The open road tumbling ahead, the scenery struggling to appear correctly because of just how quickly you're moving along it. This is the sense of wild freedom that explodes out of 'Joaquin' by Danish band The Entrepreneurs; thick bass and guitars with frazzled distortion play rumbling and loose with drums thumping out a frolicking heartbeat. It's a galloping horse, a rushing train, a dog with its head out the window as a car speeds on an open highway.
But you soon realise the song isn't a pure celebration of freedom—it's a yearning for it, tearing a space for yourself in the fabric of the world. The vocals suddenly yell out:
"Feels like / We should / Take a trip outside / See what’s all around / In this part of town / Where the lights are out / And the doors are unlocked at night / And time flies right on by..."
From that moment, 'Joaquin' is more than just a powering engine: it's a heartfelt casting off of a hometown, like shedding skin. It's painful, though it's something that feels necessary. It explodes poetically with the desire for moving onwards, with almost childlike imagery that evokes absurd visions: "Get away / I might just get away / This place is way too small / Standing 8 feet tall in an 18th century hall."
That childlike nature continues into the instrumental itself: the guitar and bass guitar turn playful, pedalling over each other in twists and turns of math rock style arpeggios as the song becomes quiet and introspective as singer Mathias Bertelsen asks, "What comes to the one who stays around?"
And as much as the dreary feeling of trapped in a small town courses through your veins, there's an unending nostalgia attached to it that chills your heart to think you ever wanted to leave in the first place. And this is the romantic soundscape The Entrepreneurs have created: the crushing joy of running free from the only thing you've ever known.
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You can stream and/or purchase the lovely 'Joaquin' by new indie rock trio The Entrepreneurs over on their their Bandcamp. It's taken from their upcoming album Noise & Romance scheduled for release on 1st February 2019. Pre-order also on Bandcamp if you like what you hear.
'Grass It Grows'? Well, the title of this "anthem to self-acceptance and individualism" can be explained by Cuesta Loeb, its creator. "No one tells grass how to grow," she says. "It just does, free of any force or pressure." The lyrics in the song are wonderful, speaking of grass that isn't under obligation "to be tall and green", and "travelling at the speed of me" amongst other things. It's an individualistic song alright, but written with simplicity, adorned only with this analogy of grass growing, a quality that impacts and aids its message of freedom.
And aside from the lyrics, how it's done, the sludgy bass underpinning palm-muted guitars in a basic riff, the slackeresque melodies, the dripping distortion, the fuzzy chorus, the combined dreamy lo-fi pop grunge of it all, where Weezer meets Warpaint—it's how it's done. Cristina Cuesta Loeb's voice range from the track's softly spoken verses to singalong chorus, the vocals firstly sidling and coy before launching into a sky of sound, layered and rich and uplifting, suiting both the instrumental and the journey of the song's words: from the innocuous grass on the ground, a leap up into the boundless feeling of freedom. W-o-w.
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The supreme loveliness of 'Grass It Grows' is taken from Cuesta Loeb's EP, out later this year.
Am I being a bit Breton-heavy recently? If you think I am focusing on them too much, then I'm really sorry and I don't know how you'll ever forgive me. If you don't think I'm focusing on them too much, like if you've never read this damn blog before, then don't worry about what I'm saying. I was worried but now I literally don't care. I'm going to write about Breton again and again and again until I'm sick of writing about them and their music loses all meaning to me – now that's dedication, don't you think?
But recently London band Breton have been doing quite a few things so writing about them often is unavoidable, well, it is unavoidable if you happen to like Breton. And you'd be a cynical fool for not allowing yourself to like them. Cause they ARE good. But then again: is everything just an opinion? I'd like to think no – sometimes things just are the way they are, no matter what a certain amount of people think about it. But what am I saying? I'm sorry again. What I mean to say is: prior to the release of their upcoming album War Room Stories, out 3rd February next year, Breton have sneakily dropped an EP titled Force of Habit.
