album review: vacationer. gone. 25 june 2012. downtown records
(buy here)

Vacationer‘s debut album Gone is a joy throughout. It’s tricky to pin down the exact sound with it evolving as the record progresses. There is a period four or five songs in with touches of Paul Simon and Vampire Weekend on ‘Dreamlike’ and ‘No Rules’, but you wouldn’t have guessed that was coming just one track earlier, where ‘Trip’ starts like a seventies American sitcom theme tune and then turns all dreamy trip hop pop. That is the strongest period of the album, although that’s not to take away from plenty more good stuff as vocalist Kenny Vasoli takes us far away from out boring day jobs and plants us firmly in our very own happy places.

7.5

If you do one thing next week make sure you invest in ‘Water Against The Rocks’ by Faye, one of my favourite tracks of the year so far this year. If you do two things, make sure you couple that by seeing her perform at Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen on Wednesday. She’s just signed to the brand new Best Fit Recordings, a label that promises to be very exciting in the coming months.

The track features some brilliant lyrics, which I’ll let you discover for yourself, and of course a stunning voice. All this against the backdrop of a great electronic, but natural, soundtrack. Being Swedish expect to see plenty of articles comparing her to Lykke Li. This is of course certainly no bad thing, but have a listen to her in her own right too because there is likely to be a lot more to come from her. Stream both this and the B-side ‘Come To Me’ below.

I once went to see The Teenagers live. There were about five of us there. I fucking love The Teenagers, so this upset me. They are so fantastically filthy and yet sweet at the same time. This song is basically about stalking, yet somehow they manage to make it sound like they’re not creepy and just very loving. Genius. I know a few people who could learn a lot from them. And then use their new found knowledge in a court of law when they inevitably end up there.

live review: bloc party. koko, london. 21 june 2012.

I have waited a while for this. I was at Reading Festival when Kele announced that we might not see the band together again for a while. They’d finished their current recording contract and wanted to go and try other things. Kele embarked on a solo career. Russell had a couple of side projects and joined Ash for a while. Gordon had a baby. I’m not sure what Matt did, but I’m sure it was very cool. Now they’re back with a new album (and stunningly brilliant simple artwork), a new tour and the same awesomeness.

Last night a packed Koko welcomed them back to London for a fans only gig. With not even the slightest sign of rustiness the band played tracks from all three albums, plus some new songs thrown in. The new tracks sound classic Bloc Party. They will no doubt translate slightly differently when recorded, but my early guess is that we’re probably talking a mixture of Silent Alarm and Intimacy for the new album. As interesting as it was to hear the new stuff though, it was the the songs we know and love that people had come to see. ‘Song For Clay (Disappear Here)’ merging into ‘Banquet’ was a particular highlight, along with both encores. Elsewhere there were snippets of Kele’s own ‘Tenderoni’ and even Rihanna’s ‘We Found Love’. After the second encore, a fantastic rendition of ‘Like Eating Glass’, we wanted more but alas they were done. What a band though. What a band.

That at the top is the best photo I managed all night. I thought iPhones were meant to have a good camera?

Just ahead of the release of Vacationer‘s debut album they’re giving away a taster. The taster takes the form of Mmoths’ remix of ‘Trip’. Anything that Mmoths puts his hand to is likely to turn out high quality, but when you’ve got a band as good as Vacationer as a base to start from you can expect brilliance. That’s exactly what you get. As a bonus, you can download Vacationer’s own remix of tour-buddies Tennis below as well. Again, superlatives flow when trying to describe it. Wonderful stuff.

There have been three excellent videos come out in the last couple of days, so thought I may as well put them all in the same post. I really should start some sort of weekly video post in fact if I’m going to keep posting loads. Anyway, first up is ‘Five Seconds’ by Twin Shadow. This was a free download last month and it’s great to see it get the video treatment. Not only is the song great, but the video is something special too. Apparently the story within is based on a book that George Lewis Jnr has written himself. Fancy. It also makes me ridiculously excited for his new album next month.

