Cougar Microbes

Apocalyptic rock n rollers Black Rebel Motorcycle are gearing up for their DVD/ CD release LIVE due for November 10th. The track listing has now been posted on their official site and the band are also offering up some interesting exclusive remixes.

Looking forward to this one.

TRACKS:

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – 666 Conducer (remix)

At just 27 Jenny Reeves can already be considered a veteran of the Scottish indie scene having performed with and/or contributed on recordings by the likes of The Reindeer Section, Idlewild, Snow Patrol and Arab Strap. With her quasi-solo project Strike The Colours she has allowed her multi-instrumental talents and marvellous voice to take centre stage.

My first exposure to her work was when I received the ‘Breathing Exercises‘ single with its wonderfully hand crafted DIY artwork. The two tracks were carefully constructed, like the artwork they were encased in, and offered enough highlights to deserve multiple plays. The upcoming album ‘Seven Roads‘ has a similiar quality that will have you returning for successive listens.

“This is how we live in frosty weather,

when the darkness pushes us together”

These lyrics from opening track ‘Cold Hands‘ set the tone for the album offering  a dose of melancholia and underlying affection. These themes are ever present in the imagery Reeves sketches and are rendered all the more acute by her endearing Scottish accent.

The aforementioned ‘Breathing Exercise” is typical of this approach with its summery tones betraying a barely noticeable  sadness that is juxtaposed with rolling drum patterns and gentle guitars. Elsewhere even those tracks where her ensemble turn the distortion up a notch it is done with the utmost attention to dynamics drawing the focus towards the vocals.

The presence of Aereogramme’s Craig B on some of the tracks, in a way similiar in effect to Jenny Lewis‘ fleeting appearances on The Postal Service‘s classic ‘Give Up‘ album, adds a wonderful contrast that not only embellishes the tracks but allows the songs he features to go to the next level.

At times Reeves channels a powerful mix of Suzanne Vega’s breathy folk and attention to words, Regina Spektor’s solemn/vulnerable moments and Emiliana Torrini‘s simple yet beautiful melodies. You may notice the references are all female solo artists; in all honesty Reeves‘s presence dominates these recordings to such an extent that it is almost impossible to imagine these songs being performed by anyone else.

‘Seven Roads’ should be heard all in one take, preferably in front of the fireplace.

TRACK:

Strike The Colours – Breathing Exercise

I’m having a lazy Sunday and booming Gold Panda‘s tunes out of my window. I have been meaning to feature the Shoreditch based DJ/Producer for a while and with the sun outside shining bright his tracks are a great companion.

With some awesome remixes under his belt, including great takes on Bloc Party and Little Boots, he could afford to sit back and relax. Instead he has released a stream of constantly brilliant material that builds on cut-and-paste sampling and reminds me of the likes of Dntel and Boards Of Canada and Múm. Not a bad group to be bunched with.

Gold Panda is on tour right now, catch him while you can.

TRACKS:

Gold Panda – Quitters Raga

A couple of days ago I featured a vitriol filled and slightly humerous open letter written by Alan of Kick Up The Fire to Lily Allen. Taking the band slightly by surprise the original post received thousands of hits and several comments over the past few days with some criticising the joke nature of the post.

The band have readdressed the balance by posting a slightly more rationale response to Lily Allen‘s filesharing stance. Check it out:

There’s been a fairly mental reaction to our last blog post which was initially a frustrated joke rant. I’d like to redress the balance a little bit by getting serious, Lily stylee.

Lily Allen was a silly girl, in my personal opinion, for her stance on illegal file sharing and here’s why:

First and foremost, she herself allegedly used this very tactic to gain fame. I personally believe her fame is a result of her father’s musician mates writing some catchy as hell tunes and his big-shot cronies employing some major-label viral marketing strategy to shoot her into the public eye. However, if you buy into the “local girl blogger makes good” fairytale then you have to buy into the “by making mixtapes available to file sharers who read her blog” part of the story too. Of course she has a beaming personality, and that helps, but for the love of God please stop pretending you’re hard done by.

The fact that she has publically criticised a coalition comprised of artists such as Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and accused them of having “the biggest Ferrari collections in the world” is a serious lack of judgement. Radiohead just so happen to use ecologically friendly stage lighting and sell merchandise made from recycled bottles. That may be beside the point but Lily’s old man Keith doesn’t exactly fit into the public-sector-worker bracket either, and that is not.

For Lily to proceed by making a stand for struggling musicians, something she has never been and never will be, is a joke. We can fight our own battles thank you very much.

“When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and as the artist, you have to pay for them.”

We know how record label advances work. If you don’t recoup that money the label takes the hit. Most struggling artists don’t ever get this opportunity. Some of them aren’t particularly interested in having it. Needless to say Alan obviously doesn’t feel her posters or videos are pretty.

“You might not care about this, but the more difficult it is for new artists to make it, the less new artists you’ll see and the more British music will be nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell.”

This is a painful, painful comment from somebody who is themselves a neatly packaged product. The fact that the industry is clogged up with such products makes it nigh-on impossible for other musicians who go through a mundane 9 to 5 existence or live off the dole to fund their passion.

If Lily is ready to chuck her musical career over a bit of controversy then maybe, just maybe, she’s not in it for the music after all but instead for the adulation.

“And it’s not like there aren’t alternatives to illegal downloads anyway. Sites like Spotify give us access to new music and different music without having to rip someone off – you can listen to tracks and see if you like them before you buy them. Then obviously there’s MySpace, that streams music and helps acts like me get enough fans to convince record companies to sign us up” …….. “File sharing’s not okay for British music. We need to find new ways to help consumers access and buy music legally, but saying file sharing’s fine is not helping anyone – and definitely not helping British music. I want to get people working together to use new digital opportunities to encourage new artists.”