Officially released yesterday, Breton frontman Roman Rappak – who tackled a YES/NO interview the other week – describes the EP as a "16 minute introduction to our love of hiphop, films, guitar music and massive hooks." Including the wildly different but equally brilliant 'Envy' – a tropico-disco indie math medley – and synth-laden 'Got Well Soon', with its nocturnal heft, the EP leads you by the hand through a small but very cool museum of Breton's varied sound.
Minus the strong, hip-hop-inflected beat of 'Sticker Factory', complete with wonderfully industrial sounding cymbal taps, its orchestral arrangements – which come courtesy of a 44-piece orchestra called upon just for this occasion – could work perfectly just by themselves. It's a superbly rich and all-encompassing sound, growing from a street-level tune with a cool bassline and attitudinal vocals into a veritable symphony of drama, the strings soaring into a an emotional and indeed quite filmic climax. This is something that I'd imagine would take over your whole mind if you saw it live; a powerful atmospheric track, this one.
To finish things off, the wholly unorchestral-and-it-knows-it swagger of 'Plot Device' rings with atonal, buzzing synths and dread quakes of bass, all set to no-nonsense hip-hop drums. It is dramatic, not in the same way as 'Sticker Factory' of course, but it plays with the same dynamics that gangster rap employs in its brutal beats that ring with polished sheen. It's an ear-burster and it's glorious.
From indie dance and electropop, to orchestral rock and hip hop, this Force of Habit EP has it all; for a band to be so varied in their sound, and to accomplish these variations with undeniable finesse, is not only rare but wonderfully enjoyable and refreshing. Creativity is often about finding your own "voice" or sticking to a particular style – Breton here, I think, prove that you can "do" any style you want, enter any genre, so long as it is a genuine love of yours (otherwise people would notice that you're trying too hard), and if not add elements of it into your music, then completely embody that genre for the duration of an entire song. You're limited by your tastes and that's all.
I looked around but I don't actually know where you can get this from. Maybe it's just a streaming thing. Yeah it probably is. Unless you illegally obtain music from sites. In which case you're v naughty.
I've been meaning to write about this for a long time but I just haven't gotten round to it. Why is that? Something you feel like you want to do sometimes turns into something you have to do, and I don't work well under obligations, even if they are self-made. It's weird isn't it. A choir of weird. But that's neither here nor there is it now. We can breathe and move on. Time has ticked and that is that.
I first wrote about OLDTIMER at the beginning-ish of this year, after (and about) the release of their My Girl EP. They actually took the time to send me a package with a cute note and a few copies of the CD - all of which were hand-illustrated. Naturally I have a lot of time for them. I heard them first on a live recording of their stuff, which had plenty of energy and noise to it, and this latest song goes in much the same way: energetic and noisy.
What are they? They're a self-described "indie rock band" from Tokyo, but I'd say they're like a shoegazing indie pop rock band. Not much difference I suppose except my definition is more specific. Now, if you can accept that, let's have a listen shall we?
Straight away you're thrown headlong into a high-energy fast-paced belter of a track. The drums gallop ahead, dragging everything behind it, with singer Lilia Masami's pretty vocals floating in the ocean of noise. The guitar has a fantastic sound - this is what I first noticed. It screeches along bending out of tune and creating a sound that is quite gloriously unsettling. Gives it a bizarre alternate-reality surf-rock vibe. Listen to it though. Great guitar, really. Leaves you reeling in the spaciest of ways.
The bassline is pretty magnificent, too, let's be honest. Against the noisy screams of the guitar, its smooth sound and complex notes give the song a jolly upbeat background. A piece of pop against a noise-art installation or something. The "doo-doo-do-do" vocals do something similar as well, as do the vocals in general, giving the song a pop feeling and contrasting with the un-pop guitar. Lovely. I had a feeling that they'd get even better, and they have.
