1. Destroyer – Kaputt. A firm fixture since its release in June, and we see it’s getting the kind of recognition it deserves. Hopefully next year we might get a chance to see Destroyer live.
2. King Creosote & Jon Hopkins – Diamond Mine. The best thing King Creosote has recorded so far? We think so.
3. Metronomy – The English Riviera. Twelve tracks of pop fun.
4. Bon Iver – Bon Iver. Back-to-back great albums now. Let’s hope he doesn’t develop a taste for world music, like Iron & Wine.
5. Wild Beasts – Smother. Not quite at the same level as Two Dancers, but a grower of a follow-up.
6. Other Lives – Tamer Animals. Much more subtle than their live show. One of the best new bands we’ve heard this year.
7. Josh T Pearson – Last of the Country Gentlemen. A great late-night records, in the spirit of early Low.
8. M83 – Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Possibly the band’s break-through album. Looking forward to hearing it live.
9. Beirut – The Rip Tide. A majestic return to form from Zach Condon and band.
10. Tune-Yards – W H O K I L L. Not a patch on her live show, but still one of the best albums of this year.
11. Yuck – Yuck. Featuring classic songwriting in the vein of Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr.

1. An Astronomical Evening with Darren Hayman @ Godlee Observatory, Manchester (video clip below)
2. Hauschka, Nancy Elizabeth @ The Lowry Hotel’s Presidential Suite, Salford
3. The Album Leaf @ Bush Hall, London
4. Owen Pallett @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester
5. Jens Lekman, The Blow @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester
6. The Mountain Goats @ Brudenell Social Club, Leeds
7. CocoRosie @ Manchester Cathedral
8. Jónsi @ Latitude Festival, Suffolk
9. At Swim Two Birds @ Sounds From The Other City festival, Salford
10. Bonnie Prince Billy & The Cairo Gang @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London
11. Joanna Newsom, Roy Harper @ Palace Theatre, Manchester
12. Josh Ritter, Dawn Landes @ RNCM, Manchester
13. Yann Tiersen @ Manchester Cathedral
14. Wu-Tang Clan @ Academy, Glasgow
15. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Denis Jones @ Band on the Wall, Manchester
16. The Bundles @ Scala, London
17. The Duke & The King @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester
18. The Tallest Man on Earth, Idiot Wind @ St Philip’s Church, Salford
19. Beach House @ Manchester Cathedral
20. Deer Tick, Caitlin Rose @ The Deaf Institute, Manchester

Next year is shaping up nicely (and hopefully a little less crazily) – so far I’ve got four shows booked in, with another two or three likely to be announced in the next fortnight. Sign up to the mailing list to keep up to date with upcoming Hey! Manchester shows – and hopefully see you at some in 2011!

So last year I thoroughly enjoyed spending days deciding on my albums of the year. It’s a list of 15 records that, looking back on, I still largely stand by – see and listen for yourself here.

This year I’ve picked out another 15 records that I keep going back to:

1. Owen Pallett – Heartland (Domino)
2. The Album Leaf – A Chorus of Storytellers
3. The Radio Dept – Clinging to a Scheme (Labrador)
4. S Carey – All We Grow (Jagjaguar)
5. Yann Tiersen – Dust Lane (Mute)
6. Beach House – Teen Dream (Bella Union)
7. Toro y Moi – Causer of This (Car Park)
8. Twin Shadow – Forget (4AD)
9. Jonsi – Go (EMI)
10. Alcoholic Faith Mission – Let This Be The Last Night We Care (Ponyrec)
11. Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here (XL)
12. LCD Soundsystem – This is Happening (EMI)
13. Bonobo – Black Sands (Ninja Tune)
14. Steve Mason – Boys Outside (Domino)
15. Menomena – Mines (City Slang)

You’ll find all these albums bar The Album Leaf’s on Spotify – and I’ve gathered them together in this handy ‘Hey! Manchester 2010′ playlist. Enjoy!

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.

MM is built on a bedrock of supporting emerging talent, which puts an equal emphasis on the talents of reviewers and photographers as it does for musicians. MM is serious about its coverage and approaches this in a purely professional way – so this means our reviewers are expected do be fair, transparent and knowledgeable, as well as, of course, competent and interesting writers.

We don’t set a minimum workload, but do ask that you’re honest about what you feel you can deliver and stick firmly to deadlines – we can get you into a lots of gigs/venues, but we also ask that biased importance (ie. in contrast to signed/touring material) is attached to:

1. Local music
2. Unsigned Music

They’re looking for live reviewers plus feature writers and interviewers, plus people who can contribute relevant audio/visual content. So far they’ve covered 4,500 artists on http://www.music-dash.co.uk/.

If you’re interested in writing for ManchesterMusic, email sovrec@yahoo.co.uk with some samples.

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.

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!

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?

My favourites are covers that are so amateurish they could have been drawn by a five year old. I was never very good at art at school, and this group isn’t about perfection. Some of the covers are brilliant, amazing in fact, but that’s only half of what this challenge is about. One of the members, Mark Brown from Leicester, did a cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind so bad it made people cry. I loved it…

The pair also do some very funny Paint My Album videos. The latest episode features their Gay Crab-handed Neighbour, local writer Chris Killen and redone covers of Elvis Costello and Oasis album covers.

They’ve had around 700 submitted so far, but with roughly 30 being added each week there’s a chance they might fall just short of the target. They’re therefore asking music-lovers to contribute to the project – so join their Facebook group and start Painting!

Here‘s Andrew Bird performing unplugged – and unstaged – in Paris. It’s part of La Blogotheque‘s Concert a Emporter (aka Take Away Shows) series, which asks musicians to strip their songs down and wander the streets playing them busker style.

Bird’s are some of my favourites videos on there, though I’d recommend that you check out Okkervil River’s Will Sheff being a hippy, Jens Lekman taking advantage of a gymnasium’s echo, Casiotone For the Painfully Alone in a phonebooth, Grizzly Bear in the bath, Sufjan Stevens on a windy rooftop, Dirty Projectors freaking people out, Of Montreal just being themselves, Beirut being very Gallic, Final Fantasy being elven and Herman Dune simply being the best.

Searching the archive soon becomes highly addictive… like YouTube for alternative music fans. And if after that lot you still need more, check out London’s Black Cab Sessions for a distinctly British take on things.

Andrew Bird plays at Academy 3 again on 13 May. Don’t miss him.