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Feature: New to Spotify

[Editors note: This was supposed to be published on Monday 19th July. However, due to circumstances beyond our control it was delayed until this evening. We have decided to leave this article intact and not change anything as to uphold the writers integrity. So when you read this (and I honestly suggest you do) please make pretend it is in fact, Monday 19th. We extend our deepest apologies for the delay.]

Greetings travellers and welcome to the section of Spotisfaction that deals with all that is new and improved! In this series our aim is to get our hands dirty with what”™s new and unheard in the vast waters of Spotify and to give you our tasters and recommendations based on those findings on a fortnightly basis. We hope you enjoy what you read and what you hear, with any luck it will lead you to new artists and sounds.

All of the selections in this fortnightly musical smorgasbord have come up in recent days in the “what”™s new” section in Spotify. To make life easier for you the consumer, the Spotisfaction team has done what it does best and listened through them all and selected for you what we feel are some of the best bits. Enjoy!

1. I Am Kloot ”“ Sky At Night
If you”™ve never listened to I am Kloot before this album is a great place to start. Tuneful, melodic and mellow with great storytelling. Clever feelgood tales encapsulated in subtle strings, soulful piano and glorious harmonies. It is sometimes difficult to draw parallels in albums and often unfair to encapsulate people. This album contains such rich variety both musically and lyrically that it almost defies encapsulation. Its an album to give your undivided attention in some “you” time. To give it a casual listen doesn”™t give it justice, a great antidote to life outside. Grab a drink and your cans and let the stories become a part of you.

2. Laura Marling ”“ Mumford & Sons, Laura Marling & Dharohar Project
A short EP but in my mind, great musical progress. If you haven”™t heard Laura”™s most recent album, I would strongly recommend it but this EP mixes a great blend of folk guitar, vocal craftsmanship and indian music. Its a mix on paper you would never think as one that would work but the resultant effect is one so strong it begs a whole album. The lead track is a remix of the excellent Devil”™s Spoke but sufficiently different to avoid the feeling of short-changed.

3. The Roots ”“ How I Got Over
I”™m sure most of you are no strangers to the excellent, boundary-pushing work done by The Roots and this album is no different. It”™s not often that an artist can demand a listen without justification but this is another of those excellent efforts. So many styles and instruments come to blend and served with that unmistakable beat craftsmanship they are famous for, a top choice.

4. Belle & Sebastian ”“ Push Barman To Open Old Wounds
This 25 track epic can”™t be accused of not being value for your hard earned! The concept of “double albums” seems to have waned over the years and the move into the digital age has made many lazy in commerical record land, knowing they can get away with 7 tracks or extreme filler. Musically this album screams positivity without ramming it down your throat or becoming sugar coated saccharin. Some of the tunes are not conventional happy but every time I listen to it I feel summer , I want to take to open space with a picnic blanket, some shades, this album and just let the world go by while I feel good in my little bubble. Echoes of Velvet Underground, hints of the Undertones, an album I”™m sure the great JP would have loved!

5 – Two Door Cinema Club ”“ Tourist History
These guys were completely new to me when I first put this album on to play and my immediate thought was “Bloc Party”. That in my opinion could not be a bad thing but on a second listen I realised that was unfair. They borrow a little of the style but there is so much more to it. Brilliantly layered tracks with an unmistakable flow, hints to other bands hear and there but it all comes together in a bright, clean, pacey extravaganza that will not leave you disappointed.

6 – Lissie ”“ Why You Runnin”™
A sneaky little EP for the end and another folk one. It seems that Folk is in a difficult place in many ways, lots of people associate the word with different things but I think there are a strong breed of female folk artists out there at the moment, with this being another great example. Essences of Joni Mitchell vocally and lyrically but with a glorious guitar backbone running through subtly augmented with Piano and a whole cavalcade of instruments and voice. If you only listen to one of my recommendations this month, please try this one and give this style of music another try.

I hope you enjoy our choices, A playlist containing this and a few other subtle picks not listed is below if you don”™t want them on a per album basis. See you in 2 weeks!

New to Spotify – July 19th 2010

Battinski

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Playlists

Perfume Genius - Learning Image courtesy of Amazon.co.uk. Nobody loves an album of gloomy, haunting music about abuse, addiction and domestic turmoil more than this particular reviewer. You can imagine, therefore, my joy at discovering the debut album Learning by Mike Hadreas, 26, from Seattle who performs under the name Perfume Genius. Evoking similarities to singer-songwriters such as Antony and the Johnsons and Cat Power, Perfume Genius has written a heartbreaking yet wondrous record. The opening lyric on the title track and album opener, ”˜Learning”™, sets the ominous tone: ”˜No one will answer your prayers, until you take off that dress”™. The lyrics throughout are sinister tales of a damaged upbringing but are delivered with a fragility and innocence that is both endearing and captivating to the listener. Instrumentation is kept minimal with plonky-piano and breathy vocals and the occasional synthesizer. This creates an intimate listen, much in the same vein as The xx. When other elements come into play, such as the distorted vocal noises at the end of ”˜Perry”™, they are used to great effect, bringing a beautifully chaotic ending to a song about a broken and abusive relationship. The conflict between the dark subject matter and the light, strangely ethereal music is what gives the album a life span far greater than most releases. The arrangements on songs such as ”˜Mr Peterson”™ are simple, yet when you listen to the lyrics, their bluntness is chilling. ”˜He made me a tape of Joy Division / He told me there was a part of him missing / When I was sixteen / He jumped off a building”™. Learning, like the best albums, is not only beautiful but has a depth which will resonate for years with its listeners. It”™s what lies underneath the veil of black – the fragmented world of Perfume Genius – which makes this album truly outstanding. 9/10

Perfume Genius - Learning
Image courtesy of Amazon.co.uk.

Nobody loves an album of gloomy, haunting music about abuse, addiction and domestic turmoil more than this particular reviewer. You can imagine, therefore, my joy at discovering the debut album Learning by Mike Hadreas, 26, from Seattle who performs under the name Perfume Genius. Evoking similarities to singer-songwriters such as Antony and the Johnsons and Cat Power, Perfume Genius has written a heartbreaking yet wondrous record.

The opening lyric on the title track and album opener, ”˜Learning”™, sets the ominous tone: ”˜No one will answer your prayers, until you take off that dress”™. The lyrics throughout are sinister tales of a damaged upbringing but are delivered with a fragility and innocence that is both endearing and captivating to the listener. Instrumentation is kept minimal with plonky-piano and breathy vocals and the occasional synthesizer. This creates an intimate listen, much in the same vein as The xx. When other elements come into play, such as the distorted vocal noises at the end of ”˜Perry”™, they are used to great effect, bringing a beautifully chaotic ending to a song about a broken and abusive relationship.

The conflict between the dark subject matter and the light, strangely ethereal music is what gives the album a life span far greater than most releases. The arrangements on songs such as ”˜Mr Peterson”™ are simple, yet when you listen to the lyrics, their bluntness is chilling. ”˜He made me a tape of Joy Division / He told me there was a part of him missing / When I was sixteen / He jumped off a building”™.

Learning, like the best albums, is not only beautiful but has a depth which will resonate for years with its listeners. It”™s what lies underneath the veil of black – the fragmented world of Perfume Genius – which makes this album truly outstanding.

9/10

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Features Reviews

Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here. To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “Broken Social Scene” is on Spotify. Click the album art below to purchase a copy of the album from Amazon. As the new millennium surged on and the decade reached it”™s dizzy midpoint, the now infamous Broken Social Scene continued to evolve, shifting the perspectives of the followers that they had gathered up to now. This time, the boundaries were to be pushed further and wider as the band set about crafting what was to become their most varied, ambitious and commercially accessible album to date. They were to create a new way of dreaming. Following the three year gap since their previous sound exploration, “You Forgot It In People”, the band had been hard at work writing new, ambitious material. “Broken Social Scene” saw more collaborators than their previous efforts and included artists such as The Dears”™ Murry Lightburn and Jason Tait of The Weakerthans. The new ideas that formed from these collaborations, coupled with the already vast scope of the existing collective, serve to add a world of colour to the third album. From the opening track ”˜Our Faces Split The Coast In Half”™ and the tune”™s rays of yellow sunshine, it is clear that this new album will not only provide a more coherent picture of what the band are about but also an illustrated soundtrack to the listener”™s life. The use of driving rhythms, and the cacophony of instruments that drift in and out of the introductory track alone clearly show this quality. One significant element to the band”™s sound on this collection is the sense of experimentation. This can be heard throughout the album but most notably in the dabbling of different time signatures and effects, prominent in ”˜7/4 (Shoreline)”™. The experimentation also creeps into existence around the end of some of the tracks, where various members of the collective sample techniques and potential song directions. The colours of the album tend to get brighter around tracks such as ”˜Swimmers”™ and ”˜Superconnected”™, both offering meaty drum beats dripped in a shoe gaze mentality and melody. However, the band do revert back to their previous, darker territory as the album reaches it”™s climatic end in ”˜It”™s All Gonna Break”™. In this shady closing track the harsh lyrics “When I was a kid, you fucked me in the ass, but I took my pen to my paper, and I passed you. You know I love the shit, ”˜Cause the shit tastes so good, I”™ve got pastures waiting in the woods” leek from the otherwise optimistic album, and remind the listener that emotions themselves are, in fact, colourless. “Broken Social Scene” marked the peak of the bands musical exploration, and in a way reveals the true “broken” element to the vision that the ever expanding collective have built. The break doesn”™t necessarily come in the disjointed nature of the song writing but more in the way that every track, each representing a different emotion, appear to be scattered around perhaps replicating real life. The self-titled effort also symbolises how Broken Social Scene have the unique ability, yet again to set their music and song to dream like imagery, but this time in full technicolour! Ben Hawling

Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here.
To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “Broken Social Scene” is on Spotify.
Click the album art below to purchase a copy of the album from Amazon.

