"Introducing" three great artists I've heard recently/been reacquainted with, united by their driving, tribal tonal progression, yet divided by their relative use of Vocoder etc.
Tame Impala
acid rock is reborn
Heard this last night on Triple JJJ when MGMT were being interviewed in the studio pending their show on Thursday. This band from Perth are touring with them in a support capacity around Australia, and provide a fuzzed-out acid rock sound which contrasts nicely with MGMT's muted synth squeals (no other phrase to describe the opening of that ode to overplay, Electric Feel). Check out their myspace at www.myspace.com/tameimpala, or if you're lucky enough to have got tickets to MGMT you'll see them tomorrow, while I watch Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, clinging to sophistication.
Suicide
i know, its a picture of MGMT, but its relevant. and have you ever tried typing in "suicide" in photobucket?
Another band introduced by MGMT on JJJ last night were Suicide, a very influential 70's synth-pop duo from New York. I followed up and got their first two albums, and this is definitely the pick of the bunch. After a few listens, it strangely feels like a bridge in evolution between Joy Division and New Order, a missing link which joins a gap otherwise sharply divided between Ian's melancholy lyrics and the crisp drum machine on Blue Monday.
Laurie Anderson
i have it on vinyl
Laurie Anderson's an experimental/minimalist artist who released her first album Big Science in 1982. Somehow the song below, O Superman, got to #2 in Britain. This was despite the fact that its over 8 minutes long, has a constant repeating "ha-ha-ha..." for its entirety, and lyrics which aren't exactly in keeping with the traditional British Top Of The Pops scene (Pseudo Echo covering Lipps Inc. springs to mind as an example).
I came across this on vinyl when going through my mum's collection the other night because I needed some good late-night Kes-editing music, but instead of working hard got really drawn in, especially when I flipped it over to the B-side and the former British #2 sprung up. Reminiscent of the theme from Little Miss Sunshine, How It Ends by DeVotchka, in one pretty obvious way.
Stranger still, Laurie is married to Lou Reed. Hey-now.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
some velvet morning when i'm straight / i'm gonna open up your gate
Haze
Haze (www.myspace.com/cupidswounded) are a band from Fitzroy High School who formed sometime during last year and have been rapidly rocking in the free world ever since then. While their early songs (two of which I'm hosting below) are pretty chilled out and quiet, lately at their gigs (the 2nd-last of which was the one at IDGAFF pictured above) they've been premiering much louder tracks with emphasis on the "dancier" side of the musical moon. Songs such as Hey Kids and Clearly are yet to be recorded but I'm assured they're forthcoming, and a recent introduction to one of Brunswick St's biggest promoters is sure to increase their gig-rate (like bit-rate, much cooler). I love the 2nd song, 2000 miles, by virtue of its glockenspiel alone.
[is]
Although they're now known as Tom Ugly, before their name change [is] had a fairly low-key underground rumble on the musical equivalent of the Richter Scale with Cult Romance. They won the Triple JJJ Unearthed High Schools competition with the song, which features an adroitly manipulated Moog synthesiser and some catchy, if meaningless lyrics ("paraphenalia failure / hands caught in the cookie jar / stranger / movie star"); still good form for a trio of Sydneysider high school students.
Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood
I've got a sneaking suspicion that this saga-song of drug addiction kicked off the whole "velvet" trend as far as band/songnames go, from the Velvet Underground to Bowie's Velvet Goldmine. A wonderfully contrasting duet, which I'd detail in more detail if I wasn't still recovering from the shock of discovering that Laurie Anderson is married to Lou Reed.
Monday, December 1, 2008
battling against the bitch / for the ultimate kitsch / of a crucifix clock
Sunday, November 23, 2008
house society / got to get into the glitterati
1. a. Punks Jump Up
Secondly, two tracks straight out of post-punk heaven...
2. a. Gang of Four
Yeah that's right, my music's SO alternative that photobucket doesn't even have properly sized jpg. files of the album covers, or in the case of The Dance, an album cover at all
A great song (redundant description, I'm not going to be wasting my time forcing something like ABC's Murderer of Love on you) from one of my favourite bands. Appearing on what's been described as "the best debut British album of all time" - Entertainment - Damaged Goods is typical of a band which defined the post-punk genre in the wake of Ian Curtis' death (although Postcard Records' Orange Juice - whose lead singer Edwyn Collins had a breakout 90's solo hit with Never Met A Girl Like You Before - tried to fill the Curtis-void with slightly happier tunes).
