I can't say enough good things about this band Locksley. Last week I wrote a little about 'em. It's like if late '60s garage bands had access to better production. And lived in our time. And came from Wisconsin. Listen to it. Now.
LINK: Locksley
Click that picture up there. Listen to the song "Why Not Me." Do it. Right now. What are you thinking? Supergrass? The Kinks? The Sights, maybe?
I doubt you're thinking that this is the sound of four guys from Wisconsin who moved to Brooklyn, NY to get more attention for their band. But if you did, you'd be right. Funny, six years ago Detroit would've been the place for a band like this to move to for attention.
Simpler in influence than the Arctic Monkeys, younger than Supergrass, and more British Invasion than the Sights are these days, Locksley has a chance. This is one of those bands who critics find it so easy to discuss and throw around comments like 'pop-infused hooks' and 'punk enthusiasm'. Neither of those would be wrong, but it would be unjust to bestow such tired cliches on a band that does what they do so well.
It is poppy and hooky and they most certainly have a punk energy running through their songs. In fact, I'm quickly reminded of The Exploding Hearts who had a very similar sound, but theirs was more rooted in '70s power-pop. The boys in Locksley seem almost too good to be true with their hooks and all four of 'em taking turns singing. I swear I'm listening to The Raspberries or The Move or Badfinger or The Kinks. And just like the Exploding Hearts, these guys took a sound that they liked and made it their own.
The album doesn't sound forced, nor does it sound completely derivative. Original and fun and upbeat with good lyrics. They don't fuck around.
Go here to check out their MySpace page, and here for their site.
I had high hopes for this record. When I first heard a couple tracks, I thought it sounded like this Gang of Four/Talking Heads on meth/Magazine kinda sound that's been popular for a couple years. And that's what it is, but too much so.
Forward Russia sound like a carbon copy of Bloc Party. Add a little bit of The Editors in there whilie you're at it. What if Bloc Party sounded just a little bit edgier? They'd sound like Forward Russia. And that's all they have going for them. I tried listening to it a few times in it's entirety, thinking it would grow on me, but it hasn't. This last time I couldn't wait until it was done.
The album "Give Me A Wall" from Forward Russia is not recommended by me. But if you want to check it out for yourself, hit up their MySpage page right here and see what you think.
It's been a few weeks now, and I've been listening to this CD on and off, and I really like it. Singer-songwriter-ish vocals and lyrics with minimal electro beats. Lots of bleeps and bloops. But it isn't arrhythmic like Solex, and it isn't folky like Beth Orton. It's just...nice.
Lisa Papineau has already made a name for herself as a vocalist with Air and M83, and now she has her very own solo album. But she didn't do it all by herself. You'd think she did if you read the liner notes and saw what all she played...but she didn't. She had help. Thomas Huiban is credited with bass, synthesizers, singing, beats, triangle, kalimba, and guitar. Matthieu le Senechal Delosmone de Villeneuve played the Rhodes piano, clavinet organ, guitar, mandolin, accordion, synthesizers, sang, and made some beats. Then Bob Merrymountain created the string arrangements, played synthesizers, percussion, sang, and did some live programming and choreography (?). Lisa gets in on it with melodies, words, singing, beats, bells, synthesizers, cymbals, guitar jack, and one lousy Rhodes part. That's all verbatim from the liner notes. We are also told that Lisa Papineau endorses chicory, a pleasing non-caffeinated warm beverage.
Despite all of this instrumentation, "Night Moves" is a very subtle record. And Bob Seger is nowhere to be found. This is decidedly not a rock album.
I'm a fan. But I don't like the track "Shucking. Jiving." It sounds like a Meg Lee Chin outtake, and I never liked her stuff all that much anyway.
I think it was sometime before the movie Goodwill Hunting made Elliott Smith an indie-folk god when a million and one of my female friends were pushing him on me. He was good at what he did, he was a great songwriter, very talented, but I'm not so into it. I don't know why. Sometimes, I just can't get down with the sad bastard music.
But sometimes I can. When I first put in this new CD from Goldenboy, I immediately thought of the new-ish songs that Kevin Shields did for the Lost In Translation soundtrack. So I started listening to the rest of the album, and it is sad bastard-y, but I still like it. I hear some Johnny Marr in the music, and some Kevin Shields as well as Elliott Smith in the vocals and lyrics. It's textured and poppy.
Goldenboy consists of Shon Sullivan and Bryan Bos. Apparently Shon toured with Smith years ago and he referred to Sullivan as 'Goldenboy'. It's taken a couple weeks, but these two are growing on me. Their new album "underneath the radio" comes out on October 3rd. I have a track you can check out, it's called "Summer of the Evening." You can check out more songs on their MySpace page, and if you click on the picture above, you can check out their regular site.
You like Broken Social Scene, right? How about Metric? You know them, they're the Canadians doing Pretenders/Blondie style new wave. Well, anyway, Emily Haines happens to be the lead singer for Metric and a regular contributor to BSS's indie pop circus.
