Is Olga Bell a Bjork sound-a-like? Not exactly. She probably gets asked this a lot, so to combat the similarities between their grand and ethereal Scandinavian voices–she cleverly decided to answer this question by starting with tribute. covering a Bjork track! She’s firmly not-Bjork. Nor is she Bjork-lite. When I first heard Bell, I was so-so on the whole thing. As when smelling a glass of wine, I was getting over-strong notes of the aforementioned Icelandic star and Radiohead. But my friend Seth kept telling me how much he loved her, so I kept listening. Where I ended up with was this: Bell is a singer whose personality comes through in her voice, a love for the staccato beat and someone I have come to really like listening to. I also love that she is Russian born, Alaska-reared and has somehow ended up in my own beloved Brooklyn. She also calls her laptop and instrument. And while I have been a detractor re: “laptops are music!” for ages, I’m kind of willing to buy that in her case.
Sic Alps
Sic Alps is the product of Matt Hartman (the best band ever Henry’s Dress, Cat Power, The How) and Mike Donovan (Big Techno Werewolves, Ropers, Sounds Of The Barbary Coast). While the early track below is feedback overload, their newer releases are San Francisco no-fi psych-garage-rock. New LP U.S. EZ out July 15th on Siltbreeze.
Karl Hector & The Malcouns
Stones Throw’s funk imprint, Now-Again, follows up the mind-blowing Heliocentrics album with this desert continent disc from neo-afro funk collective Karl Hector & The Malcouns. First, a quick who’s who of the principals: Karl Hector (vocals & percussion) has, up to this point, only recorded his skills on one 7-inch back in ’96 with the Funk Pilots; Between Jay Whitefield (Poets of Rhythm), Thomas Myland and Zdenko Curlija (The Malcouns) a wide swath of instrumental ground gets covered. Six more musicians round out the collective. “Nyx” stands out as a faithful sampling of Sahara Swing as a whole. Its gritty groove breaks down into raw african percussion about a minute and a half in, after which a fog of free jazz rolls past until the guitars resume their call and response riffs. It’s like overhearing a conversation that you can’t stop listening to because you want to hear the rest of the story. And the rest of the story about Sahara Swing goes like this: it’ll be one of the hottest additions to your summertime party playlist.
Two Hours Traffic
There’s something to be said for a 4-40 a.c. song — all four windows down, driving 40 mph — especially in these eco-focused times. Sure, it’s a throw-away song, the music version of IKEA’s disposable furniture, but like those $7 end tables such songs are absolutely necessary. How else to get through humidity higher than my grandpa’s age without sunny pop-rock flowing through the mini van? Two Hours Traffic helps out with “Stuck for the Summer,” off their most recent release Little Jabs, winner of the Best Pop Album in the Canadian East Coast Music Awards. Two Hours Traffic hails from Prince Edward island, a locale in which the 4-40 a.c. plan would likely be grand: windswept maritime scenes, salty breezes, gas prices even higher than here in the States. And so, congrats to the winners and thanks for the needed function of songs like yours. One more thing, for Sean: after your job this year, I bet you and your patient ears recognize where the band gets its name from, eh?
The Notwist
Amazing it’s been six years since The Notwist’s break-through album, Neon Golden. Time flies. And in the meantime, these Bavarian boys have kept busy bloodying their fingers in a variety of pies like 13 & God, Lali Puna, and Ms. John Soda to name a few. The Devil, You + Me, their sixth album (out domestically today) in twenty, yep, twenty, years, opens with this solid, extremely listenable track, “Good Lies,” in which Ascher, in his signature casual delivery, sings this platonic refrain: “Let’s just imitate the real until we find a better one.” If you enjoy gentle melodies flavored with large dollops of electronic gadgetry and a sprinkling of orchestral arrangements, then you won’t likely find anything much better than this. The last offering here is another fruitful pairing of The Notwist with a member of Oakland’s hip-hop collective, Anticon.
