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Archive for May, 2007

Dizzee Rascal: Maths + English

Published by

matt.

May 31, 2007 in house-special, grime-love and tunes. 3 Comments

So you wanna be a gangsta?

Dizzee!

Oh hell yes. Dizzee is BACK. Slightly older & focused like a friggin’ laser, Dizzee’s new LP, Maths + English, is currently kicking ass around here & taking names. I’ve had the chance to spin the record a few times now, and, post-shell shock, I must say… it is my favourite Rascal release by far.

It seems that Dizzee has shed most of the twitchy neurosis of Boy in da Corner, and is reinventing himself as a more upbeat centre of attention. Like the eye of a gaddam storm. There are definitely some party tracks on here - with Dizzee’s verses twisting in & out of big beats in a glorious fashion. Of course, it isn’t all great - there are a couple tracks that almost beg to be groaned at (I’m looking at you, Rick Rubin guitars at the end of ‘Sirens’ or the throw-away track ‘Suk my Dick’), but the hits definitely dispel the misses.

Plus, on top of it all, Dizzee Rascal + Lily Allen = love. The fact that Dizzee got Lily Allen out to lay down some lyrics for him is total gravy. As one of our favourite artists, we are constantly jonesing for more Lily & “Wanna Be” definitely satiates that appetite for another few months, at least.

So, go on & support the Rascal.

Definitely recommended for a summer-time grime-love affair.

mp3:
Dizzee Rascal - Bubbles.
Dizzee Rascal - Wanna Be (ft. Lily Allen).

[Maths + English will be released June 11th on Warner Records.]

Twilight Dance-Off: Lovefoxxx VS. the R-Tron!

Published by

matt.

May 31, 2007 in jangle-pop, videos, blip bloop and tunes. 1 Comment

Lovefoxxx (lead singer of post-ironic electronic rock band, CSS) has just posted a video that totally reminds me of a piece that pout contributor, local artiste & superspy extraordinaire arlie put out last year. which is awesome ‘cuz the concept is totally bad ass in the best ways possible. so, here at Pout HQ, we are hosting the official DANCE OFF between these two lovely ladies! here’s the pre-round summary:

similarities:
+ cute girls dancing!
+ low-budget camera work!
+ late 80’s/early 90’s get-ups!

differences:
- while arlie chose a classy slow hand motëm joint to groove to, lovefoxxx busts out the bloodhound gang’s discovery channel. which is both good & bad, i guess… but mostly bad.

with that outta the way, let’s have the videos speak for themselves! leave some words & tell us just who is your dancin’ queen!

the CSS Monkey Dance by Lovefoxxx:

VS.

arlie’s dancing tribute to david bowie:

oh, and remember to check out arlie’s other videos & her dA page!

Mirah and the Bug Orchestra (i.e. Spectratone International)

Published by

tyler

May 31, 2007 in bugs!, orchestrated, quirky french, conceptual and folk. 0 Comments

Mirah Yom Tov Zeitlyn

Concept albums are by nature few and far between. Everyone knows Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and my favourite was always Dredg’s El Cielo but it’s always been a noble risk considering how many artists try and fail.

Somehow using the full breadth of an album’s length, and the way it can shift in mood between songs (by the very way tracks tend to proceed), and then the foresight to thread each song together - this has always been to my taste, and I imagine that goes for anyone without a severe attentional disorder.

Mirah’s latest Share This Place: Stories and Observations (surprise, surprise), is just such an album, and what’s that? It will even assault its audience on a variety of sensory levels. Which is to say, it’s not just a musical adventure: it comes packaged and prepared to draw you into a full multi-media experience, with the short film Credo Cigalia (see it here) bundled alongside the album.

While the video is a bit meek, leaning more on the “Let’s get kids excited about BUGS!” mentality, the album is far from that. Share This Place is, on a large scale, a biological observation piece written in memory of Jean Henri Fabre. Jean Henri was an early-20th-century entomologist who somehow managed to synthesize biology with poetry and a love for life, especially the small and seemingly insignificant kind.

