It must be really frustrating when you get back in the studio after having a multi-million selling debut album – imagine what runs through your head as you sit at the keyboard, or hover, pen-in-hand over a blank sheet of paper. Which black and whites should I use? Which of the myriad of ideas should I chase down and turn into melodies and lyrics that are fit to follow what went before? Tough decisions like this are probably best left to more intelligent & creative people than me – but I know that I would probably be a little scared of treading the path that Keane have followed in making ‘Under the Iron Sea’. They’ve taken a turn towards the dark side, and influenced by world events have come up with an (almost) dark and brooding follow-up. Yep, they’ve added a few guitars but the basic structure of the Keane sound is still there, leading pianos, almost angelic vocals and excellent keyboard work have turned out a strong album. The single - ‘Is it any wonder?’ is one of the weaker tracks for me – but there are some standout moments – ‘Crystal Ball’ and ‘Bad Dream’ are excellent tracks – Keane at their most pompous and engaging – and despite the dark themes of the album, there are still some joyous and uplifting moments.
Crystal ball
Save us all
Tell me life is beautiful
Crystal Ball – Keane
Its all high quality stuff – and will no doubt be dismissed by the anti-pop snobs, but for me – when you line them up against their contemporaries, there really is no competition.
By: mattr
Category: music
Managed to break something intermittently – all fixed now!
Family problems and work have kept me a little quiet, I need to catch up – so much to talk about, great music on the go all the time. Working a lot in Liverpool at the moment, opening a new call center and really enjoying visiting this cool town. Will be here all week, last night had dinner at the Heart & Soul Restaurant - excellent food in a nice setting.
Finally back and settled after a whole bunch of travel, I have so much new music to listen to and talk about, and this album has been a fairly constant companion on planes and in airports for the last couple of weeks. The Knife are another Scandinavian band – firmly rooted in the wonderfully dark and melancholic electronica that seems to abound in that region (must be the dark nights). I came across The Knife (Olof Dreijer and Karin Dreijer Andersson) when reading about th Jose Gonzalez track (Heartbeats) that appeared in that Sony Bravia commercial last year, but don’t expect gentle guitars and soft vocals, this album is all about high production values, razor sharp vocals layered over almost alien electronics. There are tracks with brilliantly abstract melodies and haunting, almost frozen basslines and clicky rhythm tracks. The lyrics are dark and unsettling in places:
I cut your nails and comb your hair
I carry you down the stairs
I wanted to see right through from the other side
I wanted to walk a trail with no end in sight
The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it’s easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common this was meant to be
You close my eyes and soothe my ears
You heal my wounds and dry my tears
On the inside of this marble house I grow
And the seeds I sow will grow up prisoners too
Marble House – The Knife (2006)
The vocals are amazing, crossing the effect of Kraftwerk with Bjork and many reference points in between – in fact the German masters of synthpop seem to have had a heavy influence on this duo – alongside some of the classier recent electronica (Jori Hulkonnen, Massive Attack maybe Sigur Ros in places). Apparently the next single (with video) will be ‘We Share our Mothers Health – although I doubt that there will be many singles breaking into the top 20, but honestly – this stuff is way too sophisticated for pop charts…its sublime, vaguely disturbing and perfectly engaging. Brilliant stuff, buy it and be beguiled.
By: mattr
Category: music
NME.COM – News – The Dears back with ‘stripped down’ new album - Best news in weeks (apart from two jags getting caught with his dick where it shouldn’t be….)
His father was a drinker
And his mother cried in bed
Folding John Wayne’s T-shirts
When the swingset hit his head
The neighbors they adored him
For his humor and his conversation
Look underneath the house there
Find the few living things
Rotting fast in their sleep of the dead
Twenty-seven people, even more
They were boys with their cars, summer jobs
Oh my God
Are you one of them?
He dressed up like a clown for them
With his face paint white and red
And on his best behavior
In a dark room on the bed he kissed them all
He’d kill ten thousand people
With a sleight of his hand
Running far, running fast to the dead
He took off all their clothes for them
He put a cloth on their lips
Quiet hands, quiet kiss
On the mouth
And in my best behavior
I am really just like him
Look beneath the floorboards
For the secrets I have hid
Sufjan Stevens – John Wayne Gacy Jr
Subservient Programmer - he truly is subservient, just ask him to do something!
I’ve been a bit lazy updating my blog…but I have an excuse, I’m in Seattle again – and the travel thing takes up so much time. Today I’m in a really good mood despite the fact I’ve hurt my back, maybe its the painkillers! I thought I’d just let you know some of the stuff I miss about being in the US:
- Proper TV – I quite like some American TV, but commercials every 2 minutes drive me insane – as well as “travel and weather on the 4′s” and “closed captioning is bought to you in part by…”
- Reasonably sized cars – most car parks have spaces marked as “compact”, these ones are best suited to parking a car the size of a huge audi in the UK, every car seems to be twice as big as the UK.
- My beautiful language – I think it was Oscar Wilde who said that America and England were two countries seperated by the same language – I really miss hearing the right words, and reading the correct spellings.
- Portion Control - I like my food – no surprise there, but only in this country can I order a steak the size of my head.
“Secret Bases” - Very cool site that documents all the secret miltary bases in the UK – huge, so take some time to read it!
“Before his destiny was further clarified, Robin Hood spent several years stealing from the rich and giving to the porcupines” – Thats all
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