Albums of 2015

 Coming back or going solo

Blur – The Magic Whip

The Libertines – Anthems for Doomed Youth

Albert Hammond Jr. – Momentary Masters
Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love

jennylee – right on!

Every year there are some bands who decide to pick up where they left of and make a new album. Some people do the complete opposite and take a break from their band to work on their own projects.  

This year we got the honour of welcoming another Blur album in our life. We all know Damon Albarn was busy with being Damon Albarn, Coxon did some other music related things, Alex James went back to his farm to make some cheese and the drummer probably did something as well. It took them 12 years to get back in the studio and make some great music but the result was worth waiting for.

Another band we were happy to see again on stage were The Libertines. Problem child Peter Doherty got reunited with his best friend Carl Barât and for once it didn’t look like they we’re going to ruin eachother again. Gunga Din, the first single of the album, is another great classic and songs like You’re my Waterloo prove that they haven’t lost the talent of good songwriting over the past years.

Besides that Albert Hammond Jr. proved again that he doesn’t need his friends from The Strokes standing next to him to make an amazing album. Even on stage we can see that he earned his place in the spotlight as frontman of his own band. We can almost call 2015 the year of great comebacks when also Sleater-Kinney decided to drop a new album. Our favourite threesome of screaming ladies proves with No Cities to Love that girl power will never die. Who even needs the Spice Girls for that anyway? Talking about girls, Jenny Lee Lindberg aka every art boy’s dream girl, took a break from Warpaint. On right on! she basically still does the same thing but not as good. Oh well, I can’t really say bad things about Jenny Lee but let’s keep it at “It’s just not as good as Warpaint”.

Dancing queens

Florence and the Machine – How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful

Wolf Alice – My Love Is Cool

Marina and the Diamonds - Froot

Grimes – Art Angels

Courtney Barnett – Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit

Now over  to my all-time favourite category. They all have a very secret weapon: two X-chromosomes! Please don’t let this turn out into a ‘female artists are just artists as well’ kind discussion and let me have this one.

Obvious number one here is Florence Welch and her machine. People who’ve known me for longer than 1 day know that in the magical world I live in everything that Florence does is amazing, so is the new album. An album dedicated to her demons, which shows us that even you can overcome your darkest times. If you want a 100 pages long essay with other reason why Florence and the Machine is amazing you can contact me.

Maybe not in the right category but we take Wolf Alice in their Moaning Lisa Smile music video to explain why they deserve the title of dancing queens. Their debuut is a mix of grungy screams and poppy tunes which do make it hard to not move. 

Other queens in the list are Marina Diamandis, also known as the queen of glamour. In this new area she dumped her image of heartbreaker and turned Froot into an emotional ride to show us how it is to be a strong independent woman! Claire Boucher is named queen of weirdness this year. Her experimental songs never disappoint even when the twist in it is sometimes a bit too twisty. Last but not least we have Courtney Barnett, our queen of honesty. In her Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit she takes us on a journey to painfully true situations that everybody has once experienced in their life. Maybe you should just sit, think and listen to her amazing songs. 

Young and British

Drenge – Undertow

Gengahr – A Dream Outside

Peace – Happy People

Palma Violets – Danger in the Club

Swim deep – Mothers

When you live on the other side of a huge puddle of water you start thinking that everything that comes over must be pretty great. In Belgium being an young and British band has turned into a success formula with the cooler kids (including me, an actual adult). 

For Undertow the Loveless parents decided to adopt another child so now Eoin and Rory are joined by their new brother Rob who can play some bass. Besides that not much changed within the band, their sound is a bit more grown up but still haunting and they are still very tall people.

In 2014 we had Superfood and Childhood at the top of this list, this year only one new band caught our attention: Gengahr. Their unusual mesmerising sound makes it hard to put a label on what they do. Do they make you want to crawl under a big duvet, listen to their soft music and pretend everything is okay? Yes! Do they make you want to do weird dancemoves that you might have stolen from Lorde? Also yes! Other good thing about this band is that they just are the loveliest people walking on this planet.

Peace was still In Love in 2013 but they became Happy People in 2015. Chilli Jesson, Sam Fryer and the two other bands from Palma Violets who's names have nothing to do with food gave us a lesson in what and who can be dangerous when you go out to a club. Because sometimes living on the edge needs some safety tips. Swim Deep did something lovely for their Mothers. What a bunch of nice guys they are!

Heartbreakers of the year

One Direction – Made in the AM

Tobias Jesso Jr. – Goon

The Vaccines – English Grafitti

Years & Years - Communion

Justin Bieber – Purpose

For this category we can bring out the big clichés and let my love for commercial popmusic take the lead. I’ll still have to throw in some real ‘quality’ artists to keep up my credibility as a self-respecting music lover but come on it’s 2016 now, we don’t have to be ashamed of liking One Direction anymore.  