She has a new solo album out on September 26th. Her backup band is called the Soft Skeleton, and the record is called "Knives Don't Have Your Back." If you click right here you can check out a track from the record called "Doctor Blind." It's a Cat Power meets Beth Orton meets Lisa Papineau kind of affair. If you like those acts, you'll like this.
Check out the Soft Skeletons site.
Sometime in the late '90s, industrial music broke. It fell apart. What was once either harsh metal disco or very stark electro gave way to crappy trance. A handful of industrial acts kept it interesting and experimental, but not enough, and the clubs cared more about the dance music. I bring this up because right now I'm listening to Soulwax's "Nite Versions," which is all remixes of tracks from their 2005 album "Any Minute Now."
If you're not already familiar, Soulwax is a Belgian rock band. Or, they were a rock band. Maybe they still are...the lines are blurred now. I'll admit, I've barely heard their album Any Minute Now, but I have heard something else from them. Early on, they had promise as a band, but it was nothing special. Then in 2002, they took on a major project: Too Many DJs. The two brothers who make up half of Soulwax are also known as Too Many DJs. Do you remember all that mash-up stuff that was going on in the early '00s? Too Many DJs took that idea, and blew it right the fuck up. Why? Because they actually got permission for all the samples, so it was a legal recording. Personally, I was horrified the first time I heard New Order's "The Beach" mashed up with "Sandwiches" from Detroit Grand Pubahs, but at the same time, I really liked it.
A couple years after all that fame from TMDJs, they released another record as Soulwax, 2005's Any Minute Now. Not quite rock, not quite dance, it lied somewhere in that neither territory where Fischerspooner resides. So the remix album is even more interesting. Their goal was to make the original album into something that DJs could spin at clubs. And, damn, did they do that.
Right away, "Teachers" grabs you. The idea is so simple. LCD Soundsystems did something similar with "Losing My Edge," but that was very indirect, witty, and honestly a bit pretentious. Teachers lists the band's teachers - literally. That track leads into Miserable Girl. That's where the interesting blurred lines between techno and industrial comes into play. At this point you start to hear late '90s industrial influences like 16 Volt and Penal Colony. After that is E Talking which starts with a loop of Roland 808 percussion sounds, quite retro...throughout there's a chorus of a girl saying "it's not you, it's the E talking," which is funny if you've ever taken E at a party/rave. In fact, this whole record seems to be about paying homage to their influences via classic electronic references and drums and bass guitar and samples. Accidents and Compliments is a simple early '90s style club track. Nothing special. But then comes Compute. That industrial stuff comes back in the form of Nitzer Ebb! No, it's not a cover, there are no samples of the band, it's just the style and the sounds and the drums and the vocals.
The more I listen to this, the more it becomes obvious that the band was already acknowleding their rock influences with the original versions of these tracks. And you still get some drums, guitar, bass in the remixes. But with the 'nite' versions, you get references to classic techno. Back before the lines got so blurred. Classic equipment like the Roland 606, 808, and 909 are all over the damned place on this record. The track I Love Techno even samples that stupid song from LA Style: "James Brown Is Dead!" After that, Krack is full of Kraftwerk references right down to blatantly ripped off keyboard sounds. I think my favorite is the next track NY Lipps. Remember Lipps, Inc? They did that song "Funky Town." I hate that song, but I love the electro intro at the beginning. So NY Lipps has vocals that could pass for something from Pixeltan, or maybe even earlier ESG. But all throughout there are sounds taken straight from the intro to Funky Town. And they use that guitar hook from the chorus of the song, too. But only sparingly. The last track, Another Excuse is classic '80s NYC club music.
I gotta say, Soulwax know their shit. They cover it well. Click here to check out their site. It's done really well, much like their records.
Years ago, the band Slint released an album with a song on it called "O Captain, My Captain." Ever since then, countless bands with similar sounds have made records with nautical themes, progressive/jazz instrumental structures, and folk sounds. Mainly June of 44. Jimmy Lucido of the LA band The Strays first referred to these bands as Boat Rock, and the name stuck. (it's possible that he wasn't the first to say it, but he was the first person I heard it from)
The first time I heard The Decemberists, I was annoyed by them. What they were making was Boat Rock, but in lyrics only. Musically, it was just...annoying. The vocals bothered me, the prog-folk instrumentation bothered me, and the way that indie kids were bending over backwards to heap praise on the band especially bothered me. I just didn't see it.
So they have a new album coming out on 10/3. It's called The Crane Wife. From what I've heard so far, I like it. A lot. It's entirely possible that my tastes have evolved, but I think the reality is that the band has evolved into something that's simply more palatable for me.
The vocals are Morrissey-esque, the instrumentation is still slightly folk-prog, but not annoyingly so. The lyrics are still Boat Rock, but that ain't a bad thing. You can check a track from The Crane Wife here. It's called "Summersong." Then there's the band's site, which is here, and if you click below, you can check out more songs on their MySpace page. By the way, the band is featured in the latest issue of Filter Magazine.
