five for the top

As an alternative to Alan McGee's Hot Tips for 2010 in the Guardian here are my five essential acts for the new year:

Snuff Mash are out of the underground wax cylinder scene in Leicester centred on Dexter Flambe's SPEAKER/HANDSET club. After almost two years together their debut CD Kick My Balls Off hits the shelves in April.

Shit Faced Friday have been building a live reputation in Bristol for several months now. Alison Colophony's distorted vocals, sung through a guitar pick-up, are thick with impassioned disgust. Their record Lunng was due out this year, but the band split from label Unguent after the latter started to refer to them as SFF in all their press. The band had to go to court for the right to their own recordings. 2010 could be make or break.

One of the highlights of 2008 was the enigmatic dubstep smash Bellmouth from secretive collective Tree Dust, only half-jokingly referred to as nausea-step by Wire magazine. Quiet for much of 2009 they're back in February with an official release of elephantine dancefloor white-label Deleuze & Guattari.

The little-known German sub-genre Fairy Folk, melding queer sensibilities with traditional musics generally played on a laptop, has been generating interest in Liverpool recently. Leading the scene is producer/visual artist/academic Noah Teagarden who records as Tamlyn. Copies of a live sesson for pirate station Spark have been changing hands for upwards of £30. Expect new material and a tour later in the year.

Finally 80's revivalists Top Forty release a new version of Robert's Moustache ahead of their album Tango Now, apparently with much improved production and added handclaps, due in May.

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