Hot New Music – 8 March 2010

My weekly collection of randomly chosen tracks – some new, some less so – is about all I’ve managed for the past fortnight.  Apologies for the relative quietness; all should be livelier as of now.  Here’s this Monday’s quintet:

Weird Tapes – The Walking Dead
A old song from when Dayve Hawke – a man who is to SOIWT’s ear what SOIWT’s girlfriend is to SOIWT’s… heart – called himself Weird Tapes rather than Memory Tapes.  As Weird Tapes, Hawke was a little more techno-based: this number has diluted lyrics, distant peels and sorrowful loops.  The main and most memorable sound is a startling simple do-do-dododo refrain that chills and thrills in equal, pulsating measure.  You never want it to end, making the purposefully abrupt ending especially unjust.

Morningbell – Stay In The Garden
Rich in smokey jazz tones and Deep South-style woodwind, this song sees Morningbell depart their usual rock territory for a land altogether more exotic and mysterious.  Instruments positively flirt with each other here, as Travis purrs biblical lyrics into the mike, strings are pregnantly plucked and time drifts by with all the urgency of a hot summer’s evening.  One of the sexiest songs you’ll hear all year.

U.S. Girls – Turnaround Time
Mondays, eh?  So pfftttt.  SOIWT’s thoughts on this dreadful day typically go a little like this: “ummmm, so that seemed like a fun weekend.  But how did I get from Manor House to Bow?  Who was that guy in the police helmet?  And where did I leave my scarf?”  Megan Remy, Philly’s U.S. Girls, can’t help answer those questions, but she can provide an apt soundtrack to your distorted, already-halcyon memories via this slice of dank and choppy lo-fi pop, full of beeps and confusion.  Think The Big Pink but female and ten times slurrier.

Four Tet – Angel Echoes
Here are five incredibly soft things: 1. Lamb’s Ear (that really strokable plant with grey hair).  2. Grizzly bears – not that SOIWT! has ever touched one, but, like, d’oh. 3. New towels.  4. Diane Kruger’sKruger’s skin in that L’Oreal advert on telly at the mo*.  5. Four Tet‘s new song, Angel Echoes.  Hypnotic and haunting, this latest tune from Londoner Kieran Hebden’s current album is the sonic equivalent of a empty, musty church in early morning sunlight and shadows.  It lasts four minutes but feels like 94, such is the snoozy goodness on offer.
*L’Oreal has not paid this blog for the dream-like endorsement above, although a few free samples would no doubt be appreciated by Mrs SOIWT if L’Oreal felt obliged to repay this good turn. 

Erland & The Carnival – Trouble In Mind
Mellowness has dominated today’s round-up, but here’s a chirpy (despite the regretful lyrics) pearl from the excellent Erland & The Carnival to finish.  What’s particularly great about Trouble In Mind is not its pacy beat, nor Erland’s maudlin voice, nor the occasional fuzzy interludes, nor even the tender strings - but rather the way it all sounds so easy, so fabulously simple and effortless.  A fiver says you’ll be humming along all week.

Downloads via song titles.

Foals tease ‘lusher’ second album

Oxford’s Foals made a huge splash when they arrived on the music scene a couple of years back; offering a growling, chaotic and murderously funky disco rock, they were the Klaxons but ten times dirtier.  But after the auspicious start, the quintet hated their album and a long period of silence followed.  Thankfully, Foals have just announced a second album, Total Life Forever, to be out on 10 May.  A song from it, Spanish Sahara, is on video below, with a free Mount Kimbie remix available for download below too.   The tune suggests the ”lusher” sound the band recently pledged: a more elegant tumult while just as dark, the sound rarefied with a ghostly, trance-like feel.  For the shake-up, Mount Kimbie take that sense of foreboding and run with it.

There’s an Electric Ballroom date on Mon 10 May (tix on sale from Fri 12 March), and I have half a hunch that Foals might return to light up Field Day again in July.  We’ll see.

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MP3: Foals – Spanish Sahara (Mount Kimbie remix)

Hot New Music – 1 March 2010

Having heroically overcome crippling internet problems all weekend, SOIWT! is back in the nick of time for this weekly digest of tunes rocking this blogger’s world:

Band Of Skulls – Honest
The TV show Skins continues to be one of SOIWT!’s most reliable musical dealers, and the most recent episode (Freddie & Effy) provided a particularly good fix.  This song played over the preview for next week’s show.  It’s a slow, slightly-emo track, with a lights-down-low sound, swirling female vocals, an itinerant structure and a likeable hint of madness in the lyrics.  Band Of Skulls are a UK trio very popular in the US, where they’ve toured with Metric and even made the dreaded Twilight soundtrack.  This is from a stripped-down Lounge Act session with Woxy.

Pretty Lights – I Can See Your Face
Pretty Lights is Derek Vincent Smith, a Coloradan who crafts his songs by fusing together loads of other songs.  Stupid?  Impossible?  Pointless? Uninventive?  In fact it’s none of these things – it’s stonkingly, thrillingly brilliant.  Witness this seven-minute belter, a murderous, funky-as-hell musical cocktail bursting with familiar whines, bass, some more bass and too many genres to name.  Three EPs will follow in 2010, with a drip-drip release schedule on PL’s website. File under ’shouldn’t work but does’. 

Os Mercúrios - Rimbaud de Bicicletta
As winter blows and blusters its last, festival line-ups filter out and H&M introduces new t-shirt ranges, so thoughts turn irresistibly to that most wonderful of times: summer.  Here’s a little early taste of it, courtesy of Brazilian trio Os Mercúrios.  Telling the tale of a cyclist they thought eerily resembled poet Arthur Rimbaud and a greeting he (possibly*) gave to them, this is a pysched-out lo-fi slice of Latin American pie, complete with insatiable ballroom bounce, tinkling drums, guitars and the most melodious of organ sounds. 
*The band members disagree on this point!

Bear in Heaven – Lovesick Teenagers
If you’re into richly-crafted, dense guitar songs with loads of layers and myriad compsition, with nostalgic lyrics and high-pitched vocals, and with syrupy bass-playing, then you’re a fussy bastard.  But you’re also in luck, as that’s just what Bear in Heaven provide here.  Look out for the rarefied feedback (which SOIWT! thinks sounds like drunken owls), be ready for the abrupt and criminally premature ending and look out for Brooklyn-based BIH’s forthcoming London live dates at The Lexington and The Windmill.

Not Squares – Asylum
A rollicking rock song from Belfast punk-dance (punce?) trio Not Squares, driven along by a taut bass, featuring cowbells and all manner of shouts and screams.  This is simple, old-fashioned fun, building up the pace and offering a pleasing amount of chaos mixed in with neat rhythms.  It’s like a particularly effervescent friend – when they’ve gone, or the song’s finished, the silence is sudden and stark – and most definitely what SOIWT! would call a going-out song.

Downloads via song titles.