May 2011
12 posts
6 tags
PS I Love You - Meet Me At The Muster Station →
Is 2011 the year rock makes a comeback? With Yuck’s early 90s revival already in the bag and last decade’s rock heroes making a reappearance, PS I Love You’s spacious but powerful sound is also gathering steam. Reminiscent of post punk and grunge at the same time, their debut record (which actually got it’s first official release at the tail end of last year) is...
1 tag
April Playlist
As the end of May rolls around, it’s a nice reminder that the playlist from April was never posted. Shock! Horror! Awe! Anger! Fireworks!
Partially also reminded by a killer tUnE-yArDs show at Primavera Sound last weekend, her album, WHO KILL, was a highlight of April which also saw some great folk records by James Vincent McMorrow and Four Quartets. Not forgetting the eventual...
5 tags
My Morning Jacket - Circuital →
Since hearing the title track on NPR a few months ago HotSpotMusic has been eagerly awaiting the release of Circuital, the sixth studio album from Kentucky rockers My Morning Jacket. And it is an EPIC JAM. Quite a wonderful return to form after the meandering Evil Urges 3 years ago, Circuital is a beautiful collection of countrified rock with delicate nuances and a variety and breadth that...
5 tags
Dan Le Sac ft Scroobius Pip - Angles →
Sunday Sermons
DJ Dan Le Sac and MC Scroobius Pip’s debut album throws together hip hop, dance and rock samples in a surprisingly cohesive album and Scroobius Pip is desperate to tell the world how he feels about everything from relationships to the desperate state of the music industry. The Beat That My Heart Skipped includes a fantastic spoken word intro while Angles and Letter From God...
5 tags
Cass McCombs - WIT'S END →
Cass McCombs new record, Wit’s End, is music for the soul. Nurturing, fresh from the farm, organic soul music. Melancholic, gentle and brooding like a heartbroken bear playing Spanish guitar in a park at dusk on a sunny day, it will be the perfect remedy for some and a malady for others. In unequal ways it lifts from Elliott Smith, 60s psychadelica like the Zombies and smooth lounge jazz....
6 tags
Micah P. Hinson - And The Pioneer Saboteurs →
I’m not sure if Micah P. Hinson is the American Richard Hawley or if Richard Hawley is the British Micah P. Hinson. Either way they both make beautiful music with their balladry a perfect offset to their dulcet, swooning voices. Hinson, of course, has the more alt.country thing going for him and it sounds emphatically indefatigable on the driving 2s And 3s, amongst others. And The Pioneer...
5 tags
The Leisure Society - Into the Murky Water →
Sometimes noted as the English answer to Fleet Foxes, The Leisure Society do have a vaguely similar sound, but theirs somehow presses further, investigates beyond and returns with a beautiful variety of sounds and songs covering a range of emotions and techniques. From bittersweet introspection to musical-esque collective high, the many instruments and tones woven throughout this record seem to...
5 tags
Architecture in Helsinki - Moment Bends →
The great thing about Architecture in Helsinki was that they were pretty chaotic but still managed to write inventive and catchy songs. They were charming to listen to if you had an appetite for destruction. But the trouble with this record is that it’s far too well produced, far too formulaic and poppy. There’s almost nothing interesting about it - even the lyrircs are pretty...
5 tags
Thao & Mirah - Thao & Mirah →
What happens when you take three of the most interesting female artists working in indie music today and put them in a studio together? The answer is this, a fine record from Thao (minus her Get Down Stay Down) and Mirah with tUnE-yArDs’s Merrill Garbus on production duties for some of the songs. Mirah’s lilting tones work surprisingly well with Thao’s more distinctive vocals...
6 tags
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues →
With the possible exception of The Shrine / An Argument, which has a clattering chaos that sounds like the band handed their instruments over to a group of actual foxes (whose artistic talent as a species is yet to be fully defined or appreciated), Helplessness Blues picks up exactly where the first record left off. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on whether you got enough first time...
5 tags
The Extra Lens - Undercard →
With a new Mountain Goats record just released, Spotify have allowed us to prepare our worship at the altar of John Darnielle with the new availability of last year’s Undercard. Nominally a record by The Extra Lens, it bears all the trademark characteristics of the Goats’ catalogue with Darnielle’s eternal sense of fatalism mixed with wit (Annihilation’s pouring since it...