That phase in question is listening to, or rather binging on, the KEXP Song of the Day podcast. It’s a great way to discover new bands, plus most of the tracks I’ve heard so far are good and loud for the morning. If you haven’t already also check out the station’s live sessions, generally awesome stuff.
Discovered Rose Windows
And Bouquet
TODAY!
For no particular reason I missed Young Fathers. I knew they were from Edinburgh, I also knew they had won the Mercury Prize. Both of those things haven’t really gone together before. For some reason I still just didn’t listen to them. That changed yesterday when my wonderful friend sent me loads of new music. I have now decided they are rather awesome.
Check out the KEXP session below, it’s a fine afternoon for it.
I was too busy to post dancing music yesterday, you have no idea how sad that made me. Shake it loose to Wild Cub!
Today is a day for discovering. More specifically new music from Seattle based Robert Dale, who recently started making music under the title of Belgian Fog. His shimmering first track caught my attention and lead to a conversation about submitting something and the lovingly fashioned picture below! Check it out…
This track, by David Wise, has become something of a cult ‘go-to’ song for nostalgic gamers. The medium these writers had to work with, in the early 90s, was constricting to say the least; composers trying desperately, often to comedic effect, to re-create orchestral instruments synthetically while adding an electronic element to it. But like many works of art, the limitations are often what help it become so emotionally endearing. Growing up playing the Donkey Kong Country games, even more than the visual element, the music brought me to another location emotionally with instrumentation that I’d never experienced.
It’s these types of things that creep into the social subconscious; a generation of SNES players who are now at the age where they are determining the popular and credible music of their era. I could see this track fitting easily onto any number of night-bus playlists of the current day – provided a low-octave pitch-shifted R&B vocal loop was added.
Being about as far from a gamer as possible there are elements of this that I really like; the dream like loops and chords and how it pulls at the threads of memories, most likely from the ninenties.
Dale used to play in bands before seeking to use the instrumentation he found personally gratifying, thus solo project Belgian Fog was born. In the rhythmic loops and samples of first track ‘Wait For Help’ you can hear parallels with Wise’s work, fused with a well worn drum beat, guitar with his mysterious vocal. An artist to keep an eye on.
For now listen to ‘Wait for Help’ right here.
I’m a fan of American Singer-Songwriter Sam Beam, aka Iron & Wine and have kept an ear into his albums over the last decade. Around the Well is a collection of ‘B Sides and Rarities’ released on Sub Pop, marketed the right way for me as I’m fundamentally against ‘Best Of’ collections (if you like a band you should listen to all their material). I listened to this again in the supermarket yesterday, a disorientated activity which left me with a random shop!
The first CD offers softer, more pensive tracks including previous single ‘Call Your Boys’, the beautiful, echoing ‘Morning’ and ‘Friends Are Jewels’. On the second I love the guitar on ‘No Moon’ and piano keys on ‘Carried Home’.
2010, a time when I used to spend all my lunch hours in Fopp. The 2CD collection comes in a pretty fold out box.
A show for La Blogotheque
A KEXP interview from 2009. The guy has an insanely good beard.
NPR Tiny Desk Concert – because I love these
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