Lucky Number Music

The best album of 2011 was, genuinely, Caged Animals Eat Their Own.  However, there were a few non Lucky Number related contenders this year, with our Top 10 favourites being:

Artist-Release (Label)

Albums

Bombay Bicycle Club – A Different Kind Of Fix (Island)
Dom Thomas – Dreams Of San Antonio (Finders Keepers)
EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints (Souterrain Transmissions)
Forest Fire – Staring At The X (Fat Cat)
Frank Ocean – Nostalgia/Ultra (Self-Released)
Gui Boratto – III (Kompakt)
Little Dragon – Ritual Union (Peacefrog)
Metronomy – The English Riveria (Because)
The Weeknd – House of Balloons (Self-Released)
tUnE-yArDs – Who Kill (4AD)

Tracks

Alabama Shakes – Hold On (ATO)
AlunaGeorge – You Know You Like It (Super)
Azealia Banks – 212 (Self-released)
Beyonce – 1+1 (Columbia)
Joe Goddard ft Valentina – Gabriel (Greco-Roman)
King Krule – Baby Blue (TruePanther)
Lana Del Ray – Video Games (Stranger)
Lone – All Those Weird Things (Wigflex)
Moska – Bax (Numbers)
Purity Ring – Belispeak (Fat Possum)

An ace Jake Bullit future boogie Xmas party mix – please stream and/or download here.

It’s already been quite a year for Friends.  With their single “I’m His Girl” conquering radio airwaves across the World and racking up 300,000+ YouTube plays, their sold out debut UK shows in the Autumn, and recently being tipped as one of Q Magazine’s Faces of 2012 amongst their omnipresent positive press. And today came the very exciting news that Friends are the only independently-signed artist to have made it onto the long-list for the BBC Sound Poll of 2012.

For the uninitiated, the BBC Sound Poll long-list rounds up fifteen of the best rising music stars, as picked by 180+ leading UK tastemakers. With this inclusion, Friends join previous luminaries like Warpaint, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Vampire Weekend, MGMT and select others, thereby cementing their position as the hottest and most promising new band to look out for in 2012.

We’re proud to be a part of the forthcoming Independent Label Market.  It takes place on Saturday 10th December from 11am at Spitalfields Market, London. It’s been set up in association with AIM, and those labels who are taking part are those that lost their stock in the PIAS/Sony warehouse fire earlier this year. These include:  Accidental, Angular Records, Big Dada, Brownswood Recordings, Chemikal Underground, Domino, Double Six, Fabric, Memphis Industries, Ninja Tune, PIAS, Rekids, Sonic Cathedral, Soundway, Southern Fried, Stolen Records, Weird World and Xtra Mile.

We’re not too concerned about selling you anything, but we’re really looking forward to being able to talk music and all thinks Lucky Number.  Should be a great day, come along and say hello to us and these other, very fine, indie labels – more details here. FInally, here is a video from the Brooklyn Label Market which gives you an idea of the vibe – it will be like this but colder: