Seems So Out of Context

I spent this weekend going to see none other than Frank Turner live in Manchester, kind of a strange gig because Funeral For a Friend were playing in another part of the venue so as you can imagine - EMO! The gig was sold out which was good because there was a large crowd and Frank even did some crowd surfing (I don't think that's happened since Million Dead). He has a new single out 'Long Live the Queen' with all the proceeds going to charity so go and buy it! Instructions are on his website and he might even get into the top 40 :o well anyway I leave you with this live cover, which you might recognise and makes the title of this post make more sense.

Free of the best

"The best things in life are free". A completely stupid phrase as nothing's completely free! However, some things don't cost any pennies. Often I find 'free' albums, but upon playing them realise they are complete nonsense and have hurt my ears!! This of course is not always the case and more importantly this is not the case (in my opinion) of the albums in this post. They're all completely free and legal to download, which makes it all the better.

Exits - The Boxer Rebellion
(http://www.last.fm/music/The+Boxer+Rebellion/Exits)
The Boxer Rebellion are a band I saw years ago in Nottingham when they supported the Raveonettes. At the time I was suprised to find I actually enjoyed their music, which is quite unusual for a band I'm hearing first time round at a gig. They had a perfect blend of distorted guitars and slower stuff (I'm sure there are proper musical terms for this!). It wasn't until about 6 months ago that I got round to getting their album, Exits. As I remembered from 3 years previously, their sound was varied and captivating. The true masterpiece on this album is 'We Have This Place Surrounded', a track that continually builds and adds many contrasting layers, but never feels cluttered. Other notable tracks being 'Cowboys and Engines' mainly for the intro and erm....well to be honest, all of it!!!

The Seldom Seen Kid - Elbow
(http://www.last.fm/music/Elbow/The+Seldom+Seen+Kid)
Not strictly a download, but you can listen to it for free from last.fm. The Seldom Seen Kid got awarded the Mercury Prize this year. Of course this doesn't necessarily mean it's any good, as I can think of plent of albums awarded prizes in recent years that sucked. The album has several high points such as The Bones Of You, with it's tasty bassline, Mirrorball and it's lovely plinky plonky piano and The Fix with guest vocals by some other guy that isn't Guy (Garvey)! I do find the albums tails off towards the end with nothing to really look forward to in the last 3 songs, but the previous 9 certainly make up for it.

State Of Ruin Bonus Disc - Alter Der Ruine
(oops)
At this point I was going to talk about a free remix CD distributed by Alter Der Ruine, however it seems the link has expired. Ah well. This is a great album despite being based on only about 4 songs, which is proves the excellent work done by contributors. Especially when you consider that the track 'Morning Sobriety' has both incarnations as a roarry bassline in the One Level Down remix and a much more chilled outing with the Embodi remix.

Japanese Mathematics

A math-rock band from japan? Yes, exactly and they're called LITE. I found this band just recently and being an admirer of math-rock (who isn't?) I liked them straight away. They're technically very good and also touring in the UK right now although not venturing northwards into Scotland :( so go see them if you can! Their tour dates are on their website and myspace. I leave you with a their video for 'Ghost Dance' where they seem to be trapped in a box and you should be able to listen to 'Ef' on our player (on the side).

Powder Blue

Her eyes are just like black spiders...

I funking love Elbow! They're one of the few bands I can listen to whatever mood I'm in and they make me smile. They're also one band I keep forgetting exist. This would be a shame were it not for the fact that I get the excitement of rehearing their music every time I find one of their albums!

I'm so happy they got the Mercury Prize this year :D

Oh my Blog!

Blogging has been down to a bear minimum which is strange seeing as I've had nothing to do for months. So I've decided to treat you with two new items a shiny new blog post and if you look to the right there should be a new music player, hopefully less annoying than the last one and it should be easier to update. I'll leave you with a picture of the autumn sunset in Edinburgh. Hopefully music updates soon.

The playlist to end all playlists

As we seem to be nearing the potential end of our planet at the hands (or more precisely the bloody big mouth) of a blackhole I thought I would make a playlist in honour of this (end of) historic event.

