beedubBlog

Blogmove: HearCanal.blogspot.com

2008-10-17T09:23:00.000+02:00

From beedubblyer.blogspot.com to HearCanal.blogspot.com

Why? Partly for convenience, so that I can run the blog using my current Gmail account. beedubblyer is being retired.

But also because using the old user ID as a blog title was starting to feel cringeworthy, too self-referential/navel-gazing.

So the new name is something of a corny pun, but it feels better than the old. Plus it's easier to spell. I won't keep changing the title & URL every few months just for the hellavit.

The bigger question is whether I can keep up with the amount of posting I'd like to be doing, especially when I'm blogging elsewhere too. The last few weeks have been veeeery slow on that front, but no more.

Anyways, hopefully see you there.

http://hearcanal.blogspot.com

Moving on: hearcanal.blogspot.com

2008-10-14T09:17:00.000+02:00

Bye-bye from here. See you over at:

http://hearcanal.blogspot.com

Word to the Xenu.

2008-09-19T11:55:00.001+02:00

One to watch: Palmitos Park

2008-09-16T08:24:00.009+02:00

One of my favourite tracks of the last year, El Guincho's deliriously happy Palmitos Park, now comes with this inventively lo-fi video directed by Gerson Aguerri - greyscale cutouts and construction paper tropicalia never looked so good:

Who wins from a copyright extension?

2008-09-10T15:28:00.000+02:00

So if the EU grants copyright owners, such as record labels, an extra 45 years to the current 50 year term, who will benefit?

Is it the massed ranks of struggling, obscure artists, who need as much time as possible to eke out the rewards for their efforts? No, not so much these guys. Think half a Euro a year, possibly reaching as high as under 30 Euros.

Or is it the top tier of artists? Artists who arguably have made quite enough from their records already thank you. Yes, I *am* thinking of The Beatles ('nuff cash), Elvis (totally dead), and P Diddy (crapulent, avaricous egotist). Partly them, yes.

Actually, mostly it's the record companies who would benefit. Instead of forcing them to update their business model, to find a way to operate that is relevant to this century, this laughable idea is just an attempt to prop up a comprehensively outmoded system.

+45 years does nothing for creativity
"Copyright is failing - so let's extend it!"

Girl Talk - Feed the Animals (Illegal Art, 2008)

2008-09-10T08:41:00.009+02:00

It's difficult not to respond to a good mash-up. Simultaneously it plays to the indie trainspotter inside, as well as the pop-loving tune whore, the hip-hop poseur and the classic rock air guitar hero.

While I always thought of bootlegging as a European thing - thanks to the pioneering work of Freelance Hellraiser, the genius Poj Masta, et al - but this American chap, Girl Talk's mainstream-lovin' maximilist Greg Gillis, takes it to a new level.

The hits come thick and fast. And I mean rilly thick and rilly fast. Booker T & The MGs, Daft Punk, Ace of Base, OutKast, Procul Harum, Sinéad O'Connor, Cameo, Kanye, David Bowie, Avril Lavigne, Blackstreet, Radiohead, The Beach Boys, Faith No More, Prodigy, The Cardigans, Salt n Pepa, Metallica, Tone Loc, Jackson 5, Hot Chip, Earth Wind & Fire, 50 Cent, Underworld, Sly and the Family Stone...

Yes, you sometimes wonder what Gillis' relationship with Ritalin might be.

Because this isn't some lazy two-song hybrid, third song for the chorus. Nah, Greg Gillis stuffs more tunes into this platter than you generally hear in a day's worth of radio programming, hopping from one hook or break to the next with dizzying abandon. It plays like a DJ set, obviously, so I recommend you stick it on, ignore the tracklisting, and just dance around your living room like a loon.

Have to admit I flinched when I first heard the intro to The Cranberries' Dreams, but it recovers when the guitar chords crash (politely) in, with M.I.A. yapping away in the background... like so much of the record, maybe it shouldn't work. But it duz.

Just when you think you've heard it all, Afrika Bambaataa bumps uglies with the Velvet Underground. Curve's wall of guitars mauls Kelly Clarkson. Roy Orbison's You Got It gets drenched in glitchy beats and a barking rap, and is nuttin short of barnstorming. Then there's the unbelievable Groove Is in the Heart v Come As You Are v Push It moment. F*cking sublime!

If this don't rock your socks off, maybe you just don't like music.

Four animals out of five:

Full tracklisting compiled by top geektrainspotter here.

Pay what you want (free and up) for the ablum here.

The new sport of guitarist-tipping

2008-09-09T23:36:00.000+02:00

Pity Noel Gallagher, now languishing in his bed with smashed-up ribs, which I can testify is no fun. Seems a Canadian oik sneaked up behind brother Liam and pushed him over during a gig.

But the funniest bit for me is Liam. Check the clip, watch as he backs quickly away from the scrawny little kid who found his way on stage... then when several bouncers have pounced on the poor sod, Liam gets all bolshy and starts trying to kick him. Only when the threat is subdued does he start acting the hard man:

Canadian idiot FTW.

Bloc Party - Intimacy (Wichita, 2008)

2008-09-09T20:15:00.012+02:00

This is how it's done.

Intimacy opens with Ares, and a steel-whip guitar figure that doesn't sound like too vast a departure from the post-punk anthemry of their previous releases. Doesn't sound like a departure, that is, until the jacked-up Tomorrow Never Knows break comes in, a punishing groove that send the ablum hurtling towards the indie dancefloor.

The likes of lead single Mercury continue this trend, a gloriously raw and rockin' slice of electro with a surprisingly astrological theme:

My Mercury's in retrograde.
This is not the time, the time to start a new love
This is not the time, the time to sign a lease.

If anything, the raucous propulsiveness behind this dancey revamp feels like it owes a little to the Chemical Brothers. But it's not all disco-balls out reinvention: Halo, Trojan Horse and One Month Off are classic cuts that could come from any BP release.

Their invention is given freer reign here than before, and not just on the barn-storming likes of Mercury. Check the beatific choir on Zepherus, the shivering sonics of closer Ion Square, or the layered sorrow of ths sumptuous ballad Biko.

Sophomore ablum A Weekend in the City was something a retread of the debut, sleek but smeary, and lacking in hooks. This set is summink else, a thorough doing over of the Bloc Party sound, one that is welcome and not entirely unpredictable. Bloc Party continue to leave their peers so far behind it ain't even funny. Can you see Franz Ferdinand pulling off such an inspired and confident makeover?

Five planets out of five:

Pre-order the CD from the boys here.

Pleasingly random Mercury vid here:

Sigur Rós - Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust (EMI, 2008)

2008-09-08T22:05:00.001+02:00

"With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly". Naturally Sigur Rós have saved this title for the first ablum on which they the average song length has been reigned in to a very digestible four minutes.

What's impressive is that they've sacrificied little of their grandeur. In full flight they still sound like heaven's own marching band, orchestration crashing around in euphoric waves. Previously they might have spent a good five minutes getting to the pay-off, but now on the likes of Inní Mér Syngur Vitleysingur the compulsive xylophone hook bursts in at bar one along with everything else.

Which isn't to suggestive they've entirely abandoned the whole glacial thing. No, they've just made more sparing use of "continental drift" speed. Festival takes a good eight minutes before it commences its glorious, soaring climax, and Straumnes flirts with absolute stillness.

Much as been made of the first Sigur Rós song in English,
All Alright. But for all you can make out of Jon Thor Birgisson's delicate mumbles it might as well have been delivered in Hopelandic.

The Icelanders have sacrificed none of their strident joyousness, nor has the judicious balancing of the monumental and the ethereal - listen to the battering percussion and delicate piano lines that go toe-to-toe on Suð Í Eyrum. Credit due to Flood for his clear, evenly weighted production... when the number of musicians on a track creeps up to ninety, as on Festival, that's gotta be a pain in the ass to mix.

Rousing, touching, transcendent stuff. Every morning for the next few months I'll be wandering around my apartment, wailing along wordlessly.

Four geysers out of five:

Hvernig segir maður "iTunes" á íslensku?

Best. Songtitle. Ever?

2008-09-07T15:29:00.000+02:00

And the award goes to the recently reformed New Kids On The Block, for a songtitle that sounds like something out of the Simpsons.

Sexify My Love.

SEXIFY?!

Rilly, it beggars belief.

Always a pleasure.

2008-08-27T22:10:00.001+02:00

O'Reilly pwned by law school kid. What a douche. Law school guy FTW.

Skip to 1'40":

Mates of State - Re-Arrange Us (Barsuk, 2008)

2008-08-24T16:22:00.012+02:00

Forget all your politics for awhile
Let the color schemes arrive.

So starts Mates of State's latest platter, a continuation of their move from peppy lo-fi minimalists to alt.MOR giants.

Everything is gonna get lighter
Even if it never gets better.

This is a truly ace rekkid, bursting with bittersweet goodness, jam-packed with gentle joy and lightly bruised melancholy. Husband'n'wife team Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel (that shoulda been "wife'n'husband") have not let their status as proud parents hamper their continued development as a damn fine band. No, they just take the kids on tour and blog it all at Band on the Diaper Run.

Their sound has filled out from the organ+drums days. Now it swells with fuzzy-hearted strings, chiming piano, brash trumpet.

A frantic Now hurtles along with a tune that's pure Brendan Benson. The delicious Get Better and effervescent My Only Offer come on like New Pornographers with less manpower but the same ridiculous levels of tunefulness. Elsewhere the Mates sound like a peppier Viva Voce... the comparisons come easy enough. (Did I give it the Tegan & Sara yet?)

If there's one criticism, it's that it works so well there's little variation in style and tempo from one song to the next.

But this is a gloriously life-affirming band. Just check the irresistible, coruscating The Re-Arranger. Arrangements are dynamic and absorbing, melodies soar, and their vocals interlock with fiendish intricacy - see You Are Free for another case in point.

Truly, truly ace!

Four states out of five:

Do, do, do buy it from the iTunes.

Black Kids - Partie Traumatic (Almost Gold Recordings, 2008)

2008-08-23T13:26:00.000+02:00

Hype hype hype. Rushed to market? Hype hype brother-sister hype hype. Pitchfork highlarious picture review. Hypehype. Youngblood a cool surname. Hypee hype hype-hype. Repeat ad nauseum.

But is it any good? In a word, yesitisquitegoodactually.

Anything groundbreaking? No, but when have you heard a superhyped artist who was? This is a tasty if unthreatening slice of 80's throwback indie. Drums flit between baggy breaks and LCD punk-funk stomps, analogue synths burble and squit, guitars chug and squirl, and Reggie Youngblood gives it some serious strangulated yelp. Think a poppier MGMT, or The Killers with less preening.

The tunes are the thing, and Black Kids definitely have 'em. Listen to Your Body Tonight and I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You jig and swagger like the coming indie disco classics they will be/are/were last month.

The title track is so infectious they even succumb themselves, and end up chucking in an easy retread (with an extra dose of Chromeo) in I Wanna Be Your Limousine. And there's the one flaw: the group's been bombarded from the off with debilitating praise and uncritical hype, and under those circumstances it's unsurprising there's a bit of underwritten filler in here. Yes I'm looking at you, Love Me Already.

Otherwise, pretty ace. 4 kids out of 5:

If you ask nicely you can find it in the iTunes virtual shop.

The Fratellis - Here We Stand (Island, 2008)

2008-08-22T19:43:00.000+02:00

I've made a huge mistake.

This kind of thing happens, I tell myself, it must happen, when you're living away from the UK and you're trying to keep up with all the promos flying around and you haven't got Friends That Know About These Things on hand to slap you upside the head when you get it A Bit Wrong.

See, I atcherly *liked* The Fratelli's debut ablum, Costello Music. It's fun, I thought, but it's not shit. They've got undeniable pop chops. They've got cleverish lyrics. I even told people it was good! Recommend FAIL.

Now sophomore set Here We Stand is here, and all I can think is that these Fratellis aren't "the missing link between T-Rex and The Libertines". They're just the latest incarnation of those cackamuffins, the Stere*ph*nics.

I mean WTF is with the boogie-woogie good-timey A Heady Tale? It better not be about getting oral sex off of a groupie, then I'll be rilly annoyed.

And Shameless, which takes the occcasional Status Quo-isms of their debut to a horrifying conclusion.

And don't get me started on the stomach-churningly abysmal Mistress Mabel - didn't the Stereofuckwits have a song with exactly the same title? (Same diff.)

