PORTASTUDIO
SUMMERLIST/
Soundcheck: Set 01
PORTASTUDIO
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Efterklang - Magic Chairs (2010)
*I Proud To Recommended!!!*
We have been working on the album since January 2009 and we have played and tested several of the new songs on the road throughout the year on our different tours. We recorded the album in Feedback Recording studio in Århus and in Black Tornado, STC Studio and our own studio (all three) in Copenhagen. The record is mixed by our new friend Gareth Jones (Depeche Mode, Nick Cave & Grizzly Bear) and I think we dare to say that we are very proud of it!
Magic Chairs is our first album on our new home 4AD. This fine and legendary label will release Magic Chairs across the globe except for Scandinavia where we will release the album on our own Rumraket label.
Magic Chairs is our first album on our new home 4AD. This fine and legendary label will release Magic Chairs across the globe except for Scandinavia where we will release the album on our own Rumraket label.
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Hindi Zahra is sounding like the musical child of Django Rheinhardt and Billie Holiday, the Paris-based Hindi is a captivating musician. Her song “Beautiful Tango” is a revelation—simple yet sophisticated, sparse yet emotive. It’s fresh even while it reverberates with history. This style continues in “Oursoul” and “Try.” A touch of hip-hop and soul influence, retaining the simple, downbeat understatement of her other songs while adding an almost ethereal quality. Somewhere between her Moroccan roots and her life in Paris, singer-songwriter Hindi Zahra lost track of her many musical influences: the result is a mesmerizing elemental folk, a desert blues with african/american music. The gorgeous tunes of Moroccan/French singer Hindi Zahra (new album = Hand Made) arrived in our inbox a couple of weeks ago, and wow – what a welcome surprise! The unusual old time World music influences mixed with a subtle pop sensibility lend themselves beautifully to create an album of warmth and intrigue.
* * * * * * * * *
it would be easy, almost too easy, to categorise chew lips as electro pop. the temptation would certainly be there - two guys (james watkins and will sanderson) on all manner of synths and keyboards. one girl, the superlatively monikered and golden throated frontwoman tigs. it would be easy, but all too wrong. their early (sold out) singles on kitsune, ‘salt air’ and ‘solo’ pointed to a band more interested in mining more unconventional (though no less infectious) terrain, while their raucous live gigs had all the energy and vigour of vintage punk rock shows, with tigs clambering up on equipment, writhing on floors and sashaying through crowds as she dazzled them into submission. their debut, dave kosten produced album ‘unicorn’ is pop, no doubt about it, but not pop as you know it. there are far too many quirks here, too many human idiosyncrasies, too many rough edges, to fit neat neatly into any preconceived box. spectral opener ‘eight’ for instance, wafts in on a ghostly breeze of synth washes and shimmering keyboards and little else, with the beats only kicking in halfway through, along with tigs’ eerie refrain of “a high speed chase on a wedding day / give and take it’s all the same”. ‘karen’, meanwhile, seems like a solid gold pop hit on the exterior, until you find out tigs is actually singing about the short and tragic life of karen carpenter. indeed, for every classic-in-waiting like ‘slick’ (imagine chrissie hynde whirling dervishly around a discoball and you’d be somewhere close), there’s a startling leftfield manoeuvre like ‘gold key’, which relocates them in a very modern mesh of seesawing keyboards and wailing guitars, and contains possibly tigs’ most emotive vocal, crying ‘the time has come…they’re playing with guns’ as if begging for salvation.
so, chew lips then. an altogether different - and exciting - proposition for 2010. a gloriously off-kilter take on pop, with some wayward electronic elements. a brilliant new band with ambition and talent to burn and an iconic frontwoman in waiting. and, with ‘unicorn’, quite possibly the best future classic pop album of next year.-Roughtrade
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Shout Out Louds – Work (2010)
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*I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Following Guillemots 2008 album ‘Red’, mercurial singer-songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield has used the window of time created to spread his wings and lovingly record his beautiful debut solo album ‘Fly Yellow Moon’,.
‘Fly Yellow Moon’ is written entirely by Fyfe and produced by Adam Noble in Urchin Studios, London the same studios where Guillemots recorded their first classic E.P. ‘I Saw Such Things In My Sleep’. The 10-track record startles from start to finish, magnificently eclectic, warm and uplifting, haunting and melodic it sounds like a classic upon its first listen.
Opening track ‘When You Walk In The Room’ (Free digitally track out November 9th) strikes the perfect chord for the following nine sublime tracks, capturing Fyfe’s truly remarkable voice, while flaunting his daring, expansive and mystical songwriting.
