I'm feeling a little less than inspired of late so your just gonna have to trust me on these, let the music do the talking so to speak, I guess that’s how it should be anyway...over the last few months I’ve stumbled over some of the most lovely instrumental music I’ve heard in sometime, delicately reassuring textures of warmth wrapped in electronic washes, peppered with simple yet piercing piano, an instrument I’m growing to love by the day, so much feeling in each note, I really want to learn how to play properly yet I don't have the will power to do it, one day I hope. Need More Sources is the brainchild of Chris Stewart a delightful mix of pianos, stringed instruments and delicately treated electronics, falling between Motoro Faam, Colleen and Max Richter and a welcome addition to any weekend when your week has just been too much, an album to cherish. At the other end of the spectrum sit, well maybe not sit, perhaps a more accurate picture would be of an agitated, impatience, and standing up and sitting down, standing up and pacing up and down, are And So I Watch You From Afar. Although I will always stick up for post rock when the critics shake their sticks so predictably at it for its ...erm, predictability, I do find myself occasionally getting tired of all the Explosions in the Sky wannabees out there and more often than not prefer those who go to the effort of making strings, violins and cellos particularly, a strong feature of their sound. And So I Watch You From Afar choose not to yet manage to throw in some great dynamics on a par or maybe even better than Russian Circles and Let Airplanes Circle Overhead..I like this alot... And So I Watch You From Afar - I Capture Castles MP3 And So I Watch You From Afar - Holylands, 4am MP3 ...I also like Not To Reason Why, again fitting undisputedly into the post rock scene but with enough about them to stand apart from the crowd, gentle piano riffs lull you in before they kick in without ever going to far into the obvious crashing, epic climaxes so often called upon. 1.21 Jiggawatts!? stands out... Stream tracks here
Future of the Left – Curses (Too Pure) It’s fair to say that heavy music rarely does it for me, and when I say heavy I don’t mean heavy in the sense of Let Airplanes Circle Overhead, Russian Circles, Pelican and the like, I adore them, no I mean heavy as in with screaming and intenseness, it’s the combination that I’m not that fussed about. However there will always be exceptions, in the past the main exception happened to be the highly underrated Mclusky and so its no surprise that my new favourite band (for 15 minutes as ever for me) are Future of the Left the new project of former Mclusky front man Andy Falkous and drummer Jimmy Egglestone. This is no nonsense full on aggressive in your face rock, yet for all its no nonsenseness it full on nonsensical lyrics, and melodies that will having you nodding your head and banging your steering wheel as you wait at the lights.
In the tradition of Mclusky amazing song titles are ever present (My Gymnastic Past, Suddenly It's A Folk Song, Adeadenemyalwayssmellsgood) and perhaps less familiar will be the excellent keyboards lines now present used to amazing effect on the fantastic Manchasm, I’ll let you discover this years best outro yourself, needless to say that like Mclusky, Future of the Left are a very special band.
Go! Team - Proof of Youth (Memphis Industries) I’m not ashamed to admit that I really never intended to hear this, planning to avoid it at all costs. I really enjoyed their debut album but was let down with the live performance, it was all very “put yr hands in the air, like you just don’t care” and didn’t do it for me at all and then a series of events, the plan b interview, to quote “I wanna be a cartoon! I wanna be a comic! I wanna be a watch!” why? why would you ever say that? And then the press shot in the latest Plan B, grotesque and utterly repulsive, again why would you let people print such bad pictures of yourself, and yet I eat each and every one of my words, I take back all my misconceptions, my past experience of bands never quite matching the exuberance and quality of their debut, my everything, Proof of Youth is one of the best albums you will hear this year, full to the brim and overflowing with feel good tunes, songs to pick you up, to make you dance, to let you forget about all the crap you have to deal with, I love this album, only a week ago I could never imagine saying such a thing. Its sends a shiver down my spine how good this album is. Taking the best of hip hop and mixing it in with a serious helping of motown, tracks like Doing it Right have no need to beg you to dance for by the time the first bar has kicked in you’re already there on the dance floor, and a series of chants likely to be echoed on a million dance floors “do it do it alright” “extra extra read all about it”.
If you thought Annie’s Chewing Gum was the song to get you in the mood then now you have a whole album, soo good that you’ll be tempted to stay in, it really is that good. I’m having trouble describing just how good, Fake ID is smothered in such northern soul magic where it not for the hip hop twist you’d swear you were down Wigan Casino on a Saturday night. Don’t let your musical snobbery put you off, Proof of Youth is awesome.
Back when I was a lad, or at least when I when I was first beginning to “properly” get into music, whereby I mean that my record collection no longer consisted of taped music recorded from and occasionally by friends too cautious to “lend” in fear of never seeing their beloved disc again. Instead my hard earned cash gave me the opportunity to fill every possible place I could ram a CD within my (shared) box room…and so I did…and so my findings led me to a pentateuch, so to speak, of bands that I both swore by and adored, bands who could do no wrong in my eyes…a list of which follows
It is from the final and perhaps weirdest and unpredictable of the bunch that arises my latest obsession, that being the solo project of former front man Euros Childs, going by the alias of…erm, Euros Childs. Gorky’s a their finest where able to produce both noise and melody, hush and chaos and ultimately a song for each occasion, whether that be the loud and chaotic Sweet Johnny, the literally barking mad Poodle Rocking, the sunshine pop of Spanish Dance Troupe, Diamond Dew and Patio Song or the heart melting four tracks that closed 1999 album, Spanish Dance Troupe, who could forget the “Jodie brown eyes” line, one that to do this day I find myself randomly singing. And so out of nowhere Euros has given us three albums in the space of sixteen months, Chops (13/2/06) Bore Da (05/03/07) and now The Miracle Inn (25/06/07), a treasure trove of Gorky-like pop. The piano led pop remains, songs like Horse Riding & Ali Day are instant classics, whereas the more ambitious 15 minutes of The Miracle Inn show the ideas and experiments are not running short yet. Costa Rita is a lovely love song told in the normal Euros way, quirky and normally from a distance, the way we all fall in love with that girl that we see on the bus each day, the one who walks past our window at work, the one who works in the florist down the road and yet we’ll probably never ever pluck the courage up to talk to her let alone tell her how we feel. Country Girl shows his fondness for country as previously expressed in the much loved yet little heard Johnny Cash Lawsuit Song. Euros Childs is a madcap genius who deserves your attention, let him put a little sunshine and romance in your life.
I'm feeling a little less than inspired of late so your just gonna have to trust me on these, let the music do the talking so to speak, I guess that’s how it should be anyway...over the last few months I’ve stumbled over some of the most lovely instrumental music I’ve heard in sometime, delicately reassuring textures of warmth wrapped in electronic washes, peppered with simple yet piercing piano, an instrument I’m growing to love by the day, so much feeling in each note, I really want to learn how to play properly yet I don't have the will power to do it, one day I hope.
...I also like Not To Reason Why, again fitting undisputedly into the post rock scene but with enough about them to stand apart from the crowd, gentle piano riffs lull you in before they kick in without ever going to far into the obvious crashing, epic climaxes so often called upon. 1.21 Jiggawatts!? stands out...
