It's that time of year again. I'm writing this on November 5th because my Poor-Ass Christmas energy is carrying such momentum at the moment and i have a lot to say about these tracks and i want to get it out as quickly as i can, before i set the liner notes on the back burner and forget all about them again, like i did in 2018 and 2019.
Yesterday morning i had one track on my work list. By the end of the night i'd added ten more. Today though, i had the opportunity to hyperfocus on this project and ended up considering 48 tracks and selecting 21. As i'm writing this i still haven't, like, completely finalized this list, but if i need to edit then so be it.
Lots of surprises in the pruning and sequencing process here. I didn't expect to make some of the choices i did but i think i'm happy with the results. Going in, literally all i knew was that the first track was going to be H.Y.C.Y.BH? because obviously, and that Master Boot Record would be included. I initially thought to have Master Boot Record be the second song, which would be a jarring shift from Tom Cardy, which is what i would be going for in that situation, but i think i'm actually glad i didn't do that.
Onward.
1. Tom Cardy - H.Y.C.Y.BH?
[YouTube]
I don't know how to explain how we got here. To where what seems like a jokey meme song is the album opener on this, the most important thing i do all year (to me, personally, anyway). When Drew and Deanna sent Amanda and i the link to another Cardy song, Mixed Messages, a few months ago, we had no idea that this was going to become such a...thing. We of course checked out other videos on his channel and hit this immediately. I certainly don't usually expect something this juvenile to get Amanda randomly singing phrases like "Ski-bop, ba-dap, BUTTHOLE!" yet here we are.
It's brilliant. This song is so well-crafted for an internet joke you'd think it was professionally produced for top 40 consumption. Every line pushes the joke a little further in a logical and hilarious way. But for me, what makes the song is the little flourishes. You don't usually expect an internet comedian to have a perfectly-timed keyboard fill for a quiet moment up his sleeve. You don't expect him to have those heavy breaths to accentuate the "start to sweat" line. There's just so much going on here, production-wise. I love it.
Also i've taken to melodically shouting "HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR BUTTHOLE??" in people's faces.
2. The Good Natured - Wolves
sazziexo.com
This song has no earthly business being track 2 on this oh-so-significant compilation. It's supposed to be a representation of all the music i've been deeply invested in for the year, right?
I heard this song on Pandora this morning.
I must've heard it at least once before while at the gym, though, because it was already thumbed-up. Pandora unfortunately does not tell you the date you thumbed something up, but it was the fourth most recent one in there.
I don't know anything about this band and it's impossible to find info on them. It looks like they never actually released an album under then name The Good Natured and when their record label dropped them, they kept the masters...so where did this song come from? After that fiasco, they changed their name to Lovestarrs, but that's over now too, and after a significant lineup change the project is now supposedly called Sazzie. Their website is expired though. I put the link up there anyway, just in case.
This song is ten years old but it fits in perfectly with the modern synthpop bands that i'm devouring right now. I love it. Wish i knew more about it.
3. The Weeknd - Blinding Lights
theweeknd.com
Here's yet another bizarre choice for me. A huge global pop hit. Right at the front of the PAC. I think if the 20 year old who made the original Poor-Ass Christmas could see where we're at today, he'd be very upset. (For the record, i'm fine with that. Do you see how much nu-metal he had on his CDs?)
Aside from the fact that this song just fucking, ahem, slaps, there's a reason it's here, which will be apparent later on.
We've been hearing this one a lot on our Pandora gym mix this year also, and it's fantastic. It's stuff like this that really shows me what a fool i was when i was younger for believing that popular = bad. It does, however, really exemplify the continuing struggle that is, despite how much i like pop music these days, i'm always a few years behind the curve. The Weeknd has been bouncing around the Top 40 for a decade now and this song, his first unequivocal #1 on every chart, was released two years ago this month, and i'm just getting here now. But i'm gonna ignore how long it took me to arrive, and just revel in the fact that i'm here.
Fascinating side notes, this song was originally released as a car commercial. The official video was very obviously shot late at night on the streets around downtown LA, near where i lived, and given its November 2019 release, likely while i was there. So that's cool.
4. The Naked and Famous - The Runners
thenakedandfamous.com
Alright, now we're getting into something that makes sense.
