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Unthunk. Otzeki
What is this I'm hearing?, was the first thing I thought when listening to Unthunk for the first time and in a way I still do. Everything on this single comes from a box, but let's face it, the chorus does have a catchy element. The duo, cousins, Joel Roberts and Mike Sharp are inspired by everything from Billy Joel to Throbbing Gristle, so they say, but I'm only hearing modern electronic music. Unthunk definitely has an 80s vibe around it. The vocoder way of singing reminds me of the first experiments. This song is far more modern and patchy. As if swaths of music are glued together. Over it the melody simply works, while the music allows for some modest dancing as well.
Another guitar - drums duo. Musically closer to Blood Red Shoes, vocally to The Black Keys. A nice mix for a Canadian band. Spirit is an incredibly strong song. The rock riffs fly all over the song, the power is there from the very beginning and the melody is pleasantly familiar as it sticks in my ears without having to think about it twice. Running ahead of the new album 'Hidden Gems', the single gives off a welcome card that hardly could be any better. If Spirit is the standard then 'Hidden Gems' is going to be a great album. The Blue Stones worked with producer Paul Meany. This results in a song that a duo can never play on stage in this way. There are guitar overdubs, some keyboards, all fine to me, as it results in this powerhouse of a song. At the same time Spirit winds down in the right places making the fired up parts even stronger as they stick out. A truly great song and introduction Spirit is.
Hall Of Death is a surprising song. Uptempo in a way that I do not liken to the duo. Sweeney plays fast guitar parts, yes multiple, in a weird country fashion, over which Will Oldham sings perhaps his fastest vocal delivery ever. Yes, this is a weird song, but at the same time Sweeney shows what in incredible guitar player he is. The myriad of sounds come from all around, cascading down on my ears. Listening closer I come to the conclusion that Hall Of Death is an electronic version of the fast songs of The Hackensaw Boys. It has the same pace and power and live may present the same fun. The surprise of Hall Of Death comes at the end. The tempo comes down and I expect a comeback of the fast paced song, but no, it's the end. Hall Of Death is great to walk into when presented this way. Surprising or not, this is a very nice song.
Electraluxx plays as if it is 1955 all over again or for sake of argument 1981 when The Straycats or The Violent Femmes got onto the postpunk scene with their fired up version of rockabilly. Too Cool For School is totally anachronistic and total fun. From the drum pickup to the rolling guitar riff in the intro, all hearing this will be transported back to a time where jiving was the thing for teenagers and skirts were flying around and up. Electraluxx was disbanded in the 1990s but is back and where else than on Rum Bar Records, that Boston haven for all (punk)rock and rollers of old. The Garfield, New Jersey, band is able to make everybody forget that 65 years have passed and a new rock and roll song can still be enjoyed, no matter how many years have come and gone since. Too Cool For School in a leather jacket or with a game console in hand, the message remains, perhaps not really smart, but certainly the same.
At the beginning of this song I had a memory crossing my mind. Have you ever heard music in the walking tubes of the underground? Music coming from somewhere, echoing against the walls, without knowing where it's coming from? Sometimes never finding out? That kind of memory. Distant Voices or London based singer-songwriter Valdis Steketis, could be recorded busking at the beginning of Lights Of The City. A man and his acoustic guitar. That is all make believe. Slowly but surely the band adds instruments and comes to a great climax. The only downside is the ever repeat sentence "I'm ready for the lights to the city". Considering the energy the song has at that point, everything is forgiven. There's no stopping the force of Distant Voices once it is let loose. The energy of the busking man, it's definitely there and then already, is picked up by a full band, after a spacey interlude. Man, when this band blows, it blows. What an incredible single.
