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- Audio advent calendar: Download Bibio's Lovers' Carvings
15 December: The latest treat in our audio advent series is a Bibio track you may well recognise
Taken from his 2009 album Ambivalence Avenue, you'll no doubt have heard Lovers' Carvings soundtracking the latest Kindle advert. It's a great song inspired by Walt Whitman and Zen Buddhism, as Bibio explains:
I think I wrote this track in 2007. It started off as just the waltz riff at the start of the song, played on guitar. There was something
about the notes and the way I recorded the guitar that made me think of a 70s romance film. I pictured a blissful scene of a young couple in an idyllic setting, the boy keeping look out for passers by while the girl scratches their initials into a sandstone wall. There are two specific places I think of where there are lovers' names scratched on to walls, one in England and one in Wales, and I'm reminded of them every time I think of the lyrics.When I wrote this song I was inspired by Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass and his claims that we are immortal – something I now feel is reflected in what I've learned about Zen Buddhism. The lyrics of my song can be taken literally or metaphorically. I was moved by Whitman's line from his Song of Myself: "Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from."
I guess Lovers' Carvings is my rendition of the same theme. I love the point of view that whatever you touch affects everything else, and everything else affects you – and so all is divine and mysterious. A unifying force permeates through space, rocks and minerals, and the shaping of star stuff through the miracle of evolution into the sensual lifeform that is a man or woman – makes each and every one of us a beam of godly light."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Bruce Springsteen performs songs from The Promise
Exclusive: Watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform songs they've never played live before
Watch Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band running through tracks – many of which they've never played live before – from this year's album The Promise. The album is a collection of unreleased songs from the Darkness on the Edge of Town sessions.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Albums of 2010, No 5: These New Puritans – Hidden
Too cool for the avant garde? Too serious for the mainstream? Whatever, These New Puritans' second album bristled with intelligence and invention
"Frames of colour flicker between ancient and brand new," Jack Barnett murmurs on White Chords, creating an image that sums up These New Puritans' second album, Hidden. The anxious multiple personalities of the Southend band's underrated debut, Beat Pyramid, are now better framed, but they still flicker with fractious energy. Meanwhile, it's the dynamic between the ancient and brand new that makes Hidden so rich and rewarding, as on Attack Music, where a children's choir is matched with the cheapest-sounding choral synth preset imaginable.
The references to pre-Socratics on Beat Pyramid are here joined by Galahad, Memnon, and Osiris. And added to their debut's fascination with colours, metals and numbers are other elements, in every sense of the word: the water worlds of Elgar's Sea Pictures are invoked on Drum Courts–Where Corals Lie, and earth and fire on the martial tracks like We Want War.
Some of the most exciting "alternative" bands of the last few years – Dirty Projectors, Vampire Weekend, Salem – are ones who bask in the global musical cosmopolitanism allowed by the internet, avoiding pastiche to forge something fresh, specific and sophisticated. These New Puritans are equally cosmopolitan – dancehall syncopation runs through the album, keeping We Want War's breakdown sections buoyant, and giving the playful, romantic Hologram the glint in its eye.
Pretension is an accusation often thrown at this band, who are too cool for the avant garde, too serious for the mainstream, and whose instruments admittedly include cracker-covered melons smashed with hammers. But their talent matches their lofty reference points. Hidden pulls off the double trick of feeling both contemporary and timeless; both global and set in a conflicted but potentially Edenic England. It's something few other British bands seem capable of: an engagement with true mystery, a sonic inquiry into history and existence. "I don't think the stars are symbols," Barnett sings, "but let's find out."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Jon Savage on song: The Smiths' The Queen Is Dead is an anthem for our times
The student protests of recent weeks have brought to mind the Smiths' 1986 state-of-the-nation address, which still rings proud in its portrayal of what it feels like to be an outsider
Eighteen seconds in, a high-pitched drone begins. For the next six or so minutes, it does not stop. Segueing between the sampled intro – a snatch of Cicely Courtneidge singing Take Me Back to Dear Old Blighty – and the entry of the group themselves, this subtly modulating guitar feedback is both a formal device, to bridge the song's various changes, and a statement of intent: this is serious, this is getting to the heart of the matter – so listen up!
