How can we explain the recent success of House of Balloons , the debut album/mixtape released by Canadian duo The Weeknd ? One would typically cite Drake's stamp of approval combined with its free download distribution strategy, the latter playing no small part in working up the music blogosphere's hype machine. More insightfully, the record's indie appeal has been attributed to its critique of R&B's VIP area hedonism . Or we could even consider the hegemonic impact of Pitchfork, not simply in proclaiming its Best New Music status, but in regularly assuring the [...]
Guitar instrumental music isn't supposed to sound like this, so leave your romantic notions at the door before stepping into the world of Bill Orcutt , reissued in its shockingly raw entirety in a compilation titled A New Way to Pay Old Debts . Armed with nothing but his downtuned four-stringed vintage acoustic Kay guitar and DeArmond pickup, Orcutt's repertoire is emotionally intense, a picture of the artist completely absorbed in his craft, capturing through the most limiting yet familiar of instruments the myriad ideas that must be firing from his brain at any one time. "My Reckless [...]
Yes, this sounds a little too much like "Red Right Hand", that haunting trail of suspense building upon itself from the crackling introduction, that dark baritone delivering a chilling tribute to Nick Cave, impressive though a far cry from the master. But all is forgiven of young Nicolas Jaar when it becomes evident where he takes the track from its beguiling starting point of muder balladry, or at least what he dares to try. The wayward strings are his weapons of choice, with its precise old school horror film inflections forming a surprisingly fluent bridge to what seems [...]
It takes some sort of an emotional blow to hold on to every word being sung, like it was the gospel of truth itself. So maybe I'm not in the best place emotionally, and this song started as something hopeful, something to embrace were it to play at my favourite indie club, but now I find it's full dread, and there's a part of me that will always want to remember what I was trying to forget. They should still play this, near the end of the night, just as you start to feel [...]
" I did not become someone different that I did not want to be, but I'm new here ". With Bill Callahan 's deadpan delivery, these words don't elicit much empathy. Instead, they operate in a normalised, everyday context, an idealised Smog world celebrating the commonplace, where being new is but one point in an ongoing, repeated cycle of living and reliving, just as it is. ***** Under Gil Scott-Heron 's interpretation five years later, those same words take on very different meanings. Stripped of their comforts, they sound slightly upsetting. Who [...]
SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Caracal - Bears Brazen smatterings of post-hardcore and hard rock are the name of Caracal's game, something they do exceptionally well. There are shades of Underoath, Fugazi and mewithoutYou all over their straight-shooting, swashbuckler of an album, Bear. Shark. Wolf. Even if the music's genre isn't your cup of tea, one thing you can never fault this young band on is how proudly they wear their hearts on [...]
The opening two songs of Furniture 's long-awaited sophomore album They Made Me Out of Dreams You Forgotten seem intent on presenting two very different sides of the Malaysian band. While "Once Set in Stone" opens the album as a fairy tale, sweet and at times whimsical, "Entrails" turns, turns, turns things around, providing a stubborn antithesis with its harsher edges and dischordant experimentation with yes, the lovely squall of those horns. Even so, these two seemingly divergent paths aren't as well defined as they would appear. Fairy tales end on a bittersweet note with [...]
The National have already got a few memorable albums under their belt, notably their 2007 indie breakthrough Boxer , but here is my favorite song by the band by some distance, released some seven years ago on their Cherry Tree EP (2004). Performed in a detached register, there is something less than cogent about the musical arrangement of “Wasp Nest” that nevertheless evokes an intoxicating late-night cadence compatible with F. Scott Fitzgerald's prose. Picture Matt Berninger, in character, making a quick study of the spiral of uninteresting strangers at some party, then setting his sights on [...]
How rad is the new Lykke Li record? The 24-year-old Swedish singer has got style and confidence in spades, and her second album Wounded Rhymes is an enthralling excursion into a hardboiled wonderland of melodies and desire. Musically sturdier than her debut Youth Novels (2008), the ten songs on Wounded Rhymes color her portraits of heartbreak and loneliness with a new palette of sophisticated, shape-shifting sounds – in the form of the vamped up exuberance on lead single “Get Some”, the baroque swoon of “Love Out Of Lust”, and the understated melancholy [...]
Colin Stetson plays a variety of woodwinds. On his recently released New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges , he plays a solo saxophone, recording his tracks live in a single (and usually, first) take, accompanied sometimes by the guest appearances of Laurie Anderson and My Brightest Diamond's Shara Worden. The latter delivers a vocal performance of a lifetime in her cover of Blind Willie Johnson's "Lord I Just Can't Keep From Crying Sometimes", dripping with soul and affection, enveloped by Stetson's signature unceasing mourn. But the focal point of Judges has to be Stetson's [...]
