Posts Tagged ‘first spin’
NewMusic First Spin: An Horse
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Brisbane, Australia’s An Horse sure have a way of ensuring they reflect the current state of music. First off, they’re a duo, and right now it doesn’t get any trendier being in a twosome (see No Age, Japandroids, Matt and Kim, etc.). Secondly, their music evokes that undeniable spirit of the ‘90s, when the term “alternative” found its legs. And well, touring with the likes of chart-topping alt-rockers like Tegan and Sara and Silversun Pickups certainly helps things.
Selecting Vancouver-based producer Howard Redekopp for their debut full-length then certainly made sense. Having previously recorded acts like Tegan and Sara, The New Pornographers and The Organ, An Horse positively make the most of his skills. Rearrange Beds comes alive with an effervescent spark, as if members Kate Cooper (vocals/guitars) and Damon Cox (drums/vocals) know they need to give it more than a band twice their size.
But the songs are efficient and electric, relying on bursting fuzz and boy-girl harmonies to fill the sorts of holes that come with such a meagre line-up. They get scrappy with their distortion on tracks like “Postcards” and “Little Little Little,” but Cooper’s voice, stays rich and clean for her pensive prose, recalling an inflection like a younger, Aussie Neko Case.
Is it a coincidence that they drop a line as enticing as “Like that good Hole album, I can live through this”? Likely not. An Horse seem unabashed about looking back a decade. And with songs as anthemic and tightly knit as these, more power to them for picking up on a good thing.
Artist: An Horse
Album: Rearrange Beds
Genre: Indie Rock
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: December 28, 09
Tracklisting:
Tags: an horse, first spin
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NewMusic First Spin: The William Blakes
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Here is an album that has brought mass confusion. As one MuchMusic employee said to me, “When I saw the cover I thought it was a solo album by the guy in the Flaming Lips.” Seeing as Wayne Coyne’s big grin graces the cover it’s easy to be mistaken that Coyne has released an album called The William Blakes. That is, if you’d expect him to put an 18th century oil painting of himself on the cover.
No, instead Wayne Coyne is the fetching new album by a Danish band named The William Blakes. A curious homage indeed, but other than being an admitted humanistic inspiration for the band, there are no convincing traces of a Flaming Lips influence in the music.
The William Blakes, however, do share a similar fondness for blaring a loud mix of kaleidoscopic psychedelia, melody and intricate arrangements. If anything, the Danes share more in common with the climax-heavy orchestrations of the Arcade Fire. You can hear that band’s tension and rickety percussion in tracks like “Science is Religion,” which is as much in debt to The Cure’s “In Between Days,” as well as “On Fire,” a raucous circus tune that sounds like an unhinged reworking of Funeral’s “Haïti.”
It’s not fair to brand The William Blakes as a tribute band to their assumed miscellaneous influences though. There’s a ridiculous amount of depth and variety in their sonic game that somehow pulls it all in cohesively.
The title track, for instance, is a blast of pulsating electro that breaks into a frantic, punk-fuelled chant of “Mama-se, mama-sa, ma-ma-koo-sa” (the bit from “Soul Makossa” that everyone from Michael Jackson to Jay-Z to Rihanna has nicked). “Guitar Solo” may only last 38 seconds, but it allows them to fully indulge in the noise-filled titular activity. And “The Love From Above,” another short instrumental, is awash in swelling guitar scapes that manifests a crystalline guitar sound last performed this good 20 years ago by Robin Guthrie.
Considering the band have already followed up Wayne Coyne with an album called Dear Unknown Friend this year, it shouldn’t take long to hear more from these guys. But using a figure as beloved as Wayne to make your introduction is certainly the right decision for a fresh-faced band like this.
Listen to it here
Watch the video for Secrets of the Stage here.
Artist: The William Blakes
Album:Wayne Coyne
Release Date:November 17, 09
Label: Speed of Sound/Last Gang Records
Genre: Indie Rock
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: November 24, 09
Track Listing:
- Secrets Of The State
- Violent God
- On Fire
- Reality
- Wayne Coyne
- Science Is Religion
- Beginnings
- Guitar Solo
- The Magician
- Large Cities
- The Love From Above
- Give It Away
Tags: first spin, The William Blakes
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NewMusic First Spin: Everything All The Time
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
Toronto’s Everything All The Time may have taken their name from the first Band Of Horses album (that fact is unconfirmed, but likely), but you need only seconds to hear that it doesn’t extend into their music.
