Archive for category General
U.S. Girls Replaces Pantha Du Prince As No 1 In The Loop.
Megan Remy’s project US Girls has replaced Pantha Du Prince at the top of our loop thanks to the hypnotically fuzzy ‘Red Ford Radio’, the highlight of her second album ‘Go Grey’.
Joanna Newsom’s ‘Baby Birch’; Vampire Weekend’s new single off their second opus ‘Contra’; Broken Social Scene and Gorillaz Feat. Gruff Rhys & De La Soul are some of the week’s new entries.
Check the full loop here.
You can also listen to an extended selection of our current favourite tracks @ www.hypem.com/indaloop.
The Week That Was (04-03-2010): Gonjasufi; Gorillaz; Morning Benders; The Drums; Pavement; Foals…
In what’s been another bumper week for quality new albums, nearly 10 high profile releases, all hitting the shops next Mondays, were previewed online. Beginning by Gonjasufi, the yoga teacher, Flying Lotus collaborator and spiritual electronica purveyor that with ‘A Sufi & A Killer’ has got one of the most exciting albums of the year on his hands. It can still be heard in full at Clash magazine’s website.
MySpace is offering a few notable previews. Namely, Broken Bells’ debut album, the project formed by The Shins’ frontman James Mercer and Danger Mouse, already shaking alternative circles; Art-rockers Liars’ comeback with ‘Sisterworld’, hailed as a return to the peaks of ‘Drum’s Not Dead’ and energetic hardcore rockers Titus Andronicus with their second work ‘The Monitor’.
Damon Albarn’s and co animated popstars Gorillaz are back with a third offering, that on first impression sounds like the band’s most accomplished effort to date. A constellation of veteran stars –Lou Reed, Snoop Dogg, Mos Deff, Bobby Womack; Gruff Rhys; De La Soul, detc- collaborates. British newspaper The Guardian still has the premiere and the band is currently invading all audiovisual channels with all sorts of initiatives to support the launch.
Spinner’s listening post was humming and offering a bunch of interesting new albums including the latest from The Ruby Sun’ ‘Fight Softly’; The Besnard Lakes’ ‘Are The Roaring Road’ and Frightened Rabbitt’s ‘ The Winter Of Mixed Drinks’
Last, but not least, San Francisco indie pop craftsmen The Morning Benders have put together what is likely becoming their breakthrough record, ‘Big Echo’. Happy listening!
Not a week with big headlines to remember. We worried about the news of Guru’s being in a coma after a heart attack; luckily news of his evolution were positive and the rapper is allegedly recovering. Other than that, the first gig of Pavement’s long awaited reunion flooded the internet from Auckland. Videos of some of the concert highlights can be watched here.
Apart from the ones that already went to the top of our loops, among the tracks that have caught our attention this week we find most promising new band Rober nominees The Drums, following up their surftastic debut EP with a slice fine indie pop called ‘Just Friends’.
Devo announced their return to the studio after two decades and offered their rather good ‘Fresh’ while launching a curious colour study research through their website. On the other side of the coin, David Byrne and Fatboy Slim gave us a new taste of their Imelda Marcos inspired project. ‘Why Don’t You Love Me’ counts with Cyndi Lauper and Tori Amos as lead vocalists and it builds on the impression that the project is shaping up to be one of the year’s biggest disappointments.
Three returning bands were offering free goodies to their fans. British angular rockers Foals’ first taster from their second album ‘Spanish Sahara’ was unveiled this week. The Mount Kimbie remix of the track was given away in exchange for your email. Courtney Love did the same with ‘Skinny Little Bitch’. The first single of Hole’s controversial reunion comes years after Love’s career sank and looks a bit as a desperate attempt to rescue her career. Love’s former boyfriend and nineties alt-rock titan Billy Corgan, carried on his plan to slowly giving away his double new album –rumours of a ‘Mellon Collie’ soundalike abounds- free through the Smashing Pumpkins website. The first bits don’t look too promising either.
Elsewhere The Fader offered as usual a free download of their monthly podcast, including excellent stuff by new female rap sensation Nicky Minaj; Midlake; etc. and influential blog Gorilla Vs Bear offered a link to the new Rangers mixtape.
