Read More |
Here are some dancey-type bands from around the globe.
CLUBFEET
myspace.com/clubfeetband
This is a trio out of Melbourne. As you know, we like bands from Australia, and what's surprising about Clubfeet's debut album, Gold on Gold, is that it's actually a very, very good album! For music fans that likes the idea of Empire of the Sun, but can't stand Luke Steele's vocals, this is the band for you.
Since their debut single, Teenage Suicide, magazines like Rolling Stone kept comparing them to Hot Chip and Cut Copy. Although that particular single is very catchy and easy to remember with their chorus "teenage suicide, don't do it! teenage suicide, don't do it!" repeated over and over, I wouldn't dismiss them as another Chip Copy band. These guys have some great lyrics and they know how to produce and layer their music.
To be fair, I think the comparison comes from the fact that some of Clubfeet's songs are very upbeat and happy ("D.I.E. Yuppie Scum", "BrightLightsBigCity", and "Pull It Together"). They have a serious side, although that usually results in slower and depressing songs like "Fall From Up Here".
Their cover of James' "Say Something" is also worth mentioning. Instead of trying to sound like Tim Booth, Clubfeet's singer Sebastian Cohen takes it easy and mellows out a little. It's only towards the end of the cover that the band feels more loosen up and carefree, especially with the whistling and xylophone as the tape kept rolling after the song: "haha a little bit at the end hahah.". Just that ditty makes me think that these guys are pretty down-to-earth guys. Hope they go on tour soon!
The Gold on Gold album's been out in Australia earlier this year, but in America, the album was just released yesterday via Plant Music. You can pick it up via itunes or amazon.com.
I like these guys so much, that they'll be mentioned with Sally on W♥M Radio this week.
HUSKY RESCUE
husky-rescue.com ♥ myspace.com
I have long love this Finnish band, although I'll have to admit finding their music at a used record store in the States is pretty tough. Having said that, they have a new single called They Are Coming out on last Monday on Catskill Records.
As usual, Reeta Vestman's voice is soothing, but the music is very... spacey. At least in the original mix.
The single comes with four other mixes of "They Are Coming" and one Lake Bodom Session for "Sound of Love" (a single off their third studio album, Ship of Light). "Sound of Love" sounds great, especially because this is basically a live track and you can hear empty echo, acoustics, and orchestra.
I'll say this again: I'm not a fan of remixes. Sometime a song is really good (like Gone Are The Days), it can survive any remix and variants. In the case of "They Are Coming", the original mix is fine, I don't see why it needs to be mixed any further. However both the Warrior One and Kinema (both based out of London) tries to make it more clubby feel to it while the Halogen Remix, made it more old timey (and creepy). The winner is clearly Kinema because of the emphasis on the pianos and big beats.
You can download the Warrior One Remix at rcrdlbl.com, get the single directly from Catskill Records.
CHROMEO
chromeo.net ♥ myspace.com
This Canadian electrofunk duo are currently on tour for their forthcoming album, Business Casual (out in September of 2010). I wanted to mention them because we're doing coverage on them for the Minneapolis show, thanks to Kate 1. Having talked to her before, she is a massive Chromeo fan, too bad I told her that it's mandatory that she has to pay attention to The Holy Ghost!
HERMANOS INGLESOS
hermanosinglesos.com ♥ myspace.com
I've never heard of this Belgium band before, but from what I've gathered, they seem to be real life brothers (Cedric and Didier Engels). What's kind of funny about their name, Hermanos Inglesos, is that it's Spanish for Brothers English, or something like that.
In many of these cases, these bands have a hard time marketing themselves to Americans. Obviously, the dominate form of music here seems to be hip-hop, while the rest of the world seems to really dig electronic/dance/club music.
Anyway, wish I could tell you more about these brothers or the singer Meme on this track, "Wanderland". The video is pretty amazing, and I'll confess that I've privately sent it to a dozen other people when I saw this video ... although perhaps I should have warned them about the Unicorn-horny bit.� Unsee! Unsee!
CLUBFEET
myspace.com/clubfeetband
This is a trio out of Melbourne. As you know, we like bands from Australia, and what's surprising about Clubfeet's debut album, Gold on Gold, is that it's actually a very, very good album! For music fans that likes the idea of Empire of the Sun, but can't stand Luke Steele's vocals, this is the band for you.
Since their debut single, Teenage Suicide, magazines like Rolling Stone kept comparing them to Hot Chip and Cut Copy. Although that particular single is very catchy and easy to remember with their chorus "teenage suicide, don't do it! teenage suicide, don't do it!" repeated over and over, I wouldn't dismiss them as another Chip Copy band. These guys have some great lyrics and they know how to produce and layer their music.
To be fair, I think the comparison comes from the fact that some of Clubfeet's songs are very upbeat and happy ("D.I.E. Yuppie Scum", "BrightLightsBigCity", and "Pull It Together"). They have a serious side, although that usually results in slower and depressing songs like "Fall From Up Here".
