What if Dream Theater had an another singer? One just as capable, but with a deeper, throatier, more mainstream voice?

It boggles the mind, it does.

My mind, at least.

And many others’.

PS

This just goes to prove that whatever you may think of his tone, James LaBrie actually does sing very well– he’s powerful and accurate. (In the studio, at least.)

PPS

Original voice clip:

Today I went wandering around Cambridge looking for a Halloween costume. Didn’t get one. Wasn’t ‘feeling it’, although I think I know what I’ll be. The question is whether to roll up my sleeves and go D.I.Y., or dish out the dollars.

It’s pretty chilly in Boston now, and I picked some music for the walk that was appropriately autumnal. I listened to Elvis Perkins in Dearland, Noah and the Whale, Wooden Shjips, and The Big Pink. All highly recommended.

Here is a sampling of their wares, in the form of an imeem playlist. Let me know if it works fine. You’ll need to sign up I think, but it’s completely free. (lala is also pretty good, but you can only listen to each song once for free.)

It’s amazing how the music in your earphones colours the scene you’re walking through. (It’s a neat analogy for the way our consciousness filters all experience.) It’s as if you find yourself in a movie, with the soundtrack clueing you in on what sort of movie it is. A dog running around in a park could make you feel vertiginous nostalgia or envigorating excitement, depending on the backing track. Elvis Perkins’s ‘123 Goodbye’ sounds to me like a song at the very end of a tragic-yet-uplifting American film. You know the movie is almost over. Someone’s driving off in a car, glancing into the rear view mirror. There’s a lump in your throat perhaps. You wish it could have ended differently. Nevertheless, it’s an end, and it’s time to say goodbye. Soon the credits will start rolling.

~

I’ve been listening to vast quantities of The Incredible String Band these days [listen!]. They’re a Scottish psychedelic folk band from the 60s. They capture hippie idealism, spirituality and humour perfectly. I love them, but it’s entirely possible that you’ll hate them. They’re fruity. (For instance: they have a song sung from the perspective of a flower. It goes “turn your quivering nose in my direction”.) They mix Indian and Middle Eastern music with English and Scottish folk, and American country and blues. I find myself increasingly drawn to their lyrics. They’re mystical and poetic. I’ll leave you with some quotes:

The Hedgehog’s Song

Oh, you know all the words, and you sung all the notes,
But you never quite learned the song, she sang.
I can tell by the sadness in your eyes,
That you never quite learned the song.

The Water Song

Water water see the water flow
Glancing dancing see the water flow
O wizard of changes water water water
Dark or silvery mother of life
Water water holy mystery heavens daughter

God made a song when the world was new
Waters laughter sings it is true
O, wizard of changes, teach me the lesson of flowing.

Maya

The great man, the great man, historians his memory
Artists his senses, thinkers his brain
Labourers his growth
Explorers his limbs
And soldiers his death each second
And mystics his rebirth each second
Businessmen his nervous system
No-hustle men his stomach
Astrologers his balance
Lovers his loins
His skin it is all patchy
But soon will reach one glowing hue
God is his soul
Infinity his goal
The mystery his source
And civilization he leaves behind
Opinions are his fingernails

Maya Maya
All this world is but a play
Be thou the joyful player

These songs can be found here.

]]> http://zonuts.wordpress.com/2009/10/18/two-little-playlists/feed/ 0 Han string http://zonuts.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/keep-the-faith/ http://zonuts.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/keep-the-faith/#comments Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:01:36 +0000 N http://zonuts.wordpress.com/?p=665 ]]>

This is a bit of a cheat post, given that I posted about Paloma Faith ages ago on Nonsense on Stilettos (here), but she finally has an album out – for a month now, and it’s every bit as good as it should be. Though it’s not as bonkers as some of her awesome stage costumes, the songs are more than well worth a listen- I do rather adore her slightly throwback style of singing- to borrow an apt and very cool turn of phrase, it puts me in mind of having the auditory version of cream poured, very slowly, into my ears.
Paloma Faith – Stone Cold Sober

Paloma Faith- New York

EDIT: Turns out I gave in two links pointing to the same song..sorry, and it’s fixed now!

