Jarmean?

Sian Alice Group, The xx, Bon Iver… there sure is a lot of downbeat introspectiveness on the iPhone of today’s trendy London scenesters.  There’s nothing wrong a little lo-fi of course, but every now and again these same glum hepcats may well feel the need to shout, smile, and hell, be silly for a little while.  They wouldn’t be alone, either: cheeriness is officially in vogue, and stupidity’s never been more a la mode.  Check out the facts: vintage clothes and fancy-dress nights are seeing a revival; trampolines haven’t sold as well in years; even bookings for Butlins are up 15%!  Having fun is so hip!  All of which suggests the time may be right for Jarmean?…

They claim to be “vaudeville anarchists from Babylon-don with an interesting line-up of tuba, ukulele, drums, horns, clarinet and vocals”.  They also claim to be the true definition of punk, although perhaps tongues are slightly in cheek.  Either way, what Jarmean? certainly are is a fearsomely chipper outfit who sound one part Carry On Cockney, and another Sex Pistols musical.  Their songs sound a bit fun and light-hearted – not to say that they’re of panto quality, but rather blessed with a lightness and sense of humour that’s refreshing in this era of recessions, swine flu and, yes, languid lo-fi pop. 

On Mind The Gap a trumpet trumps, a cheeky voice repeats the London Underground’s number one message and you feel simply obliged to do a ridiculous marching dance. Gin Riot sounds like a Pirates of Penzance fun, all kinds of brass making hay in the background as a gaggle of guys sing about “good times” and all sorts of gladness. And we all need a little gladness now and again.

Jarmean? on MySpace

Live date:
Fri 15 Aug – Barden’s Boudoir, Dalston

MP3:
Jarmean? – Mind The Gap (zSHARE)

Sian Alice Group – new video, new London date

Sian Alice Group have released a video to back up the second single, Close to the Ground, from their second album Troubled, Shaken, etc. Directed by guitarist Ben Crook, it is shot in the eerie environs of Dungeness, a Kent headland famous for its shingle expanse, its lighthouses and its being the residence-of-choice for Derek Jarman.  A suitably oddball place for this maverick, esoteric band, basically, and a landscape perfectly suited to singer Sian Ahern’s unusual beauty.  More on the location, and an update from Ben, in this excellent interview with Dazed.

Close To The Ground is one of SAG’s more accessible songs, and a good start point for would-be new fans.  Sian’s voice sounds like a siren, guiding the listener through a slough of mutinous drums, innocent wind chimes and angry guitars reverberating with tender intensity.   It’s a beautiful drawl of a song, a love potion for the eternally lonely.  Judging by this video, the single release looks like being a couple of minutes shorter than the original version (the one below to download), shorn of its protracted intro, but retaining the existential, dreamy feel.

SAG have also announced a new London live date…

Live date
Sat 5 Sep – The Tabernacle, Notting Hill

Sian Alice Group on MySpace
Sian Alice Group’s website

MP3:
Sian Alice Group – Close To The Ground (zSHARE)

Volcano Choir – side project of Justin Vernon from Bon Iver – release first single

Pitchfork has broken the first single to emerge from the collaboration between Bon Iver’s head honcho Justin Vernon and his favourite band Collections of Colonies of Bees, who the music site labels “Wisconsin experimentalists”.  This temporary casual relationship of a group is going by the name Volcano Choir.

Anyone looking for Bon Iver-style beauty should look – or indeed listen – away now.  Island, IS, the song in question, is pure quirkiness - zany electronics, fairground brass tinkles, wolf-whistles and chirpsy loops.  It’s not especially addictive, but nice enough.  Volcano Choir’s debut album, Unmap, will be out on September 22.

Volcano Choir on MySpace
Volcano Choir on JAGJAGUWAR

MP3:
Volcano Choir – Island, IS (zSHARE)

The Sound Of Arrows – 90s pap or Naughties neatness?

The Sound of Islands are the latest Neon Gold hopefuls, proving how wrong I was to think that Ellie Goulding was as pop as the label was prepared to get.  The Swedish – of course, everyone’s from Sweden at the moment – act are pretty much the definition of popcorn.

Listening to break-out single Into The Clouds reminds me of the opening scene in Alice In Wonderland, as Alice falls endlessly, at speed and yet at complete ease, down a mutating, magical rabbit hole.  (I realise I am suggesting the obvious drug analogy here, but let’s ignore that for now.)  This is a song that gentle frazzles along, all syrupy electro beats that wash over you like a Thai masseuse as you struggle to retain focus.  In one sense it’s gorgeous, graceful and great, total poppy-field bliss.  In another it’s dull as ditchwater, and the stuff of 90s pop coyly recycled into cool Shoreditch electro.  Come out, come out, wherever you are Robert Miles…

Their album’s due to drop in September.

