When there's nothing good in the telly - very often right? - and you still need that 30 minutes of evening entertainment, why not go download some episodes of the brilliant HBO-show Flight of the Conchords. I'm sure it's not legal, but it's all very easy, thanks to Bittorrent . Flight of the Conchords is in fact not a tv-show, but a folk, pop, and comedy duo composed of Bret McKenzie of the rock band The Black Seeds and Jemaine Clement of The Humourbeasts. The two are billing themselves as "Formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" The combination of witty banter, characterisation and acoustic guitar moments is very good fun to watch. ALso pay attention to the musical references, such as Fleetwood Mac's "Love Square" in episode 1. Try it out.
This YouTube-video is Flight of the Conchords performing Business Time.
After some a-rotation on the home-stereo, I must conclude that the debutalbum from 6-pieces danish indiegroup (out in October) The Elephants is absolutely adoring. In 2005 they released the ep Lazybones and showed which road they were heading down. I'm not sure this upcoming release is the final destination, but it's certainly a very promising band debuting in october. The sound is picked up in the 60's and the influence is without a doubt from that of Beach Boys, surf and indie. The vocalwork works fine on most of the songs and the use of two singers - Bjarke Bendtsen and Martine Madsen - add some original harmonie flavour to the mix, which often consists of some very swooping basslines, divers drumming and swinging guitarrifs and creatively use of percussion, pedalsteel, ukulele and even the surreal instrument - the theremin! It's really very enjoyable and must be brilliant live.
All in all the album is full of life and happy orchestral poppitude. Sometimes a bit over the top, I must add. For example on Shivers, which really feels like being run down by a collegeband on speed packed with ukules, flutes and whatever was on the shelf. The melodies works on most parts brilliantly, even though the vocal work sometimes makes it a bit boring. But it's good vocals. Warm and powerful. Have a listen to Obvious below. The clapping on that track is awsome! Love it.
The band is based in Copenhagen and recently signed with german recordlabel Tapete. The album will be available in Scandinavia through swedish Dotshop.se.
The best band ever to come out of Wales, Super Furry Animals (no, I'm not forgetting Manic Street Preachers and, ahem, Tom Jones) have recently released their 8th album, entitled 'Hey Venus!'. With melody, humor and imagination to burn, the Welch pack have so far failed to make anything less than hugely enjoyable records and this one doesn't seem to change that.
Apparently, they are a nice bunch of animals too as they are letting us all listen to 'Hey Venus!' in its entirety on their Myspace. Go listen!
Do you also need something to do in your lunchbreak? Weel, watch these two videos with Toronto-based alt. country band. They sound like a mix of Iron and Wine and Gomez and will without doubt help you to get unstressed. The music is better than the videos though, so maybe you should just close your eyes insteed!
For hours I've been hypnotized by a blank Blogger-page. Pure emptiness and no nirvana. Well, it's not always that easy to oversee and navigate the indie-universe, so I set out on a small quest for inspiration. And got it. From the very nice Rachel - a last.fm-friend. The band is DevotchKa, and it's really just brilliant.
The group is from Denver and has been descriped as a crossbreed between numerous influences; cabaret, spaghetti Westerns and dance music from eastern Europe. DevotchKa operates in the most beautiful and enjoyable corners of the indie-genre. They hit some kind of fame when they did the score for the superb indiemovie 'Little Miss Sunshine'.
DevotchKa has just released their 2004 record 'How it ends' in Europe on ANTI Records. It's a brilliant album featuring Nick Urata doing vocals sounding like the Moz and Sufjan Stevens. DevotchKa song has this backwood feel, a bit of Calexico and of course the sounds from their homeland the Ukranians. Last year DevotchKa released 'Curse your little heart' and that EP is not available in any stores - at least I havn't found it. But it's great, featuring four coversongs. Check out the oft-coveret The Velvet Underground 'Venus in furs'.
Lots of fans of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are apparently posting themselves on YouTube doing cool interpretations of the songs. Now the band have postet five of their favorites on their Myspace-site. Here is a few:
Last night I went to Radiohuset in Copenhagen to watch the japanese avant-gardes in Boredoms. It was scary! Here is a report! I was waiting a very long time in front of the building for my friend. So long time that the already late-arriving Albert Hammond Jr. from The Strokes arrived even earlier. Albert Hammond Jr. (playing Copenhagen tomorrow) tried to be more late, so we stood all alone in front of the venue and smoked, but his friend wanted him in. Therefore we arrived a little later and became the latest! So much for rockattitude from NYC! Well, in Radiohuset, which is this amazing architectural gem (built in the 30's by the leading exponent of functionalism Vilhelm Lauritzen) the Boredoms ensemble turned a ferocious energy towards us. I had nothing but arty expectations towards this evening.
Boredoms has three drumkits as mainfocus, adding surreal sounds, trance-inducing drones and powerchords. It's all really like a wicked sonic sideshow. It's really hard for me to explain the music, because it sometimes isn't really music, but just pure noise! Boredoms sometimes embrace traditional rockstructures, but then again it's more tribal, electro-driven and chaotic. In periods the three drummers painted some pretty weird visions for my ears, leaving me all jawdropped. At one point they sounded for 10 minutes like a marching circus-orchestra on acid, other times they just beat the hell out of some distorted neon-city-reality and layered it with some groovy housevocals and an almost human rythm. But most of the time it was just about screwing with our minds and creating chaos, destroying and rebuilding. They played at Roskilde Festival some years ago where the lead-"singer" broke his legs during the perfomance.
To me this concert is undeniable one of the most disrupted experiences I've had at a concert, and I don't really know if I ever will listen to them again. If I would it should be Maybe Vision Creation Newsun or Super Ae. Boredoms disconnect themselves from any rules in music and breaking barriers in a sonic overdrive isn't very boring at all.
Just discovered Rosie Thomas. Wonderful folk-indie songwriter. And what freinds she's got. Her latest album "These Freinds of Mine" is a collaboration between her and Sufjan Stevens and Damian Jurado. These three guys made some beautiful balads and duets with harmonies that levels Brian Wilson and CSN&Y!!! Stream the great album here. I recommend to start with "Say Hello" with Sufjan. Or try this great song which, like several other songs on the record, has New York as scene.
When there's nothing good in the telly - very often right? - and you still need that 30 minutes of evening entertainment, why not go download some episodes of the brilliant HBO-show Flight of the Conchords. I'm sure it's not legal, but it's all very easy, thanks to Bittorrent .
