Showing posts with label Esmerine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Esmerine. Show all posts
on Sunday, 4 October 2009

Sufjan Stevens - Enjoy Your Rabbit

I'd kind of lumped Sufjan Stevens in with the Devendra Banhart crowd and in some ways maybe that is fair, on others it’s purely coincidental and probably quite a n a l of me to do so. I fell out with Devendra, so to speak, when i saw him at ATP, around the time of Cripple Crow, when he was prancing around thinking that he was Jesus and singing about little boys. I place him alongside Herman Dune in that it's clear that he has talent but he is far too self obsessed for me to have any time for the said talent.

Sufjan had kind of made his way there in my mind, maybe it was his idea to make an album about every state, and the fact that the first had over 20 songs on and the second had a whole album of surplus tracks, either way i think i was wrong to dismiss him and welcome him back with open arms, although he is pushing all the wrong buttons with me again, releasing two albums prior to his new one, i'm yet to hear the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway one but i will openly admit to being completely won over by the reworking of his debut(?) album Enjoy Your Rabbit, entitled Run Rabbit Run and amazingly packaged:


Quote: Run Rabbit Run is not a new Sufjan Stevens album exactly, and neither is it about John Updike. Instead, it is a version of Stevens' 2001 album Enjoy Your Rabbit, reimagined for the New York string quartet Osso (who provided the strings for Illinoise). Originally commissioned by Bryce Dessner for his Music Now Festival, Stevens, Dessner, and the Osso quarted decided that they needed to document this music on a physical format. The songs, rewritten for strings by such composers as Michael Atkinson and Nico Muhly, among others, comprise a song cycle about the Chinese Zodiac.
Having not heard the original i can't comment on how true it is to that but i can confirm that this is plain beautiful stuff, like Dirty Three and Esmerine at their most accesible and quite possibly a contender for album of the year in my humble opinion. Beautiful string based "post-rock" or maybe "instumental" would be more apt. A delight for the ears.

Sufjan Stevens - Year of the Ox mp3

Source: I Guess I'm Floating

on Wednesday, 29 August 2007
Vic Chesnutt & Amandine Reviewed
Posted on 2007.08.29 at 17:50
Current Music: Eliza Lumley - She Talks in Maths: Interpretations Of Radiohead
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Vic Chesnutt – North Star Deserter (Constellation)
A quite exquisite release from the ever reliable Constellation label, featuring a host of guests namely all seven members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band, along with Guy Picciotto (Fugazi), Chad Jones & Nadia Moss (Frankie Sparo), Eric Craven & Genevieve Heistek (Hangedup), Bruce Cawdron (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Esmerine) and T. Griffin (The Quavers) and quite frankly you can hear their influence, particularly A Silver Mt Zion on tracks such as the epic Everything I Say and You Are Never Alone, both building up storms of sound, dark and yet hopeful, epic and yet easy on the ears along with the near full on post rock assault of Debriefing.
Vic is perhaps sadly better known for the fact that he is a paraplegic rather than for his great song writing talents, hopefully this album will make a difference. In addition to the earlier comparison fans of Lambchop, Will Oldham and Smog will not be let down by what’s on offer hear, the lovely slow and comparatively short Wallace Stevens for example, Splendid too, very much alt. country and undeniably familiar in sound yet not afraid to venture of into more experimental waters, kicking in again after seven minutes with a lovely Silver Mt Zion-esque vocal refrain. An album that will no doubt feature highly come the end of year polls.
http://www.cstrecords.com/cst046.html
MySpace
www.vicchesnutt.com/


Amandine – Solace in Sore Hands (FatCat)
Quite lovely album from Swedes Amandine, a lovelorn collection of songs falling mainly into the alt. country bracket but with enough pop sensibilities to appeal to a much wider audience. Silver Bells is a delicate pop song song of desperation and strong feelings that relationships can bring to the fore “honey, distance brings us closer/ and honey hardship makes us strong” and carries a hint of Concretes style horns that melt themselves into your brain.
No doubt this will appeal to those who have in recent years fallen for the likes of Sufjan Stevens and The Broken Family Band. Go let yourself be woo-ed by the gorgeous Americana on offer here from the opening Faintest of Sparks to the gorgeous closer, all six minutes sixteen seconds of New Morning.
Amandine – Secrets MP3
Amandine Website
Amandine Myspace
FatCat Records
FatCat Myspace




on Saturday, 25 August 2007
Current Music: Meanwhile, Back in Communist Russia... - My Elixir; My Poison

