The National New LP - High Violet

More details have been released about the new National LP High Violet which is released in the UK on the 11th May via 4AD records. I can't wait!

I have heard live versions of Bloodbuzz Ohio and Terrible Love and they both sound like classic brooding National masterpieces.

The track listing below:

High Violet

1. Terrible Love
2. Sorrow
3. Anyone’s Ghost
4. Little Faith
5. Afraid of Everyone
6. Bloodbuzz Ohio
7. Lemonworld
8. Runaway
9. Conversation 16
10. England
11. Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks

Alex Chilton RIP

Alex Chilton’s death was the third musical hero of mine to pass away this year. His death following far too quickly on from those of Sparklehorses Mark Linkous and the pure song writing genius of Vic Chesnutt. I have spent the time since reading about Alex Chilton’s death loading up on the Boxtops, Big Star and solo material. I first hear Chilton via the song “No Sex” which was released on a tape by a short lived UK music paper Underground in 1988 titled strum + Drum. I was totally unaware of who he was at this point and had never heard of Big Star as a callow 17 year old indie kid. However I liked the song it made me smile and hum along.

It was later that I started to pick up on the references to Chilton and Big Star in the English music press. The legend of the band and glorious way in which the music was described had me really interested but the records where impossible for me to find. At this point I found out about the covers of Big Star on the debut This Mortal Coil LP and on first listen fell head over heels in love with “Kangaroo” and “Holocaust”. The simplicity of the songs, the direct nature of the lyrics, the naive melodies, the way in which the songs ached. Beautiful and haunting.

I was truly hooked from this point on. I tracked down copies of the Big Star records oddly working backwards from Third/Sister Lover, to Radio City and finally #1 Record. The records have stayed with me when much of my heavy listening from the time now seems so gauche and juvenile. Third helped me through a number of tough times and although it seems a stupid thing to say I have a fair amount of emotion tied into that record.We are bound together my memories and those songs.


The Boxtops records where bewitching in a completely different way. Alex Chilton’s voice so different it was hard to believe it was the same guy pouring out his soul.
Big Star are one of those musical touchstones. When I meet other Big Star fans I know I am in the company that I like. So thank you Alex and rest in peace.

My musical Journey through Alex’s Chiltons Career on Spotify.


Alex Chilton/Big Star Spotify Playlist

Great new Spotify Review site

Found this great new spotify review site called Pitchify. It links up recent good reviews of release with the LP on Spotify.The tag line is "Spotify links based on the best album reviews". Just click on the link and it opens the LP in Spotify well smart! I can see myself using this loads in the future. I found it via a back link of my review of romance is boring at music omh.


http://www.pitchify.com/

Romance is Boring on Spotify

Delphic - Doubt Live

I am sure I am going to love the Delphic album Acolyte when I get my hands on a copy. I have loved Doubt and Counterpoint. The blend of New Order, Underworld and the great lost synth pop of Orlando in one of the LPs of the year I am sure.



Nice review of it here - Delphic - Acolyte

New Reviews - Beak>, Boo Hewerdine, Damon and Naomi.

A few new review I have done of late include Boo Hewerdine - God Bless The Pretty Things, Geoff Barrows new band Beak> live in Bristol and Damon and Naomi – The Sub Pop Years.

Hope you enjoy.

Top 10 Albums 2009

1. Martyn – Great Lengths
2. Ethan Rose – Oaks
3. Fennesz – Black Sea
4. The XX - XX
5. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country
6. Mark Eitzel – Klamath
7. Moritz Von Oswald Trio – Vertical Ascent
8. Richmond Fontaine – We Used to Think The Freeway Sounded Like A River
9. Antony and The Johnsons – The Crying Light
10. Gary War – Horribles Parade

The Martyn Myspace Page - http://www.myspace.com/martyndnb

Mark Eitzel Bristol November 2009

Mark Eitzel St Bonaventures Social Club Bristol.

A piano, a voice and the solid gold song writing of Mark Eitzel. This was some night. Mark was on sparkling form at St Bonventures Social Club. His voice of wine bruised wisdom and burning regret. That voice infused the material with a gravitas, wonder, soul and strength. The tales of losers, the lost and the lonely burnt with a passion rare and wise. From the warm introduction of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” to the closing requiem of “Nightwatchman” there was nothing to fault. A great review here from Extreme Listening Mode of the Mark Eitzel gig in Edinburgh.

