Rachel's Highlights of 2010

I am suffering end of year blues. No, I think I am suffering severe post-holiday blues. Going back to work this week after three weeks in Thailand has not helped this. Making a list of my favourite songs of the year has helped this marginally - trawling my ipod and listening to so much amazing music - but somehow made it worse too. How the fuck am I supposed to narrow this year down to ten songs, so overwhelming, what happened to the year, who am i, where am i, why am i sitting at a desk at work, what day is it, what am i supposed to do when a new year starts, oh god.


1. It seems that Steve and I concur that Twin Shadow was one of the best artists to come out of 2010. Have you googled a picture of him? He is also the best things to come out of 2010 aesthetically.

Twin Shadow - At My Heels


2. Kisses were also another 2010 love affair for me. I thought the dreampop shoegazey year of 2009 would blissfully float away to another glo-fi time and space continuum in 2010 but I was wrong and it was very much here to stay. The Hot Chip remix of this track is amazeballs as well.

Kisses - Kisses

Kisses - Kisses (Hot Chip Remix)


3. I do not care for indie street cred and love this next song to bits. The number of strange corners of the world in which I heard this song this year only made me love it more. The fact that Dcup is a blouse man only makes it better even though it needed no extra levels of betterness. This song is going to do down in dance music history like Drop the Pressure.

DCup and Yolanda Be Cool - We No Speak Americano


4. Tame Impala's album Innerspeaker was Australia's 2010 obsession apparently. There is something annoyingly good about their music. It's like, I don't like the fact that I like it. Is that weird? I think it's because every time I've seen them live they've been poo. And they're young and blaze and seem to not give a shit. But then their music is the shit. So confused. Lucidity was a fave but I am a sucker for a sick instrumental and this is the instrumental of the year.

Tame Impala - Jeremy's Storm


5. Delorean was my live music experience of the year and therefore deserves a spot. I saw them play at a club in Shibuya in Tokyo which was surreal in itself but complete with dancing Japanese hipsters and that guy who goes nuts on the keyboard and Ibiza-stylez electronic music in the middle of downtown Nippon, it was too good. This is the standout from their 2010 album Subiza I think.

Delorean - Stay Close


6. 7. 8. and 9. Sydney pumped out so much good music this year! Not that it ever doesn't but Jinja Safari, Bag Raiders, Flight Facilities and Boy and Bear stole my attention this year. These four tracks were on high rotation on the local dial. Have you heard tropical house done as good as Snake Chalmers? Or carefree summertime disco-pop as good as Crave You? And Jinja Safari even had their own genre made up for them - "forest rock" or some shit like that. As for Boy and Bear, you make my heart melt.

Bag Raiders - Snake Chalmers

Jinja Safari - Peter Pan

Boy and Bear - Mexican Mavis

Flight Facilities - Crave You

Flight Facilities - Crave You (C90 Remix)


10. And if you want to know who will be at the top of the Australian music scene in a couple of years time it is this dude. This is the first taste we have had of Joyride & The Accidents and it made my year. Feeling a little excitable for what is to come.

Joyride & The Accidents - This Is It


11. Kanye (another one you hate to love) really sucked me in this year and it seems the rest of the world too. This song is bananas. So beautiful, so effortlessly cool and something that just makes you shake your head and think how does he keep on doing it?

Kanye West - Lost in the World


12. I know I'm now up to number 12 in my top 10 and being self indulgent with what the above average music lover will deem a below average list of favourites but whatevs. Yeasayer are my all timers. It'd be easy to choose One as the standout from Odd Blood but Madder Red is so sick, it gives me chills down my spine. My sister has declared that she wants this song played at her funeral procession as her body is slowly paraded through the crowds on the shoulders of red indians.