Fairly recently I read a tome called 'Sarum' written by Edward Rutherford. It is a historical novel about living on the chalk from the days of hunter gatherers, subsistence farming, wars and occupation, the building of a great cathedral, up to modern day Salisbury. Full disclosure, two of my ancestors were born west of Wilton, a town that features in 'Sarum'. Chalk Horse Music has the chalk in its name and plays traditional folk songs from that region. Except that the original songwriters may never recognise their songs as they are presented here. The band plays the songs with an 80s jazzy undertone, as could be found with bands like Swing Out Sister and Everything but the Girl. Let me add Sade too. The result is two beautiful songs that have a soft swing. The lack of danger in the larger part of the arrangements, there is a slightly disturbing, relative that is, intro, is more than made up for in the pleasant swing, the horns and the singing of Liz Pearson. Four songs on route to an album, my take is that Chalk Horse Music has a perfect score at this point.
Eat Me, I'm Sad starts as if it goes for the 100 meter sprint at the Olympics. It isn't. It takes an early lead to scare the competition and leave them behind from the start. In other words POM plays with dynamics in a great way on its new single. And then to think the song is about wanting sex. Before I read that, I noticed how mischievous and sensuous singer Liza van As is singing. She sings with at least three different voices on this single, which is an asset. POM plays with its listeners and may have a tremendously great live, yeah, I know, live ...., song thanks to the great dynamics. Multiple explosions of ecstasy are easy to see in my mind's eye. I am not at the point where I say that Eat Me, I'm Sad is a tremendously good song, I describe it more as enthusiastic, as the band presents itself in its full musical glory here. To stay in the sex mode it itself introduced, you'll find multiple, musical climaxes in one single single. That's more than a lot of songs in this round-up can attest to. Because of that it stays fully on my good side and I can't wait for the album to be released, somewhere not to long away, I hope.
Daylight is a duo from Preston, Lancashire that formed in London while studying there. With Daylight the duo, Joey Cobb and Katie Drew, works towards the release of its album 'Day After Day'. White Flowers presents itself as a dreampop duo with a light touch of psychedelia. The icing on the cake is the French sigh girl singing style of Katie Drew. She sings like dreamy hits from the 60s and 70s have come in vogue all over again. The music mixes interconnected patches of synths and a guitar part that seems to be repeated over and over. (It is not.) I can't say that a lot happens in Daylight but the single certainly deserves the benefit of the doubt. The mood is simply right. On the one hand the song allows me to dream away for almost four minutes and if I want to I can "work" by following all the musical parts and changes instead. Music that swirls and twirls as if it is dancing together in delicate parts. Daylight contains music that presents images to me with ease. That does not happen every day.
Another totally electronic song. A song that is about belonging. Is it the place I grew up in, the place where my band is active or the place where my love lives (which coincidentally is the same place as I live in; all similarities stop there), where I belong?, Tessa Lamers, who is L'Asset, asks herself. Nomad is a beautifully structured and layered song. Electronic beats mix with synths. Despite all this Nomad is a song, built up by digital means, but with a full, warm and rich melody, including a counter melody in the vocals. In that way the song is surprising, as it is not of the kind I would usually listen to. L'Asset has a nice, rough edge to her voice making it possible for her to sing with a few different timbres. This is underscored in the rhythmically strong synth solo. At the end a little Madonna shines through Nomad. A rich song it is.
When did I hear my fist Crowded House single? It must have been somewhere in 1987, 'Don't Dream It's Over'. My first Split Enz single was in 1977, 'My Mistake'. A lot of water has passed under a lot of bridges since then. Crowded House disbanded and reformed in the mean time. There's new music as well, including this single. The sad, even frustrating, thing for ageing artists is that often their fans are not interested in hearing new music from their favourite artists. Their minds are set and they have it sort of set in stone. I dare to state that despite the giant back catalogue I'm carrying with me, I do have an open ear. Listening to To The Island I can't help comparing the song to what came before and it does not cut it. Now 'Don't Dream Is Over', Weather With You', 'Four Seasons In One Day', 'Message To My Girl' and 'Chocolate Cake' are among the best pop songs ever written, so it's nothing to be ashamed of when that level is not met. To The Island is a nice song and that is worth something. Just listen to the familiar Crowded House elements in the song and the singing and especially to the nice interlude and outro. Then you know Neil Finn has not lost his chops. To The Island is more than worthwhile getting familiar with.
Wo.
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