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This Week's Free Downloads
This week, we're offering two free song downloads courtesy of Friendly Fire Recordings. First up is "Violent Sensation Descends," from Violens' new album, Amoral. Featuring producer/multi-instrumentalist Jorge Elbrecht of Lansing-Drieden, this NYC trio offsets the sleek, expansive '80s-influenced dream pop of L-D by letting a little bit of the '60s peek through in the melodies -- check "Violent Sensation Descends" for proof. The songs themselves leap out of the speakers at a gallop, propelled by chiming guitars, complex drums, shimmering synths and thick layers of vocal harmonies.
It's been a few years since we last heard from the Concretes, and with the departure of Victoria Bergsman in 2006 to pursue her Taken by Trees project, many might have assumed the band was no more. Au contraire (or however you say that in Swedish), the group lives on with drummer Lisa Milberg stepping out from behind her kit and up to the mic, and WYWH is the band's first record released in the States featuring Milberg in her new role. It's what they're calling their "disco album," but granted it's the Concretes' own dreamy, sultry interpretation of the genre. A welcome return for sure, this free download of "Good Evening" is only one of the many highlights. This Week's Featured Downloads Claude Nougaro was one of the most dynamic, unique voices heard during French popular music's transition from Left Bank postwar chanson into more elaborate, complex fusions with jazz, western pop/rock, and international influences. His many albums recorded during the 1960s and '70s are some of the most rhythmically dynamic, melodically memorable of their kind, and this collection is an excellent entry point into Nougaro's soundworld. À La Recherche Du Son Qui Fait Sens documents his earliest recordings, heavy on then-popular jazz combo sounds, playing the bop and java rhythms that swept over France like a hurricane. Robust horns, shimmering vibraphones, and strong piano playing color these songs, recorded in cavernous rooms that only enhance the sound of Nougaro's voice, which booms across the speakers with force, emotion, and power. His work is comparable to early Serge Gainsbourg, but Gainsbourg exercised a much more cool, close-to-the-vest persona in his recordings; Nougaro's humor and conviction is much more dramatic but none less enrapturing. Soon after these recordings, Nougaro would fuse these sounds with those of faraway lands that captivated him and inspired some of his most classic albums. Before he became enchanted by the music of Brazil and Africa, though, he was one of the best jazz singers on the scene, and like Gainsbourg, he took the groundwork laid by songwriters and performers like Boris Vian and created an entirely new blueprint and laid foundations which others would build upon for years to come. Nougaro is one of my personal favorites, and it's a joy to finally be able to offer up some of his recordings to Update readers. Once you've absorbed this music, find Nougaro's Armstrong album by any means necessary. You won't be sorry. Absolute highest recommendation. -Mikey IQ Jones
Ooh, this is a treasure. One collection of Gainsbourg's earliest recordings from the late 1950s -- some of his most witty, cynical, and razor-sharp songs from a lyrical perspective -- and an accompanying collection of many of those same songs interpreted by a host of other singers, including Juliette Gréco, Michèle Arnaud, Hugues Aufray, and Les Frères Jacques, who all recorded these tunes before Gainsbourg himself did, and who helped build his reputation at the time as one of France's most promising new songwriters. These songs come heavily out of the tradition of his mentor Boris Vian, and are steeped in the jazz and java sounds so popular at the time, with a small taste of the Afro-Cuban flavors in which Gainsbourg would more heavily work during the early 1960s. It's a marvel to hear these songs interpreted by the other singers; the recordings in effect serve as a changing of the guard from the old Left Bank tradition that Gréco so heavily represented into a new breed of composer and performer, a persona which Gainsbourg would entirely make his own for the duration of his career. To have many of his best early compositions interpreted by several of his own mentors was a huge honor for Gainsbourg, and you can hear the thrill and excitement in those mentors' voices of being involved with something cutting edge once again. Gréco remains one of Gainsbourg's most loyal and faithful interpreters, and her versions of his songs are revelations to hear; my favorites, though, are the versions by Arnaud, whose performances in some ways predate and preview what was to come in the yé-yé heyday of the early/mid 1960s, which would prove to be one of Gainsbourg's most fertile periods for reinterpretations by other singers. This collection is absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in Gainsbourg's discography outside of his "hip" period; stop fondling your copies of Melody Nelson for a few moments and dive into music by Serge that is as sensual, sinister, but perhaps a bit more romantic than its younger sister. These songs are, quite simply, both a revelation and revolution. -Mikey IQ Jones
