fantastic mr. fox aka Stephen Gomberg

It’s often tempting to ascribe James Blake’s unusual style of electro/dubstep to some label or name. But it would be limiting to do that, so I won’t- and I haven’t yet seen any blogs or reviewers bother. As enigmatic as some artists and their music are, a marketable genre-word has so far eluded Blake and a number of other producers, loosely brought together by boring unemotional analysis. The young and gifted Manchester producer, Fantastic Mr Fox (aka Stephen Gomberg) is one figure whose music compliments that emerging titan of British dubstep really well. Specifically, he shares the same love of hip-hop, which he puts to effect in different ways over this short but packed second EP, Evelyn, released on 2 x 12”. Fantastic Mr Fox spoke to The Guardian’s ‘New Band of the Day’ two weeks ago: “There might be 200 layers in a song- […]I take the samples from so many sources, and they get so messed up, you can’t tell in the end where they came from.” Like Blake, ultra-clipped split-second R&B samples are used to create either punchy or flat dance hooks. Evelyn is slowly gathering a similar exposure to CMYK and Kaleidoscopic, which led Blake beyond dubstep audiences and towards Radio 1 airplay. “James Blake and Pariah have declared him the future of everything”, commented Paul Lester in the article.

‘Evelyn’ leads the EP and perhaps in the most well-known track to emerge of the four, but for me, my favourite is ‘Fool Me’. It is exciting, sprinkled with handclaps in time to a sombre, washed out sample. It piles in everything: electro beats, dubstep rhythms and re-jigged R&B melodies for a song that’s both alienating and personal. Like Blake, he layers rich, lush snippets over cold, digital beats.

The capacity for modern technology to give musicians like Fantastic Mr Fox complete precision, choice and control with every split-second of song is clear on this EP. By finely dicing ingredients that no one previously thought to mix, and in such a choreographed way, Evelyn is a musically unintelligible but exciting blend of chilled out shavings.

Fantastic Mr Fox - Evelyn EP by Black Acre Records

fox in the snow

Here’s a little pick me up for the cold wintry weather. Fox were a British rock band that had some brief commercial success in the mid-70s, but so far as I can see are now known or remembered for very little.

This track ‘Yuli Yuli’ is off ‘Tails of Illusion’, released in 1975.

apple vs apples vs apple vs apple ends!

There doesn’t really need to be an excuse to talk about The Beatles but it’s worth having one anyway. With the full catalogue licensed for itunes and John Lennon’s solo material on Spotify for the first time ever, this can truly be said to be the week that the band went digital. The most coveted discography worldwide was the subject of over seven years of litigation until last Tuesday, when it finally drifted down the 320kbps river and into the expansive online sea, never to be seen again.

The periodic media, fan and industry probing which somehow went on for years- and led even the ever-indifferent Ringo Starr to suggest that he gave a little more than a shit about something; anything, (“particularly glad to no longer be asked” apparently) for once wasn’t asking anything, and out came the press release.
The Beatles sold 450,000 albums and 2 million individual songs in the first week, although perhaps more impressively, all 17 albums, which were released at once made the top 100 albums on itunes.

root of it all

The turbulent political climate in the US today reminds citizens of the battles fought over the Vietnam War, civil rights and social norms in the late 1960s. It was and remains a rich cultural stomping ground. When the divide between left and right hardens beyond a certain point, many artists still choose to up politics; they remember the way in which fundamentals of musical evolution in the 20th century were linked to politics- poverty, anti-war, black struggle- and they have various and vivid reference points from which to begin: “Bill Withers recorded this song at the end of the Vietnam War. As I record this now, America- the land of peace and prosperity is in the middle of two wars.” After Bill spoke to a young man who had served, he wrote ‘I Can’t Write Left-Handed’. Social consciousness is the central tenet in this part-heated, part-laid back collaboration between The Roots and John Legend, and yet, what seems so unusual about it, is how despite the above quote, it is pretty much isolated as an activist record by a high profile artist or artists. I mean really; you have to be daft not to figure out that this is a concept album- a clear, unambiguous plea for anti-war and liberal politics. “War is hell. It always has been and always will be.” ‘What this music is about- indeed why it was made, is so important to bear in mind. ‘Wake Up!’ is about America today; informed by it, holding up a mirror to it and making bold statements about it, with protest songs. It is something so alien to the chart today as political musicians- at most- aren’t putting their thoughts into their music, if considering it part of their modus at all. For The Roots and Legend then, big-selling commercial artists, the need for this to be a record that fans can take into their hearts just as much as any other, and enjoy- simply- ‘for the music’ is a naturally restraining force on the activist statements. It makes the idea of ‘Wake Up!’, which evokes the extreme, urgent militancy of The Last Poets’ seminal ‘This is Madness’, an uncomfortable, somewhat cringe-worthy proposition in principle and often on listening.