There are so many sub-par moments, it's tough to pick a fave. Guitars are less raucous and more 'classic rawk' than before. Lyrics lack the playful inventiveness that I used to tell myself was kinda visible even in the likes of Chelsea Dagger. Melodies surge purposelessly, with as much taste, style, and restraint as is generally possessed by a drunk erection.

Anyways, I repent. "Landfill indie" is pretty much spot-on. S'pose it could've been worse. It could've been the Pigeon Detectives.

One bitter brother out of five:

I'm obligated by habit to point out it's at iTunes.

The Shortwave Set - Replica Sun Machine (Wall of Sound, 2008)

2008-08-19T21:46:00.010+02:00

Produced by Brian "Danger Mouse" Burton, contributions from John Cale, string arrangements by Van Dyke Parks. Recorded in LA. The Shortwave Set has come a fair way from its debut, recorded in a Deptford garage.

So what do we got? 11 tracks of charming if insubstantial psychedelia, intermittently reminiscent of The Amorphous Androgynous, Jim Noir's resolutely English psyche-pop, even moments that are undeniably Beatles-y. No Social and Now Till '69 sound like a stab at New Pornographers territory, though lacking the inimitably melodic elasticity of them Canadians.

When a band is this focussed on their sound, you never bother too much with the lyrics. Case in point, see how this promising opening couplet descends swiftly into the mindlessly ordinary:

Don't flick the switches, don't pull the plugs
'Cause it's just glitches, it's glitches and bugs
So don't go diggin down,
No don't you go to town.

(What's this? What town? Why's it so far below sea level? Is this Noel Gallagher calling?)

But I have to say this: Replica Sun Machine is a grower.

Nothing took hold on the first few passes, but I'm finding myself increasingly drawn to the sweetly compulsive tunes, the shimmering analogue synths, the quavering guitars, Van Dyke Parks' contorted string arrangements.

There are plenty of highlights: the tweaked 'n' twisted hooks of Replica, the addictive tug of The Downer Song, the relatively pumped Glitches 'n' Bugs. And Sun Machine is mesmerizing like a kaleidoscope, appropriately enough.

Gonna be generous with 4 mouses out of 5:

Buy it from there, the iTunes.

Noah and the Whale - Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down (Mercury, 2008)

2008-08-17T13:25:00.007+02:00

Accomplished indie-folk-pop from Charlie Fink and his merry band of Twickenham-living troubadours - including one Laura Marling on backing vocals.

Recently a work trip kept me in a hotel in Manchester for a week, and the godawful The Hits was the only music channel on TV. Secreted amongst the thousands of Ne-Yo promos and lazy-assed Pharrell collaborations, chipper single 5 Years' Time seemed a boundlessly romantic and joyful curio: all whistles, handclaps, flutes and rattling percussion, Fink and Marling's vocals intertwining like the trunks of elephants in love.

This might be tooth-achingly twee if it wasn't for Fink's dolorous voice. There are shades of Devotchka's Nick Urata, though mostly his sombre, wilting pipes sound like a shabbier Ron Sexsmith. But this weight, this grit is essential for NATW, it's the sober thread that binds the chirpiness into a palatable whole.

It works in counter-point to the strident horns of Shape of My Heart, or on lively, sandal-tapping opener 2 Atoms in a Molecule. It keeps the rockier Give a Little Love from sounding too much like The Hours.

But Fink is a blessing and a curse. When lending ballast, his lungs provide the tempering necessitated by those sweeter musical moments. But on the slower, sadder songs it's just too much. They sink into dreary anonimity, as with the near-tuneless Do What You Do.

It's a minor gripe given the overall strength of the ablum, and the band's accomplished songwriting and effectively sparse sound, all of which suggest Noah and the Whale will only get bigger.

3 cetaceans out of 5:

Now in stock at the Amazon.

Burn After Reading

2008-08-16T10:36:00.003+02:00

So my favourite thing about this trailer - apart from the fact it promises good 'n funny things for the flim itself - is its use of the mighty Elbow:

The track being Grounds for Divorce from The Seldom Seen Kid.

Ernie and Bert do gangsta rap

2008-08-09T10:52:00.004+02:00

'Nuff said:

Muppets are in the air it seems: that Enormous Yes.

You Lie You Cheat

2008-08-05T08:19:00.004+02:00

In which artist Jake Chapman, in his first musicvid outing, throws various cheap cameras out of tall buildings to the accompaniment of Spiritualized's latest fuzzfest.

As Chapman pointed out to Vice, "you can't deliver an idea like throwing cameras out of windows to Kylie Minogue, because they'd just think you were a fucking idiot."

Dark Captain Light Captain - Circles EP (LOaf, 2008)

2008-07-27T19:08:00.007+02:00

Another gee-orgeous offering of mellow and moody folk from DCLC and the LOaF label. They do do this sort o'thing well.

DCLC, now operating as a sextet, remind me more and more of early Turin Brakes, except with an urban feel where T'Brakes have always come over rural (partly due to those affected Americana-tastic accents). Just hope that DCLC don't go for the radio-friendly gloss that has always dulled the edge of my respect for Turin Brakes.

Anyways, Circles. 's good stuff. The title track is a dark, tense affair, a paranoid anthem underpinned with decaying piano and slowburn keyboards - in fact all of the tracks show an expansion in the DLCL sound, their subtle experimentation increasingly foregrounded. The brilliantly fracked-up opening to They Be Underwater, has been digitally weathered to the aural equivalent of cracked leather. Robot Command Centre ("Row-bot" as Dan Carney sings it) ends with a lush and mournful clarinet.

The EP closes with the sweet, twinkling caresses of Walls, leaving me with high expectations for the upcoming Miracle Kicker ablum.

Get it direct from the smart people at Lo Recordings why don'tcha.

Four circles out of five:

Run Run

2008-07-27T13:21:00.001+02:00

Hmm. I love these girls, Hitten and Those Dancing Days instantly became and remain two of my fave songs of the last year. But I'm uhm not so sure about this latest single, Run Run.

In some ways it's their most Northern Soul-influenced song yet. And in other ways, important ones, it's a bit of a mess. Waaay too much reverb in the chorus.

Not writing them off yet, y'understand, just was eagerly awaiting the next single. Hey ho. Now hurry up and give us a brilliant ablum.

Alphabeat - This Is Alphabeat (Copenhagen/EMI, 2008)

2008-07-26T19:56:00.006+02:00

Shiny happy pop from a Danish sextet so relentlessly upbeat you suspect they may be trying to form a cult. Srrriously, this is sweeter than a baby lamb wrapped in candyfloss, with as much edge as a vaguely globe-shaped cloud of gas.

My defences were all the way up when I started listening to this - I like my pop, but this just looked too naff. The Swedes seem to be able to pull it off, but what about the Danes?

Well, it ain't SO bad. There's no denying the guile-free glee of tracks like Fantastic 6 or Fascination, two songs that sound like more credible outtakes from High School Musical or some such bobbins.

DISCLAIMER: preceding analogy based on guesswork.
*GOES TO YOUTUBE*
Jebus Crisp, ain't that the truth!

Anyways, I reckon this bunch just tip over a little too enthusiastically into this preppy, poptoplasmic territory. It might be fun at times, but there's no depth, no twist, no angle, fugg all of much interest. I mean, how many times have you heard the line "you came like a thief in the night and stole my heart"? That's the kind of lyric you expect from Roxette or Steps - this lot play support slots for CSS!

So the straight pop numbers are bearable and semi-enjoyable. But worse is to come when they veer into funk-lite territory. I mean, there rilly is no need.

At the start of this I was willing to be generous at 3 out of 5, but having sat once more through the filler-heavy second half of the ablum, let's say 2 Alphabetti Spaghettis out of 5:

Buy it from your friendly neighbourhood iTunes. Or not, whatever.

Massage Chairs @ Lyon Airport

2008-07-26T14:30:00.001+02:00

+45 years "does nothing for creativity"

2008-07-23T10:34:00.004+02:00

Follow-up to my post on the proposed extension to copyright in recorded music:

In an open letter to The Times, 17 copyright experts pointed out that the extension "does nothing for creativity or innovation". Furthermore, they warn that the proposal risks further alienating a "generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis."

True dat!

They also point out that the real winners from extensions like these are not the humble session musicians, but "record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists’ estates".

Testify!

Avarice Lavigne

2008-07-22T19:59:00.004+02:00

Pop-punk princess and Canada's answer to chronic otitis media*, Avril Lavigne, is claiming around $2million in royalties from YouTube, for the promo clip for her track Girlfriend. After all, it has been watched over 92 million times.

Wait, whut? Ninety-too millyun?! Now I don't want to live in a world where Avril Lavigne is that popular any more than the next sentient being, but that's what the stats say: 92mlln.

Except that's not rilly 92,000,000 plays of the song, is it. Because Avril's cunning fanlets gamed the play count, setting up a site that would register a YouTube play every 15 seconds.

You could weep for poor Google, having to shell out for fake royalties... except that, of course, they make more ad money for those page views that never were.

Naturally, the greedy bint's manager still wants his 20% of that $2meellyon... even though it was claimed that the song rips off the chorus of I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend by 70's powerpop act the Rubinoos. Or maybe not "even though it was claimed", more "because it was claimed". Since Avril and her team settled with the Rubinoos for an undisclosed sum before the story got too big, the coffers will need a little top-up.

Avril Lavigne doesn't write her own songs?? Google's data is habitually manipulated?? I just don't know what to believe in any more.

_____
* Long-term painful inflammation caused by ear trauma.
_____

Compare and contrast Avril and the Rubinoos below. Here's a clue: they had a case.

"Copyright is floundering. So let's extend it!" Fail!

2008-07-17T18:58:00.005+02:00

Excuse the upcoming babble, the jargon, and the notebook thought-processes.

So the EU's passed a proposal to extend the term of copyright in recordings from 50 years to 95.

Ignoring the pro-lobby's positioning and the anti-lobby's righteous freetard indignation, any fule kan sea that record companies & rights owners in general are having a hard time protecting their copyrights as it is. Aside from all that business with P2P, there are literally* billions of copyright infringements every day in the media. I work at a reasonably well-known ad agency with some very high-profile clients, so we go by the book; but I know there are smaller, local productions & agencies across the globe that don't have the time, budget, or more pertinently the knowledge to secure the licences and clearances they should.

(* Not literally literally.)

The copyright licensing process needs to be streamlined, simplified, and readjusted so that it can effectively harness smaller, easily-made payments. At present, there are people that habitually avoid paying larger, difficult to negotiate licences - and the rights owners don't have the tools or people to pursue infringements.

If they can't track or punish infringements for 50-year old copyrights, what benefit is there in extending the life of copyright?

Make licences easier/cheaper to obtain. Make infringements easier to pursue but less painful to pay. Cut down on the approvals.

Simplify. Rethink. Adapt. Survive. Et cetera.

Radiohead's House of Google

2008-07-15T09:21:00.002+02:00

Google (wTf?) premieres Radiohead's fancy new interactivey video for House of Cards. Constructed without video/film and using pure data alone (bit of an odd way to put it since visual input is data) it enables the viewer to spin a pointillist version of Thom Yorke's head hither and thither.

Plus other visualiser doodads. But you need to watch this in the iGoogle doodad to interact with the Yorkeian datahead:

http://snipurl.com/2yxmd
[www_google_com]

And:
http://snipurl.com/2yxn7

Battlestar Beethoven

2008-07-11T01:08:00.007+02:00

I'm always caught between thinking Battlestar Galactica is collosally dumb or Actually Smart. (And boy is it dumb.)

Having watched a coupla series in an internet-TV rush, it's only just occurred to me that Tom Zarek (terrorist and counterculture guru) is actually the original Apollo (upright supertalented posterboy for the military machine).

And, lame as the 3rd series is, about 3'15" into s03ep07 there's a scene with a treacherous human who's being kept by the Cylons, a lone human in a hive of machines. A piano steps quietly in the background, an achingly familiar cluster of notes, a phrasing that, hang on, is the Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven, a shoddy even clumsy remembering.

But it's a Public Domain piece, if they wanted Beethoven they could have used it. So is the make-do-'hoven a deliberate misuse, was the composer briefed for "nearly Beethoven"?

Um...

