It's Vappu, I'm feeling rather poorly and I've got to go to work later. I hate these days.
Before I go and serve beer to anyone, I must share some of Hazey Jane's lovely chillaxed vibes with you's.
Hazey Jane (not his real name) is a guy from Belgium who dabbles in the mysterious art of sample-based, lo-fi pop music. I'm guessing from the name 'Hazey Jane' that he's a bit of a Nick Drake fan and guessing from the title and samples of the track 'Mclovin' that he's also seen superbad at least the once. Other than those "facts" what else do you need to know?
Just listen to 'Tail'. As it had me hooked with it's distorted drums and sample of who knows what
Hazey Jane - Tail
and here's a video for 'Twinky Twinkle lil' Star'. It's quite cool.
Shit, if the days here keep getting any nicer, I'll be forced to venture outside and brave the sunshine. That day'll be a sad one for those who witness my pasty stick-insect legs. Whilst I'm not outside enjoying the almost-heat, I might as well do what I don't do best. That is update this here blog-er-mejiggy.
Now then. When I was a kid growing up in a really harsh part of industrial England, my parents would force me to box. Having a champion boxer as a son must have been such a dream for them, because when I told them that my dream was to be a ballet dancer they weren't having any of it and called me all sorts of names that I'd have to censor to put on this internet blog written for children and families.
My only escape from this hell was to create intricate choreographys whilst growing up and learning to become a man at the same time. The only help on offer for this was obviously the French record label Kitsune. Kitsune taught me to dance. Kitsune and it's compilations taught me how to be a man, and stick up for myself using dance.
Now those days are history and I live in Finland and work in a mineshaft, just like all my family before me. When I heard that Kitsune were bringing out their ninth compilation album, I shed a tear. A tear of joy. Happy that Kitsune didn't give up their dream of releasing electronic compilations just because I gave up my dream of dancing.
We're living in a world with all sorts of La Rouxs, Little Boots, Marina & the Diamonds and Ellie Gouldings. So I was perhaps slightly hesitant about The Good Natured and more synth-princesses. But then I heard Your Body is a Machine and it was positively ace.
But what obviously rocked my socks was that the tune on Kitsune 9 was the Zebra & Snake remix of Your body is a Machine. It's good to see this Finnish duo getting international recognition.
- Do you remember when you were young? - What were you mainly doing when you were 16? - Does Elton John still remember when rock was young? Back when him and suzie were having so much fun.
- I remember when I was young. I mean I'm not exactly mega-old yet but my days of 16-year old glory are way past me and it pains me to hear that the boys of The CQ are just that: 16 years old.
- When I was sixteen, I was probably still a warhammer collecting social reject, who most definitely was not making music that anyone with ears would enjoy = it pains me that I enjoy The CQ's reverb pop. Although three demos is all i've heard of them, I'm sure these boys are not fresh out of ideas and will continue to please old men like me in the future.
So here's what they've got:
A bit heavy on the "songs starting with W" bit, but maybe that's the theme for the hopefully up-and-coming EP/any release.
- Ah, as for Elton remembering? - Well I'm pretty sure the man's still got those memories
Whooh! It's a beautiful day here in sunny Turku. Luckily TPS are playing ice hockey soon, so I don't have to be outside, but well.. inside doing the old selling beer to sports fans thing.
Luckily the perfect soundtrack to such a purty day has been provided by Subpop and Avi Buffalo.
Avi Buffalo is a name that's "been going around the scene" for a while now, but they're finally getting a release soon. Very soon. In fact 27.4.10. The day after tomorrow.
Subpop are streaming the entire album online, until its release date, so now's the time to put your ears on and listen up. EDIT: The albums out now, so forget the streaming 'cos that baby's down. So get your purse out and buy it instead BUY
As I've lived in this here country of Finland for the past over half of my life, I've obviously grown accustomed to the finnish way of life.