(click to enlarge)

It’s compilation time again! What fun. I was thinking of doing a sort of 2000s indie rock primer. However, the term “indie” is somewhat vague. I know it means music on independent record labels, but I think some of the bands that started out indie have bagged major label contracts. So I’m calling this mixtape “Noughtpop”. It’s pop and/or rock from the decade that will soon be behind us (!). Even the term “pop” is vague. These artists haven’t made much of an impression on the Billboard charts (though they tend to do a little better in the UK). So Noughtpop is not pop. But it has what music journos like to call “pop sensibilities”. I guess that means it’s catchy, with the possibility of choruses and/or dance-y beats. And maybe, as icing on the cake, intelligent and/or strange lyrics.

In college I became a classic rock type. I liked some music from after 1979, but in general I assumed that rock had died before I was born. (Top 40 Pop died in the early 90s.) I liked Nirvana, but rarely chose to listen to them on my own. In 2003 I started listening to Radiohead, and realized that modern music could be challenging, intense, and different. (I love Oasis, but they’re not the most original songwriters in the world, are they?) Those days hardly anyone had a computer, and downloading music was a mystery. I asked our very own Kaustubh to procure Radiohead’s The Bends for me. He duly did so. On the CD he gave me there was another album called Elephant, by a band called the White Stripes. I fell in love with the album almost immediately. Insta-classic. There was no doubt about it — new music could kick ass. “Seven Nation Army” became an unofficial Yearbook Room anthem. Meanwhile I started to go to internet cafes to check out the new music scene. Hard to remember exactly when all this happened, or in what order. I know that I first saw the “Mr Brightside” video in a Satyam Infoway in Indra Vihar. The sound quality was bad, so it didn’t leave much of an impression. (Tommy mentioned it later… by 2005 I was a Killers fan.)

I discovered Franz Ferdinand the old-fashioned way: through MTV. Nikhil Chinnappa hosted a show that presented new music. He said “Take Me Out” was the next big thing. And it was. Wow. What a song. What a video. It took me ages to finally get a copy of the song. (I asked my cousin in Kottayam to download it. He used Kazaa or Limewire — does anyone use that sort of thing anymore?) MTV introduced me to the Vines too (the lead singer’s crazy performance style grabbed me before the songs did). Muse happened around then too (I got a friend in Australia to get Origin of Symmetry for me)…but I’ve left them out of this compilation. (They don’t sit well alongside other bands. Don’t you think?)

Soundcheck 42 played a Strokes song in 2002. Not sure which one. They really knew their music, but at the time I just wanted to hear CCR and the Rolling Stones. I heard “Last Nite” in 2004, and quickly became obsessed with it. I downloaded it at home on a crappy dial-up connection. It took two hours. At the time, I didn’t get their other songs. In 2006, near the end of my IIT stint, I got into their 3rd album First Impressions of Earth. The Strokes are now an all-time favourite band. To use a corny phrase, they helped me through a difficult (or at least hazy) period of my life.

IIT was where my musical landscape really exploded. In the first year I was blown away by their ftp networks, and filled in various blanks in my rock history chronology. (Got into the Sex Pistols and the Clash around then.) That’s when I came upon the Libertines. Someone happened to have the I Get Along EP on their server. Fantastic. “Don’t Look Back Into the Sun” is one of my favourite songs. Sadly, I discovered the band just as they were splitting up. The UK media were quite obsessed with the antics of Pete Doherty. I’m told Pete & Carl were inspired to start a band after seeing a Strokes gig. The explosion on indie bands in the UK is generally attributed to the impact of the Libertines.

In 2005 I got my own computer, and quickly discovered music blogs. I cobbled together Franz Ferdinand’s debut album from mp3s found here and there. There were so many great (and not-so-great) bands. Youtube happened and Arctic Monkeys happened. (Not sure which came first.) I got caught up in the Arctic Monkeys hype — I downloaded every single demo and live performance I could find, months before the album came out. It was fun.

