Thursday, February 19, 2009

New Music News & Notes: February 2009

So my 'weekly' new music news and notes seems to have become more of a 'monthly', but I have at least fulfilled my goal so far of listening to new music. So much so in fact that I'll need to narrow down my selections to a manageable number. Otherwise somebody is going to get left out of the post labels, and well, that's just plain not fair...

I have to share. While I'm writing this post on 'new music', my iPod has decided to play the St. Louis Blues March by Glenn Miller... OK, screw you and your colorful sense of irony iPod...

Last time I limited it to seven artist entries, so I'll keep that as the 'magic number'. After all, seven is a magic number... Think about it... How many dwarfs are there? How many deadly sins? Prince sang about it, and I guaran-damn-tee you if someone asks you to think of a number between one and ten, the answer is ALWAYS seven...

OK, so my list is actually at twenty one different options at the moment, so I very well may do two or three installments of February's New Music News and Notes, but for now, I'll limit to seven...

So I've got seven artists here, and I've asked them each to pick a number between one and ten... The one closest will be on the list first...

1. Los Campesinos! chose seven...
A Welsh indie-pop seven piece with a decidedly Spanish... ummm... name... if nothing else (It mean The Peasants) is like playing the Oasis Definitely Maybe album on a portable boom box on one side of the room while the Smiths The Queen Is Dead spins on a turn table on the other side of the room as you sit someplace in the middle playing Nintendo with the volume maxed out. Sometimes you move closer to the turn table, sometimes the boombox, occasionally the Mario-laden TV, but most of the time you camp out in the apex of all three. Aside from mixing memories of years gone by, the peasants have managed to coin two musical nuggets that I shall recall at random from this point forward for the rest of my life.

"Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but fondness makes the absence longer." and "When you got drunk, ate loads of crisps, and threw up by a football pitch." both from We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, which oddly enough is linked right here...




2. Fever Ray
Fever Ray is the latest incarnation of avant-Swede indie rocker Karin Dreijer Andersson, also the lead singer of electronic duo The Knife in which she collaborates with her brother. Ray is less about the club dub breakbeats as it his haunting melodies and the overtly dramatic clash of sound and thought. Think Bjork vs. Massive Attack beating each other senseless with those huge padded sticks from American Gladiators... This battle for mental supremacy is stark and clear on Keep The Streets Empty For Me. Yes, the song is just as dramatic as the title would imply... See for yourself...




3. She & Him
A sixties inspired sugar-pop duet made up of extremely talented musician M. Ward and equally gifted singer/songwriter/actress/pianist/banjo player Zooey Deschanel. The fish-out-of-water Why Do You Let Me Stay Here would have better fit the pop music mold of 1964's Motown invasion than the modern day DIY computerized sound of indie radio which makes a clean, crisp, and catchy tune stand out even better amongst it's contemporaries. Imagine Jackie DeShannon on pep pills... Alas, this is kind of a pet project of two otherwise busy artists, so we likely will not see numerous and repeated recordings from them together, but M. Ward as plenty of good stuff of his own, and Zooey's flicks are always worth a watch.




4. Blitzen Trapper
There's really nothing 'new' about Blitzen Trapper. The first of their current four album catalog was released way back in 2003. However, if you're like me, and you don't live in the greater Portland area, you probably have not heard of them prior to the last couple of months when they have become the darlings of indie radio. Combining a Wilco-like Tex-pop vibe with tunes and tones reticent of The Beatles circa Rubber Soul there is something both catchy and complex about tunes like Sleepytime in the Western World. Don't be surprised if repeated listenings don't make you long for some Bob Dylan studio tracks. Here's the folk-fabulous Furr



5. Beirut
Checking in from the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, recently-turned-twenty-three year old Zachary Condon has assembled a motley band of mixed musicians to create a Vampire Weekend styled mix of indie/folk/world music. However, while the boys of VW tend to be more on the upbeat side of the spectrum, Zach and friends tend to fall somewhere in the range of drunken French cabaret singers. That sounds like a BAD thing, but trust me, it's not. Witness My Night with a Prostitute from Marsaille:



6. Army Navy
A debut act that gained notoriety with a spot on the soundtrack to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which features a who's who and veritable slew of indie-cred musicians. I am not familiar with the N&N track Silvery Sleds, but the below Saints reminds me of the straight-ahead rock of pre-Dirty Hearts INXS meshed with middle-America Matthew Sweet sensibilities. I hope to hear more in the not too distant future...



7. Peter Bjorn & John
We end this post with a definition of 'last but not least' a trio that is as popular on college radio as they are on Kanye West's blog. Our second entrant for far off Sweden, Peter Bjorn & John. With scintillating back beat, catchy vocal hooks, and a couple of killer porn 'staches, Sweden has found an amalgamation of Simple Minds and Right Said Fred... That sounds more like a Fellini inspired nightmare than an indie-pop finger snapper... How about Aha meets Adam when he still had his Ants? How about you decide?

Keep in mind, the above are in no particular order except the order in which I recalled them, so please do not use the numbers as any sort of 'rankings for the purpose of 'wagering''. If you'd like to place a bet on something, there's a good chance I'll take that action... I kind of have a problem, but there is no wagering on the level of enjoyment of brand new artists. It's just unfair to their potential future recordings...

Thank you for indulging my public service announcement. Now go forth and explore the wonderful world of new music that awaits...

2 comments:

Michael Doss said...

I would gladly kidnap Zooey Deschanel off the planet before someone blew it up.

Also, she's all short skirt, but no cleavage. I'm intrigued.

OCKerouac said...

Certainly. Even if it means pissing off a galactic president...