'KHONNOR' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

This was the first A Grave With No Name track I ever recorded.

It was inspired by the amazing music of Khonnor, who made an album called 'Handwriting' 5 years ago, when he was 17 years old.

Download: 'Khonnor' - A Grave With No Name

MEAL DEAL: TOP 10 ALBUMS OF 2009

10. 'Primary Colours' - The Horrors

‘Primary Colours’ is by no means the records that anyone could have expected The Horrors to make, not one note on their debut ‘Strange House’, suggested this could happen. This is the sound of a band pouring molten lava over their record collections, and letting it fuse back together as a truly unique, glowing whole.



09. 'Love Comes Close' - Cold Cave

Some interesting things I’ve heard about Cold Cave this year:

1) Main dude Wesley Eisold not only used to be in Some Girls, and Give Up the Ghost, but more interestingly only has one hand.
2) He also has four houses and is a multi-millionaire as a result of suing Pete Wentz.
3) A friend of mine saw them live and described them as, “a bunch of goths in cagoules”.

I don’t care what percentage of these facts are true, because they all heightened my enjoyment of ‘Love Comes Close’ considerably this year.

08. 'Deeper Than Rap' - Rick Ross

As far as I can make out, this is a concept album about being rich and being very pleased about it.

07. 'Childish Prodigy' - Kurt Vile

Whilst focus seemed to fall on the high-volume of Kurt Vile’s output, more interesting was the quality and subtle radicalism of his music. ‘Childish Prodigy’, although bearing all the hallmarks of being tossed-off in a couple of days where he wasn’t drinking Buds and smoking packs of Lucky Strikes on his front-porch, is a total home-run, shaving the worthiness and conservatism from Classic American Rock and revealing the howling hurt beneath the demin.

06. 'Monoliths & Dimensions' - Sunn 0)))

Sunn 0))) could go on making the same record for the rest of eternity, and everyone would quite rightly shower them in adulation, whilst excitedly talking about their “intense” live shows. I’d never accuse them of coasting, but ‘Monoliths & Dimensions’, is an unexpected, mammoth step into new realms for Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson. This is a truly, (as the title suggests) monumental, record, adorned with choirs, strings, woodwind and organs, which perhaps for the first time in this band’s career, allow a crack of light to enter into their impenatrable black space.



05. 'Merriweather Post Pavillion' - Animal Collective

It’s likely that you have overplayed this record and are just as sick of hearing about it as I am, but nonetheless…

04. 'Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt.II' - Raekwon

Seeing as he’s no stranger to stealing from American-Italian culture, I don’t feel too bad lazily comparing Raekwon to Rocky. After being universally recognized as the heavyweight champion, with the release of his classic ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’ in 1995, Raekwon took his eye off the prize, became fat(ter), complacent, and after a couple of very mediocre LPs, nearly coasted his way back into obscurity over the following decade and a half. Long mythologized for years, ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx Pt.II’ emerged in 2009 as a towering creative success; more than worthy of the ‘Cuban Linx’ tag and packed with the type of hard-boiled crime sagas and expansive, dusty, emotive soul beats that made every single one of those first wave of Wu solo albums so essential back in the early 90’s. I couldn’t really be bothered following that Rocky metaphor through there, but you probably know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever wasted 90 minutes of your life watching ‘Rocky Balboa’ hungover like I have.

03. 'xx' - The XX

Most people reading this, are going to be at least partially familiar with this record, so little more needs to be said about its aesthetics. What can’t be reiterated enough, however, is the quality, depth and emotional depth of this set of songs. Truly moving, stark and beautiful, whilst one of the best displays of straightforward songwriting in recent memory, ‘xx’ is truly a landmark debut.



