Okay, so it's a little late. The anniversary of Röyksopp is actually on the December 15th and not today. As a special present, Röyksopp are celebrating by giving away a track off their next album. The track is available as a glorious 320 kps mp3 or as a wav (all 41.5 megs of it!).
I don't think I've ever seen a band having quite as much fun in a performance as The Grates - an indie rock trio from Brisbane. So much fun in fact, you couldn't be blamed for thinking vocalist Patience Hodgson is powered by red cordial. I don't think I've seen a clip of the band where she's not jumping around. Have a peek at the youtube clip below to get a feel for what their live performances are like.
Infusion are three guys from Melbourne and one of the biggest things to shake up the Australian dance music scene in the new millennium. Their releases on the Audiotherapy label and their remixes, most notably, the bootleg of Kate Bush's "Running up that Hill" are some of the most sought after by progressive trance DJs and collectors. A heavy, deep bassline and distorted, floating vocals are almost a signature in most of Infusion's tracks and these help to create the right mix of atmosphere and emotion without ever going too cheesy. Infusion are perhaps Australia's most classy electronic act and definitely worth checking out if you've never heard of them before.
With a track title like that, how can you not be partial to the song? Does it offend you, yeah? is a UK electro rock band that recently opened for NIN during their 2008 North American tour. Not afraid of including the synthesizer into their tracks, Does it offend you, yeah? has a nice eightie's synth and electric rock guitar driven sound that doesn't take itself too seriously.
One of Australia's most enduring bands with indie roots, Magic Dirt from Geelong has been around since 1992 and were a cult favourite of the alternative scene. Magic Dirt made the switch from their original dark brooding sound to a more accessible poppy sound post nineties with their third album, "What are Rockstars doing Today?". Triple J hammered the album's single "Dirty Jeans" and the band found a brand new generation of fans (me included). A big rift exists in the fan base with some preferring the mid-nineties darker sound and others preferring the post nineties pop sound. Have a listen and see what you think.
If Aimee Mann and Angie Hart were put into a blender and the result was able to be reconstituted into a living breathing human being, that person's voice would probably sound like lead vocalist, Sadie Contini's. Sadie's voice is both bold and intimate, emotive yet never shy, even in the louder, more rock orientated pieces the band has come up with over the years.
Along with Aztec Camera and Fairground Attraction, Texas was another great band to come out of Scotland in the eighties. They had a big hit with "I don't want a lover" off their debut album in 1989 but it wasn't until 1997 that the track they would be most remembered for, "Say what you want" was released and became an instant hit with vocalist's Sharleen Spiteri's achy, longing voice the main engine for it's popularity. A very engaging slice of pop that begs to be dug out every now and again.
Aztec Camera was an eighties New Wave band from Scotland that really only consisted of one guy, Roddy Frame. "Good Morning Britain" was a single released on their fourth album "Stray" in 1990 and was a collaboration with Roddy's personal hero, Mick Jones from The Clash. Despite being overtly political and exclusively about the U.K., it's inspirational message of hope and tolerance resounded greatly with people, British or otherwise. Although not Aztec Camera's biggest hit (that honour goes to "Somewhere in my Heart") "Good Morning Britain"'s universal theme of positivity made it just as memorable.
Crunchy guitars, Aimee Mann's unique vocals and her off the wall lyrics. What's there not to like about this indie rock number? "Longshot" is one of the few songs that singer Aimee Mann really rocks out on. More popularly known for "Save Me" and it's acoustic guitar folk sound, Aimee shows some of her punk band roots with "Longshot". Both "Longshot" and the album it came on "I'm with Stupid" received critical praise at the time of their release but the album was doomed to be bargain basement filler. What contributed to this was the copious amounts of the F-word in the lyrics of it's rather unique first single, "Longshot" and it never really did get the commercial radio air time it deserved when it was released in 1995. In desperation, Aimee's record label Geffen released a version with all the F-bombs carefully removed. They knew they were onto a hit but how to get onto the airwaves? Unfortunately it was too late and sadly, the success Aimee so rightly deserved never eventuated (but it did later when "Save me" became a big part of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia" sound track) and "Longshot" remains to this day a buried gem of nineties rock.
