Gladeyes album as great as you'd expect

After a reported two years of tireless work The Gladeyes' debut album 'Psychosis of Love' is finally released. The album sits interestingly alongside previous last release - 'The Prospect Palace Tapes' CD-R. The two releases are largely made of the same songs, with Psychosis of Love adding only two new songs and re-recording two songs from their first EP 'Hearts-N-Amour'. Considering four of the songs from the Prospect Tapes were on their second EP 'A Heart Full of Love' it's pretty clear prolific songwriting is not The Gladeyes primary concern. I don't know how other people feel about this, but I think it's great. I love hearing up to three radically different recordings of these songs and hearing the songs played differently each time I see them. It's an approach to music making I sincerely wish more bands would consider.

As mentioned before Jade and Gwen spent two solid years working on 'Psychosis of Love' and basically it sounds like it. It's a big, lush sound that is constantly punctuated by unexpected twists and frills. That may not necessarily sound like a good thing, but trust me it works. In a way the meticulous arrangements seem to act out the themes of obsession and escape that dominate their records. Furthermore, it's radically different from the Prospect Palace Tapes - which was recorded in a single day, and sounds like they could have been done in a single take. So different trying to evaluate which I love more is near impossible to say. Probably the best thing to do is let you listen for yourself Monika is being released as their first 'single' and available for download - so give it a listen and compare with the Prospect version.

Monika

Monika (Prospect)

When you're done you can listen to more at their myspace. The song Psychosis of Love isn't included on the album and is radically different from anything else of their's of heard. Whether it's the sign of a new direction remains to be seen.

new pants yell! song

At some point about 18 months ago you may have heard me say something along the lines of "Pants Yell!, they're nothing special". Then I suddenly got hooked and pretty much listened to nothing but them.

So now I can sit here in envy of all those lucky lucky people in Boston who get to go see them this weekend play with Still Flyin' and hear all the songs from their new record (which I thought was going to be called Jessica Griffin but isn't)

But at least while I'm sitting I can listen to 'Cold Hands' the first song to be streaming on their myspace. Get there

radio going live

My neglect of this thing is likely to continue into the near future - well until I finish my uni stuff at the end of October. But in the mean time three exciting peices of news.

1) 'best band in the world' The Gladeyes are releasing their first "proper" album in November and doing a wee national tour.

2) everyone loves Wildwood Lights. After spending a forever on the top of bfm's top ten you can now listen to 'Town and Country' on their myspace. But you should buy the EP too.

3) and

Simply Thrilled is going 'live' in our first little club night. Don't know how the world feels about just stealing book covers to make posters, hopefully I won't be laughed at.

Simply Thrilled 01 Aug

As I'm picking songs to play for this week's radio a show I should really post last weeks. This week's show will probably be the first time in a while I won't play anything from the Summer Cats' album. The internet seems to be suitably excited about it, which is entirely deserved - here's more info. But I should jet so here's a link to last week's show, and for those who simply want to critique I'll put the playlist in the comments.

Simply Thrilled 01.08.09

oh and everyone should buy the Wildwood Lights EP. They're just about the best thing ever - more on them later.

A Declaration

General consensus seems to be that the Felt DVD A Declaration is terrible. For the most part I agree, filmed on a hand held camera from the balcony at ULU, with the sound just coming from the camera microphone it sits uncomfortably with the rest of Felt's back catalogue. It goes against so much of the image Lawrence went to such pains to manufacture I find it hard to believe he endorsed its release. Yet it's not the poor quality of the recording that interests me, it's the uneasy feeling that even if the recording was better quality, even if I was there, I still wouldn't enjoy it that much. They simply don't seem that good. For someone who spent of few of his teenage years and most of his adult years thinking Felt achieved a kind of untouchable perfection this is something of a revelation. Yet the feeling that Felt were just a band like any other fills me not with disillusionment but, rather, the optimistic feeling that all the new bands I love and follow are just as great as those of the eighties canon. Pedestals are boring and pointless and the more cultural artifacts I can find that demolish those bands aura of mystery and flawlessness the happier I'll be.


As an aside am I wrong to love this more than any other Felt video accompaniment I've seen.

I Wonder Who We Are

There's something about 'I Wonder Who We Are', the first 'single' from the upcoming The Clientele album, that reminds me of Belle and Sebastian's 'Your Cover's Blown'. Well the beginning of it anyway. But then I remember when I first heard 'Your Cover's Blown' it somehow reminded me of 'Rip It Up'. Anyway it's great stuff. Happily The Clientele seem to have resisted any kind of career narrative, it doesn't seem to me like they're tied any kind of bland 'maturity' trajectory. Maybe they're not recording vocals through bass amps anymore, but they're certainly not aiming for any mainstream crossover; or if they are they're going the wrong way about it. Have a listen and see what you think. And admire the beautiful cover art, reminds me of the Marble Arch releases, maybe that's the point.

I Wonder Who We Are

Some Velvet Painting

I've had a wealth of stuff to post about recently, but been struggling get myself to write about. So let me just say now The Cavalcade are great and so is the Liechtenstein album. They deserve more effort than this and hopefully I will do something soon. Although the most exciting thing of all has been Ed Cake's new album under the moniker Pie Warmer - hopefully this one gets promoted big time.

Speaking of promotion; my motivation for posting now is to mention that some friends and I now have a semi permanent radio show on Auckland's Fleet Fm on Saturday evening from 9 till 11, which I think is currently 10am-12pm Saturday morning in the UK. So you can listen online, or I will be posting a recording of most of the show each week here. So just click this to hear last week's one.