Ursula 1000 - Undressed (ESL Music, 2007)

2008-07-07T20:10:00.001+02:00

Previously unreleased remixes of cuts from 2005's Here Comes Tomorrow, plus a new track, Step Back.

Ursula 1000 (Alex Gimeno to his postman) has, along with Thievery Corporation, cornered the market in loungecore. Taking a more fun route than his labelmate sophisticates, his modus operandi is to strap kooky vocal samples and a mountain of bongos to a chassis of fleetfooted breakbeats.

This short set is bookended by Step Back. Deekline & Ed Solo's opener shakes its depth-charge bass around a nimble, skanking break; JStar turns in a slower but still funky, rootsier version to round things off.

Robosonic takes Hello! Let's Go to a Disco and gives it an electro bodycheck, while Moston & Malente take the same track and add squealing synths and a meaty, dancefloor-shaking stomp.

Ladytron naturally cranks up the titular feelings of Urgent/Anxious, which throbs and pulses, relentlessly mekanik; here a much darker effort than Gimeno's original. But that's an exception, since overall the vibe retains much of U1000's sense of fun - especially the All Good Funk Alliance's wah-wah-tastic, flute-eriffic reworking of Kaboom!

I've always found Ursula 1000 good for unfettered fun but never that substantial; this remix set doesn't exactly change that notion, but it does temper their sugary confections with a bit more dancefloor grit.

A decent enough 3 Ursula's out of 5:

Buy it from the Jobs.

Sonar: Camille @ Palau de Musica Català, Barcelona

2008-07-04T09:22:00.001+02:00

For me, the absolute highlight of Sonar. Any electronica in evidence? None. Just 8 people (including Mlle. Dalmais) and a piano. And they only used the piano half the time.

The Palau de Musica is a sumptuously gorgeous bit of architecture in the Barri Gotic of Barcelona. The interior is detailed in the colourful, organically chaotic style typical of Catalan modernisme. It's a beautiful place, stylish and warm, awe-inspiring yet comfortable, and it was the perfect setting for a few hours of mesmerising vocal music from "the French Björk".

That epithets no good for Camille, btw, though I use it myself when trying to convince people they need to listen to her.

Camille's music is almost choral - I mean, it's mostly comprised of layers and layers of voices, winding and twisting around each other like threads of smoke. But I pull back from saying choral because this doesn't feel like massed voices, rather each layer of voice plays in its own unique way with the others, feeling more like individual instruments and often dipping into wordless or looped abstraction.

So Björk tried this for Medúlla (which certainly shares the well-realised combo of beatboxers for percussion and bass notes), but this way of working is more essential to Camille's music, it's more central to her Camille-ness... and I doubt there are that many fans that would claim Medúlla is Björk's best work.

Added to which, Camille draws from different musical traditions - gospel, easy listening, music hall, chanson - and her work fits more easily into a classic songwriting vein than Björk's soaring, inimitable expeditions.

Anyways, the gig! Allowing for a bit of Iberian lateness was a mistake, and cost me the first song or two. DAAAAMN. But I slipped into my 2nd-circle seat and was instantly transfixed, like the rest of the audience, hanging on Camille's every word. When she started singing, we stopped breathing to hear her better; when she jigged joyously about the stage, we sat up so as not to lose sight; whenever she stopped singing, we applauded thunderously.

Am I overdoing it there? Not a bit. She had the audience in the palm of her hand, and treated us gently while warming up. Song after song from Le Fil and Music Hole was released into the hall like a wild bird, with love, care, and a little wariness; a track like La Jeune Fille aux Cheveux Blancs sending a visible shudder of joy through the audience. Each time, it was incredible that just 8 people - and only occasionally that piano - could recreate so fully the glorious, kaleidoscopic music of the ablums.

Wanting more from the audience, she whipped up our reactions until we clapped, stamped, and sang on queue. She forgot half a line of Au Port, stopped her group in their tracks, then (after a short and deliberately, hilariously patronising French lesson) led the audience in completing it for her. Cats and Dogs, as you might expect, found her conducting each corner of the hall for the miaows and woofs of the backing vox - and as the song ended, the crowd unleashed a torrent of howling and barking in place of clapping.

The arrangements were as endlessly inventive as her strange orange outfit (which morphed from a flowing gown into a hooded cowl into some sort of shawl with wings). The body percussionists at one point hopped onto the platform behind the backing singers, and added wicked vibrato by drumming against their backs.

But Camille's voice was the spellbinding thread that tied us all together for the two hours of the show, effortlessly musical, breathtaking in its range and variety. In the space of a song she unleashes, one after the other, soaring cris de couer, gossamer whispers, rough yells, yelps and whipsmart clicks, peals of laughter and lusty sobs, rude shouts and a whole menagerie of vocalisations.

A avalanche of noise demanded encore after encore, the final time an unamplified huddle at the front of the stage. Their lungs bursting to fill the auditorium, Camille and friends kicked out a rollicking chanson jam that sent us reeling into the Catalan night.

Alternative Tattoo Method

2008-07-03T08:52:00.000+02:00

Of course, I coulda gone this route instead of the ink way for my recent tattoo:

Phone Phreaker Nerdcore Rap

2008-07-01T11:12:00.001+02:00

More on Nerdcore later, but here's summat thrown up by Wired's Threat Level blog - a nerdcore track put out by a phone phreaking crew.

If phone phreaking makes you think of Bart Simpson or the Jerky Boys, you could adjust that view to take into account that these guys enjoy using their telephonic trickery to send heavily-armed SWAT teams to their enemies and random strangers...

We can pull everything about you right down to your social
You'll break down crying, a mess, homeless and get all emotional
You won't even be able to drive your own car
Cus we reported it stolen...

tat4 - and done!

2008-06-27T17:00:00.001+02:00

Two hours of needlework, new ink is done!

tat3

2008-06-24T11:55:00.003+02:00

Comparing line styles, final versions ready on Thursday. I'd be happy with either, so this is going to be a rilly difficult decision.

Didn't think I'd like the script to be a uniform thickness, but this looked good:

The original idea was to have lines that are thick & thin, but the letters here will have to be a little bigger so it doesn't bleed over time:

The start/stop points won't be as in this last pic.

I'm from Barcelona - We're from Barcelona

2008-06-15T09:09:00.003+02:00

No-one does childish glee with as much cool as the Swedes:

I'm off to Barcelona in an hour. Sonar festival is at the end of next week, and hopefully I'll catch El Guincho and Justice (DJ sets) plus Yelle. Have a ticket for the incredible Camille at the Palau de Musica - that's gonna be amazing!

tat2

2008-06-12T17:37:00.000+02:00

So we talked through how the text will run, and (as he said on the first visit) it's a process... He's going to rearrange the lines and i'll in back in 10 days to discuss it again. Maybe then, maybe later, he'll start work on it. I'm desperate to get started, but am enjoying having it come together as a clear and concrete idea first...

tat1

2008-06-12T17:03:00.000+02:00

Spooky Moog "gitbox"...

2008-06-11T18:24:00.002+02:00

The clever people at Moog have made the eeriest guitar. Ignore Lou Reed's shameless hucksterisms and just listen to that sustain:

Muxtape: Netherlands

2008-06-06T19:02:00.003+02:00

For a limited time, 12 of the best from the Netherlands. For my money, the Dutch hip-hop is where it's at - De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig ("The Youth of Today") are aces.

Oh, and begrudgingly included is a not-bad Ferry Corsten electro breakbeat number, as I felt the Dutch obsession with trance oughta be recognised... though never condoned.

http://beedubblyer.muxtape.com/

Eet smakelijk!

01. De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig - Watskebeurt?!
02. Gem - Jupiter
03. Coparck - Thoughts You Thought You Could Do Without
04. Kraak & Smaak - Squeeze Me
05. Extince - Spraakwater
06. Alamo Race Track - Stanley vs. Hannah
07. Bettie Serveert - Palomine
08. Pete Philly & Perquisite - Mindstate (Arts the Beatdoctor remix)
09. Ferry Corsten - Junk
10. Sander Kleinenberg - The Fruit
11. Moss - Winter in Finland
12. Ramses Shaffy - Zing-Vecht-Huil-Bid-Lach-Werk en Bewonder

Vid: Kraak & Smaak - Squeeze Me

2008-06-05T12:55:00.001+02:00

Kraak & Smaak's best single yet, ace video by Amsterdammers Andre Maat (director) and Henk @ SuperElectric (animator):

Sargasso Trio - Burnin' Burnin' Burnin' (Boy Scout Recordings, 2008)

2008-06-04T13:55:00.002+02:00

Now this is proper ace. Hailing from Norwich, the Trio operates in previously uncharted samba-folk-synth territory. I'll say that again, *from Norwich*.

Seems that crossing Latin jazz with a little choral acoustic rootsyness is a thing of loveliness. It's a heady mix of influences, the virtuosity evident in the Latin influences tempered with the lo-fi charm of their single-finger synth play.

All 3 bandmembers contribute to the songwriting, and somehow they find a unifying sound in all those disparate styles and arrangements. What's more, the set encompasses innumerable moods, from the melancholy tropicalia of Why Do Birds Fall in Love? to the doomy, quasi-spiritual chants of Man Walks via the carefree debauchery of Baby I'm Depraved:

And I feel like something's missing when my teeth ain't in your neck...

There's nothing formulaic here, songs are exactly the length they need to be (though I find myself wishing half of them were just a little longer...), and if arrangements are quirky, it's only ever in service of the song. The campfire stompalong Heels On Fire comes complete with appropriately marching flugelhorn (um, mebbe) and hailstone glockenspeil. It's Hot in Hell sashays around an insidious rubber-band guitar figure.

And it's not all try-too-hard cleverosity, far from it: just check the heart-on-sleeve emotion of Wide Sargasso Sea. It does all seem too leftfield for crossover potential, but I can't imagine anyone not being seduced by at least 25% of the loveliness on display here. Eight miles highly recommended.

4 Wide Sargasso Seas out of 5:

Hear & see Heels On Fire here:

Buy it from The Jobs. Go on, it's only €5.94 for the unprotected mp3s.

Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass (Definitive Jux, 2007)

2008-05-29T16:15:00.002+02:00

Stunning set from San Francisco-dwelling "East Coast" rapper, out on El-P's ace Definitive Jux imprint. When I say stunning, I mean literally j_a_w-d_r_o_p_p_i_n_g.

Long-time collaborator Blockhead delivers lays down edibly chunky grooves for Aesop's indelibly funksome flow, the production packed with invention and melody. Internal rhymes twist about one another with reptilian sinuousness, lyrical conceits spawn offshoots as mathematically organic as the Mandelbrot set. Seriously, he's got ricockulous vocal agility:
     Nothing says charm like an armoured car
     Taking the clone-farm 'tards to the arms bazaar
     We were the homemade marker makers born to pour the marsh-
     ink into right guard parts and march through the gauntlet of car alarms
Sick!!

Throughout he drops rhymes of bafflingly brilliant abstraction and shameless smarts - in Bring Back Pluto he addresses Pluto demotion from planet status to "uh, we're not sure what it is", and Fumes samples Newton's first law of motion. Not to suggest he's a laboratory-dwelling nerd, not when Fumes also contains the refrain:
     You ain't shit man, your story's a joke,
     You should package it with a last smoke and six feet of rope.

You can file it under backpack or underground rap, but everyone should give this a whirl. The lyrics are fresh, the delivery dextrous, the beats are indubitably dope. The maddest of props to Mr Ian Bavitz: sir, this is peerless artistic generosity.

I was gonna 4/5 this, but frick that! Can't find a way to fault it. An essential 5 passes out of 5:

Go buy the rekkid.

Vid: "Shhh, the baby's sleeping..."

2008-05-29T15:18:00.001+02:00

It's a coupla years old, but this is still nerve-tinglingly addictive. The clip might be basic, but the tune is a MONSTER:

Usher producer Polow da Don loves GarageBand

2008-05-27T17:55:00.003+02:00

Too funny. It seems Usher's platinum award-winning producer, Polow da Don, put together the single Love in This Club using two (count 'em, TWO) royalty-free GarageBand samples.

But is this rilly in a different category from Daft Punk's own cheap'n'easy trick?

Yeah, 'course it is.

Bon Iver - For Emma, Foever Ago (4AD, 2008)

2008-05-27T13:31:00.009+02:00

This was a recommendation from a colleague, Jamie K, and sheesh but I owe her bigtime! This is hushed and beautiful stuff, a bruised but not bitter elegy to a doomed relationship; utterly absorbing, endlessly affecting.