But like I've written on here before, the majority of finnish music that gets released out here is a bunch of toss. And the finnish music that'll get a release somewhere overseas is also generally just something that doesn't float my boat in any kind of way.
It's not all bad though.
Wednesday was supposed to be day I went to see the triple-bill of Kiki Pau, Astrid Swan and Tuulia at Klubi. Astrid I've seen many a time and usually I thoroughly enjoy it. Kiki Pau have just released their new 'White Mountain' album which is rather decent, but I've never seen them live so I was quite looking forward to it. Tuulia just seems an interesting prospect. Playing acoustic Tool covers in Finnish.
You know how bands never start playing when their alloted slot is said to start, let alone before 8.30. Shit, this time we got there at about ooh say 10.30 and managed to catch a glimpse of Kiki Pau's last song's last note. Apparently it was advertised everywhere to start at 8, but who the hell looks at ads? Oh the frustration. Well then in our frustration we settled for a game of Scrabble. I lost to a 90-point word (Asetyyli = Acetic). Bastard.
One of my fave Finnish/French bands The Dø have braved the Atlantic in search of recognition over in America. 'A Mouthful' got a release earlier this month on Six Degree Records. Those American took their time. A mouthful has been out in Europe for two years now. Well it definitely hasn't aged in two years and still sounds fresh as hell.
I've even got their song 'At Last' for you to have. Goodie goodie. All the best to The Dø in their overseas excursions!
After my "all inclusive" festival update package I can get back to doing what I enjoy doing on any given day: Listening to and sharing great sounding music with obscure names you may or may not have ever heard of.
Today's post is about something/someone who sounds so lo-fi it's ridiculous, but also incredibly soulful. I'm talking about Tom Helgerson's project 'Shahs'
As a one man project, Shahs songs almost all consist of the same elements: Layered, beatboxed, reverbed beats, echoed, like I said almost soulful, vocals with just a cheeky bit of synth thrown in the mix.
The beats may seem repetetive after 6 minutes, but there's so much atmosphere to the songs that they're a lot more hypnotic than dull. Tom Helgerson even seems like a very decent singer and this shines through all of the effects.
While there are a few EP's available as free downloads, I'm most definitely waiting for the full length to get a release.
Every blog in the entirety of Finland has today written about Flow's line-up being announced so I'm going to save anyone the hassle of having to read my list of performers because I'll just link the festival page. If you cast your eyes across the sexual yellow background of the page and rest your eyes upon the names that stand out in underlined, possibly Times New Roman font, then you should be just as overjoyed as I am.
It seems the organisers have gone all out on keeping me happy. Thanks for that. Thomas's insatiable appetite for decent festival tunes has been... well sated.
But while that's still months away you can listen to what it's got to offer with this here spotify playlist, if some of the artists aren't quite as familiar as you'd like.
Anyway, here's what I'll be enjoying.
Now that these are finally out, I can go back to having a normal life
How often does it happen that you listen to "modern music" that incorporates saxophones, and you think: "Hey that sounds good"?
For me this thing happening is generally a no-no. I guess this stems from back at school when the teacher desperately tried to make us "get" Miles Davis and his damned fusion-jazz.
Montreal three-piece The Pop Winds are less no-no and more downright astonishing. They have my Miles Davis comparisons flying right out of the window and I'm just sat here appreciating the audacious approach to not being one of those guitar-bass-drums bands. In fact I salute them for having me absolutely captivated.
They've put up their EP 'Understory' up for a free download here and I highly recommend you give it a listen. The 6 songs vary in intensity but still mostly have the same driving thumping backbone pounding away, whilst everything else (saxophone included) is layered on top of that.
Here, listen to 'Elgin Stream' if you don't believe me.
Understory however is like "so 2009" and as to be on the ball and shit The Pop Winds have released a full length album 'The Turquoise' on Arbutus Records available on CD AND again a free download
Here's 'Feel it' off of The Turquoise. And yet again it is quality. (Video gets a bit rubbish after about 5 minutes)
So today = 17.4 has been the international record store day. A desperate way of trying to rejuvenate/aid the falling album sales rates? It's a shame to have to use these sort of gimmicks to remind people of substantial records in the hay day of illegal mp3's.
