Heartland

In one of those sort of "roundy-up" nearly-the-end-of-the-year type ways I wondered what new bands people have got into this year. They can be new or old bands, and you can have got into them by yourself or been introduced to them by someone else!

Okay, here are mine -

Arkona - Russian folk BM with amazing female vocals
Blut Aus Nord - French industrial BM
Drudkh - Ukrainian atmospheric BM with folky bits
Nortt - Slow as hell Danish funereal BM that you would dig your own grave to, or pull dead bodies out of ponds, but strangely uplifting
Pestilence, Possessed, Nocturnus - proper old school metal
Faun - Nice pretty German folk music

I think that's it!

Next!

Tiny Dancers

This year...I can think of some recent ones. I'll skip out the really famous ones that I only got into recently. Being 17 I am still 'discovering' obvious bands.

She Wants Revenge - Just pure awesome, love it.

Thomas Dolby - actually an old school synth master, bought an album after seeing him support Depeche Mode.

Die Laughing - JUST getting into

KMFDM - Heard for the first time on a free comp, needed more.

The Cruxshadows - I don't care what people day, they are great on CD and even better live. Awesome

Razed in Black - I really like a few songs, flirting with them at the moment

Loads more, but those are the most interesting (others irange from Front 242 to Muse!)

The JAMs/The KLF - Heard "The Queen And I" here, and continued from there

Rosetta Stone - Thanks to the Pilot of the Forres Taxi

The Art Of Noise - A mate in town gave me loads of stuff

The Beach Boys - OK, I didn't quite discover them this year, but I finally got around to buying some compilations, and loving most of what I heard.

The Trashmen - From hearing The Ramones' cover of Surfin' Bird

The Rivingtons - From learning where The Trashmen stole Surfin' Bird from

The Marder and Romance

Foetus - You could teach the whole GCSE music curriculum from this guy's back catalog. Fact.

The Dresden Dolls - Simple piano + drums cabaret combo

And probably some more that I'll remember in a while.

Motz wrote:The Dresden Dolls - Simple piano + drums cabaret combo

I saw them on Jools Holland a few months ago and enjoyed them very much

Maisey wrote: She Wants Revenge - Just pure awesome, love it.

Fully seconded. Best catch of the year.

Unfortunately I discovered them one day after they'd played in Berlin and now they cancelled their support slot for Placebo.

David Wrench Especially for his cover of Radiohead's "Creep" and the fantastic "Fvck You (and your war on terror)".

Stephen Cooper & The Charlies. The only CD I bought with money this year was theirs. and worth it.

Tricks Upon Travellers They sound like they'd make the Levellers cry.

Tofu Love Frogs. Same reason, but no MySpace link 'cos they split up a million year ago (AFAICT.)

Pressgang I forget how I got into 'em, but I think it had something to do with Holmfirth.

Lack of Limits Crazy folky pixie-jazz from Germany. How can you NOT love it?

Quite a lot, and far too many to list or remember. Been a better year for new (and old) bands than most others.

Honourable mention however simply must go to Blast for turning me on to the mighty VdGG.

mh wrote:Quite a lot, and far too many to list or remember. Been a better year for new (and old) bands than most others.

Honourable mention however simply must go to Blast for turning me on to the mighty VdGG.

Forgot about Hawkwind and The Chameleons

Now what's all the fuss about Shriekback?

Unsure as to whether The Chameleons and Shriekback were this year or last. They (along with John and Keith for introducing me ) get a very honourable mention too

This is less discoveries than quasi-rediscoveries, sooooo....

Fugazi: I hadn't listened to these self-righteous bastards in years. Repeater, Steady Diet of Nothing, In on the Kill-Taker and Red Medicine seriously rock. No wonder I've seen them so many times.

Wall of Voodoo: I'd never heard anything except Mexican Radio until just a few weeks ago. The stuff with Stan Ridgeway on vox is fantastic, sort of a synthy Dead Kennedys, in a way. Think synth-heavy new wave meets spaghetti-western guitar. Very well done, very interesting.

Jessica's Crime: as I mentioned, the former bass player is an old friend of my family. I found them via google and myspace, and then ordered the album through CDbaby. Gone to Texas is one hell of a good record. I find it to be particularly well-suited to driving hell-bent for leather across great swaths of the American West. It combines elements of everything I like.

