Clockwise from top left: Martin Rossiter, Tenniscoats, Cate Le Bon, Deerhoof

2012 was a good year for music as far as I’m concerned, not least because I rediscovered my love for it. Possibly as a result of moving to the culture-less UAE in 2009, I have spent a few years in a uninspired wilderness, neither creating anything of my own nor particularly enjoying anything by anybody else. Thankfully, 2012 brought with it a spark – thanks, no doubt, to having moved in next door to my fellow Grizzly Folk member, Jon Nice, and having fitted up my attic as a kind of rough and ready recording room. Together, we’ve explored the stringed limits of the mandola and the ukulele, and I imagine we’ll put them through various pedals and push it out even further in the New Year. I’m looking forward to it.

In tribute to that rediscovered spark, I’ve collected a few sounds that have had me humming over the last 12 months. They’re not necessarily new, but they’re notable for having pulled me from my slumber. May 2013 be a wide-eyed audio fest for all! No snoozing allowed! 

Satomi Matsuzaki was a really fun interviewee. She’s as bubbly on the telephone as she is onstage, and I remember the interview as being one of those where you feel as though you’ve made some kind of personal connection by the end of it, rather than being something you had to do for work. Just a really chatty 30 minutes in which she spoke of her life as a ‘katakana character’, her psychic relationship with Paul McCartney, and her plan to trick teens into buying Deerhoof’s latest album.