The Times They Are a Changin'

Partly because of the title, partly because of the forlorn bass drone, partly because of the psychedelic sounding vocal and partly because I watched Master & Commander the other day just for that bit where there's no wind, but this track does sound like a bunch of pirates stranded out at sea. 


Being the murderous bastards they are, once the food and water runs out and the sun stroke sets in, their hallucinations become pretty dark and involve skinning other members of the crew alive and using their epidermises as sails for the invisible wind that can only be optimised by using taught and tanned dead sailor.   




Sounding as dark and as Eastern European as I imagine Bosnia is, I blame Behind Enemy Lines (big film watching day I had last week), with fiddles and regional voices echoing amongst the war strewn streets.  





An Australian label called Monday Records with this realise from Circle called Fashion Me A Drum, a song so twee that paired with the label's ill chosen name, reminds me not only of the awful, I Don't Like Monday's, but that horrid moment once every few years where mole-features Geldof and his bloody Boomtown Rats somehow worm their way onto a line up under the pretence of raising money. 


There, they play that one song of theirs, one song, that makes everyone realise just what a crock of shit they are and rather than learning any positive lessons from the lyrics of the song, they imagine a school ground massacre of their own, going back in time and bursting into the classroom where the Boomtown Rats first met, spraying them with bullets so their future selves wouldn't subjected to this shit ever again. 




A slice of Ladyhawke inspired dream pop from Goldroom, available as a free download. I'm especially fond of that chirping bass line, reminds me of a fat bloke with a t-shit that's too small for him, wearing some red Hasselhoff stye shorts and a hat with a helicopter on it, making his sad, daily, indication fuelled waddle down to the ice cream van by the seaside.




I think this title is mistaken, it does't seem like she hates the wind at all, infact she seems to be relishing having it blow in her face, the dreamy textures supporting the notion that having it do so is akin to a state of euphoria. Why would they mislead us like this?




With all these kids making this spacious, down-to-no tempo ambient stuff at the moment you could see an argument for perhaps putting prozac into the water along with the fluoride. Refreshing it is therefore to have these young pucks Fidlar, just getting on with it with resigned glee. They ain't got no money for food or heaven forbid, weed but they're not going to bore you to death through the "conceptual minimalism," of their compositions, no, their going to bring the fun back to depression. Amen. 




Traces of Karen O in the vocal (probably vice versa depending at what stage current front woman came into the fold) and the general sonic chaos you'd expect from Savages.




Sad, dramatic and all together beautiful.




This makes me happy although his voice sounds somewhat lonely and detached. Taken from Beach Fossils forthcoming solo project as Heavenly Beat, out on 24th July.




Heavy on the Jazz influence on this one from Teni and Afro- Renassiance, who, if you haven't already guessed by the name, are on the move to resuscitate afro soul music and by the sound of this and others on their Soundcloud, are doing a fine job of it. 




Even thought this isn't the most expertly mastered tune in the world I like the way all the different elements build into the mix. 




A funky bass line and some borderline acceptable similes, delivered with a soulful female vocal.




To see what I had to say about this then head over to www.strongroomalive.com/2012/06/arp-xp-with-a-new-full-length-release/, get used to this web site because if things go to plan, the new mouthpiece of cloudboy could be the blog on Strongroom Alive.




Cool beat on this one from Joey Bada$$, what I like to call motivational hip hop, that is, it got me to temporary relinquish my position at the computer chair and pretend I was in Eight Mile for a bit.





Kind of purposefully bad quality sounding, like a party in your mates garden shed through his dates old eighties throw back boom box. Like the beats and switch up to the drum and bass as well, you could never play this in a club though, it would deafen everyone, even those with earplugs.