Artist: Lykke Li
Track: Unrequited Love
Album: Wounded Rhymes
I was out of town for a week or two in Washington, DC without consistent Internet access. Sorry to all of my dedicated readers (joke?).
An album that leaked while I was gone was Lykke Li’s new one, “Wounded Rhymes.” I’ve been anticipating this release for such a long time, and it doesn’t disappoint. Li goes a very different direction with this release, but it’s undoubtedly got her unique flavor to it.
Her first record, 2008’s Youth Novels, was bursting with strange percussion, her unmistakably thin but powerful voice, and some finely-crafted, fun little songs. I remember playing it for my 60 year-old father and him liking it - mainly because he’d grown up on classic soul, Motown, and R&B, and there was something about her beats that he could get into. It’s not often that my father and I enjoy the same music, so that was fun and special.
As this amazing video shows (watch her with that cup!), Li seems like a master of using strange percussion sounds to add a strange ethereal quality to her songs. This time around, I feel like she’s experimenting with her voice more. It’s utterly unique and her attempts to bring the idiosyncracies of her voice to the forefront, instead of letting her vocals hover around in the back like she did often on her first record, was an excellent choice. While there are plenty of foot-tappers on this record, and her percussive touch is oft-present, this song, “Unrequited Love,” shows that shen she removes the percussion and focuses on her singing you still get something special. Enjoy.
Gruff Rhys - Sensations In The Dark
Once upon a time, I was so smitten with the music of Super Furry Animals– and their one-time labelmates Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci – that I resolved to learn Welsh. How wonderful, I reasoned, to be able to understand and maybe even join in with these astonishing songs. What a joyous way to spread a little love and respect across these bickering nations of ours. Unfortunately I’ve a tin ear for languages, so the only Welsh I have ever retained is the expression “English pig”, and really, it’s hard to think of a less useful phrase with which to begin a cultural exchange of this kind. Nevertheless, these true loves never die, so even though this song is a little too amiable to linger in the mind, I will defend its right to exist with a passion that would shame William Wallace out of Braveheart – another man who had, shall we say, Anglophobia issues.
Gruff Rhys’ new record, “Hotel Shampoo,” just came out and it’s quite enjoyable - if you like super-twee, super-cute pop music.
I first came across Gruff Rhys with 2007’s “Candylion.” From what I can tell (a lot of the record is in Welsh?) it’s literally about a lion who is the leader of a candy kingdom… yeah. that’s Gruff Rhys. Haven’t teased out the lyrical ambiguities of this new release, but it’s got that same bubble-gummy energy and is super fun. Enjoy.
(Source: indie-rock-jukebox, via musicradar)
Artist: The Low Anthem
Track: Apothecary Love
Album: Smart Flesh
I CREAMED over the Low Anthem when 2008’s “Oh My God, Charlie Darwin” came out. Oh, those harmonies! Those brilliantly simple, folksy, searching, introspective lyrics! The apparent brilliance inherent in each member’s ability to play multiple instruments! That ridiculously inventive and beautiful cell phone whatever trick in that one video!
Anyway, the magic wore off quick-fast. I probably haven’t listened to them at all since that year, and was surprised when “Smart Flesh” appeared on my radar a couple weeks ago. It made me want to go back and listen to their old stuff again. When I did, I was struck by a few of that first album’s amazing songs - “Cage the Songbird,” “To Ohio,” “Ticket Taker,” and “Charlie Darwin.” I wasn’t struck nearly as much by anything on “Smart Flesh.”
That being said, “Apothecary Love” is great, and is a fun concept (a little too kitschy, really, in fact, but you gotta ignore that sometimes with folk music that takes its cuteness too far). Enjoy.
Artist: Tapes 'N Tapes
Track: Freak Out
Album: Outside
Freak Out by Tapes ‘n Tapes. One of the better songs from their new album Outside. It’s about 75 degrees and sunny here in So Cal and it will be for most of the weekend. Nice.
(Source: thatdogsblog, via musicradar)
Artist: Braids
Track: Plath Heart
Album: Native Speaker
I don’t know much about Braids. They’re a Canadian band, and “Native Speaker” is their official debut album. This song, “Plath Heart,” reminds me of Yeasayer a little bit - very artsy and different. Enjoy.
Other than local Seattle artists, I don’t listen to much hip-hop, and especially not much mainstream hip-hop. Drake and Kanye are pretty much it. In fact, though she had three full mixtapes out by the time it was released, my first foray into Minaj-dom was her verse on Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Friday’s “Monster.” Needless to say, I was blown away.