The record flows with highlights including from the beautiful ‘So Brand New’, the joyous ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’ to the scintillating ‘She Needs Me’ (First single out January 11th) and the stunningly reflective ‘Don’t Be Shy’.
Fyfe recorded the album in five days in what he describes as ‘the best ever little studio’, which ended up being the happiest days he has ever spent in studio land. The songs were written over a 12-month period in snatched moments after soundchecks, before nights out, and after moments of unmitigated lovestruck bliss.
He met up with Bernard Butler to mix a couple of songs (‘She Needs Me’, ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’) on a 1960s-mixing desk to colour the record in a different shade. The rest of the tracks remained just as
they were from their first recording session. “It often sounded best this way, says Fyfe. “Capturing the moment they were recorded and not being painted over too much.”
“A good time was had by all,” notes Fyfe, and we hope you do too!
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*I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Owen Pallett (born Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright, on September 7, 1979) is a violinist and singer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and winner of the inaugural Polaris Music Prize. On December 18th, 2009, Pallett announced that he would be retiring his old artist name, Final Fantasy, and would be henceforth releasing his material under his own name. Previous albums released under the Final Fantasy name are planned to be re-packaged and re-released under the new name of Owen Pallett.
Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a sampler controlled by foot pedals, which then loops back one or more of the previously played musical phrases as he plays additional parts simultaneously. He has also performed with more traditional string quartets as backing musicians.
He believes his work is somewhat influenced by his sexuality, saying “As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I’m gay, but that doesn’t mean I’m making music about it.” in a recent interview.
“I’m taking a cue from Joel Gibb,” he begins. “He and I are very different people, and we’re very different in terms of the way we’ve assessed our sexual identities, but one thing I really respect about him is that his music has less to do with his identity and more to do with the more interesting aspects of himself.” He states in an earlier interview in Toronto’s NOW Magazine concerning his sexual identity and its use in his music.
On 12 February 2005, his debut album, Final Fantasy Has A Good Home, was released by the recording club Blocks (sometimes referred to as ‘BlocksBlocksBlocks’), a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a member. A second album is entitled “He Poos Clouds”, and inspiration for the songs are based on the eight schools of magic used for Dungeons & Dragons and how they relate to modern times. It is released under Tomlab.
His previous projects included a 3-piece Toronto-based band, Les Mouches, now defunct. He is still a member of another Toronto band called Picastro. Owen has also recorded and toured with The Hidden Cameras and Arcade Fire. One of his songs, “This Is the Dream of Win & Regine”, was inspired by the principal members of the latter group, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, and a Dntel song of a similar name ((This is) The Dream of Evan & Chan). Owen also co-wrote the orchestral arrangements for both of Arcade Fire’s albums, along with Régine Chassagne.
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Described by songwriter Stephin Merritt as “my folk album”, the instrumentation of Realism is largely acoustic, stark in contrast to the band’s previous album, Distortion, released in 2008. Merritt said he “thought of the two records as a pair” and considered titling the albums True and False; ultimately, he couldn’t decide which title would correspond with which album. The song “The Dada Polka” is the only track to utilize an electric guitar. Merritt also avoided using a traditional drum kit, further separating the sound of Realism from the noise pop of Distortion. Along with Distortion and the 2004 album i, Realism was also recorded without the use of synthesizers, completing the band’s “no-synth trilogy”. —— The Magnetic Fields’ Realism will be released by Nonesuch Records on January 26, 2010. The band’s ninth album is the follow-up to 2008’s Distortion, which was hailed by Rolling Stone as “one of the best records of [their] career.” Whereas Distortion was an album of power-pop songs with heavily distorted guitars, in homage to the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, Realism finds front man and songwriter Stephin Merritt drawing inspiration from late 1960s / early 70s orchestral and psychedelic folk. Realism’s all-acoustic recording line up featured no electronic instruments, and used nontraditional percussion instruments, ranging from tabla to tree leaves. The Magnetic Fields will tour the US in support of the album beginning February 4. The complete list of dates can be found below and at nonesuch.com/on-tour. As the album title implies, Realism finds Merritt examining what “real” really means in recorded music, exploring the sincerity (or lack thereof) of folk lyrics and their delivery, along with non-electronic instrumentation, “realistic” production values, and even a plain brown paper sack background used for the album’s artwork. In addition to the usual ensemble of Merritt on ukulele, Claudia Gonson (keyboard, vocals), John Woo (guitar), and Sam Davol (cello), and Shirley Simms (vocals, autoharp), The Magnetic Fields are joined by friends and longtime collaborators Daniel Handler, a.k.a Lemony Snicket (accordion), as well as Johnny Blood (tuba) and Ida Pearle (violin).
