Midweek Round-up #29/4 - Peter Wolf Crier, Baths, Sleigh Bells, Interpol

Peter Wolf Crier have been around for a while but my awareness of them certainly hasn't - they've only really become real to me in the last week or so, at a time where I've been fairly busy with creating my own album releases and trying to keep my head above water with the mounting levels of things I need to catch up on in time for this Summer. The new song from Minnesota folk-pop duo is called Hard As Nails, and joins an already very strong repertoire of material for a band who only formed in August 2009. Peter Pisano you may know from Wisconsin's very own Wars of 1812 - but when this quartet's hiatus commenced, he began spending his days teaching at a local primary school, continuing to write folk songs. When he felt confident enough to share them with drummer and producer Brian Moen, of Laarks and Amateur Love, the duo signed to Jagjaguwar Records. For this reason, I instantly associated this band with all those fellow labellers Odawas, Volcano Choir and The Besnard Lakes, but this band aren't quite so murky in the recording - they are more clear cut and confident than withdrawn and introspective, they showcase the exact kind of enthusiastic indie-folk charm you would expect from a band dropping a full-length album so quickly. Inter-Be hits stores in the US and UK on May 25, 2010.

Peter Wolf Crier - Hard As Nails (MP3)
Buy Peter Wolf Crier's Inter-Be, due May 25, 2010 via Amazon.com

The second major update of this week is to do with the 21 year-old producer and remixer Baths, whose latest remix, this time of Fol Chen's new(ish) track In Ruins - is dubbier and darker than anything he's dropped before. I posted two tracks from his upcoming album 'Cerulean' last month, check the post out here to hear for yourself the kind of variety i'm talking about. The album is out on Anticon records on June 22, 2010.

Fol Chen - In Ruins (Baths Remix) (MP3) (previous posts on Baths)
Buy Fol Chen's Part 1, out February 2009, via Amazon.com

As if M.I.A hadn't created enough stir this week already with her comical anti-ginger video (which was removed by Youtube on Wednesday) - her fellow N.E.E.T labellers Sleigh Bells announced officially that they would be releasing their debut album, entitled Treats, on the already overcrowded May 11, 2010. The bone-shatteringly loud Tell 'em is being released as the bands promo single, made downloadable from yesterday via the duo's rather excessive website. Its loud as ever, and still has that distinctive M.I.A sound to it that I just can't place.

Sleigh Bells - Tell 'em (MP3) (previous Sleigh Bells posts)
Buy Sleigh Bells' Treats, due May 11, 2010 via Amazon.com


Sleigh Bells weren't the only band to release a new track from their latest LP - Interpol followed suit, unveiling Lights from their as of yet untitled fourth album. The band, based in New York, revealed that they will be releasing a drip feed of information concerning the new album including tracklisting, MP3s, tour dates and album art. Post-punk influenced and reverb drenched as every - Lights is available to download either from their website or below.

Interpol - Lights (MP3) album TBC

Bloc Party lead singer Kele Okereke's solo project took its first outing this week when 'Tenderoni' premiered on Radio 1 - and I have to say, my view that Bloc Party are well on the way out has been just about confirmed. For a band who had the courage but not the creativity to create music different from Silent Alarm, the latest offering mixes what sounds like post-2007 Bloc Party, David Guetta and the music from that Citroen C4 advert with the dancing car which garnered so much Youtube attention in 2005. Not a great track, but Reading Festival friendly (about as much as I expected). Judge for yourself below.

Kele - Tenderoni (Radio Rip) (MP3)

Finally, I hate to self promote but I'm going to do it anyway - embedded below is the debut EP 'Blood, Its On Every Wall' of my own band, Kinnie The Explorer. This is our first EP and we only unveiled it yesterday night. Its available for download on bandcamp (and in the side of this blog) at name your price download until next week. Check out the original blog post, myspace and please, have a listen below. (Sorry!)

Kinnie The Explorer - Sleep (MP3)
Kinnie The Explorer - From The Floor (MP3)
Kinnie The Explorer - Blind Spider (MP3)
Kinnie The Explorer - Fairy Lit Hung Flowers (MP3)


from the Blood, Its On Every Wall EP - 28/4/2010

via Bandcamp

New Album: Ólafur Arnalds "..and they have escaped the weight of darkness" (June 8, 2010)

There's not many words to describe artists like Ólafur Arnalds - the kind of heartfelt semi-ambient music Sigur Ros won the hearts of the world with is about as close as comparisons come. Blending subtleties of ambient electronica with organic piano keys, Arnalds' weightless arrangements captivate all the way from the eery harmonics of classical music to full-blown orchestral harmonies and progressions. Þú ert sólinin, solely instrumental as ever, is no exception. Taking into account one full-length album and three short album releases, the latest of which being 2009's 'Dyan 1909', the new song which surfaced last week as a free download has already become on of my favourite by the Icelandic 23 year-old.