The Sound of Arrows on MySpace
The Sound of Arrows’ website

MP3:
The Sound of Arrows – Into The Clouds (zSHARE)

Diplo & Switch to play Notting Hill Carnival

As reported on NME, Diplo and Switch are bringing their Major Lazer team-up to this year’s Notting Hill Carnival.  They’ll be playing on the BH Monday, August 31, on the Red Bull Music Academy stage, underneath Westway on Acklam Road (on the corner with Portobello)

The full list of acts confirmed to play is:

Major Lazer
L-Vis 1990
Toddla T
Rusko
J-Wow (Buraka Som Sistema)
Maluca
Paul Devro
Jillionaire

Personally, I always think Sunday’s the better, more fun day.  Half of London spends Monday shaking in a ditch somewhere near Paddington, after over-exerting themselves the day before; and besides, it’s a school night, and where’s the fun in that?  Then again, if you’re a Diplo fan, this seems like it has a lot of the right ingredients for a cracking show.

The pair are also playing Hoxton Bar and Kitchen just over a week later.

As EYOE explains: “Diplo’s clubland background lies in baile funk and Miami bass, and Switch is the don of the electro micro-genre known as fidget house, the two figured it might be a nice idea to go to Bob Marley’s Tuff Gong studios in Kingston and revive dancehall reggae for British club kids reared on twitchy electro-disco.”  Too right.

Live date
Mon Aug 31 – Red Bull Music Academy stage, Notting Hill Carnival
Tues Sep 8 – Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, Shoreditch

Diplo on MySpace
Switch on MySpace
Major Lazer on MySpace

MP3:
Santigold – I’m A Lady (Diplo remix) (Feat. Amanda Blank) (zSHARE)

The xx release Basic Space video

Much-fancied minimalist popsters The xx have released a video to support their single Basic Space:

Directed by Anthony Dickenson, this video rather personifies The xx’s music: edgy, elusive, androgynous and powerfully pretty.  As I’ve said here before, whether seen live or heard, this quartet are an aloof band whose stop-start melodies don’t immediately captivate… but pretty rapidly amaze with their dexterous electro trickery and fine instrumental work. Call me cynical, too, but when a band fronted by two odd-looking characters makes waves, I’m always a bit less suspicious than were it a pair of desirable demi-gods flicking their fringes at me.

The xx’s Hoxton Hall dates, also mentioned here before, have predictably sold out, but there is a newly-announced in-store at Rough Trade that longing Londoners could aim for. 

Live date:
Wed 19 Aug – Rough Trade East, Brick Lane

They’ll also be supporting one Florence and the Machine at her sold-out Shepherd’s Bush Empire shows in September.

The xx on MySpace

MP3:
The xx – Basic Space (zSHARE)

Buy the album ’xx’ here as of next week.  Buy the Basic Space 7″ single here.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson signs to Saddle Creek

The super-talented Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson has announced exciting news on his MySpace blog:

He joins fellow up-and-comers (and Some Of It Was True! idols) the Rural Alberta Advantage in the Saddle Creek stable, one where the headline act is very much Bright Eyes. 

For those unfamiliar with MBAR, he, together with a few willing musical accomplices, makes raucous, hymn-like epics about life and death.  Each furore is ferociously intense, blessed with intriguing, pretty lyrics and staggering guitar and drum work that can only be explained by a crate of Red Bull.  His songs sound live the moment you hear them, and slowly seduce you with their heady crescendoes and slightly renegade structures. 

After a belting show at the Stag and Dagger festival, I can’t wait for Miles’ next shows on our shores.  Meantime, look out for some mp3 tasters leading up to the October launch of Summer Of Fear.

Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson on MySpace

MP3
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson – Buriedfed (zSHARE)

Live in London – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros are one of the hottest new acts around. In the last week, Koko’s newsletter has bestowed slightly dubious praise, calling their Up From Below ”the album of the British summer” while Metro, the free UK newspaper always keen to be ahead of the pack, labelled it their “sound of the summer”.  Intrigued, and with two lives date a-looming, I thought I’d best sit down tonight and listen to this musical hot-tip.  As their MySpace page offers only piffling samples, I downloaded three songs.  Instant reactions follow:

Carries On
Starts off like an REM slow one or Leonard Cohen album track, just a singer and a few simmering instruments. Nice ‘eeeeee’ sound, but where’s the big merry band of ensemble musicians I’ve been reading about?  Ahah here they are!  Suddenly a troupe of soul singers pipe up, arising out of nowhere like a ghastly Ally McBeal finale in that impossibly cheerful church. More silence, more eees, and then full blooded chorus, everyone singing as if it’s a Halifax advert or, worse, a Christian convention.  Perfectly pleasant gospel, but so what?  And why?

40 Day Dream
Ah but this is immediately better – a meaty beat, possessed percussion thwacking and a strangely Beatles-esque line about magical mysteries. The peak is exciting and regularly-scaled; all revolves around the singer, Edward (obviously), and his theatrical stylings (Metro calls it “acid folk”, whatever that means; Cutbucket exciting said the band had a ”indie-techno-afro-pop kick”) and crisp voice.  “I could dieee” he bellows and I’m beginning to wish quite the opposite.  Rip-roaring and involving, and it’s 1-1, good vs bad, and we need a decider.

