Belly warming

Two ostensibly very different recent releases take traditional music forms and give them a modern twist, resulting in both cases in something wondrous.


Seth Lakeman has admirably resisted any attempt to divert him from the template he established on his Mercury Prize nominated second album Kitty Jay. New long-player Freedom Fields once again features traditional English folk instrumentation and lyrical content suffused with a modern indie/dance oriented attitude. And while there's nothing here with quite the impact of the title track of Kitty Jay, this is nevertheless an awesome album.



The Black Keys' mini album Chulahoma is not due for release until 1 May, but advance copies appeared online this week. The EP features covers of tracks by blues legend Junior Kimbrough, and its name is taken from Junior's home town. Their earlier albums never quite managed to win me over, but this is a different story. They tap into the spirit of the old bluesmen, but electrified in a way that is reminiscent of Stevie Ray Vaughan at his best. Simply put, it is a work of genius.


Both albums give you something only the very best roots music can provide - a warm glow in the belly.

Seth Lakeman - Setting of the Sun [mp3]
Seth Lakeman - Riflemen of War [mp3]
The Black Keys - Have Mercy on Me [mp3]
The Black Keys - Meet Me in the City [mp3]

Normal service will be resumed...

By the look of things, all the files I had hosted on FileLodge have been suspended, so if you are wondering why none of the downloads work, there's your answer. Luckily there are still other options available, so all the newer files will be available (for a limited period) through YouSendIt.

BAD news to cheer you up

STOP PRESS: Just after I wrote this article, Carbon/Silicon released a new 12" single on their website. I have uploaded the two tracks here with improved tags (full band name and titles):

Carbon/Silicon - The News [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - Grow Up [mp3]


The time seems right for a reassessment of one of the most influential British bands of the 80s. Big Audio Dynamite were primarily famous for being the band of 'Mick Jones of the Clash', but their first full-length LP, This is Big Audio Dynamite, was not only revolutionary in the way it incorporated samples and beatboxes into the traditional rock band format, it was also a killer album, packed with infectious rhythms, samples of Sergio Leone and Nic Roeg films and funny, thought-provoking lyrics.

They went on to make many more great albums, including Megatop Phoenix and The Globe (as BAD II), which saw them almost break through into the major league in the USA.

As the 90s progressed, however, interest in the band waned, and the last album they recorded (in 1997) was rejected by their record label. And while it wasn't perfect, it sounds pretty good today - better than its two predecessors in my opinion. The band eventually released the songs one by one through their - now-defunct - website, and the whole thing, including a load of bonus tracks, has just been made available to download in its entirety. In glorious 320 kbps MP3 format, no less, and free!

Click here to go to the download page.

Meanwhile Mick Jones has not been sitting still, of course, having famously produced the two Libertines albums and the Babyshambles album, Down in Albion. He has also been working with Tony James (formerly of Generation X and Sigue Sigue Sputnik) in Carbon/Silicon. According to Wikipedia, "similar in many respects to Jones' earlier work in Big Audio Dynamite, Carbon/Silicon aims to break the traditional approach to rock and roll. The band described by critic Alan McGee as "...the Stones jamming with a Laptop," make use of samples in their recordings and live shows. The formation of the band was catalyzed by the internet and p2p file sharing. The first song written by Jones and James was entitled "MPFree," in which they expressed their willingness to embrace the technology of the internet and file sharing, in the interest of spreading music, rather than profit."

Which is music to the ears of this long-time BAD admirer!

Carbon/Silicon have made 6 tracks available for download from their website:
Carbon/Silicon - The Whole Truth [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - Caesar's Palace [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - Barnes Wallace [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - The Global War on Culture [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - What The Fuck! [mp3]
Carbon/Silicon - Are You Terrified? [mp3]

There is artwork for the 2 EPs available on the website, and for more information you can visit the official fansite.

Libertine making tracks

Dirty Pretty Things, the band of 'other Libertine' Cart Barat, is set to release its debut album in May. If the tracks on the promo sampler recently sent out to reviewers and record shops is anything to go by, we have plenty to look forward to. The songs bristle with the punk energy of early Libertines numbers. This will come as a pleasant surprise to anyone who like me was slightly underwhelmed by first offering Bang Bang, You're Dead.

