Grunge legends PEARL JAM released their third LP VITALOGY on 22 November 1994, 25 years ago today. To celebrate this birthday here’s ‘SPIN THE BLACK CIRCLE’, the crushing punk lead-single of that record. Raw, rough and rip-roaring. Hell yeah!
Who: A London duo made up of Burundi born vocalist Caroline Kabera and bassist Carl Dawkins. They met in music school and later reignited their explosive musical chemistry as Armada of Secrets. A rollicking drum-and-bass-driven power duo, marrying danceable post-punk with raw, soulful singing, and deeply affecting observational lyricism.
Pick: MAKE ME OVER – new single that ‘symbolises our return, a coming to terms with who we are and what we believe in’ says the band after it took a long time to decide if they actually wanted to get the song out as its level of honesty scared them.
Score: Blimey! What a powerhouse of a song! From the get-go a repetitive, towering riff backed by an overwhelming, robustious drums/bass force set the enormously pulsating tone of this zestful knockout. And when vocalist Caroline Kabera‘s vehement and soulful vox comes on top of it your body temperature speeds up spectacularly. Make Me Over is
a high-energy discharge with an emotional intensity that will have a lasting impact on
your aural radar.
Note: About twenty (!) years ago Beck and Pharrell Williams met
and agreed to work together sometime. Well, it took 20 years, but
finally the duo teamed up with this new Beck LP as the result
Beck about Pharrell Williams: “I really tried to be less ambitious
on the production on these songs, like to let them be simple and let
them breathe. Pharrell is a master minimalist. On production I’m a bit
of a maximalist. I’ve really tried to reform myself to let it become more
simple.”
Sound: Atmospheric musings, ambient dreams, and airy arrangements.
One of his moodiest works ever
Still no retirement time for the imperishable PAUL MCCARTNEY. A couple
of days ago he was officially announced as the first headliner for Glastonbury
Festival 2020 and it looks like the ex-Beatle wanted to celebrate that by dropping
two brand new songs today.
The first ‘HOME TONIGHT‘ is pure McCartney: catchy, melodious and uplifting.
The second one is quite different. ‘IN A HURRY‘ is an elaborated pop symphony
with multiple segments and plentiful of polyphonic harmonies. Yep, the man still
knows at 77 how to build, compose and construct appealing pop songs.
40 years ago, on 23 November 1979, PUBLIC IMAGE LTD better known as PiL released their second album titled ‘METAL BOX‘. One of the most inventive, bold & middle-finger-to-the-musicbiz album of the so-called post punk era. A masterpiece in many ways, even
in its way of packaging, as it came out as 3 x 12″ 45rpm records in a tin film canister!
The core’s band consisting of former Sex Pistol John Lydon, ace guitarist Keith Levene and equally ace bassist Jah Wobble didn’t give a flying fuck about what sort of music was hip or not, popular or not at the time. On the contrary, it was like they tried really hard to make a record that was unsalable. Respect! No Sex Pistols Mark II (although later Lydon turned into Rotten again in order to CASH IN with the original Pistols. Well, aren’t they all the same?). Levene‘s metallic and wayward guitar sound was essential to Pil‘s far out and radical sonority, but it was Wobble‘s mighty wall-of-dub-bass resonance and Lydon‘s mostly wailing vocals and his dark stories/lyrics that made this whole unorthodox and outlandish noise enterprise freakishly perfect.
The album’s single: ‘Memories‘…
AllMusic wrote: “PiL managed to avoid boundaries for the first four years of their existence, and Metal Box is undoubtedly the apex. It’s a hallmark of uncompromising, challenging post-punk, hardly sounding like anything of the past, present, or future… ‘Metal Box’ might not be recognized as a groundbreaking record with the same reverence as ‘Never Mind The Bollocks’, and you certainly can’t trace numerous waves of bands who wouldn’t have existed without it
like the Sex Pistols record. But like a virus, its tones have sent miasmic reverberations through
a much broader scope of artists and genres…” Full review here. Score: 5/5
Iconic front cover of THE BEATLES‘ second longplayer, simply titled ‘WTH THE BEATLES’.
