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Archive for the New Band Alert Category
I’ve already talked about how much I love Voxpop’s sound here and here. I’ve told you that their songs are delightful & how I can’t wait to hear them live. So, without being repetitive, here’s another track given to Loudersoft by the band entitled “The Boomerang Generation” for you to enjoy. You can hit those other links for previous downloads if you’re feeling them as much as we are.
Voxpop - The Boomerang Generation
Visit Voxpop on MySpace by clicking here.
After exchanging emails with Voxpop’s Alexander Miller, we’re going to eek out a new Voxpop MP3, one at a time in the hopes your excitement about their new songs will be equal or greater than ours.
Some helpful biographical information about the band: Voxpop formed in the wake of Alexander Miller’s exit from UK band The Upper Room, who released an album and a couple of singles on Columbia. They’re doing regular gigs around London, so make sure and keep an eye out for where they’re playing. Since we can’t get to London, we’d be thrilled if you send along some pictures?
Here’s the second round of MP3’s from their as-yet-untitled-and-unreleased new album, a song called “All The Time” along with a proper MP3 of “Hacienda Motel” which, Alexander informs us, is a tribute to the late Sam Cooke who was murdered at the Hacienda Motel in 1964. Enjoy.
Voxpop - All The Time
Voxpop - Hacienda Motel
Visit Voxpop’s MySpace page by clicking here.
I’ve been talking about starting this feature called “If I Had A Million Dollars” – a series of threads about bands I would sign if, in fact, I had a million dollars to help them make a record and promote them. Unofficially, the first installment really belongs to the band Anthem In that I mentioned earlier this week. However, I think you’ll agree with me about installment two.
This morning, bleary-eyed and caffeine-free, I read an email from Alexander of the London-based band Voxpop. I hadn’t quite had my coffee when I clicked thru to their MySpace link to check them out. What I heard really caught me off guard — in a beautiful menagerie of sound (the song “Hacienda Motel” to be specific), I was instantly reminded of the band Suede and of how much I miss them.
Now, don’t get me wrong — Voxpop isn’t a Bernard Butler imitation. They take what’s best about Suede and a number of other great pop and Brit-pop bands and blend them together. You’ve got a bit of Weezer, a bit of Franz Ferdinand, a bit of The Strokes and a dash of Futureheads for good measure. It’s an impressive first outing from a band who has played, perhaps, a handful of shows.
I played this for Maura and she and I agree about this much — God knows this is the band Bernard Butler should be producing — not Black Kids. However, producer Paul Epworth (who has produced Maximo Park, Bloc Party, Futureheads and Kate Nash) found them first. This is extremely solid songwriting. Singing about everything from dead hollywood stars to Jonathan Richman, I can tell you this is definitely a band to watch out for. When I get a new MP3 to post from the band, I will — in the meantime, here’s two of the songs I personally loved the best, “Hacienda Motel” and “Bad News”.
Voxpop - Bad News
Voxpop - Hacienda Motel
You can (and very well should) go listen to more at their MySpace Music page here.
(ed. note: When putting this piece together, we had some technical difficulties with the music player. They’re fixed — full album stream after the jump.)
Solid pop music is a commodity these days and, too often, the things I hear are simply “pretty good” or “okay”. However, in the mailbag today was an email from Brooklyn band called Anthem In. I don’t know how else to say it: I haven’t stopped listening to it from the second I put it on, so I’m very pleased to tell you about the band and about the record itself.
The self-released debut from this foursome comes out on June 24th and is well worth more than a cursory listen. Instant comparisons to lots of other bands will come to mind — Teenage Fanclub, Sloan, Rogue Wave, Death Cab For Cutie, Pinback — but the comparisons are only to give you a place to start from. There’s no Xeroxing going on here — if anything, there’s subtle referencing that never sounds forced.
So, if you already like any of these bands, Anthem In’s self-titled debut will be instantly gratifying. This is the kind of beatific album which walks the fine line between indie pop and radio rock, never stepping too far in either direction, always pulling you further and further in until they’ve got you right where they want you. More music and a giveaway after the jump.
This is the pure definition of psychedelic interstellar afro-beat jazz funk, horns, crazy Hammond B-3 keyboards, straight-up junkie rhythms from 1971 banging up the block from outer space to the human race and back again. With guest vocal effects from Karolina, Chaka Moon and Elran Dekel, we get an enhancement to what is already a nearly perfect recording. Furthermore, what I would like to call “the Stanley Turrentine/Ahmad Jamal/Yusef Lateef factor” is all over this joint, a form of high praise that I think is well merited once you get to listen (if you know anything about those cats).
The best part is that while the individual sections of this record are wonderful, it’s much better as a complete work. There’s no filler here, no rush jobs or cutting and pasting — this is some handcrafted, vintage funk/soul shit that will stay with you long after the first listen. So if you are down with the notions and the concepts, then the practice and the performance is here for you to lay your dreams in. Kutiman is set to take on the world, and it’s time you climbed aboard and slid into the groove.
Kutiman - Music Is Ruling My World (featuring Karolina)
Kutiman - No Reason For You (featuring Elran Dekel)
You can purchase Kutiman’s S/T album from Amazon (CD or MP3) by clicking here.