But as a consumer who already purchases a considerable amount of music, I feel my concsience is clean and I'm free to reap the goodies that such a gimmick as Record Store Day offers in abundance.
And goodies is what it does/should offer. With crazy amounts of bands putting out limited editioned releases: Crystal Castles, Flaming Lips, Neu!, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, She And Him, Happy Birthday, Caribou, Dum Dum Girls, Male Bondingetc. Unfortunately as I live in Finland most of these releases were impossible to get over here. Chatting to my local record store's owner, he said that some record labels wouldn't even answer his e-mails and most people just didn't want anything to do with record store day limited releases being released over our way.
That's bullshit if you ask me. Why are these things organised in such a way over here? I feel like someone should set up a consultant agency on how to optimize your illegal downloading rate.
Anyway, thankfully 8 Raita had at least been sent a few items: Something by Soundgarden, a Happy Birthday 7", The Album Leaf's 12" with a few originals and a single remix and finally a Dum Dum Girls/Male Bonding split 7".
As there was only one of each record I snapped up the dumdum/malebonding 7" like quick snap. Then I took advantage of the ongoing sales to bolster my collection with Dum Dum Girls' 'I Will Be' and finally Gang Gang Dance's 'Saint Dymphna'
Thought I'd just add a few relevant video's here now.
A bit of Male Bonding (one of my favourite band names)
Girls Names may be the hottest thing to jump out of Northern Ireland since well erm.. Snow Patrol. They're about to release their 'You Should Know Me By Now' 12" on one of my favourite labels: Tough Love.
Normally I don't watch movies, because they just don't make them like they used to. I would probably list 'The Running Man', 'Batman and Robin', 'Conan the Barbarian', 'Eraser', 'End of Days', 'Kindergarten Cop' and 'Twins' to be my favourite movies of all time.
But because it was flatmate K's birthday and he really wanted to see Clash of the Titans I felt obliged to go and see it with him. [Flatmate K often dresses up as Zeus and makes us other house members build statues of him out of play-doh. (now that I got him a ninja costume for his B-day he's got more roles in his dressing up repertoire)]
Clash of the Titans was not only astounding in it's acting and dialogue but it was also in 3D. It's a great thing to witness superb acting combined with new technology. It makes me wonder why people even bother with relics like theatre anymore. It's films like CotT and 'Tron Legacy' that will ultimately cause the death of boring "culture" like opera and art galleries. But this is only a good thing. I mean why look at a 2D painting when you could be watching 3D robots and 3D men in 3D neon jumpsuits throwing 3D neon frisbees.
Clash of the Titans had it all and was certainly a return to the good old days of cinema. The ending credits rolled in under two hours after the film had started, but I was so exhilarated by the experience that it only felt like I'd just sat down. What I want from films I see is a love story, and without spoiling the movie I thought it was great that the film-makers decided to resurrect the main-man Parsey's love-of-his-life Aye-o at the end. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy as I left the cinema. The Rock was really good in it too, when he taught Parsey to sword-fight.
Later someone told me that in real life Parsey didn't actually get off with Aye-O and really he got off with the woman who was meant to be fed to the sea-monster. But I think the film-makers got it right this time because Aye-O was a lot fitter than Andromeder and if I was Parsey I would have done the same thing.
I'm glad films like this are being made again because I really feel that they teach young kids about morals and history and swordfighting and religion.
I'll give it a 9/10 It would have 10/10 if it had had Arnold Schwarzennegger in it instead of the rock.
Most of the time sifting through my e-mails is a labouring and ultimately unrewarding task of "deleting" viagra order forms and contemplating whether to send my amounted wealths to "Mr. Okereke" in exchange for even more amounted wealth once Mr. Okereke gets his hands on all that oil he's been sitting on for years.
