Girl I Love You - MASSIVE ATTACK FT. HORACE ANDY
They remain one of our most fascinating, extraordinary bands. Startling as this may be to thirtysomethings who grew up in prescribed awe of Massive Attack, but a whole new generation has arisen in the 12 years since their last pivotal album, Mezzanine, a generation to whom the Bristol duo are at best peripheral. So while an army of griping fans and sniping critics will argue that Heligoland doesn’t match their early triumphs, or break as much new ground, there will be younger listeners who hear it as something entirely new and recognise it for the gloomily, beguiling beauty it is.
GIRL I LOVE YOU features the vocals of roots reggae master Horace Andy, who is a long time associate of Massive Attack.
The haunting horns under Andy's vocal are pure genius from the minds of Grantley Marshall and Robert Del Naja: creepy and danceable.
"Some people have said in reviews, 'Oh, this is classic Massive and Horace doing what Horace does.' And I've thought, 'well actually that's not quite right', because, with Horace, you've got to understand the depth of the man. He's really coming from this kind of reggae, lovers' rock, Studio One type of background and we've taken him out of that and got him to do completely different things with us. Horace would love us to do lovers' rock. He goes back to Jamaica and his old-skool sparring partners over there are like, 'what is that weird white-man music you've been making with those boys in Bristol again...?'. They don't really understand that s--t at all. And Horace is like, 'why don't you make me a hit single, so I can have a big hit in America like Shaggy?'. And we're like, 'shut up Horace, we've done this minimal tune'. But he loved the results. It's fun working with him." - Robert "3D" del Naja
Massive Attack spent their first 12 years as breathtaking pioneers, while 99.9% of their rivals might manage ten minutes of such inspiration. They may never be as original again, but as long as they make albums as rich, textured and seductive as Heligoland they will remain one of our most fascinating, extraordinary bands.
10
Dance Yrslf Clean - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
This brooding nine minute epic is the opening track from James Murphy's third and perhaps last studio album, This Is Happening.
Dance Yrself Clean opens with a naive vocal melody accompanied by 8-bit curlicues, before bursting into a gigantic breakbeat-driven block-rocker.
"Talking like a jerk except you are an actual jerk, and living proof that sometimes friends are mean," Murphy mumbles to himself. His lyric touches on the same territory as All My Friends, the narrator’s hedonistic impulses shaded by an awareness that he’s too old to still be feeling this way. It’s as wry and emotionally resonant as it is physically bone-shaking, and nothing else here comes close to matching it.
9
You've Got The Love - FLORENCE + THE MACHINE FT. THE XX
The original version of this song is based on a 1985 Chicago House recording by Jamie Principal & Frankie Knuckles called "Your Love." This song that claimed to be the first ever House Music track was never released on vinyl but tapes were circulated round the clubs. Record producer John Truelove aka The Source combined it with an acapella Gospel track sung by Candi Staton and "You Got The Love" became a huge international club in 1986.
More than 20 years later the talented Flo Welch and Company decided to record a slightly retitled "You've Got The Love" version of this classic as a bonus track for their 2009 debut album LUNGS.
"As a kid, going to clubs and raves, this song made me feel love. At 2008's Bestival we were top of the bill on that stage, so we were thinking of an amazing cover we could do, and I thought of Candy Staton. Even in rehearsals, playing it was just the most euphoric feeling. Then playing it live and seeing everyone's arms in the air, and the faces – it was the best feeling ever! I was dressed as a genie sea-monster, and I remember looking at my guitarist as we played the first chords, and then there was the reaction and it was like tearing ourselves open and just exploding on the crowd, and then they all did it back. It's a feeling you couldn't express. I'm really excited that now in our live shows I'm going to be playing one of my favourite songs ever, loads." - Florence Welch
After the XX supported Florence on her sold-out UK tour, a plan was hatched for them to remix "You've Got The Love". And while she is known for her over-the-top pop moments, the XX's quiet and whispery approach meant this was always going to be an exciting prospect. The result? Well, the reaction speaks for itself. Within hours of its appearance, it became the most popular track on the internet. On the airwaves, DJs of all over the world have heralded it their remix of the year. And justifiably so. If you had to pick a track that's captured the genre-splicing sound of rave in 201009, it's this. Taking elements of classic 2-step garage, UK funky, and bass-line, with the famous Candi Staton lyrics being mumbled by the male-female duo of the XX, against Florence's high-pitched parts, this truly is a remarkable piece of music.
8
On Melancholy Hill - GORILLAZ
'On Melancholy Hill' is a fine example of a stress-relieving, carefree, relaxation-session song. After the dubious 'Stylo', this song comes up trumps and reminds us of how brilliant the Gorillaz are with a tune.