And who shall go to the ball with this 20th century girl? Shrouded in mystery, our debutante Anna Calvi beckons you to hold her close every single hour while keeping you at arm's length. Addressing you only with the vaguest of affections, Calvi orchestrates each flourish and whisper with the allure of a seasoned chanteuse. Sometimes, you find yourself wondering if she's going through the motions, doing her thing because she knows full well what keeps you hooked. Most of the time, though, you're simply too mesmerized to care. - Dan . [...]
Fresh-faced indie slackers armed with a derivative sonic template firmly tied to the nineties (Yo La Tengo, Teenage Fanclub, Swervedriver) and a tragically unimaginative band name, Yuck have nevertheless been garnering quite a bit of attention for their eponymous debut – at least until the new Pains of Being Pure At Heart record drops, I suppose. “Georgia” is their effervescent brand of fuzzy guitar-driven pop at its most engaging, flawlessly executed by musicians who clearly relish in the ecstasy of influence. Originality may not be one of their strongest suits, but Yuck’s way with jingle-jangly melodies would have [...]
SINGAPORE : I'm Waking Up To... Elektone - Falling Into You Memories fade in and out of reality when it comes to Elektone's dreamy brand of electro-pop. Started by Zulfadly Amin, a graduate of our National Arts Council's Noise Singapore initiative, he and his merry band capture love and light waves as pangs of desire wash over Singapore's bullet-speed society. Taking a moment to enjoy Elektone's music is almost like allowing yourself to fall [...]
One of those albums that I missed last year, this debut effort by Walls - a collaboration between Allez Allez DJ Sam Willis and Alessio Natalizia of Banjo or Freakout - meets you on that blurry pathway between dreams and reality. You can't quite pinpoint where that point lies (is it even a point?), but you find it constantly worked out between Willis' electronic synth leanings and Natalizia's guitars and instrument-like vocals. On "Soft Cover People", surprises abound just when the latter's contribution appears to dominate to the point (no, there really isn't one) [...]
What made James Blake such an exciting new discovery last year and eagerly anticipated artist this year is the kind of suspense he's built up through each of his three EPs released in 2010. The cinematic space-age paranoia of The Bells Sketch set the stage perfectly for the deconstructed genre-bending breakthrough of CMYK , both EPs demonstrating Blake's deft hand at handling complexity and willingness to upset the flow of things. Seen in that light, ending the year with the more laid-back Klavierwerke might have almost sounded like a step backwards. [...]
What times are we living in? Did you see that coming? What makes the guitars so exuberant? Are the band really from Chicago? If so, why do they sound so Brit, so glam, so Beatlesque all at once? Could you ever imagine C86 sounding hi-fi? Are they really that young? Countless questions abound with Smith Westerns ' Dye It Blonde , an album that revels gloriously in wake of the best crafted pop music of old. Bursting with imagination, this sophomore effort is unapologetically excessive but never wasteful, making its 35 concise minutes an unquestionably delightful listen, brimming [...]
I guess this song is most fondly remembered for its Michel Gondry-directed video , achieving such iconic status in popular culture that even garnered it a Simpsons' tribute/spoof. Along with his Lego-brick treatment of "Fell in Love with a Girl", Gondry's filmic reduction of the band to its bare essentials - in this case, the band's stunning bombast through simple repetition - is a concise distillation of what Jack and Meg have accomplished with their stark visual aesthetics (primary colors of red, white and black), single-minded musical direction (old school rock and blues) and daring ambition (can two people [...]
Ok, this is really the last of our 2010 reviews. Anchoring this column is Keith , who's listened to more reissues this year than Brian and me combined, putting us to great shame. Enjoy the list, and have an awesome year ahead! Antena – Camino del Sol (Numero) I suppose we could possibly populate this list with plenty of the other fascinating releases from the Numero label, and French trio Antena’s 1982 debut album is one of our favorite things. The fleet and exquisite [...]
I've been waking up to the lyrics of "silver stallion" for about four days straight, ever since I discovered The Highwaymen 's version of the Lee Clayton original, although the first time I'd ever heard of the song was through Cat Power . Everything I love about country music (which in actuality, is very little) is in this amazing version of the song. The general consensus amongst people I've raved about this song to, is that nobody on the face of God's earth is putting out music with this [...]
It had me within the first few chimes of its opening notes. There is something in “The Kid” that speaks to me, the languid phrasing, the strange yet a familiar chord changes. Such care and delicacy in the fingerpicking. It is reassuring and calming. If it were words it would be sagely advice. It makes me want to love. There are no fireworks here, no intricate fretwork, no distortion. Expression comes in the form of a clean tone and a light touch of reverb and tremolo. When a song has a soul, it is quietly confident, and never [...]
i'm waking up to...
Kanye West - [Album]
M+A – When
