Music to drink tea by
Archive for August, 2009
The Pete Green corporate juggernaut rolls on
22 years ago
in MP3s
Myspace gets a lot of hate these days. Deservedly so in most cases. It had it’s moment, but now seems to be entirely populated by 14 year girls and bands while everyone else has pissed off to Facebook. It takes a special kind of hate to actually pen and record an entire song about it though. Which is exactly what Pete Green has done.
Pete Green makes acoustic pop music. Best of all, he makes music that is actually about something. Whether that something is a hatred of Myspace, attacking the NME or odes to Grimsby Town footballers, it’s not your run of the mill pop material. These days he plays with a full band live (The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut), but I didn’t get in to the church at Indietracks to see his set. Whether or not a band adds anything to these songs I don’t know, but it would take a lot to top the simple man and his guitar sound that suits awfully well.
You know the one problem when a band doesn’t have a Myspace page? It makes it bloody hard for a blogger to find a decent picture of them to use.
MP3 Pete Green – I Haven’t Got A Myspace Because Myspace Fucking Sucks
MP3 Pete Green – Best British Band Supported by Shockwaves
MP3 Pete Green – Best British Band Supported by Shockwaves
The Platform Zero EP is out now on Lostmusic Records
Website / Myspace / Twitter
—
It seems an apt time to mention that I will shortly be closing down the Another Form of Relief Myspace page. Times have changed, and while it was once a handy method to get in touch with bands, it’s now something I merely glance at every few months. So it’s largely a waste of a band’s time to add me there, as odds are, I’m not actually paying any attention. A full range of alternative contact methods can be found on our About page.
I should probably mention that I have one of those newfangled Twitter things too, shouldn’t I?
Stricken City sing songs about people they know
02 years ago
in MP3s
I’m not usually one for this indie-dance nonsense. Not because I have anything against it. I’m just not into the whole electronic kind of sound. To me, it’s hardly dance music unless it contains handclaps, but that’s a different matter. Still, the sweet spot where indie and dance collide seems to be very “in” these days. At least that’s what I gather from “the kids”.
Every now and again, a band will come along that does it in a way I actually like. I first covered Stricken City on here a year ago when their brilliant Tak o Tak was doing the rounds. I half expected it to be a one-off though, and for the band to go on and become huge while never making much else I’d actually like. Now they’ve only gone and popped up with Pull the House Down to prove me wrong. It’s a little slower and a little looser, and with their first US release coming up, will likely get them a little closer to becoming massive.
Songs About People I Know will be released on October 12 by Pure Groove.
The Mountain Goats: Banished from the Garden of Eden; forced to work land
02 years ago
in MP3s
If there’s one thing that’ll quickly turn me off of something, it’s the influence of religion upon it. So reading about The Mountain Goats’ new album The Life of the World to Come was a little worrying given every song is named after a Bible verse. Other than the awesome sounding Deuteronomy 2:10, it didn’t exact get me excited about the album. Which is a shame, as I’ve adored virtually every previous release. Thankfully John Darnielle reassured somewhat with this posting on his website:
I guess the obvious question is going to be: “John, have you had some sort of religious awakening?” and while I guess lots of people might want to be coy about answering that, that’s never really been my style, so: no. It’s not like that. It’s not some heavy-narrative-distance deal either, though, and it’s not a screed. It’s twelve new songs: twelve hard lessons the Bible taught me, kind of. More than that I’d want to wait to say until some people have heard it, which won’t be long.
So I suppose I’m now wary but not put off. Although if I’m honest, I don’t love Genesis 3:23, the first song made available from it. It has the usual beautiful imagery (which has always been Darnielle’s primary talent), but it all feels rather lighter than it should. This is probably down to the addition of the organ, but it gives the song a jaunty step that it doesn’t really need.
It’s certainly not bad. Indeed, I’m not sure The Mountain Goats are actually capable of putting up poor material. Odds are, even if the album is of this calibre, it’ll still end up being one of my albums of the year. Perhaps I’m just setting the bar too high. But when your back catalogue includes No Children, This Year and The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton, I suppose that’s to be expected.
The Life of the World to Come will be released on October 6 via 4AD. The Mountain Goats will play a stripped down show (just John and his guitar) on October 10 at the Southbank Centre in London. Of course, this is the same evening I’ll be at An Evening With Kevin Smith at the O2. Bloody typical.
Website / Myspace / Twitter
Allo, Darlin’ do dance; seek answer to love from Stephen Hawking
02 years ago
in MP3s
There are few songs that manage to put a giant grin on my face as I listen to them. Allo, Darlin’ have managed to do that with two of the three songs on their latest EP. It’s worth bearing in mind that I haven’t even heard the third song.
Title track Henry Rollins Don’t Dance (live video) could well end up being the indiepop song of the year. The relatively simple setup of a Grease soundtrack loving girl and a punk-rocker boy in a club could easily fill the song in itself. Somehow though it manages to descend into an absurd scene of Henry Rollins shaking his fist at Abba at a disco. That it has brass, what sounds like ukuleles and manages to segue into some of You’re the One That I Want is nothing short of spectacular.
Dear Stephen Hawking is rather more restrained, but no less interesting. Starting off as what sounds like a vaguely stalkerish tale about the theoretical physicist’s love life that even our narrator admits sounds “obsessive”. It develops into a plea for him to use his impressive mind to calculate the science behind love. As concepts for two and a half minute pop songs go, it’s certainly unique.
The wonderful Henry Rollins Don’t Dance EP is out now on WeePOP!, possibly the nicest label about.
