Which isn't the sort of thing I'd usually bother telling you, but no one else seems to have picked up on it, so I thought I might as well. Seriously, it's ridiculous how conflicted I feel about this. Album reviews? Release news? That's not what I had planned. Anyway, just know how much it pains me to put this picture of the cover up:
As you may be able to see (if you're not distracted by all the pretty colours at the top), it's called The And, a reference to the fact that all but two of the tracks (and even those feature allusions to the overall theme within their respective titles) are duets, mainly with French women. The most noticeable exception is 'Unbroken Hearts', featuring Emma Pollock, a.k.a. the only guest on the album I'd actually heard of.
At first, this disappointed me slightly. While frontman Mickaël Mottet, or 'Angil', hardly has the best voice in the world, it was nonetheless a key element in defining the aesthetic of the band's previous album, Ouliposaliva, and part of the reason I loved that record so much. So with the opening track focusing more than would be desired on the vocal of somebody called Brigitte Vautrin, the first listen through made for an initially unsatisfying experience.
Fortunately, as the album progresses, Mottet manages to gradually impose himself upon it, as well as improving the quality of his song-writing. In fact, the collaborative nature of the record may well prove to be a point in its favour, diluting as it does what, on Ouliposaliva, could at times be an overwhelming sound. Otherwise, it's more of the same blend of pop, jazz and folk, with perhaps a greater musical singularity than before to draw together the many disparate voices.
MySpace:www.myspace.com/angilandthehiddentracks (where lots of tracks from the new album are currently up, so I'm not even going to bother trying to get away with an mp3 upload)
Hey Muscles, I love you, I want to have your babies. I was supposed to be putting Muscles on in Bristol, but then he sued his record company and now it looks like he won't be coming to Europe. Shame. Now here's a picture of his face:
Why yes Muscles, I would like a chip! Muscles released his first album, Guns Babes Lemonade, back in 2007; it was my favourite album released that year, and Pitchfork gave it 8 out of 10 or something, but for some reason, they didn't bother to include it in their year's top 50. He could have BEEN somebody. And I thought he had a new album due out soon, but that now seems not to be happening (I can't find anything about it, anyway), I'm guessing because of the aforementioned suing of his record company. But that doesn't matter, because I was going to write this blog entry anyway. The other day, y'see, 'One Inch Badge Pin' started going round in my head, and that's one of the songs from his first album, and it made me think "More people should really know about Muscles". So I decided to blog.
Whenever I introduce someone to Muscles, they say "Hey, this is good!" Apart from John. And some other people. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, he divides opinion. And the reason he divides opinion, I imagine, is that he makes cheesy, electro-inflicted dance music. Like Friendly Fires. Except not like Friendly Fires. I don't like Friendly Fires. So I started thinking to myself, "Why is it that, in spite of the fact they're basically doing the same thing, I love Muscles so much, yet I so detest Friendly Fires?" And I think what I concluded was that, while on the face of it Friendly Fires sound like they just want to have fun, there's an undeniable, underlying sense of them taking themselves very, VERY SERIOUSLY, which juxtaposes awkwardly with the music they create.
Muscles doesn't have that. Muscles really does just want to have fun. I mean, there's a sense of sorrow and sentimentality which seeps through sometimes - quite often, really - but for the most part, it's simply invited to join the party, and when it's not... well when it's not, there's no shame in it. That's the thing, I think. There's no pretension of things being better than they are; there's no cynical, contrived attempt to create the impression of joy. Hey, things can be shitty sometimes, but we're going to sing our hearts out and jump around anyway. Second track 'Ice Cream' probably sums it up best, with its choral refrain of "Ice cream is gonna save the day". That's it. Over and over again. "Ice cream is gonna save the day". And if you think it can, then maybe it really will.
Three bands in particular inspired me to start this blog. Hence, from now onwards, they shall be known as our patrons; the Holy Trinity. Whenever our faith in music begins to wane, we shall turn to them for guidance and reassurance of how great a band can be. They are, in the order which for no apparent reason has seemed most natural to me:
Cobras Cobras Cobras
I find it best to think of Cobras Cobras Cobras in terms of potholes and the avoidance thereof. They incorporate nearly everything I love in a band without ever really sounding like any of the other bands I love; they frequently embrace pop melodies without ever sounding like they have designs on the top 40; they have a strong identity, yet their songs never blur into one, indistinguishable mass. Which doesn't really tell you much about how they sound, but that doesn't matter because they're a brilliant, brilliant band who should be listened to by everyone either way. You can find out what they sound like once you've done that.
If you like what you hear there (which you will), you can then download their third (I think) EP for FREE!!!!!!!! It's completely legal because it's out of print, and was indeed made available to download by the band themselves, so don't worry your pretty little self about that. It's called Today! Tomorrow! and here is the link: www.mediafire.com/?aez13dhc5gj
Angil and the Hiddentracks
Angil and the Hiddentracks are great largely because they manage to combine pop, folk, jazz and hip-hop elements, as well as being French, without being shit. They're also great because they're great. Their debut album, Ouliposaliva (I think it's their debut album... it probably isn't), was released towards the tail end of last year, but it somehow managed to compleeeeeeeeetely pass me by until just last week. Which might make you think I'm a little hasty to be putting them in this most illustrious of triumvirates, but if it weren't for them, I would never have started the blog, so you would be wrong.
Like Cobras Cobras Cobras, Tiger Bear Wolf's name consists of three animal references. Unless you conclude from that that bands who make awesome music tend to favour names which exclusively mention animals three times, I think we're going to have to put it down to coincidence, for that, my friends, is just about all they have in common. Tiger Bear Wolf sound pretty much what I imagine all bands would sound like if rock and roll had never gone away; if instead of trying to create new genres and sounds, bands had just tried to refine the one which already existed. Which is kind of impressive considering that rock and roll did go away (yes it did, shut up) and they therefore had about 40 years' worth of groundwork to put in.
MySpace: See, the thing is, there's only one track up on Tiger Bear Wolf's MySpace, and in my opinion, it's one of the weakest on the album. So first have a stream of the record's opener, 'Something Worth Saving', then there's a MySpace link after the jump. And bear in mind that, if you go on to buy 'Something Worth Saving' from iTunes, it, along with most of the other tracks on the album, is labelled completely wrongly (in case you think I've linked you to the wrong track).