Again, who is paying you and how much? Prehistoric record labels are rightly getting just deserts after years of raping their artists’ (read employees’) talent. The independent artist is now thriving thanks to the internet and long may it continue. Perhaps Lily’s real fear is for the future of multinational companies with the power to create superstars out of their CEO’s best mate’s daughters.

Regardless of how good or bad any given struggling musician may be people like Lily Allen create barriers for entry. They most certainly do not break them down. Radiohead overcame this barrier and who exactly is Miss Lily Allen to debate the best interests of struggling musicians with them.

In her defence I can almost comprehend that Lily may have had the right intentions at heart. However coming out and criticising artists with real integrity and the desire to give back to their fans is not the way to go about it. It’s not alright.

Lots of love

KennyX

TRACK:

Sway – Download

My friend Alan, from the band Kick Up The Fire, has written a vitriolic post on the band’s blog based on Lily Allen‘s stand on filesharing.

I think its probably a little harsh and bordering on the overly personal (I actually quite like her personality and some of her tracks). I do, however, agree that of all the artists “daddy’s girl” Lily has little if any credibility when it comes to discussing the plight of the struggling artist. Take it away Alan:

(warning: the language is quite colourful)

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Dear Lily,

Exactly how much are you being paid to go on this sickening crusade against piracy?

Do you really expect me to believe that this is a subject that bothers you so much you feel the need to become some sort of idiotic spokesperson for the ailing music industry megabuckers? Are you upset because when you said “daddy, can I be a pop star” you imagined that the income would be even fucking higher than it already is for you? Should you have asked daddy to make you a glamour model? Or a Bond villain? Or a soap star? (oh, you’re too rough for Hollyoaks, soz.) or any other fucking thing his mates down at the groucho club could have made you?

You don’t give a shit about musicians, they’re just the dudes who stand behind you while you churn out under-average performance after under-average performance. You are not a musician, you have never been in a band, you have never struggled, you have no passion for music, all you wanted was for your dad to make you one of the cool kids. You fucking corporate pig. Good old Dad, getting his mates to spend weeks in the studio writing you a bunch of tunes so you could be famous. You weren’t even there! I know, because I was the fucking runner! Mayfair studios, in Primrose Hill, bringing your dad and Alex James tea and biscuits for a hundred quid a week. Fuuuucking sweet job!

I can see it now, all the grey faced, Eastenders-addled drones, stumbling, slack jawed down to HMV to write that great wrong they have done by downloading music. They saw you in the metro and you really struck a chord with them! Yes, Lily is right, must buy CD’s or the world will collapse!

Yeah fucking right it will, who on earth will pick the bands to force into 360 deals now that all the pretty girls with the well connected fathers aren’t clogging the A&R departments? Who will be left to use their job title to get them into the Kanye after-party so they can maybe get to let him spunk on their face in the bogs? What will the fucking world do?

Nothing, it’ll do nothing you twat. All the fucking proper musicians living on the breadline will just keep doing the same thing, playing the music they want to play and maybe there will be less dickhead popularity whores like yourself flouncing around the stage at Glastonbury next year.

Get out of the papers love, you’re making a dick of yourself, you’re a popstar, thats all, good for nothing but drinking cocktails and wiggling around on Callum Best’s lap in some shit aftershow in the West End until he takes you home, ties you up and fucks you like a pig. You don’t really like it, but it’s Callum Best!!! If you want people to take more notice of you, maybe walk up to Primrose Hill and get your horrible gash out while walking your dog or something? Maybe you’ll get lucky and some paparazzi slug will take a snap that’ll end up in the Daily sport, that’ll shift a few units for you, and that’s what it’s all about eh???

Wanker.

Alan.

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Click here to see the original rant.

Something tells me Alan won’t be making Lily Allen’s Christmas card list this year.

TRACK:

Lily Allen – Naive (The Kooks Cover)

Stock up on your supplies, prepare to hibernate. Summer is officially over.

Listen to this new track from Zero 7 start planning some holidays somewhere warm.

TRACK:

Zero 7 – Pop Art Blue

Emulating Jimmy Eat World, who self-funded their album ‘Bleed American’ in 2001 before licensing the release to DreamWorks records, Wolf Am I wrote and recorded debut LP ‘Lead The Way’ earlier this year then promptly set about finding a label to promote it. That label was Alcopop! Records, who boast an impressive back catalogue including a 2006 release by Cougar favourites Encyclopedia, waiting in the wings.

The resulting album is both confident and proficient and flows from groove heavy verses to anthemic choruses. First single ‘Glasgow 7‘ comes complete with big harmonies, chorus-heavy nicely toned guitar, dirty power chords and driving bass conjuring up similarities to big acts like Thursday and Taking Back Sunday. The Berkshire boys can hold their own in this company.

Unfortunately, resulting from the influx of Drive-thru Records bands in the early to mid noughtees, it remains to be seen whether there is still a UK market for uber-polished-American-infused-emo-college-rock. Only time will tell.

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Guest post by Kenny the aggravator

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TRACK:

Wolf Am I – Lex Talionis

Wave Machines‘ single ‘Punk Spirit’ has been haunting me lately popping up whenever I shuffle my ipod’s content. Its disaffected charm is ideal when standing on crowded train platforms trying not too take the fact some big guy is digging his elbow into your ribs too personally.

Part of its appeal is that its melancholic and slightly paranoid underdog theme is in complete contrast to the Hot Chip Meets Passion Pit melodies found on the rest of the album making this one of the clear highlights of ‘Wave If You’re Really There‘. Great video too.

TRACKS:

Wave Machines – Punk Spirit