Song Of The Day 28/02/2013: King Creosote - So Forlorn

King Creosote is a Scottish singer/songwriter. He's also the leader of the Fence Collective, a Scottish label that puts out records by a variety of excellent bands & singers such as Withered Hand and James Yorkston. I got into King Creosote a couple of years ago when his album with Jon Hopkins was getting praise all over the music press - that record, 'Diamond Mine', really is a spectacular (if spectacularly short) piece of rural modern folk. Beyond that, though, he's released over 40 solo records. I haven't really scratched the surface yet.

This song appears on (at least) a couple of his records, 'KC Rules OK!' (probably the best record of his I've heard) and the album that this recording comes from, 'Kenny and Beth's Musakal Boat Rides'. I prefer this version - the guitar part (apparently sampled from Funkadelic, if you trust YouTube comments) treads the line between 'driving' and 'annoying' pretty closely, but always stays on the right side of the line.

Song Of The Day 27/01/2013: The National - Exile Vilify

The National are definitely my favourite band, and have been for a number of years. I try and refrain from getting too fanboy-ish on here, but they've just announced the upcoming release of a new record, their first since 2010's brilliant-but-not-quite-as-good-as-Boxer 'High Violet', and that seems like a pretty good excuse to post a song of theirs. I was at ATP in Camber Sands in December when they previewed a few new songs from the record, and from what I can tell it'll have more of the slow, sombre stuff (check out 'I Need My Girl', which has been doing the rounds for a while) than the last record. Now all they need to do is throw in a few shouty Abel- or Available-type songs and it'll be a return to what they do best.

This song, from the Portal 2 soundtrack, is a fairly simple piano ballad that the band released as half of a double A side in 2011. It's not all that typical a National song in general, but the vocals and lyrics are quintessential Berninger.

Song Of The Day 26/02/2013: Young Romance - Swollen Hearts, Bitten Tongues

In this blog's long hiatus I lacked a vehicle for talking about new bands I discovered, so now it's back I'm going to revisit some of the bands I discovered in the past year or so. One of those new bands I've listened to the most is Young Romance, a boy-girl indiepop duo from London who play sweet, slightly fuzzed-up tunes underneath surprisingly melancholy lyrics. The band consists of Claire (officially vocals and drums, but probably more 'spectacular vocalist who happens to also have a drum') and Paolo (guitars & backing vocals). This is the song of theirs that seems to be most widely known, having been on the Indietracks compilation last year.

Not much of their stuff is widely available. They released a single on EardrumsPop, and have a Bandcamp, but other than that stuff is pretty hard to come by. Probably my favourite song of theirs, 'Wild', was released as an acoustic demo last year, but seems to have disappeared from the internet. It's definitely worth an investigate if you can find it - there must be some kind of reason they took it down, so I won't post it on here, but trust me. It's good.

Unfortunately it seems like they only ever do gigs on Friday nights, which I can rarely make. Also, they recently pulled out of the OddBox 2013 Singles Club. Hopefully new songs (as well as actual releases of old songs) will be along sooner rather than later.

Song Of The Day 25/02/2013: Courtney Barnett - History Eraser

I only heard this song for the first time very recently, but it has been on extremely heavy rotation ever since. Courtney Barnett is a Melbourne singer/songwriter who is apparently just beginning to make waves over there. She released an EP last year, called "I've Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris", which is well worth a listen. This new single, though, which is apparently going to feature on a new EP this year, is a real step up. Hopefully she'll make it over to the UK at some point.

It has a very Pavement-y slacker vibe but lacks a lot of the laziness that ruins a lot of that kind of thing. Dan Luscombe, from the Drones, plays guitar on this song and definitely adds a bit of punch that was missing from the debut EP. Fundamentally, the song is just an incredibly catchy pop song, in the very best way that phrase could be used.

Song Of The Day 24/02/2013: Lower Dens - Brains

I haven't been on here in far too long. Shortly after posting the My Sad Captains summary below, I made a terrible mistake. I put the song 'A Present Tu Peux T'en Aller' by Les Surfs on 'repeat'. Physically unable to turn it off, I was forced to let it just go on and on until I got bored of it and was ready to listen to other music. I suppose I got off lightly in the end, with the video looping a mere 242,062 times. (Go on, do the maths. It's correct.) Now I have (hopefully) thoroughly got that song out of my system, it's time to start catching up on all the other things that have been going on in the music world in my absence.

I struggled to decide what to make my first 'Song Of The Day' in what is approaching 2 years. I toyed with being 'hilarious' and making it this, but in the end decided that would just be in bad taste, and that I should just mention it in my introduction. I toyed with doing a 'best song since I've been away' post, doing a 'best of 2012' post or doing a 'best song My Sad Captains released since my last post, seeing as they were the subject of the last post I made'. I in the end rejected them all, either because I'd just be posting what everyone else would have posted a couple of months ago or because the feature name was far too unwieldy, and decided just to post a song I liked.

