album

Good Game | Grayson Gilmour

by Amber on May 20, 2010 in Notebook

Dear Grayson Gilmour, first up I have to say, you have a fantastic name. Entirely based on your nifty moniker, I would assume you were a total hot babe. Ahem.

Swoon fest aside, if his name sounds familiar, it’s because Gilmour is the keyboardist for Wellington band So So Modern, and an accomplished solo musician in his own right. Preceded by Chapters, You Sleep, We Creep, Phantom Limbs, Behind Locked Doors and Abstract Arrival, No Constellation is Gilmour’s fifth solo album.

No Constellations is a wee bit special. It arrived in my PO Box earlier this week, and aside from a few melodramatic detours (Triple J’s Hottest 100, 1997) I’ve been listening to it ever since.    Described variously as dream pop and anti-folk, the songs all twinkle; and are characterised by earnest, albeit cerebral, lyrics. As they say, it’s all killer no filler. Gilmour’s MySpace has the first three songs to sample before purchasing the album – try I Am A Light (energetic chanting).

Aside from the actual sounds, I really like the ziney-aesthetic of this album: letter-pressed, grainy and found photography. GG DIYed it himself.

Visit GraysonGilmour.com for conversation, reading, meaningful, assemblages, lyric zines, previous albums and downloads.

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Happiness Is A New LCD Soundsystem Album

by Amber on March 31, 2010 in Art & Photography

Just released: the first two songs from the forthcoming LCD Soundsytem album: This Is Happening. The cover of Bye Bye Bayou will not raring its pretty little head on this one, but can we get an “OH YEAH” for Drunk Girls and Pow Pow!

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6 Albums Recently On Repeat

by Amber on February 14, 2010 in Notebook

These are a few of the recently released albums that have been punctuating my days of late. Design observation: it’s funny how many of them (and other new releases) feature head shots… of sorts. The profile pic is back.

OneLifeStand

Hot Chip: One Life Stand. My favourite electro-pop band from London has finally released a fourth album! A fun fact I recently learnt – the boys from Hot Chip went to the same  school in Wandsworth that produced Burial and newcomers The Xx. Favourite songs thus far include Thieves In The Night, Alley Cats and the title track One Life Stand. Pleasingly the vocal quality has drastically improved since the days of Over and Over in 2006. Not that they were bad then, but Alexis and Joe now seem to have a lot more control over their chords.

ExquisiteCorpse

Warpaint: Exquisite Corpse. I do love an all girl experimental-art-rock band! Hailing from Los Angeles, Warpaint ticks most of these boxes; with Jenny Lindberg on bass and vocals, Emily Kokal on vocals and guitar, Theresa Wayman rocking the vocals, guitar and keys, and Josh “Jocelyn” Klinghoffer on drums.  There’s only 5 songs on the Exquisite Corpse EP and they are all stellar, but my favourite is Billie Holiday. It’s a sweet, quiet song and the name of our heroine is chanted letter by letter.

Contra

Vampire Weekend: Contra. NYMag cleverly suggested “Now your little cousins may very well be rocking “Horchata” while they’re tacking up their Taylor Lautner posters” – indeed Vampire Weekend are doing well for themselves in the ‘mainstream’. They deserve it. Contra is a slick album, with more calypso and sharper lyrics. My picks: Horchata, Cousins and California English: “Blasted from a disconnected light switch / Through the condo that they’ll never finish
Bounced across a Saudi satellite dish / And through your brain to California English”.

DeadMansBones

Dead Man’s Bones: Dead Man’s Bones. We know Ryan Gosling is a hot piece. Turns out he is an accomplished musician as well. With his best friend Zach Shields, they have released a concept album under the name Dead Man’s Bones. The single Pa-Pa-Power seems to be permanently playing in my house. Often I see children’s choirs as gimmicky but on this record, it really works with the spooky pseudo “Halloween soundtrack” theme.

IRM

Charlotte Gainsbourg: IRM. IRM is Charlotte‘s third studio album. The daughter of Serge and Jane Birkin released her first album in 1986 and the second in 2006 – a long time between records. 2010′s IRM was produced by Beck, and he duets on a couple of songs, including the lovely  Heaven Can Wait. My other favourites are Master’s Hands and Time Of The Assassins – but the whole album is rather nice – you can imagine it as the soundtrack to a bildungsroman film set in the outskirts of Paris shot in cracked, flaking 16mm. Or something.

Odd Blood

Yeasayer: Odd Blood. Yeasayer’s sophomore offering is a gem. Could this be another Merriweather Post Pavilion – the best album of the year, released at the first breath of the calendar? ALL THE SONGS ARE BRILLIANT. I’m looking forward to sampling a few remixes – so far enjoying Ambling Alp (The Very Best ‘Mulomo’ Remix).

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What have you guys been cranking on the stereo of late? Feed me new noises please!

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