Yves Klein Blue

It’s been a long while since a band from Queensland impressed as much as Yves Klein Blues (named after French Dada artist Yves Klein and his wonderful piece from the 50′s “Blue – but I digress). Smart arse name aside this is band that knows how to play hard, have a listen to “Silence Is Distance” over at www.myspace.com/yveskleinbluemusic. They certainly impress.

But the real find was “Getting Wise”, this puppy is seriously slick. I am in awe of the clever lyrics and the phrasing. It sounds so casually thrown away as a performance, but damn it’s slick. And then there is the rest of the production, polished?  This is so shiny bright that you will need shades to listen to it. The organ provides just the perfect counterpoint to the understated guitars.

Am I gushing? You bet but they are worth it. They have a great rep as a live act and the release of the new CD will confirm them as a great recording act.

Here is “Getting Wise”

Recommended (and make sure you don’t miss “Silence Is Distance” over at Myspace – it’s a gem)
Websites at www.myspace.com/yveskleinbluemusic and www.yveskleinblue.com

Stornoway

Unlike the members of Stornoway Jools and I have been to Lewis, and I thoroughly recommend the trip to to the band. But I digress… we are here today to recommend Stornoway (thats the band) to you.

According to their web presence….

The band consists of an Ornithologist, a wannabe Russian translator, a South African Pirate Captain, a human radio and a kitchen sink. They were first united in a snow-encrusted garage in Oxford and have since attracted the attention of Dr & Mrs Killjoy the neighbours and their android children. None of the band have ever been to Stornoway. But Brian once got to within 37 miles of it.

For me their songs are haunted by a Celtic feyness, they seem to harken back to other times and other places. Have a listen to “Here Comes The Blackout” or “Fuel Up” over at www.myspace.com/stornoway, they are both wonderful songs and I might add both still on my MP3 player after several months.  The melodies are insidious as is the apparently simple production and instrumentation.  But don’t kid yourself, this is wonderfully crafted pop / folk. The vocals are lavished with such attention, you can’t help but hear the lyrics and stories the band want to tell.

And they are good stories… Highly recommended

Website at www.myspace.com/stornoway

Here is their ReverbNation player

The Calculus Affair

The Calculus Affair appeared on my MP3 player some weeks back as part of the NPR Second Stage podcast (which I can highly recommend as a great source of surprises), and yes they have lots and lots of really interesting guitar sounds.

There are two tracks over at www.myspace.com/thecalculusaffair. The first track is “The Bridge” which is a delight of overdubbed everything. I really like this one. Paul Mariz layers up voices and guitars like they were a mile high wedding cake.

The other is “Man Who Used To Hunt Cougars”, this one is more successful. The production is a lot tighter and the other band members contribute (Mark Cooper: Bass & Voice, Rebecca Gutterman: Drums) a lot of energy to the track. They seem to allow Paul a lot more space to work in.

The NPR story offers up “Pipe Dream” from their entry in the RPM Challenge there is a bunch of music there.

All of which (even the rough around the edges bits) is Highly Recommended

Websites at www.thecalculusaffair.com/ and www.myspace.com/thecalculusaffair

Autopilot For Lovers

Time for some of my favourite category – hard listening. Autopilot is for Lovers are awesome. Now I will be first to admit that you are unlikely to see the charms of this outfit on the first listen. BUT you really need to persevere.

Adrienne Hatkin,(the lead vocalist) has a voice that will stop you in your tracks. Her performance is so direct and intense. It takes some getting used to.

It’s not just the voice though it’s the range of styles that the band wander through.  These guys obviously have a low threshhold of boredom,  “Whale Belly” is dramatic and darkly romantic,  full of accordion and really interesting lyrics,. “Come Now”  (this is my fave) has more classical and melodic instrumentation,  with a gorgeous piano middle eight, “Pine Box Town” is heading out in to the territory you usually find grunge, and the intro to “Bones” sounds like it could be a Pete Seeger  folk song.

Hatkin describes her music to co-workers as “indie-rock blues with some Balkan folk inspiration”

So, a bit of work required but Recommended

Websites at www.myspace.com/autopilotisforlovers and www.autopilotisforlovers.com/

Gold Teeth

www.myspace.com/goldteeth only fired up last year (2008. Their MySpace site seems to be doing all the heavy lifting of getting them noticed.

Hey it worked for me.

Electronics, Afrobeat, great rythms and yummy guitars. Think Madness meets Blu… “Everybody” and “Confused Blue” are my faves.

“Confused Blue” feels rythmically like a rework of  Bob Marley’s Jammin’, lyrically though it’s a lot lot darker. Lots of paranoia, alienation and suburban dark corners.

“Everybody” is just fabulous the direction of the music, all bright and poppy is totally at odds with the lyrics.I love the weird guitar though.

Give this band half a chance and they will suck you totally in. Highly Recommended

Website atwww.myspace.com/goldteeth

The Field Mice

The Field Mice were an early Ninties pop band, long broken up. But as Chris Anderson of “Long Tail” fame points out their music will be around for a bloody long time. Which is exactly how I found them.

