At the risk of sounding prosaic, 'Song in Parts' is a song in parts. But that's putting it too simply. The first musical morsel taken from Plant – the upcoming third album by Hay-on-Wye-based duo Peiriant (Rose Linn-Pearl, violin, and Dan Linn-Pearl, guitar) – rather than "parts", or even the modest label of "song", this piece of music evolves like a tone poem (see the dynamic waveform on Soundcloud for visual evidence).
Folk-spun violin and glimmering guitar strike a balance between earthy and mystical, the atmosphere deepening with columns of drone, dipping into quietude with theremin-esque synths calling like slow electric whippoorwills. It's a contrast of textures, the organic skitter of bow on strings vs. blooms of synthetic bass — part jam session, part country dance, part ambient reaction to space and sound.
Structurally reminiscent of a sonata, the folksome melody that introduced 'Song in Parts' at the beginning returns in the final richly layered portion of the piece, where in bright bold tones it almost erupts into a jig among the watching trees, but restrains itself.
'Song in Parts' speaks of the illusions folk songs have always cast over their listeners – of better days, spring, winter, of outlaws, love, landscapes – stories fashioned by strings and vocal chords. Except Peiriant do more: not only do their violins soar and spin grass-fed cloud-borne melodies, their guitars picking notes like threads of tales, but true to their name (peiriant means machine in Welsh) they drone and beep, glistening with spells worked in production, granting them further capacity to evoke unnamed, unknown things and feelings in the air.
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'Song in Parts' is the first single from Peiriant's new album Plant (their third; and which means "child" in Welsh), due out on 27th February via Recordiau Nawr. You can pre-order it as a limited edition 12" vinyl, or indeed as in compact disc form, over on Bandcamp.
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The album artwork is taken from Violette enters the world by glass artist, painter and sculptor Amber Hiscott.
A bell rings three times, announcing the apparition of Chihiro Ono’s suite. Ono, a violinist and violist born in Chiba, Japan, but now living in London, based these four short movements chiefly on the music (and life) of pianist and composer Rentaro Taki. She calls it "super Romantico Classical music" not classical nor experimental, and certainly not pop.
Born in 1979, Taki attentended Leipzig Conservatory in 1901 as the third Japanese musician to study in Europe. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and travelled back to Oita, Japan in 1902, where he died in 1903. He is perhaps most famous for ‘Kojo no Tsuki’ (Ruined Castle by Moonlight) appropriately inspired by the ruins of Oka Castle in Oita, and with lyrics penned by poet Bansui Doi (1871-1952). "His musical life had many Western influences, yet he never lost the strong core of his nation in his heart, which I can relate to," says Ono. "Doi’s words and Rentarou’s music resonate strongly with me."
‘Kojo no Tsuki’ is fairly well known and has been given renditions throughout the years. For one example, it was jazzed up (literally), albeit without its title, by Theolonius Monk as ‘Japanese Folk Song’.
It’s Taki’s song that works its way through Chihiro Ono’s HachiRen, particularly in ‘Kojo’ (Ruined castle), strings crooning smooth in lament, harsh chords scrape into the air, the whisper of the bow falling silent. That whispering, like a dry brush stroke, flecks of sound colour against the void, feel characteristic of the suite as a whole, particularly in final track ‘Ren’ — a poignant, if melancholic, reflection on mujō (無常) or impermanence, and a fitting coda to the all-too-short life of Rentaro Taki himself.
Violin is the main component of the suite, of course, but that doesn’t stop other elements from making an appearance. What sounds like a steam locomotive appears in ‘8 (Hachi)’ — the first movement, signifying Taki’s summertime birth (24th August); strings appear ghostly and agitated, taking inspiration from Niccolò Paganini’s turbulent playing. Japan’s summers are humid and stifling, the air so crammed with the untethered scream of cicadas that it feels the sky could break open, and worthy of the addled sound Ono has portrayed them with.
On the subject of summer and Paganini (sort of: “La Campanella”) are the bells. In Japan, their clear sound is supposed to inspire cooling thoughts during the heat of summer. At the same time, fūrin (most often glass wind chimes) are symbolic of keeping evil at bay. With HachiRen concerned mostly with ghosts — of Taki, of Oka Castle, and even in the analogical “death” of cherry blossom falling to the ground in pale pink whirlwinds (in ‘SakuraFubuki’) — it makes sense that chimes punctuate the suite, marking a delicate boundary between inspiration, memory, intangible things, and the music itself.