Legend’s six-grammy award winning, philanthropic juggernaut of soul man is a natural partner musically for a band whose focus is the soulful, instrument-led end of hip-hop. We arrive on ‘Hard Times’; a quite self-explanatory suggestion of the themes and general messages to come. But it is not, in any way, an expression of how you will feel about the music. Legend’s silky tones are first exemplified by Questlove’s excellent signature hollowed out percussion, and then by Black Thought, who raps on alternate verses. It’s a blend of direct, sobering vocals and Legend’s typically reassuring tones, but from the very beginning, the soul and hip-hop directions self-evidently complement one another.

When you listen to ‘Wake Up!’, the oozing swagger of ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ is hard to miss. Melanie Fiona delivers a refreshing zing on guest vocals, emanating the clarity, harmony and sunny optimism of the song’s uplifting message (established by Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes more than 30 years ago): “Wake up all the teachers, time to teach a new way. Maybe then they’ll listen to what you have to say.” The block by block repetition of the structure, with doctors, builders and everybody(!) builds a disarmingly anthemic message. I recommend listening to both versions for an interesting comparison on how this bad boy looked in 1975.

The Roots draw inspiration from the various strands of black culture that have entwined with messages of social consciousness over the past 50 years, some radical, and some moderate, like the gospel references on ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free’. ‘Humanity’s reggae vibe, for example, sits quite uncomfortably alongside Legend’s unmistakably jazz-lounge style- an example of one of those instances where pushing a tempered, accessible sound as well as an honest replication of a genre’s political essence hasn’t really worked. Generally-speaking however, smooth intonements and production do successfully elevate the messages, rather than obstructing them. The 11-minute march ‘I Can’t Write Left-Handed’ and ‘Our Generation (Hope of the World)’ also show that loosely hung together, spontaneous outbursts of feeling are never outshone by more comfortable, softer numbers (‘Shine’ and ‘Holy’).

‘Wake Up!’ is an exciting, rich and diverse accomplishment that has clearly been produced with much thought and evaluation. Not only are The Roots and John Legend pillars of modern music today in their own rights, but the coming together of the former’s driving brass and lyrics, and the latter’s unmatched urban sophistication make this an album of different shades and dimensions, painting mellow, pretty and insular pictures at times, and at others outward, angry and revolutionary ones. Across the spectrum, this is a tale of political feeling and thought. Yet, perhaps, what rings out truest is that there was a time when every artist seemed to have something to say. From Bill Withers to Nina Simone, this album does its rich cultural ancestry proud.

John Legend & The Roots- I Can't Write Left-Handed
John Legend & The Roots- Wake Up Everybody
John Legend & The Roots- I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free

Glasser- Ring (a guest review!)

Mix one part tribal drums, one part electronica and two parts epic harmonies and leave in the fridge overnight...

You awake the next morning to a cacophony of heavenly vocals emanating from the kitchen.

You wander down the stairs, hearing the beat of tribal drums getting louder and louder as you approach and open the fridge door:

This is “Ring”, the debut album from Glasser.

If we were to think of music as a spectrum of colour, with Fever Ray on the dark side, Cameron Mesirow’s Glasser would surely be at the opposite end. Her music resembles Fever Ray with similarly echoing female vocals, but lighter and more accessible in nature as compared to the somewhat scary sound of her Swedish contemporary.

