Each and every year I look through the Mercury Prize list and tally it up with the list I have in my head. Sometimes the list is good and includes virtually everything that I too considered to be the best of that period. Other times, and particularly in recent years, the list seems to consist of two groups: the year’s big financial hitters and some seemingly willful curve balls. This year’s list falls between the two stalls. There’s a lot on the list that seems to be dictated by popularity; Adele, Tinie Tempah, Elbow and also a smattering of albums that seem to defy the sales figures; Gwilym Simcock, Ghostpoet and King Creosote & Jon Hopkins. I actually think that this years list is pretty decent, the more mainstream choices are generally far from poor albums – I rate the Anna Calvi album particularly highly – and the descriptions of the lesser-known picks pique my interest enough to check them out.

Fact remains though, that there’s only one choice common to both my selection below and the 12 nominations. And that album is (for me) the obvious winner -  PJ Harvey’s sublime Let England Shake. Installed already as the bookie’s joint favourite to scoop the prize for the second time, the album is one of the albums of the last decade let alone 2011. So, even though my selection is almost completely different to that of the judging panel, I’d call the 2011 nomination list a cautious success. There are choices that recognise success, sales (here and overseas) and innovation – and the downright best album of the year is there. It does highlight the best of all sorts of British music.

Here’s my 12 picks from the judging period of July 2010 – July 2011. I was a bit surprised at how conservative this list appears at first glance, a split of the dubbier side of electronica and the best of the indie brigade, but that’s my taste. And yes, I know, Gorillaz wouldn’t want to be on the list – never mind, they won’t read this. The ones I’m most surprised didn’t make the real list? Start off with Wild Beasts – I think that’s a big miss, and an album of true quality. I think the Jamie Woon album deserved the nod, perhaps it was one or the other between him and James Blake. Personally, I find Blake’s album has a lot less charm and a bit less variety. Without further ado, I give you…

The Stereo Jealousy Alternative Mercury Shortlist

British Sea Power – Valhalla Dancehall

Engineers – In Praise of More

Gorillaz – Plastic Beach

PJ Harvey – Let England Shake

Kode9 & The Spaceape – Black Sun

Mogwai – Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Mount Kimbie – Crooks and Lovers

Sons & Daughters – Mirror Mirror

Tom Vek – Leisure Seizure

Wild Beasts – Smother

Jamie Woon – Mirrorwriting

Yuck – Yuck

James Murphy may not have been in the loft he described in 2002′s seminal “Losing My Edge” but he’s come as close as possible to working on the organ sounds on his new single – “Bye Bye Bayou“. A cover of Suicide vocalist Alan Vega’s 1981 track this new LCD cut unveils a flexing synth bassline underneath a typically restrained Murphy vocal. Taut, without ever really letting rip over its 7 minutes, this is reminiscent more of the early LCD singles rather than anything from Sound of Silver and I’m loving it. Bizarrely, this is the first decent thing I’ve heard about first from the radio in years, and it was Radio 1! Amazon has it listed as a 12” vinylavailable from November 9.  Hopefully this is a taster of the band’s upcoming material – a new album is eagerly awaited in these quarters in early 2010.

And if you fancy seeing Suicide, the band are playing as part of ATP’s ‘Don’t Look Back’ series in May next year, performing their eponymous debut record alongside the Stooges playing Raw Power. See the ATP website for tickets.

LCD Soundsystem – Bye Bye Bayou

Came across this lovely little shot at Lily Allen’s slant on the whole filesharing thang. Dan Bull has done this superbly – enjoy and give some love at Dan’s twitter here

Dan Bull – Dear Lily

Morton Valence’s debut is an achingly British slab of pop, so desperate to tell us the story of the title’s namesakes that it comes packaged with a romantic novella. Thankfully, unlike many concept records, the album forms a coherent whole and begs to be listened to from start to finish. It does this whilst constantly shifting in style; dipping from Jesus And Mary Chain style shoegaze on the fantastic “I Must Go,”Said Veronica, “But I Will Always Come Back” through to classic electropop reminiscent of Saint Etienne or Black Box Recorder . The similarities to the latter don’t end there either, with Anne Gilpin recalling the glacial delivery of Sarah Nixey.

