Inside Nokia Music

When I’m not in the gym pumping iron, tinkering with the transmission of my pick-up truck, hunting game or otherwise proving my immense, hairy-chested masculinity, there’s nothing I like more than watching the gloriously touching, moving and inspirational Twilight movies. Go Team Edward!

Well, maybe not. But I did recently sit through Eclipse, the latest instalment in the tale of a broody bloodsucker and his boring bird (I had to take my good lady wife to see it, you see. Honest.). Also featured this week: more neck-bitin’ antics with True Blood, cross-burning shenanigans with Against Me! and some good ol’ fashioned toil with Elizabeth Cook.

Various Artists – Eclipse Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Whatever I think of the film, there’s no arguing that the soundtrack album is pretty worthwhile. Despite the movie to which it’s tied, it’s a pretty mature collection of tracks, some of which are exclusive, so if you’re put off by the faces on the cover you’ll be missing out. Highlights include Sia’s ethereal ditty about troubled romance, My Love, and Beck and Bat For Lashes teaming up on the fuzzing, clinking, steam-building Let’s Get Lost. There are also exclusives from UNKLE, The Dead Weather, Vampire Weekend, Cee Lo Green, and Florence + The Machine, among others. In fact, about the only disappointment is Muse, who again drop an exclusive track to follow their contribution to the New Moon album.  Sadly this film’s outing – Neutron Star Collision – is a non-starter, sounding like the worst sort of Queen-esque excess.

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Quite unintentionally, two themes emerged in the batch of new music I pulled from the mailbag this week: firstly, there’s a preponderance of album covers that are brown. Secondly, there’s an old world feel to most of the albums I picked out. All the music this week feels as though it’s been lovingly hand carved from a single piece of wood. There’s quite an organic quality to it all – certainly no digital sequencers, effects or overdubs – and nary an electro beat in sight. Anyway, what this all means is that from henceforth this week will be called Wooden Week.

Jamie Lawson – The Pull Of The Moon
Oh those crazy kids with their nocturnal imagery. If it’s not vampires then it’s moody, pensive, stripped back acoustic rock songs about mysterious love, bottomless despair and killing folk. Well, sometimes. But it’s certainly applicable to Jamie Lawson who, according to the gushing press release, lives in a caravan by the sea in Cornwall. It’s funny to think that other places in the world like that can give rise to the sunny contemplations of a Jack Johnson; judging by the tone of The Pull Of The Moon, Jamie’s seen more than his fair share of wet and windy summertimes. Still, it’s done with a certain panache and, if you fancy some well crafted, mellow folksy vibes to accompany your sullen introspection, this pulls all the right heartstrings.

Pete Molinari – A Train Bound For Glory
Molinari, for his part, brings a 1960s US rockabilly style to Wooden Week proceedings, which is a little weird if you’ve ever been to Chatham in Kent, which is where he’s from. But hey, it’s all good fun, right down to the backing singers adding vocal harmonies to the chorus on tracks like the opener, Streetcar Named Desire. Some of the ballads are rather saccharine for my tastes (which is saying something, given my fondness for old Dean Martin records), but they’re authentically twangy. Heck, you can probably smell the denim, dungarees, cowboy boots and teary-eyed good ol’ boys from there.

Ed Harcourt – Lustre
This is Harcourt’s fith studio album and first one on his own label. And the experience shows – it’s a polished, almost unbearably lightweight sound that might drift out the window if it weren’t tied down to your speakers. That’s not to say it’s without substance – there’s a twinkly, ethereal quality to the first single, Do As I Say, Not As I Do, which combines what sounds like a xylophone, jangling guitars and tinkling piano keys. But listen to the lyrics and you’ll soon understand that there’s more to it than a four minute fluff track. It was recorded in Washington state in the US and a kind of bleakness does overcome some numbers. But Harcourt’s gentle, persuasive voice pulls you in regardless, despite your better judgement and the niggling thought that on a couple of tracks (most notably Killed By The Morning Sun) he does sound like a male version of Norah Jones.

My album of the week:

Ska Cubano – Mambo Ska
Maybe it’s the sun burning strong in the sky outside. Maybe it’s the fact it’s Friday. Maybe it was the mojito I had for breakfast. Or, quite possibly, it was that this album had been lying around unopened for a couple of weeks and its cover was brown, enabling me to tenuously carry on with my self-declared Wooden Week. Whatever, Mambo Ska is the Mike’s New Music Medley official Record Of The Week. It’s a great big scoop of toffee fudge ice cream on the wafer cone of life and can’t fail to make even the most neglected back garden feel like a little slice of Cuba. Well, alright, that might be stretching a bit but Ska Cubano’s latest release is so infectiously sunny and fun that it will at least make you forget about mowing the lawn for ten minutes. If you’ve not heard of Ska Cubano before, the band’s name tells you everything you need to know – it’s a heady cocktail of Ska and Latin music with the focus firmly on catchy, party-friendly tunes that don’t require taking too seriously. Even if you wouldn’t normally turn your ear to this sort of thing, the music seems almost genetically programmed to be appealing like a young puppy or kitten. Yes, not liking Ska Cubano is like kicking a kitten. There, I’ve said it.

And with that, I declare Wooden Week open. As ever, feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments. All the music mentioned here is available on Nokia Music Store now and is free to Comes With Music members.

Being at Nokia Music means I get to listen to loads of new music. Not just downloads from the store, but the occasional new release that I’m sometimes privileged to listen to before it hits the streets. And there’s a lot of it, so I thought I’d start rounding up some of the cool new stuff that comes my way. I’ll try and make this a regular weekly thing, but as this is the first one I’ve got a bunch of recently released stuff worth checking out.

