Welcome back, and more music

Well, I've made it back on time from my hiatus. I haven't really had time to catch up with what music is red-hot and current right now, so I'll just talk about a band with releases this year, instead.

While I was away, I discovered that a single GB of music on a hard drive is not quite enough to keep me occupied for three weeks of work abroad. However, I came to depend on a few songs, and Back To Back by Dusty Brown was one of them. The picture above is from their Myspace, in case you were wondering. I don't know who it is.

In true RWL fashion, here are Dusty Brown in five bullet points.

1. They are the three Brown siblings from Sacramento, Dusty (keyboards), Jessica (vocals) and Zac (guitar). They have been a band for eight years.

2. Back To Back sounds like someone single-handedly reviving the Bristol trip-hop sound of the mid-1990s, complete with soaring Beth Gibbons-style vocals, understated beats and a delicious air of mystery.

3. There has been a DB album at some point, but I can't find it. I have no idea what it sounds like.

4. Their other output is not all the same. It runs from breakbeat-assisted guitar pop (Weather, How's That) to moody downbeat instrumentals (This City is Killing Me), with a string of operatic-voiced pop-noir mysteries in the middle.

5. This City Is Killing Me is their latest EP, which can be downloaded free, or for a small donation. It came out in June. Download it here.

Myspace

Album Review: Best Coast - Crazy For You

Best Coast has kindly put their album online for our streaming pleasure, prior to its release on the 27th. For a reliable UK-friendly stream, go to this Guardian page.

Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno play sunny, fuzzy Californian cool-kid guitar pop. Their sound is not groundbreaking, experimental or even particularly innovative, borrowing heavily from Sixties surf anthems, garage rock and lo-fi Americana. However, Bethany's smart songwriting and bright voice save them from AN Otherness, and their songs are just so likeable, it's hard to ignore them.

Crazy For You has an impressive thirteen tracks, but still clocks in at a sweet and concise 31 minutes and 40 seconds. Everything is small (sub-three minutes, usually) and perfectly formed, with not a wasted note. Despite the definite Best Coast sound and set of influences, there is enough variation in tempo and tone to retain interest, as well as the presence of some previous blog favourites like This Is Real and When I'm With You.

In some ways, the album is like a plate of biscuits; you know you're going to get a biscuit when you pick one, but will it be a crunchy lo-fi slacker biscuit, or will it be a crumbly, hazy one with lots of reverb?

Enough of the silly analogies. If you want a great summery pop record about beaches, boys, and worlds gone crazy, this is for you.

Songs in French

This week's vaguely-themed, vaguely topical music post is running under the banner of "songs in French". It was inspired by the first band in question, Cours Lapin, who I discovered on Line of Best Fit with their latest single, Cache Cache. You will find a download link there, too.

Despite their French name and French lyrics, Cours Lapin ("run rabbit") are not French at all, but Danish. Most of the time, all four of them compose film music, but they like to get together and make slightly sinister, somewhat catchy melodies inspired by chansons Francais and other traditional European music. There are also traces of old fashioned gangster film tunes, Gallic pop and bits of Bristol trip-hop in there as well, although their sound is all their own.

The band is Louise Alenius (vocals), Asger Baden (keys), Peder (keys and production) and Jonas Struck (guitar). They have just played a couple of UK dates, but Cache Cache has proved quite popular, so they may return.

The second Francophone act I wanted to blog about is Chat. Strictly speaking, Chat isn't quite topical at the moment, as her last release was in 2009, but she is starting to play gigs again, and more importantly, she is good, so I'm going to talk about her.



Chat, who formerly recorded as Mademoiselle until about 2006, is a young classically-trained pianist who has turned her hand to singing. She is actually French. Her songs combine superb old-fashioned piano with the sort of whispery, rapid vocals you tend to associate with French singers. She collaborates with other musicians a lot. Her songs divide into Gallic piano chansons and looser, guitar-infused numbers. Below, you can see her performing Alice, a song she has been playing since at least 2006. I once saw her rehearsing this in London on the way to another gig. Her piano playing is really quite superb.



Chat Myspace
Cours Lapin Myspace

Music on Monday: Part Zwei. School of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire review

School of Seven Bells release their much-awaited second album, Disconnect From Desire, on the 13th of July. Being the generous sorts they are, they are allowing listeners to stream the entire album from their site, for the price of an email address. I have done this and can now report back with an album review, which I will present in the form of five bullet points, because there's not much of Monday left and I should go to bed, to be quite honest.

1. It has ten tracks, but they are all quite long and meld into each other a little, so it doesn't feel short at all. Each song has a couple of changes of direction, as well.