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Here's a recording of 'Kojo no Tsuki' by tenor singer Yoshie Fujiwara — the first person to record a version of the song. It's from 1925, and definitely has that '20s feel.
I love Spazzkid. How can you not? I mean, even as a person (called Mark Redito) he's really nice, so the fact that he makes really lovely music is a bountiful bonus if ever there was one. If you don't know this guy then, um, get to know: the best way is to trawl his Bandcamp page where you'll find everything from Early Demos (2004–2006), to the wholly immersive experience that was his album release of last year, Desire (願う). His lovingly crafted sounds ring with electropop, with chillwave, with J-inspired melodies, with footwork flavours and above all, with touching positivity.
I managed to miss the uploading of his latest track 'At Fault', however, but thanks to Oliver (s/o The 405) I heard it today and I knew instantly that I had to write about it and share it. This track is unique in that it features the cooperation and collaboration of fellow SoCal resident, There Is A Fox. Real name Hiro Makino, I wrote about him and his dreamily endearing brand of indie-folk-pop last Autumn, and was therefore pleased to find his sound and style permeating this song alongside Spazzkid. Beginning life as something that sampled & re-arranged a There Is A Fox original, 'Bad Day', it grew until these two artists were working alongside each other on the track.
Tagged "folktronic" I think this just about sums it up. Folk-pop guitar appears out of the void in vibrantly choppy succession with xylophonic sounds raining down in the slow sway of the song; by the end everything is jumbling together in a colourful mash of sound, from right down low with the booming bass and muffled kicks to the high registers of rattling percussion and looping guitar riffs. Vocals sing out innocently with lashings of dream-laden reverb, "It's not my fault…", calm in the zinging euphoria of the track. It is expansive, opening up as it goes along, evolving all the way, filled with wonderfully living-and-breathing organic samples and sounds residing harmoniously next to wholly electronic fabrications. At every moment it is endearing; did you hear the little cough/clearing of the throat at the start? Just another magic touch.
So there it was. Hoo-hah! It's lovely. I can't help but love it. I'm a fan. I hope you're a fan too. Fyi this song was supposed to feature on Spazzkid's upcoming EP (which I'm v excited for), but it grew and grew and, as he describes, "ended up wanting a life of its own. It stands for itself, pure and beautiful." Well well well indeed it does.
I've seen a lot of this recently. A lot of what? A lot of SoundCloud pages that are hardly filled, or which have just the one track uploaded, and few followers, but which already shows such a definitive direction, such a polished sound. Maybe it's a kind of perfectionism, in that only a few songs will ever be "perfect" enough for the purposes of sharing with a general public; maybe it's that inspiration doesn't visit often enough; or perhaps it's all just an intricate PR strategy, and everything is ready already— I don't know! I have no idea! But what I do know is that I've seen a lot of them recently.
What does that mean? It could mean that more and more people are paddling their own canoes, making their own music and sharing it with the world – perhaps inspired by others who have done the same (i.e. getting internet famous) – and this is the meaning that I would like to believe, at least for now. People just wanna make music. And let them!
With this said, please allow me to introduce all the way from Melbourne, Australia, LANKS *tiny fanfare*. Who? Well, LANKS is the electronic project, the moniker, of Will Cuming, the creator of the only song currently uploaded to SC, 'Rises and Falls'. Having a little nose around on his Facebook page revealed that this is taken from an upcoming EP – and this, if this one song is anything to go by, is going to very good.
The track is a unique in that you don't often hear stuff in 6/8 timing which this at least appears to be. A slightly disorienting beat juggles toms and slapping kick, scratching hi-hat and dusty electronic snare, leading you effectively into a whirling dreamworld. This is the perfect foundation for the song itself, for the lyrics, which describe a tragic story (I won't ruin it, just listen) in balladesque form. A voiceless chorus underpins the spoken-word/singing's intimate style, guitar arpeggios join in halfway, synth chords gradually rise up out of the deep. The timing changes at around 1:50, with sub-bass kicks booming a 4/4 pattern, a heartbeat for the intense tragedy of this moment; accompanied by female vocals, LANKS and militaristic snares and cymbals builds the track to a crashing crescendo. Fin.
