The Sunday Round-up

I’ve been like a pig in shit this week, with music coming out of my ears. Literally. I started with the new Gnarls Barkley album The Odd couple, interspersed with Portishead’s new release Third. The effect was like having a manic episode. Now I can hardly listen to one without the other without becoming dangerously unbalanced. The Gnarls Barklay is this high energy pop soul explosion, with shades of Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and I can even hear R Dean Taylor. It makes me feel warm, and oddly energetic. Oh, and there’s clapping. Lots of it. So you know, that always tips me over the edge. I would call it the future feel good soundtrack of the summer, if that wasn’t such a cliché. No guaranteeing the summer part either. Sigh. It’s been 11 years since Portishead brought out a studio album, and in the meantime, we have all finally managed to admit that absolutely no one ever knew what trip hop was. It didn’t sound like hip hop, or tripping (that sounds like squirrels). Not only was said sound confined to Bristol, it turned out on closer inspection it was a sound confined to, well , Portishead and Tricky. It wins the award for the most fatuous of the made up music genre words, although Emo comes pretty close. Anyhoo. It was a good word wasn’t it? Personally I think Portishead are Goths, and this album is a goth dream. It will take you to a cold dark place and let you look into the belly of the beast and the bleakness of your own soul. The weird thing is, you will enjoy it- Even the Machine Gun one, and that weird accordion one. Trust me. And talking of weird, I’ve also been listening to Lykke li. She is a Swedish chick with big Scandinavian hair. I like the ambiguity her name, you know, is it pronounced Licky Lee? Or Likey lie? I have started calling her Lookie Likie in honour of the French and Saunders sketch. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t mind. She seems a bit odd. And her album’s a bit odd too- Kind of goofy, but sweet . It’s not perfect, but there’s enough on it to keep you smiling. And there’s more clapping- it really has been a good week!

And ending on a high note (literally) it’s the wonderful Crystal Castles. Imagine if all the old Atari games consoles, Pac man and Space Invaders machines from the 80s were buried under a spooky house, and an ill advised kitchen extension caused their bones to be disturbed, and they came back to life as evil spirits hell bent on wreaking their revenge, then you would have something approximating the sound of Crystal Castles. Now I’ve got to admit that I do prefer the ones that have something approaching a tune, but I am getting on, so fair play. They are awesome, in a greek tragedy , not Bill and Ted type of way.

The Sunday Round-up

So how blog-slack have I been? Was I wallowing in a cultureless pit you say? Why no! In fact I’m going to share my artsy wandering with you in my new slot The Sunday round-up. Sounds exciting doesn’t it?! Well first off, I’ve been in a musical time warp this week, a bit like Kylie Minogue when she steps back in time, except I’m a lot taller than Kylie. I mean a LOT taller. So, the time warp- well it started with the new Breeders album, Mountain Battles. At first I was just really enjoying the groovy old Breedersiness of it all, but after a few listens I was kind of pining for just a little bit of innovation; a few bleeps and squirls, some synths, some effects, you know, just a nod to acknowledge that the 90s did actually happen . I felt something similar about the new Gutter Twins album Saturnalia, which takes you back to a similar era. The original grunge king Mark Lanegan has teamed up with Aghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli for, well sort of grungy early 90s rock music. Which sounds like I’m slagging it off- but it’s actually pretty engaging if you like, well, grungy early 90s rock music, which I quite do. One can’t help imagining how both of these bands might sound if someone like U.N.C.L.E or the Chemical Brothers got their hands on them though. Now that would be something. Just a little warning- the Afghan Whigs is only the first of several bad band names I’ll be mentioning today. So brace yourself. Still on the retro theme, how disappointing are Biffy Clyro? (See what I mean about the band names?) I was enjoying that new single Who’s got a match so I decided to give Puzzle a go. They sound like some crap American teenage band from back in the day. You know, like Good Charlotte; or My Chemical Romance. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Who came up with the idea that this band are cool? With that ersatz American accent, those poser beards and those piss poor lyrics? Moving swiftly on, Elbow (oh for fuck’s sake) have got a great single out called Grounds for Divorce, taken off their new album The Seldom Seen Kid out on March 17^th. I am enjoying their ugliness. Go and have a look. Good news too, the wonderful Bon Iver is playing with the wonderful Iron and Wine, on 12^th May. I mean, what a dreamy combination! Ok, it’s in Glasgow, which is enough to take the sheen off, but them’s the breaks. Bon Iver put a video out this week actually, for The Wolves (part I and II), which suggests strongly that if you take yourself to a log cabin in the middle of nowhere in winter after you’ve been dumped, there isn’t much to do except make fires and write songs about your big thoughts. This video, you know, tells it like it is. Finally, I’ve been having my heart broken almost daily by Milo and Isaac, off the Pedigree dog adverts (I wonder when they lost the ‘chum’?) It’s the line ‘I know I’m a good dog’ that really gets me, suggesting as it does, that ‘I know I’m a good dog, so why does my owner keep putting fags out on me and making me sleep in my own shit?’ Watch this then listen to For Emma forever ago and listen to the sound of your own heart breaking.