eashfa
Head is alive. Hence the sound of music.Archive for UK
Portishead do Portishead
Portishead have linked up with Current TV for an exclusive 40-minute broadcast performance. The show includes eight songs from their new album, Third, and will air multiple times on the television channel (see showtimes below) over the following week.
- April 14, 2008 at 8pm EST / 5pm PST
- April 15, 2008 at 3am EST / 12am PST
- April 16, 2008 at 6pm EST / 3pm PST
- April 17, 2008 at 12pm EST / 9am PST
- April 18, 2008 at 12am EST / 9pm PST
— Note: GMT=EST+4. Right? Right?
Bubbles of urgent youth: Stuart James
Getting us back to spoken wit and guitar banging for a bit of a beat, here’s Stuart James. This is quite long overdue, and I have some other myspacians for you to check out, so come back, and come back often. Well maybe not that often.
Standout track: City On A Roll remix (mp3)
more on the hype machino
The Coral - and all the leaves fell simultaneously
I don’t know how these guys keep putting out records, it’s all done very quietly, silent rumbles from the North of England. But I hope they don’t get dropped. When I first discovered The Coral it was through either Q Magazine or Mojo, I was reading both at the time; trust me Q was a good magazine, and Bono wasn’t on the cover every few months. (Mai știți, mergeam acum câțiva ani după reviste de muzică la preț redus, la chioșcul din Gara de Nord special, și ieșeam de acolo cu 3-4 într-o lună bună. Încă recomand oricui Mojo.)
Nothing seems right except for the music at night. Voices clutching to guitars and lyrics weaving stories. Although there’s a tendency to mourn, and it’s this sorrow that I like against my will, the minor chords slip into light, like a yellow chick fighting its destiny and trying to soar several centimetres off the ground. Crying girls, conspicuous girls, the moon, even a song about me (Jacqueline), and then girls. It makes me feel like an inspid unfeeling twig, listening to the hyperemotion coming out of James Skelly’s throat.
You can’t feel free or happy listening to this, it’s actually quite tiring if you let yourself sink in the atmosphere, be it typically melancholy or a bit more folko-jitterbuggy, but there’s relief coming from the greyish sun rising above with plenty of sentiment.
They’ve got a gig at the Electric Proms on the 24th of October so I would go see that 
M-am liniștit
E drăguț (deși nu mai găseam ț-ul) să auzi -de văzut văd cu ochiul meu de amoebă călătoare- cum se schimbă scena în Anglia. Cum nu s-au poticnit după ștampila de britpop din anii ‘90, știi?
În timp ce alții nu pot decât a imita.
A direct consequence
.. meanwhile I have become completely and forevermore dependent on Google Reader, which is now acting up.
I starred so many items I forgot what to post, so this is an impromptu bubble.
It’s a Glasgow bubble! In more recent development, it’s a haven for the preachers of our beloved indie rock gospel- be it noise or shoegazery, anything in between. I love the instant recognoscibility an accent gives you; and a Scottish one seems to me to lather your brain to the most latherable degree.
My Latest Novel they look so twee it hurts no. Do not judge, fair blog readers. That’s a good piece of advice in any matter. Or at least listen to the fairy-scaped sound delight that makes you think, that is, if your thoughts don’t pause completely to behold the grace before them, I say, you think what I am i listening to; sounds like pop, but it ain’t; there’s that experimental nouveau-something vibe that adamantly weeps inside the songs. Music that makes you think, without it being intellectual, a passive type of learning from your own recollections.. wait wah what am I starting an essay on Romanticism. OK, once more. It’s harmony in its most straight-forward manner; with a scampering or itchy violin always present to salute the vocals; with lights and shadows almost like a painting. This is touching without grotesque cliches.
download: The Hope Edition mp3
download: The Reputation of Ross Francis mp3
Glasvegas have been torching my indie yoyo since January. Rock’s been tossing my yoyo loose, except Glasvegas who climb and cling to it for dear life lest I should send out funeral invitations for rock music - listen and be wowed by the self-proclaimed BOMP
AND BRILLIANCE OF A GLASGOW BAND. - Invisible ink there. They have that spirit of mutiny that’d suit a pirate ship. Loving them.
(If anyone in Bucharest should be willing to organize a Glasvegas gig here mail me)
(downloads from their myspace)
Ha, well, turns out this is more than a bubble.
New Beatles? OK..
