Sunday CD Project

I feel I'm not using this blog to its full potential. I'll try to start posting stuff more frequently than I have of late (see late last year for an idea of the frequency I'm after). In the meantime, here is my weekly album review:

Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Those of you who know me or follow me on Twitter will know that the New York Times were streaming this a few weeks ago, prior to its release on Monday, and that I was quite excited about it. I was so excited, in fact, that as an end-of-exams present, I bought myself the vinyl collectors' edition. It came with an awkwardly-sized poster that I'm searching for a frame for. It's very pretty.

The album itself is, absolutely honestly, one of the most beautiful things I have ever heard. I would say it's currently leading the race for my favourite album of the year (which is insane, considering some of the other records that have come out this year).
It's hard to pinpoint my favourite parts of the album, but 'Perth', 'Holocene', and 'Beth, Rest' are particularly lovely.
Hearing this has genuinely inspired me to start writing songs again, something which I've never been particularly good at, but I've been wanting to get good at for ages. Watch this space.

Uh, so, yeah. Go listen to this album? Cool.

j.r.

Sunday CD Project

La Patère Rose – La Patère Rose

It's the debut (and I believe only) LP from a Quebecois three-piece. I saw them live in Trafalgar Square, London last summer, and discovered that they recently split up. The band's sound is somewhat hard to pinpoint, and my opinion describing bands in terms of other bands (e.g. "if Judas Priest met Britney at a party hosted by Blur, with Gary Numan providing the drinks") is that it can produce meaningless results. However, if I had to, I'd say: imagine Thomas Tantrum, but replace the guitars with pianos and keyboards, and reverse the English-to-French lyrics ratio.

I really like it. I obviously can't comment on the quality of the lyrics (not being able to speak French and all), and naturally if people hear you listening to French music they'll immediately think you're a pretentious arty type, but I maintain it's fine because they're Canadian. Those things aside, the instrumentation is sweet, the tunes are catchy but not cheesy, and there are odd moments of quirkiness (the cross-rhythmic chorus of PaceMaker, for instance) that just make it such a pleasant listen.

A downside is that the cheapest way of buying the album is to order it from Canada, which still isn't cheap, and takes a few weeks, but you can download it from various reputable outlets, and the album is available on Spotify. Splendid.

j.r.

Sunday CD Project

Thomas Tantrum – Mad By Moonlight

Tomorrow sees the release of the Southampton four-piece's sophomore LP. I got it on Friday, in a pretty paper bag with some signed goodies, because they love me like that. There might be a few nice copies like that left on their store!

I've been looking forward to this album ever since I demoed some tracks with TT a couple of summers ago. As it turns out, none of those songs are on the LP, but that doesn't detract from this being a seriously cool record.

The trashy wig-outs from their self-titled debut have taken a back seat, but there is still a definite indie-pop grounding on the new record. Mega's voice has refined ten-fold, there are new instruments in the mix, and the songs are more varied than previously.

Don't get me wrong, Thomas Tantrum was a great album, but with this follow-up comes a new air of maturity, but not the starchy sort.

It's really fun, you should go and get it! Oh, and buy the CD; the packaging is lovely!

j.r.

Paying to worship

Today I discovered that all Christian organisations have to pay a blanket music licence to a society called the CCLI (I believe they're the Christian version of the PRS For Music). This includes Christian Unions, one of which I am the treasurer of, so naturally a payment of £170 for playing five songs at a meeting each week seemed a little steep for my liking.

Here are some reasons I'm pretty angry about the concept of licensing worship music. Feel free to disagree with them, they are just my reasons. I'd love to know other people's opinions on the matter too. NB: I'm just referring to the church-on-a-Sunday type of music (i.e. "Christian music" rather than "music made by Christians" if that makes sense).

Firstly, paying Christian songwriters for their lyrical content is a joke: 90% of worship is directly lifted from the Bible, and probably 75% of that from Psalms alone, so unless King David has employed Redman, Hughes & Co. as his collectors, I'm not sure entirely why we're paying them.

