Radiohead, 'The King of Limbs' - A Token Blog Response

You've got to love it when a bit of genuine, totally exhilarating and unexpected excitement sweeps across the internet. In an age where even the spread of a viral video is something that's no longer remarkable, and where new music releases lose any and all mystique through months of leaks and grainy YouTube videos pulling a fast one on the internet is a challenge to say the least. But, in true envelope-pusher style, Radiohead pulled it off this morning.

At 9am, it was announced via Radiohead's official website that their eighth studio album, entitled The Kings of Limbs, is soon going to be available. Wikipedia's going to have one hell of a time trying to pin down when the actual release date is however. Here's why:

- A downloadable mp3 or .wav version of the album is available through pre-order from this Saturday, the 19th of February. £6 for the mp3 version, £9 for the .wav version.
- The album is also available as a "Newspaper Album". If you're wondering what the hell that means, so is everyone else. It means that for £30 or £33 (due to your preference of either mp3 or .wav format) you can get the download, a CD, two clear 10" vinyl records, many large pieces of art work, 625 smaller pieces of artwork and a full colour piece of oxo-degradable plastic to hold it all together!
- It's available on standard commerical CD release from March 28th.

So they've spread themselves nicely across the next few months. After releasing their last album, the brilliant In Rainbows, under a "pay what you like" system, Radiohead had made it clear when they announced they had a new batch of songs ready that they had "begun to wonder about how to release them in a digital landscape that has changed again".

I'm guessing that if you're reading my blog you're probably already familiar with Radiohead to some extent, and most likely familiar with the details of release already. So I've just got a few thoughts to share about the nature of this release:


1. It's putting real value into the music
I've mentioned time and time again recently that music is so horrendously devalued in our culture. You can see it in the fact that pathetic and vacuous little scroungers like Bruno Mars somehow manage to dominate the charts and sell millions of records and win awards, simply by spreading their self-respect's metaphorical bum cheeks in front of a financially lecherous and predatory record label that's looking to pour malleable, liquidised flesh into a Chris Brown shaped mould and press it into a walking, warbling mess of musical spam within the shadowy bowels of their iron clad headquarters. You can also see it in the WE WANT IT NOW attitude to downloading music, where piracy is on the rise and physical music sales plummet whilst digital sales stall. It's so hard to be really excited by music and to really want to cherish it.

This model of release, however, shows Radiohead trying to get people to do that. They've given mere days warning prior to the album's release which has made genuine, underwear soiling excitement erupt shamelessly across the board. And the idea of the "Newspaper Album" is brilliant. The exact origin of the name is perhaps horrendously unclear, but that's besides the point. They're making a point that their music is something that they want to be special and collectible. They want it to be something that rewards their loyalest fans and gives them more than your average, more infrequent listener. And they've done it in a fresh, creative and brilliant way. And it's not like they're making it into a high end product, and definitely not as if they're turning it into an extortionate gimmick. They're straddling both the "digital landscape" they themselves had identified, as well as the physical plain of musical releases, valued highly by serious music lovers. It's a stand against the throwaway nature of a lot of music in the 21st century.

2. However, it's easy for them
Brilliant as this model is, and as strong a stand as it may be, it's easy for Radiohead to do. Not necessarily easy in a creative sense(though I get the impression that Jonny Greenwood has a small army of gnome slaves in his brain, whipped into building and rebuilding large, shiny musical pyramids inside his unsettlingly prolific brain) but easy in a financial sense. They're 8 albums into their career, clearly well off enough to be acting without a label and could probably live comfortably off of royalties if they wanted. I'm not saying "they prostituted themselves to the music industry and now they're turning round and criticising it". I'm pointing out that they made their money in the industry when it functioned a heck of a lot differently, and didn't suffer so much from the problems I've mentioned. When it became clear that the industry was going ethically south they decided to take a very valid stance against it, but they were only able to do so financially because they'd already made their money. New bands, or less successful bands, couldn't really echo this model of release. Please be aware though, I am far from calling them hypocrites or questioning their integrity.

3. The music press are going to snipe at them whatever happens
Even just from the few opinion based blogs and articles I've read about this today, it's clear that the musical press which keeps on purporting the value of innovation in the release of new music and spitting venom about the shallow and extortionate music industry, is the same musical press that's willing to take a pointless and defamatory stab at bands like Radiohead who are striving to preserve the value of music. They do it partly because of the overly sceptical and distrustful age in which we live but probably mostly because they want to get cheap laughs and lots of comments from their readers. It's pathetic really; and Radiohead, like any band with something special about them I guess, are going to attract a good number of embittered, small minded critics.

