Goodbye 09', Prepare Your Ears For 2010'

This is just a playlist to say goodbye to 2009 and the awesome music it brang, let's just be prepared to what 2010 is going to give us, (hoping for a new Radiohead record). Click to Enlarge.'

Favourite Albums Of 2009

This year we had an uncountable number of revelations, artists who raised from the unknown to let us feel their emotions and echoes through their music, these artists definitely made 2009 a compromising year.
Through the decade the independent scene never had the chance to shine until these days, the common record production is going down by people, who set up their own recording studios at their own home, and produce music the way wanted.
The technology is helping musicians to grow, for example, they can share their music to the whole world with just one click now, there's no need for a record deal, and also is opening the mind for the listeners to get to know these bands, to understand and appreciate what the artists got to give.
These are my favourite albums of 2009, the meaning among these albums and artists goes so much further than giving a note, a chord or a show off guitar solo, this is music with passion and independency.:


1. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
2. Sonic Youth - The Eternal
3. Atlas Sound - Logos
4. Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs
5. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug
6. Camera Obscura - My Maudling Career
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!
8. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - (Self Titled)
9. St. Vincent - Actor
10. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

Mentions.:

Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms
Micah P. Hinson - All Dressed Up And Smelling Of Strangers
The Flaming Lips - The Dark Side Of The Moon (Album Cover)
Beck's Record Club - The Velvet Underground & Nico (Record Club version)

Good Bands, Good Sounds..'

First we're going to watch this amazing Grizzly Bear presentation at the church-theme stage from Pitchfork's ''Cemetery Gates'' playing the loud.QUIET.loud melody of ''Foreground''


Then following the mood we're going to have the prescence of Victoria Legrand on Beach House's video for their song ''Gila''



After getting out of the Beach House atmosphere let's enter to a new one full of new sounds, a new band, the track "Shelia" from Atlas Sound's second album "Logos".



As final act we have the great presentation of ''Girls'', a 2009 band with their single "Lust For Life''

Absence Of Entries

I'll be back on to the system next week.

keep listening

Beck's Record Club - The Velvet Underground & Nico

Beck and some of his more illustrious musician friends have come up with an ambitious plan to choose a record from their collection, and cover it in its entirety in a single day, releasing the results one track at a time.
 
The first album chosen in The Velvet Underground’s ‘The Velvet Underground & Nico'
So with all the pieces assembled, Beck and his merry band faced a fork in the road: straightforward covers, or complete reworkings? Perhaps unsatisfyingly, they choose neither: "Sunday Morning" suggests faithfulness will be the move, with a sleepy cello-enhanced arrangement that is a passable forgery of the original. Here, and elsewhere, Beck's Codeine head-cold voice is a passable replacement for Lou Reed, nailing the opiate haze if not quite reaching the snide pathos underneath.

"Waiting For the Man" is where the Record Club starts to diverge from the source material, and here it's not for the best. Rather than being the taut, paranoid shuffle a song about waiting for your drug dealer really should be, Beck & co. make it a ramshackle hootenanny, the approach being "everybody grab the nearest instrument and vamp." Unfortunately, that seemed to be the instructions for most of VU & Nico's epic drones, "Venus in Furs" and "Heroin", and "European Son" all losing their edge in overly busy arrangements and carrying a noticeable John Cale-shaped hole. "Heroin", in particular, is a trainwreck, with Brian Lebarton forgetting the words and screaming his way through the peaks, completely missing the seething calm that is so disarming about Reed's addict on the original (his little chuckle gets me every time).



But not all the makeovers are a downgrade. In the middle of the record, "Run Run Run" and "All Tomorrow's Parties" get electro-pop treatments that shouldn't work on paper, but do. The original "Run Run Run" always struck me as a jammy toss-off anyhow, and it's much improved by a simple drum loop and video-game rubber bass. The legendary "All Tomorrow's Parties" might be a harder sell, but with Magnusdottir doing Nico's ESL thing and space-y details that are pocket-Godrich, it's a gorgeous re-imagining.

The project's other score is maybe its humblest, a simple, delicate "I'll Be Your Mirror" that is as reverent as it is pitch-perfect. For all the Velvets' rep as the big scary black leather bondage and hard drugs band, it's a nice reminder that Reed could write an adorable pop song when he wanted, even if the "reflect what you are" backing vocals on the outro always creeped me. Less subversive creepiness here, but I maybe even (gasp) prefer the cover.