Of course, I understand that these writers need to live, but very few (I think - could be wrong) are full-time worship leaders. I assume that many of them hold another 'day job,' so to speak, and/or they hold another position within the Church. Conversely, if they are a full-time worship leader, surely they're being paid for that? And of course, there are sales of CDs to take into account (many of you will know my opinion on the pricing of Christian CDs, but let's not go there), which should provide income as well.

I point out at this juncture that for CU purposes, we would literally only be paying for the song rights, not the performance rights (as we are the performers, and we're certainly not making any money!).

I think my main reason for why I think it so appalling, however, is that if we are paying to use music that was written primarily (I hope) for people to sing worship, surely we are - directly or indirectly - paying to worship. Now that is a concept I am extremely angry about.

Paying to worship.

Thoughts? I'm interested in hearing other opinions (he said, throwing a match into the petrol canister).

j.r.

Sunday CD Project

Oh my gosh! This week, the Sunday CD Project has its very first pre-release review! (Only just, but hey ho).

Battles – Gloss Drop

After their frontman Tyondai Braxton quit in August last year, it was unknown whether we'd ever hear from Battles again, but luckily we have. And oh, how lucky we are! Their new album Gloss Drop is the perfect balance I was hoping for in new material from the experi-completely-mental New Yorkers: it's obviously lacking the pitch-bent vocals that Braxton brought, but it opened doors for guest vocals from Gary Numan and three other people you've probably never heard of.

But it's not an all-new Battles sound. There are a lot of aspects that hold true to their critically-acclaimed debut LP Mirrored: the stupidly oversized guitar amp rigs (I saw them on Friday - ask me if you're interested in guitar amp rigs), the acceptable cheesy keyboard riffs, and the effects plugins that make their guitars sound like dinosaurs are all still very much there.

Having listened to both Mirrored and Gloss Drop several times in the last 24 hours, I'm not sure I can pick a favourite yet; they are dissimilar enough (and brilliant enough) to make that a hard choice. What I will say, though, is that Gloss Drop will be a firm contender for SCDP Album of 2011 come December.

Also, if you get a chance to see Battles play live, I recommend going! They seriously know how to put on a show!

j.r.

Sunday CD Project

A week or two ago I went into Guildford's independent record store, and bought a selection of CDs I've never heard of by bands I'd never heard of on the basis that they had pretty artwork, cool band names or amusing titles. Here's the first:

Midas Fall - Eleven. Return And Revert

What a cool name for a band, and what a lovely front cover! Seriously, look at it! Very nice. It reminded me of 65daysofstatic's artwork for their single release of 'Hole'. Nice and yellow.

I have to admit, sadly, that the music doesn't quite live up to the beauty of the band name and artwork. That said, it's still a good album. It begins sounding like a less-polished Explosions In The Sky record (small band, less production; fine by me), but I was totally taken aback when a juxtaposed female vocal entered. And I have to say, it works somehow.

Alas, the songwriting is a little lacking in places, with some tracks sounding a bit samey, but equally, all members are clearly competent musicians who know their strengths and limitations, and they use that knowledge well.

As I say most weeks, check it out! It's a solid record by a small band who I think could do quite well.

j.r.

Sunday CD Project

As mentioned in the first indie rock-orientated QC strip in several years (thank you @jephjacques) . . .

Spiritualized – Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space

It's an oldie this week, circa 1997. I was amazed I'd never even heard of this band until the above-mentioned QC last week. Anyway, to the point: SPACE ROCK! YES! Basically this album is an epic space-rock album (but somehow not in a highly pretentious way), comprised of very simple chords, melodies, and lyrics but played in such wonderful way that I have been utterly enthralled by it all week.

The opening title track takes the form of a round (you know, like Frere Jacques, only . . . cool) and got me hooked from the outset.

The themes of the album range from beautifully simple (possibly even naïve) love songs, to mild anti-theism (not so much of a fan of those bits, as you can imagine), to pleasant tunes about the mundane.

The closing track 'Cop Shoot Cop' is a pretty sick 17-minute wig-out, and is probably the most proggy part of the album in a '90s hip-hop kind of way.

Definitely worth a listen. Like . . . definitely.

Just read that back: I apologise for such a disjointed review. Can't be bothered to re-write though. Love you all!

j.r.