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Posts tagged Pocketbooks
Top 49 Songs of 2006: #19-10
25 years ago
in Best of 2006, MP3s
#19
Emmy The Great
‘Paper Trails’
Download MP3 (expired)
I’ve really tried to get into the music of Emmy the Great, but I can’t seem to do it. Maybe I’ve been hearing the wrong songs or something, but all of the tracks that I’ve picked up from various blogs haven’t done very much for me. All except this one anyway. It’s quite a feat for an artist I don’t particularly like to get to get a song in my top 20 songs of the year, but ‘Paper Trails’ somehow gets there. I can’t even tell you what it is that I like about it. Possibly the song itself, but it makes so little sense that it’s probably not. It could be her voice, but if it is, why don’t I like her other songs? It’s all very confusing really. Rest assured that this is a fine song though, and certainly worthy of it’s place here.
#18
Sky Larkin
‘Keepsakes’
Download MP3 (expired)
I wrote earlier on in the year that ‘Keepsakes’ was one of my favourite songs of the year, and the fact it’s made this list confirms that very little has changed. It’s not their most complex song, but it’s the one that I’ve enjoyed more than any of the others in the past year. There’s something a little creepy about the whole thing, but it’s mainly just an outlet for Katie’s increasingly powerful voice.
#17
Play Radio Play
‘Jello’
Download MP3 (expired)
Website
Myspace
The first time that I heard the early parts of ‘Jello’ I genuinely thought that I was listening to The Postal Service. Nearly everything comes across as uncannily similar: the song structure, the random electronic bits and the vocal is pretty much a perfect Gibbard. Of course, this leads to an ineviatble question of why I’m including a song so highly here if it’s just a rip-off of another band. I’m not even sure if I can answer that question entirely though. I just really like the song. It’s simplistic and some of the words are a little awkward, but it’s just incredibly catchy.
#16
The Light Footwork
‘Coastlines Are Landmines’
Download MP3 (expired)
The Light Footwork seemed to arrive entirely out of nowhere with an already perfected sound. Primarily the creative outlet for Jay Underwood and Becca Wilhelm, they combine the musical sounds of Beulah with the songwriting finesse of Stephen Malkmus. If I was putting together an album list for the year, there is no doubt that their debut release, ‘One State Two State’ would feature very highly, if not in the number one position. I don’t think I’ve played any other complete albums as consistantly in the past year. Anyway, ‘Coastlines Are Landmines’ is just one standout song on an incredible album.
#15
The Elected
‘It Was Love’
Download MP3 (expired)
“I’m still not a big fan of ‘Sun, Sun, Sun’, but this song is just about my favourite of any song that The Elected have put out. If there’s one thing Blake Sennett can do well, it’s sounding melancholy while doing his best Elliott Smith impression. An entirely depressing story about two people who stay together because they know no better (”I just put up with you / Kid, I stayed because you wouldn’t leave”). I don’t know if it’s supposed to be positive or not when Blake describes this time as “It was love / Or at least the closest I got”, but it certainly doesn’t seem that way even if it’s supposed to be.” – originally posted June 2.
#14
Pony Up!
‘What’s Free Is Yours’
Download MP3 (expired)
I discovered Pony Up! toward the end of the year, and have since obtained a lot of their material. To be perfectly honestly, a lot of it isn’t all that interesting to me. What is interesting to me though are perfect pop songs, and ‘What’s Free Is Yours’ certainly falls into that category. An upbeat song from a slightly bitter woman who is changing her perception of the past to make the guy she’s broken up with seem like the bad guy (“I don’t believe / you’d be here if you could / But then again / you never said you would / I make up promises you never made”). It’s this perfect capturing of the quirky little things that people do that allow Pony Up! to have some fantastic songs. They just need seeking out amongst all the rest.
#13
Pocketbooks
‘Cross The Line’
Download MP3 (expired)
“‘Cross the Line’ is the first song released from their new batch of recordings, and it’s easily cemented itself in place as one of my favourites of the year so far. Full of lovely imagery (it opens with “I’m asleep on a train on the Zone 2 boundary”) and basically continues as a back and forth conversation between the male and female vocalists. This takes on a nicely self-aware twist when she starts calling him on the honesty of his lyrics (”As a kid I would run through the fields and orchards” / “What about your hayfever though?” / “I’d climb the branches to the top” / “What, with your vertigo?” / “Look, I’m making all this up”). Extra points also have to be awarded for being the first song I’m aware of that actually slots in the term “Oyster card” without being entirely tacky.” – originally posted November 4.
#12
Beeches
‘Make Your Own Luck’
Download MP3 (expired)
Proclaimed as “a fucking excellent song” by at least one attendee gig Beeches played for AFoR a month ago, ‘Make Your Own Luck’ is my favourite song of theirs and one of the best I’ve heard this year. Musically it comes across as a crazy drunk person, jumping from energetic bursts of aggression to slowed down gentle parts and back again. Lyrically, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Essentially the story of man singing to his new step daughter after he met her mother at “the filming of Trisha” before they “married on Kilroy”. Of course, it’s all rather whimsical, but who can resist it when it leaps into high gear for the second time?
