Galway New Years Day 2011

BSITWT #108

James Blake - 'Limit To Your Love'

http://www.myspace.com/jamesblakeproduction

Donal Dineen - Stir the Melting Pot

A fantastic video featuring Donal Dineen, Liam Ó'Maonlai and Niwell Tsumbu culminating with Body and Soul in flying form on Friday night at EP. Delighted to say I was there. You have to appreciate the great work of all at www.ArbutusYarns.com on this. To see more from them check out their website and particularly this beauty.

Talking Heads - Psycho Killer

Taken from Stop Making Sense shot at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre in December 1983. Awesome.

Muto Leo - One Trick Pony available to buy on iTunes

Muto Leo (formerly SextonBlake) have been putting in the hard hours recording their first 4 track EP and single. The fruits of their labour are, I'm ecstatic to report, well worth a trip across to their MySpace page. Their first single 'One Trick Pony' is now available to buy on iTunes. Give it a lash.

www.myspace.com/muto_leo

Muto Leo Facebook Page

FlashMob - Shop Street Galway

He IS on a Horse

Villagers - Becoming a Jackal

Prepare for an enjoyable 3 minutes and 56 seconds of your existence. Taken from the brilliant watchlistentell.

The Antlers - Monday 24 May @ The Academy

One of my highlights from the most recent Other Voices series, The Antlers are returning to these shores to appear in the Academy on 24 May. Their latest offering Hospice has received wide acclaim with lead singles 'Two' & 'Bear' earning repeated plays around these parts. Critics have particularly praised the narrative of the album which tells the story of a man losing a loved one to cancer. However, the album is not actually about cancer and the illness is in fact a metaphor for bad love. The story sits comfortably side-by-side the wholesome folk/indie soundtrack. Read more here. This one comes very highly recommended.

Tickets: €16.50 (+ booking fee) here.

The Antlers - 'VCR' (The xx cover)

The Antlers - 'Two'

http://antlersmusic.com/

YouTube Goodness

Joanna Newsom - Later with Jools Holland

Absolutely spellbinding stuff taken from last night's show. Enjoy.

www.myspace.com/joannanewsomfansite

Review - La Maroquinerie April 15th

Last night we had a treat in Paris' hipster mecca as Villagers supported Wild Beasts, both giving excellent performances. "Villagers" was in fact only main man Conor J O'Brien. In a "reverse Jape" move, Conor appeared on stage to say "Hi, I'm Villagers", which is just grammatically incorrect.... His performance allowed me to forgive the grammar though, as he offered a lovely solo guitar show, often going off-mic to give the room a genuine show of his superb voice. A passionate performer and story teller, he truly is one of today's Irish music stars, and I look forward to seeing a lot more of him.
Enjoy the video to Meaning of the Ritual below


Wild Beasts are clearly a flavour of the month at the moment, and with good reason on this showing. An extremely tight show, with two gifted vocalists among their foursome, and some seriously driving songs that drifted from Foals-esque turbo-charged drum/synth led belters to glorious electro-popscapes that nod back to the likes of New Order. If I had to complain, one could argue that there were times where it felt a bit repetitive, but all in all these guys put on a great show and seem to have the talent to be more than a summer buzz band. Check out We Still Got The Taste Dancin' on Our Tongues below, a true gem, more in the Foalsesque category from above.

BSITWT #99

Massive Attack - Babel

Three Tome Tunes

I am not going to put any of these tracks up as a BSITWT, although on another day they would all be worthy. They all come from a Mix that Donal Dineen has Soundclouded on the Fresh Air Festval Blog.
What Dineen has unearthed is really some of the finest electronica going. What really amazes is that upon listening to the MySpace or downloading an album from any of these artists, you realize that most of it is pretty average, but Dineen has uncovered this one idiosyncratic stormer that they managed to churn out in a moment of divine intervention.

1) Mikkel Metal - Peaks and Troughs
The "rest of the stuff is lame" comment above is less accurate in the case of Danish artist Mikkel Metal, who has had tracks remixed by the likes of Marcel Detmann. Peaks and Troughs evokes a train pulling out a station, chugging deliberately onwards, never quite reaching full pace. A bit like the Galway-Dublin train. Unlike said train, this is a truly beautiful piece of work.

2) Wave Machines - Turn the Lights On
Funky, fun, and bouncy, delightful vocals that border on Passion Pit novelty, but are infinitely more enjoyable*, this is track to dance and sing along to.


3) CFCF - You Hear Colours
Hints of Kate Bush's Running Up that Hill thrown in there at times, but that's OK! This is an uplifting track with wide rolling soundscapes; I am already looking forward to the first time I listen to this on a sunny day in the middle of nowhere.


*Sorry Passion Pit, your guy's voice is annoying

Snippets from the National's new album

The National have started to release new material from the album High Violet, which will be released officially in May.
Here you will find a link to Bloodbuzz Ohio, which has elements of the tenderer story telling side of Boxer, with lead vocal Matt Berninger's voice offering a reminder of why he enchanted us all on that soon-to-be-considered-classic album.





Below we see the more aggressive, upbeat side of the National's style, with a belting inaugural rendition of Terrible Love on the Jimmy Fallon Show recently



It even has elements of this storming post-rock anthem towards the end....

I had to do it after the last post

Without the track, the interlude after two minutes for the Spaniards fighting is worth it alone

BSITWT #92 or An Ode

Four Tet - Sing (mp3)

From the outrageously anticipated There is Love in You record. And yes, it is phenomenal. Is there anyone more important in music at the moment?

Pantha Claus

Pantha du Prince releases his third record, Black Noise, on Rough Trade this Feb. Collaborators include members of Animal Collective, Panda Bear, !!! and LCD SoundSystem. Prediction #1 for 2010 - this is going to be huge.

Here's some magic from his 2004 Diamond Daze record. How this passed me by I'll never know.

More Choice Talk...

As mentioned by Ed.Ward below, the Choice shortlist was announced last week - cue streams of incessent bitching and general shiteology that tends to accompany these lists. Anyway, having inexplicably trawled through the guff, three ommissions seemed particularly harsh: Kittser (of course), Hunter-Gatherer, and the amazing Patrick Kelleher. One would have hoped that genuinely innovative records like these would have been picked up by the nation's alternative to the Meteors. Ah well.

If you want see what the fuss is about, pop along to Hunter-Gatherer's hyphen fest with Tune-Yards in Whelan's on Feb 12th. Patrick Kelleher has dates in Galway, Cork and Limerick at the end of Febuary.

Ricardo Villalobos - The Academy - 3 April

Ricardo Villalobos makes a welcome return to these shores on 3 April with an appearance at The Academy, Dublin. This is sure to be a sweaty sell out so get your tickets here (€29.50 incl booking fee).

Ricardo Villalobos Interview