Top OHR 2008 : EPs
ABAM - Obstaclesaurus
A Lazarus Soul - The Lia EP
Angel Pier - Sacrifice
And So I Watch You From Afar - This Is Our Machine And Nothing Can Stop It
Artificial Flight - Modest War Factor
Autumn Owls - Insomnia Lodge
BATS - Cruel Sea Scientist *
Brian Cullen’s Love Bullets - Bring Out Your Dead
Cascade Sounds - Earthrise
Chaplin - Painting By Numbers
Drunken Boat - Cut The Engines, Raise The Sails
The Eclectic - Breathe
Femmepop - Kick
The Funeral Suits - Oh Dear
Grand Pocket Orchestra - Odd Socks/Make Happy War
Green Lights - Small Curious Things / Time To Tell The Parents
Halves - Haunt Me When I’m Drowsy
Heliopause (Belfast) - Dark Matter
Heliopause (Cork) - Heliopause
Hoovers & Sledgehammers - Visions From Eceloe Mountain
The Hot Sprockets - Country Dirt
The Kybosh - Until We Are Lost
LPX -Seventeen/Fashion, Not Fashion
Lines Drawing Circles - Lines Drawing Circles
The Mighty Stef - Death Threats
New Amusement - Any Port In A Storm
The Out Last Knights - Recession
Sickboy - Taken Away In A Car
Subplots - We Carved Our Names In Glass
Super Extra Bonus Party - Everything Flows
The Things - Wild Psychotic Sounds
Tidal District - Hold The Party Line
Ugly Megan - Three Whole Funs
Yeh Deadlies - The Ghost Chipper
* Why it’s not a good idea to release in the last fortnight of the year.
So I’ve probably missed a couple. Does that mean they’re forgettable? Maybe!
Big ups to Grand Pocket Orchestra, Green Lights and LPX who worked hard on not one but two EPs this year! I’d like to extend a warm welcome to Cascade Sounds, recommended by Cauls AC30 whose breathy, engrossing Earthrise popped in my letterbox a few weeks ago and hasn’t stopped. Also Drunken Boat’s selection of tentative ambient folk that made a complementary addition to the harder drones of rock in my library. Unfortunately Lights didn’t manage to release, which is a shame as I’d really like to hear more.
For the year ahead, hopefully we’ll finally see the release of material from The Discarded Retarded and Deaf Animal Orchestra. Keep your eyes peeled in coming weeks for the abso-brill Estel record featuring five spectacular, spontaneous songs recorded with Steve Mackay and Mike Watt of The Stooges in about three hours. It just misses this year’s lists with a release date of 9 January at The Lower Deck. I’m wearing in my fan t-shirt already!
What did you think? Did you buy any? How do EPs measure up to albums? Should BATS count? Who weren’t worth the money? What about the lack of releases, who would you like to have heard more from? I open the floor to your comments and stand by, your faithful servant minus mop and bucket….
yay
finishing work for the year and on a christmas list in a good way
Hmmm. A good list Nay! My favourites from that list would be:
Make Happy Ware - GPO , Subplots - We Carved Our Names In Glass, Ugly Megan - Three Whole Funs!
my favourites have to be:
Autumn Owls - insomnia lodge
The Hot Sprockets - country dirt
and have to put in The Eclectic - Breath. That band really don’t get enough exposure for their talents!
Lets hope we’ll be on the list next year Nay! Early enough realease because we decided not to over the xmas period!
The aul na ep is called “Any Port in a Storm”
Yeah, the CascadeSounds one is great. I might be slightly prejudiced given that I’m in the band though.
Subplots and Green Lights work for me, really great stuff.
This year I was tickled pink by Funeral Suits, Ugly Megan, New Amusement, Mighty Stef and Subplots.
EPs are a funny thing, as I assume most of the bands on this list will have funded them themselves and so the physical and financial toil and effort they had to put in is probably going to be a lot more than a label-funded album. The promotional budget is going to be pretty low and so picking up EPs by them will have to be as a result of word of mouth, knowing them or most favourably having your socks blown off from seeing them live somewhere!
LPX (despite his recent demise) and Halves for me (despite not being able to stay awake for it’s duration)! Maybe I’ll just pick up that new Green Lights EP despite never seeing them live. It’s artwork looks pretty sweet. Yes I judge a book on it’s cover.
j
i thought i’d have heard more of these but i haven’t.
must check some more out. there’s a great tune or two on the first green lights one, haven’t heard the 2nd release yet. the subplots ep is golden, as is a lot of the halves one. looking forward to the villagers releasing their ep in the new year. ahem, looking ahead may not be in the spirit of this particular post though. sorry.
Fuck, Leigh, I apologise, I forgot to add you to the list of double-spinners. Apols, sheer carelessness on my part
Colin - oh so you didn’t get fed-up with “JACKET!!” X3 ?? Most annoying line of 2008 imo.
