Return to the new west (part 3)
Working my way slowly through the Sounds of the New West, Josh Rouse from Track 3 was more of a hit with me than some others to feature, and Uncut regularly featured very nice songs of his (like 'Miracle' and 'Laughing') on their CDs over the next few years, and he also did some nice work with Kurt Wagner of Lambchop (of whom much much more later). His habit of mentioning his influences as The Cure and The Smiths of course was always going to endear him to me as well, although this is tempered by his avowed love of 70s singer/songwriters. I think there is definetely a nice image which captures the spirit of his best music in that strange mix (did Robert Smith ever listen to east-coast 70s guitar stuff, I wonder?), a strange experimental genetic hybrid of laid-back guitar, but with edgy indie sensibilities growling 'louder, harder, wierder' through the twangy haze.
His homepage can be found here and his Myspace page here and a nice clip of him playing 'Miracle' live is below:
However, my favourite song of his by a long shot was 'Sad eyes' from 'Nashville', which apparently was recorded after he broke up with his wife, and a lovely live version can be seen at:
Rouse has certainly produced some very nice songs over the years, although most of his albums I have listened to lean more towards slightly average songs than exceptional ones. His music has definetely picked up a Spanish edge (fair enough as he moved to Spain some years ago) also over the years, which is not my preference at all. One question I will end with though is why, when fate or the fickle marketplace decides which sensitive singer-songwriters will make it big, do people like James Blunt and James Morrison make it big while people like Rouse, who should be able to appeal to much of the same market, fail to?
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Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Arcade Fire conspiracy grows
A while back, I posted about the strange fact that just about every Genius playlist I did in iTunes included at least one Arcade Fire song. Now, I still use and really like the Genius feature, and have discovered I can do it in two ways.
One is to run Genius on my iPod, and let it pick from the 4504 songs on board. The other is to run Genius on my PC collection, with 10,053 songs, including all those on my iPod, but also stuff from my family, stuff I have had once on my iPod and then left off (and often forgot about), and stuff which is so odd that I frankly have no idea how it got there.
The element of unpredictability and fun in Genius is thus clearly much greater for me to use the PC version and see what the hell it comes up with. And, of course, it still comes up with a lot of Arcade Fire. Naturally.
However, last week when I ran genius for Tindersticks' wonderful 'The not knowing', it found and reminded me about a live version of 'Five years' by David Bowie and Arcade Fire from something (rather off-puttingly) called 'Fashion Rocks'. I think I bought an EP of this from iTunes ages ago and actually never listened to it then but the song is brilliant! See it below:
As it happens, looking for that video clip on Youtube led me directly to the following version of Joy Division's 'Love will tear us apart' (which, for some mad reason, Genius proved unable to build a playlist for recently) by U2 and, yes, Arcade Fire. It is misjudged and overcrowded and very Bono but there is an endearing ramshackleness about it and I must admit a real soft spot for people carrying single drums and hitting them very hard, as happens a lot here.
So, in a conspiracy worthy of Dan Brown but actually interesting and without illuminati, the vatican, mad monks, or Tom Hanks involved (thank God), Arcade Fire are stalking my music collection, and I feel I may yet fall unavoidably under their spell. In the meantime, I will keep up the fight, and post occasional dispatches from the front line here.
As something of a soothing dessrt after the heavyness of those last two tracks, I found a clip of the aforementioned 'The not knowing' by Tindersticks here:
The live version does not quite do justice to the soft baroque beauty of the album version, of their 1992 debut, but it is still a simple piece of earthfallen heaven.
Click Here to Read More..
One is to run Genius on my iPod, and let it pick from the 4504 songs on board. The other is to run Genius on my PC collection, with 10,053 songs, including all those on my iPod, but also stuff from my family, stuff I have had once on my iPod and then left off (and often forgot about), and stuff which is so odd that I frankly have no idea how it got there.
The element of unpredictability and fun in Genius is thus clearly much greater for me to use the PC version and see what the hell it comes up with. And, of course, it still comes up with a lot of Arcade Fire. Naturally.
However, last week when I ran genius for Tindersticks' wonderful 'The not knowing', it found and reminded me about a live version of 'Five years' by David Bowie and Arcade Fire from something (rather off-puttingly) called 'Fashion Rocks'. I think I bought an EP of this from iTunes ages ago and actually never listened to it then but the song is brilliant! See it below:
As it happens, looking for that video clip on Youtube led me directly to the following version of Joy Division's 'Love will tear us apart' (which, for some mad reason, Genius proved unable to build a playlist for recently) by U2 and, yes, Arcade Fire. It is misjudged and overcrowded and very Bono but there is an endearing ramshackleness about it and I must admit a real soft spot for people carrying single drums and hitting them very hard, as happens a lot here.