By 2006 my music collection didn’t look like a classic rock type’s any more. I didn’t even have the Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin discographies (gasp!). And then I moved to Boston. A few days after arriving, I picked up a free alt weekly and found out that the Strokes were playing in a few weeks. I immediately bought a ticket. I went alone (I didn’t know anyone yet) but it was awesome. Great way to enter the world of live contemporary music. (So much better than watching old fogeys fleece baby boomers.)

As it turned out, my music taste wasn’t so off-beat after all. Several of my new friends had similar tastes. So I had company for all subsequent concerts. Arctic Monkeys! Klaxons! Late of the Pier! CSS! I even had the pleasure of getting my American friends into new bands, notably MGMT and Yeasayer (both of whom I’ve seen live twice). When it comes to music I have the zeal of a missionary. I love it when someone comes back to me and says they really liked one of my recommendations.

And to think that I once worried that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy music as intensely as I had in college! If anything, my love of music has widened and deepened since then.

Eight years ago I could probably name all the albums I had heard completely. It’s been quite a decade.

~

So here’s the mix. You’ll find that the term “indie” or “noughtpop” doesn’t really convey any essential stylistic elements. It may just be an attitude. I’ve arranged the tracks chronologically (even though my discoveries occurred out of order). If you look at the progression through time, you might detect a move from the minimalism of the early ’00s New Garage Revival (the Strokes, the White Stripes, the Vines) through the mid ’00s rediscovery of synths, and into the free-for-all psychedelic kitch of the decade’s end. I’ve tried to pick the best or most iconic song by each act. I know I’ve left out a few, and we could argue over which songs/artists should have been included/excluded. This collection is predictable if you already like this sort of music. But the aim is to provide some context for people who have not yet dived in. (A few people have specifically asked for something like this.) So if you’re wondering where to start with noughties music, here are my suggestions:

Noughtpop

2001

The Strokes — Last Night

2002

The Vines — Get Free
Interpol — NYC

2003

The Libertines — Don’t Look Back Into the Sun
Yeah Yeah Yeahs — Maps
The White Stripes — Seven Nation Army
The Fiery Furnaces — We Got Back the Plague

2004

The Killers — Mr Brightsde
The Arcade Fire — Rebellion (Lies)
Franz Ferdinand — Take Me Out
Regina Spektor — Us

2005

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club — Ain’t No Easy Way
Arctic Monkeys — Fake Tales of San Francisco
Animal Collective — Grass
Tapes ‘n’ Tapes — Insistor
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! — The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
Wolf Parade — This Hearts On Fire

2006

CSS — Let’s Make Love (And Listen to Death From Above)
Hot Chip — Over & Over
Beirut — Scenic World

2007

Klaxons — From Atlantis to Interzone
MGMT — Time to Pretend
Yeasayer — Wait for the Summer

2008

Vampire Weekend — Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
Late of the Pier — The Bears Are Coming

Noughtpop

Bang a Gong, Get it on, get it on. Arise, awake, get out of your house and into the street. Marc Bolan gave to music a fine contradiction. Here was a guy who looked like he rocked out since kindergarten, but he sings these songs about white swans and dancing since he was twelve. The band is called T-Rex and they are so ferocious that at one point of time they had no drummer. Just a guy on bongos. But the man’s got rhythm, and he has got that quiet voice that whispers in your ear. It tells you to wear hard soled shoes and clickety-clack them on the pavement. I used to dance to Bolan all the time. Then I saw Billy Elliot. What a movie. Cosmic Dancer, playing to a little kid jumping on the bed with a wallpaper of fading sunflowers in the background. Bolan, jumping, shorts and Van Gogh. These are some of my favourite things, never mind the dog bites and bee stings.

Now the two are inexorably tied to each other. I cannot sing a song without picturing the movie. But, for once, that is perfectly allright. Cosmic Dancer is a song with the line “I was dancing since I was aaah”. That’s Marc Bolan for you, he couldn’t think of something, so wrote aaah. But it fits and we all dance when we are aaah.

