - 31 albums that didn't make the cut ...

... but did make the long list when I was brainstorming over the last couple of days.

In alphabetical order, by band/artist name, like you'd find in a record shop. Some of these were close to the top 50, some were just things that popped into my head and were never genuine contenders. There's probably other albums that I haven't considered that could go here but originally I was just planning on doing a top 30 countdown but eventually expanded it to 50. If I forgot it then I probably don't think it's good enough to crack the top 50 but it might be better than some of the other stuff I have listed in this particular post.

The format this is going to take is that tomorrow I'm going to post 50-41 and then on Monday it'll be 40 - 31. Those lists will be mostly unblurbed unless I feel the record deserves specific comment. From then on I'll be posting blurbed installments in groups of 5, alternating posts with ones about my 30 favourite albums of this year which will also be in 5's. I'm shooting for a posting schedule of one post every weekday but don't hold me to it, I do have shit to do sometimes, that is to say I bought a PS3 recently and I might decide to spend an evening getting value out of that instead. Also I'm going to ATP this weekend so I'm going to probably blog about that one of the days too.

Notes and rebuttals for the arseholes, the pedants and the imbeciles:

• You say - It's not a best of the decade list the decade starts in 2011
• I say - I'd dispute that one but to save on the argument fine, I'll call it a list for the past ten years. I won't say the naughties because I hate that term

• You say - Where's the hip hop/jazz/dance/etc. you're a fool and a charlatan, how can you have a list of the best albums of whatever without Untrue/The Blueprint/whatever?
• I say - Hi welcome to my blog, this is obviously your first visit here because if it weren't then you'd know that this is precisely the sort of shit that I mostly like, mopey folk, lo-fi noisy bollocks and for want of a better term "Pitchfork indie". But fine, it's not a best of list, it's a list of my favourites. But there is some hip hop and electronic nonsense and all of that in here somewhere too. Most of my favourite Jazz dudes are long dead so they ain't dropping new records.

• You say - Given the narrow constraints of your tastes which broadly reflect my own I still can't believe you left out *name of album you love but that I don't dig on*, you are a cloth eared buffoon.
• I say - I believe the term is "facepalm." Generally speaking this is just "like one person's opinion maaan." I'm not dissing you by not listing a record you like, relax, don't get bent out of shape.
  
  But I suppose that on a metaphysical level where as far as I might be concerned everything in the universe just exists in relation to my own perception of it, and this is doubly true of subjective matters then in that case I'm right, and you're wrong.
  
  You cloth eared buffoon.
  

• You say - You're a smart arsed cunt you know that?
• I say - You kiss your mother with that mouth? Because I kiss her with mine.

Without further ado ...

Andrew Bird - Andrew Bird & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
Antony And The Johnsons - I am a bird now
Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Devendra Banhart Rejoicing in the Hands
Battles - Mirrored
Beirut - Gulag Orkestrar
Bright Eyes - Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
Common - Be
Dan Deacon - Bromst
Doves - The Last Broadcast
The Field From Here We Go Sublime
Four Tet - Rounds
Fuck Buttons - Street Horrsing
The Gothic Archies - The Tragic Teasury
Handsome Furs - Face Control
Handsome Furs - Plague Park
Islands - Return To The Sea
The Microphones - Mount Eerie
Jim O' Rourke - Insignificance
Phosphorescent - Pride
The Postal Service - Give Up
Radiohead - Amnesiac
Radiohead - In Rainbows
Si Scroeder - Coping Mechanism
Silver Jews - Bright Flight
Sonic Youth - Murray st
The Stars Of The Lid - The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid
The Strokes - Is This It
Sunset Ruddown - Shut Up I am dreaming.
TV On The Radio - Desperate Youths bloodthirsty babes
M. Ward - Post War
The Walkmen - Bows And Arrows

Xiu xiu to play Dublin in February

Skinny Wolves Presents

Xiu Xiu

Saturday 20th February 2010
Whelans, Wexford St, Dublin
Doors 7.30
Ticket Price : 15e ( from Road, City Discs, http://www.tickets.ie/skinnywolves)

I think the last time I saw Xiu Xiu was at a festival in San Francisco in 2006 and they were fantastic. I missed their last Dublin gig becasue I was Springsteen last year. This should be really good. Huzzah Skinny Wolves, huzzah.

Download the first single from the new Final Fantasy album.

"Lewis Takes Action" is the first single from Heartland which is out on Domino in January. You can download it (and by doing so enter a competition for one of 25 signed 7"s) here.

Latest round of Primavera additions.

Low plays The Great Destroyer
Wire
Superchunk
Oribital
Mission Of Burma
Dr. Dog
King Khan and BBQ
Wire
Japandroids
Lee Scratch Perry
Sic ALps
Circulatory System

Jimmy Fallon as Neil Young Covering The Fresh Prince Theme

Video Recaps | Full Episodes | Webisodes

Redneck Manifesto to play the Whelan's NYE gig this year plus other news.

via Richie Egan on Twitter.

redneck manifesto news - we mix our new record this week in france, and we play whelans, dublin on new years eve. look forward to both.

Your special, once in a lifetime opportunity to pay waaaayyyyyyy over the odds for some guitars ...

... just because Trent Reznor owns them.

