Tuesday tune: XX Gonna Give It To Ya (The XX vs DMX) as remixed by The Hood Internet. [download MP3]
From the same guys who brought you the biggest mashup of 2009… The Hood consistently knocks ‘em dead. I say consistently, actually they’re so prolific that 90% of their work I can take or leave, but when they get it right? They get it right.
Ah fuck, this too:
T(h)u(r)esday tune: The Fall Of Mr Fifths by Why? [download mp3]
Listening to these guys a whole lot at the moment.
From the album Alopecia. Listen on Spotify / find on iTunes.
The Second Hand Marching Band - Dawn Raid (download MP3)
Or maybe not the whole Second Hand Marching Band, but Pete, Benni, and my friend Sophie.
Autumn’s here. We’ve had to figure out how to turn on the heating in the new house. This Sunday the nights abandon their incremental encroach upon the day, and instead launch a major offensive to seize everything north of 5pm. For consolation, then, we turn to pub roasts, fireworks displays, and acoustic indie from Scotland. Call it hyggecore.
Single Ladies by Pomplamoose (orig. Beyonce) [download MP3]
Of course it’s better enjoyed in charming video format:
Here’s an analysis that explains the inherent weirdness of the song - a weirdness even more noticable in this cover version. The short version is that a lot of the singing is in E major but a lot of the music is in E minor, known as “polytonality… a technique normally reserved for highly esoteric jazz.”
More important, though, is that the woman from Pamplamoose looks a bit familiar. Don’t you think? I have given it some thought…
…maybe she looks a bit like Michael Cera, circa ‘Bleeker’ in Juno? Or, he looks a bit like her? With no offence intended to either party, of course - in fact, Cera gets to bask in Ms P’moose’s reflected hotness.
DJ Dangermouse, The Beatles, Jay-Z and Pharell - Change Clothes (Grey Album) (download MP3)
Ah, this was good, wasn’t it? Still is, in fact. I need the space to say whatever I like…
Gang Of Four - Natural’s Not In It (download MP3)
As reported by David:
Jon King. Gang of Four frontman and… Managing Director, Story Worldwide
“Before this Jon was Business Head, Europe, for ScreenRed, a retail communications company specialising in the delivery of rich media content across IP networks for major corporates. His primary client was Sainsbury’s, for which he led the development and delivery of a groundbreaking customer facing screen based marketing programme which produced significant sales uplift.”
I don’t actually begrudge King for the work he’s been doing - some of it does sound pretty beneficial to society. But I do find it incredible that the same man who sang with such passion about consumer culture in Entertainment! and Solid Gold could be developing marketing programmes for Sainsbury’s. I almost want to cry.
It’s especially strange to think he is right now touring the country and singing those same old vitriolic songs.
Another day, another dollar, eh Jon?
Funny old world. Gotta make a living though, eh?
The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
Ideal love a new purchase
A market of the senses
Dream of the perfect life
Economic circumstances
The body is good business
Sell out, maintain the interest
Remember Lot’s wife
Renounce all sin and vice
Dream of the perfect life
This heaven gives me migraine
The problem of leisure
What to do for pleasure
The Brakes - Heard About Your Band (download mp3)
Another song from the olden days, because I haven’t been getting into any new music recently. The message is timeless at least, which is to say: stop being a self-aggrandising asshole. This is obviously much easier said than done, especially with the advent of Twitter, which Josie Long accurately characterised as “brilliant -it lets you show off for NO REASON.”
Additionally, forgive the hypocrisy next time I try and discreetly hint at how cool I want you to think I am.
Oh and if you like analysing the intersection (complete overlap?) of social media and showing off, you’ll like Asserting Your Social Status With Your Facebook Status at NY Mag. Excerpt:
Your life is worthy of envy, but it is not perfect — otherwise everyone would hate you, and we can’t have that. And so the fabulous undershare must strike a counterbalance, and the results can be fantastic. This updater’s status, nominally a complaint about a nasty hangover, is really a subterranean boast that (a) the updater has a Dionysian appreciation for the high life, (b) has rather limitless supplies of Rose [sic] wine, and (c) is in Ibiza.
Anyway, I’ve got to go, I have an appointment to view a delightful house in leafy South Lon… oh fuck.
We Vs Death - Wake 44 (download mp3)
Happy September. Autumn is here. The dark, the cold, the drizzle, all that fun stuff. Here’s a cheery song to go with it.
I found We vs Death through a (rather good) flash game plays Wake 44 on loop, which did the rounds a couple of years back. Looking at the date stamp, I was probably a bit of a mess at the time, which explains why I find this song so sad. I think of these unreasonable emotional musical ties as ‘The Lowgold Effect’, after the also-ran indie band who soundtracked My First Super-Fun Depression. Eight years later, their music is still absolutely gutting. I guess it’s the horribly self-absorbed version of “music accompanying love, later to be ruined by heartbreak.”
Grizzy Bear - Knife (download MP3)
I’m off to the Green Man Festival on Thursday and am rather excited to see this lot do their thing. The weather forecast, however, is somewhat mixed. But I’ll try and make the best of it.
Grizzly Bear also provide the instrumentals on the awesome Two Weeks Of Hip Hop mashup I blogged previously.
Jeffrey Lewis & The Junkyard - Slogans (download MP3)
I first heard the deeply anxious music of Jeffrey Lewis when I was doing some last minute GCSE Maths coursework about eight years ago, on the John Peel show. Those were the days when radio was still a thing I listened to.
(A couple of years after I first heard The East River on the wireless, I interviewed him for a mostly-fake-and-never-completed zine I was trying to start in order to impress a girl. Sadly the next day I managed to lose the dictaphone with the tape still inside, and with it any hope of romantic success.)
Anyway, apart from lo-fi neurotic antifolk, he does great narrative songs. He’s also a wonderful cartoonist. Sometimes these things come together, like in this video, depicting the history of post-punk band The Fall:
Or even North Korea:
Genius. Anyway, Slogans is from his new album, ‘Em Are I, which oddly enough isn’t on Spotify yet, although you can listen to lots of his other stuff. And here’s the iTunes link for the album.