Yeasayer - Madder Red

And here are all the tracks in a zip file via mediafire


Love you 2010 and love you blouse readers. Sending much love over the seas and cities and the radio waves xxxxxx

2009 According to Rachel

What does my Best of 2009 say? I feel it reflects my poor taste in music. And possibly an identity crisis. And it seems to be full of epic and monumentally moving songs which kinda masks the fact that I spend a lot of time in a club listening to bangers and I’m not an epic and monumentally melancholy person but it’s about the songs that stick with you right?

And while I do agree that it was the year for dubstep (ew), dream pop, nu-wave and whatever else I was also happy to see it was the year for folk and folktronica and excessive portmanteaus to describe genres. 2009 for life x

The Juan Maclean - Happy House

In 2009, the people I most wanted to be were: Nancy Wang, Lady Gaga, Natasha Khan, the winner of the lottery, Tao Lin and Michelle Obama. There were a few other 90s sounding bangers around that took my fancy too, Shit Robot’s Work It Out, Siriusmo’s High Together and this 11 minute track but it wasn’t a standout year for club music. Dizzee Rascal seriously go fuck yourself.

Antony and the Johnsons - Aeon

No music “affected” me more than Antony and the Johnsons in 2009. It’s so overwhelming I often have to turn it off. Sometimes people get so wanky when they start talking about the impact of music but I couldn’t help it with The Crying Light. A beautiful album and a beautiful song that eschewed the zeitgeist.

The xx - Crystalised and Stars (pre-album version)

The xx were probably my favourite discovery for 2009. I like the delicate and almost childlike simplicity. It's kinda magnetic and just quite unusual music and not like much I've heard before which is all I really hope for.

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Streets of Philadelphia

I just love anything that comes out of Owen Ashworth so it’s kinda irrelevant to the year but it was one of the best gigs I saw in 2009. Is lo-fi nu-wave indietronica trendy? I’m not sure.

Fuck Buttons – The Lisbon Maru

Really, all my list of honorable mentions should be in this spot, I can't decide. But it was the year for Fuck Buttons and beautiful hardened electronic soundscapes and experimental synth orgies. I love rude levels of grandeur in music. When I ranked my itunes according to “number of plays” yesterday Camera Obscura was the first song but I was secretly wishing it would be The Lonely Island.

And an Australian top 5 because it was a super good year for music. I am so obsessed with the music that comes out this country, and Sydney in particular.
Crayon Fields – All the Pleasures of the World
Tame Impala – Remember Me
Paul Dempsey – Ramona Was A Waitress (Faux Pas Remix)
Bag Raiders – Shooting Star
Philadelphia Grand Jury – Going to the Casino

DOWNLOAD RACHEL'S 2009 (zip file)

DOWNLOAD ENTIRE BLOUSE BEST OF 2009 (zip file - 187mb)

Honorable mentions
Air – Sing Sang Song
The Big Pink - Dominos
Boy and Bear - Mexican Mavis
Camera Obscura – French Navy
Washed Out – Feel It All Around
Hot Chip – One Night Stand
Memory Tapes - Bicycles
The Lonely Island – I'm On A Boat
Temper Trap – Sweet Dispositions
The Middle East – Blood
Phantogram – Mouthful of Diamonds
Jay Z and Alicia Keys – Empire State of Mind

ze vemixes

I couldn't help myself, so i kissed him. I had to express my pure adulation to Van She's vocalist Nick Routledge with the recent release of their remix album Ze Vemixes. It was foolish of me, and i could've blamed the wine, but we were both satisfied with my plush man lips pressed into his soft, boy-like cheek last Friday.

His petite girlfriend, sitting beside us in a booth at The Falconer, was equally as ruttish. I caught a hungry twinkle in her eye just as the camera snapped. The low lights burned softly as the air temperature rose around us several degrees. On-lookers began whispering.

Van She - Cat and the Eye (Van She Tech Remix)

To share in the euphoria you can pick up a copy of Ze Vemixes here, or get tickets to Van She's show at the Metro on June 26, with support sets from Bag Raiders and Ted & Francis.

Mwa x.