Hard News: Listen to the Music : Public Address

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Hard News: Listen to the Music

Posted at 12:03PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Ever since David Haywood wrote Summer of the L.E.D.s, that great little band from Christchurch has been a favourite around here. We're pleased to have been able to help them reach a few more ears. And I'm delighted to say that they're allowing us to give away a free track from their new album, Still, to you, the Public Address readers.

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The track is called 'Tide' and it'll be right here for the next week or so (after that I find we start getting inbound links from spammy MP3 sites). So grab it, stick it on your chosen player and, if you like what you hear, feel free to pop on over to Amplifier to download the whole album at a friendly MP3 price. (It seems physical CDs aren't there at Amplifier yet, but they are already available at Galaxy and Real Groovy in Christchurch and Real Groovy and Slow Boat in Wellington.)

The sound of Still is more expansive than We Are the L.E.D.s, and the vocal duties are shared around more this time, but there's still the familiar, warm, artful electro-fuzz and understated pop. The title track encapsulates a little bleak humour about depression in its "I've got a touch of the Kirwan" refrain. (BTW, that's my voice you hear saying "Don't let depression get the better of you …" at the end of the repackaged John Kirwan TV spot. Have I become the "word in your ear buddy" voice of public health campaigns? I'd be cool with that.)

After half a dozen listens, I'm seriously sold on Still, and mentally comparing it to all kinds of things. I did an interview with Blair Parkes from the band for tomorrow's Public Address Radio, and we confessed he hadn't worked out why people start spewing comparisons when they hear his band. I went for "Kraftwerk vs the B52s" with the last album, the weirdest comparison they got was the Pet Shop Boys, and Blair thinks their most important influence is The Fall.

Something else I'm loving -- and also comparing to all kinds of things -- is Keeper's by Deastro. I've realised that all the blank looks I get when I blather most-favourite-new-artist-in-ages are because the album, composed of 22 year-old Randolph Chabot's bedroom recordings and demos, is an eMusic exclusive. You could do a lot worse than spend some of your free-offer 25 eMusic downloads on this album, because it's brilliant, and you'll be able to say you were totally into Deastro before he was famous.

Chabot strikes me as having the same sublimated pop instincts as a young Trent Reznor but (hurrah!) without the angst. Like a lot of things at the moment, it's as if someone's taken 80s electropop out to the back yard and gotten it nice and dirty. You can hear slightly weedier versions of his Keeper's tracks on his MySpace, and watch him perform live in this YouTube clip and this one. He also makes really cool posters for gigs.

Like Simon Grigg says, you could also do worse than pop over to Peter McLennan's MySpace for a listen to the new Dub Asylum stuff, which range from Price Fatty-style rocksteady revivals to the tricked-out funk of 'My Sneaker Collection Weighs a Ton'. It's music produced by someone who really loves music.

Simon also has a less happy story about the continuing disconnect between the music funding system and local dance producers. You'd think radio (and, ergo, NZ On Air) would be gagging for the new Timmy Schumacher single with the guy from OpShop singing on it, but no, too risky apparently.

I keep wondering if I was too hard on Ladyhawke's gig last week, but no I'm not: Pip Brown was anointed as one of the new wave of female pop artists by The Times last week, alongside the likes of Santogold. She's got great tunes, a nice image and pretty much a scene waiting for her to turn up -- but someone really needs to make it happen musically with her band.

Still, power of the internet and all that. I ran into Mike Hodgson from Pitch Black this week (at the Point Chev Countdown) and he says that paid downloads have really started to work for them. Ingrooves, the San Francisco-based aggregator they use outside New Zealand gets them a direct link off the electronic genre page on every iTunes country store.

They now release digital singles regularly via this route, and in the last six months Pitch Black sold 18,600 individual tracks online, in about 55 countries, from Belgium to Brazil, Latvia to Luxembourg. Mike says allowing the tracks onto subscriber music services, which return quite a low rate, has been a surprise boon. I'm guessing it probably doesn't amount to much more than $10,000 net per six months, but it's passive income that doubles as marketing in multiple territories. Mike's pretty happy with how it's going.

