Sound Bites

Down the Stretch

I don't know much about Horse Racing, but today's Kentucky Derby made me think about one of my favorite reggae songs: The Pioneers' "Long Shot Kick De Bucket." There are apparently loads of reggae songs about horse racing, more than there are non-reggae songs about any other sport. (Caymanas Park in Kingston, the setting of this song, is still hugely popular.) So I'm told. But this is the most famous, and the only one I know.

MP3: The Pioneers - Long Shot Kick De Bucket (buy it)

The Derby also made me think of the only other horse racing pop song I know, "The Fix," a duet between Richard Hawley and Guy Garvey that's on Elbow's new album, The Seldom Seen Kid. This one's a lot of fun:

MP3: Elbow w/ Richard Hawley - The Fix (buy it)

The Fix is In

If I had read up on Elbow's new album, The Seldom Seen Kid, before listening to it, I probably wouldn't have been surprised to hear the unmistakable velvety croon of Richard Hawley coming out of my speakers. What a treat -- maybe we know too much about everything is this information age.

When we think of duets, it's usually of the girl-guy variety but on "The Fix" we've got singer Hawley trading lines with Elbow's singer Guy Garvey in a tale of two schemers plotting to fix a horse race and retire on the winnings. "We've loaded the saddles, the mickey's are slipped / We're swapping the turf for the sand and the surf and the sin." It's like something out of a Rat Pack movie, which seems to be pretty much how the song was conceived. Garvey told BBC 6 Music (where he's got a Sunday night radio show) that they came up with the idea when they shared a plane ride to America (Tennessee, specifically), adding "He plays the most amazing table top guitar solo at the end. It was so much fun making it with him. We recorded the vocal facing each other like Frank and Deano might have, years ago." They better make a video.

MP3: Elbow - The Fix (Pre-order The Seldom Seen Kid)

As for the rest of The Seldom Seen Kid, it's more typical Elbow-ian territory, making epics out of intimate moments like only they can. It shouldn't disappoint anyone who dug the incredible Leader's of the Free World -- my Album of 2005. (They also talked food on these pages too.) If anything, it finds the band taking more musical chances and Guy Garvey's pipes are in fine, world-weary form. There is talk that this may be the album that finally gives them a hit -- the truly gorgeous ballad "Weather to Fly." If Coldplay and Snow Patrol can do it, there is certainly room for Elbow.

The band have launched a hi-tech website for The Seldom Seen Kid, with a sort of Rubik's Cube you manipulate to "reveal instrumental layers of one album track per week." This is during the week -- Saturdays and Sundays it just seems to play the song in toto. With the dissolution of their former label, V2, Elbow are now signed to Fiction, which for years only seemed to exist to release Cure albumsr, which is now home to Kate Nash, Ian Brown and Delays. No word on U.S. distribution but as Fiction is owned by Universal, it seems likely to get a Stateside release.

Hello Blue Roses | Glassland Gallery | 2.16.2008

"Playing live sucks," Dan Bejar joked, or sort of joked, in consolation as Sydney Vermont struggled finding the chords on her acoustic guitar in the low lighting of Glasslands Gallery. She had started and restarted the song about eight times and was clearly ready to move on to the next one but gbave it one last go and muddled through.

It was that kind of show. Hello Blue Roses, Bejar's other other group with his Girfriend Vermont, hadn't played a live show in 18 months, with Bejar adding, "our last show was 18 minutes long. Tonight we're determined to top 30!"  The stops and starts probably helped extend the show well into record length. They played maybe eight songs, mainly with Vermont singing and occasional flute, and Bejar on Guitar and occasional vocals. The set was loose, jokey and had a distinct '70s folk vibe to it -- I kept thinking of Judy Collins for some reason. Probably the flute.

Despite having a New Pornographer (and Destoyer) in the house, Glasslands was crowded but definitely not packed. Carl Newman was in the house, as was the Phosphorecent guy. Not an essential show, but glad I went.

MP3: Hello Blue Roses - Sunny Skies (Buy it)

I shot video of the same song:

Better pictures at Brooklyn Vegan.

Really? Is That What it's Like?

