Friday Films – 17 May 2013
Recent videos by London acts which this blog hearts:
***VIDEO OF THE WEEK***
Disclosure – You & Me (Feat. Eliza Doolittle)
The snapshot-style ups and downs of a young couple’s European travelogue make the perfect accompaniment to this recent single. The pretty footage really captures what it is to travel, and the unrivalled thrill of a first love. [Recent blog on this song]
Savages – Shut Up
This compelling movie starts with singer Jehnny Beth intoning the poem / statement-of-intent from the front cover of Savages’ forthcoming debut album, and then moves into a full, typically-explosive live performance of the track Shut Up.
Keebo – Native American
The twin elements of this all-girl fivepiece’s new single – a focus on Amerindians and a sun-cooked, outdoorsy vibe – mesh here in a film of heavily-filtered goodness. Can’t wait to hear more from this lot.
Fenech-Soler – Magnetic
Formerly the purveyors of dense, warehouse party-perfect electronica (I’ll always remember an amazing show in Manor House…), Fenech-Soler have suddenly, seemingly gone all pop on their second album, Rituals (out 2 September). It’s an unexpected change of direction, but hey ho. The soaring, air-punching highs of first single Magnetic are here accompanied by a film where vocalist Ben Duffy just can’t flee the clutches of Donnie Darko-like animal heads – like that guy below…
Benin City – My Love
Earlier in Brixton, my bus got delayed by a passing mini-march. I looked on as about 50 protesters stomped past, placards, megaphones and all, telling Lambeth Council that it shouldn’t close Clapham Fire Station. The marchers looked like decent, wholesome people; and I was struck by the difference between their active, energetic character and my fellow passengers and I, who looked on stupefied, like amused tourists – only metres away, but actually a safe world apart from this disagreeable mob. That same contrast re-enters my mind when listening to Benin City‘s third single, My Love. While so much of today’s music is by-the-numbers, here’s an act that dares to be different, to boldly stand out – in this case, via a song that segues from fraught spoken word and synths to a euphoric marching-band (more marching!) finale.
Be&Bea – God Knows
Based between London and NYC, the enigmatic boy/girl duo Be&Bea return with this glossy, synth-edged, r’n'b-flecked number, as smooth and polished as a Galaxy chocolate bar:
It follows the cosier pop tones of Grows.
Siloet – Control
It might be pissing rain in London constantly right now, but let’s pretend it’s summer with this soul-tinged house number by Siloet.
Monday Music – 13 May 2013
Monday Music’s the one post where Some Of It Was True! drops its London-only rule.
Wardell – Call It What You Want
Wardell are Steven Spielberg’s two children. Hearing that fact, the logical leap is that the pair have had it easy, have probably had a free pass to record labels and tastemakers and whatnot. And that might be right. But really, who cares? They’re pretty good is all that counts – pretty good in a jangly, mildly slapdash, “phew, what a fucking day”-way. The Brother/Sister EP is out 3 June, and here’s a tune from it…
Maps – A.M.A
A beautifully-subdued, throbbing piece of electro-pop from Northampton-based James Chapman’s forthcoming third album Vicissitude. Listening is a seductive experience: the deep-set vocals seem to sound from somewhere inside your own head, while the song’s euphoric renewal, reversing an apparent fade-out, is spine-shivering stuff.
Dirty Beaches – Casino Lisboa
A couple of weeks ago I labelled Dean Blunt as one of those extraordinary, rare artists who make all others seem hopelessly plain and unambitious. Well, Montreal one-man-band Dirty Beaches is another such act: Alex Zhang Hungtai’s latest work is a sprawling double-album named Drifters / Love Is the Devil (out 21 May via Zoo Music) which will constitute, judging by Casino Lisboa, a track that grimly thuds and limbers along like a careening drunk, a beguiling musical cruise into the darkness.
Austra – Home
The first song from the Toronto sextet’s second album, Olympia, and it’s a beaut: rattling along tenderly, and somehow folky, poptronic, summery and hypnotic all at once. More than a echo of Dark Dark Dark in the vocals, too.
The Sixth Station – Before The Snowfall
Made in 1982 and now being re-released via Numero Group, Tony Trosley’s Deep Night record has a mystical, meandering feel: these are folk-rock songs to which one drives across deserts. Trosley was a rural, hermetic Illinois priest: this ended up as his sole record due to a series of disastrous local live shows. His stage name The Sixth Station refers to a sombre New Testament tableau and yet Trosley largely, bravely, ignores Christianity in favour of a general, worldly humanism that still feels refreshing. Highly recommended.