As the new millennium surged on and the decade reached it”™s dizzy midpoint, the now infamous Broken Social Scene continued to evolve, shifting the perspectives of the followers that they had gathered up to now.

This time, the boundaries were to be pushed further and wider as the band set about crafting what was to become their most varied, ambitious and commercially accessible album to date. They were to create a new way of dreaming. Following the three year gap since their previous sound exploration, “You Forgot It In People”, the band had been hard at work writing new, ambitious material. “Broken Social Scene” saw more collaborators than their previous efforts and included artists such as The Dears”™ Murry Lightburn and Jason Tait of The Weakerthans. The new ideas that formed from these collaborations, coupled with the already vast scope of the existing collective, serve to add a world of colour to the third album.

From the opening track ”˜Our Faces Split The Coast In Half”™ and the tune”™s rays of yellow sunshine, it is clear that this new album will not only provide a more coherent picture of what the band are about but also an illustrated soundtrack to the listener”™s life. The use of driving rhythms, and the cacophony of instruments that drift in and out of the introductory track alone clearly show this quality.

One significant element to the band”™s sound on this collection is the sense of experimentation. This can be heard throughout the album but most notably in the dabbling of different time signatures and effects, prominent in ”˜7/4 (Shoreline)”™. The experimentation also creeps into existence around the end of some of the tracks, where various members of the collective sample techniques and potential song directions.

The colours of the album tend to get brighter around tracks such as ”˜Swimmers”™ and ”˜Superconnected”™, both offering meaty drum beats dripped in a shoe gaze mentality and melody. However, the band do revert back to their previous, darker territory as the album reaches it”™s climatic end in ”˜It”™s All Gonna Break”™. In this shady closing track the harsh lyrics “When I was a kid, you fucked me in the ass, but I took my pen to my paper, and I passed you. You know I love the shit, ”˜Cause the shit tastes so good, I”™ve got pastures waiting in the woods” leek from the otherwise optimistic album, and remind the listener that emotions themselves are, in fact, colourless.

“Broken Social Scene” marked the peak of the bands musical exploration, and in a way reveals the true “broken” element to the vision that the ever expanding collective have built. The break doesn”™t necessarily come in the disjointed nature of the song writing but more in the way that every track, each representing a different emotion, appear to be scattered around perhaps replicating real life. The self-titled effort also symbolises how Broken Social Scene have the unique ability, yet again to set their music and song to dream like imagery, but this time in full technicolour!

Ben Hawling

Categories
Reviews

DJ Shadow”™s slot at Wireless 2006 was a roadblock, with some fans unable to get anywhere near the tent. So you”™d forgive us for wondering what was going on when we arrived just 10 minutes early this year to find a relatively empty tent and nothing on stage but a mysterious grey ball. As the crowd finally begins to flow towards the Second Stage, they are greeted by text projected onto the ball: “Welcome to the first DJ Shadow show in nearly three years”¦ DJ Shadow does not have a new album out”¦ but there is some new music”¦ would you like to be first in the world to hear it?” After a quick appearance to greet the cheers of the now full (but never packed) tent, Josh Davis disappears into the ball. Although the projections offer an innovative and exciting visual backdrop to the music, it does make the show feel detatched, with the DJ and all his beat-crafting, turntablist trickery hidden away. The new material is promising. Leaving the questionable territory of 2006”™s The Outsider behind, it sees DJ Shadow return to dusty samples and big beats rather than manic MC vocals and alt-rock guitars. Still, the set does seem to lack momentum, without the funk breaks of The Private Press which could have added some energy (and dropping The Right Thing would also have been a clever nod to 2manydjs on the Main Stage). The big cheers are predictably reserved for classics such as Building Steam with a Grain of Salt (Endtroducing, 1996) and Six Days (The Private Press, 2002) and the crowd does get pumped towards the end as the bpm rises with some jungle-tinged vibes. Thanks to some technical hitches delaying the start of the show, Organ Donor isn”™t quite the triumphant set closer it could have been as it is cut short, much to the disappointment of a crowd that is finally hyped. Thankfully DJ Shadow appears to be going back to his crate-digging, experimental past with his latest tunes, and his classics get the heads nodding and the hands in the air, but with over-zealous stage production, this performance doesn”™t quite meet its full potential. Photos by Claire Withington

DJ Shadow”™s slot at Wireless 2006 was a roadblock, with some fans unable to get anywhere near the tent. So you”™d forgive us for wondering what was going on when we arrived just 10 minutes early this year to find a relatively empty tent and nothing on stage but a mysterious grey ball.

As the crowd finally begins to flow towards the Second Stage, they are greeted by text projected onto the ball:

“Welcome to the first DJ Shadow show in nearly three years”¦ DJ Shadow does not have a new album out”¦ but there is some new music”¦ would you like to be first in the world to hear it?”

After a quick appearance to greet the cheers of the now full (but never packed) tent, Josh Davis disappears into the ball. Although the projections offer an innovative and exciting visual backdrop to the music, it does make the show feel detatched, with the DJ and all his beat-crafting, turntablist trickery hidden away.

The new material is promising. Leaving the questionable territory of 2006”™s The Outsider behind, it sees DJ Shadow return to dusty samples and big beats rather than manic MC vocals and alt-rock guitars.

Still, the set does seem to lack momentum, without the funk breaks of The Private Press which could have added some energy (and dropping The Right Thing would also have been a clever nod to 2manydjs on the Main Stage). The big cheers are predictably reserved for classics such as Building Steam with a Grain of Salt (Endtroducing, 1996) and Six Days (The Private Press, 2002) and the crowd does get pumped towards the end as the bpm rises with some jungle-tinged vibes.

Thanks to some technical hitches delaying the start of the show, Organ Donor isn”™t quite the triumphant set closer it could have been as it is cut short, much to the disappointment of a crowd that is finally hyped.

Thankfully DJ Shadow appears to be going back to his crate-digging, experimental past with his latest tunes, and his classics get the heads nodding and the hands in the air, but with over-zealous stage production, this performance doesn”™t quite meet its full potential.

Photos by Claire Withington

Categories
Reviews

AtmospherePhoto courtesy of gigwise.com The final instalment of my Glastonbury coverage, I look at some of the acts from the Sunday of the Festival. We focus on Everything Everything, These New Puritans, Gang of Four and LCD Soundsystem. Everything Everything Manchester-based Everything Everything blend a heady mix of Foals, Battles and pop sensibility to create a mind-twistingly catchy set of songs. They drew a good crowd to the John Peel Stage early on in the day, and did not disappoint, with a short but impressive set of their best-known tunes to date. Their debut album Man Alive is scheduled for August 2010, so see these guys touring in the near future. 8/10 Everything EvertythingPhoto courtesy of nme.com These New Puritans These New Puritans have always been ambitious – songwriter Jack Barnett reportedly learnt music notation in order to write the parts for the 3-part brass/woodwind ensemble heard on 2010 album Hidden (Angular/Domino, 2010). Multi-textured, ambiguously structured songs, cryptic lyrics and drums pounding louder than a 1000-strong Roman Army. And Glastonbury was to be no different. These New PuritansPhoto courtesy of nme.com The aforementioned brass ensemble joined them on stage to play a reworking of Hidden”™s closer 5, before launching into the pounding We Want War. The pace from there never abated, a constant drum-cacophony pushing the band through a set containing songs mainly from Hidden, apart from penultimate track Infinity. Rarely addressing the crowd, These New Puritans allow their music to confound the listener, presenting us with a backdrop of dense beats and leaving us to get on with the job of working it out for ourselves. In the seering weekend sun, though, we just don”™t have the energy. 6/10 Gang of Four Post-punk legends Gang Of Four were given a late afternoon slot following up-and-coming post-punk newboys The Drums. It was strange to see 56-year-old singer Jon King take to the stage following the sprightly boys of 20 minutes earlier, but they delivered an energetic, sneering set of their greatest hits. In particular, angry run-throughs of I Love a Man In Uniform and Damaged Goods were weekend highlights, eclipsed only by the appearance of a microwave oven on stage, and watching Jon King destroy it with a baseball bat in rhythm to the music. Fantastic. 8/10 Gang of FourPhoto courtesy of nme.com LCD Soundsystem Does James Murphy put any effort into being cool? Taking to the stage all in white, he addresses the crowd regarding the bands”™ mass-use of sunglasses: “Hi, it”™s very sunny, we”™ve not turned into LA arseholes, so sorry about this”¦not that I”™ve got anything against LA!” LCD SoundsystemPhoto courtesy of DrownedinSound.com Having to content with a deflated crowd following England”™s World Cup knock-out earlier in the day was not a problem, as classics Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, Tribulations and Yeah get the crowd jumping. With the sun setting on the final day of Glastonbury, high-energy disco-indie freakouts were just what the doctor ordered”¦ and if you were watching Orbital, who followed LCD on the Other Stage, the doctor is just what you got. The headliner on Sunday was Stevie Wonder, catch my review of his set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

AtmospherePhoto courtesy of gigwise.com

The final instalment of my Glastonbury coverage, I look at some of the acts from the Sunday of the Festival. We focus on Everything Everything, These New Puritans, Gang of Four and LCD Soundsystem.