Like the Sex Pistols' God Save the Queen, the Smiths' The Queen Is Dead was designed as a state-of-the-nation address. The parallels are many: explicit criticism of the monarchy as a pillar of the existing class system; the toughest hard rock as the most effective method of making your point; lyrics that are a blast of eloquent rage from the standpoint of an outsider – in each case a young man of Irish extraction. Both reached No 2 in the charts.
The Queen Is Dead is the Smiths' mature masterpiece. The playing is faultless: the rhythm section is both supple and relentless, while Johnny Marr's wah-wah guitar is constantly in motion, in total sympathy with the song's mood changes: rhythmic and viciously propulsive one minute, ambient the next. Morrissey's lyrics are pointed, witty and tricksy, with their implied rhymes: "castration" instead of "strings" to take just one example.
Best of all, they give a thorough portrait of how it feels to be an outsider, rooted in a precise physical and psychological place – "hemmed in like a boar between arches". When you hear the line "but the rain that flattens my hair" you can think of no other place than Manchester, and in many ways The Queen Is Dead represents the highpoint of Morrissey's lyric writing – when he was still informed by his city and its past.
This sense of rootedness is important. You intuitively sense that the musicians have experienced, indeed have deeply felt, what they are communicating. They know of what they speak. This sense transmits itself to the listener, who in turn finds a reflection of their own experience, and so the bond is forged. And that sense of connection remains: two and a half decades after I first heard it, The Queen Is Dead still rings proud and strong.
When The Queen Is Dead was released in June 1986, Britain was nearing the end of a second term of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government. The miners were vanquished, the "new right" triumphant. Acid house was still underground, while the Live Aid effect had smeared middle-brow values all over rock music. There was surprisingly little dissidence expressed in popular culture, as the onset of CD software inaugurated a wave of retro marketing.
It was no accident that the Smiths engaged the period's other great outsider, Derek Jarman, to shoot a video to accompany the song. In many ways, this accompanying film – with its deserted docklands, androgynous figures, fast super 8 cutting and overlays – prefigures many of the themes and the techniques of his 1987 masterpiece, The Last of England – a howl of rage at third-term Thatcherism.
I've been thinking about The Queen Is Dead a lot after the student riots last Thursday (9 December). When something fundamental happens, it often falls to music to make some kind of emotional sense of an event that has strongly affected you. (When the HMS Sheffield was sunk in May 1982, I played the Sex Pistols' Holidays in the Sun over and over and over again, until my anger dissolved into tears).
The day's events are rich in resonance, quite apart from the actual power and the strength of feeling of the protest itself (and the police over-reaction). The increase in fees will mean that thousands of adolescents will now not go to university, which means that they will have to go to work: well, what work? The most recent unemployment figures show that the 18-24 age group is proportionately the worst hit by the recession.
It seems as though the coalition government has thrown the nation's youth into the dustbin (contrast with the National Assembly for Wales, which has capped fees at £3,290). In fact, youth has a huge symbolic and actual value: not only does it embody the future, it also symbolises the wish of a society to look forward, to prosper and grow.
You look at the picture of the young protestor, rising above the serried ranks of the police, resplendent in her This Is England haircut and Hatful of Hollow T-shirt. Then you read how Marr and Morrissey are undignified and "pompous" because they have tweeted their displeasure at David Cameron saying he likes the Smiths. They wrote the songs, they have every right. Such criticism merely reveals the conservatism of those who make it.
Then there's the picture of Charles and Camilla reeling in fright as a few citizens give them a bit of stick. ("The Queen is dead, boys, and it's so lonely on a limb"). This occurs in Regent Street, the London thoroughfare laid out by John Nash in the early 19th century, partly to prevent a repeat of the 1780 Gordon Riots – that major outbreak of urban disorder referenced by Malcolm McLaren in the Sex Pistols' film, The Great Rock'n Roll Swindle.
So you begin to get some hint of how this all binds together. Contrary to the babblings of the commentariat, pop music can have enormous emotional and social power. It can reflect and engage deep psychic and national archetypes. To deny that is to wilfully ignore a wealth of possibility and, indeed, a form of communication shared by thousands, if not millions – a form of communication that enables the voice of youth to be heard. Listen up!
