Via http://www.factmag.com/, the new compilation from Brooklyn-based duo Tanlines is now streaming from Soundcloud. It collects all their singles so far, the Settings EP as well as various remixes, including Memory Tapes' version of their most widely-acclaimed tune 'Real Life'. Their sound is very much influenced by dancehall, calypso and Kwaito, with catchy hooks aplenty.
Inspired by one of my favourite blogs around, http://dontmakelists.com/, i've decided to post up a tune a day that is just a stone-cold classic, regardless of whether it's new/old/'relevant' or whatever. So this is the first. I see this lasting a day or two before i apathetically abandon the concept.
The Super Furry Animals' lyrics were always devastatingly clever ("Marie Curie was Polish born but French bred"? You have to give it up for Wildean wordplay like that!), but 'Run! Christian, Run!' saw them get serious with it. The standout track on their occasionally underwhelming 'take a shot at the mainstream' album Rings Around The World, it's inspired by doomsday cult websites:
"Roaming Roaming from all tribulation Leaving Leaving behind all damnation
With women and children in line The men will then gather behind With knives to their throats they'll depart On the midnight train to Jordan"
poetic stuff, and it's done justice by an atmospheric, pedal steel-and-harmonica alt-country arrangement that builds to an epic climax: it calls to mind Young's 'Cortez The Killer'. Show me magic!, indeed.
There's supposedly a killer John Peel version of this. I'm investigating.
Sun Araw's On Patrol, his fourth album for Not Not Fun Records, is an amazing piece of work and one of the most unique, brain-frying releases of 2010. Drawing comparison to stuff like Spiritualized, Sun Ra (naturally), Lee Scratch Perry or Fela Kuti, it's an intoxicating, swampy brew of dub textures, slow hypnotic guitar riffs, stoned grooves, tribalistic conga-led percussion and reverbed, chant-like vocals that float in and out of the mix. Pretty out-there, and pretty lengthy too (a double-LP release), but it's well worth the time invested.
Skinny Wolves bring Sun Araw to The Joinery in Dublin tomorrow night (Nov 26th), and there's a stellar supporting cast: Niamh De Barra, Whirling Hall Of Knives and Reptile Brain. De Barra's Cusp EP was recently released on Second Square To None:
So, the country is completely fucked and we have no future. Nice. But for the meantime, the Irish music scene keeps giving us reasons to look on the bright side. Milan Jay is a musician based in Galway. He's previously released the well-received Mellow Funk album (which is still available to download for free from Bandcamp - http://milanjay.bandcamp.com/), and followed that up with the 'We Believe/Sono' single.
There's being some impressive progression in his sound along the way, and new EP To The Sea And Swim, launched this Saturday (Nov 27) is pretty stunning and varied. Listen for yourself: the 4-track EP is streaming from Soundcloud. It starts with the striking, echoing drums of 'With The River Flow', which unfurls over its 8-minute running time with echoes of The Beta Band. The title track and 'Jupiter Falls' have a shimmering, swelling electronic vibe, with strings and piano lending them a pastoral, organic touch. 'We Believe' is also included here, it's more dance-oriented tempo emphasising Jay's range.
From Saturday the album will be available to download from Bandcamp for the price of 2 euro. He'll be launching the EP the same night in Richardson's in Galway with support from Declan Q Kelly, and copies of the EP will be available there, as well as in record stores around the country, for 4 euro. The gig is 3 euro in at the door, or free with a flyer. A Dublin show is on the cards as well: Milan Jay will play the Shebeen Chic on 9th December.
The further good news is that Jay has another two EP's lined up for release in 2011, with this merely being the first in the trilogy.
A savage line-up of bands to ring in the new year in Galway's Roisin Dubh: The Cast of Cheers and Enemies are both phenomenal live bands, and they're joined by fuzz-poppers We Are Losers (the project of Super Extra Bonus Party's Gavin Elsted), cyber-synth wizards Le Galaxie and local heroes Lost Chord.
"Enter Meljoann, whose smooth, catchy brand of electro-funk takes influence from the Scandinavian skweee genre – a style that combines simple synthlines with funk, R & B and soul rhythms. The term itself describes an attempt to ‘squeeze’ the most interesting sounds out of the sonic approach. It’s been an influence on dubstep artists such as Joker, Gemmy and Rustie in recent years, but here it feeds into an appealingly stripped-down, subtly infectious sonic brew..."