Everything Everything

Manchester-based Everything Everything blend a heady mix of Foals, Battles and pop sensibility to create a mind-twistingly catchy set of songs. They drew a good crowd to the John Peel Stage early on in the day, and did not disappoint, with a short but impressive set of their best-known tunes to date. Their debut album Man Alive is scheduled for August 2010, so see these guys touring in the near future. 8/10

Everything EvertythingPhoto courtesy of nme.com

These New Puritans

These New Puritans have always been ambitious – songwriter Jack Barnett reportedly learnt music notation in order to write the parts for the 3-part brass/woodwind ensemble heard on 2010 album Hidden (Angular/Domino, 2010). Multi-textured, ambiguously structured songs, cryptic lyrics and drums pounding louder than a 1000-strong Roman Army. And Glastonbury was to be no different.

These New PuritansPhoto courtesy of nme.com

The aforementioned brass ensemble joined them on stage to play a reworking of Hidden”™s closer 5, before launching into the pounding We Want War. The pace from there never abated, a constant drum-cacophony pushing the band through a set containing songs mainly from Hidden, apart from penultimate track Infinity. Rarely addressing the crowd, These New Puritans allow their music to confound the listener, presenting us with a backdrop of dense beats and leaving us to get on with the job of working it out for ourselves. In the seering weekend sun, though, we just don”™t have the energy. 6/10

Gang of Four

Post-punk legends Gang Of Four were given a late afternoon slot following up-and-coming post-punk newboys The Drums. It was strange to see 56-year-old singer Jon King take to the stage following the sprightly boys of 20 minutes earlier, but they delivered an energetic, sneering set of their greatest hits. In particular, angry run-throughs of I Love a Man In Uniform and Damaged Goods were weekend highlights, eclipsed only by the appearance of a microwave oven on stage, and watching Jon King destroy it with a baseball bat in rhythm to the music. Fantastic. 8/10

Gang of FourPhoto courtesy of nme.com

LCD Soundsystem

Does James Murphy put any effort into being cool? Taking to the stage all in white, he addresses the crowd regarding the bands”™ mass-use of sunglasses: “Hi, it”™s very sunny, we”™ve not turned into LA arseholes, so sorry about this”¦not that I”™ve got anything against LA!”

LCD SoundsystemPhoto courtesy of DrownedinSound.com

Having to content with a deflated crowd following England”™s World Cup knock-out earlier in the day was not a problem, as classics Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, Tribulations and Yeah get the crowd jumping. With the sun setting on the final day of Glastonbury, high-energy disco-indie freakouts were just what the doctor ordered”¦ and if you were watching Orbital, who followed LCD on the Other Stage, the doctor is just what you got.

The headliner on Sunday was Stevie Wonder, catch my review of his set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

Categories
Reviews

FlorencePhoto courtesy of www.citypages.com Focussing now on the Saturday of this years Glastonbury Festival, I review DJ Parker, Nero, The National, Biffy Clyro, Foals and The xx. Parker DJ Parker was a tip from Spotisfaction contributor Craig Haynes. A DJ Yoda styled dubtronica DJ, who gained some recent exposure with Where”™s My Monkey, a humourous retake on TC”™s Where”™s My Money, he was too low down the bill to attract the crowd his upbeat set deserved. This was a little gem of a DJ set, and he should be looked out for in future. 7.5/10 Nero Nero played twice over the weekend, once in the saloon style bar known as the Pussy Parlour late on Thursday, and once in the Glade, early on Saturday. There was little to get excited about on Saturday – especially when old timer Adrian Sherwood, due on after them, crashed their final song during his set up. Thursday, though, found Nero at the top of their game. NeroPhoto courtesy of www.wma.com Dubstep is maturing. The initial burst of dubstep a few years ago – fronted by Benga, Skream and others – stagnated somewhat, as these pioneers offered somewhat surprisingly downtempo releases. It”™s taken a few years for their influence to build, but there are now a new crop of dubstep artists who, having found a way to add textural influences from euphoric trance and techno along side the dub, heavy bass, and supermassive glitch two-step beats, are now drawing crowds and delivering electrifying sets. This weekend, along with Rusko, Nero showed that they are at the absolute pinnacle of the new breed of dubstep. 9/10 The National When the year is out and the aficionados are making their Album Of The Year lists, The National”™s brilliant High Violet (4AD, 2010) will be finding itself on most of them. Following on from their triumphant Royal Albert Hall gig in May, they return to the UK for Glastonbury, a festival they headlined, on the John Peel Stage, 2 years previously. In the dark, enclosed spaces of their own gigs, their downbeat, crooning songs squeeze touching melancholy into all four corners of the space; this time, though, they were appearing on the large open space of The Other Stage in the bright early evening of Saturday. The NationalPhoto courtesy of DrownedinSound.com Due to a combination of poor sound quality and the less-than-intimate space with which they had to try and communicate their sound to a festival crowd, their set did not hit the ground running. Fortunately, there seemed enough genuine fans to keep the set going, and the natural professionalism of the band was put into practice only 4 songs in when lead singer Matt Berninger jumped off the stage, microphone in hand, and furrowed deep into the crowd as far as his mic lead would carry him – a trick usually kept for much later in their performances, which became obvious when he jumped into the crowd for a second time later on (a fact this reviewer missed, having to leave slightly early to make it for the Special Guests) -  but one that enlivened the audience enough that the strength of their fantastic songs could carry them to the end of the set. 7/10 Biffy Clyro Biffy Clyro were the not-so-secret special guests on The Park Stage on Saturday, and they had a lot to live up to following Thom Yorke”™s exceptional set the day before. The crowd had swelled to gargantuan proportions by the time their set was due to start, an army of Biffy fans turning up with customary “”˜mon the Biffy” flags. Biffy The Biffy indeed take to the Park stage in the late afternoon and jump into a thumping rendition of That Golden Rule, the start of a rousing set of Biffy Clyro”™s most successful tracks. In particular, the melancholy Many A Horror and easy sing-along The Captain, used to close disappointingly short set – the only mark on an otherwise flawless set – were met with rapturous ovation from the huge crowd. While not quite the surprise of yesterday, but an excellent set. 8/10 At the end of the set, frontman Simon Neil climbed on his speaker one final time, and I had flashes of him landing awkwardly and falling over. Turns out I was quite the prophetic. Foals Hot-footing it straight from Biffy Clyro, I needed to catch Foals. Foals on record are somewhat of an enigma, their live shows expounding energy and musicianship. But their first record Antidotes (Transgressive, 2008) was surprisingly downbeat. Firstly, they got a little ahead of themselves in hiring Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio to produce it, only to reject his copy and remix it themselves, complaining that he”™d made it sound like it was “recorded in the Grand Canyon” (have you HEARD TVOTR, boys?). They also decided to eschew popular pre-release tracks Hummer and Mathletics, and these two things combined left an album that lulled a suprising amount, by building up tension in slower songs that had a dearth of upbeat songs to release the tension. Live, though, Foals continued to triumph, delivering adrenaline-rush, 1000-mph funk-punk. Foals The new album, Total Life Forever (Transgressive, 2010), was a realisation of the growing maturity in the band. The songs are louder, deeper (take a bow, Mr Sitek), more balanced, more energetic. It”™s still definitely downtempo, but you sense, when you see Foals live, that they”™ve got their craft exactly right now – explore songs and dynamics on record, but see them live to truly understand the band. Here at Glastonbury, Foals were in full swing, performing the new album impressively, transmitting their energy through their music and into the crowd, tighter-than-tight renditions of their growing catalogue of tunes, and the standard ”˜climb on the rigging and then jump into the crowd”™, a thrilling end to a fantastic party. See this band live, at all costs. 9/10 The xx The xx build atmosphere from sparse arrangements. It was going to be interesting to see how they coped with the loss of guitarist/keyboardist Baria Qureshi, and whether they would replace her minimal arrangements, or attempt to work out arrangements as a 3 piece. They chose the later, almost totally ignoring the parts of their former band member. The xx >Unfortunately, the gig suffered from a number of avoidable issues. Following the electrifying Foals set was going to be a real change of pace for a band so high up the bill, and with only one 40 minute album behind them, they were always going to be padding their set out. Which didn”™t match up well when they, conversely, chose not to replace the arrangements missing following Qureshi”™s departure. This had the result of reducing their already downbeat songs into something so empty it was half asleep. There”™s no doubting the strength of some of their songs, and the crowd did their best to keep the momentum of the gig going, but ultimately the set merely was a sluggish run through of the album. Not until Florence Welch joined them on stage to do a live version of their cover of You”™ve Got The Love did the stage come alive; indeed, Welch”™s take on the stutter-cut vocals heard in the remix was the most impressive things heard that night. 5/10 The headliner on Saturday was Muse, catch my review of their set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

FlorencePhoto courtesy of www.citypages.com

Focussing now on the Saturday of this years Glastonbury Festival, I review DJ Parker, Nero, The National, Biffy Clyro, Foals and The xx.


