Dive - Sometime

Ok, ok, so how I didn’t have time to work out just how I would write a post a day for 20 days, but the point is I’m trying to ramp em up and give your ears some consistent (aural) pleasure. Today’s band/post is Dive, a new band from the Beach Fossils guitarist Cole Smith, with their song 'Sometime'. Now I know what you’re thinking; how can someone SOOO well known not already be in my musical repertoire? Well, he’s not well known. Apparently. And I didn’t even know who he was till earlier this week so no harm done really, huh? This is a pretty cool dream pop type song, all echoey like the ‘hall’ setting on your thingy ma what, and it’s got this simple guitar lick most of the way through that’s awesome and sort of flicks up at the end as though it’s asking you a question.

‘Sometime’ was released in October, and you can check out its follow up ‘Human’ over on Pitchfork. Not quite sure if there’ll be an album coming out yet, but the label for these two singles was Captured Tracks, who also released Beach Fossils, so you can safely assume it’ll be on that.

P.S. If you can't find the song, hit the play button over the article you silly mare.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Approaching that time of year again- ‘best of’ lists- and as with last year’s attempt- I’m going to shun the idea and pursue something which will hopefully be far more interesting: 20 posts in 20 days. There’s no such thing as a best album. As a very good article for The Guardian blog re-iterated (although it was in fact also accompanied by a top 10 list), our habits are rooted in time and place, and not some surgical, disinterested dissection of merit. In that vein, my posts reflect thoughts and habits at the time, what I'm listening to, and similarly, what I think others might enjoy.

So, George Harrison. What’s there to say? ‘Third’ Beatle, the quiet Beatle, and the one who was often seen as stifled by the juggernauts of Lennon/ McCartney. When The Beatles began to fall apart in 1969, slowly Harrison came out of his shell. His debut solo effort All Things Must Pass is widely regarded as the best of the four’s solo debuts, and a mature, serious, full-on record. Its often gentle song structures and easy on the ear melodies belie the balance and strength that is now often seen as one of Harrison’s core personal strengths. His self-assuredness and quest for self-enrichment came through in this monster LP, and now it is a small part of pop history.

First, its length. A triple-LP of 23 songs, five of which are strung together as a big ‘Apple Jam’ is not exactly a marketer’s idea of a cautious entry into the solo sphere. All Things Must Pass is powerful; Harrison put himself into it, and he wasn’t going to compromise. He never did anything by halves: just watch Martin Scorsese’s documentary Living in the Material World. Second, religion. Harrison’s strong belief in Hindu spirituality, mediation and mantras, developed after The Beatles’ visit to India in 1967, and shaped this album, which is now regarded as one of the 500 greatest of all time (…or at least it is by Rolling Stone magazine.) (Interestingly, many of the extensions of his religious ideas still have resonance today.) See ‘My Sweet Lord’, see ‘Heard Me Lord’, see ‘Awaiting on You All’; arguably three of the most sensational songs of Harrison’s song-writing repertoire, and they all promulgate spiritual philosophies, but also, they are constructed and delivered with a lightness, peace and simplicity only imagined by those who feel truly enlightened and at one. ‘My Sweet Lord’ is a reassuring journey to spiritual well-being. As with his mantra from The Beatles' 'The Inner Light', “the farther one travels, the less one really knows”, it isn’t intimidating, over-the-top, sarcastic or ironic. It is direct and simple. Harrison hopes to exist in the moment, the aspiration of those following a path of meditation and zen. ‘Hear Me Lord’ is a similarly striving ode to self-embetterment.

His religious journey was not so all-consuming as to make All Things Must Pass a purely religious record, however. There are many shades of grey, and on a superficial level, you might be interested to know that Harrison doesn’t make much use of Eastern sitars on this record. Still, at the more familiar end of the scale is Apple Jam stuff/rambling ditty ‘It’s Johnny’s Birthday’. This juxtaposition makes it obvious how multi-faceted and complicated Harrison really was. Lennon went on marches and made bold political jibes; McCartney was a clean-cut pop king, and Harrison sat at the back taking notes, figuring out what it was all about. Did he let go? Well of course. ‘Apple Scruffs’ is one of my favourite pop songs, comprising a harmonica and acoustic sing-a-long, and I love it because it’s so whimsical and poignant at the same time.