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - December's best new music from across the MAP
We chose an inventive dubstep producer to showcase for this month's instalment of the Music Alliance Pact. So who did the other 34 music blogs from around the world pick?
Each month, the Music Alliance Pact – a group of 35 music blogs from around the world, including this one – simultaneously post tracks chosen by each blog.
To download all 35 songs in one file click here
ENGLAND
The Guardian Music Blog
Fantastic Mr Fox Brandy - Angel In Disguise (Fantastic Mr Fox's Nature Boy Rerub)Stephen Gomberg, aka Fantastic Mr Fox, is one of the most in-demand dubstep producers and musicians around – the xx took him on tour to the States and Warpaint commissioned him to remix one of their tracks. His songs have been described as "digital symphonies", resulting from chopping up sounds, melodies, handclaps and so on from tracks such as R&B queen Brandy's Angel in Disguise, as featured here – and reassembling them to form new shapes. In the Guardian's New Band of the Day column, Paul Lester hailed this as "abstract R&B arranged with a Cubist disregard for form". Sheer futurist invention.
ARGENTINA
Nairobi is a dub band based in Buenos Aires. Approaching dub from a diverse perspective, they create vibrant climates and fresh interpretations of the genre. This song is the first single from their second album, Wet, which was mixed at Mad Professor's studio in London and features Roberto Pettinato on saxophone.
AUSTRALIA
Who The Bloody Hell Are They?
Miracle - A Big Jet PlaneI recently discovered this 18-year-old rapper who was born in Ghana but now residing in western Sydney. The word is that he got signed to his label based on a song sampling Pete Murray's Better Days, a track he made for his high school music assignment and eventually became his first single. Personally, I liked his version of Angus And Julia Stone's hit Big Jet Plane better.
BRAZIL
Meio Desligado
Diego e O Sindicato - AmigoInfluenced by 70s Brazilian rock and tropicalism, amongst other musical styles such as psychedelic rock and even samba, Amigo is a great taster of Parte De Nós ("Part Of Us"), the first full-length record by Diego e O Sindicato, released last month. The album is available to download for free at Compacto.REC, a netlabel focused on independent Brazilian music.
CANADA
I(Heart)Music
Olenka & The Autumn Lovers - SparrowOlenka & The Autumn Lovers' newest album, And Now We Sing, is just about the finest folk-pop album you could ever ask for. It brilliantly blends together Eastern European-tinged folk, smoky jazz, country and a variety of other elements to create an album that's easily one of the best to come out in 2010. Sparrow showcases Olenka's Eastern European roots.
CHILE
Super 45
Los Nadieh - Lisa y llanamenteLos Nadieh are members of Potoco Discos, the independent label that houses Como Asesinar a Felipes (an excellent jazz trio with a DJ and MC), who proclaim to play "the other kind of rap". That claim also defines the approach of this band from Valparaíso, homesickly looking at the harbour city but showing their feelings by experimenting with the formal structures of hip hop. This scorn for risk is reflected on Desde El Último Lugar, their debut, backed up by local heavyweight Foex (ex-member of FDA and a contributor to the increasingly successful Ana Tijoux).
CHINA
Wooozy
Rainbow Danger Club - Neighbors On The RooftopsWith riveting, epic melodies that soar and patter along majestically, the Rainbow Danger Club manage to effortlessly skirt the line between beauty and ugliness, light and dark, innocence and depravity. One of the greatest bands to emerge from the Shanghai music scene lately, they never cease to amaze audiences with their grandiose musicality and adeptness at crafting songs that don't seem to leave your head. Their debut EP, The New Atlantis, is not to be missed.
COLOMBIA
Colombia Urbana
Capzula - Lo Dejamos AsiCapzula have been the surprise of 2010 in the pop/rock scene of Colombia thanks to their popular single Rock. Big things are expected of them in 2011 and their new single Lo Dejamos Asi clearly shows they can rise to that responsibility.
