Based on the first few bars of organ you’d be forgiven for confusing this track with Metronomy’s The Look, but once the guitar slides into the beat it becomes clear that this is a rather fine single all by itself. The title From Nowhere is aptly chosen as Dan Croll, the mastermind behind this sterling piece of work, appears to have sprung up ‘from nowhere’ fully formed. Armed only with a 7″, an infectiously jolly video, and a great eye for visual design, he’s beating a strong and steady path toward not inconsiderable success. There is another weapon in his arsenal, of course, and that’s a corker of a debut single.
From Nowhere had me hooked as soon as the guitar line kicked in, and didn’t let up until it was finished. The spring reverb and jaunty backbeat might mark the track out as a potential summer favourite, but it still doesn’t feel out of place now the nights are drawing in.
Aside from this 7″, there’s not much known about Mr Croll. He’s from Liverpool and popped up on the Communion Records compilation, New Faces, back in April with a track called Marion; it’s a nice enough tune, but it’s definitely From Nowhere that’s his masterpiece. If this song isn’t a hit on the scale of Grizzly Bear’s Two Weeks then the world is a deeply unfair place: go and buy it straight away.
This is one of my favourite singles of the year so far:
Simple, evocative, powerful; trading under the nom de guerre Monument Valley, Mancunian Ned Younger certainly knows how to turn a phrase that’s sure to draw me in. The sparse guitars and delicate atmospherics set a mood that’s at once malevolent yet somehow tender, and the booming, ghostly piano thumps in the chorus – so simple they’re hardly there – ground the lyrics so thoroughly that the track instantly feels like something important. Like all the best pop songs, the lyrics to Your Cover Blown sound both disarmingly specific and impossibly ambiguous all at the same time. In the months since this track was released I’ve listened to it countless times, and I’ve still no idea what it’s actually about, but every listen paints a picture that stays with me long after the song’s finished.
When it comes to the B-side, in contrast, there’s no mistaking what it’s about. Younger’s oblique, occasionally witty lyrical approach manages to breathe fresh life into the classic breakup song trope, and the end result is a track that’s almost as bewitching as the A-side. The single came out on Everybody’s Stalking back in May, and although I came late to the party and didn’t order my copy until mid summer, Your Cover Blown is easily my most-played 7″ of 2012 (so far, at least).
Allow me, if you will, to be a little self indulgent for a while (or more so than usual, at least). I don’t often get gooey over guitarists, and my days as a John Butler Trio fan are well behind me (I’ve grown up in a town built on surfing, so I had to like him at some point), but Ocean – JB’s instrumental magnum opus – is so lodged in my psyche that I just had to post about this new studio version. It was the first song I learnt that was built solely for performance on a 12-string – or 11-string, as JB has his set up – and I made sure I knew the Max Sessions version note for note; I must have watched that part of his DVD (which came as part of his Live at St. Gallen box set) more than any other music video.
Having learnt to play it myself, I now know that the tuning is doing most of the work, and he’s really just cycling through a couple of simple chord changes, but even knowing all that I still can’t help but be entranced by the track. I lost interest in the John Butler Trio after the Grand National album was so overwhelmingly dull, and even Sunrise Over Sea – the only record of his I really liked – lays on the cheese rather heavily. Like most virtuoso guitarists JB can’t write lyrics worth a damn, and if you’ve heard one of his plus-ten-minute slide solos you’ve heard them all; I’d only recommend you seek out more John Butler Trio stuff if you’re into surfing and think Jack Johnson’s great, but if you think that, then what on earth are you doing reading this blog?! Ocean, however, will stay with me forever.
There’s about a million different versions of this track out there – all of varying quality – and almost every one of them has a slightly different arrangement; he must play this track all the time, so who can blame him for trying to keep things interesting? This new version is one of the better ones, and you download it from his site or through the Soundcloud player embedded bellow, but I recommend you hear it with the visuals for the full effect.