Many new and interesting videos also grazed the internet during the last seven days. Domino’s latest discovery Villagers; ‘Freak’, Estelle’s follow-up to ‘American Boy’; Crookers italo-bonkers ‘Festa Festa’ from the DJ duo’s imminent debut album ‘Tons Of Friend’
South-African trailer trash satire rappers are poised to be the next big novelty thing thanks to songs like the rather funny ‘Enter The Ninja’. And last, with certain delayed compared to the date their singles leaked, both Goldfrapp and Gorillaz have finally delivered their new videos. Goldfrapp’s ‘Rocket’ is an homage to the eighties sounds and clips that have inspired their fifth album. Meanwhile the biggest cartoon rock star ever have hired action star Bruce Willis to appear in their new promo ‘Stylo‘.
2009 Film Review: 10 Surprises & Guilty Pleasures
But if the year was full of disappointments, it didn’t lack of surprises either; namely, the spectacular rise of science-fiction in all of its fronts, from the more mainstream –the rebirth of the Star Trek franchise- to the art house –Duncan Jones’ debut ‘Moon’-, which next to commercial and creative successes such as ‘District 9’ brought back the best qualities of a genre considered by many as minor and almost confined to comic adaptations in recent years. Horror kept on going stronger during the summer at the US box office and a series of Catalonian directors took it by assault; some of them leaving behind the limitations of trashy B-movie-like filmmaking and producing more than decent works such as ‘Orphan’. Elsewhere, among the landslide of stereotypical pictures masterminded for the family; children or female audience clusters we were able to find the odd unexpected jewel.
The next 10 movies were the biggest surprises and guilty pleasures the film industry provided in 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
2009 Film Review: 10 Disappointments
Last year was sadly plagued with all sort of cinematographic deceptions: we found some of our favourite authors struggling to make sense; some others venturing into register changes with disheartening results; a few high-profile literary adaptations sinked and mainstream cinema gave further proof it has completely swallowed the independent way of film-making that meant such an influential batch of fresh talent during the 80’s and 90’s. The following ten titles arrived full of promise, but were not able to deliver… Read the rest of this entry »
The Week That Was (25-02-2010): Joanna Newsom; Liars; Roman Polanski; Pantha Du Prince; Devo
Last week it seemed like there was only one record release: Joanna Newsom’s third album’s triple extravaganza has taken the media by storm. Newsom has never been short of ambition and her former opus “Ys” became such a landmark that few thought it could be matched. But the first reactions to “Have One On Me” have been superlative. However, a couple of listenings have left us still unsure if three albums worth of material were necessary or “Have One On Me” would have been much better if shortened. Listen in full during this week at NPR and take your own conclusions.
Joanna Newsom casts a shadow over the rest of the week’s releases, among them ‘Similes’, the new record by Phil Elverum’s ambient project Eluvium and the rather lackluster posthumous sixth volume of Johnny Cash’ “American Recordings”.
Haiti and the many charitable musical causes to help with the earthquake’s aftermath were still generating news. After the devastating catastrophe the world had to suffer –for a good cause- reinterpretations of R.E.M.’ s ‘Everybody Hurts’ performed by Simon Cowell’s puppet factory next to some other British stars and in the US ‘We Are The World’ by a large list of A, B and even some C list artists that happen to be around on Grammy night; now its time for an all-star record that you may actually want to hear: Shane MacGowan and friends covering ‘I Put A Spell On You’. The Pogues’ frontman got Nick Cave, Johnny Depp, Mick Jones, Chrissy Hynde and a few other friends involved in the recording.
Primal Scream generated some headlines by announcing they will be touring in the autumn playing their seminal album “Screamadelica”. The band joins an illustrious list of artists that in recent times are following the trend of playing classic albums in full. More live news, Fleet Foxes’ frontman Robin Pecknold will be touring with Joanna Newsom in what’s likely to be one of the most talked-about double bills of the year and Fairport Convention veteran Richard Thompson will be the curator of London Southbank’s annual festival Meltdown.
