the News

Having one of those days today, just coming across loads of cool new music that's got me thinking about all kinds of things.  Started with 6 Music and then I got caught up in an internet music link wormhole!  Happens every now and then.  Heard Disclosure and Steve Mason first, which led me to AlunaGeorge and TNGHT.  Trying to stop with just those as, apparently, too much music per post is not a good thing.  On a music blog. I ask you.

I first heard of Disclosure after hearing a great mix by them a couple of months ago at XLR8R.  Seems like they're getting quite big in the UK now and they've just put out a great new single, White Noise, which features another new act, AlunaGeorge.  The video for the track is pretty great, and it's shot in Detroit!:



There's a pretty tight remix of the song that will (hopefully) be officially released.  It's by Scot Hudson Mohawke:



He's one half of an outfit called TNGHT, who've got this track out:



Can't tell, but I'm pretty that'll sound wicked out of a good stereo.

To summarise the above, we've got "future-garage" (Disclosure), "future R n B" (AlunaGeorge), and "future hip-hop" (TNGHT).  Those labels are all from the interwebs, you can decide on your own genre distinctions I think.  I have to say, though, that terms like these do get me pretty excited for the music before I even hear it -- thinking it's some mix of nostalgia, love of new stuff, and wanting to tap into UK urban scenes.

Anyway, last up, someone who doesn't really fit in with the above young 'n' new stuff, Steve Mason, ex of the Beta Band.  I really like his voice and guessed it was him when I heard this, a new track from a forthcoming new LP.  This song should serve as a pleasant come down form the previous glitchy madness:



When I hear this new, great, stuff, I do actually think about picking up a Disclosure single, or a Steve Mason album, but I know they'll just add to the clutter around my house -- it's so hard to find the time to stop, sit, and properly listen to music anymore.  That's nothing to do with life nowadays -- I think it's more to do with being mid-30's with a job, a wife, and a kid.  And also cos of life nowadays!  Hopefully you have more time than me, and can have a good listen.

new season, new tunes

Every now and then someone asks me what I've been listening to. I'm not sure how to answer. For the last couple years I've been listening to a lot of mixes found online. So I guess I could answer by saying "mixes" but that doesn't as exciting as "oh this great new band blah blah". But hey these mixes ARE good. And its one of the best new ways to find new artists and tunes.

A few months ago Fahad wrote a bit about Disclosure. They're a dance act from the UK of two brothers. Somewhere in the last few months they got quite big in the dance scene and are now crossing over (perhaps?). Let's see if they reach Daft Punk crossover-levels. Anyway, I've been listening to their XLR8R mix since it went up in December. It has joined my list of favourite mixes that I listen to on repeat. It is very, very good.

And here are some of tunes I wanna highlight from that mix:
This is a really lovely, smooth tune. It has a nice laidback, warm summery feel to it. Let's put in the always great 'unclassifiable' section. This is Leon Vynehall - "Untitled017":




I love the bassline in this one. This is Native Soul feat. Trey Washington - "A New Day (Spencer Parker's a Gun for Hire Remix)", a nice tune that pays homage to Jamaican influences in dance music. Apparently the original track came out in 1998?





This one is Jhelisa - "Friendly Pressure (From Midnight Mix)". Some nice garage sounds here, and it also makes me think of nice warm sunny days, like the Leon Vynehall track (maybe that's because I'm looking out on a sunny day). Anyway here it is:



 
I could keep highlighting tunes from their mix, but I'm gonna end with this stomper. Get up and dance! Yes go on. At least tap your foot. Here's a remix of Disclosure's "Latch" by Zed Bias. Zed Bias is a helluva cool name by the way.

"I had good intentions"

So since 2013 we've been blogging about Disclosure. It's funny to see how massive these brothers have become - MASSIVE. They're part of the mainstream in America, which is really saying something I think, for a dance act from the UK. But it goes to show how much ground house music has broken here in Yankland in recent years...and yes even though house music has been American all along, being born in the gay black scenes of Chicago.

For the last week or so I've been listening to both of Disclosure's albums. Laugh at me for writing this way late, way past when these albums have been released - but I don't care. "Settle" from 2013 really seems to be just 24/7 house, while "Caracal" is more pop and r&b focused. I won't post up the links to the songs here, since they're so well-known and easy to find, but my favourites from "Caracal" are "Jaded" (even though I think it has too many lyrics), "Good Intentions" (I infuse some Sufism into it) and the closing track "Masterpiece", which is a real surprise.