こんばんは！
The new Beatles Album Love is released Monday 20th November, The Beatles are giving fans a chance to hear the album before it is released, in the infamous studio that it was originally recorded in! The first 100 fans to turn up at 1pm on Friday 17th, at Abbey Road Studios, will get a wristband to return later that evening (6:30pm) for an exclusive playback of the LOVE album in the legendary Studio 2.
… so says EMI. Thought some of you might want to know that, in lieu of going out and seeing the odd yet compellingly live interaction between a drunken mystical swaggering singer and the sniggering drummer, you can listen to a record spin. Or maybe they’re bringing in the Cirque du Soleil act. And I’m not being ironic. RetroLowFi’s Marc has a problem with this though. I’m as neutral as can be.
Some new, but-not-ew (sorry) Zutons, Copeland and a tiny new band dancing on my blog will be - tomorrow I guess, now I’m off for Japanese homework.
The Bishops
Whatever’s going on in the UK, it’s all very thrilling. There’s a crop of talented people that are bending genres, giving melody and story-telling a new lease of life and while some are more indie than others, I can’t ignore the pop!
The Bishops really are the Bishops - a set of brothers, that is, Mike and Pete Bishop, and a lad called Chris McConville, drumming an eager drum, who they met in a local bar. Since they’re so catchy in this first phase of listening, and they sound like the 60’s-style pop Yang to The Pipettes’ Yin, I’m trying to decipher if they’re a one-trick pony, but I’ll have to wait until October to hear out their LP for that. If you like The Kooks, you’re going to like this too.
The Bishops - The Only Place I Can Look Is Down mp3 (right-click and save)
elsewhere: The Hype Machine
The Good, The Books, and yes The Free Download
It may seem to the recurring visitor that I’m on a Transgressive binge, that’s my favourite UK indie label to you.
GoodBooks have seen their single “Walk With Me” released by the label in April this year, having previously surfed the indie wave with their self-released EP “Valves and Robots”. You can try and find it, but if you’ve just recently turned art-rocker lover don’t be alarmed if you don’t. Just the way the arty cookie crumbles, for people to moan that now they’re signed to Columbia, ye good ole days are gone, but they still have proof they once were indie. Despite the obvious selfishness and craposity of that mindless reaction, GoodBooks are on a different kind of wave now.
The Magic Numbers seem to love them, they’ve toured with the Mystery Jets and Art Brut (they actually have a toned-down version of You Don’t Fool Me Dennis that sounds like a ride on a ferris wheel, on their myspace, and a download of that would have been just as welcome).
The fellas have a free download up, so get it while it’s good and crusty-warm, and don’t leave the artwork hanging either.
Catch them at a festival near you: Reading on the 26th of August or Leeds on the 27th, and check their site for other tour dates. Remember, it’s the live acts where bands get most of their recognition, pledges of allegiance and general dosh.
Mumm-Ra - a roar and a hush
I rarely champion bands here more than once or twice, which just means there’s so much music - or only so much music you’ll listen to time and again; (sort of) fact: people only listen to around 23% of the songs on their iPods habitually.
Mumm-Ra, as of now, are among the 23% of my listening habits.
Sounds menacing doesn’t it.
Jamie to the T
UPDATE: if you’re looking for the Sheila lyrics, skedaddle on over here
I’m not one that generally listens to a full LP these days - like I can’t concentrate on films or books.
I’m on an ADD wave
Luckily Jamie T has EPs out. That sound like inebriated swee peas. Notoriously hard to come by, almost as soon as they were released they vanished into thin 7-inch air. It’s precisely this detail that made me gallop the internets like mad until a nice last.fm jamie fan clued me in. This made my day
Jamie T was a fortuitous discovery that makes me want to do things. I cannot keep still when I listen to this dude. Too much flow baby! A one-man Arctic Monkeys is what he’s been described as - I’m going to disagree, you know me. There’s just so much more to Jamie T. Playing with samples has been a tweak exploited mainly by leftfield electronica, from the coherent to the unintelligible, but I’ve never heard them dipped into indie rock- which by the way is not quite what he calls himself. He’s a player of bass guitar, and an adept of reggae, punk and rap.
Jamie T collages his visual art into sounds, in ways I’ve never heard before. Granted, alcohol-induced inspired moments will happen. But these songs aren’t flukes. Some artists take a long time to find their sound, Jamie just slides into his aural state with utter ease. This might be an acute, long process for the bloke - point being, it never feels like it.
