Thursday 28 April 2011

For Japan


There is a lot of music out there to help the disaster relief effort in Japan.
This, in my opinion, is the best and ALL proceeds go to the tsunami relief effort.


http://japan.bandcamp.com/



Sunday 24 April 2011

Music and films


It will be films galore from Wednesday as the East End film festival gets under way. The six day festival will be showing a huge number of documentaries in a load of different places, the big ticket attraction being a new documentary on The Libertines. On a personal note I’m hoping to grab a ticket to ‘Good Times’. A film which charts one man’s journey to spread ‘Sound System Culture’ to the wider world through the Notting Hill Carnival.

Alternatively I'll try and see ‘Furious Force of Rhymes’. A film which spreads light on the “rebellious and controversial" language of hip-hop music from Israel to Columbia.

Here are some of my favourite musical docs.


Happy Easter

No Direction Home:
Charting the career of the great Bob Dylan the film, directed by Scorcese, goes from his beginnings in a small town, to his journey to New York to discover himself and his music to his subsequent superstardom upon the release of ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’.

The best thing about this is the how it exposes the political nature of folk music. My favourite scene in the whole film is when Bob Dylan plays a music festival with electric guitars. The elderly Pete Seeger, outraged at what he perceives to be crime against folk music, tries to unplug the whole thing. The ‘electrification’ of Dylan’s music is a touchy subject indeed. Did it betray the music? Did it open it up to new people? Did it evolve the genre? Debate, eh.


Heima:
I don’t really cry at films but Heima, the story of an epic homeland tour conducted by Sigur Ros, really got to me.  Their homeland of Iceland comes across on film as a beautiful place which the band really seem connected to. Even some of the instruments that the band used on their tour were taken from local mountains.

You get a sense throughout that the band are rooted to the landscape, that they draw inspiration from it and that they miss it, not only because they are coming home from an extended time away touring but also the landscape is changing. Old communities are dying out and big business is now ruining the landscape.

It made Iceland and the band seem quaint but inspirational and heart warming as well. The climax in Reykjavik is great.


Total Life Forever//Foals//:
Directed by Dave Ma (known lately for the new Wild Beast vid), this is more montage than documentary. The great thing about this is that it lets you in on the mechanics of an album; the album in question being one of my recent favourites, Total Life Forever. 

It starts in a house in Oxford as the band lay down some of the early riffs on tracks such as Spanish Sahara and takes us through to their time in the Svenska Grammafon studios outside Gothenberg in Sweden. Visually the environment of a studio, compared to say the epicness of Iceland, could be a bit of a stale backdrop, but the whole thing can keep your attention even if you’re not a fan of their music as you see the meticulousness that’s needed to put an album together. This is shown brilliantly by a guitarist tapping furiously at notes on the floor expecting the singers to replicate (Which to be fair they do, resulting in the excellent opening to This Orient).

Wednesday 20 April 2011

BUNNY ON ACID

Jerusalem, Israel in general is not known for its underground music scene. Shame, really.

Bunny On Acid is 26 year old Izik Finley who took on the name and the sound as a result of an eye opening stint in Brixton, England – they too have an underground scene y’know.

He brings the Britishness of Drum and Bass, Dub and Garage to the heat of the Levant. And good on him too. His blend of sounds makes for good dance music which doesn’t do the whole ambient thing but rather gets you up on your feet.

His new album, ‘A Way Back Home,’ is out towards the end of the year on Holy Dubs Recordings. 

Here are couple of his previews of his work.

Bunny on Acid - In Luv

Bunny on Acid - Curls

Monday 18 April 2011

Listening to: Hurray For The Riff Raff


If folk music sounds new, fresh, off –beat and like nothing you’ve ever heard before then it’s probably being done wrong. Hurray For The Riff is led by Alynda Lee Segarra, the songs are old and familiar and the whole album would be difficult to place in a specific time.

The band and the leading lady are a rag – tag bunch, and in true Americana style, so are the influences; the rich tapestry of the southern United States with jazz and folk and vaudeville and blues all making an appearance. 

It’s a terrific album. Highly recommended. 

Wednesday 13 April 2011

dubstep vid

Some art-house Hungarian types have made the video for Ikonika's 'Video Delays'. But they didn't make it for Ikonika, if that makes sense.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

JOCEE TUCK


Hailing from Auckland, New Zealand, Jocee Tuck has the sort of elegiac voice that will lead to visions of the Cathedral. The voice has power and strength to it – no doubt about it, but there are no obligatory confessions this time.

The sense of the other worldly is more dreamy, rooted in a sense of fantasy coming from the delights of nature. This is demonstrated with lyrics such as “Fly me little bird, fly me home tonight.”

Even thousands of miles of away, from my hovel in urban London, the small town, light summer charms of Blenheim, the town which she grew up in, do come through.

Incidentally, the area in which she grew up in is (according to Wikipedia) at the centre of New Zealand’s wine country. Pinot Noir would go well with this.  

Wednesday 6 April 2011

more WAKING AIDA


Diplopia has done a remix of a Waking Aida song which I featured a while back. You should check it out because it is very, very, very.... good.

Waking Aida - Meanwhile... at Lounge Doom (Diplopia mix)

congrats to Death Cab for Cutie




Can't see the stream on your mobile device?  Click here.

Sunday 3 April 2011

hd lcd


Personal feelings about the support act aside, this is still a video worth seeing.

Saturday 2 April 2011

MATISYAHU


It has to be said, there aren’t many people blending muscular Zionism and Rap. A few, but not many. Matisyahu,  the Jewish rapper, may be too big an artist to fit into the self imposed remit of ‘new music’ that I have put on the blog (his debut album, Youth, was a success) but still I like him enough to make an exception. And plus he makes a nice segway into Israeli music, a corner of the world that will be overrepresented in this blog in the future.

He has just released a new live album, Live at Stubbs volume II. Below is a song from that album.

   01 Kodesh by matisyahu