This item was in Pitchfork's News section today:

Does this seem a little weird to anyone else? Times New Viking-- among the grittiest-sounding groups that fall under the "pop" descriptor-- plan to spend the second half of February tooling around North America with none other than that highest-of-the-hi-fi acts, Super Furry Animals. I mean, I'm all for it-- great bands, both-- but this is a bit like having Tom Waits open for David Bowie, or the Wu for Kanye.

First of all, I know they've relaxed what is called "news" at Pitchfork, but this seems especially bloggy. Secondly, and more importantly... what? How is a band that is barely three years old opening for one of the best bands of the last 15 years anything like Tom Waits opening for David Bowie. If anything it's like Kanye opening for the Wu, not the other way around.

I realize writer Paul Thompson was talking more about slick-versus-grit and I sort of get what he's saying, but he could've chosen a lot better examples for his analogies. And it just comes off as kind of ill-informed. While a lot of their '00s albums have been technologically advanced, the new Super Furry Animals album, Hey Venus!, is pretty stripped down, five-guys-in-a-room sort of affair. And I'm hoping this tour will follow suit. And they can be plenty noisy. Still I was trying to come up with a better analogy for Bowie, but the TWD is the kind of guy who probably would've had Pere Ubu open for him. Maybe he did.

It doesn't seem that weird a match-up to me. Is it any weirder than Holy Fuck opening for them this Friday at Music Hall of Williamsburg? As I'm going to it and the SFA/TNV show at Bowery Ballroom on February 24. I'll be the judge.

Meanwhile, Hey Venus!, which made my Best of 2007 list, is finally out in the US this week and the CD comes with a bonus disc of four additional songs from the recording sessions, plus the "Run Away" video and footage of the band in the studio. The four new tracks aren't throwaways, either. They're all really good, which should be no surprise to anyone who picked up their B-sides comp or listened the excellent Rings Around the World bonus disc. A taster:

MP3: Super Furry Animals - Never More

MP3: Super Furry Animals - Aluminum Illuminati

Buy it, won't you?

Here are all the tour dates for the 'Furries upcoming tour. Beggars Banquet has created a widget that allows you to select a date and make requests for what songs you want to hear from a list of about 40 songs or so. (It did not include the one I wanted to request, "Ysbeidiau Heulog" from the all-Welsh Mwng.) It also automatically plays music, so I've included it after the jump.

The New School

When Field Music announced their dissolution last year, just shortly after releasing their excellent second album Tones of Town, it was a sad day for yours truly. But talking with Peter Brewis after their Bowery Show in March, he dissuaded my disappointment by telling me they were only retiring the name and that he, his brother David and keyboardist Andrew Moore would continue to work together in various incarnations -- just not using the Field Music name.

The first of those has surfaced. School of Language's Sea from Shore is primarily a David Brewis solo album, in the truest sense of the term as he played nearly every instrument on the record. (Anyone who saw Field Music live should not be surprised by this -- the Brewis brothers are multi-instrumentalists.) The name of the project is fitting, as at least half the record is an exploration of the sounds that make up spoken language. The album is bookended by four "Rockist" songs, each one with a Brewis droning "ee ee oh oh ah ah" throughout, taking the place of what might have been a one-note guitar line.

This isn't Bobby McFerrin material, we've got proper rock songs here. Brewis is just experimenting with new sounds. That's not to say it doesn't come off as a bit novelty (though not ha ha funny) and annoying at first. But then the vocal noises (almost vocal exercises) melt into the fabric of the songs.

If this is still scaring you off, the songs in the middle of the record are entirely free of this high concept and is not that different from what he did in Field Music, though School of Language is definitely more rock. You've still got the precise, sometimes proggy song structures and mannered playing, but the volume has been turned up and given a fat bottom-end. I wonder if Brewis was listening to mid-'90s Flaming Lips while making Sea from Shore? The bass is fuzzed out, and the drums are positively Drozd-esque, especially on the awesome, new wavy-ish "Poor Boy" which should really be a single.

MP3: School of Language - Poor Boy

MP3: DSchool of Language - Rockist Pt. 1

School of Language's Sea from Shore is out February 5 on Thrill Jockey. (Pre-order now!)