DENMARK
All Scandinavian
Sleep Party People - A Dark God HeartIn late November, Danish label Vuf released the sixth in their renowned series of compilations titled The Vuf Compilation #6 - Back To Nature, sporting 12 tracks by established and upcoming Danish and Swedish artists, half working in alternative pop/rock and half in electronica. Among them is critically acclaimed one-man dreampop act Sleep Party People aka Brian Batz, whose hauntingly beautiful B-side A Dark God Heart is the final Danish MAP track of 2010. If you crave more, the compilation is available for free download here.
ESTONIA
Popop
Multiphonic Rodent - Printsess & PageMultiphonic Rodent is the nom de plume of multi-instrumentalist composer Erkki Hõbe. Mainly known as the founder member of Opium Flirt, he has been doing home recordings since 2005 and playing live as a one-man big band on guitars, percussion, keys and wind instruments since 2008. His multi-layered style is influenced by classical minimalism, avant-garde jazz and psychedelic rock, to name a few stylistic origins.
FINLAND
Glue
The Friend - New Berlin WallThe Friend play melodic indie-rock music to make people dance, or, in their own words, they play "songs that are brisk, atmospheric, playful, three-and-a-half-minutes-long compact packages". Take a listen to their first single, New Berlin Wall, while we wait for their first full-length to be released early next year.
GERMANY
Dizzy Errol is the one and only Turkish beatnik in Germany. His name perfectly describes his fuzzy, straightforward sound. Pride is the most powerful song on the album Motherlamp from 2010. Dizzy Errol is part of the artist collective Kamerakino, who recently released a compilation named Infant Munich Hits Rock Bottom, which is quite a nice sample of the city's underground music.
GREECE
Mouxlaloulouda
Abbie Gale - Terry Torry A ListAbbie Gale's third studio album, No Inspiration, an impressive addition to their catalogue, showcases a sweeping collection of 11 songs that are at once riveting, dreamy and sonically lush, swelling and tranquil. Gripping melodies are embellished with whirling arrangements, spirited outbursts and Evira's wide-ranging, emotive, splendidly affecting vocals. Terry Torry A List feels simultaneously familiar and challenging. It's a compelling, intricate song in which to lose yourself. It gets under the skin and unfurls its majesty from the first play.
ICELAND
Icelandic Music Maffia
Nóra - Opin Fyrir MorðiNóra started in a dark garage on the west side of Reykjavík. In 2006, brother and sister Egill and Auður, along with their friend Hrafn, started as a trio. In 2008, the band became a quintet when Bragi and Frank joined. They play honey-glazed indie-pop influenced by Radiohead, Bob Dylan, TV On The Radio, The Mars Volta, The Pixies, Roy Orbison and Neil Young. Opin Fyrir Morði is taken from their debut album, Er Einhver Að Hlusta? ("Is Anyone Listening?"), which was released in early summer.
INDIA
Indiecision
Tempo Tantrick - PsychoblabberTempo Tantrick is a trip hop duo from Bangalore. Their sound palette ranges from downtempo to pulsing EDM that finds a likely home in clubs open to both electronica and experimental. Psychoblabber falls squarely in the latter end of the Tempo Tantrick soundscape. The track features an irresistible, throbbing refrain reminiscent of Shiny Toy Guns.
INDONESIA
Deathrockstar
Kelelawar Malam - Suara KegelapanKelelawar Malam means "Night Bat"; Suara Kegelapan means "Voice of Darkness". The band name and song title already set a hint of horror, and their lyrics were written as though they were intended for horror B-movie scripts, with old Indonesian villages as the setting. The music is heavily influenced by The Misfits.
IRELAND
Nialler9
James Vincent McMorrow - If I Had A BoatHaving captivated Ireland with his falsetto folk ballads, McMorrow has signed to Vagrant Records in the US. A self-titled EP is currently acquainting itself with international ears and here's your chance to do the same. If I Had A Boat is the first song from the EP and a perfect introduction to McMorrow's oaky timbre.
ISRAEL
Metal Israel
Winterhorde - The Tenth WaveWinterhorde is a blacker than the blackest black metal band from the north of Israel. Unfortunately, Israel's north is pretty black right now itself with hundreds of acres of forest destroyed by the largest fire in the country's history with a death toll of over 40. In any case, Winterhorde's sonic path twists from symphonic melodies to sheer straight-up metal intensity, melding these two extremes with elegance and professionalism. Winterhorde will freeze your soul with its echoes of longing, darkness and unrelenting desperation. Good stuff created in a classic vein.