This year, a lot of my listening habits have been more nostalgic. Sometimes for childhood or teenage years, yes, but even for more recent years and the bygone era of living in Wisconsin. Given all the bad news that we've gotten this year and all the absolute shit that has happened, i have even often retreated into the songs that carried me through my major depression a few years ago. Punching in a Dream by The Naked and Famous has probably been identified as my favorite song since 2017, but to this day i can't sing along through some parts of it ("This is worse than it seems") because of the associated memories. I've included The Naked and Famous as a seed on our gym mix and have started poking around at more of their back catalog, and it's surprising it's taken me this long. A New Zealand-based electronic pop/rock band that i've already identified as the authors of my favorite song? How has it taken me so long to investigate further? They're great.
Even though they sort of broke up a few years back, a couple members have stuck together and were supposed to tour again, with a stop in Los Angeles...in late Spring 2020. I had fully planned on going. Obviously, none of that happened, because 2020. They did release a new album, though, and...i'm having a hard time getting into it. So instead i've taken this track from their 2016 release, Simple Forms.
5. The Sounds - Outlaw
the-sounds.com/
Of course, with The Naked and Famous, i'm bringing along The Sounds. I don't know if these two bands actually know each other or not, but as long as i've known The Naked and Famous, i've associated them with The Sounds in my head. The pairing of Punching in a Dream by TNAF and Painted by Numbers by The Sounds is two-thirds of an incantation to reduce me to a puddle of emotions on the floor. So naturally, The Sounds is also a seed on our gym mix.
Like TNAF, i've been using that Pandora station as a means to explore The Sounds' back catalog. My history with The Sounds actually goes quite a bit further back. Riot appeared on Poor-Ass Christmas 2010. I know i had obtained at least one of their albums from the library and ripped it to iTunes. But other than Riot, i didn't listen to the album much and i never kept up with them. Even after 2017, same story as TNAF. Well. I'm here now. And i want to see what else you've got. Plus apparently i have a thing for Swedish electronic pop/rock bands.
The Sounds also released a new album in 2020, which i'm also having a hard time getting into. Maybe it just takes a while for later electronic pop albums by bands whose earlier work i love to grow on me? I'm making this weirdly specific claim due to having the same experience with Metric's Pagans in Vegas and Teagan and Sara's Heartthrob, both of which i came to appreciate a couple years after release.
This song is a fucking mood though.
6. The Coathangers - Make It Right
thecoathangers.com
You know, i'm actually not sure why The Coathangers landed on my work list for 2021. This is a band that's turned up on many, perhaps almost all, of my Pandora stations for the last decade, and yet i've never featured them on a PAC. I guess it was time.
Irreverent riot grrl/punk. Of course i love it. This song in particular has that energy that i crave, and maybe that's why it's been popping up on the gym mix, which is generally more electronic and pop focused. Also why it made for a good segue between The Sounds and the more rock-oriented section of the comp.
I thought more than once that maybe i should use the song Springfield Cannonball instead, since that one gets stuck in my head actually pretty often. But i also thought that would feel like a holdover, like it should have gone on 2018 or 2019, since that was the year i took a Christmas vacation to Springfield. I actually tried swapping that song into the mix once, but it did not work at all. Interesting. So i had to make it right by putting Make It Right back.
7. Eve 6 - Black Nova
eve6.com/
Holy hell.
This is Eve 6's first appearance on Poor-Ass Christmas, a series i've often described as "my autobiography as a mixtape." And that's...that's very weird.
Eve 6 was the first band i ever called "my favorite band" and meant it. It was 1998. It wasn't Inside Out that did it, on its own, but as soon as i heard Leech i knew there was something there. They broke up in early 2004, the year of the first PAC. That year i found a web site that had archived as many B-sides and rarities as possible, and i ransacked it, and if i were running the PAC then the way i do now, the song 405 would absolutely, definitely have been the first track. But the first couple years were not structured that way. They reunited and released a new album in 2012, but it was very pop, and i really didn't care for it.
So now here we are, 2021, finally receiving the latest entry in a nine-year cycle, the EP Grim Value. This came out of nowhere. I haven't kept up with them, assuming them broken up after the underperformance of Speak in Code, but suddenly there was a Facebook ad linking me to the official website for their new EP, Grim Value. I watched the video for Black Nova, and preordered the CD immediately.
It's good! For those of us who started our Eve 6 journey with that self-titled, punk-influenced slab of alternative rock that was their first album, this is a vast improvement over Speak in Code. It feels a lot more classic punk inspired than their previous output. I wouldn't go so far as to say it would be at home at CBGB in the 70s, i'm just saying people who saw the original Ramones live may find something worthwhile here.
