Lists and subtitutions.

photographs via Esther K.

My most played albums in 2009, according to Last.fm*:

1. Au Revoir Simone: Still Night, Still Light

2. Metric: Fantasies

3. Slow Club: Yeah So

4. The Thermals: Now We Can See

                              5. Emmy the Great: First Love

6. Sin Fang Bous: Clangour

7. Passion Pit: Manners

8. Fanfarlo: Reservoir

9. Nurses: Apple's Acre

10. Dead Man's Bones: Dead Man's Bones

11. Mew: No More Stories Are Told Today, I'm Sorry, They're Washed Away

12. Cymbals Eat Guitars: Why There Are Mountains

13. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone: Vs. Children

14. The Woodlands: The Woodlands

15. Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavillion

This top of course doesn't necessarily - actually cross that, it definitely DOES NOT  coincide with my favourite albums of 2009. First Love, for example (Emmy the Great's debut album) was a bit of a disappointment for me. Sure some of her old songs - previously unreleased but available online of course - were as good as I remembered, but the new ones left me decidedly unimpressed. The fact that the Thermals' Now We Can See is in this top is due almost exclusively to the song of the same name, which I must have played ad infinitum ever since I first heard it. The rest of the album however, apart from one or two songs, is unexceptional. And, while I enjoyed Yeah So, Fantasies, and Clangour, Fanfarlo's Reservoir should have been higher on the list than all of those if the aforementioned list were to reflect my preferences. So basically what I'm saying is that this list is just a lazy substitute. It's a lazy substitute for the Best Albums of 2009 list that we're not going to make. And we're not going to make it because, just like last year, we want to focus on individual songs rather than albums that may or may not have more than one or two good songs on them.

One album I was surprised to see on that list was the Woodlands' self-titled debut. Not because I didn't think it was great but because I hadn't realized I'd listened to it so many times. I'm glad that it did get to be there however, because that means the video we received in our inbox yesterday came just in time:

Can We Stay from The Woodlands on Vimeo.

The Woodlands - Can We Stay

Fanfarlo - Drowning Men (Acoustic)

Related posts:

LHNA's Best Songs of 2008 pt. 1 (mp3s still work!)

LHNA's Best Songs of 2008 pt. 2 (without mp3s)

LHNA's interview with The Woodlands

*Last.fm shows all the albums I've listened to the most during the last 12 months. I've included here only the ones released in 2009.

Looking back: OFF Festival 2009

When: August 6 - 9
Where: Myslowice, Poland

 
OFF was a big unknown for us, we really had no idea what to expect. It wasn't only a new festival for us but a new COUNTRY. Anyway, we spent the week before the festival in Krakow and loved it. Loved it so much in fact we ended up returning to the city after the festival.
 

As for OFF:   

- The campsite. Yes, this surely is how all festival campsites should be. Trees, grass, quiet, SPACE. Perfect. The actual festival area was equally beautiful.

- Cheap beer

- Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They went on in the late afternoon, playing to quite a small crowd (apparently this 'whole indie thing' is pretty new in Poland).

- The National (yep, there's a reason Eliza picked Matt Berninger as one of 'The top 5 people I would marry if they asked me today' on a recent Facebook quiz.)

- Karl Blau (Staged one of the best crowd sing-alongs of my summer)

- The Thermals

- crossing the train tracks on the way to the festival area
- Price of the festival tickets (approx €40.00 for two days)

- Just BEING in Poland!

- The campsite was located at a good 20-25 minute walk from the festival site. We (and a few hundred other people) quickly discovered a rather amazing short-cut over some train tracks though.

- The woman selling sandwiches. She was mean. Possibly. Our Polish wasn't good enough to be entirely sure.

- The fact that you couldn't take a beer (or any type of food for that matter) from the bar and food area to the stages. Apparently this is quite normal in Poland as nobody seemed to care/notice all that much. Surely one of the best things at a festival (or any gig for that matter) is to stand and watch your favourite bands with a beer in your hand?

- The ridiculous rule they had for cameras: cameras over 3.2 MP (do they still exist?) weren't allowed to be taken onto the festival grounds... I managed to devise a clever deceptive strategy to bypass this one, involving my belt and groin area, and the pictures you see here are proof of that.
 