Instead of reverb-heavy alt-folk, EATT are more about slick, groove-based synth pop. The sixsome certainly look to the ’80s for inspiration, but they have a secret weapon to secure them individuality: singer Alanna Stuart.
Having released their self-titled LP last year, EATT have quickly readied a new five-song EP as a follow-up.
This self-titled EP (quick, someone help them break out of this self-titling slump) further demonstrates how the band choose the lesser romanticized side of the ’80s. Instead of the more referenced artists like XTC, New Order or Duran Duran, EATT go softer, sounding more like Visage and even Starship one minute, then transcending to artier fare like Japan the next.
“Love Love” uses fat, synthetic bass lines and shimmering percussive keyboards to give Stuart the perfect launching pad for her dead-cool voice. “Start Stop” is funkier matter that allows the full band to join in on vocals to spread the overwhelming cheer.
“Losing My Mind” sounds like it could have been just the thing for Kylie in her early days, with its tender chorus and pillow soft arrangement. “Eyes” ventures out further into a dancier direction, utilizing a pulsating synth and a solid backbeat to keep the flow steady.
It’s “Lazy Days,” though, that the band should look to as a direction to explore more. Using a rickety rhythm and warm melodies, it recalls the Afro-flavoured pop bands like Vampire Weekend and Fool’s Gold have been successful with.
Listen to it here
Artist: Everything All The Time
Album:EP
Release Date:October 27, 09
Label: Independent
Genre: Indie Pop
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: November 3, 09
Track Listing:
Tags: Everything All The Time, first spin
Posted in The New Music | 1 Comment »
The NewMusic First Spin: Dead Man’s Bones
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
Is there any way to approach Dead Man’s Bones without addressing the fact that actor Ryan Gosling is one-half of the duo? While he’s done well in obscuring his celebrity in the murky promo shots, there’s no denying fans of his will approach his music the same way they do his movies and be taken aback.
However, if you take a close look at Gosling’s résumé beyond The Notebook – he played a loner in love with a blow-up doll, a high school teacher addicted to crack, a Jewish neo-Nazi, er, Young Hercules – and the eerie sounds creeping out of Dead Man’s Bones makes quite a bit of sense.
This isn’t a vanity project. Gosling met Zach Shields in Toronto, and after learning they shared a taste for the macabre (”ghosts, monsters, graveyards, zombies or anything deathly”) and especially the Haunted Mansion ride at the Disney theme parks they began writing a monster-driven stage show and then music, even though neither of them were professional musicians.
Taking a cue from the Langley Schools Music Project, the two brought in a children’s singing group, named the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir, to help them bring their music to life.
According to the band, their self-titled album is “doo-wop songs about werewolves, haunting melodies telling tales of zombies with broken hearts, and children singing the joys and pains of being alive or being dead.”
Produced by Imarobot’s Tim Anderson, the album is full of rickety instrumentation, ghoulish whispers, spooky choral verses, erratic arrangements and echo-drenched, yet rustic production, Dead Man’s Bones lives up to its intentions. Although it’s undeniably a concept album, Gosling and Shields are careful to not only see that it inhabits the projected creepiness, but also guarantee that there are some songs to take away from it.
“My Body’s A Zombie For You” has the ascending uplift of a standard Arcade Fire anthem, and “Werewolf Heart” sounds like it could have been recorded with the goofy phantoms inside the Haunted Mansion living room.
“Young and Tragic” puts the Langley Schools influence to work best, as the Choir sing over an imposing oscillating synthesizer, while “Paper Ships” blends doo-wop with sparse Southern gothic folk and maybe, if my ears don’t deceive me a Theremin.
They even have their own self-titled theme song, which sounds as if they hired zombies, chain gangs and gravediggers to sit in as session musicians.
Why Gosling hasn’t tested his acting chops with horror is a mystery, but if he ever decides to he’s got the right band to compose the score.
Artist: Dead Man’s Bones
Album: Dead Man’s Bones
Release Date: October 6, 2009
Label: Anti (Epitaph)
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: October 13, 2009
Track Listing:
Tags: dead man's bones, first spin
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The NewMusic First Spin: The xx
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
“Album of the year” is a term that should never be used lightly, but I have this hunch that London foursome The xx will be the repeated recipients of such an honour come December. (I pretty much solidified my decision back in August.)
