0 comments Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Something classic I may have recently heard on a Friends episode. Most of the Friends soundtrack was pretty crass, featuring the horrendous Hootie & The Blowfish and Barenaked Ladies. Even the great Grant Lee Buffalo contributed lame version of The Beach Boys - In My Room.


The Pretenders – Angel Of The Morning mp3

0 comments Monday, August 11, 2008

Emiliana Torrini hails from Reykjavik, Iceland. She's half Italian and now lives in England.


Me & Armini is the first release and title track to her new album, due for release in September. I've been listening to this for a month or so and the album appears to have been released digitally already.


Emiliana has been releasing music since 1994 in Iceland. She wrote Kylie Minogue's hit song 'Slow' in 2003.

Her music is quite different to Kylie's. Me & Armini is a sultry and intimate pop song. Her voice works beautifully with the lazy ska style guitar.





0 comments Sunday, August 10, 2008

Released in 2007 on their 7th album Moonshout album this tune brilliantly combines dancehall ragga and d&b styles with lushly produced backing vocals and guitars. The production seems to distinguish it from the more stripped back dub sound usually associated with dancehall. It would also fit just as well into a d&b with the song's high paced percussion. The rest of the album is less dancefloor oriented with an emphasis on the using combining many global styles of music.

Transglobal Underground are based in London and formed in 1991. They won best Club Global in the BBC's World Music Awards 2008.

Transglobal Underground - Dancehall Operator


Myspace

2 comments Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Fanboy/Fangirl - Scion Money

I’m not a US college, spring breaking, Miami Winter Music Conference attending hipster but I can appreciate this funny little namedropping song. There’s nothing musically exceptional about this but occasionally the lyrics of a song can be the sole hook.
The song covers a, presumably college, student’s spring break trip to the Miami Winter Music Conference. It’s a straight forward narrative of his trips to various parties and encounters with scene electronica DJs.

The funniest bits are the spoken verse descriptions of people like Tommy Sunshine that make them sound like mythical figures.
“The sun shone through his hair and he looked like Jeeesus”. Produced with an echo for added surreal effect.

Scion is a music label launched by Toyota, after the car of the same name. The Scion story is an interesting one, Toyota appear to be trying to break into the music industry by signing underground bands and creating a community around the concept. Supposedly it’s an altruistic project focussed on raising their stakes in the “pimp my ride” market for everyday passenger cars.


Reminds me a bit of King Missle...

0 comments Monday, August 4, 2008

This is amusing and bound to cause offence to nearly anyone who thinks they have a decent taste in music. The 10 Most overated albums of all time

0 comments Sunday, August 3, 2008

A collection of songs that I like to think have an audibly summery feel.

KC & the Sunshine Band - Get Down Tonight (A Tom Moulton mix). I was always a bit 'so what it's nice' about the original version of this tune. This Tom Moulton mix takes the original and spaces it out to 9 minutes. Thankfully it's also a rearrangement which minimizes the camp disco and make it sound almost like modern day DFA type recordings.

Sly & the Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summertime. Another classic, this time in it's original form. I love how loose and unreaheased a lot of Sly's music sounds and this is a perfect example.

Cocteau Twins - Summerhead. From their 'Four Calendar Cafe' album. This is about as obviously cheerful as the Cocteau Twins ever sounded. This always reminds me of Christmas, the height of summer in New Zealand, because I heard it on the radio one Christmas morning.

Mystery Jets - Two Doors Down. This song is often scorned as part of neo-80's movement but it's just a cheerful, unpretentious pop song about a girl.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth - They Reminisce Over You. The generation defining hip hop classic from 92. Still sounds timeless and fresh.

5 Songs for Summer