Free music Friday

Highlighting some of the most interesting legal, or less so, music out there to be downloaded...

MyselfMyself offer downloads of all three new Radiohead songs played at Friends Of The Earth's recent Yorke and Greenwood-featuring event at Koko. A setlist including "How To Disappear Completely", "Pyramid Song" and "Gagging Order" doesn't quite sound worth the £55 asking price (what, no "True Love Waits"?) but mouthwatering nonetheless.

Anathallo don't quite have enough of a unique identity yet to be truly great but their album Floating World, positioned somewhere between the Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens in sound, is very enjoyable indeed. See for yourself as their myspace kindly has songs to download as well as listen to. "Hoodwink" is especially good. (thanks to Sweeping The Nation for the recommendation)

And, speaking of Sufjan, Pitchfork offer a new song from his forthcoming album of bits that didn't quite make it to Illinois (see Stereogum for another). It's not an idea which excites that much, to be honest, especially if it delays another proper album further, but this song does sound reliably grand.

Finally, on the ever enjoyable strange Live Lounge covers front, Van Tango has Goldfrapp's 'Oompa-Ska' version of The Ordinary Boys' "Boys Will Be Boys" (it's just above the Joss Stone pictures) and You Ain't No Picasso have We Are Scientists attempting to tackle Sigur Ros' "Hoppipolla". Words fail me.

Yahoo/Launch outdo themselves

A review of Captain's 'debut single' Broke? Easy enough mistake to make.
A review of Panic! At The Disco's 'debut single' But It's Better If You Do? Erm....

News (04/05/06)

• British albums accounted for almost half of UK album sales last year, most since 1998. This is apparently accounted for by the success of 'rock', which apparently doesn't include James Blunt, Robbie Williams or Scissor Sisters but does include Keane, Coldplay, KT Tunstall and Gorillaz. Weirdly and slightly worryingly this is just a KT Tunstall out from defining all the ones that I bought.
• New RHCP album leaks (2 hours? Like the last one wasn't way too long already); Flea gets very upset.
• Killers' next album 'one of the best albums of the past 20 years'. Right then.
  

Worth looking at

Goodhodgkins' analysis of Pitchfork's reviews, not least for the revelation that the band that they have reviewed the most times is KISS.

News (03/05/06)

• Warner and EMI merger off, for now at least.
• Muse now title album, it's out July 3rd and called Butterflies And Hurricanes 'Black Holes And Revelations'.
• David Bowie 'fed up with industry'.
• Britney pregnant again. (news from Drowned In Sound, no less)
• Liam Gallagher: Oasis 'not the biggest band in the world' shocker.
  

The Big Ask at Brixton Jamm (28/04/06)

Seeing Guillemots again and supporting a cause (Friends Of The Earth) without having to pay £55 for the honour like for their Yorke/Greenwood show was reason enough to head out to Brixton late at night (first band on at ten, though we didn't quite make it by then) and brave buses home at 2:30am, which turned out to be not as bad as expected anyway.

Walking in to Polar Bear's set midway through a very long droney experimental piece doesn't give a very good first impression but they turned out to have a very wide range of tricks up their sleeve, making their instrumental jazz (something I'm sure I'm not alone in knowing very little about) very approachable and enjoyable with complete with great playing and some cool electronic flourishes.

The Bellagios (featuring Guillemots' Aristazabal's boyfriend) slightly outstay their welcome in the end but their enthusiastic hip-hop, if somewhat indecipherable, is funky and dancable and great fun all round, especially with constant interaction between the four vocalists and between them and the audience



Somehwat surprisingly they seem to attract more of an audience than Guillemots - perhaps it's just coming on at gone 1am which is the problem. Whatever, they choose to play a slightly shortened (i.e. only 75 minutes!) set including large sections of potentially tiresome improvisation (it's that kind of night) and yet are almost as stunning as in their full glory at King's College a month ago.
Dropping most recent single We're Here to make room is actually a great move because they don't seem to have worked out how to play it yet, and they spread the improvised songs out, although Fyfe in particular has such an amazing gift for melody that there's almost no need. Only the squealing saxophone eventually becomes wearing, but they still have everyone on their side, playing more fantastic than ever versions of Trains To Brazil and Made Up Love Song #43, overdoing the usual pause in the middle of Who Left The Lights Off, Baby? to a ridiculous degree and once again showing why Sau Paolo needs to be released as soon as possible.