Though major hype has been hanging over them for quite some time, it wasn’t until their debut album, xx, dropped in the UK late this summer when everyone could hear for themselves that this is a band with unlimited scope and potential.
The four members all met at the same school that boasted alumni such as Hot Chip, Four Tet and Burial, which is one hell of an academic pedigree. There must be something in the Elliott School’s curricular, because The xx are as innovative as their peers.
With a penchant for undertones, The xx integrate ambient’s minimalism, shoegaze’s ethereal, droning textures, post-punk’s angular guitar lines and R&B’s crisp, snapping rhythms. This is all on top of the gorgeously congregated vocals of Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim that obsess over sex and regret. Think the slight arrangements of Young Marble Giants, blended with The Kills’ sexuality, filtered through some discarded beats Timbaland never gave Aaliyah.
“Intro” doesn’t follow the usual role of a song with such a title, jumping right into staccato notes and a looped drumbeat. It’s also one of the more pronounced tracks on the album.
“VCR” uses some tremolo guitar tones akin to The Cure and clapping to conduct the first duet between Croft and Sim. “Crystalised” is probably the most unlikely single you’ll hear all year, because it’s essentially just Sim’s floating voice over top extended, amorphous droning and eventually some guitar reverberations. It’s also one of most arresting songs you’ll hear in 2009.
“Islands” helps make a convincing argument that The xx are really a soul band in the body of hip art school grads, with Croft’s spilling her heart over a ghostly bed of tenuous noise. “Heart Skipped A Beat”, on the other hand, uses its title to kick-start the tempo a little, demonstrating more of those futuristic R&B beats that will make this band the next big producers in demand.
“Basic Space” is another inconspicuous single that uses the passionately deep and dozy vocal turns by the two singers to provide depth to the minimalistic, yet devotional instrumentation (i.e. some deep sub-bass) that drops in and out of the song. Infinity” follows it with a complete 180, using the instruments – a clobbering drum, echo-laden guitar scaling - to build the emotion while the two singers merely hum their parts.
What’s so remarkable about xx is that it never loses its mojo or desire to remain diverse while sticking to a formula. Even in its final moments it keeps the momentum alive: Night Time uses a childlike music-box to accentuate the seductive melodies, while “Stars” appears like a defibrillator to escalate the pulse to end things with an abrupt rush.
Like I said, album of the year, without a doubt.
Artist: The xx
Album: xx
Release Date: October 6, 2009
Label: XL Recordings
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: October 13, 2009
Track Listing:
Tags: first spin, the xx
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The NewMusic First Spin: Kurt Vile
Tuesday, September 29th, 2009
Last year I stumbled upon an album of home recordings called Constant Hitmaker by some long hair from Philly named Kurt Vile. Up until just recently he was also a guitarist in the droning folk band The War On Drugs, but then left after his solo thing (which often features his backing band The Violators, which consists of members from The War On Drugs, oddly enough) began to overshadow the band.
Releasing the limited vinyl-only God Is Saying This to You LP back in the spring on Mexican Summer, Vile has now signed to Matador and readied his first proper album amusingly titled Childish Prodigy.
Where his prior records used more of a shoestring budget, Vile’s Matador debut almost sounds opulent by comparison. Fortunately, it doesn’t stray from the psychedelic and bluesy garage that helped him get this far, but at the same time Vile pushes himself to take the songs even further out there.
“Hunchback” is a fuzzy, narcotic-driven garage tune that swings like it was written for The Warlocks, and then transitions into the much more natural vibe of “Dead Alive”, which has Vile spewing a Dylanesque rant flooded in reverb.
With its pounding drum machine pattern and the passionate declaration of Americana, “Freak Train” goes off the rails and somehow finds middle ground between Springsteen and Suicide, only to have its edge curbed by the sublime “Blackberry Song”, a gorgeously textured folk song.
“Heart Attack” cooks up the same kind of hallucinatory tricks as Animal Collective with some heavy yet controlled use of echo and delay. “Inside Lookin’ Out” builds a wall of harmonica-laden noise that uses backwards masking to complement Vile’s lyrical tirade.
Childish Prodigy is a drifter, an album floating in and out of dreamlike jams and classic-rockin’ barnburners that engrosses you with such an inimitable, singular vision.
