The Best Of 2012 (and Merry Christmas)

01 LAS KARNE MURTA - Dirty Swing

02 DONALD FAGEN - Sunken Condos

03 MARLENE KUNTZ - Canzoni Per Un Figlio

04 Kalevala - There And Back Again

05 Offlaga Disco Pax - Gioco Di Società

06 Elio E Le Storie Tese - Enlarge Your Penis, Live 2012

07 Bastian Contrario & Diverba - Al-kemi Split, Vol. 1

08 Udachi - Oo-Daa-Chee Remix EP

09 Deproducers - Planetario

10 Il Teatro Degli Orrori - Il Mondo Nuovo

11 The Beach Boys - That's Why God Made The Radio
12 Diaframma - Niente Di Serio
13 SMS - Da Qui A Domani
14 Pet Shop Boys - Elysium
15 Paul Buchanan - Mid Air

This year I've been catching up, listening to a lot of music from Cuba and the Ivory Coast where there are truly exciting scenes, and a lot of funk, soul and disco I had yet to hear.
But there have been quite some good fresh releases too. Las Karne Murta reached their creative peak with an absolute masterpiece, good old Donald Fagen came back with an excellent album which is even better than the last Steely Dan album. Marlene Kuntz have made a wonderful compilation with new versions of their classics, Kalevala and Offlaga Disco Pax both confirmed their talents with great albums.
Elio E Le Storie Tese released a good live album, even if it doesn't do full justice to the truly amazing experience of seeing them in concert, could have been even better. Bastian Contrario and Diverba are two really well promising bands from Italy and have released a split debut album. Udachi came back with more excellent fidget house. Deproducers is a very interesting super-project including Gianni Maroccolo (Litfiba, CSI, Marlene Kuntz), Max Casacci (Subsonica), Riccardo Sinigallia (Tiromancino) and Vittorio Cosma (PFM). Il Teatro Degli Orrori has become one of the most important alternative bands in Italy, and rightly so.
The Beach Boys made an unsuspectingly good return, Brian Wilson showed he can still write a tune at 70! Diaframma released a good but slightly disappointing album (the previous one was their best in ages) while former singer Miro Sassolini released a really beautiful album with his new project SMS. Quite disappointing returns from the Pet Shop Boys (especially since the previous Yes was excellent) and Paul Buchanan (we just expected more from The Blue Nile singer).
2013 looks to have a promising start with the return of the original Litfiba line up and a compilation of New Order's outtakes from the last album.
Merry Christmas and a happy 2013, a year in which I'll try to rock at 40, and if Brian Wilson can still do it at 70...

Donald Fagen - I'm Not The Same Without You

11 months older than my mother, and he can still do music like this. Absolute masterpiece!

The Best Of 2006 (and Merry Christmas)

01 GABRIELLES WISH
Reformer
02 DONALD FAGEN
Morph The Cat
03 MEW
And The Glass Handed Kites
04 SKARNEMURTA
Oilà Masnada
05 DELTA V
Pioggia Rosso Acciaio
06 MARLENE KUNTZ : S-Low
07 PET SHOP BOYS : Fundamental
08 FRANK BLACK : Fast Man Raider Man
09 MORRISSEY : Ringleader Of The Tormentors
10 FEDERICO FIUMANI : Donne Mie



