Last week, I posted about Deerhunter. This week, it’s lead singer Bradford Cox’s solo project, Atlas Sound. When I was in New York in March, I picked up a split 10″ EP by him (not very good) and the album, ‘Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel’ which is pretty decent. It’s more electronica-based and much more chilled out than Deerhunter. But he’s just released a free internet EP, ‘Things I’ll Miss’ which you can download here. If you search through his blogs, you;’ll generously find a heap of free tracks there. Atlas Sound are making their way to Dublin next Monday May 19th, when they’ll be supporting Animal Collective in Tripod. Here’s a video for the lead track, ‘My Car’ from the free EP.
There seems to be a huge amount of great Irish stuff at the moment. This year, we’ve already had terrific releases from Halves, Enemies, Weakling & King, Chequerboard and Michael Knight. But in the last few weeks, I’ve got my hands on some exciting new Irish albums. Of course, one of the most anticipated Irish releases this year is the forthcoming Jape album, ‘Ritual’. It includes a bunch of songs you’ll recognise if you’ve seen Jape over the last few years but the sound is less dancey and more guitar-based than I would have expected. In fact, my favourite song on the record is the quietest one, ‘At The Heart Of All This Strangeness’ - it’s pretty much just Richie and an acoustic guitar and it’s quite a lovely tender moment. You can watch a recording of it here that he recorded for Popmat.
So Cow has just released his second album, ‘I’m Siding With My Captors’ which packs 11 songs into 28 minutes. There are some cracking songs on it, like ‘Commuting’, ‘Halcyon Days’ and ‘Off Out’ but it feels a little slight. I would have liked it to be a little longer and I think his previous album, ‘These Truly Are End Times’ is probably a stronger piece of work on the whole (but I may well change my mind about that). I think Mr. Cow has improved his popsongwriting skills and this is a tighter and better-recorded record and I have a feeling his third album will be rather special.
The Jimmy Cake’s third album, ‘Spectre & Crown’ is another one that doesn’t quite stand up to their previous release for me but that’s probably because ‘Dublin Gone, Everybody Dead’ is one of my favourite Irish albums of all time. The track ‘Jetta’s Palace’ is one of the best things they’ve ever done and there are some beautiful moments on the record but it doesn’t quite hold together in quite the same way as ‘Dublin Gone, Everybody Dead’. It does, however, have a beautiful cover and is a superbly-produced record what with all of it’s chiming pianos. From The Jimmy Cake to The Vinny Club, who release their/his tribute album to Rocky IV (’The Rocky IV Reckyrd’) at the end of the month. The album is another short one, coming in at just over 25 minutes but realistically recreates the world of 1983 and is full of songs that make your head feel like a robot and cause uncontrollable movements of the arms. This is a good thing.
Jeff Martin (also of Halfset) released his album, ‘Spoons’ a couple of years ago but is just about to release an album of remixes, collaborations and interpretations by a host of other artists such as Isan, John McEntire, David Pajo, The High Llamas, Mice Parade, John Parish and many others. The guests I’ve mentioned will give you a good idea of what the record sounds like - it’s mostly rather laidback and very endearing. I have a feeling this is one that will grow in stature with each listen.
The Irish album that has impressed me most, however, is Crayonsmith’s ‘White Wonder’. The album is packed full of top-notch pop songs, and the production is spot-on. Hopefully, this will gather word of mouth acclaim as it, unfortunately, seems to have not received the attention it deserves. Crayonsmith is the brainchild of Ciaran Smith who is joined by Ruadhan O’Meara and Ronan Jackson. You can watch my favourite song from the record below - ‘Bad Days Move On’.
And to end this Irish music round-up, here’s a link to hear a deadly remix of Cap Pas Cap’s ‘Said Say It’ by Problums.
I posted about Late Of The Pier a while ago, enthusing about their ‘The Bears Are Coming’ song and promotional video. So here I am again, embracing their utter barminess. There are not enough bands willing to go out on a limb with their sheer ridiculousness but Late Of The Pier have done it with both sides of their new double A-side single, both of which can be seen above. ‘Space And The Woods’ has been doing the rounds for quite a while, as a free download on their Myspace site. But ‘Focker’ (the top video) is totally insane - it’s a tune that has heard Numan and Devo and music made on far-off planets that have yet to be named. And the video is bonkers to match, featuring as it does a weird tape machine/synth/boombox/robot hybrid. Absolutely brilliant stuff. Can’t wait to play this on the radio.