4. But could it change the industry?
Like I've said above, small bands and bands trying to break into the music industry can't possibly use the same model of release as Radiohead. At current they often have to simply dance to the record labels' tunes or, even if they're on a fantastic independent label with a lot of integrity, deal with the harsh realities of the world. So will this model of release directly change anything? I'm not so sure. But indirectly it could. It could set a precedent for other big indie acts to follow, and I think that it's with them that the future lies. If Radiohead started a label and began recruiting new, emerging artists then you'd have a label run by bosses with a clear passion and vision for putting out releases which give value to the music. They'd also be bosses with the money and, perhaps more importantly, the industry influence to make it happen. And if half a dozen other big, creative and honourable indie acts followed, we would be rolling in it folks.

So there you have it folks. A few thoughts from me on what is surely one of the biggest musical events of 2011, and (maybe, just maybe) of the early 21st century. Who knows. What I do know is that I'm bloody excited.

Here's a video of them performing for the awesome sessions website From The Basement. More of the same please boys:

The Strokes - "Under Cover of Darkness"

Last night folks. Last night was it. One of the most important musical nights of the year. Perhaps of the last 5 years. No, it wasn't Marcus Mumford revealing he's now so rustic that his waistcoat has fused to his back and built a small stone cottage populated by Leprechauns smoking cork pipes. No. It was the premier of the first new material from The Strokes since 2006. I, like a lot of music fans across the UK, was hunched expectantly by my radio at 7:30, listening reverently to the mighty Zane Lowe and diverting my attention from the England match. Even though I'm not really old enough to have experienced The Strokes the first time, having become a fan since then and an advocate of them as the most important band of the 21st century, I was more than a tad excited.

The weight of expectation was massive. The relative disappointments of their second and third albums still hadn't shaken off the sublime quality of Is This It?, and deep down I, and I imagine everyone else, was desperately WANTING this new song to be brilliant. So much.

And as far as I'm concerned, it is.

"Under Cover of Darkness" is a flipping fantastic song. The opening riff is so bouncy, sunny and carefree; I fell in love with it instantly. Albert Hammond Jr's guitars have for too long been absent. It's immediately obvious that The Strokes aren't trying to abandon their classic sound, and it would be criminal for them to do so. The opening guitar parts are so recognisably Strokes-y, they're the perfect homecoming announcement. Julian's vocals sound a bit different than before, even from his 2009 solo album Phrazes for the Young; but it's still got the shambolic, slapdash, almost drunken drawl that we all fell in love with. He sings a chorus which is just sensational. Really. I've listened to it time and time again since yesterday thinking "is this chorus really as good as I think it is?" Yes. Yes it is. It might seem at a cursory listen that there's not really that much to it. But it's brilliantly understated. It's so melodic, so singalongable (yes, that is a word)I can just imagine Julian and Albert singing into the same mike with this, John-and-Paul style. I immediately started thinking about singing it in a massive sunny field with thousands of other people. So I better get a chance to see them this year...

I love this track. It's exactly what I wanted from The Strokes. How it will be received commercially and critically remains to be seen. Immediate fan reaction is pretty mixed. The face of guitar may have changed a lot since 2006, as I mention in a previous post about The Strokes. And I've been wondering if they've left it too long, as if they're part of a by gone age. But when the tunes are as brilliant as this, all my worries melt away.

So more of the same please boys. I want a mammoth indie rock band a bit more playful than Arcade Fire to be ruling the roost this year.

Click here to go to their website and download the track for free. Download ends tomorrow evening.

Porcelain Raft - Have a Heart (Lonely Galaxy Cover)

Back at the end of October I wrote a post introducing Lonely Galaxy - an artist whom I'd come across on the delightful music website The Line of Best Fit.



He crafts massive, icy yet intimate soundscapes of swirling guitar sounds and raw vocals that pack overwhelming, emotional cacophony like the secret love child of Sigur Ros. Since that first post he's released a second, beautiful EP entitled EP2 (I know right). I hope he gets an album off the ground this year and I'd love to see him live.

