Good day. Apologies for my absence a couple of weeks ago, I was in Russia.
Anyway here are some songs.
BLANK REALM – Falling Down The Stairs
Blank Realm have been the best band in Brisbane for years now and there are quite a few people who know that already. They don't get popular attention, but just about anyone with a decent sense of musical taste who see the band live a couple of times understand that they're seriously special.
No two shows are ever the same, they have this bizarre knack of being able to deliver shows of immense quality that sound, look and feel absolutely nothing like the last time they played. Okay they still look the same…
Falling Down The Stairs comes from their forthcoming LP Grassed Inn, which is due for release in January. It starts off sounding like it could be a Tom Petty song or something, before becoming a somewhat standard (for them, anyway) jaunty indie tune and then it descends – or ascends, as it will – into a gloriously psychedelic passage that'd be a mind fuck if it wasn't so bizarrely saccharine.
WOODEN SHJIPS – Back To Land
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The new LP from San Fran psych acolytes Wooden Shjips is due next month, the band taking a little longer to release the follow up to 2011's West than we're used to from them. The title track Back To Land appeared online quite a while ago, but given the record is set to drop soon now seems a good time to give it a nudge.
Reading the press material surrounding the new record you get the feeling that this might be the most accessible Shjips record to date; given the way this track sounds you can kinda imagine that. Sure this is essentially five minutes of the same two chords, the same drumbeat and a guy who sounds just a little bit stoned nervously singing over the top, but it's more straight ahead than much of what they've given us in the past.
If it's indicative of the rest of the album, consider me stoked.
WHITE DENIM – At Night In Dreams
White Denim are one of those bands that you can easily forget are not super popular in the mainstream, because everyone who likes them doesn't stop raving about them. I've been guilty of the same in the past so the fact that the couple of songs they've shared from their new LP Corsicana Lemonade have kicked arse has been pretty great.
My favourite At Night In Dreams kicks off the record and is a kick arse piece of classic rock that will make you wanna head down to the den, crank up your Marshall, pack a few bowls and blaze away for a few hours. The band will be hitting Falls Festival early next year; make sure you go and see them.
LOS CAMPESINOS! – Avocado Baby
I can understand why people don't like Los Campesinos! Actually, I don't really understand why I am not one of those people. I dare say both sides of the fence are there due to frontman Gareth Campesinos! – his unique voice and razor sharp lyrics always sit front and centre of the band's songs. Having said that, this doesn't mean to detract from the rather ambitious arrangements the rest of the band, which makes up five-sixths of the group, plough through.
The Welsh indie rock sextet bridge darkness and light in their music constantly. They consider an obsession with death to be one of their biggest influences, but they also have been known to play uplifting and even anthemic blasts of gritty indie rock. No wonder they're polarising, you can't even pick the mood of their music half the time.
Avocado, Baby is definitely a pretty depressing tune but it's probably best summed up by the half hopeful but ultimately pretty fucking grim “Oh it won't get better, that doesn't mean it's gonna get any worse,” in the song's chorus.
Anyway, it's a good song.
BILLIE JOE + NORAH – Long Time Gone
In case you didn't know already, Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones are releasing a duets album under the name Billie Joe + Norah. It's not just any old album though; it's a complete reworking of a bunch of songs by the almighty Everly Brothers.
Yes, it's fucking weird that this is happening, but what's even weirder is that it sounds like it's actually going to be kinda… well, good. It won't change your life the way Dookie did (or should have) or sell 14 billion copies like Jones' Come Away With Me (okay, I'm sorry, it only sold 28 million copies), but it does not suck anywhere near as much as it should.
Most impressive is Armstrong's voice; he's always had a powerful bellow in the punk-turned-stadium-rock his band has bashed out for the past few decades, but the delicacy in his delivery here is actually quite shocking. His voice also works in harmony with Jones' really effectively as well, making me think that this is actually going to be a really pleasant record to have on the stereo come family Christmas time this year.
It kinda stinks that this will probably sell tens or hundreds of thousands more copies than Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Dawn McCarthy's What The Brothers Sang, a tribute to the same group release just a few months back, but I'm sure Mr Oldham probably doesn't care that much so neither should we.
You can tweet, email or fax me any songs you reckon I should check out. I'll definitely listen to them.
