Bon Iver - Bon Iver - Tweeted 'first listen' Review

Recently I have taken to tweeting my immediate reaction to albums as I listen to them in their entirety for the first time. I click play, let the album play, and tweet. I haven't edited my tweets, just laid them out to read as an article as best they can.

Without further ado here are my tweets for Bon Iver - Bon Iver *The first of these first listen reviews I did - You'll probably be able to tell. 

You know that feeling you get when you put on a record and its everything you hope and fear embodied in sound. I'm getting that right now. its been a while since I got the shivers listening to something...Haunting. 

I might Tweet first listens more. My mind is unraveling with the music, and my thoughts are awash with sonic wonderment. Well, its all over, it all got a bit 80s at the end. Well, it was a bit 80s most of the way through. Like the Hoff. David 80's face Hoff.

Crystal Fighters - Star of Love Deluxe Edition - Tweeted 'first listen' Review

Recently I have taken to tweeting my immediate reaction to albums as I listen to them in their entirety for the first time. I click play, let the album play, and tweet. I haven't edited my tweets, just laid them out to read as an article as best they can.

Without further ado here are my tweets for Crystal Fighters - Star of Love (Deluxe Edition)

Bought the crystal fighters album. Time for a tweeted first listen? Yeah! not done one since Bon Iver (who I forgot to name when reviewing).


I'm going to multitask. By the end of the eve I might even have another blog post done. Glastonbury Revisited. 


"From somewhere high above the old hills of our home, Love will come to conquer" - I haven't even pressed play and this album has a message. 


1st track "Solar System". Captivated and caught up in the bass. 60 seconds not yet gone. First impressions - Intelligent tribal dub. The first thing that stands out about this album is how well 'tribal' beats and dub step style bass can interplay. The effect of the vocals on this crystal fighters album is also entrancing. They make industrial tones sound much more organic. xtatic truth - this is the first song on the album I recognise. 


I can sense Reggae undertones in the lead vocals... they could polarise. 


Crystal Fighters - Champion Sound - to date I've only heard this on Jools. So far the recording is much more refined, softer and expressive. 


after a down tempo song (that didn't rock my world) the beats back. Nice use of track contrast. 


"At home" is pleasantly surprising. Considering my preconception as to what this album would hold, this album is more varied than expected. 


Next track "I love London", you can tell it wasn't written over the last week, lets put it that way....


"Swallow" - I've been listening to this for months. Evidence that dub bass can fit and enhance more conventional song writing. Incredible. 


Crystal fighters: "With You" - How indie synth heavy dance music should be? Definitely. 


Into the acoustic bonus tracks. Pretty cool. The spanish language their guitars are speaking adds sunshine warmth missing on other tracks. Acoustic Version Espanyol - Me Gusta... Estupendo! Think I might actually be more in the mood for these acoustic tracks. As much as I love electro, its just not human. 


I'm on the last track. The album has highs and lows. Definitely well intentioned, both in its sentiments and its musical ambitions. Not everything works, but not everything has to. It sets the ground work for some exciting concepts to be explored further. It also shows how timeless acoustic music is, and how no matter how inhuman a sound you can create, it can always be humanised. On the whole, a sterling record. It had lows, but the highs always help you forget.

Glastonbury 2011 Revisited - Part 2: The Music

Simply put, the standard of music at Glastonbury 2011 was excellent. I saw unspeakable amounts of music. I watched artists I had never heard of and heroes I had only ever dreamed of seeing. As in previous years the majority of special moments where found away from the main stages. Having said that, Glastonbury is pretty hard to not enjoy. In the following post I will list everyone I saw, and then I will pick out a few highlights to talk about. I've also sneaked in a few links, and some of my own photos.

The Bands and Artists I watched:

With Love From Humans!
Lampliter
Ms Dynamite
Metronomy
Mona
Beardyman
The Naked and Famous
Catlin Rose
Jenny and Johnny
B.B. King
Bright Eyes
Biffy Clyro
Morrisey
Billy Bragg and Badly Drawn Boy
Chase and Status
Ceelo Green
Bare Naked Ladies
Tame Impala
Yuck
Dry the River
Pulled Apart by Horses
Jessie J
Patrick Wolf
Warpaint
Anna Calvi
Jimmy Eat World
Shlomo
Pulp
James Blake
Wild Beasts
Don Mclean
Air Castles
Foot Clan
Everything Everything
Gruff Rhys
Hercules and the Love Affair
Pretty Lights
Bellowhead
Kool and the Gang
City and Colour
Queens of the Stone Age
Beyonce

My Highlights


As with any festival there are countless highlights and memories. Here are just a few that instantly spring to mind.

James Blake:

In all truth and honesty I wasn't really pushed for seeing James Blake. My brother was really keen to go so I unenthusiastically followed. Before watching him I had already decided that James Blake was a mopey bloke who could only play a few chords, say a few words, who then felt compelled to repeat them as if he had Techno-y OCD. I thought there was a limit to James Blake. How wrong I was.

I'm not going to argue James Blake is limitless, that wouldn't make any sense. However his sound isn't nearly as limited as it might first seem. What I was completely obliviously to prior to watching him was that James Blake's genius is found in the subterranean. I still cannot believe how much bass he produced. The Park Stage and the surrounding hills felt alive. The kick drum gave the ground a heart beat, and the bass bestowed breath.

It is only after listening to James Blake both live and recorded you see his variety. His recorded works seem to emphasise the negative and empty spaces in music; pauses combine with an all engulfing bass to trick the listener into thinking that the gaps between melody are emptier than they are. He makes music you have to want to listen to. You have to vest yourself into it to reap the rewards. Live however Blake is a different animal; the bass compels you to move, where as his recorded material compels you to contemplate. When he keys a chord in front of you sound barrels and waves toward you, the swell pushed forward by every kick, crash and beat.