Opening track “Apply” introduces the tribal beat that sets the tone and continues to be the strongest element of the song, almost overpowering Mesirow’s vocals; that is until the harmonious “morning” takes over and continues to build with additional layered vocals.

“Home” is my personal favourite from the album, and blends so many layers together it’s difficult to keep up; you’re just along for the ride as Mesirow’s harmonies reach an uplifting, almost stadium-filling sound.

Glasser- Home

The pentatonic scale used in “Glad” starts to unwind an oriental sound, and, if you listen closely to the strings and bells towards the end of “Home” (the previous track), you can almost hear its seed being planted.

“Plain Temp” takes us back to the tribal theme and is almost reminiscent of the “Circle of Life” from Disney’s “The Lion King” in its repeating chorus.

In terms of beat and vocals, “T” is closer to Fever Ray. Yet it never really gets going, even with the introduction of the synthesiser halfway through the track. At a little over 5 minutes long, it left me rather disappointed. Still, the opening line of “Tremel” (recently remixed by Jamie from The XX) always reminds me of the vocal melody of The Beatles “Eleanor Rigby”, which can only be a good thing. It only repeats a couple of times, but I like to think it was perhaps a little nod to one of Mesirow’s musical heroes.

Seventh of nine is “Mirrorage”. This starts off with a humming minimal beat, but Mesirow keeps layering and layering, building this into another standout from the album- even surprising along the way with some interesting vocals near the end that I’ll leave for you as a surprise.

Glasser- Mirrorage

Penultimate song “Treasure of We” returns to the pentatonic scale but only really picks up half way through. Like many of the songs on this album, it travels and evolves, and, by its climax, has amassed the same expansive reverberations as Florence and the Machine.

Finishing the album: “Clamour”. Mesirow blends everything we’ve heard so far into one, even adding a brass instrument we haven’t yet experienced.

So, when everything is done, there are simply echoes of the past. Somewhere, faintly in the background, the drumming comes back, looping us back to the beginning of “Apply”.

And, suddenly, you’re back standing in your kitchen, staring into the fridge, wondering what just happened.

This really is one of my standout albums of 2010 and I hope you enjoy it.

Now go get a bongo and “Apply” twice a day.

JAMES BLAKE

Rampaging across the blogosphere, James Blake’s music has traversed and codified many of the common influences appearing among breaking artists in the past six months. The London-based electronic producer, still only 21, is on his fourth EP. Here, I will be focusing on his third: CMYK.

You will see below ‘How to Dress Well’ and how Tom Krell’s bedroom-created dreams were inspired by 90s R&B. Well, CMYK is a rather different outcome from the same inputs. Aaliyah and Kelis samples are dropped in, worked upon and fished out of an electronic hubbub- as before HTDW, I could not have imagined. The genre focused upon is emotional, hazy and subtly tinged with memory: “a kind of dead zone for nostalgia, not yet retro-ready but no longer current”, says Mike Powell on Pitchfork. And I would certainly agree. Fleeting use of these 90s tracks do strike a dead zone, in which early twenty somethings- such as myself- have snippets of these commercial tracks from childhood lodged somewhere in the back of minds. Vague, and not fully formed.
The stop-start of ‘Footnotes’ drifts into an addictive half-beat reminiscent of the best warped dubstep. It rarely gets more than minimal, but never less than the synthesiser and clapping beat that together mark this out as a conspiratorial and jittery five minutes. The song with which most readers might be most familiar is 'CMYK'. Its upbeat and frequently joyous lifts are a good example of the smooth R&B Blake gently handles. ‘I’ll Stay’ is warmer, and I would love to know where he found the short, one second thuds that roll around it.
Overall, the EP is, in my view one of the best and most exciting of the year. In just four tracks, it could scarcely manage more wild journeying, both through time and exploring the subject of memory, with so few and carefully chosen blips, beats and jolts. Thoroughly recommended to any open minded listener...particularly in you enjoy How to Dress Well!