Really really happy that this song appeared, and I'm really happy that it's good. I'm not so happy that it took me so long to get round to seeing it - oh well. C'est la vie and all that innit.
So anyway this is Superfood, a band from Birmingham (England, UK - not Alabama), and their song 'TV'. It's apparently a demo, but it sounds more than good enough for human consumption. I didn't think demos were supposed to be so nice. But it's ok. It's good. I reckon they could just release this the way it is: sounds great.
What kind of music is this? It's punky-ish indie soft rock... kind of. I wrote about their other song (there's only two, yo) a few months ago - it's called 'Superfood' and it's about getting hungry I guess. There's a similarly humdrum heart in this new song (2 months old but whatevs), namely being concerned with the inability to sleep without the TV on. I remember when I was younger I slept with the TV on like every night. Boom. Instant connection with the song. Plays to the simplicities of life. I like that. Who wouldn't?
Let's listen to it shall we? Can we?
There's a really nice lazy and laid-back feel to this tune, perhaps it's in the slow head-bob that the tempo seems to inspire, or maybe it's in the slapdash guitar stabs in the verse, the aching scratches of the guitar solo. Maybe it's in the lyrics, celebrating the magical mundanity of how the TV can affect your sleeping... stuff, for instance, "How am I to ever dream without the TV on?" and the ever-so-normal, "Who turned off the TV? It wasn't you, it wasn't me". The vocals affect no true 'singing voice' or accent, sticking instead with a half-spoken, half-yelled, half-sung - wait three halves? - vibe that seems to come forth organically.
I said it about the sound of their song 'Superfood', but they have a Weezer-esque quality about them. Which is a really nice thing because Weezer are great. I dunno why - similar sound, perhaps. Distorted guitars, nothing too fast, lazy vibes, irreverant atmosphere - 'TV' even starts and finishes with recordings of television and twinkling guitar twangs, kinda like the start/end of Weezer's own 'Undone – The Sweater Song'. Or maybe it's just me. But that's how I find it, aurally, so that's how I'm saying it, typingly. Someone said something about these guys catching the "butt-end of brit pop" but I don't like brit pop so I won't even.
Is there a release coming up? I don't know. Best just keep checking!
This seems to be happening a lot these days. What seems to be happening a lot these days? Well, me listening to a song, not really liking it, then the song continuing and me quite actually liking it by the end of it. That's what you get when you browse around and listen to different stuff that you wouldn't usually actively seek out, eh? You know what I'm saying innit.
Anyway, this is The Dodos and their brand new song 'Confidence'. I hadn't actually heard of them at all but apparently they've been around for a while (you know when someone says 'apparently whatever' it really means 'Wikipediarly blah blah') and have released four albums prior to the one on which this lovely song shall appear, their fifth - Carrier, out 27th August.
But enough of talking this way, even if it was brief. Let's listen to the song shall we?
The pattern of the guitar at the beginning is nice - jaunty and cyclical; but the real treat comes with the progression of the song, rather than any particular part, because it is the progression of this song that makes it, I believe. As soon as the beat comes in, there's a new atmosphere of build-up and potential that then squeezes itself out in the form of distorted guitars with melody that bleats over the top of the crunchy electricity.
Up-tempo suddenly and the song has turned from a folk-esque number into something more resembling space rock. It becomes flighty and weighty and soaked in reverb like a barbecue doused in lighter fluid, a real pleasure for the ears. The beat becomes more hurried and urgent towards the end, the drums hammered and smashed about as the noodly echoing glass-blown firecracker guitar noodles away into noodlesome noisedom. A real surprise. And a happy one at that. Here's to listening to an entire song before judging!
You could even say that, with a title like 'Confidence', the song is reflecting the feeling of gaining gradual confidence about something - the way the energy changes from barstool to stadium in the space of four minutes, the gutsy drive of Meric Long and Logan Kroeber (the duo behind the music) becoming less and less inhibited. Well, that is the nature of confidence, is it not? No inhibitions here. And if there were any, they must have left them at the first few seconds of the song, because after that spirited performance I can't spy any shyness anywhere.