ITALY
Michele and Alessandro (hence the name of the band) are two young, talented boys from the town of Forlì. That's more or less all I know about this project. But then there are these amazing sounds: gloomy glitch electronica with a warm acoustic heart and a cool touch of fresh pop which goes from Radiohead to Plaid via Hot Chip, if you need some kind of weird recipe. This is a song from their incoming second album but you can download their first one for free at their website.
MEXICO
Red Bull PanameriKa
Troker - Planeta TerrorGuadalajara-based 'jazz vinyl' band Troker was formed in 2005 by six conservative musicians and has developed into a powerful, danceable and naughty funk-rock sound - a groovy horn section, violent drums, a sexy piano and spicy scratches that make the turntables work as a roll 'n' roll instrument through a jazz-based structure. Planeta Terror is one of the delightfully sour tracks from their second album El Rey Del Camino.
NETHERLANDS
Unfold Amsterdam
The Benelux - Pet Needs Friends (Bear remix)This Amsterdam indie quartet are fresh, frisky and dancefloor flammable. There are certainly retro guitar-pop elements at play here, such as their saucy bursts of swaggering guitar jangle. But any hints of classic garage rock are mixed with quirky synths and fun, big beat grooves. So much so that their Girl Singer EP is topped off with remixes by NON Records labelmates Palmbomen and Bear. The tracks lend themselves perfectly to dance-friendly interpretations - Soulwax come to mind in this sense - which is why we've chosen the Bear remix of Pet Needs Friends as a party-starting introduction.
NEW ZEALAND
Counting The Beat
Pikachunes - NervousMiles Loveless' commanding baritone strides atop his lofty synth lines and unrepentant drum machine tracks, riding a dance wave like that of LCD Soundsystem. On the bedroom producer's song Nervous, a Knight Rider-esque bassline cavorts with a floating, flutey synth that comes in with Loveless's emotionless, almost monotone voice providing a laconic environment for his social awkwardness to shine. Pikachunes released his debut self-titled album on Lil' Chief Records last month, and he has a great video for the song Shout It Out.
NORWAY
Birds Sometimes Dance
Uno Møller - Your Quiet Little HouseSinger-songwriter Uno Møller plays beautiful minimalistic pop with just the sound of his fragile voice coupled with the playful tones of an acoustic guitar. His debut album was released a few months ago on the British label Lazy Acre Records. He's also a part of Team Me, a promising band that has been praised both in and outside Norway. They've been booked to play at Øyafestivalen and by:Larm next year, but let's hope Uno has more time for his solo project too.
PERU
Think of a perfect party in a place where night is eternal and the collective dancing turns everyone into a jumping mass. Now imagine the perfect song to accompany those moments and the result would be something like Solano Swing. Make space in your record collection for the amazing lounge/breakbeat of Kid Solano.
PORTUGAL
Posso Ouvir Um Disco?
Minta & The Brook Trout - Large AmountsMinta is Francisca Cortesão - a talented singer, musician and composer who has been in other bands and works as a session and live musician. The Brook Trout are Mariana Ricardo, Manuel Dordio and José Vilão, friends of Minta who collaborated on her first album, Minta & The Brook Trout. Minta's sound will please fans of the likes of Beth Orton or Belle & Sebastian.
ROMANIA
Babylon Noise
Makunouchi Bento - Anchorshaped SirenMakunouchi Bento is an experimental project with influences from musique concrète to IDM. Their lunchbox has many more surprises than anyone could imagine. There are two main directions in their sound - the use of electronic gadgets (Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Atari) and sampling as the key for a haunting cinematic atmosphere. This could easily be the soundtrack of a David Lynch film or a rainy, gray Romanian December afternoon. Their album, Swimé, can be downloaded for free from Bandcamp.
SCOTLAND
The Pop Cop
Rachel Sermanni - EggshellsRachel Sermanni is a talent worth swooning over. The 19-year-old from the Highlands cites her idols as Joni Mitchell and Eva Cassidy, which makes perfect sense when you find yourself enchanted by her pure, fragile vocals and poetic lyrics. A star in the making for sure.
