Lonely Galaxy

I'm currently meant to be doing English coursework but I was so excited about this I couldn't move on in good conscience before getting this out of my system and sharing this with you!

I discovered a music news and reviews site that was new to me yesterday- The Line of Best Fit. Whilst getting to know the site I discovered that they have a "Sessions" section with performances from artists they cover. The first session I came across was from the act I'm blogging about- Lonely Galaxy. I leapt over to his (it's a one man band, comprised of 21 year old Harry Granger Howell) MySpace page and was blown away. That phrase is used to death in reference to discovering new artists but really. I was gobsmacked.

Lonely Galaxy creates truly beautiful music. It's like listening to Sigur Ros on their album () when they were really getting the hang of creating startling, icy yet warm-like-a-hug soundscapes. It's the sound of pure sentiment and emotion being poured into whatever sounds this guy can get his hands on, and it all comes together in this majestic tidal wave of music that just builds and builds beautifully like some overwhelming emotion swelling in your chest until it gulps up your lungs and heart and shines out of your ribs. The recordings are recorded pretty lo-fi but that just adds to the real, quivering emotion evident all over the tracks. The lyrics are pretty simple and if removed from the music and Harry Granger Howell's voice they would sound a bit vacuous and maybe cheesy- "I want to feel alive", "I've been feeling pretty low" etc. but it's achingly honest. This is music you really have to surrender yourself to, and it will lift you up and carry you away. My favourites at the moment are "Time" and "Nutts".

I don't have links to any mp3s, but I've ordered his debut EP already (I think it's only out on vinyl though) released by Transparent Records who are fast becoming one of my favourite labels. Below is a link to his MySpace and the home made video for "Time". Enjoy, and let these gorgeous sounds slip inside and around you.


MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lonelygalaxy

Lonely Galaxy - "Time" from Jamie Harley on Vimeo.

Warpaint

If you follow me on Twitter or have spoken to me in the last few months asking about what I'm listening to then you won't have escaped without hearing me mention Warpaint. These four girls (Emily Kokal, Theresa Wayman, Stela Mozgawa and Jenny Lee Lindberg) have had me under their spell ever since I read about them in the NME's cover of the SXSW Festival in Texas earlier this year. I got hold of their EP Exquisite Corpse back in June and devoured it. It was dark, brooding, sexy, mysterious, full of creeping, echoey guitar that sounded like The Cure if the line-up were to consists of four alarmingly attractive ladies. They've been hyped up left, right and centre, especially by the NME. They released their debut album The Fool on Monday 25th October and I got hold of it yesterday.


Wow.



Just wow. This album is an experience. It's a terrifyingly dark yet beautiful world that pulls you in an envelopes you in seductive, sultry female harmony, supported by smooth and sleek guitar lines, deep, thumping bass and sparklingly varied and textured drums. If you've listened to albums like The Cure's Disintegration then you'll have an idea of the kind of thing I'm talking about. Dark and terrifying yet warm and welcoming- almost like being in the womb.

Aside form the music, there's a lot to like about Warpaint. First of all, they're fine looking girls. Second, this album is the result of a long gestation period, which has resulted in a mature band whose chemistry is palpable across interview and photos as well as the music. Also, they're just so wonderfully feminine, but in a way no other female artists are pulling off. There are a lot of female popstars who are trying to create a distant, ice maiden feel about themselves, putting their feminine mystique on neutral (Robyn, Florence + The Machine). Then there are those highly in touch with their femininity and all that comes with it, who choose to either prance and flaunt it wonderfully (Marina and the Diamonds) or sit back and beguilingly contemplate it (Laura Marling). This all contrasts wonderfully to vacuous, shallow, diabolical pop stars like Katy Perry and Cheryl Cole who misrepresent women and musicians on every possible level. The point I want to make though is that, from what I can see, Warpaint's music doesn't make a conscious effort to distance itself from their feminine charms, but nor does it actively flaunt it. It's music though that is just undeniably female- breathy, sultry, seductive, exuding this idea of "come to bed eyes". It's captivating.

All of that is exemplified, musically and lyrically in the delicious single "Undertow" from their album, available for free download below via a link from Gorilla vs Bear:

http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2010/09/14/mp3-warpaint-undertow/

Please, please support these girls and buy their album, it's a stunning listen. Expect great things.

