Neal Morgan, who has drummed for both Joanna Newsom and Bill Callahan, released his second album recently. The record, In the Yard, consists of no instruments except drums, some percussion, a reedy spoken-word voice and an array of intricate backing vocals. The limitations posed by this formula might seem rigid, but the record is a [...]

Hospitality Hospitality [Merge; 2012] by Nick RS Rating: With Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) , The Kinks built the ideal pop concept album by cannily constructing an entirely convincing post-colonial landscape out of a collage of musical idioms and cultural signifiers from across the Anglophone world. By layering tambourine and twanging guitars over hymnlike structures and juxtaposing kazoo with harpsichord, Ray Davies made scarcely 50 minutes of wax feel like it might contain centuries of world history. Indie pop crew Hospitality’s self-titled debut hints at that sort of thaumaturgy, although its subject — the directionless inanity ...

«Ακόμα με τις λίστες ασχολείστε; Φεβρουάριος έφτασε!» Αφού τα είπαμε, στο some beans το αγαπημένο μας σύνθημα είναι το «φέεεετααα»! Έτσι και αλλιώς τελείωσε ένας Ιανουάριος με λίγες ειδήσεις και ακόμα λιγότερες σημαντικές κυκλοφορίες οπότε δεν χάσατε πάρα πολλά. Και γιατί να βιαστούμε άλλωστε; Ας αφήσουμε στην άκρη τα αυτιστικά μας που μας επιβάλλουν να είμαστε πάντα στην ώρα μας (αλήθεια από πότε καθιερώθηκε αυτή η ώρα;) και επίκαιροι και ας απολαύσουμε 40 από εμένα και 40 από την uptight (σύντομα κοντά σας) επιλογές από υπέροχους δίσκους. Η καλή μουσική άλλωστε είναι πάντα επίκαιρη. 40. Micachu & the Shapes/ London Sinfonietta - Chopped & Screwed Ο δεύτερος δίσκος των Micachu είναι μια ζωντανή ηχογράφηση της μπάντας μαζί με την μικρή ορχήστρα του Λονδίνου. Μοιάζει με soundtrack τέλους του κόσμου, φοβερά ατμοσφαιρικό, μυστήριο, δυσοίωνο και περίεργο. Η μπάντα ακούγεται σα να έχει παγιδευτεί μέσα στο μάτι μιας μύγας, έχοντας μια ευρυγωνική, κάπως διεστραμμένη και σατανική άποψη για τον κόσμο. Δεν είναι άκουσμα για καλοκαιρινές βόλτες στην παραλία αλλά μια ιδιαίτερη ακρόαση που άλλοτε διαλύεται μπροστά στα μάτια σου, άλλοτε σέρνεται ακρωτηριασμένο λερώνοντας το πάτωμα και άλλοτε προσπαθεί ανεπιτυχώς να ανοίξει τα φτερά του να πετάξει μέχρι να προσγειωθεί με τα μούτρα. Αυτό το ανίερο πάντρεμα κλασσικής μουσικής και απροσάρμοστης pop επιβάλλεται να ακούστει με προσοχή και ενδιαφέρον. Για παράδειγμα: Micachu And The Shapes/ London Sinfonietta- "Not So Sure" 39. Ensemble - Excerpts Γαλλική noire pop μουσική για όλα τα εκλεπτυσμένα γούστα σύντομα σε ένα σινεμά κοντά σας. Ο ενεργός από το 1998 Olivier Alary έφτιαξε κινηματογραφική μουσική για σκοτεινά ρομάντζα, απατεώνες και προδοσίες. Ο Serge Gainsbourg είναι μία επιρροή που αναγνωρίζεται άμεσα από τον ακροατή αν και η προσέγγιση του Olivier δεν προσπαθεί να σοκάρει με την πρωτοτυπία της και την τόλμη της παρά μόνο μοιάζει με πολύ προσεγμένη αναβίωση της συγκεκριμένης μουσικής, με λιγότερα new wave στοιχεία, περισσότερα jazz και πιο ορχηστρική. Επίσης o Alary μαζί με τον Anthony Gonzalez αποδεικνύουν στους Nouvelle Vague πως υπάρχουν Γάλλοι παραγωγοί που πασχίζουν να φτιάξουν καινούργια μουσική. Για παράδειγμα: Ensemble - Excerpts 38. The Field - Looping State Of Mind Πραγματικά πολύ πετυχημένος τίτλος για δίσκο. Ο Σουηδός, τέσσερα χρόνια μετά την αναγνώριση του ντεμπούτου του που εμφανίστηκε σε αρκετές λίστες της δεκαετίας (εμένα η αγαπημένη μου ήταν αυτή που ήταν καλύτερος δίσκος της δεκαετίας μαζί με τους Abbie Gale ;-D), επιστρέφει με συνεκτικά ...

