Favourite
Record Label of 2008- One Little Indian.
Tips for
2009- Official Secret’s Act, Kill it Kid
Gobshout
must confess to not being too familiar with One Little Indian- and their smaller Brighton based sister label Fat Cat- before 2008,
other than the fact that it was Bjork’s record label. After 2008, we can’t imagine life without
them, so much so that now only have they managed to get themselves named as our
favourite label of 2008, but they’ve also got two of our hotly tipped artists
for 2009. YOWZA’S TROUZERS!
2008 saw a successful
year for them with several of their artists dipping toes into the mainstream,
and subsequently popping up in the ubiquitous
end of year best Album lists.
Frightened
Rabbit, Land Of Talk, Gregory And The Hawk and Underground Railroad all
released critically lauded L.P’s, with Frightened Rabbit coming second in (whisper
the name) drownedinsound’s top albums of 2008. Land Of Talk's 'Some Are Lakes' was one of our personal favourites of the year, with it's brash crashing symbals and catchy chorus's. 'Rabbit's and Gregory And The Hawk's albums were actually released on Fat Cat, but they're such a big happy family-and not at all becuase it is more striaghtforward for us-we've taken the liberty of bunging' them together as one!
But what’s
so great about these guys is the talent they have bubbling underneath their big guns
(they also have Alabama 3 and Jesse Malin on their books). Coming very much to the fore-despite a so so
review on Gobshout- next year will be the hotly-tipped new- wavers Official
Secrets Act , who have already sold out Camden Barfly, been featured in NME’s
Radar section and been generally praised from on high for single ‘So Tomorrow.’ They are very, very now, have great
sing-a-long moments and by this time next year we predict they will have made
some serious dents into the charts.
Then there
is two of our current favourite artists; Chris Bathgate and Kill it Kid. Bathgate is an American singer-songwriter who
we’d love to see become huge. Passed his album by one of their press guys,
we didn’t expect much, only to kick ourselves 40 minutes later for being so
foolish to have never found him before. 1997’s
‘The Cork Tale Wake’ is 11 songs of lo-fi, gentle guitar strumming lovliness,
and in ‘Serpentine’ and the wondrous ‘Do What’s Easy’ it has two of our most
played tracks of the year. Track it
down, play the album and if you don't get bowled over by his voice, well, get down the doctors and order yourself a new heart.
And as for
Kill it Kid, we were turned onto them by one of our guys review of their Myspace
page, and since then we have developed an awful lot of time for their 21st Century Delta
Blues. Newly signed and fresh faced,
they are recording now so hopefully they will have an album to release in 2009. You can expect to read a lot more about them
here.
So yeah,
congratulations to One Little Indian/Fat Cat for being our favourite record label(s) of the
year (it’s in bold now, so it’s definite).
Hopefully they can continue the strength of their output into 2009. With
the artists they’ve got on their roster, we don’t think that will be too much
trouble.
Who is YOUR favourite record label of 2008? Who is your worst? Anybody on One Little Indian we've missed??
Posted In Comment, Dec 29 2008.
Words - Gobshout