CHVRCHES Debut Tops BAMS 2013 Poll

1383434_533061466772556_169387618_n The polls are closed, all the votes are counted and the winner of the 2013 BAMS can now be revealed.

The official Top 10 for 2013 as voted by 40 writers from Scottish Blogs and Music Sites is as follows:

1. CHVRCHES – The Bones Of What You Believe (Virgin)
2. Frightened Rabbit – Pedestrian Verse (Atlantic)
3. Adam Stafford – Imaginary Walls Collapse (Song, By Toad)
4. Rick Redbeard – No Selfish Heart (Chemikal Underground)
5. Boards of Canada - Tomorrow’s Harvest (Warp)
6. The Pastels – Slow Summits (Domino)
7. The National - Trouble Will Find Me (4AD)
8. Steve Mason – Monkey Minds In The Devil’s Time (Domino)
9. Kid Canaveral – Now That You Are A Dancer (Fence)
10. Fuck Buttons – Slow Focus (ATP Recordings)

The Bones of What You Believe was a record that justified the excitement of the band’s early shows and has propelled them into the big time with alacrity.

The BAMS managed to track the band down to Australia to get a few words:

Congratulations , you are this years’ winners of the Scottish BAMS award, how does it feel?

Thanks, guys. We are not normally ones for prizes / shiny things, but it’s dead nice to know the bloggers enjoyed the record. You can all get a blast of the buckie.

2013 seems to have been a pretty exciting year for the band, what’s been your personal highlights of the year?

It was a busy year for us but we were really lucky to get the amount of support we did from people, and to play as many different gigs in as many different places as we did. Supporting Depeche Mode and releasing the record were probably the pinnacles.

When you’d finished recording the album, how did it match up to your expectations?

Since we self-record and self-produce everything, we didn’t sign off on anything until we were 100% happy with it, so I guess that means the album meets our expectations completely.

How important do you feel that the support of music blogs has been to the band?

Without blogs and social networks, it is really unlikely that people would have heard of our band so quickly, and that is definitely one of the reasons we have been able to play so many different shows so early on in our career. Thanks, bloggers – see you for Album Two.

BAMS 2013 Facts

40 writers from 29 blogs and music sites voted for 164 different LPs as part of this year’s voting.
66 of those LPs received 2 or more votes.
The CHVRCHES LP featured in the Top 10 of 14 voters, compared to 12 for the runners-up Frightened Rabbit.
28 different LPs were given 1st preference votes.
Only 5 LPs received more than 1 first preference – Frightened Rabbit, Adam Stafford, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Waxahatchee and Jason Isbell.
The highest number of first preferences was 3 – for both Frightened Rabbit and Adam Stafford.
8 of the LPs which received first preference votes received no other votes!

Previous BAMS winners:

2009 – The Phantom Band – ‘The Wants’
2010 – The National – ‘High Violet’
2011 – Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat – ‘Everyone’s Getting Older’
2012 - Meursault – ‘Something for the Weakened’.

The 2013 BAMS:

Almost Predictable, Almost - http://almostpredictablealmost1.blogspot.co.uk/
Avalanche Records - http://www.avalancherecords.co.uk/
Detour - http://www.detour-scotland.com/
Elba Sessions - http://elbasessions.co.uk/
Everything Flows - http://everythingflowsglasgow.blogspot.co.uk
For Malcontents - http://formalcontentsonly.wordpress.com/
Vic Galloway - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074hgc
Jim Gellatly - http://jimgellatly.com/
Glasgow Podcart - http://www.glasgowpodcart.com/
The Herald (Alan Morrison) - http://www.heraldscotland.com/
Houdi - http://houdidontblog.wordpress.com/
Is This Music? - http://www.isthismusic.com/
Jock’n'roll - http://jocknroll.wordpress.com/blog-2/
Jockrock - http://www.jockrock.org/
La Terrasse - http://la-terrasse.blogspot.co.uk/
Last Year’s Girl - http://lastyearsgirl.pixlet.net/
Manic Pop Thrills - http://manicpopthrills.wordpress.com/
Net Sounds Unsigned - http://www.netsoundsunsigned.com/
The Pop Cop - http://thepopcop.co.uk/
Radar - http://www.wow247.co.uk/blog/category/radar/
Rave Child - http://ravechild.co.uk/
Marion Scott - http://www.mfr.co.uk/
Scottish Fiction - http://scottishfiction.blogspot.co.uk/
The Skinny - http://www.theskinny.co.uk/
Song, By Toad - http://songbytoad.com/
The Spill - http://thespillblog.co.uk/
Tenement TV - http://www.tenementtv.com/
The Tidal Wave of Indifference - http://thetidalwaveofindifference.com/
TYCI - http://www.tyci.org.uk/wordpress/