Serious and ponderous

Last one of the day today...

Teef is back! A long time ago, before I started this blog, I stumbled up a video for a song of his called Take 'Em Out which appears on this excellent little mini-album here. After that it was pretty quiet for a long time with the exception of a video for the track Out To Lunch.

Until today.

So this new track "Allyson Grey" - A reference to wife of artist Alex Grey (Buy a Tool album, jees.) with more nasty electronic beats and his trademark cool, deep, almost spoken-word rap.
Actually, this one's a change of direction for Teef in that it's quite serious and ponderous in subject matter especially compared to the feel-good happy party tracks in his untitled release. There's a mental dubsteppy breakdown in the middle, which actually works really well with the vocals which contain such gems as my personal favourite "Sayonara, pussy-face. Come see me in my casket."

This track'll be included on his upcoming release entitled "Tranny"so I'll keep you updated about when that's going to drop.

Soundtrack to: A mental breakdown in a mosh pit.

It's always a dame...

Thanks to a friend of mine, I heard this awesome track last night and decided to share some things with you!

This is Ivy Levan. This video is a month old, I've never heard of her before this so I'm not sure how much attention she's getting, but she does have a 4 track E.P you can check out, which includes this saucy number. A very jazz/swing influenced pop sound with some belting vocals from this foxy dame!

This comes just a little while after I heard Caro Emerald, who, unbeknownst to me had a number one album here in the U.K!

I'm surprised this got the number one spot, so it seems like jazz and swing influenced pop with female vocals is coming in a little bit. I dig this a lot, so I hope it continues to be a trend!

Exultant

Oh, hello!
It's been a while, hasn't it? Again, they're like busses because this is update one of three for the day!

First up it's Basement Jaxx with their new single "What A Difference Your Love Makes."

I was lucky enough to hear this track a few days before it came out at a sold out gig at Somerset house in London. I'd been wanting to see Basement Jaxx live for a few years and hot damn was it worth the wait. Bright costumes, amusing antics from the singers, a ballet dancer and a giant robot and a non-stop 90 minutes of feel good tunes came together to make one of the most fun live shows I've ever seen. The show was live streamed around the globe and one of the members of Basement Jaxx made numerous shout outs to various countries before a song about unity and power - It was pure FUN but felt like it had a really great underlying message, which I think might feature quite a bit in their upcoming album. I really hope I can bag a ticket for their next tour in England which is in December this year.

Basement Jaxx have appeared on TISFWO! before and like I said then, this track is totally different from Back 2 The Wild and features a new singer but you can still just tell it's a Jaxx track. 

The song starts with some vocals and piano stabs and quickly starts building with some claps into the "OOOOH WOOOOOAHHHHH!" that makes this song feel so energetic and happy! It's not particularly complex sounding but it's just so exuberant that it makes you feel great!  The synth/piano stabs and light vocals, combined with that recurring, exultant shout make this track feel perfect for a summer track. 

Soundtrack to: Running holding hands.

Track hunter: London

It's been a long time since Track hunter: Volume 1 but here's a small guide to finding cheap music in London!

First off, I have to admit that I'm not a vinyl fan. Some people argue that vinyl and FLAC audio are the best ways to listen to music but either my headphones aren't very good or these people have some ridiculous 5.1 systems to listen to stuff with because honestly, I really don't hear a difference. It's probably lucky for me though, since vinyl is often expensive and comes in limited numbers, so it save me trying to hunt down rare and pricy pressings. Additionally, lots of music I like doesn't even get a vinyl release and as I said before, if it does it's usually in tiny numbers. Lastly, there are SO many cool vinyl record stores in London, it's kind of a blessing in disguise that I don't have to walk between them all, emptying my bank account. So this little guide will be helpful if you'd rather have a CD like me and probably isn't so helpful if you want yourself an LP.

My go-to place in London has to be Fopp on Tottenham court road. This place has tons of new CDs for £3 or less. It stocks new stuff too but that goes for closer to what you'd normally pay for a new CD. It's not super-huge but still has enough stuff to make me easily waste an hour or more rummaging around. They sell vinyl, DVDs, blu rays, books, posters, t-shirts...The usual stuff too, a lot of it for dirt cheap considering that it's right there in central London.

