Northern Exposure

If we must do the 2012 thing, then I suppose it’s full disclosure time: I’ve mixed form as a tipster. When it comes to top goalscorers in big soccer competitions (Baros, Klose, Villa, Forlan), I’m your boy. When it comes to almost everything else (I always thought the Euro sounded like a good idea) you’d best steer clear. So, please don’t think of the following names as tips. Consider them instead as a heads-up. A tap on the elbow. A flagged email.

But not tips. Definitely not tips. 
Steve Scullion is obviously not one to stay at home drinking gin to Scott 4 after a big split. In fact, considering how quickly he’s bounced back from Cat Malojian’s break-up, he’d more likely be found hitting town with a new haircut. His debut solo (or Malojian) EP – The Broken Deer – is a brilliantly reassuring record, proving that one of our finest songwriters hasn’t allowed the dissolution of a much cherished partnership knock him off creative stride.
On those occasions when we bump into Pat Dam Smyth in the street (and when he’s riding around on an old BMX, it’s hard to avoid him) we tend to find the guy more keen to talk about the movies of Altman and Lumet than his own Kinks-infused material. Which is ironic, once you consider the depth of biographical detail that went into last year’s pop epic, The Great Divide. We’ve heard one or two snippets from his current work-in-progress and all I can say is: long may his DVD collection reign. If 2011 was a great creative year for the Pat, 2012 could top it.
Observers of the ASIWYFA mother ship will no doubt have noticed an escape pod detach itself as the Gangs tour came to a close. Tony Wright, one of the band’s founding members and chief propagandists, chose quite a moment to launch off solo: leaving the group (literally) with a stage dive at the Belfast Music Awards in the Ulster Hall. His new project – VerseChorusVerse – couldn’t really be any more different from his old mob, driven as it is by slow acoustics and melancholia. However, it would be wrong to presume that Wright has gone all slow-core and wounded wing on us; no – there’s a confidence and seriousness of purpose in his new material that marks out VCV as proper contenders. It’s a small noise that could make a big noise this year.
Red Organ Serpent Sound were Derry’s great hope of the noughties – picking up a deal with Mercury Records, and a small but devoted fanbase on the back of some outlandish stage shows and, if my memory serves me correctly, a yen for bespoke gimp masks. Fate proved unkind to the band, but over the last few years, Christopher McConaghy, ROSS’s guitarist, has emerged with a collection of impressive big balladry, operating under the name, Our Krypton Son. There is excited chatter of an album, and it feels like a big push is on the cards. We’ll stand back and wait for the artillery to start flying.
In the confetti-storm of pre-Crimbo madness, we missed the launch of Pet Storms, Ancient Clouds, the latest EP from Morning Claws. Like everything this crowd are involved in, it’s a smart, heart-tugging little wonder, and further proof that Paul & Co. are in fine creative fettle. There is much more to come from this lot.
Likewise, Before Machines, who released a very smart video for their single ‘Stalagmites’ in the middle of December and have plans for much more in the near future.
Intermission are a band who have taken parts from a previous outfit (in this case Kharma 45) and reconfigured them in a shiny new package. It should be fun watching how they progress.
In addition, Ben Glover, Wonder Villains, Elspeth, A Plastic Rose and Isobel Anderson all look likely to occupy our attention at some point in the next twelve months.
And great news too on the Desert Hearts front. As there were six years between Let’s Get Worse and Hotsy Totsy Negasaki, we should all, of course, have realised that 2012 promised the third instalment of Belfast indie’s most maddening, exhilarating ongoing saga. And so it has come to pass. News reaches us that Ben McAuley is helping with sessions at Start Together, and half of General Fiasco are backing Charlie and Roisin up. We can hardly wait. Although, given previous form, that’s exactly what we’ll have to do.
So, lots to be looking forward to in 2012.
And psst – Mario Gomez for the Golden Boot in Poland/Ukraine.