A Curious Thing - New Music 2010, part 5

I've been quiet for a while, that is true, but I've still been listening and reading. With three new albums by artists I've already mentioned in this respect released tomorrow it is time to move on.

Here are another few that are well and truly on my wants list and they are all by returning artists...

Few might actually recall her 2007 début, This Is the Life, because it was a slow burner but it finally reached #1 in the UK album charts a year after release, while then selling over 3 million copies worldwide (to date). I've heard a couple of the new tracks and 'A Curious Thing' would seem to be well worth the wait. Is it slightly 'rockier' than the first album? Yes, well maybe, but not in a radical way. I can't currently find the album artwork so this will have to do for now.

The same, given what I have heard and including the first single, can be said of the fifth album from Goldfrapp. In this case it would seem to be rather more electro-influenced than 'Seventh Tree' and none the worst for that. Alison's vocals are as good as ever they were but perhaps Will Gregory has twiddled a few more buttons than on their last recording. If summer 2010 sounds like these albums it will be one to remember. I should know the title of this album, due to be released in late Spring 2010, is but it has slipped my mind for the moment.

Jill Jackson is another artist who has promised a second album soon...

This image is from her myspace but what it relates to is only my guess.

Can I think of more? Well yes I can.

Too soon to review; but not too early to predict!

I'd say that it is still too early to compile and publish any list of 'best of 2008'. That is not to say that I haven't given thought to such matters, for of course I have, but that is a different matter entirely!
On the other hand it certainly is not too early to consider what and who might be influential in 2009 and, although that is still open to question, this EP is already on my list...

As far as I can tell this is currently only available to download, which is a shame, but that is not to detract from its merit at all. She is the principal part in a trio that includes the tight accompaniment of Tom (bass) and Howie (percussion) while she sings lead vocals and also plays lead guitar - her trademark red Strat - an interesting choice for one who, as a child, learned classical piano.
You might have heard her before, without even realising it, as she provided backing vocals for some tracks on the Goldfrapp album 'Seventh Tree'. Her début album is due in 2009.

To listen to in 2008 - Part 2

Too much pop, dance and nu-folk maybe?
I'm not too concerned about that, and can't tell you how good Goldfrapp's Seventh Tree is... I'm currently listening to it on vinyl. That said wouldn't it be sad if everything sounded this way? Yet another Canadian band ride to the rescue!

Black Mountain come from Vancouver and have released their second album, In The Future, on Jagjaguwar Records who last year gave us the Besnard Lakes' rather surprising second album The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse.

The two are not the same but when it comes to their heavy/progressive rock tendencies there is a point of comparison. In addition both bands continue the now common Canadian tradition of being a collective of musicians who also make use of male-female vocals: in the case of Black Mountain these are (mostly) provided by Steve McBean and Amber Webber and is allied, on some tracks, with a real folk sensitivity.

Black Mountain - In The Future.

In many ways it sounds considerably influenced by the music of the early 1970s but not remotely in a 'tribute band' sort of way; in fact the most derivative 1970s thing about this album is that Jagjaguwar have also made it available on 12"!

The Journey Continues... new singles and old ideas.

First is this one and it makes me think that we are now looking at the 1990s revisited but if this is the case I've decided that it might not be so bad after all! Mark Brown may be a 21st century producer and there are others, almost too many and obvious to mention, who are also laudable but this is a fine effort that has become well known because it has been used in a Lloyds TSB Bank advertising campaign. That to some is in itself a travesty but, at least in my opinion, it need not detract from the song as it stands:

The vocalist is Sarah Cracknell: she of Saint Etienne fame and the singer that Cristiano Spiller really wanted to record the vocals for his previously instrumental Groovejet. When she turned the offer down Sophie Ellis Bextor recorded Groovejet (If This Ain't Love) instead and when released in 2000 it went straight to the top of the UK singles chart and, in doing so, prevented Victoria Beckham having a solo UK #1. It is a fluke of fortune that Sophie Elllis Bextor has probably not forgotten!
Another new single that has come to my attention recently is A&E, the first to be released from Goldfrapp's fourth studio album that is Seventh Tree, and it is quite often wonderfully like the tracks on Felt Mountain but even better (and this album is also available on vinyl)!

I'm even thinking about having a minor 1990s retrospective this weekend --- at best the late 1990s were often cheap and trashy but at least Samantha Marie Sprackling (aka Saffron, the lead singer of Republica) was ready and willing to capture it better than many, indeed most.

Republica - Republica (1996).
Someone had to do it and the iconic track was Drop Dead Gorgeous.