Vampire Weekend - Contra

Vampire Weekend have finally released details pertaining to their newest and second long-player, 'Contra'.

The new record is due January 11th 2010 (January 12th in the US) on the XL label and the left picture is its expected artwork.

Track-Listing:

01 - Horchata

02 - White Sky

03 - Holiday

04 - California English

05 - Taxi Cab

06 - Run
07 - Cousins

08 - Giving Up the Gun

09 - Diplomat's Son

10 - I Think Ur a Contra

A Place To Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

There's no denying "It Is Nothing," the opening shoe-gaze anthem on A Place To Bury Stranger's sophomore album Exploding Head, is a massive nod to My Bloody Valentine: From the title's echo of Isn't Anything to the swirl of overdriven guitars, the Brooklyn trio offers up a tight homage to Kevin Shields & Co. before shifting into the darker, bleaker direction of "In Your Heart." It's a great, somehow moving transition. There a bunch of these moments across the 10 tracks: For this and other reasons the album really needs to be heard in its entirety. (And on good, loud speakers: Oliver Ackermann takes the name of his Death By Audio effects pedals and this Exploding Head title seriously.) For now, listen to "In Your Heart" with it's clanging Joy Division forward motion. We can all fill in the blanks later.

Here's the tracklist:

01 "It Is Nothing"
02 "In Your Heart"
03 "Lost Feeling"
04 "Deadbeat"
05 "Keep Slipping Away"
06 "Ego Death"
07 "Smile When You Smile"
08 "Everything Always Goes Wrong"
09 "Exploding Head"
10 "I Live My Life to Stand in the Shadow of Your Heart"

Yo La Tengo - Popular Songs

The latest album from the Hoboken indie-rock vets is one of their mostly low-key slow burners, albeit one that also showcases their mastery of a variety of styles. While much of the record is filled with hazy love songs combining subtle melodies and sweet lyrics with shimmering guitars and keyboards, those range from soulful evocations of classic Motown to dreamy ballads recalling the sweeter side of the Velvet Underground. And being Yo La Tengo, they also stretch out with a catchy garage-rocker, some swanky organ and a couple of lengthy guitar instrumentals at the end.

Nothing To Hide


When It's Dark


The album is going to be released on September 8.

The Babies - Meet Me In The City

Babies is the project of Vivian Girls' Cassie Ramone, Woods bassist Kevin Morby, Bossy drummer Justin Sullivan, and Stupid Party's Nathanael Stark on bass. All that said, it'll largely be the songwriting project of Morby, because bassists need side projects. Take a listen to the shambling guitar-pop howler "Meet Me In The City." Morby takes lead vocals and Ramone handles the distant girl-group backups.

This song reminds me of the lo-fi scene, mostly of bands like Pixies, this band brings us an awesome sound, and I can't wait for the band to decide the way they would realease the songs wether it's a full-lenth album or just an EP. At the moment, both Ramone and Morby are busy with their full-time bands. "I don't really foresee it being anything more than a side project for the time being," says Ramone. But she added that they might tour together this winter.

You can download the song, right-clicking on this link, as well listen to it by just a click.

The Babies - "Meet Me In The City"

Check out their MySpace to listen to more songs.

Grizzly Bear ..'Live at Later with Jools Holland [09/05/09]

Grizzly Bear is a Brooklyn-based indie rock band comprising Daniel Rossen (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Ed Droste (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Chris Taylor (bass, backing vocals, various instruments, producer) and Christopher Bear (drums, backing vocals). The band employs traditional and electronic instruments. Their sound is often categorized as psychedelic pop or folk rock, and is most dominated by the use of acoustic guitars and vocal harmonies.

These Are My Twisted Words

"The mysterious Radiohead track is finally unveiled by themselves."

