JOSSU

Material: Albums we need to hurry up and buy already

Mon, 07 May 2012 08:38:00 +0800

Well, today’s one of those days I’ve spent pondering over how little music I have been consuming. Albums by artists that dropped off my radar ages ago to albums by bands I hadn’t heard of before a couple of weeks ago. Either way, I need to purchase them at some point between now and inevitable death.

#1: Poliça - Give You the Ghost

Hailing from the north of the US of A, Poliça’s sound could mostly be labelled as a female Bon Iver, but only if you’re very lazy. They rely far more heavily on synth noises, and have a vocalist who suits the brand of dreamlike sound far better than Justin Vernon ever could. Apparently they’re ridiculously powerful live, to the point of almost becoming feral, so don’t let the subdued music throw you off. (It’s Polish for “urgency”, by the way.)

Listen: “Lay Your Cards Out”

#2: Tokyo Police Club - Champ

The purists argued that the ebullient, vigorous and, most importantly, fun attitude displayed by Ontarian quartet Tokyo Police Club on their 2007 EP A Lesson In Crime could never be duplicated for an album, but Elephant Shell took that notion and poured maple syrup into its hair (sorry). While Champ is more of a mature affair, tracks like “Bambi” below prove that TPC are yet to lose their indie charm or their fiendishly quirky lyricisms.

Listen: “Bambi”

#3: Digitalism - Idealism

This one is really embarrassing to admit - I do not own any albums by German duo Digitalism. At all. They’re a fantastic group, as evidenced by my sitting here for about half an hour working out which track is the best to feature them with. Eventually I’ve just elected for the most well-known from this record, but really, any track will do to showcase what is truly a splendid album. Their newest, I Love You, Dude is likewise an album I’m not happy to point out my ignorance of, but I can’t note the same artist twice. Or can I?! No. I can’t.

Listen: “Pogo”

News: Kai Fish leaves Mystery Jets

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:07:57 +0800

Mystery Jets bassist Kai Fish has announced his intention to quit the London-based indie pop band, just days after the group finalised new album Radlands.

Speaking to NME, Fish spoke of his disillusion with life in the Jets which came to the fore while working on the new album.

It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I sat down with the guys and said, “I’m finding being in the band really hard, but I’ll try my best to carry on.” And I did, but feelings just don’t go away…

He stated he wasn’t likely to release anything under his own name, but was in the market for a new project. Bassist Peter Cochrane and pedal steel player Matt Park have replaced him in the interim.

Listen: xxxy - "I Know This (Can't Be Love)"

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:43:39 +0800

Much like the song itself, I’ll keep this post clean, neat, and full of gorgeous pad. Well, minus that last one. Manchester born producer xxxy keeps it simple with “I Know This (Can’t Be Love)”, a song built entirely around a pitch-shifted vocal sample intertwined with raw drum beats and an always-rising synth riff.

Obvious comparisons have to be made to his fellow London contemporaries James Blake and Burial, but xxxy, or indeed Rupert Taylor, knows what he’s doing here. He’s carving his own path as a producer, and this track is just one machete swipe along the way.

Listen: “I Know This (Can’t Be Love)”

News: Deadmau5 slates high-profile collaborations

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:52:58 +0800

It seems electronic whizz Deadmau5 has finally snapped. After constant requests from major labels for remixes of their work, the deejay posted a strongly worded outburst on his website:

All to often, there’s an influx of “big names” that would get thrown around the label from time to time and of course, they fly off the table and out the fuckin door faster than they hit my desk. eg. do you want to do a track with big name X, remix huge pop act y, etc etc. no. i fucking don’t. i really REALLY don’t.

Massive [sic] tag on that one I reckon. But the idea is there - fair enough if he just wants to do his own thing. Electronic musicians are often relegated to a remix parenthesis on a single.

He went on to discuss his passions for art and literature in the post, including lauding short story “The Veldt”, which he says “inspired” him to write a soundtrack for the story.

Chris James, an American vocalist, added vocals to his mix, much to Mr Zimmerman’s delight:

he righteously did his homework, and came up with just a few bang on verses that completely compliment the story and the mood, which is all i ever want from a song that contained lyrical content. Can’t give him props enough.

Listen: Deadmau5 & Chris James - “The Veldt”

Live: Latitude Festival tickets on sale

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:03:57 +0800

Tickets for this year’s Latitude Festival, located in Southwold, Suffolk, have gone on sale, and are expected to sell rather quickly.

Headlining this year’s festival are heavyweight songwriters Elbow, delicate blog favourites Bon Iver and former The Jam member, now critically acclaimed solo artist, Paul Weller.