Not many records this year, I wish I could have heard more, this chart is obviously based on the few I've heard.
I guess there have been other great records released this year but my priority was on the artists I already love, I've bought quite some other albums but they've all been released in the past.
For example how could I buy an album released this year by anyone when I hadn't yet the excellent Fin by Crispy Ambulance?
Also no New Order as we were expecting, in fact the band seems about to split, as you can read on New Order Online.
Still, I don't complain as Gabrielles Wish came back with what's probably the best record released in this decade so far, and I don't say this because I'm their webmaster, honest!
I also do the site for Skarnemurta but they're not number 2... well, their excellent album couldn't appear nowhere below number 5 in this chart, actually. It's packed with killer tunes and it's the first for a proper label and distributed nation-wide so they're a sort of best new band for the general audience in Italy.
Personally, Mew have been a great find. Describing them as My Bloody Valentine going prog while meeting Prefab Sprout doesn't even do justice to the innovative vision of pop and rock they have, they're that rare. They've made other albums before, which are definitely worth to have.
Few records, but high quality. And if you're going to talk about high quality you're going to mention the god of quality pop, Donald Fagen from the mighty Steely Dan. Other great frontmen made their solo comebacks: Frank Black from the legendary Pixies, Morrissey (20 years ago The Smiths were about to split) and Federico Fiumani, usually known as Diaframma.
Marlene Kuntz released a fantastic live album and Riccardo Tesio found the time to produce Un Altro Giorno D'Amore, the wonderful debut album by Kessler which almost made the Top 10.
Another great album bubbling under is Incontri A Metà Strada by Riccardo Sinigallia, the genius behind many beautiful records of the Roman scene (from Tiromancino to Niccolò Fabi and Max Gazzè).
The top 10 is completed by two fabulous synth pop albums: from England we have the return to form of Pet Shop Boys and in Italy we've had yet another great album from Delta V.
I've also downloaded quite some tracks from iTunes, both old and new, for example I have the original vinyl of Crispy Ambulance's The Plateau Phase, which doesn't include the bonus tracks of the CD, which I have downloaded from iTunes, I'm definitely more willing to spend 3 Euros on tracks I want than buying the entire CD or downloading them from illegal file sharing. Also, while I'm not entirely convinced to buy the new Robbie Williams album I firmly believe his cover of Lewis Taylor's Lovelight is one of the best songs of the year, definitely worth to be downloaded.

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2007, hoping to continue the tradition seeing every year finishing with 7 bringing great music.
Check the Records Of The Years section in Mick's Mix to see the previous years charts since 2001.

Steely Dan - Everything Must Go

The original inventors of sophisticated pop come back only three years after their magnificent return which followed a twenty years split, and this time it sounds like all those years have passed, after all...
Two Against Nature was an amazing comeback, they were as good as they never went away, it was just up there at the level of Aja and Gaucho. There were some songs, especially the superb final of the record with Negative Girl and West Of Hollywood, which made you wonder just how could human beings compose that music... were they aliens?
Well, Everything Must Go sounds more, like, human, sounds like a band finally distant from the ambition of the Seventies. It's still an excellent record, especially by anyone else's standards. Of course no one else can sound like this, I'm still convinced the only other one ever coming somewhere close to this quality of instrumental and melodic composition has been Prefab Sprout's Paddy McAloon, in his own way...
Anyway, by Steely Dan's standards, we were left with the stellar West Of Hollywood closing their last album, so it's a bit surprising listening to the very down to earth blues of The Last Mall as the opening of the new record. We had read the interviews, where they declared they wanted this to be a simpler thing and well, it really is. It's still sophisticated music (and very intelligent lyrics), but a lot simpler, it seems like they wanted to go back to their blues roots in their elder age, though luckily this shouldn't mark the end of their adventure, as the title of the album apparently refers to the recession of the Western economy...

There are still some songs at the level of their more ambitious music, like the touching Things I Miss The Most (like "the Audi TT... the hous on the gulf coast... the '54 Strat"), or Godwhacker ("you better get gone poppie, Godwhacker's on the case"), which sounds a bit like the follow up to Green Earrings... and Walter Becker, who already proved to be a good singer on his excellent solo album, 11 Tracks Of Whack, sings the wonderful Slang Of Ages.
Above all, there's the only song when they're truly at their most ambitious best, Pixeleen ("rave on my sleek and soulful cyberqueen"), which is worth the CD alone, it's really emotional. There's an absolutely excellent central part with a touching duet, when Donald Fagen and Carolyn Leonhart sing together "symmetrical and clean" and the sax comes in you'd really think you're hearing Steely Dan's best album., it doesn't sound like the same record including songs like Blues Beach, which are just plainly pleasant...
Of course you look at todays pop music, and this towers as an absolute masterwork, but you look at what they were able to do three years ago, and wht they did, at their age, on Pixeleen on this very album, and you just know Everything Must Go is a great album, but we can even expect more.

Rating: 8/10

New album by Steely Dan!

Steely Dan ( http://www.steelydan.com ) will release their new album, Everything Must Go, on June 10.