James Blake- CMYK
James Blake- Footnotes

FRESH DENIM

White Denim kindly released this new EP Last Day of Summer for free through their WEBSITE last week. It's a rough outline of their work on a third album. 'Shy Billy' will hopefully really kick out after the 2mins-ish available now, when (or if) it's selected for the album.

White Denim- Shy Billy

RUMER

I was fortunate enough to run into Later…With Jools Holland last Friday night, because this excellent blues singer was on called Rumer. John Prescott of all people also saw it apparently, and posted as much on twitter to show his generous support (appreciation that is, not a belt.) Rumer's performance really was a stand out for the series: confident, elegant and most of all touching compositions. In her voice, an unassuming melancholy and gentleness eminates, like the great Carole King. The album ‘Seasons of My Soul’ is out 1st November.

Rumer by Rumer

“THE BIGGEST BREAKTHROUGH IN HOME RECORDED LO-FI IN YEARS.”

Not exactly sure how great a statement that is, but How To Dress Well’s full-length debut is a cracker however you look at it. Picking work from his half dozen EPs that were released for free online, Tom Krell forms a beautifully hazy album that has been given great praise only days after its digital release. 1980s/90s R&B melodies run through HTDW with passion, hope and despondency in equal measure. In fact, Krell told Pitchfork in April that he thought Keith Sweat’s ‘Twisted’- a peak of 90s R&B, but not considered anything special at the time- was a ‘fucking masterpiece’. He mixes up the soul of that music with the nostalgia people now have for it.

I bought ‘Ecstasy With Jojo’ recently, which was HTDW’s first physical vinyl release in the UK. It was good, but in my opinion Krell didn’t enter into the depth of dream-like conditions that one can find here. Soulful Sweat-like creations are easy to come by, but they are arranged with haunting choral samples and whistles of various distortions that deliberately muddy and spread the sound. Love Remains is more or less impossible to pin down. Through its vague songs, complicated emotions emerge and grow.

How To Dress Well- Decisions feat. Yuksel Arslan
How To Dress Well- Ready For The World

Bombay Bicycle Club

I’ve been listening to BBC 6Music a lot recently and one band they’ve always championed is Bombay Bicycle Club. Although their two records are very different, I am inclined more to the debut. The station plays them almost once every show in its schedule (or every 3 hours). They have become a major pop force.

Bombay Bicycle Club- Always Like This

BESTIVAL: The Antlers >>> Fever Ray

Bestival is one of the UK’s biggest festivals. It’s dearly loved, particularly by university students, for its party atmosphere and attention to detail as well as the terrific acts on offer during the 3-day weekend. My music experience was limited due to a mate’s sickness this year; however, here are comments on a couple of bands we saw:

THE ANTLERS: A 40 minute set was enough time for the crowd to trickle away from The Antlers. There’s no doubt that Hospice was a very successful and well-received record, but translating it to the stage proved difficult. The band didn’t replicate its intimacy and warmth, nor did they attempt a noticeable alternative to rock up the live show. Towards the end during ‘Bear’, lead singer Peter Silberman finally sang the excellent high-pitched vocals of which he is so capable, and overcame what appeared to be bad nerves. Overall though, the set was aimless and often filled with chatter from the crowd.

FEVER RAY: Karin Dreijer Andersson’s (right) solo project Fever Ray was an unqualified success during its brief two years. She sang her self-titled album accompanied by a simple but effective light show. 1970s-style floor lamps resembling jellyfish gently dimmed in time to the music, creating an outline of Karin behind the smoke, and the figures of her band. As one would expect from the serious, political and creative Swedish star, her show was scary and detached. Conversely however, that relentless bleakness- achieved with uber-bass, visual menace and Karin’s distorted vocals, added the arresting ingredient that won The Knife their plaudits. It’s rare that a crowd can look so in awe as if they have never seen a gig before. I was also engrossed in Fever Ray’s dark world, and one fan, driven mad by comparatively catchy number ‘When I Grow Up’ went high up the 30-ft rigging, dancing tentatively above the Big Top.