I don’t know the first thing about The Explorers Club except that I got this MP3 from their new album, Freedom Wind (due out May 10th from Dead Oceans) and I love its Beach Boys overtures. Sure, they love the Beach Boys, but in this same email I’m also told that they count The Byrds, Emitt Rhodes and ELO among their other influences.
OK. You have my attention.
They’re going to be playing a huge showcase at SXSW on March 13th with their Jagjaguwar, Secretly Candian and Dead Oceans family, and they’d like me to tell you that it’s going to be a good show. If this track, “Do You Love Me?”, is any indication, I have a feeling that both the show and the new album are both going to be good.
The Explorers Club - “Do You Love Me?”
Tour Dates:
03/04/08 Charleston, SC - The Map Room w/ Matt Pond PA
03/07/08 Atlanta, GA - The Earl
03/13/08 Austin, TX - The Mohawk - Dead Oceans / Jagjaguwar / Secretly Canadian showcase
The best part of listening to thousands of submissions and suggestions from all over the map is that when a gem actually surfaces, you can see the highlights shimmering that much more clearly. In accordance with this thought, I’m completely blown away by the recently-acquired Seattle band Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground’s self-titled debut, and I needed to tell someone.
Kay Kay & co. have produced a modern psychedelic pop masterpiece: a diamond which is neither over nor under polished, a rare and precious offering full of inventively original works without an ounce of filler, each of which pays tasteful homage to bands like The Beatles, XTC, Queen and Jon Brion. There are soaring horn sections, lush string arrangements, Ringofied drum progressions driving grandiose pop songs. If you like any of the aforementioned artists, I am confident that like us, this album will end up on your 2008 short list of favorite albums. Band members Kirk Huffman, Kyle O’Quin, and Philip Peterson are three names we plan on getting to know and remembering here at Loudersoft.
The Pacific Northwest, though mostly famous for it’s ’90s rock sound, has been a hotbed for great pop music for decades — everything from Young Fresh Fellows to The Posies, Super Deluxe, Tubetop, Sister Psychic, and any number of delightful acts before, after and in-between. Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground are not just a welcome addition to that legacy, they’re a a glimmer of hope in pop music, an unsullied group of lads whose gift is wrapped neatly and perfectly, giving us a window into fresh creative possibilities pop music.
Listen to Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground - “Hey Momma”
Listen to Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground - “Santa Cruz Lined Pockets”
You can buy downloads from Amazon by clicking here, and it’s well worth the 0.99 a song.
200 on Rainbow Transparent vinyl
300 on Rainbow Milk vinyl
500 on Orange with Red speckles
Your purchase will enter you to win a test pressing. Test Pressing winner will be announce around the middle of March when the records should start shipping.
The world is always your oyster if you can take something that people have attempted before and put a spin on it that is actually refreshing. As such, once again the cacophony of hype is ringing in the global collective consciousness of writers about another young up-and-coming band who have defeated the dragon of producing a first effort worthy of praise and accolades.
Of course, it’s disenfranchising that the band which I am referring to is having to wait in line behind another set of lads whose sweater-driven uptown saturday night antics prove that if you eat the right Wheaties and use the most politically correct phrasings, you can borrow from the 1986 Album of the Year and people will shower you with yummy presents.
Now that I’ve told that unnamed band what I think of them, let me tell the 5-piece Oxford, UK band Foals (the Band of Baby Horses, yes I did say that) what I think of them: in short, deserving of every last bit of hype. With their first full-length release, Antidotes, they have produced what is potentially the first entirely stellar album of 2008. Indelicately blending math rock and afro-beat with the help of producer Dave Sitek (yes, of TV On The Radio), Antidotes is unflinching in its relentless percussion. The jangling clatter of mathy rhythms, slick horns blended with a healthy, honest, angst-driven vocal delivery give this album, and this band, a uniqueness. The content of the album can become droning and heavy handed at times, as math rock is want to be, but finds itself spirited away by its desire to be more than merely a carbon copy of Minus The Bear. Foals have crafted a nearly perfect freshman album.
But enough jibber jabber from yours truly. Let the music speak for itself.
Listen to Foals - The French Open
Listen to Foals - Balloons
The album Antidotes will be released stateside by Sub Pop records on March 24th. Visit the band’s official homepage for more updates and songs.
Oh, and here are some more foals. Just for comparison.
MySpace Music is occasionally good for one thing or another, most of the time for finding things that are so bad that you have to wonder why someone bothered to write it in the first place, but rare gems get unearthed. A gem is a funny thing, too, because calling it “gem” gives a song some inherent preciousness, some kind of cache that tells you it has more than merely redeeming value. Rather than try to give you that sense about these two tracks, I will just say that I don’t know if either of them are *necessarily* “gems”, but they both got put on auto-repeat for some random moments of joy the last couple of days.
Viktor Swalovski’s “Sweet Dance” has all the charm of an ’80’s Madonna song multiplied by the sensual female provocateur’s voice that drives the track along. I have no idea what she’s singing about, but I can’t stop listening.