Bang a Gong was after he split with Steve Took, yes Steve Peregrine Took, so it has a lot more instruments. It was just the two of them before hand.

Be careful when you dance to I love to boogie. There have been incidents of smashed crockery and furniture in our hostel because of the song.

Have fun.

From the soundtrack of Billy Elliot -

T.Rex – Cosmic Dancer [mp3]

T.Rex – Bang a Gong (Get it On) [mp3]

T.Rex – I Love to Boogie – [mp3]

It’s hard to explain why I think the French have a virtual monopoly on producing cool girls, whose coolness and a certain level of fuck-you-but-I-can’t-be-bothered insouciance remains unconfined to any one field of work  (musicians, journalists, fashion bloggers, actresses, lawyers- that’s how varied it gets), but it’s really hard not to be in awe of them. And if I tried to post about all of them, it’d take forever- so I’m sticking to two.

_______________________________________________

Françoise Hardy – Comment te dire adieu

Françoise Hardy (on the bike up there) was someone I discovered via a fashion magazine, following which I went on an mp3 hunt- and found that, quite at odds with the cigar-raspy alto I’d expected,  her voice is actually on the softer side of the spectrum..

______________________________

The other Cool French Girl of this post is actually half Brit, and one of those rather rare things- a singer and actress who is really good at being both (most recent evidence: 5:55 and The Science of Sleep, plus a Best Actress award at Cannes for Antichrist this year).

Charlotte Gainsbourg- Elastique

It’s one of her very early songs, and I rather like the breathiness of her voice- it’s a bit like her mother’s but more natural, somehow.

And here is the video for Elastique…she looks like such a kid here..

He was pretty much the first person whose music videos I ever got to watch, my first ever concert (which I spent getting mildly irritated at the opening acts), and that (twelve years? fifteen years?) old tape of Bad sitting in my cabinet of junk is most definitely going to get an airing today. And a listen, if it’s up for that too.

Michael Jackson- Beat It

Easily, IMO, his best song ever.

___________________________

And now for a bit of gangster (never gangsta…it makes all the difference)

Michael Jackson- Smooth Criminal

I’m not big on national anthems. The only use I’ve ever seen in knowing what they are is as the answer for a once-in-a-blue-moon quiz question, but the French one, La Marseillaise, has had permanent dibs on my soft corner ever since I first gave it a proper listen, at the start of the 1998 World Cup finals (and later, when I realised it was the intro to All You Need Is Love).

This may seem like an odd niche for Zonuts to be dipping into, but I blame a recent bout of Asterix-reading for the fact that it just won’t get out of my head. And I recommend looking up a translation of the lyrics, they are not only beautiful, but also somewhat…bloody (no offence to any French people who find this- I just mean there are literal references to blood and slit throats, is all)

____________________

Édith Piaf- La Marseillaise

My favourite version, not only because it’s Piaf, but because of the sheer joy she seems to take in singing it. I’m not sure when this was recorded, but if I didn’t know better, I’d have said it was sometime during the WWII occupation of France. If you download/listen to nothing else in this post, don’t pass this one up- unless you have it, of course.

____________________

Serge Gainsbourg- Aux armes et cætera (reggae spin on the national anthem, that earned him a few death threats once it was out)

I’m not massively fond of this, partly because I first heard it when I was in the grip of an ‘I-hate-reggae’ mood, but it deserves better than to be heard under such circumstances.

____________________

Cassandre Berger- La Marseillaise (from the film La Môme a.k.a. La Vie en Rose, lip-synched by Pauline Burlet, the child actress in the clip. By all accounts, it’s a real-life incident…the life being that of Édith Piaf)

La Marseillaise (Casablanca). Probably my favourite scene.

