Dead Flowers: Ten Tracks from 2009

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1. The Veils - Sit Down By The Fire

An absolute epic on a record that could've used a few more of them, to be honest. Big, rolling drums and chiming acoustic guitar sound like a statement of intent from From Finn Andrews and Co.
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2. Pete Doherty - Arcady
Ever since Up the Bracket, Pete has dealt with high expectations. His failure to meet them means that even his good records get overlooked.
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3. Mew - Beach
Mew recaptures the magic of Frengers on this and most of the other tracks on No More Stories...
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4. Animal Kingdom - Signs and Wonders

Although it falls squarely in the guilty pleasure category, this is still a top tune.
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5. Foreign Born - Early Warnings

The high point of an otherwise spotty sophomore effort.
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6. Fool's Gold - Surprise Hotel

Great song. Good band. Mediocre record.
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7. The Notwist - Gloomy Planets (Live)

Probably my most listened to track in 2009, this live performance is featured on the new documentary Music No Music.
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8. The Raveonettes - Break Up Girls!
One of a handful of standout tracks from a great, great album.
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9. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love

More tracks like this and The Big Pink could emerge as an important band.
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10. Dead Skeletons - Dead Mantra

Still gets my vote for song of the year. It will open up new musical worlds you didn't know existed.
Myspace

Honorable Mention:
The Ruling Class - Sleeping Beauty
A little too early 90s Britrock for its own good, this was still an intriguing track in a year with precious few of them.

Highlights from 2009 on Dead Flowers:
Interview with Sune Rose Wagner (The Raveonettes)
Interview with The Ruling Class
The "Utterly Brilliant" Radiohead (Video)
The Veils - Sun Gangs Review
Pete Doherty - Grace/Wastelands Review
Download Special - The Veils Acoustic
Download Special - Radiohead - Kid A: Amnesiac Live in Paris
Download Special - The Sound of Young Denmark
RIP Steven Wells
The Veils/Foreign Born Live Review
Fall Review Omnibus
My band releases its first EP

And a bit of history...
Best of 2006
Best of 2007
Best of 2008

Thanks for visiting Dead Flowers in 2009. See you next year!

The Notwist: Gloomy Planets (Live w/ Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra)

Listen/Download:
"Gloomy Planets"
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Thoughts on:The Notwist--The Devil, You + Me

Somewhere around 2003-4, I looked at the excellent latest release from Germany's The Notwist ("Neon Golden") and a mind-bendingly good album from Denmark's Mew ("Frengers") and predicted the next rock revolution might come from Central Europe.

As far as brilliant forecasting goes, it ranks up there with my obviously spot-on prediction that Coldplay wouldn't break America because they released "Clocks" as the second single off "A Rush of Blood to the Head": Mew made a disastrous follow-up album full of prog-rock tripe; The Notwist, meanwhile, pretty much disappeared. There was the puzzling collaboration with Themselves, a group of insect-rapping Californians. Notwist frontman Markus Acher released an excellent record with his other group Lali Puna (2004's "Faking the Books"), but that too failed to register outside of hipster circles in New York, LA, and London.

Why was the bar so high? You see, with 2002's "Neon Golden", The Notwist rewrote the rules of merging rock with electronic music. After a decade of the music industry telling us the future was sweaty American jerks using drum loops to underpin grunge dirges, The Notwist took tasteful laptop textures and merged them with delicate rock songs in an utterly beguiling way. Acher's voice, reminiscent of Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, floated ethereally above a bed of music that sounded like New Order for the 21st century.

Listeners have waited six years for "The Devil, You + Me", and although it's not entirely clear what took them so long, there are plenty of fine moments on this record. Maybe expectations were simply too high, but what they've basically given us is "Neon Golden 2". Opener "Good Lies" is fantastic, with a circular melody repeating and reinforcing the key lyric: "Let's just imitate the real until we find a better one". Being German, Acker's unusual delivery gives lyrics that might sound cliche coming from a native speaker a decidedly uncanny quality . "Good Lies" also reveals the band's new secret weapon: the acoustic guitar. Whether it's the descending chords in that track, the Teutonic Bossa Nova of "Gloomy Planets", or the space-age blues of "Gone Gone Gone", this post-modern band using the most traditional of instruments results in added warmth and texture.

"Where in this World" Promo:

The morbid "Where in this World" seems like an odd choice for a lead-off single; more obvious choices would have been the upbeat "Boneless" or the part-jittery/part-shimmering "Gravity". A June release also seems like a curious move, but maybe that just means people will be rediscovering "The Devil, You + Me" in the fall when the weather becomes more suitable for this kind of thing.

So while one shouldn't expect a new rock revolution from mainland Europe any time soon, with "The Devil, You + Me" The Notwist have continued their quiet insurgency to redefine and recontextualize rock n' roll. This is thoughtful and evocative music that deserves your attention.

Listen to "Good Lies":

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]
[Band Wiki]

The Notwist: Good Lies

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Wiki]
(Thanks Kris)

13 + God: Perfect Speed

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]
[Band Myspace]

The Notwist: One with the Freaks (Classic MP3)

Listen:

[Download the MP3 Here]
[Band Website]