Hard to believe http://harmlessnoise.wordpress.com/ is only a year old, because in that time Naomi's blog has covered a phenomenal amount of stuff, with no musical stone in the land left unturned. Pretty much the best skill for a blogger/music writer/journo/whatever is to be able to convey a passion in what you're writing about to the extent that the reader will want to listen to it that very second, and she does this probably better than anyone else.
It's a blog that's played an invaluable role over the last year, in terms of promoting and supporting the domestic music scene and as a vital source for discovering new sounds. It also has to be said that she's extremely supportive of other bloggers and writers as well, which is in contrast to certain know-it-all types who bemoan the 'death' of the Irish blogosphere while making no attempt to engage with the ones that do exist.
The first taste of what's to come from Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will, the Glaswegians' seventh studio album due out next February. You can download it for free via the widget below.
Mogwai will be playing the Radisson Live Lounge in Galway on the very day (February 14th) that the album is released, courtesy of the Roisin Dubh. They play Belfast's Mandela Hall the night before and Dublin's The Olympia the night after. Support comes from the very promising Factory Floor.
Recently, after a protracted absence, i got Rollerskate Skinny right back on to my iPod where they belong. And seeing that I've upgraded headphones since the last time, boy did it feel good listening to this at full blast:
It may be the greatest song ever released by an Irish band. Maybe. After this one, which is probably my favourite song of all time:
Funny, because Jimi Shields of Rollerskate Skinny is brother of Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.
Bit of a low-key one this, but the very great Saint Etienne will be playing a once-off Irish show at The Set Theatre in Kilkenny on December 11th. The long-in-the-tooth English group have been on an extensive re-issue programme of late, but that's perfectly fine because they've been responsible for some of the most sublime pop music of the last two decades. I missed them at Primavera 2009 because of some god-awful clash, so if anyone can give me a lift to Kilkenny or put me up for the night do let me know.
The nominees have been announced for the 2010 Irish Music TV Video Awards:
"With a total of 35 videos nominated, we see some returning categories, as well as a few brand new ones… and of course some familiar faces. We are also adding not one, but TWO opportunities for the public to have their say – with public votes being taken for brand new categories: “Sexiest Video” as well as “Viewers Choice”."
BEST MALE Fionn Regan – Catacombs Colin Devlin – The Heart Won’t Be Denied Mighty Stef – Thank Christ for the Kids Simon Fagan – Damn Honey
BEST FEMALE Cathy Davey – Little Red Jennifer Evans – Scattered Maighréad – SEA Silhouette Volume – Destroyed
BEST LIVE VIDEO Valerie Francis – Slow Dynamo Two Door Cinema Club – Undercover Martyn Great Lake Swimmers – Still Primordial – Empire Falls
BEST STYLED VIDEO The Matinee Idles - Everything The Coronas – Far from here Talulah Does The Hula – Don’t Panic SWEET JANE – BLACKEYES
BEST GROUP VIDEO The Minutes – Fleetwood The Looks – Romeo Fight Like Apes – Hoo Ha Henry Delorentos – Santuary
BEST PRODUCTION / EFFECTS Villagers – Becoming a Jackal The Gorgeous Colours – The Creatures Down Below shit robot – take em up The Lowley Knights You can tell a man by how he lifts his hands
SEXIEST VIDEO (public vote – poll will be live at 17.00 on 18.11.10) Veda – Miss You Much Luan Parle – Why Baby Why Patrick Kelleher – Cold Dead Hands Nadine Coyle – Insatiable Rubberbandits Bag of Glue
MOST ORIGINAL CONCEPT Hunter Gatherer – Cloud Kill Krinkle Club – Moon Miracle Bell – Love Sounds The Ambience Affair – Devil in the Detail
BEST DIRECTOR Will McConnewll Miles Reilly Lorcan Finnegan Jessie Ward
VIDEO OF THE YEAR O Emperor – Don Quixote The Gorgeous Colours – The Creatures Down Below The Minutes – Secret History Cathy Davey – Little Red The Ambience Affair – Devil in the Detail
VIEWERS CHOICE (public vote – poll will be live at 17.00 on 18.11.10) ALL NOMINEES *
Lots of great stuff to check out. Here's a few of my favourites:
Dir: Ciara Kennedy and Róisín McNamee.
Dir: Lorcan Finnegan
Dir: Stevie Russell
Dir: Souljacker
Dir: Ceara Martyn
Dir: Peter McCarthy
The event takes place November 24th in The Academy. So get voting!