A Hole In The World – Thursday
Another Planet – Pendulum
As The World Falls Down – David Bowie
Disaster Song – Send More Paramedics
End Theme – Zero 7
Endless Skies – VNV Nation
Exit (Diseased World) –Velvet Acid Christ
It’s The End Of The World As We Know It – R.E.M.
No World For Tomorrow – Coheed & Cambria
The End – De/Vision
The Wicked End – Avenged Sevenfold
This Is The Way The World Ends – backandtotheleft
Until The End Of The World - Apoptygama Berzerk
Waiting For The World To End – Tactical Sekt
We Are The End – Alexisonfire
When Darkness Falls – Killswitch Engage
When Two Worlds Collide – Iron Maiden
Where You End –Moby
World Without End – The Boxer Rebellion

It's a pretty good playlist too. Oblivion obviously makes a good song writing topic!

It burns in the middle and leaves a hole.

I've only discovered this Edinburgh band today, so I haven't decided which of their songs I like the best yet, or even if my liking of them is going to stick, but as it is going so far I think this video is lovely (although I don't understand the bear dancing in the middle of it). It's a pretty little song (a description, it seems that fits many songs that I like) although the video makes me feel sad, but also makes me wish I had someone sending me lots of postcards!

My Feet, My Arms and My Ears

Last night I found a cover of Aphex Twin's To Cure A Weakling Child/Girl Boy Song by Adem and turns out he's done a whole album of covers too. I really like the original versions of these two Aphex Twin songs, and I also like Adem so put them together and you get something great. It's the first time I've ever heard someone actually cover Aphex Twin (usually he's just being remixed), it's an acoustic take of both songs sounding quite Amiina-esque. Anyway, what are you doing still reading this?! Listen here.

My Latest Novel

This isn't really my latest novel but a new discovery of a band, recommended to me by last.fm and its shiny new interface. They also happen to be from Scotland like much of the music I've been listening to recently, albeit from Glasgow but this where the music scene seems to be. Sister Sneaker Sister Soul was the first song that grabbed my attention along with The Hope Edition both of which you can listen free on their website, always a good way to get people to listen. Here's a video of Sister Sneaker Sister Soul it isn't that exciting visually but the music is nice and if you like them I think they have a new album out soon!

Consequence

I'm relaxing at the moment, so sat down and started my music player. I came across an album that I've not heard in probably a year or so, Neon Golden by The Notwist. It's not an album that I have particular fondness for, but there is one track on it that I love - Consequence. I'd forgotten this track even existed; I got used to seeing it on my playlist and never played it. This made me wonder how many other tracks I've neglected. Tracks that deserve to be played! I'm now on a mission to find them and make a super playlist of glory!

What Have You Done

Heed my tale of warning.

Many moons ago I heard of a little musical act going by the name Radiohead. There, on my television screen was an odd looking fellow sat at a piano, wailing into a microphone. This, I decided in my wisdom was arse. Radiohead had no talent and my mind had been set in an anti-Thom Yorke (and friends) mode.

My disliking of the band continued for several years until I was pestered by my peers into purchasing The Bends (really I got it free with another album). After a couple of listens I decided maybe I had been wrong and they're weren't that bad after all. I enquired with the aforementioned peers about similar Radiohead albums and they informed me of the flowery one called Pablo Honey. They also told me the other albums were rather weird and electronic and maybe not worth bothering with. Shortly after that (before any exchange of money at shops for the flowery album) someone lent me Hail To The Thief. I was sceptical, but as soon as I heard it knew I loved it. This set me on a path towards Amnesiac and Kid A. Eventually I got round to buying Pablo Honey and realised it was truly boring (sorry Will, but it's true!).

My warning is, not to stick to what you know. Had I gone with more of the same I'd have listened to Pablo Honey and that vague liking of Radiohead that had been established with The Bends would most likely have been destroyed. Instead I listened to something different and it was great. My musical landscape had been remodelled - like Ground Force or something, but with music and no Charlie Dimmock.

We don't fear these machinesssss

Now that I don't have physics to occupy my mind I have been contemplating my favorite albums of all time.

• The Shins - Wincing The Night Away: THE BEST ALBUM EVER... Seriously! There are no tracks on this album I would skip. I have no more to say on the matter.



• Basement Jaxx - Remedy: This was the first album I liked from beginning to end. To be honest, the albums I'd brought up to this point were generally flaff off market stalls (I just liked the "shiny rainbow thing CDs do"). My fondness of this album also had nothing to do with the semi naked lady on the cover *looks shifty*



• Starsailor - Love Is Here: This was instantly good musical goodness passing into my ears like audio gravy (the nice kind of gravy with little meaty bits in it, not that crap you buy at Morrisons). One of the few albums that I really liked first time round.