Roman Polanski was the toast of the Berlinale after being awarded as best Director for his new film ‘The Ghost Writer‘. The filmmaker was not able to collect the prize as he’s still in house arrest waiting for new developments in his long-standing conflict with the US law. The winner of the Golden Bear was the Turkish film ‘Bal’ (Honey). More details about the rest of the festival’s winners here.
More movie news, Oren Moverman, whose striking debut ‘The Messenger’ has earned an Oscar nomination for best script, will be the director of a film about Kurt Kobain’s life. Moverman is no stranger to writing about music. He earned rave reviews for the imaginative script of Bob Dylan’s biopic ‘I’m Not There’. This week also saw the Oscar nominated shorts hit the American cinemas, a look at this year’s contenderds here.
Pantha Du Prince offered an excellent show at Cargo, mostly based on the tracks of his magnificent recent album “Black Noise”. The project of Hamburg producer Hendrick Weber showcased his excellent melting pot of shoegaze; Detroit and minimal techno influences in front of an ecstatic audience.
Last week we finally finished watching all of this year’s Oscar nominated films, reaffirming our overall impression that 2009 won’t go down in history as a vintage year for movies. The last two films on hitting British cinemas are ‘Crazy Heart’, Scott Cooper’s debut as a director, which tells the story of a country singer whose career is fading. There’s nothing new or ground-breaking about it, but Jeff Bridges and Maggie Gyllenhaal’s performances elevate it from being just an average fare. At this state nobody doubts Bridges will grab the statuette on Oscar night.
Other film whose actors have scooped some nominations is Michael Hoffman’s ‘The Last Station’, a period drama about the last days of Russian writer Leon Tolstoi; the peculiar cult surrounding his ideals and the conflict they generate between him and his wife, played by the always excellent Helen Mirren. Both Mirren and Christopher Plummer are nominated and deservedly so, but the film shifts between comedy and drama, failing to feel truly accomplished as either.
New and noteworthy tracks of the week: Beach House, fresh from having released one of the best albums of the year, unveiled a new track “The Arrangement”, destined to be a B-side for an exclusive single the Baltimore couple is releasing for record day. This week also saw the return of the Canadian supergroups, with both The New Pornographers –‘Your Hands (Together)’ and Broken Social Scene ‘World Sick’ offering the first taster from their respective new projects. Bill Callahan was also in the news with the announcement of an imminent best live moments compilation. The anticipating track “Bowery” hit the blogs a few days ago.
Video of the week goes for Vampire Weekend’s star-studded new promo in which the preppie New Yorkers have called their celebrity friends to be filmed during a strange tennis match. Jake Gyllenhaal; RZA; Lil Jon & Joe Jonas helped putting images to “Giving Up The Gun”.
Other interesting clips: Liars finally offered a video for “Scissor”, the first single from their imminent “Sisterworld”. Xiu Xiu’s “Death Grey” and Kanye West still releasing tracks from his tepidly received latest record “808’s & Heartbreak” brought us a disturbing video for “Coldest Winter”
And the best free stuff of the week includes surprises such as a new track by Devo. The American new wave masters, after their successful return to the live circuit, announced their first studio album in two decades with the free download of the rather excellent new track “Fresh”. The band is also asking their fans for help choosing colours for their new art and image through a curious marketing research happening at their website.
Antifolk supergroup The Bundles, fronted by ex-Moldy Peaches Kymia Dawson and Jeffrey Lewis, introduced themselves by giving away one of their songs, ‘Pirates Declare War’.
And three top-notch mixtapes for your collection: The way for the imminent collaboration between Method Man; Ghostface Killah & Raekwon –finally under the name of Meth, Goth & Rae- is being paved with a mixtape full of both classic moments of the Wu-tang members and new track premieres. “Avenging Angels” can be downloaded here. Canadian electroclash purveyor Chilly Gonzales is back with his “Pianist Envy” mix; and for the lovers of nu-cumbia DJ Orion has compiled another scorcher called “Carajo Colombia” than can be downloaded on a pay as much as you like basis.
Hot Chip Take In The Loop.
