New Music 2012 - Part 27 - Melody's Echo Chamber

Continuing the theme of the last post this is another 2012 début album that I have only very recently found out about. Melody's Echo Chamber is the nom de plume of Paris-based Melody Prochet, who is the principal singer, songwriter and instrumentalist behind this confection that was released in November. (Weird World Records - vinyl, CD and d/l).
  
I have several previous convictions for mentioning French artists that some might consider left-field, champ-gauche, perhaps? I have not actually done so for a while but this is another and with good reason I believe.

A few of the eleven tracks on the LP are sung in French, the remainder in English. The exception being 'isthatwhatyousaid', which despite its title is without lyric whatsoever.  Her conspirator in this duo, as both artist and producer, is Australian Kevin Parker who is probably better known as the driving force behind the band 'Tame Impala'.

Coming Soon - new music 2008 (Part 5)

Autumn is always a time for new releases by established artists and in 2008 Safe Journey Home (released 3 November 2008 in the UK), the third album from Dido and the first since Life For Rent in 2003, is an obvious one to mention. I'll readily admit that two albums, and over twenty million sales of them, have not made me any less curious about this new one.

So it is about the second album by Jem, Down To Earth released in the US on 16 September, and which I'm told that it is jaw-droppingly good. I sincerely hope so too but I am, as yet, unfortunately unable to comment definitively.

The strangest thing is that it is not necessary to orbit the planet to find things musically wonderful - and I may well be mad but it is nothing new - because France will do nicely instead!

Yes, there are a lot of them in New Grids. Yes, 'Coming Soon' doesn't sound French, but it is certainly not British for that matter, but it is nevertheless their début album and yet the word genre is one quite lost on their music. They are all French too - just how good is that?

Sticking with things French, Soko (Stephanie Sokolinski) is currently in Seattle putting the finishing touches to her début album, which should be released in early 2009, at Bear Creek studio. I'd want to hear this album anyway but, having already seen her perform live, it is simply a must-have.

Soko live at Latitude in July 2008.

This is the week this is...

'That Was the Week That Was' was a BBC radio production featuring many of the great names of radio in its time, which was about that when The Beatles were heading for domination of the music world in a way previously unimaginable but, some 46 years later, this is the week that has created some, admittedly 'red-top', newspaper headlines that echo through the decades:

• Sir Paul McCartney (a certified "National Treasure", as several of the cast of the BBC radio show were, or later became) was finally divorced from Heather Mills.

• Carla Bruni-Sarkozy made a state trip to Britain and she was of course accompanied by her husband Nicolas, who just happens to be the President of France. Truth to tell they both played their parts brilliantly: Gordon Brown talked about a new political entente formidable and the next morning, while on a boat trip down the Thames, the newly-weds played the UK media thing to perfection with an entente à deux as they shrugged off the fact that one UK tabloid paper had reprised an old picture of Mme. Bruni-Sarkozy, sans vêtements and taken on a modelling shoot in the early 1990s, by sharing a snog in front of the media cameras. She has also recorded two albums (one in French and one in English) that have had some critical acclaim. French politics has had its fair share of scandal but never has it been quite so honest, transparent and legal!

• This week UK music has done a remarkable thing. To paraphrase the 1988 single by Sting (and without any mercy on my part) West Londoner in New York, Estelle, displaced Duffy at the top of the UK single chart with the single 'American Boy', sung with Kanye West. That is not very remarkable but simultaneously East Londoner, and winner of X-Factor 2006, Leona Lewis is at #1 in the US singles chart with the single 'Bleeding Love' - and she only the third UK solo female artist to take a début single to #1 in the US.

Curioser & curioser...'Want to Listen' Music - Part 7

This may, or it may not, be the last in this 2007 series but with most supposedly significant new album releases now suspended owing to the festive season I have found a little time to look into the things I have put into the "to check later" folder in the last six months or so. First discovery: there are a lot more of them than I thought. Second discovery: there also are a lot more than just those that I had already underestimated!

Today the semi-centennial Grammy Award nominations were made public - and on them I intend to comment tomorrow - but in the meantime here are two (well, actually three) more items from the as yet unplumbed depths of my 2007 wish list and it seems very appropriate to start off with one from America which, as far as I can tell is not nominated in any of the myriad categories. It wins my 2007 award for 'Nominative Curiousness' and perhaps more importantly also proves that American indie is alive, well and also available in the UK!

The 'prize', just in case you were wondering, is simply to be mentioned here and the 2007 winner is... [drum roll]... Andrew Jackson Jihad.
If that wasn't enough the clinch is surely that the album is entitled People Who Can Eat People Are The Luckiest People In the World, which might also be in the running for the award for 'Longest Album Title' of 2007.

This discordant American punk-folk outfit hail from Phoenix, AZ and are signed to Asian Man Records (a rather tiny indie label run from Monte Serreno, CA) and yet amazon.co.uk both list and stock it!
So what is it about the rabbit on the album art? Well, I kid you not, track 8 is entitled Song Dedicated to the Memory of Stormy the Rabbit and guess that might be a clue.

Here is another oddity but one that is from closer to home. I know I risk getting a reputation for championing French music but I've decided that should it happen it's just something I'll have to learn to live with. WatooWatoo (a link to their MySpace page) come from Bordeaux, having started life in Paris, and the album La Fuite was released on 11 June 2007.

This album is released by Letterbox Records, based in Whitehaven, Cumbria. Click the above image to find the band's own website. It's French pop but with nods to all kinds of other, almost always older, genres such as lounge pop while it is actually mostly electronically written. France does this sort of thing very well indeed but, surprisingly, isn't too good at exporting it.
Here is another slightly older example, this time from 2005 and released by EMI, that I'd also really like to hear.

Coralie Clément - Bye Bye Beauté