Portishead – Chase The Tear

Yes, I know, a second post in one day? This is madness! There is a reason, however, and it is not Sparta. It is a little proof on my part that sometimes, every now and again, I am on the cutting edge of what is Hip and Happening. In this case, I refer to a new Portishead track which they have recorded for the human rights organisation Amnesty International. The song will be available for download from tomorrow, but a video has become available which showcases the oddly-titled “Chase The Tear” in all its glory. Video below.

Wow. Holy… Did that just happen, you guys? It did. Well…

Not sure about you, but I was addicted on first listen. Beth Gibbons can do haunting, tortured vocals in her sleep (which may explain why nobody wants to stay a night at the Gibbons household), and of course it’s hugely impressive, but that is about par for the course for Portishead. It’s the beats that back it, the slowly entering horn stabs and that constantly racing drone, the keyboards barely change in terms of melody but it changes in texture and form as cries of “holding off tomorrow’s sorrow” eminent around loose clean guitar. That’s what makes this stand out so forcefully. This is “We Carry On” mixed with the Countdown theme. It almost feels like a race against the clock, towards an indeterminable finish line.

I had to share this with you. I just had to. We can assume, perhaps, that this track is considered not good enough for their fourth album, a reasonable assessment, and one that leaves me praying to the gods of Quantum that I happen to be in the parallel universe where this comes out in 2010. Magic is at work here. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The Wednesday Countdown: The Beat Goes Round And Round

The year is coming to an end, and what that means to the people that matter, is that the popular Radiohead fan forum, Mortigi Tempo, are about to run the 5th of their annual polls to find the top 100 Radiohead songs of all time. This weeks Wednesday Countdown is dedicated to “Test Tones” Sam, who has gone through the great struggle of compiling all the lists from users on the forum and turning them into neat tables and graphs, and who we all hope will repeat these exertions this year. Here are my top 20 Radiohead songs, in order, with absolutely no shocks involved for anybody who knows me. Feel free to post your anger below. Oh, and make a note that for the title I used a lyric from a song that isn’t even on my list. I’m crazy, me!

20. The Amazing Sounds Of Orgy (Amnesiac B-Side)
19. No Surprises (OK Computer)
18. Bodysnatchers (In Rainbows)
17. True Love Waits (I Might Be Wrong Live)
16. Just (The Bends)
15. A Wolf At The Door (Hail To The Thief)
14. 2 + 2 = 5 (Hail To The Thief)
13. You And Whose Army? (Amnesiac)
12. Bangers & Mash (In Rainbows Disc 2)
11. Fake Plastic Trees (The Bends)
10. 15 Step (In Rainbows)
9. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi (In Rainbows)
8. Cuttooth (Amnesiac B-Side)
7. Airbag (OK Computer)
6. Idioteque (Kid A)
5. The National Anthem (Kid A)
4. Paranoid Android (OK Computer)
3. How To Disappear Completely (Kid A)
2. There There (Hail To The Thief)
1. Subterranean Homesick Alien (OK Computer)

This is the 42nd post I have made to this blog, interestingly. OK, it wasn’t that interesting. Anyway, leave angry comments below, and take a little time, if you will, to ponder the fact that there are more Amnesiac B-Sides on this list than actual Amnesiac tracks.

The Video Bin

Time to add a few more YouTube videos to The Video Bin. Why? Because it’s Sunday and I need coffee and it’s my blog. Is that reason enough? Hope so. This time I may be so bold as to add captions to each video, rather than allowing the music to do all the talking. If the music could do all the talking I’d be out of a job. And by job I obviously mean hobby.

Things I have managed to conclude this morning:

• Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer is a good album.
• I am fairly certain what my top 5 albums of 2009 are.
• I need coffee to make sentences structure good
• It doesn’t matter that I’ve been distracted by blogs, emails and of Montreal, I am still going to get this bloody lab report done today

Videos:

By popular demand, here is Mumford & Sons performing Little Lion Man from their Bookshop Acoustic Session. Check out the other songs they did in this session, The Cave is also really good. I was almost tempted to post the Taio Cruz cover of this song, but then I realised I didn’t want to make your ears bleed and your soul vomit.

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I have had a tiny bit of a Neutral Milk Hotel week, and I have also had a tiny bit of a Fanfarlo week, so to find one covering the other is nice. I like the off-the-cuff feel of this video, and though the vocals of course don’t match up to Jeff Magnum, I think that Fanfarlo do the song justice, and give a little extra credence to my remarks a few weeks ago that covers were damn necessary in music.