The other day I was checking up the blog from the brilliant Transparent Records, and saw that label favourite Porcelain Raft had recorded a cover of Lonely Galaxy's "Have a Heart", the heartbreaking yet uplifting tale of a spurned lover from Lonely Galaxy's EP1 (Porcelain Raft recently teamed up with other label mates Yuck for a joint 7" release where the each band covered one of the other's songs. Sounds like the kind of guy you want at a karaoke party my friends...)



Porcelain Raft's cover really is a lovely variation on the original. Not as immediately guitar based as Lonely Galaxy's version, it fills with swirling and beeping electronic twiddles, huge upward waves of noise like gales, swirling around the slightly nasal, Sigur Ros-esque vocals of Mauro Remiddi (the real name of Porcelain Raft). The dynamics shift several times, drawing back then flooding in again, stronger and more powerful than before, like deep breaths; and the whole thing is underlined by a drum beat that literally sounds just like a heartbeat.

Be on the look out for both Porcelain Raft and Lonely Galaxy this year if you're a fan of swirling, beautiful, slightly dissonant noise.

Click here to go to the Transparent Blog page and download Porcelain Raft's cover of "Have a Heart" (right click the track name and click "Save Link/Target as")

Hourglass Sea - Epic Electronica!

Whilst aimlessly roaming the blogosphere, close to one in the morning (as I often do), I was fairly pleased with my evening's music exploration, and was considering turning the lights off and heading off to beddy-byes, when I remembered it had been a while since I checked out Tympanogram, one of my favourite blogs listed on the right of this page. The festive period is pretty dry when it comes to new releases (although a few beauties got thrown up, but maybe more on that some other time) and I had been spending a lot of time checking out other blogs/sites and somehow overlooked Tympanogram.

Sifting through the plethora of New Year's "Introducing..." posts these guys have done, I came across a post on Hourglass Sea. My intentions to shut down and go to sleep where quickly curtailed.

Hourglass Sea (stage name of Bradford based Dean Bentley) is some of the best electronica I've unearthed online in AGES. He has two tracks available for free download over at Tympanogram and they are both awesome.

"Teenagers" is a massive, intense, blistering blitzkrieg of glitzy beats, expertly stolen video game sounds and drum sounds that (if they're not computerized) would make a drummer's hand bleed buckets. This is how I like my electronica. It veers in several directions, with half a dozen things going on at once, creating an insane, overloaded, epileptic fit of a track. It's quite reminiscent of Crystal Castles first album, but breaks into it's own totally unique 8-bit strain. A spasmodic, glitchy synth and drum opening slaps you around your little face before the track dives into murky depths of dubstep bass drones, which are then layered with soaring Ananamaguchi style twiddles, glitches and distorted vocals, which remind me of those arcade games where you'd be controlling a fighter jet, shooting along at like a billion miles an hour, blowing the crap out someone. I think it was normally the Japanese. Like this:



"LA Lights" isn't as blisteringly furious as teenagers, but it's still a huge intense affair. It starts off with soulful synth chords and a bouncy, echoey riff, and then more and more sounds come in, starting with cascading drum rattles. It favours towering walls of bassy synths that wobble with elephantine dubstep swagger, which is layered with video game glitches and pings (I'm fairly sure that Super Mario Bros is in there somewhere). There are breaks where everything pans out and a huge sense of space is created by a glistening air of synths, before the drum beat paces it like a heart monitor heading towards death, and then the tremendous bass sounds thunder in, bigger than before, like Gandalf returning from the dead. Only this time, he'd riding that friggin' Balrog.

Click here to download these two track from Tympanogram, and click here for Hourglass Sea's MySpace.

He's got more on the way soon apparently, so I shall be keeping an eye! I don't care if this music changes the world. It's epic, awesomely fun electro. LET'S BOUNCE!!!

Summer Camp - "Christmas Wrapping"

First of all, sorry it's been a good while since my last post! A mixture of end of year business and laziness has been responsible I'm afraid. I'd been planning a run of Christmas related posts and it's a bit more short notice and slap-dash than I'd have liked sadly, but oh well. Onwards!

Summer Camp have quietly grown into one of my favourite new acts of 2010, and they haven't even released an album yet. Their song "Veronica Sawyer" kicked off my Top 20 Tracks of 2010, and it's the perfect showcase for their echoey, melancholy yet heartwarmingly twee indie-pop. Now they've recorded a cover of The Waitresses' mildly popular festive hit "Christmas Wrapping" as part of a Moshi Moshi Christmas compilation entitled A Christmas Gift For You - available for purchase here.

