Xmas 2018 – Anthemic In Places

It’s that time of year again. It’s my annual Xmas mix which has nothing to do with Xmas, it’s just a collection of tracks relevant to this year, whether it’s something I was introduced to or perhaps some artists I’d seen live, along with a few oldies thrown in. It’s possible some kind of insight into the state of mental health.

This year, I saw The Lovely Eggs, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin (who I’d been waiting to see since 1992), The Wonder Stuff and Robyn Hitchcock, so there’s tracks from them here.

Album wise, there has been a few good ones this year.

Not With That Attitude – The fantastic debut album from Fightmilk.
Livin’ The Dream – The 3rd album from Keith Top Of The Pops & His Minor UK Indie Celebrity All-Star Backing Band
Kindnssizaviruz – First album from Carfax since Minky Pauve in the early 2000s. :
Custodian – Miles Hunt released a double CD of acoustic tracks by The Wonder Stuff and his own solo efforts.
Wham! Bam! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! – Art Brut are back, with more energy than a toddler drinking Red Bull.
Nostalgia – The Pound Shop Boys released their collection of dancey versions of TV themes. They are Ricardo Autobahn of Spray and Phil Fletcher (Hacker T. Dog)
Mixed Up (Deluxe Edition) – The Cure. Mixed Up, was a collection of about around six 12″ mixes of Cure Single, with a few extras thrown in. The Deluxe Edition, not only sees a 2nd CD of other Cure 12″ Single mixes, including the previously unreleased mix of The Love Cats. It is bundled with an album called Torn Down, where Robert has taken a track from each Cure studio album and remixed it. I wrote a review of it here.

Akira The Don, had started making a lot of Lo-Fi music under his Meaning Wave banner, but he did release his new single The Golden Age, included here for your enjoyment.

This year was also the 20th anniversary of Abdoujaparov, Les Carter’s post Carter USM band.

Warning: contains *THE* sound of the summer. ‘Anthologised By Cherry Red‘ from Spray