Best Of 2010 44-43

44) Summer Camp - Ghost Train

Summer Camp are London based duo Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey, and Ghost Train was their debut single released by the wonderful Moshi Moshi Records back in April.  Opening with a spoken word sample from Cameron Crowe’s 1989 film Say Anything, the song itself is decidedly 80’s and one can imagine it comfortably soundtracking any teen movie from that decade.  The track is effortlessly simple, a subtle yet gorgeous vocal from Sankey over lovely soft electronics.  It’s also catchy as hell.  The video draws footage from the 1969 film Last Summer and is well worth a watch as much as anything else to remind us what sun actually looks like.

43) Egyptian Hip Hop - Rad Pitt

Best to get this out the way first.  Egyptian Hip Hop is a bloody awful name for a band.  As far as I know the band have never seen the Great Pyramids or The Nile, and you definitely could not define their sound as hip hop.  However as far as I’m concerned when you produce music this good you are entitled to call yourself whatever the hell you want.  Hailing from Manchester, as all good bands do, it is easy to hear the city’s influence on these young men.  Rad Pitt is a lo-fi, skuzzy-pop gem and somehow manages to get across a youthful energy and at the same time be heart achingly depressing. Very Manchester indeed.  Joy Division would be proud.  The production is fairly stripped back and minimal with only a simple bass line, warm guitars and eventually a fading keyboard line, allowing Alex Hewett’s echoey, distorted vocal plenty room.  Lyrically again very Manchester, with the band posing some interesting questions, ‘who am I to you/but a mighty fool’, for men so young.  Rad Pitt is taken from Some Reptiles Grew Wings EP which was released earlier in the year again on Moshi Moshi Records.