The new National album isn't due until 2010 but if you're a fan, and i know i am, here's a couple of new songs that they played at the Carnegie Hall in NYC back in February. They're live recordings but the quality is alright. This band mix a beautiful melancholy with with some sort of uplifting energy so effortlessly it's staggering. It always makes me want to chain smoke cigarettes on an overnight train somewhere (see picture from Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 for better description). Bryan Devendorf is also the best drummer recording today: discuss.
It's a good time to be a Dylan fan. Well, maybe if you're a casual best-of-buying fan then you wouldn't agree, you're probably out there saying how Dylan's voice is awful and how you preferred him when he was a folk singer or when he was a wandering mistrel or some other such pre-prescribed notion of what you think he is. Personally, i gave up ideas of what i wanted him to be some time ago, and just enjoy watching the many different masks and personas come on and off, evolving all the time. Especially since his creative output remains at such an incredibly high level. So for me it's a good time; i got tickets to see him at the Roundhouse in London last week and today i get a brand new track from the upcoming album Together Through Life called 'Beyond Here Lies Nothing'. It's got a slight creole lilt to it, slightly garagey production (read about Dylan and the loudness war) and a wry, mystical vocal and suggests that the current golden period is not dark yet.
'Q-Tip is my title, i don't think that is vital, for me to be your idol, but dig this recital...'
'Back in the days when i was a teenager, before i had status and before i had a pager...'
'I'm the cherry on the top of your ice-cream, i'm the piece of thought inside your dream...'
So, welcome to the first installment of our Heroes feature. First up is Q-Tip, aka The Abstract, aka Jonathan Davis, aka Kamaal Ibn John Fareed. He's a fitting person to start with as he was hugely influential in shaping how i think about music and in setting me off on the journey of exploring influences that never ends. As a teenager i spent hours staring out the side of minbuses after football games listening to Tribe albums on my walkman, pouring over the lyrics and wondering about places like Lyden Boulevard, Queens and El Segundo and how different they were from the pebbledash suburbia that i knew. He is a great rapper but more importantly for me, he a great lyricist. I loved Ali Shaheed's beats and jazz samples and Phife's energy but Q-Tip showed me that music could be about ideas and philosophy, about poetry and wordplay. As a huge Dylan fan, i can't help but think that it was the Tribe's influence that set me on that path. I love the 'Daisy Age' hip-hop-meets-hippy mentality and sheer positivity he's always had, a track like 'Go Ahead In The Rain' is a good example, a song about staying positive and ambitious despite the depressing aspects of life, a pretty useful influence if you live in grey, rainy England.
Tomorrow night i get to see Q-Tip live for the first time and i'm pretty excited. His new album, The Renaissance, is the best thing he's done since Beats, Rhymes & Life (although The Love Movement is massively underrated).
Q-Tip - Johnny Is Dead from The Renaissance A Tribe Called Quest - Excursions from The Low End Theory A Tribe Called Quest - Luck of Lucien from People's Instinctive Travels and Paths of Rhythm
Charity compilation albums are always going to be patchy affairs, the limits of diary space mean that they're often rushed and lacking cohesion, but when i heard about Red Hot's Dark Was The Night i had high hopes. Not only is it the brainchild of Aaron and Bryce Dessner - The National being one of my favourite current bands - but it also features a real era-defining collection of artists: Arcade Fire, Beirut, Dave Sitek, etc, the list is like a Pitchfork afficionado's wet dream. Now, having had it on permanent repeat for the past week or so, i can say i'm not disappointed but neither am i blown away, the quality is very high and everyone should go out and buy it, if for nothing else than the trippy way that Antony covers Dylan. But it's still patchy. The highlights for me are the efforts by The National, Yo La Tengo, Arcade Fire (give it a few listens...) and The Dirty Projectors & David Byrne. It's not quite the stake-in-the-earth for independent music that i was hoping for but then again, why was i hoping for that in the first place?
Before we get into end of the year lists, i want to cast half an eye into the future and think a little bit about what's coming in 2009 and a couple of acts i'm pretty excited about hearing more from. Up first is Empire of the Sun, one half Sleepy Jackson and one half PNAU this is sheer genius in an electro-Fleetwood Mac way. Combine that with great costumes (see below) and the promise of "theatrical extravaganza" live shows and it's pretty exciting. Bound to invite lots of MGMT comparisons but in our book that's a good thing.
The next is Alessi's Ark, the newest addition to the London nu-folk scene. She plays psychadelic, rustic songs with an innocent, child-like wonder and with rich, expansive production from Bright Eyes producer and multi-instrumentalist Mike Mogis. Think, Alela Diane, Joanna Newsom and Conor Oberst but with a very English slant.
The last is South East London band The Invisible. They play intricate songs that feel both raw and complex, somewhere between TV On The Radio, Battles and Plantlife. This is a band that has sprung out of the experimental jazz scene but brought to their skills a punk-funk sound that creates delights like 'London Girl' below. Watch this sub-genre-bending space.
I have to admit i don't know that much about Dr. Dog, in fact, i only recently discovered them through their cover of Architecture In Helsinki's 'Heart It Races' but this week i've been listening to their new album Fate and am mightily impressed. Psychadelic pop songs with a country, bluesy instrumentation, almost like listening to Band of Horses playing The White Album...with Dan Auerbach singing...and just the slightest dash of Animal Collective. I've really got to stop these complicated, artist-hybrid descriptions.
The best track is Hang On but i'm posting this one as I prefer the title.
Hi, welcome to the Beat Poetry blog. We are Alex, Ally and Joss, a record company flunky, a two-bit journo and a film industry loafer respectively. We fucking love music and put on nights at Gramaphone in Spitalfields where we spin electro, hip-hop, reggae, rock, soul, punk, funk and junk.
We love to hear from fellow DJs, bands, labels and promoters so please send any music or flyers that you think we might like to beatpoetryuk@googlemail.com
We spend way too much money on music and you should too, these mp3s are for sampling only and will be removed after a period of time, please support the artists by buying their records, preferably on vinyl from an independent record shop.