The Geraldine Fibbers: I have always liked Carla Bozulich's cover of the entirety of Willie Nelson's Red-Headed Stranger, and thus I tracked down her previous work. It ain't country, and it ain't quite punk, but it's really fantastic. It's not the usual boring-as-sin alt-country crap either. Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home is an excellent record, with some fine, fine guitar playing on it.

Zeke: More of the 'hadn't listened to for years' stuff. Kicked In the Teeth and Dirty Sanchez are quick and dirty; sort of like Motorhead crossed with the Ramones screeching across the desert at a million miles an hour fueled entirely by the finest high grade meth Midwestern trailer-trash can produce, fronted by a man called Blind Marky Felchtone.

Motz wrote:Foetus - You could teach the whole GCSE music curriculum from this guy's back catalog. Fact.

Undisputably true. The man is brilliant.

Motz wrote: The Dresden Dolls - Simple piano + drums cabaret combo

And probably some more that I'll remember in a while.

Really? I may have to check them out. I had been under the impression they were some sort of porno-goth industrial band.

They've got a gothic edge to them, but not in the batcave nonsense sense. For some reason they reminded me of Ute Lemper, but given that I've not heard anything by her for ages, that may be a total lie. Their records are nicely produced too, none of this dodgy wall of sound stuff.

@Si: Shriekback are The The done properly. Where Matt Johnson starts out promising but evens out, they just keep going. [Note: Comparison based on "Big Night Music" vs "Soul Mining" and "Oil and Gold" vs "Infected"]

• Suede
• Shriekback
• Throbbing Gristle
• Psychic TV
• Pat Benatar
• Ministry
• Jeff Buckley
• Jackson Browne

edit - I forgot to mention Billie Hughes, thanks to The Sisters.

http://www.eyelashband.com/

Still haven't managed to see them live yet. Apparantly the singer is alright...

Tokamat.Fusion.Test.Reactor from our own Belgian Limburg is the most recent one (the bastard child of The Prodigy, Hawkwind and Ozric Tentacles), but I have to admit that MySpace and especially Pandora.com gave me a lot of interesting bands!

Amongst others:

- the Dark Ambient March Music of KARJALAN SISSIT,
- the flipped-out film-music-meets-glitch-and-noise of Darrin Verhaegens SHINJUKU FILTH,
- the even more fecked up sounds of VENETIAN SNARES,
- the eerie ambient of NORTHAUNT,
- some individual HEARTLANDERS! ... as our James always said before: talent will out! And we have a lot of talent on this forum!

IZ.

Motz wrote:@Si: Shriekback are The The done properly. Where Matt Johnson starts out promising but evens out, they just keep going. [Note: Comparison based on "Big Night Music" vs "Soul Mining" and "Oil and Gold" vs "Infected"]

The The

<shudders>

Cabaret Voltaire

Leonard Cohen (properly)

Fad Gadget

Foetus

Half Man Half Biscuit

Shriekback

Suicide

Yat-Kha

I think there's more...

Motz wrote:Foetus - You could teach the whole GCSE music curriculum from this guy's back catalog. Fact.

met him this October in Moscow
very nice person
that conversation made me listen his albums
i was really impressed

boudicca wrote: Yat-Kha

YES! their cover of "Orgasmotron" is amazing.

@Si: Shriekback are The The done properly. Where Matt Johnson starts out promising but evens out, they just keep going. [Note: Comparison based on "Big Night Music" vs "Soul Mining" and "Oil and Gold" vs "Infected"]

I want some of whatever you were drinking when you wrote this.

ormfdmrush wrote:

Motz wrote:Foetus - You could teach the whole GCSE music curriculum from this guy's back catalog. Fact.

met him this October in Moscow
very nice person
that conversation made me listen his albums
i was really impressed

You lucky thing! Guy's a genius, fact.

Tim thinks he's s**t, but what does he know?

boudicca wrote:

ormfdmrush wrote:

Motz wrote:Foetus - You could teach the whole GCSE music curriculum from this guy's back catalog. Fact.

met him this October in Moscow
very nice person
that conversation made me listen his albums
i was really impressed

You lucky thing! Guy's a genius, fact.

Tim thinks he's s**t, but what does he know?

no 'star' behaviour
that's the main