The UK’s Mercury Music Prize is basically the musical equivalent of the literary Man Booker Prize: Though neither necessarily goes so far out on a limb that they’re what revolutions are made of, you can be pretty well assured that the nominees are making the best music (or fiction, as it were) right now as opposed to (though not always mutually exclusive of) the most popular. But you already know that. You probably also know that Bat for Lashes, the breathtaking brainchild of singer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Natasha Khan, is a nominee for this year’s Mercury Prize, and she certainly deserves it. Fur and Gold is loose yet organized, expansive yet hummable, experimental yet familiar. Khan has a cinematic sense of arrangement and a sonic majesty that marks her as an absolute original on the pop landscape who nonetheless bears the best markings of recent forbears like PJ Harvey, Bjork, Chan Marshall, Sinead O’Connor, and Kate Bush. She weaves echoey piano harmonies with one-note-at-a-time basslines and harpsichord with marching drums, conjuring a cabaret-esque intimacy and drama. Yet unlike other recent entries into the post-punk chamber pop canon like Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie (great artists both of ’em, don’t get me wrong), Khan seems to make songs for more than just herself. Her “sounds like” description on MySpace includes “Halloween when you’re small” and “dark nighttime lovemaking,” which pretty much say it all. Fur and Gold is one of the most haunting and engrossing albums I’ve heard this year precisely because that’s the only way Khan could have made it.
The Toy Guns
The Toy Guns are (mostly) British, yes; but no, this is not a Joy Division cover. “Transmission” is a rip-roaring little post-punk number that, like the best of the genre, clocks in at just over two minutes. It may be a less-then-ideal 96kbps, but if listened to loud enough in the car while playing the air guitar, you can barely notice.
Part Chimp
I just returned from a rousing and refreshing vacation to various parts of Utah. One stop took us to a Trappist Monastery in Huntsville, where we had the chance to catch the resident monks chant their songs of praise. As we walked up to the chapel, my 7-year-old son, who apparently misheard us, said, “I don’t want to listen to the chimps sing.” Silly kid: monks sound nothing like chimps, and chimps sound nothing like monks. And Part Chimp sound nothing like monks or chimps (unless they’d developed an affinity for Sonic Youth and Mogwai) — but what they do is rock hard. For the record, my son likes Part Chimp’s music better than the monks’ chanting but prefers the monks’ artisan honey to, well, just about anything.
Ryan Ferguson
Alright, I’m super-geeked for this one. “Only Trying To Help,” Ryan Ferguson’s first solo album is out in just about a month, August 21st, on Better Looking Records. Ferguson continues to shape his songs around the acoustic guitar, but he fills in the surrounding space with plenty of electric guitars, piano and xylophone, fully fleshing out tracks. Compared to his more stripped down EP (which is still available in its entirety below), Ferguson had the time and the room to see his songs through and add the proverbial bells and whistles. The three tracks offered here are just the beginning of his spot-on songwriting. His attention to hooks paired with an intensity, just this side of his No Knife days, make for an entirely re-listenable record. “Only Trying To Help” is what “pop-punk” should be.
Remission [MP3, 4.5MB, 192kbps]
X’s and O’s [MP3, 3.9MB, 192kbps]
Kill My Confidence [MP3, 4.5MB, 192kbps]
Intensive Care
3hive.com and Canadian bands have a totally love-love relationship. From The Arcade Fire to The Awkward Stage, qr5, The New Pornographers, Paper Moon and Oh Bijou — and you know there are many, many more — we’ve had great success with maple leaf music. Montreal’s Intensive Care fits right into this mix. Theatrical, conceptual, orchestral rock with both buzz-saw guitars and oohs and aahs, these tracks from the band’s EP 2805 exhibit the versatility and uniqueness we’ve come to expect from Canadian artists. Listen to these songs in order for an interesting, cool sonic ride.
The Sheds
My friend Cheech is driving around the USA this summer with his girlfriend and a Geoffrey Roberts Award, tasting and blogging about our country’s endangered foods. How great is that?! (Check out his adventures at www.eat-american.com, and maybe buy a thing or two. A few years ago he sent me a bottle of datil pepper hot sauce, and that stuff was awesome.) In honor and support of his cool summer, I’m posting The Sheds, a do-it-yourself pop-rock outfit from Cincinnati that, in my mind, embodies in music what Cheech is doing with food. Pumping out quirky Americana for the last few years, The Sheds seem a little endangered too; they offer everything they’ve got for free on this here Internet. How do they eat, or at least make a buck? So, here’s to good free music and good, honest food. May both live long and prosper.
The Coach and Four
It’s my last post from Memphis, so I’d better make it a Memphis band, eh? I especially like the changing moods of “In Transit” by The Coach and Four. First delicate and almost plaintive, then building until becoming strong, fierce, and frantic, it reflects the hidden stories of the band’s namesake, a local run-down hotel.
Varnaline
I can’t write about Space Needle without plugging Anders Parker’s Varnaline with equal, if not greater, vigor. It’s almost easier to do, given Parker’s more prolific output—whether as Varnaline through 2001 or his subsequent eponymous work for Baryon Records. Sadly, Varnaline’s music received limited notoriety in their time due in part to their now defunct record labels, Zero Hour and Artemis, neither of which were really a perfect fit for Varnaline’s sound. The Varnaline take on alt country was blistering, raw, and true, with really excellent texture and sobering lyrics for those left standing.
The Foundry Field Recordings
During the Civil War, Missouri was a border state, supplying formal regiments and informal militias to both sides of the conflict. Therefore, I’m not sure if Clay would consider The Foundry Field Recordings — hailing from Colombia, MO — a Southern band. Regardless, they tend to be a shimmery pop delight, with long, serious compositions, a little precious but a lot of fun. I especially like “Buy/Sell/Trade” (which appears on both of the EPs below) and “Dancing Lights/Slow Machines.” Sure hope y’all do too, now.
Parade
Two weeks ago when posting the Childballads, I quoted from Jonathan Fire*Eater’s “Give Me Daughters” in relating that I have three daughters, just like the song. In my quote, I left out the lines immediately preceding the words I quoted: “I will raise them/I will raise them/I will raise/I will raise/I will raise them oh/In the city surrounded by water.” Now that me and the family are moving San Francisco, which I understand to be mostly surrounded by water, I’ve started to wonder about Stewart Lupton’s impact on my life. Of course, this also means that for the near future I will be focusing purely on Southern bands, like Atlanta’s (via Athens) Parade, in celebration of the 81% of my life spent living in the South. I’ve loved Atlanta bands since I first heard the 1986 compilation of Atlanta bands Make the City Grovel In Its Dust, and I can still remember almost every word and guitar lick of Train Black Manifesto’s “Bristol” and Rockin’ Bones’ “Be At Ease.”
So back to Parade and their smart rock-tinged pop. On “That’s Hott” from their recent EP, one cannot almost imagine the B52’s raised in this millennium on Parade’s stated influences of Radiohead, Gang of Four, Nick Cave, and PJ Harvey, while others like the acoustic guitar-based “Hunting” embrace the Southern singer-songwriter tradition of other Athens and Atlanta bands. But whatever the style, Parade is simple and melodic, kinda like the South.