Jamie Grimes (Drainland / stressball in chief at Suburban Mayhem Records)
What are your top five albums that were released in 2011? (in order 1-5)
Jesus, just five? Off the top of my head
- Negative Plane "Stained Glass Revelations"
- Timbre Timber "Creep On Creepin' On"
- Hexvessel "Dawnbearer"
- Trtrkmmr/Dead Times split lp
- Dead Language "Dead Language" s/t
I'm leaving out the Column of Heaven and Thantifaxath demos (because technically they're not albums); Custodian and Thou's output (because I can't pick just one of either artist's many releases this year); and Total Control, Oranssi Pazuzu and Chelsea Wolfe because I've just realised I left them out of my list.
What band did you discover in 2011 (can be a brand new band or an older band) that had an impact on your life? What made them significant?
There's a lot.. but the one that I'm going to pick here is Mutant Video, which I'm pretty sure might at least partially be because I've only come across them in the past week..but regardless, it's some of the most simple yet evocative music I've heard in quite some time. It both brings back fond memories of a time in my life where I really began to delve into one of my other great loves - 80s "video nasties" - and with the days being much darker as we draw closer to the year it has been a perfect soundtrack to late night walks through empty housing estates and dirty streets.
How will you remember 2011 (in terms of music)?
I will remember it primarily for my first trip to the Roadburn festival, where a variety of old bands (Godflesh, Winter, Voivod, Swans, SunnO)), Candlemass) and newer bands (Black Math Horseman, Trap Them, Rwake, Grave Miasma) handed my ass to me in no uncertain terms. Also, the year I finally "got" certain ends of the Techno/Electronica sphere - I've become pretty much hooked on FACTmag mixes in the last couple of months. I'll definitely remember Tombs and the Secret both destroying in unfairly half full venues here in Ireland for a couple of nights in a row.Sadly, I'll also remember it as the year a lot of the music closest to my heart started to become hollow and predictable - particularly death metal's revisionism reaching saturation point, and hardcore's various subgenres feeling like they're getting dumber and more superficial. I will also struggle to erase the perverse thrill of hearing the monstrosity that is the newest Morbid Angel album for the first time and realising that they really have made our generation's "Cold Lake". But my abiding memory will be standing drunkenly atop a van in a field in Germany at Cry Me A River festival after we played djing Wipers and Phil Collins songs to a bunch of drunkards.
What can we look forward to from you in 2012?
A Drainland album that will hopefully be longer, less instant and more frightening than the first one. And, presumably, loads of coverage from Scene Point Blank for that, seeing as you're mailing me randonly looking for lists of the year and all that. Clearly we're best buds now right? On Suburban Mayhem, albums from Absolutist and Enabler that will kill you are duew to emerge in the first half of the year. You can also look forward to me being drunk off my ass as an audience member at both the Broken Flag 30th Anniversary gig and Nuclear War Now 3 if I can afford to make it to both.
What records are you looking forward to most in 2012?
The new Swans record. I can confidently state without hearing it that it will be top of my albums of the year list come this time 2012, probably with the Column of Heaven "Mission From God" release (whatever format it takes) right behind it. Also, I expect the upcoming Wrathprayer, Horrendous, No Faith, Walls, Iron Lung, Trtkmmr and Nazi Dust records to be killers too.
What did you expect to be huge in 2011 which never made it?
Laura Sheeran should be the most famous woman on earth and sadly isn't. Also, people need to pay more attention to Cages, Melodica Deathship and Church Whip.