Most of what I want to say about this astonishing debut has been said and said well by this feller (oh so right about the autotune in The Wolves, one of the many many genius moments on the ablum). It finds a point between Midlake's backwoods nostalgia, Ray Lamontagne's romanticism, Elliott Smith's raw emotion, or the delicate heartbreak of Iron & Wine - and inbetween these well-trodden paths it finds its own unique space.

Even on paper this looked like the kinda thing I love, but like a prissy kid at Christmas I waited a ridiculous amount of time before giving it a listen. Jamie took seven of us Bon Iver virgins to a gig last Saturday night in Paradiso's excellently intimate kleine zaal, and she ended the night with seven converts.

They captured perfectly the haunting gorgeousness of the rekkid for a devoted audience. Even the eardrum-batteringly loud Dutch guy who screamed YEEEAAAH! at every mention of booze or drunkenness couldn't spoil the loving atmosphere. And Justin Vernon was utterly unpretentious, leading the crowd in an early sing-a-long, genuinely appreciative of the reception, eagerly meeting folks afterwards, and signing an LP for Jamie. She deserves it for introducing us to this utterly ace artist.

Buy it from iTunes or yr friendly local rekkid stoor, for nostalgia's sake.

5 Emmas out of 5:

Barry Adamson - Back to the Cat (Central Control, 2008)

2008-05-19T20:46:00.006+02:00

Barry Adamson made his mark on post-punk as bassist with Magazine. He cemented his position in the alternative scene as a sometime Bad Seed. And since '89 - long before David Holmes or Portishead got their cinematic grooves on - he's been creating soundtracks to movies that don't exist.

And Back to the Cat is Adamson at the peak of his powers. This is a prowling, growling, noirish beast of a rekkid. Latin rhythms mingle with Serge Gainsbourg lounge-pop. Garage rock morphs into frantic jazz grooves. Soulful horns jostle with scratchy spy theme guitars. Atop it all swagger Adamson's swingin' vocals.

Of course, this is exactly the seam he's been mining through each of his nine solo albums; that kind of fixed, determined artistic identity that Nick Cave has always displayed.

Excellent though they were, for me King of Nothing Hill and 2006's Stranger on the Sofa still lacked an indefineable sumthin'. The former was a more song-based effort than ever before, and the latter came off a little shapeless as Adamson moved back towards cinematica (and started playing most of the instruments hisself).

But of course, this just means the Adamson formula has never been so fine-tuned as on Back to the Cat, possibly his strongest release yet.

4 cats out of 5 prefer it:

They stock it at iTunes.

Muxtape: Sweden rocks!

2008-05-18T21:04:00.001+02:00

~~For a limited time only~~TOO LATE IT'S ALREADY GONE: Sounds of Sweden Muxtape

The Sounds - Song with a Mission
The Hives - T.H.E.H.I.V.E.S.
Herman Düne - 1-2-3/Apple Tree
Lykke Li - Let It Fall
Lo-Fi-Fnk - System
Robyn - Konichiwa Bitches
Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days
I'm From Barcelona - Treehouse
Jenny Wilson - Love and Youth
Esbjörn Svensson Trio - Did They Ever Tell Cousteau?
Peter Björn and John - Amsterdam
José González - Hand On Your Heart

Guillemots - Red (Polydor, 2008)

2008-05-14T20:20:00.000+02:00

The first Guillemots ablum, Through the Window Pane, left me with a serious case of meh. While the critics raved about Fyfe Dangerfield's unabashed romanticism, I just couldn't get a handle on their structureless wash; everything-and-the-kitchen-sink orchestration just muddied the waters; tunes were bafflingly aimless.

Red seems to me an instant improvement. How? By hitching their relentless, chaotic maximilism to real hooks. This change was apparent from the first seconds, when Kriss Kross opens in a burst of Sturm und Drang strings, then switching from this high drama to one of their typically swooning choruses.

In fact, I'd been so nonplussed by their debut that this one sat unopened on my desk for weeks. But Red, for me, is packed with good stuff. Falling Out of Reach is a lovely ballad, albeit a touch by the numbers. Lead single Get Over It is a brashly charming thing, with all the excitement of a first kiss. And Last Kiss, with bassist Aristazabal Hawkes's lead vox, is a delicious splash of gothic pop.

So I is well surprised by the not so good review from Pitchfork and the sniffy bit in the Guardian. OK, mebbe not "surprised" per se.

Yes, their relentless maximilism often results in a barrage of impulsive ideas - I thought that was pretty much their raison d'être. The complaint that they've upped the pop quotient doesn't really convince, even if those cues are coming from "1980s big pop". OK, so Big Dog's R&B leanings are a bit ham-fisted, and Take Me Home's keyboards are surely filched from the The Unforgettable Fire.

'Cause what Guillemots has become now is a pumped-up, tunetastic beast capable of delivering Big Music stuffed with ideas and influences. I'm sold.

4 Guillemots out of 5:

Buy it from Mr Jobs or the Amazon.
And here's the Guillemots podcast.

Vid: Los Mono - Promesas

2008-05-12T09:01:00.001+02:00

Slick electrofunk from Chilean supergroup Los Mono, plus ace dancing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBSkLfVp2fQ

Album is well worth a buy: iTunes.

Yelle - Pop-Up (Source Etc, 2007)

2008-05-07T15:01:00.004+02:00

Second French post of the week, et c'est bon aussi!

Pop-Up is an excellent, blithely charming serving of French electro pop, courtesy of madamoiselle Yelle and her producer GrandMarnier. This is equal parts shiny pop and genuine cool, like a Gallic Robyn.

Opener Ce Jeu, a chirpy little number, is a perfect pointer for the effortless insouissance that's to follow. Of course, offhand French sauciness is one thing, and if that isn't your bag (for gawd's sake why wouldn't it be??) then you might be tempted by the ablum's other strong suit: the full-on dancefloor rump-shaker.

A Cause Des Garçons is a major case in point, a barnstorming chunk of electro that had me scurrying to check who the frick was rocking it so damn hard - I actually suspected it was a cut I'd missed off an electro-house compilation.

It might be shallow to fall for the precociously sophisticated sexiness of Yelle's delivery - for all I know she could be singing about a trip to the supermarket - but on the other hand, this is utterly ace, so it'd be odd to second-guess what effect the language gap might be having here...

Incomprehensible or no, this is packed with catchy tunes: the dark, horn-led skanking funk of Dans Ta Vraie Vie; the jittery, pulsing, anthemic Mal Poli; the gentle melancholy of Tristesse/Joie. Tres recommended.

4 garçons out of 5:

Buy it from Mr Jobs.

Jamie Lidell @ Paradiso, Amsterdam

2008-05-06T18:48:00.007+02:00

Jamie Lidell gig tonight. Excited? You bet your sweet hiny. The man's a bleedin' genius, and that's a word I don't use lightly*.

* Not true. But in this instance I like rilly rilly mean it.

***UPDATE***
Crikey but that was the best gig I've seen in ages! The soul-funk workouts, like a sunshiny Another Day (where they rocked the crowd without moving out of first gear, waaay nonchalant) or a slick Philly soul Green Light, were brilliant.

Such a tight band - there were a couple of tracks (e.g. Where D'You Go?) that started out dangerously close to a cheesy kind of heritage soul (think Blues Brothers but rawer and obnoviously cooler, but it's a surprisingly handy reference) STILL managed to build into rockin' lil' numbers, especially when the saxophonist switched over to some strange vocoder set-up that mangled his & Lidell's voice into something soultronically beautiful. Those two facing off in a scat-style battle, trading vocal licks, yelps and squeals was enough to send the Dutch crowd into something approaching a frenzy (by their traditionally more subdued standards).

The real highlight, though, was a 3- or 4-song run where the band departed and Lidell moved over to a bank of samplers, laptops, and assorted gizmos, laying down club beats and beatboxing, bass vocals, weird shards of backing vox, cut-up loops, and atop it all his gloriously vocoder-mangled soul roar.

HE PLAYS NEAR YOU, YOU GO SEE HIM. SERIOUSLY.

***
Between the überfrickin'-feelgood soul classics, the freaky funk jams, and this kind of looperrific insanity, it ~~will be~~ WAS A-WE-SO-ME:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkuiWgPzQwg

Here's another lil' bit o' feel good for ya:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T--j0_yxBaY

Yay!

The Changes - Today Is Tonight (Kitchenware, 2007)

2008-05-06T08:17:00.000+02:00

Hmm. Knowing that these Chicagoans made it onto the 2005 Lollapolooza line-up without a record deal, I was expecting something more than this kinda insipid, indie schmindie dream-pop.

Mebbe that's harsh. On the first few listens this just swam right by, and giving it another chance to make an impression I'm willing to go as far as "pleasant" and "occasionally engaging". It's sweet stuff, and they're certainly trying for a lush sound, though all that space and evenness makes the production a little insubstantial.

House of Style is one of the stronger tracks, though the lyric is maddeningly repetitetitetitetitetitive. When I Wake has pace, at least, and odd keyboards tinkling. Twilight is straight out of the Tahiti 80/Phoenix songbook. Better, if a little meandering, is the more complex and semi-rocky Her, You & I.

But it's the fey, guy-next-door vocals that I can't abide. If you're aiming for ramshackle charm, then get a properly crapulent vocalist, like Stuart Belle & Sebastian - because those are larynxes you can love. But this mid-strength, mid-paced, technically acceptable type of voice irks. Irks me, anyways.

2 flags of Chicago out of 5:

They sell it at iTunes.

Camille - Music Hole (Virgin, 2008)

2008-05-05T07:12:00.008+02:00

Who ate all the happy? I did! New Jamie Lidell AND new Camille in quick succession! Ambassador, you are spoiling us with these Ferrero Rocher, et peter cetera.

Like the music of Mr Lidell, this is seriously life-affirming stuff. Aside from occasional vocal duties with Nouvelle Vague, y'see, Camille also releases devastatingly brilliant ablums of unique pop under her own name. Chanson, R'n'B, classical, and Björk-like levels of abstraction combine into something otherworldly but familiar. Björk is a good touchpoint, for Camille's use of vocals-as-instrument and also in the sheer jaw-dropping range of her voice.

Music Hole is her first English-language effort but unlike Carla Bruni, whose switch to Anglais only weakened her appeal (well that and her marriage to the collosally unsympathetic Sarkozy), Camille has managed to preserve most of what made her previous release, 2005's Le Fil so gorramn brilliant.

This is packed with genius moments - Kfir, the giddy Canards Sauvages, the hilarious, rollicking chanson Cats and Dogs. But Money Note is summink else: a tumble of vocal hooks, beatboxing and percussion, a little fuzz bass, and a brilliant lyric that revolves around the fact that Camille is going to sing the money note of the title. In the R'n'B pastiche middle eight, she sings:
       I-I-I wanted to take it higher
       ... I just want to beat Mariah
And you know what? She *does* beat Ms Carey, unleashing a spine-tinglingly high dog-whistle towards the end of the track. As her bassy backing singer observes:
       She reached the F sharp 7,
       To take us all to heaven!

This is positively brrrilliant stuff, experimental but totally accessible pop with a brain. Loveitloveitloveit!

5 baguettes out of 5:

Buy it at iTunes/the Amazon.

Then go back and buy Le Fil.

And if you're buying from iTunes, make sure to buy the iTunes Plus mp3s (higher bitrate/no DRM).

Pigeon Horse Sex Tennis

2008-05-04T15:41:00.001+02:00

Pigeon Horse Sex Tennis have completed their hush-hush warm-up gigs, and are now taking their unique brand of pithy songsmithery to a wider, less "lesbian only" audience.

Having witnessed the havock wreaked by Mr Chant's power of song, in hotels, bars and trains throughout the Netherlands and Germany, this is momentous news.

Here's the Site & check oot the Video. I oughta find out more live dates too...

Humphrey Lyttleton (23 May 1921 - 25 April 2008)

2008-04-26T11:59:00.007+02:00

Farewell to "jazz machine" and unfailingly hilarious host of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The octegenarian genius will be sorely missed.

Humph:
"As we journey through life, discarding baggage along the way, we should keep an iron grip, to the very end, on the capacity for silliness. It preserves the soul from dessication."

Vid: Cat plays theremin

2008-04-24T21:56:00.001+02:00

Now touring as a backing musician for Björk.

