New Year's Honours

I'm one of the lucky owners of a copy of Mira el Péndulo's C-06 compilation tape, and I enjoyed it a lot. Of the bands I hadn't heard before, I liked Tesco Chainstore Mascara, Rosemary and The April Skies best. Also featured are The Hi-Life Companion that include an ex-Mayfields drummer (!), and the excellent "Stalking Skills" by Gothenburgians Liechtenstein. I've heard that they have a new track on MySpace. Look it up now! As for my own list of the best albums of the year, here it is. It's more or less in descending order, though I haven't really decided on the top spot.

Pants Yell! – Recent Drama
Pipas – Sorry Love
Math & Physics Club – Math & Physics Club
Camera Obscura – Let's Get Out of This Country
Belle & Sebastian – The Life Pursuit
Postal Blue – Road to Happiness EP
Cats On Fire – Draw In the Reins EP
Harper Lee – He Holds a Flame EP
Lovejoy – England Made Me EP
Boyracer – A Punch Up the Bracket
The Hit Parade – The Return of the Hit Parade
The Pipettes – We Are the Pipettes
The Lil' Hospital – Heavy Metal
Tender Trap – 6 Billion People
Scarlet's Well – Black Tulip Wings
The Bats – At the National Grid
The Haircuts – Sorrow Is the Way to Love
The Snow Fairies – Voila!
BMX Bandits – My Chain
Horowitz – Frosty Cat Songs
The Manhattan Love Suicides – The Manhattan Love Suicides

There have also been some great reissues and compilations of old indiepop stuff this year. These are the ones I can remember, and the labels they've been released on:

Brighter (Matinée)
East Village (Excellent)
Hey Paulette (Firestation)
The Servants (Cherry Red)
Widdershins (Egg)
The Nivens (Firestation)
The Revolving Paint Dream (Rev-Ola)
Aberdeen (LTM)
The Charlottes (Cherry Red)
The Chesterf!elds (Cherry Red)