02. 'The Floodlight Collective' - Lotus Plaza

Whilst Atlas Sound’s ‘Logos’ garnered all the attention, Deerhunter’s Locket Pundt, quietly released this stunning collection of sunny, reverb-drenched, songs under his Lotus Plaza moniker. Where it’s impossible to detach Cox’s music from his cerebral cortex, Pundt’s delicate set of songs, packed a emotive punch by virtue of their subtlety and lack of ego. It’s no easy feat outshining Bradford Cox, but on ‘The Floodlight Collective’, Locket Pundt manages exactly that.



01. 'Alphabet 1968' - Black to Comm

With ‘Alphabet 1968’, Marc Richter crafted the most sonically interesting record of the year, but also its best. Architecturally, this is a record that truly exists in three dimensions, with found-sound and ambience bristling through the stereo field, adding layers of poignancy to the aching folds of melodies beneath its surface. A record that subtly became my favourite of the year over the recent months, and one which I’m still looking forward to learning more about.

'SIDETRIPPING' - DEEP SHT

This brand new Deep Sht song is incredible.

Download: 'Sidetripping' - Deep Sht

Order: 'Weird You' E.P. from No Pain in Pop, here.

A GRAVE WITH NO NAME - DUMMY MIXTAPE

A mixtape, first published by DUMMY magazine.

1. 'Krusty' - Papa M

2. 'Candy Girl' - Trailer Trash Tracys

3. 'Fruit Bats Forever #7 Excerpt' - Hype Williams

4. 'Portofino' - Teengirl Fantasy

5. 'Her Open Heart' - Natural Numbers

6. 'Like Lovers' - Celestial Bodies

7. 'The Man From the Anthill' - Khonnor

8. 'Sunday Night' - Lotus Plaza

9. '21st Union' - Arch M

10. 'dlp 1.3' - William Basinski

Download: here.

NEW VIDEO: 'LOVERS ROCK' - GENTLE FRIENDLY (DIRECTED BY ANUPA MADAWELA)

Gentle Friendly's incredible debut album 'Ride Slow' was released last week through Upset the Rhythm, and this is Anupa Madawela's video for its most poignant track 'Lovers Rock' which I'm going to guess has everything to do with Sade album of the same name, (although I doubt she ever had exploding baby-doll heads in any of her videos).

'SASKIA/YOU'RE GONE' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME (VIRTUAL 7")

A. 'Saskia'//B. 'You're Gone'

Download

COME TO THIS

'SAMMY' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

'Sammy' - A Grave With No Name

'SUMMER CABIN '#2' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

'Summer Cabin #2'

AN EVENING W/ ANIMAL COLLECTIVE & MEAL DEAL

'THE SUN RISES' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

'The Sun Rises'

hype williams / hounds of hate 'deuces' mixtape.

Naming yourself after the world's most expensive video director and then sounding like the world's least expensive band is fucking cool in my book.

Hype Williams MySpace

Hounds of Hate MySpace

Download: hype williams / hounds of hate 'deuces' mixtape

A GRAVE WITH NO NAME E.P. LAUNCH

A Grave With No Name released their self-titled E.P. on Monday through Popular Recordings and will be having a launch show at White Heat on Tuesday 21st July to mark the release.

Support comes from ex Semifinalists and awesome artwork dude Ferry Gouw's new band Celestial Bodies and The Rayographs.

DJs: The Big Pink, No Pain in Pop and Feeding Time.

You can order the E.P. right HERE.

Advance tickets for the night are right HERE.

DAVE PAJO

Asides from my really impressive A-Level grades, my CV is a pretty boring read. Dave Pajo’s however reads like a porno mag for people who jack off over Stereogum each morning. It’s pretty unreal, as well as his various solo guises Papa M, Aerial M and Pajo, the dude has played guitar with: Slint, Zwan, Tortoise, Stereolab, Bonnie Prince Billie, Royal Trux and Mogwai. He’s also played with loads of bands that I haven’t heard of and started a terrible metal tribute act called Dead Child – oh yeah, and he’s also currently playing live with Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Here’s my top ‘Dave Pajo is my hero’ moments:

Zwan



After the acrimonious dissolution of the Smashing Pumpkins in a fireball of heroin, sacked members and not being very good anymore, Billy Corgan bizzarely called on Dave Pajo, Matt Sweeney from Chavez, Paz Lenchantin from A Perfect Circle and seemingly the only guy in the whole world who could bear being near him for a prolonged period of time, ex-Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlain. I guess you could call Zwan a supergroup of sorts, if your definition of a supergroup involves half the rhythm section of a Tool side-project, and the guitarist from an overrated math-rock band.