Laid-back synths, a slight buzzing sound, spongy drums, and a pretty electric string riff that can't help but bring a smile to your face and give you a wave of goose-bumps are all the Gorillaz provide on this track, but what a track it is... Stuart's vocals appear muffled and sleepy, but have just enough charisma to come across as charming, backed up with lyrics like "You are my medicine, when you're close to me", and "Does anybody know, if we're looking out on the day of another dream?", that’s when the true beauty of the melody, production and lyrics beams up.
This is a hazy pop gem with the sugary 80s sparkle of Strawberry Switchblade or early Lightning Seeds.
Damon Albarn get away with conducting a project as sprawling, daring, innovative, surprising, muddled and magnificent as Gorillaz' third album Plastic Beach: not just one of the best records of 2010, but a release to stand alongside the greatest Albarn’s ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole. The scope and depth of Plastic Beach is staggering. For anyone frustrated that Blur never quite managed their White Album, look no further.
7
Airplanes - LOCAL NATIVES
Local Natives (formerly known as Cavil At Rest) are an LA band formed out of high school by Taylor Rice (vocals/guitar), Kelcey Ayer (vocals/keys/percussion), and Ryan Hahn (guitar/vocals), who then added Andy Hamm on bass and Matt Frazier on drums. Their debut, Gorilla Manor, named after the house in which they lived together, was released in late 2009/early 2010 (depending on where you live.) Interestingly, Local Natives were signed by a UK label before a US label, but have made up for it in the States this year, the highlight coming at SXSW in Austin, Texas through March where they played a whopping 9 shows in 3 days.
This song is actually about keyboardist Kelcey's grandfather. He died when Kelcey was two years old, so he only knew him through stories that his father told. And I think it's very funny because people (including me) think it's a romantic song about a girl.
Local Natives have spent a great deal of time honing their craftsmanship, and Gorilla Manor is the ultimate reward for listeners and the band alike. You’ll find that the differentiation and light changes will keep you interested all the way until the end, allowing you to finally spend time with a solid record you’ll want to listen to time and time again.
6
Rill Rill - SLEIGH BELLS
From savage metal and school teaching to dance-pop and online hype, the Brooklyn pairing's journey has been winding.
They met in a New York restaurant; Derek serving the food, Alexis dining with her mother.
"We struck up a conversation," says Sleigh Bells lead singer Alexis Krauss. "I was teaching at the time so I wasn't involved in music but my mum was like, 'Oh, Alexis is a singer'. So we exchanged emails and we got together later that week."
This was summer 2008, when dance-pop twosome Sleigh Bells was born. So-called because "everything else is taken".
Derek (guitars and beats), who'd moved from Florida a few months previously, followed up their meeting by messaging Krauss. They hooked up.
Shortly after he quit his table waiting job, she quit teaching 10-year-olds at a school in the Bronx, New York, so the pair could take things seriously.
Treats, their debut album is a thrill ride: It's aggressive but not macho and smart without losing its sense of fun. Most of all, it's somehow both an aural assault and a piece of pop candy, albeit one in a overblown wrapper. In Sleigh Bells, Derek Miller is responsible for the excessively compressed beats and abrupt guitars, while singer Alexis Krauss provides a melodic counterpoint, with a sweetness that can turn fierce.
“Rill Rill” recontextualizes a Funkadelic hook into a summertime jam for high school romances. It's a sassy, country-tinged guitar song that finds Krauss singing about “wondering what your boyfriend thinks about your braces”. It won’t be Sleigh Bells’ signature song, and rightly so – it’s the sonic mayhem that’ll get them noticed. But like Crystal Castles before them, it suggests they’ve got content beyond the chaos.
Treats is just a whole goddamn lot of fun to listen to. It’s a supremely raw and visceral pop masterwork, one appropriate to rocking out with headphones on, windows-down bumping on car stereos, four-A.M. warehouse dance parties and countless other summer moments that’ll soon have soundtracks courtesy of Sleigh Bells.
5
All I Want - LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
Murphy delighted in listing his inspirations and influences on the first LCD album, and elements of Bowie, Eno and Reed had clearly been folded into LCD’s own style on Sound of Silver. Here, however, the influences aren’t so much discernible as obvious to the point of distraction.
"I kept oscillating back and forth between this John Cale version and this country version I had in my head. The song nearly killed me for two-and-a-half weeks, but I couldn't get my head around it. I hated it, then fell back in love with it. - James Murphy
All I Want is a passable power ballad containing some great waspish one-liners, but first you have to get past how much the guitar part sounds like the distinctive sustain created by Robert Fripp for Bowie’s “Heroes”. Joined by another aping the effect-slathered tones of Eno’s St Elmo’s Fire, these strong aural borrowings overpower everything else. It’s as if Murphy took those two records as a starting point for his own composition, then forgot to go anywhere.
