Dalliance Tracks of 2008 – My name and your name inside a heart shape…

  1. The Eiffle Tower & The BT Tower - The Voluntary Butler Scheme
    Rob Jones of VBS provides a mix of the romantic and the suburban - the poetic and the prevailing - and in this he paints a picture of a hopeful hopeless romantic - "If you needed something reached/that I couldn’t reach/then I'd unravel my jumper to make a lasso". Charming, delightful, ebullient, insightful, brilliant.
  2. I Get My Direction - Dinosaur Pile-Up
    Grunged up, outstanding and smart as a smart can be Matt Bigland emerged from the ho-hum of Mother Vulpine with a fizzing, ambitious and able set of songs that highlight with this simple, honest truism of a tune. "Sometimes you might get upset/cause things are different/but that's just the way it goes/I get my direction from waiting on you."
  3. Black Cab (Live with Cello) - Jens Lekman featuring Colette Alexander
    A four year old song rearranged live - In Newcastle Lekman says "After so long on the road I ask my band that if they can pull a switch, or press a button, to change things around a little, then do it" - around Alexander's pulsing cello.
  4. Drive - The Letters
    All too brief Bradford band that pummeled pop tunes together with girl group vocals.
  5. The Good Old Days - The Lodger
    Permanently on the edge of any Leeds music scene The Lodger's single release from their second album showcased Ben Siddall's skills as musician and songwriter with his melancholic longing echoed in "I've been so down and so lonely/I've been so down and so blue/I've been so nasty to you/.../Could this be the good old days."