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2025 BUYING STATS

Total titles purchased: 153 [↓18% 2024]
Total expenditures: $966.65 [↓21% 2024]
Average cost: $6.31/title [↑1% 2024]

• CD: 53
• Downloads: 76
• Vinyl: 20
  • LP: 13
  • 12″: 5
  • 7″: 1
  • 10″: 1
• Blu-Ray 5.1: 3
• Cassette: 1
• DVD:2 [bonus DVD bundled in CD packages]

Expenditures were down this year by over 20%. Good, but not great. I always like to shave the costs down and see just how little I need to have musical enjoyment. But it’s challenging in the current market. The ancient Monastic ways of buying music inexpensively in the used aftermarket, months, or years later is no longer valid for contemporary releases. Items are pressed in such limited quantities now that if you sneeze you will miss the release you might want at the lowest cost it is likely to have.

The used record market has responded to the still current LP bubble by purging any old single formats [7/10/12 inch] to who knows where to make room for all of the lucrative LP rei$$sue$ in their limited floor space. So right there, 90% of any records I want to buy are off the table. When I look at the stats for this year, the fact that I only got five 12″ singles [my favorite records in the world] gives me a sad feeling.

The CD numbers are nearly halved this year! I won’t kid myself that buying albums in the format I vastly prefer won’t only get more difficult as I get age. The gatekeepers of society have spoken. The plebes get to stream their culture. Renting it is all they want to encourage. Any material goods are kept aside for the elite. Judging by the prices new LPs are going for. It’s still possible to buy some for under $30 [and I appreciate the efforts, to the bands and labels who do this] but those are marginal albums that only old cranks like me would care about. The upside was that the ratio of CDs entering vs. leaving the record cell this years was 1:8! Not bad but I was to see that second number even higher, if I can. Enough of my yakkin’, let’s boogie!

ALBUMS OF THE YEAR

1. Nostalgia Deathstar: They Kill The Flame
2. Vamberator: The Age Of Loneliness
3. Pulp: More.
4. Claudia Brücken: Night Mirror Deluxe
5. Bob Gaulke: [S]words
6. Simple Minds: Live In The City Of Diamonds
7. Shriekback: Monument
8. Sparks: Mad!
9. Generation Blitz 4
10. Avfall: Weltschmerz
11. The Twistettes: Red Door Open
12. Bob Gaulke: [detail]
13. Anna Never: Serpi In Seno
14. John Foxx: Wherever You Are
15. Automatic: Is It Now?
16. Sextile: Yes, Please
17. Scenius: 13 Billion Dark Years
18. Kill Shelter: Slow Burn Sorrow
19. Mothloop: Decontaminated
20. Jeffrey Runnings: Piqued
21. Stic Basin: In Dub
22. The Funeral March Of The Marionettes: It All Falls Apart
23. Bob Gaulke: Free Concert For The People That Live Next Door

I think that this may be the highest number of albums released in the same calendar year as I’ve been making these lists! I generally buy things later on, and many stunning albums have missed by year-end lists due to me hearing them in later years. It is true that over half of these are promo so thanks to the bands and marketing agents that send these out in my direction. The number one this year was a freak upset. When the Vamberator album was released early last year I was confident at the time that it would hold the top spot. It was creative, vibrant, thoughtful, and unique. All traits redolent of the finest that one can find in music. And then the Nostalgia Deathstar album happened several months later. It was all of that and one thing more.

It was angry.

It seethed with intelligent and indignant fury at exactly the targets that one needs to be aiming for in the sad times we currently inhabit. While being formed of music that blended vibes of Cabaret Voltaire and Nitzer Ebb in a “yes, please” manner that could only please this Monk. That said, the Vamberator album was still a dazzler. An assured and accomplished number two that has the vitality to last for years.

Pulp managed to reform and record a new album that put mere nostalgia [we’ve got death stars for that now…] in their rear view mirror as they rose to the challenge of writing a new album almost a quarter century on from their last effort. That they wrote and recorded it faster than they ever had was probably to their benefit; allowing them to not overthink their songs. I cannot believe that the great single “Spike Island” barely scraped the UK top 100! Surely a sign of the end times?

I’d missed the last two Claudia Brücken albums owing to their relative scarcity in the US market. I was unable to pre-order them on release due to their timing with our finances. This was not a problem with “Night Mirror” and I was rewarded with an album that stood apart from the [also excellent] more typical music that she had made with xPropaganda. “Night Mirror” was an album of subtler pleasures and was filled with songs which reflect the person she is 40 years on from “A Secret Wish.” It was an album that rewarded repeat listening and grew in power as it did.

Bob Gaulke has made in “(S)words,” an album that with the aid of his players, has couched his always respectable songs in their most compelling setting yet. His economy and brevity of form, coupled with the playing and arrangements, meant that this was one of those albums that I preferred to listen to on repeat.

