nuttyxander

Following on from part 1 -- busking it, more great songs from last year.

Annie -- Anthonio

So much to love about this. For starters, it’s Annie and she’s still as ace, different and lovely as ever. Her breathless, almost ethereal stacatto vocals undercut by a questioning echo are an utter delight and work really well against Richard X’s production which appears to have nicked a bassline from Popcorn. And there’s a 90s boy-band style key change at the end, though that’s not the only surprise.

Hafdis Huld -- Kongulo

A song about the human spider, Alain Robert -- almost a shame they didn’t get him to star in the video really. A simple song about a complex man, fun, breezy and joyous from start to finish. Why did I overlook Hafdis for so long, and why have I failed to see her live in London? And do I just have a weakness to icy voiced nordic maidens? Possibly.

The Whitest Boy Alive -- Island

Enough of the effortlessly cool then, time for the nerdy and awkward getting to rock out. I was pleasantly surprised by the first Whitest Boy Alive album, Erlend Oye was always my favourite of the pair in the Kings of Convenience and only part of that was because he was so obviously the nerdy awkward one on their album covers. There’s a hesitance to the underlying beat of this song that fascinates me, and the way the instruments come in and build up play around and then slowly depart has the atmosphere of a 12inch mix but seems just to be there to allow the band to expand on their theme.

Royksopp -- Vision One

I mentioned this track earlier in the year because I was so fascinated with the sound of it, especially when I found it was based on Royksopp’s remix of a rather decent Japanese orignal by Eri Nobuchika. Hearing this song was the moment that Junior clicked for me and I finally felt that I could forgive Royksopp for The Understanding which is, listenning to it now a good album ruined by a single song (49%). I guess the genius of this -- and it rests back in the Japanese original too -- is the combination of an aggresively modern sound with a lament for what we’ve lost.

Fever Ray -- Triangle Walks

I’ve always been of the camp that preferred The Knife’s version of Heartbeats to Jose Gonzales’ cover (remember him?) but had never quite had an album by The Knife gel enough with me to make it a choice favourite. Karin from The Knife in her Fever Ray guise is somehow much easier on the ears without compromising on the sound. The kind of haunted lullaby I suspect you need when you’re close to the midnight sun.

Still to come: France!, ElectroygoodnSS and my innevitable devouring of American indie.

Tags: 2009, music

After much soul searching, some blog eating posting and a bit of prevarication here’s the first music of 2009 post. Yet again I’m going to go for a different format to before and so I’m just going to use youtube this time.

This first collection of tunes are all bands from these isles and like a lot of bands I like their names begin with M (see also Madness, Misty’s Big Adventure and Moondog) -- somehow I’ve wound up with a loose theme which is that all of these videos show them busking or performing in a bandstand.

Micachu -- Curly Teeth

Micachu’s debut got held up the other day as one of the albums that the mainstream missed last year. I’m a bit perplexed by that, Micachu are easily the best known of the acts I’ll mention here and only because they’re on a major label. I think anyone who believes that producing a decent album or song alone will get you noticed is ascribing magic powers to the works of critics and the internet. Both the great unwashed and washed alike will like what they like when they like and anyone who despairs at them for it misses the point. Maybe the BBC are just grumpy their own hype had no effect. <RANT OVER>
On the actual music, well it’s oddball instrumentation with wailing vocals and production from Herbert. Impressively it’s not all about the studio wizardry as this live performance shows that the songs are fed as much by musical efforts as those in production.

Meursault -- William Henry Miller Pt.1

God I love Meursault. I saw them live twice in London, but must catch them back home in Edinburgh some time. Most of my experiences of their live shows have been akin to this performance, stripped back and haunting. This song is determinedly earnest but an absolute joy as they segue from handclaps to wailing vocals.

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Tags: 2009, music

It’s time for my annual X (X being 5 this year!) years post in London post (well, almost a month over, but hey). This year I’ve made a Spotify playlist of music that I associate with London having listened to it whilst here, or as I’ve roughly titled it London’s Track Record.

The idea here is that these are the songs I most remember from the last 5 years, I’ve put it all in a rough order of when I listened to it first.
You can link straight to songs below, and I’ve whacked some comments alongside justifying my choices. Do please comment and nag if you need an invite for Spotify, I have some to spare.

Enjoy. I blame Pitchfork for making me get all musically retrospective with their P2K feature. Proper were the 00s a good decade for music posts to follow…

London’s Track Record

Ratatat – Spanish Armada

My main listenning on train south was Ratatat’s debut album which had obsessed me for a while, if I hear the last few songs I always feel like I’m heading south for some reason.

Fridge – Cut Up Piano and Xylophone

My initial commute to work was cross-town from my aunt’s house in Leytonstone. I found myself with a good hour or more to fill so would read and listen to music a lot in the mornings and evenings. One morning I was changing trains at Gospel Oak when I hit this track just as I descended the stairs to get the train. It felt weirdly apt and set me up for the day

Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy Jr

I doubt it’s possible to really have been an indie kid and missed Sufjan, but for a while I was rapt and remember spending a lot of my first London summer relaxing and listening to this whilst reading.

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Tags: london, music, spotify

This week I have been mostly listening to the new St Vincent album, Actor. I originally tripped up over her first album Marry Me on emusic, having seen it reviewed on Pitchfork. Marry me was stuffed full of lengthy, wordy songs with her clear and crisp vocals matched with equally clear and crisp guitar and light orchestration which made it at times feel like some kind of Broadway musical. If anything frustrated me it was a slight lack of edge, but I still loved what was there.

Then, smack out came her new album Actor preceded by the single Actor Out Of Work, which hinted at but didn’t reveal the fine balance that the Actor would tread.

For St Vincent it’s indecently loud, with NOISE everywhere, little wonder the others in the music video are crying. There’s also distortion everywhere, and it’s distortion that this album really specialises in. ¹ One track that’s really come to be my favourite is Marrow, where the noise and distortion is combined with horns to create a fascinating funky backing to the kind of pitying lyrics that I’m more used to hearing from male vocalists. ²

In a rare move, critical judgement of this album is similarly positive elsewhere though I am perplexed by an NME review that seems little more than a list of name checks.

Tags: albums, emusic, music, st vincent

As you probably know I’m a massive Studio Ghibli fan. Their last couple of films were sadly a bit disappointing partly due to lower levels of involvement from their (inevitably exhausted) genius director Hayao Miyazaki. ¹ Thankfully, their latest film Ponyo on the cliff by the sea has all the hallmarks of plenty of involvement from Miyazaki and now has a release date of sometime in August, maybe (TBC). I can barely wait.

Anyone looking for an interim Ghibli fix would do well to read over The Ghibli Blog, I really liked this music video in particular.

Tags: animation, anime, film, ghibli, music video