The top artists on Amplifier are now billing five-figure sums too. And increasingly, they don't have conventional record deals. Interesting.

I went to see our older boy in the class production of Twisted yesterday afternoon. The music for the party scenes was Katy Perry's insanely catchy 'I Kissed a Girl' (produced by longtime Saturday Night Live guitarist Dr Luke). The song is controversial both with Perry's former friends in the evangelical rock scene, and with parts of the gay media, who detect a residual homophobia in the lyrics. Meanwhile, Hype machine has gone mad with the remixes. Best just treat it as a pop song, I think. But I can think of a few prominent windbags who'd be horrified at what schoolgirls are singing these days …

And finally, Chris Bourke has republished his 1988 account of Going to Graceland. With pictures.

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bob daktari
From: auckland
Since: Dec 2006
Posts: 33

Posted at 12:03PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

cheers for your help with The L.E.D.S CD this morning Russell :)

This week I've been listening/watching Kitty Daisy & Lewis cover of the Canned Heat song 'Going Up The Country' its awesome

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxW3Ed7GrhQ

Russell Brown
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 5279
Moderator

Posted at 12:06PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

You could do a lot worse than spend some of your free-offer 25 eMusic downloads on this album, because it's brilliant, and you'll be able to say you were totally into Deastro before he was famous.

Oh, and of course, if you were thinking of actually signing up with eMusic, you could let your favourite blog site host put your name in through emusic.com's "tell a friend" feature and earn himself some free downloads (you'd still get yours too).

Just sayin'.

Rich of Observationz
From: Beautiful Downtown Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1152

Posted at 12:08PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Minor admin note: I'm on a temporary computer this morning with IE6, and a page with no comments renders really wierdly with a huge white space. In case the maintainers wanted to know

Anyways, I though Ladyhawke had great energy, which is probably what's driving their success. I still love the advert Suede placed before acquiring Bernard Butler (I think I have this right):
No musos. Some things are more important than talent

Alan Perrott
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 25

Posted at 12:10PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

for mine it's kraftwerk vs stereolab, and not in a good way.

all a bit twee for my ears. I think I'd done my dash with understated kiwi shoegazers quite some time ago.

it's cos I'm black innit...

Rich of Observationz
From: Beautiful Downtown Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1152

Posted at 12:15PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Can I also pimp a post by Matthew Holloway on the Wellington curry list, since I know a lot of artists and creators are here?

This concerns the ACTA treaty, currently being secretly negotiated by MED - this will, if passed in its current form, allow any content owner to search and monitor systems for copyright material *without a court order*. In other words, bug your Internet to see if you've got a pirated Metallica song on there (and if you haven't, well, move on).

Here's the email:

As most of you are well aware ACTA is a nasty bit of law that's being
negotiated right now by MED. For those unfamiliar there's write-up
here,
http://bronwyn.co.nz/
So the IT community are well represented (by InternetNZ, and Mark
Harris) on ACTA but they're only part of it, and what influenced MED
in the past was artists speaking up. So we're going through the steps
of talking to artists and if you know any you might want to forward
that link to bronwyn.co.nz to them. The more artists speaking up
against this (particularly well known ones) the better -- so please do
your bit to help out :)

Steve Parks
From: Wellington
Since: May 2007
Posts: 139

Posted at 12:17PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Russell, your link to the Wiki article on 'I Kissed a Girl' isn't quite functioning.

Steve Parks
From: Wellington
Since: May 2007
Posts: 139

Posted at 12:24PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Ha Ha.

From Wikipedia:

Perry's mother, Mary Hudson, who is an evangelical Christian preacher, said she disliked the song, stating: "It clearly promotes homosexuality and its message is shameful and disgusting..."

[SNIP]

Slant and other critics suggest that Perry may be homophobic...

Man, she just can't win...

Thom James
From: Auckland
Since: Apr 2007
Posts: 61

Posted at 12:36PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Point Chev Countdown really is one of Auckland's finest supermarkets

Tom Beard
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 397

Posted at 12:37PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

he hadn't worked out why people start spewing comparisons when they hear his band.