And here's video of David performing "Rockist Pt. 1" on something called Channel M. And, yes, that is Frank Sidebottom in the background.

Sonic Paramedics Weep for New Wire EP

Expect the worst. No matter how much you loved a band, even if they never made a bad record, and all the original members are participating in the new recordings. This is how I approach everything reunions and albums by bands who've been together more than 20 years. Cause chances are, it's going to suck.

But some groups you have more hope for than others. Wire are one of them. Like the Fall, Wire have never had any interest in nostalgia, constantly moving forward for the last 30 years. When they reformed in 1986 they refused to play songs from their first three records, though they did hire a Wire cover band, the Ex-Lion Tamers, to open for them. (They did however play some oldies in 2000 when I saw them at Irving Plaza -- a radical idea for them.) Even when the results are less than successful (1990's Manscape) you can never say they aren't doing their own thing.

Wire ceased to function a second time in the early 90s after making one record as Wir (drummer Robert Gotobed had left the group), but Colin Newman, Graham Lewis, Bruce Gilbert and Gotobed resurrected the group around the millenium, and have trickled out new material in the form of a series of Read & Burn EPs in-between reissues of their classic albums.

Read & Burn 3 is the first new recordings we've had in about five years, and these four tracks show they've lost none of their momentum. They're still playing songs at 12XU speed, impressive when you think Bruce Gilbert is in his '60s. I'm especially partial to the nearly 10-minute lead track "23 Years Too Late" as Newman and Lewis share vocal duties. Graham Lewis has always had this menacing quality to his vocals* and it's used to good affect here. Wire promise a brand new album in 2008 that will include no previously released tracks.

MP3: Wire - 23 Years Too Late (Buy Read & Burn 3)

*If I ever got to be music supervisor on a horror film, I would campaign for Wire's song "Feed Me" (from the Awesome The Ideal Copy) to be used in it. It's Graham Lewis at his creepy best.

MP3: Wire - Feed Me (Buy The Ideal Copy)

Playing Above Their Weight Class

Let's Wrestle have a song that begins with the line "I Wish I was in Hot Chip." Hot Chip's forthcoming album has a song called "Let's Wrestle." One had to be the direct result of the other, right? That sort of stuff doesn't happen by accident.

I don't know the answer to this conundrum, but I do know I like Let's Wrestle a lot. They're kind of like Los Campesinos or Art Brut, with a love and deep knowledge of pop music filtering their worldview. The London trio have been around for two years but only released their first single, "Song for Abba Tribute Record,"  back in May on the 7"-only label, Marquis Cha Cha, and features brokenhearted lyrics like "the position that I am in even genocide seems reasonable" with dissonant, Pavement-y jangle. It's b-side, "I Wish I Was in Husker Du," got most of the attention, though, and contained the aforementioned Hot Chip reference.

Now on Stolen Recordings (home of Pete & the Pirates and Screaming Tea Party), Let's Wrestle have released their second single, "I Won't Lie to You," and it's even better. Twice today I've listened to it four or five times in a row. Singer WPG is still having girl problems. "No matter how many records I buy, I can't fill this void." Within a minute the situation is worse: "The duvet's on fire, and so's your hair." The chorus is catchy and it's all over with in two and a half minutes.

MP3: Let's Wrestle - I Won't Lie to You

Ready for Hot Chip?

Hot Chip really like teasing us. About three weeks ago, they added new single "Ready for the Floor" to their MySpace player. But, initially, when you clicked on it, all you got was Alexis Taylor chanting "Do it do it do it do it do it do it do it now." Then every few days it got a bit longer, adding "say it say it say it say it say it say it say it now."

Well, you can finally hear it hear it hear it hear it hear it hear it hear it now. Well, about half of it at least, on their MySpace player or the whole thing on various BBC radio stations. It's actually going to be reviewed on BBC 6music's Roundtable tomorrow, which airs at 2PM EST but ut the show is archived so you can listen later. It should be a good show as the guest reviewers include curmudgeon David Quantic and Norwegian soon-to-be-big-deal Ida Maria. They're also reviewing new singles by Supergrass, Malcolm Middleton and, er, Madness.

