De nummers van de week column bestaat uit een willekeurige greep van nieuw nummers die mijn oren hebben gevonden. Bijvoorbeeld nieuwe nummers live gespeeld, remixes, nieuwe singles, of willekeurige tracks van nieuwe of aankomende albums. Dit laatste wordt bepaald via de shuffle knop, dus compleet random. Is het representatief? Niet altijd, indicatief al misschien iets meer. Een snel, willekeurig kijkje in wat nieuw is of wat er aankomt.
Via de hypem links kan je de nummers meteen beluisteren. Soms werkt de grote play knop niet, maar probeer dan de play knop rechtsonder. Die werkt als het goed is sowieso! De techniek staat voor niets!
In het Engels dit keer dat deze column ook verschijnt op een Engelse site en ik de tijd momenteel niet heb om het in twee talen te doen. Sorry!
Track of the week
‘Le Livre Rose’ by Sport Hit Paradise feat. Gavin Russom
I don’t know Sport Hit Paradise to be honest, but Gavin Russom is from the DFA label so there are worse people to be affiliated with really. And to be honest, I really love this. Very understated, right mixture of beats and melancholy without too blatantly aping the obvious, and the voice is precisely right for this music. As in, it is dreamy and incorporated into the music, rather than it being up front. It has a slight catchiness to it which makes it easy to listen to while still keeping that “at night” vibe. And I love that “at night” vibe, I just love when a song adds to walking outside around 1 AM with the streets empty and only city lights out there. I’ll be keeping an eye on these lads, especially considering another track was done with Munk, so again, there are worse people to be affiliated with.
http://this.bigstereo.net/2009/12/02/sport-hit-paradise/
‘Dead Disco Dancer’ by O Children (Golden Filter remix)
I love the solo stuff by The Golden Filter, really is dreamy disco with a bit of a beat done right. I also liked this track by the after Nick Cave titled O Children. The mix, I wasn’t really envisioning it at first. Lovely is that The Golden Filter adds its own vocals to it, and the original vocals then come booming over the top, perhaps even with a bit of extra cleanness to it which really makes it a contrast, perhaps even too much so. But after the initial adaption period it mixes rather well actually. The additional instrumentals are really nice as well, and where in the beginning of the year the remixes by The Golden Filter were all slightly alike, this adds whole new dimensions to their range. So this and the recently released. ‘Thunderbird’ really see them expanding their range. I’m still waiting to hear some new stuff from O Children, I interviewed the band at the end of last year, and I hope they come out of the gates in 2010 building on the positive word they garnered at the beginning of this year.
http://hypem.com/track/972496/O+Children+-+Dead+Disco+Dancer+The+Golden+Filter+Remix+
‘The Fire Below’ by Runaway
I love Jacques Renault. I love his edits, I love his DJ sets with the lads from Holy Ghost!, so this track from Runaway (where he is one half of a duo), well, I’m looking forward to it. The track has a rather long build-up, but that is part of its charm, as little additions and changes are constantly made to this seven minute track (although, really, the build-up concerning the beginning beat is perhaps testing everyone’s attention span a tad). After almost four minutes of nuances the track gets a bit more lively, but it keeps the middle ground between nuanced layers and a disco tune. I constantly felt the track was ready to just explode, but instead it shows a constant restraint, and I don’t know it is restraint or just an inability to make it explode. Perhaps letting it go off was too easy. Then again, perhaps this is an example of what you call an aptly named track. It is a nice piece of work, yet somehow I constantly had the feeling I wanted something more out of it.
http://hypem.com/track/973005/Runaway+-+A1+The+Fire+Below
‘Colours Fade’ by Blood Red Shoes
Well, colour me surprised seeing that this track’s running time is seven minutes. Blood Red Shoes was a nice bit of fresh air in their early goings, but the album kind of labelled them as one dimensional, and at one point they seemed to fade a bit. So new things have to come from them. This is longer, for sure, and they do add some new elements to the song, like the sort of “backing vocals” adding another instrumental line. They also seem to put a bit of reverb on the guitar. But for a track of seven minutes, in the song itself, regardless of their oeuvre, there is just a bit too much repetition. At the five minute mark it seems as if they are ending the song, which they do, and it lasts two minutes, going on in a sort of heartthrob way which is reminiscent of when a bonus track is put at the end of an album and you need to get through fifteen minutes of noise or nothing to get there. Not really fancying that one.
