News The Month That Was: January 2014

After at least a month of non-releases (and fair enough, any sensible person eased themselves through the winter break with the help of a Beyonce album or Burial’s nightbus-o-rama), January tends to involve vowing to listen to everything. The goal: To absorb every interesting release, to coin thoughts about each and every one of them - and if there’s a spare hour or two, discover something new for the hell of it.

Two good-willed weeks later, this resolution usually filters out and falls by the wayside. For the most part, that’s because an album, a debut single or even the memory of a striking live performance, takes over. Everything else falls into insignificance as the play count on this specific release goes up and up. In the DIY office there’s always a lot of chatter, remarks and most of all terrible puns about the best music across an entire month. Below is a select - although not absolute - look back on January’s most talked about releases and events, with no Coinye involved. Next month attention turns to new records from Beck, Katy B, Angel Olsen and St. Vincent. This January round-up is more a bringing together of the songs that stopped a lot of people in their tracks, records that’ll still be playing non-stop by the end of the year, and new bands keen to set the agenda in the coming months.

Warpaint Flood The Senses

This month’s DIY coverstars waited actual years before they got what they wanted for album number 2. After producer Flood finally became available, they got to work on intense jamming sessions in the California desert. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but somehow Warpaint ended up upping their game. “We had time to focus on what we were doing naturally - in that way we’re really lucky that we have a team that believes in us,” said Stella Mozgawa in our cover feature. The album was so good, in fact, we managed to get the band to make actual paintings based around the thing. Reviewer El Hunt called it“simultaneously angsty, ethereal, shadowy, heavenly, dreamy, nightmarish, and unmistakably belonging to Warpaint.”

Against Me! Speak Up

‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’ is a punk album not out of choice, but out of chance, according to reviewer Tom Doyle. In what could easily go down as their best record to date, the context surrounds Laura Jane Grace’s recent decision to live as a woman. That’s the agenda, but within the album is a broader message about how to be yourself regardless of surroundings. A brave full-length, “this album is pointedly about the politics of emotion, the politics of the personal, the politics of sexuality, the politics of how you live your life every single day.”

Bear Witness To Queen V

As if ‘Digital Witness’ - a blitzkrieg, trumpet-filled, spiky rhythmic jam from St. Vincent’s new album - wasn’t enough of a cause for excitement, Annie Clark decided to relocate to Madrid for its accompanying video. It makes for easily the most striking clip to land on grubby laptop screens in January. Those buildings. Those colours. That song. All coupled up, it makes St. Vincent’s self-titled newbie an absolutely essential release for next month.

East India Youth Ends The January ‘Strife’

It didn’t take long for an album to come out capable of soundtracking miserable rain-drenched commutes with booming electronica, big, powerful songwriting and odd shuffling ambience. William Doyle balanced all at once in debut ‘Total Strife Forever’. “Here all of Doyle’s ideas seem fully formed and meld together perfectly, which given the ground they cover is quite the achievement,” wrote Tim Lee in a DIY write-up. “Innovative, cerebral and yet totally accessible, ‘Total Strife Forever’ is an incredibly impressive record.”

Orwells Drive Letterman Crazy

A good chunk of people still aren’t sold on The Orwells. And it’s easy to see why. When they ruck up on TV shows kicking stage lights, humping the air, it’s not exactly the most attractive or appealing sight. But let’s not be boring, here. This group of young Chicago kids are giving it everything to stand out. They’re obsessed with the rock’n’roll legends of Jay Reatard and The Strokes. They’ve grown up loving bands, and now they’re trying to be the band that kids watching at home will strive to replicate. If that involves acting like idiots and getting Letterman’s band to mock and perform an impersonation, it’s probably working. Earlier this month they were on the DIY Weekly cover as part of the Class of 2014, and the band’s very own goldilocks, Mario Cuomo, admitted it took him 15 good shows to get over his stage fright. Just look at him now. And if anyone figures Letterman wasn’t that into it, an interview with Matt O’Keefe on Rolling Stone sets the record straight. “Right before he was left the stage, he was laughing and he put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘That was exactly what we needed.’ Then he walked off.”

Don’t Confuse Them With Someone Who Gives A Fuck

While it was pretty clear that Wild Beasts were coming back in 2014 with a new album, they hadn’t set a specific date when it came to the turning of the year. ‘Wanderlust’ announced all this and more. It showcased a band with a sudden venemous tongue. Hayden Thorpe was swearing all of a sudden. What in god’s name was going on? It soon becomes clear in this lead track from ‘Present Tense’ that Wild Beasts have become something of a politically-charged band, and they’re doing so in such a style it makes for the most surprising turn in their career so far. “If this is indeed an attack on the superrich, then this is also the sound of Wild Beasts showing their political skin; maybe not for the first time, but never before like this,” reads a very excitable track review from midway through this month.