2001

Miss Kittin & the Hacker - The First Album
Bis - Music For a Stranger World
Ash - Free All Angels
Kate Rusby - Little Lights
Anu Malik - Aśoka OST
(The Shins - Oh Inverted World)

Miss Kittin & the Hacker are a Franco-Swiss potty mouthed twosome, who express themselves via bleepy synth squelches and naughty words. Simultaneously funny, filthy, sexy & strangely affecting, they declared Frank Sinatra to be dead when he wasn't, but he is now. They must be prophets.

I'd been a fan of Bis' exuberant pop stylings since their first 'unsigned' Top of the Pops appearance. I heard the lead track from this mini album on the John Peel show at work one night, along with the peerless, but unaccountably unknown, Cowcube. This is where they started getting interesting, less shouty more Human Leaguey.

I spent much of 2001 chasing Ash around the country after a half-sleepy chance viewing of the Big Breakfast informed me that an instore set in London coincided with a fortuitously pre-planned daytrip to the capital. Despite being impressed by their first two albums (less so by the third) I'd never seen Ash live until then. I must have seen them seven times during the year, counting festivals & the like, which may have been a little excessive considering their latest album turned out to be a bit pants. Anyway this record is a warm blast of summery wind & sea air to the ears, but less painful than that would actually be.

Here comes Kate Rusby with some good old Yorkshire folky fun, before she was soiled by Ronan sodding Keating. I have a soft spot for the plaintive, brass tinged final track (My Young Man), having a Leodensian mother and spending most of my youth playing euphonium in brass bands. A fine mix of the traditional and new, fiddles, flutes, guitars, the aforementioned brass and sung in a broad Sheffield accent.

Aśoka - I surprised myself by choosing this Bollywood soundtrack over any others. I've never been much of a fan of Anu Malik's songs, generally preferring the works of AR Rahman, Jatin-Lalit or Ismail Darbar, but most of their scores have one or two tracks that are a little dodgy or overly twee for my tastes. Here, not a duff track, considering the film is a period piece the music is oddly contemporary, but using mostly old, acoustic instruments it keeps one foot in the past. I remember going to see Aśoka at the Genesis on Whitechapel High Street and walking the wrong way up Mile End Road, after getting off the tube and becoming confused by the shop numbers. I eventually got there in time to annoy the other punters by singing along with the catchy tunes, altogether now, "San sanana nana, san sanana nan. Jaa jaa re jaa re jaa re, jaa re pawan..."

Honorary mention: The Shins.
I can't consign 2001 to the past without mentioning this album. I didn't get into it until fairly recently, after my mate Bo won me over by constantly playing the Garden State soundtrack (which contains a couple of tracks from this record) on endless repeat.