Weekend Round-up #25/4 - M.I.A, White Hinterland, Caribou + more.

Alan Wilkis emailed me earlier this week with his latest remix, this time of White Hinterland's No Logic. For those of you unfamiliar - White Hinterland is an American folk singer-songwriter and jazz pianist from Portland, Oregon who's third album Kairos came out in March of this year on the Dead Oceans label (also Nurses, Bowerbirds, Frog Eyes). Alan Wilkis, on the other hand, is a remixer from New York who for the last five years has been putting his creative synthesized spin on the likes of Phoenix, Yeasayer and The Very Best. Together they have created a wonderful, naturally flowing dance track which whilst bringing out the freak folk element to White Hinterland's music, also plays on the ambient dance themes and futuristic feel to much of her latest album 'Kairos'. This is definitely one to download, and both White Hinterland and Alan Wilkis are artists to keep close tabs on.

White Hinterland - No Logic (Alan Wilkis Remix) (MP3) from Kairos

Search Amazon.com for Alan Wilkis

Purchase White Hinterland's Kairos (2010) on Amazon.com

M.I.A announced this week that the follow up to Kala, still nameless, will drop June 29, 2010 in the US. The track 'Born Free' has also sufficiently swarmed the internet since its leak on Friday to justify posting it up here for you all to hear. The new song samples Suicide and, as any long-time fan of the Sri Lankan producer will know, presents a vastly different M.I.A to the one who released Paper Planes in 2008. 

M.I.A - Born Free (MP3) from the new album, due 29/6 via N.E.E.T

Buy Kala (2008) on Amazon.com

Another new track comes our way from London all-girl DIY punk trio PENS this week, who via Art Fag released You Only Love Me When I Tell You I'm Wrong this month. The sheer amount of blog-hate this band seem to get, its a wonder this band is still playing - full marks for perseverance? The new track marks more of the same from the garage punk band - with screechy bubblegum harmonies, overdriven guitars and uncontrollable feedback. Check out my review of 2009's Hey Friend What You Doing?

PENS - You Only Love Me When I Tell You I'm Wrong (MP3) via Art Fag

Buy Hey Friend, What You Doing? on Amazon.com, for a surprisingly good import price.

After picking up both JJ no2, and JJ no3 for £11 combined at Rough Trade East last Saturday, i've been somewhat obsessing over the Swedish dream pop duo of late. In a cover of a band that I still know nothing about, JJ released Ceo Birthday (of Semi Jeremih) this week. Its a classically influenced piano led track with the beautiful vocals we've come to expect of this band. In a similar style to some of the XX's covers, JJ have taken what sounds like an RnB original, and turned it on its head. If you haven't already, get yourself a copy of JJ no 3.

JJ - Ceo Birthday (Semi Jeremih Cover) (MP3)

Buy jj no 3 on Amazon.com

I introduced Caribou's new album Swim on the blog earlier this year, and although I haven't yet got myself a copy, i've watched the music world become more and more obsessed with Dan Snaith's new tunes. In keeping with my policy of buying the album as long as its available, and only downloading remixes and singles until I have it in my hands - I came across the Spirituals remix of new album track 'Sun' earlier this week, in anticipation of my next pre-order. I can honestly say I haven't heard many better remixes this year. This remix takes Snaith's bass-heavy psychedelic pop music and turns it into a glitchy dance track with an urban groove - mixing scatty beats against sampled psychedelia to create an all-encompassing dancefloor landscape. Remixes don't come much better than this - highly recommended.

Caribou - Sun (Spirituals Remix) (MP3)

Buy Caribou's Swim - out June 4, 2010, via Amazon.com

Finally, this week sees the break-up of the creators of one of my favourite albums of 2008 - Voxtrot. By no means are they giving it up straight away though, they've booked themselves in on a final US tour in celebration - sure to be an emotional road trip for all the die-hard Voxtrot fans out there. RIP.

PENS - hey friend ! what you doing?

PENS - hey friend ! what you doing? (September 28, 2009)(Garage Pop/Lo-fi/Noise Punk)

Fitting in perfectly amongst the pioneers of 2009's musical explosion of 'beach/noise punk' al No Age, Japandroids and Wavves - all girl garage pop trio PENS make energetic and noisy punk-pop with bite. The sample track I picked up 'Freddy', gave me very high hopes, but to be honest, across the whole album there's not much in the way of structure, melody, tune, lyrics, subtlety or any particular creativity; most of the chord sequences are borrowed and re-used, and to top it off, the terrible microphone PENS used during their recording with De Stijl records means that the lyrics (or intermittent girly screams and shouts) are barely audible above the grinding overdrive on the amps.

As bad as that may sound, there is definitely something strangely satisfying about listening to all-girl musical chaos - and as much as I appreciate finely tuned songwriting, grand arrangements and experimental instrumentation - it is sometimes, for one reason or another, more satisfying to listen to a band that know full well but don't care in the slightest that the music they make sounds awful. Album opener Horsies, coupled with mid-album (and my sampler) Freddy are the standout tracks, not only because for the latter the usual clattering of drums is dubbed down, but also because for once the guitar follows a nice simple, cascading sequence and regular punk-pop beat, taking the song as far away as possible from the usual 70s rock caricatures which clutter the rest of the album.

At the end of the day, PENS do nothing groundbreaking, but through turning their volume notches up to 10, shouting, screaming and giving their guitars a workout they come dangerously close to putting out a decent debut. They're perfectly within fashion, but whether anything of hey friend other than Freddy is going to mean a thing to anyone five years down the line remains to be seen. As with synthpop in the 80s, shoegaze in the 90s and indie rock in the 00s - there's following fashion, and then there's sounding cliche.

4.5/10

Hey Friend, What You Doing? on Amazon for less than $3.

read my introduction post for more information and more mp3s.


File Next To - Wavves/Best Coast/Dum Dum Girls

PENS - Freddy (MP3) (via mediafire)
PENS - High In The Cinema (MP3) (via mediafire)

Introducing.. PENS

PENS are a cute, all-girl garage pop band from London who play a loud and fuzzy mix of garage punk and 60s style pop harmonies. I was initially quite shocked when i realised that they were from the UK - their music sounds like everything i had long since associated with the tropical beach punk explosion the US recently (Vivian Girls/Wavves/Times New Viking), but as it turns out they're sparking off part of a DIY punk music movement in the UK - because its certainly not just them playing this kind of music over here.

Until this point every release Pens had done was a split; they've done them with Male Bonding, Graffiti Island and not to forget the four way split they've shared with the latter, as well as Dum Dum Girls and Crocodiles, which came out on Art Fag this August. Nearly all of the aforementioned projects are British. On De Stijl records, their debut album Hey Friend What Are You Doing came out at the end of September 2009. The musical result is ramshackled and cascading beach punk, a hazy mess of overdriven melody and fuzzy, but controlled noise. The result is USA inspired to say the least. The 60s pop vocals of Amelia, Steph and Helen saw them support No Age last month, and they had a series of tour dates in the US this August and the UK in this October. For now the shows are over, but i'm going to be keeping a close eye on them for early next year.


video via De Stijl records

You can download Freddy, High In The Cinema, and Networking below watch the video for High in the Cinema above. Be sure to watch this space for live shows + more releases early next year.

PENS on MYSPACE (+more tracks)

DOWNLOADS
PENS - Freddy (MP3)
PENS - Networking (MP3)
PENS - High In The Cinema (MP3)