Top tens for 2010: Max J Hansson & Anna Knutsson (Night Minutes)
It's the end of another year and there's little that's different than from last year. Some bands have made a splash in the vast ocean of music. Some have not. And here we are compiling 365 days and a million happenings into neat little lists. That's how we function and there's nothing that'll be different next year. So, what has etched itself into our brains this year? Voilá, Top Ten of 2010!
1. As illegal copies of Liars' "Sisterworld" flooded the digital market, floating around every nook and corner of the internet we stayed put. As a boy who've already pre-order a deluxe nerdy vinyl copy we shyed away from inferior mp3's. Yeah, we heard "Scissor" and saw the video but even when the official release date came around we waited patiently for our copies of the album to arrive. And waited. But as you've already figured out, yes, it was worth it.
2. "Despicable Dogs" was on every hipster lip two sides of Bedford Ave but for good reason. Everything from Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark to My Bloody Valentine brewed into a nice lager of pop.
3. For us, pushing both thirty and thirty-five, the comfort of adult indie rock, the one with a sinister sneer and romantic glow, The National provided us with a soundtrack for the past seven months with their fifth album "High Violet".
4. As punks and heshers gathered in the city centre to attend the annual punk rock/metal festivities. Grandpa Jello Biafra with fellow students raced through a set of blistering agitated punk rock. With a few old Dead Kennedys songs gracing us, everyone left the tent, satisfied humming something about a holiday somewhere in Asia.
5 Six minutes and forty-four seconds of Deerhunter was all it took to embrace "Halcyon Digest" in its entirety. But it was that one song that immediately struck a chord within us. You'll know as you listen to it.
6. While Holy Fuck isn't the most entertaining thing to listen to on a CD or record, there's something to be said about their live show and that is that it's unfuckwithable. The build-up's and the breakdowns; the monotonous beat and the joyous hooks -- it's all there and we dance even though we're not drunk.
7. The sheer darkness of their history and for all that they've given us -- Swans thanks for reconvening.
8. We're junkies. No doubt. Not in the bodily harmful way(?) we think. Or maybe our minds are corrupt from spending too much time consuming TV shows: Dexter, True Blood, House, Grotesco, The Sopranos, Family Guy, South Park... the list goes on and on. There's no filtering the junk from the good. It all goes into one big funnel into our eyes. And it's welcomed.
9. Geezers rule! And the one band that proves that this year is OFF! All older men with a punk rock pedigree you can't match. Four EP's under their belt compiled into one exploding full-length. Fuck yeah!
10. Sleigh Bells is just the rap metal of 2010. Kings of Leon doesn't deserve the space in this sentence and we have Nazis in some city council. Hooray for progress!
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Max J Hansson and Anna Knutsson are Night Minutes and they're set to release their debut album "Grateful Depression" early next year. You might know Max from his years in Cut City, a band which still, three years in a row, says that their new album is almost done. This time there's audible evidence though. Anna was a part of the We Live In Trenches punk rock machine until this summer when she decided that she needed to leave. Now she spends her days refurbishing furniture and making some damn fine music.
http://www.myspace.com/nightminutes