Unfortunately, this is probably the first time i've well and truly noticed the replacement of a drummer. I'm glad to have new, guitar-driven Eve 6 in my hands, but i didn't know Tony Fagenson had departed the band until i listened to the full EP for the first time and really felt the difference. The new guy is fine, and i'm sure he's a cool dude, but Tony is one of the greatest, most underrated drummers of his generation, and his absence is glaring.
Anyway, i'm still into this. I hope they don't make me wait another nine years for the next one. Hoping for a full length in 2022.
I have so much more to say on Eve 6 but i have 14 more songs to ramble on for too long about.
Also this is, shockingly, the only CD i have purchased in the last 12 months. Living in an RV changes you, man.
8. WILLOW - t r a n s p a r e n t s o u l (f/Travis Barker)
willowsmith.com
I'd been hearing this one on the radio while driving, during those unfortunate instances when my iPod was accidentally left behind, or baked beyond operable range in the California heat, and at some point i Shazamed it. Watched the music video on YouTube. Cool shit. This would have been too poppy-punk for a younger Trevor but at this point i'm into it. Also nice to see that Travis Barker is still doing stuff.
And i did something i never do, which is read some of the comments on the YouTube video.
Wait what?
Who is Willow? Is this someone i should have been aware of?
I turned to Wikipedia.
Holy shit this is WILLOW SMITH. Will and Jada's kid. The last time she had a hit was 11 years ago, when she was 10, and it was friggin I Whip My Hair Back and Forth.
Wow.
So it turns out that now she's hanging out with Travis Barker and Avril Lavigne and has completely reinvented herself. A comeback hit at the age of 21? Damn.
I checked out some of the other stuff she's released recently, and while this one skews more on the Travis Barker side of things, some of the others have a much more apparent Avril Lavigne vibe. Anyway, i'm looking forward to seeing her continue to develop as an artist.
Also i think it's a little funny that her dad famously said "i don't need to cuss in my raps to sell records" and Willow's comeback hit opens with the line, "I don't fuckin know."
9. Jim's Big Ego - Stress
bigego.com
Here's one that Friday introduced me to while we were driving around in the truck on a job. She played it several times over the course of the job. I Shazamed it twice. This is totally how it feels to work in the film industry. I'm sure a lot of industries feel this, more now even than when it was released in 2000. But really, if you replaced every reference to coffee and espresso with diet cola, and left all the references to diet cola in there, you've got my usual day on set.
I'm addicted to stress, that's the way i get things doneInterestingly, i've read about this band before, although i hadn't actually listened to their music. The "Jim" of Jim's Big Ego is Jim Infantio, the nephew of legendary comic book writer Carmine Infantio, creator of Silver Age heroes such as Barry Allen/The Flash, Dinah Drake/Black Canary, Barbara Gordon/Batgirl, and my favorite DC hero, Boston Brand/Deadman. Jim's Big Ego's best known song is The Ballad of Barry Allen, a song which presents a sadder read on the character as a man experiencing the world around him in slow motion.
If i'm not under pressure then i sleep too long
And i hang around like a bum
I think i'm going nowhere and that makes me nervous
10. D/A/D - 10 Day Vacation
dadmusic.bandcamp.com
Jim seems pretty stressed out, so i gave him a vacation.
Unfortunately for me, the two songs i've actually listened to the most this year can't go on the mix, because they've already appeared before. Two songs that i've gotten in the habit of putting on single-track repeat and listening to at high volume over and over in the car, usually as i'm leaving work, are Pessimist by TAT (from PAC2019) and Ce Jeu by D/A/D & Yelle (from PAC2020), the latter of which just last month became the first song in my iTunes library with a play count over 100. I can't do anything about TAT, since that came from a Warped Tour comp and i still haven't actually checked out any of their other music (i know, shame on me), but i've actually been listening to D/A/D's whole Super Motives EP a lot this year. It's good stuff. I still haven't purchased his full length album (i know, shame on me), and outside his Bandcamp page it's really hard to find information on this long-dormant electronica musician from LA.
Initially it was a toss-up between this track or the EP opener, Miami Thunder, but the deciding factor was that i hate driving in my car and hearing police sirens that turn out to be in the music rather than real. Also also interesting, that wasn't even the only song about Miami that i started with and cut off this year.
I've never been to Miami.