It's fairly faithful to the original but has definitely been reworked with their trademark bouncy synth mannerisms, with chiming Christmas synths that sound just like the ones in "Last Christmas". Elizabeth Sankey's vocal delivery is as warm and natural as ever. The whole thing feels like warm cuddles with the one you love by the fire, under the mistletoe, wearing ghastly Christmas jumpers but not really caring because, hey, it's Christmas.

Click here to download it on Pitchfork. Hopefully should have a few more Christmas posts over the next couple of days!

Los Campesinos! - "Too Many Flesh Suppers"

Los Campesinos! are quite simply one of the best indie bands around at the moment. I thought of ways to dress up the start of this post and slide smoothly from some semi-relevant opening sentence into the above declaration, but I couldn't think of a way to do it and- quite simply- you need to be told.

They released one of this year's best albums, Romance is Boring, back in January, and it's undoubtedly the best of their albums. It's a classic example of a band just honing everything that's good and lovable about them in the first place to a place where it just strikes every chord right when you're listening to it, and it truly engrosses you and is just a hell of a lot of fun as well. (It may feature of my much anticipated Top 11 Albums of 2011. Tune in later to find out...) Also, my Fantasy Football Team are named "Los Premierleagueos!" in dedication to them.

But earlier today the band announced via Twitter (oh yeah- they have one of the best musician Twitter accounts around- follow @loscampesinos, surprisingly enough- they announced the free download of their song "Too Many Flesh Suppers". It was the B-side to the single of "Romance is Boring", which, as the band themselves have said, "nobody bought". It's not a new track by any means, and is from the recording sessions of their album.



Nevertheless, it is brilliant. They said it didn't fit on the album and I can see why, for various reasons. But still, as I said- brilliant! It opens with atonal violin streaks which glide over a slightly menacing lollop of a guitar line which is something they got VERY good at on Romance is Boring. The vocals are as wrenched, emotional and compellingly uncomfortable as ever from frontman Gareth, and that's one of the things I really love about this band. The vocals veer from high, forced shouts to low, nasal sneers that brutally yet beautifully bastardize any and all melody, so that it hides beneath the surface, but it is very much there. It's melody on their terms. I can easily imagine someone somewhere fobbing the vocal style off as pretentious, but I find the vocals truly affecting and reckon that Los Campesinos! are fully aware of the problems people could raise with their sound, showcased so perfectly in this track.

Lyrically, it shares one of the major themes from the album- sex. Specifically, sexual guilt. The lyrics are dense and physical, like all Los Camp lyrics, and ache with a self loathing and disatisfaction that is painfully human. Gareth Campesinos! is undoubtedly one of the best lyricists across any genre, anywhere right now- and probably one of the best of the last 10 years.

So the download is available here from their blog. Click the little hyperlink that says 'RiB 7"'. I hope you enjoy it and can't recommend these guys enough. They're laying the 02 Empire Shepherds Bush in February and I'm gonna pull out all the stops to be there!

Minks

I came across Minks a good few months ago, either on Pitchfork or NME, I'm not quite sure, but I downloaded their March single "Funeral Song" and loved it. Shimmering guitar chords, bass line that carried you along on a stunning rush of a journey, synth lines that soared over the whole mix. There were obvious comparisons to Joy Division and The Cure, but informed by happy bouncy indie pop rather than death. But for one reason or another I never got round to investigating them further.

So much was my delight when I logged onto Pitchfork and discovered a new track available! "Cemetery Rain" is in very much the same style as "Funeral Song". It's a sweet, chilled, bittersweet dream-pop gem with a subtly catchy chorus that has warmly wormed its way into my brain and heart over the last few icy November days. It shimmers and bounces in all the right places, and slides into a nifty guitar solo and outro, which maybe suggests some psychedelic potential from these guys. It's a little similar to some of the new stuff from California's Girls. They've got a little bit of a goth-pop thing going on- cemeteries, funerals, a song named after Hamlet's crazy sister ("Ophelia"), a slightly gothy exterior in the few pictures available. I can't find a great deal about the band though other than that they're from New York. Aisde from that no lineup, no history, nothing! Last FM, Wikipedia and other profile have left me uninformed. But hey ho. People managed without extensive band biographies 50 years ago!

Their album By The Hedge is due out January 12th and I'm now getting a wee bit excited about it! Minks are one of those difficult bands to Google though- life the aforementioned Girls or Women or Mickey Mickey Rourke. I keep ending up with stuff like this.