http://hypem.com/track/965283/Blood+Red+Shoes+-+Colours+Fade
‘Warm in the Shadows’ by Music Go Music (Villa remix)
Yes, the problem is, Fred Falke already did this one, and perhaps that is a cue for the rest to just stop and find something else to do really, isn’t it? Well, not really, but the Fred Falke remix is the definite one in my eyes. Villa does a nice job though. The original is of course a proper tune, very catchy, so you’ve got something to work with. And Villa do a nice job of making it different yet keeping it dancey and catchy, which is what you want from a remix of course. Sometimes a new spin on a track can make it live that bit longer on DJs’ setlists. It takes almost three minutes for some sort of vocals to set in, and even then it is just “oh-ho-ho-oh”, for the rest this remix is instrumental until halfway, but even sans vocals it is interesting. And if you keep it interesting for so long and then add such an important and influential dimension to it then you’re already halfway of not boring people. And actually, it keeps on entertaining. So forget about this remix automatically being a minor addition, it is a really enjoyable one from a cracking tune.
http://hypem.com/track/965012/Music+Go+Music+-+Warm+in+The+Shadow+Villa+Remix+
‘The Splendour’ by Pantha du Prince
Oh isn’t he the Fact Magazine darling. The Fact crew does everything to hype this German based artist, but unlike several other websites, when Fact does a thing like that, usually they have a point. This is delightful hypnotic minimalist electro. Perhaps he got a bit trigger happy with the windpipes (are they windpipes? They sound rather like them to me), but oh well. It is not as “I’m watching the scenery” like as Sven Weisemann’s outing this year (Xine), it has a bit more of a constant beat to it keeping it a bit more hypnotic. Yet it is not as captivating and it doesn’t pull me in as much as other tracks have done this year. But it is a nice prelude to his upcoming album.
http://hypem.com/search/pantha%20du%20prince/1/
Het nieuwe, tweede album van de band Yeasayer is gelekt. Het album heet Odd Blood, zo genoemd omdat ze zoveel mogelijk d’s in zo min mogelijk letters wilden krijgen, en zeg nou zelf, met een ratio van 3 op 8 doen ze het niet eens zo slecht. Ze wilden het album eerst Me and Minnie Driver in a Tango noemen, totdat ze er achter kwamen dat hier maar één “d” in zat op teveel woorden, en ze als ze het album zo zouden noemen jammerlijk zouden falen in hun opzet. Eén van de tracks heet Grizelda, en één van de bandleden wilde zijn dochter zo noemen, totdat deze erachter kwam dat als hij dit zou doen hij ook als ouder jammerlijk zou falen. Want de naam is gewoon te makkelijk uit te spreken met een heksenstem.
Het album zal in Europa uitkomen via Mute, in Amerika via Secretly Canadian. Dit zal gebeuren op 9 februari, maar het album is nu dus al gelekt. En aangezien IKRS al een mail kreeg met de mogelijkheid dit te recenseren was het een kwestie van afwachten op een leak uiteraard.
Eén van mijn favoriete websites, by far, is Fact Magazine. En deze website heeft zijn top 40 van het jaar bekend gemaakt, en hier staan altijd albums in die nieuw voor mij zijn, of nou juist mij de verificatie geven van, ja, zie je wel, ik ben niet de enige die het een goed album vind. Uiteraard staan er ook albums in waarvan je denkt, echt?, maar de lijst voelt nooit geforceerd aan, en wat erin staat is gedurende heel het jaar geprezen.
Dus wie staat er op één? Dat is het debuutalbum van The XX. De rest van de top 5 is Telepathe (2), Omar-S (3), Cold Cave (4) en Discovery (5). Ook door contributors van deze site is het Cold Cave album herhaaldelijk geprezen. Daarentegen snapt niemand hier waarom Discovery (aka he of Ra Ra Riot with him of Vampire Weekend) erop staat, maar dat is het interessante van lijstjes, verschillende perspectieven. Op 6 van hun eindejaarslijstje staat dan weer mijn persoonlijke favoriet van het eerste half jaar, Circlesquare met het album Songs About Dancing and Drugs. Hell yeah.