SINGAPORE
I'm Waking Up To...
The Lard Brothers - Wish You'll Never Leave Time (Ownself Remix)The Lard Brothers have carved a niche for themselves remixing and reworking songs by other Singaporean bands, sometimes roping in outside collaborators in the process. Their approach ensures their work isn't so much a rehash of existing material as it is a means of bringing the music community together, and giving us a fresh take on Singaporean music. Their latest release, the Bonsai Warriors EP, stays on the same track but fittingly leaves room at the end for a remix of themselves, a glorious uplifting on their 2008 original.
SOUTH AFRICA
Musical Mover & Shaker!
Reburn - Outta My MindReburn is a five-piece alternative rock band whose mix of catchy beats and a quirky feel has seen them rise to the forefront of the local scene. Outta My Mind encompasses the band's sound, which is distinctly British-influenced with its polished tone and a slight indie edge. Reburn's motto is that the band was brought to life for no reason other than to make "music for pleasure" and that they do. Stylishly so.
SOUTH KOREA
Indieful ROK
Image - Empty UniverseFemale singer-songwriter Image has already been active for more than a decade, but it wasn't until fall this year that she presented her first digital EP, Metaphoricalizing. Determined to make music of veracity, Image combines both acoustic and electronic elements when giving life to the folk ethos she wishes to express. Empty Universe is the main track off Metaphoricalizing and will be recorded in an English version for her upcoming first CD album.
SPAIN
Musikorner
Odio París - Ya No ExistesWe don't have any reason to hate Paris, but apparently this five-piece band from Barcelona does. Odio París, who have supported The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart, are influenced by shoegaze legends The Jesus And Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine, but they also take inspiration from Spain's biggest indie band, Los Planetas. Ya No Existes, their first single, is living proof of that as it recreates the characteristic distortion of the Andalusians' early releases.
SWEDEN
Swedesplease
Le Days - Ring Baby RingLe Days (aka Daniel Hedin) has announced the upcoming release of a debut album titled Dead People On Tape. The predominant instrument may be an acoustic guitar but this is by no means folk music. It's a disturbing blend of over the top emo and confessional rock à la Jeff Buckley. The first single in all its tormented glory namedrops Judas, curses violently and lays its heart on its proverbial sleeve.
SWITZERLAND
78s
The Bianca Story - Coming HomeYou thought Switzerland was neutral? It's not. We're totally asking you to take sides with our quest to bring better music to the world. Our weapon of mass seduction: The Bianca Story, a five-piece from Basel. Their sound is best described as "pop taken seriously" - you get the catchy tunes but with added layers of depth. Their latest single, Coming Home, is an appetizer to their second album due for release in 2011.
UNITED STATES
I Guess I'm Floating
Painted Palms - All Of UsSan Francisco's Painted Palms aren't the first experimental pop band to take cues from Animal Collective, but they're perhaps the most unique of the bunch. Combining a wild assortment of genres from Afro-pop to krautrock to electro-pop, the tracks on their debut Canopy EP (free download here) are equally addictive as they are artful, bringing a smile to even the most jaded of listeners.
VENEZUELA
Barquisimento
Viniloversus - Ruleta RusaViniloversus started rocking Caracas in 2004, both live and on record. One of the many reasons for their unique sound is the presence of two bassists in the band. Impeccable performances and sharp, strong notes hit the audience like thunder in their shows. Ruleta Rusa is taken from their Latin Grammy-nominated latest album Si No Nos Mata.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Albums of 2010, No 6: Robyn – Body Talk
Sleek, surprising and infectious, the final instalment of Robyn's 2010 album trilogy captures her appeal perfectly
"I've got some news for you/Fembots have feelings too." So opens Robyn's third album of 2010, a compilation of 10 of the best tracks from the two Body Talk mini-albums, alongside five new songs. The lyric sums up Robyn perfectly: a mainstream pop star with attitude, unafraid to promote her sexuality on her own terms.