Being a festival there are also other fantastic acts on if none of the headliners take your fancy. 22-year-old queen of folk Laura Marling lands a place second on the bill, as do quirky electropop group Metronomy, former Pulp guitarist Richard Hawley, London folktronica act Bat for Lashes and Kansas City’s own R&B/soul singer Janelle Monáe.

On the Word Arena stage, White Lies, The Horrors and Wild Beasts will finish each respective night off and only add to the immense quality of entertainment on offer at the festival.

The full lineup can be found over at Latitude’s website, which also has links to all official ticket sources.

Listen: Four Tet and Burial drop new track

Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:29:00 +0800

The ever-mysterious London-based dubstep pioneer Burial has joined forces with Kieran Hebden - AKA minimalist DJ Four Tet, pictured gazing forlornly at some music above, to craft new song “Nova”.

Combining the ambient noise of Burial’s work - as demonstrated on the stunning blog hit Untrue - with Four Tet, and his ear for a good melody, seems to have done the trick. “Nova” is pretty much definitive of what these two sound like combined - not too much of one, and not too much of the other. A perfect blend.

I’ll let you make up your own mind on this piece of music here. Best listened to in a dark room, laying flat. Possibly in water.

Listen: “Nova”

News: Coldplay don't like how people speak

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 17:54:00 +0800

Well, okay, not exactly. But Coldplay, the quintessentially not-very-good-anymore British band, have told yank talk show Good Morning America that their new album’s title is frankly a bit daft.

Lead warbler Chris Martin said:

It’s just something that we thought looked really good but everywhere we go around the world people pronounce it in the most crazy ways and we’re beginning to regret it now.

Not sure how a title like Mylo Xyloto could look good for an album full of early 90s disco rip offs, unless it was being released in the arse-end of Africa. It’s probably likely that they were aiming for high search engine optimisation, but to do it with an album title like this is just stupid.

Coldplay won Best British Group at the Brit Awards the other month, somehow. Martin continued to flaunt the band’s pseudo-modest image by claiming that they won it purely because they’re “the only British band left on the pitch”. Which is true if you count British bands who sell heaps. It’s nice to know that Coldplay think about the minnows of the music world when accepting awards, like.

So maybe this retrospection will make them think twice while recording their sixth album, which I hear has the working title Soewinwerjwnisdfmxxx.

List: NME Awards, predictable as expected

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 16:05:00 +0800

In perhaps one of the most predictable ceremonies of recent years, The Horrors, Florence and the Machine and The Arctic Monkeys took home the big prizes at this year’s NME Awards.

The Horrors nabbed the night’s gong for Best Album, which went to Skying, a record I personally didn’t like. Sure, it’s a step up from the band’s previous work, but when your first album sounded like a family of cats in a tumble drier the only way is up. Speaking more seriously, I’ve heard little but good about their third work so I assume it’s just a taste thing.

NME’s love affairs with certain bands were incredibly prominent, with Kasabian taking perhaps the most prestigious award of the night, Best British Band. I guess it’s just a relief to see that neither of the Gallaghers’ respective bands were up for this one…

One thing Noel Gallagher was up for, though, was “Godlike Genius” - I am not making this up - which he accepted after a long video of a bunch of better-known celebrities spewing kind words in his general direction. A big feat given his sole purpose seems to be to rile his brother.

There was a bit of controversy, too, if such a thing can be generated at an event like this - Florence and the Machine went away with the Best Solo Act trophy, despite almost certainly being a band. She even managed to beat more worthy winners, like Frank Turner and Laura Marling. I haven’t a clue what Miles Kane has done to deserve a nod for this, though, unless pretending to be the third Gallagher son is something to be rewarded these days.

And then, in the most desperate of desperate attempts to win over some new young rebels, Villain of the Year (at the NME Awards, remember!) went to Justin Bieber, beating away competition from Liberal Democrat backstabber Nick Clegg and, uh, Liam Gallagher. Yeah.

The Biebz also grabbed Worst Album for his genuinely horrendous Christmas effort Under the Mistletoe - more cynical critics might have opined that Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto was a better pick, and to see Viva Brother in the nominees list is quite refreshing.

And finally, representing Scotland, Rockness was named Best Small Festival in perhaps the most deserved award of the night. Well done lads!

The full list of winners and nominees can be found on the NME’s website.

Listen: The Horrors - “Still Life”

Material: Pond - Beard Wives Denim

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 18:00:05 +0800

What is it about Perth that keeps generating these psychedelic rock groups? Is there something in the water? I do hope not, since I’ve been drinking it for the past few months… I have noticed the distinct urge to play really feedback-y guitar and to sing with an accent not unlike that boy from AC/DC though. Hmm.