4
The High Road - BROKEN BELLS
Part Kanye West, part Brian Eno, producer-musician Brian Burton — a.k.a. Danger Mouse — has defined himself with his excellent taste in brilliant misfits. His biggest smash was Gnarls Barkley, with whom he turned oddball former Dirty South rapper Cee-Lo into a falsetto swinging soulman on the sublime "Crazy," triggering moving karaoke performances worldwide. He's helped blues-rock freaks the Black Keys find their groove; helped midcareer weirdo Beck locate his mojo on 2008's Modern Guilt; even molded his mash-up sensibility to the arty David Lynch soundtrack project Dark Night of the Soul.
His latest one-off, Broken Bells, could be his biggest stretch yet: It pairs him with career introvert James Mercer, the sublimely melodic singer-songwriter of the Shins. The two have a little history — one track together on Dark Night — but Mercer might seem an odd match for the producer whose first big idea was combining the Beatles with Jay-Z, and whose trademark move is melding hip-hop-rooted samples and beats with vintage psychedelia.
It turns out the two pop-science geeks are a perfect match. Danger Mouse pushes Mercer's gorgeous, existential tunecraft outward with Day-Glo dynamics.
The High Road is a wonderfully crafted song and Mercer makes the song complete with his lyrics that rightfully fit the vibe. The song juxtaposes an uplifting melodic chorus with a depressing lyric about not knowing if the dead can talk, or even not knowing if you're alive. The duo likes it that way. "I gravitate towards darker, minor sounds. That's where I feel comfortable," Burton told The London Times. "The High Road is a lament," Mercer added. "Is this person happy? I'm in hell now. Sometimes you just repeat it over in your head — I'm screwed, I'm screwed, I'm screwed."
3
Zebra - BEACH HOUSE
Beach House has been steadily making a name for itself with its narcotic dream pop, and “Zebra,” the leadoff track to the band's Sub Pop debut Teen Dream, finds the Baltimore duo setting their ambitions ever higher. But despite the track’s thicker arrangements and quicker pace, the band retains its praise-worthy knack for winning melodies and minimalist arrangements. The band's ode to the “black and white horse” is a shimmering display of slow, hand-plucked guitar and woozy vintage organs, anchored by lead singer Victoria Legrand’s smoky and intoxicating vocals.
“Zebra” grows and grows within the space it is given, and though we are not talking about the epic scale of, say, The Arcade Fire, they are not too far off either. Legrand and Alex Scally create a sound that is much bigger than the two-piece that they are, helped by the fact that Legrand can carry a song on her own with her powerful voice.
Beach House is clearly ready to step out from the shadows and play timeless music intended for dreamers and romantics, the kind of dreamers and romatics that you would find in a Staten Island's Music School Program. These kids are great!!
2
Midnight Directives - OWEN PALLETT
After extensive touring and arranging string-type things for Beirut, Pet Shop Boys, and Arcade Fire, Owen Pallett is back with his long-in-the-works LP, Heartland. The 45-minute album features the Czech Symphony along with Arcade Fire drummer Jeremy Gara.Heartland is the first of Pallett's records to be released under his own name, rather than his recording moniker of Final Fantasy. This was out of concern of creating confusion with the Final Fantasy video games in Japan and to avoid infringing on any trademarks.
Talking about the album in a press release, Pallett said, "The songs themselves form a narrative concerning a farmer named Lewis and the fictional world of Spectrum. The songs are one-sided dialogues with Lewis, a young, ultra-violent farmer, speaking to his creator".
I appreciate Pallett’s sci-fi meta-fiction conceit, but at least early on, I find it difficult to pay much attention to his lyrical games when his arrangements are so dazzling on a purely musical level.
“Midnight Directives” is an agile, flamboyant tune that builds from a hum to a symphonic sweep without losing an essential lightness. Pallett is working with a broad palette, but he’s a deliberate, decisive arranger, and he employs sound in a gestural manner that reminds me of the way great cartoonists imply a lot of information in simple, well-placed lines. Even without the high concept, this is incredibly ambitious pop music that deftly avoids the typical traps of symphonic indie music.
This is a brilliant composition, the sort of piece that is urgent in tone, yet reveals itself upon repeated listening. The melody swoops and soars, but its a rather chilly sort of bombast — it’s a drama of intense thought, not physicality. I find myself often rewinding and going back over that final climax in the vocal section, just before the instrumental resolution: “For a man can be bought, and a man can be sold / and the price of a hundred thousand unwatered souls…” In context, that bit sounds defiant, thrilling, and terrifying all at once.
Coming up... LA NUMERO UNO of the First Half of 2010!!
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