Girls- "Heartbreaker"

I never really got Girls the first time round (oh how true that rings in other areas of my life). Not the fairer sex, but the California based indie rock band. I think it's because I was initially off put for some reason by the very twee, very hairy video for their single "Lust for Life". Pitchfork went mad over them and put their debut Album in their Top 10 Albums of 2009. I think album and band names that made them impossible to Google put me off as well. But after hearing new song "Heartbreaker" I feel like a total, TOTAL idiot. This song is just brilliant, a classic indie pop number that is impossible not to fall in love with. The vocals are so wonderfully and endearingly understated that your heart melts. All of the musical elements wash together into a beautiful, warm embrace of a song that just so easy to slide into and effortlessly enjoy. The bassline lifts you up and bounces you along through the whole dream pop experience. It shimmers with liek something from Belle and Sebastian or a much happier Morrisey. It's form forthcoming EP Broken Dream Clubs, which I will now be eagerly looking forward to! I've gone back and listened to stuff from their first album and am already regretting not doing so sooner.

Link below to download "Heartbreaker" from smashing indie blog Gorilla vs Bear:

http://www.gorillavsbear.net/2010/10/25/mp3-girls-heartbreaker/

The Tallest Man on Earth

I stumbled across The Tallest Man on Earth a few months ago. The man in question is not Sultan Kosen, the 8ft 1 Turkish gentleman you can find in the Guinness Book of Records, but a Swedish folk musician called Kristian Matsson. I have fallen in love with everything that I've heard from this guy. All of his music is just his voice and a guitar but he does unspeakable amounts with that combo. His voice is so rusty and particular, something I love in a vocalist; and it's probably aided by his Swedish accent. His guitar parts aren't all gentle, pensive pickings either- they're often hard and raw, or swift and deft. They occassionally have this huge, captivating air that is less "yeehaw, ho-down!" and more indie rock singalong (watch "King of Spain", below). The comparisons to Bob Dylan are obvious, but there's a lot more to this guy than just being "the next Dylan". His sound is possibly the most unique and heartfelt thing I've heard all year. His lyrics are personal and impressive for someone who uses English as a second language. There may occasionally be big, vague words and phrases like "golden highway", but Matsson infuses them with an honesty and frankness that you'd be an idiot to argue with. It would also be foolish to peg him as just another also-ran in the recent folk revival, somewhere behind Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons, Noah and the Whale et al (but their rise to fame may pave the way for an artists who deserves a much wider audience)His first EP came out in 2006, a good year or two before the aforementioned British acts released any material. He's 27 and carries an honest world weariness that I think is only matched by Laura Marling in folk music right now.

Below is a link to download the track "Like The Wheel" from his recent EP Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird. I highly recommend his album from earlier this year, The Wild Hunt.

Like The Wheel: http://stereogum.com/498601/the-tallest-man-on-earth-like-th-wheel/mp3s/



Credit to Stereogum and Pitchfork for the link and video respectively.

Life, Love and Music

I've been thinking about life recently. There's been a lot going on for me recently. I'm in my last year of school I turned eighteen a few weeks ago. I passed my driving test last week. I'm pretty much finished with university applications. My girlfriend and I passed the two and a half year mark in our relationship.

My mind has wandered to and fro, past and present yadda yadda yadda and I've thought more and more about what I want to do with my live in terms of career and work, where I'd like to live and all that adult jazz. My life is totally in God's hands and I don't know a thing abbout what the next ten second or ten years hold. but my heart is moving more and more between wanting to be a music journalist or critic, and I've been swirling all sorts of pipe dreams like starting a huge website like Pitchfork or DrownedInSound or a magazine or fanzine or even a record label one day. The time, resources and know-how are all lacking sadly at the moment, but I do however have this blog!

So, as of now and after this post, I'm going to try and share new bands and music and songs that I've discovered and got from all over the internet and word of mouth and wherever. I'll probably share my favourite oldies with you as well. I'll still post regular blog posts on whatever takes my fancy. We shall see where we're taken! I just really love the idea of sharing music I love, putting it out there and finding like minded people who agree with me and are made happy by something I've suggested to them. I don't want to ramble on in one of those mission statements that I'm incredibly earnest about but no one else really gives a toss about. It's all about good music at the end of the day right? So. Onwards!

Thoughts on John Lennon

You may or may not have seen in the media that last week marked what would have been John Lennon's 70th Birthday. Unless you are a total, utter monk then you'll know that John Lennon was of course one of The Beatles; the best selling group of all time, and undoubtedly the most influential. After revolutionising the way music worked, The Beatles broke up in 1970 and Lennon moved on to a rather successful solo career, working closely alongside his wife Yoko Ono.