Beatles - And I Love Her (Allure Remix)

I'm indebted to Jason Grishkoff at Indie Shuffle for getting me into this excellent remix of The Beatles' 'And I Love Her' by Allure. Described on his myspace as the creator of "sharp, elegant and lively" mixes:

The Beatles- And I Love Her (Allure Remix)
Allure- Renaissance

surfing the cats

A brief summary of Klaxons’s demolition of the British indie scene: “Atlantis to Interzone” and “Gravity’s Rainbow” demos circulated on the net, the songs became staples of student indie nights, and very soon after, debut album Myths of the Near Future won the Mercury Music Prize, a unique accolade given to British artists based solely on creative merit.

The band exuded cultural style, not just a surge in catchy electro indie. Between 2004 and 2007, successful British bands typically cultivated images as ordinary lads discussing ordinary things (Arctic Monkeys, The Wombats, Kaiser Chiefs and The View). The minutiae of awkward social encounters and bus stops were par for the course.

However, Klaxons stopped it with their fascination for fantasy, space, and abstraction. With this band, a new class of artists — Foals, Metronomy, Late of the Pier — flitted between fun energy and highbrow, intellectual philosophising. It wasn’t just the music that put Klaxons on the front cover of NME every week: it was the ambiguous concept of “nu rave” peddled by the music press that, led by Klaxons, kicked “I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor” into touch and made it look irrelevant, unsophisticated, and grey.

Klaxons never liked the in-vogue connotation that came with the “nu-rave” tag, and just as well because NME’s infatuation with Klaxons subsided after their album tour. Surfing the Void is an apt name for the following three years, due to this album’s protracted creation and the negative publicity associated with recent live shows. Fallouts with Polydor over new psychedelic songs deemed “too experimental for release” echo Geffen Records, who once tried to sue Neil Young for making music “unrepresentative of Neil Young.” In this environment, Klaxons went through three producers. For all the hype, very few critics have labelled this album a disappointment. Rather, there is a sense of foreboding in the mainly positive reviews. Telegraph writer Andrew Perry called Surfing the Void “a real victory from the jaws of defeat.

My own take on Surfing the Void is that by ditching the recordings rejected by Polydor, the LP stays true to Myths of the Near Future as far as vibrant choruses and lyrical escapism goes (“clouds of diamond dust,” “riding the timewave’s origin,” etc.)

However, Surfing the Void is less compact than its predecessor: it is unrestrained and distorted. The comparison is similar to the first two Arctic Monkeys records: the debut had clear production and the follow-up was fuzzy and industrial. As it creeps with caution and intrigue, the off-kilter tension and screaming guitars on “Extra Astronomica” could be a track by Bloc Party. “Flashover” is similarly dark, and sounds like the creative outcome of “Atlantis to Interzone” warped into something angry and demonic. The organs on “The Same Space” and unsettling synth melodies on “Valley of the Calm Trees” add to the overall impression that something otherworldly is afoot. That sci-fi concept unites the album and generates a defining atmosphere.

Klaxons typically offer up vague comments to puncture the promotional circus when doing interviews. In one with ITN, Jamie mocks the irritating arrogance of critics and fascination with his band, saying, “It’s an enigma; figure it all out.” Their tongue-in-cheek suggestions and the record’s overblown futurism always point to their philosophising songs being a parody. They like the pomp. “Future Memories” lyrics (“The future’s in our memories/the past is just a guess”) would be at home in the dialogue of a sci-fi b-movie, for instance. A cat inside an astronaut suit: that’s mental.

Overall, I like this album, and I like it because the grandeur of the tracks comes out in a really fun and adventurous way. As I’ve said, I don’t think Klaxons aimed to make a revolutionary concept record; some people just take the mystique they pump into every song too seriously. To me, these 10 songs stick on repeated listens, and as “Echoes” continues its strong stint of radio play, Klaxons enter a new chapter. Hopefully it won’t be as ridiculed or pored over as their last.

