I should make it clear from the outset – tonight’s show was not a ‘best of 2011’ show.  If it was, I would have included ‘Try to Sleep‘ by Low, the song which had my favourite video of 2011:

Low + Film Noir.  It was always going to impress me with that formula.

If tonight’s show was a proper 2011 review show I would also have had to play something from PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake album.  I’ve not really given much thought to what my favourite album of 2011 was, but if I did give it much brain time, this album would never have been far from those thoughts.

Each of the 11 songs on Let England Shake has a video.  You’ll find them all on the Let England Shake Youtube channel.

So, to what tonight’s show was, rather than what it wasn’t.  It was kind of a summing up of what’s changed in Eclectic Mainline over the past 12 months or so.  There are a number of factors.  One factor is what actually lands in my post pile.  I have to admit that I don’t have a great deal of spare time to seek out new music; often it’s a case that I play the music that finds me.  The music I have received has changed over the past year or so, and tonight’s show reflected that.  Or to be more specific, the music that arrives in the post has changed.  There are an ever-increasing number of promos that arrive digitally, and I don’t have time to listen to them.  This fact is to the benefit of those CDs and records that arrive the old fashioned way: in the post.

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This show has turned out to be rather more festive than I first thought when I picked up a pile of CDs to bring into BCB. So, in light of that, here is this year’s seasonal offering from Shonen Knife:

If you wish to listen again to this show, you should find it somewhere around about here.

Here’s a list of all the tunes from tonight’s show:

Mogwai – “Christmas” (“Mogwai EP” – CHEM036) (Chemical Underground)
Plug – “Come On My Skeleton” (LP – “Back On Time”) (Ninja Tune)
Gruff Rhys – “Slashed Wrists This Christmas” (“Athiest Xmas EP”) (OVNI/Turnstile)
Bill Ryder-Jones – “Intersect” (LP – “If”) (Double Six)
Shonen Knife -“We Wish You A Merry Christmas” (b-side to “Sweet Christmas” single) (Damnably)
No UFO’s – “Evidence / Century Park” (LP – “Soft Coast”) (Spectrum Spools)
Low – “Blue Christmas” (LP – “Christmas”) (Tugboat)
Still Corners – “Cuckoo” (LP – “Creatures of An Hour”) (Sub Pop)
Serph – “Alechemy” (LP – “Winter Alchemy”) (Noble)
Odonis Odonis – “Handle Bars” (LP – “Hollandaze”) (Fat Cat)
Slow Club – “Christmas, Thanks For Nothing” (“Christmas, Thanks For Nothing” EP) (Moshi Moshi)
Fennesz + Sakamoto – “0401” (2CD – “Flumina”) (Touch)
Frightened Rabbit – “It’s Christmas So We’ll Stop” (single) (Fat Cat)
Crystal Stilts – “Practically Immaculate / Jesus Claus mix 2” (free download from various sources – try The Quietus on Soundcloud or Fortuna Pop)

I played (most of) the opening tune from the sunn o))) meets nurse with wound album “The Iron Soul Of Nothing” in tonight’s show. If I had time I would have played the entire 19 minutes; it really is quite beautiful.  Just what is needed at this rather frantic time of year.  Here’s a preview of the album:
sunn o))) meets nurse with wound – the iron soul of nothing (album preview) by experimedia

If you wish to listen back to the whole show,you’ll find it on this page.

Here’s a list of the tunes I played:

Gruff Rhys – “Slashed Wrists This Christmas” (“Athiest Xmas EP”) (OVNI/Turnstile)
Reliq – “Rushhour” (LP – “Minority Report”) (Noble)
Forest Fire – “Future Shadows” (single) (Fat Cat)
Fennesz + Sakamoto – “0419” (2CD – “Flumina”) (Touch)
Plug – “Drum N Bass” (LP – “Back On Time”) (Ninja Tune)
S.C.U.M – “Faith Unfolds” (single and LP – “Again Into Eyes”) (Mute)
SOKO – “I Thought I Was An Alien” (single) (Because)
Shonen Knife – “Sweet Christmas” (single) (Damnably)
Roedelius Schneider – “Single Boogie” (single and LP – “Stunden”) (Bureau B)
Odonis Odonis – “Tick Tock” (LP – “Hollandaze”) (Fat Cat)
Sunn))) meets Nurse With Wound – “Dysnystaxis {… A Chance Meeting With Somnus}” (2LP – “The Iron Soul Of Nothing”) (Editions Mego)
She & Him – “Christmas Day” (single) (Double Six)

Now that my birthday has passed, the other December-based festivities can begin. Here’s one of the tunes from the new Gruff Rhys ‘Athiest Christmas EP’:

Gruff Rhys – Post Apocalypse Christmas by PIASGermany

If you wish to listen again to my show from tonight, you can do so from this page.

