Archive for 2010
No preamble, no extended introduction and no off-topic tangeants. Just me (Tommy) telling you (my four man strong readership) that this track is worth a listen.
It’s called ‘Crown on the Ground’ by an artist called Sleigh Bells. I wouldn’t know where to start trying to genre this beast so I just won’t. There’s any number websites where you read the comments of pedantic elitists arguing about it. I will say that it features Derek (formerly of Metalcore giants Poison the Well) and Alexis Krauss who you might know as a school teacher from Brooklyn. It’s a departure from the easy listening/folk I’ve posted so far. A huge, over-amplified, distorted bass line and vocals reminiscent of MIA, Crown on the Ground would make for a gigantic club track.
Anyway, get onto it while you can still score some indie-cred and they’re not a household name. They’ve not got a CD out or even an EP yet the Internet is still frothing at the mouth over them. I guess I can’t disassociate myself from that since I’m writing about them this very second.
Enjoy.
Sleigh Bells – Crown on the Ground
http://sites.google.com/site/sounddoct/player.swf
(Best listened to loudly)
It struck me this afternoon that I’d not written about a local artist yet. Sure, my first post was about the middle east but they’re a band that hardly need a nudge towards success. They are all over it despite a complete disregard for self promotion. They may well have seen success much earlier than they did and probably wouldn’t have had to break up to blow up if they’d given even the slightest thought to marketing their music. Anyway, this isn’t about the middle east even though they’ve just done a live set full of new tracks for KCRW while at SXSW (segway be my name).
This is about Luke Webb. Luke is from the [Blue] Mountains and is like the Middle East in that he rules but didn’t strike while the iron is hot. His album has been out for about 6 months now though it took him a solid three years to get it written and recorded.
“If he’s so great, how come I’ve never heard of him?”
Good question. You haven’t heard of him because you’ve been sitting way too tight waiting for the next Shins album to come out. Far out, you love those guys a lot. I guess he’s had some small level of exposure. He’s played blackstump festival years ago and he recently won the Telstra National Songwriter’s competition. I bet you feel like an idiot now, getting all up in my face with your questions. Luke writes songs that can safely be called folk. Or country, maybe. I’m not sure. More clearcut country folk than alternative country/folk though. He writes pretty, simple, easy to listen to songs and he’s a stand up guy so if you want to get his new record it’s available from his myspace
Listen to Luke Webb’s Keep This Fire:
http://sites.google.com/site/sounddoct/player.swf
New Slang was a song by The Shins that was made famous in the film Garden State in this scene. Anyway, that’s the original version as sung by The Shins. There exists on youtube a cover of this song that may well be better than the original. Spliced in with it is a little bit of Coldplay’s Don’t Panic so make sure you watch until the end. They get some amazing sound, especially for a one take recording. Here it is:
I liked the first Tunng album. I mean, I bought the Tunng album and I listened to it a little bit. I guess I liked it the way I like lawn bowls; you’ll play it for a birthday party or at a bible study social and it’s heaps more fun barefoot on grass but once every few months is enough. You’ll tell your friends how much you enjoyed it but inside you know it was kind of boring. Maybe I’m being too hard on them. It was a pretty good album. Itunes tells me I gave it about 6 plays through. The single bullets though, well, that got a solid 19 listens.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
The Tallest Man on Earth can do no wrong. When once I would have said it was impossible for an acoustic song at sunset to come off as anything but horribly contrived I now know better. Swedish Kristian Matsson sings simple, acoustic (and ocassionally banjo) centric folk songs laced with lyrical genius. I guess he’s a little bit like Dylan but a more accessible Dylan.
The Wild Hunt is the title of Tallest Man’s second album and it’s due out on April 13. If I had actually heard it then I could give you a better assessment but I haven’t so this will be all guesswork. It’s the single best album to have come out ever, including all albums, since always and I say this without the use of hyperbole. And even if that’s not a true judgement, it’s still a blazing good record. Like Shallow Grave there’s not a song on their that isn’t a quality 3 minutes unto itself. As they say it’s ‘all killer, no filler’
Funnily enough I’m not going to stream a song from the album itself but a B-side that was released on the King of Spain single (the first single from the Wild Hunt). It’s called Where I Thought I Met The Angels. It’s would be the gentlest song by the TMOE were it not for the Daytrotter Session he recorded (which is also excellent).
The Tallest Man On Earth – Where I Thought I Met The Angels:
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Artists you need to know rn
| 1. 1300 |  |
316 |
| 2. Voidhood | |
259 | 3. jamesjamesjames | |
186 | 4. Zan | |
174 |
| 5. Sesame Girl | |
147 |