Parker

DJ Parker was a tip from Spotisfaction contributor Craig Haynes. A DJ Yoda styled dubtronica DJ, who gained some recent exposure with Where”™s My Monkey, a humourous retake on TC”™s Where”™s My Money, he was too low down the bill to attract the crowd his upbeat set deserved. This was a little gem of a DJ set, and he should be looked out for in future. 7.5/10

Nero

Nero played twice over the weekend, once in the saloon style bar known as the Pussy Parlour late on Thursday, and once in the Glade, early on Saturday. There was little to get excited about on Saturday – especially when old timer Adrian Sherwood, due on after them, crashed their final song during his set up. Thursday, though, found Nero at the top of their game.

NeroPhoto courtesy of www.wma.com

Dubstep is maturing. The initial burst of dubstep a few years ago – fronted by Benga, Skream and others – stagnated somewhat, as these pioneers offered somewhat surprisingly downtempo releases. It”™s taken a few years for their influence to build, but there are now a new crop of dubstep artists who, having found a way to add textural influences from euphoric trance and techno along side the dub, heavy bass, and supermassive glitch two-step beats, are now drawing crowds and delivering electrifying sets. This weekend, along with Rusko, Nero showed that they are at the absolute pinnacle of the new breed of dubstep. 9/10

The National

When the year is out and the aficionados are making their Album Of The Year lists, The National”™s brilliant High Violet (4AD, 2010) will be finding itself on most of them. Following on from their triumphant Royal Albert Hall gig in May, they return to the UK for Glastonbury, a festival they headlined, on the John Peel Stage, 2 years previously. In the dark, enclosed spaces of their own gigs, their downbeat, crooning songs squeeze touching melancholy into all four corners of the space; this time, though, they were appearing on the large open space of The Other Stage in the bright early evening of Saturday.

The NationalPhoto courtesy of DrownedinSound.com

Due to a combination of poor sound quality and the less-than-intimate space with which they had to try and communicate their sound to a festival crowd, their set did not hit the ground running. Fortunately, there seemed enough genuine fans to keep the set going, and the natural professionalism of the band was put into practice only 4 songs in when lead singer Matt Berninger jumped off the stage, microphone in hand, and furrowed deep into the crowd as far as his mic lead would carry him – a trick usually kept for much later in their performances, which became obvious when he jumped into the crowd for a second time later on (a fact this reviewer missed, having to leave slightly early to make it for the Special Guests) -  but one that enlivened the audience enough that the strength of their fantastic songs could carry them to the end of the set. 7/10

Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro were the not-so-secret special guests on The Park Stage on Saturday, and they had a lot to live up to following Thom Yorke”™s exceptional set the day before. The crowd had swelled to gargantuan proportions by the time their set was due to start, an army of Biffy fans turning up with customary “”˜mon the Biffy” flags.

Biffy
The Biffy indeed take to the Park stage in the late afternoon and jump into a thumping rendition of That Golden Rule, the start of a rousing set of Biffy Clyro”™s most successful tracks. In particular, the melancholy Many A Horror and easy sing-along The Captain, used to close disappointingly short set – the only mark on an otherwise flawless set – were met with rapturous ovation from the huge crowd. While not quite the surprise of yesterday, but an excellent set. 8/10

At the end of the set, frontman Simon Neil climbed on his speaker one final time, and I had flashes of him landing awkwardly and falling over. Turns out I was quite the prophetic.

Foals

Hot-footing it straight from Biffy Clyro, I needed to catch Foals. Foals on record are somewhat of an enigma, their live shows expounding energy and musicianship. But their first record Antidotes (Transgressive, 2008) was surprisingly downbeat. Firstly, they got a little ahead of themselves in hiring Dave Sitek of TV On The Radio to produce it, only to reject his copy and remix it themselves, complaining that he”™d made it sound like it was “recorded in the Grand Canyon” (have you HEARD TVOTR, boys?). They also decided to eschew popular pre-release tracks Hummer and Mathletics, and these two things combined left an album that lulled a suprising amount, by building up tension in slower songs that had a dearth of upbeat songs to release the tension. Live, though, Foals continued to triumph, delivering adrenaline-rush, 1000-mph funk-punk.

Foals
The new album, Total Life Forever (Transgressive, 2010), was a realisation of the growing maturity in the band. The songs are louder, deeper (take a bow, Mr Sitek), more balanced, more energetic. It”™s still definitely downtempo, but you sense, when you see Foals live, that they”™ve got their craft exactly right now – explore songs and dynamics on record, but see them live to truly understand the band. Here at Glastonbury, Foals were in full swing, performing the new album impressively, transmitting their energy through their music and into the crowd, tighter-than-tight renditions of their growing catalogue of tunes, and the standard ”˜climb on the rigging and then jump into the crowd”™, a thrilling end to a fantastic party. See this band live, at all costs. 9/10

The xx

The xx build atmosphere from sparse arrangements. It was going to be interesting to see how they coped with the loss of guitarist/keyboardist Baria Qureshi, and whether they would replace her minimal arrangements, or attempt to work out arrangements as a 3 piece. They chose the later, almost totally ignoring the parts of their former band member.

The xx

>Unfortunately, the gig suffered from a number of avoidable issues. Following the electrifying Foals set was going to be a real change of pace for a band so high up the bill, and with only one 40 minute album behind them, they were always going to be padding their set out. Which didn”™t match up well when they, conversely, chose not to replace the arrangements missing following Qureshi”™s departure. This had the result of reducing their already downbeat songs into something so empty it was half asleep. There”™s no doubting the strength of some of their songs, and the crowd did their best to keep the momentum of the gig going, but ultimately the set merely was a sluggish run through of the album. Not until Florence Welch joined them on stage to do a live version of their cover of You”™ve Got The Love did the stage come alive; indeed, Welch”™s take on the stutter-cut vocals heard in the remix was the most impressive things heard that night. 5/10

The headliner on Saturday was Muse, catch my review of their set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

