Bright Light Bright Light’s new single, & Lexington date
A New Word To Say is the new single from Bright Light Bright Light, aka Rod Thomas and supporting players. Produced with Neon Neon’s Boom Bip, it’s a slice of unashamedly sincere electro-pop, full of breathless rhythms, nice vocal hooks and a real reach-for-the-lasers chorus. Where I find BLBL’s previous numbers occasionally smacking of simplicity, this latest effort is much more artful - epitomised by the nice jangly melody thrown in amid the final skirmishes, and by the layered vocals that accompany it. In the end, it’s a tune that gives you two distinct options: sing along, or have a shit time.
Bright Light Bright Light is playing The Lexington on Monday 12 April, in what Rod promises SOIWT will be a special show with some cool stage/lighting going on. Tickets here. A New Word To Say is taken from forthcoming album Make Me Believe In Hope. He also does a lot of remixing, mashups and DJing, with more details on this separate MySpace page. There’s a video below too, although the sound isn’t amazing.
MySpace | Website
MP3: Bright Light Bright Light – A New Word To Say
Kitsune and friends throwing Easter party
Neon Noise, the Kitsuné label and Ponystep have pooled their considerable talents to organise a night at Heaven on Easter Sunday. The line-up’s pretty heavyweight – Crystal Fighters and Fenech Soler playing, Friendly Fires and Two Door Cinema Club on the decks – as you might expect with the £10 advance / £14.50 door price tag for tickets. More details via Neon Noise’s Facebook.
Zillionaire – belated praise
While investigating a current US band of the same name, I stumbled across Zillionaire. This London act comprised a rolling cast of mainly Kiwis, and enjoyed a brief spurt of popularity and good reviews in the mid-2000s before calling it a day (or at least ceasing live performances) in early 2007. It seems a shame: their mournful, swooning rock is blissful on the ear, the oral equivalent of watching waves crash into a deserted cove under a watercolour sky. I particularly like the tremulous vocals and handsome guitar sections. Listen to these songs in a darkened room late at night, a glass of something strong in hand, and silently toast a lost London band.
MP3: Zillionaire – Burn Alone
You can download Zillionaire’s last album, Comfort in the Machine, from their MySpace page - in its entirety or song by song.
The Good Natured
The Good Natured is Sarah McIntosh, a London-based, Berkshire-hailing gal who makes a lustrous disco sound rather at odds with her coquettish appearance. Comparisons with Ellie Goulding (god – Ellie’s that established already?) are inevitable such is the mature-voiced, would-be-cool electro-ness here, but in truth The Good Natured’s sound is more grandiose. The beats are bouncier, too, even if everything feels very, well, considered – pounding pianos and plummy tones, as The Guardian nicely puts it. I like The Good Natured’s pretty and simplistic lyrics (“there’s silver in your lungs”) but fervently wish she’d more regularly let rip vocally: on the brief occasions she hits a high note, life gets a little giddy.
The Good Natured is playing Proud on Monday 29 March and The Big Chill Bar on Thursday 15 April, but the most exciting show is sandwiched in between. On Wednesday 7 April she headlines the latest Lake of Stars (the Malawian music festival in October) night at Rich Mix, in Bethnal Green. Much more on the Facebook page, including ticket links. See her while you can; it won’t be long before the masses catch up…
MySpace | Blog | Buy
MP3: The Good Natured – Your Body is a Machine
Donaeo’s Riot Music
SOIWT knows about as much about club soul as it does Finnish achilles specialists: a little more every day, but really, the square root of sod all divided by bugger nothing. Nevertheless, such rock-focused ignorance hasn’t stopped your feckless blogger from stumbling on the latest belter from London MC and producer Donaeo. Riot Music has a hint of reggae about it, and a nice finger-jabbing intensity. The Shy FX mix attached is excellent, but it’s worth checking out Skream!’s more ripped-up take, too.
