Forward Thinking

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.

Empire of the Sun - We Are The People

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.

Alessi's Ark - Magic Weather

Alessi's Ark Myspace

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.

The Invisible - London Girl

Oui oui

Ah Paris. Don't get me started on Paris. Simply, the best place on the planet. But this isn't a travel blog so I'll stop before I launch into a nostalgia marathon about the best time of my life blah blah blah. What stirred my emotions about this amazing city was hearing this remix of Friendly Fires' song Paris by Belgian duo Aeroplane. Now, the original is good enough to send me into a full-on Gallic daydream but this version, which replaces the punk-funk jaggedness with cascading synths and a beautiful female vocal (from Au Revoir Simone), makes me feel like I'm knocking back Leffes with Emmanuelle Béart on the Eurostar - tearing through the French countryside. At night. In the snow. With the lights of the city slowly emerging on the horizon. And then the Sacré Coeur comes into view and... Christ, I think that's enough don't you?

Download: Paris (Aeroplane remix) - Friendly Fires

Buy Friendly Fires by Friendly Fires here.
Ally

Headless Heroes

You might think that it being monday morning, combined with it being windy, grey and rainy and there being just too much hangover still left in my head would get a person down but actually it's set me up to be in the right mood to discover Headless Heroes. Jesus and the Mary Chain's 'Just Like Honey' (aka 'the one from the end of Lost In Translation') covered by Alela Diane with beautiful plaintive, dreamy production, all echoey and the-world-is-not-a-bad-place inducing. I'm picking up the album from Rough Trade on the way home; it's a covers album featuring reworkings of tracks by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Daniel Johnson and Vashti Bunyan among others.

Headless Heroes - Just Like Honey

Buy album from Rough Trade here

Rest In Peace Mr Smith

Elliott Smith is five years gone today. Rest in peace Mr Smith. This is my favourite song of his.
And this is an awesome tribute...

Wrongtom in the disco

We are getting very excited over here at BP about our next party at Gramaphone on Friday 3 October. It promises to be our best yet and the main reason for that is the headline performance by the one and only Wrongtom. Hard-Fi's tour DJ and the remixer of Roots Manuva's new album, Wrongtom is a fantastic DJ who we are proud to invite down to Beat Poetry. To give you a taste of the man's talents here's a disco/new wave mix he did earlier this year. It features the Clash, John Lydon's Public Image Ltd and Phil Daniels (!?) and shows that he is a DJ with not only top-notch mixing skills but also a phenomenal knowledge of music.

Download: Dumb Down The Disco - Wrongtom

Glaxo Babies/Dj Wrongtom - Wrongtom Meets The Disco Dinosaurs
The Clash - Radio Edit (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)
Rip Rig And Panic - Take A Don Key To Mystery
Coco Beware - Tropical Depression
Fad Gadget - Make Room
Public Image Limited - Death Disco (Live In Tokyo)
Orange Juice - Lord John White And The Bottleneck Train
Pig Bag - Getting Up
Boots For Dancing - Hypnotize
Return Of The Panthers - Crown Of Thorns (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)
Au Pairs - Shakedown
Blank Students - I Want To Be Happy
Phil Daniels + The Cross - Kill Another Night
The Beat - Too Nice To Talk To
Penetration - Movement (Wrongtom’s Disco Dub)

Photo courtesy of Mark Carnaby

Radiohead - good (BP approved)

You know that band Radiohead? They're good them. Are you bowled over by my astounding insight yet? OK OK, a blog post singing Radiohead's praises is never going to be a beautiful and unique snowflake in the unending icestorm that is online music criticism, but I just wanted to draw your attention to three reasons why Radiohead are so great - and two of them are preformances by other bands.
In the days before the internet, Radiohead fanatics (and those of any other 80s/90s band) would have to trudge down to Camden market to pay 17 quid for hooky bootleg CDs of them doing stuff like Carly Simon's Nobody Does It Better. Now, there is such a wealth of stuff available online that it's hard to keep up. NB: This is also due to the fact that the band has embraced the internet wholeheartedly - apparently they gave their album away for free or something, but I don't know I must have missed that. Supposedly it was a big deal.
Anyway, if like me you crave any Radiohead-related sound snippets then your prayers have been answered. Here is an MP3 of Californian band Cold War Kids covering OK Computer track Electioneering and a clip of Beat Poetry favourites Gnarls Barkley doing Reckoner from In Rainbows. Radiohead covers have a tendency to be totally crap, derivative and vastly inferior to the original, but these two are fantastic. At the bottom I've also included Radiohead's version of The Rip, the stand-out track from Portishead's latest album. Enjoy.

Download Cold War Kids - Electioneering



Ally

Get sexual

Download: Hot 8 Brass Band - Sexual Healing (Me & You re-edit)

Holla! Check this out. The Hot 8 Brass Band from New Orleans cover Marvin Gaye's signature tune and have so much fun with it. This re-edit from Brighton's Me&You extends it out into a nine-minute horn epic complete with a long breakdown perfect for boozy singalongs. This has got last-tune-of-the-night stamped all over it.
The original features on the Hot 8's album for Tru Thoughts. Buy it here.
Ally