Excitingly enough, they are playing Dublin alongside Midnight Juggernauts in Crawdaddy on Sunday May 25th. Shame I’m gonna miss that. You can also download a remix of ‘Space And The Woods’ here.
Here’s Friday’s playlist for my show on Phantom 105.2 in Dublin and www.phantom.ie which is on every Friday at Midnight BST. The ‘Under The Radar’ album was:
PLAYLIST:
MYSTERY JETS - Two Doors Down [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
CSS - Rat Is Dead (Rage)
THE VINNY CLUB - Infinite Smokebombs
GET WELL SOON - You/Aurora/You/Seaside
NEW YORK DOLLS - Trash
THE FUTUREHEADS - Work Is Never Done
JAPE - Replays
EL PERRO DEL MAR - Somebody’s Baby
THE BUZZCOCKS - Everybody’s Happy Nowadays BON IVER - Lump Sum [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
VINCENT GALLO - Yes I’m Lonely
SPIRITUALIZED - You Lie You Cheat
JAPE - At the heart of all this strangeness
SO COW - Halcyon Days
ENEMIES - For One Night Only
FOALS - Olympic Airways
JAPE - Strike Me Down
VINCENT GALLO - When AZTEC CAMERA - Oblivious [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
PORTISHEAD - The Rip
CRAYONSMITH - All The Elders
ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN - The Flame That Burns
HALVES - Medals
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND & NICO - I’ll be your Mirror
VINCENT GALLO - I wrote this song for the girl Paris Hilton
NOTWIST - Boneless
THE JIMMY CAKE - Red Tony
JEFF MARTIN - The Promise (John McEntire remix)
CORRECTO - No-one Under 30
Last night, I went to Health & Deerhunter in Whelans. Health are energetic, visually exciting and fucking loud but lacking in substance. And when I say substance, I mean tunes. Health exist in a world of feedback and distorted loops and layers upon layers of noise. Fun to watch but I know now that I never have to listen to their records, to be honest.
I had been looking forward to seeing Deerhunter, having missed their last show here. And last night’s gig was a good, if fairly shambolic, performance. The problem was that I kinda expected more from them. I expected it to be more extreme, to be louder and more full-on. I wanted the extremeness of Health but with the tunes I’d expect from Deerhunter. They mostly concentrated on new material from their forthcoming album, ‘Microcastle’ (due at Halloween time). The new songs sounded good - poppier, almost Beatlesy at moments but they didn’t always go as far as I wanted them to. They seemed to stop short of climaxes. But the older stuff really shone for me - particularly ‘Strange Lights’. It just would have been nice to have heard a bit more old stuff. It was new guitarist, Whitney’s first gig and she seemed to fit in without any problems, spitting and leap-frogging and joining in on all manners of japes.
Speaking of which, I will be playing three songs tonight from Jape’s new album, Ritual, which is less dancier than you might expect but full of cracking tunes, all the same. I’ll also be playing tracks from the new Vinny Club tribute to Rocky IV, a track from the new Notwist record and the new Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan album and my ‘Under The Radar’ album will be ‘When’ by Vincent Gallo. So that’s all on at Midnight BST tonight (Friday May 9th) on www.phantom.ie and Phantom 105.2 in Dublin.
On Wednesday night, I saw Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip again and Messiah J & The Expert who played some of their new tunes. I’m really liking The Button Factory these days. The sound is pretty good and it’s a comfortable venue, no longer feeling like a Russian warehouse . More places could learn from this. It’s an example of a well-considered renovation.
I’m not sure if this is the new single by Radiohead or not (I thought it was ‘Nude’) but they have made a video for ‘All I Need’ in collaboration with MTV (who ironically barely show videos anymore) to bring attention to child exploitation. It’s a nicely made video with an important message, yet I can’t help but feel this is not the right video for this song and vice-versa. ‘All I Need’ is my favourite song off ‘In Rainbows’ which still gets fairly regular listens on my mp3 player. After all the hype, I still think it stands up as a fantastic Radiohead record (easily one of their best) and ‘All I Need’ makes me think of mountaintops and forests and dark dark nights. Nothing like this video, in fact.