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Having some problems with the formatting today, if this isn't displaying properly, please view at http://blog.myspace.com/i39dratherbefatthanbeconfusedfanzine

The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters (FatCat)
Perhaps out of all of FatCat’s recent releases this is the one that should have hit me instantly, what with the Ladybird style cover, the post rock leaning and the long song titles, yet I struggled for a while but with continued listens I’ve learnt to fall for these Scottish boys, an accent to add to the Proclaimers and Ballboy, Scottish and proud of it. Each song dripping in resonance and walls of sound, the kind that Oasis thought they had achieved yet they are made to look little more than pebbles in comparison never more so than on the excellent Talking With Fireworks / Here, It Never Snowed, an explosion of guitars reminiscent of Rose Kemps Violence and Mogwai back when they weren’t afraid to do the predictable quiet loud quiet loud, lovely triumphant marching drums that most street bands would be proud of. And She Would Darken the Memory conveys the tiresome part of relationships “I’ve putten up with your constant whine” at the top of his voice and from the bottom of his heart in such a manner that will easily win over Arcade Fire fans. Noise, melody and songs sung from the heart, I don’t know why it took me so long, I really don’t.



www.myspace.com/fatcatrecords

Whitenoisesound vs. .redshifts – Single Series Six (Burning Emptiness)
Another challenging listen from the picturesque Burning Emptiness label, Whitesnoissound are a seven piece that at least on this recording (their myspace would reveal a more guitar driven sound) are ambient and for the most part of Blood Reprise slight unnerving and disturbing, although it does eventually morph into an Asa Chang stylesleep inducing psychedelic dream piece. You wouldn’t guess from the type of music made that there are seven of them! I thought ambientronica was for onemanbands, geeky laptop users with a knack for finding a tune from a decay pile of electrical overload. .redshifts it would appear is a onemanband and indeed Adam W. Flynn has a knack for finding a tune amongst electrical overload, Distant is ten minutes of resonant joy, a little bit Loscil biut not afraid to bring in inappropriate drums just when you least expect them, as perfectly wrong as the scenes from Donnie Darko where he is being a teen arsonist and his sister is taking part in the dance competition all set to slow moving music, capturing the moment and extending it till your ears ring a wonderful tone.


http://tinrp.free.fr/


Airborne Toxic Event - Does This Mean You're Moving On (Square)
As free time and employment get in my way I have less and less time to spend sifting through 7" singles in record stores the way I used to on the empty Monday afternoons of my youth and as such my musical tastes have moved away from those lovely homemade indie pop treats that i used to so delight at receiving and purchasing, here I’m reminded of what I’m missing out on. A three track seven inch single full of Gedge like delights, not least the title track, three and a half minutes of prime pop ala Cinerama, lyrically packed and catchy as can be. One for the indie disco that much is sure.

http://www.theairbornetoxicevent.com/

I can’t stop listening to…Stephen H, by All Angels Gone, the slowly wondering pianos that announce recent sorrow, a death, a murder, unexpected and spontaneous, the body still lying on the floor, a vase smashed into a thousand pieces and the rain relentlessly crashing down against the window, a solitary tear running down her face…by 2 min 38 there is hope on the horizon, new beginnings and fond memories, this is beautiful music that you will want to listen to again and again despite in melancholy feel. Like Esmerine had they been a bit more hospitable, Eluvium in a less dreamy mood, Dirty Three if only Warren Ellis would stop trying to be such a frontman. http://www.last.fm/music/All+Angels+Gone

Stephen H. mp3

I can't stop listening to...Sunshowers by M.I.A., I must say I was slightly surprised/ disappointed to see M.I.A. on the front of this month’s Plan B magazine, I had them down as more underground than that, I could be wrong but I’m of the assumption that M.I.A. has a certain amount of mainstream critical acclaim under her belt. I'm self proclaimed awkward when it comes to music, for the reason though that the "big" bands, the bands that grace the cover of the NME, Q etc have enough listeners already when no doubt as I prove to myself everyday there’s a million and one great bands to discover who get nowhere near the coverage they should. I'm pleasantly proved wrong in the case of M.I.A. she is a legend, and Sunshowers is the most instantly lovable song you can imagine, this is a song for the good times, a song that comes at a time when I’m deeply wrapped up in post rock that gets me in the mood to go out, go surprise yourself, you won't be disappointed..."He had colgate on his teeth/ And Reebok classics on his feet" how can you not love that?

www.myspace.com/mia