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The album starts out well with the frenetically paced, high-energy ‘The Way My Heart Beats,’ but the momentum created by it is lost by their strange choice to put their slowest song, ‘Everything You Do’ right after it. This is probably my least favorite song on the album, mostly because it doesn’t showcase the things Good Shoes is best at: energy and rhythm. Luckily, they seem to realize this and they pick things up again with ‘I Know,’ one of the highlights of the album. It combines a great guitar riff with a steady drumbeat and some of their most political lyrics: “You should learn to protest and learn to question everything you’re told / I think if there’s a day of judgement then our leaders will be first against the wall.”
Next up is stellar single ‘Under Control,’ which they follow with two of their best songs, ‘Do You Remember’ and ‘Our Loving Mother in a Pink Diamond.’ This part of the album is where they really get into the groove: the songs are intricate and fun. The next few songs are perfectly fine, but don’t have that extra spark. They’re all variations on the same theme: how things used to be so much better, and now there’s ‘No Hope, No Future’.
They save my personal favorite for last. ‘City by the Sea’ is a slower, more melodic song. It’s like the cool-down track after the workout they give you with the rest of the album. Where this track really stands out for me is in its lyrics. While the strength of most Good Shoes songs is in the music and not the lyrics, this track verges on the poetic: “All I want is a little more time to feel your heartbeat next to mine”.
In all, ‘No Hope, No Future’ doesn’t quite live up to the band’s potential. The album has its moments of genius, but these mainly come when they don’t try so hard. They really shine when they let themselves stray from their formula of disillusioned lyrics over a driving beat and intricate guitars. That said, if you’re just looking for a fun, energetic album to listen to, but don’t need anything game-changing, then this is the album for you.
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Formed in 1995 by three former school friends under the influence of the so-called indie/wave era - is the german incarnation of the shoegazer generation.
Luis Dubuc, the one man electro-tinged act alternatively known as The Secret Handshake, is back with his second full-length for Triple Crown.
For me, My Name Up in Lights seems like a make-or-break album for The Secret Handshake. His debut, One Full Year, was nothing Earth-shattering, but nonetheless contained moments that even someone like myself, with tastes more rooted in '90s indie-rock than anything else, found charming. There's no doubt that it exuded a bit of immaturity, but offered some reasons for optimism, with tracks like the slow-burning "Midnight Movie," on which the often-reviled vocoder effects added a sinewy texture to Dubuc's vocal, and ironically, seemed to inject more emotion into the song than his voice alone would have done. In short, that album exhibited that all-important potential, but left plenty of room for growth.
For those with similar thoughts on the debut, who thought that My Name Up in Lights might actually be a solid electro-pop offering, I'm sorry to say that it's not that at all. There are, indeed, songs that aren't bad on their own, but as a whole, the album has some major flaws that run through it, pretty much ruining its enjoyability. For one, the vocal performances leave a lot to be desired and are occasionally cringe-worthy. It's not the Auto-tune-- as I stated before, this has been a positive factor in some of his songs before-- but the fact that he sounds unpolished and ill at ease behind the microphone. Frankly, Dubuc has a stiff vocal quality and uses awkward enunciations and accentuations, similar to what hinders singers like Shaant Hacikyan, Seth Trotter (The Higher) and Andrew de Torres (Danger Radio), and it's something that the Auto-tune simply can't hide. If the tweener girl demographic is what you're aiming for, this appears to be the way to go, but while they shake their asses, the rest of us are just going to shake our heads.
Secondly, Dubuc seems to have regressed as a lyricist, focusing more on schoolboy crush songs than on anything with real substance. Since the guy is happily in a relationship now, it's understandable that these songs would lean toward the happier side, but they're also sophomoric, such that anyone past, say, tenth grade would find them cheesy at best. Just a note to those young guys hearing stuff like "Little Song" ("I wanna write the soundtrack to your life and live it with you"), and "Saturday" ("You thought we were just friends, but all this time, I had plans to make you more, maybe be my girlfriend"): acting this bubbly around girls is not smooth and will not get you laid. You'll just look like a loser.
On a positive note, Dubuc does a solid job of writing catchy pop melodies, and on the whole, they sound pretty good musically. Case in point are the two strongest songs on the album, "What's Wrong" and "Hey Girl," which surprisingly were not among the songs exposed to the masses prior to the release, as they would seem to be the most marketable. The former is a mid-80's-styled pop number that generally avoids the missteps found on the rest of the album, while the latter is equally catchy, but is also indicative of the fact that Dubuc showed up for class during Pop Music Cliches 101 ("I don't want to be your lover, if you don't want to be my friend"), though admittedly, it sounds like something that would be covered on American Idol, a compliment I guess, considering the style of music.
