Showing posts with label The Twilight Sad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Twilight Sad. Show all posts
on Saturday, 29 December 2007
Shady Bard - From The Ground Up (Static Caravan)
There's something undeniably beautiful about the work of Lawrence Becko's baritone vocals, bound to put some people off, others will just find it that bit more loveable, that bit more human, especially when you hear the wonderful lyrics set to such lovely piano based post rock, never going full on Explosions in the Sky but certainly heading that way towards the finale of the wonderous Penguins. Tracks such as Summer Came When We Were Falling Out and Fires are organic and frail almost amateur in appearance with milk bottle melodies and whistled refrains, acoustic post rock, and much lovelier for it.
The sound is wintry and beautiful yet is as warm as it is cold with enchanting lyrics such as "I think i'll take a walk in the park/ it's a cure for a broken heart" perhaps evoking slight comparisons to bands such as Low or The Tindersticks, maybe even The Twilight Sad in four albums time, less frantic and more experienced in life.
Bobby is reflective and not afraid to take & admit responsibility for past errors, humble and delightful and really nothing less than the quality you would expect from the superb Static Caravan label. These Quiet Times is angelic "I'll catch you falling, I'll catch you falling, I'll catch you falling , when you least expect" full to the brim of the kind of reassurance we all need in this paranoid world we have to cope with, Eluvium style piano's enter as the song peaks and the moment is just wonderful as the final chorus breaks in "won't you feed the birds in the winter time?"


Windmill - Puddle City Racing Lights (Melodic)
At the other end of the spectrum we have Windmill, for once an artist who can justify comparisons to the Flaming Lips, Neil Young and Mercury Rev, comparisons so relentlessly handed out to anyone with a remotley falsetto vocal.
The songs again are wonderful, upbeat and also resemblent of the much missed Homescience, mixing beats with classic piano chords this album is again nothing short of brilliant. The songs are heart wrenching yet wonderfully honest.
Interestingly Static Caravan have previously released one of the album highlights, opener Tokyo Moon, do you really need any more evidence that this label is genius?

Sources

Windmill

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

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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