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Dec 28, 2012 The Go-Betweens By Mark Redfern

The digital version of Under the Radar‘s Best of 2012 issue is available to download now via Zinio for reading on your iPad, Android, Mac, or PC. Download it here.

The digital edition features all the same content of the print version, but also includes 52 extra pages of bonus interviews and photos not found in the print issue. It features exclusive bonus interviews with Japandroids and Lambchop, the full unedited transcript of the Wild Nothing vs. The Go-Betweens interview, and extra quotes from our interviews with Grimes and Scott Walker.

The digital version also includes bonus 2012 Artist Survey responses not found in the print issue, including ones from !!!, Clare and the Reasons, Codeine, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., Esben and the Witch, The Fresh & Onlys, Get People, Islands, Kwes, Lost in the Trees, NZCA/LINES, OFF!, Plants and Animals, Still Corners, Violens, Xiu Xiu, Young Dreams, and Zambri.

Both the print and digital versions feature Grimes on the cover and include interviews with other artists who made an impact in the last year. The issue also comes loaded with year-end coverage galore, including the following best of lists: Under the Radar‘s Top 100 albums of 2012, Top 50 songs of 2012, and Top 50 television shows of 2012. The 20-page 2012 Artist Survey section includes best albums lists from many of our favorite artists, as well as their answers to some 2012-related questions.

For this issue’s cover, we wanted to go with an artist whom we felt truly encapsulated 2012 in music. We chose Grimes (aka Claire Boucher), who has been omnipresent in the last year. Despite it being her third album, 2012’s Visions brought fresh attention to the 24-year-old Canadian artist, with many people hearing her work for the first time. In the article Boucher reflects on her breakout year, gives a preview of her fourth album, which she is already working on, and tells us why she plans to give up performing in a few years. “By the time I’m 30, I don’t want to be doing this,” says Boucher in the in-depth 10-page cover story. “I don’t want to be a model and having to do photo shoots. A lot of people really want to be onstage. A lot of people are really good at singing live and awesome at dancing, and they’re really good at getting their picture taken and that’s what they’re passionate about. But I want to be the guy at the record company that’s writing hits and doing the choreography.”

Our aim for the issue was to run features on artists with acclaimed 2012 albums that we hadn’t already interviewed in the last year. To that end the issue includes interviews with Julia Holter, Mount Eerie, Purity Ring, Sleigh Bells, Swans, Trust, Scott Walker, and Jessie Ware. Baroness’ John Dyer Baizley discusses surviving their near-fatal bus crash (“I remember being laid down on the ground after I’d been pulled out of the bus, holding a very crooked, mangled arm in my other hand.”). Ty Segall waxes on being one of indie rock’s most prolific artists in 2012, having released three albums in the last year. Segall worried that by the time he released his third 2012 album people would be over him. “It was a very positive, rad experience [releasing three albums]. But it could have been really bad for Twins and people could have been like, ‘Dude, why don’t you shut up? I’m sick of your crap! Chill out for a second!’”

Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos reflects on his highly successful, but also very tumultuous, year in a new in-depth four-page article. Wild Nothing’s Nocturne was one of Under the Radar‘s favorite albums of the year, but as we had already interviewed the band’s Jack Tatum recently, we asked him if there was a musician he’d like to interview for us instead. He eagerly suggested Robert Forster of the beloved Australian jangle-pop band The Go-Betweens. The Go-Betweens formed in 1977 and are a clear influence on Wild Nothing.

For our 20-page annual Year-End Artist Survey section we emailed the same set of topical and quirky questions to many of our favorite artists. Questions ranged from such serious topics as the presidential election, Hurricane Sandy, drone attacks, and Pussy Riot to such ridiculous subjects as surviving a zombie attack to more personal queries about first kisses, childhood memories, broken hearts, and fears. The following artists’ responses are in the issue: Alt-J, Fred Armisen, Bear in Heaven, Camera Obscura, Chad Valley, Charli XCX, Choir of Young Believers, Clinic, CSS, Dan Deacon, Desaparecidos, Django Django, Efterklang, Egyptian Hip Hop, El Perro Del Mar, Grimes, Halls, Richard Hawley, Hercules and Love Affair, Ladytron, Liars, Lord Huron, Lower Dens, Mount Eerie, My Morning Jacket, The Mynabirds, The New Pornographers, of Montreal, Peaking Lights, Porcelain Raft, Laetitia Sadier, and Tame Impala.

The issue also includes reviews of new albums by Big Boi, Broadcast, Crystal Castles, Doldrums, Eels, Esben and the Witch, FIDLAR, Foxygen, Frightened Rabbit, Petra Haden, Jim James, The Joy Formidable, Local Natives, Johnny Marr, Memory Tapes, Nightlands, Christopher Owens, Sally Shapiro, Sufjan Stevens, Tegan and Sara, Thao and the Get Down Stay Down, Toro Y Moi, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Veronica Falls, Yo La Tengo, and many others.

Finally, Django Django sent us a postcard from the road.

Download the digital version of the Best of 2012 issue here.

Buy a print copy of the Best of 2012 issue here.

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Subscribe to the print edition here.