Really interesting stuff, indie-sound (essentially) with a touch of electropop and folk, reminiscent of Alt-J dare I say, but more substantial both in sound and wording. When is the EP out? Dunno.
Something a bit different now. It's interesting because music doesn't always have to be stuff you can dance to, stuff you can sing along to, or indeed have any real intent for anything other than being a piece of music. In essence: music as music. As such, I would like to introduce a split between two acts whose distance from each other has not stopped their very pretty collaboration; Table Music Meeting, a band from Japan, and Rainbow Valley, a singular music-maker from Southend-on-Sea (UK), have teamed up to create the wonderful Autumn Songs.
Instigated by Rainbow Valley (aka Graham Boosey and owner of microlabel, Wrieuw Recordings) when he stumbled upon the music of Table Music Meeting by chance on Lastfm, the two entities agreed to each write and record a song about autumn. It's a magical time of year; despite the cold and windy weather, autumn is special for the obvious transition between warm and cold, growth and hibernation, especially in the changing leaves. So anyway, both of em did it and here we are: Autumn Songs is here.
Table Music Meeting's 'Autumn' comes first, a blustery, breezy affair that perfectly captures the atmosphere of the season. Using an assortment of instruments — clarinet, recorder, something brassy, xylophone — sounding a little like a glorious toy orchestra, the group create a jaunty melody which contains within it a certain stubbornness to accept the onset of colder weather, as well as the feeling of that slow walks people take when admiring the season's new brown, red and yellow scenery. Dissonant chords play lightly on a piano, summoning the sharp sense of losing summer's warmth, with an overall sound that directly embeds in my head images of people wrapped up warm in cafés, looking out into an increasingly desolate natural world.
The contribution from Rainbow Valley, however, is quite different. 'Spinney' (a word that means "a small area of trees and bushes", less dense than a thicket, not as tree-heavy as a copse) is for the most part an ambient field recording of some birds - particularly, I think, song thrushes - chirping away: a very autumnal sound, the sound of early evening and swift sunsets. A slow, simple electric piano melody fades in, plaintive in the midst of nature's continuation, a flow of human understanding and feelings. Soon, a glockenspiel melody floats above, alongside an old guitar playing a slow arpeggio. The sounds of rustling leaves rise up from the background recording as the original electric piano notes grow glitchy before being cut completely out of earshot. A more delicate approach, one closer to nature perhaps, than TMM's offering.
However, both summon feelings and images associated with Autumn, though in different ways, which could reflect the potentially differing ways in which autumn as a season is viewed in Japan and the UK, respectively. Instrumental music like this, stuff that has pretty much nothing to do with current trends in the modern/popular music world, continues the tradition of classical music's supposed or maybe inherent ability to paint a picture based on a theme (whether it's antiquity or nature or whatever), but also has a touch of folk sensibility to it, utilising the organic feel and sound of mostly non-electronic instruments to take you on a short but sweet musical journey.
PS. Each song has a lovely video that has been created by Rainbow Valley to accompany the release: the autumn leaves of 'Spinney' and one for Table Music Meeting's 'Autumn'.
Earlier this week I posted a little interview I did with the two people who make up London two-piece Psapp, namely Galia Durant and Carim Clasmann. It was kind of in conjunction with the release of their latest album, What Makes Us Glow. In some ways, it was quite beneficial to get the insight of the duo on how they make their music, what they're interested in; I find myself, right now, listening to the album thinking about the things they said about not basing songs on chords, making use of found sound via objects that on an everyday level are not deemed to be musical, finding accidental notes in certain things - "a hoover, a creaky door, a swing, a washing machine, a distant argument" - and creating melodies from them.
