SEVEN NOISES

This is the second release of ethereal and mysterious band Glasser. Many of you discovered them with their first release thanks to the fact it was put out on True Panther Sounds, a label that became quite popular last year after releasing the Girls album and singles and some others for the fact they were included in the must have download only compilation Selected & Collected: An eMusic Sellects Compilation with the main track on that 12": Apply. That track, joined as well with several remixes also included there, mixed psychedelia with percussions and underwater sounds. the people at the label described her music as Kate Bush + Arthur Russell and I would add she's close to the sound of High Places or even slightly to Gang Gang Dance minus electronica.
Her new track Tremmel, included in the 12" out on Young Turks, is backed by interesting remixes by The XX's James or Romatic Three, following the same type of format she used for her first release. The people at True Panther Sounds announced last month her first Lp is following soon and she's currently touring backed by Fever Ray's producers Van Rivers and The Subliminal Kid and she sometimes performs with a magnificent instrument she invented herself, a kind of sci-fi organ that needs two people to perform it.

After the overexposure of end of the year (and decade) best of lists, this year for the first time in ages, I've decided not to do one myself. Whoever has spent a bit of time checking this blog during its nearly one year of existence will already know some of the singles I considered worth of checking and buying so you can do the review yourself going through the old posts. Anyway, after checking some of those lists you can just see some are just repetitive and some have nothing in common, looking as if they were from different planets taking into account the source they've been brewing in.
Anyway, If I don't do any kind of review about the last 12 months, it doesn't seem end of the year so I thought I would just comment what's been about in general 2009. And this year, more than the previous years and as it used to be in the nineties, everything's been about the record labels so i thought I would resume 2009 through them.
If there's been a label that has been the protagonist of the year this is Captured Tracks: managed by Blank Dogs, it has brought us not only his own releases but also great singles and EPs by Dum Dum Girls, Woods, Ganglians or Christmas Island. Together with them, the Brooklyn label Woodsist has worked as a parallel label to Captured Tracks. Managed by Woods, every single release they've put out has got the attention of the media, from Fergus and Geronimo, Real Estate or The Mayfair Set to Fresh & Onlys, Ganglians or Woods themselves.
We've seen as well the resurrection of a mythic label which was 20 this year; Slumberland Records, mainly thanks to Pains of Being Pure at Heart, has also brought us great records from Crystal Stilts, Brilliant Colors, Lichtenstein or Frankie Rose.
In the UK, Transparent Records has brought us great limited singles from Washed Out, Small Black or The Smith Westerns, Young Turks discovered us The XX and released singles by Wavves and Tanlines and No Pain in Pop brought us A Grave with No Name, Deep Sht or Trailer Trash Tracy's. Other great labels of the year were Mexican Summer (Washed Out, Weekend, Pearl Harbour), Art Fag (Crocodiles, Best Coast) , Black Iris (Foreign Born, Fool's Gold), Upset the Rhythm (Xiu Xiu, Future Islands) or Moshi Moshi (Kindness, Thecocknbullkid).
We also see how stablished record labels were as good as ever (Sub Pop and its singles Club) or got back on track (Matador releasing Girls, Cold Cave or getting Sonic Youth).
According to sounds this has definitely been the year when Lo-Fi was back in track and popularised again, folk overlooked and electronic music mainly resting. And yes, it was the year when Animal Collective got full coverage in the mainstream world, something that, looking way back, looks like it could never happen so maybe not everything's lost in popular music.

This is already my third post about The XX. I discovered them when a guy at Rough Trade West was listening to their demo, I was impressed with the originality of their sound and have been following them since then. This is their second single, again with Young Turks, and the last anticipation of the album to be released next week which I have already heard and I highly recommend. It's been a surprise that they chose this track as a single instead of other more instant songs as VCR or Islands or the exclusion of Blood Red Moon, appearing here as the B side in the original demo version, from the album. But it is also a great track and one of their most soulful. If you still haven't listen to them imagine how an RnB song would be delivered by a group of depressed teenagers with a minimal production and you can have the idea. Or you can just listen to the track and buy the record, of course. It has also been released as a 12 inch including remixes of the likes of Pariah or Diskjokke. They are currently playing some dates in New York and coming back to tour the UK and Europe.

Released 10/08/09

The XX - Basic Space.mp3

This is the first time I repeat and artist in a post but it's justified by the publication of their first single. A couple of months ago I talked about The XX as one of the most interesting bands appearing in the London scene; four 19 year old kids with a love for RnB and the capacity of swallowing their influences to assimilate them and then eject them transformed into something completely new and different. The final version of Crystalised is better and more dynamic than the demo version I uploaded here and the B side is a cover of Aaliyah's Hot Like Fire you wouldn't recognise if you didn't read the credits saying the lyrics are by M. Elliot.

I couldn't have been less bothered about the new Jack Penate's single if it was not for the headline I read in a newspaper some days ago: "Jack Penate goes balearic". The songs he's published before are close to a pointless generic rockabilly-goes-mainstream I couldn't enjoy less. Mostly moved by curiosity I went and checked his myspace site to listen to the track and found out it was pretty cool. I wouldn't say it's balearic but more of a summer inspired song close to the soft tropical sounds of The Avalanches, Air France or even El Guincho with a samba inspired catchy chorus. If this track doesn't become one of the the Spring/Summer songs, then something's wrong. The B-side of the single is an ambient version of the track perfect for a quiet night out watching the sunset in a terrace by an Ibizan beach. Yes, I know, it's Jack Penate, but I have to say that the first to be surprised it's me. If you don't believe it check it out yourself.

and it's called The Owls and Eyes. After listening to the EP it's easy to accuse him of having the Panda Bear syndrome as he uses samples, atmospheres, melodies and intonations suspiciously similar to him like in Goodbye Mrs. Fierce that steals everything from Comfy in Nautica. But there's more to Dog Bite as he embraces more folk and acoustic roots in some other tracks but still using loops and repetition in the background. Let's wait and see how he evolutions in future releases.

The XX are a band of four 19 year old people who has just been signed by Young Turks, imprint of Beggars Banquet. They kind of sound of 1989, like many bands do nowadays, but without the fuzz and distortion. They are slow and particularly minimalistic, using just the instruments and arrangements that are necessary to go with the voices of Romy (seductive and low as the most quiet PJ Harvey) and Oliver. I'm talking about the demos that have been circulating freely on line as they have not pubblished anything yet, but are currently recording their first record to be published in September but there are some rumours a single is about to come in the following weeks. The record is meant to be produced by them so I supose it's going to keep the spirit of these demos. While we wait you can listen to the rendition they make of Womack and Womack's Teardrops and their own Crystalized.

Wavves is the new one-man-band everybody's talking about. An Internet cult hero that sounds like he's coming through the tunnel of time from the 90s, recording demos and selling them on cassette. Little by little, he's gained popularity up to the point that all his releases, until his first album was released this week, are selling for shameful amounts of money on EBay, including the limited single I'm just going to talk about, that was just released two weeks ago and it's already sold out. So yes, we can say that Wavves is like a fuzzy punk lo-fi Beach Boys recorded by Beat Happening with a Walkman after listening to No Age and Deerhunter. So bored is an aspiring summer hit song in winter for a parallel world without X-Factor, and the B-side is also good but you will never know it as you will play the A-side non-stop for days. Strangely addictive.