Speaking about One Direction, 2015 was really their year. After the tragic departure of Zayn Malik our mourning process wasn’t even done yet and the rest of the band announced that they we’re going to have a break. They might have taken the heartbreaker thing a bit too literally? Anyway, before they left to hang with the Kardashians (How could you Harry?) they still dropped a pretty great album. Over the years their boyband bubblegum pop lost a bit of the pink sticky chewster. Still poppy though, still very poppy. 

Tobias Jesso Jr. is the very tall man that came out of nowhere this year with a great album to accompany you on a night of crying, being lovesick/homesick and overall pretty miserable. Apparently he is besties with the Haim sisters and wrote a song for Adele, who brought us another fun album to have a cry to. Let’s move on quickly now before I drown in my own tears.

Self-proclaimed handsome man of the year, Justin Young, and his vaccinators are already on their third studio album. It wasn’t as short as the first one or as angry and filled with teen angst as the second one. It was a new sound but still kind of the same as we have heard before. I guess it’s kind of hard to really change your sound when you have the same voice. Besides that awful joke they did a great job to mix their upbeat songs with a handful of slower ones. If you already thought All in White was great for your imaginary wedding you should listen to (All Afternoon) in Love. A true heartbreaker!

About Years and Years we can say that it sounds way better on the album than it does live. They were the BBC sound of 2015 so let’s give them the joy of selling out huge venues. It’s just that I’m going to have dance parties on my own with the actual album instead of being bothered about how bad they are live. I couldn’t even afford to buy tickets for Justin Bieber so I put ‘Sorry’ and ‘What do ü mean?’ in my Sandy’s swaggy dance hits playlist as well. Please knock before entering my room! Knock hard! Only enter when I say something in the lines of yes! That makes it all less awkward for the both of us when I’m breaking out my moves in front of the mirror. 

Also worth mentioning

The Maccabees – Marks to Prove It, Foals – What Went Down, Tame impala – Currents , Spector – Moth Boys, FIDLAR – Too, The Garden – Haha, Girl Band – Holding hands with Jamie, Ezra Furman - Perpetual Motion People, Slaves - Are You Satisfied?, Only Real - Jerk At The End Of The Line and many, many more ….

Oh My Darling Clementine

As you might have established, one of our favourite places in Brussels is the Botanique. And if you happen to just have spent the night there you might come out feeling a little peckish. Now if this is the case I suggest you get on the tram 92, stay on it for quite a while, and don't get off until 'Place St.Job'. You might be wondering why I'm trying to take you far out of the centre of Brussels, I'm not trying to get you lost, this is really worth it.

Chez Clémentine, number 2 on the list of top chip shops in Brussels (although number one goes to Clémentine's father, Antoine with the famous 'Friterie Antoine' on Place Jourdan), is found on the Place St.Job in Uccle. Whether you are from Belgium yourself or are just a tourist you will know how important chips are as a part of our culture. None of this 'french fries' business, chips were invented in Belgium! So if you happen to be passing by, Chez Clémentine is the place to try and as it's open from 11:30 to 01:00 on sundays and weekdays and until 06:00 on fridays and saturdays, chances are it will be open.

Chez Clémentine is not just your ordinary chippy, its aim is to create the most environmentally friendly chip shop in Brussels. From the building itself which is perfectly insulated to the oil used which is recycled into eco-diesel, every aspect is thought out to be the least damaging to out very precious planet. And of course without affecting the price in the slightest! I can't personally review their whole menu as I am vegan but I can tell you that they do have a huge choice and veggie options (which isn't that easy to find in Brussels) and if you are veggie then they will cook your chips apart in vegetable oil rather than animal fat which is the traditional way of cooking them here in Belgium. The only fault I can find is that vinegar isn't available, though that isn't done over here. You'll either have to bring your own vinegar or take them home.

I'm definitely not saying all of this because it's the local chippy I grew up going to, but it is, and if you do decide to come over and say hi then please try a veggie burger because I don't think any one else orders them which is such a shame they're the best. It's just really nice having that place you've known for

so long where the staff know your order when they see you come in, everyone needs that. But Chez Clémentine is very popular and alot of people do make the effort to come the extra mile for better quality food.

Why you should check out Tempesst?

 On Monday we were back at our very much loved venue Botanique in Brussels. Due to Brussels being under level 4 terror alert they had to cancel a few concerts the week before. The last day before we could get out our Christmas hats and Reindeer antlers Albert Hammond Jr. came all the way to Brussels to re-open the wonderful Orangerie. 