The album begins as it ends, with field recording of rain dripping somewhere (or maybe something being fried), making it a cyclical experience, connecting the string of musical sounds, songs, with a snippet of everyday noises that show how the creative process is not an endless composition but a series of bright sparks in the mundanity of life. The first song I encountered from this album was the 'Everything Belongs To The Sun' - its strong emphasis on beats and chanting vocals, each with a tribal lilt, gives it an exotic appeal, painted by all the uncountable and sometimes unknowable amount of percussion infused into the song. Percussion - intricate, makeshift, homemade - plays a large part. Much less tribal but just as interesting are the scurrying noises of 'That's The Spirit' - alongside twisted, breathy organ sounds, the scuttling clips of percussion help provide a "noir" atmosphere, a sense of black comedy.
That same spirit is found in 'The Cruel And The Bad', a kind of a hot & sweaty burlesque number with a macabre brass section and a galaxy of pinging noises mixed with claps and shakers in 3/4 time. 'Seven' plays out in a similar vein, whisking you away to some exotic, fantasy bar where candles strewn with melted wax light cabaret acts; it has a fresh atmosphere with a dark jazzy twist - sultry crooning, double bass, clean guitar chords in a funky progression, and there's even a background sample of someone shouting. The bossa nova rhythm and woody percussion of 'In The Black' takes you to another tropical location. Plucked strings and a old guitar providing a lovely pizzicato melody, ending in a frenzy of Middle-Eastern-sounding melodies crossing each other. This one teeters over the friendly precipice of pop.
And it's in the fuzzy arms of pop that we find single 'Wet Salt'. Luscious sweeps of percussion punctuate the song's catchy organ-type chords and melodies, as well as the richly layered vocals. A half-lament-half-celebration of the respective dirt and magic of city life, specifically in London, it dreams as much as it stays rooted to the ground. But it's here that we first see the power of Psapp to create ear-friendly tunes. Likewise, 'Your Hot Knife' is a head-bopping toytronic pop number. It's evident in its core of low electric piano chords, the vocal patterns and the way they flow in delicate harmonies. It's one of the most upbeat songs on the album and is certainly easy-on-the-ears. Some great found sounds too: for instance, a bell from a bicycle. The organ solo towards the end is a lovely subtle touch.
In a similar pop vein, the title track 'What Makes Us Glow' is really lovely. A warm and calming track soaked in comforting and playful melodies, familiar vocals float in rich harmonies especially in its chorus refrain of "We choose what makes us glow". It's a sitting-by-the-fire kind of song. Those playful melodies are a real strongpoint of the duo, strong in most songs but in particular in 'The Well And The Wall'. The way the strings are here at the start give it a baroque feel. Or even before that. It's like lute music. A medieval feel, the vocals plaintive. It gradually falls into a mind-bending subversive version of some kind of courtly dance, with lightly crashing cymbals and glitching bleeps.
But it's not all about being busy and bustling. Psapp do minimalism, too. Each sound in 'Bone Marrow' is allowed to breathe in uncrowded space. Cutesy bells and woodblocks add percussive flair whilst the different vocal tracks in the chorus are layered with a simplistic intricacy. I found 'In And Out' to be a similar experience; starting with sound of someone breathing in and out, or maybe someone pumping bellows or something, it's another homely number that sleeps with dreamy chiming xylophones, bristling with pinpoint percussion, violins enriching with their organic woodiness. These sounds remind me of the music from Zelda: The Wind Waker; woody, organic noises that rattle in a light fantasy world of trees and magic.
And it's on that note that the true nature of Psapp's What Makes Us Glow becomes apparent. It's not a clashing but a melding of worlds: the bustling cosmopolis on one side and the essence of natural folk on the other; electronic noises and pioneering experimentalism, yet a delicate organic touch with pre-electricity conjurings and orchestrations. And with the duo saying in the interview that they want to carry on being more experimental, with increased found sounds and field recordings, as well as writing scores for more traditional instruments, it seems that this twoness of Psapp is going to go through intensive development. And there's nothing better for music, or even the universal creative process, than directive forward-thinking that is not forced, but freeform and fuelled by passionate curiosity.
Here's some nice music. It's from Hiatus - please do forgive me for not previously having any knowledge of this person. If anything, I benefit from not knowing anything about anything by having something new to discover every day - it's good to look at the world through ignorant, well maybe not ignorant and more clueless, eyes sometimes. Only sometimes though. Other times, it's not so useful.
