SOLOMON GREY

2 Comments

You gotta be well-prepared if you want to make a splash as a new musician these days. You gotta hone your craft, be fit for the road ahead and be ready for everything. You have one shot and one shot only, so you better make sure it’s loaded. With today’s recommendation we might just have uncovered the most exciting bullet of the year. As we tip into 2013, we hope this lot deliver on what is a massive promise. Next year could surely be theirs if the rumours about their album are true. This is one of the final listening suggestions before we head into the inevitable round up and prediction posts that dominate December in the blog world. As this post will testify, just because we’re closing the year off, doesn’t mean the incredible music doesn’t keep coming. When we reflect on 2012 surely this will rank high among the killer tunes that arrived in our headphones this year. It just goes to show the year isn’t over until it’s over and all those blogs already setting their sights on next year may well have missed a last-minute addition.

Solomon Grey tick almost every box for us. This duo are Tom Kingston and Joe Wilson, a pairing from either side of the planet, not only having grown up in the UK and Australia respectively, but they also recorded their album in both countries too. To date just one single song has appeared from the project and it’s got the blogs jumping. Now, here at The Recommender at least, we’re not usually ones for tipping artists on the back of one tune, but this is no ordinary tune. It arrived in recent weeks, alongside a magnificent video and from the get-go you too will be hooked. This is blog crack. Imagine We Have Band covering TV On The Radio and you can perhaps understand why we’re salivating onto our desktop. Arriving after the death of LCD Soundsystem and in between TV On The Radio albums they comfortably fill a James Murphy-shaped, alternative pop hole in our hearts. Their timing may well be perfect, but there’s something about their music that suggests none of us will ever tire of this. Like their New York influences, they make music that’s virtually impossible to get bored of. It makes you lift and it keeps you interested just long enough to get you out of your seat.

The début single is called Firechild and in all honesty it doesn’t get much more flammable. Not only is the song a hit in waiting, but it shows the tell-tale signs of a major talent. A classy production, an awesome bassline, a cinematic quality, thoughtful lyrics, a glossy finish, breaks and drops in all the right places, lifting vocals, it’s all there. It’s a song with movement and fluidity, yet it has a wonderfully controlled energy to it. It feels taut and powerful, explosive even, yet it’s threat never tips over into chaos. It’s a song that aims high, but is found already flying from the outset, as it winds into view with a synthetic bassline that runs like it’s attached to the tyres of a race car. The beat provides the perfect four-beat clap, before the voice retains control, as a male vocal sings “I threw myself on to the fire, I threw myself on to the sword” in an epic refrain. It’s an expressive song about inspiring said ‘Firechild’ to “free yourself” and to “get your own life“. Put this track on your headphones when walking to the interview and you’ll storm it. Play it when preparing for a big performance and you’ll outplay the opposition. Listen when you’re looking for that big change and it will seem like the easiest thing you ever considered.

Not only is the song available as a free download from their site, but the gift extends to an accompanying video, which is equally as polished (see below). Henry Scholfield has directed it beautifully, with simple abstract visions interrupted by hypnotic dancing. It has the look and feel of something very high budget, major label-sized budget in fact, but they’ve apparently been operating alone on this project for the last three years, pulling in favours from mates for the video itself. Before you go hunting around online for older tracks, there aren’t any. They may have been working on this for three years, but that’s purely so they can add the deliberate finish that you now see coming out. It’s taken that long to design, build and polish this product, with the debut album already completed and ready for a release next year. This is a fully-formed new act, a beautiful butterfly, that wanted to get it right and fly when it’s absolutely ready. Absolutely nothing, then BAM! It’s a sign of the times that bands need this level of thought-out planning, but as we mentioned, you only get one shot these days. Thankfully their shot just hit the bullseye first time. (MB)

SOLOMON GREY – FIRECHILD

2 Comments

PINKUNOIZU

1 Comment

Perhaps we should start by discussing a few time-honoured cliches, such as “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks“, or “if at first you don’t succeed“, or “a rose by any other name“, as this quartet from Denmark used to make up half of an older group, Le Fiasko. However, this new reformation has released a set of rather masterful tunes, making their previous incarnation seem something more akin to a prelude to the new, improved outfit. We don’t have anything against their previous incarnation, but listen to this new set of songs and you won’t give a shit about Le Fiasko anymore, it’ll all be about Pinkunoizu. It just goes to show that true artists have it bursting out of them, so no matter what moniker they have, or which group they’re in, they’ll carry on delivering exciting creations. They’ve clearly taken all the lessons from that previous band, but by introducing us to an excellent batch of new tunes you can pick a card, any card, as it turns out that this dog is more than capable of picking up some entertaining new tricks.