Another place you might not have thought to check is CEX. My local CEX used to have a music section but lamentably it's been ousted. CEX just off Oxford Street on Rathbone Place (Next to the post office.) still has one downstairs which always surprises me with £1 gems (I got Ken Ishii's Jelly Tones and Bic Runga's The Beautiful Collision from here - Both things I'd never have expected!) Again CEX is an entertainment place, so you can find cheap pre-owned DVDs, games and blu-rays there too.

London has it's share of Poundland shops and charity shops which are always a good place to look for used and cheap music!

Sadly, that's all for Track hunter: London! There was an AWEOME little place right next to Camden tube station with a rack of £1 CDs but after my last visit a year ago, it seems to have either gone out of business or just happened to be closed when I passed by. (Wishful thinking...)

If you know of any other places for CDs in London though, comment away! I'd love to see what I can turn up!

Man of the hour

It seems like you can't do anything this summer without catching a little bit of Pharrell Williams. He's got his fingers in a bit of everything these last few months; Contributing to two tracks on Daft Punk's Random Access Memories, the score of Man Of Steel, Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and contributing four songs to Despicable Me 2's soundtrack. Seems like he's the man of the hour!

I saw Despicable Me 2 with some friends. Being a bit of a nay-sayer when it comes to CG kid's movies, (Give me traditional animation and an engaging story any day...) I'd never seen the first one and didn't really expect to enjoy the movie. It did have a few laugh-out-loud moments for me, but music nerd that I am, I found myself really enjoying the soundtrack. Somewhere near the start the above song "Fun, fun, fun." plays and you can recognise Pharrell's voice right away.

Three of the songs he wrote for the movie have that bouncy, breezy feel that some of his work with N*E*R*D has and they're all really uplifting songs that are perfect for blasting out in summer. The other is a more generic sounding song which is the end credit theme to the movie. The soundtrack has some other really nice surprises too including some tracks from Cee-lo Green, Mungo Jerry and even a sneaky (Lyricless...) snippet from Bob Marley's "Jammin'."

Pharrell's all over the place right now and what's killing me is there's no news of a new solo, or, even better, N*E*R*D album anywhere! I guess it's not going to happen any time soon, but now would have been absolutely killer timing for him to drop something of is own. Aw well.

Purpose built to get you onto your feet and dancing!

Hello hello!

A small deluge of updates today before I get busy with events and festivals in London.

So Janelle Monae has (A while ago, I admit...My fingers aren't quite on the pulse lately, busy, busy, busy!) released the next song and a video from her upcoming album The Electric Lady. She's changed style for this one, moving on from the tux and perfect quiff she sported in the past. (Or has she? The Archandroid told the story of Cindi Mayweather, the android on the lam for falling in love with a human...Maybe SHE'S the star of the video?) She still looks pretty classy though, kind of a modified 20/30/40s look going on with some long hair and serious rings.

The song is an upbeat, fast paced uke, drum and clap driven number with an old school feel to it. Right from the start it has your toes tapping. (If you can stay sitting down.) The lyrics come fast and have some catchy repetitive chants "Smash, smash, bang, bang, don't stop, chalangalangalang!" The majority of them are a mystery to me though - I'd guess it's an anarchic, rebellious song with an indirect way of saying so. Don't try too hard to find a deep meaning though, the song seems purpose built to get you onto your feet and dancing!

Soundtrack to: Carefree mischief.

Radio silence

Just a little post to break the radio silence and let you know what's been going on and what's to come!

So, coming up two weeks ago, I walked out of my job. Literally waited until my lunch break, took my stuff, walked out of the door and didn't go back. Bad decision, professionally? Yes. Personally no. I'd been on the brink of it for three or four months and the final straw finally broke the donkey's back.

So you're thinking "WTF? All that new found free time and you haven't updated?" (Maybe you're thinking that. Probably not. But anyway.) Actually, quitting made me pretty busy! I've had two interviews already, and it hasn't even been two weeks since I quit yet. I have a second interview for one place tomorrow. I also had to register for help paying my bills and rent which also required an interview. My bestest friend ever is also visiting England from over seas, so I spent an awesome four days with him and then spent literally all of today up until now trying to get home from London on a coach, giving up and getting a train, having to buy multiple train tickets, losing bags, finding out the ticket I bought was invalid and retrieving those bags and getting home. In between reading Adventure time comics and Saga. (Which...You should check out, if you like comics. Damn that's good stuff.)

So what's to come? Expect Track hunter: London, some Janelle Monae and some further silences. It's festival season and my best friend and I have an event or two EVERY weekend this month. It's gonna be big!