Whilst treading the same well worn boards as their pop peers Morton Valence carry the whole thing off with such charm, wit and panache that it never comes across as anything but original. I can’t wait for word to catch on about this glorious piece of work, and I suspect neither can the fans who invested in ‘shares’ of the album to ensure its release. A wonderful album that deserves to be near the top of the pile come the year end reckoning.

Rating: 5 out of 6 stars

For our London readers there are a couple of opportunities to catch Morton Valence over the next few weeks in the city. The first is on June 25 at the last of their Bob And Veronica Book Club events at The Enterprise, and also a chance for a bit of a boat party on July 9 as they play the Battersea Barge.

Morton Valence – Hang It On The Wall (mp3)
Morton Valence – Chandelier (video)

Band site

Last.fm

Myspace
You can buy the CD version of the album that comes with the novella from the band’s website.

This coming Saturday sees International Record Store Day, a chance to celebrate the culture of the independent record shop. Started in 2007 the celebration mainly focuses on the US but this year sees two of the biggest London indies joining in the shindig. Rough Trade East is hosting a free all-dayer featuring Betty & The Werewolves, Wave Machines and many more. Pure Groove hosts Graham Coxon and Patrick Wolf in their bash. Not only this but there are some exclusive releases floating around too – with two free compilations being given out, one featuring the guitar-led style of indie, one the beats-led dance stuff.

Here on Stereo Jealousy, I’ll be running a week-long rundown of my five favourite record shops. I’ve come up with a pretty lengthy shortlist, so whittling it down to five will be tricky. Sadly, there won’t be a mention for two of the shops that shaped my young musical taste – Andy’s Records and Mike Lloyd Music, both former shops in my glorious home town of Stoke.  The latter brought me my first experience of record shop snobbery – being told that my Lightning Seeds best of wasn’t worth squat as a trade!

I think Damon Albarn sums up my feelings pretty well: “I think independent record shops will outlive the music industry as we know it because long term their value to people is far greater, because even in our era of file-sharing and blogs, you cant replace the actual look on someone’s face when they are playing something they really rate and think you should listen to it too. It’s special.“

I’d love to see comments from you too – what’s your favourite record shop? Have you got music that you treasure, solely bought on the strength of a record-shop recommendation? Have you abandoned the local store and now raid the racks online? I wanna see some comments!

Saint Etienne – I Buy American Records

Howling Bells: Radio Wars
Released 2nd March 2009
Independiente

It has been a long three years since Juanita Stein and co unleashed their debut, and Radio Wars arrives having suffered delays and the band label difficulties. The signs weren’t particularly encouraging when Into The Chaos slipped out last year, the track lacked the atmosphere and drive of their live performance. This was a common criticism of much of the debut too, there was a few great ideas but when stretched over a long-player it seemed a little one-paced and drawn out. A similar underwhelming feeling pervades Radio Wars, despite it’s shorter length. In fact all the pluses and drawbacks of the debut apply to this second effort. The good tracks (Cities Burning Down, Nightingale) are great; soaring guitar lines and wistful vocals. However some of the record feels forced and leaden, not helped by some poor lyrics (check Let’s Be Kids as a case in point) and uninventive rhythms. That said, the good songs outweigh the bad and this is a solid album – it just needs a little bit more of the excitement so prevalent at their live shows.

Rating: 3.5 out of 6 stars

Nightingale (MP3)
Into The Chaos (MP3)

Band Site

Myspace

Last.fm

Buy Radio Wars

Photo by Dave W Clarke

Hush

MP3: In The Sky

Buy Barzin

Notes To An Absent Lover

MP3: Soft Summer Girls

Buy Beirut

March Of The Zapotec / Realpeople Holland

MP3: My Wife, Lost In The Wild

Buy Neal Casal

Roots & Wings

MP3: Signal Fading

Buy Crystal Stilts

Alight Of The Night

MP3: Graveyard Orbit

Buy Alela Diane

To Be Still

MP3: The Alder Trees

Buy M.Ward

Hold Time

MP3: Rave On

Buy Dent May & His Magnificent Ukele

The Good Feeling Music Of…

Video: Oh, Paris!

