some new videos for this week

The new M.I.A. video, BOYZ, from her so anticipated upcoming album KALA


Finally, this week the first single from Blood Red Shoes It's getting boring by the sea was released.



The video for the new Klaxons single, It's not over yet



The new video for the first single of Roisin Murphy's (Moloko) new album where she makes a poo while brushing her teeth.

My new favourite unsigned American christian band

Sweater weather, incredibly still unsigned, is one of the new wave of Christian pop bands spreading out in the USA. Following the steps of Sufjan Stevens, Danielson, Anathallo or Brand New, they combine the energy of mellow melodies full of arrangement with weird Christian faith messages in their lyrics. A talent to watch out from a near position...

Watch a live version of one of their best songs, The pains of Relocation and go to their myspace website to download three songs for free.

album of the week: NO AGE - WEIRDO RIPPERS / BARR - SUMMARY

And yes, I know, I should change the name of the section and call it the "two" albums of the week instead of just the album, as I'm always including two albums in that section, but I always try to put together two records with things on common. And today, taking into account that these two bands are friends between them, that they've played live together in many occasions, and they've published together in some American labels, maybe is the best excuse ever to join them in this post. Let's say that because apparently, their sound doesn't have many things in common when you listen to both records one after the other. No Age, as you can maybe discover through their name, sound a bit like the N.Y. bands from the beginning of the eighties, the No Wave movement, but with many influences from Noise, Pop, Post-hardcore and Post-rock. They publish this first Long record in Europe through Fat Cat, but have been publishing different EPs in underground American labels during their first year of existence. In the PPM site they define them as "Two parts of Wives make up this new group. Not perfect in the normal sense, but perfect in the sense that they think it is. Pretty and ugly meet somewhere in the middle of punk and art. You will see very soon. One guy broke his neck and had brain surgery, and the other guy got in a car accident and got a lot of money, it kinda sounds like that."

Watch the video for the fast and furious Boy Void:


BARR is a one man project, that requests some help when touring, that finds in the sentence "less is more" a modus operandi of his music. He used to play with Animal Collective before they even had a name and has developed through the years a very personal flow when he recites in his minimal spoken word compositions about his personal experiences. In this record, published some months ago, we can find one of the best songs of the year so far, the single "The song is the single" a meta-song about the song itself.

Andrew Bird live at Scala

Last Thursday I went to see Andrew Bird live. The invited live acts were Dosh, that use to play drums with Bird in most of his gigs, and St Vincent, also known as the live piano and guitar for Sufjan Stevens. Unfortunately, I didn't arrive on time for Dosh but I could see her act from the beginning. Her songs are beautiful, both lyrics and music, but maybe she could try to add a bit of aggressiveness to her performance. Andrew Bird played most of the songs of his last record and some of his previous songs, leaving out of the show, incomprehensibly, Sovey, his best song to date. The way he sings and plays the violin is magnificent but can be a bit tiring but the end of the concert. Nevertheless, a great concert.

album of the week : ALELA DIANE - THE PIRATE'S GOSPEL / ELVIS PERKINS - ASH WEDNESDAY

And we are again in front of two folk records. Am I maybe obsessed? Or maybe that's because to take a guitar and play your songs is the most universal and classical way to transmit your compositions? Whatever it is, these two records are not only a voice/guitar thing. Alela Diane, who was grown up in Nevada in the middle of the woods, has been publishing CDRs for a while until she last saw how Holocene Music realised her record. You can compare her to many other female folkers like Joanna Newsom or Marissa Nadler but her voice, arrangements and songs are quite personal not to always have Joanna's name in her reviews (although they are friends). Her songs reminds of the past, but they also have this timeless condition that made you think they've could be published anytime.

Pieces of string


Elvis Perkins is the orphan son of the scary Anthony Perkins and the photographer Berry Berenson, who died in one of the planes that crashed the twin towers during the terrorist attack of September 11th. With a past like that I'm sure that he had enough stories to, at least, publish one record of songs about love and death and it's another record that becomes an instant classic. Check the video I published some days ago.