Helio Sequence MP3s + Live Photos
Unicycle Loves You
Alisa makes fun of me when I tell her I wanted to be a magician when I was a boy. She praises me when I make loads of magic fun for our kids’ birthdays though. OK, so I’ve only performed for one birthday. I think it was for Cairo’s sixth birthday. I made him disappear. Sam was my lovely assistant. Back to being made fun of…Alisa also gave be a good jabbing when I showed her my juggling skills (I can’t believe she actually married me when I think about it). Can you see where this is going? Yes, I also used to be a proud owner of a unicycle. Which brings us to the songs for today by Unicycle Loves You. The playful tone of “Hawaii” brings back the simple rushes of thrilling my friends by changing nickels to dimes or bunny-hopping on my unicycle. Yes, I was a royal geek, and thankfully Unicycle Loves You lets me man up and admit it. I mean their singer Jim Carroll still dresses like my mom dressed me in grade school (note the guy in the vest), back when I would steal lunch money to buy my friends ice-cream or Wacky Packages. But that’s a completely different story, one that shares a theme with “Highway Robbery.” And no kids, stealing is not OK.
E.S.L.
Although the shuffling Gypsy cabaret of “Prove Me Wrong” may not sound like either rock or punk (or folk, for that matter — genre categories can be so imprecise) a trip through E.S.L.’s full length album Eye Contact will offer up all that and more. A rollicking Polish love song (sung po polsku), experimental strings and craziness, rock, Beastie Boys, Neil Young and Velvet Undergraound covers — this all-girl Vancouver quartet’s got it. You know, today is my birthday; maybe they’ll play at my party.
Cannonball Jane
Whenever I hear the name Jane I can’t help thinking about a high school friend of mine (spelled “Jayne”). She was one of maybe three people from my school I hung out with my senior year. When I attended a reunion recently my wife asked me, not facetiously, “Are you even going to know anyone here?” The only person I could think of was Jayne, but I knew she wouldn’t be there. Like me, Jayne was slightly anti-social. As I expected, no Jayne. But you know how high school reunions put you in that nostalgic mood/mode? Thus affected, I did some internet sleuthing and actually tracked Jayne down, an entire continent away, hoping to say hello and catch up. I left two awkward voice messages (it’s impossible to sound casual, as if I hadn’t talked to her for a week when in fact it had been years). Did Jayne call back? Nope. Made me feel even more awkward, like I was some creepy internet stalker!
I think if Jayne’s personality were more like Cannonball Jane’s music we would’ve had a nice conversation, shared a few good laughs, and traded our latest listens and reads. See, Cannonball Jane is playful, colourful (Jayne was from England—she made me use British spellings), and obviously up for some fun. By day Cannonball Jane teaches elementary school. By night Jane, aka Sharon Hagopian, fires up the beatbox, guitars, synths and gadgets and records a groovin’ pastiche of hip hop, new wave, and sixties pop. A mix of Soul Coughing and Luscious Jackson, Mary Tyler Moore and Solex. This is the kind of woman I’d trust to educate my children and school me in the ways of beats and breaks and dance party extravaganzas. Hey, sounds a lot like Alisa, the woman I married. Who, by the way, tracked down one of her old high school friends during a reunion year. And he called her back! Who wouldn’t? She’s fun like that.
Bikini
Here’s a little something to keep an eye on, Montreal duo Bikini. Alisa mentioned their Feist cover sounds like a sleepy Daft Punk (“hey honey, you never read 3hive, but why don’t start writing for us??” It won’t happen. She’s blog-phobic. Says they make her feel like a voyeur. Yeah, what’s wrong with that?). The one original they’ve posted for the world to hear, “I Remember Being Young,” quickly stuttered and warbled its way into my head and had me grooving out with some impressive air knob twiddling. The song seems to be an homage to childhood, something like “hole in your shoe, everyone can study, everyone can sing…sunrise is meant to get up, sunset’s meant to fall asleep…” Really hooky, but way too short. Keep that thing going! Spin it around the block one more time! Bikini will reveal more when they release their EP next month.