REVIEW: Gil Scott-Heron – I’m New Here

So when I received my first album of the month from Rough Trade, These New Puritens – Hidden, I was pretty disappointed. It is now time the second review of their album of the month, this time its Gil Scott-Heron’s new album “I’m New Here”. I was never aware of Gil Scott Heron until I heard “I’ll Take Care Of You” on Giles Petersons radio show, at that point I stopped what I was doing and just listened to the radio, thats how good it was.

“I’m New Here”, is a combination of, blues, electronica, motown, dub, and hip hop, all with Gil Scott-Heron’s voice of wisdom leading the music. It starts off with a moving story of his life as a child, which really kicks the album off. The album is played and told as a story, Gil Scott-Heron’s words are like that of a motivational speaker, instead weaving it through the fabrics of music making his music inspirational.
Tracks such as “Me and the Devil” and “The Crutch” are simply the scratched surface of how good this album is. With interesting, emotive lyrics, and beats on par with DJ Shadow’s “Entroducing”, this track is a sure fire banger.

Within the album’s case, is a message from the man himself, telling you to listen to the album the whole way through, by its self, with no distractions, then decide about what you got from it, and share it with those you feel would appreciate.
This is very true, the album is best listened to as one piece to unlock its full potential.
Gil Scott Heron is playing Bestival this year, and I can imagine a few other festivals as well, it would be well worth the investment to see this guy play live.

LISTEN.

Gil Scott-Heron – Me and the Devil

Lewi

READING FESTIVAL 2009 WOOOOOO! part two – SATURDAY

Uhh, this got a bit side-tracked and I promised myself a gazillion times to finish it. But I’m now determined to finish this series soon at least before this year’s festival.

SATURDAY
I began today after a day of music yearning for more, the first day was pretty good so I was reasonably excited. First up, after losing a friend for the morning, me and my mate TC went to see the fantasticaly energetic and probably rabid Pulled Apart By Horses. I did not know any of their stuff, but I loved the set, so head-bangingly dancable and loud and shouty that they totally fit the relatively little festival republic stage that they were playing. I definitely recommend that you seek them out
Pulled Apart By Horses – I Punched A Lion In The Throat (I would like to see this song title lived out)

After that, me and TC saw The Rakes. I love The Rakes and they were perfectly brilliant. They did 3 albums, and sadly later this year, they disbanded. I felt so lucky, they were great, just full of energy and vibrant, probably alcohol-fueled, dancing. Me and TC sang along to all the songs going absolutely mad. Thus far they were surely my favourite, purely for the incredible emotional meaning and probably, I suspect their own knowledge that this would be one of their last gigs. Highlights included “The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect” (Download), “22 Grand Job” (dedicated to all the old fans!) and “1989″. I would be writing now, “if you haven’t seen them, go see them now” but you can’t, just pray that their members second band incarnations, meet some kind of equal soundtracking of the average 20 year old down-on-your-luck life.

I watched hardly any of Enter Shikari as they copied Rusko’s brilliant Snatch-sampling intro to his classic Cockney Thug, so i was annoyed and left to go for a piss. The next set that came along was the briliant surprise of Them Crooked Vultures and I guessed they would be the secret set, without knowing they played at Leeds the day before, I just had an intense feeling that they would come on and lo and behold they did. It was such good, tight set, i knew none of the songs at all and seeing them play convinced me that I would like this band. They were kind of overwhelmed about half way through with chants of “Dave Grohl” for the drummer-that-everyone-likes-even-when-he-sings-and-plays-guitar.

After this, I was relentless in convincing my friends to see the legend that is Ian Brown, partially using the excuse that we would be close to see Maximo Park after. He was alreet, nothing special. The sole exception being the inclusion of seminal Stone Roses classic “Fool’s Gold” and his bald brass player’s numerous solos. After this was Maximo Park, a band I love rather alot to be honest. Their set was brilliant, and unlike other bands did not focus on the sole tracks from their most recent album, but rather the best from all three. My favourites like “I Want You To Say” and “Our Velocity” were played and I thoroughly enjoyed it, download this brilliant live version of “Graffiti” now!

