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.
Taken from Esuna’s facebook
Our next take over comes from the awesome Cardiff based quartet Esuna. The band easily captivate their audience and each live set is unpredictable, abrasive and amusing. A must see. The four have had a remarkable year with the release of their standout EP ‘Epilogue to Departure’. We hand over to Kieran Rees and the rest of the men from Esuna to find out more about his year in music.
This year we thought we’d all pick one release each and then do a band vote on the 5th one.
“Nothing really mainstream caught my eye this year as I was working so much with the bands I’m in. I was largely more exposed to more local music. I’d seen my friends in Amy Grindhouse once or twice and was very impressed with their live show, going for that weird parody vibe, the performance being a tenth of a Kaufman quarter of a Space blood sort of thing. Then they released this number recently. EP 2 is a pristine twinkle jazz record, everything about its spot on, it doesn’t hang too deep in one genre or the other and keeps you going back for that quick hit of lo-fi jazz indie rock fix. It’s refreshing. Like a hot towel. A sad hot towel.”
“Decided to get back on the horse with listening to new music this year, before shortly falling off. Frustrated one chilly evening in October, I went for a walk and threw my earphones on for the first time in about a year. I’d put this album on my phone, meaning to get around to it at some point. I loved every minute of it. Very chill, soothing and surprisingly mathy in places. Tycho has always been good bath music too. I look forward to seeing them back in the UK. The last time I saw them, I accidentally dropped all my crisps on the floor. I also quite enjoyed Masts’ album ‘Adversaries’ and the debut EP ‘Eat A Phone’ from the man beard’s other band Twisted Ankle.”
“Although it’s not as strong as some earlier releases and being a bit of a slow burner – there are some pleasantly memorable little passages in there that hang around in your head for days. It’s also a return to form to their previous record, Shelter; which was somewhat milquetoast in comparison. This was definitely my most anticipated record of 2016.”
Josh picked Radiohead- A Moon Shaped Pool
It’s hard finding a middle ground for us, especially when 2016 wasn’t a particularly outstanding year for music. Although, Enemies final album ‘Valuables’ is a great send-off for the band. We all enjoyed Enemies set at ArcTanGent this year and we hope them the best for the future.
Not much is on the docket as of now. We’ll be taking our time in the new year slowly writing material for something. It might be an album, but then again it may be an edgy sci-fi gangster movie script or a Mexican student cook book. Perhaps a really bad (like reaallllyy bad) five minute stand-up comedy routine about penguins? Let me put your fears to rest. It’s actually a ten part anime series about us becoming the house band for the actual House Of Commons. Sorry for wasting your time.- Kieran
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