I like this song. It's good. Good 'groove', good tune, good lyrics. I'm not going to say any more about it. After all, that's what this blog was and always will be about - completely uninformed listening to good songs.



I'm unlikely to be able to get back to the daily posting, but hopefully I'll be able to post more often than I did in 2012!

Song Of The Day 24/06/1988: Sagittarius - My World Fell Down

It's my birthday! Therefore very little time to actually blog today. I'll just give you some classic 1960s chamber pop. It really is extremely similar to Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys, without many ideas of it's own, but manages to pull off the lovely harmonies of Brian Wilson et al with aplomb.

Song Of The Day 23/06/2011: Make Up - You + I vs. the World

I'm becoming increasingly convinced that Ian Svenonius, frontman of various bands including the Nation of Ulysses and previous subjects of a song of the day Chain and the Gang, is right about everything (check out his book "The Psychic Soviet"). He's also a great frontman and a good songwriter.
Today's song is from his post-NoU band Make Up's first album: although it's called "Live! at Cold Rice" it definitely isn't, although the recordnigs do have a lot of live energy.
This is my favourite track from the album, showcasing Make Up's "gospel ye-ye" to full and terrifying effect. A heavy groove with Svenonius' surrealist rock and roll evangelism on top. Great stuff.

Make Up - You + I vs the World

Song Of The Day 23/06/2011: Codeine - Ides

Codeine were an early 90s slowcore band and, along with other slightly later acts such as Low and Red House Painters, helped to define the 'genre'. They were, however, much heavier than either of the other two bands mentioned. Instead of the same kind of sparse production as the rest of the scene, they had a slightly more experimental sound and a lot more energy. Their second (and better) LP features very basic instrumentation which is just left to echo through the record, as in this song. The album, released well after Slint released Spiderland and set the tone for this kind of thing, goes into almost post-rock territory in places, without ever building up to anywhere near the wall-of-sound levels of some of their contemporaries. The lyrics are incredibly despressing, with the line 'Can't watch the trees, can't go outside, don't go outside' pretty much summing the song (and band, and scene) up.

Song Of The Day 21/06/2011: Life Without Buildings - Pop Life

I've been posting a lot of interesting (to me, anyway) covers recently. This one is one of the weirder ones - it's Life Without Buildings, the early-00s Scottish indie rock band known for artist Sue Tompkins' delicately shouted vocals, covering Prince, all-round poser extraordinaire. It may be only for the die hard fans of either act (something to amuse them until the next Die Hard comes out - joke TM Richard Herring) but I love it.

Song Of The Day 20/06/2011: Pocketbooks - Footsteps

Indietracks today announced it's schedule, which means there really isn't very long to go until we all head off up to Nottinghamshire. I'm mostly relieved that all the bands I'm looking forward to seem to have managed to avoid each other (with the notable exception of Help Stamp Out Loneliness clashing with Math & Physics Club). The festival is fittingly going to be opened by Pocketbooks, a major part of the team that organise the festival. They didn't play last year, but have played every other indietracks and will fit back in seamlessly.

Song Of The Day 19/06/2011: Low - Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me

Regular readers will be well aware of my infatuation with Low's most recent record, C'mon. It has inspired me to go back and listen to a lot more of their back catalogue than I ever have before. This gem of a cover version was tucked away on the third disc of their excellent B-sides & rarities compilation, 'A Lifetime of Temporary Relief'. I'm a big fan of the Smiths original, but I think this beats it both for feeling and, in the second half of the song, for raw power.

Song Of The Day 18/06/2011: The Black Keys - Midnight In Her Eyes

The Black Keys have pretty much exploded in the last year or so, with their latest record getting them a lot more mainstream airplay than they have ever received in the past. It's a good record, but it feels like they have completed the descent into just another uptempo rock band that began with the release of 'Magic Potion' a few years ago Their first 3 albums, from the debut 'The Big Come Up' to the truly excellent 'Rubber Factory', had something different - a bluesy dirtiness that made listening to a record feel like a binge on single malt.

This song, from 'Thickfreakness', is a perfect showcase of that. Basic but brilliant.

Song Of The Day 17/06/2011: Wye Oak - Civilian

I first came across Wye Oak a couple of years ago, when I saw them supporting Okkervil River in London. I don't remember all that much about the performance, beyond that they were pretty good and that I was impressed by the drummer drumming and playing keyboards at the same time.
Anyway, I heard them again when my good friend Rob recommended me their latest album, Civilian (of which today's song is obviously the title track). I listened, and really enjoyed it, so took him up on the offer of a free ticket to see them last night in Hoxton.
They were great, sort of dream-poppy with female vocals, a bit in the vein of two other Baltimore bands, Beach House and Lower Dens. I'm not sure the album's quite as good as the Lower Dens record from last year, maybe lacking quite the songwriting brilliance, but it is lovely and a grower, so give it a listen.

