My New Favorite Band(s)

After feeling that women were somewhat underrepresented in my music collection, my mistress Fate, in her wisdom, has placed a veritable bevy of lady-singers into my paint-stained hands! Aside from Beth Gibbons on Portishead's newest, I've been introduced to Ruth Skipper and Hannah Miller, also monikiered as "Chesty LaRue" and "Cruella de Mill".

Both of these ladies take up vox in two separate bands, Modernaire and The Moulettes. While both very good, both bands run the same vein through two different genres of music; Moderanire are the rather arty electro outfit (along with a chap named "Oscar Wildestyle"), and The Moulettes are all fiddles and oboes, and are leaning towards more traditional folk music.

Moulettes and Modernaire both are very Gothic, in the old English sense of the word. Charlotte Bronte, but with a more viciously playful side, and a not-so-subtle suggestion of murderous intent. "Bloodshed in the Woodshed" for Modernaire lists a number of gruesome ways to get dead in zombie-chant, and the chorus is delivered with yearning laced with scorn. Hell hath no fury, and all that. Other tracks showcase the duo's dueling harmonies, my favorite being the aggressively affectionate "Distraction".

The Moulettes have many of these themes, but they're tamed or sedated entirely in lieu of more subtle tales of depravity, the the oft-scorned ladies label themselves. "Cannibal Song" flourishes with snatches of violins and oboes, and with lyrical content of jealously and castration, this depravity takes on a Penny-Dreadful aspect of vicissitude.

Devil of Mine, however, is quite simply the best song I have had the pleasure of hearing in a good long time. It is one of those songs that conjures all manner of images, of candlelit stonework and dirty ballgowns. The two girl's vocal ability has an awful lot to account for, but this song really cements the violin as the Devil's instrument in my ears. Fucking wonderful, it is.

Modernaire - Myspace, album available for a fiver

The Moulettes - Myspace page, if someone can enlighten me as to where to get their music, I would be very grateful indeed.

S/Cooke

Take-Away

Not having a computer for this term of university is wonderful. I'd advise trying it sometime. However, if you do, find yourself



La Blogotheque



Especially Les Concerts a Emporter (the Take-Away shows). The National cutting down their sound to two guitars, vox and a table, The Guillemots in an alley in Paris, Grizzly Bear a cappella The Knife through the streets. Very enjoyable, very enjoyable indeed.



S/Cooke

In Rainbows

I bought the latest Radiohead album the previous week. Oh, the reviews which no doubt you've read by now will all tell you it is good. I'll take that opinion as granted.



In Rainbows is OK Computer, but matured. It is an album that is confident, is comfortable. It sounds like Radiohead, but not any other Radiohead. OK was young, ambitious, and brimming with that genius which make it so memorable, while Rainbows is the product of everything since then: the electric veins of Kid A, the skeleton-melodies and ambience of Amnesiac, and the reluctant return to the mainstream that Hail to the Thief was.

The more I listen to Rainbows, the more I think it is the only proper album since OK Computer. It is complete, and the tracks all share a warmth without sounding like clones of each other. Like OK, there are the instantly appealing tracks (Reckoner, Nude, Jigsaw Falling Into Place), and the ones which grow slowly in your opinion. Kid A never had this completeness, neither did Amnesiac or Hail to the Thief. True to the artwork, there is something in utero about this progression, a kind of reverse-birth.

There are fantastic tracks in themselves, regardless of the context. Reckoner and Nude are beautiful songs, 15 Step is the grandson of Kid A, House of Cards brings some touching emotional articulation to Radiohead, and then it ends with Videotape bringing a slow, modulating, creeping end.

There is no explicit experimentation on In Rainbows, but there doesn't need to be. There are none of the unexpected electronic assaults or the staccato melodies of previous Radiohead efforts, In Rainbows doesn't need these things to be as good as it is.

S/Cooke

Mirrored, Tonto, Battles

Since I've been at University I've been going through a complete music dead zone. I don't have a computer, and the CD player in my Hi-Fi broke long ago.

However, I do have three CDs that I took with me (literally, five minutes before I was set to go, I realised I didn't have any music to take with me, so I grabbed the first CDs I could find). Two of these have since gone missing, and I don't listen to the remaining one I have. But, before it sprouted little chromatic-reflecting silicone legs and sauntered off down the hall, Mirrored by Battles was my favorite.

Tonto, the fourth track. It is a prime example of why Battles are such a special band at the moment; the slow start and wavey parralels with the seperate instruments that don't quite slot in around each other, with a innocent tambourine pretending to keep time in the background. Then, forty-odd seconds in, the drums start, and it dovetails into music, and not just noise.

The percussion on Mirrored is probably the most important contribution to the album. Battles should be one of the most important bands at the moment, for their complete tangent to the majority of the music that's on the shelves, notably for three things: the drums' synergy with the rest of the instruments, the use of vocals as an instrument and not as a lyrical-delivery device, and lastly, the sheer force of Battles' music.

Mirrored is worth a listen, because it's approaching something very new, when there's so little that is.