Croonin'

Couple of artists I've wanted to cover for a bit and am finally getting round to here, plus one old tune that can be put under the crooner category (not really, but i'm gonna do it anyway). Ok, so, both James Blake and Jamie Woon have been getting tipped for big things in 2011. I've had them on my new-headphone enhanced mp3 player and do think their tunes are worth mentioning. Couldn't pick which version I liked so I'm going to put a selection up. First up is James Blake, who's getting the most buzz. This track is 'Limit to Your Love' and it's actually got a decent video. On initial listen I wasn't sure if he (skinny little white bloke) could be singing this song, but the vid seems to indicate that he is, which is pretty astonishing before you even get to the deep bass and use of space in the track. Check it (best heard with decent sound so you can actually hear the deep bass when things get shuddery -- it's there):



I'm going to put two version of a Jamie Woon track up. The track is recent single 'Night Air' and I'm putting up a live version and a remix. I think the live version is quite good as the song seems to hold up well in a basement club setting while actually sung live. The remix is by Deadboy; I like it on my headphones but it doesn't sound as good to me on the PC -- maybe you'll feel differently:





Last is an oldish Pulp track that popped up recently when I listening to something else by them. Had forgotten how well put together the track and lyrics are, and the high-production-value video seems a bit of a throwback when seen now -- can't imagine many bands having much of a budget for videos nowadays, and it's funny to think that Pulp were themselves big enough for a video like this. But this is post-'Different Class', when they were briefly massive and could probably do whatever they wanted -- including disintegrate:



BONUS:

Discodeine feat. Jarvis Cocker - Synchronize from Pschent on Vimeo.

tune-age

Who knew that Jarvis Cocker had made a collab dance track? Not me, but I'm glad I heard about it as it's quite good. Jarv's voice is well suited to loungey crooning -- he could be a good Bryan Ferry if he tried a bit harder. His collaborators here are a French duo called Discodeine. I'm just hoping Jarv tries more of this kind of thing:



While I'm at it I'll put up some other dancey tunes I've heard and liked, some recent and one from a while back. First up is the recent Gorillaz single that wasn't on Plastic Beach, in case you missed it:



If you're in the mood, you can look up the official video for 'Doncamatic' and reflect on how much of a difference to the listening experience it makes to be able to see the artist -- perhaps just listening is better? I had similar feelings after watching a DVD about Belle and Sebastian -- I liked them better when I couldn't picture them. Same goes for the XX -- hard to take seriously when you realise they're almost still pimply teenagers. Perhaps Gorillaz had it right when they stuck to just being cartoons (though their guest artists have always seemed to appear as themselves). Ok, moving on, next is a remix of a Caribou track. I posted about Caribou not too long ago; this is a remix of the track Sun by UK-based artist Midland. It's quite tasty:



Last up is a song by Metronomy, who I heard a couple of years ago. I was reminded of them again while looking up Discodeine so here's a track by them. I've included the video here as I found it to be rather charming (it doesn't hurt that it features England with mostly nice weather):

Metronomy - Heartbreaker