Sometimes though, it's refreshing to see that someone doesn't want to make my penis larger and more effective or make me a rich bastard. Sometimes someone just has a bit of music that is a bit good.
Like Ravenous.
Ravenous got in touch and sent me some of their songs. A few of which I thought i'd share with you. Just because unselfishness is a virtue.
These boys are from Silver Spring in that big America place, which apparently is near Baltimore, where the geezerest geezer aka. Stringer Bell used to live
Anyway. I really like their song 'Saltwater Taffy (The Dock)'. Check it out. For some crazy reason it really reminds me of 'Tranquilize' from The Killer's collaboration with Lou Reed
I've written about The XX and their remixes before, but I stumbled across another one recently. That is the one they've done of Glasser's 'Tremel'. It can be found on the Tremel single, released by Young Turks
Today's not about The XX though.
Do you ever lay awake at night wondering what it would sound like if Hermione Granger got into making musical synth-magic instead of playing magical baby-making with Ron Weasley?
Possibly not that often but there's something positively magical about Glasser's music making that could offer the answer to this predicament. (Not the laying awake at night predicament, but the Hermione & not-babies predicament)
Tremel follows up last years 'Apply' EP and it's title track which is slightly brilliant in all of it's tribal beating.
New single Tremel focuses less on rythm and more on creating an unnerving atmosphere using a pulsating backing and "ethereal" vocals. Quite impressive.
Oooh! With the Delorean record 'Subiza' coming out shortly, here's a remix they've done of Glasser's 'Glad'
In a nutshell, what I can do with my presents is wait for Owen Pallett by playing the melodica. When I run out of breath I can just kick the shite out of Lucifer. Ace.
What I did today: -Had an ice-cream. -Went for a quaint walk along the river basking in the sun. -Listened to Darwin Deez's new album -played the melodica -kicked the shite out of Lucifer -waited for Owen Pallett
But this blog isn't about ice-cream (a twister btw.), walking nor the 9 circles of hell. It's supposed to be about musiqué, so I'll try my best to soldier on.
Darwin Deez released the awesome 'Constellations' single a while ago, but the only problem with Constellations was that as it was a single it only had two tracks on it.
Now tomorrow they come out with they're eponymous full length and boy oh boy is it nice. Mostly uplifting cheery tunes, but sometimes with a gruffer side to things (Lights On), sort of like a bouncier Strokes.
It sounds very "now!". Goodgood. Bye bye
Don't let the title fool you, this is indeed Darwin Deez 'Bad Day'
Today I've lived yet another sun-cycle. Wow I feel so old. I'm getting quite good at this ageing business. To celebrate myself, I'm writing about one of my favourite subjects yet again: Sun-drenched lo-fi bliss-pop.
The object of today's nonsensical writing is New Jersey duo: Slow Animal.
Yet again, not a lot of information is available on these two apart from (myspace): They're called Alexander and Daniel They possibly enjoy barbecueing. They possibly enjoy jam sessions in cars. They make raw-sounding awesomeness with shoutback dual-vocals and various ooh's and aah's.
They're giving away a four song EP away as a free download here. It's already on my mp3 player so why not yours too?
If downloading isn't your cup of tea, then here's a few videoclips.
This morning was supposed to be about me going to school, learning everything about physical chemistry, coming back from school and feeling like a genius.
What actually happened was that, fair enough I woke up, but then I started listening to So So Modern.
So So Modern are a bunch of kiwi's who make "math-rock" via precise percussion and hypnotic riffs in the same style as say Foals or Battles. Sometimes throwing in some "post-hardcore" elements in the same style of say, Les Savy Fav. That sounds like they've got a winning ticket.
Even though their debut album 'Crude Futures' was only released in February, it has been racking up lots and lots of listens and fans. Me included.