So, in a conspiracy worthy of Dan Brown but actually interesting and without illuminati, the vatican, mad monks, or Tom Hanks involved (thank God), Arcade Fire are stalking my music collection, and I feel I may yet fall unavoidably under their spell. In the meantime, I will keep up the fight, and post occasional dispatches from the front line here.
As something of a soothing dessrt after the heavyness of those last two tracks, I found a clip of the aforementioned 'The not knowing' by Tindersticks here:
The live version does not quite do justice to the soft baroque beauty of the album version, of their 1992 debut, but it is still a simple piece of earthfallen heaven.
Click Here to Read More..
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Orchestral manoeuvers in my head
I know nothing about classical music.
I know nothing about orchestras.
I do not know woodwind from brass.
I do not know what a conductor is doing with his hands.
I do not know how to even begin to understand sheet music.
I do not know my e-bow from my oboe.
I do not know my arse from my oboe.
However...
I do know that, when certain good artists I like get a very large and very serious orchestra behind them to lay layers of massive sound over their wonderful music, it is as cool as fuck.
I am, once again, a philistine, and somewhat proud, or at least unashamed, of it.
This bout of unexpected railing against proper highbrow music unless applied in very particular circumstances where it is used as epic backdrop for some music I actually do like was inspired by the new Elbow CD/DVD box set of 'Seldom seen kid'. This version of the album was recorded live at Abbey Road studios with the BBC Concert Orchestra and an award-winning choir called Chantage. The box with this new version, by the way, includes both CD and a DVD of the performance plus a booklet and pictures; this clearly shows that the record companies were reading my recent post about how the Radiohead boxed sets were enough to get me buying CDs again by offering something fundamentally non-downloadable.
Anyway, Elbow (and oboes) in full flight in this session performing 'One day like this' can be seen here:
Just look at that! What an enormous group of musicians playing mysterious (to me) and somewhat outsized and outlandish instruments, building together a veritable cathedral of sound, flooding further beauty into the already vastly swollen grandeur of the original song. The unbelievably rich sound perfectly encapsulates and compliments the wide-eyed romanticism of the lyrics, with its beautifully captured images of someone realising one morning that life, and love, just doesn't come much better than this ('what made me behave that way, using words I'd never say, I can only think it must be love....'cause, holy cow, I love your eyes') and concluding that 'one day like this a year would see me right'. It really does feel like an ode to joy, especially when the choir just let rip towards the end and it goes on and on and round and round. I also love the look on the singer's face towards the end of the song, as if he is simply overwhelmed by the tidal wave of noise that he has been responsible for unleashing.
Of course, the orhestral bits still are a mystery to me; what is the enormous drumkit you get to see around 5 min 30 sec? Why do they need so many of the same-looking instrument? Why don't they just have one and make it louder (a variation on the Spinal Tap principle)? And what the hell is the conductor doing???
Anyway, moving along, the version of 'Weather to fly' from the same session is below; while not as naturally orchestral as the previous song, this is just such a wonderful song I had to include it.
Elbow's accompaniment included 52 orchestra members and 20 choir members; that is a lot (and I wonder if they all liked the album!).
However, it is admittedly not as many (when the final of the 'who can assemble the most ginormous orchestra for their song' competition comes down to the wire) as Sigur Ros assembled for 'Ara Batur' from their last album 'Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust' (and no, I have no bloody idea how to pronounce it, but it translates into English somewhat pleasingly as 'With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly'). The film below for this incredible piece of music, reaching a crescendo in its final minutes unlike just about anything my limited appreciation of such matters can begin to describe, depicts over 90 musicians giving it something of a lash, to put it mildly.
One of my other favourite bits of music which has clearly benefited from some serious accompaniment by proper musicians far more used to black tie dress and civilised galas than rock concerts is Suede's 'Still Life', the (presumably unofficial) video for which below allows us to gape in wonder at the moment at around 2 min 30 sec when the orchestra bursts into full flight, in a way that always makes me think of an image of running through sunlit meadows, but in a good way.
I will finish this post with two of my own poor quality clips of moments from recent gigs where strings and more have added something special. The first is from a Tindersticks concert in Cork in November 2008, where a string quartet (to left of stage) added a wonderful dimension to great songs like 'Buried bones' (from which this snippet comes).