Vid: Boris Christoff - Song of the Volga Boatmen (BBC, 1959)

2008-04-23T21:05:00.001+02:00

This Bulgarian bass had a set of lungs on him:

Russian folk song collected by Mily Balakirev (January 2, 1837 – May 29, 1910).

Portishead - Third (Go! Discs, 2008)

2008-04-21T09:00:00.002+02:00

Portishead: it's been a long time, you shouldn't have left us without a dope beat to nod to. But "leave us without a dope beat to nod to" they did.

It didn't take long for the debut Dummy to become a classic, loved by all from Top Shop assistants to crate diggers to music critics of every stripe. (The coffee table ubiquity of that rekkid belies how astoundingly unique and influential it was.) In the band's subsequent flight from accessibility you sense what a millstone they felt that success was to them.

Their eponymous sophomore set was a harsher offering than its lush predecessor, though their basic sound had not drastically changed. Third is another matter.

Geoff Barrow's production has never been starker. Sumptuous strings have given up their place to rickety vintage analogue synths, beats are stripped-down to staccato bursts and tribalistic pulses, the orchestral fullness of their earlier releases largely replaced by a dark & intense minimalism. The constant is of course Beth Gibbons' vocals, overwrought but always haunting, each line sounding like it was pried from her heart with a crowbar.

It seems reasonable that it would take so long for such a considered and genuine reorientation in their sound. And Third delivers enough moments to make that wait seem worthwhile, in the thundering juggernaut We Carry On; the churning, motorik, bleakly beautiful Machine Gun; the prowling Threads.

The devil's in the details, so they say, and it's true that much of the appeal of Third can be found in moments such as that halfway through The Rip, when gentle acoustic plucking slowly crossfades into granite-brittle drums and atmospheric aging synths, or in elements like the drugged-helicopter blade synths of Plastic.

This isn't a straightforward listen (it's a million miles from the easy, plush gorgeousness of Dummy), but it is a rewarding one. They spent 8 years getting ready for their third ablum - the least you can do is give it 50 minutes alone with your ears.

***UPDATE: download Noise Floor Crew's remixes of 4 of the tracks here***

4 well-spent hiatuses out of 5:

Buy it from Portishead's own shop or the iTunes.

Genres in the mp3 era

2008-04-20T21:00:00.002+02:00

If you ask me (which you didn't but gimme a break, it's early in the post), the continued preponderance of hushed singer-songwriters seems a product of the mp3 era.

The advent of FM radio, with its superior clarity and frequency range, gave rise to a generation of freewheeling rock and melodic chamber-pop acts: The Eagles, The Cars, Supertramp, ELO, to name but three (plus another one). Similarly, the arrival of the digitally pristine Compact Disc format gave us Dire Straits; which suggests Satan himself must have had a hoof in the invention of the CD.

But mp3 is a step back in terms of audio fidelity, the dynamic compression and limiting of frequencies is all too evident. I'd argue that accounts at least in part for the continued popularity of acoustic-led, country/folk stylee singer-songwriters...

... but also for hip-hop, which often has a dense sound, the use of samples and lack of live instrumentation contributing to a lack of dynamics anyways. And again, the digital nature of the medium, especially in combination with the iPod-lead resurgence in listening on headphones, lends itself particularly well to glitchy electronica. Though the abilities of laptops and the accelerated improvement in music software must obnoviously also have played a hand in the rise of the glitch.

Well, it seems plausible anyways. Whaddaya think?

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War (Motown, 2008)

2008-04-19T19:35:00.000+02:00

Erykah's back, with a thrilling set of ambitious, righteous R'n'B. This is her most political and socially conscious release to date, a worthy descendant of What's Going On or Curtis Mayfield's There's No Place Like America Today; the deep-fried funk and jazzier, freeform elements on the ablum only reinforce that impression.

Part One (Part Two coming soon) opens with the hustling groove and blistering polemic of Amerykahn Promise, and throughout there are commentaries on crime, drug addiction, the failures of US social policy - even a paean to the power of hip-hop (The Healer) is framed in political terms: "it's bigger than religion... bigger than the government."

The sorely-missed producer J Dilla is recognised in The Healer, and is the subject of the languid and peaceful elegy, The Telephone. His influence can be heard at various points in the record, notably in the punchy rhythm rolling behind Master Teacher - before it switches halfway through into a breezy, jazzy vamp. And that's typical of the stylistic diversity and experimentation on New Amerykah, encompassing deep funk, 80's R'n'B, smooth balladry, shards of free jazz, and urgent, bustling workouts.

It's been 8 years since Badu's last full ablum, and she admits of 2003's stopgap EP Worldwide Connected that she had nothing much to say. So full marks for delaying her third ablum until she really did have something to share with the world. She's rewarded us for our patience. Ace!

4 Americas out of 5:

But it from the man: iTunes.

Jamie Lidell - Jim (Warp, 2008)

2008-04-18T08:16:00.000+02:00

Jamie Lidell is the soultronica pioneer who gave us 2005's jaw-dropping Multiply, where fecked-up glitchy digita-mentalism bedded down with out 'n out soul revival. That he's based in Berlin explains perfectly how he had the kind of free 'n fertile environment in which he could've developed such an idiosyncratic form.

This set takes us further down the RnB path, and further from this kind of phenomenal abstraction. And after the success of Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse (in which the Dap-Kings have not yet received their due props), there's potential for this ablum to be huge.

Lidell's stunning soul croon flips from yearning pleas to wicked yelps, from loverman caresses to irrepressible playfulness. He's anchored throughout by itchingly funky rhythms and chicken-scratch guitar grooves filched from the heyday of Stax.

This isn't a straight, loving recreation a la Sharon Jones. The frantic bustle of Hurricane is propelled by scuzzy fuzz-bass. Figured Me Out blends disco synths with dirty funk drums, pop-soul pianos, and treated vocals. And throughout there are glimpses of studio trickery, as with the reverb sweeps and reversals on Out of My System.

Don't underestimate how good this record will make you feel. The man himself claims to be a morning person, and the face-splittingly happy Another Day is testament to that. In many ways it's easier to be pull off sad/angry/depressed in a song than it is to convey true joy, and few people have got this fizzingly joyous since the heyday of little Stevie Wonder - check the first few minutes of this diary update/ablum preview:

For the moment my highlight is the colossally funky Little Bit of Feel Good, all tight groove and stylish horns, boasting a tune so insidious it could be an evil Jedi. But it's a moot point, the ablum is stuffed with moments of unbridled musical genius, and the whole thing - with achingly sweet slow ballads, uptempo workouts, and exuberant anthems - is balanced as well as a samurai sword.

Obnoviously it's 5 geniuses out of 5:

You'd better buy it, or I'm telling your mum: get the single+remixes from Bleep, or pre-order at the Amazon.

Dawn Landes - Fireproof (Cooking Vinyl, 2007)

2008-04-17T12:54:00.009+02:00

Dawn Landes, former sound engineer, member of lullaby-country act Hem, and general musician-about-town serves up a modest corker of an ablum with this here Fireproof.

Throughout Landes flirts with the not too disparate styles of indie rock, folk, and country. The likes of Bodyguard and Private Little Hell find a combination of resolve and vulnerability that should be familiar to fans of Throwing Muses.

Elsewhere there are shades of Beth Orton, the songs of Josh Rouse, or a more polished Shannon Wright - but these are never more than accents, Landes always sounds utterly herself.

You've got to love an album packed with highlights, lacking in filler. Dig Me a Hole alternates a simplistic sing-song verse with a chorus drenched in heartbreak harmonies. There's the delicate and lovely hidden cover of Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, or the so-warm-it-almost-glows Kids in a Play.

There's an intimacy and immediacy to the recording, and especially in Landes' honeyed tones - it's often as if these lines were being breathed into your ear. Instruments are given room to breathe in a space that sounds nearly live.

While there's nothing groundbreaking here, her studio background contributes to arrangements that are varied and always interesting, without ever getting in the way of the tip-top songwriting.

I love the quirky lo-fi shuffle of Picture Show, the antiquated Optigan synthesizer that crops up throughout, and the subtle strangeness of the arrangement on country standard I Don't Need No Man. I could do without Toy Piano's titular instrumentation, but in the context of so ace an ablum, one duff accompaniment doesn't count as much of a flaw.

A highly recommended 4 fireproof helmets out of 5:

Buy it from iTunes.

Darwin's manuscripts online

2008-04-16T11:52:00.001+02:00

"This turtle meat is rather delicious, throw another fin on the fire!"

But seriously, notes for possibly the most important book ever written are now viewable here.

She & Him - Volume One (Merge, 2008)

2008-04-13T16:21:00.006+02:00

Now this is pleasant stuff. OK, so I don't know from M. Ward. Is he any good? Of course, it's indieflick pin-up Zooey Deschanel that drew my ears to this. She's purdy.

Her voice has the kind of stage-ready richness and control that makes it fit for music with a certain retro vibe. She & Him's combination of easy 60's pop with countryish touches is therefore perfect for her pipes. There have been frequent references in the blogosphere to the likes of Neko Case and Jenny Lewis, and while the comparison is surely valid her tone is a little thinner than those alt.country heavyweights, though just as sweet.

Yesterday I moaned about The Raveonettes not taking their mix of garage rock and 50's pop anywhere new, and while this is at least as retro it is only their first long player. The candy-coated I Was Made For You rilly could have been lifted straight from some forgotten early 60's masterpiece... but for M. Ward's pristine, modern and lush production. In fact throughout the sound is so rich it's almost edible. A subtle inventiveness in the arrangements (trumpet impressions, for example) adds an occasional hint of spice.

This Is Not a Test and Sweet Darlin' (co-written with Jason Schwartzmann) are near-classics, and throughout Deschanel's songwriting more than vindicates this project. OK, so covers of You Really Got a Hold On Me and I Should Have Known Better are kinda unnecessary, but are treated sympathetically enough to not interfere with the smooth progress of this ace debut set.

4 actress-slash-singers out of 5:

Get it from the Amazon.

The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust (Fierce Panda, 2008)

2008-04-12T11:52:00.005+02:00

Hmm, looking at the ultra-handy Discogs it seems the Raveonettes have been kicking about in recorded form since 2003, so dunno why I was convinced they'd be churning out this 50's pop-slash-garage rock since the late 90's. Anyhoo, here's Lust Lust Lust, their 3rd full length and a return to their harsher treble-kickin' ways after the more polished Pretty in Black. Distortion, dark lyrics, and Phil Spector-ish song structures are the name of the game.

You Want the Candy boasts the ablum's most infectious tune. Dead Sound does the lullaby/loud thing well enough. And I quite liked the menacing, grindhouse come-ons of Aly, Walk With Me and Lust, until noticing that the latter recycles a key guitar hook from the former, only two tracks previously. That's the real problem with this style, it just seems so limiting.

Songs are indistinguishable from each other except in terms of tempo, and few of them are memorable. Having always had more time for the lower end of the sonic spectrum, this harsh, trebly-to-the-max production, with muted percussion and submerged, murky vocals, is just tiring. A good dirge (Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, TV On The Radio) can be thrilling, but this ain't it.

To be honest the Jesus and Mary Chain never did it for me either, and there's no denying these Raveonettes are heavily indebted to the Reid brothers. In fact the main improvement they seem to have to the template is to have a hawt female singer instead of doubling up on the craggy frontmen.

Oh, and the disc comes in pointlessly 3D artwork, as if that's reason to buy the CD instead of a download.

2 Danishes out of 5:

Buy it?

Borges - El sueño

2008-04-11T19:00:00.001+02:00

Cuando los relojes de la media noche prodiguen
Un tiempo generoso,
Iré más lejos que los bogavantes de Ulises
A la región del sueño, inaccessible
A la memoria humana.
De esa región inmersa rescato restos
Que no acabo de comprender:
Hierbas de sencilla botánica,
Animales algo diversos,
Diálogos con los muertos,
Rostros que realmente son máscaras,
Palabras de lenguajes muy antiguos
Y a veces un horror incomparable
Al que nos puede dar el día.
Seré todos o nadie. Seré el otro
Que sin saberlo soy, el que ha mirado
Ese otro sueño, mi vigilia. La juzga,
Resignado y sonriente.