Mirah manages to capture Mr. Fabre’s essence by peering up at our gigantic world through the lens of a love-sick fly, a proud lightning-bug, a clever dung beetle… each tale such as these is delivered in the classic form of monologue, and grounded in such biological and psychological ideas as instinct, drive, passion and consciousness while remaining true to poetic form and aesthetic. Toss that with some quirky french instrumentals from the Spectratone International accompaniment and you’ve got both a work of art and a work riddled with deep ins-and-outs (ala arthropods!).

Share This Place is due for release August 7th from K Records. Mirah is also on tour with one of two stops North of the border you may just want to attend:
August 12th in Montreal @ La Sala Rossa
August 13th in Toronto @ Lee’s Palace

mp3:
My Prize
Love Song of the Fly

Godspeed You! But Don’t Forget The Small Fry.

Party People, You Ready for This?

Published by

matt.

May 30, 2007 in jangle-pop, blip bloop and tunes. 1 Comment

Skippin

A quick heads up: the Go! Team are poised and ready to unleash their follow-up to 2005’s unstoppable tour de force, Thunder Lightning Strike. The new LP, which is as-of-yet still untitled, will be released on September 10th via Memphis Industries. And like that first warning shot which signals the beginning of an epic siege, the band will be unleashing a CD-single for one of the album’s tracks (’Grip Like a Vice’, featured alongside an acapella version for those curious about what the hell they are sayin’) on July 2nd.

It has been a crazy couple years for the band (what with losing a member, gaining one, trying to get their albums out despite the lucrative numbers of samples, dealing with international indie stardom, etcetera), but if this promo single is any indication… they have taken it all in stride. Party people, represent!

mp3:
The Go! Team - Grip Like a Vice.
The Go! Team - Grip Like a Vice (Acapella).

Caribou’s Andorra is Replete With 60’s

Published by

mystery meat

May 30, 2007 in idm, 60s, psychedelia, jangle-pop, blip bloop and tunes. 0 Comments

Dan Snaith

IDM…. CHECK…
Caribou - Andorra, INITIALIZING…
60’s Psychedelia… BEGIN!

Unlike other IDM, Andorra, the 4th full-length from Ontario-born Dan Snaith, aka ex-Manitoba, aka Caribou, needs no slow-fade introduction. No weak-beat fruity-loopsy mayhem kitsch. This is straight up 60’s psychedelia in its looped, layered, and (probably) echoplexed fury. It is so 60’s it has backup vocals in the mix just to go “ohhh”, “ahhh”, “uhhh” - I mean really, this is the works.

Granted, Snaith will lament about the ladies through-and-through, catching rivers & streams, and even spiraling. I mean shit. Spiraling. Spirals are like soooo 1960’s - am I right? Dan is definitely following the same Brian Wilson-inspired pop ideology that has pushed his previous releases but it is now much more refined and cohesive. This is a must listen if you dig electronic-subterranean-pop-music. And who doesn’t?

Don’t forget the sleigh bells.

Andorra Stylez:
1. Melody Day (4:11)
2. Sandy (4:09)
3. After Hours (6:15)
4. She’s the One (3:59)
5. Desiree (4:12)
6. Eli (3:04)
7. Sundialing (4:40)
8. Irene (3:38)
9. Niobe (8:51)

Merge Records will be dropping the full-length on August 21st, 2007 with the first single being ‘Melody Day’. Prepare the lotions.

mp3:
Caribou - Melody Day.
Caribou - Eli.

While My Guitar Violently Bleeds: Impressions

Published by

tyler

May 29, 2007 in protean, psychedelia, worldly and tunes. 0 Comments

[Sir Richard Bishop image]

If it wasn’t for the guitar and the way it’s anchored on his knee, this photo could very easily be PR for the next best-selling self-help book, though it would be so very wrong to say Sir Richard lands among so many books to nourish his ego or as publicity; he’s carefully and well read, particularly on Eastern philosophy and Hindu mythology and his latest three-piece full-length While My Guitar Violently Bleeds reads like a spiritual journey; each song is an acoustic epilogue which in turn pays homage to a particular deity, state of mind, or Eastern transcendental yearning.

