2009 was a pretty productive year for music on the whole. Started off with Little Boots being picked as the Sound of 2009 by the BBC, and look where she is now - can see the same happening to Ellie Goulding and Marina & The Diamonds, fortunately/unfortunately. A few strong releases came about, including K'naan's sophomore album Troubadour, one of my favourites, if not the favourite, of last year. Passion Pit started to get a lot bigger, as did the likes of CuDi, both of whom have blown up over the past year with strong debut releases. Can't really [...]
photo by Michael Ligon January's gone and my February concert schedule's looks busy but my March schedule looks even busier not even counting this year's Canadian Music Week . So while precious little of the actual CMW(or more accurately, Canadian Musicfest ) schedule has actually been announced yet, Toronto promoter has already announced his NeXT-at-CMW shows running March 11, 12, 13 at The Velvet Underground, The Silver Dollar and The Comfort Zone. Mr. Burke's never been shy about reminding us how he used to run his own mini-festival AGAINST CMW but has [...]
You might want to read Part One first . It's more level-headed, whereas this one is rankly steeped in emotional judgement... Just like the best science lessons at school, this article will be preceded by an experiment. It is easy, and, just like science, only requires honesty to be considered a success. So, quick – without thinking – answer this: what was the single greatest musical moment of your life ? Could you come up with an answer? If you could, your response was probably along the lines of [...]
Seriously, what a long and winding road it has been so far this season on Idol . I don't know about you, but I was so thrilled to hear tonight's episode was the final of the first round auditions as the Idol tornado hit Denver, Colorado. The mile high city delivered 26 Golden Tickets, of which we saw seven contenders. However, we got some great quotes and what seemed like a new guest judge in Victoria Beckham . Beckham's biggest hit with the Spice Girls "Wannabe" asked us to "Tell me what you want, what you [...]
I never get much mail really. The electronic type I get tons of, but the real type that comes from Mr. Mailman, rarely. So imagine my delight when I received a CD in the mail, along with a cool numbered art print from Chapel Hill, NC band - Polynya . I have a weakness for indie-pop, female vocals and electronic music, so after a few listens to Crop Rotation , I knew I just had to feature this band. Luckily, band member Luke Berchowitz allowed us to do a virtual sit down, and [...]
Standard Fare Standard Fare are a brilliant new Sheffield band, comprising Emma Kupa (bass, vocals), Danny How (guitar, vocals) and Andy Beswick (drums). They've released two singles so far: 'Dancing', on a split 7" with Slow Down Tallahassee in April 2009 and 'Fifteen'/ 'Understand' on beautiful blue vinyl last month (January), both on Thee Sheffield Phonographic Corporation. (There's also a bittersweet Christmas song, 'Tinsel Politics', available for download on the web.) Their debut [...]
a couple of weeks ago, i was whining in my heavy.com 'breakthrough band' column about how much i miss the signature morr music sound shaped by bands such as ms. john soda and lali puna . obviously this time crying in public turned out to be rather cool for a change, as my beloved lali puna have just announced their new album 'our inventions'. one track is already available, going by the name of 'remember'. and it seems to me as if they haven't changed their sound a single [...]
I'm doing a turn for more along the lines of Gang of Fours debut: ENTERTAINMENT! This is from Ukraine's Got Talent. This may, for some, automatically brings to mind bad borat benny hill tricks-with-a-donkey scenarios: and we're better for Simon Cowell and Susan Boyle? I'm doing [...]
Omfg... I don't believe there is a more divine bliss than spending a Saturday afternoon hung over with Francois De Roubaix soundtracks and crackers. The overly blessed Roubaix spent nearly fourteen years gracing the public with his lovely and jazz infused musical experimentation. I do not mean to diminish the supremely deep qualities of his compositions by saying they are "birthed from cupcakes," but I simply want to describe the giddy emotion that spills from each layer of his musical creations. I think he must have experienced a quite deep happiness in his life since his songs [...]
Overwrought yet oddly tamped-down, framing a voice like Guy Garvey's campy, excitable brother: too goofy to be lovely, too mannered to cut loose. "We Still Got The Taste Dancing On Our Tongues" is prolix as its title; wittier is "When I'm Sleepy…" which briefly pretends to Prince's domestically sexy throne. Reminds us of: Elbow | Here We Go Magic | English public schools Wild Beasts: ( MySpace | Official Site ) wild beasts two dancers 50 word [...]