A truly excellent new release from NY's Wierd Records, Automelodi's self-titled debut is exactly what we want to find in a contemporary synthwave record: sincere, experienced, creative passion for the form. I was surprised and thrilled to hear the expected references (Visage, Associates, Depeche Mode etc.) taken even further through the type of exceptionally melodic song craft usually only found in the best French coldwave. Songs like "Employe Terne" combine the bounciness of OMD classics with the grave melodic integrity of French-speaking genre-mate Geoffrey D. while still evoking some non-existent '80s underground radio hit. "Baunderie Jazz" somehow blends Johnny Marr pop-jangle with beautifully macabre synthpop. "Airline" sports a bassline capable of making Ariel Pink drool, along with a deftly delivered Fad Gadget meets Marc Almond vocal melody. But don't let my focus on Automelodi's pop skill distract you; the line between dance songs and pop songs is blurred as the album's sheer quality makes them interchangeable. Consistently on-point and tasteful, incredibly varied, effortlessly enjoyable songs, with a perfect mix of darkness/mystery, great synth lines, vocal melodies, beats and song structure. Contender for my top 10 of 2010. This is the real deal folks. Those in the know will know!! -Scott Mou
Contemporary Parisian synthwave band Frank(just Frank)'s debut album on NY's Wierd Records is a great, ethereal mix of guitar, drum machine and synth in the classic French coldwave tradition. With a romantic atmosphere, dark themes, lyrical melodies, and a varied set that ranges from urgent, propulsive synthwave on "Le Son du Trottoir" and "Closet Song," to the more elegant, longing atmosphere of "Seraphine" and "Coeur Hante," The Brutal Wave deftly combines the chillier side of the Church (complete with extremely well-placed bits of distorted guitar) with dark pop elements somewhat reminiscent of The Charm of the Highway Strip-era Magnetic Fields(!), plus lush guitar work sitting somewhere between classic Cure and the Cocteau Twins. See "Crisis," with its joyously moody guitar interplay, gray vocals, driving back beat and melancholic chorus of "kill, kill, kill," or the Anka Wolbert-like album closer "Collapse." Wierd is bringing classic French coldwave into the new millennium! -Scott Mou
First single off the forthcoming album from Martial Canterel, a/k/a Sean McBride (one half of minimal synth duo Xeno & Oaklander), featuring the title track "You Today." Eschewing laptops and samplers for an arsenal of live-played analog synthesizers, McBride's raw yet intricate, pulsing arrangements are truly of an another era, when artists like KaS Product and DAF were mirroring the bleak, cold war paranoia in their icy sounds. McBride, however, channels altogether different concerns in his melodies and lyrics, reflecting a more personal crisis as modern technology encroaches in on human contact and tactile experiences.
How to Dress Well is the pseudonym of Tom Krell, a Brooklyn via Denver musician who now resides in Cologne. For the past year, Krell's been posting free mp3s of his ethereal lo-fi tunes, and has garnered a heap of indie underground praise. Taking inspiration from the quiet-storm yearnings of early-'90s r&b, it seems as if Krell is attempting to turn that sound on its ear. He borrows the on-bended-knee earnestness of the genre and applies it to his vocal technique, but eschews the self-centered direct approach, opting instead to layer his slightly unsettling soul boy falsetto. Here, lyrics are more implied than actually sung (a la Burial), aiming for more of a moody, mysterious feel. Tunes such as "Can't See My Own Face" and "Lovers Start" are chilly, cut-n-paste deconstructions of musical phrases by Beyonce and producer The-Dream, while the drowsy and fractured "Decisions" and "You Won't Need Me Where I'm Goin" are ambient vocal numbers. As I hinted at before, most of the r&b is implied in the melody, but production and aesthetic wise, it's a lot closer to the lo-fi, ethereal sounds of early His Name Is Alive and Cocteau Twins. It's pretty cool if you ever wondered what an Al B. Sure and This Mortal Coil collaboration would sound like. Recommended! -Duane Harriott