First we had Tame Impala, something of a success in this genre, who even got some airtime on radio stations in the United Kingdom and the Untied States. And now here are Pond, a slightly less bizarrely named group also based in Perth, Australia, who make odd noises with guitars and synths and more pedals than you could shake a heavily distorted stick at.

Their new record is called Beard Wives Denim. Its name should be a pretty accurate prediction of just how crazy the whole thing is - and believe me, it is. The whole thing sounds like they were making it up on the spot in the studio. There’s some melody in there, but the slightly off-key guitar and vocals distract quite a bit from that. Whether or not this was the plan is uncertain.

Nick Allbrook, fair play to the lad, his vocals shift and mould to the style of the song in question - admittedly that style is usually pretty close to MGMT. Probably harsh words from someone who really doesn’t like that group, and there’s only so much you can do with the genre while still making it listener-friendly. But you can’t help being reminded of Oracular Spectacular with each and every twist and turn.

What really makes this album odd to listen to, however, is the raw nature of it all. Even though the vocals are so effect-laden they can barely be made out half of the time, the drums are never treated the same way, and bar a few tracks the guitar playing is riddled with small mistakes. However, things like this add to the charm of Pond and their rather odd branch of music.

I think what I’m trying to say here is that I personally don’t like this album. I think it’s just too outside of the box for my taste. His voice is a like-it-or-loathe-it affair, and there is little else in the music forcing me to change my mind on it. Sorry, Pond. Maybe we can have a drink or something though.

The whole of Beard Wives Denim is currently streaming on hypem.

Listen: “Moth’s Wings”

News: Camden Crawl lineup announced

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:44:03 +0800

First up - sorry for the long delay. Now to business.

The annual London romp has announced its initial line-up, and ’90s psychedelic rock band Death In Vegas will head an expectedly eclectic bill along with names like Northern Ireland’s And So I Watch You From Afar, London beatster D/R/U/G/S and Sheffield progressive screamers Rolo Tomassi.

Death In Vegas’ slot comes almost a year after the release of the collective’s fifth full-length studio album, Trans-Love Energies, which hit a peak of #57 in the UK Album Chart. The band have been a shifting force over the past eighteen years, with an audibly wide range of influences - past releases have included minimal techno, live rock noises and electronica.

Of the “lesser” acts on the bill, JOSSU’s picks included Glaswegian indie-pop group Admiral Fallow, Nottingham’s crooning Dog is Dead and BBC Introducing favourites Dutch Uncles.

Camden Crawl 2012 takes place on the May Bank Holiday weekend, between the 4th and the 6th of May, and the full line-up is located here (subject to change, naturally). Tickets will be available through Seetickets, links to which are on that same website.

Video: Death In Vegas - “Aisha”

Video: Eugene McGuinness - Lion

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:21:14 +0800

He’s back! He’s finally back! A deep-rooted fandom of the London-cum-Liverpool lad, which began with debut Early Learnings…, is not in vain!

Well, from the sounds (and looks) of comeback singles “Lion” and “Thunderbolt” - the latter is free on his Facebook page - he has lost none of his lyrical prowess. How can anyone not find I’m sitting on the ventriloquist’s knee / allowing his hands somewhere they shouldn’t be hilariously funny? …What, just me? Really? Oh well.

Great tune, though, and trust me, there are better lyrics than that one.

Video: Dog Is Dead cover a Christmas classic

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 01:13:00 +0800

It’s been a fantastic couple of years for Dog Is Dead; the grotesquely named but incessantly gleeful Nottingham five-piece have gone from supporting fellow viral behemoths OK Go to receiving major plaudits and airplay from several BBC DJs. They even starred as themselves in Skins (no, really).

Now, despite their rather infuriatingly lax attitude to actually recording anything (where’s the album, lads?), they’ve taken some time out from what is surely a busy festive period for them to record a cover of “Christmas Wrapping”, a song partially about forgetting cranberries while cooking dinner. Suitably barmy then.

I’ve not a clue if this is a session video or just a self-produced one, but it’s fantastic nonetheless. It’s available as a free download from their official site (or just use this direct link).

Video: “Christmas Wrapping” (The Waitresses cover)

Material: Odd Future members' new project releases free album

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:27:00 +0800

Call them what you like, OFWGKFA are a busy lot. Now two of them have formed a new project, who go by the entirely Google-unfriendly the Internet.

The project, made up of Syd “Tha Kyd” Bennett and Matthew “Matt Martians” Martin, is an odd one. Despite being far less abrasive than previous work by the collective, it uses ridiculously stark track names (that you can read below you dirty people) to give the impression it’s still part of the OFWGKTA mould.