Lonnie Liston Smith- Garden of Peace

Springing off my previous post, I would like to post about something mellow. Lonnie Liston Smith is a pianist known for his blend of jazzy, soulful and funky love songs. During the 70s, he played with famous jazz artists like Miles Davis, but he went on to produce some excellent music of his own later in the decade and in the early 80s. While never reaching commercial acclaim like the artists he worked with, or those who went on to actually sample his music (see Jay-Z's 'Dead Presidents II'), Lonnie Liston Smith has a repertoire of atmospheric jazz that seems to have grown richer as the popular perception of late 70s/early 80s smooth funk has strengthened over the decades. If that sounds a bit remote and confusing, listen to any track from ‘Dreams of Tomorrow’, an LP that might just be described as 'Dreams of Yesterday' for all its deft keyboard and acid-jazz touches, which now ring out with nostalgia. Here is the last song of eight: if I may suggest that you pretend, while Youtube does its thing, that you are pre-internet, pre-compact disc and at the time when Lonnie Liston’s 1983 ‘Garden of Peace’ could be your soundtrack. A slow, special evening of low lighting, relaxing company and a tinkling piano.

"have a heart, have a heart"

In 2005, The Go! Team struck it lucky with their debut album 'Thunder, Lightning, Strike' and got nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. The album was a frenzy: a kaleidascopic fit of energy that split off in directions too many to count and too hurried a fashion to dwell on. To me, that was a great rebuttal of the idea that an album should be coherent.

Turning to Sleigh Bells, I see them as The Go! Team's American counterparts. From Brooklyn, not Brighton, they are loud, messy and chop normal principles of genre into paste. They are Go! Team going over the boil, and their debut album 'Treats' has attracted critical acclaim in the UK, as much as in the US where the band have played Pitchfork Music Festival and Coachella. Check out Drowned in Sound, which gave it 9/10, and The Observer, no less. 'Crown on the Ground' is feverishly fuzzy, and sounds like high-pitched guitars feeding from one full-volume amp to another. Sleigh Bells' raw punk approach gives them the instability of band of the moment- Wavves- at times, but their pallet is rich in style and variation. My personal highlight 'Rill Rill' is radio friendly, most closely resembling Go! Team by its colour by numbers feel-good beat and vocal. Sleigh Bells ride roughshod with deer power (ha!) on 'Kids' and 'Infinity Guitars', but are funky throughout. Whether riotous quasi-metal, break beats or pop melodies, Sleigh Bells seem to replicate the youthful exuberance found on Go! Team's debut.

Sleigh Bells- Rill Rill
Sleigh Bells- Crown on the Ground

BBU- Jukin' On Landmines

I don't tend to listen to huge amounts of modern day hip-hop but if anything's going to hit you like a flashlight down a dark tunnel, it's a raucous hip-hop track. And BBU? Well, I heard this song for the first time only this morning. Obscuring their first moderately successfully 'Chi Don't Dance' by quite some way in my opinion, 'Jukin' On Landmines' is a trashy, fun, and- I hope- very successful dance track from 'Fear Of A Clear Channel Planet'. You can download the whole mixtape for FREE on their myspace. Move over Major Lazer.

BBU - Jukin' On Landmines

Arcade Fire's Madison Sq Gardens

Untitled from Arcade Fire on Vimeo.

Bits and bobs are slowly creeping out about Arcade Fire's upcoming material and shows. Right> is a trailer for their two Madison Square Gardens shows on 4th & 5th August. Much anticipated album 'The Suburbs' comes out on 2nd August in the UK and 3rd in the US. You can listen to two of its tracks here.

Bonobo- Black Sands

Bonobo’s album ‘Days to Come’ won Gilles Peterson’s Radio 1 listener’s prize when it released in 2006. A very quiet and steady orchestration of down tempo chillout, it occupied a similar musical space to The Cinematic Orchestra, Air and Zero 7. Sparse, gentle: the sort of thing that traditionally found interest among people listening to music all day long, and using sounds like this as a background canvas. Bonobo has featured on adverts, subtly lifting the mood without anyone knowing. Today, ‘Black Sands’ hovers in the ‘picks’ list of alternative download service Emusic, and has a featured position on the shelves in Fopp (that’s a popular music store in London for those of you who aren’t aware.)