(usual thanks to Ada for photos)

Chartsengrafs (02/05/06)

Sunday just gone: Gnarls Barkley made it 5 weeks at number one and showed little sign of showing down, also indeed taking the album top spot. The Raconteurs were highest new or semi-new entry at 4 which is strangely better than The White Stripes have ever managed, also beating Dirty Pretty Things by one place and Snow Patrol by 3. Beatfreakz got beaten by the actual Michael Jackson (although on downloads, not for real), and Ultrabeat arrived at number 35, possibly through some kind of time-travelling wormhole. Sigur Rós crept to 44 ahead of a full Planet Earth-backed release this week. Arctic Monkeys non-eligible EP does seem to have avoided records to the extent that even the usual sources so far have no clue as to how many it actually sold.

Sunday coming: Gnarls Barkley still to be number one of course, at least in the singles (Snow Patrol to inevitably take his place in the albums) ahead of Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest attempt to make a video better than the associated single by the largest possible margin at 2. Beatfreakz and Feeder (what, still?) also heading for the top 10, Panic! At The Disco (not yet sounding as amazing as their last single), We Are Scientists and Goldfrapp (what, still?) for the top 40.

News (01/05/06)

• Glastonbury to attempt to expand even more.
• But Coachella might be ending, or at least moving.
• Will Young most popular UK artist of all time according to commercial radio listeners. Seriously, he's pretty good nowadays but is this a month late or what?
• Katie Melua gets a tulip named after her, as 'the people of The Netherlands love her'

The verdicts - Snow Patrol's 'Eyes Open'

A new regular feature looking at the range of opinions on a new album, starting with Snow Patrol's fourth. Because Metacritic doesn't read blogs. Or teletext, although I'm a bit too late to remember anything more than that they gave it 8/10, sadly.
It might be updated in a couple of weeks when there are more opinions out there too.




The Times goes for 4/5 but seems a little unsure - it says Eyes Open 'takes Final Straw and projects it on to a larger canvas' and as a result 'feels like a nerveless triumph.'
The NME give it a grudging 6/10, similarly bemoaning its '[tackling of] the familiar musical ground of 'Final Straw' with verve but little variety'.
And Observer Music Monthly (3/5) are even less generous: 'Big, bold, cleverly-executed, thoroughly hollow stuff'.

Meanwhile on the blogs, where generally speaking those bothering to comment on the full album are by definition those who enjoyed 'Final Straw,' the reaction is a little more positive but still not ecstatic.
Musicisnotdead reckon 'the more polished sound fits them well' and that they are now 'sounding like the soundtrack to a coming of age movie'.
The Razor Wire, meanwhile, suggests that while it 'surpasses Final Straw in terms of listenability [...] the band may have slightly dumbed down their sound in order to attract a legion of new listeners'.
And Good Weather For Airstrikes also cautiously celebrate its 'decidedly major-label feel, absolutely dripping in production flourishes', ending on the suggestion that 'Eyes Open sees Snow Patrol finally finding their niche as the UK's next great arena-rock band, somewhere in between Coldplay and Muse'.

Captain - Broke

I had no idea til I bought this (very good) single today that it was produced by Trevor Horn, surprised the fact hasn't got more attention.

Various excitements

After listening for the past week, I can say that Final Fantasy's new album (er, not technically out til the end of May or June depending on where you are) is every bit as brilliant as I'd hoped, as elaborate and strange as it is beautiful and sounding much fuller than last year's sometimes slightly throwaway debut. It even mentions Anne McCaffrey, too, whose books I once spent a lot of time reading and is not a name I imagined coming up in anything I listen to.
Head over to Good Hodgkins for a download of This Lamb Sells Condos so you can hear for yourself.
His website has finally reappeared too: Final Fantasy Eternal


Hot Chip's album also pretty much lives up to the potential of two very fine singles indeed, so hooray for them too.


Yet another Guillemots live review and some more actual features coming soon!

