On March 9 The Besnard Lakes will release The Besnard Lakes Are The Roaring Night, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed 2007 record, … Are The Dark Horse. The last record took a while to grow on me so I’m expecting the same from the new one. Or at least I was…because if Albatross, the first taste of the record, is anything to go by then this record might be a lot more immediate than the last one.
Albatross is immense. While the press release claims that the first single “has all the swagger of a Stevie Nicks-led Fleetwood Mac classic or Roy Orbison reimagined as a rollicking, snakeskin-booted Mazzy Star — dousing it all in gas and throwing the match as we hear its tale of Vancouver’s skid row and its inhabitants,” I hear a lot of 80s shoegaze influences as well. But no matter how you describe it, Albatross is a great song.
On Sunday night Radiohead played a benefit gig in at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles to help raise funds for Oxfam’s Haiti relief efforts. Tickets for the gig were only available by auction and ended up raising over a half million dollars for Oxfam. Not much rehearsal took place before the gig (the band are currently recording a follow-up to In Rainbows) which resulted in an, at times, endearingly ramshackle gig. But for the most part the band were spot on, playing some of their most well-known material.
In the final encore, however, Thom came out on his own to play a new Radiohead song, Lotus Flower. He debuted this song last year with his ???? band but this was its first appearance at a Radiohead gig. Vulture points out that the song is “comically Radiohead-esque.” Download an mp3 below or watch a video.
Back in 2008 Frightened Rabbit released one of my favourite albums of the year, The Midnight Organ Fight; in March the band will be releasing their follow-up to that great record and it’s called The Winter Of Mixed Drinks. Late last year they released the first single from the record, Swim Until You Can’t See Land which continues the band’s ability to write invigorating songs in the midst of heartache and pain. You can download the single and its accompanying b-side (which won’t be on the album) below.
One of the geekiest/coolest things I saw online this week was this post by Michael Deal. Michael is starting a project that explores The Beatles through charts and graphs. The above snapshot comes from a graph that details the authorship of every Beatles song. Be sure to check out the entire post for a few more infographics. Perfect for Beatles nuts like myself.
Which actually reminds me…I don’t think I even mentioned The Beatles reissues from last year. I bought the Mono Box Set and love it. The sound quality is amazing and the packaging is flawless.
While browsing through Zulu Records late last year I came across a series of records put out by Soundway Records. Focusing on sharing indigenous music from around world, the people at Soundway are doing amazing things. From their website:
Soundway Records is dedicated to unveiling forgotten chapters from some of the world’s richest musical cultures. From the Highlife, disco and rock sounds of 70s Nigeria to the golden age of Panamanian music, Benin’s Afro-Latin grooves, Colombia’s Champeta and all other forms of Tropical and Afro sounds imaginable. Soundway’s mission is to present the very best in obscure a-sides, b-sides and album cuts that have remained unavailable… until now.
But what really caught my eye that day at Zulu was one of the albums in the series called Panama! Latin, Calypso and Funk on the Isthmus 1965-75. My dad was born and raised in Panama so I thought he might enjoy a CD of music from his homeland (especially considering he’s heading down there for a visit next month). Upon further exploration I found there are actually three albums in the Panama! series (see here and here)…so two were purchased, wrapped, and opened on Christmas Day.
Dad seems to really be enjoying the albums but what I wasn’t expecting was how much I was going to enjoy the music (though I did love that “huge” Tropicalia compilation a few years back); but here I am imploring you to check out some music from a country whose music scene is totally ignored.
Due to Panama’s huge role in world shipping (it has a canal you may have heard of), the music has influences from all over. Obviously funk, calypso, and jazz feature prominently, but there are also some really pop elements and even some rock tones to some of the songs. After listening to two of the albums in the series I’m pretty shocked at the depth of great music that emerged in the 60s and 70s from a relatively small nation. The albums are accompanied by in-depth liner notes and annotations about the original releases of each song. In every respect, Soundway has done an amazing job with the Panama! series.
Four years ago tomorrow I first posted about Massive Attack’s upcoming fifth album. Four years ago. At that point the record was supposed to be coming out in February 2007. That didn’t happen. So that month I wrote about the album again this time saying it was looking like 2008 was more likely as a release date. Towards the end of 2008 I once again wrote about this elusive forthcoming record which had still yet to see the light of day. At that point, based on interviews with 3D and Daddy G, I posited that a 2009 release seemed incredibly likely.
It is now 2010. The record is still not out. But there is an incredibly bright light at the end of the tunnel: barring the apocalypse, Massive Attack will release their fifth record on February 9, seven years to the week after their previous (slightly disappointing) record, 100th Window. It is called Heligoland (which is a small group of German islands) and features contributions from Horace Andy (as always), Martina Topley-Bird, Guy Garvey (from Elbow), Tunde Adebimpe (TV on the Radio), Hope Sandoval, and Damon Albarn (among others).
Tracklisting:
Pray for Rain
Babel
Splitting The Atom
Girl I Love You
Psyche
Flat of the Blade
Paradise Circus
Rush Minute
Saturday Come Slow
Atlas Air
Back in 2008 when the band were touring they were playing a bunch of amazing new songs, some of which do appear on Heligoland, albeit with new titles:
Girl I Love You (was 16 Seeter)
Flat of the Blade (was Bulletproof Love)
Paradise Circus (was Harpsichord)
Atlas Air (was Marrakech or Marakesh)
Unfortunately, my favourite song from the 2008 bunch was All I Want which does not appear to be on the record at all. So I guess we’ll have to survive with the much bootlegged live version.