Simple Minds are no stranger to my listening as they are a top group for me. One might think that they have too many live albums, and I might be inclined to agree. This album was preceded by a live album But then I put this one on and following the opening “Waterfront,” the band serve up an ever strengthening flow of music from their “5×5” era that makes my jaw drop further with ever-more drawn out murmured expletives to self from “Sons + Fascination” until the climactic “This Fear Of Gods.” Everything I ever loved about Simple Minds was concentrated in this half hour to the highest degree that I’ve ever heard from the band live. The album made me feel so good that I didn’t even begrudge the appearance of a handful of songs [you know the ones] that I never need to hear again. And they have released three live albums [all good to great] in the last six years! Obviously I’m still not burned out on this band.

Shriekback are still forging their eccentric path forward and they have been a constant presence in my Record Cell for 42 years now with an admirable range in material that saw a wide variety of members contributing and they have shown a general disdain for formula even as the Shriekethos is apparent at the drop of a laser on any of their efforts. “Monument” also had some cogent songwriting reactions to the modern problems facing us all. As we can always count on from Shriekback.

Sparks are always on the Monastic playlist and okay, so 2006’s “(Baby, Baby) Can I Invade Your Country” is shockingly relevant twenty years later! I would argue that Sparks have been continually relevant for the last 30+ years as their “mature phase” should make them the envy of all Rock. Their Art Pop chops are legendary and as they enter their 9th decade they exist as inspirations to us all. And they can still emit eccentric earworms that always bear their unique imprint.

State of Bass is the label of Martin James who possesses both a fine mind as well as superb taste. In addition to his own music under the Nostalgia Deathstar and Mothloop brands, his label’s curation of the Generation Blitz series was an impeccable overview of the current state of synthesizer-based leftfield Pop music happening worldwide today. The fourth volume had two of my favorites figuring in the mix: Jan Linton as well as Fluid Japan, but the whole of the program is like a “Sandinista!” of Synthpop. Two and a half hours of superb listening.

I loved the inventive and eclectic dive into the world of Post-Punk sounds that Avfall brought to the timely “Weltschmerz.” Listening to this album was almost like listening to a tightly curated compilation as the band were hesitant to repeat themselves on the program. And it was also music of the Zeitgeist. I was not hearing much of it twenty years ago in spite of my desires, but the current situation has proven much harder to ignore.

I am very chagrined to see my number 11 album this year was something I wrote about in advance but failed to actually review! Mea Culpa! Worse, I had followed the pre-release singles by The Twistettes avidly and loved their highly spirited duo sound. And they’re Scots for crying out loud! Suffice to say that “Red Door Open” had an impact like a building collapsing on top of me while listening. I need to order many things now from Last Night In Glasgow, the amazing Scot label that released this.

Bob Gaulke figured again with his companion album to “(S)words” called “(detail).” This was the calmer, more meditative complement to the other, more extroverted album. Featuring Hans Croon as well as Barry Andrews and Martyn Barker of Shriekback and the Brazilian rhythm section of Paola LePetit and Gil Olivera.

We didn’t get a full album from Les Longs Adieux this year, but their other project with a real rhythm section known as Anna Never released the crunchier “Serpi In Seno” album with a strong Rock orientation and more of those full-bodied vocals [gimme more] of Federica Garenna. I’ve been enjoying their output since catching notice of them with the brilliant “Vertigo” album of 2024 and they are not interested in repeating themselves. Always a great look.

John Foxx’s album this year was more of his acoustic piano work following in the footsteps of his late friend Harold Budd, who is commemorated on the cover. I’ve barely gotten a listen to this one since my loved one has the CD in rotation. But I’m always happy to hear Foxx’s output, even without synthesizers.

I really loved the concert I saw of Automatic and I bought their new CD “Is It Now?” at their merch tablejust three days after release. Good thing too, as it’s now sold out on Bandcamp! This was highly intelligent, coolvibe Post-Punk from the trio that even feature Kevin Haskins daughter on drums. It’s got a 1982 Factory/ZE vibe and dammit, in spite of reviewing the show I wasn’t able to review the album as it came during a particularly busy period of concerts and travel. I must get back to that one day! You all deserve that much.

I gave Automatic the edge slightly, but I also responded to the more visceral and club-oriented set from their pals Sextile. You need both approaches in your musical diet! This time the band had a Nitzer Ebb like energy to their approach. Their friend Izzy Glaudini from Automatic helped to co-write a couple of songs and guested on vocals for “Hospital.” Yes, it’s another album I intended to review but instead became part of the paving on the Road To Hell.

Scenius were a band that I caught wind of from the last Generation Blitz volume and didn’t have to wait too long before their next project on their own was issued. My Francophilia got frissons from the vocals [largely in English, it must be said] from vocalist Fabrice Nau while the warm synthpop of Stephen Whitfield washed over us like a splash of sunlight. Clean, airy, and emotional.

Next: …Shorter Formats A-Go-Go!