SEVEN NOISES

This post comes too late to be news but my busy schedule lately has impeded me from working on the blog as much as I would like. Anyway, Antony is back and we couldn't be more happy as it looks is going to be a busy time for him now that we are approaching the last quarter of the year. Apart from a new album coming next month he has a new EP out tomorrow and a beautiful collaboration that was out on a 7" single last Monday. The song with Oneohtrix Point Never was granted as a best new track on Pitchfork a couple of weeks ago which means that everybody must have heard it by now. This song, together with a Fennesz remix on the other side, is one of the most beautiful songs I've heard lately, with Antony reaching the performing status and expressionism that only people like Nina Simone or Billie Holiday had reached before, and has put again the eyes on Mego, a label everybody seemed to have forgot about after getting a lot of attention at the beginning of the noughties.

The other release we mentioned is the pre-album EP with the Johnsons Thank You For Your Love where Antony seems he's finally seen the light and is oozing optimism through every pore. From the opening track to the John Lennon cover Antony seems he's found love and happiness; Thank You For Your Love sounds like a Broadway opening number or one of those songs they prepare specially for a rendition tribute in Las Vegas to greet the public. You Are The Treasure seems like another gratitude song, like the answer to his Hope There's Someone once he's found this someone. And the closing track, John Lennon's Imagine, it's probably the worst choice for a cover version ever, as it's a song that has got old horribly bad, it's been over-played over the years and I don't think there's anyone there that wants to hear it again but, of course, Antony, makes us change our mind re-interpreting the song until making it his own song, making you forget the original for a moment.
Antony did it again and I can't wait for the new album.

My friend Emily Reo sent me last week her collaboration with Truman Peyote to be released as a split single together with Attached Hands soon on Post Records. After her holiday / tour in Europe with Philip Seymour Hoffman (the music project of Noah, not the actor) she's back 100% into music as this is not the only release / collaboration she has planned. There's another surprising upbeat retro-techno pop collaboration with Craft Spells (who has two 7" singles and a LP planned on Captured Tracks later this year) on a Salad Fork compilation you can download for free here. Both songs are quite far stylistically of what she's done by herself but this is what a collaboration is about, exploding new territories and finding new ways of expression and when they are as contagiously good as these two, they are more than welcome. More news to come soon.

I read some comparisons with Burial when trying to find out more information about Holy Other. Not quite sure about that although some of the samples used can remind the type of dark and manipulated voices he uses. Holy Other's music is a bit more spacey and less beat base, quite more atmospheric and closer to ambient, and it can also be more shinny and slightly positive for some moments. It always seems is about to explode in an orgy of multiple beats but it mainly stays self-restrained, something like the Mogwai of Come On Die Young but after listening to dubstep and Salem for some fortnights.

We Are Trees is the music project of James Nee from Virginia Beach. He just put out a free to download EP on his bandcamp that, at first listen, it will remind you quite a lot of Depatment of Eagles and Grizzly Bear, mainly because of his voice is quite close to Daniel Rossen's register. Once you get over this fact you'll see that, apart from the obvious comparisons, the songs on this EP are powerful and bright on their own, exceeding any links beyond compare. There's a lot of work on these songs, beautiful and thoughtful arrangements and a good sound quality far from most of the stuff you can normally find on Bandcamp.
You can also hear a beautiful cover of Best Coast anthem When I'm With You on his Myspace which is sadly not available for download.
We Are Trees will find it hard to overcome those Grizzly Bear / Department of Eagles comparisons but one he does it I'm sure people will realise there's an artist on his own with lots of things to say.

We Are Tress - Sunrise Sunset.mp3

After a very interesting 12" debut EP on Olde English Spelling Bee, Forest Swords come back with two new songs in the same key. Some of the adjectives I've read about trying to define the sound of this band from Liverpool are goth-dub, real instruments dubstep or stuff like this. The fact is that they've even been compared to Salem, another band quite difficult to define for their originality and mixture of clashing sounds. Rattling Cage is a mysterious ballad that mixes sounds and vocals from beyond the grave with dub and electronic sounds and it works even better than on their first EP being their best song yet. On the B side, Hjurt, they even experiment with something similar to an auto-tune and southern guitars that gives the song a strange western feeling without betraying their sound.

It's out this week on No Pain In Pop.

I suppose that by now you are familiar with mega-interesting and highly commented Tom Krell's project How To Dress Well. Not long ago I commented on his first official release, the amazing single Ready For The World, after many free-to-download EPs that he's been posting online on his website. So here we have another one, this time on Transparent, coming in the form of a double A side single with two great new songs. On one hand we have the groovy and funky disco of Ecstasy with Jojo with a Michael Jackson sample from beyound the grave. It's HTDW on his most danceable and less spooky side, although his trademark filtered voices from the underground are still there.
The other track, Take it On, is like a slow rnb ballad possessed by evil forces trying to destroy it but failing and making it better, taking the falsetto to new dimensions.
He already has the release for his first LP, Love Remains, scheduled for September 21, which will not include these two tracks but will have re-recorded versions of some of the songs that appeared on those EPs.

