Breaking news

This is just too much.

Not only have Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds confirmed that their new record (that's gonna be called 'DIG, LAZARUS, DIG!!!') is planned for a release on march 3rd 2008 but Morrissey (also known as the object of her obsession) plans a Greatest Hits collection and a new record with Jerry Finn who did 'You Are The Quarry' in 2008!



If only I could, Nick's so dreamy...*sigh*: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms (mp3)

How appropriate: Morrissey - November Spawned a Monster (mp3)

Beep-boop beep-beep-boop!

What are you saying R2D2? Has Timmy fallen down the well again?

Ah, Blip-blop. I never played much of the original Super Mario, but I had a Commodore 64. Whenever I feel like moving around on the dancefloor like a robot from 1984, there is nothing like this!

My like for the genre started with an impromptu performance by 6955 in Utrecht (my sleeve is even crappier than the one shown there, poke around for fun stuff and MP3s). It was a really great show, just a guy on stage dicking around with a bunch of Nintendos but somehow using them for sequencing real cool music.

Then on to 64revolt (another site with lots of free MP3s, try Alice, Sweet Alice) and Motormark (now sadly defunct, but what a great closing show for Dour 2006! - I remember thinking 'So this is what electro-punk-rock for the 2010s sounds like!' ) and then Dan Deacon (see Choquolage's last post).

The Polish Ambassador also deserves to be snuck inbetween somewhere. Although, strictly, he's not blip-blop, he gave me last year's summer soundtrack. Especially with London Telecommunicating. He has also made one rather silly video featuring my IKEA chair :)

The latest (and greatest - isn't it always?) in this line is Crystal Castles. Not named after the computer game (from 1983!) but after She-ra's Castle! Yeah, from He-man. How nerdy can you get? Well, for me not nerdy enough, because Knights is a really awesome song. Check it out here , but close your eyes - the video does not move at all!)

And then, there's also Megablast (Hip Hop On Precinct 13) by Bomb the Bass and ASCII Disko and The Peoples Republic of Europe (or The Popular European Republic, or whatever they are called) and Add N to (X)... But they don't really count.

Batshit briliant

Opening an album with a song that's basically Woody Woodpecker's laugh looped at two different speeds with some xylophone, crappy keyboard sounds and crazyfying beats? That Dan Deacon surely is a bold musician...or just plain batshit crazy.

Helium voiced scream anthems, nintendo happy hardcore and techno drums, yet integrated in great pop songs. His album 'Spiderman of the Rings' is a bit like the not-quite backwards-dancing dwarf from Twin Peaks; it freaks you the hell out but you just can't stop watching/listening.

Not as unlistenable as you might expect: Dan Deacon - Crystal Cat (mp3)

Again not as unlistenable as you might expect: Dan Deacon - Wham City (mp3)

HEY MUSCLES, I LOVE YOU, I WANNA HAVE YOUR BABIES

The day Muscles decided he would pursue his dreams of being a musician was the best day in the history of pop music since the day Serge Gainsbourg was born. His album ‘Guns Babes Lemonade’ (I know!) has been out now for a while, and it is truly AMAZING. Muscles is just one humble Australian, but every song on the record sounds like a group of sweaty people – who have synthesizers and are superfun and your new best friends - is screaming at you about ice cream, marshmallows and hammocks, and you never want them to stop. Never. Because when they stop, they leave you cold, alone, lost and out of breath. And for some reason, every time, completely naked.

Muscles - Hey Muscles, I Love You [mp3]
Muscles - Marshmallow [mp3, sendspace]

Until the day after tomorrow then?

Ryan Adams' productivity, Tom Waits' sitting-in-a-barr-iness, Sufjan's multi-instrumentalism modesty, Jarvis Cocker's charm and an continous stream of quality. An EP and four albums long (see, I'm not even counting the download only 2-CD b-sides collection) the English troubadour Ed Harcourt has given his fans his own brand of up-beat songs (All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed) and melancholic ballads (This One's For You).

Although he still hasn't had his break-through and probably never will he released a Best Of, ironically titled 'Untill Tomorrow Then'. The best of features favorites like the jazzy title-track 'Untill Tomorrow Then', the near-perfect popsong 'Loneliness' and the melancholic 'Visit From The Dead Dog'. The Best Of doesn't just have two new songs, there's an entire bonus disc with 15 previously unreleased songs! That bonus disc could have very well been an official album, quality-wise. As Always, Ed doesn't disappoint. It's good to be a Harcourt fan, you should try it.


From album 'Here Be Monsters': Ed Harcourt - Beneath The Heart Of Darkness (myspace)

From album 'From Every Sphere': Ed Harcourt - All Of Your Days Will Be Blessed (video)

From album 'Strangers': Ed Harcourt - Loneliness (video)

From album 'The Beautiful Lie': Ed Harcourt - Visit From The Dead Dog (video)

From Best Of 'Untill Tomorrow Then': Ed Harcourt - Untill Tomorrow Then (myspace)

What actually IS free to a good home?

Okay, I think we can all agree that Feist has gotten enough attention (deservedly so by the way) and the same can be said for Stars’ new record. I’ve also recently covered Amy Millan’s solo work, but there is one more female vocalist in Broken Social Scene.

I’m talking about the ever-lovely Emily Haines of course. And although a Metric post is long overdue (their first album has recently been re-released) I wanted to talk about her solo work (well, together with her backing band The Soft Skeleton).

June saw the release of her album 'Knives Don’t Have Your Back' in Europe and the UK and in July the outtakes EP ''What Is Free To A Good Home?' (I don’t know, what is? No seriously, I have no idea) was released. 'Knives Don’t Have Your Back' is a criminally overlooked record full of dark nocturnal piano-driven songs with beautiful lyrics (her father was an admired poet) that cut you like…well…knives. And the incredible part isn’t that the album is quite far removed from the rock-attitude and cleverness she shows in new wave band Metric. The impressive thing is that the 'What Is Free To A Good Home?' EP is EVEN BETTER! Seriously; I listened to it two times a day for at least two weeks and still come back to it frequently. Do yourself a favor and listen to this:


The video for Our Hell is as disturbing as the song: Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton – Our Hell (video)

Take her to the bank, take her to the bar: Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton – The Bank

Also from the EP: Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton – Bottom of the World (mp3) (mypsace)

The Madd is b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

The Madd is definately both wicked and massive.

The Madd is the shit.

The Madd is b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

Everything about The Madd just rubs the right way. It's rock 'n roll. It goes down like chocolate. It has an organ that makes you dance around in your living room and scare the cat. The band members are well-dressed and look thoroughly un-Dutch, in a good way. Singer Dave van Raven bluntly checked out chicks and tits during their gig and the invitation for their release party proudly boasted 'after the show: free fucks', but my mom would still welcome them as her sons-in-law because they're too charming not to.

The music is a sixties-best-of in the best way possible. It's an appropriate tribute, but manages to surpass being just that. It's fucking energetic. They totally get away with choruses like "Heyheyheyheyhey - jump now" and I love the Beatlesque vocals on Roughy The Beatles Man. Even the slight Dutch accent of the singer just adds to it instead of it being annoying. Releasing 'Ongeneeslijk Beat' ('Incurably Beat'), The Madd's first full length album, has just been another bull's eye for the Excelsior label. Go out and buy the damn thing, it's worth it.


And please don't do the "But Hera, they sound just like The Who"-thing. I know. But I don't mind. I'm incurably beat. To hear what The Madd themselves sounds like, try their show at Motel Mozaïque. Hear some more at their Myspace or Last.fm.