Janglin’
This is apparently the single, and it offers more of the same rag-and-bone-man charm as its predecessor.  It’s got more of a hard soul, funky edge, with 50s rockabilly “HEY”s and “HO”s in the background, and a Weirdsville, Tennessee middle section when everyone whispers and trumpets play, before the real brass kicks in again and we’re marauding off to another crescendo.  Most notable is the first main chord, which sounds a bit like Blue Monday by New Order and a lot like something else I can’t quite bring to mind… a slightly jokey, classic rock song… no, not happening.  Anyhow, not sure if this is intentional or daylight robbery, but it all fits in quite tidily.

Conclusion: still not sure too sure about that first track – it was a little too much like breakfast at BB King’s cafe – but there’s no denying the absurd infectiousability (new word, especially coined for Edward Sharpe) of the next two tracks.  Fellow bloggers, Koko, Metro: I salute you!  Today I have learned a rich and valuable lesson: Ed Sharpe and his Magnetic Zeros are ruddy marvellous.

Live dates
Thurs 20 Aug – The Lexington, Islington
Fri 21 Aug – Koko, Camden (tickets and info here)

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros on MySpace
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros’ website

Buy Up From Below here (iTunes store)

MP3s:
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Carries On (zSHARE)
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – 40 Day Dream (zSHARE)
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Janglin’ (zSHARE)

Devotchka – a riotous rocking racket

This blog came to pass too late in life to advise of DeVotchKa’s date at Cargo tomorrow, but the eve of that show seems as good a time as any to wax lyrical about the American four-piece and their impossibly unique, life-affirming sound.

DeVotchKa’s members are the equivalent of musical gypsies – from backgrounds posh and poor – and the gorgeous racket they make embodies the melange of influences and global styles. According to their MySpace page, the quartet fuse “Romani, Greek, Slavic and Bolero music with American punk and folk roots”.  I couldn’t tell you if that’s right or wrong, but there are definite elements of vaudeville and country that I recognise.  And all is generally a riot: the lyrics change languages and the band play all sorts of insruments, from trumpets and a theremin to a violin called Juan Pablo, via ones I’ve never previously heard of: a sousaphone, a bouzouki. You get the feeling they’re having a hoot; on stage I suspect it’s mad, sweaty, brilliant chaos.

Each DeVotchKa song has the knack of sounding instantly familiar, as if it was music just waiting to be made, hewn by time itself.  And yet each also thrills.  Led by Nick’s soaring vocals, they peaks and plum- the depths in equal measure; there are gentle intros of Sunday-morning style serenity before frenzied Saturday-night climaxes.  My absolute favourite is Transliterator:  its lyrics overlap each other like keen morning waves and it begins with a mellow string ripple, and yet in the midst lies a kicking little marching anthem of a song, fired by passion and a rat-a-tat beat.  At one point, everything stops in respectful silence for a distant-sounding trumpet, and then off we go again, with renewed vigour…

They’re a bit mad, a bit rad and utter fun, then.  They’re also hard-working: DeVotchKa’s road to fame proves they’ve earned their fame.  Aftera decade in the musical wilderness, a big break finally arrived in the opportunity to score Little Miss Sunshine (remember those gentle melodies?).  A well-received collection of covers and two ecstatically-reviewed  albums cemented their improved standing, and the rapid sale of all Cargo tickets proves DeVotchKa’s time in the spotlight is deservedly enduring.  Ask ten music-loving friends if they’ve heard of this band and nine may say no, but the tenth will absolutely adore them.  And that, I like to think, is how it should be.

I’ll be sure to let you know when the next UK dates are announced.

DeVotchKa on MySpace
DeVotchKa’s website

MP3:
DeVotchKa – Transliterator (zSHARE)

The Hundred In The Hands sign to Warp Records

Electro rockers The Hundred In The Hands have become the latest addition to Warp Records’ impressive roster.  Check out this post on their website:

It’s a good move for both parties if you ask me: Warp are getting a band that offers a really exciting, throbbing sound that combines disco, a little punk, some 80s pop elements and a general all-round funkiness, yet still retains that Brooklyn raw edge and alternative, indie feel.  On their MySpace, THITH have just two songs, the second (Undressed in Dresden) a loose remix of the first  (Dressed in Dresden), but it’s plenty enough to gauge the high talent-level. As for Eleanore and Jason themselves, well, they’ve signed to a to-notch, forward-thinking record label – always a good thing!

Thanks to Niall at the Nialler9 blog for alerting me to this one!

The Hundred In The Hands on MySpace
The Hundred In The Hands’ website

MP3:
The Hundred In The Hands – Dressed in Dresden (zSHARE)