The following video was released for Lotus Flower, it seems Thom Yorke stole Paul Smith's hat:
On the first couple of listens the album is very good with lots of dubstep influences. So far Codex is the standout track for me, I think it compares well with anything Radiohead have ever done. I suspect we'll be seeing another, companion, album to this sometime soon. You can buy the download album now from Radiohead here and if you're unsure, you can stream it from here.
As you'll almost certainly know The Strokes have a new album out on the 21st/22nd of March. The first single from it is Under Cover Of Darkness and you can download it now. Enjoy.
It's from the album of the same name which will have 12 tracks altogether. There's no official track listing yet but the following songs seem pretty likely to be included:
Blue Spotted Tail Bedouin Dress I Feel the Same Midnight Feeder Tripolee Sim Sala Bim Battery Kinzie Montezuma
I'm guessing that most of you will already know about The Strokes new album, but just in case you don't here are the details.
The album will be called Angles, has 10 tracks and is due to be released on 21st of March in the UK and most of the rest of Europe, March 22nd in North America and 23rd of March in Japan. The first single will be Under Cover Of Darkness, rumoured to be released 9th of February.
Rolling Stone seems to like it a lot, but I haven't read an issue of that in well over a decade, so I'm not taking anything from that. They say, amongst other things, that
Angles is the best album the Strokes have made since Is This It because of the stylistic depth and progressive excitement in those crisscross guitars, the tightly wound rhythms and Casablancas’ dry trademark croon.
Track listing is:
1 - Machu Picchu 2 - Under Cover of Darkness 3 - Two Kinds of Happiness 4 - You're So Right 5 - Taken For a Fool 6 - Games 7 - Call Me Back 8 - Gratisfaction 9 - Metabolism 10 - Life is Simple in the Moonlight
There are no new tracks released from it yet, so here are a few tracks from The Strokes that you may not have heard. I'm not going to call them rare, but they've never been released on an album. There's a b-side, a fanclub track and a live song with special guest. Enjoy.
You may remember back in August I shared a video with you of the Avishai Cohen Trio playing Remembering (here). The good news is Avishai Cohen has an album due out next month called Seven Seas. The title track has been made available for download so I'm sharing it with you here, although you can also download it from Avishai Cohen's website if you'd rather, further details about the album and his upcoming tour are available there as well.
Of course, because I'm so good to you, I've got some more songs for you.The first is a recording by The Avishai Cohen Trio and the second is The Avishai Cohen Trio joined by Jimmy Greene on saxophone.
Mark Guilliana's drumming is a real highlight on Eleven Wives, he's up there with Dave King as one of the best drummers around at the moment. Jimmy Greene's presence on the second track gives a much different sound and compliment's the trio's playing very well.
Given that I gave you all those REM covers on Sunday and then yesterday told you about Rural Alberta Advantage's upcoming release it only makes sense that I tell you about Collapse Into Now, the soon to be released album from R.E.M.
So far two tracks have been released from the album, Discoverer and It Happened Today, featuring guest vocals from Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibbs. Both are available below and as a bonus I've included a live version of Man On The Moon, also featuring Eddie Vedder.
This is the first time in a while I've really looked forward to an album by R.E.M. As I've mentioned before Automatic For The People was the first album I ever bought. I loved it and I loved Monster. New Adventures In Hi Fi is my favourite R.E.M. album and Up was an excellent album. So when Reveal was released I was disappointed. Not that there aren't good songs on it, perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more if it was a debut album by a band I had no expectations for. Maybe then I'd have enjoyed the good songs enough to not let the rest colour my opinion of the album so much. Then came Around The Sun. Final Straw is a good song, but that's pretty much it. The album isn't terrible, but it's a long way from good or even above average.
So it's safe to say my expectations for Accelerate were low. After all the last three albums had all been ones I'd enjoyed less than their predecessor and the gap had grown with each release. If the pattern continued then I'd dislike Accelerate even more than Around The Sun and I didn't want to risk that. So I pretty much ignored the release and bought it a few months later after I'd seen plenty of good reviews. And it was very good. I enjoyed listening to it a lot and it made up for the missteps of Reveal and the general mediocrity of Around The Sun. Now it's almost time for Collapse Into Now to be released and I'm looking forward to it. I think after you've listened to these two tracks you will be as well.