Isn't that what every armchair critic does with every band? In any case, maybe it's just that they remind us of so many things we like.

the weirdest comparison they got was the Pet Shop Boys

Um, I think that may have been me: I think I wrote on the Wellingtonista or Texture once that they reminded me of what the PSB would sound like if they were signed to Flying Nun. The PSB reference was more to the knowing, deadpan, not-afraid-to-sound-brainy vocals ... oh, and they haz synth, of course, but that's about it.

Thom James
From: Auckland
Since: Apr 2007
Posts: 61

Posted at 12:40PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

This is really floating my boat at the mo; Fleet Foxes' 'White Winter Hymnal'. Just luvverly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrQRS40OKNE

Danielle
From: PAS Women's XV Strategic Headquarters
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 887

Posted at 12:46PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Russell. I entreat you: do not name any further blog posts after Doobie Brothers songs. I shall go mad with this earworm. Mad I say! :)

Kyle Matthews
From: Dunedin
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 2413

Posted at 12:54PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

I need to (I can't say 'pimp' at present, given the discussion on Emma Hart's blog) promote my girlfriend's band, who will be putting out their debut album sometime soon, but which is mostly online anyway:

Meow ('pop electric acoustic country music recorded on a hazy Sunday afternoon type thing')

She would want me to mention that she used to play in a band with 'Martin', pre-Chills days, and not want me to mention that she told him that The Chills is a 'stupid name for a band, that'll never work'.

Tom Beard
From: Wellington
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 397

Posted at 12:55PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Slant and other critics suggest that Perry may be homophobic...

Perhaps not so much homophobic as "exploiting the stereotypical image of pretty bi-curious girlies making out for the titillation of heterosexual men".

Does it for me, though.</bloke>

Paul Litterick
From: Auckland
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 280

Posted at 12:58PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

The "I kissed a girl" link is here

samuel walker
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 183

Posted at 1:05PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

This is really floating my boat at the mo; Fleet Foxes' 'White Winter Hymnal'. Just luvverly.

oh yeah, iz speshiul. and a divine video too. utterly mesmerising.

Daniel Webster
From: Christchurch
Since: May 2007
Posts: 1

Posted at 1:06PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

The L.E.D.s have always reminded me more of Ladytron than anything else, but with less lady, naturally.

Grant Stone
From: Auckland
Since: Dec 2006
Posts: 12

Posted at 1:11PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

At the moment I can't stop listening to the new Richard Swift EP, available for free here

Grant McDougall
From: Dunedin
Since: Dec 2006
Posts: 227

Posted at 1:20PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

Yep, gotta say the new L.E.D.s album is a cracker.

As for Ladyhawke, I reckon she's gonna be a flash in the pan. Her songs are insubstantial and pretty laboured, compared to, say, the far more original and talented Bachelorette.

Simon Grigg
From: Bali, Indonesia
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 1353

Posted at 1:32PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

oh yeah, iz speshiul. and a divine video too. utterly mesmerising.

After having scorned Fleet Foxes rather brutally in another thread, I'm gonna do a humiliating 180 and say that I agree.

I was turned by hearing this on this podcast, where, enticingly, a beat is mixed underneath a minute or so in..it works.

And talking of Brian Wilson....I think his new album (in his ongoing succession of one shockingly awful album followed by something quite wonderful...genius rarely equals reliability) is rather fine.

samuel walker
Since: Nov 2006
Posts: 183

Posted at 1:38PM on 22 Aug 08. Permalink.

gagging for the new Timmy Schumacher single with the guy from OpShop singing on it, but no, too risky apparently.

Its a stormer of a tune. with the kind of crossover yet credible sound that The Chemical Brothers manage with their colaborations. Plus the OpShop guy does sound gooooood [and i have never gravitated towards their sound, at all]. It has hit written all over it. fools.

Russell. I entreat you: do not name any further blog posts after Doobie Brothers songs. I shall go mad with this earworm. Mad I say! :)

HMMMM, i was thinking Neon Heights myself....

for the quality junkies: 234mb version of White Winter Hymnal here