Art is Hard Records makes me sad. I wish I was doing what they’re doing. It makes me sad that I’m not. It’s not just the quality of the music they put out, but also the way they do it. Release after release is more interesting, more innovative, more eye catching than the last.

They’ve outdone themselves this time. I’ve tagged it as a free download for the opening track, but I would encourage every single one of you to head over to their bandcamp and order their first non-UK act EP in full. The act is question is Sun Stains, aka Sam Roberts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I challenge you to listen to it and not think that you’re right there in the middle of the desert (Albuquerque is in the desert, right?). It’s a relaxing and captivating collection of tracks. You could just get the MP3 album, but for an extra quid you’ll get that, a cassette and some sort of do it yourself artwork. It’s clever paper that reacts to the sun. No idea, but it comes with instructions too. All I do know is that it sounds mighty fucking cool, and worst case scenario is that you end up with a great 6-track EP.

If I get an email telling me that so and so went to the same school as one of my favourite bands, I approach with caution. Since people noticed the same school spawned The XX, Burial and Four Tet it has become more prevalent. I went to the same school as Viv Stanshall, but you don’t see me forming a band named after a cartoon do you*?

Sometimes it does work though. This is one of those times. Casablanca went to the same school as Bombay Bicycle Club and Theme Park (so presumably they’re from Crouch End as well, which is where I now call home), and if their first track, ‘Yes’, is anything to go by they could beat that South London XX school at their own game.

The sound is more Theme Park than Bombay, and we could maybe throw some Talking Heads into that mix too, especially during the intro to ‘Yes’. They’ve recently toured with The Asteroids Galaxy Tour and I’ll be keeping an eye open for a chance to see them again because my search for further tracks has so far failed. I’m very keen to hear more.

*sockformation is named after Men Behaving Badly, which is not a cartoon. Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. also went to the same school, but he’s named after part of a computer game, not a cartoon. Point proven. Definitely.

This is the from Gwenno (of The Pipettes fame – I fucking love The Pipettes), and it took me a good minute to realise it was in Welsh. I opened it in the background as I was catching up on emails and just thought to myself that it sounds a little bit lovely. Not unlike Saint Etienne maybe. It then occurred to me that I couldn’t make out the words. Give it another couple of seconds and I realised it was because they’re in Welsh. I was in Wales on Sunday. It’s like it is meant to be. The fact that it comes from Gwenno’s Welsh language EP probably helps as well. Does it matter that I have no idea what she’s talking about? No it does not. I’ll let you decide how to pronounce the title yourself. I’ve decided on ‘Yem-Belly-Dredd’, which I’m 99% sure is wrong because I think ‘l’ is pronounced like you’re choking to death, but it’s what I’m going with.

live review: blur. hyde park, london. 12 august 2012.

I somehow managed to fuck up the site so I haven’t been able to log into WordPress recently, but we’re back now. I’ll post some new stuff this week, but in the meantime here’s something I wrote for Sabotage Times about the Olympic Closing Celebrations in Hyde Park.

What a couple of weeks we’ve had. There was plenty of scepticism going into these Olympics from the media, and a feeling that people just wanted it over with as soon as possible. All that changed with Danny Boyle’s fantastic Opening Ceremony. Now, as the Closing Ceremony was happening across in East London, Hyde Park welcomed the best of British music for a proper celebration.

Even before Bombay Bicycle Club took to the stage the park was full. The band were just finishing school when the last Olympics in Beijing was running, and being from London themselves this must have been a very special moment for them. The crowd, a real mixture of old and young, were fully engaged as they stormed through tracks from all three albums.

A reformed New Order (sans Peter Hook) were next up. The years may not have been kind to Bernard Sumner, but it was like he’d never been away during the short set that included ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’ and even Joy Division classics ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and ‘Isolation’. ‘World in Motion’ would surely have been a fitting addition to this unique day, but alas there was no sign.

Throughout the park you couldn’t move for t-shirts emblazoned with The Specials‘ name. Considering the fact that the Opening Ceremony didn’t avoid some of Britain’s not so great moments alongside those that we celebrate everyday, it seemed fitting that a band known for their protests songs were invited along. Ska is a genre that even yours truly can dance to. The crowd, whether celebrating the lyrics or not, agreed as the entire park erupted into a running man.

The reason we were all there, though, was Blur. It had been a little over three years since I had last seen them, which as it happens had also been in Hyde Park. The reunion back then promised much moving forward, but all we got were greatest hits and special compilations. That was until the announcement of this gig and the performance of two new songs on a roof, written specifically for this date. Despite the omission of ‘The Puritan’ from this performance, ‘Under the Westway’ was a huge success. Early on in the encore. Damon introduced it as a track special to them and to the evening. By then, the emotion was starting to show in his eyes.

That was almost two hours into the set. A set that had started in with the familiar early crowd-get-goer ‘Girls & Boys’, quickly followed by the rarely performed, but very apt, ‘London Loves’. Further tracks that the band love playing live came up next in the form of ‘Tracy Jacks’ and ‘Jubilee’.

‘Beetlebum’, ‘Coffee & TV’… the hits kept coming. Damon then, in typical Damon form, brought up a Syrian musician by the name of Khyam Allami to help out on ‘Out of Time’. He loves his world music, and the fact that Syria are currently banned from the Olympics no doubt had a huge part to play in the decision to include Allami.