While guitar bands are praised for daring to use synths in their music, Robyn trades rhymes with Snoop Dogg on the frantic U Should Know Better, makes bass-heavy doom-pop with Röyksopp in None of Dem and, with Dancing On My Own, creates one of the best pop singles of the last 20 years.
But Body Talk isn't just sleek, forward-thinking electro-pop. It's also imbued with emotion and soul. Musically, the pace rarely slackens, whereas lyrically Body Talk conerns relationship breakups and/or defiance in the face of heartache. These are songs to dance to with tears streaming down your cheeks. It's not, however, an album mired by a sense of victimhood, with Robyn both perpetrator and casualty; the Max Martin-produced Time Machine is a lengthy apology to a jilted ex, Love Kills a lengthy warning.
There's an economy on Body Talk that makes the emotional punch all the more powerful. Dancing On My Own doesn't waste a second, its metronomic beat the epitome of minimalism, while Hang With Me aims to capture the essence of a relationship in a single line: "I know what's on your mind, there will be time for that too, if you hang with me."
Rather than spending ages in the studio, Robyn recorded Body Talk in short bursts, sending tracks to her label as and when they were finished. Commercially, it's an experimental approach that has yet to fully pay off – only Body Talk Part 2 charted in the UK top 40 – but creatively it's a testament to the fact that pop music still has the ability to surprise. As Robyn says: "The whole industry knows not to fuck with me."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Audio advent calendar: Download !!!'s AM/FM
14 December: Our 24 Plays of Christmas series gets into the party spirit with this !!! download
Christmas party DJs in need of something to spin – our audio advent calendar will help you out with this awesome !!! download. Here's what the band's Nic Offer had to say ...
Based on a jam we had off a 70s Colombian loop, it somehow ended baggy. But to me it will always be about driving fast on the California highway Interstate 5, late, night, with the radio on, hearing a song you heard before, but this time hearing it about yourself. The bassline fills in the details the lyrics don't."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Albums of 2010, No 07: Caribou – Swim
Bask in the glow of this extraordinary album, by all means. But keep an ear out for the heart-rending lyrics at the centre of Caribou's swirling sound
Whether you want to go paddling in Odessa, bask in Sun, or have always fancied dipping a toe in the seductive shallows of Jamelia, Caribou's Swim offers the listener many different kinds of pleasurable immersion. And each time you come up for air, the shimmering surface of this extraordinary album leaves a new tingle on your skin.
When prodigiously gifted Canadian electro émigré Dan Snaith first proclaimed his intention to leave messy psychedelic records behind in favour of "dance music that sounds like it's made of water", people who loved his four previous albums (including the two made under his earlier name, Manitoba) couldn't help but feel a little anxious. But from the moment at the start of Odessa when the beat kicks in and Snaith's trademark percussive clatter swarms around it like starlings gathering off Brighton's west pier, its clear he's going with the flow rather than throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
It's a testament to how many musical layers this album has – from the gamelan shimmer of Bowls to Hannibal's sombre horn-section – that you can (at least, I managed to) listen to Swim 20 or 30 times before really noticing the lyrics. That's not too surprising amid the spiralling Ibiza sprawl of Sun, in which the title is the only word there is, but how and why did Snaith manage to sneak songs about growing old, divorce and loneliness into what is ostensibly the year's best feel-good dance album?
With Odessa's female protagonist poised to "take the kids and drive away" and the couple in Kaili "watching each other grow old", it's clear we're a long way from Michael Jackson's Off the Wall now, Toto. But far from highlighting the opposition between the youthful release of the dancefloor and the compromises that inevitably follow, Swim offers a way of resolving that contradiction.
From the sanctified splash of baptism, through the blissful mid-life satori of a summer dip in the gravel pit to the sombre final act of a Viking funeral, the best way forward is often to let yourself submerge. And whether it's water or music that swirls around you, the effect is equally liberating.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - The mainstream bands who've caught a chill(wave)
Over the past couple of years, blog bands used have faded polaroids to create their own aesthetic. Now major label acts such as the Vaccines and Kings of Leon are copying their style
If you visited any music blog this year, you won't have failed to notice the honey-hued, hazy photos that accompany MP3s from new bands, whether Summer Camp's collection of found family snaps, the calm waters and lilac skies of Washed Out's Life of Leisure EP, or Polaroid shots of festivals by Gorilla Vs Bear, hailed by the New York Times as the blog behind the indie aesthetic of 2010.
