PORTASTUDIO SUMMERLIST - Soundcheck Set 02

PORTASTUDIO
SUMMERLIST/

Soundcheck: Set 02

PORTASTUDIO


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Class Actress - Journal Of Ardency EP (2010)


*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

Before Elizabeth Harper was frontwoman for slinky Brooklyn electro-pop trio Class Actress, she was another eponymous singer-songwriter. And yeah, before she gained some local media renown as a singer-songwriter, Harper was a college drama major. Those acting classes would appear to have paid off handsomely on the title track from Class Actress' debut EP, Journal of Ardency. For me, a big part of this coolly seductive song's spell lies in the way it gracefully finesses the gulf between someone's glamorous image of big-city nightlife and the narrator's lonely, wounded reality.

"You think I'm livin' it, livin' it, livin' it, livin' it up," Harper repeats behind frosty snare thwacks, adding, "It's a lie, lie." The galloping Italo-disco bass line and luxurious rubber-band synths evoke a night of cosmopolitan-clutching revelry at pricey Manhattan clubs, but the ponderously Depeche Mode-ish song title, unshowy melody, and earnest, expressive vocals tacitly acknowledge our narrator will no doubt be going home as she probably went out: alone. So while the track's moodily retro aesthetic suggests the nocturnal shadows of Glass Candy or Chromatics, its warm heart and bright hooks bring it closer to the communicative synth-pop of Annie, Little Boots, or stated influence Madonna. Confessions on a dance floor, for real.

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Everybody Was In The French Resistance...Now! - Fixin' the Charts, Volume One (2010)


*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

Eddie Argos and Dyan Valdés are correcting the mistakes of pop songs past. So far they have defended the belittled blue collar worker from Kanye West’s “Gold Digger,” told Gerry and the Pacemakers that in fact it is okay to walk alone, dumped the manipulative Martha Reeves on behalf of poor Jimmy Mack and taken the misguided instructions of a 17th century ballad to its logical conclusion.

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The Delta Mirror - Machines That Listen (2010)

The Delta Mirror is a cocktail of all your past loves, the ones you wish had stuck around, and check up on from time to time even though you’ve moved on. They were made from the sprained fingers and broken records of mid 90’s hip hop. They were made from the bent circuits of electronica, dead IDM lap tops and broken shoegaze strings. They were made from the injured spirit of a folk singer’s broken heart. Alongside bands like The Big Pink and The Fuck Buttons, The Delta Mirror see’s the things that made our past relationships work and brings them together creating the ideal love. Craig Gordon and David Bolt started out as a hip hop two piece in the late 90’s and have been writing music in some form ever since. With the addition of Karrie K on bass, their sound has progressed to an ambient mix of shoegazy guitar and gothic vocals, but their production has held onto the same boom bap button pushing they started with. Machines That Listen is The Delta Mirror’s debut long play. Each song on this 9 track collection is a story that takes place in a different room of a hospital. Track 2 “and the radio played on” tells of a dying elderly man and his wife’s last moments together, while “hold me down just don’t let me go” is told from the perspective of an ER nurse treating a stab victim. Listening to this record is like walking through the halls of Bellevue or Cedars Sinai listening to a score that is re-written daily. The Delta Mirror has shared the stage with bands like Sleepy Sun, Voices Voices, EGADZ!, Jogger, Odd Nosdam, Tape Deck Mountan, The Mathematicians, Oliver Future and Healamonster & Tarsier. Later this year Lefse will release a collection of remixes from Machines that Listen put together from an all star cast of bands and producers.

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Apparatjik - We Are Here (2010)


*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

Apparatjik (pronounced Apa-rat-chik) is a supergroup that consists of bassist Guy Berryman from Coldplay, singer/guitarist Jonas Bjerre of Mew, guitarist/keyboardist Magne Furuholmen from a-ha, and producer Martin Terefe. The band’s name literal translation is ‘agent of the apparatus’. Apparatjik is the Swedish word for apparatchik, which is a word of Russian origin and is used to describe ‘people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organizations’.

The band was initially put together to create the theme for the Amazon series on BBC 2. “Ferreting”, the track title, was also released on the Songs for Survival charity album.

After working on the “Ferreting” track, they continued to work together in Magne Furuholmen’s studio in Norway, and created more tracks that were periodically made available on their MySpace page.

They also made a website, through which they released various videos and song snippets.

On November 30th, they released the first official track, “Electric Eye”, from their upcoming album through their website.

Apparatjik will make their very first live performance at the eleventh edition of club transmediale, an annual festival in Berlin, due to take place between 28th January and 7th February 2010. This first ever performance of Apparatjik will take place inside a specially constructed cube at the WMF on Monday, February 1st, 2010.On the same day will see the release of their debut album, titled “We Are Here”.

As well as “Electric Eye” and “Ferreting”, the songs “Datascoller”, “Frozen Fingers” and “Snow Crystals” have also entered their way into the public domain prior to the release of the debut album.

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Sambassadeur - European (2010)

*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

European is an appropriate adjective to apply to Sweden’s Sambassadeur. Besides the obvious literal truth of the statement, they’ve taken up a position in the upper echelons of the sun-kissed Scandipop bands of which they are such a fine example – impressive for a band who named themselves after a Frenchman’s song¹. Rather, though, than take their lyrical inspiration from the risqué Gainsbourg, they stick to the safer ground of Jeepster-inspired tales of relationships not quite working and near misses. When they sing “But I believe in love, I guess, and you believe in loneliness” in “In The Calm”, you could believe you were listening to some tweeer than fuck Glaswegian band for whom Belle & Sebastian’s earlier EPs are a little too cheerful.

