But,

I’m back! not everyday, but I’m back! Happy New year to any, and all out there. ’09 will be Fine.

Without further delay, into the music. There was a gap in new stuff for me into late Dec and through the holidays, but today will be so fresh and so nice. This past week, the new Animal Collective album Merriweather Post Pavilion has been getting heavy air time on my player, at home and on the road. The Vinyl version of the album has been released, and the CD and digital release is coming up hot in the next week or so. It has been well anticipated by many in the indie world as these guys tend to push their style a little more every album. They have gotten glowing reviews and are the darlings of many review sites, but all the hype is justified. The music may not be for everyone, but their new one is a beautiful, beautiful album. Only two weeks into ’09 and already a very reasonable contender for album of the year! Bam!!

So Far my initial three favorite songs on the album are Daily Routine, My Girls, and Brothersport. These are concert quality video postings, but if you decide to pick up the album, which I highly suggest, the production quality is damn good, as well as the songs being slightly different then when performed live. Damn good.

Daily Routine

My Girls

Brothersport

I think I’m running a Fever…….sweet, sweet Fever Ray is next on the Smithy hit list. I’ve thrown out my love for The Knife in previous posts and Karin Dreijer is one half of the dynamic duo that makes up The Knife. Her upcoming solo project is Fever Ray, and the album is due in March.

This is the first single from the album, ‘If I Had A Heart’, it’s dark, but beautiful.

This track came out a while back, just before Lykke Li Blew up Big Time, but I seemed to revisit  it this weekend, so I thought I’d throw it up. When it first came out, I found it so infectious I was rockin’ it back to back to back on my pod for days riding around town in the underground. Kleerup is a Swedish Producer. This song is called ‘Until We Bleed’ and is from his S/T disc, Kleerup.

Grrreat Track…..Hands down one of my favourite songs of the year.

ok, ok, here is another one for the vault….

Enter Gui Boratto.

Killer Brazilian Electronic Producer.

His Chromophobia album came out last year on the Kompakt Record label. Once again for whatever reason decided to pop this on last night for the first time in a long time. Seems like last few posts have contained a bunch of electronic music…so it goes I guess. This is ‘Terminal’, and it is one of my top picks from Chromophobia, though if you like this, the whole album is solid.

Happy end of weekend…..enter Monday!

This next song is from an album like that. The song is ‘So Bored’ from the artist Wavves, from his S/T disc. This past week it seems that Wavves has been catapulted into the lime light, as everyone is loving him. The album is blissed out noise pop, everything so distorted, with underlying Beachboys-esque ‘surf’style’ rock feel at the base of it all. Catch the Wavves if you are up for it, I will tell you I would’ve loved to have had this album in the summer.

This is a very fitting raw, live concert (nice venue, looks like he’s playing in a pawn shop ) version of Wavves performing ‘So Bored’ I believe at a show in SD, Cali, where he is from. If it sounds to you that the quality of the ‘sound’ is really bad, trust me the actual recording of the song is pretty much the same. So bad, it’s so good.

Now for Sten. Another year end surprise for me, as I had never heard of Sten, AKA Lawrence, until yesterday. By some of my reliable sources, his latest album, The Essence, is touted as ‘easily’ being the techno album of the year. I’ve listened to roughly five of his tracks, and they are sounding really good so far. For the genre, the music is very melodic, much of the time having a minimal deep house feel.

This one is from The Essence, and is called ‘Way To The Stars’, enjoy….

if you like this Sten, go check out other Sten over at his Myspace. Check ‘Sten More Stash’ and ‘Lawrence For DNTEL Dreams’ and go from there.

Peace

They’ve been hyped, and hyped practically since their first EP. For good reason, in my mind, every successive release of theirs has been better, and better. This is ‘Love Dog’ from their album Dear Science, which was released a few months ago, and is definitely in contention for the best album of ’08. The attention to detail with the production can really be heard, and they certainly weren’t slagging on their previous LP. The production on Dear Science, is really tight, it is a properly produced Pop album. If this doesn’t take them into a broader limelight, I’d like to see what does!

Here is ‘Love Dog’….

That is one of my favorites, though being such a great album, there are lots of great tracks. Another one that hits me right in the sweet spot every time is ‘Halfway Home’, the album lead off track. It has a little more mustard than ‘Love Dog’, making it so, so, sooo nice.

If it is not number one, Dear Science, should come out of the pack as one of the top three albums of this year, 2008.