So yes. This is from Iranian London-based producer Hiatus (IRL name, Cyrus Shahrad; N.B. I also found out that Cyrus is a talented writer and you should check out his stuff) and features vocals from Shura - a singer from London whose voice lends a stunning diamondised beauty to the track. It's called 'Iran Air'. The song itself is quite old, being from Hiatus' recent vinyl-only album, Parklands, yet this video for it is just a day old. Conceived and directed by Cyrus himself, it tells the stories of a selection of Iranian Londoners sequestered from their home country, yet imbued with memories of their own genetic journeys through family photos. It's brimming with sentiment - and looks the part, too.
The title, 'Iran Air', I suppose refers to the idea of the air of home being different from being somewhere else, "Underneath a London sky", for instance, as the lyrics say; it's a beautiful and earnest tragedy of relocation that will resonate with anyone forced to flee their home. That isn't me. But I have empathy, don't I?
Shura's voice is just perfect. Each line lilts with feeling, shakes almost indiscernibly with loss and longing. Some sumptuous harmonies make a gleaming gem amidst the brooding futility evoked by Hiatus's mean bass lines and near-tragic strings - the human amidst the actuality of a situation. The general sound, with its flashing synth chords and the bass with its bulging sense of dread, has an urban reality to it - the kind of sound that suits grey streets sodden with rain. Perhaps its more the actual progression of the notes being played that give it a tragic air.
The beat, with something more than a little garagey about it, also serves to place the sound wholly in the sharp right angles of London's landscape. But on the other hand, those oriental strings - evoking a wholly un-London scenario - that loop in the second half of the song cut through the heavy London-ish atmosphere like the faintest reminiscence of home - the existence of of hope. It's a really beautiful song, one that sees Hiatus and Shura expertly combining the touching emotion of folk singing and atmospheric beatscaping of garage. That's as close as I can get to it.
It's quite astounding sometimes how a song can turn from the most simple melody imaginable into something positively brimming with texture and a rising tide of sounds.
Well, this is exactly what Tel Aviv-based NoamiKo has done in his song 'Couch Surfer' - beginning with a simple acoustic guitar tune, just four notes, you can kind of tell the direction in which the song will go when the notes begin to vibrate glitchily. It's a masterclass in building up a castle of a track from a simple hillock of a tune. There are some lovely noises that go towards helping the song grow: electronic effects dousing the glitched-out acoustic guitar to go perfectly with the slow-heartbeat of the drums, a harpsichord-or-glockenspiel sound, the backwards chill beat vibe in general.
Lovely stuff - listen fo yo self.
See what I mean? It's a builder. And what's good is that it comes around full circle, too - a complete song with edges and everything, just like a shape, gradually moving from what it was to what it will be via what it is. Yep. From its glitch-folk beginnings, the song goes into an electro-ised Wild West theme, the vocals beginn to harmonise and multiply with plenty of echo over an epic-sounding thumping-and-rattling beat.
Very very nice, a rustic-future vibe here. It's just a shame that there aren't that many further uploads after 'Couch Surfer', which is about a year old as it is. So treasure this track!
Ah, there's just something glorious sounding about twinkling glittery guitar sounds that I can't help but love. It makes me picture someone playing a guitar that's as small as a pager. Yeah, a pager yo. Not an iPhone, but a pager. That's how cute, how かわいい, this sound just is to me. Simply that.
So these guys are called Hola a Todo el Mundo or as they are otherwise known aka-ly, HATEM (prefer the full-spelled way cause I just picture it as hate 'em and I don't hate 'em). As you might be able to glean from the Spanish name, this band is Spanish - from Madrid in fact, and they have been famous previously for their folksy-indie sound.
But I just don't see it as that. There are many more folky things than this particular song, for example, 'They Won't Let Me Grow'. Since there's an official video, let's watch that instead of some SoundCloud waves go by, eh? Eh?
It's a wholesome number that combines those tinkling guitars with meaty bass to produce an anthemic sound capable of powering a small town, I'm sure. There's something oh-so-sure about the steady slightly offbeat synth bassline that seems to give this song teeth which fuel the loud dynamic as the quiet, guitary part flits its way between these mouthfuls of electronic goodness.
