New Music 2012 - Part 8 - Anxiety, Ladyhawke

Well I just had to mention 'Anxiety', the very welcome follow up to her self-titled début album from 2008; not simply because I heard the first stuff from it today and I think it sounds good but also because I saw her live at Latitude 2009 and that was very good indeed.

It is currently slated for release in the UK (Island/Universal) on March 19, 2012.
More to follow including, with any luck, some UK festival dates.
  

I could, and intend to, add quite a few more acts that have that same potential and given enough on one festival bill I could still be tempted to venture out to another. Anxiety is also very much a part of life for festival organizers just at the moment:

There is no shortage of worthy acts and artists seeking bookings, far from it indeed but that is a double-edged sword.  Selling festival tickets in 2012 is going to be tough, there is no doubt about that and the 2012 Olympiad is not going to help as much as it hinders. Booking the acts of the moment will be more important than ever but that will only come at a cost - one many festivals can barely afford, let alone risk and that they are extremely unlikely to be able to pass this on in ticket prices, 'up-front costs', or indeed 'on-site costs' such as catering (the latter would surely come back to haunt them in 2013).
If, and it is a big if, the general economic situation were to show real signs of even a modest revival, particularly towards the end of 2012, then 2013 (including the return of Glastonbury that is absent in 2012) might actually turn out to be tougher still.

The focus will be firmly on festivals that provide quality in all aspects;  great entertainment, good facilities, and also value for money. There may be some disappointments, some festivals that vanish, but I think that the sector will rebound from this and quite possibly in ruder health.

  

Note added March 30, 2012:

The current, revised date for the release of 'Anxiety' in the UK is May 28, 2012.

Not Least @ Latitude - Part 5 - The Good Natured

I'm liking this: for the first time I feel I am actually making the most of what I heard and saw at Latitude.  I credit this to two things in particular:

• EOTR 2009, which made me realise what is possible.
• My trusty little Fujifilm F20.  We have been through ups and downs together and it still does things it was never designed to do and sees things that I don't.  Look at the picture of Clare Maguire and you see the keyboard player sitting it out.  I never noticed him until I came to crop the photo for use here!

While it might seem that I spent the whole of my time at Latitude 2010 by the Lake Stage that is not actually true.  It, and The Sunset Stage, are by far the easiest two at which to take pictures with limited equipment and even more restrictive talent.  This artist was as far as I can remember, and I'm quite good at that, totally new to me.  To prove what I said about a week ago I'm going to borrow something from NME as regards their slightly wayward thoughts on 'The Good Natured'.

“Until yesterday I thought all 18 year olds in Newbury did was nick sweets from Spar and set fire to bins, but being introduced to Sarah McIntosh a.k.a. The Good Natured has proved otherwise.” 

To be fair I personally do not have such negative preconceptions of her home town. What I can imagine they wished to imply is that it is not seen as a hot bed of new music, which is true in so far as it goes.  I don't think that it is fair to judge artists on the place they happen to have grown up in, even if in some notable cases that is a huge influence.

Here are two examples: Nirvana came from Seattle, which was rather unexpected. Muse come from Teignmouth - period!

The Good Natured does not sound remotely like either of the above. In fact, and this is a wholly appreciative comment, she sounds like I'm not quite sure who. To an extent it is electro-pop inspired but at the same time it is also slightly unsettling in an indefinable gothic-noir way. More importantly and as a short live set is not the time or place for worrying about lyrics, except to say that I noticed no obvious clangers, she has both the voice and presence to carry it off.

The single  'Your Body Is A Machine' is available now - including 7" vinyl, of course - and is a good showcase.  I understand that she currently has no label deal but suspect that this situation may not persist. Definitely one to watch.

The Good Natured on MySpace
The-Good-Natured.blogspot.com

Innovate never imitate - Music I Want in 2009, Part 7

In a year that electro-pop is back in favour in a big way here is a timely reminder of one of the most consistent and hard-working bands that has been tirelessly trying to raise the status of such music for six years now. They DJ in the UK and abroad, they run club nights, even their own club, and if that were not enough Command is their fourth album as a band and I have already mentioned their third album, Heartland, when it was released in 2007.

The defining streaks are command and control: almost military anonymity [band members are still officially Clients A, B & E] and the musical integrity remains untouched. If the agents at Station X had run riot, in the spare time that they didn't have, and used the machines to make music it would probably have sounded like this far earlier than it did.
I've got to get this - hence the post - as Heartland was in My Charts of 2007 and I can't understand why they are not better known already. It is of course released on the label Out of Line, which is their own, and also this...

Maybe they could run the country too.

Spring madness - music and cats.

I seem to have had so many items on order (or on pre-order) for so long that I was beginning to become impatient and had begun to wonder if they, or at least some of them, would ever arrive at all.
The way notifications went today it looks like they will, and almost all at once - two vinyl LPs, two vinyl 12" EPs and two CDs. The strange thing is that, of the six items, three are recorded by UK artists and two of those have had to come from the US, along with the two by US artists. The remaining two, one of which is by a Canadian band, were more readily available here and that is a demonstration of the vagaries of the quasi-global market! The Canadian one, which I have not mentioned before, is the latest from Metric, a band that I would dearly love to see live. They are in the UK this spring but it now looks unlikely that I will be able to catch them on tour.

Less electro than 'Old World Underground...' and less rock than 'Live It Out'?

I can't wait to decide for myself and, while talking of electro-reinvented, here is one album that I've listened to a great deal in the last few weeks. Ask most people to name an artist from New Zealand and (Kiri Te Kanawa aside) I suspect you'll get blank looks...

Another inspired signing by (Australian label) Modular Recordings, released under license by Universal/Island Records in Europe, the music is quite remarkable - it sounds like nothing you can remember or pin a name to - and the album artwork is quite strange too, all done in watercolour and depicting the paraphernalia of electronic home-recording...