 All in all I think the organizers have done an incredible job, setting up this truly special festival and bringing bands to OFF that had never even played in Poland before (notable exception: Handsome Furs, who told us it was something like their 14th time in the country this year), bands with barely (if any) a fan base in Poland. The entire project takes guts, and the festival is clearly a labour of love for the organizers. For this we salute them!

 

The Thermals

Handsome Furs

  

 The National

 

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
 

Spiritualized

 

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

 

 

Karl Blau

 

on the train to OFF

 

Myslowice town

  Myslowice town

 

  Myslowice train station

 

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - New Year's Kiss (Daytrotter session)

The Thermals - I can't let go (Daytrotter session)

HEALTH - We are Water (Daytrotter session)

And finally, a song from a band that didn't actually play at OFF, but whose song Karl Blau rather wonderfully covered.

Your Heart Breaks - Bad Company

 OFF preview 

More photos

Festival Preview: Off Festival 2009 (Poland)

Festival season has once again walked into our thoughts, dreams and desires; scantily dressed, heavily perfumed, and looking pretty damn good; walked by our desk wearing nothing but a backstage pass and an inflatable hat, smiled provocatively (Hmpf, Dour!), shaken its ass in our faces (damn you Primavera!), tempted us to part with large sums of cash (leave me alone Reading!), sleep (For the last time, NO! Benicassim!) and sanity (Grrr, Glastonbury!). 

 

And, like sandwiches (sandwiches? is that really the best metaphor you can come up with!? ed.), festivals come in all shapes and sizes. Some tiny, some huge, some just plain weird (but you know we love you anyway, right, Standon Calling?). Line-ups too, vary hugely. Actually choosing from one of these however can prove rather tricky, a bit like standing in front of the counter at Subway (Ah, now I see where that was going. But still, sandwiches? ed.). This year LHNA simply decided to follow the best line-ups...

   

Pitchfork, the website everyone loves to hate and hates to love, recently published its annual Guide to Summer Festivals 2009 article to assist in this choice. LHNA, already planning a journey up, though, and across Europe this summer, and therefore already armed with a vague itinerary and before mentioned line-up criteria, chanced upon the festival we're featuring today: 

  

OFF Festival 2009

 

Held in what for many people may well be considered the middle of nowhere, this little brother of indie festivals has only been around for a few years, yet has already hosted the likes of Architecture in Helsinki, Of Montreal, Electrelane, Clinic, British Sea Power, Menomena and Iron & Wine on its stages. This year's lineup looks even more impressive:

 

The National, Final Fantasy, Spiritualized, El Perro del Mar, The Thermals, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Frightened Rabbit,These New Puritans, Maria Peszek, Marissa Nadler, The Field, Ólafur Arnalds, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, High Places,Handsome Furs, HEALTH, Fucked Up, Mark Kozelek, Crystal Stilts, Wavves, Karl Blau, Wooden Shjips, and many more  !

To be honest, we don't really know much else about it. The website is somewhat 'enigmatic', while everyone writing on its LastFM page is Polish. From what I've seen, it appears to be held in something of a park, and camping is available. For us, the not really knowing what to expect (at all!) is part of the fun. Anyway, here's a map:

 

 Follow the rabbit to Off!

 

Four-day tickets are already sold out, but 2-day tickets are still available and cost only 85 Polish Zloty, which is €19.50 (or $27), i.e. insanely cheap.

  

For flights, I suggest having a look at Ryanair or Easyjet. If you book now you'll probably be able to find something decent.

Off Festival 2009 on Last FM

Official website

Off Festival 2009 playlist on Spotify


-> and for those of you from Hype Machine or Elbo.ws, yes, we have a few songs for your listening pleasure:
  
The National - Mistaken for Strangers
The Thermals - No Culture Icons
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Killers
Final Fantasy - This Lamb Sells Condos

S-U-N

Sun!
Who was it that named you
sun?

No one would be surprised,

I bet,
to see three letters in the sky
instead of your golden
face.

--Federico Garcia Lorca



That Same Old Phrase ☀ Ledmonton ☀ You Are Summer
Man O'War ☀ Living in Danger ☀ Scheme Eugene

"Hanging out with Scheme Eugene
and blame the Broken Social Scene
What you don't have you won't miss it when you're gone"

Ashworth quoting Pennington

Some things are best left unsaid.

Parenthetical Girls - Love Connection Pt. I - from 'Grrrls', which you could buy here but it's currently sold out!
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone - Love Connection Pt. I (Cover) - from Etiquette