I don’t know how many tracks there must have been over the years with the simplistic title “Hip-Hop”, but I’d wager this must be the best in a while.
From the eagerly-anticipated N.A.S.A project I mentioned a couple of weeks back, this track features KRS-One, Fatlip and Slim Kid Tre, and is a vibrant ode to simpler times when entering hip-hop was more than just a way to get your own branded sneaker.
Fortunately it does it in a way that actually illustrates how life-affirming hip-hop can be, and doesn’t degenerate into “when this were all fields”-style grumbling. It’s a party record, and no mistake.
Oh, and the video is brilliant as well. Witness the combination after the jump.
FIB - better known as Benicassim - has announced that Oasis will headline their fifteenth anniversary event this summer. I wonder how the Gallaghers will cope in that heat, myself. Perhaps they will swap their hefty mod jackets for linen blazers? A haircut might in order as well.
Also on the bill of the Heineken-sponsored festival will be Kings Of Leon, Franz Ferdinand and Paul Weller alongside, it is to be hoped, some less bloke-rock personages. The event takes place from 16th - 19th July on the east coast of Spain. More info and a link to buy tickets here
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Tuesday January 27th, 2009 at
10:05 am
*Obvious, hardly-needs-mentioning statement about how pleasing on the eyeballs Sarah Cracknell was/is*
Now that’s out of the way, let’s focus on the music (MAN). Because the music is, to the surprise of perhaps ohidunno THE WHOLE WORLD, quite brilliant.
Produced by the reliable Richard X, it’s a lush, sparkly dance-pop number varnished with La Cracknell’s still “ahhh”-inspiring coos. It feels effortless and delightful, so give it a spin below (it’s not a cover of the Hall & Oates song of the same name, don’t worry. Oh, you’ve never heard of it anyway? OK then.):
I’m sure I can’t be the only person with feelings towards Jason Schwartzman (left, click image to enlarge) that verge on the psychotically jealous. He looks cool, he can act, he’s funny, he can play every instrument ever invented, he can sing, he can write really pretty songs. And he NEVER leaves the toilet seat up.
His second album under the guise of Coconut Records, Davy, was released to iTunes last week, but you can currently stream it for freezies at Spinner.
Like Coconut Records’ first release, Nighttiming, it’s a charming, sparely produced little collection of pop-rock tunes. I’m not sure it has anything as instantly affecting as his debut disc’s “West Coast”, or as chart-friendly as its title track, but it is a pleasing listen which, I imagine, will reveal more loveliness with further listens as the end of winter comes into sight. Listen to Davy here
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday January 26th, 2009 at
11:45 am
U2 have a new single coming out in February called “Get On Your Boots”, but it was unleashed onto the internet last week for people to decide whether it’s any good or not (you can listen to it here).
Me, I refuse to form opinions about U2 songs anymore. There’s no point. There would be as much point forming an opinion about wood, or air. Nothing I do will change its existence, or the fact it will be very popular.
But it can’t just be ignored, either. So, as a compromise, I handed reviewing duties over to My Chemical Toilet’s music-savvy Twitter followers.
Bless them, they took time out from commenting on their lunch and attempting to get Jonathan Ross’s attention to drop their mind-bombs, which you can see exploding all over the page after the jump.
The Langley Schools Music Project was a chorus of sixty kids from a school in Canada who, under the guidance of their teacher Hans Fenger, recorded an album of covers of pop tunes in the late seventies. The children played the instruments as well, despite having no sheet music and only a basic ability to play.
The most famous recording to emerge from the ensuing album Innocence & Despair is their version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”, to which the man himself gave the thumbs-up. It was recorded on a two-track tape deck in a school gym, so the result is quite a shock to ears used to listening to slickly-produced material.
What is undeniable is that the result is somehow simultaneously haunting and charming… But mostly haunting. Click over for a listen.
I have, despite myself, a bit of a weakness for what I like to call “soundtrack rock”.
I don’t mean tunes that have already been huge and are then pasted onto ER, a la Snow Patrol; rather, shamelessly manipulative, pseudo-emotive tunes by little-known acts which you can imagine backing up a highly ‘motional One Tree Hill break-up or somesuch. Audrye Sessions, from California, appear to be pretty accomplished at this type of thing. Guitars chime U2-ishly over highly dramatic Muse-esque wails in “Awake”, while “Turn Me Off” is quite the ear-worm, despite your (my) instinct to sneer at the glossy production and unchallenging nature of its very noughties MOR.
One of the things that helps me get out of bed of a grey, wet Monday morn is the prospect of listening to Adam and Joe’s podcast on the bus. They discuss the minutiae of popular culture in a way you might in the pub with your friends, but they’re much, much funnier.
From their most recent Song Wars battle, here’s Adam Buxton’s delightful ode to Baz Luhrmann’s Australia, which owes more than a little to Rolf Harris’s “Sun Arise”:
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Friday January 23rd, 2009 at
9:55 am
Visually stunning: term employed in arts journalism to mitigate the fact that the audio to which said visuals are set is self-parodic, tremulous yawn-fodder.
Not many bands could cover Joy Division without risking the goodwill they’ve accrued, but Hot Chip are more or less the best thing in modern music, so this is fine. Really, it’s fine.
Part of the forthcoming War Child Heroes album, ver Chip’s cover of ver Division’s “Transmission” incorporates steel drums and that weird effect where it sounds like someone is singing underwater what is that called I don’t know answers on a postcard, etc.
Give it a listen after the jump, where I shall also kindly place the tracklisting of Heroes, which features Beck, Duffy, Elbow, Scissor Sisters and many more familiar names.
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The Priscillas@ Left 4 Dead 2 launch, Old Blue Last, London 19.11.09