News (26/04/06)

• Home recording from digital radio is killing music. "When I see a device that permits customers to identify the specific tracks they want from a satellite broadcast, record them and library them for future use, I call that device an iPod" - gah. And library is a verb now?
• Sale of 'non-existant tickets' banned.
• Shayne Ward books arena tour for next year - blimey, that's optimistic (Yahoo's typos would have you believe that he's now selling tickets for shows in January 2006 which would be even more impressive and possibly no longer allowed)
• Okkervil River sign to EMI in the UK, rerelease last year's excellent album with inevitable bonus tracks.
• Seemingly daily festival line-up item - Truck line-up announced with mystery headliners that seem likely to be The Futureheads.

One last Camden Crawl post

...before I leave the whole thing alone for at least a year: Music Like Dirt have a really excellent summary of different opinions on it, including my own GoodBooks hyperbole.

Chartsengrafs (25/04/06)

As predicted last week, Gnarls Barkley stayed number one in the UK singles chart on Sunday, ahead of new physical releases from Rhianna (2), today's Stylus Singles Jukebox winner Infernal (4, not quite living up to midweek expectations) and Fall Out Boy (8, same as its much more memorable predecessor). The Kooks continued to perplex and go back up again, and the slightly easily confused Black Eyed Peas and Pussycat Dolls (that's Pussy Dolls to Patrick Wolf) songs were still stuck next to each other. The Flaming Lips, at 16, did indeed end up with their highest charting hit ever, albeit only by two places but Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part 1 was released in January so doesn't really count.

Next time will see Gnarls Barkley comfortably hang on to number one for a fifth week, as well as taking number one from Shayne Ward in the albums chart, which has not seen anyone manage two weeks in a row at number one since Arctic Monkeys in January/February. Although Corinne Bailey Rae did have two seperate weeks each side of David Gilmour.
Biggest new or semi-new entries in the singles come from The Raconteurs and Dirty Pretty Things (both currently heading for the top five but probably set to drop), with Red Hot Chili Peppers terrifyingly set for the top ten on downloads alone and Snow Patrol joining them based on the full range of formats. Sole non-guitar-based new entry near the top to be from, er, Chicane featuring Tom Jones.

News (25/04/06)

• Take That and Robbie Williams drag out the will he?/won't he?/does anyone care? saga still further.
• Some more details on the opera scored by (retiring, of course) Gorillaz.
• Does anyone really need another festival? Well, I guess it's good if you live in Orkney. And like Embrace.
• Similarly, this one sounds ace mainly not because of Clor, Absentee, GoodBooks and The Research, though that helps, but because it's so nearby.
• Muse's new single is called Supermassive Black Hole. That will be restrained, then.

News (24/04/06)

• Smashing Pumpkins reform, unwisely use light-grey text on a white background for their website.
• The Duke Spirit get their stuff stolen.
• Snoop Dogg to write novel.
• Novello award nominations as great as ever - Wires? Even though it came out well over a year ago? Coldplay for best song musically and lyrically?
• Maybe they should nominate Tony Christie's World Cup song next time.
• Fyfe Dangerfield seemingly only has one shirt. (ok that's not really news nor new but oh well)

shopping at Berwick Street's record shops today

I didn't find anything at all worth buying, which is about a first.
Or, at least, I saw a few cheap albums that I knew I'd like at least some of (Snow Patrol's first one, for instance) but didn't find anything which I was willing to give the place on my almost-full shelves to. I've now reached the strange point where the space that a CD will take up is often more of a concern than the couple of pounds it will cost, which somehow doesn't seem quite right.

News (22/04/06)

• cd:uk not over after all, just relegated to five.
• Sparklehorse to (finally) release another album, featuring Dangermouse among others
• Carl Barat: Pete wasn't sacked, we just told him not to turn up any more.

Yes, Guillemots again

But at least some of you must love them as much as me - head over to Sweeping The Nation for a friendly chat with Fyfe Dangerfield. Meanwhile as I don't think I mentioned it already, surprisingly enough, their album is called Through The Windowpane (the name of their usual set-opener) and released on June 12th, especially exciting as it's the same day as Hope Of The States' second album and, at last, the release of an exhaustive compilation of The Delgados' Peel Sessions. Also, Keane.

News (21/04/06)

• Doherty surely well into double figures by now.
• Mae, Coldplay, some other people, are very rich.
• They could even afford John Lennon's schoolbooks.
• Ooberman reform! Two days after I finally bought their last album, weirdly.
• Top Of The Pops in breach of licencing laws, possibly taste.