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)