British Sea Power to the People

It isn't a secret that British Sea Power are one of the best bands of the decade, having produced two of the finest albums of the noughties- as well as providing audiences with the best gigs imaginable. From wrestling matches with bears to cannons showering crowds with fake snow by way of parading on unwilling bouncer's shoulders, anything could happen at a Sea Power gig.

With this amazing unpredictability in the live arena, BSP, in my eyes, suffered slightly with the release of their last 'proper' album "Do You Like Rock Music?". Whilst the album was praised by many for being more focused and refined, to me it presented the challenge of how the band intended to trash the stage and throw each other around during whilst playing a sophisticated indie pop song.

Well, with new single, "Living is So Easy" (quite an upbeat title from the makers of "The Lonely" and "Fear of Drowning") it seems that the band have done something very unexpected indeed, by incorporating some synth-pop touches. However, this isn't a Dandy Warhols style "Oh, we wanted to make electro pop music like Duran Duran all along" needless change of genre, as the sound is still very much in the British Sea Power mould, just with an electronic shimmer that indicates the sound of a band trying new things, as opposed to a band abandoning one style for another.

You can download the new song in exchange for your e-mail address using this fancy new widget thing. I recommend that you do.



Also, as a purely geeky point, the widget features a three-legged horse. Presumably this is a reference to the quite poetic inscription on BSP's second album "Open Season" which reads "To spend our days betting on three legged horses with beautiful names". Could the band be returning to the sound of that, their cheeriest and most accessible album?

WHO KNOWS?

Get your VEG(C)

The Victorian English Gentlemen's Club are one of the most fun bands around, but then again you should already know this from their very enjoyable album "Love On An Oil Rig". You SHOULD do, though frankly, I don't think that album got the attention it deserved despite managing to combine all the fierce, edge of your seat insanity of the Pixies whilst also having a groove to it, akin to those old Wall of Sound girl groups.

The highlight of Love On an Oil Rig, for me, was the single "Parrot", which started with one of the most ominous clunking bass intros, before bursting into life as a twisted dance classic. It also featured a rather brilliant video:

The Victorian English Gentlemens Club - Parrot from This Is Fake DIY Records on Vimeo.

Well now, despite it only being a bit over a year since "Love On an Oil Rig" came out, the VEGC seem raring to go once again with new material, having put up a song for free download on This Is Fake DIY's soundcloud. The new song is the MAGNIFICENTLY titled "A Biting Wind Followed By An Occasional Drift of Snow (Was No Way To Cure A Hangover)". It's a bit more out there than the to-the-point grooves of Parrot but it's fascinating, and has just the right amount of catchiness to make you go back for repeat listens.

A Biting Wind Followed By An Occasional Drift Of Snow (Was No Way To Cure A Hangover) by thisisfakediy

(There you go!)

And you know what, as a bonus, have the bedroom version of Parrot. In all honesty, I thought the original couldn't be improved on, but then again, I didn't think of having the song played acoustically, in a bed, with vocals sung through an old phone.

For the record, I think it's only fair that every single released from now on should have a "bed-a-phone" version. Watch!

Parrot (3-in-a-bed version) from This Is Fake DIY Records on Vimeo.

Carry On Bandcamp-ing

Sorry, folks. I haven't done a blog for nearly a week. It's that whole "working" thing which has apparently become the fashion of today.

To make up for it, this blog's basically going to be a massive dump of all the ace stuff that you can find on bandcamp- one of the most prominent places on the internet for free music that isn't, y'know, "dodgy".

First, a recap of bands who have stuff on Bandcamp who I've already told you to check out.

Firstly, the ever-great Borland (I blogged bout em here) who have new EPs to download on their bandcamp (I think Quantum Woman's my favourite, though Radio Waves is perfect evening ambient music)

Then I linked to Starslinger's bandcamp. He's been interviewed by Pitchfork so that explains why he's the most popular thing on Bandcamp from Manchester- fill your face with downloads here.

Now! Some downloads I've been enjoying lately:

Mi Amo Simmy- Bandcamp


Three tracks of lovely acoustic-ness, all done on a laptop by one guy. Bear in mind that the "one guy" in question is in Day For Airstrikes (a band i adore with a fiery passion) and Pooch (which is basically Day For Popstrikes) and you can realise this is a higher class of bedroom singer/songwriter.
The songs are simple, summery and soothing, not to mention free so get on them.

Boy Genius- Bandcamp

Boy Genius deal with the simple, no-frills rock that I must admit, I don't tend to go for. Normally, if a band aren't pushing limits on hideous-sounding distortion, or providing a fey sentimentality to their rocking, then I'm not usually interested. Boy genius however, temper their butch rock ways with a likeable catchiness. And, the opening title track on the DragonKick EP contains the superbly fun singalong chorus of "I FEEL JUST LIKE AN ANIMAL DOES!"
One for fans of straight forward rocking in a Foo Fighters or late-period Ash style.

DJ A-Trak- Bandcamp

A-Trak is a pretty big deal. He DJ-ed for Kanye on his "Graduation" tour and is currently one half of the very fun Duck Sauce (they did these two party jams) and has recently embraced bandcamp as a way to circulate his latest mixtape, Dirty South Dance 2.
As one might guess, DSD2 is the sequel to 2007's Dirty South Dance. Which I still stick on on my iPod for some ace strutting music. It essentially takes rap vocals and lays them over "body-jacking" electro remixes. A very good match.

