New tunes
Just got an email from a friend and she said it reminded her to look here again which made me think I better put something up…its been a while.
Two new and almost certainly best of 2006 cds to spread the word about. The latest Black Keys and TV on the Radio. The Black Keys is in my car so I don’t have the title at hand. Its much like their others but after just a few listens, I get the feeling this may be their best yet. Still that driving blues. If you’ve never seen them, its just two guys, guitar and drums that sound like the first two LedZep releases but a little bluesier. You can catch a performance online at http://www.kcrw.com/show/mb .
I was just introduced to this station by a friend who properly described it as it rawks and rawks it does. You can also catch a performance there from TV on the Radio as well. Its become my new alternative to CBC3. Great playlists full of new material…broadcasts out of LA.
TV on the Radio has been on my radar for a while. One of the few bands I’ve listened to that sound like the future, or should I say a possible good future direction in music. They mess around with song structures, throw in some unusual instrumentation and come up with something powerful yet rather difficult to describe. A couple of years ago I was watching Austin City Limits and saw a performance by Polyphonic Spree and it scared the hell out of me. I was despondent for days after seeing their wailing and swaying berobed show redolant of the worst hippy lovein, distressed because here too, I sensed a possible way for music to go. But its been a little while now and the streets are still safe to walk down.
Other new cds on the player include one called Ballad of the Broken Seas from Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) and Isobel Campbell (Belle and Sebastian), a rough folky effort that perfectly marries two very different yet complementary voices, his rough deep and harsh (think John Cale, Nick Cave, Leonard Cohen) and hers smooth ala Sandy Denny. A great record. He wrote most if not all of the sounds but they sound like standards, allbeit standards with some very dark lyrics.
And I’ve given Stars out of Montreal another shot, and I have to admit I am smitten. Not the sort of thing I usually listen to but I like the way they build their stories and the interplay of the two vocalists. The woman kind of reminds me of a better version of Julie Cruise if anyone remembers her. And how can you possibly go wrong when you open with an line like “when you run out of things to burn you have to set yourself on fire”.