I don’t care what anyone says, Zwan’s singles fucking kicked-ass, and there was definitely a perverse pleasure in knowing how pissed-off all those ‘Spiderland’ geeks must have been to see Dave jamming along next to Billy Corgan onstage. The band broke-up, in all likelihood, because Billy Corgan was being a dick again, but he claimed it was down to “…sex acts between band members in public. People carrying drugs across borders. Pajo sleeping with the producer's girlfriend while we were making the record” – i.e. Billy Corgan split up Zwan because Dave Pajo was being cool.

‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’ – Tortoise



I like to think that I am not incredibly boring, so I make the effort to dislike jazz and post-rock like everyone else. Unfortunately, I did allow ‘Millions Now Living Will Never Die’ to grow on me, to the point where along with everyone else who has a semi-decent record collection, I think it’s something of a masterpiece. I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that I don’t like any other of their albums and this is the only one in their catalogue which Dave Pajo plays on. If you’re looking for immediate kicks, go elsewhere, but seriously this album absolutely rules even if it does take about four hundred listens before you really ‘get’ it and features a whole bunch of xylophone solos.

'Whatever Mortal’ – Papa M

Dave Pajo released a whole mass of music under the names Aerial M and Papa M around the late 1990’s-early 2000’s (most heavy weed smokers think the letter M has some form of mystical significance apparently) – all of it is very good, but ‘Whatever Mortal’ stands out as my favourite album he has ever been involved in – it’s his folk album and also marks his first vocal performance. I’ve listened to this album non-stop since I bought it way back in 2001 – people talk about overlooked masterpieces, but seriously, this runs a train on pretty much every sad-dude-with-a-guitar album ever recorded.

VIDEO: 'STONE SETTING' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

Directed by Anupa Madawela

THE BEST RAP ALBUM OF ALL TIME?

‘D.O.A.’ has pushed the hype for ‘The Blueprint 3’ to unbelievable levels – but forget that shit, Spotify exclusively brings you the real Jay-Z classic you’ve all been waiting for since ‘Reasonable Doubt’. ‘Tribute to Jay-Z’.

I’m not exactly sure who the un-named MC on ‘Tribute to Jay-Z’ is, but he must have Lil Wayne, Drake, T.I, Rakim and Raekwon pretty much shitting their pants because he’s better than all of them put together.

Even the ghost of the late Notorious B.I.G. came back from the grave to release this official statement:

“There have been a lot of people claiming that I am the best M.C. of all time, and until now they were right. However, I have come back briefly to just let you know that I gracefuly accept that I am now #2 and I fully admit that the rapper on ‘Tribute to Jay-Z’ is about 6 or 7 times better than me. P.S. Can someone lend me ‘Notorious’ on DVD?”.

Spotify Link: 'Tribute to Jay-Z'

DOWNLOAD: 50 CENT 'WAR ANGEL' LP

I kind of liked ‘Get Up’, in fact, if I remember correctly, I think I claimed that it was the best song I had ever heard, but in the 8 months since its release, I’ve forgotten how it goes, ‘Before I Self Destruct’ still hasn’t dropped and the world was hugely unimpressed by Eminem's album.

In the meantime, 50 has recorded this street LP which is available for free download from his website Thisis50.com. It’s pretty much the best thing since his debut ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin’ and sees him back to doing what he does best, i.e. it isn’t the steaming pile of shit that was ‘Curtis’.