Artist: Kurt Vile
Album: Childish Prodigy
Release Date: October 6, 2009
Label: Matador Records
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: October 13, 2009
Track Listing:
Tags: first spin, kurt vile
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The NewMusic First Spin: Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Hope Sandoval seems to work in donkey’s years. As the singer of Mazzy Star, Sandoval and partner David Roback were much more productive, averaging a new album every three years from 1990 to 1996 and then imploding without much warning. But since then, the velvet-voiced chanteuse has released her music sparingly.
In 2001 she put out Bavarian Fruit Bread with The Warm Inventions, a supporting band that featured My Bloody Valentine’s Colm Ó Cíosóig. Like with Mazzy Star, Sandoval continued to explore a dazed kind of blues with The Warm Inventions that made the silky songstress a minor alt-rock star a decade and a half ago.
Through the Devil Softly is eight years in the waiting and despite all that time Sandoval and her collaborators haven’t changed a thing. Still keeping things to the quietest hush possible, it’s her voice that always conducts the arrangements.
“Blanchard” is the official single, but it doesn’t have “hit” written all over it. But there is a nice swinging lilt to it that makes it more of a stand out, especially once Hope joins the swelling slide guitar for the abrupt chorus.
Like the early Verve EPs, “For The Rest Of Your Life” begins with a sliding bass line, chiming vibes and drifting guitar scapes, setting up a real euphoric setting for Hope to get bluesy.
“Baby Sam” best exhibits how well Hope’s voice has held up over the years, as she’s accompanied by a lone acoustic guitar that weaves a web around her waning vocals.
While the album favours the five-minute mark, it doesn’t drag, and when the lo-fi music box motif of “Satellite” brings it to a finish, Hope and her Warm Inventions will have you wrapped up nice and warm, dozing off and feeling just right.
Artist: Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
Album: Through The Devil Softly
Release Date: September 29, 2009
Label: Nettwerk
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: October 6, 2009
Track Listing:
Tags: first spin, Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions
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The NewMusic First Spin: The Big Pink
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
The UK used to be a hub for buzz bands, but not since Ting Tings a couple years ago has there been an artist as hyped as The Big Pink (that I’ve paid attention to, of course).
Comprised of Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze, the London duo caused an instantaneous stir with their expansive sound, a marriage of fluttering guitar textures with rolling drumbeats and hooks as simple and enduring as your average Oasis hit.
Rising up out of their city’s underground music scene, the two already had experience under their belts: Cordell founded the tastemaking label Merok, which launched the careers of Klaxons, Crystal Castles and The Teenagers, and Furze played guitar for Atari Teenage Riot main dude Alec Empire.
The Big Pink released their debut single “Too Young To Love” last October, which not only drew mouth-watering raves from international press, but also a record deal with the idyllic 4AD label.
Following two more singles comes A Brief History of Love, the highly anticipated full-length. Opening with rainfall guitars, “Crystal Visions” exudes the sparkling imagery of its title; with its baggy percussion, it recalls a more modern spin on what the Stone Roses started back in ‘89.
The snapping rhythm and dazed melodies of a re-recorded “Too Young To Love” immediately announces the vastness of The Big Pink’s sonic prowess, which then blasts into the sing-along silliness of the breezy “Dominos”, their best shot at a hit single.
Meanwhile, “At War With The Sun” uses the same washing guitars and synths as the latest Horrors LP, and “Frisk” explores aims big with the type of hefty dance rock that made Kasabian stars.
But it’s second single “Velvet”, that acts as both the centerpiece and the emotional anchor of the album, with Furze delivering a longing vocal balanced by the heavy layers of shoegazing guitars.
Where A Brief History of Love stands apart from almost any other record is in its ability to sit comfortably in between the artistic and the commercial boundaries. It’s an album that can please both the pickiest hipsters and the daftest meatheads, and that’s not an easy thing to do.
Artist: The Big Pink
Album: A Brief History of Love
Release Date: September 22, 2009
Label: 4AD
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: September 29, 2009
Track Listing:
Tags: first spin, the big pink
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The NewMusic First Spin: Muse
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
There is nothing subtle about Muse. From the early Radiohead fandom on their debut album to the overnight metamorphosis into the leaders of modern prog rock on the second, the English trio have always been unabashed about indulging. And why not? Look where it’s gotten them (i.e. performing on the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards).