Excerpt from a pitchfork interview (laugh, I don't care):
"The thing that got us into garage was dubstep. And once you’re into dubstep, you just start tracing it back. Because dubstep is obviously stemmed from grime, and grime is from garage, and garage from house. That’s the path we found.
 

In college, I had loads of friends who were into grime and I went to grime and dubstep raves. After a while, DJs just started playing old house and garage records again! We were going to watch Oneman, Jackmaster, and Ben UFO, back in 2009, and those guys were dropping old-school garage records—every third song would be an absolute classic. And we had no idea what some of those songs were. That’s when we decided to buy all that stuff and learn about it. Just because we were 10 years old the first time around doesn’t mean we can’t listen to it now; even though we got to it late, we still discovered it naturally, through buying records."

Man, 2009 both seems like yesterday and also a really long time ago. Time is elastic, I've thought for a while now.

New reviews of old albums (1)

Maybe this will become a series, or may it'll be a one-off, but I've decided to write a short review of a couple of albums I finally got around to listening to in the last couple of weeks.  Back in Arlington, VA, the library system stopped buying music CD's a few years ago, but I've recently discovered the Dallas Public Library is pretty up to date when it comes to music (for instance, they've got the newest Disclosure album).  So I'm hoping to easily catch up on some releases without having to buy or torrent.

First up have been the last two albums released by Gil Scott Heron before he passed away in 2011.  In 2010 he put out "I'm New Here"and 2011 saw the release of "We're New Here", which was billed as a remix of the entire album by Jamie XX.  Both came out on XL recordings.  I'm glad that my lateness has meant that I've been able to hear both records back to back, as that's been an interesting experience.

I got "I'm New Here" a couple of weeks before the Jamie XX remix version.  Overall, it's a good album, and it really does work as an album.  To me it seems like a goodbye album, as if Scott-Heron knew it was going to be one of his final pieces of work and wanted to wrap things up.  He talks about his life and how he was raised, the people involved in him turning into the man he became.  It's a bit like the final Bowie album in that it seems like music from a person who knows things are drawing to a close.  But unlike "Black Star", "I'm New Here" is much more straightforward lyrically, very direct and comprehensible.

While listening to it I did wonder about the production and how much input Scott-Heron did or didn't have in that regard.  It's quite stark, with mostly minimal beats and bass highlighting the lyrics and Scott-Heron's cadence.  I can easily imagine the voice tracks being laid down and then the production happening around them completely separately; I believe production was handled by the head of XL Recordings.  On the one hand it all sounds quite fine, but on the other it's very of it's time and I have a feeling it won't age well -- it's very electronic, very 2010, and it already sounds a bit dated.  That's a shame as it stops the album from feeling very essential, even though lyrically I feel like Scott-Heron has a lot to say. The track I'm putting here is a bit of an anomaly as it's one of the few that isn't so electronic:


Well, that may not sound wholly positive, but I do think it's an album worth checking out.  That's not something I can say about the Jamie XX version. I'm not sure what went wrong with "We're New Here" but I found it very disappointing. The title, and the write-ups at the time, made it sound like some sort of joint effort between Scott-Heron and Jamie XX, but it really is a remix album, and not in a good way.  The remixes are similar to a lot of more modern remixes in that there is barely a hint of the original songs left.  This is basically a Jamie XX album with some Scott-Heron samples, and even then, most of the time, the samples are so far in the background that it could be anyone.  In fact, for some of the tracks, having no Scott-Heron at all would probably have been better.  It's a disservice to him to just have snippets of his voice mumbling away behind everything else.  It really is quite jarring at times -- there really seems to be no connection between the music and the lyrics at all, for instance, in album opener "I'm New Here".  My guess is that it has something to do with the fact that Jamie XX was very early into his solo work when he did this; it almost seems like a practice run, which is OK, except it got released and was even well-reviewed when it came out.


So, to sum up, I do recommend checking out "I'm New Here", at least if you have some interest in the work of Gil Scott-Heron.  It's a good album with mostly good songs, and even if the production is a bit 2010 it's still not bad.  As for the Jamie XX version though, there is really nothing to recommend it, other than the novelty of hearing something so wrong -- I really do feel that strongly about it.