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Animation in music videos is always cool, from “Paranoid Android” to the classic “Take On Me”, and it’s used very well in this Frightened Rabbit video. The fact it seems to run alongside a clever (if not particularly well portrayed) thought experiment on the nature of choice makes it appeal to me even more. And the song is awesome, all music geeks of a certain disposition will fall head over heels for the line “this is the last song I’ll write about you”.

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Part 2 of this week’s Neutral Milk Hotel double-bill, and yet again it isn’t actually NMH giving the performance. Jeff Magnum gives a solo performance of Two-Headed Boy that does nothing to explain how such a technically unaccomplished singer can be so amazing live. This is one of those songs where you hang onto every word, because each one is so crisp, special and perfectly formed. It is a master class in how to be a singer that can’t sing.

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No. Obviously this isn’t possible. There’s no way that two guys, one with an acoustic, can just stand there on a handheld camera with poor sound quality and create such a stunning performance. There’s some sort of witchcraft involved. I adore this song, and consider it one of Grizzly Bear’s best, but the effortlessness with which they carry off a little-known song on the back end of an EP is just crazy.

Look out for my top 15 albums of 2009, coming soon.

Daytrotter, daytrotter, yeah

The Internet is an amazing place. I can safely say I’ve spent far too much of the last couple of years on music websites, listening to or downloading random songs. And somehow, in all that time, the Internet still has a few tricks up its sleeves. I stumbled this morning upon Daytrotter.com , which happily confesses to being “a recording studio with a website.” They regularly invite up-and-coming artists to record there, and then put the results for free download on the website,  a new band every day. Just in the last few weeks live songs have appeared on Daytrotter from the likes of Frightened Rabbit, The Antlers, Gary Jules, Kris Kristofferson, Wavves and Neon Indian, as well as music from more unheard musicians that are hoping to get a little more recognition.

Immediately I have to applaud both the concept and the motive of the website. Clearly they are working for the fans, which should in itself be admirable in overly-commerical times, and it seems that everybody benefits from the set-up, listeners are treated to live performances from their favourite bands, bands get a platform for their music and Daytrotter themselves get to show off how good they are at recording live bands, which they are very good at, it should be pointed out.

Daytrotter earn their indie stars by championing a pre-Yellow House Grizzly Bear and showcasing Fleet Foxes in between their EP and album release. They use this well to attract the likes of Andrew Bird, Spoon and The National. Perhaps my favourite set is by Bon Iver (the four songs and article can be found here ), and it perfectly illustrates the many good points of Daytrotter. As well as providing amazing music by talented artists, and inviting the listener to find out more, it also gives a very nice medium between the artist and their fans. Each track has a short paragraph written by the performer, just to give them that small extra bit of information that no super-fan can do without. Alongside the occasional interview and the user comments section, this website really seems to be able to provide everything. And its left me wishing Bon Iver would do a UK tour soon (his voice is just heavenly live. I have no idea how he keeps up the falsetto all the way through RE: Stacks, but it is incredible).

So yes, I may be late to discovering this site, but that doesn’t give you an excuse to make the same mistake as I. Go check it out!

The Wednesday Countdown: Colourful Songs

I had quite the worries about this particular list, which contains the top 10 songs with a colour in the title. What criteria should I put upon it? Shall I reserve a maximum one place per colour, or let all colours have free reign? Over half of my short-list contained tracks with “black” in title (which I refuse to accept as a trend in my listening habits), but due to the finite amount of named colours, and more importantly the finite amount of named colours that sound good in a song title (“Maroon Haze”? “Mauve Haze”?), I eventually selected my top 10 songs that have either the word colour or a colour in the title without worrying about any further constraints.

In the end I was very strict with myself, removing all instances of songs with “blues” in their name, which is a shame, because the idea of a colour representing a mood is the only way I can get this particular topic to be in any way related to an overriding musical theme. Of course, colour is also useful for helping to visualise a purely audial medium.

Top 10 Songs of The Rainbow

1. Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal

2. Grizzly Bear – Deep Blue Sea

3. Kings Of Leon – Black Thumbnail

4. Jimi Hendrix – Purple Haze

5. The White Stripes – Black Math

6. Mumford & Sons – White Blank Page

7. Wilco – Pot Kettle Black

8. Kid Harpoon – Colours

9. Thom Yorke – Black Swan

10. Hope Of The States – Black Dollar Bills

Fleet Foxes sure are masters of manipulating music to give a mood beyond sound. White Winter Hymnal glows with autumnal solemnity, evoking streaks of colour not just through the snowy title, but also through the gleefully disturbing line “turn the white snow red like strawberries in summertime”. Though this list contains a lot of black darkness the clash of red blood against winter snow is the most chilling visual imagery of all, and makes the top of my list.