Music

Captain beefheart Documentary

I found this documentary about the legendary Captain Beefheart on Youtube and wanted to share it here. It was made for the BBC in 1997 and is narrated by the man who introduced me to most of my favorite music: John Peel.
Part one is embeded below and links to the other sections can be found at the end of the post.

Captain Beefheart Documentary part 1
Captain Beefheart Documentary part 2
Captain Beefheart Documentary part 3
Captain Beefheart Documentary part 4
Captain Beefheart Documentary part 5
Captain Beefheart Documentary part 6

These New Puritans Return With New Single ‘We Want War’

These New Puritans’ first album Beat Pyramid was released in January of 2008 and received a lot of positive reviews. It was Vice’s album of the month and was given a score of 7.5/10 by Pitchfork, even MOR dad rock magazines like Q and Mojo had good things to say about the band. Elements of cLOUDDEAD, The Fall, WU Tang Clan and Ikara Colt combined with a deadpan delivery and nonsensical lyrics such as ‘I am in the rain, I am in the rain. I am in the- sixteen seconds!’.

The band recently anouced that their second album Hidden will be released on the 18th of Janurary 2010:

“Produced by TNPS’s Jack Barnett and Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis, Boymerang) and mixed by Dave Cooley (J Dilla, MF DOOM) the album draws equally on on the rhythmic lexicons of dancehall and 20th century post-minimalism, with instrumentation redolent of both the oceanic brass of Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes and the plastic textures of modern U.S. pop. It is sometimes brutal, sometimes melancholy, and sounds like nothing else.

Hidden features six-foot Japanese Taiko drums, a thirteen piece brass and woodwind ensemble, sub-heavy beats, prepared piano, a children’s choir, Foley recording techniques (including a melon with cream crackers attached struck by a hammer, used to simulate the sound of a human head being smashed), and the ethereal voice of Heather Marlatt from dream-pop group Salem.”

The first single from the album is called We Want War and is over seven minutes long. The video was created by Daniel Askill and is as epic and hypnotic as the track itself. Check it out below.

Dubai Sound City Festival

Dubai has been getting some major international attention of late mostly because of the recent Grand Prix and the forthcoming opening of the world’s tallest hotel. Another event of note was the three day Sound City festival which featured 78 bands, artists and DJs from around the world.

The event featured showcases from established and new band split between seven venues throughout the city similar to the South-by-Southwest festival in America (East by Middle East?). Headliners Echo and the Bunnymen had to pull out at the last minute due to the illness of singer Ian McCulloch but they were replaced by the Super Furry Animals. In all five acts did not perform including Hip Hop legends De La Soul. Other than the no-shows the event was considered a success.

“The response has been hugely positive. There were between five and six thousand people here on Friday and there’s a great willingness for people who want to get on board next year.”

Dubai Sound City

The festival was organized by David Pichilingi who also runs Liverpool Sound City. As well as live shows there were panel discussions and keynote speeches featuring big players from the international music industry. As well as some great bands there were a few old has beens hanging around like Ocean Colour Scene and the Human League. Perhaps next year when the festival is more established they will be able to draw some better artisits. No matter how cheap flights to Dubai get I’m not going to travel that far to see The Automatic and The Wombats.

Like Rats s/t Album: Free Download

People often proclaim their hatred of genres or more accurately bands being labeled as belonging to a particular genre. Whist some bands defy explanation and exist outside of genres most great bands clearly fit into a stylistic mode. Some genres like Dubstep seem to continually evolve whilst others are fixed and have clear boundaries and norms. Black Metal is a genre that seems to be both dynamic and fixed in stone.

Some would have you believe that to be Black Metal a band must adhere to some very specific rules and any experimentation is just a dilution. Thankfully there are bands like Wolves In The Throne Room and Tulus who experiment and push the boundaries. Some band are happy to pretend it is still the 80’s and thrash away in corpse paint, releasing albums that sound like they were recorded by putting the microphones in the building next-door to the studio. This isn’t a bad thing but it is interesting to see a genre that is so split down the middle.

like-rats

Like Rats are a band who mix Black Metal with Hardcore. there seems to be to be more Hardcore in the mix than Metal, I’m reminded of old Gravity Records stuff like Antiock Arrow and Heroin. The drums are fast but not helicopter blades whirring fast like a lot of BM drummers. The vocals rasp and growl and yet fit the faster tempos well.

I don’t know much about Like Rats other than that their (first?) album is avaliable for free download via their website here. I found them via the highly reccomended Invisible Organges. Guitarist Todd Nief’s blog post about the album can be found here.

Spotify Temporarily Reverts To Invite Only

Online music streaming service Spotify has reverted back to it’s original invite-only membership setup. On their blog Spotify said that the changes were only a temporary messure brought about by a large increase in the amount of new sign ups. The recent launch of Spotify’s iPhone/Android app has bought the service a considerable amount of publicity which has no doubt lead to the increase in those signing up.

There is a way to sign up without using an invite: get a premium account. A premium account is needed to install the mobile app and costs £10 per month. Premium users don’t have to listen to adverts although most Spotify users I’ve spoken to don’t seem to mind the ads too much.

The Register reports that every song streamed costs Spotify around 1p so selling their preimum account and mobile app is clearly vital for the service to survive.

Spotify-iPhone