It would be hard to pin down an interpretation from my background, and so the best description I can muster up comes from an old essay written by Sir John Woodroffe in 1918:

“[T]he Sadhaka becomes more and more freed from the darkness of Samsara and is attached to nothing, hates nothing, is ashamed of nothing … and has freed himself of the artificial bonds of family, caste, and society. He becomes an Avadhuta, that is, one who has ‘washed off’ everything and has relinquished the world. Of these, as stated later, there are several classes. For him there is no rule of time or place. He becomes, like Shiva himself, a dweller in the cremation ground (Smashana).”

I can’t say for sure whether I’ve been enlightened yet, but the way he plays — termed “protean guitar” (which means literally “to constantly shift in form, meaning, style and shape”) — has an appeal entirely apart from that; it’s like self-help for the acoustic mind, and in a generation like ours so wrought with loop stations and Echoplexes, it has a certain something that can’t ever be duped by machines, and that something sounds delicious.

Sir Richard is finishing off the last of his tour with Animal Collective and Bonnie “Prince” Billy, and While My Guitar Violently Bleeds hits the streets June 19th from Locust Music. Also, there’s an interview with him here about the new record and other things (from the fine folks at Foxy Digitalis).

mp3:
Sir Richard Bishop - Mahavidya

The [Bird-Lovin’] North Sea

Published by

tyler

May 28, 2007 in free folk, folk and tunes. 0 Comments

Exquisite Idols

Does the name Brad Rose ring a bell?

Dubious if anything rings at all, save your ears; though, believe it or not he may be the most prolific man acting under the free folk guise today with his Digitalis Industries enterprise, and between sessions of label-bossing, wife-loving, and music journaling he managed to throw down some tracks for The North Sea’s first (and long overdue) proper release: Exquisite Idols.

My impression of Exquisite Idols was like a nostalgic kick-back, one with which I’ve had much less a novelty-affair than some of Brad’s other works. I guess I couldn’t get past wondering why the whole birds-in-front-of-the-mix gimmick hadn’t been cut. Is that.. the North Sea signature™?

This gimmick was one I’ll admit to being fond of right off, and I still like it when I go back and put on Underneath the Jesus Tree, but after using their resources to accompany the majority of one album already, what’s the point in sapping this already dry tree? All the birds seem to amount to is a background wash that ofttimes secludes the rest of the mix, something I diligently tolerated before, but now when I’d rather hear straight-up Brad Rose folking the guitar and vocals, well, there’s just birds.

birds

Fortunately the whole album isn’t spoiled like that, and there are a few gems to be found, just don’t expect much on the side of experimentation.

mp3:
Take it From Me Brother Moses (from Exquisite Idols)
Guiwenneth of the Green Grass (from Exquisite Idols)

The Chemical Brothers… Hit It or Quit It?

Published by

matt.

May 28, 2007 in blip bloop and tunes. 0 Comments

Oh, Chemical Brothers. I remember you! At a time where some of my most played tracks are coming from the likes of Justice and electronic acts who pretty much bleed references to the 90’s electroscene, the Chemical Brothers have found themselves in a place of respectable seniority. And, sure, they deserve most of that respect. Alongside other UK trendsetters in the ’90s (ie. Meat Beat Manifesto, the Prodigy, Propellerheads, et al.), the Brothers helped define the genre of big beat (later redubbed ‘electronica’) and made some pretty hot tracks in the process.

In the interim between their 90’s glory days and now, the Brothers haven’t quite given up. A few mediocre LPs have dropped but they continue to play live sets at the likes of the Coachella Festival and in places like Belgrade and Prague. And now, in 2007, they can add another awkwardly named full length to their name: We are the Night.

Don’t ask me where the name comes from. Does anything on the album hint at them actually personifying “night-time”? If you discount the title track that repeats “we are the night” like 200 times… Not really. Does the album contain anything as banging as ye olde Block Rockin’ Beats? Yeah, not really.

But! What we are left with is a Brothers that is simultaneously much bizarre and much more kitsch than ever before. There are definitely some highlights here. And yes, the single (’Do It Again’) is pretty much the weakest track on the album.