11. Master Boot Record - DMA 7 SOUND CARD 16-BIT
mbrserver.com
masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com
I got started compiling the PAC pretty late this year, and when i did, pretty much all i knew for sure was, "Other Side by Metric, that Tom Cardy song, and something by Master Boot Record."
Exactly which song i wasn't sure, all i really know is that this guy describes himself as a 486 and almost all of his songs have that crunching drone in the background which i can't tell if it's a guitar, a synthesized guitar, a synthesizer, or literally reprocessed noises from old computer hardware. But i love it, that sound. I love to hear it chugging along behind the over-the-top Phantom of the Opera synths in the foreground.
One nice thing about Master Boot Record is that he often just sends out free music to his mailing list. This year he sent me a collection of 40 synth and chugging drone noise covers of old video game soundtracks. Some of those rank among my favorite MBR tracks, but i really wanted to use a full-on original for the PAC. So i listened through his albums a few times, whittled it down to six (including ELVIRA, which would have been timely, since she was in the news for positive reasons right around when i was doing this), and through the sequencing process came to this one, which feels like the right choice all around. DMA 4 CASCADE (Instrumental) was also a strong contender, but it's over seven minutes long.
It was only after i'd finished and was listening through the playlist on repeat for a few days that i realized that this song is structured very much like my favorite song by another of my favorite synthwave bands. The song i have been referring to for the last few years as my theme song. Tales from the Boneyard by Dance With The Dead.
Oh hey.
12. Dance with the Dead - Get Out
dancewiththedead.bandcamp.com
Speaking of.
I really can't get enough of this band. And fortunately for me, they're based in Los Angeles, so if this gotdam pandemic ever ends, it should be pretty easy for me to see them live. They didn't put out a new album this year (although one has been announced for January, so look for that next year), so for the fourth year in a row, B-Sides has been one of my most-played albums, and is now represented on the PAC for the third time. Yes, they have other albums. Yes, those other albums are also great. But all my favorite songs...are B-sides. Figure that out.
And since i track so many weird, useless statistics on that comprehensive PAC spreadsheet of mine, i'll point out that this is the first time in PAC history that i've used a song with the same name as another PAC song where one was not a cover or remake of the other. This is following Get Out by CHVRCHES in 2018, although that year i actually had three completely unrelated songs named Neo Tokyo on the work list, of which only one survived.
Dance with the Dead are great! That is all.
13. GosT - Supreme (f/Hayley Stewart)
gost1980s.bandcamp.com
mechamaiko.com
I'm not sure how i've missed this song over the last couple years, listening to my little Bandcamp Synthwave Collection playlist on shuffle in the car, in the house, everywhere in my life. And i know that GosT is one of those artists that i've enjoyed enough to listen to their albums before, rather than just having their songs as part of that nebulous shuffle. But this one came up earlier this year, and i was like...vocals?
I wouldn't have thought that vocals would work out on a GosT song. One of the most distinctive sonic bits of their work, to me, is that harsh drum beat that seems to suck all of the air out of the room every time it hits, and i just wouldn't have expected a voice to layer over that peacefully. And yet. Here it is, and it sounds great.
14. Digikid84 - Lucky Star (Digikid84 rmx)(w/Madonna)
digikid84.bandcamp.com
I think i bemoaned in one of these beleaguered blog posts that there was only one song on the PAC2021 Work List when i got started on November 4th. This was it. This one.
I don't know why.
I'm still into it though.
15. Aftrlyfe & Supertoniq - Starlight (f/Zhiko)
instagram.com/aftrlyfe__music
soundcloud.com/supertoniq
instagram.com/zhikomusic
Of all the music videos i've worked on with Malcolm Guess in the last couple years, i think this was the first one that i actually like the song.
I worked on the part in the studio with the belly dancer and all the synthwavey colors. Unfortunately i missed out on the DeLorean.
16. Celldweller - The Lucky One (Fury Weekend remix)
klayton.info
furyweekend.bandcamp.com
I have no idea where this came from.
You'd think it would be something from my Bandcamp Synthwave Collection playlist, but it's not. This one came from my Shazam history.
I truly, honestly, do not know where i would have been or what i would have been listening to that would facilitate me having to Shazam a song like this, and that it would not already be in my iTunes library.
That said.