It almost seems to be over too quickly, but for the whole three minutes and twenty-something seconds you're getting a wildly feel-good atmosphere from the music - just makes you wanna listen again and again. Good stuff fer sher.
Last time we spoke about Villagers it was for their song 'The Waves', which actually is wildly different to the song that we're talking about today: 'Nothing Arrived'. Both songs, as far as I am aware, come from their album {Awayland} scheduled for release on 14th January 2013 (UK - and 9th April for USA), but both couldn't be more different. Whilst 'The Waves' combines acoustic sounds with electro-pop beats and synthy seasonings for a zeitgeistical, collage-like sound, 'Nothing Arrived' arrives on a wagon flying the flag of folk - in a way.
That's not to say that 'Nothing Arrived' isn't without its merits, however. With a chorus that soars in harmonies and a verse that shows off the clear, sharp tones of the vocals, it's an anthemic kind of song in that the sing-along elements are all there: namely, catchy melodies. And those hooks are in everything from that vocal of well-written lyrics, to the nearly honky-tonk piano and the have-I-heard-this-before chords of the guitar.
Whilst it starts like a little ditty, it certainly delivers with a climactical last part that brings all instruments up to an intense volume, everything becoming layered, strings slicing in here and there, to create this wonderful sound that, ironically considering the title of the song, sounds as if something definitely has arrived - indeed, that last part turns it from a morsel into a condensed feast.
This is 'The Waves' by Villagers. It's released October 22nd. Currently a lot of people like it. Soon, a lot more people will like it.
Check out their official site, their Facebook page and their Twitter account, as well as their YouTube channel. Happy listening. It's a doozie.
Finally, I have drummed up enough energy to write about this amazing album. It truly is. From distorted sub-bass to folk guitar and literary references, this album has it all and delivers it in such a stylishly effortless way, allowing you to sit back and soak it all up like some kind of joyous land sponge with an addictive personality.
I saw that it'd been extensively covered online, yet the word of mouth is only just starting. So please start now, and please share these wonderful sounds to all of your friends. This can be enjoyed in any country, at any time of day, with any people, in any mood, by people of any age, any class, any musical preferences, any backgrounds. I think the word is 'universal'.
So anyway, this is alt-J, or ∆ if you like. The name is how to make that little triangle on Mac keyboards. As mentioned by bassist in the band, Gwil, "in mathematical equations it’s used to show change" and it couldn't have been more apt. The music on this fantastic album An Awesome Wave marks some kind of change: it's very different to a lot of what I've heard before.
Kindly enough the band put the whole album on SoundCloud. That's a tick next to their name. Not only this but they were also kind enough to provide notes to each song. It helps explain the album, which fortunately or unfortunately (depends how you look at it), needs a bit of explaining at some points. 'Intro' for example is described as having been originally called 'Nod to Canon' and in fact acts a tribute to "everything that we have unconsciously borrowed/stolen which has unwittingly contributed to our body of work to date."
That 'canon' encompasses Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are in 'Breezeblocks', Luc Besson's Leon in 'Matilda', Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. and Robert Capa and Gerda Taro (two war photographers) in 'Taro'. In addition to fictional/well-known influences, there's the death of a matador referenced in 'Something Good', a childhood memory in 'Dissolve Me', and a violent experience in 'Bloodflood'. It's packed full to the brim of these influences and is perhaps what makes An Awesome Wave such an enjoyable listen.
For example, I didn't know anything about those war photographers. I looked them up when I first listened to the song. Now I know about them. Things that make new connections in the brain are quite exceptional. But really, alt-J have just used the simplest and most effective formula existing to create music: as Steve Jobs said, "Creativity is just connecting things."
I've already written too much, I'm so sorry. Musically, this album is just as good as it is conceptually. Some stand-out parts, then. There are the altered, guttural vocals on 'Intro' - highlighting the strength and unique nature of the vocals in general. Similarly, the refrained, subsequently layered and sung in a round style 'Please don't go, I love you so' in 'Breezeblocks' is sheer pleasure to listen to (same in 'Matilda' - you forget the power of repetition). The shivering, lusty vocal style in 'Tesselate' is something great too, sounding like whispers from the heart of the world. The refrain in 'Something Good' is beautifully catchy, too.
