happy royal wedding day. loving the guardian’s option to remove all royal wedding coverage from their site by the way. i didn’t get a chance for a post yesterday because bluehost was being a shit. the site was down until something like 2pm. to make up for it i’ve got some free music for you today.

on wednesday i was lucky enough to go to the premiere of roger sargent’s documentary following the libertines’ reformation last year. the film is very good by the way and beautifully shot as you’d expect. how fitting then that i have something from original libertine himself, carl barat, for you. it is probably the best thing carl has done solo wise yet. he mentioned in the documentary that he knows he wants to write more stuff for the libertines, and if it is up to this standard we won’t be disappointed.

next up is a little something from damon albarn. he’s linked up with deltron 3030 buddies dan the automator and kid koala again. i wrote about the importance of deltron 3030′s self titled debut a few weeks ago. we’re not sure exactly what this project is yet, but anything involving those three names is going to be exciting.

finally, a little something from twee indie popsters gold-bears. ‘record shop’ will cheer you up and is somehow very fitting for such a very british day.

enjoy them all.

album review: carl barat. caral barat. arcady records

carlos ashley raphael barat. the brains to the peter doherty natural genius in the libertines. a man who can keep his head when those all around him are talking about mice on youtube. singer songwriter, actor, author. he’s the michael jordan of the music world. in that he’ll try his hand at anything and expects to succeed.

this is probably the hardest review i’ve ever had to write. not because the album is particularly challenging or i’m lost for words by it. it’s hard to write because of how i felt about it going in. i was a big libertines fan, as i’ve mentioned before. this album causes the same feelings as the reunion did. i really want it to work and be a success. i can’t help but have this nagging feeling that it will disappoint though. i deliberately avoided the big libs come back so that i didn’t have to face this possibility. as it turns out, everybody i have spoken to said that they put on a great performance. i’m pleased.

so, how do i judge an album that i’m confused about before even listening to it? i can’t listen to it with an open mind. i sort of like it, but would i if it wasn’t by carl barat? or would i like it more if it was by somebody else because i wouldn’t be comparing it to the libertines? there are certainly elements i know i’d like whoever performed it, but there are bits i’m sure i judge far too harshly.

in conclusion i have no idea whether you’ll like it if you’re a libertines fan, if you’re a libertines hater or even if you’ve never heard of them before. basically, you’ve just wasted three or four minutes of your life reading a review that doesn’t know what it’s saying.

6

carl barat has finally stopped with that dumb idea of becoming an actor and going back to music. the libertines have, of course, already confirmed their massive huge exciting reading/leeds comeback and now carl has released details about his solo album and tour. alright, so the second dirty pretty things album may not have been up to much, but this is carlos barat. the carlos barat. the album hasn’t been named or anything, but it should be out in october. the tour starts in brighton on the 15th of that month and ends twelve days later at scala, here in london.

buy tickets here