Voor de hele lijst, en in mijn geval een bakje tips om uit te checken (waar eindejaarslijstjes uiteindelijk ook nuttig voor zijn), kijk op: http://www.factmagazine.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4134&Itemid=103&limit=1&limitstart=6
Memory Tapes, oftewel Dayve Hawk, zal gaan touren! Of in ieder geval een paar shows geven in Engeland. En dat is opmerkelijk. Toen wij Memory Tapes interviewde en hem over touren vroegen zei hij het volgende: “I am considering it. It doesn't appeal to me because I get incredibly nervous but would like to overcome that. Possibly after the winter.” Nu lijkt het erop dat het al voordat winter voorbij is zal gebeuren, want de man zal in januari tweemaal in Londen te bewonderen zijn.
Dayve Hawk vertelde nog meer over waarom touren voor hem persoonlijk niet echt heel aanlokkelijk is: Honestly it has more to do with me feeling that performance is inherently artificial. I know some people love attention and love to connect with other people so for them it's probably more real than making a record, but for me it's the other way around: my emotions are tied up in the fantasy... bringing it down to earth makes it kind of boring and I lose interest.” Dus mocht u in Londen (20-1) of Manchester (16-1) zijn dan, ga zeker kijken, want een wereldtour is nog geen zekerheidje. Het complete interview zal deze maand op de site komen, w00t!
Eerder deze week meldden we al dat volgens Festivalinfo.nl er volgend jaar niet alleen een nieuwe editie van Rockin’ Park zal komen in Nijmegen, de headliner zou Pearl Jam zijn. Dit is nu officieel bevestigd. Het gerucht gaat nu dat de Affaire jaloers is dat het niet meer de muzikale hoofdattractie zal zijn in 2010 van Nijmegen en dat het in de nacht van 5 op 6 februari de snor wil afscheren van Rockin’ Park tijdens zijn slaap. Wat problematisch zou zijn want ten eerste, de snor is niet een echte snor maar er meer opgetekend, en ten tweede de Affaire heeft alleen een gum waar typex nodig zou zijn.
Een kaartje zal 70 euro gaan kosten, en als je binnen nu en snel beslist 60. De rest van de line-up is nog niet bekend, maar hopelijk zal deze meer lijken op de eerste Rockin’ Park dan de versie erna.
You know the drill. Elke week recenseren onze vijf columnisten een track. It's that simple really.
Track: ‘Honey trap’ by We Have Band (listen here)
Average grade: 6.8
Jon: Musically it's dark and sinister beats are interesting enough to draw me in but I'd enjoy this track much more if there were no vocals.
5/10
Linda: I've seen this band live four times now, not including the times (yes, plural) I actually ran into them at the local supermarket, and each time this is the song that ends up being stuck in my head for the next few days. And I still like it at least as much as the first time I heard it, which is something I can't say about a lot of songs.
9.2/10
Anna: Has a cuppa with new wave, then runs around the corner and stumbles into electro-clash, while voices warn you of ''honeytraps'' over and over and over again. I wouldn't listen to it again, but I bet it's heard good on the dancefloor (I promise that's my last reference to the Arctic Monkeys; for 2009, that is).
4.5/10 (I'm not on the dancefloor, I'm sitting on my sofa)
Stef: It’s even more brilliant live. So if you haven’t seen them, be sure you do.
8.5/10
Track of the week:
‘Cheerleader’ by Grizzly Bear (Neon Indian 6669 remix)
It is interesting how Neon Indian has such a distinct sound. Even while remixing the likes of Grizzly Bear who really couldn’t be further away from Neon Indian’s stuff it is his signature sound which is immediately recognizable. Such an off beat pairing can have disastrous results, but actually the way Neon Indian transforms the vocals and the sound of the original track makes it not only different from the original, but in its own right really good as well. The dreamy lo-fi noise of Neon Indian merges surprisingly well with the angelic voices and the carefully crafted dreaminess of Grizzly Bear’s original. Colour me surprised, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy this one as much. No idea what that more experimental bit does there around the three quarter mark though, but ten seconds of weirdness is not enough to do away with my enjoyment of this remix.
http://hypem.com/track/966896/Grizzly+Bear+-+Cheerleader+Neon+Indian+Studio+6669+Remix+
‘Honeytrap’ by We Have Band (Le Matos remix)
I’ve seen this band twice over the course of the year, and this closing song has always stood out. So no wonder it is in line for a single release (or a clip in any case). Le Matos throws a bit of a beat on it so it is even more club friendly. The build up with the increasing volume of the voice is good, and the remix seems to take even more of a sinister turn than the original, especially because of the renewed way of the vocals and the interplay with the beat. The synthy addition one thirds in is very nice as well, not so much aiding the sinister vibe, but it does add to the club vibe. The incorporation of the female vocals is a bit odd though, since it doesn’t really seem to complement both initially, though when the underlying beat is sped up a bit it starts to merge a tad better.
