Ok, so it’s a whole 12 days off the pace (I’ve been busy booking shiny new shows!) but I finally got round to making a list of my favourite albums of last year:

1. Fever Ray – Fever Ray (Rabid Records)
2. Casiotone for the Painfully Alone – Vs. Children (Tomlab)
3. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
4. Au Revoir Simone – Still Night, Still Light (Moshi Moshi)
5. Sleeping States – In The Garden of the North (Bella Union)
6. Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest (Warp)
7. Wild Beasts – Two Dancers (Domino Recordings)
8. The xx – xx (Young Turks/XL)
9. Miike Snow – Miike Snow (Sony)
10. Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz! (Polydor)
11. At Swim Two Birds – Before You Left (Vespertine & Son)
12. Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca (Domino)
13. Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Up From Below (Community Records)
14. Alaska in Winter – Holiday (Regular Beat)
15. Taken By Trees – East Of Eden (Rough Trade)

Oh, and one more for good luck – favourite soundtrack of the year:

• Clint Mansell – Moon OST (Black Records)

All these albums bar Grizzly Bear are rather handily available on Spotify – so click here for the Hey! Manchester albums of 2009 playlist.

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We never did read the NME with any regularity, preferring Melody Maker’s more hands-on approach to music back in the day (in this case, that day being circa 1996). But today we’ve been catching up with its latest Manchester-centric coverage.

First up, there was an opinion piece a month ago about how ‘Manchester’s Music Scene Is Dying‘ – sparking much debate both on NME.com and elsewhere. Turns out the writer, Alistair Beech, is very much pro-Manchester and intended the piece as a sort of rallying call rather than an obituary-in-waiting. Looks like it was a case of heavy-handed/over-worked sub-editors and people reading headlines and jumping to conclusions, but there’s some interesting reading in there nonetheless.

Then even more recently, the same author compiled a roundup of the best bands coming out of Manchester right now. Dutch Uncles, Airship, May68, Lost Knives, Modernaire and Hey! Manchester alumni Run Toto Run all feature. Read more here – if your eye sight is up to it.

It looks like this city is going playlist-crazy. The latest we’ve spotted is something of a public service by fellow music blogger Folly of Youth: a 59-minute compilation of bands playing in Manchester this month. Here’s what’s included:

Malcolm Middleton Red Travellin’ Socks (29 June Night & Day BUY TICKETS)
We Were Promised Jet Packs Quiet Little Voices (16 June Night & Day BUY TICKETS)
King Creosote Nothing Rings True (9 June Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
Broken Records Nearly Home (17 June Roadhouse BUY TICKETS)
Wavves Beach Demon (24 June Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
Teeth Mountain Ghost Science (10 June Star & Garter BUY TICKETS)
Jonquil Whistle Low (11 June Kro Bar BUY TICKETS)
The Wave Pictures Strawberry Cables (19 June Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
A Hawk and a Hacksaw Kertesz (22 June Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
Dan Deacon Padding Ghost (2 June Club Academy BUY TICKETS)
Deerhoof Milk Man (29 June Deaf Institute BUY TICKETS)
The Joy Formidable Whirring (5 June Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
The Horrors Sea Within A Sea (1 June Ruby Lounge BUY TICKETS)
M Ward Shangri-La (29 June Club Academy BUY TICKETS)

With us now being half way through the month of June, we’ve missed half of the gigs mentioned – but at least we’ll be ready come July!

We’ve been meaning to set up a playlist on million-member-strong music-streaming platform Spotify for a while – so now we have. For the first of hopefully a few, we thought we’d get all retrospective and include many of the bands who’ve played for us in the past, including:

Jens Lekman, Hush the Many, Nancy Elizabeth, Richard James, Viking Moses, Final Fantasy, Espers, Danielson, Los Campesinos!, Six Organs of Admittance, Jason Molina, Last Harbour, The Pony Collaboration, Alasdair Roberts, Marissa Nadler, Fireworks Night, Maria Taylor, Band of Horses, Of Montreal, Vetiver, The Twilight Sad, Frightened Rabbit, Herman Dune, Emmy the Great, Jeffrey Lewis, Menomena, Mark Kozelek, Okkervil River, Pinback, Efterklang, Akron/Family, A Hawk and a Hacksaw, YACHT, David Thomas Broughton, Olafur Arnalds, Portico Quartet, Dirty Projectors, Polar Bear, Wildbirds & Peacedrums, Volcano!, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Johann Johannsson, Murcof, Great Lake Swimmers, Phosphorescent, Miracle Fortress

The songs selected are a mixture of our favourites and whatever happened to be available. To play the first Hey! Manchester playlist, click here (assuming you already have Spotify) and hit the shuffle button bottom right. Where else are you going to hear pschedelic rock followed by trad folk followed by glammy electronica followed by post-rock?