Nine Inch Nails are selling a load of equipment and instruments because they aren't touring any more. In the coming weeks you'll be able to bid for all sorts of keyboards and effects units but for now there's a number of guitars, basses etc. up for sale. The provenance of these instruments probably means that they'll go for a lot more than they're worth but at the minute the initial prices for everything seems to be quite reasonable.

List of things for sale here. This Banjitar looks interesting.

Competition: Win Deer Tick tickets and other goodies.

Straight outta the USA's smallest state (that's Rhode Island by the way dummy) are Deer Tick and if you're not going to ATP this weekend or Sonic Youth in Vicar St. then their gig in Whelan's on Sunday might be a pretty good bet. Thanks to the people at Foggy Notions I've got a double pass to give away to the gig PLUS ... the winner will get copies of both their albums and some stickers too.

To be in with a chance to win send your answer to this question to thrillpiercomp@gmail.com with "Deer Tick" in the subject line.

What is the name of the New Jersey band that Deer Tick guitarist Ian O'Neill used to be in (who I don't think have ever played here but who I'd really like to see)?

Entry to the competition will close on Thursday morning and the winner will be picked using random.org and shortly thereafter will be announced.

But tickets (€14) here.

Deer Tick on MySpace.

Mumford & Sons, Errors Dublin dates.

After selling out (I think) the downstairs venue there English folk revivalists Mumford And Sons are coming back to Dublin to play The Academy on March 18th.

A week later on the 25th Mowai championed (and signed to their label) Errors play Academy 2.

Not Squares, Banter

I feel as though I've missed the boat a little on Not Squares having been a little out of the loop for a few months and missed all their recent HWCH/Richter Collective connected trips down (to Dublin obviously, any arrival 'round my manor by the 3 of them could only be as the result of seriously wrong turn made somewhere around Dundalk in a bid to avoid paying the toll at the bridge) from Belfast recently. They played Pogo in the Twisted Pepper on Saturday night and having gone to Banter in the upstairs room (more of which after a paragraph or two) earlier in the evening I stuck around for their set.

They're very bloody good the three of them are. Not Squares consist of a drummer who furiously lays down post punk beats and a couple of other dudes who both play bass, occasionally at the same time, and synthesisers, again occasionally at the same time. If I'd paid more attention to the stage I might have noticed if both played both at the same time. In addition to the post punk influences there's lots of arpeggiated synth loops as well as nods towards The Rapture circa back when they were worth listening to and Liars, who are at the very least always worth that. They're seriously shit hot live too and definitely a band to keep an eye out for in the future.

As for Banter it was the first of the talks that I'd been to and apparently it was best attended one to date (Jedward are out, alternative Saturday pursuits must be found). Perhaps I was just in a combative mood but it's been ages since I've found myself so frustrated over something so pointless as the colossal wrongness of some people's opinions about stuff, not necessarily those of host Jim Carroll or guest Richie Egan, Nadine O'Regan or Trev from Bodytonic though I'm not on the same page with everything that was said by them, but mostly from what was said in the audience. The notion of innovation as a virtue by itself in music hurts my brain a little and to be frank makes me want to weep for the planet. Aside from that though it was mostly an interesting couple of hours and future Banters are probably going to be worth checking out.

New Wolf Parade album? In February?

Edit: You can disregard all this. It was a typo on the part of the site I linked to, it's actually the Wolf People record.

According to this thread on The Milk Carton Wolf Parade have jumped ship from Sub Pop (also home to Dan Boeckner's Handsome Furs) to Jagjaguar (also home to Spencer Krug's Sunset Rubdown, Swan Lake and Moonface) and have a new album coming out on February 23rd called Tidings. Here is the supposed tracklisting ...

1. Season Pt. 1
2. Black Water
3. Interlude: Plains/Banjoe
4. Cotton Strands
5. Interlude: Circle/Viking/Colours
6. Storm Cloud
7. Interlude: Grandfather
8. Interlude: Scraps
9. October Fires
20. Interlude: Mercy Fragment
11. April
12. Untitled
13. Interlude: Cotton Fragment
14. Empty Heart
15. Season Pt. 2

If the tone of this post is a little incredulous it's just that according to interviews with both Boeckner and Krug in recent months while they were touring with their other bands Wolf Parade was only getting back together at the start of November. If that's the case then that means that this record was done in less than a month. But somebody on the internetz said it so it must be true. There's no mention of it on the Jagjaguar site or the main Wolf Parade fansite though.

Pavement play Dublin in May.

Tripod

May 4th.

On sale this Friday at 9AM (when I'll be on a plane to ATP arrrgh).

€34- €38.50

Yeasayer play Dublin

February 19th.

On sale tomorrow at 9AM.

€16

Competition: Win weekend tickets for the Homelights festival.

The Homelights festival takes place in Whelans from this Friday-Monday and I've got a double pass to give away for the whole festival, which features the like of Adem, Vashti Bunyan and Dosh (see previous post for full lineup and timetable).

To be in with a chance to win the tickets answer this question by e-mailing thrillpiercomp@gmail.com with "Homelights" in the subject.

Who is curating the Homelights festival?

Entry to the competition will close on Thursday morning and the winner will be picked using random.org and shortly thereafter will be announced.

Tickets are available here for €12, €20, €25 and €15 for each respective night or €45 for a weekend pass.