This is the quite lovely and nice sound of a little band from America called ON AN ON with a song called 'Ghosts'. Yes, I'm doing it again, the song is old, blah blah blah.
Who cares. Maybe I should even just stop pointing that fact out. It's late and I'm tired. Sorry.
There is something about this song that is quite magical. To be honest, this style is not the kind of music that I'd listen to out of choice - the intro sounds a bit like THAT Snow Patrol song, for one, and that put me off straight away. But I am quite happy to say that my opinion changed quite quickly. There's so much going in the song in terms of interesting sounds and dynamics and stuff that makes it really nice to listen to. When I first listened a few weeks ago I was watching the video below along with it. Suffice to say it's mesmerising.
Mellow.
I love the faraway vocals (first lyrics are fab) and the endless quality of the gently strummed guitar, in fact the endless quality of the whole thing - it is a panoramic camera forever turning slowly around a mountain scene with cold clouds and marching pines, with smoke coming from some undefined point that drifts just as endlessly. That's what I get from it. A nice expansive sound.
But there are also really quality details that just make my ear hairs tingle when I hear them. The sometimes explosive drum snare, like a pile of cardboard boxes toppling over, is wonderful, as are a lot of the drum noises: especially the barely-audible taps and the lush paradiddles that pop out of the jumble of guitar sounds. There is also a very nice guitar noise at about 3 minutes 30 in the video. The bass, too, especially when it is alone at that same break in the song sounds gorgeous and clean-yet-unpolished. Never thought I'd be going into such raptures over this kind of indie-rock-I-guess but this one's good innit. Comes from album Give In which is out now.
This is something that I seemed to have missed this summer, and wow how I wish I hadn't missed it. This was the album released by Tanlines, called Mixed Emotions. It was, from what I've read, a quite wonderful album that was (or is), to use that old adage, all killer and no filler. Will be playing catch up with that one.
However, Tanlines have released three songs from the album so far that have been turned into videos. This one, 'Not The Same', is the third. It's a collage of different sounds that really works quite fantastically and, after the fifth or sixth listen this time alone, truly shows no sign of letting up in its sheer addictiveness.
Beginning with some throwback stabs of a naked piano, aping the many a house song's rhythm, it goes on to include live 4x4 drumming that features cymbal crashes, delicious percussion, as well as the layering of synth to make that original melody one that turns pretty electronic pretty quickly. The vocal melody is something that's so madly familiar that its not hard to think, "Have I heard this before?" - that's before you realise, "No, I've actually heard nothing like this before."
It's this collage of sounds, from that familiar vocal melody (even the voice itself sounds a teensy bit like the guy's from TV On The Radio), to that can't-go-wrong house rhythm on the piano and synth, the amalgamation of live, acoustic sounds with a heart entrenched in dance sensibilities, that give it the plain status of an instant hit. It's bricolage at its very best - even the video, with the additions of various instruments and people, illustrates the hotch potch of influences present in this glorious song. Listen, listen... and listen again.
The first line of the whole of Mathieu Santos' stunning album Massachusetts 2010, in opener 'I Can Hear The Trains Coming', sums up not only how obviously positive he seems to be, but also the general sentiment that invades the album's sound from first to last: "I'm a believer…" It's so simple, so ambiguous, but sung with such perfect carefree gloriously reverbed voice - and since that atmosphere is set, the rest of the achingly sun-worshipping heavily warm and layered song follows. Wow. Then comes the rest of the album.
It's a triumph in a retro Americana sound, mixed with a penchant for afrobeat - found especially in the upbeat 'Massachusetts'; this song starts with a sonic picture of a North American harbour town, with boats clinking and seagulls wheeling about. It's a romantic picture of the northern states that leaves me in a peaceful kind of mood, even after the second half of the song where a long refrain of a very urbane guitar riff, a superbly simple baseline mixed with well timed claps and near-dub horns relentlessly goes on and gets feet moving, heads nodding.