Blake's set at Glastonbury was one of those moments only nature could conspire to recreate. He got the 'sundown slot'. A setting sun combined with unearthly vibrations truly forged a timeless memory; one he most probably got the best view of.

Set (highlight) Highlights (it was all good):

The Whilhelm Scream - Ethereal and entrancing; I completely lost myself in this song.
Limit to Your Love - The bass might resonate and echo within me and those hills forever.

Barenaked Ladies: 

I have a soft spot for BNL. Amazing musicians, intelligent lyrics, but most overwhelming they are funny, lovely people. Their set was over way too quickly. I can't recommend them enough. Pure light hearted, fair spirited fun.

Set Highlights:

Its all been done
Brian Wilson
If I had a million dollars
Two weeks

Morrisey:

One of the greatest voices I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. One of the greatest lyricists ever to live. The poet of our time.

I feel he is also a man ahead of his times. His views seem extreme now, but all great minds are misunderstood in the time they inhabit. I think history will be kind to him.

He was also in that famous band.

Set Highlights (again, every song was a highlight):

Everyday feels like sunday
There is a light that never goes out

Link to full set

Queens of the Stone Age:

For those who witnessed this performance I'm pretty sure Josh Homme proved himself to be the coolest and nicest guy in Rock 'n' Roll. He even made smoking look cool, a feat that hasn't been achieved in England since the 1st of July 2007.

Set Highlights:

Go with the flow
Make it wit chu
No one knows

Super Cool Music Battle - Round 1: "Shoe-gaze" - Fight!

Hello! Long time no speak / type.

On the evening of Friday the 29th of July I gave my good friend Joe (Aka "Nil Recurring") a ring on the old telephone. We'd both been suffering from a lack of inspiration lately, so we devised a plan to kick start our creativity! A music battle!

To make it a proper contest we laid down some rules...


The Rules:

• You must write one original song (from scratch - that means no existing riffs or melodies you've been struggling to use until now)
• Tracks must be 2 to 4 minutes in duration. 
• Any music created must be within the genre agreed when battle was declared- we agreed our battle would be a "Shoe-gaze" battle.
• All battles must have a time limit - we gave ourselves 2 days to make the tracks. 

Super Cool Music Battle FAQs


How do you know who's won.
We just spent 2 days messing around and playing music, we already won. Though, I guess general consensus is an appropriate indicator of who is victorious... 

What does the winner get? 

Internet cool points - let's be honest they're the only points that count... just ask this cool cat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J---aiyznGQ

Is there only 3 questions in this FAQs section, including this one?

...erm...yes

The Tracks

Below this text you, the lovely reader, will find a link to both our tracks. Please feel free to make comments and pass judgement (I have also written a little about mine). As you will see, we both approached the Shoe-gaze genre brief with very different ideas in mind.

Joe's Track - "Matter "

My Track - "Stare at the Stars"

About "Stare at the Stars" 

I had fun making my track. I do enjoy cutting loose and writing from scratch. However, I really missed my bass guitar on this one. I found it hard to write pure shoe-gazing/stargazing music unable to start from a grungey bass-line. Having said that, I did take the opportunity to play around with an electric piano, break from the norms of my own writing style and the shoegaze genre. I named the track "Stare at the Stars" because firstly, I was feeling pretentious and secondly, it's what I can't do beneath London skies. A glimpse of a single star in London is a rarity, stark contrast to dream heavy skies of the Lakes. I like to think if London had clearer skies its people might be less impersonal. If Londerners had opportunity to wonder at a glassy night sky I believe it would inspire a sense of togetherness. Perhaps it would invoke some sort of common fear of solitude, a feeling of loneliness only felt when you stare to the soul of the universe; a loneliness that inspires only one remedy - peace and camaraderie. Perhaps... I'm feeling particularly Romantic right now... 

Anyway, back on track (literally):

I like to think had I written this song 30 years ago it could have been used in the darker scenes of this 80's bond film. I know, I know, its not a perfect fit. 

On a side note: Timothy Dalton was the best Bond, and I love the Living Daylights soundtrack. If this musical challenge didn't involve writing original shoe-gaze style songs I would probably just have condensed the Living Daylights into 2 minutes and yelled "SHOEGAZE!" as an outro. 


Plus, for the record A-ha are genius (you were thinking it, but I said it). 

I also noticed something quite interesting when writing this song, not about music, per say, but more about how I felt about this track when I was writing, and when I was done...

When I write to a brief the music never seems to feel it has as much depth as the songs that I have written I feel I have personally invested in (I'm yet to properly record any of these by the way, they're not yet ready for sharing). I guess the shallow nature of music produced and not lovingly created is sort of to be expected. It probably also explains why the charts are predominantly filled with dancey music and flowery but relatively meaningless lyrics - if you get to serious, or personal, you start to eliminate people who can relate to your emotions, experiences, and tastes. By the end of it you have no audience... or in my case a lot of words in a blog, and no fan base.

I wonder how many musicians regret music they have released into the spheres because it is not representative of their musical aims and ambitions? Or how many musicians regret not putting enough of their self into their art? Is this thought too Dorian Gray? Perhaps. Maybe it doesn't even matter what the recording artist thinks; once the vibrations have been immortalised on recorded and released to the masses who owns that work? These works cease to change, but appear evolving in changing in contexts. Records are static dynamism embodied; a point in time that can be interpreted differently upon every occasion it is listened to and relived, yet exists in only one permanent form.

Music is amazing.

*And yes, the above may be used as evidence of an inflated ego...