How To Dress Well - Ecstasy With Jojo.mp3

Itslips is the Tape label of James Friley, mostly known for being the man behind the Idiot Glee name who released a 7 inch earlier this year and was reviewed on this blog at the time. Now he's putting out two different tapes on his label, one from a friend band from Lexington called Meridian Signals and another one by himself but, this time, taking his own name and doing something nobody who's heard his Idiot Glee stuff would have never expected: Long instrumental pieces in the key of contemporary classical stuff like Phillip Glass.
As for Meridian Signals they perform classic indie noise pop that could have been released on 1991 or 2011, not being this a bad thing.
Both tapes come out on the 17th this month but you can already pre-order them here.


James Friley is coming to London next month to make some dates supporting Women as Idiot Glee and also doing some dates on his own.

Eternal Summers surprised us with a magnificent 10" EP and a 7 inch single earlier this year with a bunch of fresh pop songs and now they already have a LP ready that will come out ironically at the end of Summer on Kanine. But to make the wait a bit less harsh they will put out a new 7" with one of the songs of the album on the A side called Pogo that will be on the shops from August 31, just ready for the last summer parties and to say goodbye to these warmish days we'll soon miss when we listen to the whole shinny LP in cool October.

Anyway, as Eternal Summers try to infect us with their sunny melodies it will always seem it's warm outside when we play the record at home with the heater on.

Seefeel is one of the most emblematic British bands of the beginning of the 90s. They formed the chore of the first round of what was later called (British) post rock together with bands like Bark Psychosis or Disco Inferno, performing a sound that came straight from shoegaze influences with layers of evocative distortioned guitar sounds with elegant electronics that moved into different territories through their initial EPs to achieve a completely new sound many tried to imitate once they published their first LP Quique, probably their most emblematic work. After moving from Too Pure to Warp, their sound also moved slightly even more to minimal electronics abandoning the guitar layers and vocals nearly completely and achieving its extreme with their last work called (CH-VOX).
14 years later Seefeel have planned a come back, both on record and live, making their second coming with Warp, as if nothing happened during all this time. This come back 10" EP is called Faults and it will contain 4 new tracks including the title track that you can already enjoy on their Myspace. This new track includes once again vocals and doesn't live from nostalgia as they continue to explore new territories without moving completely from their chore sound. You can also see them play live for the first time in more that a decade on their come back show in London at the ICA on September 16 together with Still Corners. I'll be there.


Faults by Seefeel

The title of this EP and title track from Teej, a guy named Tom from Brighton, has a real story behind. Once assembling his equipment he got so badly electrocuted he even had to go to hospital for a check and when he went back home that night he composed this 1:55 minute song expressing how he felt when he got stuck to the electricity. This is just an example of how the 5 songs on this debut EP out next month on the always exciting label Make Mine (they've released singles you should have from The Books, FrYars, Spirit Spine, Dent May or Gold Panda) have different stories behind, although they are instrumental. Teej's music goes from electric passages to psychedelia and you will enjoy his music if you like Holy Fuck, Fuck Buttons and other non-Fuck related artists like Battles. And everything is so new and exciting for Teej he still has to play live. You can also check other download free stuff on his Myspace and check in here for a soon to appear pre-order of the record.

Whenever you hear about a band / artist who is stupidly talented and find out they are, for example, two brothers aged 19 and 16 that have been creating and recording music for quite a long time in a studio in Croydon, South London, you just feel tiny and as if you just lost your teen years wondering around losing your time. Disclosure are Guy and Howard Lawrence who come from a musical family and have been growing up surrounded by the sounds of the local electronic music of Skream and Benga, for example, and in general, dubstep, two-step or garage but their music goes further as they introduce any gender possible such as Jazz or IDM with a definite pop and melodic structure.
Their first release, a 7" single to come on the 6th September, is out on Moshi Moshi singles club and includes the songs Offline Dexterity and Streetlight Chronicle, two killer tracks that will definitely have them getting lots of attention surpassing the dance scene into the global media as only artist like Burial, Aphex Twin or Autechre have done before. If not, wait and see.

The Bitters whose excellent first album released earlier this year has been a bit over viewed, have plenty of new releases coming up according to their Myspace, the first one being a new 12" out on Sacred Bones, with 5 new cave-pop songs style of the house. No surprises, the same energetic fury punk-rock from Fucked Up's Ben Cook side project that every time more and more is less a side project but more a main one, and Aerin Fogel, whose voice is recognisable from the very first note. They even manage to get the most tender they've sound to date on Master of Sleep, the closest they've been to making a ballad.
Get it from the Sacred Bones website here still on pre-order, or at your regular independent record shop in a few days.