It’s that time once again, as the countdown to the end of 2016 quickly approaches we take a personal look back on familiar names, features and musicians’ best releases of the past 12 months. In what has been a crazy year of highs and lows it’s the releases that have pulled a lot of people through the year. Now in it’s 6th year, Circuit Sweet will be hosting takeovers from the featured artists/musicians/labels and promoters of the site with their personal top 5 releases of the year.
Our annual end of year tradition is where we let our favourites take over the site to tell us the records that have made their end of year lists, their favourite events/gigs and what we can look forward to from them next year.
In our next Rad Releases we hand over to the 5-piece experimental art pop purveyors Meltybrains?. The Irish quintet have had a successful year with the very recent release of their triumphant EP. With such a promising year and having been described as “contenders for the most intriguing prospect the British counter culture has had in years”- we hand the site over to find out about their top albums of the year.
Top 5 releases of the year –
Lloyd: Soccer96 – As above so below
Mustafa: Everything Anderson .Paak has done this year, he’s untouchable right now.
The best show you have played this year and why
Robert: Our homecoming headline show in the main room of The Academy was pretty special, it felt like a significant milestone had been reached.
Zoe: My favourite gig that we played was in the KEX Hostel in Reykjavik for Iceland Airwaves. Great festival, great crowd and great to have an experience like that in a city where we’re pretty much unknown.
Sampson: Other Voices Festival in Dingle, Co. Kerry. The crowd blew the roof off, the energy pouring onto the stage from them was beautiful. We also met Gwen from Hanson that night.
Liam: St. Pancras Church in London, we had Roots Manuva’s lighting rig + Lunch Money supporting us = holy fucking shit yeah
The best gig you have attended and why
Fin: Ho99o9 at Body & Soul Festival in Ireland, the most intense performance I’ve ever seen in my life.
Lassie: Best gig I attended was Christine and The Queens at Longitude festival. I went just to see her and it was entirely worth it.
Woody: The Crash Ensemble at Airwaves Festival Iceland. I had no idea what to expect, and I was stunned. The music twisted and turned; did loop the loops around and inside my head; and took me on both an aural and physical journey. It was spellbinding. I walked away stunned at what I had heard.
Ferguack Quas III: Best gig I went to was Donal Lunny, Máirtín O’Connor & Zoë Conway at Body & Soul. I cried. Donal is a fantastic kicker
Swanly McBeaks: Feather in the Bernard Shaw in Dublin. Amazing outdoor gig setting, crowd was on it, the DJ’s killed it afterwards and to top it all off, one of our best friends that we haven’t seen in years came back home, fuck holy hell yeah Kyle!
Highlights of your year
Puffin Ulysses McQuack: Gucci getting out of jail.
Duck Duckerberg: Releasing our Kiss Yourself EP (It sounds great), working on some interesting music and sound projects for Ireland’s centenary celebration, moving to a cottage on the beach and Leicester winning the Premier League.
Goose Quack: Moving into our house on the beach in Clogherhead has been bliss. I would recommend to anyone with a car to think about moving out of the city and getting some head space. Also getting to travel to Iceland to play gigs to packed rooms was another massive standout moment. I also won an Olympic Medal in Modern Pentathlon. I’m a pentathlete.
Machiavelli: Eating Poutine in Niagara Falls, watching the sunset in Reykjavik with Micheál, getting Stuck in traffic for 9 hours between London and Liverpool.
Ploone: Holy shit I had a crazy year, but that’s my business.
Artist/Band to watch for 2017
Zorro: Dave, JFDR, The Busy Twist, Search Party Animal, Megadeth, Feather, The Fuck Ensemble, Katie Kim and holy fucking shit yeah yeah!
Sally & Sharon: Write more music, drink more Malibu.
Dr. Manuel Santiago: Practice drums. Release some solo music/EP (It’s mostly written, just whether I get round to actually putting it out). I also want to learn how to do a handstand and how to do a backflip. That would be great. If anyone feels like helping me out, you can call me on 00353 879742596. Thank you. I love you.
Kurt Melonhead: Buy new shoes, contemplate getting a haircut but don’t actually get one but then let my friend give me a comical haircut at a party and then regret it a few days later.
Jim Gravy: I plan to cut down on my bullshit intake a lot this year.
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