Me Old Mate

Janelle Monae - Cold War

I have completely lost count of the number of times I have watched this video. For such a simple concept, it’s so captivating. I think a lot of this is due to to Janelle’s performance and the ambiguity that arises towards the middle of the song. It’s a lovely reminder of the beauty of real life. She is lip syncing perfectly, but the emotion is so evident in her eyes and its so rare to see something so organic in an age where music videos are for better or worse, perfectly contrived.

Cold War is off Janelle Monae’s debut LP The ArchAndroid (Suites II and III)

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As New Yorkers we are all familiar with the everyday noise around us – the car alarms, the subway trains braking, the music in bars … Do we not realise how these sounds are affecting us? How they make us feel or act? With this in mind we wanted to create an environment where people could take some time to listen to other kinds of sounds and get away from those familiar sounds of the city. Keeping in mind the birds of the jungle, we’ve created an array of sounds with Animal Collective’s music that is seemingly random – or is it?

—Seminal band Animal Collective describe their latest project, an installation in New York’s Guggenheim Museum opening on March 4th as part of the Museum’s 50th Anniversary Celebrations.

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Broken Social Scene have released details on their new album. It will be called Forgiveness Rock Record and it’s cover art is shown above. It will be released on May 4th this year. An epic 7 minute track named World Sick is the first peak at the new record and it is available to download free from here

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Bye Bye Bayou by LCD Soundsystem

Bye Bye Bayou is LCD’s first single in over a year. Featuring the smooth beats we have come to expect from Mr. James Murphy, this single is actually a Suicide cover. Suicide were an influential 80’s No Wave duo, also from New York. This track is more toned down and minimalist than what many Sound of Silver fans will be used to, but its no less danceable and offers a peak into the third and possibly final LCD Soundsystem LP.

(21 plays)

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Air France remixes St Etienne

The new Air France remix of Spring by St Etienne is available to listen here. Taken from this limited run 12”. Spring is one of many beautiful tracks off of St Etienne’s 1991 debut, Foxbase Alpha and this remix is a wonderful, distinctively Air France reinvention.

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The Drums are a four-piece from Brooklyn. This song is called Lets Go Surfing. Its highly infectious. It has quite a dandy video too, see.

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Daytrotter - The Tallest Man on Earth

The Tallest Man on Earth recently recorded a daytrotter session and the results are typically brilliant! The session includes three songs from the wonderful Shallow Grave, and one unreleased track, I Want You. Please, do enjoy.

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The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than The Stars EP
The Pains’, with this latest EP, consolidate their position as one of the best bands to emerge in 2k9. Doing what they do best, Higher Than The Stars delivers four wonderfully breezy pop songs to peruse over, lust over, and comprehend your place in the universe. Although similar in execution, these new tracks seem distinctively more angst-ridden to those released earlier this year on their self-titled debut, but where many fail to emulate a ‘Smiths-esque’ sound, The Pains’ triumph in making it their own. Uploaded for your listening pleasure is the track, Falling Over. Also featured on the EP is a St Etienne remix of the title track; a worthy inclusion.

(21 plays)

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From The Vault #2

La Plus Belle Pour Aller Danser by Sylvie Vartan

This is a really pretty song by one of the more well known yé-yé girls. Sylvie’s wonderfully controlled voice sings of dreaming to be The Most Beautiful to go Dancing. It’s splendid nostalgic pop thats fun for the whole family. For the lads reading, I would recommend playing it to that special lass you are enamoured with. It will make you look cultured and romantic, if not a little too well knowledged on French female pop singers from the 1960’s.

(27 plays)

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Muse’s, The Resistance

Its hard to take Muse’s latest album seriously. Sure, if you are one of the many die hard fans, you are going to lap this shit up and have potentially whizzed your pants out of sheer excitement after reading the title of this post. I hate to disappoint you, but this latest effort by the English rockers sounds like a parody of the predictable image they have propagated over the last fifteen years. Don’t get me wrong, that image is very successful and downright enjoyable to experience. Hell, I rate a Muse set I caught at a festival a couple of years back, as up there with some of the finest I’ve seen, if only for shear musicianship and stagecraft.

But Muse, the success of that image relies heavily on the expectation of reinvention. What we see in The Resistance is everything we’ve already heard before, emphasised to a level we have never seen before. The result is a caricature, and it reminds me of a little band we all know that starts with the letter N and ends with the letters ickelback. Sorry Muse, The Resistance just doesn’t cut it.

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