Categories
Reviews

Photo courtesy of DrownedinSound.com For the second part of my Glastonbury review, I”™m focussing on day 2; the acts dotted around the festival on the Friday. This section features live reviews of Miike Snow, Mariachi El Bronx, Bonobo, Rusko and the amazing Thom Yorke. Miike Snow Miike Snow were not expecting success, but the exposure brought to them through remix-friendly material reworked by hype artists like Mark Ronson, Tiga and Fake Blood, a feature on massive American teen drama Gossip Girl and a bunch of simply great tracks, the success isn”™t a surprise. And this success was in evidence here at Glastonbury. Low down the bill, one of the first acts to play on the John Peel Stage at this years festival, you could be forgiven for thinking they were one of the headliners, such was the size of crowd they attracted. Photo courtesy of DrownedinSound.com The eponymous debut album is a fantastic listen, and tracks like Silvia and Burial all translate to Miike Snow”™s live show with incomparable ease. Unfortunately, the slower tracks, particularly Sans Soleil, which was chosen as the penultimate track to set closer Animal, served only to cede all the energy and momentum built up through the set. Animal was still a fantastic set closer, but you couldn”™t help but wonder how euphoric the set may have been had they not sent things into a lull only a few seconds before. 7/10 Mariachi El Bronx LA hardcore punk band The Bronx released three eponymous albums before taking on the pseudonym Mariachi El Bronx and quite literally writing a fully-embraced Mariachi record. On a blistering Friday afternoon they walk on in full black Mariachi attire (and LA sun-glasses, but directly facing the sun, we can let them off that as being function-before-style) and took us through a set that took us back to Mexico. Photo courtesy of Rock Sound Through their performance, they showed that they”™re enjoying their music, that the record is truly honest, and that their style of mariachi has been perfectly realised. It was truly odd to introduce that a song is about sexual perverts, only for it to break into bouncy, happy-go-lucky 3/4 waltz, but this helped to take the entire affair with the pinch of salt it deserved. Thoroughly recommended. 8/10 Bonobo Simon Green, otherwise known as Bonobo, has been an underground pioneer of chilled out beat electro for over a decade. Current album Black Sands (Ninja Tune, 2010) is a blissed out mix of trip-hop, soul and electro, but with textures so fleshed and layered that to label it ”˜chill out”™ does the musicianship a disservice. This was emphatically highlighted by the full band setup that took to the West Holts (previously Jazz World) stage on a still-glorious Friday afternoon. Vocalist Andreya Triana is a fantastic front for the band, her voice, pitched somewhere between Lauren Hill and Beth Gibbons, brings focus to an eclectic line-up – live drummer, bassist (Simon Green himself), acoustic guitarist, three-piece brass section and scratch DJ – and together they bring Bonobo”™s records to life in vibrant, stirring fashion. 8.5/10 Rusko Rusko is unashamedly a party DJ. Big basslines, big beats, and the most energetic DJ performance you will ever see. Though recent album OMG has a lot of garage influence and pop sensibilities, he chose here, backed by the Bezz-dancing of Skream, to drop a heavy, rave noisy dubstep set, and it took off. Perhaps the most hyped crowd seen all weekend, Glastonbury rocked as Rusko skreamed. 8.5/10 Thom Yorke / Johnny Greenwood Rumours abounded that Radiohead were to be the special guests on The Park Stage. Arriving at the stage suitable early, I was surprised to find the place less than full but as the time approached, the crowd unsurprisingly swelled. The sound technicians did their best not to give anything away, but even in the half-second of electronic samples we were given, it became increasingly obvious that, at the very least, we were about to get a set from The Eraser. Photo courtesy of Rock Sound We were not disappointed, as on stepped Thom Yorke, who treated us to a solo performance of some of the memorable moments of his solo work. A few song in, Johnny Greenwood took to the stage and between them worked on a medley of Radiohead and Eraser classics. Awe-inspiring moments included a guitar duet of Weird Fishes, a spine-tingling rendition of Pyramid Song, and the highlight of the festival: Karma Police. Incredible. 10/10 The headliner on Friday was Gorillaz, catch my review of their set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

Photo courtesy of DrownedinSound.com

For the second part of my Glastonbury review, I”™m focussing on day 2; the acts dotted around the festival on the Friday. This section features live reviews of Miike Snow, Mariachi El Bronx, Bonobo, Rusko and the amazing Thom Yorke.

Miike Snow

Miike Snow were not expecting success, but the exposure brought to them through remix-friendly material reworked by hype artists like Mark Ronson, Tiga and Fake Blood, a feature on massive American teen drama Gossip Girl and a bunch of simply great tracks, the success isn”™t a surprise. And this success was in evidence here at Glastonbury. Low down the bill, one of the first acts to play on the John Peel Stage at this years festival, you could be forgiven for thinking they were one of the headliners, such was the size of crowd they attracted.

Photo courtesy of DrownedinSound.com

The eponymous debut album is a fantastic listen, and tracks like Silvia and Burial all translate to Miike Snow”™s live show with incomparable ease. Unfortunately, the slower tracks, particularly Sans Soleil, which was chosen as the penultimate track to set closer Animal, served only to cede all the energy and momentum built up through the set. Animal was still a fantastic set closer, but you couldn”™t help but wonder how euphoric the set may have been had they not sent things into a lull only a few seconds before. 7/10

Mariachi El Bronx

LA hardcore punk band The Bronx released three eponymous albums before taking on the pseudonym Mariachi El Bronx and quite literally writing a fully-embraced Mariachi record. On a blistering Friday afternoon they walk on in full black Mariachi attire (and LA sun-glasses, but directly facing the sun, we can let them off that as being function-before-style) and took us through a set that took us back to Mexico.

Photo courtesy of Rock Sound

Through their performance, they showed that they”™re enjoying their music, that the record is truly honest, and that their style of mariachi has been perfectly realised. It was truly odd to introduce that a song is about sexual perverts, only for it to break into bouncy, happy-go-lucky 3/4 waltz, but this helped to take the entire affair with the pinch of salt it deserved. Thoroughly recommended. 8/10

Bonobo

Simon Green, otherwise known as Bonobo, has been an underground pioneer of chilled out beat electro for over a decade. Current album Black Sands (Ninja Tune, 2010) is a blissed out mix of trip-hop, soul and electro, but with textures so fleshed and layered that to label it ”˜chill out”™ does the musicianship a disservice. This was emphatically highlighted by the full band setup that took to the West Holts (previously Jazz World) stage on a still-glorious Friday afternoon. Vocalist Andreya Triana is a fantastic front for the band, her voice, pitched somewhere between Lauren Hill and Beth Gibbons, brings focus to an eclectic line-up – live drummer, bassist (Simon Green himself), acoustic guitarist, three-piece brass section and scratch DJ – and together they bring Bonobo”™s records to life in vibrant, stirring fashion. 8.5/10

Rusko

Rusko is unashamedly a party DJ. Big basslines, big beats, and the most energetic DJ performance you will ever see. Though recent album OMG has a lot of garage influence and pop sensibilities, he chose here, backed by the Bezz-dancing of Skream, to drop a heavy, rave noisy dubstep set, and it took off. Perhaps the most hyped crowd seen all weekend, Glastonbury rocked as Rusko skreamed. 8.5/10

Thom Yorke / Johnny Greenwood

Rumours abounded that Radiohead were to be the special guests on The Park Stage. Arriving at the stage suitable early, I was surprised to find the place less than full but as the time approached, the crowd unsurprisingly swelled. The sound technicians did their best not to give anything away, but even in the half-second of electronic samples we were given, it became increasingly obvious that, at the very least, we were about to get a set from The Eraser.

Photo courtesy of Rock Sound

We were not disappointed, as on stepped Thom Yorke, who treated us to a solo performance of some of the memorable moments of his solo work. A few song in, Johnny Greenwood took to the stage and between them worked on a medley of Radiohead and Eraser classics. Awe-inspiring moments included a guitar duet of Weird Fishes, a spine-tingling rendition of Pyramid Song, and the highlight of the festival: Karma Police. Incredible. 10/10

The headliner on Friday was Gorillaz, catch my review of their set, along with the other headliners and a Glasto review overall, here.

Categories
Reviews

Photo courtesy of Gigwise.com Glastonbury 2010 saw the celebration of 40 years of the seminal festival, and following the highly successful 2009 festival – which in some quarters had been the best to date following a number of slower years – this year had a lot to live up to. I arrived on site extremely early – the Saturday before, to be precise – to be a part of the festival as a volunteer steward with Oxfam. The site was bustling with event staff, other stewards, riggers, sound men, traders, all getting ready for the big event when the doors opened on Wednesday morning. The fields, though, were eerily empty. The weather forecast got better by the day, and indeed between Saturday and Wednesday the skies remained clear and baked us with blistering sunshine. Our hopes were that it would remain this way a few days longer. And it did. Glastonbury”™s 40th anniversary was a dry, hot, dusty, sun-kissed party; a bustling, noisy myriad of culture, creativity, colour, vibrancy. Shangri-La, accompanied by Kode 9, The Uncommon Ground and Arcadia, are areas of their own distinct culture. Glastonbury is not just about the Pyramid Stage acts, and it would be almost as true, when you experience these pockets of creativity and become acclimatized to the patchwork nature of the festival, to say that Glastonbury is not necessarily about music at all. This is why Jay-Z was not the surprise inclusion 2 years ago billed by some and why Snoop Dogg was accepted this year without the hysterical backlash that accompanied the Jay-Z announcement. This year, Gorillaz were a late replacement for a crocked U2 on the Friday night. Given the unabated success of Blur last year, Damon Albarn was no doubt brimming with confidence that a no-holds barred Gorillaz set, with a band made up of half of The Clash and an infinite number of possible cameo appearances at his finger tips, would give Glastonbury an opening night to remember. Photo courtesy of Dancenova.com To Albarn”™s, and admittedly my own, surprise and dismay, the set did not translate to the crowd. A host of weaker album tracks from the more commercially successful Demon Days (Parlophone, 2005) and Plastic Beach (Parlophone, 2010) were chosen over the stronger tracks from the eponymous debut album. Only Clint Eastwood made the cut, with the lively 19-2000, the anthemic Sound Check [Gravity] and fantastic Tomorrow Comes Today missing, while less-than-upbeat tracks like To Binge and Superfast Jellyfish from Plastic Beach were on show and trespassing on set closer/encore territory. Indeed, Albarn”™s attempt to get the crowd to sing along to set-closer Pirate Jet – “It”™s all good news now / Because we left the taps / Running / For a hundred years / So drink into the drink / A plastic cup of drink / Drink with the purple / the people / the plastic eating people / still connected to the moment it began” – fell on its face, much to Albarn”™s exasperation, despite the well-intended consciousness-raising sentiment – due to its verbose and distinctly anti-anthemic nature. Photo courtesy of The Guardian/Yui Mok/AP Muse, on the other hand, could not have proven a greater antithesis to the night before. Muse fell out of favour with this reviewer a long time ago; their music becoming ever-shamelessly bombastic, and self-awareness dropping to zero in favour of louder-than-loud riff derivatives and vaguer-than-vague political incitement. But there”™s no doubting that at whatever level you want to take Muse – the pinnacle of 21st century rock, uber space-opera gods or shameless glam-rock indulgence – it doesn”™t fail to entertain. And when The Edge joined them on stage for a cover of Where The Streets Have No Name, the highlight of Glastonbury 2010 was secured. Photo courtesy of Gigwise.com By far the largest crowd-draw of them all was Stevie Wonder”™s Sunday night headline set, and the funk legend showed the young upstarts of the two nights before just why he can still draw a crowd of 100,000 people after nearly half a century in the business. The set was full of classics, without having to rely on guest appearances or stage-bombast to generate emotions in the audience. He made reference to Michael Jackson to great cheer, uttered an indulgence-free anti-war sentiment in two sentences – “I believe God is about the perpetuation of life, not the destroying of it; If could see, I could really kick some ass!” – and closed the 40th anniversary by serenading the audience and Michael Eavis with a rendition of his own Happy Birthday To You. Wonderous.