The four-piece has been together since the end of 2009, and is made up from Jeppe Brix (guitarist), Andreas Pallisgaard (guitarist, vocalist), Jakob Falgren (guitarist, keyboardist, bassist), and Jaleh Negari (drummer), and you can hear they have a history between them, as they combine beautifully. Like a lot of Danish musicians, they seem to spend their time between Copenhagen and Berlin, two of Europe’s most interesting and inspiring cities and it’s clearly good fuel for this quartet. We have been in contact with Andreas recently and it turns out that Pinkunoizu is actually the Japanese word for ‘pink noise’, which seems rather obvious now we re-look at it, although the reason they selected such a strange new title is beyond us. They play a style of music that has a range that could sit anywhere between the folk of Freelance Whales and Bon Iver, with touches of TV On The Radio and The Flaming Lips introduced for good measure. If that doesn’t whet your appetite then we’d suggest that you, well, quite frankly you need to check your appetite.

Like Freelance Whales they are a mesh of influences and instruments, although you can hear they’re craft is perhaps more patient and less likely to reach straight for the hurdy gurdy. That’s not to say they don’t wind it up, or build to a crescendo, they do, regularly, but it’s one delightfully plucked layer at a time. They’re not afraid to start in the crouch position, but by each song’s close they’re stood tall, arms outstretched, or even better they’re elatedly star-jumping in front of you. On occasion it’s loose seams can sometimes fray, leading to irrational compositions, even stopping mid-tune as if someone’s turned the analogue radio dial off the station you were listening to, but it never falls apart completely. This is indie folk delivered more like jazz, in that it can go anywhere. It’s free from constraint and as wide open as a child’s imagination.

The great thing about this style of music – and the same can be said of Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver – is that it’s so very grown up and earnest, but with Pinkunoizu we also get a lot more lift and swell from the layers. It’s tangible folk rock. It has grip and tension. Check out Death Is Not A Lover and you will find that real things seem to appear out of what initially just seems like a lot of mist or smoke. It’s form is just a shadow at first, but slowly it creeps ever closer, before it’s on top of you, towering like something so large you’re forced into a cowering submission. It’s sediment stacks up to what seems like a dozen voices to create an incredible effect that sounds like an argument between you and death himself, as they state, “Death is not a lover“, only to hear his retort, “Oh yes he is“. It’s as scary as it is hypnotic, as you realise Death has his way with all of us eventually, so by it’s close you too will find yourself dancing with him whether you like it or not.

Their debut EP, Peep, arrived in November 2011, on Full Time Hobby records, (home to Timber Timbre and Fujiya & Miyagi), and the debut album, Free Time, is due out on the same label on March 26th, although an older and sightly different version of that album has already been released in Denmark. You can expect their usual experimentation and plenty of melody, with highlights as special as any contemporaries from similar genres. Admittedly they occasionally wander off down strange avenues, perhaps finding the odd corner or dead end, but that’s also part of their experimental charm and they never fail to find their way out of the musical maze they’ve created, ultimately reaching the finish in a glorious, satisfying climax. This adventurousness is a trick they continue into their videos as you can see from the below film made for their tune, Parabolic Delusions, which aims more for a kind of Flaming Lips-scale of grandiose theatrics. This band could re-form a thousand times and still churn out stunning music, so consider any name for this rose that you wish, as it would definitely still sound as sweet. (MB)

PINKUNOIZU – DEATH IS NOT A LOVER

PINKUNOIZU – TIME IS LIKE A MELODY

1 Comment