Hey you moops. I’m not gonna sugar coat this. Or check the spelling. Or the grammar. Or the Mangum/Magnum thing that people always do. So, Jeff Magnum just added Sun Ra Arkestra to the ATP he’s curating next month at Butlin’s Holiday Centre, Minehead, UK on March 9-11. Probably because he likes horns and because he’s a fan of this video . He also asked ATP to curate one of the venues themselves for the Saturday of the event, and they just added Oneohtrix Point Never and Feathers. Probably because they like Jeff Magnum and read ...

Johanna and Klara Soderberg are First Aid Kit, a prodigious sister duo being hailed as the next great addition to the retro Americana movement currently housed by the likes of Foxes">Fleet Foxes and others. They've also drawn comparisons to Joanna Newsom, they sing songs about Emmylou Harris and June Carter, and they've covered Patti Smith. So who are they? The disparate influences fall into place when you hear Conor Oberst's vocals on 'King of the World', and realize the album is produced by his Bright Eyes cohort Mike Mogis. Like Oberst, First Aid Kit effortlessly wear ...

They will be joining the likes of Joanna Newsom and The Fall at the festival this March.

Every fortnight we'll ask you question via the site/twitter/facebook/tumblr and the best answers will be included here, alongside anything else from our networks we feel like sharing. In the last edition we asked you the following question: What's your favourite album of all time? The new question can be found at the bottom of the article. Our Favourite Responses All Mod Cons by The Jam. It got an eight year old absolutely hooked on music. Still sounds fresh to me 30 odd years later. from Steve Mcgillivray (Facebook) **** The Queen Is Dead, but I can ...

The Singing Skies – the solo songwriting project for moonmilk’s Kell Derrig-Hall – has offered up a four-track EP for free download. Following last year’s debut Routine and War , which came in at #48 in our annual Critics Poll , Loaded Dice features the album’s title track, plus two intimate acoustic demos and a remix of album track A Message From The Cliffs by Seaworthy (aka Sydney ambient artist Cam Webb). The release coincides with a show this Saturday (February 4) at Red Rattler in Sydney with Ryan Francesconi (Joanna Newsom) and Melbourne’s Grand Salvo. Singing Skies’ live incarnation ...

La PBS sigue consintiéndonos con conciertos completos de ediciones anteriores de Austin City Limits. Ya habían estrenado conciertos de Fire">Arcade Fire, Foxes">Fleet Foxes y Joanna Newsom y hoy sacan un nuevo episodio con los actos completos de Florence + The Machine y Lykke Li que pueden ver en el player de abajo. Watch Florence + [...]

Austin City Limits has been on something of a roll lately. Over the last couple of weeks, the PBS music-performance show has featured Fire">Arcade Fire on one show and Foxes">Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom on another. And on this past weekend’s episode, the show featured another pretty great pairing: Florence & The Machine and Lykke [...]

Having already aired episodes featuring performances by Fire">Arcade Fire, Foxes">Fleet Foxes and Joanna Newsom, Austin City Limits continued its stellar new season over the weekend with sets by Florence and the Machine and Lykke Li.

Recent pickings aplenty in the For The Sake Of The Song headquarters, so let's not waste any precious time. First up: the Owsley Brothers, doing that dirty garage blues thingy very well. Rotten On The Vine is a teaser for their new album Cobalt , out in March. Can't wait, guys. On now to our Canadian pals from Woodpigeon. Love some of their tunes, while others strangely enough leave me cold somehow. This time I'm in luck, as the dreamy title track of their recent ep For Paolo definitely falls in the former category. Owsley Brothers - Rotten On ...

Five years ago today, Australia Day, I met my beautiful wife. To cut a long story short we had met through my blog. She commented on Modest Mouse and Mountain Goats gigs that we had both been to. Soon we were Last Fming and emailing. Then I had tickets to a great gig. Joanna Newsom, Andrew Bird and Bill Callahan on January 26, 2007. We met. We connected. We became gig buddies. We became friends. We became boy and girl friends. We bought a house together. We got married. So it's now been 5 and a half years or ...

Sonic experimentalist and Sonic Youth/Wilco/Joanna Newsom collaborator Jim O'Rourke is next in line as a curator of an  All Tomorrow's Parties Festival . He'll curate the second day of the  I'll Be Your Mirror festival at Studio Coast in Tokyo, which takes place April 14-15. (ATP themselves curate the first day.) He'll also perform, with other artists to be announced later.

Download link is in the original post Sounds like: Mazzy Star, Grizzly Bear, Wooden Shjips, Lykke Li Song: Ohbijou - Mossy Lungs [download here ] What's so good? I’ve been sitting on this track for a couple days. It’s like I want to say more about it than words allow, or that “Mossy Lungs” says more about itself than the words let on. It’s the same feeling I get when I read a Haruki Murakami novel — the atmosphere is so encompassing, it’s like it creates its own world. Suddenly the sky has two moons and you’re ...