Having said that, when artists release these pretty-good street albums, it usually means that the official album they’re preceding is going to be nearly as bad as that Pharrell solo album you forgot existed.

Download: 'War Angel LP' - 50 Cent

THE FADER

There's an interview with A Grave With No Name over at The Fader right now.

ENIGAMI

'SOFIA' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

'Sofia'

'STONE SETTING' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

Stone Setting

A GRAVE WITH NO NAME LIVE - ICA, LONDON, 23RD APRIL 2009

Videos from the last night of The Big Pink tour.

PACIFIC GHOST - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

'Pacific Ghost' - A Grave With No Name

'OCEAN GHOSTS' - NATURAL NUMBERS

After announcing the demise of his recording alias, Natural Numbers, Trevor Fitzhugh has re-emerged like from the flames of non-existence with the ‘Ocean Ghosts’ E.P. If certain rappers are allowed to keep on saying they’re retiring and then coming back, then it’s all fair game in our eyes.

Originally conceived as the full length follow up-to out #14 album of last year ‘Forest Diving’, ‘Ocean Ghosts’ has now been scaled-down to an E.P. and leaked onto the internet as a free download over the weekend. Over its 23 minute run-time, Trevor brings together Fennesz-like ambient sketches, pulverizing hardcore and a Q and Not U-esque-emo jam, before waves of guitar straight off ‘Loveless’ splash themselves over closing track ‘Powhattan’ – probably my favourite song of the year so far incidentally.

‘Ocean Ghosts’ will be release physically at some point in the future, so keep make sure you pick up a copy when it is, but for now, you can download the whole thing for free below.

Download: ‘Ocean Ghosts’ – Natural Numbers

NO PAIN IN POP COMPILATION

The guys at No Pain in Pop have taken it upon themselves to compile a compilation of everything that’s brilliant about music. From Abe Vigoda’s tropical punk, Banjo or Freakout’s digital vortex of sound, Health’s motorik noise jams, Telepathe’s ice cold Brooklyn melancholy, right through the trashed keyboard punk of Gentle Friendly, A Grave with No Name’s 8-track grunge soundscapes and hiccupping, diced two-step from Sunni Geini the compilation literally never puts a foot wrong asides from maybe not featuring a really good morally reprehensible rap song. It’s straight up 10/10 awesomeness all the way through and the world needed this so, so badly.

The standout moment comes from the reverb-laden world of Trailer Trash Tracys, and you can download it below, but you may as well come to the launch party on Saturday night, pick yourself up a copy, lose it along with your favourite hoodie that you stuffed under the DJ booth and then order a replacement online straight from the dudes themselves.

Download: 'Strangling Good Guys' - Trailer Trash Tracys

VIDEO: 'THE UNDERPASS' - A GRAVE WITH NO NAME

This video was directed by Anupa Madawela.

EXCLUSIVE BLACK ANT BEAT TAPE

With Natural Numbers (hopefully temporarily) retiring, it looks as though Black Ant has no challenger to the “Young, Innovative & Really Awesome Heavyweight Champion of the World” belt. Ant kindly laced this exclusive beat tape for us at Meal Deal this week, and despite clocking in at only 4 minutes, this is the shit that you should be bumping on your i-Tunes this week, regardless of the fact that new DOOM album dropped yesterday. As Ant says himself “teachers know me for it. students bob they heads to it. bitch niggas try to mock, and recreate, but no one appreciates. cause them niggas ain't black ant. Face of a champion”

DOWNLOAD: 'Big Meal Beat Deal Record' - Black Ant

NATURAL NUMBERS (R.I.P.)

It’s with great sadness that we report the (in our mind) premature demise of one of the most for real, innovative and downright awesome musical projects of the past 5 years, Natural Numbers.

In light of his blog post/suicide note, we realize the irony of what we’re doing here, paying tribute to his music, but, come back soon Trev, we already miss you already.