British electropop greats Hot Chip are taking in our loop this week. Until now, they had been regarded mostly as a singles band, but their fourth record “One Life Stand” has been universally saluted as their more compact album to date.
The band will have to endure strong competition from The Magnetic Fields, Caribou and Yeasayer in order to maintain the peak position.
New entries include glo-fi duo Toro & Moi; Arcade Fire’s string arranger Owen Pallett and Sigur Rós’ lead singer gone solo Jonsi.
Check The Loop here.
The Week In Records: Hot Chip, Pantha Du Prince; Basia Bulat; Charlotte Gainsbourg…
The last week of January came packed with more fine records, establishing the first month of the year as the time of choice by small labels to launch their most important artists’ output. To top-notch albums by the likes of Vampire Weekend; Spoon; Owen Pallett; Beach House… we can add a whole bunch of interesting new releases, beginning by Charlotte Gainsbourg’s second album, after her first failed to impressed despite a all-star cast of collaborators. ‘IRM’ sees the actress and singer teaming up with Beck, who revisits his passion for Charlotte’s dad music . Together they’ve made a record that would make Serge proud and recalls Beck’s own “Sea Change”. The album can be streamed in full here. The return of Stephen Merritt’s Magnetic Fields “Reality”, described by the songwriter as his folk album is also generating waves of enthusiasm. Alongside Swedish acoustic folkies First Aid Kid; avant-garde jazzists The Shining and returning favorites Tindersticks, they are some of spotify’s most interesting additions in recent days.
British electro-pop champions Hot Chip return with “One Life Stand“, acclaimed by the British press as their best album to date. Other notorious returns are Low’s Alan Sparshawk side project , Retribution Gospel Choir, taking a giant step in their second effort, named simply “2″, which matches in quality the mother’s band offerings. Quasi’s back too with with “American Gong”. The peculiar husband & wife from Portland deliver their best album in a decade and will be part of the line-up of ATP festival curated by their mates Pavement.
Last, but not least in the comeback department is the fifth album by Bristol’s finest Massive Attack. The collective return with “Heligoland” in the company of another stellar cast of collaborators : Hope Sandoval ; Damon Albarn ; Tunde Adebimpe ; Martina Topley-Bird and Portishead’s Adrian Utley. First impression is that, even if superior to their former studio venture, it does not quite mean a return to their earlier peaks. The band is previewing a selection of new remixes through facebook.
Among the best singles and advance songs we find Yeah Yeah Yeah’s third song taken for their electro-infused latest album “It’s Blitz”; Joanna Newsom’s “81” – the first official track from her forthcoming triple album “Have One On Me”; Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward teaming up once again in She and Him; the first fruit of their second album together is “In The Sun”. Indie greats coming from the folk –The Tallest Man On Earth-; art-pop –Parenthetical Girls- and avant-garde electronic –High Places- backgrounds have also featured prominently among this week’s best music playlists.
A few interesting reissues: seminal US indie band Black Tambourines got their complete recordings compiled by indie label Slumberland. Also, Galaxy 500 are seeing their back catalogued reissued by Domino. The trio fronted by Dean Wareham was one of the most influential indie formations of the late eighties.
A fine debut by fresh American voice Basia Bulat with “Heart Of My Own”; The full opera project “Tomorrow, in a year” by the Knife ,which can be streamed in its entirety at the siblings’ website; Gil Scott-Heron’s comeback’ “I’m New Here” and the finest electronic album heard in many moons, Pantha Du Prince’s “Black Noise” are also noteworthy releases and help to wrap an incredible week for music.
In The Loop: Owen Pallett straight to the top.
The string arranger of choice among indie stars storms into our loop at number one. Owen Pallett, fresh from the release of his stunning new opus “Heartland”, is the Rober Awards favourite song at the moments. Other high entries include Lindstrøm & Christabelle; Beach House; etc.
Dubster meister Joker; Swedish electronica-meets-opera siblings The Knife and US rising stars Surfer Blood are also fying high.
You can watch this week’s loop here.
Brooklyn bands pile up Rober Awards nominations
Brooklyn confirmed itself once again as the centre of the most ground breaking music while some of its more notorious residents took the majority of this year’s Rober Awards nominations.