Tonight I will start with the old and bring in the new. For some reason today I saw an image, of which I have now honestly forgotten, but it reminded me of the Goldie album, Ring Of Saturn. Like many albums I have loved over my life, when I sunk my teeth into this one it was heavy on the playlist for sometime. For drum and bass I found the sound easy enough for a novice of the genre to slip into, but with Goldie’s near pristine production work, also give the listener a solid footing into the heavier side of things. I often relate sounds of music to bodies or living organisms, and I often find myself really enjoying types of music where the music sounds like all its ‘parts’/instruments are being blended together to create one beautiful moving, fluctuating sound, for example the sound of a band like My Bloody Valentine, or the artist Fennesz. Tonight after revisiting the Goldie tracks I used to really enjoy I realized that the sound here is more like an orchestrated dance of the parts where each sound or instrument should be heard, recognized, and respected on its own.

Goldie could be considered the most prominent figure of the Drum and Bass scene for good reason. He has an extensive catalog of music, of which Ring Of Saturn was released in 1999, a decade ago.

Here is a track called ‘Kaiser Salsek’

Fast forward to today and if I had to tell you a few albums that have gotten the most airtime in my life over the last few years, I would definitely say two of them would have to be The Knife’s Silent Shout, and Burial’s Untrue. They were released in 2006, and 2007 respectively. I seem to continue to return to these albums time after time.

The Knife are a Swedish duo who formed in 1999, but only began to gain a wider audience within the last couple years, in part to a cover of one of their songs, Heartbeats, by Acoustic troubadour Jose Gonzalez, which was placed in a Sony Tv commercial. Silent Shout is a spectacular Album; digital, yet analog, rigid, yet soft, cold, yet warm.

Here is a sample of a live version of one of my favorites from the album entitled ‘Forest Families’

Burial is a one man production force out of the UK. He only has a few releases to date, and from what I have taken in I certainly feel that his newest released ‘Untrue’ is his best to date. The sound is most commonly categorized as Dub Step, and unlike most others in the genre, he incorporates a vocal element into the production making it very easy for newcomers to slip into an enjoyable initial listening session. For some reason I equate his music to something Moby would be making today, if Moby was still releasing relevant music worth listening to. Sorry Moby, I certainly loved your earlier stuff, back in the day!

Like the Knife there are soooo many good tracks on the album, but this one is definitely up there in my mind. The track is Homeless, and it is a certified show stopper.

Well two steps forward, one step back… I’ll leave you tonight with a bonus of one more from Goldie’s Ring Of Saturn, ‘What You Won’t Do For Love’. Has the late nineties housey soul-style vocal sound on it, a little cheesey, but a little goodness for all a y’all.

Great primer for any of your friday night activity. Enjoy for now, I’ll be back later……..

Jay Z is back with a nice one. Nothing ground breaking, not inventing anything new like Alexander Bell, just comin’ with a nice new, infectious track for the public ears. He has a real relaxed swagga in the track as he playfully jumps around the vocal range of his rhyming, cracking his voice at times jumping from low to high, and even busting out and tryin’ a ‘ting with some Jamaican patois. Kanye gives this one an epic-type feel reminiscent of the Black Album days. The track is from the official soundtrack to ‘Notorious‘, both soundtrack and film to be released in Jan ’09.

‘Brooklyn Go Hard’, features Santogold, and is produced by Kanye.

Ahhh, Clipse, Clipse, Clipse……

A couple days ago on Dec, 1st the dynamic Duo, Clipse dropped their newest mixtape over at the complex site. The Mix is called ‘Road To The Casket Drops‘, which is what they are calling a prelude to their Till The Casket Drops LP coming out early ’09. The Clipse have come up with some real solid bangers in the past. They are closly associated with Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, who are The Neptunes, another killer one-two punch production duo…you heard of them?…. 

Anyho, after a few listens, here is what sounds to me, like the most solid track from the Mixtape. It is called ‘Addiction’, and similar to the Hova track above, is nothing crazy new, in fact key parts of the song really sound like styles themselves and Pharrell have used before. Still a solid club track though. There are some equally enjoyable tracks to take in from the rest of the tape, however this one sounds the most like it is an actual ‘finished’ track, as opposed to just beats and rhymes from a mixtape.

Only time will tell how the actual album sounds, they have certainly built up a solid Rep, let’s see if they can stand up to it once again.