In an interview with the NME late last year, Carl said that after a difficult year his new band feels like "four guys against the world again", and the tour has given him the chance to bond with the rest of the group.

He said: "I've taken a year to sweep up the pieces, focusing, and remembering who I was and why I did what I did rather than tying up the loose ends of the Libertines, which has really taken up a lot of time and emotional space."

Sounds like it did the trick:
Dirty Pretty Things - You Fucking Love it [mp3]
Dirty Pretty Things - If You Were Wondering [mp3]
Dirty Pretty Things - Deadwood [mp3]
Dirty Pretty Things - Gin & Milk [mp3]

This Month I Will Mostly Be Listening To:

Tracklist for the March CD

These are my favourite tracks of the past month. There's a preponderance of female singers this time around, but that's pure coincidence, these bands just happen to be making the best music out there in my opinion. Most of them shouty, with one notable exception - the big P is back, with a track from the Serge Gainsbourg tribute album Monsieur Gainsbourg Revisited. We truly are not worthy.

1. Portishead - Requiem for Anna (Un jour comme un autre - Anna) [mp3]
2. Mystery Jets - The Boy Who Ran Away [mp3]
3. Deerhoof - Wrong Time Capsule [mp3]
4. The Harrisons - Blue Note [mp3]
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Gold Lion [mp3]
6. Cayto - Christmas In Russia [mp3]
7. She Wants Revenge - Red Flags and Long Nights [mp3]
8. Be Your Own Pet - Adventure [mp3]
9. Gossip - Standing In The Way Of Control [mp3]
10. Tapes 'n Tapes - Cowbell [mp3]
11.Roots Manuva - No Love [mp3]
12. Pretty Girls Make Graves - Parade [mp3]
13.Thunderbirds are Now! - From: Skulls [mp3]
14. Who Made Who - Hello, empty room [mp3]
15. Love is All - Make Out Fall Out Make Up [mp3]
16. TV On the Radio - Snakes and Martyrs [link to mp3]
17. Gnarls Barklay - Crazy [mp3]
18. The National - Secret Meeting (remix) [mp3]
19. Morrissey - You Have Killed Me [mp3]
20. Secret Machines - Alone Jealous & Stoned [mp3]

More magic from Italy

Afterhours have built a huge name for themselves in their native Italy, and have been championed by the likes of Mercury Rev, REM, Mark Lanegan and Afghan Whigs founder Greg Dulli. Now they have recorded for the first time in English and are poised to break out into the rest of the world.

"Ballads for Little Hyenas" is an amazing album, dark, brooding and rich in drama. Singer Manuel Agnelli's voice veers from gritty Maggie May-era Rod Stewart growl to keening falsetto to Nick Cave baritone, while the music and atmosphere are drawn from a similar well to Cave, The National, Lanegan and their ilk.

The album is no.1 download at the moment in the eMusic Power Chart, and with the band currently touring Europe, they look as if they could be on the brink of gaining a worldwide following. Catch them while you can in these small venues:

Mar 15 2006 Paradiso - Upstairs Hall AMSTERDAM
Mar 16 2006 Rotown ROTTERDAM
Mar 17 2006 Vera GRONINGEN
Mar 18 2006 Ekko UTRECHT
Mar 23 2006 TBC BERLINO
Mar 25 2006 Stadtgarten ERFURT
Mar 26 2006 Carrera MONACO
Mar 30 2006 Alcatraz MILANO
Mar 31 2006 New Age Club RONCADE (TV)

You can buy the album for a mere £7.66 from the One Little Indian website, and there's also a video promo you can stream here.

Here are some MP3s in case you are not yet totally convinced!