Click here for their MySpace , or here for their slightly bizarre photographic blog and also click here for a Pitchfork page where you can grab downloads of the three tracks I've mentioned. Enjoy!

Minks - "Funeral Song" from LANCE DRAKE on Vimeo.

Just Lovely: Simian Ghost

Sometimes you just want to hear something that's lovely. Something that's disarmingly soft and lush and tender that warms the cockles of your heart like Christmas. There are a number of bands who possess that quality- Belle & Sebastian being a prime example. The other night I was scouring music blogs and felt my heartstrings being tugged as if my small, gorgeous child, when I came across Simian Ghost. These guys tick a lit of the boxes on the adorable tweeness criteria. They're Swedish. They have arty, cryptic song titles like "All I Know is But A Fog". The lead singer sounds a hell of a lot like Jonsi. But it works!

I've mentioned Belle & Sebastian and Jonsi thusfar, but Simian Disco don't bear a vast resemblance to either band. If you've heard The Postal Service, I guess they're quite similar to them. The three piece have a very layered sound, and everything is blended so well that on the first few listens of their album Infinite Traffic Everywhere- available to stream for free here- I didn't notice everything that going on. Gently fluttering synths, guitar parts ranging from dirty guzzlign riffs to echo drenched lines that soar up and down to sprase and lonely acoustic pickery, drum machine beats, classic indie guitar pop "oos" and "aaas"all deftly woven together into something that at times really is enchanting.

These guys aren't the saviours of music, but that's besides the point. They're another example of Scandinavia's uncanny ability to create intelligent, glimmering music that, if you let it, will pick you up and drift you off into a gentle, beautiful state of mind.

Click here to go to music blog Tympanogram and grab a free download of their new single "Transparent is OK", or here to go the their MySpace, or here to stream the album! Hope you enjoy!

Long Long Long

Alanis Morrisette.
Nickelback.
Celine Dion.
Bryan Adams.
Avril Lavigne.

The above rogues gallery does not (I hope) make for a particularly impressive musical line up. And sadly, these deplorable excuses for musicians (Nickelback especially. Friggin' hate Nickelback) represent the primary musical output of the Western world's favourite peculiar cousin- Canada.

It's often said, and clearly with good reason, that Canadian's just don't make good music. Apart from Neil Young, The Band and (yes I'm serious) Michael Buble, they've not produced any great evidence to the contrary.*



That's why I was incredibly intrigued when, over the weekend, I logged onto music website The Line of Best Fit and saw an article entitled "Oh! Canada Road Trip Part 4: Halifax Pop Explosion". Huh? Canada on a credible and respected indie music website? This had to be investigated.

So I clicked and began reading and was rewarded almost instantly. First of all, I had no idea that the Halifax Pop Explosion explosion existed. It's a city wide indie music festival lasting 5 days, similar to Texas' SXSW Festival. TLOBF have covered the week on their musical tour of Canada and the first band in their coverage was Long Long Long.

I got drawn to this band a) because the article said that they already had a big local following and that their fans/friends were drunkenly singing along to every word at their Pop Exlosion set and b) there was a picture.

My enquiries have been richly rewarded! If you like upbeat indie guitar music then this has your name written all over it. These guys have definitely got something of the recent US indie surf revival thing going on, a la The Drums (but they're actually very different from The Drums). Their songs are oddly structured and lilt and tilt all over the place, but in a wonderfully catchy way that just sounds so poppy and upbeat! Their guitar lines bounce and leap all over the place, the bass stabs at fantastically exotic rhythmical intervals, the drumming is just downright funky. They really remind of Vampire Weekend musically, though they're reminiscent of bands like Pixies too. It's fantastic guitar music, and though it may sound like it owes a lot to Long Long Long's American cousins, there is something very different between these guys and, let's say, The Drums. These songs just seem a lot more clever and experimental than stuff that The Drums and their wave of imitators produce. More than anyone I'd say they remind me of Los Campesinos!, one of the cleverest and most charming yet energetic British bands of recent years. Now I'm not suggesting that Long Long Long will change your life or spearhead a sudden takeover of new, ingenious Canadian indie bands. Or am I?.......

Click here for their MySpace and if you like that and want to go one better, click here to download their brilliant EP Shorts all for free. My favourite track is "Mandarin Collars With Women". Hope you enjoy, and if you investigate please comment below with your thoughts!



