Last Shadow Puppets - My mistakes were made for you
The Last Shadow Puppets are Alex Turner (from Arctic Monkeys) and Miles Kane (from The Rascals) and ‘The Age Of The Understatement’ is their new album. I was blown away by this album. While I was beginning to think that nostalgia was old hat ( I’m looking at you Wolfmother!), these guys don a George Harrison coat and deliver beautifully crafted and incredibly mature pop songs. You’ll love it immediately, and then you’ll learn that there is a lot to love.
Do yourself a favour and pick up ‘The Age of the Understatement’here.
So I’m listening to some cool music at the moment, putting together some thoughts for the next edition of Borrowed Beats, and I keep coming back to a track that i love but can’t put my finger on why. And then I remember. GhostFace Killah. Sampled the triplejaysus out of it. But It’s undoubtedly cooler than the original, which was very very cool.
Fleet Foxes released their self titled debut yesterday, to much anticipation. ‘Fleet Foxes are not hippies - Don’t Let the Floppy Hats, Jesus Beards and Five-Part Vocal Harmonies About Rivers, Trees and Sunshine Throw You.’announced a Seatte Arts paper recently.
They describe themselves as Baroque pop, and that’s a pretty good pigeon hole they’ve carved out for themselves. Not many contenders for iTunes Baroque Pop album of the year. Crosby, Stills and Nash style harmonies over american west coast folk tunes.
With dreamy choral passages akin to Sigur Ros, but with a little more structure and intelligibility and lyrics taken from ye-olde-folk-lyric-book, this release has instant folk classic written all over it.
‘White Winter Hymnal’ is impossibly catchy, but you’re not sure why and it is difficult not to turn to your partner and curtsy mid way through ‘He Doesn’t know why’.
Following Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes is proof that folk is alive and well, but is being taken in unexpected and wonderful directions by the next generation of protagonists.
Hot off the press comes the third album from Jamie Lidell, electronic soul crooner extraordinaire. Or at least that’s how many of us remember him from 2005’s Multiply.
Jim is a more traditional soul record, despite the inclusion of bird song on album opener ‘Another day’. Lidell has swapped his laptop beats for a full on soul extravaganza. There are plenty references to Sly, Al Green and the Jackson Five here, and if that’s your bag then ‘Jim’ is your Johnny on the spot. (Baby)
35 year old Lidell has softened a little here, and has shown that you can release an album firmly directed at the bedroom without having to smack it till it’s sore, or get his freak on in da club with shortys of various degrees of self esteem (or lack thereof. Dawg)
‘Blue Eyed Soul’ seems to be the genre carved by Lidell for himself, and whether you are a soul aficionado or drop in drop out fan, ‘Jim’ is sure to please. (All night long baby.)
The Foxboro Hot Tubs, the next band in the ever increasing line of 1960 revival bands to release a short, hook heavy, harmony laden, straight up rock and roll album. And Foxboro Hot Tubs also follow Radiohead and Niggy Tardust with this self released internet only 6 track EP. But what marks them apart is that it is (was) free - completely, catch free, 100% free.
You might have also read the name over that last number of weeks in any of the music press, because know one knows who Foxboro Hot Tubs are. It’s widely understood that they are these guys. Two listens later, and you’ll hold that truth to be self evident.
So, if you have 17mb of bandwidth left, and you fancy some brand new old fashioned rock and roll, look no further than ‘Stop, Drop and Roll’. The best free thing since those oxford boys changed the music industry for ever. Or not. Is it still a big deal, or have we all moved on?
on Amazon