Last April — ten editions of The Originals ago — we looked at the first of three batches of originals covered by the Beatles. Here we revisit two tracks each from the debut Please Please Me (Anna, Boys) and 1964's Beatles For Sale (Words Of Love, Mr Moonlight), as well as With The Beatles ' Devil In His Heart. * * * Arthur Alexander – Anna (Go To Him) (1962).mp3 The Beatles [...]
Swim (To Reach The End) mp3 Surfer Blood Astro Coast .... buy it here from Kanine Records (they're a wonderful indie label, go support them!) ... I nabbed that mp3 off Pitchfork's site, you can go read their review of it here . Wow! This Tart got waaaaay more than she bargained for last Saturday night when these four bands played Schubas for the Tomorrow Never Knows 2010 show! I walked into a fog-filled room to hear the sweet sounds of good old fashioned punk/noise sung enthusiastically [...]
The official Brits site has got a little widget on the front page which dispenses "BRITs Facts" - small gobbets of truth from the thirty years of British music covered by their remit. Not quite sure what the qualification for being the sort of fact we're supposed to be celebrating is, though. This was beaming out a couple of moments ago when I visited: Ah, yes. How better than to promote the UK as a cultural powerhouse than by reminding everyone about the time one of the nation's veteran artists [...]
The second post of my Best 9 of '09 series was supposed to be theatre in general; however, when I realized that 4 of my preliminary picks were Summerworks shows, I realized that Fringe and Summerworks deserved their own lists entirely. So there'll be a Best of Theatre '09 list down the pipeline, but first - a post each, celebrating Toronto's new work festivals. The Next Stage Theatre Festival is running to the end of this weekend at the Factory Theatre, featuring many of the actors and companies singled out for praise in these [...]
<a href=" http://onethirtybpm.com/2010/0 1/15/album-review-the-soft-pac k-the-soft-pack/" The Soft Pack The Soft Pack [Kemado; 2010] Links: The Soft Pack | Kemado | Purchase on Insound Posted by Sam Olson on 15 January 2010 Once upon a time in San Diego, a little band called The Muslims was formed. They slotted fairly comfortably into [...]
For my 1000th post I listed the best Irish albums of all time, and as a special celebration for my 1500th, I'm now going to list my favourite Irish Music Blogs. And on what better day to celebrate it than the day teh nominations open for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards . Obviously my own is my favourite, but apart from that... (In alphabetical order) 2UIBestow Run by the lovely Peter Nagle, this is one of Ireland's most underrated Music Blogs. He knows everything [...]
by samuel breen. The brilliant Alan Rusbridger speaking in 2006 about the effect of the internet on print media offered a simple analogy. Without the limitations of print i.e. page space, word count, the job of the editor would be to cherry pick work from a bouquet of writers and articles, reduce the word count, then allow sub-editors and proof-readers to massacre what remains*. He compared their role to that of a funnel (at the time I imagined a coffee filter) where topical articles are forced through a condenser and the most significant news, reviews, features etc. [...]
Colin Wilson on Hampstead Heath, 1956 The author Colin Wilson once said: "I had taken it for granted that I was a man of genius since I was about 133. For a short few months after the publication of his first book entitled The Outsider in 1956, it seemed that the rest of the world thought so too. The Outsider was a collection of essays that explored the philosophical idea of 'the outsider' in literature including that of Kafka, Camus, Hesse, Sartre and Nietzsche. It was an impressive collection of modern writers but it seems [...]
A re you kind of over all my Oscar talk yet? Okay then, bear with me. I've got some more obsessing to do, but I promise to keep this post relatively short and sweet (okay, well maybe not so much). In 2010, as in so many years past, it seems like Oscar buzz is flocking to the double and triple threats. Let me explain: If you have more than one critically acclaimed performance -- or blockbuster hit, or one of each -- to offer as proof of your worthiness, you stand a better chance of making the shortlist [...]
V ia Keller (that's me) is a self-taught artist, web designer & psyche-naut who fled the midwest in the late 1970's to find herself….elsewhere. An affinity for the medium of collage emerged from the serious play & free-form experimentation associated with the production of Short Fuse, a xerox magazine published in Santa Barbara. It was during this time, in the mid-1980's, that i was fortuitously introduced to the work of Jess (Collins), San Francisco's superb beat-era paste-up artist, whose art & correspondence was my greatest source of guidance & inspiration. (He also served a lovely and gracious lunch when i [...]
Wolfmother – White Feather (Acid Washed remix)
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Hot Chip: One Life Stand
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