And here’s my favorite arrangement from the Max Sessions DVD mentioned above (at six minutes, it’s much shorter than most of the other versions). Whichever version you choose, however, it will still be worth your time; I guarantee it.
Another great low-budget video for your delectation today. This one’s been sitting in my inbox for over a month now, which means I’m coming a little late to the Cosmo Jarvis party. People who got there before I did include Brian Eno and Jarvis Cocker, and while I’m never sure if celebrity endorsements actually help launch an artist, accolades from names like those can’t do any harm (although I seem to remember hearing something recently about the ‘curse’ of an endorsement from Morrissey…). Anyway, late or not, this video for Love This is fantastic and the song’s of equal quality. It came out at the start of July, and was quickly followed by a full-length release, Think Bigger.
If you ignore the nipples, this is actually rather good. Not being particularly familiar with Ms. Palmer, I assumed she was just, you know, yet another breathy, girly, away-with-the-fairies singer-songwriter. Having heard this, and having made the connection between her name and the fantastic Map Of Tasmania I heard a while back, I wish I’d jumped on the million-dollar-plus Kickstarter campaign bandwagon. The album from that massive influx of funds is called Theatre Is Evil, and will get it’s uk release through Cooking Vinyl.
Great typography in the video, and a great song to go with it. I guess people will call her brave and a feminist and other silly things, but inside I’m still about ten years old and find boobs scary and intimidating…
(If you haven’t guessed by now, the video is a little NSFW).
Town Hall, who impressed me recently with their Sticky Notes & Paper Scraps EP, have a new single out in support of their upcoming album. The track is called Good Boy, and will released as a free download on the their Bandcamp page soon, but for now you can get your kicks from the music video they’ve made for the song (another sterling Mason Jar Music production).
It’s great to see a band that can so consistently keep up such high standards – I often find little videos like the one that alerted me to Town Hall’s existence, but rarely does my further exploration reveal more stuff of a similar quality, let alone better stuff, as is the case here. The Town Hall album, Roots and Bells, comes out on the 15th of this month, and now I’m even more eager to hear it than I already was.
Well here’s some news, and no mistake. The Decemberists spent the early part of this year whipping up a new album, and now its release is finally on the horizon. The due date for the LP, to be called The King is Dead, is slated for mid January next year, and the band are doing their best to curry favour with their fans by releasing one track as a free download. You can get your grubby paws on track six – Down by the Water – by signing up to their mailing list on their website (or just download it below, if you’re feeling lazy).
First things first, this song is not a cover of either PJ Harvey or The Drums; it’s completely new. And, in what is becoming de rigueur for the Decemberists lately, the list of collaborators for this single is rather impressive. BVs are provided courtesy of alt. country doyen Gillian Welch, and there’s the unmistakable twang of Peter Buck’s twelve string plastered all over this track. So the pedigree for this release is pretty darned mighty, but is it actually any good?
Following the might and majesty of 2006’s The Crane Wife, expectations were high for the next Decemberists record. Their last three LPs had all been better than their predecessors, so The Hazarads of Love was an odds-on hit. Sadly that record was ghastly – I’m a huge Decemberists fan, and had lapped up pretty much everything they had released up until that point (I even quite enjoyed the bloated and self-indulgent long-form EP, The Tain) but Hazards… was just a bridge too far. I grew up on a diet of my dad’s prog collection, so I’m more amenable than most to concept albums, but that record and I never saw eye to eye, and since then I’ve contented myself with the Decemberists’ excellent back catalogue and cast thoughts of their future escapades from my mind. Despite all that, though, at the first whiff of a new Decemberists album I felt my pulse quicken and the unmistakable feeling of nervous excitement began coursing through my veins.