I've heard "Ready for the Floor" a few times now  and think it's really good, definitely in the "Boy from School" brand of Hot Chip singles. It's officially out January 28. The SoulWax remix, however, has hit the web:

MP3: Hot Chip - Ready for the Floor (Soulwax Dub) (via Distortion Disco)

And now a music video... sort of. They're up to their old two-faced tricks:

Meanwhile, Headphone Sex went to see them recently and they were giving away a limited edition 7” with two demos/leftovers, which he promptly ripped and posted. They’re both worth checking out, and one of them is basically just Alexis and his guitar.

Hot Chip's new album, Made in the Dark hits stores February 4 in the UK. Not sure of the American date. Taylor dishes on the new album at their website but we've yet to see an official tracklist. The album art, however, looks like this:

Tally Ho! The Clean to Play NYC?

Well here's a bit of a mystery. Heather at Ugly Floral Blouse emailed me asking if I knew anything about The Clean playing Cake Shop at the end of the month. Um, no I hadn't. A visit to the venue's website did indeed show three -- three! -- nights featuring the legendary New Zealand band, Nov. 29 - Dec. 1. This would be pretty big news if true, so I went to Merge Records' website, the label who put out the entirely-essential Anthology (#85 on Blender's Top 100 Indie Rock Albums Ever) and there were the three shows.

It kind of makes sense. Singer David Kilgour is in America touring for his new solo album (my review of his recent Union Hall show here); his brother and Clean drummer Hamish lives here in New York. The big question is whether Robert Scott will be apart of these shows' lineup. He's the third constant in the Clean over the band's nearly 30 year existence, who also fronts the wonderful Bats (who played Cake Shop, upstairs, last year), and that would really make it something. Otherwise, it's the Brothers Kilgour. Either way, it will be the first time Clean songs have been played on these shores in a long, long time. I know they toured the U.S. in 1990 for their then comeback album, Vehicle. Not sure if they've been back since then (probably) but it's still a big event. Certainly one you'd think wouldn't have slipped out as quietly as this.

UPDATE: According to Cake Shop's website, it is the Brothers Kilgour and Robert Scott... hooray!

The extremely nice Cake Shop folks obviously are Flying Nun fans, so I guess I can't begrudge them having the shows but I do kinda hope they announce another show somewhere else, like Union Hall or Mercury Lounge. I can't imagine the average Clean fan (mid-30s at the youngest) enjoying the nonexistent sightlines and other problems the venue has. But three Clean shows at Cake Shop are better than none at all.

If you're unfamiliar with perhaps New Zealand's most influential band, here are two gems, including the indispensable "Tally Ho." They're both on Anthology which you should buy right now.

MP3: The Clean - Tally Ho

MP3: The Clean - Diamond Shine

He's a Peculiar Boy

OK, this is driving me crazy. Does anyone know what band/artist is performing the cover of The Monochrome Set's "He's Frank" in the club scene of tonight's episode of Heroes? ("Four Months Ago") I have Googled, gone on message boards, etc, all to no avail.

I love the Monochrome Set and "He's Frank" is one of their best-known songs. The only band I've ever heard cover it is The Sneetches, which they actually released as a single back in 1989 or so. This version sounded more like Iggy Pop or Alabama Three or Leonard Cohen. But I'm stumped. This is what the Internet is for, right? Surely someone knows.

In the meantime, here's both the original and the Sneetches' cover:

MP3: The Monchrome Set - He's Frank (Slight Return)

MP3: The Sneetches - He's Frank

UPDATE: Unlikely as this sounds, I remembered this morning that an old friend of mine, Errol, is actually producing the Heroes soundtrack. So I emailed him with my query and I got this response: "Ah - thats off the forthcoming soundtrack and is not available anywhere yet...  ; )." Gee, thanks, Mr. Evasive. I then prodded him further and he told me but asked that I not reveal it. It was recorded exclusively for the soundtrack... which doesn't have a release date yet but will be "early 2008."

And if you aren't familiar with The Monochrome Set, they were certainly one of the odder bands from the post-punk era -- dandys with razor-sharp, funny lyrics, and cabaret stylings but yet they kind of rocked in their own way. Also makers of great instrumentals. You can't miss with this Greatest Hits collection. I'm going to have to do a proper post on these guys sometime soon....