I'll only comment briefly on how discouraged I am that, on the press release, Dubuc claims that the '90s are a major influence on this record, as that decade produced some amazing music, both underground and mainstream, and My Name Up in Lights simply doesn't measure up with even the least memorable albums of that era. Perhaps the press release also offered some insight as to why that is: Dubuc says, "I didn't want anyone else to have input. I wanted to just do it. No one could stop me from doing anything." I can't deny Dubuc's ability to arrange a pop song, but he might want to question his career as a frontman. Had someone else written lyrics for and sung these songs, something quite a bit better might have resulted. As it stands, My Name Up in Lights has a few moments of relative brilliance, but mostly disappoints.
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A Rocket to the Moon - On Your Side (2009)
*If you're fan of Owl City, I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Braintree, Massachusetts emo pop quartet A Rocket to the Moon is the brainchild of frontman Nick Santino. Santino’s palatable voice is boyish and melodramatic but he can also croon with a defenseless timbre that’s more believable and honest sounding than many of his musical peers. If he sang slightly less emotively on the opening “Annabelle,” the tune would be a straight up power-pop number in the spirit of Weezer or Fountains Of Wayne. By the chorus of “Mr. Right” it’s evident that this guy can write a memorable song with honed hooks that grapple on barbs of confidence. Even the more overtly sappy moments like the upbeat ballad “On a Lonely Night” divert attention from the lyrics with tastefully chosen/played instruments and arrangements — a subtle slide guitar compliments the solos here and Australian singer/songwriter Caitlin Harnett’s hayseed harmonies are sweet on the ears. The romantic title track bookends the album with alluring piano notes that nicely contrast with more complicated vocal phrasing, ending on a tone that’s more dusky than sunny.
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Hindi Zahra - Handmade (2010)
Hindi Zahra is sounding like the musical child of Django Rheinhardt and Billie Holiday, the Paris-based Hindi is a captivating musician. Her song “Beautiful Tango” is a revelation—simple yet sophisticated, sparse yet emotive. It’s fresh even while it reverberates with history. This style continues in “Oursoul” and “Try.” A touch of hip-hop and soul influence, retaining the simple, downbeat understatement of her other songs while adding an almost ethereal quality. Somewhere between her Moroccan roots and her life in Paris, singer-songwriter Hindi Zahra lost track of her many musical influences: the result is a mesmerizing elemental folk, a desert blues with african/american music. The gorgeous tunes of Moroccan/French singer Hindi Zahra (new album = Hand Made) arrived in our inbox a couple of weeks ago, and wow – what a welcome surprise! The unusual old time World music influences mixed with a subtle pop sensibility lend themselves beautifully to create an album of warmth and intrigue.
* * * * * * * * *
Chew Lips – Unicorn (2010)
it would be easy, almost too easy, to categorise chew lips as electro pop. the temptation would certainly be there - two guys (james watkins and will sanderson) on all manner of synths and keyboards. one girl, the superlatively monikered and golden throated frontwoman tigs. it would be easy, but all too wrong. their early (sold out) singles on kitsune, ‘salt air’ and ‘solo’ pointed to a band more interested in mining more unconventional (though no less infectious) terrain, while their raucous live gigs had all the energy and vigour of vintage punk rock shows, with tigs clambering up on equipment, writhing on floors and sashaying through crowds as she dazzled them into submission. their debut, dave kosten produced album ‘unicorn’ is pop, no doubt about it, but not pop as you know it. there are far too many quirks here, too many human idiosyncrasies, too many rough edges, to fit neat neatly into any preconceived box. spectral opener ‘eight’ for instance, wafts in on a ghostly breeze of synth washes and shimmering keyboards and little else, with the beats only kicking in halfway through, along with tigs’ eerie refrain of “a high speed chase on a wedding day / give and take it’s all the same”. ‘karen’, meanwhile, seems like a solid gold pop hit on the exterior, until you find out tigs is actually singing about the short and tragic life of karen carpenter. indeed, for every classic-in-waiting like ‘slick’ (imagine chrissie hynde whirling dervishly around a discoball and you’d be somewhere close), there’s a startling leftfield manoeuvre like ‘gold key’, which relocates them in a very modern mesh of seesawing keyboards and wailing guitars, and contains possibly tigs’ most emotive vocal, crying ‘the time has come…they’re playing with guns’ as if begging for salvation.