I’ve been very much enjoying the new release by Halves, ‘Haunt Me When I’m Drowsy’. I’m not sure if it’s an EP or an album - it’s got seven tracks and lasts 32 minutes. I guess it’s a mini-album, though the new So Cow album (also very good) is shorter (28 minutes long) but with 11 songs and is most definitely an album. This is Halves’ second release - the first one kind of passed me by, which is probably a mistake on my part. But both of them have beautiful packaging although I seem to have already broken the elastic strap which clasps the package together.
I’m sure they’re sick of being described as Sigur Ros-esque so I’ll try not to mention it. This video was made by the Tisch School of Arts project who have previously made videos for most Irish bands that have ever existed and is an interestingly quirky video, though it seems to end before the song does. I haven’t seen the band live yet, so must add them to my list of bands to go and see. It seems 2008 is shaping up to be a really strong year for Irish music and we still (hopefully) have albums to come from Cap Pas Cap, Jape, The Vinny Club, Fight Like Apes, Messiah J & The Expert, Redneck Manifesto amongst others.
I spotted that the new Spiritualized video ‘Soul On Fire’ was up on Youtube and imagined that I would post the video here but unfortunately it’s a piss-poor Verve-alike tune so I’m not gonna bother. Instead, here’s a clip of them on Jools Holland’ Later performing my favourite Spiritualized song - the heartbreakable, ‘Broken Heart’. I loved ‘Ladies & Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space’, which this track is taken from, and is generally considered to be the pinnacle of their work but I always preferred ‘Laser Guided Melodies’ for it’s sheer _____________ (can’t think of what word to use here. insert your own adjective)
Spiritualized play Tripod in Dublin on Wednesday May 28th.
Here’s another video taken from Channel 6’s Airfield Sessions. This time it’s Stripy Schroeder with his song about someone who doesn’t want to get on a plane and there’s a laugh-filled natter with Michelle Doherty at the start of the footage. It’s taken from his very enjoyable ‘Coping Mechanisms’ album which has recently got a release on vinyl. Lovely version of the tune it is too…
Here’s the playlist for Fri 02/05/08 for my show on www.phantom.ie and Phantom 105.2 in Dublin. It’s on every Friday night at midnight. The ‘Under The Radar’ album was:
PLAYLIST:
BE YOUR OWN PET - Becky
SANTOGOLD - Shove It
SO COW - Off Out
LOS CAMPESINIOS - My Year In Lists
RICHARD HELL - Love Comes In Spurts
FLO & EDDIE - Thoughts Have Turned
JEFF MARTIN - Strange for a Tuner (Chequerboard Remix)
TINDERSTICKS - Hungry Saw
LAST SHADOW PUPPETS - Meeting Place
ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN - Who Built the Road? THE SUPERIMPOSERS - Would it be Impossible? [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
DUCHESS SAYS - Rabies (Baby’s Got The)
DRY COUNTY - Another Idea
JAPE - I was a Man
THE LONG BLONDES - Guilt THE DODO’S - Fools [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
THE BREEDERS - Walk It Off
THE SUPERIMPOSERS - Seeing is Believing
LYKKE LI - Melodies & Desires
SO COW - One Hundred Helens
HALVES - Amberscene
THE NOTWIST - Where in this World ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN - The Back of Love [SEE VIDEO BELOW]
PORTISHEAD - Magic Doors
THE SUPERIMPOSERS - Rainbow
CSS - Rat Is Dead (Rage)
M83 - Kim & Jessie
BRIAN ENO - Cindy Tells Me
CRAYONSMITH - Bad Days Move On
He/They seem to be everywhere these days. Ray D’Arcy declared that if he had such a thing as a Single Of The Week, ‘I Was A Man’ would be it. Richie’s album ‘Ritual’ is released in a few weeks, after a very long gestation period. I (hopefully!!) will be playing three or so tracks from it on my show at midnight on Phantom 105.2. I have just seen a comment made by Padraic expressing his concerns over the way Jape are being marketed over in the UK - somehow I don’t think the press release Padraic speaks of would get the all-clear over here. But I have also come across this version of ‘I Was A Man’ recorded by Channel 6 for The Airfield Seesions. I think this is actually a better version than the mastered single mix. I’ve loved ‘I Was A Man’ for ages - knowing it from both his live shows and his Myspace page - but the single version just doesn’t have quite the oomph that I had hoped for. I still think it’s a fantastic song, however, so this is me just being a niggly pedant and I can’t wait to sit down with the album and have a proper listen to it.
