Belle and Sebastian

For the last year or so, Grouper have hogged the top spot of my Last Fm Top Artists for the last rolling 12 months, I don't check every day but for a long time my love affair with Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill has left all other artists lagging behind...until this week that is, when Grouper finally made way for, of all people, Belle and Sebastian.

I find it almost hard to believe that the first band (well maybe second or third, as Blur and the Foo Fighters filled much of my early teen listening years) I ever really obsessed over have stuck so firmly in my playing selection. I say this because I'm the kind of person who always wants to hear something new, always ready to discover something different and I get easily bored of albums. Seven or eight years ago i could firmly tell you my 5 favourite bands, that being Belle and Sebastian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Hefner, Clinic and The Delgados, these days Iseem to be able to discover five new bands a week, i could hardly begin to squeeze down to a solid list of my ten favourite bands, maybe not even 20. Since these humble beginnings my tastes have evolved through indie pop, electronica, post rock (to the point of boredom), drone and more recently dubstep and even house and yet subconsciously and admittedly with the help of a new album, Belle & Sebastian are still doing it for me, more so than any other band over the last 12 months it would appear.

Kashiwa Daisuke - Program Music I (noble) - Reviewed

Kashiwa Daisuke - Program Music I (noble)

I was stupid enough to make the mistake of mixing up Kashiwa Daisuke & Daisuke Miyatani both releasing albums this year and both with similar artwork & names to the untrained English man, so i was rather suprised to see the normally reliable Silent Ballet raving over this release and more suprised still to see it awarded number 6 in their end of year top 50 instrumental albums of 2007 as i'd been less than impressed by Daisuke Miyatani's work.

Hence why i'm sat here giving Program Music 1 the attention it deserves. Two tracks, the first Stella is stella by name and stella by nature, clocking in at almost 36 minutes its an awe inspiring trip through a fragile and beautiful outlook of the world. This again shares an affiliation with World's End Girlfriend, snow blowing in your eyes, cold and harsh yet ultimately turning the tired landscape you see day in day out into a winter wonderland of enchantment. Kashiwa has the ability much like Godspeed to write a song that clocks in well above the average length and yet never outstays its welcome. Within a loosely knit genre that often relies on repitition and indelibly written formulas never once does Stella sound like its treading familiar ground or running short of ideas.

Track 2, Write Once, Run Melos clocks in at a mere 26 minutes and again is nothing short of astounding, seemingly more electronic, this will thrill anyone who was even half as consumed as i was by this years Motoro Faam or Cloaks albums, a lovely melding of classical piano and electronic decay for a world weary, politically tired generation. This could well turn into this years favourite mistake.

Myspace

Website

Noble Label

Kashiwa Daisuke - Sample mp3

Yasushi Yoshida - Secret Figure Reviewed

Yasushi Yoshida - Secret Figure (Noble)

Much in the vein of World's End Girlfriend the work of Yasushi Yoshida is equally as stunning though perhaps not quite as ambitious. Lonely footsteps and gently picked out piano notes compliment and grace the achingly lovely violins, the ones that we're familiar with from the quieter bits of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and maybe more appropriately Max Richter.

Dance Piece is simply gorgeous, a text book demonstration in how to make the most of the bits between the notes, each one leaving you hanging on, yet not so long that you lose interest, instead you are always rewarded and then just as you reach the four minute mark it all comes together, slow like the sunrise over the distant mountains, but just as with each passing span something new is revealed, something comes that bit clearer and as such that little bit more beautiful.

Octave Leaves is all footsteps in snow & eerie pianos that remind us of the first A Silver Mt. Zion album, yet here the sound is less steeped in politics, rather focusing on extracting the best of what we have.

Website

Yasushi Yoshida - Silent Park mp3

Yasushi Yoshida - A Picture of Three Life mp3

Sources

Swan Fungus

Indie For Bunnies