So, the final Midweek Mixtape of the year is upon us with a vengeance. Yes, it’ll all be end-of-year lists from hereon in. Hey – why not get a jump on the hordes and just check out the brilliantly-illustrated Hype Machine’s 2012 Zeitgeist, which is probably the list you’ll end up coming back to eventually anyway.

And yes, this is also the end of Alex James’ Reign Of Terror Cheddar.

Thus, for one final time in 2012, here’s the dribs and drabs from ANBAD’s inbox, as well as one final hurrah from his Royal Cheesiness, who, in the course of the year, went from Reviled Fromage Freak to King of the Reasonable guys – or at least, in the (dewy) eyes of all in ANBAD Towers.

Ciao, Alex James, you may be gone, but your lingering curd-like miasma will not be forgotten.

MIXTAPE:

FIRST! Slow Skies’ Walk Me Home is almost too touching for words. And yet, it’s crammed with words; gentle, lovely ones describing love and loss. Maybe too wintery, echoey and lovely to take.

SECOND! The Scantharies twang a deliriously fun rockabilly with consummate ease. Twangabilly possibly? Oh, who knows. The Start is just that – and if it continues like this, we’re all WINNERS!

THIRD! Dead Rats Dead Cats are tagged as Grunge Punk Rock Boston, which may be a brand new amalgamated genre, or might just be a short sentence describing their chunky ‘n’ heavy rawk. You just don’t hear enough music like this any more, which is a big ol’ pity.

THAT’S IT! Don’t forget, it’s all End Of Year Lists now. You’ve been warned.

Lordy, the sun’s hot in Portugal. Lt. Drebin is back from his holidays, and wondering whether he should have taken heed of an awful Bill Withers/Grandaddy Souf mash-up.

Whilst Frank is moving gingerly and peeling strips of crispy skin from his back, why not indulge in a little mixtapery?

FIRST! 50’s Doo-wop is one of those sounds that persists in coming back for another bout of fun, like an over-attentive Labrador. Cults probably don’t smell much like wet dog, but other than that, the analogy is moderately apt. Abducted is a dreamily upbeat modern reconfiguration of 50’s pop with a sinister edge: catchy as hell, straight-up-and-down, radio-friendly spook-fun.

SECOND! Finest Minds unwittingly conjur up the image of hellish 80’s idiots Simple Minds. That’s OK, as long as they don’t also make a morono-cover of Sign O’ The Times. Funnily enough, there is a hefty chunk of 80’s synth-and-chiming-guitar in Something Missing, although it’s cracked and weird enough to appreciate in a non-ironic manner.

THIRD! To prove exactly how up-to-date ANBAD really is, let’s preface this mini-review by saying that it ought to have been done about a year ago when the excellent Whitehaus Family Band compilation originally came out. And where to start with a 27-track sampler? Well, follow the link, scroll through the tracks and pick one for yourself – it’s as good a compilation album as you’ll have heard for a long time.

FINALLY! Secret Rivals’ Tonight Matthew is quite possibly a reference to now-possibly-defunct Saturday night karaoke-lite show Stars In Their Eyes. I like it when bands make references to cultural landmarks of that ilk. As a song, it’s a skittering, loony blast; all splashy drums, chiming guitars and yelping vocals.

It’s always a thrill to find out that an artist I’ve covered fairly breathlessly on ANBAD is also good live; it’s more of a thrill to discover they surpass all expectations entirely.

It was old ANBAD favourites Bridie Jackson and the Arbour who knocked my socks off last night who I finally saw live after what I think must appear to the outside world to be a concerted effort to studiously avoid them. And indeed, they were brilliant. Everyone told me they would be, but they were deeply, very impressive.

Of course a lot has happened since I lumped them onto ANBAD, including a victorious tilt at the Glastonbury Emerging Bands contest and a barrel-load of radio play, and it was hugely pleasing to realise that all this success has come as a result of being a) good at what they do and b) being, frankly, wonderful people.

Now: at what point does ‘being good at what you do’ stop being relevant if you are using parts of sounds that are not yours? What if, for instance, an artist, Recordiau, for instance, took all his favourite parts of, er, Mr. Mister‘s Broken Wings, for instance, and looped them (for instance)?

It’s sort-of like sampling, except it’s done on a more base level: these are just the best bits, arranged as best as is possible.

I quite like this copy+paste recording policy, even if the results could not be described as pop songs – like this amalgamation of I Want To Know What Love Is and Can You Party? – then the songs are at least mesmerising in a whole new way.

