Incoming: Great Bloomers – “This Ain’t You (Live @ TARA)”

Via Exclaim’s Click Hear

A great song from a great album by a great band gets that much greater thanks to this live version from the second instalment of the Audio Recording Academy’s Secret Sessions.

Great Bloomers debut is a stark contrast to the EP they released two years ago. Where that was a visceral, ramshackle affair, Speak of Trouble asks listeners to look inward lyrically and sonically. “This Ain’t You” is a prime example of this approach, showing through two characters that no matter how deep you might bury your feelings, they’ll always rise to the top for all to see. The slightly more laid back nature of this semi-acoustic live take is well suited to the beautifully effortless voice of main Bloomer Lowell Sostomi. His pitch perfect rendition is just as emotionally fuelled as its studio counterpart.

Listen to the track here.

Related Post:

Record Review: Great Bloomers – “Speak of Trouble”

Record Review: God Help the Girl – “God Help the Girl”

God Help the Girl is a movie Belle & Sebastian head honcho Stuart Murdoch has written and hopes to make sometime next year. But since he is after all a musician first, he’s offering up the soundtrack a year or so early.

Made up of songs that date back as far as Dear Catastrophe Waitress period B&S, Murdoch says he always imagined these tracks sung by girls backed by strings, recruiting Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon, Smoosh’s Aysa and members of B&S to help bring the project to fruition.

“Funny Little Frog” and “Act of the Apostle,” both from The Life Pursuit, get re-imagined here via newcomers Catherine Ireton, who appeared on the cover of B&S’s “White Collar Boy” single, and Brittany Stallings, discovered via an open call for female singers. These fresh takes are indicative of the rest of the album, which mines Sandie Shaw and ’60s girl-group harmonies and at times, sounds more like the Pipettes than any Belle & Sebastian record. God Help the Girl may be a soundtrack but it more than holds up on its own, standing side by side with pretty much anything Murdoch has put over in the last decade.

This review originally appeared at Exclaim.ca

Old tech gadgets are good for nothing

 

 

 

On the 30th Anniversary of the first portable music device (they’re excluding the transistor radio) the BBC convinced a thirteen year old kid to turn in his iPod for a week in exchange for a Sony Walkman. Hilarity ensues. Read all about it here.

R.I.P. Michael Jackson

The King of Pop died after going into cardiac arrest. He was 50 years old. 

Major Lazer – Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do

Legend has it that Major Lazer is a Jamaican commando who lost his arm in the Zombie War of 1984. He was given a lazer for a prosthetic limb and now works as a soldier of fortune while operating a nightclub in Trinidad as a cover. 

Of course, like all legends, the truth is far less exciting than the fiction. Major Lazer is in fact collaboration between producers Diplo and Switch, the knob tweakers behind M.I.A. and Santigold, respectively. 

With the help of Santigold, Spank Rock collaborator Amanda Blank and a slew of Jamaican dancehall artists, the duo create a spaced-out dancehall sound, which is kind of like the spiritual cousin to the science fiction hip-hop of Dan The Automator’s Deltron 3030 LP. 

Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do was recorded at Jamaica’s legendary Tuff Gong Studio and is a fantastically fun record that stands on its own, but also offers an entry point to this dense genre.

This post originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Incoming: York Redoubt – “I Said Slightly”

Via Exclaim.ca’s Click Hear

The Pixies loud-quiet-loud aesthetic got hijacked in the ’90s as lesser bands (Silverchair, Bush, Everclear) ran ragamuffin with the sound, making it the most clichéd dynamic shift this side of a Korn breakdown. But as necessity is the mother of invention, a new generation of bands is taking the Pixies sounds to new extremes in both directions. I like to think of it as “noise-not noise-noise.”

One of the best practitioners of this new aesthetic is Halifax’s York Redoubt. Featuring Brad LaHead from the Got to Get Got and named after a national historic site and former military base in their hometown, the trio find a striking balancing between art rock and pop. Their best track “I Said Slightly” from The Ryan Allen EP is a fun, breezy example of their sound; out of a wall of lo-fi noise comes catchy, melodic singing. I especially dig the single note guitar line that follows the vocals. Then back to that awesome, arty noise. It’s like the bastard child of Sonic Youth and Fleet Foxes.