Monday Music – 15 March 2010
Complete with a new, de-cheesified name, here’s the weekly collection of five songs that’ve made me happy in the past seven days:
Cults – Go Outside
Cults started making blogwaves last week after posting three songs on their Bandcamp page. DI Pitchfork duly investigated, and found out they were a boy-girl NYC duo. They might not have a MySpace page, but the pair sure can make a great tune. Go Outside combines a glockenspiel jingle that sounds like one of those tacky musical Christmas cards, hippy-sounding female vocals, a sample of cult leader Jim Jones speaking, a tropical feel and lyrics advocating the benefits of the great outdoors, and fuses them together into a euphoric pop classic. Re. benefits of great outdoors: in these increasingly temperate times, SOIWT couldn’t agree more.
Kisses – Bermuda
Continuing the meteorological (so had to spell-check that) theme, a week ago this alt-disco anthem would have been far too cheery and full-throttle for the famously unprecedented Famouse Ice Agge suffered by Englande in 2009-10. But now that balmier climes have returned, daffodils are dancing in the morning breeze, cheeks are de-rouged and sneezes are again invisible, LA-based Kisses‘ Bermuda is timely. Jesse Kivel’s (he of the much slower Princeton) rich brogue perfectly complements synthtastic disco loops and measured guitars to create a toe-tapper whose disposition is easily as sunny as the island after which it’s named. More meteorology, note.
MGMT – Flash Delirium
Once upon a time there was a duo called MGMT. They made an insanely danceable electro-pop, were the darlings of blogs everywhere and paved the synth highway for thousands of impersonators. They then disappeared, before magically reappearing on the curiously-slanted Bestival main stage in 2009. There they played a few new songs which sounded consideradly broodier and more substantial. And now the two heroes are back with second-album-first-single Flash Delirium. It’s trippy, multi-sectioned, chaotic and, depending on your take, awful or brilliant. Ever down with the (in-joke alert) Kids, SOIWT says gives it two thumbs up.
The Chord And The Fawn – Love, Sex, And Rock & Roll
SOIWT thought songs this classy-sounding disappeared with Billie Holiday. An elegant lullaby from Minneapolis duo The Chord And The Fawn, Love, Sex, And Rock & Roll has a jazz vibe, has tapping drums, has pleasingly forlorn woodwind and has the thistliest ukelele, and yet has but one reason for it’s fabulousness and one alone: Dani Lewis‘ diamond-clear voice. As she tells the story of an abdicated lover via bouncy rhyming couplets, you feel the simultaneous urge to cry and inelegantly play backing vocalist at every thrilling crest.
Dengue Fever – Sober Driver
Last week’s top 5 sucked up to the sultry jazz stylings of Morningbell, and this week’s musical slut is similarly smitten with LA’s Dengue Fever. Sober Driver features clips from what sounds faintly like a Blaxploitation movie but probably isn’t, a rubbery guitar clearly up to skullduggery, and boy-girl vocals in the sense that a soft porn-sounding sexpot occasionally lets a abashed male sing too. Just when you think things can’t possibly get better, a saxophone starts playing. Stay tuned for more jizz by neo-jazz next week…
MP3s available to download via the song titles.
Smoke Fairies
Do you have some memories you keep locked in a box in your brain, only dwelling on them in soft, damp-eyed moments of vulnerability? The music of Smoke Fairies - aka the London duo of Jessica Davies and Katherine Blamire – is imbued with that same spirituality and raw intensity: theirs are aching, beautiful tunes that threaten to explode like fireworks such is the passion in them. The genre is a sort of gospel, folky blues, best listened to in a dimly-lit chamber rich with incense and red wine. Celtic influences add to the atmosphere, and the music gradually becomes a swirling river to float away on, a hypnotic dream the colour of seaweed or dewy grass. No wonder Jack White’s a fan.