• Radiohead - Hail To The Thief: The album which has a bit of everything. Plus the copy I have in York is on MiniDisc - the superior music format, for people who like their music blue and rigid and with a little metal strip across the top.



• Lacuna Coil - Comalies: Swamped, Aeon, Heaven's A Lie, Tight Rope, Daylight Dancer, Aeon, Tight Rope, The Ghost Woman..., Aeon, Unspoken, Tight Rope, Entwined, Aeon, The Prophet Said, Tight Rope, Angel's Punishment, Aeon, Comalies, Tight Rope - Nuff said!



• Within Temptation - The Heart Of Everything: Although the Kate Bush sound was good, I prefer the newer albums. Also this is the one that made someone go "what the hell are you listening to...opera?!" (or something similar).



• Alexisonfire - Watch Out: Yeah, so maybe this is emo, but I couldn't care! This is a sexy album (although not at all in the classical sense of being sexy). This album is summer 2006.

Other albums that were nearly good enough, but either have a couple of crap tracks (or I was too lazy to write about):

• Every other The Shins and Radiohead album (apart from Pablo Honey), VNV Nation - Futureperfect, Elbow - Asleep In The Back, VAC - Hex Angel, FFAF - Tales Don't Tell Themselves, Thursday - War All The Time,
  

Scotch Music

Living in Scotland is on the horizon and to put myself in a Scottish mood I have been listening to the music it has to offer and to find out what's musically in store for me. I already had been listening to bands like Idlewild, Biffy Clyro, Mogwai, Belle & Sebastian etc, so already had a good idea of what is to come. Last year The Twilight Sad managed to get themselves into my top 10 albums of 2007, I really liked the vocals because of the acent, nothing gets you in a Scottish mood more than that (well maybe bagpipes), and turns out the music wasn't bad either. This led me to find more bands from Scotland like Frightened Rabbit so I thought I'd share this live video of them playing their latest b-side (from the single Head Rolls Off) which is a cover of N-Trance:

A is for ACO, B is for Beth Orton

Recently I have set myself the challenge of listening to my iTunes, from start to end, A to Z. Mostly this is because I seem to have a lot of stuff that I don't want anymore, or infact, that I never wanted yet somehow have managed to accumulate along the way, so it's time to get those in my recycling bin. It's taking me a while, I've been going about three weeks and I'm only almost done on B. Even so I am enjoying it, listening to things I don't usually listen to, and things that I had forgotten how much I liked. To accompany this task I am going to choose one song/band/singer for each letter of the alphabet, just to make sure I'm paying attention to what I am listening to.

So, here's my choice for A, Japanese singer ACO. I first heard about her on Adam and Joe go Tokyo, and the song they introduced me to is probably still my favouite, Machi, which is a collaboration with Múm. It's a very pretty little song, as is the video.

My B choice is a much more long standing favourite, Beth Orton. I got her album Daybreaker. From a friend as a Christmas present and fell in love with it instantly. It's difficult to pick a song, as to me it is more of just an album that I listen to straight through, and did so almost everyday for well over a year, as I enjoyed both falling asleep and waking up to it. I've decided to link to Concrete Sky for this case, it's not an amazing video, and it's probably not my favourite song, but I think it represents the part of her music that I like, and it's a good song to listen to on a train.

Kate's Mixtape, Part One

So, I guess it's time I finally got down to business and began blogging away. I must say, that recently I have been fairly uninspired by the music that is making it's way to my ears, and that may be the cause of the lack of blogging. But I have high (possibly unfounded) hopes for the future of music and blogging!
Anyway, due to this dip in musical inspiration I will offer forward some old favourites of mine. On this occasion, I present (in a not unentirely self-indulgent way) 'Kate' by Sammbassadeur - not only a good song and a good band, but also a band after my heart by calling their song 'after' me. Although a 'new' band I have been listening to Sambassadeur, and 'Kate', along with 'New Moon' for nigh on a year, and I find they are continuely returned to; pretty, soothing little songs that make me want to hum along.

http://www.labrador.se/mp3/sambassadeur-kate.mp3

Frank Turner Tour

That's right! - Frank Turner is going on tour so let's all go and see him. This tour will promoting his new album called 'Love Ire And Song', set for UK release on 31st March, all tour information is on his myspace page. Frank has also been kind enough to post a new song from the album called 'Photosynthesis' so check it out.

Hello!

Welcome to our brand new blog!