I thought I’d follow up my Sunday Damned post with an obvious segue to Captain Sensible, who, in the early ’80s broke off from The Damned to venture out on his own. He’s got two decades worth of charming, often biting, pop songs that hold up remarkably well. His song “Wot” made quite a splash in the UK and its ripples made it across to our side of the pond. I remember actually seeing the video on MTV. The story ends up quite cheery as Captain joined back up with The Damned for an album in 2001, where Captain questions British Democracy and gets his digs in on a little place called Neverland.
Levy
Manhattan’s Lower East Side probably doesn’t smell as good as Manchester’s hipper hipster enclaves — or anywhere else, for that matter — but the sounds coming out of the gentrified tenements these days are enough to make you forget about that whole art-rock-as-next-big-thing debacle. Case in point: Levy, named for its post-modern crooner of a lead singer, paints NYC in an appealing shade of Mancunian gray, waxing chippy to melancholy on relationships that weren’t built to last. As with that one-named icon who helped put Manchester on the map, Levy sounds best when Matt Siskin’s guitar propels the songs into the atmosphere. Put on your iPod and let Levy bounce around inside your head for a while.
The Maughams
For years I’ve avoided saying aloud the name of this band, shared by (or maybe taken from?) W. Somerset Maugham, author of The Razor’s Edge and Of Human Bondage and a bunch of other novels. Is it Mawm, like lawn but with an m? Or Mao-ham, two syllables? I assume the gh is silent… Anyway, these silly Canadians are causing me this trouble again, even worse than before, because I want to tell way more people about their wonderful homage-to-the-’70s lo-fi sound than I ever wanted to about W. Somerset’s psychologically searing social dramas. Check out “Jay Bird” for a catchy end-of-summer theme song.
Kiss Me Deadly
Regular readers of 3hive will recall Sam mentioning on Monday that he should be tested for OCD (although I would replace “tested” with “treated”). You will also recall my many posts that taken together demonstrate my own obsessive compulsive behavior. It’s music; how could we react any other way? The focus of this week’s OCD-ness is another Montreal band on the Alien8 label, Kiss Me Deadly. Formerly emo/math rock, KMD have moved towards a dancier sound that’s still deeply EMOtional, full of earnest energy and rather dependent on the ’80s. If only KMD had been around in the ’80s, I might have actually enjoyed years of school and church dances. These songs from KMD’s tour-only EP Amoureux Cosmiques provide a glimpse into their full-length due out this fall.
The Free Design
Early in its conception, Seattle-based, Light in the Attic Records acquired the re-issue rights to The Free Design, an obscure pop band straight outta the ’60s. Over the past year the label has offered up 12″ remixes by the likes of Peanut Butter Wolf, Super Furry Animals, and Stereolab. After completing the three part series you can now find all the remixes and more on one CD: The Now Sound Redesigned. This is some of the best remix curating I’ve heard in a long while and available just in time — before summer ends…
The Unicorns
These Montreal hipsters do — oops, I mean, did — play a lovely brand of ’80s-tinged rock/pop/dance music. Slated as the next big thing, they instead split up. What can I say? It happens to the best of them, but that’s still no excuse to pass over these songs. Get those feet a-dancing!
The Jessica Fletchers
The summer’s already a month over, but the annual search for the perfect summer anthem is still ongoing. That is, until now. This Norwegian quintet takes that famed Scandanavian rock ‘n’ roll swagger and applies to the ultimate song about the summer. “Summer Holiday & Me” is the best holiday soundtrack since Team USA’s “Halloween.” Life requires a soundtrack? So does the summer…
Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys
Weirdo, funk pop that’s sure to “git” the party started. Or not. Depends on the party. Depends on the party favors. Reminds me of this book I’m reading where a young Nigerian boy dresses up like Elvis singing and dancing for tips, but Skeletons & the Girl-Faced Boys are the polar opposite: white boys dressing up and getting funky à la Prince.
Ariel Pink
Don’t worry about the bitrate on these, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. Ariel Pink is all about lo-fi, right down to the crappy Angelfire website (yes, that’s his official website oops, it’s a fan site — see comments). His songs start with classic pop music forms — here we have psychedelic doo-wop (“Jules Lost His Jewels”) and new wave romanticism (“For Kate I Wait”) — then warp them to the very brink of listenability. But they are listenable, even enjoyable, because they’re like that favorite mixtape that you left in the car on a hot summer day: you still listen to it through the warble and hiss, because you know the music well enough to tune into its essence. “C’est la vie, c’est la vie, comme çi, comme ça…”
Stereo Total
Fool that I am, I spent 11 years of schooling and two years of on-location training to become more or less fluent in French…only to fall in love and want to spend the rest of forever with a woman who thinks “French sounds stupid.” Of course, this only fuels my desire to play musique en français around the house. Even better if it’s catchy enough to get The Mrs. dancing in spite of herself. So, the giddy, candy-like pop of Berlin’s Stereo Total — featuring the coquette-ish vocals of Françoise Cactus — provides the ultimate weapon in our little civil war. (Cactus also sings in English and German, and sometimes about serious topics, just not when my wife’s around.) The band’s website features a ton of rarities with downloadable art so you can make your very own CD and join the good fight.