Afterhours - The Ending is the Greater [mp3]
Afterhours - Fresh Flesh [mp3]
Afterhours - White Widow [mp3]

Afterhours MySpace page
Band page on One little Indian site

My cup overfloweth

There are some mind-bogglingly good resources out there on 't interweb. I've mentioned Fabchannel before, which features live and streamed recorded video of concerts from the two best venues in Amsterdam, from the likes of Bloc Party, the Charlatans and Franz Ferdinand. Now I have stumbled across something even bigger and better - an archive of thousands of audio recordings of concerts:

The Archive.org live music archive, featuring crystal clear soundboard recordings to stream or download (!) of performances by the likes of My Morning Jacket, Mogwai, Soul Coughing, Matisyahu, Ween, The Decemberists, Zwan, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Fugazi, Two Gallants, etc., etc.

The Grateful Dead are the best represented band there with 2923 separate gigs on offer. Seriously. Americans, eh?

I listened to a streamed recording of a 1996 Soul Coughing gig earlier, and was transported back to the time I saw them in a tent at Lowlands in '97, playing an almost identical set. Quality recording of a great gig.

I've been a better lover with your mother

It's funny how a buzz grows around a band or an album. A distinctive album cover definitely helps - you see it out of the corner of your eye a few times, stuck away down the bottom of the page on Pitchfork, PlayLouder, Gigwise, DiS. Then you start seeing the band name appearing on blogs, on the front page of the Hype Machine, and finally you put the band name and the album cover together and think "I suppose I'd better listen to this".

Tapes 'n Tapes - The Loon is the buzz album du jour, and I am listening to it for the first time as I write. That's right - it's so good I couldn't wait to write about it. The sound is not a million miles away from Modest Mouse, Wolf Parade and their ilk, except they come at you with some really unexpected rhythms - sometimes uptempo jazzy, sometimes a slapped rockabilly snare - which make you sit up and notice.

Ditto the lyrics, which also deliver regular slaps round the face when you are least expecting them - see the heading above.

As always, an MP3 paints a thousand words, so here are a couple of tracks that I haven't seen on other blogs up to now:
Tapes 'n Tapes - The Iliad [MP3]
Tapes 'n Tapes - Buckle [MP3]
Tapes 'n Tapes - 10 Gallon Ascot [MP3]


You can buy the CD direct from the band on their website, where you can also download 3 other tracks off the album and 3 tracks from their debut EP.

Turn on. Tune in. Get blown away.

TV On the Radio's second album, 'Return to Cookie Mountain', has leaked, and first impressions are that this will sweep all before it. It's a massive soundclash of styles, impossible to pigeonhole yet utterly New York-ian, a riot of distorted guitars, sound collage and falsetto-Mick-Jagger vocals.

A certain D. Bowie also lends his vocal backing on one song (Province).

It is one of those albums that picks you up, takes you on a 50-minute emotional rollercoaster ride and leaves you reeling.

If you haven't got them already, buy their first EP and album and get yourself prepared, this is going to be one of the albums of the year.

Here are some tasters:
Blues From Down Here [mp3]
A Method [mp3]
I Was a Lover [mp3]

Artex Monkey

If you've never lived in the North of England you might not get a lot out of this, but a thort it were reight 'ilarius:

Artex Monkey site

Artex Monkey - A bet tha luks gud on a pushbike [MP3]

Unreleased Liars track

Let's be generous here and say "I don't get them". Liars that is. But there are apparently plenty of you out there who do, and as I have been sent this cover of the Nirvana track, which I have been reliably informed will not be released elsewhere, I might as well post it, eh?

Liars - Territorial Pissings [mp3]

Knock yourself out!

Decline? Wot decline?

The BBC and everyone else is once again parroting the spin put out by the music and film biz that sales of CDs, DVDs, etc are in decline - as a direct result of all those evil filesharers, obviously - when patently the opposite is true. This time booming DVD sales are 'bucking the trend'... Er, but surely the trend in all the others is also booming - it was only yesterday the Beeb was informing us that 'business is booming' in the UK music industry...

Wait a minute, VHS, yes that's definitely in decline. Silly me.

Take Your Medicine podcast

As proud sponsor of the inaugural Take Your Medicine podcast, which is ear-blessingly good, I'm taking this opportunity to plug the very wonderful eMusic (and hopefully earn some free downloads in the process...).

You've probably seen the swirly-dot banner ads all over the place - on Pitchfork, for example - but you might not have got around to clicking on them yet, or hesitated to sign up because of the credit card needed.