That song also includes a great drop into its more folksy part at around a quarter of the way into the track, blissfully sending you out in a row boat onto a lake bubbling with new and old sounds that come up to greet you like cartoon fish. The childish, happy rhythms of 'Dissolve Me' support the conceptual childhood memory that runs through the song lyrically and there's this beautiful nostalgia that is ingrained into all parts of that song just popping out of it like fireworks.
Juxtaposition of acoustic guitars (the first interlude, for example), vocal harmonies (splendorous in 'Ms' and the stunning hidden track 'Hand-Made') and real drum sounds with meaty and nearly disfiguring extended bass notes, wildly distorted and spine-straighteningly strong, is refreshing to hear. Strongest in 'Intro', 'Dissolve Me' and especially 'Fitzpleasure' (whose now-and-again guitar riff is hollow, hard and heavy), it's an example of the 'folk-step' sound they seemed to have created.
Just as brilliant creating energy and making you feel crazy as they are being prettily minimalistic and chilled (as in parts of 'Bloodflood' and 'Taro'), these diverse musicians seem set for great things. Could write even more. Says it all. Sorry for wasting your time. Buy this album.
Always up for something new; here is something new. For me anyway. For you perhaps not. If it is new, all the better. These are the lovely jazztronic glitchive triphopular sounds of Japanese producer, Daisuke Tanabe. Hailing from Chiba with an art degree and a pretty clear vision of the sound he would be crafting, Daisuke Tanabe has been going for a while, living and working in London for a while before settling back in Japan - Tokyo to be exact - to make beautiful beautiful music. He comes from a background working especially in the techno and breakbeat genre, explaining why his forays into the now with music taking elements of jazz, hiphop, folk and electronica have that hard dancey edge. You start with something, you can't get away from it. But in Daisuke's case, it doesn't seem to be a problem whatsoever.
Let's start with the irreverently chilled 'Ghost' (below). It's a handsome shard of a song, containing all the parts of Four Tet glitchdom you've ever loved. This edgy throwing out and pulling back of sounds, as if constantly casting out a line, as in fishing line - the fluidity of the song and the nearly wind-shook electro bells running through give a totally nature-inspired feel to the sound.
Add this with some cute major scale synth sounds and you have yourself a pretty trippy number with a slow nearly-disappeared beat. To beef the song up, he adds some thin cymbals to crash lightly over everything, as the ongoing ringing clacking twisting ghost beat grasshoppers staccato to the end.
See what I mean?
But you get something a little different with the much more offbeat trip-hop tripstyles of the jazz-electro-glitchfunk of 'Cuculus Canorus' (below). It starts with a totally stripped down beat, bitcrushed moderately to give it an 8bit feel in all its swagger-inducing glory. Here, everything gets a bit loungey, though with a killer clean bass foundation to stop you the chill from being just pure lounge and pure sit back. Again, we have a near-trademark cutesy melody in some high-pitched synth blips, and a breakdown featuring open-hi-hat sounds. Nothing wrong with sticking to your guns.
That SUB BASS at the end! Shudderingly ice cold.
So that is Daisuke Tanabe - no doubt you'll hear more from him one day. Hopefully he will be gracing the world with some new stuff very soon. But at the moment, there's so much on his SoundCloud that we're not exactly wanting. I urge you to listen to this man's creations whenever you feel like you need to. At work, walking places, or during an afternoon's worth of chill.
This is Emmy the Great's new album, Virtue. Debuting with First Love in 2009, Emmy the Great (real name Emma-Lee Moss), originally performing with Lightspeed Champion, becoming his vocalist for a brief period in 2007 alongside Florence Welch. She went on to perform as solo artists, and her indie folk roots haven't been forgotten. The nature of its creation is very interesting, and involves crowdsourcing for funds, Emma-Lee herself saying, "Instead of relying entirely on a label to make and tour our record, we can skip the middleman and go directly to you, the fans for support."
Last week I heard Emmy the Great's 'Iris'. It's a lovely track filled with some nice snare rolls, light guitar effects, driving the song into a state of pop ambience. It's quite kitsch music. And of course, there is Emma-Lee's voice. This, the first single from her second album, 'Virtue', gives a hint of her vocal and lyrical prowess.