For instance, check out ‘Battle Scars’ and you can almost hear the silliness of Art of Noise being cited in having young Willy Mason do his thing over an off-kilter xylophone beat. Or spin ‘the Salmon Song’ which features a conversation between an MC (Fatlip) and… you guessed it… Sammy the Salmon. Fishy.

In the end, I am actually pleasantly surprised with We are the Night. It would be a lie to say that I wasn’t prepared to mourn the Brothers and politely ask them to leave the horse alone. But the album is quirky and, while it isn’t as cohesively awesome as some of the young imitators currently on-scene or even their own earlier work, I definitely appreciate it dropping.

Keep on peddling, Brothers.

We are the Night will be released on June 21, 2007 on Astralwerks Records. In the meantime, check out their official site for more information.

mp3:
The Chemical Brothers: Battle Scars (ft. Willy Mason)
The Chemical Brothers: The Salmon Dance (ft. Fatlip)

All Together Now: “Nobody Likes Us”

Published by

matt.

May 25, 2007 in montreal, 'real' indie 'rock', jangle-pop and tunes. 0 Comments

Can I hear it for Wolf Parade?! {yeah!!!}

Can I hear it for the Sunset Rubbbbbbbdown?! {yeah!}

Can I hear it for the Handsome Furs?! {umm… yeah?}

Can I hear it for Dan Boeckner?! {waitaminute-who?}

the Handsome Furs.

So, Dan probably hasn’t achieved the notoriety he deserves. While all of Spencer (co-singer of the now infamous Wolf Parade) Krug’s side-projects get widely discussed (just google early Frog Eyes, Sunset Rubdown or Swan Lake), poor Dan gets disparagingly overlooked. Hell, even Boeckner himself is all, “[the Handsome Furs are] basically Wolf Parade without the guy that everybody likes and no real instruments” (see the full interview over at p-fork).

So, just who are the Handsome Furs and Dan Boeckner? Well. Let me tell you. Dan Boeckner is one of the singer/guitarists for Wolf Parade. More specifically, he is the one with the awesome voice that warbles all over the place. Honestly, without his vocals, I don’t think Wolf Parade would be 1/10th as compelling as they are. Fact.

The Handsome Furs are Dan and his fiancée, Alexei Perry. They have just released an album on Tuesday entitled Plague Park through Sub Pop Records. I must say, while the album is much more low key than Dan’s work with the Parade, it is surprisingly haunting & captivating. Definitely recommended.

mp3:
Handsome Furs - What We Had
Handsome Furs - Snakes on a Ladder

Where Has Neutral Milk Hotel Gone? (read: AHAAH)

Published by

tyler

May 25, 2007 in fuzz, folk, worldly and tunes. 2 Comments

Well, to be frank, no one really knows. They’ve taken what may very well be a permanent hiatus after Jeff Mangum disappeared, and the last known project of Jeff’s rang loudly when a buzz echoed from the humid chambers of the Elephant 6 forums, it seems there was a post there radiating some sort of pure Mangum-extract and everyone was ready to rejoice until it turned out to just be fraudulent gossip (with a dash of crushed hopes). His last semi-pressed release was in the form of ambient field recordings of a Bulgarian folk festival (ala the Orange Twin Field Works: Volume I), but that is more than half a decade since passed, and less than successful as there never was a Volume II to speak of.

All other ex-members seem to be doing their own things, most notably, Jeremy Barnes who walks the footsteps of a modern day minstrel, calling himself: A Hawk and a Hacksaw.

There’s something about strapping each of your limbs to some sound-making apparatus, then flailing them, and still managing to garner a coherent sound that is both mildly amusing and awe-inspiring.

With their obvious worldly influences in Eastern-European folk music it may then come as no surprise to hear that they’ve managed to team up with a handful of Hungarian folk musicians straight out of a local Budapest music shop, calling themselves the Hun Hangar Ensemble. The EP (A Hawk and a Hacksaw - And The Hun Hangar Ensemble) just hit shelves this month and is selling in “very limited quantities”.

I get a warm feeling of ambiance whenever I listen to the EP: a quality that really suits the sound, and has gone entirely missing from their other recordings.

mp3:
Dudanotak