Supporting LCD Soundsystem at their three-night Tripod stand, starting tonight, is transplanted Dubliner (of German descent, mind) Shit Robot. His album From The Cradle To The Rave, released on DFA, has been getting some very good reviews across the pond: http://www.metacritic.com/music/from-the-cradle-to-the-rave/critic-reviews. This track from it features Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip, who also kind of belong to James Murphy's extended family. Enjoy the show if you're going and get there early.
Also, check here for an interview with the man himself:
After this year's tenth anniversary, i was slightly worried that 2011's edition of the Primavera Sound festival would be a bit anti-climactic. Fat chance! This is the best music festival in the world we're talking about. Along with the reformed Pulp, the following names have been announced for the line-up, with much more to come:
Mogwai Mercury Rev (playing Deserter's Songs, in the Auditorium) Animal Collective Suicide Swans John Cale and Band (playing Paris 1919) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Belle & Sebastian The National Blank Dogs Broadcast Comet Gain Dan Melchior und Das Menace Fleet Foxes Half Japanese Papas Fritas Sonny & The Sunsets The Fiery Furnaces The Flaming Lips Triángulo De Amor Bizarro
Meanwhile, Primavera TV has uploaded the entire headline set from Pavement from this year. To be honest, i don't think this captures the sheer joy of being there - the ecstatic crowd reaction is mixed far, far too low - but check it out, it's been helpful for filling in those alcohol-induced memory gaps:
For a band who were widely considered to have started off the Britpop movement, Suede seemed to get left in the dust somewhat by the other members of the ‘Big Four’ (Pulp, Oasis and Blur). There may have been a few different factors contributing to this: Bernard Butler leaving on the eve of the release of their second album was a hammer blow; said second album, Dog Man Star, was defiantly anti-commercial; while Brett Anderson’s feminised persona was even more at odds with Britpop’s prevailing trends than Jarvis Cocker’s studied intellectualism. Yet the body of work collected on this 2-disc set, released no doubt to promote or cash in on this year’s re-union (however cynically you wish to view it), is more than worthy of standing up to any of their more celebrated peers.
Suede sent the UK media into a bit of a tizzy when they first emerged into 1992’s post-grunge landscape. Taking the ‘love and poison of London’ and infusing it with colourful imagery, flamboyance and blatant gender-bending, they were derided as Bowie copyists by some and hailed as the future of British music by others. The first disc here, more or less a slightly tweaked version of 2003’s Singles, showcases those remarkable early singles - debut ‘The Drowners’, with its irresistible swagger, sexualised imagery and Bernard Butler’s buzzsaw guitar-work remains one of their most well-loved tunes, but it’s ‘Animal Nitrate’ that really demonstrates what set the group apart: during the climax (an appropriate word given the racy subject matter) Butler and Anderson sound like they’re trying to outdo eachother, the axework becoming all the more frenetic and dazzling as Anderson drives home his explicit imagery. It’s a microcosm of one of the more fraught and combustible songwriting partnerships in rock history.
They’d manage to keep it together long enough to write the astounding ‘The Wild Ones’, a grandstanding, poetic ballad that illustrated their range, but it wasn’t enough to stop Butler leaving the group under a cloud of acrimony. The band carried on, adding new guitarist Richard Oakes and multi-instrumentalist Neil Codling, and next album Coming Up was an unlikely triumph, producing an incredible five Top 10 singles, all included here: tracks like ‘Trash’ and ‘The Beautiful Ones’ showcased a more streamlined, accessible but still mightily infectious sound. The decline would set in over the next while though, with latter-day singles such as ‘Electricity’ and ‘Everything Will Flow’ descending into self-parody.
Where this compilation differs from Singles is Disc 2: a collection of B-Sides and lesser-known album tracks that truly makes the case for their greatness. The camp strut of ‘My Insatiable One’ impressed fellow aesthete Morrissey so much he would later cover it; ‘My Dark Star’ is a hauntingly atmospheric ode to a mysterious heroine; ‘The Living Dead’ a poignant acoustic portrayal of a relationship ravaged by drug dependency. Bernard Butler’s guitar playing on ‘To The Birds’ is as transcendent as its lyrical theme (“I wouldn’t give a shit if your bicycle’s in bits/I think I’m going to heaven on it”), while on the epic ‘The Asphalt World’ he matches Anderson’s gleefully spiteful lines (“When you’re there in her arms/And there in her legs/Well I’ll be in her head”) with appropriate malevolence. On top of that there’s the sublime Coming Up-era ballad ‘By The Sea’ and the shouldn’t-work-but-does ‘Still Life’, where the band take a shot at Scott Walker-esque orchestral splendour and pull it off beautifully. That sums up the band at their peak: aiming for nothing less than magnificence, and frequently achieving it.