so, chew lips then. an altogether different - and exciting - proposition for 2010. a gloriously off-kilter take on pop, with some wayward electronic elements. a brilliant new band with ambition and talent to burn and an iconic frontwoman in waiting. and, with ‘unicorn’, quite possibly the best future classic pop album of next year.-Roughtrade
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Shout Out Louds – Work (2010)
Shout Out Louds are Adam Olenius, Ted Malmros, Carl Von Arbin, Eric Edman and Bebban Stenborg. The band formed in Stockholm, Sweden in 2001 - the year of the Golden Snake, according to the Chinese. Their first full length album “Howl Howl Gaff Gaff” was first released in Scandinavia in 2003 (year of the Ram), then again in 2005 (the Rooster), worldwide and in a slightly alternated form. The release of the debut album was followed by extensive touring all over the world, with stops everywhere from Mombasa to Trondheim along the way. In 2006 (a Dog-year) Shout Out Louds recorded their sophomore album “Our Ill Wills”, released early in 2007 (a Pig-year), with similarly extensive touring to follow. In 2008, the year of the Rat, at sunset after a quite disorderly night in Sao Paulo the band members lovingly parted ways to go each on his/her own adventures, but with the promise of returning to the spot where it all began exactly six months later. Every one kept that promise, and in March 2009 (the year of the Ox) they gathered in Stockholm to get back to work. The recording of Shout Out Louds’ third album began in a barn turned musical temple outside of Seattle in August that year, was finished and perfected in Stockholm in October, and will be released world wide in February 2010. The year of the Tiger.
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Fyfe Dangerfield [Guillemots] - Fly Yellow Moon (2010)
*I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Following Guillemots 2008 album ‘Red’, mercurial singer-songwriter Fyfe Dangerfield has used the window of time created to spread his wings and lovingly record his beautiful debut solo album ‘Fly Yellow Moon’,.
‘Fly Yellow Moon’ is written entirely by Fyfe and produced by Adam Noble in Urchin Studios, London the same studios where Guillemots recorded their first classic E.P. ‘I Saw Such Things In My Sleep’. The 10-track record startles from start to finish, magnificently eclectic, warm and uplifting, haunting and melodic it sounds like a classic upon its first listen.
Opening track ‘When You Walk In The Room’ (Free digitally track out November 9th) strikes the perfect chord for the following nine sublime tracks, capturing Fyfe’s truly remarkable voice, while flaunting his daring, expansive and mystical songwriting.
The record flows with highlights including from the beautiful ‘So Brand New’, the joyous ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’ to the scintillating ‘She Needs Me’ (First single out January 11th) and the stunningly reflective ‘Don’t Be Shy’.
Fyfe recorded the album in five days in what he describes as ‘the best ever little studio’, which ended up being the happiest days he has ever spent in studio land. The songs were written over a 12-month period in snatched moments after soundchecks, before nights out, and after moments of unmitigated lovestruck bliss.
He met up with Bernard Butler to mix a couple of songs (‘She Needs Me’, ‘Faster Than The Setting Sun’) on a 1960s-mixing desk to colour the record in a different shade. The rest of the tracks remained just as
they were from their first recording session. “It often sounded best this way, says Fyfe. “Capturing the moment they were recorded and not being painted over too much.”
“A good time was had by all,” notes Fyfe, and we hope you do too!
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The Silent League - But You've Always Been The Caretaker (2010)
With the New York tag, normally comes visions of black leather jackets and black skinny jeans; trend-setters abandoning guitars for synths in a quest for cool. Sidestepping this assembled throng of scene chasers, Brooklyn based The Silent League have their hearts in an entirely different New York; a musically historic up-state New York: the Catskill Mountains. Spiritual home to The Band and name checked by the likes of Beck and Mercury Rev. Over the last five years, the collective lead by Justin Russo, who at the time of the bands formation was playing keyboards for Mercury Rev has been periodically forming, releasing records (their second, Of Stars and Other Somebodies, never receiving a release in North America), playing a few shows and then disappearing again. Over the years the band has been made up of a varying cast including members of Interpol, Arcade Fire, Beirut, St. Vincent, Stars Like Fleas and Bishop Allen. In its current incarnation the band has Shannon Fields on board as producer and performer to help create a record of perfectly executed soft-pop gems. Sonically, But Youve Always Been The Caretaker (the bands third long player) sits alongside the likes of Mercury Rev and The Flaming Lips; across its 15 tracks its glides effortlessly on with a confident grace, punctuated by a series of shorter musical vignettes (Egg-shaped, Sleeper, But Youve Always Been The Pilot, How And Why Our Dads Lost The War). A collection of middle-tempo, grand, orchestral numbers make up the bulk of the album, each one drawing in the listener with an of opening of delicate pianos and fragile vocals before a raft of brass, strings, guitars and all manner of synthesizers enter the fold creating blankets of comforting, lush, space-rock. And thats the musical theme that permeates the record; explicitly on the so-ELO-it-hurts Yours Truly, 2095? (Maybe some day Ill feel her cold embrace / Ill kiss her interface), with nods to Ziggy-era Bowie on Heres A Star, and on Dayplanner, which with its pedal steel, squelching synths and saxophone solo, could easily have been lifted from Dark Side Of The Moon. On penultimate track Final Chapter Meeting, Jean-Michel Jarre bleeps and pieces dance around a foreboding vocal: Sounds like plague / seems like everybodys got something. The track builds to a four bar repetition, every cycle bringing new elements: a chorus of vocal euphoria, walls of distorted guitar punctuate the bottom, while a group of horns play over and over until they lose control. To think that The Silent League are an on again/off again collective is beguiling when the output is this accomplished. What they present here is an album of such accomplished majesty and width, unashamedly nodding to its influences that stands shoulder to shoulder with any contemporary comparisons. This is hairs on the back of your neck stuff.