K and C

This post is going to seem a bit old-chestnutty (we already have an Oasis post in the archives), and the pic probably seems befuddling. But the two chumps in it have been my best friends in this place for the better part of the last five years, and it seemed a tiny bit appropriate to dedicate a post to them, for the following reasons:

a) I only started talking to them because a friend told me they were Oasis fans, which, four years ago, in a sea of people whose favourite bands were all called Angelic [something] or Demonic [something]- Bangalorean metal fans, honestly- was really rare. In fact, if it hadn’t been for that little piece of information, we would never have bothered to revise our initial impressions of each other (mine of them : insufferable yuppie and insufferable brat respectively. Theirs of me: rude bitch). Not that we were wrong – K and C were practically Tweedledum and Tweedledee back in the day, and yours truly was a complete misanthrope- but..

b) C -the one on the right- has a birthday today. He’ll make fun of me if he finds out about this post, but happy birthday anyway, C.

_____________________

Oasis- Acquiesce

Included here for no other reason than the fact that I love hearing Noel and Liam on the same song, and K and C once used ‘agree’ and ‘Oasis’ as clues to guess this in a round of What’s The Good Word.

______________________

Oasis- Columbia

Definitely Maybe is one of the very few albums I actually own, and screw whether NME/ the Guardian commentators think it’s cool or not, it’s amazing. And this is perfect for times when I want my brain fried.

 _____________________

Oasis- Digsy’s Diner

Underrated, silly, awesome fun. Though the mention of lasagne does make me feel like running off to a place where I can get some.

____________________

Oasis- All Around The World

Insanely long. Maybe too long, really, like most of Be Here Now. But, like K said many years ago, the line “you’re lost at sea, well, I hope that you drown“, it lives…

I mean, I really like the piece (who doesn’t?), but he has a point.

I just heard a recent album by this band and I dig the sound.

Really long tracks (with plenty repetitive hooks) that build into a rich and heavy layered mix which just sounds dreamy :)

(Edit: Horrors, I can’t embed videos from pitchfork – Follow the linky)

The Field – Leave it [mp3]

So in the immortal words of You-know-who, I’m back. Big deal.

At work, with my headphones plugged in to avoid the intense discussion happening a table away, I am in hell. As always music saves my soul. It is now fascinating to watch my colleagues star in a mental music video I make to the tune of the song streaming through the headphones.

Its not so bad, in fact I am so busy, I listen to about a song a day. As Yohan put it eloquently in his mail, Drama Queen, I remain.

Enough rubbish, go listen to Mariyln Manson covering Dead or Alive’s classic and making it his own. What a guy. Trying singing it like a lunatic while riding a bike. The wind zooming into you makes you mouth go all weird and then you can sing perfectly like Manson, Wraaight rrrround baybeee, wraaaight wwroound.

Dreading abuse from the Network guys, I decided to download the Raconteurs album on the super fast internet at work.

It was well worth it, here is the first song I heard, what a song it is. Steady as she goes has lyrics that are shockingly in sync with my reality and that always helps me appreciate a song.

The third one is a bit of a gamble. Its from a band called Smoke Signals and features Kailash Kher. You can see a nice animated video of the song on youtube. Its not the greatest song, but Kher’s strong vocals are great and the lilting melody is a nice contrast. The lyrics in Hindi are wonderfully wistful. Blue Frog is a restaturant and an independent record company in Mumbai. they are quite cool the logo was done by Grandmother India and that’s another reason why I know them. They seem to be promoting quite prominsing young artists in India.

There is a promising band on the horizon called Advaita. An eight piece band, they are currently touring the UK and sound pretty damn good. They are proponents of “Indian psychadelia” and their music justifies the claim. I am expecting some of their music soon, so will post more on them after I have sampled the sound.

You spin me right round (Like a record) – Marilyn Manson [mp3]

Steady as she goes – The Raconteurs [mp3]

Summertime Rocks – Smoke Signals feat. Kailash Kher [mp3]

This blog is in desperate need of some (prog stalwarts) Pain of Salvation.

Here’s Second Love.

I really liked this song.

And the video’s pretty cool too. Except that it makes me feel like I’m completely wasting my life. But nothing new there, hence.

The Funeral by Band of Horses.

If anyone knows anything about the band, do speak.

Also, is that a fixed-gear bicycle? He seems to coast at some points… but at other points he pedals backwards and the bike moves backwards.