Emma-Lee said it herself, if she hadn't been a musician, she would be "a writer of some sort, in different formats." And it certainly shows. 'Paper Forest (In The Afterglow Of Rapture)' is a song that really delves into her thoughts. The folky sound is taken over nearly completely by her words, especially the lyrical acrobatics in the bridge, which come flying out consistently, supported by big harmonies. The line, "It's like the way I have to write down almost everything I see" says a lot about her love of writing songs, and her passion in telling a story or evoking a feeling is rivalled only by the skill in which the executes that passion.
The elegy-lovesong of 'Exit Night / Juliet's Theme' offers that said skill and passion to your ears with two guitar chords, slow and seemingly lamenting a lost country of "telegrams and tailcoats and nobody to grieve it," going on to conjure some wonderful imagery by comparing tail lights of cars on a motorway as "the roses of an infinite bouquet" and paying tribute to "ghosts of railways and candleholders." The song eventually shifts into blissful piano, sneaking in references from Romeo and Juliet, and picks up energy in the midsection. The second part (Juliet's Theme) arpeggiates guitar chords in 6/8 time, becoming a quiet soundtrack to Juliet's feelings as interpreted by Moss.
Her insight is even more powerful in opener, and my favourite, 'Dinosaur Sex', prophetic with lines like "I think I see the future when I sleep" and pondering in the swaying reverb tower of a chorus: "And dinosaur sex led to nothing, then maybe we will lead to nothing." It's a really interesting, original way of questioning our futility, and works entirely without flaw. The same goes for the frustrated, botanic metaphor that is 'A Woman, A Woman, A Century Of Sleep', spine-chilling with its choral sections. Below is a live recording of this hypnotic song.
But musically, what is this album? For the most part it is an acoustic sound (especially 'Cassandra'), however it constantly strays into the anti-folk genre - which is essentially experimental folk; folk with added, unexpected sounds that you wouldn't expect to hear; the traditional and the untraditional. And indeed there are some interesting sounds on Virtue - the odd yawn sound in 'Creation' that comes in and out of audibility, the defiant, one-note bass synth that begins (and carries on throughout) 'Sylvia', the underlying dark synth in 'North', and the overall giant, overarching pendulous feeling that powers 'Dinosaur Sex'.
More unfolk comes with 'North' - a surprise track; an essentially country and western rhythm is ultimately built over with a beast of a saw wave, Emma-Lee's words undercut with an angry whisper - it's exactly what she sings about in 'Dinosaur Dex'; the old being paved with new. Similarly, I cannot relate whatsoever to final song, 'Trellick Tower' - save for the parts in this song which flip into a minor scale and build up to a brooding dark cloud if sound. Other than that, its religious imagery and piano-ballad style at times lack energy.
This is not to say that this album is bad. There are moments of utter greatness, gleaming gems of the stuff both lyrically and melodically, that will stick with you - the highlights being dinosaur sex (a winner for me), paper forest, with obvious single iris being a solid third. These are tracks most different - in tempo, style, rhythm - to the rest of the material. If you're after a folk sound with a twist, combined with what isn't far short of lyrical genius sung beautifully, you'll be in for a treat with this album.
This Bergen-based Norwegian band, presumably named after the Elvis Presley song of the same name, is a euphoric addition to the wonderful dreampop genre (though describing themselves as "Tropical Pop-Symphonies). Below is the wonderful video of the song, featuring two kids running around an empty (though wonderfully Scandinavian) house, playing and getting up to all sorts - perfectly fitting the sentimental energy rushing through every second of their eponymous track.
This is summer music, full of major scales, soft, heavily-reverbed singing, tropical listen-to-me melodies, and a nostalgic atmosphere that wraps your heart in its warmth. Full of the hope and expectations of being young, the music is quite frankly beautiful - it's folksy, surfy, and totally dreamy; think Animal Collective and you wouldn't be far off. Though, arguably more a 'collective' than their New York counterparts; there are 12 members in the band, headed up by founder, Matias Tellez.
Young Dreams are at the moment signed to the Norwegian electronica label, Tellé Records, and have released two EPs in 2011: Flight 376 and Dream alone, wake together. Both are beautiful.
