Caribou - Odessa from Video Marsh on Vimeo.
Click here for a free download too.
I likes this a lot.
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Bear in Heaven @ The Lexington - 20 April 2010
I fear for my beloved instrument. In the hey days of punk, grunge, or any rock n roll, the bass was the lynchpin of the band. You couldn’t put a price on someone who could pump out a deep groove for the rest to build themselves around. I get the faint sniff that nowadays it’s becoming a peripheral instrument. More and more, I’ll go and watch a band and see the bass passed around guitarists and keyboardists like an unwanted child of a divorced family at Christmas. The result is more often than not a show that lacks any real grunt.
It was no more evident than tonight at the Lexington. Bear in Heaven, who hail from Brooklyn but spent the last 50 hours trying to negotiate a flight ban into the UK, are an act for the noughties – plenty of synths, plenty of fast beats, plenty of high-pitched vocals. Don’t get me wrong, they show incredible potential. I don’t profess to be hugely au fait with them, but I was taken with a number of their tunes tonight. They create great energy, and know the right moments to break down the beats.
But one thing in particular bugged me: neither guitarist nor vocalist seemed to really know how to get the most out of the bass. The lines they played were fine – even impressive – but being guitarists at heart they didn’t move away from the close frets at the higher end. They were reticent to walk their fingers down the neck to find the real impact of the instrument. At times, it was even discarded altogether.
The result was a show that lacked a pulse. It seemed there was nothing gluing the three of them together, no grunt to really drive the building crescendos home. My ears hurt from the abundance of treble that even the drums seemed to contribute to.
It’s a problem easily fixed. The beauty of a great bassist is that they don’t garner the attention of the crowd in the way a front man does. You can sit them in the corner and they know their job is to look after the basics. Bear in Heaven would benefit hugely from the services of a four-stringed specialist.
It was no more evident than tonight at the Lexington. Bear in Heaven, who hail from Brooklyn but spent the last 50 hours trying to negotiate a flight ban into the UK, are an act for the noughties – plenty of synths, plenty of fast beats, plenty of high-pitched vocals. Don’t get me wrong, they show incredible potential. I don’t profess to be hugely au fait with them, but I was taken with a number of their tunes tonight. They create great energy, and know the right moments to break down the beats.
But one thing in particular bugged me: neither guitarist nor vocalist seemed to really know how to get the most out of the bass. The lines they played were fine – even impressive – but being guitarists at heart they didn’t move away from the close frets at the higher end. They were reticent to walk their fingers down the neck to find the real impact of the instrument. At times, it was even discarded altogether.
The result was a show that lacked a pulse. It seemed there was nothing gluing the three of them together, no grunt to really drive the building crescendos home. My ears hurt from the abundance of treble that even the drums seemed to contribute to.
It’s a problem easily fixed. The beauty of a great bassist is that they don’t garner the attention of the crowd in the way a front man does. You can sit them in the corner and they know their job is to look after the basics. Bear in Heaven would benefit hugely from the services of a four-stringed specialist.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Why make sharing music a crime?
When I like an album, the first thing I do is check when they’re touring and get tickets. I then put it on the stereo at work, sharing it with colleagues and encouraging them to come to the show with me. If I think it’s really something, it’ll find its way onto this blog and get read by a pretty hefty number.
The fact is that my acquiring an album for free results in significantly more income for the artist – providing they’re good enough. Everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the most effective form of advertising. Essentially, that’s all file sharing is. With the introduction of the Digital Britain Bill, all that is over. We're being transported back to a time when record companies and radio stations controlled the amount of new music that you could hear through selective playlists and discriminative pricing. Couple this with the planned closure of one of the few remaining bastions of new music, Radio 6, and we're left with a fairly bleak musical future.
An age-old practice
We’ve been sharing music for decades, through mix-tapes, copied cds and now file sharing. It’s natural to want to tell others about things you love. It’s a catalyst for life-long friendships and blossoming relationships. If we lose the ability to share music, we lose the ability to enjoy with others one of life’s most sacred pleasures.
The ongoing war between artists, record companies, and fans over file sharing misses a key fact: that the music industry is still trying to make money in the same way it did 60 years ago, ignoring the dawn of a new technological era.
By targeting file sharers, the industry is criminalising people who are simply looking to share their love of music.
A 14-year-old boy courting the affections of a special girl through special songs is not a criminal.
A university student in a dictatorial country looking for a voice from the free world is not a criminal.
A twenty-something blogger promoting the music he loves is not a criminal.
Who's fault is it anyway?
The scale of civil disobedience that goes on through file sharing does not reflect a problem with society, but rather a problem with the music industry. It’s a sector that continues to pursue an archaic form of product distribution that hasn’t evolved as its customers developed and embraced technology. It’s utterly reprehensible that we are targeted for the failing of an industry to move with the times. Don’t blame the innovators, blame those with no impulse to change.
The music industry’s business model no longer works. That much is clear. Yet some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in the world are at the head of organisations that give us the soundtracks to our lives. Are you telling me they can't develop a new business model that is as innovative as fans were in developing new ways to capture new music?
