I've had a long day. A fifteen hour day yesterday leading into a 6am start today, followed by two exams, marking 35 Year 11 & 12 English short stories, had a drawn out issue get drawn out even further - and it's been raining all day. Admittedly Scout Niblett got me over the hump; Crushed Beaks got me smiling; and _ got me smashing beers. But in these twilight hours, I've somehow slid back into a melancholic smoulder. And I don't know why, but twee queer pop is the one thing that is attuned to this weird malaise, courtesy of one of Fortuna Pop!'s roster cards, New York's The Ballet. They released their latest LP of Stephen Merritt-skewing indie pop gems, I Blame Society, on Monday. I haven't heard it, but I've heard 'Difficult Situations' - and although I don't have a boyfriend, there is a lot here mirroring my worldview. Such is life...
I wanted to save this until Friday and a Friday Cover Up, but Scout Niblett's album is too great to wait that long. It's Up To Emma came out a fortnight or so ago through Drag City, and it's bloody great. Dark, downbeat, even a little desperate - but this is why I love Scout, she's uncompromising. Even when she is endowing TLC's sisters-doing-it-themselves "classic" 'No Scrubs' with shadowy menace. It's a great rendition - the whole reason we started a covers post section in the first place - but there is so much strength elsewhere here - the dirge blues wrack of 'Gun', the lurking bruises within 'Can't Fool Me Now', the haunted 'My Man,' the coalescing closer 'What Can I Do'. Scout has always stripped bare her lyrics, offering both an insular and defiantly combative character, and the instrumentation is just as skeletal, even when joined by strings. And the presence, that voice - its earth-shattering in its understated power. Never mistake her as a PJ Harvey acolyte - It's Up To Emma is blazing proof that Scout Niblett is a burning power all her own.
And its taken a week, but I have gotten through all the bands on Bad Panda Records that I deemed good enough to unearth! And again Ive got two here for you, and finishing with a couple of instrumental/post-rock acts seems pretty fair I reckon!
First up is Gaspar Claus. A French music classicist, Claus has studied music for most of his life, in particular the usage of the common cello. He has extrapolated such knowledge to expand upon and stretch the boundaries of cello playing, and indeed what the instrument is capable of achieving. He has worked with various artists from wide ranging global creative fields - from flamenco and actors to pop musicians such as Scout Niblett and Sufjan Stevens (two artists who eschew the conventions of the pop song for their own ends as it is). He is involved in projects all over the world, with Tokyo and Berlin unsurprisingly two of his main destinations on this life journey. Vincent Moon, who most recently filmed Mogwai's Burning film, has followed him around on this quest. Below is a track from his solo recordings, as well as one of the songs recorded by Moon. Amazing stuff, and his musical mission statement and constant drive to go further means I want to indulge in everything he has to offer.
A very different beast be Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles, a New Jersey post rock outfit, although their elegaic moniker (from the title of a lesser known and yet great film by Yimou Zhang). Its a sprawling outfit all right - 11 regular members that includes five guitars, bass, drums, violin, cello, piano, bells and a harp - you wont see these guys play Old Blue Last! Post Rock bloggers The Siren Sound are avid fans of these guys, as they evoke a spooky mindscape that is fully immersive. And dont want to paint them into a corner so I wont mention names, but a couple tracks did mirror a certain Canadian band that have reformed this year... A Boldogság Minden Reményét Elragadták (from Hungarian, “All The Hope Of Happiness Has Been Stolen”) is a behemoth of an album that they released not long after forming in 2008, and it is all done on 8 track - AND ITS AMAZING. Hunt this fucker down, STAT! But they are so hard to hunt down - they have no Facebook/Myspace page, interviews are almost non existent... So hunt down the album, hunt them down on Last.fm, and listen to the track below, which is hugely exciting as its a newie! There should be a new album just around the corner...
First up are Argentinian-born, Paris-raised and London-dwelling Ezequiel Ezequiel. This bedroom wielder of musical magicry has crafted a glacial pop effort with his EP Winter Rise, from which I gleaned 'Dear Permafrost', a slow tramping number that you can imagine fur-lined scavengers listening to as they drag themselves through the frozen grasses of a frigid bleached white plain... You can grab the whole thing over at his site, here.
Louis Aguilar is one of those talented and prolific so-and-so's that are scaling heights hitherto unknown by the likes of you and me at tender ages, which sees either Doogie Howser-esque idolatry or barely concealed resentment and rage. Now 20 years of age, France-born Aguilar started playing music at 7 years of age, self producing his first album Hairy Tales at the much more sage age of 16. He's supported Micah P Hinson (himself a spring chicken), Scout Niblett and Devendra Banhart...bastard... But seriously, newish LP Old Man Poems (out through French label Noize Maker Records) is a cracker, of which the epic folk leanings of 'Six Feet Under' can be found.
Leonard Mynx rounds out this triumvirate of troubadours. 'Song With No Name' comes across as an amalgam of Dylan whimsy and sighs from a Beck Sea Change perspective. Its a nice wistful whisky moonlight kinda song... The Portland songsmith is proving a dextrous lyricist too, if his album from earlier this year Le Petit Mort is anything to go by (its a nice sounding album too, gathering in help from members of the likes of Horse Feathers - who played the Luminaire last night - and Loch Lomond). He is also giving away digital copies of first LP Vesper - not by bandcamp either but by straight up one to one emailing (leonardmynx@gmail.com).
