Album: Rough Trade Shops – Counter Culture 07

9:00am Monday 11th February 2008

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In the dimly recalled days before the internet, sampler CDs were one of the best ways to find new music.

Independent record store staff were another key part of discovering new music - traditions which Rough Trade Shops have combined with their yearly retrospective of their employees' favourite music of the past 12 months.

The still-amusing Dan le Sac Versus Scroobius Pip track will be immediately recognisable to all, even those who don't twig from the name, and the critically-lauded Battles song Atlas clearly deserves inclusion.

Other selections come from a very strange place indeed.

The tongue-in-cheek dark synthesiser sound of John Maus on his excellent song Rights For Gays is a welcome surprise, but the Julian Cope spoken word track seems just rubbish compared to the aforementioned Scroobius Pip, or even fellow loons Half Man Half Biscuit, who do this kind of thing much better than Cope.

But with 22 tracks there's almost certainly several gems you missed in the rush that was 2007, and probably even more that you heard but neglected to buy.

Indispensable, especially for those of us miles from a good independent record shop.