Sneaky is the double-bassist from the UK pluckin’ and scratchin’ outfit Fingathing. His debut EP Feel Like a King is due sometime this spring and promises more pluckin’ than scratchin’…natch. The lead track, “Beduija,” has a nice curried flavor to it.
Holland Buffalo
Yay! It’s always a good email day when something comes from The Harvey Girls. You’re never sure what it might be – concept album, tribute, covers, et. al. – but you know that it will have a healthy dose of sweetly melancholic harmonies wrapped in a subtle sonic blanket that’ll keep you warm and cozy. Well, it turns out that for the past year or so they’ve been collaborating with the lovely and equally adventurous UK outfit Feedle, latter-day ambient wizards who make lo-fi electronic music that in more devious marketing hands might be called “lifestyle music.” What happens when the two come together? Layers upon layers of pop bliss. Plus, you can download the two tracks here and then go to Amie St. and get the other two for 26 cents, or be a real champ and buy the whole EP for a mere 52 cents. Yay!
Getting Hitched? Check This:
The Martial Arts
If you’re resolved to improve your self-defense this new year, may I suggest The Martial Arts. They may not improve your karate kicks or your break-bricks-with-head skills, but they’ll do wonders for your cardiovascular health as you find yourself bopping around the room to their bouncy rhythms. Their timeless throwback pop sound is influenced, according to their myspace page, by “Partridge & Moulding” (XTC) and “Holsapple & Stamey” (the db’s). It’s rare for young bands these days to name such pairs as influences, rarer still to pull off a comparable tune, but Paul Kelly & Co. have succeeded in doing just that. Surprisingly, the band (Scottish themselves) is only beholden in Sweden to Groover Recordings. This is one band I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes and, more importantly, my ears on in 2008.
P.S. The band was offering their album, Your Sinclair, as a free download through Christmas, but guess what? It’s still live. So grab it while you still can!
hollAnd
Let me end 2007 with hollAnd, one of my favorite all-time bands, who I first wrote about on 3hive in May 2004, although it’s not so much a band as it is one Trevor Kampmann, musician/producer/former-child-TV-actor extraordinaire. A dozen (or more, depending on how you count) releases, along with even more production credits, over the last dozen or so years. From the day I bought the Sea Saw (his first moniker) seven inch Stereo on a whim at No Life Records in LA until the recent release Love Fluxus and my new favorite hollAnd song “French Grass” (replacing his cover of Human League’s “The Lebanon”), I’m man enough to say it’s been a love affair.
The Unsacred Hearts
Joe’s Benji Cossa post left me wondering how to repay homage. Well, it’s only fitting that in discovering Benji Cossa I discovered that labelmates The Unsacred Hearts have a song called “I Am Joe” (their singer’s name is Joe Willie). And that led me on a wild journey through their back catalog during which I fell for their elastic, spastic sound and booze-soaked narratives. So, here’s to both of you Joes…
4Hero
Today’s selection is actually a nice bookend to Lisa’s Hello, Blue Roses post yesterday, albeit 4Hero has always been more of a sweeping club fave than an electronic bedroom dweller. Way back in 1999, I took a job in Los Angeles and drove down the very next day in my Chevy Sprint Turbo (yes, turbo), and 4Hero’s Two Pages, which came out a few months before, was about the only cassette I had that would play in my cheapo radio. Unlike the CD release, the promo segregated the darker drum’n’bass onto one cassette and the more chilled-out, string-laden fusion stuff onto another. As the title suggests, one was a great antidote to the other. In the central Utah mountains? Time for Ursula Rucker’s smooth spoken-word over lovely breakbeats and sweeping strings. Trudging the home stretch through the Mojave? Bring on the sci-fi jungle. Since that bygone era when we were all going to be dot-com millionaires, 4Hero has gravitated more and more toward the groove, and “Morning Child†has the feel of both a return to form and a culmination of the form. It also sounds like a lithe and lovely summer song, so perhaps it’ll warm up your new year a few degrees.
Hello, Blue Roses
Today I will be brief in favor of yet another satisfying nap. I love slow, electronic-ish, mixed-voice fare. I really, really love it, actually. And from this vantage point, Sydney Vermont and “her man” [direct quote from Myspace bio, interesting…] Dan Bejar (who spends some time with Destoyer and the New Pornos as well) are yet another antidote to seasonal indulgence. This one was recommended by my dear friend Seth, who will leave New York City this week for more verdant vistas. How appropriate and delicious the melancholia.
Merry Christmas 2007
May you and yours have a festive and safe holiday this year. Please enjoy this Christmas song from our friends in Letting Up Despite Great Faults (gingerbread houses courtesy Sean’s kids):