2. My first impression is that it is much more electronically-based than the first record, with an almost dancey feel to the songs towards the middle of the album, such as Dust Devil.

3. The non-remix version of Windstorm opens the album, and it's one of the most kinetic tracks on there. It'll be a lot of people's favourite.

4. Towards the end, there is a darker feel. Joviann, the sixth song, is quite sombre and early-80s-dreamy, with a Jesus and Mary Chain influence. The next song, Camarilla, sounds a bit like an electronic sea shanty.

5. As ever, the vocals are beautifully strong throughout, with Alejandra and Claudia sounding crystal-clear over the layered, scuffed music. We even get to hear Benjamin on back-ups.

The album is out on Full Time Hobby in the UK. The band are touring the UK very soon - more on that later.

Music on Monday: Part Eins. Crystal Ball time...

A little while ago, I blogged about Tennis, and predicted that they would feature in the Guardian newspaper's New Band of the Day feature within one month.
Well, I was right.

So, as I look into my musical crystal ball, who can I predict will grace the hallowed pages of New Band of the Day in the next month?

My money is on Sweet Bulbs. They've been gathering a fair bit of blog buzz in the past month or so, up to and including a mention on Pitchfork. I heard them first on the Pelly Twins blog.

Sweet Bulbs are "Michael, Inna, Jack, Ray and sometimes Alex". Inna is the singer, I'm not sure what the others do, but one of them plays drums standing up. They're from Brooklyn, they've not been going for very long and they play the sort of sweet-voiced, fuzzed-up garage pop made, well, popular by the Vivian Girls and the Dum Dum Girls. With Sweet Bulbs, however, there's always a tinge of melancholy underneath their blurry harmonies: the stand-up drummer is not the only nod to The Jesus and Mary Chain and the Velvet Underground.

Springstung is their stand-out track. You can listen to a demo of it on the band's Myspace, or download it from Pelly Twins or Pitchfork.

New Music on Monday - 28 Degrees Taurus

It's a bit of a slow week for new releases so far, so I've decided to blog about a band who released their debut album last week. Here are five interesting things about 28 Degrees Taurus:

1. There are two permanent members, Karina (vocals and bass) and Jinsen (guitars and vocals), plus an ever-changing, Spinal Tap-esque turnover of drummers.

2. Their debut album, All The Stars In Your Eyes, is available to download from Bandcamp. The album took two years to produce, and the band raised the money for recording by auctioning off preorders, plus more expensive options such as a song written about you on the next album, or Jinsen coming round to cook dinner for you, in addition to your music.

3. Karina is from Brazil.

4. They describe their sound as "shoegaze/psychedelic/ambient" (not always in that order). They even dip their toes into more unfashionable proggy guitar effects and swirly riffs, but they do it with a great deal of charm and some spooky multi-tracked girl-boy vocals.

5. As well as the longer, more atmospheric songs, All The Stars In Your Eyes contains several sweet two-minute jangle-pop gems, with girly vocals by Karina.

Listen to an album track here:



Bandcamp
Myspace

Sounds of Summer

Yes, I know, the title of this post is a total cliche. However, fear not. There will be no Ibiza compilations or Festival Classics here. It's just a handy hook upon which to hang two lovely new bands I've found.

First up are Sun Airway, aka Jon and Patrick from Philadelphia, who I found on the Yvynyl blog, who described their song Waiting On You as "beachy delight and pop cotton candy". So far, so summery. This is a soundtrack to the summer of barbecue parties and drinking a nice glass of something in the evening, if such cool little tunes ever made it on to the stereo at barbecue parties, instead of the aforementioned Ibiza compilations and Festival Classics. The subtle laid-back hip-hop beat, the upbeat walking bassline, the hint of castanets, the laconic vocal - it all brings summer to mind. There's something quite lovely and poetic to the lyrics too, with the refrain about not going down gently making me think of Dylan Thomas and his good night.


The second summer band that have caught my eye lately is Tamaryn. At first, I wasn't sure whether Tamaryn was a she or a they, but it appears that Tamaryn is a they: singer Tamaryn and producer/instrumentalist Rex, who are from San Francisco. They have been catching coverage from pretty much everyone, but I'm giving the credit to Salad Fork, as I think I heard their song Sandstone there first.
Sandstone is a summer song of a completely different variety, a hazy, dreamy opus that brings to mind the fierce heat of a desert midday. Tamaryn's hushed, atmospheric vocals have been compared to Hope Sandoval's, which I feel is fair, although she is lower down in the mix than Hope was in Mazzy Star. The looped, treated guitars and insistent drums are as hypnotic as a desert mirage, to continue the analogy.

