It's that time of the year...

I'm in alignment with something in the NME!

At the risk of sounding ancient, I remember the days when Godspeed You! Black Emperor got on the front cover (apparently leading to the worst-selling issue in the history of magazines, or somesuch). And I loved it, for all it's frequent stupidity. I got into Boards of Canada through an NME cover mount and... well, a good third of my record collection has spun off from my love of BOC: Ghost Box, Moon Wiring Club, the new Pye Corner Audio* album to name a recent handful.

And now Warpaint. Yes, a hipster band. But a really, really good one. It's just a really lovely, dark and atmospheric record. Weatherall is on production duties, and you can hear him stamped all over it. Undertow, especially, has a lovely reverby spatiousness to it. Right now it's my second favourite thing in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMkqbY0oGKQ

My absolute favourite thing in the world, of course, is Umberto. Of course! Merciful Zeus, but this is one of my albums of the year. It's basically fake seventies/early eighties horror film music. In fact it really should be called Music To Stalk Teenagers By. But that would probably be wrong.

What I really love is that he (Matt Hill from Expo 70) hasn't just copied the warbly synths and artfully misplayed notes (though check Night Stalking for a class example of that) but he's got some really nasty bass terror going on. It sounds ginormous on a turntable.

You can hear a couple of tracks here. Go with Temple Room first.

http://pitchfork.com/forkcast/14994-someone-chasing-someone-through-a-house-temple-room/

* Go download it, it's only a fiver and it's really good...

http://pyecorneraudio.bandcamp.com/