To be honest, Down by the Water hasn’t done anything to heighten my anticipation, but equally it hasn’t done anything to diminish it either. It’s standard fare for the band; slightly folky country-rock with a distinct americana lilt to it, and Colin Meloy seems to be in fine fettle vocal-wise. It kicks off with some harmonica – which by rights should be the first instrument up against the wall when the revolution comes – and while it’s nice to hear some REM guitaring, Buck’s contributions could do with being a little lower in the mix. But despite the downsides, Down by the Water still delivers as a song, and you never know; come the new year The King is Dead could well surprise us all.
“Inconsistency is my very essence… … Mutability is our tragedy, but it is also our hope. The worst of times, like the best, are always passing away” It would seem the sage words of Boethius provide something of a manifesto to Wild Palms‘ front-man Lou Hill, although perhaps assuming he’s au fait with the Consolation of Philosophy might be a bit of a stretch; “Once you think you’ve found your feet, you’re f*cked.” was Hill’s eloquent expression of the same sentiments…
Nonetheless, mutable is certainly the first adjective that springs to mind when considering the work of Wild Palms. Having only recently changed their name from Ex-Lion Tamers* (a rebirth heralded by a much-lauded cover of Bjork’s Human Behaviour), there’s talk of a debut album being released in March ’11, but by then the sound could well have changed again. Yet despite all the talk of change and evolution, the double-A-side single To The Lighthouse/Draw In Light (to be released on the 1st of November) sounds remarkably stable; a polished, consummate display of musicianship and intelligent production.
For this single, as well as the forthcoming album, the band blew nearly all their recording budget on securing the services of the producer Gareth Jones** – a man with an impressive back-catalogue including Turn on the Bright Lights (easily Interpol’s finest effort) and Grizzly Bear’s recent hit LP Veckatimest – and it seems to have paid off. Whereas their previous efforts were all hairy balls and crunchy bass lines, the new tracks have an unexpected warmth and subtlety to them. This means that neither To The Lighthouse nor Draw In Light pack the punch of last years single Over Time, but what they lack in immediacy they repay in spades over repeat listenings. These new tracks are all about atmosphere and the delicious tug-and-release of dramatic tension. If the album’s anything near as good as these tracks then we’ll certainly be hearing much more from Wild Palms in the early months of 2011. Provided they don’t go and change direction again, that is…
Wild Palms – To The Lighthouse
Wild Palms – Draw In Light
It just isn’t right to include an mp3 download of a new single, but being as I know how much you guys love your free music, here’s their old single (which has already done the rounds a bit), so you can compare the “old” and “new” sounds for yourselves:
Okay, okay; I know I’ve not been a very good blogger lately, but I can change. I promise, darling, this will “never” happen again. Basically the combination of a new job and a busted hard-drive conspired to keep me from you, but I’ve been sitting on some pretty peachy music lately, so expect a glut of great reviews and suchlike in the immediate future.
For now though, dear readers, sate your thirst for exciting new music with the news that on the 10th of May* 4AD will release High Violet, the latest LP from EbM favourites The National. I’ve not heard the whole thing yet, but I have managed to get my grubby little paws on two of the tracks which I have kindly included for your delectation below…
Ah, as the release date for A Winter of Mixed Drinks fast approaches (March 1st) we’re being treated to yet more Frightened Rabbit goodness. The band have released the album track Fun Stuff for fans to download, and there’s now also a competition (gosh, how exciting!).
Fun Stuff first emerged last year when a demo titled Last Tango in Brooklyn started doing the rounds. Other than the change of name, there’s not much that’s changed in the song – the production on this new version is just a bit slicker, as one would expect from an album cut. As a song, it’s what we’ve come to expect from Hutchison & co. Bitter and acerbic, after the lairy roustabouts that were the previous two singles, Swim Until You Can’t See Land and Nothing Like You, it’s nice to hear hints of the softer touch that made Midnight Organ Fight such a lasting success.
As for the competition, head over to the band’s Muzu channel for the full lowdown (as well as a few FR videos too). Submit a cocktail recipe (see what they did there?) by the 15th Feb. to be in with a chance of winning free FR gig tickets and an after-show drink with the band.
Eaten by Monsters 