Listen to Sandstone on any number of MP3 blogs, or on Tamaryn's Myspace.

Sun Airway's Myspace is here.

Music from Manchester (on Monday)

Instead of picking up this week's new songs, I've decided to do something different for this week's Music on Monday. This post is the first in a short series I've got planned on new bands from Manchester, partly in the wake of the FUC51 thing and the ongoing flame war on Twitter that goes with it.

The first Manchester band I'm going to big up is The Switch. They've graced these pages before, when I reviewed their Dum Dum Girls support slot and gave them a hearty thumbs-up. Since then, I've located their Myspace page, found out a little about them and discovered that they've posted some new music in the past week.


The Switch in action.

The band are four: programmer and bassist Tom Harris, Colin Dunkerley on synths and programming, guitarist Anthony Grantham and singer Caroline Sterling. Their origins are a little hazy, but they have been playing gigs since the start of the year at least.

The Switch live is a wall of dirty synth and guitar noise, but The Switch on record (or MP3, rather), is somewhat more of a polished proposition. At first glance, their sound does not deviate hugely from the synth+guitar+laptop shoegaze-revival style, but underpinning their waves of ethereal noise are some really quite clubby beats, more in line with classic-period Underworld or Prodigy. This sets them apart from other female-fronted dream-pop acts. Live especially, it also helps that Caroline commands the stage and can pout and pose with the best.

Their latest offering, Stowaway, is one of the most dance-oriented of their tracks, featuring fractured vocals and an electro-esque bassline. Also standing out on their Myspace is Ser Etico, a very early song, which is hazy and atmospheric, and Heartbreaker, which has a killer pop chorus.

Myspace

Anyone for Tennis?

Back after a brief hiatus, and I can't resist an appalling pun. My apologies for anyone offended by it.

Just before going away, I caught a mention of the first gig by a band called Tennis on Salad Fork. Now I'm back, I can investigate more fully. Tennis now have two tracks up on Gorilla Vs Bear, and a Myspace to boot, which includes three songs and two videos from their debut show.

Tennis are a duo, Patrick and Alaina. They are married to each other. According to their Underwater Peoples bio, they first started playing music together on an eight-month sailing trip, and they haven't stopped since. Not a great deal more than that is known about them, but a little mystique is nice to have.

So, to the music. As befitting their name, Tennis have a summery sound, that put me in mind of walking round after dark at a barbecue or beach party, a glass of wine in my hand, the last heat of the day still keeping me warm.

Their songs are short and sweet. I haven't paid close attention to the lyrics as yet, but I suspect there might be something interesting going on there. Soundwise, they are channelling a great lost girl-group of the 1960s, with Alaina's multi-tracked vocals prominent in the mix. The music is pleasantly fuzzed and blurry, but still retains a sharpness and an eye for a tune. My favourite song of theirs is "Marathon".

The band are a hot topic among bloggers at the moment, and I suspect that there is more in store. I am willing to place a sporting wager that they will feature in The Guardian's New Band of the Day section within one month.

Review - How To Destroy Angels EP

My HTDA download link arrived in my inbox in the early hours of this morning. After a drama with computer security settings, it was finally on my machine and pouring out of my speakers. Here is the track-by-track review.

1. The Space In Between
Familiar to many from its gory, mesmerising video, the track has been remastered slightly and given a final polish. As an opener, it's a great choice. Lyrically and vocally, it is definitely one of HTDA's strongest tracks, and the extra room afforded by an MP3 gives Mariqueen's serene vocal some extra clarity and depth. Although Trent Reznor has described the video as being about a dying relationship, it is hard not to pick up some definite lyrical nods to last year's Twitter drama and the ensuing bitterness.

2. Parasite
Begins with a squalling guitar line and dirty beats. Mariqueen's barely-audible whispered voice cuts in, then we hear Trent for the first time. He and Mariqueen share the singing over Atticus's sinuous bassline, and it's almost as if they're one singer, so close are their lines. The whispered refrain of "Parasite" and the distorted stabs of guitar are quite reminiscent of NIN. Towards the end, the song collapses in a jagged mass of guitar and synth, and the talk track returns. The bassline from this was in the second of the teaser videos.

3. Fur Lined
Probably the "poppiest" track on the EP. There is an immediate resemblance to certain more upbeat NIN songs, especially the drum track (Only). Mariqueen switches up her vocals from her usual whispery style to a kittenish sneer, which is a welcome diversion. There are strong electro influences audible here, with trebly synths and heavily treated voices, although it breaks down into something scuzzier at the end. The double synth line from the final teaser appears towards the end of this song as a repeating motif.