Brooklyn-based Magnetic Island have been creating consistently brilliant music since they first emerged under the name RENMINBI. It's never predictable either, with their sound evolving from release to release.
The Out At Sea EP is available to stream and download on their Bandcamp page (along with their previous material). 'End In Bender' reels you in with five minutes of gorgeous guitar textures, and that's followed by the dramatic, windswept vibes of 'Sung (Not Said)', which features an absolutely killer mid-section with some furious riffing. 'Summer Phase' is a drowsy-eyed, Breeders-esque tune that showcases the more mellow, tuneful side of the band, and 'Let It Lie' starts off in a similar vein before encompassing some more dazzling musicianship.
Lisa Liu's guitarwork is definitely one of my favourite things about this band, it's tinged with that classic 90's alt-rock sound, but pretty unique as well: by turns melodic and menacing, you can lose yourself in the textures and tones.
Out At Sea is available to download for a mere buck, or you can pay more if you so desire - the EP is also available on limited-edition cassette, with a bonus extra version of 'Summer Phase'. There's some pretty nifty artwork with the cassettes as well, full details on the Bandcamp page.
Check out a couple of previous Magnetic Island tracks too:
5 Nov with ANIMAL DISCO and DD/MM/YYYY Auntie Annies, Belfast 12 Nov with Trumpets Of Jericho Quad, Cork 13 Nov "HAUNTED LIGHT" LP Launch with Meljoann, Catscars +White Plague Djs Workman's Club, Wellington Quay, Dublin
Wexford's own Planet Mu-signed Sunken Foal has contributed a remix to the new Raindrops EP by Camden-based post-dubstep/hip-hop-leaning producer Blue Daisy. Check it out:
Hazy and chilled. The Raindrops EP is out now on Black Acre.
KC Accidental was the pre-Broken Social Scene project of Kevin Drew and Charles Spearin (also of Do Make Say Think). This is a re-release of their two albums combined on one disc. It's all instrumental, and if you're a fan of BSS' excellent debut Feel Good Lost you should dig this, in particular the amazing, desolate-sounding 'Tired Hands', the equal of anything they would go on to create. Having said that, there's also post-rock fuzziness ahoy to go along with the more ambient soundscapes.
The whole record is streaming over at http://www.spinner.com/new-releases#/4, where you can also find streams of Bruce Springsteen's The Promise and the impressive Sports from newcomers Weekend.
Speaking of BSS-related stuff, Charles Spearin's The Happiness Project is well worth checking out if you haven't yet: released last year, it's essentially speech and spoken word set to music, but it's really well done, particularly here:
Nouveaunoise's Paraphrase Accolade is one of the best Irish albums of the year: invigorating, fluid electronic music that calls to mind artists like Flying Lotus, Four Tet or Caribou. The duo are releasing a 2-track EP as a free download on their Bandcamp page. Both tracks are taken from the album; the shimmering soundcapes of 'Panaka' and the almost Go! Team-like exuberance of 'Psychasonic'. Download them from here: http://nouveaunoise.bandcamp.com/album/free-panaka-ep
As well as that, Paraphrase Accolade will be available for the bargain price of 3 euro (digital) or 5 euro for physical cd, up until November 15th.
There's more to come, too: the duo plan to release a 6-song EP of never-heard before material early next year, called Sequence Consequence. They're also planning some full-band live shows for around the Christmas period, so watch this space.
It's great to be proven wrong by a band. First time that I saw Cap Pas Cap live, I didn't rate them at all, it just seemed to be unremarkable new-wave shape-throwing. Fast-forward to the Liars gig in Whelan's earlier on this year, where both these guys and Logikparty gave the New Yorkers a serious run for their money with two excellent support sets. Cap Pas Cap's sound seemed to have an extra kick to it, edgy and dark, with some irresistible basslines anchoring their tunes.