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Owen Pallett [Final Fantasy] - Heartland (2010)
*I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Owen Pallett (born Michael James Owen Pallett-Plowright, on September 7, 1979) is a violinist and singer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and winner of the inaugural Polaris Music Prize. On December 18th, 2009, Pallett announced that he would be retiring his old artist name, Final Fantasy, and would be henceforth releasing his material under his own name. Previous albums released under the Final Fantasy name are planned to be re-packaged and re-released under the new name of Owen Pallett.
Pallett has been noted for his live performances, wherein he plays the violin into a sampler controlled by foot pedals, which then loops back one or more of the previously played musical phrases as he plays additional parts simultaneously. He has also performed with more traditional string quartets as backing musicians.
He believes his work is somewhat influenced by his sexuality, saying “As far as whether the music I make is gay or queer, yeah, it comes from the fact that I’m gay, but that doesn’t mean I’m making music about it.” in a recent interview.
“I’m taking a cue from Joel Gibb,” he begins. “He and I are very different people, and we’re very different in terms of the way we’ve assessed our sexual identities, but one thing I really respect about him is that his music has less to do with his identity and more to do with the more interesting aspects of himself.” He states in an earlier interview in Toronto’s NOW Magazine concerning his sexual identity and its use in his music.
On 12 February 2005, his debut album, Final Fantasy Has A Good Home, was released by the recording club Blocks (sometimes referred to as ‘BlocksBlocksBlocks’), a cooperative, Toronto-based record label of which he is a member. A second album is entitled “He Poos Clouds”, and inspiration for the songs are based on the eight schools of magic used for Dungeons & Dragons and how they relate to modern times. It is released under Tomlab.
His previous projects included a 3-piece Toronto-based band, Les Mouches, now defunct. He is still a member of another Toronto band called Picastro. Owen has also recorded and toured with The Hidden Cameras and Arcade Fire. One of his songs, “This Is the Dream of Win & Regine”, was inspired by the principal members of the latter group, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, and a Dntel song of a similar name ((This is) The Dream of Evan & Chan). Owen also co-wrote the orchestral arrangements for both of Arcade Fire’s albums, along with Régine Chassagne.
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The Magnetic Fields - Realism (2010)
Described by songwriter Stephin Merritt as “my folk album”, the instrumentation of Realism is largely acoustic, stark in contrast to the band’s previous album, Distortion, released in 2008. Merritt said he “thought of the two records as a pair” and considered titling the albums True and False; ultimately, he couldn’t decide which title would correspond with which album. The song “The Dada Polka” is the only track to utilize an electric guitar. Merritt also avoided using a traditional drum kit, further separating the sound of Realism from the noise pop of Distortion. Along with Distortion and the 2004 album i, Realism was also recorded without the use of synthesizers, completing the band’s “no-synth trilogy”. —— The Magnetic Fields’ Realism will be released by Nonesuch Records on January 26, 2010. The band’s ninth album is the follow-up to 2008’s Distortion, which was hailed by Rolling Stone as “one of the best records of [their] career.” Whereas Distortion was an album of power-pop songs with heavily distorted guitars, in homage to the Jesus and Mary Chain’s Psychocandy, Realism finds front man and songwriter Stephin Merritt drawing inspiration from late 1960s / early 70s orchestral and psychedelic folk. Realism’s all-acoustic recording line up featured no electronic instruments, and used nontraditional percussion instruments, ranging from tabla to tree leaves. The Magnetic Fields will tour the US in support of the album beginning February 4. The complete list of dates can be found below and at nonesuch.com/on-tour. As the album title implies, Realism finds Merritt examining what “real” really means in recorded music, exploring the sincerity (or lack thereof) of folk lyrics and their delivery, along with non-electronic instrumentation, “realistic” production values, and even a plain brown paper sack background used for the album’s artwork. In addition to the usual ensemble of Merritt on ukulele, Claudia Gonson (keyboard, vocals), John Woo (guitar), and Sam Davol (cello), and Shirley Simms (vocals, autoharp), The Magnetic Fields are joined by friends and longtime collaborators Daniel Handler, a.k.a Lemony Snicket (accordion), as well as Johnny Blood (tuba) and Ida Pearle (violin).* * * * * * * * *
Good Shoes - No Hope, No Future (2010)
The album starts out well with the frenetically paced, high-energy ‘The Way My Heart Beats,’ but the momentum created by it is lost by their strange choice to put their slowest song, ‘Everything You Do’ right after it. This is probably my least favorite song on the album, mostly because it doesn’t showcase the things Good Shoes is best at: energy and rhythm. Luckily, they seem to realize this and they pick things up again with ‘I Know,’ one of the highlights of the album. It combines a great guitar riff with a steady drumbeat and some of their most political lyrics: “You should learn to protest and learn to question everything you’re told / I think if there’s a day of judgement then our leaders will be first against the wall.”