-----

Recurrence of that familiar Borgesian theme: I shall be everyone or no-one. Also aired in this digression on the nature of dreams are his regular tropes of classicism, ancient language, conversations with the dead, identity (face-as-mask), the other self, even taxonomy of a sort. So this for me is quintessential Borges. Or more appropriately, it's the epitome of "a" Borges.

MGMT - Oracular Spectacular (Columbia, 2007)

2008-04-10T09:08:00.006+02:00

When your best song outstrips its closest rivals by leagues, don't stick it at the start of the album - obvnovious innit?

But MGMT ignored this and put their towering pop-psychedelia anthem Time to Pretend at the start of Oracular Spectacular. It's a world-beating track, with its insidious hook and rolling bass keys, powerhouse drumming, and of course that manifesto-for-stardom lyric - guaranteed to win over 90% of passionate music fans.

Opening so strongly just renders the rest of the ablum somewhat samey, all these midtempo tunes swathed in psychedelic analogue synths and guitar curlicues. Aside from a brief acoustic intermission in Pieces of What, each track chugs along in a similar tempo and mood as its predecessor. The heavy debt they owe to 70's psychedelia starts to feel limiting, though at least they constrain the sound to palatable pop lengths.

Not that the sound itself is a bad thing: Dave Fridmann's (Mercury Rev, Flaming Lips) production is one of the strongest elements of the set. Bass chugs mightily, drums are compressed to a crispy deliciousness, keyboards swirl hypnotically in their own rarified atmosphere. The tight dynamics and swathes of altered-states reverb give the whole an instantly classic feel.

Seeing them live a few weeks back it seemed they might have failed to translate the vibrancy and invention of their studio incarnation to the stage - but hearing the rest of the ablum it seems there's another issue, that the songs aren't quite there yet. However the lissom discoid groove of Electric Feel provides another highlight, as do the Bowie-ish childhood nostalgia-fest Weekend Wars and the poignant chorus/coda of The Youth.

A promising-if-flawed 3 managers out of 5:

iTunes / Amazon

Vid: Kylie "Sensitized" v Renegade Soundwave "Renegade Soundwave"

2008-04-09T21:04:00.003+02:00

What's Kylie doing sampling the man Serge Gainsbourg? (It's from the Bardot duet Bonnie & Clyde.)

Not that this sample hasn't been done to death. But IMHO, Renegade Soundwave made best use of it back in '94:

DeVotchKa - A Mad & Faithful Telling (Anti-, 2008)

2008-04-08T19:48:00.003+02:00

More accordion- and fiddle-fuelled heartbreak from a gyspy-rock act that was kicking out the Bohemian jams when Beirut's Zach Condon was still at school.

This is a less somber offering than their last full length, How It Ends, though Nick Urata's careworn croon still tugs mightily at the heart. It's a record packed with disparate moods, often careening from raucous to maudlin in the space of a verse, with Mariachi elements as integral to the eclectic stew as the Balkan bits.

Looking forward to seeing them at Melkweg this Saturday - a double bill gig-slash-screening of Little Miss Sunshine, whose soundtrack boasted a heap o'good DeVotchKa tunes.

A rambunctious then sweetly sad 4 Devos out of 5:

Heartily recommended: why not buy it?

Does It Offend You, Yeah? @ Paradiso, Amsterdam

2008-04-06T12:33:00.006+02:00

Yeah, so they're modish as feck but I still haven't stopped playing DIOYY's debut. Pitchfork and the like have come over all sneery about their sound, but that chunky-punky-dance rock thing does it for me. I've been a fan of brash, stomping beats ever since them Chemical Brothers' Chemical Beats (NB: if you can find the Dave Clarke remix, it's MONOLITHICALLY ACE). Plus DIOYY's way with a pop tune (eg: Dawn of the Dead) shouldn't be ignored.

Anyways, we're also trying to set up the band for a quick shoot with photography/film-making/fashion collective, and regular Vice contributors, Amsterdam Club Kids:

Should be interesting.

We Are Scientists - Brain Thrust Mastery (Virgin, 2008)

2008-04-05T16:35:00.004+02:00

Hang on, how did this get into the "Alternative" pile? Is it the nerdy name? The wacky press shots? I dunno, I just figured there would be a bit more experimentation to their sound than this Route 1 (indie)poprock.

After the shameless pillaging of Staring at the Sun for the arrangement of opener Ghouls, it's all very predictable. Verses are choppy, choruses wannabe-anthemic. There are several mid-paced singalongs, a token slow track, then it's back to Derivative Hell.

For example, Lethal Enforcer wallows in a deep bath of 80's influences, all chiming synths, popping bass and scratch guitar. It owes more than a little to the Cure and pre-messianic U2. Nonetheless it strikes me as one of the better tunes on the ablum, possibly because of that nostalgia hit - it certainly sent me running back to Wide Awake in America's The Three Sunrises and the magnificent Love Comes Tumbling.

Elsewhere "influences", i.e. templates, are more current. For all the hookiness mustered by Let's See It, there's no escaping the fact it's a shoddy Kaiser Chiefs retread (that's saying something). Chick Lit's New Rave-lite affectations look no further back than the Klaxons.

An inconsequential 2 scientists out of 5:

Which English verb doesn't take to in the infinitive?

2008-04-04T22:25:00.005+02:00

Which English verb doesn't take to in the infinitive? (As in, "to run".)

It's a pretty basic one, shouldn't take long to find.

It's can.

But WHY isn't it "to can"? The verb isn't "to be-able". Are there any others?

Friggin' mystery.

Burial - Burial (Hyperdub, 2006); Untrue (2007)

2008-04-04T14:00:00.005+02:00

Now the days are longer, and spring is attempting to spring, Burial is slipping down the Most Played list...

As ya may well know, Burial is the enigmatic producer behind two albums of top-notch dubstep, and the acres of blogerage and critical acclaim he's received has made him a figurehead of the scene.

The fading UK garage scene spawned the darker dubstep sub-genre a coupla years back. The two-step beat evolved into a hybrid of garage and drum'n'bass, and dub-step powered it with the deepest of basslines and twisted vocals. The style also uses the sense of space and abstraction familiar to lovers of (you guessed it) dub.

By the time of Burial's eponymous debut LP he'd put the genre on the map, distilling the style into an eerie, beautiful abstraction, shards of twisted vocals and ruff MCing swimming against rivers of bass, and his elegant and surprising, ever-mutating rhythms.

"Untrue" distilled the essence still further. Vocal samples are mere snatches of phrases, flickering like neon lights; decaying synths burning in the darkness of all that bass and space; melodies drift like whisps of smoke hanging in the air.

But because this music is so suited to the grime and melancholy of winter city life, to rain smearing the window pane and public transport chugging through the early morning streets*... does this mean Burial won't get another listen till October?

Buylinks for Bleep.com: "Burial", "Untrue".

-----
* Other artists that fit this bill perfectly are Underworld and Elbow, whose "Leaders of the Free World" soundtracked many a late, cold commute for me.

Copyright is dead, part 1. (Well pining for the fjords, at least.)

2008-04-04T09:00:00.006+02:00

So Enid Blyton's Famous Five are set for a revival. Their first adventure? Foiling a pirate DVD operation. Something to which all kids can relate. "Won't somebody please think of the poor film studio!"

It's funny, 'cause there was also an episode of Disney's "Lilo & Stitch" where the heroine falls in with an evil crowd of internet downloaders until she realises it's destroying society.

Disney love their copyrights. They pushed for an extension to the copyright term which means they (a corporation) enjoy a longer term of copyright than an individual. This was after they produced the Jungle Book, a property they adapted for free… immediately after the Kipling estate's copyright expired.

But as it is we're stuck with an entertainment industry that believes in putting copyright warnings at the start of shop-bought DVDs. I hear that those warnings are never seen on hooky DVDs or on AVIs ripped from DVDs. Pointless, much?

In an amusing reversal, it seems Sony/BMG is being investigated for software piracy.

The problem we have is that information - and the main concern of this post is entertainment information - used to have certain costs involved in its transmission. But those costs have dwindled to a tiny fraction of their pre-internet days, and the copyright laws were framed by Western Europe in a bygone era in which reproduction of intellectual property was actually incredibly expensive. The prescient Rufus Pollock has argued that the optimum lifetime for copyright would now be 14-15 years. While this might strike Joe Consumer and even Barnaby Who-Has-To-Deal-With-Copyight-Owners-Every-Day as an extremely sensible position, The Mouse would probably disagree.

No content owner has put forward a convincing argument for why they ought to make the same amount of money when their costs have dropped so far. And since many feel that the premium the record industry put on CDs was disproportionate from the get-go, the prevailing opinion seems to informed by a kind of karmic schadenfreude.

Of course this drive to share information easily, and in ever more ingenious ways, is in part driven by the tech companies, who are simply making a landgrab for territory previously occupied by Intellectual Property owners. But it's undeniable that we've undergone a massive cultural shift in the last few years.

People seem to be quite fond of sharing music, or streaming TV shows online, or sharing burnt DVDs. Copyright holders can complain and threaten and petition all they like, but the question is perhaps more phenomenological than moral. If the majority of people chose to drive on the left while the law specified they should drive on the right, would it make more sense to:
     a) change the law
     b) try to modify everyone's behaviour
     c) punish the majority?

It seems absolutely right that artists should be paid for their work. But it's got a lot harder to justify the extensive rights of the middle man.

...Laters: working with this antiquated system...

Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Real Emotional Trash (Matador, 2008)

2008-04-03T21:03:00.002+02:00

A deep 'n' abiding love of Pavement has surprisingly not resulted in any attempts to check oot Mr Malkmus' solo work. Why, i dunno, 'cause this is as ace as your common-or-garden Pavement fan might reasonably expect.

Freewheeling angular jams are the name of the game here. The Jicks make a tight backing band - though they always play it loose - and Malkmus has room to plays off & around their casual grooves with his hazy vocals and instantly recognisable, warm 'n' scuzzy guitar lines. His band of Portland, OR., scenesters recently came to include Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, and her presence gives these sprawling indie concotions some real muscle.

Long, dynamic-if-repetitive excursions like the rollercoaster title track are interspersed with shorter cuts like the sunshiney Gardenia, which could easily have slipped between the cracks of a late Pavement ablum. Or Out of Reaches, which has flashes of the lurching poignancy of Grounded from "Wowee Zowee".

If the longer tracks make it feel like focus is being lost, they also account for much of the rekkid's charm. The folky Baltimore provides one of the ablum's stronger melodies. And Hopscotch Willie even brings to mind the hoary rock of The Doors without making me want to gouge my own eardrums out, which is an achievement.

Of course without any knowledge of his former band it's *possible* that Malkmus' ever-straining voice and surreal lyrical non-sequiturs might deter a first-time listener, but as always there's warmth and an oblique right-ness to his songwriting. Well worth a spin.

Four trashes out of 5:

Buylink: iTunes, innit.

The Ruby Suns - Sea Lion (Memphis Industries, 2008)

2008-04-02T20:30:00.010+02:00

Here comes another vibrant, uplifting, enveloping set of sampledelic wall of sound maximalism, a la Panda Bear or more recently El Guincho.

The Ruby Suns have proved themselves maybe *10%* more eclectic than even those artists. Sea Lion is bursting at the seams with disparate sounds. Gentle acoustic strumming, vibraphones, Maori chants, sheet-metal dub sonics, ukeleles and more have been crammed into the musical suitcase of lead Sun, kiwi Ryan McPhun.

Highlights include the cascading chorus of Ole Rinka, the Viva Voce-like There Are Birds, the joyous and carefree pairing of Tane Mahuta and Oh, Mojave. (The *title* highlight thought, is undoubtedly the unimprovable It's Mwangi in Front of Me...)

As befits an act with such a debt to the Beach Boys, there's a relentless, sunshiney positivity running through every song here, with nothing weighing in at less than "uplifting". Recommended.

4 rubies out of 5 (rubies):

Go buy it already at: iTunes.

Calvin Harris @ Melkweg, Amsterdam

2008-04-01T19:28:00.005+02:00

Seeing the poptastic dancemaster Calvin Harris at Melkweg tonight.

I know some are suspicious of his speedy ascent to fame (in the UK anyways), his knack for a chart-friendly tune, and the production gigs with Kylie. Maybe I'd agree if I'd heard the ablum played to death in every shop I went into, but the lad's just not so big over here. As it is, bring on the Merrymaking.