Thanks to Jane Oriel for the videos.

Jens Lekman - Night Falls Over Kortedala Review

Night Falls Over Kortedala sounds effortless. It glides like a kite of angel wings on a soft summer breeze, all twinkling keys, kettle drum rolls, soaring strings and Lekman’s glorious croon. It belies the difficult genesis of the record. Three years in the making, the songs were honed live, written and rewritten until they sparkled. Lekman was so disenchanted at one point that he talked of retirement. We should all be thankful that he persevered.

I guess Jens Lekman is a singer-songwriter. That tag does him such a disservice, loaded as it is with images of acoustic guitars and a stripped-down, wooden authenticity. Yes, he writes and sings his own songs, but this is The Brill Building via Gothenburg, Tin Pan Alley retooled by a sampler and a vivid imagination.

Lekman writes and performs in heavenly technicolour. This is late '60s Scott Walker performed by The Magnetic Fields. The timpani roll and glistening strings of the opening “And I Remember Every Kiss” is built around a sparkling sample from easy listening violinist Enoch Light. Jens declares his allegiance to the sect of doom romantics, yearning in his dark baritone that every kiss burns with the passion of his first kiss.

“Sipping On The Sweet Nectar” is glorious, punchy brass, bleeping bass synths, and a sighing melody. The first single, “The Opposite Of Hallelujah,” with its handclaps and chopped out piano chords, is perfect. The chorus is as sticky as honey in a heat wave. I have woken up humming it twice this week. The wry observations of “A Postcard to Nina” make it the sort of song that no one, bar Jens, seems capable of writing. So witty and tender with a chorus of drunken trombones and children’s percussion, the doo-wop harmonies in the bridge alone would melt the hardest of hearts.

Lekman can produce musical gold from the strangest collusion of influences. The MOR strings and clipped drum samples of “If I Could Cry (It Would Feel Like This)” are the sort of thing Timbaland would have produced if he had been raised on indie 7” singles in Sweden—inventive, catchy and soulful.

This a wonderful record make sure you treasure it.

Tony Heywood (c)

First Published on Kev Chino - http://www.kevchino.com/review/jens-lekman/night-falls-over-kortedala/1358

100 Greatest LP's Since I Was Born

My Favorite 100 LPS since I was born.



My Top 100 LPs since I was born!
1. American Music Club – California
2. New Order – Low Life
3. The National – Alligator
4. Momus – Tender Pervert
5. Tricky – Maxinquaye
6. Pixies – Surfer Rosa
7. Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
8. Burial – Untrue
9. Portishead – Dummy
10. PJ Harvey – Rid of Me

11. The Human League – Dare
12. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything
13. Band of Holy Joy – Manic, Magic, Majestic
14. Galaxie 500 – On Fire
15. The Smiths – Meat is Murder
16. Belong – October Music
17. Talk Talk – Laughing Stock
18. Jens Lekman – Oh Your So Silent Jens
19. Disco Inferno – D.I. Go Pop
20. Art of Noise – (Who’s Afraid of)The Art of Noise

21. Prince - Parade
22. Mark Eitzel – Sixty Watt Silver Lining
23. William Basinski – Disintegration Loops
24. Antony & The Johnsons – I am A Bird Now
25. The Caretaker - Theoretically Pure Anterograde
26. Blue Nile – Hats
27. Underworld – NodubbasswIthmyheadman
28. Bjork - Debut
29. Arctic Monkeys – My Favourite Worst Nightmare
30. The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow

31. The Cure – 17 Seconds
32. Arab Strap – The Week Never Starts Round Here
33. Stone Roses – Stone Roses
34. Depeche Mode – Black Celebration
35. Lilly Allen – Alright Still
36. Jesus & Mary Chain – Psychocandy
37. Vic Chesnut – West of Rome
38. This Mortal Coil – It’ll End In Tears
39. Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
40. Billy Bragg – Workers Playtime
41. Pet Shop Boys – Please
42. PIL – Metal Box
43. Tim Hecker – An Imaginary Country
44. Bob Mould – Work Book
45. Richmond Fontaine - The Fitzgerald
46. Cowboy Junkies – Caution Horses
47. R.E.M. – Document
48. Morrissey – Vauxhall & I
49. Primal Scream – Screamadelica
50. Galaxie 500 – Today