Photo courtesy of Gigwise.com

Glastonbury 2010 saw the celebration of 40 years of the seminal festival, and following the highly successful 2009 festival – which in some quarters had been the best to date following a number of slower years – this year had a lot to live up to.

I arrived on site extremely early – the Saturday before, to be precise – to be a part of the festival as a volunteer steward with Oxfam. The site was bustling with event staff, other stewards, riggers, sound men, traders, all getting ready for the big event when the doors opened on Wednesday morning. The fields, though, were eerily empty.

The weather forecast got better by the day, and indeed between Saturday and Wednesday the skies remained clear and baked us with blistering sunshine. Our hopes were that it would remain this way a few days longer. And it did. Glastonbury”™s 40th anniversary was a dry, hot, dusty, sun-kissed party; a bustling, noisy myriad of culture, creativity, colour, vibrancy.

Shangri-La, accompanied by Kode 9, The Uncommon Ground and Arcadia, are areas of their own distinct culture. Glastonbury is not just about the Pyramid Stage acts, and it would be almost as true, when you experience these pockets of creativity and become acclimatized to the patchwork nature of the festival, to say that Glastonbury is not necessarily about music at all. This is why Jay-Z was not the surprise inclusion 2 years ago billed by some and why Snoop Dogg was accepted this year without the hysterical backlash that accompanied the Jay-Z announcement.

This year, Gorillaz were a late replacement for a crocked U2 on the Friday night. Given the unabated success of Blur last year, Damon Albarn was no doubt brimming with confidence that a no-holds barred Gorillaz set, with a band made up of half of The Clash and an infinite number of possible cameo appearances at his finger tips, would give Glastonbury an opening night to remember.

Photo courtesy of Dancenova.com

To Albarn”™s, and admittedly my own, surprise and dismay, the set did not translate to the crowd. A host of weaker album tracks from the more commercially successful Demon Days (Parlophone, 2005) and Plastic Beach (Parlophone, 2010) were chosen over the stronger tracks from the eponymous debut album. Only Clint Eastwood made the cut, with the lively 19-2000, the anthemic Sound Check [Gravity] and fantastic Tomorrow Comes Today missing, while less-than-upbeat tracks like To Binge and Superfast Jellyfish from Plastic Beach were on show and trespassing on set closer/encore territory. Indeed, Albarn”™s attempt to get the crowd to sing along to set-closer Pirate Jet – “It”™s all good news now / Because we left the taps / Running / For a hundred years / So drink into the drink / A plastic cup of drink / Drink with the purple / the people / the plastic eating people / still connected to the moment it began” – fell on its face, much to Albarn”™s exasperation, despite the well-intended consciousness-raising sentiment – due to its verbose and distinctly anti-anthemic nature.

Photo courtesy of The Guardian/Yui Mok/AP

Muse, on the other hand, could not have proven a greater antithesis to the night before. Muse fell out of favour with this reviewer a long time ago; their music becoming ever-shamelessly bombastic, and self-awareness dropping to zero in favour of louder-than-loud riff derivatives and vaguer-than-vague political incitement. But there”™s no doubting that at whatever level you want to take Muse – the pinnacle of 21st century rock, uber space-opera gods or shameless glam-rock indulgence – it doesn”™t fail to entertain. And when The Edge joined them on stage for a cover of Where The Streets Have No Name, the highlight of Glastonbury 2010 was secured.

Photo courtesy of Gigwise.com

By far the largest crowd-draw of them all was Stevie Wonder”™s Sunday night headline set, and the funk legend showed the young upstarts of the two nights before just why he can still draw a crowd of 100,000 people after nearly half a century in the business. The set was full of classics, without having to rely on guest appearances or stage-bombast to generate emotions in the audience. He made reference to Michael Jackson to great cheer, uttered an indulgence-free anti-war sentiment in two sentences – “I believe God is about the perpetuation of life, not the destroying of it; If could see, I could really kick some ass!” – and closed the 40th anniversary by serenading the audience and Michael Eavis with a rendition of his own Happy Birthday To You. Wonderous.

Categories
Reviews

Morning, guys. As you know, we went to see Broken Social Scene (one of our favourite bands) on Saturday night with our competition winner, Rhys Howell. Rhys has written a review of the gig for us, which you can read after the break. We”™ve embedded a live vid of “The Sweetest Kill” for those that couldn”™t make it (shame on you!). Love, Spotisfaction Crew Rhys says: On discovering I”™d won Compisfaction I thought wouldn”™t it be great to write up a review of the Broken Social Scene gig I”™d just won a ticket for. I then had another brainwave. Why not do it in the form of Haiku? So I have. Part 1. The competition and pre-gig. Late night I enter, “Mr Blue Sky” is the song. Will I win or not? Discover a text; Hypothetical, it is: If win can I go? Affirmative “Yes!”, I reply to the message. Still not offical. Check on the website – Amazingly, I have won! Ready to drive South. Ignorant of band, Wikipedia”™s my friend. Spotify, also. Listen to album, “Forgiveness Rock Record”, huh? Then go to the Gym. At work ”˜haikuing”™. Football on soon, I”™m stuck here. Few days to learn tunes. Must borrow CD – Checked out to another”¦ Damn you, library! Could listen tonight, But have to go to dance class. Damn you, busy life. Made it to the day”¦ Still no expert on the ”˜Scene. Wish I had more time. Car drive the last chance to listen to their CDs. Now I know some songs! Part 2. The warm-up act. New to the O2 – floor not as sticky as told. Booze costs so much. :( Here come Sky Larkin; Thought it was one guy alone, but lady led band. Like it, but not new. Ace performance, but music sounds stock. I”™ll explain: Well made, well done tunes, in a style heard before. And many times, too. Do not write off Sky – Good band, good sound, good all round; just been done before. Part 3. BSS! Onto the main gig. Broken Social Scene are on! Setlist a surprise. Here are the highlights as I recall them. Order could be off a bit: “World Sick” to begin – love the twiddly guitar bit! du du de du duh”¦ “Texico Bitches”: BP mooted for title”¦ Crowd look unsure. Next song has rude word! “Ungrateful Little Father” – personal fave track. “Seven Slash Four (Shoreline)””¦ Should be punctuation there, but couldn”™t fit it. Next, a new singer. Young lady singer steps up; “All to All” the song. Last song dead catchy. Moves at a pace with great horns. The title, forgot. :( Check with Dave and Thom: It”™s “Meet Me in the Basement”. Ta, David Vader :) A wonderful gig. I will follow these guys more! Five out of five stars. Epilogue. Just click on this link to hear a brief gig playlist. I hope you enjoyed! Rhys.

Morning, guys.

As you know, we went to see Broken Social Scene (one of our favourite bands) on Saturday night with our competition winner, Rhys Howell. Rhys has written a review of the gig for us, which you can read after the break.

We”™ve embedded a live vid of “The Sweetest Kill” for those that couldn”™t make it (shame on you!).

Love,
Spotisfaction Crew

Rhys says:

On discovering I”™d won Compisfaction I thought wouldn”™t it be great to write up a review of the Broken Social Scene gig I”™d just won a ticket for. I then had another brainwave. Why not do it in the form of Haiku? So I have.
Part 1. The competition and pre-gig.

Late night I enter,
“Mr Blue Sky” is the song.
Will I win or not?

Discover a text;
Hypothetical, it is:
If win can I go?

Affirmative “Yes!”,
I reply to the message.
Still not offical.

Check on the website –
Amazingly, I have won!
Ready to drive South.

Ignorant of band,
Wikipedia”™s my friend.
Spotify, also.

Listen to album,
“Forgiveness Rock Record”, huh?
Then go to the Gym.

At work ”˜haikuing”™.
Football on soon, I”™m stuck here.
Few days to learn tunes.

Must borrow CD –
Checked out to another”¦
Damn you, library!

