I make an appearance again! Its been far too long, but my choice for Friday is Vessels – The Sky Was Pink.
Some will associate that title with Nathan Fake’s original, however this guitar-driven reworking based on the James Holden remix deserves its own merits. BBC Radio6 has been singing its praises on the airwaves, and for good reason.
To be honest, who else was it going to be?
It is largely considered that any artist labelled with the “favourite” tag rarely scoops the Barclaycard Mercury Prize. In recent years only The XX‘s XX (2010) and Arctic Monkeys‘ Whatever People You Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not (2006) have been widely accepted as sure-fire winners from start to inevitable triumph.
My opening gambit is actually a perfect summarisation of how I have felt about listening to Kendrick Lamar‘s new record, good kid m.A.A.d city, taken from a YouTube comment – ‘Its like the first time that I heard the Chronic’. Perhaps a more apt example for myself would be Outkast‘s Stankonia, but the same analogy applies.
What else would you want from a Friday Song of the Day post, then a bit of sweet modern electrofunk/funktronica? Yes, both terms are equally applicable.
Spearheaded back into the mainstream pretty much single-handedly by Chromeo‘s sophomore 2007 release, Fancy Footwork, the electrofunk movement of recent years has created a plethora of unsung talent pining after the Canadian duo’s success.
Seeing that I have left this until now to actually write, I honestly will keep this brief, unlike my Coheed post.
Last night I was fortunate enough to attend Lau at Kings Place, and my god I am glad I decided to go following an impromptu invitation at 5pm. Along with Punch Brothers at Scala earlier this year, I was once again rendered completely speeechless by the extraordinary level of musicianship on display.
Prior to the gig I really had little to no idea of what to expect, bar a knowledge of the track ‘Torsa’ from Race the Loser. Completely captivated as I was, the whole concert was a seemless and highly appreciated performance avec standing ovation, whereby picking individual highlights is nigh on impossible.
Unfortunetly I cannot find/quite remember the tulmultous and stunning track pre-encore, which I immediately decided to be my current funeral track choice. Instead I have chosen my personal favourite from the new album.
Look out for Lau land at Union Chapel in May.
Moving on from last week’s somewhat self-indulging posts by myself, I’ve decided to pick a song for today simply on the basis that I was reminded of it on my trusty RSS feed the other week.
The infectious guitar motif definitely rang a bell in my head from last year (released early 2011), although rather too often it becomes hard to differentiate one blog-trending indie tune from another. I am unashamedly seduced by memorable simplicity however, and the fact I can recall this melody from somewhere within the sonic entanglement between my ears would suggest its worth another listen.
In my last Song of the Day post I warned you to expect something different…
It’s hard for me to talk about Coheed & Cambria without divulging into my affiliation with the band that formed a large part of ‘teenagehood’. I shan’t bore you with the details, however, and will keep this succinct.
As second in line to post a Song of the Day, I’ve decided to take a somewhat calculated risk. Calculated because it’s a soundly justified choice; a risk because I do not think I’ll ever be able to top it.
Pioneer of Haitian compas music, Sweet Micky is now more commonly known in international circles as Michel Martelly. Yes, the current President of Haiti, Michel Martelly.
Beirut + Daughter – HMV Hammersmith Apollo, September 14 2012
By Edward Craggs
Beirut is one of my select few ‘London underground artists’. For someone within my music library to receive such an honour, two very important criteria must be filled – firstly, a back catalogue that dismisses the urge to fumble around for the skip function once I have committed to squeezing myself into a carriage at rush hour; and secondly, a sonic experience through which trundling towards the Northern line becomes rather novel. Throw Elliott Smith, The Tallest Man On Earth and Outkast into this mix too.
The reason I allude to this odd thought-process of mine is that I desperately hoped Santa Fe’s Zach Condon & Co could equal this sonic experience in Hammersmith. Admittedly I turned up pretty late to the Beirut party – my only experience before 2011’s The Rip Tide being ‘Mimizam’ from the Dark Was The Night (2009) compilation.
The songbird of Mali, Oumou Sangaré, and the world’s premier banjo player, Béla Fleck, will share the stage for two nights as part of the Southbank Centre’s Africa Utopia Festival on July 18 and 19, 2012.
Sangaré and Fleck started their collaboration in 2005 when Béla took the banjo back to its ancestral home of West Africa and collaborated with some of the continent’s greatest musicians, resulting in the multi-award winning documentary and recording Throw Down Your Heart (2008).