When i started chopping up the Work List, i scrubbed through the whole thing and mentally earmarked this song as an "easy cut." Literally, i thought this would be the first song i'd end up deleting after i'd cleared all the artist duplicates (ie, once there was one Master Boot Record song instead of six). But as i kept going through the playlist, round after round, more cuts and more cuts, this one just kept slipping through.
I'll axe it on the next round probably, i'd say. And then it would live through another round of cuts. And i could not make myself remove it.
I'm not fond of the male lead vocal. I don't think the lyrics are particularly strong. In fact, they're - and this is not a word i use often or lightly - cringey. In particular i actually hate the line delivery on "I'm sorry for choking but i've got a wishbone stuck in my throat." This whole song is a thick slab of cheese with a hammy delivery.
But the conviction with which he delivers every non-wishbone related line? That ham and cheese becomes a hearty sandwich. I appreciate the commitment to the material. What really gets me, though, is the gang vocals on the chorus. It's just, "I am," but it hits so right.
When i played it for Amanda, on first listen, her gut reaction was the same as mine. But after a couple days of hearing the whole PAC on repeat, she said to me, "You know, this song has grown on me so much, i think it's actually the most memorable song on there. It's very catchy."
So here we are.
Also when i was looking for his web site just now, i found out that Celldweller is also Scandroid, who i love. So that's interesting.
17. Dan Terminus - Angelus
https://dan-terminus.bandcamp.com/
Dan Terminus again?
I keep saying over and over how much i like synthwave nowadays, but the problem with it is that a lot of it is not distinct, not memorable enough on its own. Part of the problem is that it's all instrumental, which i generally like when i'm not in the mood to shout along with something (which is usually nowadays), but it makes it hard for individual compositions to stick in the memory. And impossible to search for when you have a string of notes in your head and no words to google. I think i said something similar about math rock a few years ago when i was fruitlessly searching for that Mogwai song.
One thing i did this year, which i'm a little surprised i haven't mentioned yet, is that i went through the huge Bandcamp Synthwave Collection and created a much smaller playlist from it, Trevor's Curated Synthwave Collection, where i could file the artists i was sure i liked and start getting better acquainted with their work.
Early this year i ended up on a Dan Terminus binge that lasted for weeks, including across the entirety of a shoot for an ad campaign i worked on for frying pans. This was yet another gig where i was driving a truck. I ended up with a PA in the cab with me for some runs, and after a few songs he inquired about it. He said it sounded like the soundtrack to a video game he was playing a lot, i want to say Call of Duty but i'm not sure, i don't play Call of Duty. And it's like, yeah, a lot of the more prolific synthwave artists make the real money off of composing video game soundtracks.
This song in particular does stick in my head, though, due to that crunchy synth at the beginning, end, and sometimes in the middle that sounds like a sample from an explosion in an 8-bit console game. Similar to that droning electric washboard sound in all the Master Boot Record songs, i love this shit.
It was only after i was filing the songs into my statistics spreadsheet that i realized this is the third year in a row that Dan Terminus has been included. That's more than GosT, more than Mitch Murder, more than Waveshaper, Magic Sword, Carpenter Brut, most of the synthwave artists that i listen to more often. That's more PAC appearances than Perturbator, whom i've identified as my second favorite synthwave artist!
I don't know what any of this means. Maybe Dan Terminus is actually my second favorite synthwave artist.
He has the best song titles anyway. Pegasus Pro Ultra Fusion. Cherenkov Blue Overdriver. Catastrophic Orbital Decay.
And, um. Angelus.
Love it.
18. Dynatron - Aeternus Theme
dynatronsynth.com
Another of the more memorable synthwave artists from the Trevor's Curated Synthwave Playlist, and one i've been hanging onto since i first got into the genre with the Dance with the Dead playlist on Pandora, but never quite made it to the PAC. This was one of my most played songs of the year, and i don't have a lot to say about it other than that i enjoy the cosmic sense of atmosphere it provides. It felt right to get it in the mix this year, and putting it right here, where the flow starts turning the corner from the climax to the wind down, is perfect.
19. The Naked and Famous - Blinding Lights
thenakedandfamous.com
For The Naked and Famous's second appearance on this year's mix, i'm going to pay off the setup i left up there in The Weeknd's blurb and alluded to in Dance with the Dead's. This one, too, has been popping up on our gym mix a lot, alongside The Weeknd's original. It was hearing this cover, honestly, that helped me develop the appreciation for the original.