"over the past few months, i've been feeling increasingly like my popularity and interest in my music has just been a product of blogs looking for the next noise pop project -- i don't know any other way to put it than i am completely sick of the hype around this genre. just like every other underground music trend, it will be dead when music journalists migrate to the next "big thing."
i hate feeling associated with that. i hate feeling like a hype artist. the subsubgenre that i feel pigeonholed into already has annoying conventions and stereotypes (punk has once again been co-opted into a certain sound and image, not a body of ideas and actions), all of which i hate the thought of being affiliated with.
i'm not quitting music, but i am moving on to other projects. my first 3 releases were born completely out of hate, and i want to move away from that. this was fun, but at the same time, i feel like it's the right time to move forward.

RELEASES THAT HAVEN'T BEEN RELEASED YET:

they'll be posthumous. this includes my splits with old blood and fungi girls. ocean ghosts will be re-written, re-ordered, renamed, and released under a new project.
i hope none of you feel like you're being cheated out or anything, and if you do, i'm sorry, but it's the right time for me to move on.
-trevor"

SIMULACRUM OF A SIMULACRUM OF A SIMULACRUM

Remember when Bradford Cox weighed in on that quite boring leak surrounding Animal Collective's 'Merriweather Post Pavillion'? No? OK, well he did, and the board members of the Deerhunter forum took it upon themselves to follow his advice like he was some delay-pedal wielding Pied Piper and have made their own version of the forthcoming Lotus Plaza (aka guitarist Lockett Pundt from Deerhunter) album, ‘The Floodlight Collective’. Come on guys, would you jump off the edge of a cliff using a crisp packet as a parachute if Bradford Cox told you to do it?

What's even more interesting is that a track from the Lotus Plaza album, ‘Bragging Party’, was originally recorded by Kim Deal’s band The Amps, so effectively what we end up with is an internet forum nerd covering The Amps in the style of Lotus Plaza.

You can download the entire album here, or check out the weird photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy below, to be fair, it's pretty damn good.

Download: 'Bragging Party' - Spidermums

CLOUD FOREST

I literally know nothing about Cloud Forest other than the fact that I recently stumbled across their My Space page by complete accident, I think that they totally rule and they kinda remind me of the now sadly defunct Yellow Swans a little bit.

Download: 'Green Mountain Trek' - Cloud Forest

READING RAINBOW

Google informed me this morning, that there is some massively rubbish TV show called Reading Rainbow which is designed to help kids read, maybe not by coincidence, when Rob Garcia and Sarah Everton get together they call themselves Reading Rainbow and write songs called things like 'Feral Kids'. As well as being bffs with forthcoming Meal Deal artists Eternal Summers (that's an exclusive right there for you), they also write the kind of jams that bring to mind Times New Viking jamming with The Velvet Underground and Sun Ra underneath a gauze of reverb and shitloads of tape hiss and have dropped an amazing album 'Songs to Sing', a self- released CD-R album which you really should pick up from their My Space.

Download: 'Feral Kids' - Reading Rainbow

'WHAT DIDDY TOLD YOU IN '95' - TAPEDECK

This is the first thing I ever did under the name tapedeck and I just found it on my hard-drive. I think it's kind of endearing, in a hardcore band's first record kind of way.

Download: 'What Diddy Told You in '95' - tapedeck

BLACK ANT

It’s pretty much impossible to approach the concept of left-field, instrumental hip-hop without thinking of the late J Dilla, and although it’s more than likely that Black Ant owns a well-worn copy of ‘Donuts’, it’s also more than likely that Black Ant has a really bad case of weed psychosis too. This is hip-hop with one foot in the thuggish aesthetics of the Diplomats, and the other in the grainy, no-fi, soundscapes last heard coming out of the broken sampler of the newly re-christened DOOM.

Head over to Black Ant’s MySpace, now to download a whole world of shit...