*PS- I humbly confess that I forgot Crystal Castles and Arcade Fire are Canadian. But still. Nickelback may just be THAT bad...

True Love: Belle & Sebastian

There are certain bands that you will just never ever come round to liking, regardless of what they may say or do. On the opposite side of the coin, there are certain band who you will loyally, unremittingly love, regardless of their future antics or releases. And often, the bands that you just devote yourself to and would physically fight for is the band that one person just loathes in every aspect. The band (the band you love) is, for me, Belle & Sebastian.

I first came across them when watching Juno, which include their songs "Piazza, New York Catcher" (nearly my favourite, after one featured below) and "Expectations" and I just fell in love with them instantly.

The reasons people wouldn't like them are fully understandable to me. They're called twee, pretentious, wet, repetitive and were described by a friend of mine as "the pussiest band like... ever!" I can fully understand that. But I find them heartfelt, honest, sweet, thoughtful and exciting, and their music is tied up with some wonderful memories for me. Songwriter and singer Stuart Murdoch's voice is a make or break kind of voice and I think is what either attracts or repels most people. But it's a lot more than that that pulls me in. The instrumentation is just so lush and well put together, and yet the songs can be relentlessly catchy. The lyrics are a big thing- Stuart Murdoch has this incredible ability to both flit between and combine extremely autobiographical lyrics and brilliant third person stories. So much of their music captures those wonderful moods and feelings that lie outside the boundaires of lots of pop, rock or indie songs- bittersweetness, melancholy, ironic happiness. The ability to do that is part of what I think makes them, not necessarily geniuses, but a band who are incredibly able to be spot on, hit the nail on the head, gentle twang on your emotional chords.

However, if you've heard Belle & Sebastian before and don't like them then nothing in this post or the songs I'm recommending will change your mind I'm afraid (but you could keep reading if you like ;) ) That's not a criticism of them- I've made it clear that I love them! It's just that the songs I'm recommending are classic Belle & Sebastian.

FluxBlog, the internet's oldest mp3 blog (it's been going since 2002!) run by Pitchfork writer Matthew Perpetua posted up a free downloads of two of the stand out tracks from the band's new album Belle & Sebastian Write About Love- "I Want the World To Stop" and "Write About Love", as well as a BBC Session version of classic "Judy and the Dream of Horses". They are all brilliant tracks and I would thoroughly recommend the new album. It's pretty much as good as anything they've done. It's just brimming with sentiment, melody, stories, quirky guitar lines and the unidentifiable quality that I just find so lovable in this band. The album's a grower, but has been sensationally rewarding for me. Even the duet with Norah Jones.

Click here for "I Want the World to Stop" and "Judy and the Dream of Horses".

Click here for "Write About Love".


THIS is my favourite of their songs, from their first album, Tigermilk

Lonely Galaxy- Free MP3 Download and Session Video!

I hope that if you read my post on Sunday about this new guy I discovered, Lonely Galaxy, that you became as entranced and touched by his beautiful music as I did.

At the time I had links for his MySpace and videos but no links to free mp3s. But today, after examining the blog of his label, Transparent Records, I discovered a free download of his track "Nutts", which was my immediate favourite when I listened to his MySpace.

Link below to the brilliant free download, courtesy of Transparent Records, as well as a stripped down session for The Line of Best Fit:

Nutts: http://www.transparentblog.com/blog/834/wait-until?commented=1#c015065

TLOBF Sessions // Lonely Galaxy: 'June' from TLOBF.COM on Vimeo.

Captain Ahab: Possibly The Most Ridiculous Band of the Year

There are times when your response to a song or a piece of music is just so overwhelming or stunningly out-there that you will never ever forget it, and that moment becomes reference point for you, something by which you remember all other pieces of music like it. I can pick out times the the first time I heard Dizzee Rascal's "Bonkers" and the beat kicks in after you hear "BONKERS!" come out of nowhere. Still gets me at any party. For me, that's my high point for a dance track hilariously stopping before it drops into the beat. Or the first time I listened to The Cure's album "Disintegration" and opening track "Plainsong" kicked in. Its like beautiful punch in the heart. For me, all bittersweet and heart wrenchingly beautiful music will properly, on some level, be measured against that album and that first song. It's not just when something is instantly recognsiable to you- like the riff to "Smoke on the Water"- but when you're just overwhelmed somehow by something about a piece of music and part of you just thinks "YES! I get this! I want to be part of this!"

