Regular Ellen viewers can skip to the next paragraph – you’ll already know all about the latest sensation to break from the burgeoning Irish showband scene. Everybody else, allow me to introduce you to Crystal Swing, East Cork’s answer to the Carter Family and, as of a few hours ago, the most successful singing group in Irish music history.
The mother-daughter-son group (Dad is the sound engineer) consists of mother Mary Murray-Burke, daughter Dervla and son Derek. The trio have been on a rapid incline since the release of their album The Best Years of Our Lives in 2009. A performance video of ‘He Drinks Tequila,’ an old American country tune from the ’70s, from a local TV broadcast was picked up by Irish drag queen Panti, and from there the local music media. Their story soon became the thing of internet legend, earning the group an appearance on Ireland’s equivalent of the Late Show, the, err, Late Late Show, as well as a number of other national talk shows. From there, they were discovered by the white people’s answer to Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, and featured on her St. Paddy’s Day special.
Smitten, Ellen vowed to have the band appear live on the show, and on April 12 her wish became a reality. And aside from perhaps the most lengthy and shameless plug for a hard liquor company in US network TV history, Crystal Schwing’s appearance on Ellen was an unqualified…
Alright, so I guess the “rule” for song of the day is that the song has to be upcoming or just released, but shit, have you guys heard “Seeds”? Much hullaballoo was made when “Colouring of Pigeons” dropped in anticipation of The Knife’s Darwinian Electo-opera, Tomorrow, In a Year, but the critical reception to the project has been mixed. You don’t need me to tell you again how I think the naysayers are wrong and that this is one of the most forward thinking releases of our generation, but I do want to call your attention to the best song off the project, “Seeds.”
This hyperelectronic house jam is the most “Knife-ish” thing off Tomorrow, In a Year, but that’s not why it’s the best track. “Seeds” is a slow burning tune that marks the climax of Tomorrow, In a Year: the project. It morphs slowly over time, rocking an 808 beat and yes, opera vocals. Remember that scene in The Fifth Element with the blue chick? This is kind of like that. I’m not gonna give anymore away- you guys should really just get the whole thing and don’t be a pussy about it- but yeah, “Seeds.”
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of April 13, 2010. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff or contributors.
108 – 18.61 (Deathwish Inc.) Jeff Beck – Emotion & Commotion (Rhino Records)
Bison B.C. – Dark Ages (Red Distribution)
Blacklisted – No One Deserves To Be Here More Than Me (Deathwish Inc.)
Blasfema – Galaxia Tropicalia (Self Released) Bleeding Through – Bleeding Through (Rise Records) — Adam Thomas
Bring Me The Horizon – Suicide Season [Deluxe Edition] (Epitaph)
Cancer Bats – Bears, Mayors, Scraps and Bones (Good Fight Music)
Jason Castro – Jason Castro (Atlantic)
The Chant – This Is The World We Know (Full Metal Music) Coheed And Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow (Sony) — John A. Hanson
The Continuous Battle Of Order – Pttrn Skrs (Richter Collective)
Dosh – Tommy (Anticon)
Ego Likeness – Breedless (Metropolis Records)
The Flatliners – Cavalcade (Fat Wreck Chords)
Jamie Foxx – Body (Sony Japan/Zoom)
Foxy Shazam – Foxy Shazam (Sire)
Earl Greyhound – Suspicious Package (Hawk Race) Kaki King – Junior (Rounder/Umgd) — Adam Thomas
Lacuna Coil – Acoustic at Criminal Records 7″ [Vinyl Release] (Century Media) Lunik – Small Lights in the Dark (FOD Records) — Trey Spencer
Matt Pond PA – The Dark Leaves (Attitude Records)
Mark your calendars guys, May is going to be goddamn awesome. I mean, when four of your most anticipated albums drop in three weeks, how can it not be? The 4th will see Minus the Bear and Broken Social Scene release Omni and Forgiveness Rock Record. On the 11th, The National releases High Violet, while the 18th marks the release of Wintersleep’s fourth studio effort, New Inheritors. And that’s just as far as indie rock is concerned. Nice!!