My album of the week:

Neil Cowley Trio – Radio Silence
I couldn’t remember why Neil Cowley was a familiar name to me when this dropped on my desk. One swift Wikipedia later, I was reminded – he was one half of chilled-out beatmeisters Fragile State. An underappreciated downbeat electro combo, they put out a pair of great instrumental albums before record label trouble spelled the duos’ end in 2004. Cowley, a dab hand on the Joanna (he played keyboards for Zero 7’s live shows and released the album Soundcastles under the name Pretz) went jazz. As the Neil Cowley Trio (with Richard Sadler on bass and Evan Jenkins on drums), Cowley released Displaced in 2006, picking up a BBC Jazz Award for best album the following year. Radio Silence is the trio’s third long-player and it’s a stomper. In the best jazz trio tradition, it’s a tightly arranged masterclass in interplay, with all sorts of sounds, licks and melodies on offer. The thumping opener, Monoface, sets the tone – this isn’t the sort of album to stick on as quiet background music somewhere. Audio wallpaper it isn’t; just check out Gerald and you’ll see what I mean. Read the rest of this entry »

You may remember a couple of weeks ago, me raving about the awesome that was Caitlin Rose.  This is just a quick one to let you know that her Daytrotter Session has gone up today and is largely composed of new songs. I implore you to give it a listen!
Click the image to get there.

It’s been a whirlwind week for me and Miss Caitlin Rose, I only got her debut EP “Dead Flowers” on Tuesday and fell so hopelessly in love with it that on learning she was fortuitously touring the UK I went to see her last night (and I’m planning on going again on Saturday when the smart folks at Screen on The Green Islington have her singing before a late night showing of Badlands – a match made in -slightly disturbing- country heaven).

Hailing from Nashville, and with a sense of sass and humour beyond her 22 years she hates it when people call her indie and is fervent about her country stylings. Now, I’m a sucker for songs about whiskey & cigarettes & heartbreak anyway, but combine that with the most gorgeous of all Tennessee twangs and smart and funny wordplay that would sound just as at home on a Plan-It-X release and I’m sold.

Last night miss Rose treated us with an hour of songs from her debut EP and a few from the upcoming album, due out in July (the one about New York is actually incredible) and a Fleetwood Mac cover, in between regaling us with tales of Bobbys Dairy Dip, nightmares about Ashton Kutcher& Kate Hudson and her hatred of romantic comedies. She’s everything I expected her to be and much more besides.

Do yourself a favour and pick up Dead Flowers, and then wonder how you survived up until now without these 7 songs in your life.

When I stumbled upon this in amongst the deep dark depths of my RSS yesterday I was so excited I almost squealed. Justin Townes Earle covering Atlantic City for part of the AV Club “Uncovered” series. Why, this almost beats Cursive covering ‘Starship’!

For those of you unfamiliar with the work of Mr Townes Earle, he’s the offspring of US Country/Rock legend Mr Steve Earle, and the Townes in his name comes from non other than Townes Van Zandt. With musical heritage like this you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect. With three albums under his belt, the latest of which being 2008s ‘Midnight at The Movies’ (which featured the most gorgeous rendition of Replacements classic ‘I Can’t Hardly Wait’ I think I’ve ever heard) Earle is improving exponentially with each new release.

Anyway, watch the video and try and not lose yourself in his perfect voice. I dare you.

So we’ve had 12 months of musical hits and misses and are excited to see what the New Year brings. For the sake of closure, though, here’s a few of the team’s personal picks from 2009.

Johnners

Miike Snow – Miike Snow
Just a great sounding album, nicely produced with great rhythm and a catchy blend of styles. Every track is different. Black & Blue is a seriously great tune and one I religiously listened too for a week or so. Highly recommended.

Jay Chakravorty

Moderat – Moderat
This one’s easy. It was only ever going to be between Moderat’s eponymous record and The Dirty Projectors’ Bitte Orca. No matter what anyone else says, I think 2009 has been a fairly barren year for good albums. Anyway, the debut from Moderat, a group comprising two of Berlin’s finest electronic acts (Modeselektor and Apparat), won out. Apparat’s lush analogue synth arrangements and Modeselektor’s ridiculously well-produced beats are a perfect match, sparking off each other in unexpected and frankly astonishing ways. You know the bit in Heat where de Niro and Pacino face each other in the diner? Well, it’s like that. You’ll notice something new every time you go back to it. Flitting between ethereal beauty and thundering dance music has never sounded so effortless.

Mike Abolins

Animals In The Dark – William Elliot Whitmore
With a voice that sounds like it’s seen one smoky bar too many, William Elliot Whitmore falls into that category of artists that sound older than their years. One listen to the Americana- and country-flecked acoustic folk that is Animals In The Dark and you could be forgiven for picturing a weathered old soul; in fact, Whitmore was born in 1978. Which makes the world-weary attitude and depth in tracks such as Old Devils and Hell Or High Water all the more remarkable.

Jethro

Let The Dominoes Fall – Rancid
It may have taken 6 years to get here and, as a big Rancid fan, it didn’t disappoint. Tim Armstrong’s gritty rasping vocals mixed with ska and psychobilly-influenced punk show that Rancid are still sticking to their traditional ska punk roots. It doesn’t quite hit the level of …And Out Come The Wolves, which is still my favourite Rancid album, but Let The Dominoes fall comes a close second and is an album that has sat at the top of my playlist for most of the year.