51. Talk Talk – Sprit of Eden

52. Junior Boys – No Exit
53. Joy Division – Closer
54. Michael Jackson – Off The Wall
55. Yellow Swans – Drift
56. My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
57. Burial – Burial
58. The The – Soul Mining
59. Kraftwerk – The Man Machine
60. Soft Cell – Non Stop Erotic Cabaret
61. Robert Wyatt – Rock Bottom

62. New Order – Technique
63. Afghan Whigs – Gentlemen
64. Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous
65. Nick Cave – The Boatmans Call
66. PJ Harvey – White Chalk
67. Vic Chesnut – Drunk
68. Big Black – Atomiser
69. American Music Club – United Kingdom
70. The Cure – Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me
71. Beach Boys – Surfs Up

72. Brian Eno – On Land
73. Suicide – Suicide
74. Buzzcocks – Another Music From a Different Kitchen
75. Big Star – Third/Sister Lovers
76. Nirvana – In Utero
77. Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
78. Durutti Column – Vini Reilly
79. Malcolm Middleton - Into The Woods
80. Times New Viking – Born Again Revisited

81. This Heat – Deceit
82. The Go-Betweens – Tallulah
83. His Name Is Alive – Mouth by Mouth
84. Goldmund – Corduroy Road
85. The XX – XX
86. Matson Jones – Matson Jones
87. Wedding Present – Sea Monsters
88. The House of Love – The House of Love
89. A.R. Kane – 69
90. Scott Walker – Drift

91. Leila – Like Weather
92. Deerhunter – Microcastle
93. Nick Drake – Pink Moon
94. Billy Bragg – Lifes a Riot with Spy vs Spy
95. Liars – Drums not Dead
96. Bjork – Homogenic
97. Jack – Pioneer Soundtracks
98. Beloved – Happiness
99. Martyn – Great Lengths
100. Bon Iver – For Emma, forever ago.

Worst Band In The World - The Killers

The Killers – The Worst Band in the World?


Who are the biggest band in the world? Frankly who gives a dam! The worst band in the world that’s far more interesting.

In the marathon path to claim the coveted prize of The World’s Worst Band same big names have fallen by the wayside. Coldplay, U2, The Strokes even the Kaiser Chiefs where all in contention until The Killers sprinted past them all to steal the prize.

Why The Killers? What makes The Killers the worst band in the world? How have they managed to claim the gold medal when they are so many other bands that could have reached the top of the podium? Well let me explain why.

Brandon Flowers and his fellow Las Vegas cohorts ring as hollow and empty as a death bed religious conversion. The Zang Tumb Tuum they produce is a wretched empty confection of heritage pop influences with nothing added. They dry hump the corpse of 80s music in a misplaced act of affection. They aren’t postmodern simply pastiche. The Killers are all sign and no signifier, eyeliner over heartbreak, affectation over emotion. Artless and heartless. A decaf skinny soya latte of a band.

The Killers started well but have rapidly descended into bland soulless artifice. The opening fours tracks on Hot Fuss blended a warped sense of New Orders rain soaked melancholy, with a hint of sexual tension and a wide screen desert escapism. On Day and Age they sound like a Spandau Ballet b-side from 1985. That’s like starting out dreaming of being Picasso and ending up painting fences for a living. The warning signs of The Killers fate arrive by track five of their debut record, All These Things I’ve Done. Anyone who thinks that the lyric “I’ve got soul but I am not a soldier” is anything other than the dribbling ramblings of three year old child should be shot. It is beyond risible and to think it should be committed to record. Heaven help us.

The Killers journey to becoming the worst band in the world has been astonishing. The speed of the diminishing returns is well in place before the end of Hot Fuss. From synth pop to the school boy Springsteen rip offs on Sam Town’s to the cocktail bar car crash that is Day and Age. When I first heard Day and Age I was reminded of Greil Marcus opening line in his review of Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait. “What is this shit?”

Yet The Killers are headlining festivals, shifting units and gaining acres of press coverage in everything from Sunday supplements to the tabloid press. They are the Oasis of indie pop without Noel’s wit and charisma or the belligerent magnetism of Liam. They repackage a comfortable sound with an empty centre and flog it as something new. They are no juxtapositions, no surprises, no leaps of faith of strange exotic detours. No searching, no ache, no pain, no bliss. The Killers revisionist, reactionary and soulless. The Worst Band in the world? No issue!

Tony Heywood 2009(c)