This track also contains another excellent couplet: “I popped my cherry to ‘November Rain’/I think she liked it but don’t think she came”. Indeed.
Here’s the very cinematic video for the new single by The Notwist, who have seemed to be away for a very long time. It’s called ‘Where In This World’ and is taken from their forthcoming album, ‘The Devil, You + Me’. The video is rather Dogme-esque, I think and the song features some lovely orchestration. The other track on the promo I got features another great track, Good Lies. I look forward to hearing the record…
There are gigs and there are events. Bjork at the Waterfront Hall was more than an event. It was an absolutely mighty performance. The show was theatrical, heartfelt, euphoric and, to say the least, stunning. The setlist was eclectic and well-chosen, combining more famous stuff with top-notch but lesser-known album tracks. Backed by two electronic nerds (one being Mark Bell of LFO), an incredible drummer/percussionist, an amusing pianist and a ten-piece female brass band/choir (Wonderbrass), songs were re-arranged with wonderful surprise twists. The sound faltered for the first couple of songs, with Bjork and the brass bubbling a little beneath all the beats but that was soon sorted and the impressive Waterfront soundsystem was shown off to great effect. The Waterfront is an excellent theatre - we were about ten feet away from Bjork but were not remotely crushed in a sold-out venue. There was a clear view, no lines of people squeezing by throughout and no intrusive security guards.
‘Army Of Me’, a song I’ve never been hugely fond of, was the show’s set-stealer with thumping thumping beats and heavy heavy bass while roving lasers distracted the eyes. ‘Hyperballad’ evolved into a mental distorted synthmonster while ‘Immature’ was turned into a beautiful brass ballad. As you will see in the video above, during closer ‘Declare Independence’ (without the expected controversial introduction), the whole venue was littered with silver foily fall-y bits. And the entire place went mental - in fact, the gig had one of the best atmospheres of any gig I’ve ever been to. Astonishing stuff altogether.
The Futureheads do good pop songs. Simple, urgent, singalong tunes. I was a bit of a sucker for their first album. It was addictive punk pop. It was never going to change your life, just make you smile a bit while sitiing on the bus. ‘Radio Heart’ is their new single from their forthcoming third album, ‘This Is Not The World’ and I’m finding that it’s getting stuck in my head rather frequently. Below, you’ll find a wonderful version they recorded for La Blogotheque which involves some solo busking, followed by a group effort in the nearby music shop.
Here’s the playlist for Friday’s show on www.phantom.ie and Phantom 105.2 in Dublin which was plagued by strange machine madness and myself playing the role of bumbling fool. The ‘Under The Radar’ album was:
PLAYLIST:
THE FUTUREHEADS - Radio Heart
HOLY FUCK - Lovely Allen
WHITE DENIM - Let’s Talk About It
CLINIC - Memories
BRUCE RUFFIN - Rain THE LAST SHADOW PUPPETS - My mistakes were made for you [SEE VIDEO BELOW}
LADYTRON - Ghosts
DAEMIAN FROST - Slut Style
BROADCAST - Come On, Let’s Go
SANTOGOLD - Say Aha
THE AVALANCHES - Electricity
BORN RUFFIANS - Red, Yellow & Blue
OPPENHEIMER - The Never Never
ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN - Who Built The Road
THE NOTWIST - Good Lies
M83 - Highway of Endless Dreams
MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND - Inside A Boy THE AVALANCHES - Frontier Psychiatrist [SEE VIDEO BELOW}
FUTURE OF THE LEFT - Manchasm [SEE VIDEO BELOW}
MICHAEL KNIGHT - Coronation St.
DEXY’S MIDNIGHT RUNNERS - Seven Days Too Long
JAPE - I was a Man
LE GALAXIE - We bleed the blood of Androids
ELF POWER - Paralysed
THE AVALANCHES - Two hearts in 3/4 Time
RADIOACTIVE MAN - Nothing At All
ATLAS SOUND - River Card
MONADE - Regarde
MGMT - Electric Feel (J-La’s BK Futures Edit)
