our 2012 lists, round four!

in case you missed them, here you may read round one, round two and round three as well!

chickfactor editor gail’s top 20 records of the year

1. grass widow, internal logic
2. jim ruiz set, mount curve avenue
3. tender trap, ten songs about girls
4. lightships, electric cable
5. frankie rose, interstellar
6. sharon van etten, tramp
7. saint etienne, words and music
8. corin tucker band, kill my blues
9. veronica falls, veronica falls (technically 2011)
10. lambchop, mr. m
11. beachwood sparks, the tarnished gold
12. the hangover lounge box set, various artists
13. amor de días, the house at sea (technically 2013)
14. yo la tengo, fade (technically 2013)
15. samara lubelski, wavelength
16. black tambourine, onetwothreefour (ramones covers!)
17. songs of the year: grass widow, “disappearing industries” 7”
18. grass widow, “milo minute” 7-inch and video
19. withered hand, “heart heart”
20. dump, “nyc tonight”

mike slumberland’s ten records I listened to the most in 2012

1. four tet, jupiters 12″
2. robert hood, motor: nighttime world 3
3. liechtenstein, fast forward LP
4. lightships, fear and doubt 10″
5. linden, bleached highlights
6. moodymann, why do u feel 12″
7. saint etienne, words and music
8. sea pinks, freak waves
9. various artists, time to go: the southern psychedelic moment: 1981–98 LP
10. young guv & the scuzz, a love too strong EP

sean price’s (fortuna pop!) top ten list

1. chain and the gang “in cool blood” (k records). ian svenonius has now been in three of the greatest rockandroll bands of all time. go figure.
2. the precise moment during “mission bells” when linton and gary olson’s twin trumpet attack kicked in and shattered the mirrorball. (chickfactor 20th anniversary, bush hall, london)
3. ben rivers “slow action”. dreamy, hypnotic and disturbing film installation only bettered by the scotch egg and gallery-brewed real ale I enjoyed in the café afterwards. (hepworth gallery, wakefield)
4. the imposter (dir. bart layton). a documentary that thinks it’s a thriller.
5. dan greene “knife thrower”. illustrations from the mind-blowing alternative universe of the butterflies of love / mountain movers man, on card, wood and whatever else came to hand. (intercambio gallery, new haven)
6. bill fay, life is people (dead oceans). spiritual music.
7. amour (dir. michael haneke). one day he’s going to stop making these crowd pleasing feel-good flicks and turn his hand to something serious.
8. jeremy deller “joy in people”. marvelous, life-affirming art about stuff that matters. (hayward gallery, london)
9. leonard cohen live. three hours of laughing len in concert. at a castle in copenhagen. beat that. (rosenborg castle, copenhagen)
10. porgy & bess. I hear the songs of georgie gershwin. possibly transposed to apartheid-era soweto. (cape town opera, ENO)

rachel blumberg’s top ten music experiences

1. watching black tambourine and small factory at chickfactor NY, brooklyn, ny.
2. playing many happy hours with michael hurley and the croakers at the laurelthirst, portland, oregon.
3. playing with the the cascadia ensemble (me, tara jane o’neil, tender forever, dragging an ox through water, lisa schonberg) at the keep portland weird festival, paris and metz, france.
4. playing with tim rutili (califone) to live film at midnight at huichica music festival, sonoma, california.
5. watching beachwood sparks, old light, and sea of bees at huichica music festival, sonoma, california.
6. playing with tara jane o’neil and mirah at the keep portland weird festival, paris and metz, france.
7. playing with michael hurley and the croakers at my going away party, type foundry studios, portland, oregon.
8. playing with the secret drum band, all over oregon and california.
9. watching sad horse in a very wonderfully crowded valentines, portland, oregon.
10. watching alela diane at the woods stage with friends at dusk at the all around amazing pickathon music festival, pendarvais farm, oregon.

sadie underhill’s (jeffrey honeybunch’s daughter and japanese vocaloid specialist) top ten vocaloids

1. rin kagamine
2. IA
3. CUL
4. gumi
5. len kagamine
6. SF-A2 miki
7. piko utatane
8. lily
9. aoki lapis
10. KAITO

gail’s top ten things to avoid so we can stop climate change

1. meat
2. fish
3. big stupid supermarkets
4. non-recycled loo roll
5. bottled water
6. long-distance food
7. plastic bags
8. big stupid cars
9. waterfront property
10. monsanto

rachel blumberg & jeffrey honeybunch’s top ten cities we visited

1. savannah, georgia.
2. st. augustine, florida.
3. kingston, new york.
4. saugerties, new york.
5. new bedford, massachusetts.
6. woonsocket, rhode island.
7. rochester, new hampshire.
8. tarpon springs, florida.
9. arcata, california.
10. port orford, oregon.

sukhdev sandhu: ten books bought in london at the end of 2012

1. christopher fowler, invisible ink: how 100 great authors disappeared
2. eddie johnson, tales from the two puddings: stratford, east london’s olympic city, in the 1960s
3. kathy battista, renegotiating the body: feminist art in 1970s london
4. daniel poyner (ed.), autonomy: the cover designs of anarchy, 1961-1970
5. metrozones (ed.), faith is the place: the urban cultures of global prayers
6. jason eskenazi, by the glow of the jukebox: the americans list
7. born in flames
8. karren ablaze!, the city is ablaze! the story of a post-punk popzine, 1984–1994
9. maria fusco and richard birkett (eds.), cosey complex
10. hito steyerl, the wretched of the screen

joe brooker (the pines, foxgloves): top ten sentences from james joyce’s ulysses (only one per episode)

1. woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed.
2. on his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.
3. listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos.
4. those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.
5. pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch.
6. hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies.
7. miss douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their midst a shell.
8. lady sylvester elmshade, mrs barbara lovebirch, mrs poll ash, mrs holly hazeleyes, miss daphne bays, miss dorothy canebrake, mrs clyde twelvetrees, mrs rowan greene, mrs helen vinegadding, miss virginia creeper, miss gladys beech, miss olive garth, miss blanche maple, mrs maud mahogany, miss myra myrtle, miss priscilla elderflower, miss bee honeysuckle, miss grace poplar, miss o mimosa san, miss rachel cedarfrond, the misses lilian and viola lilac, miss timidity aspenall, mrs kitty dewey-mosse, miss may hawthorne, mrs gloriana palme, mrs liana forrest, mrs arabella blackwood and mrs norma holyoake of oakholme regis graced the ceremony by their presence.
9. nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the season when duty called ireland expects that every man and so on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the irish lights, kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather.
10. furthermore, silly milly, she dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf. hearthdreaming cat).