Aloe Blacc's sophomore solo effort for Stones Throw pairs him with the Truth & Soul players and solidifies his makeover from homeboy to soul man. Good Things is a refreshing and inspired reintroduction to the talented singer (and former rapper). A modern take on vintage soul, Blacc channels his inner Bill Withers and Marvin Gaye with his conscious everyman storytelling and beautiful melodies. Trading in his backpack for a bow tie and dinner jacket, he moves away from the sampled soul of his Madlib-produced debut, Shine Through, and into the territory journeyed by other modern soul men like John Legend and Raphael Saadiq. Co-produced and directed by Truth & Soul's Leon Michels and Jeff "Dynamite" Silverman, the band spins a warm and soulful acoustic backing for Blacc's political and social themes, and manages to sound fresh and modern while sticking to a palette of vintage R&B instrumentation. From the stellar first single, "I Need A Dollar" (which has already gotten a lot of play as the theme song for HBO's How to Make It in America), they set the retro-soul motif with a strong piano stride, as Blacc sings a tale of the downtrodden searching for the currency that would make everything better. Elsewhere there's the Blaxploitation flavored wah-wah guitar of "Hey Brother" with a funky horn rundown, the mellow organ groove and uplifting lyric of "Green Light," or the lazy Maytals skank and paternal anti-materialism of "Miss Fortune." Good Things sounds like Aloe Blacc had been listening to the current flashback styles of the Daptone label, and became inspired to work in that genre with a live band, but the sound is much more than an homage to the Dap-Kings. His revision of the Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" is filled with spooky electric organ, sweeping strings, sparse drumming and an emotional delivery, and it is one of several indelible standout tracks that make this record a real original, and a lot of fun too. A soulful exploration, with a strong sense of finding the positive aspects of everyday struggle. -Daniel Givens
Somewhere between the 1953 passing of Hank Williams and the circa-'57 rise of the Nashville Sound (prime architects Chet Atkins and Owen Bradley), questions about "purity" and "authenticity" in country music arose and, no matter how illegitimate, by and by had some hand in the emergence of such subgenres as "cosmic" country-rock (see Gram Parsons), outlaw country, and late-century alt-country (a/k/a No Depression a/k/a Y'Allternative). By now, the fusion of country with pop, rock, rhythm & blues, whatever, seems ubiquitous and seamless yet once there was a very real sonic and social divide -- one in which long-lost 1971 gem Grandma's Roadhouse made a brief splash then sank. Founded on the twangtrust of future "King of the Honky-Tonks" Gary Stewart and band namesake Riley Watkins (North Carolina native later transplanted to Michigan), Riley is the intriguing meeting of a Music Row maverick with a shitkicking bar band, Stewart's eerie high lonesome tenor and guitars blending with Watkins' gritty white chocolate soul tones and pickin' to hollerback to then-dominant, exogamous rustic auteurs like John Fogerty and Robbie Robertson. Grandma's Roadhouse was cut in the belly of the beast as it were -- at Owen Bradley's famous Barn -- but it's significant that it was under the aegis of the younger generation -- Owen's son Jerry had signed Gary Stewart to a publishing deal and facilitated his employ as an engineer's assistant at the studio. Nowhere apparent is '60s countrypolitan syrup; the three-way conversation between country, rock, and soul this group of players had first assayed at Muscle Shoals back in 1965 reaches its zenith herein. Often, Grandma's Roadhouse sounds like what the Burritos might have been had they been formed in Nashville's environs rather than Los Angeles, especially through the middle section when Stewart steps out on the Parsons-friendly "Love, Love You Lady" and the funky-fuzzy "You Been Cheatin' on Me Honey." Later in the 1970s, when Stewart hit with "She's Actin' Single (I'm Drinkin' Doubles)" -- after a stint in Charley Pride's group -- and became beloved of Alex Chilton (who covered Stewart's bar blues masterpiece "Single Again" on Loose Shoes & Tight Pussy), the Allmans, and Mr. Nashville Skyline hisself, that peculiar crossover was complete. However, thirty-odd years before Nashvegas got overly jiggy with rock (see Garth Brooks, Gretchen Wilson, Sugarland ad nauseam), it was still rarefied and its wilder shores commercially unsuccessful: folks forget today about Gram Parsons' toil and trouble behind all that Keith Richards and Elvis Costello shine; Riley failed in lodging their LP with Berry Gordy at Motown (perhaps due to Watkins' cannabis ode "Field of Green"?) and saw most of their 500 copies molder away. Grandma's Roadhouse shines now as a fascinating artifact of the wide-open gap between such ornery lone stars as Johnny Cash, Gene Clark, Tony Joe White, and Stewart's Kentuckian homeboy Jim Ford; and the imminent rise of southern rock, Waylon and his "Outlaw" bred'ren, and the superstardom of the Eagles. The current explosion of young bearded/mustachioed (unsigned) players worshipping at this altar of grease shows we ain't nigh done mining that seam. -Kandia Crazy Horse |
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Wow, our favorite pop weirdo and these legendary Tropicalists all on the same bill?! Yes, we've got a pair of tickets up for grabs to see 