No-one wants the industry to die, yet its demise is what fans are accused of causing. Other industries have survived customer revolts by being dynamic and adaptable. It’s time the music industry was the same.
The fact is that my acquiring an album for free results in significantly more income for the artist – providing they’re good enough. Everyone knows that word-of-mouth is the most effective form of advertising. Essentially, that’s all file sharing is. With the introduction of the Digital Britain Bill, all that is over. We're being transported back to a time when record companies and radio stations controlled the amount of new music that you could hear through selective playlists and discriminative pricing. Couple this with the planned closure of one of the few remaining bastions of new music, Radio 6, and we're left with a fairly bleak musical future.
An age-old practice
We’ve been sharing music for decades, through mix-tapes, copied cds and now file sharing. It’s natural to want to tell others about things you love. It’s a catalyst for life-long friendships and blossoming relationships. If we lose the ability to share music, we lose the ability to enjoy with others one of life’s most sacred pleasures.
The ongoing war between artists, record companies, and fans over file sharing misses a key fact: that the music industry is still trying to make money in the same way it did 60 years ago, ignoring the dawn of a new technological era.
By targeting file sharers, the industry is criminalising people who are simply looking to share their love of music.
A 14-year-old boy courting the affections of a special girl through special songs is not a criminal.
A university student in a dictatorial country looking for a voice from the free world is not a criminal.
A twenty-something blogger promoting the music he loves is not a criminal.
Who's fault is it anyway?
The scale of civil disobedience that goes on through file sharing does not reflect a problem with society, but rather a problem with the music industry. It’s a sector that continues to pursue an archaic form of product distribution that hasn’t evolved as its customers developed and embraced technology. It’s utterly reprehensible that we are targeted for the failing of an industry to move with the times. Don’t blame the innovators, blame those with no impulse to change.
The music industry’s business model no longer works. That much is clear. Yet some of the most creative and entrepreneurial minds in the world are at the head of organisations that give us the soundtracks to our lives. Are you telling me they can't develop a new business model that is as innovative as fans were in developing new ways to capture new music?
No-one wants the industry to die, yet its demise is what fans are accused of causing. Other industries have survived customer revolts by being dynamic and adaptable. It’s time the music industry was the same.
Friday, 26 March 2010
Tindersticks @ Shepherd's Bush Empire - 24 March 2010
The thing about a Tindersticks gig is that you’re surrounded by dedicated followers. Throughout tonight’s show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, a hushed silence is only broken when the band’s disciples shower the stage in approbation. The cue is a low, mumbled “thank you” from enigmatic frontman Stuart Staples. He’s experienced at controlling this. He’s coy, holding on until the last chord rings out of every tune before he lets us know it’s ok to display our affection.
Tonight feels like a show of two halves. Predictably, the band kicks off with Falling Down a Mountain, the title and opening track from their latest album. It’s a comfortably disjointed opener that puts the seven-piece band to work. But then they seem to slow down, playing slow, moving ballads, one after another. It’s hardly surprising, given Tindersticks’ back catalogue, but for a long time these gentle paeans don’t take off.
All that changes when a resounding version of The Other Side of the World announces itself. Although one of the band’s more recent tracks, this song seems to encompass everything Tindersticks is about. It’s perfect for Staples’ brooding baritone, and it lifts the band into action as they find their momentum.
It stays that way for the rest of the night, as Tindersticks thread seamlessly between new and old. Can We Start Again, the opening track from 1999’s Simple Pleasures, the first of the band’s foray into soul, is a crowd favourite, but given the way people are behaving tonight, a reading from the Old Testament by Staples alone would be enough to send this group of devotees home happy. In their eyes, Tindersticks could do nothing wrong.
Tonight feels like a show of two halves. Predictably, the band kicks off with Falling Down a Mountain, the title and opening track from their latest album. It’s a comfortably disjointed opener that puts the seven-piece band to work. But then they seem to slow down, playing slow, moving ballads, one after another. It’s hardly surprising, given Tindersticks’ back catalogue, but for a long time these gentle paeans don’t take off.
All that changes when a resounding version of The Other Side of the World announces itself. Although one of the band’s more recent tracks, this song seems to encompass everything Tindersticks is about. It’s perfect for Staples’ brooding baritone, and it lifts the band into action as they find their momentum.
It stays that way for the rest of the night, as Tindersticks thread seamlessly between new and old. Can We Start Again, the opening track from 1999’s Simple Pleasures, the first of the band’s foray into soul, is a crowd favourite, but given the way people are behaving tonight, a reading from the Old Testament by Staples alone would be enough to send this group of devotees home happy. In their eyes, Tindersticks could do nothing wrong.
Monday, 15 March 2010
Broken marriage chimes so sweet
The super group and its belittled brother the side project are by no means a new phenomenon, having enjoyed their heyday back in the super-groupy 1970s. But collaborations are coming back to the fore - look at Jack White’s Raconteurs and The Dead Weather, Them Crooked Vultures , Velvet Revolver, Monsters of Folk and The Last Shadow Puppets, to name a few.