We had been promised the rarity of hearing ‘Caramel’ live, and that promise was fulfilled. Phil Daniels (and bizarrely a tea lady played by Harry Enfield) joined them on stage for ‘Parklife’. Not that he was needed as the entire crowd shouted the lyrics at the top of their voice. I could go on and list every song they played, but of course we heard ‘Country House’, ‘Song 2’ and crowd favourite ‘Popscene’, before ending the main set with ‘Tender’ and ‘This is a Low’.

It was during the feature length encore that what this concert meant to them shone through. After the aforementioned ‘Under the Westway’, Damon took to the piano for a wonderful performance of ‘End of the Century’. The set was finished with the perfect pop of ‘For Tomorrow’ and of course ‘The Universal’. This all seemed a bit too much for Albarn, who stood open mouthed on the stage while the crowd sang every word back at him.

As the band thanked the crowd, there was real emotion there. I think Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave, along with everybody there, knew that this was probably the last time we’d see them together. One of the true great British pop bands had just delivered the perfect send off to an amazing two weeks.

The next instalment in my seemingly never ending quest to get in with the Brainfeeder crew is this brand new video from Jeremiah Jae. It’s short, but fuck me it’s sweet. Directed by a certain Flying Lotus, it is pretty much just the face of Jeremiah going back and forth across the screen with some extreme close ups. Perfectly suited to the track though and the track itself is also perfect. The full album, Raw Money Raps, is out now and you can buy it here.

During this #hiphopjuly thing the artist I have listend to more than any other is Flying Lotus. I’ve got my beautiful 1983 green vinyl on constant rotation and am always listening to Los Angeles and Cosmogramma anyway. With excellent timing, the man known to the tax office as Steve Ellison has released ‘Between Friends’ free of charge for Adult Swim. He’s roped in Odd Future genius Earl Sweatshirt and Captain Murphy. The word on the street is that Captain Murphy is Mr Aesop Rock himself. As you would expect from a stellar line up like that, it’s a roaring success. FlyLo’s wonderful beat takes on a couple of guises over the course of the track and Sweatshirt and Murphy’s vocals suit it perfectly. You can download the track right here or stream it here.

Nathan Williams, of Wavves fame, has teamed up with his own brother to record a beat tape. They’re calling the side project thing Sweet Valley following the lead taken by Elizabeth Sankey and Emmy the Great’s Wakefield Twins collaboration. For those that don’t know, the Wakefield twins were the main characters in the Sweet Valley books. A friend told me.

The first track is called ‘Total Carnage’ and is available as a free download below. I think it sounds pretty fucking awesome. It precedes the full release that comes out on 7th August on Fool’s Gold.

The track is also notable for what is probably the best comment I have ever read on SoundCloud. “lol how come people be makin all this sweet ass chill beach music but then you know it mainly gets played in dark sleazy clubs/bars where most the action is in the bathroom? im a make a jam u can wisper in a stall to”. I was going to say the same thing myself and in the exact same way.

I feel like Adam Buxton.

I mentioned yesterday that I was having trouble finding content to continue posting while I limit myself to listening to hip hop for the month. For that reason I’ve decided that I’m okay to post about music I get sent. It’s a bit dumb listening to nothing but one genre for a month. I’m listening to a hell of a lot more and I think the final post will be worth it, but in the meantime I don’t want to miss getting excited about new good music.

I’ve just got excited about Francisco The Man. The man are in fact four men from LA and what I’ve heard is catchy as hell and well worth your time. They have a lovely little 7″ coming out next month, which no doubt you’ll be able to order from their bandcamp in due course. For me the standout track is the b-side, ‘Broken Arrows’. It starts as a lovely slightly lo-fi shoegazey song, but gradually extends into what sounds like the band having a thoroughly enjoyable jam session after practice. The sort of jam session that they would end and just say “wow”. Luckily this song is the one that I’m allowed to stream so have a listen for yourself below.

One of the problems I’ve found during this #hiphopjuly thing is that I haven’t got a lot to post about. 99% of the promos and news I get sent are relevant to the type of music I usually write about. That means content has been low. Therefore, thanks very much to Dave Nichols who pointed me in the direction of this. New Public Enemy. Not just that, but this is classic Public Enemy too. Chuck D is in full change-the-world mode. Fuck knows how it’ll go down in today’s hip hop climate, but this takes me right back to the late eighties and early nineties. Great work.

album review: frank ocean. channel orange. 10 july 2012. mercury records
(buy here)

Anybody who has clocked my new ‘best of 2012 so far’ thing over on the right will already know this is going to be a positive review. Actually, anybody who has even a passing interest in music will know this is going to be a positive review because over the past week or so Channel Orange has been on the receiving end of pretty much endless critical acclaim. Quite rightly too. Forget all the controversy over the timing of the release being brought forward, boycotts from some record stores and everything else surrounding Frank Ocean at the moment. This is a fucking great album.

It is the quality of the songs that make a record, and this is made from those of the highest quality. There is variation and skill throughout. ‘Thinkin Bout You’ showcases his vocal range, ‘Sierra Leone’ his lyrical mastery and ‘Super Rich Kids’ his humour. It can be easy to get bored listening to so much of today’s generic r&B, but Ocean doesn’t give us a chance to let our mind wander once. You can find yourself listening to every single lyric or having it soundtrack your day as you go about your business.

It seems I’m getting excited and giving high ratings to an awful lot of albums this year, but when they’re of this quality can you blame me? I love this album.

9.5