New Music 2014 - Part 30 - Girlpool

I thought it time that some new music appeared here after a welter of festival related posts. This turned out to be too good to waste any time in sharing. It is the short but not entirely sweet 'Jane' by Los Angeles based duo Girlpool, comprising Cleo Tucker (guitar), Harmony Tividad (bass) and both of them on vocals. Girlpool is now signed to UK label Wichita.

The EP Girlpool is released in November.

Warpaint & Marching Songs - New Music 2010 #20

If the title appears a little bellicose then fear not; all they have in mind is to take your heart and soul by virtue of their music alone. In these shortening days and colder nights, how could you not want that?
This is music for dark nights, warm sustenance and, perchance, much of what follows might well be amongst my listening suggestion for Halloween. I saw Esben and The Witch live on a sunny summer's afternoon in Suffolk and even then the laid-back festival vibe could not detract from the fact that this is essentially slightly menacing music. The band name is taken from a rather dark Danish folk tale... They have been signed to Matador Records since then and the Marching Song EP is their first true label release.

The band is currently mid-way through a month-long tour of the US , including and a quick trip north of the 49th to Vancouver with Cassandra (that is their trusty tour van - 6000 miles and counting), in support of Foals.  The EP is readily available on legal d/l from the usual sources.  There are also 300 12" vinyl copies out there, available from independent stores; if you want one try Rough Trade.


There is a certain irony in that while Esben and The Witch is doing this Warpaint, that hail from Los Angeles, is in the UK doing pretty much the same kind of thing. The distances are far smaller, of course, but the idea behind it is much the same.  This, I think, just goes to show the remarkable synergy that now exists between UK and North American music and long may it continue.
This is the vinyl EP 'Exquite Corpse', although you can also have it in other formats too.

Warpaint is a psych-rock four-piece that has been flicking tantalizing sparks into the wind for a long time now  - any number of line up changes and very few gigs - but it is starting to become clear that this long apprenticeship is about to reap a just reward.
The release of their début album 'The Fool' is imminent - it is expected to be 25 October in the UK - and this too is available on vinyl, CD and d/l.

     If you want an alternative take on Halloween 2010 then please do consider all these as contenders.

Warpaint are in fact signed to Rough Trade Records (in the UK at least) so I expect that there might well be a bonus disc if you buy from Rough Trade (their stores or on-line) once it is released. I can't make any promises but they do however have a solid history in this regard: support independent artists, labels and stores - your music needs you just as much as you need it!

Whither next? New Music 2010 - Part 19

After a week away from posting, but certainly not listening or reading, this will likely be a rather hybrid post.  It is in some ways driven by my ongoing infatuation with the music that has made 2010 worthwhile for me. I can and will mention much more of that but, while thinking about it, I have started to think a bit more about what the next twelve months might bring.  These are just very first thoughts and they may quite likely change, and possibly more than once, before I feel that I am willing to comment decisively as the year-end approaches. That said, and however it develops between now and then, the prospect does not depress me at all...
It will, I think, continue to be a very interesting ride and here are a couple of tracks, making the rounds now, that hint at just some of what might be in store.

• James Blake  - 'Limit To Your Love'.   This is in fact a cover version - of a song by Canadian artist Feist who I really rate in any case.  The spare beauty of this interpretation is quite astounding --- not least for the haunting silences.  It is another that I must add to my list of astonishing cover versions, and dangerously risky ones at that, but again it is one that works beautifully.
• Sleigh Bells - continuing the Brooklyn electro-whatever theme of the last few years  - will make an impact with their album 'Treats' (already released) and I expect to see them on the bill at Latitude 2011. Where you get into this really depends on your current perspective, which will also be a theme in 2011 I believe. If you want the rock-influenced, and it is little more than that, then Infinity Guitars, the current single, would be no bad place to start. On the other hand you would never have imagined that they would ever become Sleigh Bells, given the members' utterly disparate previous band history.  On careful listening, and even then perhaps only if you already know, it is just possibly less difficult to comprehend!
• Rock music - well surely, in some or all of its variety, it is due something of a come-back? It might not be on my terms, or yours, but sooner or later it will return.  I'm fascinated by two apparently different bands, both of which however share something derived from Seattle grunge even if it is used in different ways.  In other ways they could hardly appear to have less in common - Dinosaur Pile-up is four lads from Leeds and Los Angeles' Warpaint is an all-female four-piece - but you should never pay much attention to detail such as that...

I suspect that this is not even going to be a fraction of one half-of-it!

To Listen to in 2008 - Part 4

While you might think it perhaps just more of the usual fare I have to admit that I've had very considerable help here.
Thanks to Beki, who happens to have provided most of the trans-Atlantic input including several artists of which, if I had ever even heard of them before, I have no recollection of whatsoever. [I'm getting old you see...]
This first I was aware of; A Fine Frenzy is the alter ego of Los Angeleno singer-songwriter Alison Sudhol but it is not my place to attempt to even paraphrase the comment so I haven't:

"The singer has a great voice but I think I would end up seriously depressed if I listened to a whole album in one go."

Three more were mentioned and the artist that, as of now, I haven't investigated further is Tyler Hilton. The other two were these, again in her own words:

• Kate Voegele's album 'Don't look away' is actually rather good, she reminds me a bit of Michelle Branch.
• Colbie Caillat's album 'Coco' has also found it's way onto my laptop and I wasn't too sure at first but she's really growing on me... it's coffee shop music :)

Now these are two that had completely passed me by although, by virtue of being older I suppose, the name Caillat rang distant bells and, after some on-line investigations, this is why. Her father, Kenneth Caillat, was co-producer of one of the biggest selling pop albums of all time, Fleetwood Mac Rumors (1977) and also the, often maligned, Lindsey Buckingham-inspired follow-up double album Tusk (1979).

This was regarded as a failure, at least commercially, but it has now sold rather more than four million copies and for most that would be an heroic achievement - that it is not is comparative and simply because Rumors is now past the thirty million mark! The fact remains that almost everyone knows of Rumors, at least in passing, while Tusk is also a very good album but largely forgotten. I don't know where all the other copies are languishing but here is one that remains both loved and listened-to:

Warner Brothers K66088 in all its original vinyl glory.

This has proven very interesting and not just because I've discovered perhaps rather obviously that I'm not the only one willing to experiment by listening to things that can, in so far as they are discernible as a category, at best be lumped together as being 'beneath UK radar defences'. Some may in time become household names while others will doubtless disappear without trace, but equally that can happen to home-grown acts too and there is certainly no shortage of those either, in any flavour you might desire.

OK. I admit that I've gone a bit off-message here and so the ramblings will have to be continued in another post soon. This is why it is fun, not merely just another job.