Next up is stellar single ‘Under Control,’ which they follow with two of their best songs, ‘Do You Remember’ and ‘Our Loving Mother in a Pink Diamond.’ This part of the album is where they really get into the groove: the songs are intricate and fun. The next few songs are perfectly fine, but don’t have that extra spark. They’re all variations on the same theme: how things used to be so much better, and now there’s ‘No Hope, No Future’.
They save my personal favorite for last. ‘City by the Sea’ is a slower, more melodic song. It’s like the cool-down track after the workout they give you with the rest of the album. Where this track really stands out for me is in its lyrics. While the strength of most Good Shoes songs is in the music and not the lyrics, this track verges on the poetic: “All I want is a little more time to feel your heartbeat next to mine”.
In all, ‘No Hope, No Future’ doesn’t quite live up to the band’s potential. The album has its moments of genius, but these mainly come when they don’t try so hard. They really shine when they let themselves stray from their formula of disillusioned lyrics over a driving beat and intricate guitars. That said, if you’re just looking for a fun, energetic album to listen to, but don’t need anything game-changing, then this is the album for you.
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Shearwater - The Golden Archipelago (2010)
This is the final album in a trilogy of releases “inspired by man’s impact on the natural world” from the unapologetically melodramatic Austin-based Okkervil River offshoot, following the breakout success of 2008’s Matador Records debut, Rook. The record comes packaged with a full-color, 50-page dossier of records of photos and other ephemera collected by Shearwater principal Jonathan Meiburg. The ornithological theme of the group’s two previous records is replaced here by a focus on islands, with swirling, magisterial compositions like “Castaways.”
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Malory - Pearl Diver (2010)
Formed in 1995 by three former school friends under the influence of the so-called indie/wave era - is the german incarnation of the shoegazer generation.
In 1999, they have recorded their debut album “Not Here, Not Now”, sound landscapes from an inverse universe washed against the walls of their studio. Find out what kind of sound walls you can build without synthesizers. Total effects, all guitar, a concentric stream of desire and melancholy. Layer for layer the dome is growing from freely flowing emotions, in the dispute of the musicians. guitar vs. guitar. His voice against hers.
“Outerbeats” is the title of the second album (2001) - and it’s really characteristic for the music. while the first album had this touch of their idols Slowdive, Malory are now defining their own cosmos, their own time. The songs of the new album “The Third Face” (2005) open a door to a spheric world. The slowness of the moment becomes a journey through the time, a long way through the orbit. It floats atmospherically around you with angelic vocals and experimental sound scapes using guitars as sound tools. These songs deserve only to be played at high volumes so that the sound swallows your room and your mind.
During 2006, their first album, “Not Here, Not Now”, was reissued by Clairecords, including two bonus tracks and a different artwork.
“Pearl Diver” is their fourth album from the German shoegaze band Malory. 10 years after their debut album “Not Here Not Now” was released - an album still highly valued in the shoegaze scene - Malory are back once again. Malory have seen an ever increasing appreciation and love for their unique sound expand outside of their dedicated fanbase in their home country Germany. Recent years have seen two albums released in the US, plus many appearances on international compilations, such as the in 2007 ‘The Secret Garden Vol.1’ on Geoff Barrow’s (Portishead) label Invada Records.
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The Secret Handshake - My Name Up In Lights
*If you're fan of Owl City, I Proud To Recommended!!!*
*If you're fan of Owl City, I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Luis Dubuc, the one man electro-tinged act alternatively known as The Secret Handshake, is back with his second full-length for Triple Crown.