Of the two songs Wintersleep has released thus far (the other being first single, “Black Camera”), “New Inheritors” more closely follows the sound Wintersleep established on Welcome to the Night Sky, though perhaps a little more on the mellow side. Regardless, it’s a fantastic cut, and if it’s at all representative of the album, we should be in for something special. Tell all your friends.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
We’re all just too geographically, musically, and culturally disparate for it to ever happen, but if Sputnik actually did have an office, The Tallest Man on Earth would be hogging our stereo pretty badly right now. Even as early as April, The Wild Hunt looks like a shoe-in for our year-end top 5, with no less than 10 members of staff already giving at least 4 stars.
The early favourites seem to be “King of Spain” and “Kids on the Run”, but for my money, the album’s highlight is the tortured “You’re Going Back”. Rather than the obvious reference points of Devendra and Dylan, this vaguely unhinged, end-of-tether melody recalls the best of Tusk-era Lindsey Buckingham, in the way it suggests that the writer has an unwavering belief in love even as it tears their mind apart.
The sun and the moon, and even Mars
The Milky Way and fucking shooting stars
UFOs, a river flows
Plant a little seed and nature grows
Niagara Falls and the pyramids
Everything you believed in as kids
Fucking rainbows after it rains
there’s enough miracles here to blow your brains
I fed a fish to a pelican at Frisco bay
It tried to eat my cell phone, he ran away
And music is magic, pure and clean
You can feel it and hear it but it can’t be seen
Taken from their latest two-track EP, Tastes Like Magic, Three Red Birds showcases mr. Gnome’s most appealing characteritsic; their gorgeous handling of the masculine vs the feminine. While this would make sense, seeing as this is a male/female duo, the actual execution of the theme is impressive. Sludgy, aggressive guitars sparring with the haunting, delicate vocals of Nicole Barille make for an immediately engaging listen that should have you rifling through the rest of their discography. Kinda like a heavy Land of Talk, sans the boring.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
At a recent production (recent being circa 1995), permatanned paddywhacker Michael Flatley and his Riverdance crew performed an impromptu tap routine to the tune of Adebisi Shank’s 2008 smash ‘Snakehips.’
When asked to comment on the performance, Flatley was unresponsive, lending credence to rumours that his face may, in fact, be constructed entirely of wax.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
So the sun finally came (and stayed) out today, meaning it is officially time for sick summer mix tapes. What’s that, it’s only April? This is England. Got sun? Got shorts? Got temperatures above 20 degrees celsius? Got summer. Besides, Buddy Peace deserves to be heard by everyone, at all times of the year – anyone who can make MF Doom seem right at home in Jose Gonzalez’ IKEA kitchen is clearly doing something right. So dig out that SPF factor 50, whack on them sunnies, and enjoy the scorchingly mild heat to the tune of one of the best mix tapes of the last decade in Wolf Diesel Mountain. The track below is a minimix of that album, with a few extra bits thrown in for good measure.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Starkey is a Philadelphia producer who is releasing his second full-length LP, Ear Drums and Black Holes, on April 19 with Planet Mu Records. Starkey’s bouncy, major-key sound is a bit out of place on the usually abstract Planet Mu, but the convoluted details in his production and the active, heavy beats fit in nicely. The two tracks below represent the two distant poles of Starkey’s sound. “OK Luv” is ever-changing and throbbing like any good club banger, whereas “Stars” is introspective and sidereal, which works well with Anneka’s guest vocals. Make sure you also check out the Lala sidebar because I’ve uploaded an alternate version of “OK Luv.”
Starkey – “OK Luv”
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
I’ll be honest: I wasn’t attracted in the least bit to Best Coast because of their music. This isn’t because their music is bad, of course (well, it mostly isn’t) – “The Road”, found on the band’s Something in the Way EP, is one of the best songs of this young year. But what intrigued me was that Bethany Cosentino, the muscle behind the project, was also affiliated with a Cali band called Pocahaunted, which is a totally psychotic psych-folk band that doesn’t sound like it should have any associations with something as phosphorescent as a band like Best Coast. Questions brewed in my mind: why would someone like Cosentino want to take part in a lo-fi, unapologetically trendy project like this? For fleeting recognition from bloggers? (She succeeded in that regard.) Or, perhaps, and this is what I believe to be the case, Cosentino got hung-up in the confines of Pocahaunted, a band so experimental that doing something more traditional would seem like a cop-out. Thus, a new moniker, and a new beginning from those who don’t discover your music through means that involve your former band, was born.