This is something The Naked and Famous released as a single last year, just a couple months after the original. That's a hell of a turnaround, and the quick timing itself feels like a statement. I'm not sure what that statement is, hopefully one of love and not beef, but either way...i get to eat two cakes. And if i haven't yet figured out how to enjoy the new Naked and Famous album, at least this single gives me some new material of theirs i can.
20. Metric - Other Side
ilovemetric.com
Paying off another allusion i made early in this becoming-way-too-long blog post, Metric's 2015 album Pagans in Vegas took a long, long time for me to warm up to. As i said in the 2016 liner notes, where i included The Governess (seemingly out of a sense of obligation), it was the first album i had preordered in a long, long time, after their previous two albums had been among the very finest i'd ever experienced. I'd been disappointed by Pagans in Vegas at the time, so much so that i still haven't purchased or fully listened to its followup, 2018's Art of Doubt, but like Tegan and Sara's Heartthrob before it, i eventually came around.
Metric has a habit of about once per album putting a single line in a song that absolutely cuts me to the bone. When this album came out in 2015, i wasn't the person i am now, i hadn't lived through 2020 and 2021 for this lyric to come up and slap me in the face the way it does now, so maybe that's why. But after moving to LA to pursue my dreams, finding a modicum of success, and finally feeling like i am where i was always supposed to be, doing what i was meant to do...my wife got cancer and my cats died. Early this year, a full year after her initial breast cancer diagnosis, we got the news that she'd progressed to Stage 4, and we fell apart. And over the course of the year, as i started retreating into those nostalgic sad songs, like Punching in a Dream and Painted by Numbers, this one came to mind, with that one lyric.
And all i want is to feel like all i got didn't cost me everything
Even if i never win
That's it. That's the feeling that defines 2021 for me.
So that one now joins previous Metric songs Clone and Satellite Mind on a playlist titled "These Songs Are An Incantation to Reduce Me to a Sobbing Pile of Emotions On the Floor."
21. Starcrawler - Pet Sematary
starcrawlermusic.com
You know, i had entirely forgotten that there was a Pet Sematary reboot in 2019. When i heard this on Pandora, i was like, hey that's weird and cool, a modern band drawing inspiration and allusion to an old-school horror film/novel like Pet Sematary. Not that it's obscure, it's just not one that gets talked about a lot anymore.
Then i realized that this is actually from the soundtrack to the 2019 reboot that no one liked.
Then i realized that this is actually a cover of the Ramones song from the 1989 original film.
Ugh.
Anyway. I think there's a lot of parallels i can draw between this song and our life experiences this year, but i don't want to. It feels like reaching in my head, before i write it down, and i just. Really don't want to.
The main reason this song is here is just because i love the way it feels. The guitar and the vocal delivery ride the wave coming out of the hard emotions i feel from Other Side and i think it brings the whole compilation to a perfect ending.
The style of this song also reminds me a lot of another band i loved briefly but passionately a few years ago, Melomaniac.
...Who also played a Ramones cover the night i shared a stage with them.
---
That's it, that's the mix! Another successful Poor-Ass Christmas in the books. While writing this i realized that track 15 is misspelled on the artwork and the file names - and misspelled differently on each of them! Somehow!! - so i'm gonna need to fix that before anyone prints it out.
The Leftovers
Betamaxx - Simulator
Castroe - Coagulator
The Coathangers - Springfield Cannonball
D/A/D - Miami Thunder
Eve 6 - I Wanna Bite Your Face
Katie Herzig - Hologram
Måneskin - Beggin'
Master Boot Record - DMA 5 HARD DISK
Master Boot Record - DMA 1 SOUND CARD 8-BIT (instrumental)
Master Boot Record - DMA 4 CASCADE (instrumental)
Master Boot Record - WALKER
Master Boot Record - ELVIRA
Metric - Under the Milky Way
The Naked and Famous - Bury Us
The Naked and Famous - Higher
The Naked and Famous - No Way
Perturbator - Ghost Dancers Slay Together
Róisín Murphy - Dear Miami
Shiny Toy Guns - Don't Cry Out
The Sounds - Too Young to Die
Spinnerette - All Babes are Wolves
Starcrawler - Ants
Tokyo Rose - Tokyo Burnout
Tommy '86 - Citymulation (f/Perturbator)
Tommy '86 - L.V.T.H.N. Central Unit
Tommy '86 - A.I. Takeover
VHS Dreams™ - Cheerbleeder
Waveshaper - CRT Days