Declan - I also hope to see your name on that list next year, considering you said I’m doing the EP photos
Frankie - tis indeed, Gone To Sea is my NA auto-assumption tune - yaknoworramean - and stands corrected. Who did you enjoy this year yourself?
Burn Rubber : Yeah the Cascade Sounds one IS great! Such confident self-promotion definitely warrants linking to your site
James : Green Lights are deadly, rocky, dancy, pensive, the lot! I refuse to believe it’s the last we’ve heard of Leigh. No no no….
Rojo : I bought Subplots and lost it before importing. It’s in my room somewhere
Villagers will be soo exciting! I am doing a diff post looking to 009 so I’ll be holding you to come comment on that!
wheatln : I’d say Funeral Suits are amongst the most underrated on your list. I’d like to see a lot more exposure for them next year. Their EP is still growing on me, loads of diversity in the songs gives an inkling of how we can expect to hear them fill out and develop in 2009.
Bands do go the extra mile to release and record their music by themselves but I don’t think should be contrasted to the effort signed bands put in. There’s a different obligation to each side and one shared goal: to do their music justice. Rather I’d compare bands with EPs, regardless of record labels, to those who have no releases. I do think singles are a waste of time, lacking depth, there’s no real market unless they’re looking to saturate the shallow mainstream.
However I take it for granted that a good band are going to release EPs. and albums. It’s expected, they must have the confidence and passion to take their music as far as they can on their own, especially in this country. Alternative music simply isn’t important enough for a band to aim for a record contract to release their songs, it should be an option and nothing more.
It’s a mark of dedication and affirmation of talent to forge ahead and release because it’s a worthy risk. If a committed band believe their songs are good and the audience is out there, waiting to grow, then it should become imperative to make the most of that, regardless of how much time and expense is involved. I think too many artists have got caught up in the finished product of physical music releases, put everything into rehearsing and working to fun the record and trip up by not having enough of an audience to sell to at the end.
Depending on a band’s motivation, it’s not so difficult to release as it once was. If the aim is to spread word of your music, it can be a relatively inexpensive process to record lo-fi demos and spread them like viruses. Promotion is easier than it’s ever been: cop-on gets you very far at gigs, chats and on the Net. That’s where real hard work comes in, through constant gigging, bigging and spam. Freebie downloads, plaguing the media like psoriasis for interviews, features and reviews. Hand-folding covers for scores of inexpensive CD-R copies to pass out, flyering like a motherfuck…releasing is hard work.
If I ran a label, I’d want to see some evidence of how much faith and application a group put into their music. It’s not enough to have incendiary tunes or brilliant stagemanship, by self-releasing a band shows they’re prepared to work hard and on their own initiative and don’t waste time hanging about waiting to be discovered. They make it happen.
Some of those who do release successfully go on to record with a label’s backing. Then the original ambition picks up pace in obligation to honour the label’s investment and test their creativity, having been given an official green light. I think it’s so important to consider the role played by supportive record labels, the respect and belief they show in their signings. Their cash, time and effort go on the line for interesting strangers and sometimes the risks can be huge. By connecting, clueing in to the motivation and aesthetic of a band’s sound, they know where to take them, promote them, encourage and advise them. But where the unsigned answer to no one and go only where they choose, signed bands then have to follow through their labels’ endeavours, and it’s then that music becomes a constant career, powered by more than early love for gigging.
So regardless of backing, it will always be hard work.
Funeral Suits have recently changed line up. 2/3rds to be exact. Pretty much a new band. A slightly new sound with synths and things! Their new song on their myspace is insanley good. ‘Start of the End’… people can say it’s sounds like Tokyo Police Club all they like to me but I am alsolutely in love with this 2:13 mins of pop. I am not in the band also I must add. Just a sad fan unfortunately! It’s just what the Dublin music scene needs. A big slap of this! Take this Humanzi and take this the Chakras and take this The Things….. extended list of 36+ really really bland been there done it before bands… YAWN. Some thing different, something new. Thanks 2008!
-c
That’s… a truly staggering comprehensive list! I think we’ll be checking all these acts out, so it’s nice to have them in place. That said, we had The Kybosh already and they were stunning (as is the mini-album). Halves tweak my brain in all the right places too!
Word!
Futurism…only too comprehensive. I wish there were dozens more of equal calibre to add.
Well who knows what 2009 will bring? I’m optimistic for the future.
Too right! That’s the spirit!
Thanks Nay. Happy New Year my lovely. We start work on EP 3 tomorrow…..
Hmmm another +1 for
“It’s just what the Dublin music scene needs. A big slap of this! Take this Humanzi and take this the Chakras and take this The Things….. extended list of 36+ really really bland been there done it before bands… YAWN. Some thing different, something new. Thanks 2008!”
and yes the Green Lights EP was indeed, epic! Electro Funk beats with haunting lyics that kept me going many a nights is that oh so hum drum night job in Dublin’s inner city conrete jungle. when is some record producer going to cop and see that this raw talent of bands like the Green Lights and GPO are what the “cool kids” really listen to. horrahh for myspace!! and the new bands it breeds.