Take a member from Blur, The Clash, Verve and add in Tony Allen and you get the sounds of The Good the Bad and the Queen. I have been listen to this disc for the last week and the retro non-interruptive feel to it has been a great pleasure to listen to in the studio.
There is a sort of dirty time machine sound to this group of songs that seems to want to transport me to some street in London. It has been a fantastic sunrise that seems fresh and familiar with a great balance in rhythm and expression.
It has been a hard winter for me with finding enjoyable music. I have been finding myself listening to allot of remakes and remixes of the past but little has got me excited till this week. The music of Amadou & Mariam has been singing in my mind. I had found there music this past summer and played there greatest hits CD threw out the sunny weather. Now, with the hopes of bringing summer into the New England winter I bought Dimanche a Bamako. This at first caught me off guard and is a different set of music compared to there past, there is more reverb in the recording and some samples have been added. These small toutches make you feel like you are listening to this music live on in a shack somewhere in Africa. At first listen, I was disappointed, but after a few listens I forgot what I knew of there music and started to really enjoy the beats and sound what was there.
Well, sometimes songs try to say to much. In Joanna Newsom new CD “Ys” it suffers often of this wordy bit of song writing. The songs in there 7 minute plus format are extremely wordy with a new sense of off balanced music structures. This style of song writing in this collection of songs often leave me enjoying the first half of the songs but hoping they would end soon. Newsom’s voice is not for everyones musical enjoyment, it has calmed down lightly, now almost sounding of a young Byork but still has the high pitched phrases that fill you full of visions of faryies. This though is why she is thought of the most prominent of the modern psych folk movement. Her harp playing is a fine bit of work, but regretful seems to be buried behind some digital string arraignments that bring some vision of a 3 Year old banging against the keyboard. This is a CD that I really would like to like, but I think the songs are often frustrating me before they finnish.
Vennafinger cookie ice cream?. Kind of. I spent many weekends working with my sister at Toscanini’s Ice Cream. Durring that time much music was played, the owner had a great collection of music and mixed tapes and my favorite had Time Of The Season? on it. This song transports me back to a sugared cream tongue and the smell of melting chocolate. On this mixed tape Time of the Season was followed up by a Golden Palominos track called “Boy (Go)” with a unknown singer Michael Stipe (of R.E.M.). I think I will go get some Ice Cream and watch the video below.
It is true that last year I was burn out on Yo La Tengo. I listen to so much of them that I could not listen any more. Last month knowing they were coming out with a new CD I had mix feels and hoped it would be different. I heard the prerelease track “Beanbag Chair” on there website and was instantly disappointed, the burn out sound was there. Some how I decided I should get the new disc and I gave it the eieio test, and I played it in backward order. The music sweep’d me away. Daphnia, Black Flowers, I Feel Like Going Home are of the mellowed feeling that seem to fit my need of the fall season and the work I need to get done. There are some great tracks on the disc, but for what ever it is worth I still can not listen to Beanbag Chair.
I used to work in a art gallery in Harvard square, it was a long day that I would use the train to comunte. With my sony walkman going at all times, I creating my soundtrack. Durring this time I had just started listening to the works of David Sylvian and it often became my music to move by. There are great vision and smells being at Lee Resterant on my lunch break with my headset on, listening to the hits of the drum. I can taste the hamburgers greasy with extra mayo, it was food that remind me of my grandmother. I was in the city and It added some sort of Ancient Evening to it all.
There are musician’s that are in the background, but impact so much. Brian Eno is probably one of the bigger hidden musicians that has changed the way we hear music, another one is Michael Brook. Mr. Brooks work is a who’s who of international talent, works include production, writing and performing. This year was a big year for him, two new CD’s one is the soundtrack to An Inconvenient Truth and the other is his first solo (non-soundtrack) album in 11 years. I had big hopes for this CD’s, but regretfully it falls on it’s face more than once. I continue to listen to it in the hopes it will grow on me more, but it doesn’t. There appears to be a strange production value or push to some of songs, to try to forced a commercial place in them. It reminds me when some artist go digital something gets left out (the mistakes), everything sounds perfect but almost empty. There are some great textures but the sound feels flat. One of my favorite works by him is Zawose & Brook / Assembly a great CD of Afro Pop with layered textures of sound.
In the beginning there was Newbury Comic’s, in Harvard Square, it was full of comic books and vinal. Mohawks and rockers, posters of the Clash hung from the wall and often the Specials were playing. A Message to You Rudy was in heavy rotation as I worked my way threw a to z in the vinal, often finding some Bowie bootleg or German inport of a Peter Gabriel plater. This always ended in a purchace and a espresso at the Coffee Connection down the way. Where I would sit for hours reading and studying the liner notes wondering what sounds I had just bought.
There are times when finding new music is just hard. The music that you expect to be good is bad and it is just hard to find something that sounds right. Then you find something like “Clap Your Hands Say Yeah” it is familiar and fresh. It’s pop (like soda) with minor twists. It seems like home, but enjoyable to listen to. There lead singer has a early David Byrne type of singing, that is on the edge of cracking but holds the pop tunes in place. There opening track is a circus type ballad of self-importance called Clap your Hands, it set the mood and brings you happily threw all the songs.
It has been a long time since a song or album has been stick in my head, with my desire to listen to it when ever I can. What may be stranger than that is the fact that it is a CD of what feels like old European songs from some sort of gypsy side show. But it is, and it is the music of 20 year old Zach Condon. A sound that may not appeal to everyone, but, has a surprising up lifting feel that glides you threw the night air. Zach’s singing fits perfectly to the tunes, with a natural knowledge of knowing where he should and should not bring his voice. Somebody, flip the ipod over, I need to hear it again…