'Berlin' is a slow burner and I guess a step in a new direction for So So Modern, but it sounds awesome in all of it's over 6 min glory. I really wanted a higher quality video on here for Berlin, but this will have to do. And I do like the description for the video: Rare footage of 1980's Ukrainian super-group So So Modern playing in the staff swimming pool at Chernobyl. Dated 25/04/86
Here's their official video for 'The Worst Is Yet To Come'
And here's a video that really did make me smile and all happy and shit when the synths really did kick in: 'Synthgasm'
They are of course the first confirmed names for Flow Festival 2010. If their "twits" are anything to believe.
Now because all of the other festivals in Finland have steadily released their line-ups during the last few months, Flow Festival's choice of releasing it's line-up in April has brought mass speculation about who/what/where? and also some impatience.
Everyone has their own favourite that they'd love to see in Helsinki come August. Personally mine would be Four Tet, but alas that has as yet not happened.
What has happened is that Ulver and Major Lazer are set to play in Suvilahti.
Now whilst it's hard to hide my disappointment with these two names, mainly because of such high expectations, I've still got to draw some positives from this.
Ulverare a bit good. Perhaps like you'd expect Norwegians to sound, with all their black metal and stuff, just without all that much black metal. Very epic, majestic but oh so very dark.
Still I find them a slightly odd choice for Flow.
Major Lazer quite not-literally bored me to death recently, so I took all of it off our Irish pub's jukebox.
Good move if you ask most of our patrons Bad move if you ask the entirity of our Jamaican customer base.
I have no doubt that Diplo and Switch will rock the fuck out of the party, but as an act that relies so heavily on featuring artists I can really only see it being a sweaty DJ-set. Oh well, DJ sets can be fun too.
Major Lazer probably will be a last resort for me in August, if nothing else is on at the same time.
The baby crying in auto-tune is quite funny though.
I've been slightly quiet on the typing-internet-words front recently due to working like a real person does. It would seem that Jesus dying and undying and stuff is a good excuse for most people to get absolutely hammered. That's ok though, from now on you can call me grandpa Moneybags.
I've latched on to my newest favourite thing like a dog would latch on to your leg and do it's magic. My newest favourite thing are Brooklyn band Forest Fire.
Possibly not new to you, but I just came across these lot and their folky wonder a while ago. Yeah yeah yeah Forest Fire released their album 'Survival' early last year, I know it's old news. I hear cries of: "What next you old fogey? You just heard of some guy called Eric Clapton?"
Anyway.
You've got to love singer Mark Thresher's way to make his slurred vocals, which sound as though he's constantly going to miss-hit his notes badly, sound so personal and, well basically, good. Not surprisingly 'Survival' was picked as one of Rough Trade's top albums of 2009
But what really hooked me was 'Fortune Teller' with it's pounding beat, "face-melting gatling-gun social skills" and one hell of a bitchin' bassline.
Not really much like the rest of 'Survival' where things are brought down quite a lot until "it gets brought back up" on closing song 'Slow Motion'
That's my excuse for not having any exciting new releases for you.
I've only been awake for maybe an hour and I've already fallen for one april fools gag. How many more does this wretched day hold? phtyi. (that was me spitting like a bitter old man)
What I do have for you is some New York Glo-fi from Small Black
When I said I don't have any new exciting releases for you, I didn't mean that I didn't have anything for you. Small Black released their eponymous debut EP sometime back in October last year. And fair enough that's not exactly that long ago, but just long enough to not be breaking news anymore.
Small Black sound much like some of their Glo-fi/Chill-wave (Washed Out, Neon Indian etc.) contemporaries but with a darker streak. In fact the track 'Wierd Machines' lives up to it's name with it's positively deranged synths.
The "single" track is 'Despicable Dogs' and it's been hailed everywhere as Wow! Pitchfork reviewed it as best new music and that guy who says things in my head at night also said "Wow!"
Washed Out remixed 'Despicable Dogs' and it sounds roughly exactly like this:
'Bad Lover' has all the charm of Miike Snow on sedatives. Sound awful? Well it's not. So there.
