Welcome to the second of my midweek music suggestions.
Still doing this on a bit of a trial basis, but had a good enough response last week to keep it up.
If you would like your music to feature in future posts then please get in touch with me; luke@routenote.com or on twitter @monkeyhotel
Anyway, without further ado, let’s try to make your week pass that little bit faster by getting some new music down your lug-holes.
The first band I’m suggesting to you this week confirm my fears that I’m becoming some kind of Emo wimp in my late twenties. The Murder Act are exactly the sort of post-punk Shoegaze nonsense that I would normally spend a week happily resenting, but I like them, they remind of Joy Division in a very authentic and heart warming way.
Next some rather lovely acoustic music from a man with an extraordinarily unsuspecting name. David Whitwell writes the sort of striped down acoustic music that will please most people with a pulse. I’m currently reviewing his whole album which I’ll post for you all in the following weeks, watch out for it.
And finally, a band I initially expressed a lot of interest in, entirely because of their excellent name. Outback Eskimos (see, wonderful name) turned out not to be entirely up my street, but I think they might be up the street of the general music listening public which I assume you, dear readers, are a part of. Give them a chance, it’s the least you can do…
I was once told that reviewing something you hate is a lot easier than reviewing something you love. I think that’s probably true – anger will take you a long way when talking about anything, whereas sycophancy seems harder to correctly articulate. That probably explains why this review has taken me basically forever and a day to write.
Jackanory and the Ball’s creatively titled The. E.P is one of the most compelling and complete records from a new artist that I’ve listened to in quite some time.
The duo consists of producer and general urban magician Michael Rendall aka Jackanory, and Bath born M.C and singer Tom Skelton aka Ball. Both have relatively decorated musical pasts, of which you can find more about on their website.
This E.P is the result of something that began as a passion project. The record is aiming to create a legitimate and credible cross between Hip Hop, Jazz, Pop, Soul and anything else that they happen to have been inspired by.
I’ve been aware of these two for a long time now and first heard some of the tracks featured on this E.P around 3 years ago. This is actually the source of my only complaint with this record – recycling of very old material, but it shouldn’t affect first time listeners in anyway whatsoever.
Opening the E.P is a song I plugged in a blog earlier this week. ‘Audio Precision’ is a perfect introduction to the band, it’s fun, has a great opening and is superbly produced. When I first heard it I thought it was probably what Lily Allen would sound like if she and her entire band had a car crash with DJ Shadow and his record collection.
It’s actually not that typical stylistically of the rest of the record or from what I’ve heard in live shows the rest of their material, but it’s so damn catchy you’ll probably not be able to stop listening to it for about a week.
Next up is another brilliantly produced number ‘Not The One’. This song has one of the smoothest swing rhythms you’re likely to hear from a British act which is complimented throughout the song by some excellent and perfectly timed tight, rhythmic punches. The verses are possibly a little to full in this song and I would have liked to have heard them stripped down to just bass, drums and piano. Half way through the first verse an organ of some description crashes in with a staccato quaver rhythm that totally drowns out and negates the excellent swing I earlier championed. This is however made up for by some seriously slick musicianship in the second verse.
The standout song is by some distance the E.P’s sign off ‘Come Away With Me’, which feels the most authentic as both a Hip-Hop and Soul track. It’s in this song we best hear the versatility of Ball’s voice, intimately rhyming into our ears in the verses before soaring atop the elegant musical arrangement for the chorus.
This is honestly a great record and I strongly urge you all to listen to it now by scrolling down, then download it for free by clicking here. You can find out everything you need to know about the band by visiting their website. A full album will be released soon and they will be gigging throughout the year.
If you would like to be reviewed then please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or on twitter @monkeyhotel
Yoko Ono yesterday told Beatles fans “not to hold your breathe”, waiting for the most popular and demanded music collection of all time to be available on iTunes. By doing so she alienates herself even further from the people who have paid for her luxurious lifestyle for such a long time, and demonstrates yet again what a naive and contemptible ass she really is.
