Timber Timbre - Creep On Creepin' On

I first found Timber Timbre when watching Breaking Bad, in which his (or should that be "their"?) brilliant song 'Magic Arrow' was matched brilliantly with a truly brilliant scene. The music is kinda folky, kinda souly, kinda bluesy, kinda scary.

I really enjoyed his last album, Timber Timbre, or at least I really loved a few of the tracks and the rest, although samey, had a nice enough groove and an interesting enough atmosphere. Much of it sounds like The Dead Weather on heroin with an American Jack Steadman singing, which is a good thing in my book. Also, the bits and bobs I've heard from previous releases are pretty rad too.

Anyway, his (their? Wikipedia doesn't know either) new album, Creep On Creepin' On, is out on April 5th. However, luckily enough it's on the AOL Music website (HERE! HERE! HERE!) for all to listen to.

I think COCO is a definite step forward from Timber Timbre, the songs are still a bit samey, but there's some interesting, atonal instrumentals to add drama when you start to notice. The whole 60s soul aspect has been really pushed forward to great effect, with muted bass, swinging drums and piano taking a much more prominent place on this album than the last; there's even some girl group style backing vocals on 'Too Old to Die Young'.

I think Timber Timbre is (are?) fantastic. I'm not a giant fan of every song, but the music always sounds interesting and sonically unlike anything else I've heard. I think I'm gonna check out his/their gig on the 27th of April at ICA.

Anyway, enough blabber. Here's some sweet, soulful tunes:

And here are some old favourites:

Low (as promised)

I think Low are a really cool band. I found them on the Sub Pop website, which I recently realised allows you to download a few free tracks from each of their artists, and pretty much fell head over heels in love right away. I don't like all their stuff, some of the earlier output is samey, but the songs that I do like are so beautiful and interesting that I don't really mind.

Their music can be described as "Slowcore", a label that is ironically disregarded by all of the bands that it's applicable to. To me, their earlier output sounds like a mixture between Galaxie 500, Slowdive and Joy Division, and their later stuff is similar but with some of Yo La Tengo and Radiohead's more interesting sounds mixed into the production. Sounds like it'd be pretty great, right?

Here's a few songs I like:

!!!NEW MUSIC!!!

They've also got a new album out, C'Mon, on the 11th of April. It was recorded in a ex-Catholic Church (the same one as in their brilliant album Trust) and contains guest contributions from a lap steel player, violinist and banjoist, so I'm very excited to hear the result.

Yesterday, Pitchfork put up a free download of one of the new songs, 'Especially Me', which sounds fucking fantastic. You can access it HERE.

Here's some trailers they made for the album which look fucking awesome:

Talking Heads

Recently all I've been listening to is Talking Heads and Low. I know it's a strange mix, but it's doing me well for now. Anyway, here is a blog post about Talking Heads, maybe soon I'll also write about Low. Then again, if I don't it doesn't matter as no one reads this.

Until very recently, I didn't really like Talking Heads very much at all. I've been vaguely aware of them for a while now and naturally checked them out, but hadn't found the capacity to really like anything other than 'Psycho Killer', which sounds close enough to my Gang of Four/Franz Ferdinand/Poppy-Post-Punk musical safety net. Everything else sounded scarily dated and synthetic and weird and a bit empty.

I still feel that way about most of their stuff, and I doubt anything will change my mind, but after watching Stop Making Sense again I finally recognised the genius flowing through their songs. Remain In Light manages to sound pretty great, but it's a real shame that most of their discography lacks the amazingness their live shows evidently contained.

Everyone should watch Stop Making Sense from start to finish (and you can on YouTube), but here's a few of my favourites:

As good as the individual videos are, nothing beats going through all of them in the proper order in one sitting. If your not smiling and clapping along by the end, you don't deserve your ears, eyes or hands.

Starfucker/STRFKR - Reptilians

Starfucker (briefly named Pyramiddd at some point and now kinda named STRFKR) have a new album out, Reptilians. They make electronic-falsetto-indie-dance-pop type music in the same vein as Passion Pit, Empire of the Sun and MGMT.

I had mixed feelings about their first album, Starfucker, as I feel a lot of their music is too happy-clappy for a miserable cunt like me and many of their synth sounds are just painful. However, they do manage to pull some spectacular songs out the bag (Check out Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second, German Love, Pop Song, Florida etc.). I was less pleased with their Jupiter EP, but their cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was fucking spot on.

Anyway, the new album is great and shows a definite musical step forward. There are still the features that I don't like (occasionally in an even more painful way than before), but there are songs on which they explore new sonic territory with a less annoying, more bass driven and/or spacey vibe. Many of the songs I don't like, but the songs that I do like I like a lot and remind me of other great psychedelicish bands like Deerhunter, Caribou and Grizzly Bear.

Here are tracks I really like:

Also, rad album cover.

To continue my Caribou wank-fest...

This breathtaking video of Caribou's breathtaking album closer, 'Jamelia', has just been made public:

Is it bad that this song literally makes me breathless?