Expectations for debut LP Haunted Light are pretty high then. Opening/lead track 'Mirrors' doesn't waste any time, laying down a throbbing groove: it's sleek but there's an unmistakeable layer of scuzz there too. Their sound is reminiscent - certainly vocals-wise - of CSS or New Young Pony Club, but it's less pop-oriented and there's a murkier vibe to it. 'We Are Men' continues in the same vein: one of their older tunes, it'll probably be familiar to many, but it still sounds fantastic here, with a pounding, relentless, low-end-heavy assault.
Arguably the standout track on Haunted Light is 'Friends', which is driven along by a massively infectious groove and complemented by deadpan, attitude-drenched vocals. It's bound to be a live favourite. Quickly following it is 'Hearts', which shows another side to the band: airy, atmospheric and sinister-sounding, it might slow things down tempo-wise but its nocturnal vibe fits right in. Elsewhere, 'Y Lies' adds fuzzy guitars to the mix with what's probably the heaviest 'rock' number on the album.
Haunted Light isn't flawless by any means, and things can get a bit samey here and there, but there's lots to love and the album's well worth investigation. It's out November 12th, with the album launch in The Workman's Club the following night. Pre-orders are available now from Skinny Wolves: http://www.skinnywolves.bigcartel.com/product/wolf006-cap-pas-cap-haunted-light-cassette
5 Nov with ANIMAL DISCO and DD/MM/YYYY Auntie Annies, Belfast 12 Nov with Trumpets Of Jericho Quad, Cork 13 Nov "HAUNTED LIGHT" LP Launch with Meljoann, Catscars +White Plague Djs Workman's Club, Wellington Quay, Dublin
27 Nov Roisin Dubh, Galway
Check out the mix the band did for Skinny Wolves, which gets a major thumbs up for including one of the most underrated New Order songs, 'Chosen Time':
Did somebody say New Order and 'Chosen Time'? Check out this footage of New Order in one of their earliest live shows after the death of Ian Curtis. Fascinating stuff:
Sacred Animals is the moniker, though not a whole lot else is known about the man behind the atmospheric tunes that make up debut EP Welcome Home. Bon Iver, Thom Yorke, Grizzly Bear and Midlake are cited as influences, and that frames his sound pretty nicely, but it has its own unique aura about it. The vocals are certainly Yorke-esque, particularly on opener 'Wired, Islands' while the subtle instrumental swells and flourishes that characterise these tracks are worthy of Ed Droste and co. It's not the most immediate stuff, but this EP is really starting to grow on me now (admittedly, i had the exact same slow-burn experience with Grizzly Bear). There's a real evocative quality to these tunes and some immaculate attention-to-detail.
Out On A Limb Records have already released one excellent split 7" this year with the Windings/Vertigo Smyth double-header (http://tinyurl.com/36esk3x). The follow-up couldn't be more of a contrast stylistically. On one side there's the blistering 'White Teeth' by Dubliners Guilty Optics: it's very much in the same ballpark as album-of-the-year contenders Jogging, heavy and hardcore-influenced.
The other side features the equally impressive 'Krakatoa' by Ennis-based band C!ties, an instrumental tour-de-force that shifts deftly from sludgy post-rock to lean, laser-precision riffing
'Steeped in jazz fusion and midi funk from the 70s and 80s', Games is a collaboration between Dan Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never and Joel Ford of Tiger City. New EP That We Can Play is now streaming over at XLR8R : http://www.xlr8r.com/news/2010/10/stream-new-games-ep-we-can-play
Also worth checking out is the double-cassette mix of ultra-slowed down classics Spend The Night With Games, which is also streamable on their Soundcloud: http://soundcloud.com/games
"The liner notes of Halcyon Digest preface the lyrics of “Helicopter” with an excerpt written by Dennis Cooper that provides context for the words. Basically, the song is about a young gay Russian boy named Dima who fell into pornography and prostitution, and eventually was sold into sexual slavery to an organized crime figure. His ultimate fate is unknown, but one account had him dying after being pushed out of a helicopter over a remote forest in northern Russia. Anyway, it’s very hard to unlearn that context — suddenly every line of the song becomes unbearably sad, even the bits that were already painfully melancholy. The music is gorgeous, one of the most brilliantly crafted pieces of Bradford Cox’s career to date, and it perfectly conveys this feeling of frailty and powerlessness, and total doom. When Cox sings “now they are through with me,” it’s sweet and fragile and utterly devoid of hope. It’s terminal passivity."
