I gotta hold on what’s going on
April 22nd, 2011
After 5 years away, Tom Vek is back. He’s returned from the wilderness. Not that anyone actually seems to know where he’s been, what he’s been doing or why he’s back now but he is. Coming back after such a long time isn’t an easy thing to do and the music landscape has changed a fair bit in that time so it remains to be seen whether he’ll match the quality of his debut ‘We Have Sound’ or do a Stone Roses and disappoint most people. What’s interesting though is that there seem to be a fair bit of good will for him. People seem genuinely excitement about his return so fingers crossed he’ll live up to the expectations. On the basis of the first track he’s released from ‘Leisure Seizure’, he might just do it. ‘A Chore’ is an absolute corker of a tune and you can listen to it here and watch the video here. A first tastes go, it’s delicious and suggests that his time away was 5 years well spent. If however you can’t wait for the new album to be released on June the 6th, here are a couple of session tracks from back in the day to keep you occupied.
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When you’ve finally submitted to embarrassing capture
April 20th, 2011
As good an album as ‘Drums And Guns’ undoutedly was, it wasn’t the easiest of listens from Low. Where their previous albums had a warm, intense fragility to them, that release was cold, harsh and uncompromising. It was an angry album. One that seethed with a dissatisfaction that the band had never shown before. It felt at times like being given the cold shoulder by a friend but not knowing why. It made for a diffcult listen. An album you could admire without necessarily loving. ‘C’mon’, the bands latest release sees them return to more familiar territory.
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Last week I was mostly listening to …
April 18th, 2011
I seem to have been listening to loads of new music over the last week or so without having had enough time to dedicate to any of them. Amongst the pile are two big new(ish) releases that I was really excited about hearing but which seem to have just gotten lost amongst everything else. So while I’ll say a few words, bear in mind that they’re more like rough sketches of thoughts rather than any fully formed opinions.
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I know I’ve gotta move with the times
April 13th, 2011
Great guitarists don’t generally make good solo singers. Now I know there are probably a few who could prove me wrong but I’m pretty sure the duff ones well outweigh the good ones. Bernard Butler is one who balances precariously between the two. I’ve said before how I preferred Suede with him in the band so I won’t bang on about it too much but he’s probably as close to being a guitar hero for me as I could get. I’m not one for idolising individual musicians or the proficiency with which they play but as a performer, I’ve always found him spellbinding. He’s an exciting guitarist without being a showman in the obvious sense. He doesn’t pull any cliched poses or adopt any worn out rock star stances. Watch any old footage of him playing and he genuinely seems to lose himself in the music. As someone who can’t play the guitar in any way, shape or form, to see him swirling, stamping and occasionally flouncing around yet still able to hit every note, is remarkable. His singing, is less so.
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This kiss of death keeps us a mess
April 11th, 2011
Before anyone says anything, yes, I realise I’m about a year behind on this one. Better late than never I guess. I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t pick up on the Dum Dum Girls last year. I guess there’s no major reason, they just never really registered on my radar. If I’m honest, the only reason I started listening to them now is because I saw that they’ve recently done a cover of The Smiths‘ ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ and I wanted to see how badly they’d butchered it. Imagine my surprise when I listened to it and discovered that they’d actually done a pretty darn good job of it. Managing to keep the charm and bruised beauty of the original, while stamping their own identity on it. With Morrissey and Marr being so idiosyncratic and having sat through far too many god awful Smiths covers, it’s always something of a pleasant shock when someone’s actually able to do their songs justice. More than that though, it made me want to investigate their own music and having done that, I’m pretty much hooked.
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