Buy Aidan Moffat & The Best Ofs

How To Get To Heaven From Scotland

MP3: The Last Kiss

Buy Morrissey

Years Of Refusal

MP3: All You Need Is Me

Buy Mountains

Choral

MP3: Sheets Two

Buy Charlie Parr

Roustabout

MP3: Far Cry From Fargo

Buy William Elliott Whitmore

Animals In The Dark

Video: Johnny Law

Buy Jah Wobble & The Chinese Dub Orchestra

Chinese Dub

MP3: Dragon & Phoenix

Buy Susumu Yokota

Mother

MP3: Breeze

Buy

They’ve split up… Oh no they haven’t!

LCD Soundsystem’s constituent parts caused a fluster in my world earlier today when the comic quoted live guitarist Al Doyle as saying the project was on permanent hold. He followed this by claiming Murphy and bandmates would record and tour with a series of disco singers, leaving behind the LCD name.

Mere hours later and an about turn came from Murphy himself, who revealed he had an album’s worth of new material sitting in his cranium. Sounding a little Bon Iverish he went on to say the album would be recorded solo, away from New York sometime next year. So, does this mean a new LCD album in ’09? I really, really hope so. Sound of Silver was just incredible, and as a live act they are improbably good. Here’s to good news (in the end) and the first album announcement for 09 that has me excited…

LCD Soundsystem – Us vs Them

Photo: eMA!

Arise Therefore

Berlin Heart

House Jam

Palmyra

Giddy Stratospheres

Nord Lead Three

Pop Lie

You can click on any of the album covers to be whizzed to Amazon to buy these…

As I was putting this post together I saw the news on NME about The Long Blondes splitting up. It’s pretty sad but obviously guitarist Dorian Cox’s health comes first. Their compilation, out this week on New Cross label Angular, includes all their marvellous early singles and b-sides. It’s probably the best way to remember them, although 2008′s Couples is an underrated gem too.

Mercury Rev
Snowflake Midnight
V2

Rating: 5 out of 6 stars

Mercury Rev have traced a strange trajectory in the decade following their first masterpiece, Deserter’s Songs. 2001′s All Is Dream was excellent, a fragile collection of songs draped in beautiful arrangements. Four years in the making, its follow-up The Secret Migration was a relative failure. That fragility had turned to lead, thick instrumentation drowning any notion of tune or subtlety.

Snowflake Midnight is every bit the return to the success of 1998, albeit in a totally different form. Gone is the echo-ing Americana, and to the fore comes electronic soundscaping; loops and glitches. The change in sound is probably tied to the change in writing process, faced with creative block they turned to random note generators and online effects libraries. The result is an inorganic but beautifully natural record.

The marriage between Donahue’s trademark vocals and the new guitar-free Rev is a happy one, the songs float past, seeming both to evolve and endlessly repeat. There’s plenty of range here too, with the mood changing across and within tracks. Album highlight, People Are So Unpredictable is the best example. The track warps over its near seven-minute length from a delicate ‘curious flower’ to a devastating run of drums, reminiscent of M83‘s cinematics, and then back again to a looping piano.

The band still inhabit the same universe as previously, this is no Rev-olution. Tracks like the superb Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower and opener Snowflake In A Hot World are Mercury Rev alright, just with a brilliant electric sheen. Perhaps the band see this as a return to their early experimental work. If so, then they have done a stunning job of melding experiment to melody.

Mercury Rev – Senses On Fire

By registering on the Mercury Rev website, you can get an instrumental ‘second disc’ of Snowflake Midnight, called Strange Attractor. The band are quoted as saying that tracks swapped places between the two albums, so the quality should be just as high. It’s in my download queue as I type…