As much as I convinced my friends to watch Ian Brown, TC was just a pestering us to watch The Prodigy, which coincidentally became the worst decision of my life, if you don’t know me, I’m not a fan of moshing, or getting attacked while listening to music. Thus, I didn’t like this set. It was mad, pill-poppers and weed-smokers descended from all other sides of the festival to watch the prodigy and then proceeded to go mad. Where we had order and nicety before, the crowd went absolutely insane. I proceeded to jump the barrier eventually, as ahead of me i could see hundreds from the front section of the crowd attempt to escape. Seriously, the crowd control is not only terrible, it is ineffective. Next time I will be avoiding the prick magnet acts.

The only reason I was amidst that crowd was for the arctic monkeys anyway. So that dampened my evening, I was basically near the back of the audience, for an act I had been patiently waiting for and basically camping for over the last few hours. They came on and I was reasonably impressed, a nice show and was able to see some chavs near me singing along to every word, never knew they had it in them. But anyway, the set was consistent, apart from not including brilliant songs like ‘Teddy Picker’, but other than being consistent, wasn’t really inspiring if you catch my drift? Just seemed like a bog-standard repeat of the songs off the new record with a few others added. Oh well. That was saturday.

Owen Pallett – Keep the Dog Quiet (Simon Bookish Remix)

Owen Pallett, aka Final Fantasy, is an artist I’ve been quite longing to get into and the new album Heartland looks almost irresistible. Yet, today, the nice folks over at Domino sent me this amazing Simon Bookish remix of track Keep the Dog Quiet to share. It’s sick to say the least and has whet my appetite for the album. I really want to hear it now, even though I know that this song probably sounds like nothing on the album itself in all honesty. Well download the song RIGHT NOW and see why I posted immediately after hearing it.

Owen Pallett is about to go on a month-long US tour. I live in the UK, so it doesn’t meant that much to me, but here’s the tour dates:
Apr 08 – Toronto, Ontario – Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Apr 10 – Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall
Apr 11 – Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theater
Apr 12 – Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall
Apr 13 – Columbus, OH – Wexner Center
Apr 14 – Pittsburgh, PA – Andy Warhol Museum
Apr 15 – Washington DC – Black Cat
Apr 18 – Indio, CA – Coachella Festival
Apr 20 – Boston, MA – Institute of Contemporary Art
Apr 22 – New York, NY – Webster Hall
Apr 25 – Philadelphia, PA – First Unitarian Church
Apr 27 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
Apr 29 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theater
Apr 30 – Austin, TX – The Mohawk
May 05 – San Francisco, CA – The Independent
May 08 – Seattle, WA – The Crocodile
May 09 – Vancouver, British Columbia – The Vogue Theatre
May 10 – Victoria, British Columbia – Alix Goolden Hall
May 11 – Portland, OR – Aladdin Theater

Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers

Its hard to make a bangin’ mash-up album, they kind of went out of fashion in the late 90’s and are usually listened to once then forgotten. They are the one night stands of music.
However, “Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers” will definitely keep your musical belly full for a little while.. Tom Caruana, part of “Tea Sea Records”, has hit the perfect balance of combining the pop brilliance of the Beatles and Wu-tangs lyrical expertise. What I really like about this album is that the actual beats themselves are fresh, taking the Beatles licks and rhythms, and putting a whole new spin on them.

Oh yeah, and its free to download.
Check that shit out, click here.
Props to Mr. George Newman for the heads up.

Check out these select two in the mean time;
Mighty Healthy
R.E.C. Room

Lewi

recent song roundup

I hear lots and lots of songs, through other blogs, through hype machine, through pitchfork, through a variety of sources. A few recent ones have caught my eye so I’d thought I’d post a few together in one place for those who hadn’t heard them.

Jemina Pearl – I Hate People Feat. Iggy Pop
I really love how this sounds like Be Your Own Pet as if they were writing all the songs for Grease. With added Iggy Pop. (via Chipped Hip)

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros – Home
I heard this, its an ‘09 song, but I couldn’t resist including it for its lovey-dovey alt romance. (via Hear Ya)

The Hood Internet – Comfortable Up Here (Royksopp & Lil’ Wayne)
Probably the best mashup of the last year, who would of thought these two would work so well together? (via The Animal Show)

Good Shoes – Under Control I love Good Shoes and they recently put this single out for free via their website, it’s brilliant! Take a listen, their new album is out later this year.