As I type, I’m listening to a slightly emo band called Thirteen Senses sing a song called Into The Fire. It’s a beautiful song. Piano-heavy, catchy chord progression, nice drumming, and a good voice.

Before this, Starsailor were singing about a Poor Misguided Fool with an attractive album cover.

I’m listening to the music for free, on Last.fm– the internet radio site that, back when Han introduced me to it a couple of years ago, opened up a New World of music to me. Especially with regard to my slightly arcane taste in progressive metal: Last.fm, with its unlimited free tag-based radio service, let me hear beautiful music I would never have been able to get my hands on otherwise. CDs by niche prog metal bands aren’t sold in India, and to illegally download music you first have to be aware of its existence– which wasn’t possible for me earlier.

But they’re some of the last few songs I’ll hear on Last.fm radio. On 22 April 2009 the site, apparently having been bought over by US giant CBS, discontinued its free radio service for listeners outside 3 countries: the US, the UK, and Germany. It determined that only those three demographies supported an ad-based radio service. Listeners in all other countries now get a 30-track “free trial”, after which they must subscribe to the radio at the rate of 3 euro a month.

The news came as a real shock to me– it was done quietly, slimily, and with almost no expression of regret by the site. That, combined with the fact that the rest of the world is essentially paying for the US, the UK, and the DE to continue to listen for free, has infuriated much of Last.fm’s listener base. It may make CBS money, but it was a huge PR blunder, and “RIP Last.fm; let’s find the next best thing” is the overwhelming sentiment.

I’m surprisingly upset about it. I can’t usually stand the “fuck the Establishment, save the mom-and-pop store from the retail giant” attitude that people bandy about. Fuck you, not the Establishment– so I usually think. Stop clinging to the past. Change is almost always good. So what if Green Day went commercial instead of being ‘really’ punk?

But really, this seems like a heart-wrenching sellout to The Man.

One commenter noted that he used to subscribe to Last.fm radio when it was free (subscription was optional), just to support the cause of the site. But now that subscription is compulsory, he’s not going to pay, even though he can. 

I can afford to pay 3 euro a month. My broadband connection costs 5 times that. But only in real money– I don’t have a credit card, and anyway, paying for online services isn’t something I do. Except for scientific resources, there’s almost always a free alternative.

Ah, Ghosts are on. Stay The Night was the first song I downloaded after first hearing it on Last.fm. A fitting farewell.

Until I find the perfect replacement,  I’m really going to miss Last.fm.

While Han and Tee can continue to listen to it for free.

Fuck you, life. I hate being stuck in the 3rd world.

The Bush era is over: it’s okay to listen to country music now!

How do you create a ’scene’? (A musical one, not a hysterical one.) I guess you group together some loosely related acts and/or songs, give them a label, and hope it catches on. Hence the “New Garage Revival”, the “Neo-New Wave”, “New Rave” and so on. The artists themselves probably have little to do with the grouping, other than sharing similar influences, or seredipitously capturing the zeitgeist (whatever that is!).

And so, without further ado, I give you New Roots. Or perhaps, the New Folk/Roots Revival. These (mostly) young artists tap into a strain of music that flickers in and out of mainstream consciousness every few years, tracing its heritage from the folk revivals of the 1960s and the 1930s, which themselves hark back to the semi-mythical antiquity of rural America (and also the British Isles).

It’s hard to define folk. It’s sort of like country, without the accent. It’s rootsy and old-timey, but it’s not the blues. It’s usually acoustic, but amplifiers don’t disqualify you. The lyrics don’t generally have to be of a political nature, whatever the leftists might say. In the 1930s they often cherry-picked the songs with political themes, and even reworked old tunes with new, radical verses. Lyrics-wise, I think the folk I’m throwing together draws more from the rich singer-songwriter tradition of the past fifty years.

So the songs I’ve picked are rootsy, maybe a little twangy, and might just feature introspective lyrics. Here you go:

Johnny Flynn  – The Wrote and the Writ  

The lyrics serve as a cold warning to people whose words speak louder than their actions. (I almost feel a finger wagging at me.)