"Heated couplings in the sun / or is that untrue?"
2. b. The Dance
I've had to settle for a completely unrelated picture of Kerouac, deal with it.
Found this on Myspace somewhere; everyone I've played it to has uniformly hated it...
Finally, two much more laidback songs...
3.a. Neil Young
I just swallowed my second harmonica, he mumbled.
Out on the Weekend is definitely not one of the more well-known tracks off the album Harvest, but its one of my favourites. It was good to hear it crackling away last night when I pulled out an old vinyl copy; maybe it just sounded good in comparison with Old Man because the latter's been played so many times that the grooves are all worn out, who knows...
Going to see him and Hot Chip (other bands will be there too, they're the only ones that matter to me) on the 26th of January at the Big Day Out, can't wait.
3.b. Gabor Szabo
Looking like Zappa with no hair, Gabor's working at Dixons with Iggy Pop
First saw this over at http://www.artdecade.blogspot.com/, one of the best music blogs on the web (not just because it borrows from a David Bowie track for its title). If you're familiar with the film Spartacus this song, the most romantic I know, will already be familiar to you, but if not then use it to charm the jazz-guitar-with-strings-pants off some Eastern European (to test their nationality, first ask them to pronounce "Szabo").
Thursday, October 23, 2008
look out / im just too fake / for the world
Professor Murder
Dance-punk is a pretty hectic genre. Its the only genre that will tell you when your sister gets home, because you can hear your Death From Above 1979 being switched off downstairs. While DFA 1979 are the undisputed kings of this collective, Professor Murder take it to another level, and not just by using cowbells.
A complete change of pace...
Diva
The Passions
Friday, October 17, 2008
its ok i've overstood / this is a wordy rappinghood
"Rhythm Method" - get it?
Monday, October 13, 2008
i've been waiting for tomorrow / all of my life
Saturday, October 11, 2008
put your hands / in a parting wave
As a child of the mp3 revolution, its pretty unnatural for me to trip the vinyl fantastic (even less to pull out a tape, the most-maligned of all formats, suited only to family car trips in off-chocolate coloured 1993 Peugeots). Even so, this is one piece of shiny blackness that deserves to be played in its entirety, with the pauses, as Boz Scaggs intended.
Silk Degrees is instantly identifiable as late 70's, thanks to the lack of Eurythmics-esque percussion and the lilting disco flute, and although nearly all tracks are seamless examples of relaxed disco-funk (with the exception of the singlular release Lido Shuffle, which ventures down a long and winding road fraught with "missed boats, tombstone bars and jukejoint cars" into the land of rock and roll), Lowdown sets itself apart as the album's standout.
no, not that kind of triffid!
"Please don't drag me back to Rosevel/underneath your creaking bed
No air, no hatches under there/no pleasantries hatched overhead"
A fantastic song, one among many from Australian band The Triffids, featuring the late David McComb's fantastic lyrics alongside his trademark ascending/descending melodies.
a completely unrelated and altogether irrelevant post-punk group from the 1980's, the Cravats
Friday, October 10, 2008
the problem / of leisure / what to do / for pleasure?
"Did I listen to music because I was depressed, or was I depressed because I listened to music?" - High Fidelity
The song Witchi Tai To deviates from this band's normal style ("Broadway-Baroque"), taking inspiration from Red Indian healing chants to create something truly relaxing and invigorating, without being pretentiously psychedelic. This means you won't find Timothy Leary muttering "You get elves, everybody does!" in the background. Modern listeners could even draw parallels with Youth Group's Forever Young, as a point of musical reference, a port of call in a storm of aural insecurity, but to do so is to do injustice to a song that doesn't need faux-retro footage of long-haired louts skateboarding to stand up on its own. Its not exactly a foot-stomping, barn-storming, shotgun-barrel-chested bitch of a compound adjective, as far as music goes, but it will keep your inner foot well and truly tapping.
More blogs than an illiterate dutchman could poke his finger in the dyke at
-
-
-
everything12 years ago
-
-
Pre-seasonal Weather15 years ago
-
-
-
-