Could listen tonight,
But have to go to dance class.
Damn you, busy life.

Made it to the day”¦
Still no expert on the ”˜Scene.
Wish I had more time.

Car drive the last chance
to listen to their CDs.
Now I know some songs!

Part 2. The warm-up act.

New to the O2 –
floor not as sticky as told.
Booze costs so much. :(

Here come Sky Larkin;
Thought it was one guy alone,
but lady led band.

Like it, but not new.
Ace performance, but music
sounds stock. I”™ll explain:

Well made, well done tunes,
in a style heard before.
And many times, too.

Do not write off Sky –
Good band, good sound, good all round;
just been done before.

Part 3. BSS!

Onto the main gig.
Broken Social Scene are on!
Setlist a surprise.

Here are the highlights
as I recall them. Order
could be off a bit:

“World Sick” to begin –
love the twiddly guitar bit!
du du de du duh”¦

“Texico Bitches”:
BP mooted for title”¦
Crowd look unsure.

Next song has rude word!
“Ungrateful Little Father” –
personal fave track.

“Seven Slash Four (Shoreline)””¦
Should be punctuation there,
but couldn”™t fit it.

Next, a new singer.
Young lady singer steps up;
“All to All” the song.

Last song dead catchy.
Moves at a pace with great horns.
The title, forgot. :(

Check with Dave and Thom:
It”™s “Meet Me in the Basement”.
Ta, David Vader :)

A wonderful gig.
I will follow these guys more!
Five out of five stars.

Epilogue.

Just click on this link
to hear a brief gig playlist.
I hope you enjoyed!

Rhys.

Categories
Features Reviews

Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here. To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “You Forgot It In People” is on Spotify. Following a brief hiatus in the first half of the decade, the Canadian musician ensemble, Broken Social Scene released their second album, “You Forgot It In People”; an album that was sure to carry more weight to it due to the further addition of artists to the already heavily populated group. With the surplus members and ideas, the band, namely core founders Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew, expanded their sound and embraced new moods still allowing the listener to escape real life, but this time without the dreaming. “You Forgot It In People” offers a more accessable selection of ”˜indie-rock”™ gems then previous album “Feel Good Lost”, in the sense that the intimate ambiance has been replaced with vocals and stronger melodic hooks. The band have not however abandoned their initial dream state sound completely. Essences of ethereal lifts and heavy orchestral tones are still present throughout, but are now supported by poetic lyrics, attempting to make sense of the real life one had left behind. A track that perhaps breaks this rule, ”˜Cause = Time”™, strikes hard at the album”™s heart and tells of the how society resorts to sex and selling its body, in an attempt to find meaning in life. ”And they all want to love the cause, ”˜cause they all need to be the cause, they all want to fuck the cause”. Yet, such a dark message is still accompanied by melodic guitars and a pulsing tempo, making it almost anthemic and full of emotion. Another significant track here is ”˜Looks Just Like The Sun”™; a chilled and relaxed refrain that doesn”™t just look, but also feels like the sun, as the lyrics describe someone whose presence radiates on the listener. Both tracks giving justified backing to the album”™s title, suggesting that such individual florishes, and human error, has been taken for granted in society as a whole. As with their debut, the band take the listener on an exploration through a series of ideas and visions, and peaks and troughs, but overall have managed to create a fine fusion of dark imagery with their trademark escapist tone, culminating in a very strong follow up album. At the time, this quality was recognised as the band recieved awards and accolades from right across the board; a just victory deserved for a group with such a unique vision and sound. From here, it is possible for Broken Social Scene to go anywhere, having both existed in beautiful dreams, and now harsh, yet lucid realities. Ben Hawling

Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here.
To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “You Forgot It In People” is on Spotify.

Following a brief hiatus in the first half of the decade, the Canadian musician ensemble, Broken Social Scene released their second album, “You Forgot It In People”; an album that was sure to carry more weight to it due to the further addition of artists to the already heavily populated group.

With the surplus members and ideas, the band, namely core founders Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew, expanded their sound and embraced new moods still allowing the listener to escape real life, but this time without the dreaming.

“You Forgot It In People” offers a more accessable selection of ”˜indie-rock”™ gems then previous album “Feel Good Lost”, in the sense that the intimate ambiance has been replaced with vocals and stronger melodic hooks. The band have not however abandoned their initial dream state sound completely. Essences of ethereal lifts and heavy orchestral tones are still present throughout, but are now supported by poetic lyrics, attempting to make sense of the real life one had left behind.

A track that perhaps breaks this rule, ”˜Cause = Time”™, strikes hard at the album”™s heart and tells of the how society resorts to sex and selling its body, in an attempt to find meaning in life. ”And they all want to love the cause, ”˜cause they all need to be the cause, they all want to fuck the cause”. Yet, such a dark message is still accompanied by melodic guitars and a pulsing tempo, making it almost anthemic and full of emotion. Another significant track here is ”˜Looks Just Like The Sun”™; a chilled and relaxed refrain that doesn”™t just look, but also feels like the sun, as the lyrics describe someone whose presence radiates on the listener. Both tracks giving justified backing to the album”™s title, suggesting that such individual florishes, and human error, has been taken for granted in society as a whole.

As with their debut, the band take the listener on an exploration through a series of ideas and visions, and peaks and troughs, but overall have managed to create a fine fusion of dark imagery with their trademark escapist tone, culminating in a very strong follow up album. At the time, this quality was recognised as the band recieved awards and accolades from right across the board; a just victory deserved for a group with such a unique vision and sound. From here, it is possible for Broken Social Scene to go anywhere, having both existed in beautiful dreams, and now harsh, yet lucid realities.

Ben Hawling

Categories
Features Reviews

Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here. To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “Feel Good Lost” is on Spotify. The year 2000; the start of the new millennium, but more importantly the birth of new ideas, perspectives and emotions. Around the same time as the world welcomed in this new decade, a fresh sound was growing from the suburban basements, and urban meadows of America and Canada. A sound that projected pure poetry and delicate lyrical narratives, set to beautifully crafted instrumental dream states. Circa 2000, the pioneers of this ”˜post-rockesque”™ styling included bands such as Bright Eyes, The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie, all of which continue to evolve and develop this glorious sound 10 years on. But one group who appear to have nurtured the genre throughout the decade, and are still exploring it to this day, are Broken Social Scene. Formed in Canada in 1999, Broken Social Scene originally existed as a mix of collaborators, musicians and friends who blended an array of musical projects and ideas together. After two years of fine tuning, founding members Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew wrote the band”™s debut album “Feel Good Lost”; a myriad of moods and tones that truly paints a picture of the mass artist collective present and the new millennium perspective. “Feel Good Lost” is apt as a debut as it consists mostly of instrumental stylings, and in many ways acts as introduction to the band”™s avant-garde direction. The moods contained in the album rise and fall and a series of emotions, and dreams are explored in intimate detail. ”˜Alive In 85”™ capturing a rather more jovial mood setting with muffled yet busy tempo, and gently wafting guitar melodies. Whereas, ”˜Stomach Song”™ represents a more claustrophobic, enclosed atmosphere, with its murky orchestration and eerie collection of vocal clips looped over and over throughout. The collection of work here tends to float along sweetly, culminating in the heavy ”˜Last Place”™, that acts as the awakening from the troubled, yet peaceful dream of the album. As “Feel Good Lost” reaches it”™s optimistic closing track ”˜Cranley”™s Gonna Make It”™, one can”™t help but agree with the album”™s title; that it has felt good being lifted out of the harshness of real life, and left alone to wonder in this pure dream state. Admittedly, Broken Social Scene”™s debut isn”™t one of strength or power. But what it does hold is potential, promise and the odd sense of escapism that exists so beautifully in the music of all those visionary band”™s way back in 2000. The Year 2000: That start of the great escape! Ben Hawling


Not sure what this VFTA malarkey is all about? See here.
To listen along with Ben, BSS”™ “Feel Good Lost” is on Spotify.

The year 2000; the start of the new millennium, but more importantly the birth of new ideas, perspectives and emotions.

Around the same time as the world welcomed in this new decade, a fresh sound was growing from the suburban basements, and urban meadows of America and Canada. A sound that projected pure poetry and delicate lyrical narratives, set to beautifully crafted instrumental dream states. Circa 2000, the pioneers of this ”˜post-rockesque”™ styling included bands such as Bright Eyes, The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie, all of which continue to evolve and develop this glorious sound 10 years on. But one group who appear to have nurtured the genre throughout the decade, and are still exploring it to this day, are Broken Social Scene.

Formed in Canada in 1999, Broken Social Scene originally existed as a mix of collaborators, musicians and friends who blended an array of musical projects and ideas together. After two years of fine tuning, founding members Brendan Canning and Kevin Drew wrote the band”™s debut album “Feel Good Lost”; a myriad of moods and tones that truly paints a picture of the mass artist collective present and the new millennium perspective.