The Ryan Allen EP is available for free download here. All three tunes will be included on the band’s forthcoming self-titled EP, hopefully out very soon.

Listen to “I Said Slightly” here.

Record Reviews: Hayden – “The Place Where We Lived”

Hayden’s determination not to be pigeonholed continues on The Place Where We Lived.

This album comes hot on the heels of last year’s mostly acoustic In Field & Town. Here, Hayden more often turns to the piano as he recounts a breakup in agonizing detail. Curiously, he uses this muse to craft some of the most pop-oriented material of his career.

“Message From London” and “When The Night Came And Took Us” are immediate standouts, and short, tight writing abounds. But make no mistake, this is still a Hayden record; though he may embrace the hooks, there’s still a clear artistic vision to the album. 

Over the years, Hayden’s fans have proven ready and willing to follow him in whatever direction he chooses so he’s in no danger of falling into obscurity. But considering the populist feel of this album, if this one doesn’t finally break this guy big, theres truly no justice in this world. 

This review originally appeared at Chartattack.com

Record Review: Street Sweeper Social Club – “S/T”

Remember in high school when your friends started that Rage Against The Machine cover band, but the guitarist couldn’t play and the singer couldn’t rap? Apparently so do Tom Morello and Boots Riley, ’cause that’s pretty much what their new “supergroup” Street Sweeper Social Club sound like.

The elements for a winner are all here. With his main gig, hip-hop group The Coup, Riley delivers whip-smart indictments of American politics. And the similarities to Rage’s single note grooves are forgivable, since Morello is kind of that band’s mastermind.

But everything about Street Sweeper Social Club feels uninspired. It’s more the product of a late night brainstorming session than an organically evolved sound. The riffs sound like Rage toss-offs and the solos are mind-blowingly tame. And Riley’s rhymes are reigned in and hampered by lowest common denominator sloganeering like “Fight! Smash! Win!”

Supergroups are always dodgy territory, and are rarely able to become more than the sum of their parts. Unfortunately, Street Sweeper Social Club can’t even manage to do that.

This review originally appeared at chartattack.com

At The Drive-In reunion kinda/sorta/might NOT be happening

Via Exclaim.ca  - The Texas post-punk schizo’s former frontman and current Mars Volta member Cedric Bixler-Zavala clarified a statement he made to Drowned In Sound while speaking to Clash Magazine that while the group were back on speaking terms, there was no plan for any kind of reunion noting that, “The whole thing is that we’ve buried the hatchet, so that’s all that matters.”  Oh well, maybe a Refused reunion could do in place of At the Drive-In? What say you boys?

Polaris Prize long list announced, if the music… weighs in

The long list of 40 nominees for this year’s Polaris Prize were announced on Monday and in keeping with this blog’s long tradition of being a few days behind the competition, I was both out of town (in America!) and blissfully forgetful of the release date (yo publicists – send press releases to ifthemusicsloudenough@gmail.com). Still, that’s not going to stop me from weighing in with my thoughts on the matter.

As usual there are several artists on the list that I haven’t heard of (La Patere Rose, Coeur de Pirate) so its great that they’re getting some exposure from outside of what I assume is Quebec. There’s also a lot of records that I haven’t heard yet on the list. Personally I’m surprised to see Beast on the list, since I thought that record was fairly dull and I’ve never been much of a fan of Metric so obviously I’m not pulling for their VERY new disc Fantasies. I love Joel Plaskett but I just don’t think Three, despite it’s ambition, lives up to past nominee Ashtray Rock. Ditto to the new Junior Boys. And there’s still an utter dearth of hip hop on the list - K-Os and K’Naan are both perfectly fine, but they’re the token Canadian rappers rock fans dig. What was wrong with Classified’s latest?

So who do I like to go the distance? I was stoked to see Bison BC on the list, but I have a feeling the thrash metal group will quickly get the boot when the shortlist is released. I’m pulling for Pink Mountaintops, Japandroids and Fucked Up though I have a weird feeling something more safely abstract, like Charles Spearin’s The Happiness Project or (and this is where I’d put my money) Chad Vangaalen’s Soft Airplane will win. But seriously, what other record subverted it’s genre more brilliantly than The Chemistry of Common Life?