God Help the Go Away Birds
02 years ago
in MP3s
By far the most interesting elements on the God Help The Girl record earlier this year were the vocals from Catherine Ireton. Her crisp, emotive vocals gave life to the character of Eve throughout the story. Encouraged to find some more of her work, I came upon The Go Away Birds.
I can’t really tell if the band is a main project or just something on the side, but they do have two EPs out, both of which are available for free. The band is a two piece made up of Ireton and Michael John McCarthy, and apparently they have enough songs to put out “an EP each season for the next 8 years or so.”
Which is fantastic news given how good the first two are. While taking a far more laid back acoustic tack to the songs, Ireton’s vocals are still the star of the proceedings. She just has an uncanny ability to put across feeling even without the words themselves. If these songs were in a foreign language, the basic underpinnings of them could still be understood. She’s regretful, vulnerable, terse or whatever else the songs require of her. There’s a hell of a lot of talent here, and these songs feel like just the beginning.
Sundays is available for download from the band’s website in exchange for your email address. Previous EP Bells is available on a nicely hidden page of the same site.
The Da Vincis: Terrible name, excellent band
22 years ago
in MP3s
This is going to happen more and more as I get older, isn’t it? Yet another extraordinarily talented band who are younger than me. Much younger. They all have the best part of a decade on me, which is bloody scary. Yet despite my default setting of hating them for that very reason, I can’t because they are so good.
Part of what makes The Da Vincis interesting is how they seem to have not grown up with the standard indie influences shaping their sound. These aren’t kids that grew up with Nirvana or even Pavement. This is a band that whose tastes seem to lie in 60s lounges, crooners from the good ol’ days, and little quirks that may go back further still. There’s a modern sound in here too, but it takes a backseat to nostalgia to a time when they weren’t even born.
If I have just one quibble, it’s the name. ‘The’ bands are finally going out of fashion, and the ‘Da Vinci’ part just recalls shitty Dan Brown novels at this point. It doesn’t just doesn’t suit at all. Maybe that’s the point though. Through our expectations from the start.
See You Tonight is out now via Olympic Records. How on earth did no one name their label that sooner?
Website / Myspace / Twitter
Covers: 8-bit versions of Weezer
0
The 8-bit Album is the kind of project that I’d usually ignore. I’m not really a fan of entire compilations of covers or remixes, even if it’s of one of my favourite bands by a bunch of bands I’ve never heard of. And if that wouldn’t put me off, this almost certainly would:
“The songs on this compilation have mostly been created using original videogame hardware running home-brew software, and vary radically in style, from minimal ‘one man and his Game Boy’ compositions to 8-bit inspired full band performances.”
I only listened to one song from this as I was under the impression it was a remix, but then I started to explore the others. And you know what? It’s bloody excellent. It’s exactly what it’s described as. Weezer covers that sound like they were put together on a Game Boy. It’s not all perfect, with the compilation having a few more purely instrumental covers that I’d ideally like, but it’s a minor quibble. It’s more hit than miss, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
The entire 14 song 8-bit Album is available now as a free download from Pterodactyl Squad.
Cover: The School do The Left Banke
4
One of the lovely things about indiepop is how timeless much of it is. At times it’s difficult to assess exactly when a song comes from just by listening to it. Case in point is The School’s cover of The Left Banke’s And Suddenly. Now obviously if you’re already familiar with The Left Banke, this exercise is rendered rather meaningless. I knew the song was a cover from when the band played it at Indietracks, but I had no idea it dated back to 1967. A song 42 years old that sounds like it could one of The School’s own creations.
Searching For The Now 6 is out now on Slumberland Records. Vinyl only, of course.
Copy Haho are bred for skills, magic and one last dash
12 years ago
in MP3s
Something very odd is happening at the BBC. It seems that good bands are actually getting airplay on their stations, up to and including Radio 1. As someone whose relationship with Radio 1 (and radio for that matter) ended around the turn of the century, this takes me somewhat by surprise. It seems a shame that it’s only starting to happen now that nobody listens to the radio. Such is life though.
Copy Haho, those lovely people from Stonehaven, recorded a session for Radio 1 back in May. Now, out of the goodness of their hearts, they’ve made one whole song available from it. The Last Dash, the original version of which appears on their Bred For Skills & Magic EP is a rip-roaring little jaunt that cements the band as the closest thing we’ve got to Pavement at the moment. It’s loose, fast and playful, and gets me really excited about the prospect of an album.
The Bred For Skills & Magic EP was released at the start of the year on Big Scary Monsters.
The Sky Drops swim with the fishes
02 years ago
in MP3s
Wow, apparently it’s been over three years since I covered The Sky Drops. How time flies when you’re blogging. I actually hadn’t heard anything by them in a good long while, so hearing Swimming with Fishes brought it all flooding back. Nothing seems to have really changed with The Sky Drops formula. They are still a band that clearly likes their shoegaze. There is one critical difference though; they’ve got really bloody good at what they do.
Like all good shoegaze, the fuzzy guitars are the stars here, bleeding all over the track like a shot hobo on a railway line. Muted vocals hold it all together, but they never make the mistake of being too drowned out. The balance is just about as perfect as you can get. Now, to be clear, there was nothing wrong with The Sky Drops those three years ago. But this just sounds so much assured. This isn’t the sound of a new band any longer. It’s the sound of a band that knows exactly what they want to be.
Bourgeois Beat will be self-released by the band on August 11. Which just happens to be tomorrow, pop fans.