Ólafur Arnalds - Þú ert sólinin (MP3)
"..and they have escaped the weight of darkness" is out June 8, 2010 on Erased Tapes. (Amazon)

Album Review: MGMT - Congratulations (April 13, 2010)

MGMT

Congratulations (April 13, 2010)

Columbia Records

Psychedelic/Pop/Synth-Rock

The unmeasurable success of Oracular Spectacular was undoubtedly due at least in part to the strength of its singles - I remember on listening through my album purchase almost three years ago being slightly underwhelmed by an album I thought would be full to the brim with generation-defining songs in the heroin-infused vein of 'Time To Pretend'. However the musical duo were rightly worshipped on the success of that haunting song, from a  band who emerged from the musical wilderness straight to the top of so many festival bills, radio playlists and world album charts. "Kids" followed it up, and pretty quickly they were being remixed by the likes of Justice and Soulwax to create songs which would remain as acceptable indie-dancefloor tracks until the summer of 2009 and beyond. MGMT's brilliance in 2007/8 however, in no way guarded against the kind of second album backlash that so many bloggers have already begun to launch against the duo.

For the oddness of MGMT's second album, aptly titled 'Congratulations', can be interpreted in two ways. Measuring the album on a scale of 'one-to-Oracular Spectacular' is the route that many bloggers seem to have taken. For example, Hannah Simon's review for Indie Shuffle has no time for the new LP, she calls them "immature musicians" before going on to claim that the new material "may as well me mindless noise". It is true that Congratulations and Oracular Spectacular are very different albums - but "mindless noise" is just totally speculative.

The second way this album can be interpreted is as an album in itself - aside from the media frenzy, press hype and mainstream expectation which the two musicians could never have forseen. Comparing Congratulations to its predecessor is like comparing siblings. The instruments, sounds and key parts of the music are shared - but the influences are wildly different. MGMT, this time round, have taken a hypothetical acid trip to the 70s. David Bowie is the first musician to spring to mind - and elements of T-Rex style glam rock ring loud and clear throughout. Take 'Congratulations', a song beginning with an idle blues bassline, joined quickly by an ambling, glitchy keyboard. This song is as 70s as they come, mixed up with all those MGMT sounds which we know so well from the last instalment. There's background acoustics which album opener "Someone's Missing" also exhibits - which also appear on 12 minute epic 'Siberian Breaks', the song perhaps most likely to captivate the listener to the extent of some of the last album's better sections. Other than the modern instrumentation this duo engage with, I find it difficult to find many influences within this century that I can confidently say form a part of the new album's creation.

Almost every essence of modernity and sanity has been removed aside from equipment, and even the most recent of influences - Mercury Rev, still falls within 20th century boundaries. The spaced-out vocals and jangling guitars so typical of Spacemen 3 and the former are an occurence which makes all the more logical sense when producer Peter Kember and his Jason Pierce associations are taken into account. This space-rock, Bowie inspired psychedelia doesn't stop at the music either. Take a look at the full set of lyrics for Siberian Breaks, weighing in at over ten minutes in length and finishing with the reflective observations that "forces you see breathe can always go into hiding// and wait 'till it passes over// or stay far gone for all eternity". As a recent interview revealed, MGMT are uncomfortable with the earthly situation they find themselves in - and Congratulation's lyrics certainly suggest a far-gone attempt at escape from the world where they're shooting heroin in Paris, living fast, and dying young.

The apology about the new album the band gave following the mainstream backlash against Flash Delirium seems like an odd move to me. Why should a band apologise for making a stand against the mainstream success of their debut? Congratulations is pure creativity with far more depth than the single orientated debut. It is by no means an amazing album - but I already find it infinitely more interesting as a unit that I ever found Oracular Spectacular.

MGMT - Flash Delirium (MP3) (thanks to Stay Loose)

Introducing.. His Clancyness - Summer Majestic (25/4)

His Clancyness is the solo project of Jonathan Clancy, a Canadian native who has been the subject of some serious Pitchfork love ever since his rendition of So Bored hit the blogosphere in June 2009. Ten months on from the Wavves cover, Saturday saw his return with the news via Myspace blog that a new LP is in the works via Secret Furry Hole and Ester. In celebration, Clancy also dropped us a wonderful new track - Summer Majestic. Mixing 80s dream pop melody with an unmistakable echo of Arcade Fire in the vocal, the punchy percussion, jarring basslines and reverb-soaked guitars join equally hazy vocal layering to create a snippet of late summer surf nostalgia. In a murky psychedelic dash for something even less direct than the former releases, acoustics are even more distantly recorded, and even more looped and layered on the new track. Squealing lead guitar lines are almost as manipulated as the voice, eventually taking precedence over the downbeat and beachy rhythms which bind His Clancyness' music together.


His Clancyness - Summer Majestic (MP3)
His Clancyness - So Bored (Wavves Cover) (MP3)


Buy/Pre-order His Clancyness's music via Myspace.
 


  

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.