Rest assured, however, that it is definitely worth a visit. New members get a free trial of 50 downloads, and these are worth having. A brief browse through their catalogue turns up masses of hard-to-find albums and EPs by a huge range of artists - all on independent labels. Whether you just fancy the latest indie chart toppers, such as Maximo Park, Sufjan Stevens or Bloc Party, would like to try something new or want to dig around for some obscure track you've been looking for for years, it's all here.

The website is packed with recommendations, lists and links to related artists, all of which help you discover music you didn't know or had forgotten about - like Amazon's Listmania only better, and with the added bonus that you can download a single track (for free during the trial period, just 15p / 25c a track thereafter) in order to hear it for yourself.

All the tracks are in pure MP3 format, with no DRM or licences to worry about.

Once you've had a look and decide you'd like to try it out, please email me first and wait for the invitation email from eMusic to arrive. Not only do you get your 50 free downloads, I get an extra 50 for recommending you if you decide to sign up at the end of the trial. But even if you're sure you won't sign up at the end, please email me first anyway!

Arctic Monkeys remixed

A website dedicated to Actic Monkeys remixes/bootlegs/mashups

Including an absolutely bonkers mashup of IBYLGOTD with I Predict A Riot as sung acapella by the Cheshire Chord Company (a choir)...

These two are also definitely worth a listen:
Arctic Monkeys vs Roots Manuva - Witness the Curtains Closing [mp3]
Arctic Monkeys vs The Killers - Scumbody Told Me [mp3]

Tip of the week - The Features

Again not a new band, they released their debut album in April 2005, but they're new to me and by rights they should already be up there with the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and The Killers. Their songs are 3-minute slabs of perfect indie pop jangle, and their sound has elements of the Buzzcocks, the Cars and Blur.

You can download their standout single Blow It Out, which sounds like the New Pornographers fronted by Conor Oberst, here. The best tracks off the album are the the aforementioned Blow it Out, The Idea of Growing Old [stream], There's a Million Ways to Sing the Blues and Leave It All Behind [mp3].

You can also download some MP3s from their website:
Paid to Think [mp3]
Thursday [mp3]
The Beginning [mp3]
D-Con Radio One [mp3]
Anti-Gravity Class of 93 [mp3]
Exhibit A [mp3]

The Features website
Myspace

XRRF

Congratulations to No Rock&Roll Fun for reaching its fifth birthday (and 1 millionth visitor!) yesterday. The UK's best place for up-to-the-minute comment on the world of popular music, it's like Private Eye but with stories you're actually interested in reading, delivered free to your doorstep every morning. Yes, it's that good.

Aberdeen grower

I've downloaded a few more tracks by Aberdeen City and they are all seriously good, proving that the MP3s on MySpace were not killer and the rest filler (scroll down for the links). The three I found on Limewire were Pretty Pet, Incredible Story and Final Bout. I've had the six tracks I've now got on heavy rotation for the past couple of days and they just get better and better.

I've just spotted a comprehensive list of MP3s to download via blogs which I am just about to explore.

On the basis of what I've heard so far, I will be buying (gasp) my own copy of the album soon.
[product]

This Month I Will Mostly Be Listening To:

Tracklist of January's compilation CD

1 We Are Scientists - It's a Hit
2 Tom Vek - CC (You set the fire in me)
3 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Let The Cool Goddess Rust Away
4 Ladytron - Destroy Everything You Touch
5 Queens of the Stone Age - Little Sister
6 Mike Doughty - Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well
7 Bloc Party - Banquet (Phones Disco remix)
8 Wolf Parade - I'll Believe in Anything
9 Seth Lakeman - Kitty Jay
10 Death From Above 1979 - Black History Month
11 The Crimea - Lottery Winners on Acid
12 The Rakes - Retreat>
13 Bob Dylan - Like a Rolling Stone
14 Lemon Jelly - The Staunton Lick
15 Art Brut - Moving to LA
16 Autolux - Turnstile Blues
17 Modest Mouse - Float On
18 Aberdeen City - Sixty Lives
19 Cuban Boys - The Nation Needs You Highly recommended - infinitely better tribute to Peelie than the so-called tribute album!

