July 2010
21 posts
4 tags
Foals - Total Life Forever →
When Total Life Forever starts, there’s a lulling plucking melody accompanied by echoey vocals that makes you begin to wonder if Foals have gone a little Fleet Foxes. Until the drum and bouncing baselines drop in two minutes later that is. And then you’re back in safe Foals territory with the rest of stable, whilst a few Doves fly around dropping some influence all over the place. ...
5 tags
El Guincho - Piratas De Sudamerica →
A five track EP from Spaniard El Guincho should be enough to keep us going until a full album later this year. Alegranza! was one of the best albums of 2008 due to the way it mixed up varied and seemingly unconnected styles, creating something full of texture and layers yet light and fun at the same time. This one’s a slightly looser set of songs, all based on South American originals, so...
4 tags
Gruff Rhys - The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness →
You’ve gotta love Gruff Rhys. Never content to let his albums sound the same, his latest project, The Terror Of Cosmic Loneliness opens with a ripping guitar line that hacks away whilst a snarling Tony Da Gatorra shouts in Portuguese over the top of it like some kind of Brazilian Mark E Smith. This album is supposed to save us from ourselves, to save the world from the discordance of...
6 tags
Common Prayer - There Is A Mountain →
It’s always nice when a record comes along that you never expected nor knew anything about and it ends up charming you into pressing the repeat key all afternoon. This is one of those. Common Prayer is one-time Mercury Rev bassist Jason Russo’s nom de plom and his debut is an album that somewhat defies definition by wavering across the boundary between folk, lo-fi noodling, enjoyable...
5 tags
Baaba Maal - Missing You →
Sunday Sermons
Something new for Sunday Sermons this week. I’ve been listening to Baaba Maal’s Television a lot recently - it’s a super-chilled out album, released last year. Despite being born into the ‘wrong’ caste (he ‘should’ve’ been a fisherman) in Western Senegal, he’s actually been making music since the 70s and put out his first...
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Sonny & The Sunsets - Tomorrow Is Alright →
Take one part 50s rock and roll, one part lo-fidelity bedroom recording and one-part glorious summertime. Mix it all together, shake vigorously and there you have it: the charmingly named Sonny & The Sunsets and their FML-esque titled debut record, Tomorrow Is Alright. Maybe the half-singing, half-talking thing isn’t for you (in which case you should probably avoid this) but if...
6 tags
Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse - Dark Night Of The... →
I first blogged this last year as my third favourite album of 2009 but at the time that was a cheat since it hadn’t received an official release. Now that EMI have seen the light (or perhaps just seen an opportunity to make a quick buck now they really need it) this brilliant record from Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse gets a release. Sadly, since then Mark Linkous committed suicide so...
4 tags
The Clash - London Calling →
Sunday Sermons
London Calling is not just The Clash’s greatest album, it’s one of the greatest rock albums of all time. By 1979, the spirit of punk was beginning to wane and with The Clash still trying to break the US (which first required them to convince their record label to put out their albums over there) and their manager stirring up tensions and factions within the group, they...
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M.I.A - /\/\ /\ Y /\ →
The Long Awaited Return™ of M.I.A appears to actually be a pretty weak return. Everything about it says difficult second album. Only, her difficult second album was the massively successful Kala and this is the follow-up to that. From the somewhat pretentious album title (spelling MAYA, look closer) to the overt internet references on the cover art and lyrically (particularly on clichéd opener,...
4 tags
Chatham County Line - Wildwood →
Bluegrass Friday! A new album from North Carolina natives Chatham County Line is always welcomed after their 2008 record IV first turned me on to the actual possibility of enjoying a bluegrass record. Wildwood - no, not the Paul Weller one - is a perfect record to be sitting on the porch, drinking lemonade and fanning yourself to. And it’s full of authentically great tunes. To quote a...
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David Byrne & Fatboy Slim - Here Lies Love →
David Byrne’s latest album (released in April this year) is an epic two disc set of tracks inspired by, and telling the story of, Imelda Marcos, wife of Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos. It features many guest female vocalists (including Tori Amos, Martha Wainwright, St Vincent) who each get inside a certain part of Marcos’ psyche, whilst Norman Cook has been brought in on the...