Smoke Fairies are playing the Camden Crawl this year if you fancy checking them out live, and reckon you can keep it all together…
MySpace | Website | Buy
MP3: Smoke Fairies – Now The Green Blade Rises
Victoria & Jacob
You know that interlude between being asleep and waking up? If an alarm clock has its way this fuzzy period lasts only a few seconds, but otherwise it can stretch for minutes – a bleary, confused and cosy episode where you try and cling to your dreams. And here’s the perfect soundtrack for those slow mornings: Victoria & Jacob‘s blissful chill-out pop, combining electronic ripples and synthetic samples with earnest female vocals and a general bubble-bath atmosphere that makes everything a little easier. First Aid Kit, Imogen Heap, Lykke Li and Joanna Newsom are all echoed, but Victoria & Jacob went down an altogether trippier rabbit hole.
The London duo’s single With Certainty is due on 5 April via Voga Parochia - and the B-side is available below. Forthcoming gigs include The Flowerpot on Weds 17 March, There Goes The Fear‘s Blog Off night (more on this soon) at Roundhouse on Sat 20 March and a Pure Groove lunchtime in-store on Tues 6 April. Also worth checking out an interview on The Devil Has The Best Tuna – find out how Victoria’s previous singing style got her compared to Kate Nash. (Disclaimer: SOIWT like, totally hates Kate Nash)
MySpace | Website | Buy
MP3: Victoria & Jacob – There’s A War
The Do or Dies
When you look at it from afar, life’s a blurry series of disparate moments, random paces, ups and downs, drama after drama, with the occasional moment of peace, of blessed content. The Do or Dies‘ Maps & Plans is much like that: it’s various sections eventually leading to a blissful, dreamy crest, but they only last so long. Other songs by this emerging London quartet are just as enticing: Blast’s a ferris wheel of a tune, its rapid-fire vocals culminating in soaring highs, while Fools feels like a honeyed tragedy, like that sensation of crying at sad scenes in a film but having a good time doing it. In fact, on record at least, every Do or Dies track has the same slightly euphoric, saturated quality: one that encourages to you to close your eyes, sway your head and…
The above suggests that, live, they’re a lot rowdier. You can find out tomorrow night - The Do or Dies are once again playing Water Rats in support of Pickpockets & Skyrockets, with tickets here.
Proud’s Save 6 Music night
While desperately sad at the imminent closure of BBC 6 Music (everyone seems to be handling BBC Asian’s demise much better) – and the absence of a Sunday night spent listening to weird and wonderful Mexican flute rock or Japanese tango, of a radio station daring enough to play daring new music, and of non-cringeworthy live sets – SOIWT is a little over email petitions collecting signatures.
Praise be for Proud, then. The Camden stables venue has organised an impromptu ‘Save 6 Music’ night tomorrow (Wednesday), with live performances from the excellent Kitty, Daisy & Lewis and hip hopper Master Shortie. The bad news is that Joe Lean and the Jing Jang Jong will be there, but happily they’ll only be DJing, not making noxious racket as normal. The Maccabees, The Holloways and Ali Love will also take up deck duties, with more acts apparently to be announced. Rather than get names on paper, the evening pledges to raise awareness about the plight of “the most iconic radio station of our time”. You might argue that anyone who’d heard about the event would surely already be aware by default, but they probably mean in the bigger sense…
The Save 6 Music Facebook group has above 150,000 members now; it’s being run by modern culture’s cheerleaders-in-chief, Jon and Tracy Morter – they of last Christmas’ campaign to get Rage Against The Machine in the No. 1 spot. Mr Morter is clearly letting the fame get to him, though, as he’s also among tomorrow’s disk-jockeys. Meanwhile, poor Auntie’s received around 8,000 letters of outrage. People power is so clearly hip right now, but will Mark Thompson give a Beeb? Let’s hope so.
Proud says tickets will go fast, which probably means they won’t. But it’s worth booking now just in case. Try here. They total £5.50 and all profit goes to Shelter, the heroic homeless charity.