This image was strengthened by the fact that these bands sounded blurry and off-kilter. The spontaneity of instant, scanned-in photos complemented the snapshot speed at which most of the music was disseminated by blogs. And they denoted the shoestring budgets on which most of this music and packaging was produced. So it feels particularly craven that major label bands are copying this style for their own record covers – despite having more than enough money to spend on professional graphic design and photography.
Kings of Leon's fifth album, Come Around Sundown, came with two different covers – one featuring an orange palm tree scene from far away and one close up, both looking as though they were taken on plastic lens cameras (the likelihood of which is, of course, slim).
The Vaccines are only just releasing their debut single, Wreckin' Bar (Ra Ra Ra), but they've already got in on the act. When they first appeared, the only promo photos available seemed to have been shot on Hipstamatic, the iPhone app that mimics the now Lomography haze. It's worth bearing in mind that the band were signed to Columbia on the strength of one gig and played Later with Jools Holland before the release of their debut single. It's also worth bearing in mind that their blog – which contains achingly cool YouTube clips of Richard Hell – had most of its contents posted on the same day last month, which doesn't exactly provide the impression that their hearts are in blogging (this content is currently inaccessible, for some mysterious reason).
Finally Noah and the Whale – signed to Vertigo – have just revealed the cover of the first single from their third album, Last Night On Earth: another palm tree snapshot disfigured by light flares. You can even stream the track on an online widget that looks like a cassette, another object of nostalgia that's experienced a resurgence this year.
When major labels plan how to market an artist they refer to them as "product". Even though the lo-fi aesthetic is heavily stylised, there's something troubling about a bunch of suits calculating the impact of adopting that kind of imagery for their releases.
The uniform vagueness among this year's most popular imagery can be frustrating, but it's forgiveable because for the most part, they're young bands still exploring their identities; they'll emerge from the fuzz some day. In comparison, when bands such as Kings of Leon and Noah and the Whale follow suit it looks wishy-washy and lacks conviction. Although the Vaccines are greener behind the ears than Summer Camp and nearly as scuzzed out as Ariel Pink, their trajectory from obscurity to primetime BBC 2 slightly undoes the sense of naivety they're aiming for.
As with all trends, blurry, sepia-toned photos were always going to make their way into the mainstream. But funnily enough, it's one of these bands in the firing line that once did callow credulousness best; pop out the CD tray of Kings of Leon's Aha Shake Heartbreak, and there's a photo of the Followills as infants, an image that conjures bittersweet nostalgia better than any calculated sepia-scape could.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать - Albums of 2010, No 8: Laura Marling – I Speak Because I Can
On her second album, Marling's talents not only belie her age, they show how much the 20-year-old has matured
Laura Marling's second album, released earlier this spring, was a breathtaking accomplishment. Though her debut, Alas I Cannot Swim, was a beguiling collection of songs that suggested a rich and distinctive talent, it offered little indication of the furious speed with which her songwriting would mature; I Speak Because I Can is the kind of album musicians spend a lifetime hoping to make.
There is something about Marling's songwriting that is crisp and unflinching, something almost painfully precise. In the album's title track, it's there in the needlepoint sharpness: "I speak because I can, to anyone I trust enough to listen/You speak because you can to anyone who'll hear what you say." But she counterbalances such moments with sudden twists of sentiment, lets the coolness of her voice grow rougher, rawer, and brings a kind of gusty, unleashed quality to lines such as: "Never rode my bike down to the sea, never quite figured out what I could believe, never got up and said anything worthy, for he, for my."
Stand-out tracks include the rollicking Ramblin' Man, the wistful, defiant Goodbye, England and the brief, bittersweet Blackberry Stone, the latter a quiet rumination on death and appreciating the simpler pleasures of life: "I'd be sad that I never held your hand as you were lowered," she sings in one of the album's most devastating lyrics. "But I'd understand that I would never let you go."
This year, Marling stands quite peerless among not only her own generation of songwriters, but also generations before her; a quite extraordinary feat.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More FeedsПереслать
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