Well, we didn't get a new EP, but this is still pretty cool. This morning, Radiohead not only confirmed that "These Are My Twisted Words" is indeed a new Radiohead song, but officially released it themselves. Writing on the band's blog Dead Air Space, Jonny Greenwood said, "We've been recording for a while, and this was one of the first we finished. We're pretty proud of it. There's other stuff in various states of completion, but this is one we've been practicing, and which we'll probably play at this summer's concerts. Hope you like it." The track is available as a free download from the band's W.A.S.T.E. shop. Or you can get it here:
These Are My Twisted Words [Download]

So Far..' Top 9 Favourite 09' Albums

1. Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

2. Sonic Youth - The Eternal

3. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains

4. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest

5. Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career

6. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

7. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart

8. St. Vincent - Actor

9. The Dead Weather - Horehound

Art Out Of Steel

Frank Plant is an American scultpor living + working in Barcelona. He “draws steel”, that is, he reinvents simple line drawings as sometimes massive steel sculptures. Very cool

R.I.P. Les Paul

''Guitar soul gone to heaven''

Arctic Monkeys ''Humbug''

The Arctic Monkeys' much-anticipated third effort was co-produced by Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme and James Ford. Early reports of the album took note of its more psychedelic sound, which Turner attributes to the band's interest in Jimi Hendrix, some of Black Sabbath at the time of recording. Lead-off single "Crying Lightning" features the "laconic croon" more associated with The Last Shadow Puppets, along with stream-of-consciousness lyrics that hint at the evolution of Turner's songwriting for the album.

The album is great and it takes Arctic Monkeys to a whole other level musically speaking, as well as the incredible hability that Alex Turner has to write the lyrics that compliments the music transporting you to another state of mind, here is the tracklist:

1. "My Propeller"
2. "Crying Lightning"
3. "Dangerous Animals"
4. "Secret Door"
5. "Potion Approaching"
6. "Fire and the Thud"
7. "Cornerstone"
8. "Dance Little Liar"
9. "Pretty Visitors"
10. "The Jeweller's Hands"

And here is one of my personal favourites, the 7th track, the outstanding ''Cornerstone'', enjoy.

(500) Days of Summer

This is a story of boy meets girl, begins the wry, probing narrator of 500 Days of Summer, and with that the film takes off at breakneck speed into a funny, true-to-life and unique dissection of...
Tom, the boy, still believes, even in this cynical modern world, in the notion of a transforming, cosmically destined, lightning-strikes-once kind of love. Summer, the girl, doesn’t. Not at all. But that doesn’t stop Tom from going after her, again and again, like a modern Don Quixote, with all his might and courage. Suddenly, Tom is in love not just with a lovely, witty, intelligent woman – not that he minds any of that -- but with the very idea of Summer, the very idea of a love that still has the power to shock the heart and stop the world.

About the soundtrack, it's pretty cool actually, I think it's awesome as it is a ''The Smiths'' musically-based film and I'm a huge fan of the band. The soundtrack for the film is:

"A Story of Boy Meets Girl" - Mychael Danna and Rob Simonsen
"Us" - Regina Spektor
"There Is A Light That Never Goes Out" - The Smiths
"Bad Kids" - Black Lips
"Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" - The Smiths
"There Goes The Fear" - Doves
"You Make My Dreams" - Hall & Oates
"Sweet Disposition" - The Temper Trap
"Quelqu'un m'a dit" - Carla Bruni
"Mushaboom" - Feist
"Hero" - Regina Spektor
"Bookends" - Simon & Garfunkel
"Vagabond" - Wolfmother
"She’s Got You High" - Mumm-Ra
"Here Comes Your Man" - Meaghan Smith
"Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" - She & Him

St. Vincent ''Actor''

Actor is the second album by musician St. Vincent, released on 5 May, 2009 on 4AD. The first single released was "Actor Out of Work". St. Vincent wrote the album using computer music application GarageBand. In interviews, St. Vincent revealed that the inspiration for the songs came from watching her favourite films, including Woody Allen and Disney animated features. The album debuted at #90 in the US on the Billboard 200.

It Might Get Loud

Rarely can a film penetrate the glamorous surface of rock legends. It Might Get Loud tells the personal stories, in their own words, of three generations of electric guitar virtuosos – The Edge (U2), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin), and Jack White (The White Stripes). It reveals how each developed his unique sound and style of playing favorite instruments, guitars both found and invented. Concentrating on the artist’s musical rebellion, traveling with him to influential locations, provoking rare discussion as to how and why he writes and plays, this film lets you witness intimate moments and hear new music from each artist. The movie revolves around a day when Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge first met and sat down together to share their stories, teach and play.