A real treat for the final act of 2007 on NBGL.

*****************

MP3: A Classic Education - Stay Son
(Bologna, 3:54 mins, 192 kbps)

A Classic Education are expansive in the ‘it just sounds big, the climax of dozens of ideas, that have travelled continents looking for a means of expression’ sort of way. It’s impassioned because you can’t make music so well formed and frankly epic without pouring you soul out in this sort of a way. A string section draws the lines and vocals flow along their course unimpeded by rigid structures. Big sounds are provoked by big ideas. “Stay Son” is all of these things, and coming to the end of the year it sounds like unstoppable progress.

MP3: A Classic Education - Victories At Night
(Bologna, 4:32mins, 192 kbps)

“Victories at night” isn’t so progressive, but more questions are asked from far-away places. For those of us who have spent 2007 tripping over the analogies and similarities of Panda Bear to “brian wilson recorded underwater” (see: almost every review) welcome to Sigur Ros recorded deep underground, only the roof has just caved in: the sky, echoes and space come together and begin to explode apart. Music shoots up, and rain falls in.

They’ve opened for the Arcade Fire and recently did some work with Mr Jeremy Warmsley. What a combination. With the aid of kind winds and favourable tides, let’s hope indie-pop done in the biggest way possible gets some success in 2008. The soundtrack to Climate Change 08? We have a very strong contender.

**********

Best of December soon, best of the Year just after.

More suggestions for soundtracks to global warming to listen to as you float away on top of your house in the comments section, if you please. I’ll begin.

Tags: Best of NBGL, Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
4 Comments »

MP3: Jonquil - Lily
(Oxford, 5:03mins, 320 kbps)

‘Lily’ is the first track of the sensational “Lions” (I first wrote the track ‘Lions’ here). It is pulsing with delayed guitar and some great scene setting, anxious but driven Grizzly Bear like uwwwwwwww … & … ahhhhhhhs. Your delicate inner folk strings get teased from about 1:57; notions of Arcade Fire find residence, only to be quickly overcome with beats that’d fit better in an LCD Soundsystem track. But this isn’t dance music. Not even Eastern European dance music.

Finger picked sounds gust and swirl the song, whilst vocals bluster, maintaining the drone and ensuring that this is immediately a song, and by extension, album that surrounds you without swallowing you up into a introverted post-rock black hole. No - this is awesome, expansive and bright folk music delivered sunny side up on a rainy day.

myspace.com/jonquiluk

******************

I can’t recommend picking up the album ‘Lions‘ enough: £9 from their record label Try Harder. Had I heard this album earlier in the year it’d be challenging for one of the best of the year.

*****************

Gorilla Vs Bear suggests a soundtrack to one of my favourite reads of the year, Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”. Chris also digs Jonquil, so we dig him.

***********

update: Dodge of the famous and very well thought of My Old Kentucky Blog places Jonquil’s album (which I think he’s only had for a few weeks) ahead of The Shins, Devendra, Tunng, New Pornographers in his best 50 albums of the year list.

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London by Mike Smith
2 Comments »

MP3: The Wave Pictures - Now You Are Pregnant (quiet version)
(London via Sweden, 4:19mins, 160 kbps)

The indie-pop zeitgeist just got a little more grizzly and accomplished. Wave Pictures have an unassuming and modestly expressed gift of being able to string a thread through a song, wrap it all round the melodies and pull strings which make indie-rock music become tigher, engaging, visceral, yet still a little unconfined. That’s probably the reason why they’ve been playing as backing band and co-songwriters for John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats, and all around the world with Herman Dune, and The Jeffrey Lewis Band. It might just be cool; but only in such a light and casual way. Sing your hearts out! No-one matters!

They are signed to Moshi Moshi and you can buy their 7″// digital download here. You can hear the excellent, not-an-xmas-song song “We Dress Like Snowmen” at their myspace.

*************

Talking of waves: Surfing 55ft waves in Ireland

It’s all because of high pressure from Iceland. They’re probably playing Sigur Ros and Mùm a few hundred times too loud on the west coast again…

**************

Drowned in Sound are big fans of The Wave Picture and they recently started contributing to the RCRD LBL professional mp3-blog style site. On their little portion of the site they’ve just posted a track by a British artist they currently have under their wing. She’s called George Pringle and will certainly be big in 08… garageband beats win you over and gives the song huge curves and intelligence, whilst the spoken word poetry about selfish introvert existence, shoegaze, techno and street figher is so - now.

*************

I have a lot of really good music to share with you in the run up to Christmas, so stay tuned….

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
No Comments »

MP3: Frightened Rabbit - Snake
(Glasgow, 2:32 mins, 192 kbps, 3.5MB)

Frightened Rabbit are Scottish but they aren’t gnawing at the ankles of any of their indie and pop compatriots. They’ve got a folky wisdom and an air of confidence that streams in through the windows, freshly blown out by tornadoes and hurricanes. After the winds drop, people and animals emerge from their houses and just wander, and look forward to rebuilding. Frightened Rabbits feel like renewal, only they want to build things downwards; up is so overrated, and everyone is else is way too stuck in that mind-set. But not these guys.

Frightened Rabbit are more than just caught in the headlights, and this is far from a lucky escape, their album “Sing the Greys” brims with pop songs that quickly turn melancholy into bright sunshine, without even looking upwards for inspiration.

Listen to buy and/or buy from the fantastic Fat Cat Records.

Tags: Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London, not-folk-music by Mike Smith
3 Comments »

MP3: The Hermit Crabs - Friends Folk Festival
(Glasgow, 2:49 mins, 127 kbps, 2.6MB)

A 5 piece Scottish Indiepop band with folk nudgings towards the upbeat rather than revolutionary; an arts fair instead of a guerilla war. The Hermit Crabs are walking (perhaps sideways) on rainbow steps of guitar lines, walking a few feet above you - not looking you in the eyes. It is cute; but it’s so smooth and comfortable, you won’t be concerned when this flood of soulful Scottish pop music pours into your very mind.

Buy/ Read/ Hear More.

***************

also:

Rap represented in mathematical charts and graphs

Radiohead’s album In Rainbows is being released physically on New Year’s Eve. Therefore it can’t be anyone’s best album on 2008. It seems pretty sure to dominate this years lists though, and it just wouldn’t be fair for it to dominate for 2 years straight.

Tags: Folk, Johnny 5 Is Alive, Not London by Mike Smith
1 Comment »