Far East Movement, an Asian flavoured hip hop outfit from Los Angeles has just put the wrap on their new album "Animal". To celebrate the album's launch, they're going to be playing all the new tracks this Tuesday November 25th at 9pm PST in a streaming broadcast on their site, www.fareastmovement.com. Far East Movement are possibly one of the best independent hip hop acts there is, just have a listen to some of their past tracks at their Myspace page and you'll see why. Perhaps the track they're most noted for is their contribution to the Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift soundtrack. Watch it here at Youtube. And yes, they really are unsigned. This is not from lack of offers from the major labels, FM simply choose to be this way. Much props to them.
Let's get one thing out of the way first. Karen Overton's vocals do not, in any way, hold a candle to Billie Ray Martin's. She does a great job but she's no Billie Ray. There's absolutely no point in comparing them, Karen's an understudy, Billie Ray, a diva. If one was to judge this 2008 update on the 1994 classic based solely on the criteria of the vocals, the original would win, hands down, in every aspect. But let's not do that because Jose Amnesia hasn't done a bad job at all in reworking this huge mid nineties classic for the post trance generation. The track has a very prominent Ibiza after clubbing buzz to it, chill enough for those who have had enough but dancey enough for those with the energy and compulsion to keep on partying. It does a great job of conjuring up images of the sunrise on a beach somewhere, making you wish you had taken that plane trip to Ibiza for the summer after all.
Time for some J-pop from The Brilliant Green just to break things up a bit. Normally I loathe J-pop for the sickly sweet marketing machine that it is but sometimes I cave and dig out my old J-pop CDs I bought when I first arrived in Japan in 1997 and had yet to discover the rather huge underground scene that Japan has. "You & I" was the B-side to one of their more famous tracks "There will be love there." Just in case, you can't make out the lyrics to the song through vocalist Tomoko Kawase's cutely mangled English, here they are, courtesy of the inside flap of the CD case.
While most people seem to think the track is about heroin use, I've always thought it was an allegory, comparing addictive drug use to out of control consumerism. On the CD single, an alternate mix featuring more of William S. Burroughs spoken word follows the original track. He talks about a coming alien invasion where the invaders want basically everything we have, comparing our situation to that of the Native Americans at the time of frontier settlement. He's basically saying that successive ways of living destroy the cultures and traditions that came before them and the modern, consumerism driven lifestyles enjoyed by more developed countries is the latest example. He ends the monologue with "cut word lines, cut music lines, smash the control images, smash the control machines."
Powered by Hope's amazing, unforgettable vocals, "Fade into you" is one of those rich, ethereal tracks that never seems to age even though it was first released in 1993 on the album "So that tonight I might see". When the Rough Guide to Rock described Mazzy Star's music, "comfortably numb" were their words of choice. I think it's a pretty accurate description.
"Hurt" was the final track off "The Downward Spiral", NIN's seminal concept album that really put Trent Reznor on the map of alternative industrial music with it's blend of heavy metal guitars, synthesizers and unexpected, otherworldly samples. "Hurt" was also the swansong for the album's anti-hero protagonist, a moment of realization that he/she could only escape the downward spiral by ending his or her own life. Surely Cash had listened to the whole album before deciding on doing the cover. Perhaps he saw a similarity in his own life with that of the un-named anti-hero with his/her constant struggle with sex, drugs and music on his/her descent to rock bottom.
Yay for Dido, her new album "Safe Trip Home" is officially released today. Click here for a long and informative article about Dido's background and her life before music and fame found her. For instance I never knew her name was Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, that she was named after the queen of Carthage and that she used to practice her instruments intensely, up to seven hours a day. With that amount of dedication, it's no wonder her albums always seem to be so classy. Definately a must read if you're a fan.
