Sub Pop, being the heroes of humanity they are, have decided to list the best Sub Pop tracks released in the ’90s, and put them in a wunderbar selection of Soundcloud playlists!

That’s not all, they are also running a competition through their Facebook Page. Just vote for your favourite Sub Pop release of the ’90s and you could be in with a chance of winning every Sub Pop release of 2010 (and Jiminy Cricket are there some crackers – No Age, Dum Dum Girls, Beach House et al).

Here, for your aural pleasure, are the playlists. Or, go to the Official Soundcloud page for even more tunes.

(p.s. If anyone asks why there’s no Nirvana on here, you should go read a book).

Sub Pop Staff Lists: Top Sub Pop Tracks of the 1990s: A-K by subpop

Sub Pop Staff Lists: Top Sub Pop Tracks of the 1990s: L-R by subpop

Sub Pop Staff Lists: Top Sub Pop Tracks of the 1990s: S-Z by subpop

A friend of mine recently stated that the definition of comfort was lying in bed, listening to the rain tapping on the window. I agree. It is nice to have toasty cockles nestled underneath a high tog count; a hot, milky brew on the table and something soothing on the hi-fi. Like Tom Waits with the hot coals of a voice he has. Isn’t it?

I’m thinking of what my friend says because it ties in neatly with a few other bits of brain-flotsam preventing sleep. Yes, it is nice to be in bed, having defied the elements and provided yourself with the maximum creature comforts the modern consumer-hoarder adores. But maybe, just maybe, it’s nicer to be in the rain, walking towards it.

Hear me out.

I’ve been re-reading “Margrave of the Marshes”, the semi-autobiography of the late, great John Peel. A man, without whom, great swathes of underground music would have gone completely unnoticed. This, I am aware of, and grateful for. What I truly love about the book though, is the way his personality shines through. First from his own perspective, and then through those of his wife and four kids.

He seems kind, funny, and humble. Wizened with age yet still with odd childish insecurities. I read particular anecdotes, and wish I could be like him. Act as he does; be recklessly romantic and endearingly screwy. Be able to act with the knowledge that his age has brought. I resent my impatience, and how it has been thrust upon me. Upon all of in the two-second-ATTN:Span-generation.

At this point in our lives, so much emphasis is put on learning. So much so that we forget we are learning. I can’t be the only person who thinks that if something isn’t done to a standard well above where I should be aiming, then I am a colossal failure fit for the scrap heap – years before I’ve even built up a decent no-claims bonus.

This brings me to Ithaca, Odysseus’ destination in Homer’s Odyssey. Ithaca is everything you yearn for. A goal, not a gaol. And, as it’s 2:28am, and I’m already regretting writing such sentimental tripe, I’ll allow Greek Poet Konstantinos Kavafis to elocute in ways I cant quite do.

Yet.

“Keep Ithaca always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you’re destined for.
But don’t hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you’re old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaca to make you rich.

Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn’t have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaca won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you’ll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

And if my point still eludes you, then maybe Frank Turner’s version is more suitably succinct.

“If you’re all about the destination, then take a fucking flight”

Losers are the combined talents of Eddy Temple Morris (he of XFM fame) and Tom Bellamy (he who played a shed-load of instruments in The Cooper Temple Clause). Both (at separate times) very big on University club scenes – though admittedly, in different ways. I’m sure if I described the above scene to either, they would have no trouble providing a mental image. Hell, maybe even a watercolour.

“Beautiful Losers” in a way, represents everything that I adore and abhor about that rock/dance crossover. Sometimes, the balance never seems to be found between tracks which should last two minutes, and those which should be a mix on their own. When it is done right, you have the recipe for either the most perfect, compressed sense of hyperactivity or the best hour you will ever spend lying on a bean-bag looking at Rorschach pictures. If it’s done badly, then you are left with naught but an anti-climax and the acrid stench of Amyl Nitrate clinging to your nose hairs.

There are moments of beauty and genius to be found here. Opener “Three Colours” will transport you to heady reminisces of Creamfields, “Nothing Will Die” mixes samples from David Lynch’s “Elephant Man” and Hi-Rankin’s less speaker-busting moments. “Azan” takes a glorious Middle Eastern colour palate, all ocher and terracotta shades, and spikes it with the heavy reds of Massive Attack’s “Mezzanine” – basslines that rumble and soundscapes that tumble.

