Kelpe - Cola Mine
lethemusicplay - Space
Kingdom - SFX
T Williams - Malfunction (feat Alix)
T Williams - Synthia
Walsh - Tribal Dance
The Nomad - Perilous Times (feat. Rayjah45)
Kelpe - I Felt Fuzzy (Native Machine Remix)
Jekyll - Drainpipe
Line Runners - Means To Me
The hollow snare and atmospheric guitars that sound like they've travelled across an ocean, hit the horizon and bounced back are the most alluring thing about this track.
Last week we featured a track for El-P's own forthcoming album, this week we have another track produced by him, this time for Killer Mike featuring Scar, off an album called R.A.P. Music, also forthcoming.
My appreciation of this tune has more to do with the environment and circumstance in which I first heard it (something I think very important when listening to music) than anything actually musically tangible. Do not underestimate the impact the other senses can have on the way we interpret sounds and how these sounds affect us. So important are these factors that I have a vast list of tunes to which I could describe the situation in which I first them to the very last detail, what I was wearing, who else was present and in one memorable example, the last time I showered based on the memory of my unsavoury odor; students!
Environment and mood has a lot to do with how we understand music, certain elements of the track seem to exemplify or soundtrack the world around us and can therefore become engrained in the very fibre of you memory in relation to that specific song. With this relationship established in your memory, the opposite is also true, music has the ability to trigger memory, with specific sounds holding the key to unlock not just the memory itself but the emotions, smells and spirit of that time.
This exact process occurred with this track, the aural and visual experience bouncing of each other to ensure the whole experience was drilled firmly into my mind.
Picture the scene, I was strolling down the road on one of these gorgeous sunny days we've been having, feeling pretty euphoric as it was, high off the vitamin D my winter starved body has been deprived of for so long. Ahead of me was a blossom tree, the wind blowing briskly across it so the petals were floating off the branches towards the other side of the street. With the affect of gravity also working on the petals, they fell at a downward, diagonal angle, running across the road like a sparkling ray of sunshine and, this is were it gets weird, falling like some enlightened shard upon this perfectly dressed old man, the oldest man you could possibly imagine, suited like it was his last day on earth tie, waistcoat and polished Brogues. As this shard of blossom fell on him, it followed his movement like a spot light, chasing him as he rode his bizarrely feminine fold-up bike at some pace along the pavement, swishing his head back and forth like he was the star of some O.T.T. shampoo advert.
Truly, it was one of the most surreal things I have ever seen but I have to asked myself; would it have been so surreal without the music or would the music been so surreal without the old man acting as if his new medicated Head and Shoulders was a gift from heaven?
This song is so dam good, it begins in the eighties with that ever acending synth line and unashamedly 808, electric drum machine, then the vocal and synth pads sneak in and bam, the tune seems to open up like some kind of space time continuum between then and now, being both direct and as expansive as that concept sounds.
When it comes to having her finger on the pulse of popular culture, no one knows better than my mum. Okay, not in every respect, but when it comes to highlighting the lazy nature of certain trends within the industry, no one is more astute.
She has never been more right about the insane, over exposure given to Florence Welch and her machine. It seems as if the BBC and it's army of blinkered disciples, have latched onto this voice and chosen to run with it till the moment people start to loose interest, where presumably, they'll reluctantly get off their backsides and play something else for a change. Well, until they find the next cash cow anyway.
Don't get me wrong, she's great, but seriously, not that great, there are other musicians out there making equally good if not better cathedral safe, howling-vocal-over-an-overly-elongated-chorus music.
Anyways, I couldn't ignore her voice and how well it seemed to work with the ever excellent production of Clams Casino, and there wasn't even a bloody harp in sight! Can you believe it? As noted by Gorilla vs Bear, who posted this initially, the last section in this is really quite extraordinary, it will have most of her current fans bleeding through their ears drums.
Any new material from Nas has to be welcomed with open arms and this doesn't disappoint once the embrace is established, such a distinctive voice and style, with production from the late Heavy D and the not so late, Da Internz.
Atmospheric stuff from Airhead, sounding like one to many whiskeys in the piano bar at the end of the universe, the band staying on after hours to play for a melancholic straggler.
This feels like music that might feature in Gran Theft Auto were it to have an African version or the intro music for a pretentious game that feels it's far more dramatic, like one of those gaming titles you always see on TV which have some outlandishly epic record soundtracking a stunning CGI sequence, small printed by the words 'Not actual game play.' This is not actual game play, it is unbelievably sick, the vocals would be enough on their own but instead they are funnelled into a bell jar of greatness though a wonderfully subtle bass line, muffled bassy kick drums and searching guitar licks. Outstanding.
New release on it's way from Pearson Sound, the artist formally known as Ramadanman. I have always been a fan of his stabbing bass sounds and the build up on this release embraces that dynamic.
Check out this feature on Line Runners, who were featured here a few weeks back, over on kmag. Just heard one of their newer tunes as well, it is seriously big.
http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/news/line-runners-line-up-debut-single.html
When I first heard the lyric, which exposes itself within seconds of the opening line, 'Did your heart shake like this song,' I thought, you arrogant little bastards, what makes you think your music will mike my heart shake? Has my heart ever shaken from music? Probably, there's some pretty good musicians out there but by the sounds of it, you ain't one of them, come on, a bloody piano and a vaguely Cat Spehen's-esq vocal ain't going to move me any time soon. Then it all started building, with overlapping reverberating vocals, church like harmonies, weird angelic sounds and god dam it, my heart did shake a little. Well done you smug scallywags, you win.
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=15&title=for_bad_dream_hotline_album_stream&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
Foe, who's single Cold Hold Rock was featured here before, has her debut album out now and it's receiving really great, well deserved reviews, you can stream it via the link above. I'm enjoying the bleak title track and the brilliant, Christina referencing, Genie in A Coke Can, attitude pop at it's best.
The 140 tempo and rumbling dub step like bass line give this tune so much swagger, brooding, ominous ,like a war's about to break out spearheaded by LE1F, who's fed up by all the twitter beef over who's the best rapper alive. Setting out on a remorseless rampage in which he'll take out all those mouthy paper tigers, proving that he might not be the best rapper but certainly the best at not taking shit from no one, the most frightening thing about him, is that he just does't give a dam.
http://soundcloud.com/messandnoise/nick-cave-deborah-harry-the/s-LBflM
Oh my god, oh my god, Nick Cave and Debbie Harry have done a song together! A gorgeous cover of Gun Clubs 1987 song, The Breaking Hand in memory of the bands late front man, Lee Pierce.
Lots of good stuff going on in this track, especially percussion wise, plenty of strange noises.
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