The album came out on 22 November 1963, 56 years (!) ago today, only eights months after their debut Please Please Me. It featured eight originals (including George Harrison‘s first recorded song) and six covers. The cover’s cool black and white photo was taken by Robert Freeman. George Harrison later remarked that the cover of the first LP was ‘crap’ and the second one “the beginning of us being actively involved in The Beatles’ artwork … the first one where we thought, ‘Hey, let’s get artistic.”
Singer/songwriter BAXTER DURY has announced a new, sixth,
album called THE NIGHT CHANCERS for release next year in March.
Dury about the new LP: “Night Chancers is about being caught out in your attempt at being free, it’s about someone leaving a hotel room at three in the morning. You’re in a posh room with big Roman taps and all that, but after they go suddenly all you can hear is the taps dripping, and all you can see the debris of the night is around you. Then suddenly a massive party erupts, in the room next door. This happened to me and all I could hear was the night chancer, the hotel ravers.”
Here’s the slowly groovin’ and sensually vibey lead-single ‘SLUMLORD’ and its accompanying video clip…
The Floria Sigismondi-directed movie adaptation of Henry James 1898 novella The Turn Of The Screw — called The Turning — will start screening in January. The soundtrack will feature new or previously unreleased songs by several artists such as Courtney Love, Mitski, Kim Gordon, Alice Glass, Warpaint, Cherry Glazer and the Kills’ Alison Mosshart.
COURTNEY LOVE, a long time fan of Floria Sigismondi who’s also quite famous for directing music videos, has contributed a new song to the film. It’s called MOTHER‘, an impassioned and zealous power ballad with a fervid vocal Love performance.
Who: “An indie-rock band based in Toronto, Canada. Born from online ads and unlikely situations, their sound proudly echoes some of the greatest rock bands from the 1990’s,
and early 2000’s.”
Pick: MAYBE, TOMORROW – title track from their new EP
Score: From the infectiously awesome opening riff discharge this kick-ass stunner goes full
steam ahead. What you get served here is 24 karat rock ‘n’ roll dynamite that boosts your adrenalin’s flow and makes you want throw your parents brand new widescreen TV out of the window. Buzzing excitement! Inflammable ruckus! Stormy hurly-burly!
Catch the fire right here…
.
Now we’re all heated up let’s continue the crazed
fun. Here’s the band’s new 5-track EP in full…
TEMPLES – Botanique Venue, Brussels – 19 November 2019
Never change a winning formula is definitely British quartet TEMPLES‘ chosen strategy.
After listening to their recent, third album Hot Motion it was quickly clear that the band had decided to keep doing what they do best since their debut LPSun Structures back in 2014, which is writing glam and glitter pop songs with the three inseparable ingredients you need to succeed: catchiness, tunefulness and euphoric sing along choruses. Mind you, it’s not as simple as it sounds. Many tried/try that formula over and over again but only a few become successful at doing it as it should be done to get the listener in an elevating mood.
And it also helps when you look like young God-like pop stars too. Anyway, last Tuesday
in Brussels, after a short false start, due to technical problems, the ecstatic Temples show took off and turned the full house, with a large fanatic fans representation, pretty fast in
to a state of euphoric elation, with a clever mix of old stompers (Keep In The Dark / Shelter Song / Certainty ) and new standouts (The Howl / Holy Horses / Hot Motion). As I’ve seen the band a couple of times before I had a déjà vu once in while but seeing the greater part of the audience going nuts frequently was a pretty sight to see and keeps yourself exultant too. And with turning the one and only encore ‘Mesmerise‘ into a sort of Jimi Hendrix like psychedelic guitar outburst the band reminded us that 90 minutes with them is about a thousand times more entertaining than sitting in your lazy couch all evening long watching crap on TV.
