Where is everyone? Having fun or something? Bah!

Records

Scout Niblett ‘This Fool Can Die Now’ – just lovely. The Will Oldham songs are great but I could easily have managed without them, the rest is so good.

Girls Aloud ‘Tangled Up’ – Oh shut up. There is no way to dislike this album.

Prinzhorn Dance School S/T – Purposefully treading a thin tightrope of brilliance between shouting nonsense lyrics as read off a newspaper on one side and pretentious art-rock sneering on the other. With added Skinned Teen naivete.

The Royal We S/T – just FUN, and so Glasgow. A real Saturday night party band.

Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element, whatever the hell it is called – Hurrah! It really has been far too long in the making but worth it, especially as now the old songs sound new again.

Electrelane ‘No Shouts, No Calls’ – a keeper

Margaret Berger ‘Silver Fairy’ – Adorable Scando-electro-pop.

Souvaris ‘A Hat’ – wasn’t feeling this at all until walking home in freezing fog. Now I get it.

Blood Red Shoes 7″s – ALBUM NOW PLEASE

Live Music

Robyn at the Classic Grand – I have never seen anyone have as much fun onstage as Robyn.

Lords at ABC2 – Lords + lunar eclipse = Hurrah!

Joanna Newsom & Northern Sinfonia at City Halls – just perfect in every way

Errors at various places – ALBUM NOW PLEASE

Prinzhorn Dance School at Sleazys – loud, minimal, shouting, arrogance.

Mogwai at Supersonic – heartbreaking

Watching

I have been to the cinema precisely twice this year and managed to miss half the things I wanted to see. Thus this is more of a DVD list. I also watched nothing on TV this year except for Doctor Who. The joys of starting your own craft business.

NANA 2 – I don’t like the new Hachi but it was still cool seeing my favourite manga coming to life. I’m also recognising areas of Tokyo with ease now which makes my heart ache for JAPAN.

The Golden Compass – disappointing as expected but still entertaining. It just could have been oh so much more.

LOST S3 – Thanks to Greg Kitten I have spent much of the year watching LOST and babbling incomprehensibly. S4 looks like being similarly awesomes.

The Wire – So good I had to re-upgrade my Amazon DVD rental as I am watching them faster than Amazon can deliver them.

General Highlights

JAPAN – Even better than last time even though we just stayed in Tokyo the whole time. I’m sad I never got to bore you with the details but you can still look at my 7 million photos or read my incredibly popular Tokyo Shopping Guide (still in progress).

Gifted – I was very honoured to be included in this exhibition at the National Museum of Scotland. Even more so to have been asked to restock after my stuff started selling out. It’s still on if you’re in Edinburgh before the 6th.

Asking For Trouble – I am still fairly giddy about complete strangers buying things I have made and shops and galleries wanting to stock them. Not looking forward to self-assessment though, argh.

Holland – our little family excursion to visit all the family history sites was really fun in a way that family things usually aren’t. Yay for family windmills!

Supersonic – My only festival outing this year and a very enjoyable one, not least for getting to hang out with some of my favourite people and see a bit more of Birmingham.

Portsoy Boat Festival – unless this counts. The boats themselves weren’t so exciting but I had the best company, the most perfect Summer weather, the glory of the North East coast, my mum lading the table with her greatest dishes and the sort of road trip that involves chips in Forfar. More road trips next year please.

Lowlights

No Audioscope – damn you UK railways! Why is it so expensive to get to Oxford now?

No ATP – None of the lineups really grabbed me this year. Also lack of holiday time. BOOOOO.

No-broadband November – Losing your internet in the run-up to Christmas when you have an online shop is very stressful. I never want to go back to dialup hell. Yay for big refund apology though!

Overall for the year

Hm. It’s been an odd one. Lots of excitement but not much momentum. 7/10

Things I am looking forward to in 2008

My Bloody Valentine!! thanks to surprise ticket gift.
New diskant
New exhibition (more on this soon)
My 33 and a third birthday
Seeing my friends again

Posted: 12|28|07 at 3:29 pm. Filed under: end of year.
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