It’s no surprise to find Animal Collective featuring in multiple fields. The Brooklyn-based collective has earned 7 nominations for their landmark album “Merriweather Post Pavilion”. More surprising is the fact fellow Brooklynites Grizzly Bear have matched them in number of categories, igniting the battle betweem the two most acclaimed bands of the NY borough.
Following them closely, with five nominations, their neighbours Dirty Projectors on a tie-up with French favorites Phoenix. The Knife’s Karin Dreijer’s side project, Fever Ray; Wu-Tang member Raekwon and style icons Yeah Yeah Yeahs have got four apiece.
The Rober Awards 2009 Music Poll is now open. Vote here
See the full nominations tally: Read the rest of this entry »
10-JJ-jj Nº 2
The romance between Scandinavian musicians and the Balearic revival kept on giving excellent fruits. Swedish duo Jj’s refreshing debut added up to The Tough Alliance, Studio or Air France’s findings. Since Pitchfork’s best new music section mentioned “Ecstasy”, the duo’s “appropriation” of Lil Wayne’s megahit “Lollipop” in hedonistic, chill-out key, interest for jj has not stopped growing. “Jj Nº 2” -jj Nº 1 was the first single “My Life,My swag”- with its summer breezy, travelling atmosphere –From Africa To Malaga- became a minor cult among searchers of pop pearls.
Released on Sincerely Yours. Available to listen on Spotify.
Best Of 2009: Disappointments Of The Year
The title of Rihanna’s last single perfectly summons up the impression 2009 has left on us: “Hard” is the word that best describes it and we begin its review remembering those who made it a bit harder by failing to deliver on the high expectations surrounding them. Examples are aplenty; in fact the majority of 2009’s releases feel like a disappointment in bulk. However, in a year when the sad death of Michael Jackson was its sociological phenomenon; David Guetta was king among producers; Black Eyed Peas were the biggest band in the planet and that mature lady from Scotland is on her way to become the best selling album with a collection of standards pushed to collective (in)conscience via the emotional manipulation of Talent TV shows, is hard not to be forgiving with those who had at least the intention to produce something decent but failed in the attempt.
C’mon guys! We know you can do better. Read the rest of this entry »
Best Of 2009: The Year’s Music Review
We take a break from our exhaustive review of the decade to give way to the one for 2009.
During the next few days we’ll look back at our favorite music during the last twelve months which, following the downward trend from the second half of the decade, have been rather hideous for popular music. We can put the blame on the economy, the state of the world or global warming drying out new ideas, but the lack of good albums has reached alarming levels. So much so that for the first time our selection will only include the best 30, leaving the rest for our multiple honorary mentions section.
The element of surprise was stolen right from the second week of January with the release of “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, maybe the only true classic of the year. We all knew it would be the record to beat. No one managed and very few got even close. Other highlights among our selection are some welcome confirmations from Brooklyn; French bands who finally reached the heights of their preceding hype and members of the Clan returning to a long-time missed good shape.
Revalidating single track as the format of choice for our attention deficit-inducing digital times; our selection of 100 songs of the year provides more reasons to be cheerful, thanks to an abundance of emerging new artists; bringing at least strong hopes for a forthcoming wave of fresher and more creative propositions.
189-SILVER JEWS-Sometimes A Pony Gets Depressed
(Live video)
Although it was co-founded by Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich of Pavement; with the passing years Silver Jews established itself as the project through which David Berman, with intermittent help from friends in other bands, developed his notable ability as a singer-songwriter, elevating him to the first division of alternative north American writers next to Will Oldham, Bill Callahan and other heavyweights. “Pony” was a stand out from his fifth work “Tanglewood Numbers”.
Listen to the studio version here.
190-THE HIVES-Main Offender
Sweden pioneered the revival of garage rock with this energetic five-piece act, discovered to the rest of the world by Alan McGee, who signed them for his last label Poptones and released a repackaged compilation of the band’s first two albums for the UK. Success was instantaneous and they were promptly courted by a major, where unfortunately The Hives quickly lost a big part of the energy that made them popular.
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