Unfortunately, the album has definite low points. The annoying-as-herpes tit-for-tat vocal spat on “Flush” doesn’t quite have the brassy sarf-lahndan cheek it aims for. “Talk To The Hand” is pretty much a sexual invasion of everything good about Justice and “Sirenna” doesn’t quite know what it is.

The album does, however, close in style with a lazy, hazy reworking of Jane’s Addiction’s “Summertime Rolls” – with Brian Molko on guest vocal duties. Legend has it he threatened to kill anyone who got the job instead of him (which is good news for The Music’s Robert Harvey).

Bellamy’s slowburning guitar is everything that’s right and good in the world – made even better because Dave Navarro isn’t wanking all over it every 30 seconds. Brian Molko’s adenoidal whine is close enough to Perry Farrell’s to evoke the original, yet distinctive enough to flow. Even when the track drops into a tempo that is (at first listen) annoyingly fast – you feel yanked from a blissful reverie – it just seems to work.

Which is a good analogy for this record. When it works, you’re not sure why, but it does. When it doesn’t, you head for the skip button.

“Beautiful Losers” is released September 13th on Gung Ho! Recordings.

Myspace

Sonically, it’s a nice big wall of sound a la Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – whose noise-pop leanings they seem to be aping. All thumpy drums and scuzzy guitars and adenoidal vocals and that.

But alas, try as I might, I fail to warm to this. It starts so well! Like a mission statement, yes! We are here, fuck your intros! This is the song! If only it could end with a bit more oomph than a sparkler that’s been pissed on.

This kind of backs up a theory of mine – that the more obscure and leftfield your influences, the more interesting music you can make. Relying on bands who are nigh-on impossible to rip off will never make your music equal to the sum of its parts.

Sorry, fellas.

Fleetwood from The Minutes on Vimeo.

As the interwebs has informed me, “This is a slightly anglicised form of the German-Dutch-Flemish locational name Loo or Loos, both being recorded heraldically, with Arms being granted by all three countries.”

I digress.

The DeLooze in question are an homme/femme electro duo, Stacy DeLooze and Robin Rigoulet. “Too Heavy To Stand Up” – their first release on Gash Digital – is pretty good. It ticks all the right doom’n'gloom electro boxes with stabbing strings and waves of micro-crescendos.

Stacey’s vocals have the operatic range of Zola Jesus, without all the rough edges (I’m assuming this will be a good thing for some, unfortunately not me), and I hope people take notice of the band in general. They’re the perfect antithesis to the bubblegum-electro saturating all aspects of humanity right now.

Dom Morley’s production, it must be noted, is (as ever) rad-tastic.

Naive New Beaters, unfortunately, have none of this. The collection of songs available here sound like Sugar Ray mixed with OMD mixed with the intro music for some terrible WWE wrestlers. Or maybe it could be used in an advert for a hot-hatch car. You know the kind, where clueless Ad executives try to capture some kind of futuristic zeitgeist in order to flog their crumple-zones-on-wheels.

In short, music to be ignored. Completely.

Myspace

The special gig, organised by (who the fuck else) All Tomorrow’s Parties will also feature slacker-titans Dinosaur Jr playing “Bug” and toddler-esque J-Rock mentalists Deerhoof performing “Milk Man”.

The gig is on Friday 1st July 2011, at Ally Pally.

The tickets go on sale Friday 3rd September at 10am.

The flyer, for you to cut out and keep, is below.

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Using Google Chrome and Maps (slow connections and Firefox mar the experience somewhat), the video splits between different screens of pre-recorded footage and the childhood streets of the viewer, set to new single “We Used To Wait”.

Click here for the video, or hit your red button on the BBC to catch highlights of them at Reading.

Lisa Vickers, on board the Esperanta, said:

“After dodging Danish Navy commandos in our inflatable boats, our activists climbed up the inside of the rig and are now hanging from tents suspended from ropes.”

For live updates on the situation, head here.

No, we had no idea either.

Yes, we’re excited too.

All profits for the single, released September 6th, will go to children’s charity UNICEF.

Click here for the vid. Not sure how we feel about having to play Microsoft’s little software-dominance game for something that is essentially a good cause, but I’m sure Ms. Godmundsdottir has her reasons.

Details about the film coming soon, so keep your peepers peeled.