Postgigscript: some of the more lackluster, less ace moments from the album (Certified, Disco Heat) benefitted hugely from the live reinterpretation, though for the real stormers it felt a little like "5 guys on stage" rather than creating something more than the sum of their parts - the arrangements a little thin, perhaps. Overall, good though.

Lykke Li - Youth Novels (LL Recordings, 2008)

2008-03-31T21:36:00.004+02:00

What is it about the Swedes and their ace leftfield indiepop acts? Jenny Wilson, I'm From Barcelona, Those Dancing Days, Peter Björn & John, El Perro Del Mar, Robyn & more have all been bording my smörgås over the past couple of years. But even in this elevated company, Lykke Li is a cut above. (Here's how to pronounce 'Lykke' courtesy of a helpful nun.)

A sensuous, emotive, delicious slice of adult pop, "Youth Novels" also has the exceptional songwriting and original arrangements of, say, Jenny Wilson's "Love and Youth". Let It Fall sets its "happy to be sad" lyric against an infectiously simple rhythm (it's all about the woodblock) and an irresistibly bubbly bassline. Dance Dance Dance starts pared down to the simplest of guitar lines and kitchen-sink percussion before LL is joined by woozy fiddle and a cheery, 50's-sounding choir. On Complaint Department, timpani roils behind buzzing synths, doomy piano and her kittenishly Kittin-ish vox.

There's not a moment of filler here. The peak seems to come with the genius trio of Let It Fall, My, and the heart-massagingly glorious love song Little Bit. But my personal favourite has to be the distorted, dramatic, chant-fuelled Breaking It Up, a smouldering juggernaut of a song.

Buy it at Amazon: Amazon.

You'd better believe it's 5 smörgåsbords out of 5:

Vid: Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

2008-03-28T10:26:00.005+01:00

Caught these guys in Paradiso's back room a while back - here's "The Beat That My Heart Skipped":

Dan's beats'n'bleeps are pretty decent, and while Scroobius' flow isn't the nimblest - you can tell he's a poet first, vocalist second - it's refreshing to hear his stream-of-raised-consciousness rants come tumbling out in an Essex wideboy accent.

As the man says, thou shalt not question Stephen Fry ("Thou Shalt Always Kill"):

School of Language - Sea from Shore (Memphis Industries, 2008)

2008-03-25T21:22:00.009+01:00

Been meaning to write about Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks, when I started listening to this little gem of an ablum. School of Language is a side project of Field Music's David Brewis. Not having got round yet to listening to Field Music, this is gonna send me scurrying off to buy some. Sharpish!

This was recorded mostly solo (barring the occasional input from members of The Futureheads), and Brewis' laptop studio approach has resulted in a deliciously compressed blend of guitar fuzz, tramping drum kit and intimate (doubletracked) vocals - not to mention the hypnotic vocal samples that run throughout the quartet of tracks titled "Rockist" bookending the ablum, and that flicker hypnotically throughout, submerged in the mix.

XTC has been mentioned as a touchpoint, and it really is reminiscent of a whole swathe of post-punk pop acts, and sheer vocal similarity keeps Eric Matthews forefront in my mind. But Sea from Shore is too characterful for formulaic reduction. This is art.pop/rock at its best, Brewis' gloriously nimble tunes burrowing under your skin while the idiosyncracies of production & arrangement keep your head fascinated. An album of the year, fer shore.

4 language guides out of 5:

Buy it, yeah?

Patrick Watson @ Paradiso, Amsterdam

2008-03-20T11:11:00.003+01:00

Seeing Canada's Patrick Watson at Paradiso tonight. His agile falsetto and candelit rock arrangements inevitably invite comparisons with Jeff Buckley.

Thought the album was admirable, though for some reason I've only gone infrequently back to it. Pitchfork wasn't too complementary. But his voice and the musicianship suggest this could be one worth catching live.

Also Voicst are supporting, an interesting Dutch alt.rock act (who sing in English) that I missed last time around.

Thought experiment

2008-03-18T07:56:00.000+01:00

Say the human race wakes up tomorrow with no memory, no history, no records, no culture, no language.

In time we would once again discover that the area of a square can be calculated by multiplying width x height, though the names for width, height, and square would inevitably be quite different.

Someone would invent the wheel. We would probably come to realise that it's best to plant tulips in late summer or autumn. And eventually it would become clear that biological qualities are inherited via DNA.

But no-one would pray to any of the gods that the major religions currently claim exist. The edicts on what foodstuffs are acceptable, when public holidays should be, and how exactly one should pray, would also be utterly different.

The only truths we have are deducible through observation and the application of reason; not through the (supposed) ancient testimony of a (comparitively) poorly-educated, (quite possibly) half-starved, and (surely) intoxicated hermit or holy man.

Tegan and Sara - The Con (Sire, 2007)

2008-03-15T10:06:00.004+01:00

Melodic, lovelorn powerpop from gay Canadian identical twins Tegan and Sara Quin.

There's an FM-friendly, 80's aesthetic at work here - check the drivetime guitar fuzz and strident chorus of the title track - which makes their celebrated side-mullets (or "flophawks") the most leftfield thing about them.

The likes of Knife Going In and Dark Come Soon bring a darker, angular, more interesting counterpoint; but there's a mid-set lull around Back in Your Head and Hop a Plane, two cuts that wouldn't frighten a Roxette fan.

In truth I prefer a little more of a twist to alternative pop, and a lot of their tuneage is pretty Route 1, the arrangements and production kinda vanilla.

A decent but uninspired 3 flophawks out of 5:

Angus & Julia Stone - A Book Like This (Capitol, 2007)

2008-03-14T15:43:00.006+01:00

Debut album from Australian siblings, discovered by Travis's Fran Healy... which tell us a lot. It checks many tastefully rootsy boxes (intricate acoustic fingerpicking, check; cellos, check), but while the songwriting is fairly polished it also lacks originality.

The whole set treads a damn fine line between 'sweet & affecting' and 'twee & affected'. If brother Angus's voice has a warm vulnerability, his sister's is a childlike and ultimately irksome thing.

Lyrical conceits are honed to sharpness, then tested beyond breaking point - as in Wasted, which flogs a love = intoxication metaphor to within an inch of its life:
     And there's all these funny little men,
     They're all asking me to dance and sing.

Particularly revolting is Hollywood, which points to the unreality of movies through extended reference to the works of, well, mostly Disney:
     They all would have been killed in the Sound of Music,
     They would have found out that Pinnochio could never tell the truth.
What next, a song warning the adults of the world that Santa Claus is, like, made up?

On the plus side, when they calm down lyrically, the tunes are free to be mellow and engaging, as on opener The Beast, Stranger, or Here We Go Again - which is one of the few Julia-led tracks that doesn't tip over into nauseating cutesyness.

Alright, pleasant enough, forgettable.
A so-so 2.5 books out of 5:

Hot Chip @ Paradiso, Amsterdam

2008-03-13T17:27:00.002+01:00

Seeing Hot Chip at Paradiso tonight.

Thought 2006's "The Warning" was just alright, quirky enough to be interesting but not a great deal more. But "Made in the Dark" is another, groovier matter entirely. Still shambolic, but without the sterility that put me off the preceding ablum, the latest set is a truly kick-ass affair.

L Ward saw them in Sydney in the not too distant ago and sez they rocked. Can't wait to hear the likes of Shake a Fist and Out at the Pictures on the frugfloor.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - 100 Days, 100 Nights (Daptone, 2007)

2008-03-08T12:23:00.003+01:00

Past masters of the deep funk-soul revival, Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings return with another flawless retro R&B set.

100 Days... is a more soulful affair than 2005's more dancefloor-friendly Naturally. Here, bluesy ballads and slower numbers predominate: the yearning, smouldering torch-song title track; the imploring, stately Humble Me; or rousing closer Answer Me.

As always, the production and musicianship are flawless - this record could easily be a forgotten gem from the heydays of Stax or Motown. But this isn't some shallow pastiche; rather it's a labour of love, an immaculate cri de coeur, a polished yet passionate statement.

Note to self: must catch 'em live, missed it the last time they played in A'dam...

4 Stax finger clicks out of 5:

Batfinks - Towards the Pipet (LOaF, 2007)

2008-03-07T20:37:00.004+01:00

Quirky, utterly nutterly English electronica from Mancunian synth-botherer and cohort of Jim Noir.

The excellent Peppercorn trundles by in a daydream of lazy guitar figures and distorted vox, then segues randomly into some effed-up waltz time electro fuzz. Futt delves into a word off out-takey scraps and smears of noise before a busy little marimba starts chiming merrily and aimlessly in the margins, and a whirlwind d'n'b rhythm hustles up out of nothing; then takes a few unsignposted left turns into a bustling, jaunty coda.

The whole thing is gloriously unpredictable, amusing & charming, like Penguin Cafe Orchestra with a bucket full of glitches and ADD.

A decent 3 Batfinks out of 5:

Buy it from LOaF: for a better, barmier Britain.

MGMT @ Paradiso, Amsterdam

2008-03-06T10:05:00.007+01:00

Off to see the much-hyped MGMT (pronounced: Management) at Paradiso tonight.

On the evidence of "Time to Pretend" this is gonna be ace:
I'm feeling rough, I'm feeling raw, I'm in the prime of my life
Let's make some music, make some money, find some models for wives...

POSTSCRIPT: So they put on a decent show, their mini-prog workouts were dynamic enough... but it was a bit Route 1, hardly the thrilling synth-propelled noisefest I was hoping for. The genius they captured in the studio hasn't yet translated to the live incarnation, if they can sort that out then the big stages await.

Laura Marling - Alas, I Cannot Swim (Virgin, 2008)

2008-03-05T17:46:00.005+01:00

The UK's latest Bright Young Thing has strummed up a pretty decent debut ablum, following a well-received EP and appearance on Later… with Jools Holland last year.

This is a deeply folky set, with Marling's unabashedly English way, and shades of Joni Mitchell (Shine) and Sandy Denny (Night Terror, Dora, Your Only Doll). But is there any need for the birdsong and rainfall SFX? We got it already.

The dark opener Ghosts is a fine statement of intent, and one of the best cuts here, though the first half of the album has most of the more obvious offerings – Cross Your Fingers sounds like the attempt at a breakout single, Failsure is anonymous, and I swear I've heard the melody from Tap at My Window somewhere else before (answers on a postcard to the usual address please).

Later on we get the Phil Spector-in-Arran-sweater pop-folk Crawled Out of the Sea; the mournful swell of My Manic and I; and the sinuously brooding Night Terror, which opens with the delicious line, "I woke up and he was screaming…"

At just 18, the polish in Marling's songwriting is impressive, though that knowledge makes some lines seem awf'lly precocious - "Honey I was never gonna change"? But more often she reveals an excellently dark sensibility:
Well I sold my soul to Jesus and since then I've had no fun…
Or the repeated line in My Manic and I, "morning is mocking me".

This is a solid start for the youngster from Reading, and we have to hope all that promise doesn't get squandered by her record company (the story about being refused entry to her own gig in Soho, then performing on the street, just reeks of PR stunt).

Four fiddle-dees out-dee of five:

Buy it DRM-free at 7digital.

El Guincho - Alegranza! (Discoteca Oceano, 2008)

2008-02-27T16:07:00.009+01:00

Recalling the sampledelic frenzy of Panda Bear, Go! Team, or Avalanches, this is a kaleidoscopic clusterfukc of styles and influences.

Tropocalia, rock'n'roll, afrobeat, dub, doo-wop and more mingle with Spanish chants and pop hooks to form something utterly, dazzlingly joyous.

Repetition is the name of game. Loops build and build against each other, until what started as a intricately layered wall of sound has grown into a frenetic, euphoric maelstrom. Standouts include the preppy, peppy clamour of opener "Palmitos Park", the tribal stomp of "Antillas", and the hypnotic build of "Kalise".

It's almost a shame this came out now, because it ought to be the soundtrack to summer. If you can listen to this without bopping along like an idiot child or a cult member, you don't deserve ears.

5 canaries out of 5:

Amazon pre-order.

Flight of the Conchords

2008-02-26T20:58:00.003+01:00

"Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo", FOTC was the best music documentary series of '07, and they're due to return to HBO this year.