They’ve progressed a long way since their eponymous full début. On Migration, they went for a fuller, more orchestral sound, which brought them legions of new fans and comparisons to different Glasgow bands². The sound and atmosphere became more accessible, the mood lightened, and the band played with a confidence befitting a far more successful band destined to appear on mixtapes made for pretty girls by undergraduate arts students.

European is just as unlikely is its predecessor to produce any dancefloor fillers, but retains a similar mood and style. The lush instrumentation and sad, female-dominated vocals remain, with Anna Persson’s voice having matured slightly. Opener “Stranded” has a slow piano-led opening before it turns into a heavily orchestrated indie pop song which reminds me of nothing so much as The Essex Green, before fading out into a slightly overlong piano outro. The standout song on the album is, as on Migration (with Subtle Changes), the second song, “Days”. Also reminiscent of The Essex Green’s more pastoral moments, it’s three minutes of glorious horns, cascading guitars and an incredibly catchy middle eight, almost making it seem like summer in spite of the freezing temperatures outside.

The album does dip a little in energy towards the middle, and they struggle to maintain the inventiveness of the early tracks with the indie-by-numbers “Forward Is All” and “High And Low”. It’s always enjoyable, but the songs are nowhere near as arresting as we know they’re capable of. However, things pick up pretty soon. They save the absolute highlight of the album until the very last song, a cover of former Guided By Voices member Tobin Sprout’s “Small Parade”, which was one of my favourite songs from the “What’s Up Matador” compilation lent to my by a classmate about 10 years ago³. It’s a short, quiet and not entirely fitting ending, but the choice of cover is superb, and it’s a beautiful version – less sad than the original, but in no way worse for it.

While Sambassadeur will inevitably be compared to their Swedish twee-pop peers such as Pelle Carlberg, Jens Lekman, Club 8 and Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, their relative prominence in that scene means that they have the luxury of appearing as influential, when their work is actually no more original or groundbreaking than any other band’s. While it may seem they have stagnated musically since Migration, it’s a comfortable sort of stagnation, and at a short 33 minutes, they are never in danger of overstaying their welcome. There are enough blinders on this disc to excuse a couple of slightly boring songs, and their choice of cover to end the album still astonishes me after repeated listens. If you liked Migration, I expect you’ll like this, but to call it a progression would be too generous – it feels more like a sequel. Still, if they’re OK with that, and you’re OK with that, then I am too.

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¹ They were named after Serge Gainsbourg’s “Les Sambassadeurs”
² This time, I’m thinking of Camera Obscura
³ Some brief internet research suggests this is the only place it ever got released – an absolute injustice.

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The Knife - Tomorrow In A Year (2010)

About a month ahead of it’s physical release, The Knife have released their opera soundtrack Tomorrow, In A Year available as a download, as well as providing a streaming preview of the whole album.

It’s their first new material since 2006’s epic Silent Shout - but given that it’s an opera soundtrack, it sounds almost nothing like The Knife (or Fever Ray for that matter). Most of the 2-disc release is composed of atmospheric electronic textures and abrasive sounds, distorted squeals and warble female vocals.

Easy listening it’s not!

Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme.

They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.-Source

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The Dirties - First Present (2010)

*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

The Dirtier know how to merge the ideas generated by producers of electronic music with a disco and pop group show.
Not governed by a sense of fun through dancing and joining poperos obvious without committing to any particular style.
Their live set up a real holiday in about an hour to make the public participate in its rhythms and musical hooks. The difference between songs like''Yesterday''rompepistas the garagera''Nights of Russia''or''The dirty tecnopop song''The Dirtier make a complete group when to move people.

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Jeremy Jay - Splash & Dream Diary (2010)

The next album by Jeremy Jay is already chronic in your favorite blog, and it may even make you get a hold of it by rummaging though (ah the power of images ...). The dandy aesthetic Californian who remember, has held a prominent place in my ranking back in May 2009 we came punting his songs made post-glam-punk and sweet addicitives (apparently even another album to follow suit not in 2010), has in eliciting the ghost of Ian Curtis, and the shadow of other icons still alive and well as Lou Reed or David Bowie.

It remains in the same lineage as the two previous titles, with perhaps a sound more electro-acoustic, reminiscent of the debut album "A Place Where We Could Go." A disillusioned modern pop, with electronic sounds carefully distilled, watching from time to time to the 80's and takes the form of dances stabbing potential aphrodisiac fully guaranteed. On stilts, the young man has certainly not finished watching the music very haut.

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Woodhands - Remorsecapade (2010)

*I Proud To Recommended!!!*

Remorsecapade, from Toronto-based band Woodhands was released today in Canada and will be out February 23 in the US (Limited Edition Vinyl, CD, and Digital). The band will set out on a cross-Canada tour in February to support the new album.

If the band is new to you, Woodhands is duo Dan Werb and Paul Banwatt. Their last album, Heart Attack (Paper Bag Records, 2008) kept the two incredibly busy over the past year or so, touring both at home and internationally while making appearances that solidified them as a great live act worthy of seeing.

While discussing Heart Attack in an interview, Werb captured the feel of the album by saying: “We just wanted that immediacy of emotion and that urgency of not being able to hold something in. Just that sense of ‘this has to be expressed’ — there is no holding back.” This is exactly what I like about them.

It took me a little time to get into the band, but now the song “Dancer” is currently a familiar tune in my regular rotation.

Their debut album was praised Heart Attack impressive, appearing in several "Best Of" 2008. including a recent consecration as '10 Best New Bands On Earth 'by Q Magazine.

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Portastudio Summerlist - Soundcheck Set Of The Month
by
the portastylistic

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“ EVERYDAY STILL LIKE A SUMMER SOUND! ”

-the portastylistic