Next is ‘Beginners’ by Slow Club. It features Harry Potter wandering about The Faltering Fullback. If you’re ever in the area you should go to The Faltering Fullback. Great pub. It’s just a short walk from Finsbury Park station and not far from my house so you can pop round for a cup of tea afterwards. In related news, I played against Charles from Slow Club in a 5-a-side tournament on Saturday. he’s a pretty handy keeper.

Finally we have Summer Camp’s ‘Always’ from the forthcoming EP of the same name. It’s directed by Ollie Evans again and this time they’re just doing a quick bit of kidnapping and murdering in a camper van. As you do. Time for a bit of crazy golf as well. One thing though, they seem to have forgotten to ask me to be in it this time for some reason.

A couple of months ago I got all excited about a band that it turned out had been around for a while but I hadn’t ever heard of before. I know this happens a lot so that won’t really narrow it down, and the fact that I didn’t post about them (I assume I was busy with work or something) makes it that little bit harder. ‘City Kiss’ by Francois & The Atlas Mountains was however my jam for a while, so you may have seen it come up on there. If not, you can see the rather splendid video here. If you’re from London like me, why not play a game of spot the street / bus stop / tube line. The tube line is particularly easy.

Anyway, into my inbox yesterday dropped a cover of one of their tracks. A track I had actually heard before no less. It is recorded by Mina Tindle and Tahiti Boy. Mina Tindle is somebody else that I’d never heard of and this makes me wonder how I ever get away with writing a music blog. She’s French and, as you can see from the picture above, seems lovely so I really should have heard of her. Tahiti Boy on the other hand I do know. He’s also French and is the Tahiti Boy from the quite brilliant Tahiti Boy & The Palmtrees. I think he’s one person anyway. It could be a fake front man like Edward Sharpe and in fact this is Tindle and the entire Palmtrees. Fuck this. Just listen to and download the track.

album review: friends. manifest! 4 june 2012. lucky number music
(buy here)

Is it a good thing or a bad thing to start an album with your strongest tracks? ‘Friends Crush’ is brilliant and I could listen to it all day. Equally, ‘Sorry’ is catchy as hell and you are captivated by the album from the off. When the quality drop though I start to drift away and am already thinking of what album to put on next. In fact, only two other songs, ‘Ideas on Ghosts’ and the Peaches-esque ‘I’m His Girl’, really grab me and make me want to continue listening.

I don’t dislike the rest of the album by any means. In fact I really like the album. It’s fun and, for want of a better word, funky. In a time when you can’t move for new music coming at you from every direction, Friends have managed to come up with something a bit different. The only criticism is that the record just never quite lives up to its early wonder. I’ve listened to this album a lot now though. Maybe I wouldn’t have done if I didn’t know how fantastic the start is.

8

The video to Mystery Jets’ ‘Greatest Hits’ has the band playing about in a fairground while Blaine sings about which records he’s keeping from a joint collection. Kaps steals the show with his bowling alley dancing. It is available on the fantastic Radlands, which this very blog reviewed last month.

I’ve tried to become a bit organised with the emails I receive because I’m pretty sure I miss out on a lot of stuff I would like. This organisation has already started to pay dividends as an email I would have probably missed in the past got saved for me to go back to later. This is later and I’ve just listened to the track in question on repeat throughout the entire first half of Russia v Poland.

It comes from a duo called PRJCTS. The band consists of Daniel Lamour and Eddignton. My hastily gathered research tells me that Eddington is also one third of Oddience, who I have also taken a liking to. This post is about PRJCTS though and fully deserving they are of it too. There are a few tracks to choose from over on their Facebook page, and I think the best term to describe them is genre bending. Samples a plenty, but Eddington’s perfect relaxed hip hop voice is what stands out. The one that has really got me is ‘Standing in the Mirror’. We’ve got a bit of funk, soul, that sort of alternative hip hop vibe and some Cream thrown in for good measure. You can hear it below and it’s worth checking out this excellent video for the track too.

A full EP is expected sometime later this year, but my task in the meantime is to track down any London gigs they’re planning.