Discoverer All the Best Überlin Oh My Heart It Happened Today (featuring Eddie Vedder and Joel Gibb) Every Day Is Yours to Win Mine Smell Like Honey Walk It Back Alligator Aviator Autopilot Antimatter (featuring Peaches and Lenny Kaye) That Someone Is You Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I Blue (featuring Patti Smith)
One of my favourite bands since I first heard them Rural Alberta Advantage have a new album due to be released in March. Stamp is the first track to be released from the album in it's final form. (Two Lovers and Barnesyard were both played as acoustic songs by Nils Edenloff for Daytrotter). If you enjoyed their debut album Hometowns you'll love this and if you didn't you're a fool, but it's ok you'll still love this.
Some more new music for you, Downtown/Union from LA this time around. I've been listening to Keep The Engine Running for a couple of weeks now, but circumstances have conspired to stop me from posting it until now. Keep The Engine Running is from the EP Astral Turf. The full EP is available to stream and/or buy from their website and I recommend you spend some time listening to them. They're an indie/garage rock band that sound like Pavement with Kevin Barnes on vocals with little bits of The Henry Clay People, Dinosaur Jr and The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion mixed in. or, to put it another way, they sound very good. Enjoy.
I've probably mentioned before but one of my favorite things about writing this blog is getting bands or their representatives sending me music that I might like to put on the blog.
This time it's The Enthusiasts.
I know the people who read this are fairly diverse in your musical tastes. But you're reading a blog named from a Velvet Underground lyric, there are some things almost all of you like. So I feel fairly safe saying that pretty much everyone that reads this on a regular basis will love the Enthusiasts.
If you like The Strokes, MC5, Jon Spencer Blus Explosion, The White Stripes and basically and garage rock or garage revival band you will love them. Need more evidence? Here's a live version of In The City:
Remember The Plastic Pals? They're a Swedish band I featured back at the beginning of March. (Check the post here if you missed it first time around)
After I posted that I got an e-mail from someone who'd done some backing vocals on The Plastic Pals album. So here we are, here's his solo project Stamper Freon.
I've just got to say first that this is really, really good. Stamper Freon came about after a couple of years break from recording and general involvement in the music industry. He's got a really distinctive voice that sometimes reminds me of Paddy McAloon and other times of Alex Kapranos.
Here's the first song: Wish You Were Here. This song was inspired by something his daughter said to him about her grandfather, I think it's the sort of thing any parent will recognise. Also the drumming in this is phenomenal.
Normally I don't post covers unless it's on a Sunday but I'm making an exception here. This is Clap Hands, originally by Tom Waits.
Check out his myspace page, there are another 7 songs to listen to and some videos to watch. In fact, here's one of the videos to watch now:
I accept, he sounds nothing like Paddy McAloon or Alex Kapranos in this song, you'll just have to download Wish You Were Here to check it out.
But that's not all. As you probably guessed given his association with The Plastic Pals he's Swedish as well. And he's in a Sweish language band called De livslevande Fågelmännen which I'm told roughly translates to The Very Much Alive Birdman. I asked for a song from them as well because there's nowhere near enough non-English language music on this blog. So here's my first step towards correcting that Ingen Djävul (Not A Devil) This was recorded while jamming and then worked on in the studio. It's a great song, very catchy even if you can't speak a word of Swedish.
Here's the myspace for De livslevande Fågelmännen. There's plenty of songs and a video on there as well.
That's it for today, I hope you enjoy the music from today's post as much as I do.
One of the best things about writing this blog is getting e-mails from bands. Mostly they're new bands I haven't heard off, but not always. Generally they want me to listen to their music and feature it here, but again not always. Either way it's nice to see bands that don't treat blogs as the enemy.
Which brings me to The Plastic Pals. I got an e-mail from them and immediately liked them. They're from Stockholm although the songs are in English. They've got a sound that's hard to describe, for me at least. They appeal to the part of me that enjoy Loaded era Velvet Underground (that's a large part of me) and Television, but with a popier touch.
The lead vocalist Hawk Soold has an awesome voice with a bit of John Cale and just a touch of Jon Spencer mixed in. If that hasn't got you eager to listen to them then I don't know what will. Here's a track for you all:
and here's a live video, you can really hear the Loaded-esque guitar playing:
There's A Wind On The Moon
Go here to download another couple of free tracks as well as buy the album (First track Here Comes The Sun is my personal favourite). Visit their myspace here and lastly, here's their homepage. Enjoy.
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