For me, My Name Up in Lights seems like a make-or-break album for The Secret Handshake. His debut, One Full Year, was nothing Earth-shattering, but nonetheless contained moments that even someone like myself, with tastes more rooted in '90s indie-rock than anything else, found charming. There's no doubt that it exuded a bit of immaturity, but offered some reasons for optimism, with tracks like the slow-burning "Midnight Movie," on which the often-reviled vocoder effects added a sinewy texture to Dubuc's vocal, and ironically, seemed to inject more emotion into the song than his voice alone would have done. In short, that album exhibited that all-important potential, but left plenty of room for growth.
For those with similar thoughts on the debut, who thought that My Name Up in Lights might actually be a solid electro-pop offering, I'm sorry to say that it's not that at all. There are, indeed, songs that aren't bad on their own, but as a whole, the album has some major flaws that run through it, pretty much ruining its enjoyability. For one, the vocal performances leave a lot to be desired and are occasionally cringe-worthy. It's not the Auto-tune-- as I stated before, this has been a positive factor in some of his songs before-- but the fact that he sounds unpolished and ill at ease behind the microphone. Frankly, Dubuc has a stiff vocal quality and uses awkward enunciations and accentuations, similar to what hinders singers like Shaant Hacikyan, Seth Trotter (The Higher) and Andrew de Torres (Danger Radio), and it's something that the Auto-tune simply can't hide. If the tweener girl demographic is what you're aiming for, this appears to be the way to go, but while they shake their asses, the rest of us are just going to shake our heads.
Secondly, Dubuc seems to have regressed as a lyricist, focusing more on schoolboy crush songs than on anything with real substance. Since the guy is happily in a relationship now, it's understandable that these songs would lean toward the happier side, but they're also sophomoric, such that anyone past, say, tenth grade would find them cheesy at best. Just a note to those young guys hearing stuff like "Little Song" ("I wanna write the soundtrack to your life and live it with you"), and "Saturday" ("You thought we were just friends, but all this time, I had plans to make you more, maybe be my girlfriend"): acting this bubbly around girls is not smooth and will not get you laid. You'll just look like a loser.
On a positive note, Dubuc does a solid job of writing catchy pop melodies, and on the whole, they sound pretty good musically. Case in point are the two strongest songs on the album, "What's Wrong" and "Hey Girl," which surprisingly were not among the songs exposed to the masses prior to the release, as they would seem to be the most marketable. The former is a mid-80's-styled pop number that generally avoids the missteps found on the rest of the album, while the latter is equally catchy, but is also indicative of the fact that Dubuc showed up for class during Pop Music Cliches 101 ("I don't want to be your lover, if you don't want to be my friend"), though admittedly, it sounds like something that would be covered on American Idol, a compliment I guess, considering the style of music.
I'll only comment briefly on how discouraged I am that, on the press release, Dubuc claims that the '90s are a major influence on this record, as that decade produced some amazing music, both underground and mainstream, and My Name Up in Lights simply doesn't measure up with even the least memorable albums of that era. Perhaps the press release also offered some insight as to why that is: Dubuc says, "I didn't want anyone else to have input. I wanted to just do it. No one could stop me from doing anything." I can't deny Dubuc's ability to arrange a pop song, but he might want to question his career as a frontman. Had someone else written lyrics for and sung these songs, something quite a bit better might have resulted. As it stands, My Name Up in Lights has a few moments of relative brilliance, but mostly disappoints.
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A Rocket to the Moon - On Your Side (2009)
*If you're fan of Owl City, I Proud To Recommended!!!*
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Lights - The Listening (2009)
*If you're fan of Owl City, I Proud To Recommended!!!*
Sweet and shimmering, the music of Canadian singer/songwriter Lights (a.k.a. Valerie Poxleitner) goes down easy and leaves a tingling aftertaste. The Listening, her 2009 debut album, has the intimate feel of a bedroom reverie. Lights’ spiritually tinged lyrics return again and again to the theme of divine comfort and aid — songs like “Saviour,” “Drive My Soul” and “Second Go” are upwardly directed expressions set to throbbing, high-gloss tracks. “February Air” and “Quiet” are more explicitly romantic, lending an appealing innocence by Lights’ breathy, waif-like vocals. Throughout, The Listening revels in vintage and modern synthesizer textures, switching between jittery techno-dance tunes (“Ice,”“River”) and atmospheric (though still beat-driven) soundscapes (“Face Up,” the title song). Whether she’s confronting her fears in “Lions!” or yearning for lost childhood in “Pretend,” Lights wraps her gossamer sonic threads around serious topics. Though her touch is frequently soft, she’s capable of flashes of intensity, as “The Last Thing On Youe Mind” shows.
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Portastudio Summerlist - Soundcheck Set Of The Month
by
the portastylistic
by
the portastylistic
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“ EVERYDAY STILL LIKE A SUMMER SOUND! ”
-the portastylistic
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