Vol. 4 Issue 22 October 2007
Yes folks, it's true. Lyle's favorite band (can you sense the irony), Radiohead, has driven a fake plastic tree through the grisly corporate heart of the music business. Lucky for Radiohead, bloggers have still found something to complain about (not the first band to give away a record, they only did this cause they are rich already etc...). The BRM scoff's at all of this nonsense anyway - because in the end our cred was already in the dumpster pre-Gilmore Girls season 1, and this months web update even features a comp that sees Will Oldham covering a song by The Spice Girls!? The times they are a changing. And this month that means new albums from my favorite artist like ever, Jens Lekman, new music from the second biggest blog phenom ever,Beirut, and incredible new jams from Songs Of Green Pheasant, Nina Nastasia and Jim White, and many more!
See News Archives
Current Releases
- Click to see:
- Ba Da Bing!
- Fat Cat
- 20|20|20
Ba Da Bing!
www.badabingrecords.com/
Beirut
"The Flying Club Cup"
So what do you do when your obsession with traditional gypsy folk music, makes you one of the biggest names in “Indie”? Jump ship and pick a new genre for inspiration? That’s just what Zach Condon aka Beirut did. For his super anticipated follow-up to the mega-successful, Gulag Orkestrar, Condon goes all French on our butts. No Jacques Brel references will be left untouched. Stop me before I say “Ye Ye.” But in all fairness, The Flying Club Cup (BaDaBing), (which was named after a hot air balloon festival in Paris….OF COURSE), sounds very…um…Beiruty. The same swooning, baritone vocals, the same lush horn crescendos – only now they’re French horns – and the same heavenly and addictive otherworldliness, that has to make Zach one of the finest “reinterpreters” of “old music” we’ve got. “Nantes” and “Cherbourg” are just absolute stunners.
Fat Cat
fat-cat.co.uk/fatcat/home.php
Nina Nastasia & Jim White
"You Follow Me"
Simon and Garfunkel. Sonny and Cher. Captain and Tennille. When is the Nina Nastasia and Jim White show hitting the CW programming schedule? It’d be hysterical. Really. There’s no album we work that has more of a sense of humor than, You Follow Me (Fat Cat), the jazz-folk tag-team hybrid “collabo” of downer songstress Nina Nastasia, and experimental-jazz Dirty Three drum guy, Jim White. All kidding aside, I don’t want to be that guy – getting all “music crit” on yer asses, talking about how “the interplay on this album is electric,” but you know the “interplay between Nina and Jim on this record is electric.” Nina kinda just does her pretty plaintive songwriter thing, while Jim weaves around her, rolling and roiling, like white on rice as they say. And you thought folk artists had no rhythm!?!? Check out: “The Day I Would Bury You” and “How Will You Love Me”
Songs Of Green Pheasant
"Gyllyng Street"
Songs Of Green Pheasant. Don’t be ashamed if that name doesn’t ring a bell for you yet. SOGP is essentially the moniker that Duncan Sumpner from Sheffield records under. Gyllyng Street (Fat Cat) is his third record, and it’s absolutely stunningly beautiful. It has to be one of the nicest surprises to fall into the BRM headquarters in quite a while. Gyllyng sounds intimate, but still absolutely huge – the lulling opening track “Boats” floats along on lazy Sunday drums, and unraveling guitar tones – it’s surprisingly shoegazey – very My Bloody Valentine at their most spacey and melodic or Slowdive at their most..um…Slowdive. In truth though, Gyllyng encompasses multitudes - In it’s modest shell, there are hints of freak folk, post rock, found sound recordings, and even Ennio Morricone soundtracks all over this thing. Truly “cinematic” stuff. Check out “King Friday” and “Boats”
20|20|20
www.20-20-20.com/
Damon & Naomi
"Within These Walls"
The new Damon and Naomi record is absolutely gorgeous. By now, you shouldn’t need me to hype you on the two former Galaxie 500 stalwarts’ jams or is it unjams..? Within These Walls (20|20|20) is exquisitely quiet, and the D & N seem to have let all the wonderful yearning of folk icons like Sandy Denny, Leonard Cohen, and Vashti Bunyan bleed into their baroque sound. With Within, D and N apparently wanted to make a record that stretched one single mood out for the duration, and there is no questions they surely succeeded. Plus, Walls features guitar work by the wonderful, Michio Kurihara, whose lush atmospheric album, Sunset Notes, you should dig on if you haven’t already!