#11
Jenny Owen Youngs
‘Fuck Was I’
Download MP3 (expired)
Firmly a part of my “big in 2007″ list is Jenny Owen Youngs, something that was made stronger by a recent signing to Canadian indie label Nettwerk, who will be re-releasing her 2005 album ‘Batten The Hatches’ early next year. Despite initially being kind of indifferent to it, ‘Fuck Was I’ quickly became one of my favourite songs of the year. Pretty much the anthem of any breakup, mournfully looking back and asking “what the fuck was I thinking?” All sung by a wonderful voice with a gentle strings arrangement in the background, sad songs really don’t come much better than this.
#10
Born Ruffians
‘This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life’
Download MP3 (expired)
The world has been decidedly short of slacker anthems since the loss of Pavement, so a song like this from Canada’s Born Ruffians fills in the void perfectly. Two and a half loud, noisy minutes about the things the singer wants from life (a girl, nice car, a meaning to his life) while seemingly accepting that he’s too lazy to do anything about it. This certainly isn’t an epiphany song, more one that proclaims what will never be had. Making the whole thing rather a downer to be honest.
And with that we’re down to the final nine songs that make up best songs of 2006. In my opinion of course. If you read the blog regularly you can probably guess a few of the songs that will make up the top end of the chart, but hopefully there will be a couple of surprises in there too. Be sure to come back tomorrow to find out what they are.
October: The Leftovers
1Only three songs for the “leftovers” section this month. As we head toward the end of the year, the number of indie releases seems to wind down making finding new material a little harder than usual. Still, this brings the advantage of letting me go back over some of the great records I may have missed over the course of the year. Any recommendations for small albums that I may have missed over the past year?
MP3 Pocketbooks – Cross The Line (expired)
I first wrote about Pocketbooks more than four months ago and I still haven’t been able to find a picture of them in the time since. I’m starting to think they may not actually exist, or that they are cartoons like Gorillaz or something. Anyway, who cares what they look like when they throwing out top notch low-fi twee indie pop? ‘Cross the Line’ is the first song released from their new batch of recordings, and it’s easily cemented itself in place as one of my favourites of the year so far. Full of lovely imagery (it opens with “I’m asleep on a train on the Zone 2 boundary”) and basically continues as a back and forth conversation between the male and female vocalists. This takes on a nicely self-aware twist when she starts calling him on the honesty of his lyrics (“As a kid I would run through the fields and orchards” / “What about your hayfever though?” / “I’d climb the branches to the top” / “What, with your vertigo?” / “Look, I’m making all this up”). Extra points also have to be awarded for being the first song I’m aware of that actually slots in the term “Oyster card” without being entirely tacky.
MP3 Ben Folds – Such Great Heights (expired)
For the 57th cover of The Postal Service’s ‘Such Great Heights’, Ben Folds decides to take a stab at it. This was actually an in-studio radio performance so the production values aren’t really the highest, but it’s an interesting cover none the less. As it’s Ben Folds, obviously a piano plays a very heavy part in the preceedings, with him almost pounding the poor piano to death over the course of the four minutes. Which unfortunately leaves it feeling a little more overbearing than it should. Other than that, it’s a pretty straight up cover, aside from one odd changing of one of the lyrics to include the word “shit”. Which is just a tad jarring on first listening.
MP3 Via Audio – We Can Be Good
Via Audio are a New York indie pop band who have been making music for about three years but everything seems to be coming together for them now. Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie calls them his “new favourite band” and Jim Eno of Spoon liked them so much that he offered to produce their record. That record (‘Say Something’) is still in the mixing stage, but the band have made a couple of songs from it available on the internet. ‘We Can Be Good’ is my favourite of these. It’s a simple pop song about a girl trying to tell a guy that they would be great together. It’s full of lovely harmonies and some instrumentation that borders on precious. These guys will certainly be ones to watch over the next year or so to see what else they come up with.
I Control Music?
Well I probably don’t, but it’s certainly starting to feel that way. Over the past week or so, four of the unsigned artists I’ve written about on Another Form of Relief have signed pretty important record deals. I already mentioned Kate Nash signing to Universal. On top of that, we have Play Radio Play signing to Island, Jenny Owen Youngs signing to Nettwerk and Los Campesinos! signing to.. someone. Of course, my original comment was meant in jest and I have no delusions of grandeur about this place. I think it is somewhat indicitive that blogs in general are (as Frank Debarge would put it) the ‘tastemakers’ now. That or I just have an uncanny ability to write about those who will hit the big time anyway. Either way.
Pocketbooks
05 years ago
in MP3s
We’ve been way under quota with our delivery of lo-fi twee bands of late, and so in an attempt to correct this, I now present Pocketbooks. Pocketbooks are a new band from London, so new in fact that they don’t seem to have any pictures available anywhere. The band was originally made up of just one guy called Andy, but now consisting of five members as they move toward playing their first ever gig next month in Brixton.
These songs were all recorded when the band was just Andy, and while there is a little of the obvious Belle & Sebastian influence in there, Pocketbooks have a sound that pulls from a number of sources. The end result are precious sounding songs about the simple things, sung in an incredibly earnest way. There’s also a great little knack for pop culture references here too, something I always enjoy.
All of these songs are taken from the ‘Proofreading’ album, the whole album of which is downloadable from the Pocketbooks website.
MP3 Pocketbooks – Running Circles (expired)
MP3 Pocketbooks – Every Next Day Is A New Adventure (expired)
MP3 Pocketbooks – Every Good Time We Ever Had… (expired)
MP3 Pocketbooks – Close Your Eyes (expired)
MP3 Pocketbooks – The First World Record (expired)
