WJ Kington spends lots of time around his house recording found sounds, tapping on walls and household appliances and recording the results. Sometimes he just sits at the piano and records his improvisations. Rather than “perfecting” the recordings he’ll leave in sounds of passing trains and the crows scratching at his roof. What’s left are highly engaging compositions. I found these tracks via boingboing.net (if they’re not already a habit don’t start!) which linked to “I’m Talin,” a track made from samples of his young son ripping apart a cardboard box which he’d strung with rubber bands. Be sure to stop by his site for stories on each of the songs.
Menomena
Menomena is one of those bands who are truly making music for the sake of making music. These are not the songs that rock stars and groping groupies are made of. Unless you’re living in an alternate universe maybe. Menomena compose slightly skewed music and on their new album, Friend or Foe, it frequently sounds like a meeting of Morphine and XTC. It’s easy to get lost in Menomena’s world as you explore the album artwork, beautifully illustrated by cartoonist and graphic novelist, Craig Thompson, a weird, dense mix of flesh and blood, life and death, animals and machines. To dig in deeper, aurally and visually, pop open the ecard. It’s not an easy listen, nor will it be easily forgotten.
Benni Hemm Hemm
With only 300,000 inhabitants, Iceland turns out more great music per capita than any other country. Another case in point: Benni Hemm Hemm. My favorite description of Benni Hemm Hemm is “a little big band with little big songs”. What began as a solo endeavor, the ReykjavÃk-based Benedikt H. Hermannsson eventually decided to go big…17 people big. Now, Benni Hemm Hemm bring together the sweet sounds of trombone, guitar, trumpet, cornet, glockenspiel, and much more with cheerful, hopeful, and sometimes silly crooning (occasionally sung in English—sellouts…). The songs are fleeting and leave you hungry for more, a convenient fact given Benni Hemm Hemm record quickly and frequently.
qr5
I was cleaning out my suggestion file from 2006 this morning, bringing the number down to a manageable 227 bands left to check out, when I came across qr5. The Canadian pop-reggae outfit suggested themselves in the sunny month of May, and I finally gave them a listen. (Sorry it took so long! Do you have snow yet? We got a little bit yesterday.) Since then, “Revisited Gone” has been the groove of the moment. Here’s what they had to say about themselves: “Introspective music you can dance to, qr5 is a singular combination of reggae groove, pop contagion, and folk sensibility. With their new album Pharmakon the Toronto 4 piece mixes a positive feel and engaging arrangements with tight rhythms and deep thoughts.” Right on. You know reggae sounds better in January anyway.
Bee and Flower
Apparently, here in Brooklyn, it’s flu season. When you are achey, shakey, sniffley, coughey and just generally miserable, it is important not to discount having health appropriate tunes available. My prescription is Bee and Flower (and a flu shot). Bee and Flower are refugees from this fair city, now happily residing in Berlin and making tunes that are interesting, pretty and, bless them, soothing. I wonder if perhaps they were fleeing the rampant germiness of this place. Alas, they are on the cusp of releasing a new album, with a new track included here. For the past two days, most of what I listen to has simply been registering as noise, but these guys have somehow brightened my days. I hope they brighten yours. Also noteworthy about Bee and Flower? Collaborations with French Expat songstress Keren Ann and the lovely Calexico.
The Battle Royale
Now this is refreshing. A band that cops to copping. “We copy everyone.” Now that that’s cleared up and out of the way get ready for some dance action. The Battle Royale are a toothsome young foursome from Minnesota that began as a folk ensemble but then discovered the little “techno” settings on a garage sale keyboard. They never looked back. They won their one album deal with Afternoon records by dominating a local venue’s “Battle of the Underage Underground” competition (three of the members were still in high school a year ago). They’ve got the groove-itude of CSS and the playfulness of Atari Teenage Riot if Atari Teenage Riot were playful like their name suggests. Here’s hoping The Battle Royale never take themselves seriously.
Bedroom Eyes
Someone recently asked me what I liked most about getting to participate in the fun house that is 3hive. Let me share just two of many. First, experiences like checking out at Home Depot and having a conversation with the guy behind the counter about the Walkmen cause of my t-shirt and telling him about Jonathan Fire*eater as he wrote down “3hive.com” on a piece of paper he then stuffed in his pocket. Second, emails from Sweden, like the one from Jonas Jonsson introducing us to his little project Bedroom Eyes. The EP Embrace in Stereo is provided gratis by Jonas and friends, so let me just quote Jonas himself: “Pop music from the heart – to the feet.”
Ruetschle
The Paisley Underground is alive and well…in Dayton, Ohio!? (By now, I know I at least have Sean’s attention…) Ruetschle (pronounced “richly”) is the bright-eyed garage pop brainchild of Mike Ruetschle. The first two albums feature Mike’s tight songwriting talents and faux British accent. (I wonder if he ever uses that accent away from the mic, say, while going through the checkout lane of the local IGA.) But it’s not until 2006’s Exotic Destinations that Reutschle hit their groove, introducing harmonies, dynamics, and other fun to the mix. I mean, if “Can You Remember?” can make my 11-month-old—stricken with a nasty post-holiday cold—bob her head and clap her hands, you’ve got my vote…
The Black Lips
Lester Bangs’ favorite song was “96 Tears†by ? and the Mysterians. John Peel’s favorite was “Teenage Kicks†by the Undertones. Both were love songs by garage bands that could barely play chords and likely couldn’t read music any better than I can. The message is clear: for the most vaunted of audiophiles, “bad†is the best kind of rock music because the whole point is that it’s supposed to sound bad to somebody, hopefully your parents and/or local law enforcement officials and church leaders. By those standards, the Atlanta group Black Lips is pretty damned good. Granted, their really-old garage sound is slightly more preening than authentic, but that seems to be purely a matter of birthdates. You don’t get the sense that they’re being anything but their goofy-ass selves when they sing about having a bad day or set off on some epic live shows of Brian-Jonestown-Massacre proportions. For that, we salute them.
The National Lights
BloodShake Records’s (or is it Records’? Yeah, it’s Records’, right? You do ‘s when following a singular noun ending in s? This is what happens when I teach only history classes for a semester…) other artist , Sonya Cotton, was well received here at the ‘hive, so I though I’d pitch The National Lights. Slow and brooding, the Lights provide a further vehicle for Cotton’s lovely voice — here as backing vocals — while setting somber scenes of desolation and vague desire. Well, at least it’s pretty music, even if it’s not exactly fun.