An introduction of sorts

I felt it would be a good idea to provide a clue as to my musical leanings, and to supply you with a personal Top Ten Tracks selection. This proved to be a lot harder than i had ever thought, the number of songs i had casually described as "oh yeah, definitely in my top ten ever" slightly exceeded ten, and so i was left with a near-impossible task of culling and cutting, to leave me with this resultant list, which i hope you can enjoy as much as i do. (they are in no particular order by the way, that may have proved a bridge too far)

1. Young Marble Giants- Searching for Mr Right Possibly the greatest minimal, sub-3 minute pop song ever created. Perfectly understated, but with more emotional punch than a Peter Andre love song compilation (and that's a lot). Clear parallels can be drawn with modern upstarts The xx, but for me this song, and indeed this band, will never be trumped.

2. The Stooges- I wanna be your dog Iggy at his snarling best, one of the great riffs that pounds away for the duration of the song, and some of the best jingly bells ever heard on a rock song. How could you turn down the offer of Iggy as your dog?

3. Radiohead- Idioteque Of course everything by Radiohead is experimental genius that cannot be equalled, blah, blah, blah, but this track really is all of those things. From probably my favourite album of theirs it beautifully pulls off the nigh impossible task of making a heart -rending idm track, with it's soaring, glacial synths and Thom's incomparable croon.

4. Mogwai- I know you are but what am i? A majestic procession of pianos, guitars and bleeps that build and collapse, rise and fall in a way that only Mogwai can pull off. Stately, beautiful and an unbeatable instrumental.

5. Modest Mouse- Cowboy Dan This is probably my favourite song off my favourite album ever. A schizophrenic song of two parts, one raging with anger, the other peaceful contemplation of the world, with Isaac "standing in the tall grass, thinking nothing". Amazing.

6. Lee "Scratch " Perry- Black Panta This is Lee "calling the meek and the 'umble" into his world of spooky dub productions, and it's an offer that surely can't be refused after a listen to this.

7. Joy Division- She's lost control almost as minimal as Young Marble Giants, with the haunting, gothic bass and the clattering, incessant drums providing the sole backing to Curtis' equally gloomy vocals and the depressing story of young epileptic. Depressingly brilliant, like most Joy Division really.

8. Cocteau Twins- The hollow men not too dissimilar to the Joy Division track in terms of the intensely gothic atmosphere conjured up by the dissonant washes of Guthrie's guitar and Elizabeth Fraser's abstract wailings. However, in contrast a far creepier, ethereal song is created in contrast to the stark realities of the Joy Division effort.

9. At the Drive-in- Mannequin Republic the highlight on the seminal 'Relationship of Command 'album by the forerunners of some of the worst music to pollute the last decade. the intensity of the song never abates, just as it doesn't across the whole album, and they cannot be blamed for the sad wave of copycat bands who would form in their wake.

10. James Luther Dickinson- O how she dances a clattering conglomeration of drums and guitars and rattles that build, first with Dickinson talking, and then singing furiously, but also amusingly, over the top. Dickinson's vocals are the main attraction and his tale of dancing girls and showmen.