It’s actually a smart idea: here are the best bits of songs we all know, as chosen by one individual. Suddenly, songs are compressed and re-appraised. And what does it say about our fragmented attention spans in this internet age? Recordiau has begun more conversations than his songs have answers, but what has emerged is great all the same.

The accompanying song notes are, of course, in Spanish, Welsh and English.

MORE: soundcloud.com/recordiau

Well, why not name yourself after an all-time classic, epoch-shaping album? It’s not as odd an idea as it initially might seem.

I’ve long thought that we’re reaching a critical mass of new band names; soon, all that’ll be left will be scientific terms and quadratic equations. (Not that the Hype Machine charts would look that much different if it was suddenly filled with band names full of symbols…)

Anyway: LVLS, or Love Less, a band who are now indelibly linked with My Bloody Valentine’s (only) brilliant album. I quite like the guile of a band naming themselves in this way. I dare – no, double-dare – anyone who is reading this to start a band called Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.

Chapel Steps, which as far as I know is definitely not named after an album, is apparently work-in-progress. Hey, what art isn’t?

One trend that has been edging it’s way back into new music has been the slick epic-pop of the late 80’s/early-90’s. I can’t say I really want many bands to start sounding like late-middle-period U2, but there’s no point pissing in the wind.

LVLS make this kind of huge, widescreen, glossy pop really well. It’s rousing, and – for a musical style that is all about pretence – is surprisingly unironic, honest and – whoah – sincere.

MORE: soundcloud.com/wearetheloveless

Sigh. I don’t feel like mocking Alex James any more.

Ribbing ex-Britpop bassists is just so 2012 Q1, and – heckfire – it’s Q4 now, fool.

So, for the remains of 2012, until the “music blogosphere” descends into the list-o-mania arms race/pissing contest you’ve spent 11 months waiting for, ANBAD will be displaying as few of the Crudely Photoshopped Alex James Greatest Hits. Hooray!

MIXTAPE-A-GO-GO:

FIRST! Tom Robinson told me that Ed Hamell (aka Hamell On Trial) had a remarkable back story and remarkably odd and satisfying music. He’s right on both counts (of course) – and although there’s no room here to explain the former, there is enough room to strongly encourage you to listen to the utterly charming, loopy and cracked Together, which is instantly and obviously an exemplar of how this kind of song ought to be made.

SECOND! Maybe iOktember are an app in human form, or maybe the ‘i’ key on the drummer’s laptop got stuck. I can’t figure out why the ‘i’ is there, but I can figure out why they make music together, because songs like this reflection bears no resemblance (lower case, note) are terrifically touching, clear and ambitious.

THIRD! I’m almost positive Snakadactal was a brand of reconstituted potato product found in the frozen isle that took advantage of Dinosaur Mania during the mid-90s, but don’t quote me on that. I’m totally positive that Chimera is a delicate and sparse but close and human slo-mo pop song, though.

FOURTH! I imagined that a Hipster Surgery was a place where the doctors all wear ludicrous neon bobble hats, bum-fluff moustaches and ironically childish tattoos. Turns out it’s a thrashy punky shred-a-thon from Crusades. Who’da thunk it?

As a minor Beastie Boys obsessive, and rabid consumer of Golden Age Of Hip Hop™ LPs, I often find myself wondering why the art of sampling is under-utilised so much now.

When I say ‘sampling’, I mean in the late-80s/early-90s MPC60 sense – when simple snippets of songs were looped and divvied-up and reconstructed into new, harshly insistent songs.

Yes, yes, the practice was sued out of existence – but today, when blogs and Soundcloud offer so many illicit and grey-area outlets for home-made, profit-free music, shouldn’t we be witnessing a renaissance?

Well maybe we are. TD Cruze knows that sampling may well be standard practice now in terms of its usefulness, but his approach is determinedly old-school. And focussed: his latest collection of sharp beats and clever constructions are based around samples from – what else? – The Twilight Zone.

TD Cruze’s last EP was built entirely out of samples of animal noises. I like gimmicks, especially when one is executed with such panache, lightness and verve.

In an era when spookily-noised R’n’B-influenced songs are de rigueur, songs like Peaceful Valley find themselves fitting in by mistake: sparse and squeaky, nagging and poppy, odd but appealing. If he de-tuned the voices, added some Neo-2Step clicky beats and threw in a ∆ into his name, he’d probably be hailed as a hero.

MORE: tdcruze.bandcamp.com