 We did have to under go security checks but it felt great to be back! And yes, we'd been looking forward to seeing Albert Hammond Jr for ages. As always  I didn't bother to look up who the support was. Someone usually always does that for me. And besides I didn't know whether I was even going to turn up that early. I say that and always forget that I'm a really bad judge of time. Somehow I always seem to leave the house at least half an hour earlier than necessary. Basically I'm always early, and I'm glad I was because Tempesst were great. It had been a while since I saw a support act I properly enjoyed and I had a ton to do that day.

 They are an Australian band currently living in London and were one of the best support acts I'd seen in a while. You should definitely check them out. If you can find any of their music online. Because that's way harder than it seems.

There was a great atmosphere from the beginning of their set. I could already tell I would enjoy their short time on stage. They were really fun live and it seemed that everyone else was enjoying it too. Just a few songs in I'd forgotten it was Monday and was really starting to get in the mood. Their music reminded me a bit of bands such as Tame Impala , Pond and Temples. Which can't be bad!A bit before their last song they mentioned to stop by their merch stand to sign up to their mailing list for some free music. Obviously I'm always up for free music! Who isn't? So sure enough we stopped by and immediately fell in love with their shirts saying 'You're worth it' on them. Pretty hard to resist such an inspirational quote. We had to get them! Though to be fair the other band playing Rotonde at the Botanique had 'I'm a mess' on their T-shirts, which suits me too. But Tempesst shirts put us in a great mood, I'll probably be wearing mine everyday until I get bored or it gets smelly. 

I think that besides standing 2 meters away from a living legend like Albert Hammond Jr. We didn't have much to complain that night. It was a good night and I'm really looking forward to recieving some new music! If they finally decode all the handwritten email adresses. For now we'll just have to play Tidal Wave for they 100th time again.

Wolf Alice play at Rotonde, Botanique Brussels

They were on the long list for BBC sound of 2015, toured with Alt-J and are now nominated for the Mercury Prize. You might have already guessed, or just read the title, but I’m talking about Wolf Alice! On their way to take over the world they were so kind to make a stop in the sold out Rotonde at the Botanique in Brussels. I put on my dancing shoes and got hydrated for a night of singing along to songs from possibly the best album of the year. 

 

Credit: Mike Massaro for DIY magazine

After getting thoroughly checked at the entrance of the venue (thank you ISIS) we got into an already pretty full Rotonde. Supporting Wolf Alice that night was Melting Time. As the tradition from the Botanique prescribes it was again a band from our own small country. They should be good for 30 minutes of entertainment but started to get a bit annoying and boring after 15 minutes. If you closed your eyes so you didn’t got distracted by the over the top 'dancing' from their guitarist you could hear some hints of Joy Division and Jim Morrison. Sadly we could also hear some Editors, who are not on my favourite bands list. Still a shout out to the female bass player! We all know that those are the coolest girls walking on this planet. I’m not just saying that because I’m a girl who plays bass. We can just agree that it’s a well-known fact! 

When the venue started to get more crowded, it also got darker outside and rain started pouring into the not so decent roof of the Botanique. Thank goodness we managed to keep it dry in the Rotonde. Well for as long as they didn’t start playing ‘Bros’ and I wouldn’t end up as a crying mess.

With opener ‘Your Loves Whore’ we could already see that the crowd was going to be the “stand still and watch” kind of crowd. The distance between the band and the crowd was even in such a small venue so big. ‘Freazy’, one of their more poppy songs from the album set a chill vibe and when ‘Bros’ started playing even some people took the adventures choice to start dancing. From my experience at concerts in the Botanique you can say it’s a miracle. 

Finally ‘You’re a Germ’ was there and Ellie proved that how tiny she may be, she can produce a lot of noise. Then we went straight back to the fun popsongs we started off with. Great songs like ‘Lisbon’ and ‘The Wonderwhy’, which both have some sing along allures, didn’t got the people too enthusiastic. Oldie, ‘Storms’ was as tight and shiny as Theo’s pants and fresh newbie ‘Swallowtail,’  which was according to drummer Joel Amey the best song of the evening, it was a nice intermezzo to calm down before the big storm started. ‘Fluffy’, ‘She’ and ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’ came together as one and formed a bold and loud entity. The crowd screamed their lungs out for almost 10 minutes and was left tired and sweaty. 

Good choice of the band to start their encore with the quiet and modest ‘Blush’ where Ellie asks us if we are happy now. Yes, we sure were very happy! But even good things come to an end. When it’s an end like ‘Giant Peach’ we don’t have many reasons to complain. Theo’s and Ellie synchronic dancing deserves more credit than every single move Alex Turner and his hips ever got praised for. Now all we can do is hope that in February I can update you all on their passage in the Trix in Antwerp. 

Credit: Aurélie Léchenault