If you like this and wanna grab the whole mixtape here is the link

Peace.

I initially fell for their album Bows & Arrows which dropped back in early ’04. Their sound hasn’t changed a lot from album to album, and maybe for this reason when You & Me came out I had realised it was a nice one, but just didn’t bother giving it the chance it needed to breathe. After having listened to it front to back last night, I have to say I’ve changed my tune about the album. It’s delicate, enchanting, and carries with it a certain timeless quality. The production of the album is consistent the whole way through, carrying with it a very ethereal live feel. For this reason the songs share a similarity in overall feel, really wrapping up each and every track together into a solid album. As this whole it is a really great body of work, which should be taken in front to back.

Smithy Says: This album puts forth a certain festive groove and exuberance which is to be best paired with a nice bottle of Vino, tinto of course, perhaps early on in the evening, or with Vino, or Bourbon toward the end wind-down of a festive holiday fete. Bread and Butter baby.

Here is the only official video so far from the album, ‘In The New Year’

Also here is a live version of another tune from the album, ‘Canadian Girl’

If you like these definitely check the album. One of the years best, maybe not top ten, but up there.

I’ll leave this post with an upbeat throw down from their 2004 Album Bows & Arrows, ‘The Rat’.            Really, reeeally good….

Happy December second.

Winter is here. Well in Ontario anyway, though this week is looking to be pretty mild. I’m no weatherman, and that’s not what I’m here for, so let me switch gears and jump into today’s goods.

Caught this video today, Portishead – Magic Doors. It was immediately one of my two favorites from their latest album Third. In Third you can hear them retain a certain grounding in their Trip Hop roots, but also hear a experimental flourishing of their style incorporating styles like Krautrock and traditional forms of Techno. In retrospect it’s not surprising to me that ‘Magic Doors’ and ‘The Rip’ became my favourites right off the starting line as they stand above the others in terms of lush melody, and balance of vocal and instrumental fragility and driving instrumental and percussive accompaniment.

Portishead came back this year after hiding under one hell of a rock, totalling a 10 year absence from the music scene. Their second album, previous to Third, self-titled Portishead had come out in 1997. Boy did they come back this year. As history has shown us, few bands can come back from extended absences and still present themselves relevant in a current music scene.

Portishead were an essential act in forging the Trip-Hop scene of the 90′s (primarily along with Massive Attack and Tricky), and surprised many this year by pushing themselves out of that comfort zone to release possibly one of the best albums of the year in ’08. A hell of a comeback……unlike some others.

I’ll just go ahead here and double-down, adding my other favourite from the album, ‘The Rip’. Beautiful song indeed. Once again it exemplifies their new stylistic evolution of blending their original Trip Hop sound, and adding to it elements of Krautrock and Techno. Sweet Medicine, especially on a wet December day like this one.

Late change up, Beth Gibbons, frontFemme for PH called me up and asked me to take down their official video I had posted for ‘The Rip’, so I’ve switched it for this live version. Nice treat anyway, I hadn’t seen this until now…..enjoy!

Last bonus, bonus a self indulgent intimate cover of ‘The Rip’ by Radiohead (well, to be specific, in this case Sir Thom Yorke, and Sir Jonny Greenwood. They definitely aren’t Knighted, but in my eyes Ol’ Gordo Brown should make that Priority number one). If you don’t know me, know that I love Radiohead. They are one of the true few bands who have kept morphing through a long span of time, often presenting something new and different, sometimes challenging, for their fans.

Raz Ohara & The Odd Orchestra – Where He At (Apparat Remix)

I first discovered Apparat’s work on his collaborative album Orchestra Of Bubbles, with Ellen Allien in 2006. Taking an almost immediate liking to the album I had initially assumed it was Ellen’s work I was really taken with, but after then taking in Apparat’s next proper album Walls, I realized that it was more his work that captured me.

His sound can often be categorized as Electronic/IDM, and he has a way of finding a beautiful blend of the softness that can be associated with most types of IDM music, and a more grating, glitchy, granular sounding electronic style. His best tracks present this blend, evoking with them a real softness, but also a propelling, anthem like quality.

I stumbled upon this Remix of the Raz track about two weeks ago on his Myspace Page.

I haven’t had much exposure to Raz and the Odd bunch outside of this, but I’ll let you know if I find anything nice from digging around.

Here’s a link to a subtle banger from the Orchestra Of Bubbles LP

Do Not Break – Ellen Allien & Apparat