SEVEN NOISES

Memoryhouse have proofed to create some of the most beautiful songs we've heard this year, from first single To the Lighthouse and second Lately (both songs also included in the free to download The Years EP) to the other songs they've been putting out in compilations or that tour only CDR full of instrumentals. When i saw them live though it was slightly disappointing as the addition of a guitar that sometimes rocked too hard for their songs destroyed the atmosphere of these songs mostly based in quiet and delicate ballads that didn't need those guitar riffs at all. Anyway, the new single out on Suicide Squeeze Records doesn't take an approach to their live sound, but more to their previous recordings, although the presence of the guitar is more prominent than on those first tracks, but always as a companion to the songs without overtaking all the power of the songs.
Get the record before is sold out here. It's limited to 750 copies but it's nearly sold out.

Memoryhouse have been one of the big surprises of the year. From releasing a free download EP, The Years, to being in the mouth / ear of everybody, remixing (Cloud Nothing, Mathemagic) and being mixed (MillionYoung), free download single on Beko, songs in compilations and putting out two singles from that four song EP. This is the second one after the incredibly beautiful To the Lighthouse, the song that put all the attentions to them. Lately (Deuxieme) is probably their second best song and is going to be out as a 7" on the 1st of June as the first reference of Inflated Records with a remix of the same song on the B side by Teengirl Fantasy I'm quite anxious to listen to. They also made a beautiful oneiric video for this ballad you can watch everywhere since yesterday or even find online a less lo-fi version of the song called Lately (Troisieme).
They have planned their first LP for an Autumn release.
For the people in London, it's being confirmed they'll be playing Whiteheat on the 29th of June (not yet on the website but saw it in posters) and the 2nd of July at The Social together with Visions of Trees and Treasure.

Last December I made a post about the then not popular at all Memoryhouse, some days before they released as a free download their first EP The Years, still available here . They included there the now so talked about To The Lighthouse, which since then has been posted on Pitchfork and many other first league blogs, a video's been made, a Millionyoung remix appeared, it was the A side of a Beko single and now, finally my prayers have been heard and it finally appears as the A side of their first ever physical release; a 7" single out tomorrow on Evident Records . This is in fact squeezing all the juice from a song but, when the song is as good as this dreamy and ethereal track, we understand and approve all this overexposure. And this doesn't mean they don't have any other tracks up to the level of this one. The four tracks on the EP were great and both the more acoustic B side Bonfire or the floaty instrumental free download track (once you purchase the 7") Coma are worth your attention. And wait for the proper first LP some time in Spring to be called Looms of Youth.

It's been out on the news this week that 2009 was the year that more singles have been sold in the UK ever. Album sales have been down again though. And when they refer to singles they obviously include digital downloads, as well. Taking into account that nowadays there are websites where you can get a song for as little as 29 pence, this probably doesn't translate to money. Anyway, the purchase and release of vinyl single has gone up considerably as well and many people like to get both formats of the release, the digital for the I-Pod and the physical for home.
All these news reflect the change of consumption by the society and we could even contextualize this fact with the idea of fast consuming and wasting, with no time for the details, with the overexposing of information. Although I still love the album format and consider it the best form of recorded musical expression but always thought the single had more registers; it works as a presentation, it condenses ideas and it can even work as a dichotomy of genres between the two tracks that normally are included.
And as another celebration of this format, a really interesting website was born some weeks ago. Beko, a new online only single label, puts out every Monday a free download single. They specialized on new bands, specially the ones oriented to shoegaze and dream pop, but also covering many other genres. They are already on their 23rd release (they put out more than one a week during the Christmas weeks) and some of the bands who have put out free singles there are Memoryhouse, Moscow Olympics, Sore Eros, Tan Dollar, Million Young or Nude Beach and future releases from Idiot Glee, Sundae or Weird Era are confirmed. Mondays are always hard but thanks to Beko they are becoming a bit more pleasant as it always nice receiving things for free.
I particularly consider this initiative a great way for bands to be discovered and stand out from all the possibilities you have on the web and can sometimes get you lost between link and link.
Check them out here:
http://www.beko-dsl.com/

Memoryhouse are a Canadian duo that, although they just started writing their own compositions last summer, they got the attention of Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear after they sent him a copy of their cover of Foreground and he played it to all the band and they loved it. You can still listen to this stripped cover on their myspace page. Not sure if this fact helped them a bit to be spread over the internet though as the most visited blogs still have to mention them although I hope this is going to change after they will give a free download only version of their first EP The Years on January 5th, containing four melancholic-shoegaze-bedroom-dream-pop songs, including my personal favourite To The Lighthouse, that should be one of the recommended tracks all around in a couple of weeks if there's still justice. Evan Abeele, one half of the project, explains in a detailed interview on Neu Magazine how the sound of his solo work has influenced the simplicity and atmospheric aesthetic of his project with Denise Nouvion and how the state of the music industry nowadays has made them take the decision of giving for free their first release in order to connect with as many people as possible in a current era where is really easy to get lost into shuffle. They also released To the Lighthouse as a download single in the uber-cool free weekly download singles label Beko of compulsory checking.
A truly deserved "one-to-watch" for next year.