I honestly can’t remember listening to them their first time around, but I was reading an article on another band that referenced “The Field Mice” as as an influence. So I looked them up.

About The Field Mice
THE FIELD MICE were formed in Mitcham, a dull outer suburb of south London, by Robert Wratten and Michael Hiscock. Bob and Michael first got to know each other while in the Lower Sixth at Tamworth Manor, the local comprehensive, and often discussed the idea of forming a band. On leaving school, however, they went their separate ways, and it seemed the moment had passed. But a chance meeting in Croydon Our Price brought them together again, and the idea was quickly rekindled.

A local studio – Ian Catt’s in Yorkshire Road, housed in Ian’s parents’ spare-bedroom and literally just round the corner from Bob’s house – was chosen from an advert in Melody Maker. Here they recorded their first demo, with Bob on guitar and vocals and Michael on bass, primitive rhythms being supplied by a cheap drum-machine bought as a present for the nascent band by Bob’s sister Lisa. Three of these songs found their way onto a demo sent to Sarah Records – Bob had heard a couple of the label’s early releases, by bands such as The Sea Urchins and Orchids, and thought The Field Mice would fit in – and Sarah liked it enough to tell them to send their next demo when it was ready. On receipt of this second tape, featuring the song Emma’s House, Sarah offered to pay for the band to return to the studio to record 4 songs for a 7″ EP. Emma’s House was released in November 1988 and, pretty much by word-of-mouth alone, went on to sell 5,000 copies. The band also now made their first tentative steps into the world of live performance.

Their first gig was at the Apple Orchard in Brighton in January 1989, their next supporting the Inspiral Carpets at Exeter University, their third in Southampton and the fourth at the Square Club in Cardiff, playing to a dark, cold, empty basement after a long drive down the M4 in the rain. A second single, Sensitive, came out in the following February. It received great reviews everywhere, most notably in Les Inrockuptibles, the leading French music monthly, which made it Single Of The Month, the review being signed by the entire editorial staff – a unique event in the magazine’s history! This was probably the start of the band’s huge popularity in France – they toured there several times over the next couple of years, including headlining two sell-out Sarah Festivals in Paris, and are still regularly name-dropped in the French press to this day.

Next came the Snowball mini-album, its entirely blank lilac 10″ sleeve an early indication of Bob and Michael’s fondness for the anonymity and enigma typified by early Factory releases (no Field Mice, Northern Picture Library or Trembling Blue Stars record ever provided so much as a line-up or writing credit, let alone a photo). By the time of their next release – the 2-part 7″ Autumn Store – they’d expanded to a 3-piece, having added Harvey Williams from fellow Sarah act Another Sunny Day on guitar and keyboards. Another mini-album (Skywriting) and more singles followed, and the band picked up two Melody Maker Singles Of The Week. There was also a one-off 7″, I Can See Myself Alone Forever, on Caff, the label run by then Melody Maker journalist Bob Stanley, who’d become a huge fan of the band, and who was later to ask Bob and Harvey to play on the first St.Etienne demos. St.Etienne also covered The Field Mice’s Let’s Kiss And Make Up as their second single, and it was through The Field Mice that Bob Stanley was introduced to Ian Catt, who received production, arrangement and co-writing credits on a lot of early St.Etienne material.

Over the course of all these releases The Field Mice continued to confound people with their range of influences – initially early Factory bands such as Joy Division, New Order and The Wake, but later the burgeoning dance and ambient scenes – e.g. Skywriting featured Triangle (essentially an 8 minute sequencer solo) alongside the sample-barrage of Humblebee (with it’s droning chocolate-love-sex mantra – later a top-selling T-shirt design!), and Missing The Moon was described in the NME (who made it Single Of The Week) as heralding the long-awaited meeting of Pop and Acid-House. By this stage, the band had become a five-piece, having added Mark Dobson (originally from Hartlepool, but now living in London where he was a DJ at Syndrome and contributor to Lime Lizard magazine) on drums and 18 year-old Annemari Davies (a student in Manchester, but originally from Poynton in Cheshire) on vocals and keyboards. Both had been fans of the band, and had asked if they could join. The first gig as a 5-piece was at Bedford Esquires in September 1990.

The Field Mice split in 1991 at the end of a highly successful but increasingly acrimonious UK tour to promote their final album, For Keeps. There were many reasons for the rancour, including disagreements between band and label about how best to record and market future releases (the band had always felt held back by the endless generic Sarah reviews, in which reviewers persistently linked them with some post-C86 “indie-pop” scene with which they felt no affinity and for which they harboured no especial fondness), disagreements within the band as to whether going full-time was now a serious option, and frustration that live performances were being hampered by Annemari’s increasing tendency to bouts of stage-fright – often she would arrive or leave halfway through the set, and sometimes be unable to join the rest of the band on-stage at all. Perhaps most significant, though, was the relationship that Bob and Annemari had begun whilst the band were on tour in Japan, which had to some extent split the band into two camps, and made Michael in particular feel somewhat isolated from his old friend. A meeting between band and label was arranged for the final night of the tour, and it was here – after soundcheck, everyone huddled backstage before going out in front of a packed King Tut’s in Glasgow – that Bob surprised everybody present – including, it turned out later, himself – by announcing his intention of leaving the band. They played the gig as planned – an ill-tempered set, not surprisingly – but that was effectively the end. Their final show was a couple of weeks later in London at the Tufnell Park Dome: they encored with The End Of The Affair and, as they walked off-stage for the very last time, Michael paused just long enough to whisper “the end” into Bob’s abandoned microphone