Searching for the Fall

The story of The Fall, whether you love them or hate them, is a fascinating saga. In the Guardian, Dave Simpson tells about his quest to find all the former members:

"This has been my life for weeks. I've become an internet stalker and a telephone pest, all because of an obsessive drive to track down everyone who has ever played in the Fall. That's 40-odd people, including drummers abandoned at motorway services, guitarists left in foreign hotels and various wives and girlfriends of the band's provocateur-ringmaster, Mark E Smith."

XFM's Music Response top 50 tracks of 2005

XFM have posted the Music Response top 50 tracks of 2005. Very UK-skewed, but generally a fair assessment of the year.

The only surprise for me is Athlete at no. 2 (and 33). They do about as much for me as Snow Patrol, yawn.

The top 5:
1. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
2. Athlete - Wires
3. Kaiser Chiefs - Oh My God
4. Hard-Fi - Hard to Beat
5. The Bravery - An Honest Mistake

My tips for 2006 - part 1

OK so now I've had the chance to read everyone else's tips and I can cherrypick my own ... not quite the point, I hear you say, but that's exactly what plenty of other bloggers and journos seem to have been doing. And how much insight do you really need to predict that Arctic Monkeys are going to be massive?

So it might look like lazy journalism (not to mention partisanism, considering my links to the city) to predict that a few others from the Sheffield scene will break through this year, but the fact is that the ground is currently very fertile in that particular corner of South Yorkshire.

The five bands most likely to make it, in my opinion, are Little Man Tate (pictured) [mp3], The Long Blondes [mp3], Bromhead's Jacket [mp3], Milburn [mp3] and (long shot this one) Bhuna [mp3].

St John

Thanks to Take Your Medicine for pointing me in the direction of The Cuban Boys - The Nation Needs You. A tribute to John Peel which in 3 minutes 14 seconds achieves more than all the tribute albums, concerts, biographies and commemorative magazine issues put together.

The National in session

The National released one of my favourite albums of 2005, Alligator. For those of you not yet familiar with them, here's the perfect opportunity - a radio session which you can download in high quality MP3 format from The Muzzle of Bees blog. The sound quality is excellent, it sounds like you are in the studio with them.

Second Impressions

After reading Alexis Petridis' review of the new Strokes album in the Guardian, in which he claims that the album is smothered in 'widdly-woo guitar', I was half-expecting to hear something approaching Santana when I eventually heard the thing. This seemed unlikely though, given the chugging groove of Juicebox (love the song, hate the video), and on first listen I thought he was way off the mark.

Second and third time through, however, I started to see what he meant. In the new musical landscape dominated by stripped back rock a la DFA 79, acoustic singer-songwriters and 20-piece bands from Montreal, the Strokes are sounding very quaintly out of touch.

Never mind though, the way the fashion in retro sound keeps lurching from era to era, 2006 might be 2000 all over again, in which case they're in luck!

Hear First Impressions of Earth on the NME Media Player

Albums to look forward to in 2006

I posted this as a comment on the excellent Take Your Medicine MP3 blog, but decided it was worth using as my first entry here:

2006 looks like being another vintage year for albums. Apart from anything else, there should be a new one from Radiohead to look forward to.

I'll be interested to see if the class of '04 can come up with the goods this year - Razorlight, Kasabian, Interpol, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Futureheads, the Bravery, the Zutons, the Caesars.... Franz Ferdinand have raised the bar for second albums, let's see who can step up and match them.

Then of course there's Graham Coxon - and Blur. I expect plenty of magic to flow from GC's guitar, and hopefully Damon can find some time to hit the studio with Blur. Will his overtures to Graham bring him back into the Blur fold? And would it be a good thing? I can hardly wait to find out.

Another big question (for me) is - will Portishead finally get their 3rd studio album finished, and if so will it cut the mustard in this so-called 'Dance is Dead' era? Or has time passed them by to such an extent that they have given up on the idea and decided to stick to producing the likes of the Coral? I for one hope not.