After turning in the rather middling Black Holes and Revelations - which went on to become their best-selling album, go figure – in 2006, Matt Bellamy, Christopher Wolstenholme and Dominic Howard return with arguably their most over the top album yet.
The Resistance kicks off with the discotheque-ready “Uprising,” a sparkling bit of dance floor euphoria that’s equal parts Goldfrapp’s “Strict Machine,” ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love” and the theme from Doctor Who. But it gets even weirder.
“Undisclosed Desires” is an absolute Depeche Mode homage – from the electro pop arrangement to the yearning lyrics in the chorus that you swear you’ve heard Dave Gahan sing a million times.
“United States Of Eurasia/Collateral Damage” is the undisputed corker, however. Sure, it appears to be a gorgeous piano’n’strings concerto, but wait for it! Bellamy summons his inner Brian May and the song transcends into a Queen-sized anthem with an ostentatious Arabian melody as the centrepiece.
If it all sounds a bit, well, arty and flamboyant, have no fear: the guys dig into the riff-roaring alt-rock that made them kings on “Unnatural Selection,” a shred-athon that scratch the headbanger’s itch.
But Muse save their most ambitious and possibly most dividing work ever for last. “Exogenesis” is a three-part classical suite that begins with the lavishly symphonised “Overture,” a swelling piece of orchestral rock that ebbs and flows like a strong, dreamlike current. This crescendos into “Cross-Pollination,” which opens with Bellamy hammering away at a piano like a distinguished composer. It wouldn’t be Muse though without introducing some guitars, as they unload a surge of rock halfway through. “Redemption” then closes out the piece with a rather subdued, yet uplifting lullaby that fades without any surprises.
In a nutshell: resistance to The Resistance is futile.
Artist: Muse
Album: The Resistance
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Label: Warner
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: September 15, 2009
- Uprising
- Resistance
- Undisclosed Desires
- United States of Eurasia (+Collateral Damage)
- Guiding Light
- Unnatural Selection
- MK Ultra
- I Belong to You (+Mon Coeur S’ouvre à ta Voix)
- Exogenesis: Symphony Part 1 (Overture)
- Exogenesis: Symphony Part 2 (Cross Pollination)
- Exogenesis: Symphony Part 3 (Redemption)
Tags: first spin, muse
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The NewMusic First Spin: The Dodos
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
Two thousand and eight was a banner year for San Francisco duo The Dodos. After three years of going it independently, they signed to Frenchkiss (Les Savy Fav, Cut Off Your Hands, Passion Pit) and earned universal praise for their second album, Visiter, thanks to its inimitable eclecticism based around a blend of airy blues riffing and rimshot-heavy rhythms.
A Miller Chill beer commercial and a third member added later, and the band return with their third album.
Time To Die is grim only in its name. While Visiter had an array of emotions and arrangements, the mood of Time To Die is relatively laissez-faire, which helps the now trio to settle into their songs without sounding like they’re about to explode from exhaustion.
With Keaton Snyder now adding some added texture with the vibraphone, Meric Long (guitar) and Logan Kroeber (drums) have the space to explore melody more than even before. That said, there’s also more of a sameness the Time To Die that makes this the band’s most accessible yet harmonious effort yet.
Snyder’s shimmering vibes show their influence when they beautifully fuse with Long’s undulating guitar on “Troll Nacht.” “Longform” revisits Visiter’s percussionist blasts best, with Long and Kroeber battling against each other as they ascend to an apex that sees the guitarist teach a clinic on how to finger-pick an acoustic with heavy metal ferocity.
“The Strums” lives up to its title, as Long perpetually twangs his six-stringer with the sort of looped effect that shoegazers obsessed over. It’s the rich melodies that make it a standout, however, especially when the understated horns permeate the wall of sound.
The epic title track appears almost like a coda, using some crescendo to bring closure to what’s certainly an album these guys can ride into much wider exposure. Throw in another beer ad (take a pick) and a few late night appearances and The Dodos are destined to overtake (and outlive) that extinct bird they’re named after.
Listen to it here
Artist: The Dodos
Album:Time To Die
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Label: Frenchkiss Records
Genre: Indie Rock
Author: Cam Lindsay
First Spin Live Until: September 22, 2009
Track Listing:
- Small Deaths
- Longform
- Fables
- The Strums
- This is a Business
- Two Medicines
- Troll Nacht
- Acorn Factory
- A Time to Die
Tags: first spin, The Dodos
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