Silver Dapple - "M'Sorry". Crushing apples to make cider, grapes to make wine; the juice sparkles and shards, pools cold. Barrels of noise, in a warehouse like stacked barns. Feedback in banded oak casks. Two ghosts, one good and one also good, but resentful. You cannot make out their voices. This is what we hear, when the needle drops. It will let us live forever. [buy the delicious English Girlfriend]

Arlt - "Le Pistolet". At the Melting Nightclub, the dancefloor is a bog. The doorknobs are soft, the lights are fading, the seats are covered in moss. A lounge singer stands by the microphone, ivying over. Only the guitarists are truly alive, free of swamp and vine, jerking and chugging by the floodlights. But then the power flickers, and the guitarists flicker too, and you see they are projections; old thin things, saved onto 3/8" magnetic tape. TRY THE GIN! [buy this fuming 7"]

---

As advised earlier, I'm beginning to assemble my best songs of 2011 list. (I know, it's only November.) As always, I rely on your help. There's no way for one person to hear everything that's wonderful. So - What's your favourite song of this year? From mumbly folk to mainstream pop, bassy hip-hop to Icelandic blubstep, please send me the best MP3s, as email attachments: sean@saidthegramophone.com. I'm grateful for everything, but particularly if you avoid sending me videos, MySpace links or lists of tunes - please, just the mp3s! If you introduce me to anything that appears on the final list, I'll include a link to your website/twitter if appropriate. (Common sense: please don't send songs from records I've written about on Gramophone, or multiple tracks from the same album - just the very best!)

(image is John Martin's "Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council", an engraving that was owned by Herman Melville)