A heartwarming take on Edith Piaf’s classic. The duo that is JOHNNYSWIM are proving, once again, that a Youtube Sensation can make it in the music scene with a touch of luck and a lot of skill.
28th May 2012
Here’s Rae Morris, a girl I’ve been looking over for quite a while, but one I can’t pass up anymore. The Blackpool stinger has been emerging out of the shadows of other UK female singer/songwriter acts for a couple years now and is finally coming into her own at the ripe age of 19. With vocals that rouse the ear+mind in a vibrant color, this girl’s got a future. She’s all over the UK this summer playing festivals alongside her friends Bombay Bicycle Club, Noah and The Whale, Lucy Rose and many others. Peep her creations at www.raemorris.co.uk
Sol is shining from coast to coast. Listen closely.
Notes: 2
Regina Spektor is timeless. This is the second release from her forthcoming LP “What I Saw From The Cheap Seats” and it is just as promising as her first release last month. This homage to Paris in the rain is sprinkled with all the classic elements of Spektor’s early work: colorful melodies, upbeat percussion, and the lighthearted flicker of her falsetto. Set to be released on April 10th, this record should find more of the same with a slightly matured Spektor sampling some eccentric instrumentation. Nothing too out of the ordinary though.
Kwes - Bashful
Single cut from forthcoming EP ‘Meantime’ to be released on Warp Records. A homeopathic remedy for the ‘love locked down’ few of us out there. Honest and bashful, Kwes doesn’t boast a rangy voice or verbose personality, he’s rather calm. You get the feeling he’s not trying to win over you’re ‘facebook like’ or anything - just a guy with a few stories.
Lovely new track from the one and the only SBTRKT - now touring across america! book you’re tickets, his live shows will leave a smile on your face for days.
This is not an introduction, nor is it a re-introduction. It’s the homecoming of Bobby Womack and the deep soul of the 60’s in the twenty-first century cloud. Back in the days when Sam Cooke could hold a crowd on the edge of their shined balmorals and pumps, there was a sense of loyalty between the listener and the artist. If the artist made good music and could play an exciting show you’d buy their record and support them. And for the much too short years Sam Cooke wooed the Chicago ballrooms, he carried this loyalty from his fans like many of his time. Hell, he probably sold more records from the grave than he ever did on the stage. I’m not saying this loyalty has disappeared over time, but it’s certainly become less important. These days the hype-filled and over-crowded lanes of new music from the world round hardly hold our attention for three and half minutes. It’s unfortunate and sad, but it’s the way it is for now.
Lucky for us, we have a new release from Bobby Womack – a guy who knows what it feels like to play on stage with Sam Cooke, The Valentinos, and others from the 60’s to present. Womack has seen the industry and music community change and has adapted with it to create Please Forgive My Heart, a nostalgic tune taking the best of the 60’s blues, r&b, and soul with the contemporary singer-songwriter genre. Looking forward to the album that will be released on XL Recordings on June 12. Hopefully by then people will actually give a shit about the artists they listen to.
After reading The Fly’s recent write up on folk singer/songwriter Hannah Cohen, I figured I had to find out for myself if her music was actually as pretentious as she sounds on the page. It turned out, I kind of liked her. There is no getting past the fact that she is attractive. Obviously, she’s got the connections through her modeling career and her boyfriend, Jesse Harris, who wrote Norah Jones’ ‘Don’t Know Why’, but there is something organic about her acoustic rambling. Her album ‘Child Bride’ is set to be released the 23rd of April on Bella Union. Meanwhile, check the aqueous visuals from NOWNESS to decide yourself if Miss Cohen is Model or Musician.
Burial + Four Tet - Nova by Four Tet
This track from Burial + Four Tet will take all the spiderwebs from the corners of your mind. The rolling synths and distant static-chill evokes a kind of electronic Black Pearl that carries souls from the underworld and back in the stormiest of seas.
I am Beyond Excited for this March release from Slow Magic.
Just found out they’re playing London next week. Can life get better than this?
WZRD – WZRD Album Review
It’s no surprise Cudi’s got talent. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have got away with half the alterno-hip-hop he’s pumped into the mainstream. But like all influential music ganstars do, he made his own pocket on the billiards table. Now, he’s got the music community peeping his every movement awaiting the next trend.
Here is WZRD, the collaboration of Kid Cudi + Dot Da Genius. On first take it seems like a dark collection of experimental recording and general fucking-around between the two rappers: a half-assed attempt at modern alt, hip-hop, and the heavy electro scene. And despite all my initial negativities, I spun the record again. This time I accepted the fact I’m probably not going to get the same Man on the Moon jams that I still spark up to.
Sure enough, I was naïve at first. Cudi + Dot Da Genius created something big here. Like Kanye’s 808’s & Heartbreaksor Drake’s “Marvins Room” vocal, WZRD procures a new genre out of thin air. Every layered vocal harmony, synth pad, and filtered drum kick is thoughtful and deliberate. You get the feeling when listening that the duo know exactly where they’re taking you whist you are merely following a noise through the dark. WZRD is a collectively dark, but lucid thought that could be the soundtrack to your dreams.
While Upper Room and The Dream Time Machine provide traces of the Man on the Moon Cudi in their melody-heavy vox, Where Did You Sleep Last Night and Live & Learn hint at much earlier influences. At first, I questioned myself but now I am affirmed and confident that Nirvana influenced the rock drum-kit and head-banging refrain on Live & Learn. Similarly, Where Did you Sleep Last Night suggests a contemporary collision of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan’s storytelling virtuosity.Kid Cudi is an emotional lyricist and vocalist, which in itself separates him from many rappers of his time, but his creativity and talent place him close behind the greats of the present and past. WZRD is the modern masterpiece that moves him that much closer to greatness.
wbyw
I might be wrong, but I think everything changes. It could take a minute or a lifetime, but it changes. Whatever it is, inside or out, material or spiritual.
Bon Iver changes.
For Emma Forever Ago to Bon Iver, Bon Iver took three years. Complete isolation in a Wisconsin cabin to a packed house at the Grammy’s took eight. Sure the music changed, the audience expanded, and the budget increased, but one thing hasn’t changed since Bon Iver’s inception almost a decade ago.
They haven’t stopped telling stories.
And like the greatest folk musicians, artists, and vagabonds of the past, they never lose sight of the people and places that have made them and changed them. This is the mark of true artistry, not how to successfully break the music industry for dummies. And with that, here is another story, Towers, transferred to the moving image with a whisk of cinematic seduction.
Joe Goddard - Gabriel by DFA Records
Ever fallen victim to your own speakers? Before tonight, I could say – maybe once or twice – but even that’s pushing it. It’s that feeling when you’re incapable of either raising the volume or turning it down. Paralyzed in the music as I see it - completely aware of all the sounds bouncing between brainwaves, yet powerless at the same time.
Thus, I feel I am compelled to introduce Joe Goddard and “Gabriel”. Imagine electro dnb meets Valentina and produces a child called Elektronisch. Embrace it.
wbyw
After two weeks of consistent play on 6music, I have come to love this record. With the help Bon Iver, Kathleen Edwards inspires the music community with this devil in a summers dress. Download her new album Voyageur on iTunes now.
It’s safe to say Rhye introduced us to the more sensual side of their music this valentines day.
Consume or be consumed!