Here is a full list of tonight’s tunes:

Mark Van Hoen – “I Remember” (LP – “The Reverant Diary”) (Editions Mego)
Mutter – “Wo Die Sonne Nicht Scheint” (LP – “Mein Kleiner Krieg”) (Die Eigene Gesellschaft)
Loka – “The Art of Burning Bridges” (LP – “Passing Place”) (Ninja Tune)
Serph – “Noel” (LP – “Winter Alchemy”) (Noble)
Trailer Trash Tracys – “Strangling Good Guys” (double A-side single with “Candy Girl”) (Double Six)
This Is The Kit – “When Are you Coming, Come On!” (from Rozi Plain – “See My Boat EP”) (Need No Water)
Robert Lippok – “Sugarcubes” (LP – “Redsuperstructure”) (Raster Noton)
Björk – “Dark Matter” (LP – “Biophilia”) (One Little Indian)
Jérôme Montagne – “NOP (3)” (Various artists CD – “Archipel Électonique”) (D’Autres Cordes)
Gruff Rhys – “Post Apocalypse Christmas” (“Athiest Xmas EP”) (OVNI/Turnstile)
Decoy Child – “Pray” (single) (Ninja Tune)
Field Music – “(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing” (free download from www.field-music.co.uk) (Memphis Industries)
Cast – “See That Girl”(single) (Cast Recordings)

I didn’t have a new show last week, Wednesday 16th November.  A pre-record, including a few gems from recent years, was broadcast instead. If you wish to listen again, you can do so here.  This is what went out:

Peter Broderick – “Games” (LP – “Home”) (Bella Union)
Battles – “Atlas” (LP – “Mirrored”) (Warp)
James Yorkston – “5 a.m.” (BCB session)
Teenage Fanclub – “It’s All In My Mind” (LP – “Manmade”) (Pema)
Slow Club – “When I Go” (BCB session)
The Knife – “Heartbeats (live)”
Camera Obscura – “French Navy” (LP – “My Maudlin Career”) (4AD)
Half Man Half Biscuit – “Irk The Purists” (LP – “Trouble Over Bridgewater”) (Probe Plus)
Frightened Rabbit – “Fast Blood” (BCB session)
The Low Lows – “Five Ways I Didn’t Die” (BCB session)
Brakes – “Consumer, Producer, A Chicken Or An Egg” (BCB session)
Boards Of Canada – “Roygbiv” (LP – “Music Has The Right To Children”) (Warp)
Neil McSweeney – “Remember To Smile” (BCB session)
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – “Emily Jean Stock” (LP – “Some Loud Thunder”) (Wichita)
Micah P. Hinson – “Beneath The Rose” (BCB session)
Fleet Foxes – “Your Protector” (LP – “Fleet Foxes”) (Bella Union)
Nina Nastasia – “Stormy Weather” (BCB session)
The Broken Family Band – “Give And Take” (BCB session)
Trashcan Sinatras – “Weightlifting” (LP – “Weightlifting”) (Spin Art Records)

I did, however, do a new show tonight.  If you wish to listen again, you will find the show on this page of the BCB Listen again service.  Here’s one of the tunes I played:

Forest Fire – Future Shadows (FatCat Single ds7fat107) by Fat Cat Records

And this is the full show’s tracklist:

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Tonight I dedicated a Billy Bragg song to the group of people who have been camped out in Centenary Square in Bradford for the past week, under the name Occupy Bradford. I think it’s highly admirable that people up and down the country, across the western world in fact,  are saying “We are the 99 per cent“.  This has restored some of my faith that we’re not all doomed.  People do have power.  Billy Bragg would no doubt have a great to say on this, and may well do when he brings his Left Field In Motion tour to Yorkshire.

Politics aside, my favourite tune in tonight’s show was this one by Simian Ghost:
Simian Ghost – Free Agent by Heist Or Hit

You can listen again to the whole show, by looking down this page for Eclectic Mainline.  Here is a full list of what I played:

The War On Drugs – “Come To The City” (single and LP – “Slave Ambient”) (Secretly Canadian)
Mika Vainio – “Mining” (LP – “Life (…it eats you up)” (Editions Mego)
Big Deal – “With The World At My Feet” (LP – “Lights Out”) (Mute)
Container – “Rattler” (LP – “LP”) (Spectrum Spools/Editions Mego)
Frank Turner – “Wessex Boy” (single and LP – “England Keep My Bones”) (Xtra Mile)
Hooray For Earth – “True Loves” (single and LP – “True Loves”) (Memphis Industries)
Byetone – “Helix” (LP – “Symeta”) (Raster Noton)
Simian Ghost – “Free Agent” (single with “Bicycle Theme”) (Heist)
Pharoah Chromium – “Tim Pan Alley” (LP – “Electric Cremation”) (Grautag)
Pharoah Chromium – “The Embryo Hunts In Secret” (LP – “Electric Cremation”) (Grautag)
Billy Bragg – “Old Clash Fan Fight Song” (LP – “Fight Songs”) (Bragg Central)
DJ Food feat. JG Thirlwell – “Prey”) (EP – “Magpies, Maps and Moons”) (Ninja Tune)
Starkey – “Open The Pod Bay Doors (Part One)” (EP – “Open The Pod Bay Doors”) (Ninja Tune)