I know nothing about orchestras.
I do not know woodwind from brass.
I do not know what a conductor is doing with his hands.
I do not know how to even begin to understand sheet music.
I do not know my e-bow from my oboe.
I do not know my arse from my oboe.
However...
I do know that, when certain good artists I like get a very large and very serious orchestra behind them to lay layers of massive sound over their wonderful music, it is as cool as fuck.
I am, once again, a philistine, and somewhat proud, or at least unashamed, of it.
This bout of unexpected railing against proper highbrow music unless applied in very particular circumstances where it is used as epic backdrop for some music I actually do like was inspired by the new Elbow CD/DVD box set of 'Seldom seen kid'. This version of the album was recorded live at Abbey Road studios with the BBC Concert Orchestra and an award-winning choir called Chantage. The box with this new version, by the way, includes both CD and a DVD of the performance plus a booklet and pictures; this clearly shows that the record companies were reading my recent post about how the Radiohead boxed sets were enough to get me buying CDs again by offering something fundamentally non-downloadable.
Anyway, Elbow (and oboes) in full flight in this session performing 'One day like this' can be seen here:
Just look at that! What an enormous group of musicians playing mysterious (to me) and somewhat outsized and outlandish instruments, building together a veritable cathedral of sound, flooding further beauty into the already vastly swollen grandeur of the original song. The unbelievably rich sound perfectly encapsulates and compliments the wide-eyed romanticism of the lyrics, with its beautifully captured images of someone realising one morning that life, and love, just doesn't come much better than this ('what made me behave that way, using words I'd never say, I can only think it must be love....'cause, holy cow, I love your eyes') and concluding that 'one day like this a year would see me right'. It really does feel like an ode to joy, especially when the choir just let rip towards the end and it goes on and on and round and round. I also love the look on the singer's face towards the end of the song, as if he is simply overwhelmed by the tidal wave of noise that he has been responsible for unleashing.
Of course, the orhestral bits still are a mystery to me; what is the enormous drumkit you get to see around 5 min 30 sec? Why do they need so many of the same-looking instrument? Why don't they just have one and make it louder (a variation on the Spinal Tap principle)? And what the hell is the conductor doing???
Anyway, moving along, the version of 'Weather to fly' from the same session is below; while not as naturally orchestral as the previous song, this is just such a wonderful song I had to include it.
Elbow's accompaniment included 52 orchestra members and 20 choir members; that is a lot (and I wonder if they all liked the album!).
However, it is admittedly not as many (when the final of the 'who can assemble the most ginormous orchestra for their song' competition comes down to the wire) as Sigur Ros assembled for 'Ara Batur' from their last album 'Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust' (and no, I have no bloody idea how to pronounce it, but it translates into English somewhat pleasingly as 'With a buzz in our ears we play endlessly'). The film below for this incredible piece of music, reaching a crescendo in its final minutes unlike just about anything my limited appreciation of such matters can begin to describe, depicts over 90 musicians giving it something of a lash, to put it mildly.
One of my other favourite bits of music which has clearly benefited from some serious accompaniment by proper musicians far more used to black tie dress and civilised galas than rock concerts is Suede's 'Still Life', the (presumably unofficial) video for which below allows us to gape in wonder at the moment at around 2 min 30 sec when the orchestra bursts into full flight, in a way that always makes me think of an image of running through sunlit meadows, but in a good way.
I will finish this post with two of my own poor quality clips of moments from recent gigs where strings and more have added something special. The first is from a Tindersticks concert in Cork in November 2008, where a string quartet (to left of stage) added a wonderful dimension to great songs like 'Buried bones' (from which this snippet comes).
Tindersticks' music has always sounded like they could hear an orchestra playing along, even if we couldn't, and their early live CD from the Bloomsbury Theatre where they actually did get such accompaniment for real is well worth a listen.
An artist less intuitively linked with such pomp is Josh Ritter, but he played a wonderful gig in Vicar Street in Dublin just before Christmas 2008 with a 24-piece orchestra behind him and his band, and it was quite magical, as the clip below of the start of an extra-special seasonal version of 'Kathleen' shows. Josh's sheer joie de vivre and adoring fans always make one of his shows a grin-inducing spectacle, and I look forward to seeing him (plus orchestra) again in Cork this July.
And finally, sticking with Mr Ritter, he can do pretty special things with just a String Quartet, as can be heard from the MP3s of 'Girl in the war' and 'Empty hearts' which can (hopefully still) be found here.
Click Here to Read More..
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