There's a lot to be said about John Lennon. He's got one of the most recognisable visages in popular culture. He's a figure who's divisive, compelling mysterious and at times unapproachable. It's impossible to have a full picture of how modern music got to where it is without including Lennon. Modern music wouldn't even exist at all in the way it does without John Lennon. That is fact, inarguable as far as I am concerned. And the more I've learned about Lennon and The Beatles, the more my thoughts on the two have matured and developed, and there are a few key observations I've made.

First, his time in The Beatles. The Beatles are, without doubt, the greatest musical act in history. Whether you like them is irrelevant. No other group has been more influential in all areas of the music business than the Fab Four. You can cite the longevity and legacy of classical musicians like Beethoven, Mahler, Mozart, Rachmaninov etc as long as you want. Their influence is undoubtedly phenomenal, but none of them produced a worldwide hysteria that revolutionised (that word is bandied about so much in relation to musical acts, but this is one of the few times where it really is worthy of use!) the whole musical world over night. The Beatles, led by Lennon, marked the point in history where people started taking pop and rock music seriously. Sure you had huge selling acts like Elvis and Sinatra around beforehand (and Sinatra made some pretty big steps for the advancement of pop music) but they didn't have the effect that The Beatles did. When they released Rubber Soul in 1965, it was really the first time that a pop act had released an album that had some kind of overall unity. It was the sound of band who were in control of their sound and were striking out into new frontiers- new instruments, new lyrical ideas, the mixing of genres to create some stunning new pop-music hybrid. People were taken aback, but in love with this new kind of pop music. Pop music that had integrity, that was well thought out and clearly about the music, rather than just profit and mass appeal. With Lennon at the helm, The Beatles really made the concept of "being in a band" something more than four guys who wanted to play a few tunes. Lennon breathed heart and soul into pop music through his time in The Beatles.

So, that all sounds wonderful. And it is. Pretty much no music we know today would exist without the work of The Beatles. But the fairytale didn't have a happy ending. The Beatles split in 1970 in less than friendly circumstances. Lennon flew off to America with Yoko Ono never to return and began his solo career. Lots of people praise Lennon's solo work, but for me the last 10 years of his life, before he was gunned down in 1980, are deeply saddening to think about.

All of the qualities that Lennon exhibited in his youth and throughout his Beatles career seemed to grow and grow into some kind of gross caricature until he imploded. His dry wit, quick observations and progressive attitude toward music all resulted in a man who, in all interview footage I have ever seen, was a profoundly unlikable man. He claimed not to care what anyone else thought of him, singing in his song "God"- "I just believe in me, Yoko and me". When in real life people claim to not care about what others think, we call them selfish gits. When they do it in the realm of art, they're called visionaries. There shouldn't be a distinction. In the aforementioned song, Lennon listed over a dozen things and people that he denounced- Jesus, Hitler, Elvis, The Beatles- and ended saying that he only believed in himself and Yoko. How can that be a good thing? It is a tragedy that a man would denounce all his friends, family and work and try to live solely off of his own back, wrapped up in himself and his wife. There's nothing romantic about that. If someone you know did that to you, how would you feel? Whether they cared about it or did it in the name of love or art wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

I'm sure you're familiar with Lennon's most famous song "Imagine". It's consistently rated as one of the greatest songs of all time. But for me, it's a tragic song that is devoid of any kind of hope. It opens with:

Imagine there's no Heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today

That can sound, on the surface, can sound inspiring and philosophical. But imagine a world with none of those things. No heaven, no hell, no spiritual side to life, no God, means a dark, dark world. No hell means no kind of retribution or punishment for atrocities and wars that break the hearts the whole human race. No heaven means that this brief life is all that there is, and that that nothing within it can have any real significance or beauty. Even if someone like Lennon were to say "well you have to create meaning", that means nothing either. If you say something has meaning, that doesn't mean it does. It just means that words have left your mouth.

John Lennon was a stunningly talented, visionary, captivating individual. But the route his life took was really a tragic, lonely, embittered one. He gave the world modern music. He was a revolutionary. But also painfully human. Tragically vulnerable. To me, his life testifies to the fact that you cannot live your life based on any kind of earthly philosophy, yourself or even the person you are in love with. It will all fade away in the end.