She was so inventive, so charismatic, so hilarious… but as I explored more of her work, I didn’t find anything that compared. I’ve enjoyed her singles enough - the “Your Love”s and “Best I Ever Had”s, and this most recent one, “Moment 4 Life,” is interesting enough too. I like that this single is, as has been mentioned, about her career and aspirations and isn’t another love song.
I think my favorite thing about this song is, interestingly enough, the video - Nicki as both King and Fairy Godmother, the spin on the whole Cinderella theme… and I like the other themes that flow through her work, and I wonder if she’s some sort of mad genius and I’m just not getting it yet because I don’t listen to her music enough? Like, who is this “Roman” character? He obviously showed up on that Eminem (I think?) song, and then she mentions him in the intro of this video as well. Is Drake playing Roman? Why is he in almost every Nicki video? All I’m saying is, maybe she’s creating this entire fantasy world that her songs inhabit and I’m unaware. I wouldn’t be surprised.
“Orange Blossom” is side B of Gardens and Villa’s first 7” single. This track was recorded and produced by Richard Swift.
Learn more about Gardens and Villa here: http://www.facebook.com/pages/gardens-villa/284981924758
Buy the 7” here: http://coolsummerrecords.com/ Enjoy
Big fan of Gardens & Villa. This is supposed to be 2011 releases, but I can’t seem to figure out when this 7” came out? Maybe they’ll release a proper LP this year!
(Source: lyfstyl)
Artist: Beth Ditto
Track: I Wrote The Book - Original Mix
Album: EP
Beth Ditto ♡ I Wrote The Book
➔ addictive.
I first came across the Gossip when burst onto the scene with 2006’s “Standing in the Way of Control” (though they had been a band for seven years beforehand). I didn’t really get them or like their stuff. At the time, I was moving out of a punk/indie rock phase and wasn’t ready to deal with their brash, agressive sound.
Then, as so often happens, they came out with a new record (2009’s “Music for Men”) and its transition from harsh punk-disco to glossier disco-punk (surely that distinction makes sense) immediately enthralled me and encouraged me to check out their older stuff.
That makes this new solo EP by Beth Ditto extremely welcome, as she takes the progression toward dance music to its logical conclusion - a straight up synth-laden disco dance record. At the beginning of this song, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a B-side of of Kelis’ latest record.
This is “I Wrote the Book” from Beth Ditto’s new, untitled solo EP.
[mp3]
Artist: Iron & Wine
Track: Rabbit Will Run
Album: Kiss Each Other Clean
I sat on this album for a while, unable to decide which song encapsulated Iron & Wine’s new direction. I think “Rabbit Will Run” does a good job. Iron & Wine (Sam Beam - now in the singular for easier grammatical clarity) has come so far from his 2002 debut, “The Creek Drank the Cradle.”
That album’s bedroom guitars, lack of percussion, and lo-fi recording made it warm and welcoming and gentle. With every new release, Beam’s upped his game - from 4-track self-production to studio work, from solitary singer-songwriter duties to full-band experiments - and a few weeks ago we were blessed with “Kiss Each Other Clean,” which takes Beam’s sound to a whole new level.
Like Sufjan Stevens, Beam’s taking his sound into the future (or, I suppose, the present; he’s always had an “old-soul/americana/folk” sound that’s been dated, in a good way) with some blips and beeps and synth and vocal compression. He’s also, however, married a very modern sound with very interesting experimentation with non-standard instruments.
From the beginning of “Rabbit Will Run,” you hear what sounds like an African wood instrument (no idea what it really is, maybe that’s the point I’m making?) and the compressed synthy guitar behind it. Then at the bridge we have some strange flutes - it sounds like one of those contraptions meant to occupy childrens’ attention spans at the airport, you know - well, I can’t describe it, but this is what I mean. Usually the balls land on things and make weird noises.
Lyrically, however, this is still the same Iron & Wine poetry - mortality, humanity, existence, love, fear, etc - still beautiful, still enthralling, still chock full of Biblical imagery and soul-bearing declarations.
We’ve all heard the rooster and all been denied
And we’ve seen through the haze and the spit in our eyes
And I still have a prayer, a well-weathered word to the wise
I can’t tell if I really like this new sound; I may be partial to those bedroom guitars. But it’s growing on me.