This kind of intelligent indie rock is mixed with a channeling of an older sound, something closer to the Beach Boys, and something we hear quite prominently in '(I Just) Need To Know' - with its kitschy organ melody resting on a bouncy honky-tonk rhythm, it develops into a masterclass in progression, Santos bringing in a sunny guitar towards the end which drips with sand and heat. Similarly, the minimal lo-fi Americana slow-dance march 'I'd Go' permeates the air like worn perfume and after-prom standardisation, told with a end-of-night slow blues bass scale that matches the classic vibe of the song; the soft guitar that creeps in like a hint of love or something is a fantastic touch, too. 'Silly Thoughts' is up there as well, catching your attention with an endless current of claps and a virally catchy vocal melody, all folded in a 6/8 timed song positively bubbling with a jamboree of rhythms, from the reggae swagger of the punctuating synth, to the chorus where the guitar injects an off-kilter mathsy groove to the song.
And it's those delicate touches in a wide sea of minimalism that sets the debut offering from the Ra Ra Riot's bass player aside from instant comparison, Vampire Weekend. Even album closer 'The Bay/Where To Find Her', which distinctly displays more than a smattering of indie-fro stylings, is very different - it's that minimalism, the audacity of repetition, the trust and faith in a single note of a guitar. Mathieu Santos is certainly a believer - in music, that is.
He's only gone and put the whole album on SoundCloud!
So you'll understand when I say that 'Northern Mentality' is like nothing I've heard before. First of all, the stark DIY beat features some of the best hi-hat action I've heard all year, offbeat hits and rolls giving it a cliffhanger of a sound, leaving being driven along with the song. This ain't a toetapper, it's a footstomper, a genuine indie headbanger. The end of the song combines some fantastically mashed-up guitars, and a horns section blare that cradles a near-ridiculous jazz fusion sax solo that squeals in the last part of the song. It almost sounds like a reminder: don't take things too seriously.
And then there's his foray into post-punk - shown in the ballsy punk drums of 'I Said So' combined with its sweeping guitar chords, lo-fi vocals; and at just 1:11 it's the shortest song of the album, totally echoing the quick explosive numbers that defined punk from its outset, but something that now seems a little dated and just left me wanting more, really. You get a bit of this also in 'Wait To Get Up' - whilst starting off sounding like a song by The Police, it ends adopting a post-punk formula, including plenty of palm muted guitar, a few 'Hey!'s in the final quarter, and a distorted mini-guitar solo in the bridge. But that said, the harmonies he lays down here are just mind-blowing. There's something so satisfying, soul-soothing, about hearing multiple voices working at once in perfect fifths or whatever - he's got those harmonies perfected.
Mathieu Santos has basically written one of the best albums I've heard in a while. The songs are consistently good. And when he's not making you dance and filling your ears with golden words, he's giving you beautiful soundscapes. The guitar that makes up 'The Bay' part of 'The Bay/Where To Find Her' gives a good idea of how well he can just compose a song - an adolescent bedroom-dreams symphony. But it's 'Good Return Theme' that really shakes me. It's a decidedly poignant instrumental, acting half-interlude and half-best-song-of-the-album. It sounds like a theme to something, definitely. It builds up throughout the whole song, delayed guitars whirring away as a frenetic snare rimshot beat cackles all around it, followed by reggae-rhythm guitars and a further four-note guitar repetition that eats away at the empty space that Santos has cleverly laid aside for such extensions of his genius. It's a dramatic jaccuzzi-at-night sound, stars, warmth, and endless energetic bubbles. Wonderful.
So if you fancy a touch of minimalism in your life, boundless energy, a modern monument to small-town northern-states America, fresh and simple afrobeat rhythms, heartsqueezing harmonies, gorgeous-basic baselines, well - give this genius new contender a listen.