So what makes ‘Black Sands’ different? And why have I featured it? Well in the saturated market of minimal mood music, ‘Black Sands’ comes across as actually very deep and complicated. As many people reviewing this album on the web have mentioned, ‘Prelude’ sets Bonobo’s pace with direct strings that strike a note of nostalgia. It is a strange song and lasts only 78 seconds. In that time though, it makes a serious, wilful stamp of authority before being joined by the electric beats of ‘Kiara’. The whole album is a giant soundscape of foggy things; things you might have heard in dreams if only you didn’t forget them. At worst, the work is intriguing and at best, hypnotic.

Bonobo- Kiara

The Roots- How I Got Over (on indieshuffle.com)

One: When ‘How I Got Over’ came out in my country (I don’t live in Kazakhstan; by that I mean England), it barely made a ripple of crap hitting a shitstream. Two: When ‘How I Got Over’ came out in the States, it debuted 6 in the Billboard 200 and 3 in the Rap Albums charts. Three: ‘How I Got Over’ is The Roots’ ninth studio record. How has it taken 16 years and eight previous albums for The Roots to produce what has critically been received as their best?

This is an ambitious hip-hop album. Where The Roots have always pushed the boundaries in contrast to their peers- the band play their own instruments, and do so live, for example- they never strayed beyond hip-hop and soul collaborations, until now. Album opener ‘A Peace of Light’ features harmonies from the girls from indie band Dirty Projectors- an unexpected collaboration, especially for The Roots. Later on? Joanna Newsom. That’s right, a woman with giant harp.

All credit to The Roots then, that this album carries no sniff of pretension. ‘How I Got Over’ is more heartfelt, soulful and classy than any other Roots album, and less disparate. John Legend features on ‘Doin it Again’ for instance, a cover of his own ‘Again’, and ‘The Day’ uses a laidback guitar melody under rolling rhymes. The Roots’ quasi-political tracks are similarly chilled; like ‘Now or Never’, with its relaxed keys.

But, if you think this is The Roots gone soft, it isn’t. They still look like remaining one of the most imaginative, talented and intelligent hip-hop acts of the next ten years as much as they have the last. It’s just that with the self-assurance of a band that have been around for 16 years, it’s unsurprising that everything sounds perfectly in its groove. Lyrically interesting as we have come to expect (‘Dear God’ and ‘Web 20/20’), and spotted with introspection (‘Right On’), The Roots are doing what they always have and filling voids for the subtly, soul and genius that are often missed about major-label hip-hop, and from where considered musical statesmen like Jurassic 5, Tribe Called Quest and J Dilla left them. ‘How I Got Over’ is worthy of the mantle bestowed on albums ‘Things Fall Apart’ and ‘Game Theory’ that came before it. A great Roots record.

The Roots- How I Got Over

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Banned (By The Man)

Ohhhhee yes. Quick off the mark with this one. Precious few hours, and behold- Someone Still Loves You Boris- bloody Yeltsin. This is the second song leaked but this very day courtesy of Stereogum. From their upcoming album out 17 August, 'Banned (By the Man)' follows on from the inifintely catchy title track 'Let it Sway' that you can find for flippin bloody FREE on their website. Bloody free!

For those of you not suitably tripped up by SSLYBY during your walks along the righteous path to aural satisfaction in recent years, they have remained precariously absent in the UK. Little known in the US as it is, their likeable and easy to listen to indie pop has generated two very consistent and punishingly upbeat albums. The first, called 'Broom', was a home recording that was soon picked up and re-released by Polyvinyl. The rest, far from being 'history', has remained some modest exposure both here and back home in Springfield, Missouri. They kicked off 2008's End of the Road Festival for instance, on the Friday when most people were still pitching their tents. SSLYBY gave the impression that becoming commercially successful was fairly superfluous to them as a band. As long as people enjoyed the shows and they could return home to record some songs in Will's basement now and then, that's what they seemed most concerned with. Tracks about their local baseball team, 'Lower the Gas Prices, Howard Johnson' (accurate song name) and corny rockers about girls compose their charm and a brilliantly understated character.