- Click to see:
- Thrill Jockey
- Engine Room
- Secretly Canadian
- Misra
Thrill Jockey
www.thrilljockey.com/
Tunng
"Good Arrows"
Folktronica. The name is awful. The genre is surprisingly quite nice. British six-piece, Tunng, demonstrate this fact quite nicely on the band’s new third record, Good Arrows (Thrill Jockey). Rickety acoustic guitars, and banjos, and dulcimers, weary hushed vocals and yes blips and bleeps and beats and all other sorts of digital gadgetry prevail – and it’s utterly beautiful. Arrows is a transfixing, strange little record, an intimate paen to one word songtitles that seems at once meticulously arranged, and so delicate, and intimate. One of this years nicest surprises. Check out “Hands.”
Engine Room
www.engineroomrecordings.com/
Guilt By Association
"Guilt By Association"
Look, we know it’s not “cool” to enjoy Paula Abdul’s “Straight Up,” or “I Want You Back For Good,” by...whoever sings that one...but we do secretly, unironically enjoy these jams. And many a time when we at BRM find ourselves actually listening to the radio, we think: “Hey these songs aren’t all that bad. And they’d be pretty amazing if, say, Will Oldham or Luna or The Concretes performed them.” Well, eureka! Guilt By Association is the first in an on-going series of records where today’s hottest indie-talent covers some of the lamest/totally awesomest songs you know by heart yet would never admit that you've listened to. GOAT covering Fall Out Boy!? Oh yes. An a cappella version of “Don’t Stop Believing” by Petra Haden? Check. Devendra covering Oasis. Fuck yes. And if you never thought you’d live to see the day where indie-rock’s resident crabby artiste (no, not Steve Albini), Jim O’Rourke, covers the Spice Girls – you’ve lived to see that day. Dreams do come true kids.
Secretly Canadian
www.secretlycanadian.com/
Jens Lekman
"Night Falls Over Kortedala"
Jens Lekman is Sweden’s answer to Jonathan Richman, The Magnetic Fields’ Stephen Meritt, and maybe even Woody Allen too. Lekman’s lyrics are at once hopelessly neurotic, and intoxicatingly sentimental. I might say he’s a posterboy for “quirk” if his actual music wasn’t so addictive, and satisfying on every level. His brand new record, Night Falls Over Kortedala (Secretly Canadian), is not only his best – it seems something of a defining moment for his career, and for indie-pop music in general. On one level, Lekman (who writes, records, and produces all his own stuff) has made a dance album for wallflowers and general other depressive types. Kortedala is filled with choppy soul samples, lush strings swells, and precocious “everything but the kitchen sink” percussion. And did I mention the doo-wop track!? Yep, our boy is a regular Kanye West. But don’t take my word for it, Pitchfork gave the record a …. 9.0. But don’t take their word for it either. Check Out: “Your Arms Around Me,” and “Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo.”
Misra
www.misrarecords.com/
Mobius Band
"Heaven"
You might be surprised by Mobius Band. They are blog-hyped for sure. And definitely indie too. But on the three piece’s stunning sophomore record/debut for Misra, Heaven, guitars and electronics clash to make something at once, anthemic, huge, and entirely, dare I say accessible. Sure Heaven was mixed by the dude who worked on albums for Antony (!) (yes, that Antony), and Battles too. But in a time when being reticent, enigmatic, and plain weird is praised, Mobius Band’s disarming hookiness is like a shot of adrenaline to our ironic hearts. They woulda been the perfect opening band for The Smashing Pumpkins at the height of the Pumpkins’ fame – and I’m serious, these dudes might be leading the way for a smart 90’s Alt-rock revival. I’ve got my Geggy Tah t-shirt already. Check Out: “Friends Like These,”and “Leave The Keys In The Door.”