MV : "Ain't no pleasin' you (new acoustic version)" by Chas & Dave

Best song you'll ever hear, yeah?

Top 5 Records (December)

Amid the end of year list-fest the top 5 for December probably doesn't really amount to a hill of beans kid but lets tidy up the year's monthly charts.

1) Mary Chapin Carpenter - state of the heart
2) The Bordellos - Ronco revival sounds
3) Ruthann Friedman - Windy : a Ruthann Friedman songbook
4) Charlie Big Time - sale or return EP
5) Bob Dylan - the very best of

Trip-TV's A-Z of 2013

Lets round the review of 2013 off with our A-Z of 2013. As always this is a playlist of some of the bands that have touched us this year, from A to Z. As always though we have no entries for Q (and a couple of other letters), some suggestions for cool C86 or synthpop bands that start with Q would be welcome. Have a nice end of year, back in 2014!

Trip-TV's top 10 songs of 2013!

We've done the best records but what about the songs? As before this is a list of stuff we liked this year so may not necessarily be from 2013. We've restricted ourselves to just the one song per artist so there is a bit more variety.

1) song of decision - Emily Bindiger
2) afar - The Ice Choir
3) someday my heart will beat again - The School
4) fallout - Neon Indian
5) every morning (and for the rest of our lives) - The Rosie Taylor Project
6) coastlands - Old Lacy Bed
7) hot chocolate - Tommy February6
8) tru feelings - No Rome
9) luminous - Slumbook
10) telephone - Alpaca Sports

MV : "Couldn't remember" by Boyish

Glorious twee pop thrash.

The Longdrone Flowers - she's strangehead too EP

The Longdrone Flowers are now no more but have left behind a couple of EPs of which this was the second and an uncompromising journey through noise it is! "Quiet" stumbles along, the sound of chaos and brutal noise. "Wildfire and the non-story" is a grind, a delicious noise pop grind at that. A bit like a 60s psychedelic pop single played at 33 1/3rpm.

Finally "My sister Drusilla" doesn't play out of your speakers it erupts like some kind of precambrian soundtrack. I liked this track the most, its warped groove and undercurrent of danger most infectious.

MV : "Theres nothing very interesting to say about snow" by Eight To Infinity

Now that is how you do a video! Available on Small Bear Record's Tinsel Machine Xmas album.

Trip-TV's top 20 records of 2013!

Trip-TV presents its top 20 records of 2013, actually some of them are more correctly from 2012 and some are reissues from earlier times but hey 2013 is just a number! But anyway enough talk, lets rock...

1) The Ice Choir - afar
2) Emily Bindiger - Emily
3) The School - reading too much into things like everything
4) The Rosie Taylor Project - twin beds
5) Tommy February6 - Tommy candy shop sugar me
6) Flowers - when you lie
7) My Bloody Valentine - mbv
8) Veronica Falls - waiting for something to happen
9) The Kensingtons - black tag parade
10) The Wake - a light far out

11) Outerhope - no end in sight
12) Old Lacy Bed - little girl
13) Chairlift - something
14) Various - 94 Baker Street revisited
15) Pale Man Made - red box secrets
16) Slumbook - Slumbook
17) Various - recorded for Japan
18) Ruthann Friedman - Windy: a Ruthann Friedman songbook
19) Acid House Kings / Alpaca Sports - split single
20) Various - Lasting fun, forever young (Indonesia indiepop scene vol 2)

Bandcamp : Nanaki - all i want for Christmas is you

This is your Christmas hit.

Windmill Flexi 2

A flexidisc of 3 indie bands, the essence of indie pop? Personally i've always found flexidiscs a nightmare to get to play properly but they are fun (when they work) and have that same mysterious excitement as you get from Christmas crackers.

The music then from this 1991 flexi, Dreamscape's "strange story" is a lovely psychedelic drenched piece of pop, as you'd expect from the proto-Secret Shine band. Beautiful guitar over 60s organ and Rebecca Rawlings' lovely vocals. This is one of the best Dreamscape songs, up there with "Black flower".

Strawberry Story's "behind this smile" is a lo-fi indie thrash with female close harmonies over a fuzz guitar attack. Its lovely and frantic. Finally They Go Boom!! go all urgent pop rush with "She's like a dream" and it has some truly gorgeous pop harmonies. The essence of indie pop? The essence of life.

MV : "Tread softly for the sleepers" by The Hi-Fis

Nice bit of obscure 60s pop.

Raindrops - the story from the past (SEA Indie EP)

Raindrops' music is beautiful layered electronic pop with a shoegaze-y reverb effect that washes over the listener on this EP from SEA Indie. The music is glorious, "La peur" for example soars with its almost exultant astral pop sound. Its the sound of being adrift in the universe, celestial mood music.

"Past boy" is the sound of a star forming. "Sin and its mesmerising beauty" (great song title) is moody and mysterious, spacey beats echoing from nowhere erupt into a kaleidoscope of noise. The pop noise is gorgeous, the dream at the centre of the pop. A trip to the stars and beyond.

Soundcloud : The Bordellos - temperature drop

Session version of a song thats my current fave.

MV : "Never had it so good" by Mary-Chapin Carpenter

Classic country folk rock yeah?

The Bordellos - Ronco revival sound (Daddy Tank)

The Bordellos it is said exist outside of current musical trends, so i liked them already before i even began to listen to their album. The title track is a lo-fi stomp through the musical landscape harking back to the musical past of Lennon, Elvis and er.. Glitter. A nostalgic jaunt clothed in noise and the unexpected, and thats just the start of the unusual journey through pop this album takes you on. "Tattoo heart" is a garage-y thrash as is the "Kinky dee" which indeed is a tribute to garage rock and a fine ramble it is too.

"Deborah" has an urgent quality to its acoustic backing. A very underground 60s sound that threatens to go off the rails a few times but manages to get to the end. "Fruitcakes" takes us on an experimental lo-fi noise journey, its laid back and terrifying at the same time.

"Temperature drop" takes us into Wake-like synth-pop territory, a haunting low-key song. Beautiful in its fragility and simplicity. On an album of unexpected twists and turns this was the best. You don't have to fit in, acres of indie landfill have made that mistake. Choose individuality, choose a proper alternative, choose The Bordellos!

MV : "Baby you're going to Hell" by Your Imaginary Friends

Nice MV, listed as one of the top Filipino MVs in 2013 in fact.

Jesus & Mary Chain - honey's dead

Or the Mary Chain go indie-dance. Released in the early 1990s this album perfectly captured the dance beats prevalent in indie at the time along with the earlier feedback drenched sound polished to perfection.

The album mixed cultured feedback noise with an infectious beat. Cultured? Well yes. A lot of bands at the time threw feedback at the audience to bludgeon them with a wall of noise (not that i am saying this is a bad thing of course). On "Honey's dead" the feedback is buried deeper and works into the song. Like a virus.

On this album the Reid brothers bought live drums back into the mix and the result is pretty fantastic to be honest. Songs like "Far gone and out" and "Almost gold" are epic pop songs. There are a few fillers but no dogs. The album still stands up as being one of the best indie albums of the decade. A hey hey hey!

MV : "Space oddity" by David Bowie

The original 1969 MV, Bowie looks more like a geek than a space alien here.