This second one is by Bellatronica, yet another band I know nothing about other than they make that kind of delightful, Swedish electronic pop music that I always find myself falling for over and over again. Those three words together, (Swedish, electronic and pop) seem to be the correct formula for goodness these days. There’s a definite affinity for what I call “the Madonna thing” in these songs, but believe me: that’s the good news. Bellatronica don’t appear to have a label deal, so take notes and send emails. Check out the songs “Rush” and “Sweet Is In” and then head over to MySpace to check out some more tracks.
Viktor Swalovski - Sweet Dance
Bellatronica - Rush
Bellatronica - Sweet Is In
You can visit Viktor Swalovski on MySpace by clicking here.
You can visit Bellatronica on MySpace by clicking here.
Did you think I had died? Fallen off the face of the earth? Well, I didn’t do the former, but a self-imposed period of regulation and hiatus was necessary. In the face of the viper, you can either take a a shot at getting bitten or step back and live to fight another day. Such was the case for your author, and I can assure you I’m better for it than ever.
So why not return with a bang? The resurrection began with an unexpected phone call the other day in which I was invited by my blogmother, Rachelandthecity, to be the inaugural guest on her new BreakThruRadio show, The Bloggeratti. This weekly 1 hour radio show will feature a new blogger every week unveiling what’s currently putting a bug in their ears. On this weeks show, I’m thrilled to have featured the following artists and I hope you’ll check out the show over at http://breakthruradio.com. Stick around, too, because I’ll be guest blogging their site all next week.
So step back, motherbitches, and take notes. Lesson number one: don’t joke with a hungry man. Nahh mean?
Probably Vampires – “A Western Front” (unreleased)
There can never be enough ‘60’s influenced pop music for my ears to love. Probably Vampires can continue to take the best pieces of The Zombies, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and others into their mildly-sinister psych-pop meanderings for as long as they want to. If their debut album, DANG!, is any sign of what is to come, I can’t imagine not loving the continued results of waking up at dusk and sleeping at dawn. This 5-piece Chicago outfit remains high on my short list of promising unknowns set to unleash their sweet venom on the world, enticing listeners with a cacophony of stellar rhythms, punchy keyboards, harmonic vocals, and uncharacteristically clever songwriting that generates a blistering level of joy.
Listen To “A Western Front (demo)” by Probably Vampires
http://www.probablyvampires.com/
David Condos – “I Should Be Lost Without You” (from the album Smoking City)
The music of David Condos shows a passionate maturity beyond his years. The songwriting on his debut album, Smoking City, is caught somewhere in the jungle of influence left by Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright, complimentary to both of those but more in a direct line with recently popular songs by Coldplay, Aqualung and Keane. Condos has been blessed by a voice fueled by soul, something so empassioned that one can’t help but be shaken to hear him sing. With production duties helmed by Tom Laune (who has worked with R.E.M., Mat Kearney, and Bruce Springsteen), the end result is something so pure it’s hard to imagine that it all stems from the hard work of one young man who is obviously poised for great things. Something tells me I should expect a growing response to this song, “I Should Be Lost Without You”, to be nothing less than explosive.
Listen To “I Should Be Lost Without You” by David Condos
LEVY- “King James” (from the forthcoming album Glorious)
LEVY is the painstakingly crafted love child of James Levy, an architect of modern New York City mythology whose mark on the world of pop music is merely beginning to be felt. Their new album, Glorious, will be released later this year by One Little Indian to audiences in the UK while they continue to seek a U.S. release. LEVY’s first album, 2005’s murmur pop masterpiece Rotten Love, continues to be one of my favorite albums. How wonderful, then, that James and co. have exited the recording studio with not merely a single new CD but a double CD highlighting both the songs of LEVY the band and James’s alter-ego, YVEL. Where LEVY’s tightly-knitted jangling pop anthems give you reason to dance away your heartbreak, YVEL mines James’s gift for storytelling via a Leonard Cohen-esque figure full of longing and yearning. This album is one of my most loved and most anticipated releases of 2007.
Listen To “King James” by LEVY
http://designedmemory.com/levy/index.html
I’ll get to updating as soon as I decompress. All I can say is this: if you weren’t at the Vice Afterhours at Cake Shop tonight, you missed on so much ill shit that you should probably go on vacation with your name sounding like a wakk radio station. Packed to the rafters, Cake Shop was blown the fuck out to the nth degree.
The soon-to-be household name repping Chicago known as Kid Sister blew the joint up, Chromeo rocked that motherfucker out, Flosstradamus spun round one, and by the time A-Trak came to the wheels of steel and fucked up the crowd you’d have thought it was the middle of summer — clothes coming off, bodies shaking, sweat dripping from pores. Yes, yes y’all. Spotted in the crowd: a lot of sexy people and the entire crew of Spank Rock MC’s and DJ’s.
Here’s a picture of me with Dave 1 from Chromeo in a tender aftershow moment. Their new shit is so next that if you haven’t already caught on, the made with real milk life may be passing you up while the world is dropping them Velveeta beats on you instead. Proper update tomorrow including exclusive pictures of The Shins from their KEXP Live Session.