Elvis Perkins in Dearland — Hey

“If it were up to me I’d leave it all up to you” — I know how he feels! Elvis Perkins in Dearland are quite something on stage. When I saw them last week they had a Sacred Harp group open for them, and later did a version of  a Sacred Harp hymn. Stirring!

Blitzen Trapper — Furr

A friend was into their first album — I remember smoking with the band members outside Great Scott. The new album sounds better, and this song is probably the best track on it.

The Leisure Society — The Last of the Melting Snow

This song comes with a story. The guy wrote it after bumping into an ex-girlfriend and realizing that he still wasn’t over her. Plus he’s a warehouse worker. The song was subsequently nominated for an Ivor Novello award. It’s sad and sweet and simple.

Findlay Brown — Come Home

Great voice. Not much else to say, really.

The Dodos — Fools

More hardwood than heavy metal…

Mumford & Sons — Roll Away Your Stone

They opened for Laura Marling and Johnny Flynn. It was at a little church parish hall, but it was one of the best concerts I’ve been to. It felt timeless. The tour was called the “British Folk Reclamation Tour”. I bought the poster.

Laura Marling — My Manic and I

One of my favourite albums of 2008 … and maybe even the noughties. A precocious little poetess. The lyrics are deep enough to warrant a little literary analysis.

Larrikin Love — At the Feet of Ré

Stomping, rousing, and vaguely celtic sounding. Wait for the soaring strings at the end.

Amy MacDonald — The Road to Home (plus bonus track)

Another bright young thing from the UK. Her debut album was fresh and straightforward and totally devoid of irony or jadedness.

~

Download the whole thing here.

This one’s been haunting my playlists since last November, so is not exactly all that new any more…but five months is plenty of time to figure out that, from the number of replays I seem to be hitting on her songs, she’s really bloody excellent. And it would be so even if the lady behind La Roux, Elly Jackson, didn’t look like she could be Tilda Swinton’s 80s-obsessed daughter (La Roux actually consists of two people: a guy named Ben Langmaid, who once worked with Faithless, is the other).

La Roux- Quicksand

La Roux- Fascination

La Roux – In For The Kill

note: 4shared doesn’t support those mp3 popup players, so the songs will have to be downloaded before you can listen to them. But they’re well worth it, IMO.

So I was looking up some Royksopp songs and stumbled upon The Knife, a Swedish brother-sister duo. The electropop duo have been around since 1999 and apparently have taken a page out of Daft Punk’s book – they wear masks while performing. And the voice of the lead vocalist also reminds me of Bjork.

Anyway, I’ve been listening to this song on repeat for about two days now and I still am not sick of it.

The Knife – Heartbeats

Greetings! I can’t muster up enough energy to do a post, but I’d like to direct everyone to blip.fm. I”m getting major kicks from it. Not sure why. I guess it beats youtube if you want to stream a song.

Happy listening! (If you need recommendations, try School of Seven Bells, and also The Brian Jacket Letdown.)

Covers, especially of songs I love, are usually things I’m wary of. Not that this is entirely justified, since some of the ones I’ve heard* are really pretty fantastic. But it wasn’t till last year that I found out that one of my favourite songs of all time, Blondie’s Hanging On The Telephone, was actually a cover- and the original isn’t half bad. Though I still prefer Debbie Harry…and now, on to comparisons.

The Nerves- Hanging On The Telephone

Blondie- Hanging On The Telephone

And if that wasn’t enough, I found out a couple of months back that Cat Power sang it for a mobile phone advert. It was recorded in snatches and is only about 40 seconds long, but there’s a wistfulness to it that makes it fresh enough for me to really, really wish for a full-length version sometime.

Cat Power- Hanging On The Telephone

*samples not featured here: Cake’s version of I Will Survive, Patti Smith and Tori Amos’s respective takes on  Smells Like Teen Spirit, Placebo covering Daddy Cool (originally by Boney M), and Lily Allen’s illegal take on Womanizer- which sounded better than the original, IMO.