Free The Beasts: 2013's best albums

1. Big Wheel and Others - Cass McCombs

"I believe in littering, waste should not be hidden but seen."

2. Pale Green Ghosts - John Grant

"I should have practiced my scales. I should not be attracted to males"

3. A Wonder Working Stone - Alasdair Roberts 

"See the deniers they bring a demeaning, religion that rose from the sewers of Rome"

4. Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare

"So now violence and intolerance disappear as energy"

5. Float Along - Fill Your Lungs - King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

6. About Farewell - Alela Diane

"Here I will wait out the storm, killing time on the fringes again."

7. The Sun Dogs - Rose Windows 

8. Time Off - Steve Gunn 

"Past and present and future cease"

9. Loud City Song - Julia Holter 

"Bang bang"

10. Hirta Songs - Alasdair Roberts & Robin Robertson


"Too old now and too few"

11. Monkey Minds in the Devil's Time - Steve Mason 


"This is what you find when you are here to see it all"

12. Get There - Minor Alps

"In the end you found me and we were rebuilding"

13. Hobo Rocket - Pond

"And if you motherfuckers don't like it you can all get out"

14. Bright Sunny South - Sam Amidon

15. Indigo Meadow - The Black Angels

"Hey little darlin' you're a dreamer"

16. The Flower Lane - Ducktails

"Fill the lock and turn the key"

17. The Ash & Clay - The Milk Carton Kids

"Graceland is a ghost town tonight"

18.  Anarchic Breezes - Grim Tower

"Who do you love if it ain't me?"

19. Monomania - Deerhunter

"I'm a poor boy from a family"

20. Pools - Zeahorse

Repairs to the Mothership

I have finally managed to give my website a thorough updating, adding a number of features and reviews I managed to do over the last 12 months for the likes of The Stool Pigeon, The Quietus and R2.

Among these morsels are interviews with songwriter fellows John Grant and Kevin Barker, fantastic Canadians The Besnard Lakes, dirge-psych band Carlton Melton, and rather more leftfield artisans Surf City and Giana Factory.

I can offer reviews of albums by The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger, Phosphorescent, Faun Fables, The Black Angels, Alasdair Roberts and two from Elliott Smith - the Introduction To... and the reissue of Roman Candle.

And finally, flying in the face of the ongoing pointlessness of live reviews, a write-up of two festivals - Green Man 2010 and Slottsfjell 2010, and The Black Angels' Borderline show last year.