Yep, I know. Way more than you ever wanted to know but it seemed like a good I idea. I took it all from their MySpace site www.myspace.com/thefieldmicesarah. The band  are a lot of fun to listen to and it seems a pity they gave up.

Recommended

Website at www.myspace.com/thefieldmicesarah.

Vetiver

Vetiver is an American folk band headed by songwriter Andy Cabic and often joined by Devendra Banhart, cellist Alissa Anderson, drummer Otto Hauser, violin Carmen Biggers, guitarists Kevin Barker and Sanders Trippe, bassist Brent Dunn.

AND

They are really really really annoying. I have been listening to them for a couple of weeks now and I can’t make up my mind whether they are merely good or brilliant.  A friend of mine put me onto them and I really don’t know whether thank her or not. Sorry folks, but you are going to have to sort this one out for yourself.  Head over to www.myspace.com/vetiverse and play anything you find there.

I am 99% sure they are brilliant – and if you like Devandra Banhart or Vashti Bunyan  you will probably like them.

If you like Devandra Banhart or Vashti Bunyan  you will probably understand what the problem is, the different styles, directions and unexpected twists. It’s like driving along a wiggly coast road – you have no idea what is coming next but it’s usually breathtaking. Sometimes flat but usually just brilliant.

The band is named after the grass, vetiver. Their music has been described as ‘surreal’, ‘lullingly pleasant’, ‘tender and accessible’ and ‘quirky and warm’.

Try this video…

Throughout the band’s existence, Cabic has toured the world extensively both in his own right as leader of Vetiver as well as serving as guitarist and singer with his longtime friend Devendra Banhart’s various touring ensembles. And, in January 2009, in a personal and professional highlight, he will be producing Vashti Bunyan’s forthcoming new album.

Highly Recommended

Websites at www.vetiverse.com/ and www.myspace.com/vetiverse

Glen Hansard is the lead singer with the influential Irish Indie rock band called the Frames who have been around since 1990. He also has an ongoing collaboration with Czech singer and multi-instrumentalist Marketa Irglova called Swell Season. It is from this collaboration that the 2008 Oscar winning song Falling Slowly comes.

The track is from the 2007 album Swell Season and their personal story inspired Once “the modern day musical set on the streets of Dublin. The film tells the story of a street musician and a Czech immigrant during an eventful week as they write, rehearse and record songs that reveal their unique love story”. The songs were written by the pair and they also starred in the movie.

A couple of places to find their music:
The Swell Season on Myspace
The Swell Season website
Worth a listen, recommended.

Dont Tell Sophie

Dont Tell Sophie are the latest addition to my indie pop fetish. Two CD’s and a handful of EP’s since 2005 and frankly they just keep getting better.

“Sand To Glass” is the current release (they are recording a new CD at the moment) and it’s pretty cool. But my indecision not withstanding, I think my favourites are “Vonnegut” and  “Look No Cavities”. Or maybe “New Friends”.

What can I say, lot’s of guitars, killer melodies and hooks that just get seriously stuck in your head. This is a really tight band. Not over produced, wonderfully raw sound and to top it all off clever lyrics and really ggod vocals.

Be warned, these guys make music that is going to get stuck in your brain for weeks. Don’t blame me…

Recommended

Website at www.myspace.com/donttellsophie

Awesome New Republic

Awesome New Republic have been playing around Miami since 2004., hopping between art galleries, warehouses, clubs, movie theatres, and the like. Over the years, they developed a dedicated fan-base in South Florida and picked up an international following as well.

They released the obligatory full length CD,  followed that up with a  twelve inch single and then proceeded to break up.

Not going well is it?

Needless to say this made a bunch of people very unhappy, especially the band. Time passes and Michael John Hancock and Brian Robertson (the drivinf members) pick up a killer new rhythm section, and then head back to what they do best. Playing in front of an audience.  Which brings us to their new release “Rational Geogrhaphic Vol 1″ and especially “Birthday”.

I’ll be honest here and tell you I totally fell of my chair when I heard “Birthday the first time. The vocals just broke me up but it grows on you really quick. Live this band must kill. Oh they get bonus points for the drum mix.  Sure the mix is verges on “everything louder that everything else but for this song it works.  Just head over to www.myspace.com/awesomenewrepublic and make up your own mind.

I love the way they play with sounds and just keep pushing, sometimes arguably just past the point where the voices in your head go “Maybe this is far enough? Yes?” and then they keep going… just to be sure.

Highly Recommended

www.myspace.com/awesomenewrepublic