Thursday, October 26, 2006

"Myyy faaaavvvouuurrrittte sooooonnnnggg!"

Hi everyone!

I know I've been AWOL for a few days (not counting my King Creosote/Jeremy Warmsley review from yesterday) but when you're not really feeling it, then it's best not to post just any old thing.

The juices are starting to flow again though, I can feel them, so let this be the start of some more regular blogging activity. The new mixtape is ready and should be up over the weekend at some point. Tomorrow might be a bit of a goner, as I have a few social engagements to attend to, but expect at least something on Saturday and Sunday. Depending on how I feel of course.

Anyway, I bet you're absolutely dying to find out what my Single Of The Week is...

SINGLE OF THE WEEK
The Long Blondes - Once And Never Again (Rough Trade)


Probably the jangliest song in their repertoire, this still bears all the hallmarks of The Long Blondes' sound. Kate Jackson's lyrics are as tart and acidic as ever, if a little more world-weary than on their other singles. Her words are counterbalanced by the music, which is clattery, yet clean and more than a little reminiscent of The Housemartins, in my opinion. It's not even their best song, but it's still better than anything else released this week. All hail the best new band in Britain!



This past week, a lot of my time spent listening to music has been devoted mainly to one piece of music; LCD Soundsystem's 45:33, created for Nike's Original Run series of unique pieces created to soundtrack a workout. Anything new from the DFA and particularly from James Murphy's LCD Soundsystem is greeted with rabid fervour by me and I'm sure by many others too. This is no different.

While it's a little wide of the mark to say that this is just one long track, as it is really a series of movements mixed into one seamless whole, it's best listened to in one go. Which is how I've been taking it in all week. It really is a brilliant piece of work, just viewed purely on its own terms. In fact, I have no idea how good it is to workout to, as anyone who knows me will attest to me not being the most active of people and I'm pretty sure I'll never find out. However, as a new, one-off work from one of the most consistently thrilling bands in the world right now, it's pretty jaw-dropping.

A little different from the usual LCD fare, the vocals are sparse and far between and aren't very Murphy-esque when they do appear. In fact, the whole thing brings comparisons to the likes of Arthur Russell, Brian Eno and Manuel Gottsching, whose E2-E4 is the most obvious influence, despite the title's cheeky nod to John Cage. The ambient coda, with the spectral voices and the heartbeat backing is one of the most singularly beautiful things I've heard all year and kind of makes me want to get my trainers on and use it how it was intended, just so I can crash out to it at the end. Something tells me I'd have probably given up long before then though.

This is normally the point where I post some kind of mp3, but seeing as it is all one track and I'm way too lazy to start ripping out excerpts, I'll just post the itunes link where you can purchase it from.

45:33

Back with more over the weekend,

JMx

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Goodnesses me, I do love lcd and the like J as you know, but why go nike on us???

*gets all snobby* :D

2:41 pm  

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