2010 & IT³’s Year in Music:

photo of Lara Violet by SBK

All the best in the new year decade, from I’m Trying I’m Trying I’m Trying, ltd.

2009 saw the launch of our website, as well as the release of limited edition comic Wild Strawberries by Tiny Tommy Comics, chapbook Pure Animal Instinct by Dottie Jax, and our first musical release, A Brief Affair of Limping and Gathering of Clipped Wings by Kram Ran. We appeared at several small press fairs and zine conventions, and were involved in two art exhibits with Syphilitic Mermaids Magazine.

2010 will bring more small press releases, as well as artist pages, including Reetbot and Syphmag’s SBK. Our State of the Arts in Canada blog will also continue.

Thank you, friends, for all of your support thus far and in the new decade.

IT³’s Year In Music:

Top 10 Albums of the Year:

10. Joan of Arc – Flowers
9. The Depreciation Guild – In Her Gentle Jaws
8. To Kill a Petty Bourgeoisie – Marlone
7. Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Vs. Children
6. Former Ghosts - Fleurs
5. Thee Oh Sees – Zork’s Tape Bruise
4. The Appleseed Cast – Sagarmatha
3. Aarktica – In Sea
2. The Pink Noise – Alpha
1. The Mountain Goats – The Life of the World to Come

Runners up:

Clues – Clues
Swan Lake – Enemy Mine

Albums we wish we listened to more:

Pan American – White Bird Release
Mount Eerie – Wind’s Poem

Other full lengths that we liked from 2009:

Blackout Beach – Skin of Evil
Evangelista – Prince of Truth
Thee Oh Sees – Help
The Intelligence – Fake Surfers

Best Compilation:

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Advance Base Battery Life

Best EP (except we can’t mention it because IT³ released it):

Kram Ran – A Brief Affair of Limping and Gathering of Clipped Wings

so, Best EP:

The Mountain Goats & John Vanderslice – Moon Colony Bloodbath

Best Shows of 2009:

Thee Oh Sees @ Wrong Bar, Toronto
Stars Like Fleas and Echoes Still Singing Limbs @ La Sala Rosa, Montreal
The Depreciation Guild @ The Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto

Best cover of the year:

The Mountain Goats – Drug Life (from Score! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers!)

Best album cover of the year:

The Pink Noise – Dream Code (re-issue on Sacred Bones Records)