MP3: Kid Francois - Tour De France

The Tour De France (a quintessentially French competition, stretched out over a number of weeks, stuck in the middle of summer, weaving it’s way up and down mountains through rural countryside being waved on from the sides of roads and being chased by horses (youtube)) is the sort of thing that has, in the past, made me want to go and just start cycling, race whoever I’m with, and get to the top of a long winding hill first.

Kid Francois is French, and sings in French, but he makes music in Bristol (making his inclusion into this niche UK mp3 blog a welcome one). He seems to capture the atmosphere of the aforementioned French bicycle race, in his song “Tour De France”, and in a similarly intoxicating way. He also quietly reminds you that music doesn’t needs bells, whistles, big communicative machines and all types of hype and fanfare to make you intrigued, and excited from the first listen - just a pulse and some spirit.

“Tour De France” (tune, not gruelling bike race) is a lo-fi affair - comparable to the days when the cyclists weren’t pepped off their faces on all sorts of “vitamins”, and had to work even harder than they do now. I’m not sure what the words Francois is singing mean but the drum machine and Casio keyboards pump rhythmically, and I think they could go on in the same way for days, with Francois singing different words and the Casio keyboard unfolding every sound it is capable of in some loose algorithmic fashion. It’s perfect for listening to as the days stay lighter for longer, going downhill towards the summer.

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Tour De France is one of my favourite tracks of the year so far, Kid Francois has more music, I especially recommend going and listening to “Allons a la piscine” (mp3 page) and checking out the CDs and records on his website. Tour De France will be reworked for album release later this year.

(2nd photo credit: Squirrelworking)

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Rob Rob Rob - Tiger Hunt

As overwhelming as an elephant in orbit. As light as a feather floating down to Jupiter. A full bodied folky aftertaste, an electronic confrontation you know you will win. This is Rob Rob Rob from Sheffield.

Folk-tronica. A phrase that embraces the idea and authenticity of traditional song-writing, a phrase that is separable from popular music and a genre that relies on robotic machines and computers to create, warp and manipulate acoustic sounds and vocals which doesn’t usually result in music you would dance to.

Rob Rob Rob does this all relatively slowly, and to an electronic background which adds a necessary depth and warmth to raise this lushous electronica out of the acoustic dark netherworlds and up way above the canopies of the urban jungle we share with all sorts of dangerous animals.

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Coming soon on Nothing But Green Lights….

A couple of songs from a live set, specially recorded for Nothing But Green Lights at my abode in Sheffield, from the wonderful Slow Club. They are currently touring the U.K with Tiny Dancers. Go see.

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New Take Your Medicine podcast early next week. I play music on a similar, or highly quality than that featured here. And it is music from all round the world. With me talking a bit between some of the tracks. If you have Itunes click here to subscribe to the podcast now - it’ll then automagically download whenever a new podcast is recorded by new (roughly every 3-4 weeks).

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Laura Groves - Can’t Sleep (live)

A folkstress singing of big wide open emotions and about the sun falling out of the sky - she introduces you to her world with initial hypnotising harmonising but you gradually begin to understand her spell. And just as the diminutive Moroccon story-tellers can tell you hundreds of stories from their unassuming position cross legged in the corner of the market, Laura’s voice doesn’t so much surprise me as it much as it just requires appreciation and assumes your attention is there as it soars and surrounds every word she is convincing you of. Slightly stutterting; an imperfect flight full of loops and dives taking you somewhere from Joanna Newsom’s folk international terminal to a run down indie-pop landing strip where Belle and Sebestain are always asking arriving flights - “Hows the weather up there? The sun hasn’t shone for over a week here”.

You can also go and enjoy a song she released called “I am leaving” for a better impression than I can possibly offer in writing.

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Also:

In Sheffield? I suggest you go to Cool As Folk club night next Tuesday evening for Slow Club, Indigo Moss and some cool folk, anti-folk, country and Americana. it’s in the University’s “Raynor Lounge”.

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I’m constantly trying to make people realise that things change quickly - a post written on the hugely influential Daily Kos blog make us realise how little we are, and how quickly things can change…

“If the history of life on earth is viewed as the Empire State Building, all of human history is a dime on top. If the life of our planet is viewed as a year, every event in the history books has raced past in the last few seconds of that year…..

…Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., one the United States’ great historians, is less than two lifetimes removed from a world where the United States did not exist… It’s only two more life spans to William Shakespeare. Two more beyond that, and the only Europeans to see America are those who sailed from Greenland”

The entire article is worth a read

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I have decided it was time for a new look here. Little changes and tweaks will happen in the next few days to make this “mp3 blog” as easy to use and simple to read as possible.

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
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MP3: Nic Dawson Kelly - The Musician

The musician. The lost art of whistling. A rough sort of classy folk. The shallow end of meaning reveals the music scene, rejection and mistakes made - in an admirable way. But adventure into the murky deep end and I am more likely to find myself travelling down a steep and narrow cobbled street, peering into a doorways down the way and hearing Nic Dawson Kelly playing, whistling and singing in every single one. “The Musician” feels antiquated, sorrowful and every so slightly dusty. But the dust is shaken from the off, and the wind up mechanism that must power him ticks and ticks and Nic Dawson Kelly brings colour, and a live spirit to bluesy folk (or folky blues perhaps?).

He has a nice working of London Burning on his myspace page which you may also enjoy.

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Bibio - Zoopraxiphone

The record and looped sound. The lost art of tapes. A rough sort of mechanical folk. But don’t think Germany’s industrial heartland, kraut-rock, Kraftwerk and really noisy and offensive music you wouldn’t play to your kid sister when I say mechancial. No - Bibio is the noise and rallying cry green plastic soldiers make marching into a multi-coloured plasticine war. But they are little match for the magnifying glass, the power of the Sun and little Timmy (age 7) who co-incidentally would probably hear this music, lose it on a family holiday and spend the rest of his years searching under every rock for it. Zoopraxiphone isn’t really going any where. Don’t get me wrong - there is progression but as the album title so aptly demonstrates - this music does indeed sound hand-cranked. Just as a child would, this British music producer has collected “found” things and stuck them all together. In this case it is sounds, he uses dictaphones, tapes and natural noise. And it works, at certain times of the day - with the window pushed open as far as possible.

I bought his album immediately after hearing Zoopraxiphone and a track called Marram. It is indeed (as a chap from Board of Canada discusses) “the antidote to the modern laptopia of pristine electronic music”. It is available from www.mushrecords.com/ please visit him at myspace.com/bibiofi.

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Updates shouldn’t usually be this rare - but we’ve had some good weather and i’ve been lazy. More new music of a similar vein later this week.

Tags: Folk, UK Music by Mike Smith
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