Not so guilty pleasures

It's time to drop any pretense of cool and admit to some completely mainstream pop that I'm liking -- I need to confess and this blog is the place to do it!  Actually, I've always liked top 40 pop music; not everything of course, but I was never too snobby about something being too mainstream, whether it was Tony De Bart or Take That.  Lately I've found myself (and I know I'm not alone, and that there is a hipster factor to take into consideration) grooving to "Sorry" by Justin Bieber.  I have a feeling this song is produced by either Diplo or Skrillex.  I've never really given any thought to the latter, but I remember Diplo from the mid-2000's, when he was more an up and coming producer and quite underground.  Now, despite what I said about not being snobby, I am full of contradictions, and part of me is thinking "Diplo has sold out!".  But another part, the better part, is OK with that, because at least he's bringing some good sounds to the masses!  Especially the US masses, who've been in need of quality pop for a long time.  When I first got here in the mid-90's the situation was particularly dire, and for a long time the best pop music, the most forward-thinking, was R&B and rap, which is why a British brown kid living in suburban Detroit was watching BET and had the local black radio stations tuned to the buttons in the car stereo.


I'm also liking the Zayn Malik solo stuff.  I'm not sure if it's first-mover advantage, or the cool that comes from being good-looking and an ethnic minority, but I don't think any of the other boys from One Direction could pull off the solo career that Zayn may be able to.  All he has to do is pick the right songs and the right producers and he should be all set.  It's funny how pop is now -- not too long ago, a song like "It's You" would've been thought of as quite weird and underground, and probably would've been championed as some great twisted indie R&B, but in 2016 it's being put out by someone who was about as mainstream as you can get.  Again, I think it's great -- I'd rather good music be mass-market than crap music!


Lastly, Disclosure + Lorde.  I've heard this track a few times, and the last time I just thought to myself "this is perfect pop".  Lorde is on a different level of credibility than the two boys above, but it's all on the same continuum really.  Everything is cool now!  Or at least it can be.

Pop!

Most people wouldn't guess that I'm a fervent fan of (good) pop music.  Many think I'm just some sort hipster obscurist, but it's not true I tell  you!  I like a good pop tune as much as anyone, but perhaps my definition of good is a bit stricter?  Today, there are a couple of tracks I'd like to write about that I consider to be very poppy, but I'm going to start with a classic from the 80's.  In many ways, the 80's seem like the golden age of pop to me, but I think that's mostly cos the 80's is when I was a little kid.  It was a good time for synth-driven music though, and a lot the poppy music I like now also has a synth-fuelled sound.  Here's some Howard Jones:



Last night I went to see a far newer pop act, AlunaGeorge.  I was in two minds about going to the show, mostly cos I didn't have anyone to go with, it was on a work night, and the band weren't due on til 11.15pm.  I also wasn't sure how AlunaGeorge's pop sound would transfer to a live setting -- I was pretty wary of just watching someone press play on a computer and then have some singing over the top.  I ended up going though, and I'm glad I did, as it was a very good gig.  It was at U Street Music Hall, which has been a consistently great venue in my experience -- good sound, good acts, and a great crowd who are more than happy to get into things and dance.  There's always a good energy there and the acts really seem to feed off of it; last night was no different.  AlunaGeorge are Aluna Francis, singer, and George Reid, producer, but for their live act they also brought along a drummer and bass player.  I love electronic music, but I do think when you go to see someone live it's nice to have some more traditional musicianship on the stage too, and not just a lot (or even worse, a little) electronic equipment.  This way you know that some of what you're hearing is truly live, and you're getting a unique experience, different from what you'd hear just by listening to recorded music.  Of course, there are solo electronic acts who do a great job of transferring what they do onto stage, even while being all by themselves (Shigeto and Four Tet come to mind), but there also those whose "live" sound is so perfect that it's like karaoke (cough cough, Disclosure and Simian Mobile Disco).  Sorry, but a nice light show doesn't make up for that.  Back to the sold-out show -- again, it was a pretty great gig and I'm going to finally say that I'm impressed by DC crowds.  The kinds of electronic shows I like seem to consistently sell out here and at venues like U Street I can't say that the crowd is just full of in-the-know posers who want to be seen at the right place.  Last night's crowd, similar to the one at Bonobo a few months ago, was really into AlunaGeorge's music, so much so that the cliched act of holding the mic out to the crowd really worked well!  People knew the songs, the lyrics, and they really got down in a nice happy way.  Here's the track they ended the show with -- a show that didn't flag by the way, helped by the fact that is was only 45 minutes long, but that length actually felt perfect -- long enough to have a good time, short enough to not get tired or bored.



My last pop-post is by the very non-Icelandic-sounding but apparently Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini.  Heard her on the radio, this track specifically, and liked what I heard.  A slightly different sound that is still very pop, I think.  I hope she comes to DC.