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Banned (By The Man)

A Brief Interlude

While I hope this blog to be about ‘new’ and breaking artists, here is a brief little interlude. This is Richie Havens, a California-born folk singer who became famous for a short time after his appearance at Woodstock in 1969, with a- in my opinion- excellent cover of The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes the Sun’. Enjoy...

Best Coast

An up 'n' coming band called Best Coast have been making waves (ha!) for a string of summery, noisy pop tunes since the start of 2010. Just search them on Hype Machine for an idea of just how rampantly hysterical indie blogs at home, and especially in the States have become about them; writing about their latest track and debut album especially (see?). The LA band are fronted by Bethany Cosentino, whose deliberately slurred vocal style has led her cheeky little outfit to be dubbed "chillwave"- a (very) loose term for a range of American lo-fi bands that have mixed fuzzy production values with a relaxed breeziness in the melody and vocals. See Memory Tapes, Neon Indian (great tune by the way) and Washed Out for an idea. Really, Cosentino's music could simply be described as the solo record Julian Casablancas of The Strokes might have made had he possessed different junk in the cupboard under the stairs (been a woman), and not ditched his band's crackliness. Best Coast's first 7" vinyl releases on the Black Iris label were a total hit. Printed in limited numbers like most niche alternative artists, copies of 'When I'm With You' (original production 500, USA only) have been sold on ebay in the US for $42. Can you see why?

Best Coast– When I’m With You

Sure, the deliberate claustrophobia is hard to stomach sometimes on this record, especially when Cosentino's not-so-delicate decibels push the microphone over the edge. New track 'Boyfriend' is perhaps more mainstream-radio friendly, having lost much of that distortion, but once again they have made catchy seem effortless. Pull a lever, and Cosentino will create it:

Best Coast– Boyfriend

To celebrate the release of their debut album Crazy For You on 2 August, I might do a few star jumps. Second, the band will play at Cargo in London. Be warned though: they are that cool that anyone thinking of going probably won't turn up.

Who's Got the Love?

Ever since BBC Three rocked up, Glastonbury has been the perfect opportunity for the BBC to get excited the way ITV never did about its cultural output, and send four hundred cameramen to broadcast the fest on up to three channels at once (and Radio 4 this year for some poetry!) With their prospective audience in mind, the BBC’s coverage usually means that whatever "moments" they select from Glastonbury's seismic musical rainbow aren't up to much when it comes to covering new artists, but for the odd exception.

Their time with The XX’s set was to be expected – one song- however, even after hearing it a couple of times previously, this nugget of a choice took me by surprise. Bulbous bass punctuated the hollow sound of Romy’s dead pan vocals. Pauses for lots of crowd noise. Then Florence Welch appeared for her second, but really first unexpected duet of the weekend. What made this performance of ‘You Got the Love’ such a spine tingling moment, was that the XX remix of the song was an internet sensation in late 2009 for anyone after the combination of track and artist to characterise the year in alternative pop artists hitting popularity. And of course the song reached ubiquity on its supreme quality as well as being a pinpoint reflection of the zeitgeist. As she mashed up her vocal lines, Florence's enthusiasm reverberated through to the farthest BBC helicopter.

The XX w/ Florence & the Machine - You Got The Love (Live@Glastonbury 2010)

How to Dress Well - Decisions

No better way to kick this off than a tune that has been circling the blogs like mad the past two months. I can't believe no one has remixed this yet.'Decisions' is a belter from HTDW. You can pick up everything this new artist has done for free on his blog, which includes 6 EPs. Distorted, lo-fi and tinged with a nostalgic haziness, 'Decisions' is one of creator Tom Krell's more salient tracks.

Playing The Social, London, on 2 July for his first ever UK show and releasing first ever physical thingy on 20th.

How to Dress Well - Decisions
How to Dress Well - Can't See My Own Face