I suppose I should qualify the two defamatory statements above; she is naive for not understanding web culture, which is common for someone of her age. If someone has a computer and an iPod and wants to buy the entire Beatles back catalogue, but when arriving at their computer cannot find the said music on the iTunes store, what will they do? Well of course, the more tech savvy amongst us will know how easy it is to find the music and exactly where to find it, as the below soundcloud file will show you.
The less tech-able will probably ask a friend, or ask google. They might google something like “how do I get Beatles music on my iPod?” Go on Yoko, type that into google, you thick bitch.
Of course, the most irritating part of this whole affair is that at heart, she knows people will carry on dishing out the cash to buy the remastered box-sets. They will do this year after year after year, because they like the music that Yoko’s husband made with a few of his friends. Hence, she is deserving of our universal contempt.
Well, here is a free Beatles song for you all to enjoy. I know it’s not a particularly good one, but at least whilst listening to it we can all feel happy that we have taken a couple of coins from Yoko’s money mountain, a mountain that she probably sits atop and cackles from whilst we all make her rich.
I hope she holds her breathe. I hope she holds it for a really long time.
Do you have an iPhone or iPad? Do you have between 10 minutes and an hour to kill? If the answer to both of these questions was yes, then might I suggest that you download the free app Baby Scratch?
This free application is a perfect way to pass the time on a bus or train journey and despite it’s rather toy-like appearance, actually affords the user a degree of creative freedom.
The app comes as standard with a couple of standard backbeats and a “vinyl” full of generic hip-hop samples for you to play with whilst the backbeat runs.
If you have an iPhone you will be able to record your own samples on the “vinyl”, allowing you to manipulate whatever sounds you want. I have so far had the most fun with recording the built in backbeat into the sample section, allowing for very realistic beat juggling.
Here is a video of someone who has mastered the interface far better than I;
And if you’re really stuck for things to do on a rainy day/have no real friends you could hook it up to a mixer like this guy;
Grooveshark has been having a little trouble signing the major records labels to their service. It seems that the majors try suing Grooveshark first and then sign a license deal with them later. Merlin is the latest major music company to sign with Grooveshark. Thus, this concludes the Merlin litigation against Grooveshark, always a nice starting point for a fruitful renegotiation.
It just seems like these major music companies are using litigation as a means to gain better terms in the negotiations.
Merlin chief Charles Caldas offered some words of caution against further funny business. “We wish Grooveshark all the best going forward and hope that this will be an important reminder to other music services looking to launch soon,” Caldas said.
I really think Merlin should stop with the heavy handed tactics or soon they will lose some of the labels within their walls!
Monday morning eh? A whole week until you can have any kind of fun again. Well, why not wash those Monday-Moody-Blues away by checking out some (if not all) of the links below?
First up a really cool band who I’m sure will get your feet tapping, and get you through at least an hour of your otherwise dreadful morning. C.M Arnold & The Delta Breaks are a Southampton based ‘nu-blues’ band, which I’ll admit sounds like a good enough reason to ignore everything I’m about to say, but please, give them a chance. Their E.P All Hail The Songbird genuinely manages to drag the rather tired sound of delta blues into the 21st century with energy, imagination, charisma and extremely competent songwriting. The E.P can be listened to in full for free below.
Next, a punk band that might not be exactly to everyone’s taste, but still worth a listen if you’ve nothing better to do (and let’s face it, if you’re reading my drivel that’s likely to be the case!) Electricity in our Homes (pictured above) are a band I came across via the splendid music blog Super Ace Blog. The are about as close to an organised shambles as I’ll allow a band to get before I completely discredit them. I have no doubt that they’re going to be a massive success and already have a pretty dedicated following. Jump on the bandwagon before everyone else does, and feel superior to them in 12 months time by listening to the track below.
And finally a bit of a metaphorical curve ball of a song. If you’re anything like me you’ll hate children but have the mentality of one, which makes this positively charming little ditty one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in some time.
With that, I’m off to try and write some songs for children and make my millions.
