Tag Archive for "TV On The Radio" - The Recommender

THE RECOMMENDER – THINK ABOUT LIFE

To be honest, we aren’t exactly shy of contrasts and comparisons on this blog. Upon hearing a tune for the first time it’s in our nature to immediately liken it’s components to that of other music we’ve previously heard. We all do it, don’t we? Well, how would you like to hear our strangest musical allegory to date? We think we just heard Win Butler, of Arcade Fire fame, fronting The Go Team! That’s what smacked our imagination full in the face upon pressing play on the brilliant tune, Havin’ My Baby, by the excellent Think About Life! Don’t worry though, for the comparison didn’t last long, as the frontman, Martin Cesar, goes on to sound just as much like Tunde Adebimpe, on Johanna, or even Kele Okereke, on the track Sweet Sixteen. He’s backed up by the extaordinary music, which is straight out of The School Of Awesomeness, where these prefects are clearly shaping up to obtain top qualifications. It’s the tinkering bounce in the beat and the tricks up their sleeves, that reveal themselves rewardingly as each tune unfolds, that convinced us to enter them onto The Recommender today. Just like TV On The Radio – with whom they seem to share playful ideals – they seem more than happy to experiment without losing the tune, or indeed the listener. There’s plenty of funk, genial samples and handclaps throughout, planting smiles across the room as they serve up their satisfying soul food. They played Europe’s leading festival of new music, The Great Escape, in our home city of Brighton back in May, which suggested that the UK hasn’t quite caught onto them, following their 2006 self-titled debut release. The Canadian four piece’s lineup has slightly changed prior to their second album, Family, bringing in Caila Thompson-Hannant on bass and vocals, which perhaps explains why it’s taken the sophomore LP three more years to get here. In truth, their label, Alienate Recordings, stuttered for a UK release, arriving on the record store’s shelves of America and Japan before here. We suggest that you now have a flick through the below tunes and consider leaving a comment with your own collection of comparisons. (MB)

Find them here: Myspace

Hear them here: THINK ABOUT LIFE – HAVIN’ MY BABY

Hear them here: THINK ABOUT LIFE – SWEET SIXTEEN

Hear them here: THINK ABOUT LIFE – JOHANNA

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Published: July 13th, 2010
Author: The Recommender
Category: The Recommender
Tags: Alienate Recordings, Arcade Fire, Havin' My Baby, Johanna, Kele Okereke, Sweet Sixteen, The Go Team, Think About Life, TV On The Radio

THE RECOMMENDER – NUMBER 100 – FELIX AND VOLCANO!

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We think we can confidently state that most of the emails music bloggers receive are utter rubbish. We’ve often considered the easy way out – to cull them all in big batches. On many occasions our fingers have hovered over the delete button, but what stops us is that one faith-restoring email out of a hundred, with a bounty contained within it, that reminds you precisely why you got into blogging in the first place. In truth, emails aren’t actually a music bloggers best source for discovering music, it’s actually by busily interacting online, or by reading other blogs/sites, and obviously by being active in the real world. Like any other business, referrals are much more successful. However, there we were, panning for email gold, and up came Felix And Volcano. To our pleasure they didn’t roll into the usual PR fluff about how amazing they are – they did what we always prefer bands to do – namely to just give us one line and a link to listen to an mp3. Upon clicking through to their Bandcamp and listening to their track, Shaadows, our faith in the process was immediately reinforced. This track’s rather simplified breakbeat start is swiftly overlaid with a keyboard refrain not out of place in an ice hockey match, but the playfulness is quickly matured, as Sam Ueda’s vocals begin. His spoken words, reminiscent of James Murphy or Lou Reed, engage you before they raise the pitch to a sublime treble. The song then wanders down a path previously trodden by the likes of TV On The Radio, or Beck at his most sexually experimental. It’s a minimalist piece of tidy electronic pop, before it bravely shifts gear and climaxes at an entirely different pace. Sam from the band informed us that Aian Constantineau, who plays the keys and beats, used vintage equipment for this recording, choosing the Casio DG-20 Digital Guitar. He also pointed out that this is a tool of choice for the Flight Of The Conchords team, with whom they share a sense of youthful abandonment. That’s no surprise, considering this two piece met at the University Of New Hampshire and are still only 19 years old. Having started in 2008 and previously released only a first draft EP, they’ve now put out a more polished EP, Grow Rich, this May. Fans of Naive New Beaters, Yes Giantess, or My Awesome Mixtape will smile along to this. Emails aside, perhaps you too will find them just as re-assuring as we did. (MB)