“Feel Good Lost” is apt as a debut as it consists mostly of instrumental stylings, and in many ways acts as introduction to the band”™s avant-garde direction. The moods contained in the album rise and fall and a series of emotions, and dreams are explored in intimate detail. ”˜Alive In 85”™ capturing a rather more jovial mood setting with muffled yet busy tempo, and gently wafting guitar melodies. Whereas, ”˜Stomach Song”™ represents a more claustrophobic, enclosed atmosphere, with its murky orchestration and eerie collection of vocal clips looped over and over throughout. The collection of work here tends to float along sweetly, culminating in the heavy ”˜Last Place”™, that acts as the awakening from the troubled, yet peaceful dream of the album.

As “Feel Good Lost” reaches it”™s optimistic closing track ”˜Cranley”™s Gonna Make It”™, one can”™t help but agree with the album”™s title; that it has felt good being lifted out of the harshness of real life, and left alone to wonder in this pure dream state. Admittedly, Broken Social Scene”™s debut isn”™t one of strength or power. But what it does hold is potential, promise and the odd sense of escapism that exists so beautifully in the music of all those visionary band”™s way back in 2000.

The Year 2000: That start of the great escape!

Ben Hawling

Categories
Reviews

Another @CheltenhamUnder review: RT: @AfterDarkMag: Decent Days And Nights – Review: http://bit.ly/9RLyaQ #fb
CheltenhamUnder

Another @CheltenhamUnder review: RT: @AfterDarkMag: Decent Days And Nights – Review: http://bit.ly/9RLyaQ #fb

CheltenhamUnder

Categories
Reviews

Link: REVIEW: Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days And Nights Weekend Day 2 – The David Goo Variety Band, Natalie Ross and Christian & Dominic A review of day 2 of Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights weekender

Link: REVIEW: Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days And Nights Weekend Day 2 – The David Goo Variety Band, Natalie Ross and Christian & Dominic

A review of day 2 of Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights weekender

Categories
Reviews

Link: Mukinabaht: REVIEW: Cheltenham Underground’s Decent Days And Nights Weekend Day 1 – A. F. Harrold, Byron Vincent & Elliot Mason A review of day 1 of Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights weekender

Link: Mukinabaht: REVIEW: Cheltenham Underground’s Decent Days And Nights Weekend Day 1 – A. F. Harrold, Byron Vincent & Elliot Mason

A review of day 1 of Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights weekender

Categories
Playlists Reviews

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6DeWihCi5UGYKJb8PWd2KV

We don”™t know about you good folk, but we got tired of looking at the headache of the previous theme. It was ripe with potential, but I figured we were far too lazy to do anything with it. So we decided to use this theme instead. It”™s called”¦ something”¦ We shelled out $9 for it. Anyway, today we are going to fire off a quick bit of news.

Firstly, Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights Weekend is done and dusted. It is now in the past. Was it fantastic? Well, yes, it was. We”™re rounding up a bunch of reviews of the weekend which will be posted here:

Day 1 – Elliot Mason; Byron Vincent & A. F. Harrold
Day 2 – The David Goo Variety Band; Natalie Ross and Christian & Dominic
Day 3 – All Day Music for Winston”™s Wish (Part 1) (Part 2)
Day 4 – My First Tooth; pollyloves and Alexander John

Also this weekend in Cheltenham was the 4th annual Fairview Convention at the Kemble Inn organised for County Air Ambulance by Loz Apperly and Gordy Partridge. Some fantastic bands played including John Madden & Tom Mitchell, Stressechos, Uncle Slacker and The Coronettes. Word on the street is that quite a fair bit of money was raised, well done guys.

The final piece of news is regarding Spotisfaction itself. Dave and I have been talking about what we”™re going to do with this. We”™ve got some ideas, I”™ve been in talks with a few people and we”™re leaning towards making this a musical blog. So let”™s get the ball rolling. If you fancy writing news, features or reviews for us fire an email to spotisfaction@googlemail.com with “Application” in the subject field and a quick piece (minimum 500 words) about your favourite album. We”™ll make it easy for now. I understand that some of you may have already been told that we”™ll run your articles – and we will – so for now get them sent in to the spotisfaction email address and we”™ll start getting them published on here.

Finally, a playlist for today. Entitled “Relaunch”, this is just a handful of tracks to encompass the coming changes of Spotisfaction. In the meantime, please continue to submit your playlists.

66 Spotisfaction Wednesday (2 Jun) – Relaunch

  1. Erlend Oye – The Black Keys Work (Acapella)
  2. Peter Bjorn & John – Young Folks
  3. Quasi – Bye Bye Blackbird
  4. Metric – Gold Guns Girls
  5. Blood Red Shoes – I Wish I Was Someone Better
  6. The Subways – Oh Yeah
  7. LCD Soundsystem – Drunk Girls
  8. Bloc Party – Helicopter
  9. The Walkmen – The Rat
  10. Wonderswan – Hey Nature
  11. Secret Shine – Sun Warmed Water
  12. Sad Day For Puppets – Set Alight
  13. Caribou – Kaili
  14. Phoenix – Lisztomania (Alex Metric Remix)
  15. James Holden – Triangle Folds
  16. Nathan Fake – You Are Here (Fortdax Remix)
  17. Oh No Ono – Internet Warrior (Depreciation Guild Remix)


Erlend Oye has recently become Thom”™s hero, so let”™s kick this off with a very special, almost sacred vocal only track. Peter Bjorn and John are here to remind us were are indeed, Young Folks. LCD Soundsystem inform us that Drunk Girls are watching Sean Ferguson do the Helicopter to Bloc Party. Ending this playlist is a bunch of tracks we stole from Thom”™s “Notisfaction” series because they”™re pretty awesome.

As always, you should be able to find the Spotisfaction archives on either Thom or Dave”™s Spotify profile.

We don”™t know about you good folk, but we got tired of looking at the headache of the previous theme. It was ripe with potential, but I figured we were far too lazy to do anything with it. So we decided to use this theme instead. It”™s called”¦ something”¦ We shelled out $9 for it. Anyway, today we are going to fire off a quick bit of news.

Firstly, Cheltenham Underground”™s Decent Days and Nights Weekend is done and dusted. It is now in the past. Was it fantastic? Well, yes, it was. We”™re rounding up a bunch of reviews of the weekend which will be posted here:

Day 1 – Elliot Mason; Byron Vincent & A. F. Harrold
Day 2 – The David Goo Variety Band; Natalie Ross and Christian & Dominic
Day 3 – All Day Music for Winston”™s Wish (Part 1) (Part 2)
Day 4 – My First Tooth; pollyloves and Alexander John

Also this weekend in Cheltenham was the 4th annual Fairview Convention at the Kemble Inn organised for County Air Ambulance by Loz Apperly and Gordy Partridge. Some fantastic bands played including John Madden & Tom Mitchell, Stressechos, Uncle Slacker and The Coronettes. Word on the street is that quite a fair bit of money was raised, well done guys.

The final piece of news is regarding Spotisfaction itself. Dave and I have been talking about what we”™re going to do with this. We”™ve got some ideas, I”™ve been in talks with a few people and we”™re leaning towards making this a musical blog. So let”™s get the ball rolling. If you fancy writing news, features or reviews for us fire an email to spotisfaction@googlemail.com with “Application” in the subject field and a quick piece (minimum 500 words) about your favourite album. We”™ll make it easy for now. I understand that some of you may have already been told that we”™ll run your articles – and we will – so for now get them sent in to the spotisfaction email address and we”™ll start getting them published on here.

Finally, a playlist for today. Entitled “Relaunch”, this is just a handful of tracks to encompass the coming changes of Spotisfaction. In the meantime, please continue to submit your playlists.

66 Spotisfaction Wednesday (2 Jun) – Relaunch

  1. Erlend Oye – The Black Keys Work (Acapella)
  2. Peter Bjorn & John – Young Folks
  3. Quasi – Bye Bye Blackbird
  4. Metric – Gold Guns Girls
  5. Blood Red Shoes – I Wish I Was Someone Better
  6. The Subways – Oh Yeah
  7. LCD Soundsystem – Drunk Girls
  8. Bloc Party – Helicopter
  9. The Walkmen – The Rat
  10. Wonderswan – Hey Nature
  11. Secret Shine – Sun Warmed Water
  12. Sad Day For Puppets – Set Alight
  13. Caribou – Kaili
  14. Phoenix – Lisztomania (Alex Metric Remix)
  15. James Holden – Triangle Folds
  16. Nathan Fake – You Are Here (Fortdax Remix)
  17. Oh No Ono – Internet Warrior (Depreciation Guild Remix)


Erlend Oye has recently become Thom”™s hero, so let”™s kick this off with a very special, almost sacred vocal only track. Peter Bjorn and John are here to remind us were are indeed, Young Folks. LCD Soundsystem inform us that Drunk Girls are watching Sean Ferguson do the Helicopter to Bloc Party. Ending this playlist is a bunch of tracks we stole from Thom”™s “Notisfaction” series because they”™re pretty awesome.

As always, you should be able to find the Spotisfaction archives on either Thom or Dave”™s Spotify profile.