... and cats, lots of cats. Some look shocked and others are listening or merely asleep.

This is my favourite; it is truly surreal and so different from most current music artwork. It is actually the cover to the 7" single 'Paris Is Burning' as if a cat, particularly one in New Zealand, could possibly know or care.

It is an amazing single, and Pip Brown is a star, so the UK Government responded immediately.

The National Curriculum in 2011.

It has been trialled and all kittens will be taught to sing, read music and play piano from an early age.

Borrowed thoughts...

I've never before done this on my blog but I hope that the Richard in question, who is no relation to me, doesn't mind too much that I'm plagiarising his post (see it in full here) from Amazon.co.uk. I've done it simply because I think it is an absolutely perfect comment on much of the best of 2007 and it is all done in just 150 words or so...

Now we're cooking, 21 Aug 2007

Here is the recipe required to make the perfect 'Fantastic Playground':-
Firstly we will need the core ingredients of: New-Rave and New-Wave. Try not to worry if you don't have any New-Rave in because a touch of 'Electro-Clash' will do just as well. The important thing is that we create a rhythmic dance groove.

We will now need to add in some layers of synths, plus lashings of angular guitars. I recommend the use of: Blondie, B-52s, New Order, David Bowie (think his 'Scary Monsters' album - what with all those bleepy synths and angular guitars) and Duran Duran (it's that 'Girls on film' style bassline).

We will now need to add in a very large amount of sauce - judging by the suggestive lyrics.

Finally, give it a good stir and bring to boiling point, then serve.
* This is also suitable for vegetarians, vegans, CSS and Klaxons fans.

.... and it is also, while music is often intended to be taken seriously, so very light-hearted as was the single 'Ice Cream'! That is a wonderful touch and one in which, with 'Fantastic Playroom', we have been truly indulged by New Young Pony Club should we care enough to listen. I'm quite sure that in our formative years we were told - at least a thousand times and by all and sundry - to listen carefully, pay attention and to do what we were told to do.

Be that as it may at least I now know what all those really boring précis exercises at junior school were really supposed to teach me (I suspect that they didn't...) but I promise to add some more original material very soon!

2007 so far, and my "want to listen to" list (Part 1)

Perhaps 2007 got off to a slow start, or maybe it was mere impatience on my part, but about a month ago it finally seemed to be getting in its stride. Now it is much like the M4 on a Friday evening - a huge queue, and getting longer by the minute, for which neither love nor money offers any possibility of a quick solution!
On a more positive front it is threatening a whole crop of wonderful prospects , which I think could be very interesting, that are naturally receiving far fewer column inches than the second albums by 'The Arctic Monkeys', 'Maxïmo Park' and 'YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO'. It is interesting that the last two are both bands from the North East [of England], which at least to me seems to have been rather under-represented in the last few years though 'Field Music' is another band very worthy of a mention.

Much of my "want to listen to list" is music from abroad but there also is plenty to be found in it that isn't. The problem is manifold - not only is it a very long list but is a quite disparate one; some of the items are already released and merely newly of interest to me, or at least they have a release date, while others are not and some of the artists don't even have a recording deal.
I won't generally mention any artist release that I have already covered in this blog (you can count them in by default) unless it is new since the last post on that artist. Here goes...

These first two I should have in my paws by early next week at the latest - possibly even tomorrow if Royal Mail is feeling well disposed toward me - and as soon as I have listened properly I'll be reviewing them here.

The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are The Dark Horse
CD and vinyl album, Canada, Jagjaguwar Records, 2007.

Birds of Wales - Fall of The 49 EP
CD EP, Canada, Invisible Hands Records, 2007.

There are also a few more electro-pop surprises in line for release fairly soon and, despite the so-so popularity of the genre in recent years (well about twenty-five years to be honest), there seems to be growing major-label interest .
Here are two, both released on 'Universal', that I certainly want to listen to:

• Sophie Ellis Bextor - Trip The Light Fantastic (Universal) 21 May 2007
• Dragonette - Galore (Universal) 16 July 2007

For those like me that can't wait that long, and also remain mystified why Annie - Anniemal was not a huge success (it is to be the next in my occasional series of reviews of 2005 albums that I still regularly listen to), I'm planning to get Robyn - Robyn (Konichiwa Records, 2007) ASAP. From the various descriptions of it that I have read it probably sounds like something that might have happened had Gwen Stefani and Annie (with possibly a little help from Goldfrapp) decided to gang up on Courtney Love and Pink but, before anything ugly happened, they all reconsidered the wisdom of a feud and melded into 'Robyn' instead. It just has to be worth a listen... and it is already released.

Another forthcoming release, again on a major label, is Siobhan Donaghy's second solo album, Ghosts, which is to be released on 25 June 2007 (Parlophone). Her first, Revolution In Me (WEA - London Records, 2003), arguably sounds even better now than it did then, but sold woefully at the time, not least because it was given next to no marketing push by the label.
Most of Europe unfortunately can't pronounce her name, or even recognise it when it comes on the radio, but few who have heard the blistering and slightly unhinged pop of the single 'Overload', which in 2000 catapulted 'Sugababes' to #1 in the UK singles chart and then to pop stardom, is likely to forget it.
She not only wrote this song (and many of the others on the album One Touch) but also sung most of the lead vocals, including those on 'Overload'. She then left the group quite suddenly, part way through their first tour of Japan, and shortly before super-stardom arrived. It is not hard to see why: in a 2003 radio interview she was asked what her favorite magazine is and and the answer, without any hesitation whatsoever, was New Scientist. To say the least this floored the interviewer good and proper. It also rings very true and celebrity is quite simply not what she is about but honesty is; they make poor travelling companions.