And why it ain't a hit yet?

I bought the limited and expensive 7' of Dan Le Sac versus Scroobius Pip "Thou shalt always kill" like two months ago and I was sure it would be the next big thing. It's the best underground meta music dance hit I've heard since Losing My Age. It has everything to become a hit (maybe everybody dance it in clubs, but as I'm never going out to trendy places I didn't realize yet): Political punk attitude, rhythm, image, a destructive remix on the b-side with the addictive chorus "the beatles, just a band, nirvana, just a band the cure, just a band, the pixies, just a band..."
And it even has an endless groove at the end of the A side praying " Thou shall not make repetitive generic music"
We want more hits like that. The best of the year so far

Watch the video here:


And read the lyrics here:
http://www.goodweatherforairstrikes.com/test/2007/02/11/thou-shalt-always-kill/

Weird covers

Be prepared for some weird covers:

Dawn Landes - Young Folks (Peter, Bjorn and John)



The Moscow Coup Attempt - Sprout and the bean (Joanna Newsom)

Rihanna, the new mainstream queen

Every year there's a mainstream song nobody can resist, from the mothers and grandmas to the indie kids and ravers. Let's remember Kylie's Can't get you out of my head, Beyonce's Crazy, Madonna's Music or Nelly Furtado's Maneater. And this year will be Rihanna's year. Let's forget about the crappy duet between Shakira and Beyonce, who will never have a hit like Crazy again, and the only thing that they got with the song is to look so pretty and the same in the video. Rihanna even stole Beyonce's boyfriend to perform in her song, and this is the superfluous part of the song. More pop than Rnb', Umbrella has an irresistible chorus that can remember Cranberries' Zombie, and the way she pronounces umbrella (um-ba-re-la) is so contagious. And she is more pretty and sexy than those two, and she has a real curved body. And the way she dances with the umbrella remind me Madonna in the Open your heart video... and so on... Viva Rihanna!!!

Blogotheque: les concerts a emporter

Do you know Pitchfork? Of course, who doesn't... Pitchfork has become the international most influential and visited serious music online magazine. And it's an American site, of course. And if we keep on searching the web we can find an equivalent in most of the countries like Drowned in Sound in the UK or Blogotheque in France. But let's stop in this French site because apart from being a great on-line magazine in French (with an English translation option)they have a mini site with the concept: Blogotheque: un concert a emporter, with one of the most interesting and original concepts I've seen for a while on the Internet: live concerts of people like Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Herman Dune, Alan Sparhawk (Low), Grizzly Bear, Arcade Fire, Hidden Cameras or Jens Lekman, most of them in the street, while they are walking, a Capella or in strange places like a roof of a house or a balcony. You can check the website:
http://www.blogotheque.net/concertaemporter/
...and you can find some of them on Youtube, of course

Grizzly Bear


Sufjan Stevens


Jens Lekman


Herman Dune


Andrew Bird

Grizzly Bear Live at Scala

I didn't know that the guest band for Grizzly Bear at Scala was Gravenhurst, I just realized when I was there for the concert. And I knew they were the band because they were selling T-shirts at the entrance. If not, there was not way to recognise them. Nothing to do with the acoustic concert I saw once in Barcelona. And nothing to do with the records too. They were not good or bad, but the contrary.
And then Grizzly Bear appeared on stage. And the guy with the best nose doesn't look so cute when you have it in front, with bags under his eyes and a prominent belly under his shirt. But you start to find him sexy again when he produces these high "ououoes". And the concert was full of ououoes, transformed melodies and estranged pop songs, mostly from their last record and a great cover of the Crystals' scary beautiful sado song He hit me (and it felt like a kiss). And I couldn't stop singing The Knife trying to achieve these ououoes during the next week.