Well, that's a lil' bit like my reaction when I first heard Captain Ahab. Except my reaction wasn't to start thrashing around on the dancefloor. Nor was it to raise my arms and cry. No.

I was wetting myself.
I was grinning like a maniac.

Captain Ahab are genuinely, mind bendinly, arse kickingly, bat crap insane. Their music (and from what I've read, their live shows) is one of the most overloaded, preposterous, over the top, actually ridiculous things I think I've come across. It all reeks of throw-in-the-kitchen-sink mentality.

But that's what's so brilliant about it! Back in April they released their second album The End of Irony, and that album title is pretty important. There's nothing ironic about these guys. It's not pretentious. They're fully aware of how ridiculous their music is, but they're not even trying to be ironic about it. If you want to open your album up with a harsh hip-hop vocal line which is then backed up by male voice choir that sounds like its comprised of dozens of monks before descending into thumping dancefloor filler full of dirty synths, which descends further into distorted screamo then you frigging do it! I'm talking about album opener "Acting Hard" and that really is just the beginning.

The album takes in spoken word mixed with creepy electro and melodramatic hospital-drama theme tune piano and piercing dance beats ("I Don't Have a Dick"). Punk rock vocals slapped over dirty, thumping synths and ambient trance breaks before flowering into almost Pendulum like drum'n'bass ("Death to False Techno") and heavy metal power riffs lashed with swirling electronic sounds reminiscent of the Doctor Who theme tune which all back up an absurdly epic male baritone and that monkish choir I mentioned earlier, in a track that sounds like something from Genghis Khan: A Rock Musical, before dropping into the obligatory fat, wobbly dub bass breakdown. And a brass section ("The Calm Before The Sword").

This last track is the one I've got a link for, from one of my favourite blogs- Get Off the Coast. Download it and bask in the ridiculousness. If you don't like it then genuinely try other stuff from the album, the only common theme is being as absurd and inhibition free as possible. Enjoy! Link below:

P.S- play it loud.
Very loud.

The Calm Before the Sword: http://getoffthecoast.blogspot.com/2010/06/calm-before-sword.html

Captain Ahab - I Don't Have a Dick LIVE @ the Smell from Captain Ahab 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.

Communication Minimisation

I'm too young to really remember much of the 90s, and what I can remember isn't particularly related to pop culture, but I'm informed enough about the changes between the last decade and this one to have noticed something.
Since the start of the 21st century, the ways in which we communicate have become increasingly abbreviated. Just think about it.

Text messaging. I'd wager that at the turn of the century, the ratio of people who had mobiles to those who didn't in the UK was probably about 50-50, possibly even higher in favour of not having one. But now, a mobile phone is an essential, the replacement for the Swiss Army knife. And the primary use of mobile phones now is text messaging. Text messaging has had its advent this decade. Short, succinct messages relayed almost instantly. And they've even spawned their own minimalsic language of few vowels and many abbreviations.

Twitter. 2009 has really been Twitter's year. Again, we have precise, 140-character-limited bytes of information being tweeted onto the internet, providing glimpses of snapshots of peoples' lives. The same goes for most social networking sites in certain degrees.

It's also reflected in the music industry now. The 21st century has seen the birth of the mp3's popularity, and many would say that now we have the ability to instantly download individual tracks, the album is a dead medium, a relic of the past to be onsigned to the history books. A massive percentage of online mp3 purchases are for single tracks, rarely are whole albums downloaded online. We now have brevity in the form of music we download! We pick and choose track for track, which is even more minimal than going out and buying a single, which has been made even more obsolete than albums! (I don't think albums are obsolete, far from it. But, sadly, singles largely are) Even when we do download whole albums from the internet, it is a much more minimal activity than going to the record store, buying a physical copy of the album, savouring the case, the cover notes, the reality of possessing something physical of music. And the advent on single mp3 downloading is making local record shops and communication with the people who work therein, who know their stuff about music and, when you bother to talk to them, usually but you on to new, exciting bands similar to what you can in looking for in the first place. But now, even that is being eradicated with things such as "similar artists" features on Spotify.

The minimisation of communication is an interesting feature of the century we have yet to travel 10% into. I'm not saying it's bad necessarily. I love the brevity of tweets on Twitter, the convenience of text messaging, the opportunities new bands gain by putting new tracks up on the internet. But it has obvious downsides I'm sure you're intelligent enough to work out without me listing them. It's gonna be fascinating watching how communication develops throughout the rest of the 21st century.