New, Newer

Martyn's new one is streaming.  Little write-up in the DC Citypaper here, and the stream is officially at Thump (as well as below, until it's not).

Liking it so far, especially after reading the write-up.

The Manic's already have a follow-up to Rewind the Film ready -- it's out next month, but the newest single has been on the radio.  The new album, Futurology, will be a more rigorous one than the last -- Ooh er missus.  Check out the single -- sounds like they're singing about Richey, but they claim otherwise.

Pardon the interruption

Many things, minimal info (sorry), but all just tunes I've heard and liked.

Caribou will be back soon, and has put a new track up as a taster.  I'm liking it, and I'm looking forward to probably live shows.

I just checked the website and Caribou will play the Black Cat on my birthday!  Hurrah!

Here's a track by Sohn.  Liked something else by him recently, one to watch.


A rapping British farm-girl.  You don't see that everyday!  Kate Tempest:

It's funny how so many British rappers rap in the same accent.

Finally, something with some German in it: Sabina.  Not Sabrina, Sabina:


Actually one more thing.  Stromae is coming to DC in September.  It was announced yesterday and it's already sold out!  Who knew Belgian pop music was so popular in la DC?  I bet it's all European World Bankers and what not.

Happa

Fahad, the sibling who most regularly posts on this family music blog, has a new baby :-) Many congratulations to Fahad and Bhabi, he is quite busy and will be for a while, so it might take some time for him to post again on The Ashraf Obsession.

Moving on, this post is about Samir Alikhanizadeh, aka Happa, a teenage producer from the UK. I believe his name stands for "half a persian prince and". I wish I could remember how I first heard of Happa. I heard his track "Bring it Back" a few months ago and was blown away that a 15 year-old kid made it. Have a listen, its quite layered and clever:


Resident Advisor just put up a short film about little Happa. He talks about his upbringing, how he got into music, what it's like to be an underage DJ, and his battle with Crohn's disease. Check it out:


For more on Happa click on these:
https://www.facebook.com/halfapersian/
https://soundcloud.com/halfapersianprinceand
https://twitter.com/HalfAPersian

Easy now!

Right, I've got my cappuccino, got my chocolate croissant, got 15 minutes -- time to blog!  More songs I heard on the radio today, and they're nice and relaxed, so you can chillll Winston.  I'm feeling good cos I cooked last night, I worked out this morning, there's only three more hours of work to go, and then I can do something fun this evening!  Like perhaps buy some music?!  Stranger things have happened... If that does happen I'll be sure to blog my purchases.

First up, 'Dress Up' by School of Language -- a chap who is one half of UK act Field Music.  When this first came on the Radcliffe and Maconie show today I thought it was a very very early hip-hop track; then I thought it was a current track trying to sound really old, which is very annoying; later on I realised that Radcliffe was playing samples over the beginning of the track, which is in fact new and not hip-hop.  Here you go:


Next, 'A Simple Truth' by Wild Beasts, a track off their latest album 'Present Tense'.  I was a bit worried about Wild Beasts, as I really liked their last two albums but I'd heard they'd gone electronic on their latest -- all I could think was "what a cliched thing to do, an indie band going electronic".  Honestly, I thought I was done with them, especially when I heard some news about them criticising musicians who don't sing in their own accents (C'mon!  Who gives a monkeys??  In this day and age!)!  But this track has made me think again:


I don't know anything about this next artist, and I don't have time right now to look him up -- sorry.  Hopefully you don't mind doing your own research. He's a new one though, and his debut album is about to come out -- that much I know, and it'll be pretty obvious how soon.  Oh yeah, he goes by the name of Nick Mulvey:

One thing I do know now, he used to be in Portico Quartet, a Gilles Peterson fave who I also like, so that's good.

That's it for now.  I heard today that Laetitia Sadier is coming out with a new album later this year -- hopefully I'll have more about that as soon as there are some useful links up.  Ciao for now!

I heard it on the radio

Just a great block of radio programming today by Steve Lamacq, who played three songs that are new to me and one that I'd not really concentrated on.  All are worth talking about so read on, reader, read on.

First up, a new track from Damon Albarn.  I've always been a fan of his voice and have been quite amazed by the sheer scale of his musical output.  He's been in the business for well over twenty years, has worked with loads of different musicians on many different projects, to the point that now Blur just seem like one project out of many.  Despite that, the album that comes out at the end of this month, Everyday Robots, is his first solo one, and I have to say I've liked what I've heard so far.  This song is a good example of how Albarn is able to be musically quite diverse -- the only giveaway that it's a track by him is his voice, otherwise musically it's not obviously a Damon Albarn song, cos he doesn't necessarily have a signature sound (..., well that is admittedly debatable, but I'm not going to go into it now).  Check it!  And if you follow the link above to his website you can see the quite trippy video to the song Everyday Robots.



Brian Eno and Karl Hyde (of Underworld) are going to release a collaborative album next month called Someday World.  Kind of an exciting partnership, maybe, or it could be complete rubbish, but I do like the song I heard today.  I don't really hear the Eno part of it, but I like that it's quite poppy and happy, and not the kind of thing I'd expect from Karl Hyde, who usually seems to be a bit darker and weirder in his work.  I like his singing, reminds me a bit of the guy from Doves (who's also just released a solo album):



Next tune is by a band I don't know too much about, the Hosts.  Sadly they only have a facebook page and there's not much info on there that I can see.  I do like this song though; I usually don't like music that is too much of a throwback or pastiche, but I enjoyed this, I think because of it's enthusiasm.  Seems like Richard Hawley has been involved in producing them (not surprising if you listen and compare to this track of his), and their debut album came out in February of this year.



Lastly, an enjoyable Pavement track.  Gotta say, there's something about hearing these songs on the radio, while doing whatever else, that cannot be recreated by searching for and listening to them individually on the web.  I really like radio, including the DJ banter -- sometimes the DJ banter is better than the music!  I'm so glad that the internet means I can stay connected to good radio.

Yasmine Hamdan 'Ya Nass'

Back in the early days of The Ashraf Obsession I wrote about Soap Kills, an underground electronic Lebanese band from the 90s'. The singer, Yasmine Hamdan, has released her first solo album, Ya Nass. Fahad sent along the link from NPR a few weeks ago, and I kept streaming the album non-stop.

It's entirely in Arabic, and Hamdan likes to play with different Arabic dialects. I barely understand any Arabic but I can at least tell when she's singing in different dialects, and its pretty neat. The songs themselves flow very well together and the instrumentation is very unique and engaging.

I can't really describe the album much more than that due to my limited skills, so just have a listen to a couple of songs off the album. And also here's another NPR link, this one of a live performance.

Once my CD arrives I can't wait to play this album again and again! I'd like to get some Soap Kills stuff too, but Fahad says "there is no soap kills to be bought on the internet!".

The mark of a good pop song.

This song makes me happy and sad at the same time, and has me longing for simpler times.  I like the jangly sound of it, the 90's indie-rock echoes.  Honeyblood are a newish duo from Glasgow; I heard them on Radio 6 yesterday.