4 tags
Toro Y Moi - Causers Of This →
Not sure how I missed this addition to the burgeoning chillwave scene (which according to hipsterrunoff is already thawing). However, after being tipped off by a combination of Jami and NPR, I’m now happy to announce that Toro Y Moi have been added to that illustrious roster of artists that are inevitably destined to crash and burn their second albums. Yes, he’s a one man band and,...
5 tags
Math and Physics Club - I Shouldn't Look As Good... →
Second album from these Lucksmiths/Belle & Sebastian-inspired, bespectacled twee-popsters from Seattle. Not much has changed since their eponymous debut, the tracks are still sparkling indie pop gems full of enthusiasm and innocence, although perhaps with less immediacy this time around. With obvious debts to C86 and the Beach Boys (of which there is a clear nod to in the album art for this...
6 tags
Yeasayer - Odd Blood →
Sunday Sermons
When I started doing the Sunday Sermons, Odd Blood was one of the albums I had in mind. The idea was to give a second opportunity to albums (past or present) and to reflect upon how what you hear over time changes with the record. When I first reviewed this I criticised it for being too poppy but, in retrospect, that’s exactly it’s greatest asset. It’s a pure,...
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Peter Wolf Crier - Inter-Be →
What’s the aural equivalent of a double take? Y’know, like those pigeons in Moonraker. Only, instead of Bond on a gondola (the Bondola of course), it’s two dudes with guitars pretending to be Bon Iver. If you take it on its own, it’s a decent record really… but, it’s really hard to. With those yearning falsettos, dusty percussions and haunting acoustic lo-fi...
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John Grant - Queen of Denmark →
Here’s a man who writes things the way he sees them. Quite literally it would appear. Listening to Sigourney Weaver (a track featuring one of my favourite choruses to draw an analogy between the writer’s own desperation and 70s sci-fi, horror films) and a few of the other tracks you get the impression this album was written on his sofa during a spare afternoon. Don’t take that...
4 tags
Good Old War - Good Old War →
Named from a combination of the 3 band members’ last names, ‘Good Old War’ could just as easily refer to fighting the sometimes bittersweet but always worthwhile pleasure of living itself. In this, their second album, Good Old War supply a consistent dose of pleasant folky pop. These Pennsylvania boys are taking the US by storm and are currently an Amazon bestseller - get yours...
4 tags
They Might Be Giants - Flood →
Sunday Sermons
Any album with such memorable tracks as Birdhouse In Your Soul, Particle Man and the inimitable Istanbul (Not Constantinople) deserves praise on Sunday Sermons. Flood was They Might Be Giants’ major label debut and the proto-nerds certainly didn’t hold back on the ridiculosity factor with gleeful and humourous results. Nothing but prolific and inventive, since 1990...
4 tags
Various Artists - Broken Hearts and Dirty Windows:... →
I’ll confess that I hadn’t heard of John Prine before this stellar compilation appeared in my ear-vision. A folk musician from Illinois who has been making music since 1971, Prine has been an inspiration to many. And although I haven’t heard any of the original material, it’s clear from this that his melancholic and poetic songs have stood the test of time, ably...
5 tags
Ed Harcourt - Lustre →
luster 1 |ˈləstər| ( Brit. lustre) noun
A gentle sheen or soft glow
Figurative glory or distinction
There’s two things you notice when you look closely at Ed Harcourt’s latest and fifth album. Firstly, if you didn’t know, he’s British. But moreover, the songwriting remains distinctive and the production glowing. So a pat on the back to the Album Titler (is that a...
1 tag
June Playlist
Here we go again… another month over, another just begun. Top stuff from this scorching month included The Morning Benders finally getting Big Echo out onto the shelves, messed up pop music from the brilliant Ariel Pink, a sombre and solid debut from Irish one-man-band Villagers, Bloc Party’s Kele released his beefy, electro solo debut and the fuzzy wonder of Wild Nothing.
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