Their cover of James' "Say Something" is also worth mentioning. Instead of trying to sound like Tim Booth, Clubfeet's singer Sebastian Cohen takes it easy and mellows out a little. It's only towards the end of the cover that the band feels more loosen up and carefree, especially with the whistling and xylophone as the tape kept rolling after the song: "haha a little bit at the end hahah.". Just that ditty makes me think that these guys are pretty down-to-earth guys. Hope they go on tour soon!
The Gold on Gold album's been out in Australia earlier this year, but in America, the album was just released yesterday via Plant Music. You can pick it up via itunes or amazon.com.
I like these guys so much, that they'll be mentioned with Sally on W♥M Radio this week.
husky-rescue.com ♥ myspace.com
I have long love this Finnish band, although I'll have to admit finding their music at a used record store in the States is pretty tough. Having said that, they have a new single called They Are Coming out on last Monday on Catskill Records.
As usual, Reeta Vestman's voice is soothing, but the music is very... spacey. At least in the original mix.
The single comes with four other mixes of "They Are Coming" and one Lake Bodom Session for "Sound of Love" (a single off their third studio album, Ship of Light). "Sound of Love" sounds great, especially because this is basically a live track and you can hear empty echo, acoustics, and orchestra.
I'll say this again: I'm not a fan of remixes. Sometime a song is really good (like Gone Are The Days), it can survive any remix and variants. In the case of "They Are Coming", the original mix is fine, I don't see why it needs to be mixed any further. However both the Warrior One and Kinema (both based out of London) tries to make it more clubby feel to it while the Halogen Remix, made it more old timey (and creepy). The winner is clearly Kinema because of the emphasis on the pianos and big beats.
You can download the Warrior One Remix at rcrdlbl.com, get the single directly from Catskill Records.
chromeo.net ♥ myspace.com
This Canadian electrofunk duo are currently on tour for their forthcoming album, Business Casual (out in September of 2010). I wanted to mention them because we're doing coverage on them for the Minneapolis show, thanks to Kate 1. Having talked to her before, she is a massive Chromeo fan, too bad I told her that it's mandatory that she has to pay attention to The Holy Ghost!
|
07-29 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom 07-30 Boston, MA - House of Blues 07-31 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis 08-02 Ottawa, Ontario - Capital Music Hall 08-03 Toronto, Ontario - Phoenix 08/04 New York, NY Central Park SummerStage 08-05 Detroit, MI - Majestic 08-07 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue 08/08: Nelson, BC @ Shambhala 08-10 Calgary, Alberta - Flames Central |
08-11 Vancouver, British Columbia - Commodore 08-12 Seattle, WA - Showbox Market 08-13 Portland, OR - Roseland 08-16 San Diego, CA - House of Blues 08-20 Denver, CO - Ogden 08-24 Austin, TX - Stubb's 08-25 Dallas, TX - Palladium 08-26 Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom 08-27 Atlanta, GA - Masquerade 09-04 New York, NY |
HERMANOS INGLESOS
hermanosinglesos.com ♥ myspace.com
I've never heard of this Belgium band before, but from what I've gathered, they seem to be real life brothers (Cedric and Didier Engels). What's kind of funny about their name, Hermanos Inglesos, is that it's Spanish for Brothers English, or something like that.
In many of these cases, these bands have a hard time marketing themselves to Americans. Obviously, the dominate form of music here seems to be hip-hop, while the rest of the world seems to really dig electronic/dance/club music.
Anyway, wish I could tell you more about these brothers or the singer Meme on this track, "Wanderland". The video is pretty amazing, and I'll confess that I've privately sent it to a dozen other people when I saw this video ... although perhaps I should have warned them about the Unicorn-horny bit.� Unsee! Unsee!
�07/29/2010 00:19:09�♥vu (
)♥weheartmusic.com♥twitter.com/weheartmusic♥podcast.weheartmusic.com
| jaklumen wrote:
Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 12:04 PM
|
What's kind of funny about their name, Hermanos Inglesos, is that it's Spanish for Brothers English, or something like that.
Well, that's it, literally. I might juxtapose it to be "The English Brothers", but there's no loss of meaning in comparing the two.
In many of these cases, these bands have a hard time marketing themselves to Americans. Obviously, the dominate form of music here seems to be hip-hop, while the rest of the world seems to really dig electronic/dance/club music.
I'd say that's been fairly consistent for the past two decades or so, but I don't see why they couldn't overcome that problem. A lot of rappers have been doing more rapping about "in the club" than "down in the ghetto" over the last 5-10 years. Moreover, you know I've done a few reviews of U.S. artists recently that are mixing hip-hop and electronica together.
When I've done some random surfing, I've found plenty of fans outside the U.S. that seem to be fairly well informed on the roots of rap, and how it drew heavily from disco and funk beats in the early years. So the gap can't be that big.
About the only real thing I can think of is blaming the corporate music machine in the U.S., and that they figure hip-hop pays the bills around here... but that still seems weak. Granted, we haven't had a big U.K./Euro invasion since MTV started and didn't have other videos to fill the airtime, so maybe it could be that there's no real big megaconglomercorporate push to share music more widely across the globe. Almost everyone is connected to the Internet now, though... it's just a matter of "movers and shakers" generating the buzz, I suppose.