http://hypem.com/track/971080/WE+HAVE+BAND+-+WE+HAVE+BAND+Honey+Trap+Le+Matos+remix+
‘Something Golden’ by Le Corps Mince de Francoise (Zebra & Snake remix)
There’s a slight problem for me personally with this track, namely that Le Corps Mince de Francoise and their Finnish rap or (whatever it is) does not really click with me, and the Arabian noises Zebra & Snake add to it in this remix really is not my cup of tea at all. It does take a bit of the edge off of the usual Le Corps Mince de Francoise sound, which I can only encourage from my point of view, but what comes in its place is not really much better. Perhaps if you either like the band or like the more Arabian vibe that Zebra & Snake add to it you might find this remix to be enjoyable. For me, not a fan of either, it is rather hard to say anything positive about it except that, in terms of how the remix is executed, it is rather decent.
http://hypem.com/track/967514/Le+Corps+de+Mince+Francoise+-+Something+Golden+Zebra+and+Snake+remix+
‘Gimme’ by Headman feat. Dieter Meier (In Flagranti blog edit)
This is, on all accounts, for the club. Fitting for any DJ set with a bit of house in it. If you were at the Tiga set at Lowlands you might know where I’m driving at (or downloaded the BBC1 mix or any other DJ set that has been floating around the net). Then again, if you know In Flagranti you perhaps know what to expect just as well. Danceable, catchy, beat and synth in order to get you moving on the dancefloor. It is up-tempo and for everyone willing to hit the dancefloor, this song should incite that much. The vocal participation of Dieter Meier consists of “gimme gimme gimme”, and bar from one three word set in the middle it takes until the last quarter of the song to arrive. So if it is vocals you are after, then you might as well skip half of it. Being a blog edit apparently it should be kept short (I thought radio edits were for this) so it cuts off rather abruptly. Then again, when worked into a DJ set, who will know?
http://hypem.com/track/965195/Headman+ft+Dieter+Meier+-+Gimme+In+Flagranti+Remix+Blog+Edit+
‘Written in Reverse’ by Spoon
For some reason, don’t ask me why, the piano reminds me a bit of a saloon intro? Not sure whether that connotation makes any sense (either to you or in general), but well, that’s what it says to me. But the rest is no saloon hokey pokey thingy. Especially the recurring growl is lovely, and it might indicate a bit of frustration which is let out, which probably incidentally is what he is doing in the letter as well. Love the drums around 2:30 where they seemingly sound a bit more menacing. With that said, not the best I’ve heard Spoon do. I fancy ‘Got Nuffin’’ a bit more to be honest. It is a fair enough track though, and I do like the stop and go around the three quarter mark. That is something that never fails to enthuse me.
http://hypem.com/track/973723/Spoon+-+Written+in+Reverse
‘Happy House’ by The Juan MacLean (Cut Copy remix)
The thing is though, can you better the original by The Juan MacLean? Or even, can you better the live version of it? Not really, no, so that is why it is refreshing to hear from the get go that Cut Copy (them from last year’s impeccable In Ghost Colours) is just doing something new with it. To start off you have a sort of robotic male voice singing “Launch me into space”, after which you hear Nancy Whang’s vocals singing the same thing, but more fluent and angelic naturally. Those male vocals recur as well, often with another deep male voice saying “House” in between. It does not mind crossing genres as well it seems, and perhaps that is why this remix sounds so nice, because it is just playing and moving, and even though there are different phases in the song it moves fluently from one to another. The raw material is of course the best track ever (well, but you know, it is just very, very good) so unless you go on and butcher it, it is bound to come out good, and the guys from Cut Copy know how to do this, and it is just a very fun and well executed mix adding some nice stuff to it.
http://hypem.com/track/970131/Juan+MacLean+-+Happy+House+Cut+Copy+Remix+
De nummers van de week column bestaat uit een willekeurige greep van nieuw nummers die mijn oren hebben gevonden. Bijvoorbeeld nieuwe nummers live gespeeld, remixes, nieuwe singles, of willekeurige tracks van nieuwe of aankomende albums. Dit laatste wordt bepaald via de shuffle knop, dus compleet random. Is het representatief? Niet altijd, indicatief al misschien iets meer. Een snel, willekeurig kijkje in wat nieuw is of wat er aankomt.