With live music thriving, bands are touring together more, meeting at festivals and building attraction. Yeah, Dave and little Eric and Ron are sweet, talented, good-looking guys, good musicians, but it’s just the same faces and always it’s the same songs, with the same chords, the same recipes every night. Out on tour you meet someone new, someone who’s had many partners; they have exciting ideas that touch you in places you forgot existed, you feel alive again, excited, you want to have an album with this man. Start a new life together even.
That social mixing may be one of the factors behind the increased musical ménages and maybe that’s the story behind new super duo Broken Bells.
So it presumably happened for James Mercer of The Shins (though he is clearly a serial monogamist, with the Shins being a side project itself), who, after ditching his former dependents, has hooked up with the very talented Mr Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, half of Gnarls Barkley and ‘super producer’ of a number of well-regarded albums of the last few years. Together they have formed Broken Bells and released their eponymous début.
This seems quite a departure for Mercer from his previous territory but his voice and lyrics suit the new style well. The album has a downbeat and haunted atmosphere, laced with drama and the intricately clever beats that Danger Mouse’s fans love him for. But there is a great deal of variety, even eccentricity - the cheerily-haunting Hammond warble on Vaporize, the hand-clappy reminder that The Ghost Inside gives of Danger Mouse’s production of the previous Gorillaz album, or the breakdown in Mongrel Heart, which could very well provide the backing for the heartbreaking dénouement of a Mexican gangster flick. I'm a big fan of all this.
It may be because it’s the track I’ve heard most but my favourite is the album’s opener, The High Road. The beeps, bleeps and stretched and twisted honks conjure up images of a robot switched on for the first time, making its first steps out of the packaging as we hear its rudimentary ability to bust a groove quickly maturing into a breezy electro-beatbox. A passing Mercer takes the opportunity to sing over it with a slightly melancholy but generally encouraging ditty.
With a similar vocal delivery on this album at least to a late-era Brain Wilson, Mercer’s laidback mumble gave me some exciting miss-hearings, as ‘To Nietzsche’s arm’ and ‘come on and get the meat to mom’ sadly turned out to be ‘To each his own’ and ‘Come on and get the minimum’.
It is in a number of the lyrics in the early album tracks - in The High Road particularly - where its seems more than just over-eager interpretation from me to find the pair are talking about moving into a new liaison, away from former musical kin, possibly for good:
The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye
It’s too late to change your mind.
With live music thriving, bands are touring together more, meeting at festivals and building attraction. Yeah, Dave and little Eric and Ron are sweet, talented, good-looking guys, good musicians, but it’s just the same faces and always it’s the same songs, with the same chords, the same recipes every night. Out on tour you meet someone new, someone who’s had many partners; they have exciting ideas that touch you in places you forgot existed, you feel alive again, excited, you want to have an album with this man. Start a new life together even.
That social mixing may be one of the factors behind the increased musical ménages and maybe that’s the story behind new super duo Broken Bells.
So it presumably happened for James Mercer of The Shins (though he is clearly a serial monogamist, with the Shins being a side project itself), who, after ditching his former dependents, has hooked up with the very talented Mr Brian Burton, aka Danger Mouse, half of Gnarls Barkley and ‘super producer’ of a number of well-regarded albums of the last few years. Together they have formed Broken Bells and released their eponymous début.
This seems quite a departure for Mercer from his previous territory but his voice and lyrics suit the new style well. The album has a downbeat and haunted atmosphere, laced with drama and the intricately clever beats that Danger Mouse’s fans love him for. But there is a great deal of variety, even eccentricity - the cheerily-haunting Hammond warble on Vaporize, the hand-clappy reminder that The Ghost Inside gives of Danger Mouse’s production of the previous Gorillaz album, or the breakdown in Mongrel Heart, which could very well provide the backing for the heartbreaking dénouement of a Mexican gangster flick. I'm a big fan of all this.
It may be because it’s the track I’ve heard most but my favourite is the album’s opener, The High Road. The beeps, bleeps and stretched and twisted honks conjure up images of a robot switched on for the first time, making its first steps out of the packaging as we hear its rudimentary ability to bust a groove quickly maturing into a breezy electro-beatbox. A passing Mercer takes the opportunity to sing over it with a slightly melancholy but generally encouraging ditty.
With a similar vocal delivery on this album at least to a late-era Brain Wilson, Mercer’s laidback mumble gave me some exciting miss-hearings, as ‘To Nietzsche’s arm’ and ‘come on and get the meat to mom’ sadly turned out to be ‘To each his own’ and ‘Come on and get the minimum’.
It is in a number of the lyrics in the early album tracks - in The High Road particularly - where its seems more than just over-eager interpretation from me to find the pair are talking about moving into a new liaison, away from former musical kin, possibly for good:
The high road is hard to find
A detour to your new life
Tell all of your friends goodbye
It’s too late to change your mind.
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