How long have you got before you can leave work for the weekend then? Half an hour? An hour? That means you can watch this video at least 10 times. Or you can bookmark this page and watch it when you get home.
I’m a complete sucker for stuff like this, I completely don’t care that it’s musical drivel (which totally contradicts things I have said prior to today regarding virtuoso musicians, BeatBoxers, DJs etc).
If you can find a single better use of a computer (or indeed the internet) than this, please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or @monkeyhotel
Happy Friday to you, I hope you’re all extremely excited about the inevitable weekend ahead.
To make this morning go as smoothly and quickly as possible until lunchtime – when it becomes officially acceptable to show symptoms of “that Friday feeling”, may I suggest you watch this video? I’m not usually one to champion such showy virtuoso types, but Antonio Forcione manages to find a perfect balance between showmanship and genuine musicality – very difficult and very impressive.
Those of you into guitar music will be blown away and those of you who are not into guitar music will probably enjoy it anyway.
Enjoy.
If you have discovered anything you think worthy of appearing on this blog then please get in touch; luke@routenote.com or @monkeyhotel
Yesterday Dr. Dre confused the world’s music press by announcing that he was working on an instrumental concept album. He told a reporter “I want to call it ‘The Planets’. I don’t even know if I should be saying this, but fuck it. It’s just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like, I’ve been studying the planets and learning the personalities of each planet. I’ve been doing this for about two years now just in my spare time so to speak. I wanna do it in surround sound. It’ll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work.”
Sorry, Dr. Dre releasing an instrumental concept album on what he thinks the planets sound like? What the hell, is this some kind of joke? Who does he think he is – some kind of street Gustav Holst? What happened to you Dre? You used to be so cool, this has to be the most tenuous concept for an album I’ve ever heard.
Having said that, Dre is a genius and I am a poxy blogger who wishes I could make music like Dre. The album will probably be brilliant and I’ll be exposed as the moron I certainly am.
In case this album does turn out to be the bowl of toss I’m expecting it to, let us all remember that Dre is beyond real criticism and be thankful that one so great chose to walk amongst us. Here he is at his absolute best in 1993, laying down some G-Funk for a certain Mr. Dogg, who I expect one or two of you will be familiar with.
I used to like BeatBoxers. I used to like them a lot.
In my final year of university I would waste at least an hour a day watching videos of BeatBoxers before sharing them with fellow enthusiasts, my housemates, anyone who might care, anyone that didn’t care… I should probably have been doing coursework or something, now I think about it.
I then inexplicably stopped watching BeatBox videos for a reason I couldn’t remember, and left them well alone for over a year. I remembered that reason this morning when a friend of mine sent me a video, a video of a song I had obviously quite deliberately erased from my memory.
By their nature BeatBoxers are all (and without exception), show-off, attention seeking, flamboyant, assholes. They must be; they get up on a stage and go out of their way to “wow” people. It’s a circus act more than it is music.
When I first heard this song all that time ago, it opened my eyes to this side of an art form I once thought noble and envied those capable of it. I even had a crack learning to BeatBox myself.
This isn’t a song, it’s a back beat with a moron showing off over the top of it. Rahzel became famous for winning a BeatBoxing competition with a genuinely brilliant and impressive act. What did he do with this fame? Accept the first record deal some tosser threw his way and ignored any sense of taste he might once have had. The reality is that any BeatBoxer would do this too, they couldn’t resist the attention.
Happily this has less than 20,000 views on youtube. Sadly, I’ll never be able to forget it, ever again.
Welcome to the second of my midweek music suggestions.
Yesterday Dr. Dre confused the world’s music press by announcing that he was working on an instrumental concept album. He told a reporter “I want to call it ‘The Planets’. I don’t even know if I should be saying this, but fuck it. It’s just my interpretation of what each planet sounds like, I’ve been studying the planets and learning the personalities of each planet. I’ve been doing this for about two years now just in my spare time so to speak. I wanna do it in surround sound. It’ll have to be in surround sound for Saturn to work.”