Wye Oak - Civilian

Song Of The Day 16/06/2011: The Band - King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Revisiting a classic today, from an album I have listened to far too many times in the last 48 hours. This is the clasing track on The Band's eponymous second LP, the first where they reallt began to establish themselves as an act in their own right. Their debut had been drawn largely from the Basement Tapes, with many songs co-written by Dylan. The 'Big Pink' of the title had been the house in upstate New York that was home to the basement where the tapes were recorded.

On this album they tried to do something of their own. Despite being a largely Canadian band, they were pretty infatuated with the history and culture of the US, and this album is a concept album about the whole idea of America. This song is about a farmer who falls on hard times and is rescued by a 'man from the Union'. It's one of the best songs they ever wrote, in my opinion. Richard Manuel's voice is absolutely perfect for this kind of Americana.

Song Of The Day 15/06/2011: Sarabeth Tucek - State I Am In

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting from "Get Well Soon", Sarabeth Tucek's 2011 album. Perhaps some kind of quiet, introspective singer-songwriter-y fare of the kind which (to be honest) I usually find a bit boring. But it's much more interesting than that, especially in terms of the production. For a start, it's a much bigger-sounding record than I was expecting, with some adventurous instrumental touches (some subtle backwards guitar[?], some interesting modal-sounding bits) and extended guitar breaks - she's a really good guitar player. Oddly the record I think the production reminds me most of is Wilco's A Ghost is Born, but that could just be because it starts super quietly and then bursts into a big guitar solo. The production generally works really well, complementing her voice nicely.
And then there's the songs. It's a bleak record, but a very moving one. This is one of my favourites.

Sarabeth Tucek - State I Am In

Song Of The Day 14/06/2011: Cryptacize - Tail & Mane

Cryptacize are the current project of ex-Deerhoof guitarist Chris Cohen. They join sunny Californian pop with an almost gypsy musical sensibility and the beautiful vocal hooks of Nedelle Torrisi, making a weird fusion unlike any other band at all. According to Sufjan Stevens,

"They make music that is refreshingly coherent, stewed with deliberate melodies, a refinement of instrumentation, no excess, nothing wasted, nothing lost … These songs are not trifles, but rather cryptic haiku poems that expand toward a vast cosmic significance.'

Very little of the massive amounts of quirky pop like this that has been released in the last few years actually has a beat that makes an impression. This does.

Song Of The Day 13/06/2011: The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Steel Daughter

There's been a 'new' POBPAH song going around the internet today. 'Tomorrow Dies Today' is a Japan-only bonus track for their last album, 'Belong', and is a classic Pains-style light jangle-fuzz pop gem. I prefer another bonus track from the same Japanese edition, however - Steel Daughter has more of an edge, and a the beginnings of a singalong chorus like many songs from their debut. It feels slightly unfinished, which is probably why it was left off the final album, but it's still great.

The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart - Steel Daughter

Song Of The Day 12/06/2011: Swirlies - Wrong Tube

Swirlies' debut album "Blonder Tongue Audio Baton", from which today's song is taken, came out in 1992, which probably accounts for the fact that it's often dismissed as being just MBV-copyism. Certainly, they play with quite similar sounds to Loveless and Isn't Anything, but I think they also do enough interesting things of their own to make it one of my favourite albums of the period. The songs are just as expansive as those on Loveless, but stripped of a few of the layers of noise, which reveals some top-notch guitar playing as well as sweet vocals. The songs are also full of ideas: they rarely stay the same for very long. As well as MBV there are definitely bits of Sonic Youth, Polvo and that kind of thing here, but the vocals always keep it within the heavy dream-pop/shoegaze realm.

This song's one of my favourites on the album, but, really, it's all worth checking out (as is the second album: I haven't heard any of the others). Listen to "Wait Forever", the last track on the album, for an amazing field recording secret track too!

"Every night, scream a little."

Swirlies - Wrong Tube

Song Of The Day 11/06/2011: Best Coast - Gone Again

'Crazy For You', Best Coast's debut full length, is an incredibly annoying record in a lot of ways - the terrifyingly cloying and stalkerish lyrics , the massive overuse of the rhyme between 'crazy' and 'lazy', the whole of the first track - but I listened to it a lot last year on account of the pop hooks present all the way through. Although they've released a lot of collaborations since the album, this is the first proper release of a song that will probably be on the band's second record. It's all quite similar, to be honest. If you liked the first album, you'll like this, if you didn't, you won't. But the video is spectacular, and deserves a watch whatever your views on the band.

Song Of The Day 10/06/2011: Brave Irene - Bank Holiday

Rose Melberg is probably Amelia Fletcher's main rival to the title of 'most prolific person in indiepop'. Her newest project, Brave Irene, released a debut EP a couple of months ago (although, at 8 songs, I think it's probably more of a mini-album). It's exactly what you'd expect - sweet summery twee, with prominent keyboard parts and fuzzed-up guitars. The whole EP is really good, but this is probably my favourite song, with a lovely lilt that perfectly fits the feeling of a summer bank holiday spent lazing in the park.

One thing - I thought Bank Holidays were a purely British thing? I'm sure that isn't what Americans call them - Melberg was probably just looking for a bit of olde-worlde charm.