Why the band just can't get a gig is a mystery, because the songs in the series are freakin' incredible... particularly the soul numbers: the pitch-perfect Prince parody "Most Beautiful Girl in the Room"; "Business Time" and its Love Unlimited groove; or the troubled-conscience inner city Marvin Gaye-a-like "Think About It":
     Counting coins on the counter of a 7-11
     From a quarter past six to a quarter past seven
     The manager, Bevan, starts to abuse me
     Hey man! I just want some muesli

But their powers of pastiche run much deeper. The sublime "Foux Da Fa Fa" uncorks a fruity pop-bossa nova. Shaggy (remember him?) would've surely have given his left boom-boom for a cut as righteously funky as "She's So Hot... Boom!" And "Bowie's in Space" is an impossibly accurate homage to, well, David Bowie obnoviously.

One hopes they'll flesh out such intriguing sketches as "Brett You Got It Goin' On", in which a devoted Jemaine attempts to provide a fillip for Brett's damaged self-image:
     Sure you're weedy,
     And kinda shy,
     But some girlie out there must be needy
     For a weedy shy guy...
I won't spoil where it goes from here, but we can all understand how artists as gifted as this would have trouble containing the love they feel for their bandmate.

But can this band raise themselves above their impeccably eclectic influences? The emotional power and phenomenal melodiage of truly original cuts like "Cheer Up Murray" or "Frodo, Don't Wear the Ring" (which deals with their New Zealander heritage) certainly suggests so. And it will take the rest of the music-making world a looooong time to equal the charm of the simple love song "If You're Into It" (video below).

5 Kiwis out of 5, as if that needed to be said:

The Mars Volta - The Bedlam in Goliath (Universal, 2008)

2008-02-25T19:54:00.009+01:00

Utterly bonkers, maximilist prog-rock from Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez Lopez. Unique, dramatic, and baffling in equal parts, the album opens in a blaze of sturm und drang riffnology, and they keep their feet on the (wah-wah) pedal all the way to the closing punky wig-out.

They're to be applauded for their religious devotion to technical proficiency, and their singular ambition to fit more notes than ever before into the grooves on a compact disc. Yeah, it's metaphysical, baby. That and very, very loud.

Rodriguez and John Frusciante's guitars shred and sear lava-like over an avalanche of drums. Bixler wails like a banshee with PMT, and makes just as much sense - this is a concept ablum about an Israeli Ouija board; probably best to gloss over that. And the studio-as-instrument even gets a look-in, contributing the occasional dash of mixing desk fuckery to the maelstrom of noise... or is that actually the sound of the production imploding under the strain of its own phenomenal density?

Their live show is supposedly incendiary, etc., and given that Lopez is based in Amsterdam, mebbe there'll be a good opportunity to verify that. As far as this disc goes, it's definitely not one for casual listeners, though there is a compelling mania in all this high-velocity noodling.

Why not try: "Aberinkula", "Ilyena", "Goliath".

3 quasihemidemisemiquavers out of 5:

Buy it if you dare at iTunes.

Those Dancing Days - Those Dancing Days EP (Wichita, 2007)

2008-02-24T12:32:00.013+01:00

It seems like every other week there's another cute Swedish pop act to fall in love with, and definitely not bucking that trend is Stockholm's Those Dancing Days.

The vocal lines duck and weave with a Northern Soul feel that counterpoints the band's garage pop stomp - their bouncy girl group rifferama is infectious enough, but it's singer Linnea Jonsson's insouciant, almost-sultry vocals that make this irresistible.

There is room for improvement in occasional duff lyrics like "you're crispy like a Cheese Doodle". In fact, many of the lines come off unoriginal and simplistic on paper (let's cut them some slack for barely being out of high school):
High on life, in love with me,
Dancing through the night, dancing through the day
But context is everything - when you wed those words to a chorus as utterly joyous as the one in the title track, it's impossible to find fault. Compulsory listening: "Hitten" and "Those Dancing Days".

4 supercool bubble perms out of 5:

Buy it or buy it, there is no not buy it.

Vids for "Those Dancing Days" & "Hitten":

ALO - Roses & Clover (Brushfire, 2007)

2008-02-22T09:27:00.004+01:00

Supposedly ALO is an acronym for "Animal Liberation Orchestra", but I fail to see where extremist animal activist politics connect with feelgood jam-band strummery.

Honestly, is one Jack Johnson not enough for the world? In fact, what's the point of Johnson releasing them on his own Brushfire imprint, does he run the label as a homage to his own brand of dumb, timid acoustirock? Did somebody order an extra round of insipid?

If you like inoffensive, polite, goodtimey rock, then please listen to this so I don't have to.

1 anti-vivisectionist out of a possible 5:

Boy Kill Boy - Stars and the Sea (Vertigo, 2008)

2008-02-22T08:28:00.006+01:00

Sophomore effort from the walking haircuts of Leytonstone.

Their debut "Civilian" was elevated above the indie commonplace thanks to a healthy dollop of drama in their tunes and a breakneck guitar rush. If you liked its Editors-go-pop formula,
the lack of variety wasn't such a problem, but can they pull it off again?

"Promises" kicks of with a choppy Clash-lite riff
and another swooping singalong vocal, singer Chris Peck's warm nasal delivery sounding like no-one so much as Simon Le Bon. Then it's back to the blueprint, with "No Conversation" and "Be Somebody" almost indistinguishable from half of the tracks on their last album.

This is a slightly poppier, less adrenalized set than the predecessor, with a higher ratio of meandering midtempo melodies to pedal-to-the-floor rockers and more in the way of keyboard textures swirling in the background. That's a dangerous tactic when your strongest suit is coursing anthemry... no-one wants another Hard-Fi on our hands, after all. "A OK" and "Kidda Kidda" are the worst offenders, desperately enervating and inconsequential.

There's a fraction more variety here, in the closing waltz of "Two Souls", the woozy swagger of "Loud and Clear", and the darkly angular "Rosie's On Fire". But overall this is a frustrating case of one step forward, one step back.

3 Vince Noirs out of 5:

Out 31st March... pre-order here with Amazon.

Dark Captain, Light Captain - Jealous Enemies/Mid-Session Interval (2008, LOaF)

2008-02-21T09:35:00.004+01:00

Delovely 2-tracker from DCLC: two pastoral, finger-picked, richly-harmonized affairs that are reminiscent of Tunng, State River Widening, & c., but from a straight-up rock verse-chorus songwriting type-perspective. While the lyrics are standard issue vague 'n' melancholy, there's something disarming and appealing in them being delivered in an unpretentious East London accent.

Buy from LoAF Recordings / iTunes.

4 Captains out of 5:

Just don't call 'em folk: Drowned in Sound interview.

Watch the videograph:

Does It Offend You, Yeah? - You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into... (Virgin, 2008)

2008-02-18T22:46:00.005+01:00

Mebbe I'm just a sucker for a big fat midtempo tech-disco style break, but this is great. It's punky, it's funky, it's retro, it's futuristic: yes it's another Daft Punk-influenced rock-dance act.

The reference points are all too bleedin' obvious - in fact half of these tracks could be slipped in as bonus dealies on other discs and not get picked out of a line-up. There are flashes of Klaxons, LCD Soundsystem, even Phoenix and Sweden's most funtastic The Sounds in the poppier numbers, and of course there's plenty that'll slip seamlessly in amongst the "indie boys do dance" of MSTRKRFT, Simian Mobile Disco et al...

That's not to suggest this isn't like y'know GOOD. Because it's an immediate hit of sugary tunes and tasty, crunchy beats. In fact, this is shorely going to be an iPod staple for the rest of the year: not just for you, but your friends, and their friends' friends, and those people's slight acquaintances... you get the idea. (I'm already wondering whether to pencil in a week in May to be Officially Offended by Does It Offend You, Yeah?)

BUT! AGAIN this is not meant to suggest that the ablum's anything other than ace (until May at least). "Battle Royale", "Weird Science", and especially "With a Heavy Heart (I Regret to Inform You)" are dancefloor sizzlers, all dirty fuzz, nerve-tingling acid squeals and thumping beats. "Let's Make Out" shows the depth of their desire to be LCD Soundsystem... and brings in DFA1979's Sebastian Grainger on vocal yelps. These dancefloor stormers come off sparky and joyous through their real band approach, where yer Digitalisms can wear me down with the airlessness of their productions.

It's a rare and groovy thing to a dance-rock album where the slower numbers don't drag and the bangers don't disturb the mood. While plenty of the good stuff here bears comparison with Justice in particular, the 'real songs' are equally compelling. "Dawn of the Dead" is the most desperately infectious cut here, an 80's anthem so pitch-perfect it really shoulda been written by Alphaville. Seriously, they could use the chorus as a methadone replacement.

5 Battles Royale out of 5:

Buy it/pre-order it here. (Release date: 17th March '08.)

Audiovisual presentation of "Let's Make Out":

Kid Twist - A Bionic Yell EP (LOaF, 2007)

2008-02-16T14:07:00.004+01:00

Proper ace, another fine release from the dependably innerestin' LoAF label.

Kid Twist (no relation to the psychopathic gangsters of the same name) serves up a 5-dish EP of deliciously melodic electro. "Canada Day" has the clean chug & bounce of prime Orbital. "Calculator" and "Voices & Light" are marshmellowy downtempo offerings. "Ah Oo Ee You You" does, despite an aimless opening, build into something more compellingly sinister.

But the first track "I Can't Dance", somehow never going where you expect it, is an unassuming classic. Kid's David Byrne-ish vocals strut around a simple, irresistible break. Electric piano and seabreeze moogs work mesmerising curls around one another. This is an immaculate production, each pristine element chiming away in its own space. It manages to be breezy, melancholy, and deeply funky all at once.

4 kids out of 5:

Buy the EP here, here or here.

The Shoreditch DJ also operates as Drums of Death: mp3s of DoD tracks to download here...

Girls Aloud - Tangled Up (Polydor, 2008)

2008-02-07T19:59:00.003+01:00

It's a FACT! universally acknowledged, by the Brits anyways, that Girls Aloud are the most surprisingly ace group ever to have been put together on a reality show. Of course, every man and his blog are in on the act now, not forgetting yer Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinands all queueing up to pay homage. Opinions differ regarding their chronic fake tan abuse, the woeful dancing, and the girls' respective hotnesses. But all are united in adulation of Xenomania's tune-stuffed, genre-splicing, whip-smart productions for the group. Higgins, Cooper, Cowling et al were given the run of the farm, producing whole albums rather than a track here, a track there, and it paid off in spades. (It tends to fall down when Xenomania aren't writing, and are tasked with crafting another turgid cover for the Girls, but let's assume that those are simply heinous management decisions.)

Their career trajectory to date was pretty special. Their debut was a brash burst of brilliance, the sophomore platter giddy with pop possibilities, and "Chemistry" was a minor pop masterpiece. But the Greatest Hits - replete with painful covers, redundant alternate versions of the classics, and worryingly sub-par originals - suggested ver Aloud might be nearing the end of the road.

Yet here we are, with "Tangled Up". From the cover art alone it appears this is a more mature GA. (I mean, it's pretty cheap and dull, typography on purple; no glossy photography or bared shoulders or matching dresses or nuthin'.) Inside, it's... well, more of the same.

I believe good pop should be this way: an initial phosphorous-bright burst of brilliance, followed by a swift decay into irrelevance and obscurity. You should fight for the right to describe one Sugababes single as genius, only to recoil in horror from the next. And that's how I felt about this album, on the first, second, third listens.

Where previous offerings matched the best tunes to the most inventive productions, "Tangled Up" reverses the trend. "Call the Shots" might have a hook as insidious as capitalism, but it also labours under one of their limpest, most sterile arrangements. "Sexy! No No No..." is worse, its thumping beats wasted on a go-nowhere melody - and don't get me started on that godawful title.

OK, I'd be lying if I pretended none of the other albums sported a little filler here and there, but TU has way too much. As the album runs on, things pick up. "Can't Speak French" ain't bad for the quirky mid-paced offering; "Black Jacks" starts in an unusually unresolved mode, and kicks into an anthemic stomp; then there's the fun skank and d&b of "Control of the Knife" and "What You Crying For".

But overall, I can't shake the disappointment that they've even reached their 4th studio album. Wasn't it meant to dissolve into tabloid acrimoniousness before now? Why hasn't Nadine gone solo yet? (She's the one with the voice & the looks, though admittedly lacking in personality.) Above all, GA albums are no longer surprising in their quality, inventiveness and breadth - and this can get as tedious as anything else. It's more of the same, and I can't believe it's cause for complaint.

3 Nadines out of 5:

Tricky!

2008-01-29T14:21:00.000+01:00