It won’t surprise me, however, if Cosentino totally defies her past allegiances; “The Road” is a step towards doing so. While “Something in the Way” and “Wish He Was You” were sunshiney to the point of being vexatious, “The Road” is immediately a different beast: its opening riff is hard and instant, and propels the rest of the song…
For those of you who haven’t checked out one of Japan’s most endearing songwriters (and why haven’t you??), now is certainly as good a time as any to seek out Shugo Tokumaru who, for this lowly critic’s money, released one of last decade’s strongest pop collections. Shugo is gearing up to release his fourth album, Port Entropy, in Japan on April 21, three years after Exit‘s sugar rush. Based on the new video below, we are in for some more indelible, colorful, very foreign folk music. No news yet on release dates around the world, but that shouldn’t stop you from eating up the rest of this man’s discography. It is weird and humble in a very, very good way.
Sputnik Music would like all of you to join us in congratulating Kiran Soderqvist (Kirgasm), Adam Thomas (Redskyformiles), and Rudy Klapper (Klap4music) on their promotions to staff.
Note: Contributor promotions are still scheduled to take place later in the Spring.
Last month, Pantha Du Prince released “Stick to My Side”, a collaboration with Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) of Animal Collective, as a single. The song comes from his superb February release Black Noise. With the single came five remixes, two of which are posted here. The former is a Four Tet remix, which brings the song closer to a dancefloor jam a la “Love Cry” with enhanced bass and synths. The second takes a completely different spin on the song and makes it more of an Explosions in the Sky cum Toro y Moi affair, emphasizing the hidden guitar riff in the song and altering Panda Bear’s vocals with heavy delay and modulation. Both are excellent interpretations of an already great song.
Thera is a 5-piece band out of Alaska. Their core sound could most generically be described as alternative or emo, but there’s more to it than that. Thanks in large part to the vocals of Stephanie Plate, the band’s music takes on an epic feel despite the short duration of the songs. Her voice is very unique and capably conveys the raw emotion of her lyrics. Musically the band creates pieces that can move from uplifting highs to crushing lows within the span of a single song. I know it’s still early, but this may very well be one of my top 3 albums of 2010.
—————————————————————————
— The Aftermath
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
— The Downpour
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
— Don’t Hesitate
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Taken from their latest two-track EP, Tastes Like Magic, Three Red Birds showcases mr. Gnome’s most appealing characteritsic; their gorgeous handling of the masculine vs the feminine. While this would make sense, seeing as this is a male/female duo, the actual execution of the theme is impressive. Sludgy, aggressive guitars sparring with the haunting, delicate vocals of Nicole Barille make for an immediately engaging listen that should have you rifling through the rest of their discography. Kinda like a heavy Land of Talk, sans the boring.
So the sun finally came (and stayed) out today, meaning it is officially time for sick summer mix tapes. What’s that, it’s only April? This is England. Got sun? Got shorts? Got temperatures above 20 degrees celsius? Got summer. Besides, Buddy Peace deserves to be heard by everyone, at all times of the year – anyone who can make MF Doom seem right at home in Jose Gonzalez’ IKEA kitchen is clearly doing something right. So dig out that SPF factor 50, whack on them sunnies, and enjoy the scorchingly mild heat to the tune of one of the best mix tapes of the last decade in Wolf Diesel Mountain. The track below is a minimix of that album, with a few extra bits thrown in for good measure.
Last month, Pantha Du Prince released “Stick to My Side”, a collaboration with Noah Lennox (Panda Bear) of Animal Collective, as a single. The song comes from his superb February release Black Noise. With the single came five remixes, two of which are posted here. The former is a Four Tet remix, which brings the song closer to a dancefloor jam a la “Love Cry” with enhanced bass and synths. The second takes a completely different spin on the song and makes it more of an Explosions in the Sky cum Toro y Moi affair, emphasizing the hidden guitar riff in the song and altering Panda Bear’s vocals with heavy delay and modulation. Both are excellent interpretations of an already great song.