All Things Must Pass carries itself with both a pride and an honesty that I don’t think any album today can. Can you talk about spirituality with a straight face? Can you put the words ‘Hare Krishna’ at the end of a song repeatedly and deliver a message that will resonate with the man in the street as well as a swami? Sounds hard, doesn’t it? Sure, our lack of interest in pondering things long and hard has much to do with our cultural shift, and being more closed off to sitting down and thinking, but it is also a great compliment to Harrison that he had the confidence and single-mindedness to straddle pop and spirituality, and he continues to be able to pry into us in such a marvellously subtle way even today. We might notice, but we are generally too impressed with the songwriting. ‘Isn’t It A Pity’ works for 7 minutes to achieve it; ‘Beware of Darkness’ tugs at your heart-strings with plain-as-day life advice. If it makes All Things Must Pass sound like a self-help manual, then it some respects it is. If it makes it sounds like one hell of an awesome record, it is certainly that too...

Lucky Number Music, Friends and the Independent Label Market, London

Hello pop pickers! Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, but there so is a lot to talk about, so I’ll get right down to business. First post first: Independent Label Market. Now this was a…well…market in Spitalfields, London, put on today to hawk the wares of predominantly small independent record labels who had had stock destroyed at the Sony warehouse during the London rioting in August (did those rioters know they had caused such callous artistic destruction?! I should hope not.) Anyway, the fruits of their violent labour have clearly produced one good outcome.

The twist I so love about this event is that the stalls were manned by label bosses themselves. For my part, this gave me an opportunity to chat with one of my favourite labels, Lucky Number Music, who are behind Friends and Caged Animals (see below).

Now, I believe among all those stalls there, Lucky Number are onto something unique with their artists, and have a really special eye for detail. I discussed this with co-guru leader man, Michael Morley, and he said that within its sound, the label hopes to build a common thread among its artists, an identity if you will, that speaks for the label, or if you want to be more market-speak about it, a ‘brand’. This is evident in everything about them. The artists appear to stand for creativity above pop perfection; product above packaging. If those ideas sounds hoity-toity, consider Darwin Deez, Caged Animals, Friends and Sebastian Tellier; all esoteric, idiosyncratic, different from one another, although this, (and a noticeable zeal for music) is what they all have in common. I mentioned Friends’ September London gig: “Did you meet them afterwards?” Morley said, matter-of-factly. I had. The band were there after the gig, talking to everyone and were genuinely interested in what people had to say. They sold ‘I’m His Girl’ a month or so before its official release (review below), and guess who bought one based on their performance that night and a good chat about London? Two spare copies were brought along today apparently, and sold even before the stall had opened.

Friends are arguably becoming the label’s biggest ever artist. Morley and co-founder Stephen Richards saw them at their sixth ever gig. Pretty incredible. It’s now widely known that Friends have been together only a year. The pair were immediately impressed by the band, and additionally, a rarity in live indie music, Urbani’s uncanny ability to bring girls to the front of the crowd. The band were signed up soon after, and debut ‘Friend Crush’ was released, now a 250-copy Ebay rarity, never to be pressed again if the label is true to its word.

While I don’t think a label can set the world alight, it's interesting to know that in an industry now bombarding us with new artists, information and ‘packaging’, someone is focusing on product and letting music speak for itself. Multi-linguist Sebastien Tellier’s 2008 album Sexuality was a great coup; a well-received record which included ‘Divine’, a song Tellier later sang when he entered 2008's Eurovision song-contest!

Tellier is typical of the independent-minded creatives Lucky Number seems to like. Reflecting now on Friends’ inclusion in the BBC Sound of 2012 poll, a veritable hype machine, Morley had mixed feelings about whether a top-5 finish is important considering it would produce expectation from the rest of the industry for Friends to sell loads of records: a mixed blessing. I didn’t raise the suggestion that a critical lift like that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy in the shops, even for a too-cool indie band like Friends, but I’m sure deep down, the duo would be completely chuffed if that were to happen.

Seventeen Evergreen are their newest project, but it's still early days for their other artists. Friends will have an album out in early 2012, a tentative, tentative, release date of April 23rd, preceded by two shows in London (Lexington- Feb 7^th sold out, XOYO- Feb 8^th) and Caged Animals have Vincent Cacchione’s astro orbit creativity and energy to harness in promoting their debut (check out recent single ‘Teflon Heart’ by the way).

Enough from me. There will be more posts to come.