CHROMEO-OOOH in the STUDIO-OOOH!

(I'm just going to point out that this is officially one of my favourite images currently in existence)

Chromeo are a special band for me. I first discovered them on Modular's Leave Them All Behind compilation- a disc that, to me, was a revelation. I was a bit shocked at how well indie and electronic music went together. To my mind, there were indie bands and then dance producers and never the two shall meet, but this CD put Tom Vek and Fiery Furnaces songs next to remixes (the 2005 me had hardly heard a remix up until this point) and would you know it worked?

The next time I came across Chromeo was hearing some live tracks they did for the sadly missed "And This Is Our Disco" podcast, the first podcast I subscribed to that wasn't based on the premise of "DJs play indie songs you can dance to" but "DJs play electronic music, alright?" To say they were instrumental in my discovery of electronic music might be a bit much (and would leave out bands like The Knife, Clor, Ratatat and of course, Daft Punk) but they were definitely an important stepping stone out of my comfort zone.

The best thing about Chromeo is, without a doubt, the shiny, retro-futuristic keyboard sounds- complete with talkboxes- and it's obvious that, despite their albums being roughly 1000% fun, a lot of hard work and technical know how goes into making that sound.

Here's a video showing a bit more of that side of Chromeo, though it still seems like a hell of a lot of fun ("I'm much more arrrr-tic-u-laaate"). It's basically a nerdy studio tour that shows how they get those pristine synth sounds. Enjoy!



ps. Anybody fancy seeing Chromeo in Manchester? It's gonna be mecha-awesome.

Embryonic, Embryonic, put your hands all over my body

I have been told many times in my life that I'm a music snob. I disagree (read about why I'm not a music snob, actually, here) but The Flaming Lips are one band that my entire opinion of you hinges on. Put simply, if you don't enjoy any aspect of the Flaming Lips' music- and they've been through many, many line-ups and sounds to choose from- then there are fundamental things that you and I will never agree on, and it's best you leave right now.

However, it's apparently not as simple as that, what with the Lips releasing the dense, wilfully weird album, 'Embryonic' last year. It seems even those who liked the Lips found it difficult to get their heads round the repetitive, blisteringly distorted grooves of "Convinced of the Hex" and "Silver Trembling Hands", though I personally found them thrilling.

One criticism often levelled at the album, is simply that it's less pop minded than "At War With The Mystics" or "Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots", and the Guardian even called it "career killing". Christ...

So what makes a band release that kind of album? Well you can find out in a very good documentary called "Blastula" that has interviews with the band about the recording process and how the songwriting went. Plus there's juicy studio footage.

You can watch a making of Embryonic, for one week only here on Pitchfork TV. You blatantly should.

Return of the Mac

"Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac....

I can't recommend this album enough, because as far as I'm concerned, every one of the eleven songs on it (twelve if you have the CD reissue) is excellent, and the majority of them are perfect.

It's an album that does have great memories for me. Memories of finding my parents' vinyl copy and sitting on the floor in the loft, listening to the opening of "Second Hand News" and looking at the old, yellowing images of the band in the record's sleeve. Despite not having a sound that is overly fashionable these days, and Mick Fleetwood and John McVie's penchant for tiny shorts and daft poses, these people seemed cool to me. A gang of friends- and unbeknownst to me, lovers- who made great songs and took silly photos, who doesn't want that?

Though I do distinctly remember talking to my Dad about how Lindsey Buckingham was the finest female guitarist ever and how I wanted to get one of Stevie Nicks' solo albums because "he was a great songwriter". It does seem odd that now, when bands tweet, facebook and photograph everything they do, a cluelessness about which member's which- and what their gender is- is almost sweet.

But yes, this blog post isn't about great new stuff and links to new downloads like most of my others. I just thought I'd talk about my memories of this great album, as inspired by a documentary "The Story of Rumours" on iPlayer.

Listen to it here, and then go out and buy a copy of Rumours. And then listen to that.

Seriously, it is such a good album that will never, ever get old for me. It's like a hug carved into black wax.

Kong of Kongs

Kong are one of the most curious bands currently on planet earth. Matching outfits, masks and relentless noise make any band worth exploring to me, and these are the three main ingredients in Kong.

Well actually no, that places too much importance on the appearance, the real three ingredients in Kong are drums, bass and guitar, all being bashed, thrashed and eventually smashed to produce a distorted, gnarled monolith of sound. Kong's use of distortion is amazing in itself, even without the fact that the riffs are hypnotic yet at no times funky or predictable. The bass alternately rumbles and squawks but never devolve into simple fuzz. All sounds at all times have teeth in a Kong song.

That might well be the most pretentious way I've described a band's sound so far here at Nice Try... but Kong are quite the oddity. But like oddities there's a perverse thrill in checking them out. Which you can do now for free.

Kong have put "Count To Nine" for free download here. What makes the song extra special, is the guest vocals from the Bronx's Matt Caughtran- who I once hugged at a gig- which adds a powerful growl to the already frighteningly heavy riffs. Delicious stuff that might make you sick.