4. BBB
Probably my favourite track from the EP. It's another electronically-based number, and it's here that we get to hear the filthy synths from the first teaser video. The Swarmatron is very much in evidence and sounds even better on the finished song, its distorted wail rising above the assorted cat sounds, whines and drones of the other instruments. The BBB of the title stands for "big black boots", which appear in the lyrics. There is a clear nod to BDSM here and it is hard not to interpret this as a bondage love song. Mariqueen and Trent duet once more, with Atticus on the knobs.

5. The Believers
I think this is a slightly tweaked version of the song I heard last week, although I may be wrong. It is a percussive, glitchy electronic number with what appears to be a lot of "organic" instruments thrown into the mix. It has a strong Asian flavour: the drum sounds and patterns sound somewhat Indian and some of the other incidental sounds make me think of southeast Asian tuned percussion instruments, like a gamelan orchestra gone techno. There's a neat guitar and eight-bit style synth duet at the end. Vocally and lyrically, it's the weakest track, but the music makes up for it.

6. A Drowning
The first single will be familiar to many listeners. It is the simplest of the songs, and also the calmest for the most part. Mariqueen sings over a trebly synth bassline, familiar from Atticus's other work. The music builds into a wall of underwater-sounding guitars and synth, before a plaintive and jarring horn section cuts in. The minor-key piano motifs sound very Reznor-ish, and the distorted guitar solo rising above Mariqueen towards the end is also noticeably him. It finishes the EP well, as its length does not burden it quite so much.

You can download your copy here.

Elsewhere on the internet...

That's me, that is.

I was shown this celebrity face recognition thing on a forum earlier in the week. You upload a picture of your face, and the doubtlessly state of the art software brings up a list of celebrities you look most like. Despite being female, apparently I have a 77% resemblance to Jude Law. Which would be fine, if I were a man. My closest female match was Diane Kruger, although she looks about as much like me as Jude does.
I should go on at this point about the pernicious and vacuous nature of celebrity culture, and our obsession therewith, but the face recogniser is kind of fun, and it's not hurting anyone.

Elsewhere on the internet, music is afoot. Autechre are releasing their second album of the year in July, and have put a track online for our listening pleasure. y7 is available here from Autechre's own site. y7 is quite an upbeat track, with a shifting rhythm of pleasing analog-sounding synth pulses. Despite its upbeat tempo, there's a nice hint of menace lurking within, too.

RWL favourite Trent Reznor has also been a busy boy this week. First, he put out a new track as Nine Inch Nails, a soundtrack effort for the film Tetsuo: The Bullet Man. You can download it here. The Theme is one of the most aggressive pieces Trent has put out for a while. It is almost completely electronic, abrasive as anything and manages to make a synth horn section sound quite scary. This is interspersed with typical Reznor minor-key piano. It works almost like an angry little symphony, with movements and reprises.

Not content with putting the rumours of NIN's total demise to bed, Trent has also unveiled another How To Destroy Angels track. It's meant to be a giveaway with Wired magazine's iPad app, but copies are leaking all over the internet. Atticus, Trent and Mariqueen have taken a more rhythmic approach this time, and The Believers is full of glitchy beats and chopped-up synth. I think you can even hear a Swarmatron riff at the beginning. This is the first HTDA track to feature an obvious TR vocal, which should please many.



Lastly, Klaxons are back, if anyone is still bothered. Their new track, Flashover, was described as a departure from their Nu Rave beginnings by a critic, but to me, it still sounds like Klaxons, albeit a more noisy incarnation. Listen

New Music Monday

A little playlist of new things I've been listening to and watching:

1. How To Destroy Angels - The Space In Between

This is not only a great second song from a scarily-prolific new project, it's an eerie, beautiful video too, if something this twisted can be beautiful in your world.



This video, directed by Rupert Sanders, looks to be part of a series. Will we find out the identity of the murderer? Is it Atticus? Is it the mystery blonde woman? Is it the man in the bathroom?
The music shows much more menace and a harder edge than A Drowning, but still retains the dreamlike (or nightmarish) quality of the first song. You can hear the guitar riff from the third teaser video in here, too.

2. Crystal Castles - Celestica

No video for this. I've not been a fan of Crystal Castles in the past, but this slice of sweetly-voiced electro does something for me. I'm hoping that their new album will grow on me.

3. Emika - Double Edge

Emika is a German vocalist and producer who records on Ninja Tune. This is her second song, and I don't know much about her.



Glitchy, trippy dubstep with subtle, emotional vocals. The video is minimal and somewhat functional, and reminds me of a hostage video.