Listen: “Visions”

Listen to the whole album on Soundcloud (probably for a limited time…)

Listen: New Madeon track aired by Pete Tong

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:17:05 +0800

So, French child prodegy Madeon has released a new track. It’s called “Icarus”, and comes after months of teasing and prodding across the internet, sending Hype Machine into absolute meltdown… And, wow, it is it a doozy.

Following in a very similar - but very good - vein as the rest of his work, the track is however a much more dynamic beast. Mixing calm with rapture, Madeon - who, by the way, is seventeen - manages to craft a soundscape which is both coldly professional and immensely entertaining.

Unfortunately, the track doesn’t officially on Soundcloud so I can’t put in a player - but since other blogs are doing it, here’s a quick link (hosted by blahblahblahscience).

MP3: “Icarus”

News: Beach Boys to reform

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 19:19:11 +0800

In news certain to make women in their sixties squeal in unison across the globe, quintessential pop band The Beach Boys will be reuniting in time for their fiftieth anniversary next year.

The Hawthorne, California-based group will be embarking on a tour with - you guessed it - fifty dates across the world, with a special performance at the Grammy Awards in February.

Founding member Brian Wilson said:

This anniversary is special to me because I miss the boys, and it will be a thrill for me to make a new record and be on stage with them again.

So if you like age-old surf-pop, maybe something to get excited about.

Listen: “Good Vibrations” (excerpt (sorry))

Video: Givers play "Up Up Up" in live session

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 00:53:56 +0800

Sorry I skimped today, can never find the time at the weekends…

This is a pretty old video, from June-time, of the most twee live performance you’re likely to see for a long long time - but it’s still ace and well worth watching.

Material: Bombay Bicycle Club record, uh, reggae

Sat, 17 Dec 2011 12:59:19 +0800

Well, okay, it’s not officially reggae. It’s been put down as “rub a dub”. Their guitarist Jamie MacColl seems to be pretty adamant that they avoid tarnishing the genre’s reputation; in an interview with NME, he said this:

I don’t know why we didn’t just put reggae – but if I saw “Bombay Bicycle Club reggae version” I’d probably run for the hills. The original plan was to get a proper reggae band to do it, like an old school one, because we thought us doing it – four middle-class white guys from north London – probably wouldn’t turn out very well.

Reggae or not, the track is a blinder. It builds very nicely on the original version as heard on the album A Different Kind of Fix, although has a much more rustic, demo-like feel.

The song will be released on their Leave It EP which also features acoustic versions of the title track and of successful single “Shuffle”, as well as a remix version of “Leave It”. Tasty.

Listen: “Lights Out, Words Gone” (Rub A Dub version)

Video: Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - The Copper Top

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:00:05 +0800

This song is from Everything’s Getting Older, an album I unfortunately have yet to listen to all the way through, and therefore did not include on my Albums of the Year list.

“The Copper Top” is a spoken-word story of a funeral, with the copper top in question being the decaying roof of an old building. The thick-as-mustard Fife accent only adds to the charm, and the simple melody in the background will make the hairs on the back of even the toughest soul’s neck stand on end.

Material: Sleigh Bells' single debuts on Radio 1

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:21:58 +0800

Derek Miller and Alexis Krauss, or Sleigh Bells to you and I, have had their new single “Born To Lose” played by Zane Lowe on his Radio 1 show.

The song is a drum machine-based onslaught, with power-chord guitar driving through Krauss’s dulcet tones. There is (of course!) some shouting in here too, for those of you who like that sort of thing. It’s the first single off new record Reign, to be released in February.

Unfortunately the Soundcloud rip has a glitch in it right at the start where the volume cuts out. And it probably won’t be on Soundcloud for very long. So make the most of it.

Listen: “Born To Lose”

News: Justice's label gets angry over cover complaints

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 19:12:06 +0800

French Daft Punk tribute band Justice’s Ed Banger Records label has hit out at fans, who seemingly aren’t all that keen on tasteful nudity, via their Facebook page.

Pedro Winter ranted:

For some reasons, some of our “fans” complained about the nude girl on the Justice new single cover…. Facebook deleted the photo and sent me some warnings emails… Let’s play a new game my friends, please oh please stop following us, let’s get less fans, we don’t need you here. It’s time to make a choice, if you don’t trust us, you should not waste your time with such a shitty label right ? To the other ones, those who are following us since day one, those discovering us now, let’s stay strong, ED REC is soon 9 years old, thanx to you. P.

So basically, if you were one of the few who went to the trouble of reporting the cover - which is for the single version of “On’n’On”, third release from new record Audio, Video, Disco. - then Mr Winter wants to line his guttering with your guts. Or something.

Video: “Audio, Video, Disco.”