This is a "sister video", released a year ago with the album opener 'Odessa':



It's a much catchier, dancier affair, but neither the song or the video blow my mind as much as 'Jamelia'.

The Breeders - Pod

A couple of weeks ago I gave my friend The Breeders' amazing first album, Pod. I wrote her a thing on why it's so good. Here it is, sans personal bits:

Pod is a really, really, really good album. At first I thought it was just okay, but it grew on me over a period of months and, when I actually decided to buy it for your birthday, I relistened again and thought it was exceptional. Every track is full of fantasticly original ideas that are totally worth stealing.

Also, it's just not me saying that this album is really good. Kurt Cobain (who's judgement should be respected for several reasons) spoke about it in an article called Kurt Cobain of Nirvana Talks About the Records That Changed His Life and said that “it’s an epic that will never let you forget your ex-girlfriend”, which I'm sure means “it's really good”. He also said that “The main reason I like [The Breeders] is for their songs, for the way they structure them, which is totally unique, very atmospheric”. Steve Albini, the producer of the album who also produced many other AMAZING albums such as Surfer Rosa by Pixies, In Utero by Nirvana and Rid of Me by PJ Harvey, said that he thinks it ranks among his best works. And there's heaps and heaps of less interesting critical praise.

Most of the tracks on the album are classics. The opener, Glorious, manages to be beautiful. lazy and intense at the same time. Their cover of a Beatles song, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, is miles and miles better than the (amazing) original. Oh! is a song I find incredibly heartbreaking and my favourite bit in the entire album is at 1:53 when Kim manages to tearjerkingly squeal in tune. When I Was A Painter is a grungey classic. Iris jumps from sweetness to raw power and vice-versa in an incredibly effective way. The closer, Metal Man, is surreal and enchanting with the most unexpected, brief and brilliant climax ever. I only missed out the other songs for brevity's sake, they are all beautiful and rockin' too.

As noted before, the album was produced by Steve Albini and I think many fans attribute it's greatness to him. However, I don't think the production is the reason for the albums many positive attributes; it's interesting, but the main reason that the album's great is because of the people writing and playing the songs.

As I'm sure you know, The Breeders are fronted and rhythm guitared by Kim Deal, the wonderful bassist and occasional vocal provider in the Pixies. As if Kim herself isn't enough to make a brilliant underground supergroup, she was joined by Tanya Donelly, the lead guitarist of Throwing Muses. Britt Walford, the drummer, was suggested by Albini and was from the incredibly influential post-rock band Slint (their album Spiderland is defiantly worth a couple of listens, especially the song Washer). He was credited as “Shannon Doughton” and performed live in drag to keep with the all female line-up. To top it all off the bassist, Josephine Wiggs, was in loadsa bands I don't care about and got a MA in Philosophy from Sussex!

Gig: Caribou @ Shepherds Bush Empire 22/2/11

Last night I saw Caribou at Shepherds Bush Empire. He/they was/were pretty damn awesome.

I got there in time to see the closing 15 minutes of Factory Floor. They've been getting a significant amount of hype for a while (enough to be the main support at a NME Awards show), and I guess they are a hype-makers dream (weird and inaccessibly). Their performance generally consisted of a looped beat with lots of random noises made by a keyboard, guitar and live drummer. It was pleasant enough to witness and became alluringly hypnotic, but I couldn't help but think that it just sounded like someone trying out all of the different sounds and settings on their new synthesizer. It was a bit like baverage, old fashioned electronic dance music, just without any dancing. I can understand people enjoying the live spectacle, but I seriously do not understand why someone would buy their music and listen to it at home.

After I lined up for the cloakroom and squeezed back into the crowd, Caribou came on. During the opening song 'Leave House', Dr. Dan Snaith's microphone went in and out of audibility, which was an early sign of the sound problems that would plague (but not come close to ruining) the rest of the night. Despite the problems, they played an absolutely terrific set for 1 hour and 15 minutes, playing classics from both Andorra and Swim. They also extended many of their more danceable songs to the complete joy of me and the rest of the crowd.

However, within a few minutes of their set beginning, it became quite obvious that the venue was much, much too full. Even though I was at the back, I couldn't move and was stuck awkwardly between a woman's boob and the wiggling bum of the man in front of me. The managers of the venue should really lower the amount of standing tickets they sell, as it came close to ruining the night. Despite the horrific over-population of the venue, and the resulting 40 minute queue for the cloakroom, Caribou were good enough to make it one of the best gigs I've been to in a while. They encored with the most epically mindblowing rendition of 'Sun' anyone could ever hope to imagine. I really, really hope someone got a good quality video of the whole thing.

I can't find any videos of last nights gig, but here's a beautiful one of his last London gig with Four Tet (which I sadly missed):





Also, I'm incredibly happy that they've been added to the line-up of the ATP/I'll Be Your Mirror Portishead gig I'm going to in July. It's going to be one of the best days of my life.

In other news, I bought tickets to the ATP Jeff Mangum in December! Really, really excited!