Manners is vital

Passion Pit. Awh. They’re just swell. The album Manners is slowly dripping out across the blogosphere in drips and draps. I like what I’ve heard so far. It’s actually shaping up to be this amazing album, I believe people are going to get crazy over it, it’s got the perfect cross-over of indie and dance music sensibilities plus some of that twenty-something angst in the lyrics. Having inclusion of ‘Sleepyhead’ from last year’s Chunk of Change EP is great too.

What I thought I’d do hear is share the four tracks I have so far. They’ve already been spread amongst the blogs, how they got them I have no idea, I’ve got a couple of promos before, not many tracks though madly enough. But unlike many of the other major albums of this year, like the new Grizzly Bear’s and Phoenix’s new efforts, it hasn’t leaked. Which is good, they do deserve alot of the money for producing the music they have.

Plus, this is definitely essential for those who haven’t heard of Passion Pit yet, for they sure will do. These four songs, as they have for me, will shape your opinion. And I know most people enjoy them. Definitely listen to Sleepyhead and Moth’s Wings.

Passion Pit – Sleepyhead
Passion Pit – The Reeling
Passion Pit – Little Secrets
Passion Pit – Moth Wings

Fuck with Gray Day

The colour (yeah, the proper english spelling, bitches!) gray is probably my favourite colour right now. Light gray, I’m just royally into wearing light gray clothes for no particular reason. Wore three items with gray fabric, plus my plimsol/boat shoes are also gray material. It fits the season I think, what the weather is like and my impartial view on most things. Swine flu? pah. It’s probably a load of bollocks but then again, I have a fear. It’d be utterly shit for it to spread. We’ll have to see how it pans out.

Any way, I’m going to post a few songs I think that sort of come across as gray songs to me. Neither really negative or positive, but not in any way bland.

Alex Gladwell – Ain’t that the Way
Not heard much about this guy other than hearing his album, this song is ridiculously mellow in my mind.

Grizzly Bear – Two Weeks
Veckatimest isn’t out yet, but it’s amazingly good. A definite buy, I’m looking forward to it’s May 23rd (is it?) release.

Grand Atlantic – Single Ladies
A good cover, but it completely drains all the emotion from the song, I’m unsure whether that’s a good or bad thing.

Ta ra.

3 songs i’m in love with right now

Just out of the blue, some songs that I cannot stop listening to muthafuckas. Short in writing but major on song.

Royksopp – Happy Up Here (Breakbot Remix)
Addictively up beat, noicee onee Breakbot

Rokia Traore – Zenii
heard on Jools Holland’s show the other week. Nice, french-language music. It’s actually amazing, language has no impact for those who would doubt otherwise

The Futureheads – Back to the Sea
the best song off the ‘heads sophomore effort. Definitely worth a listen if you have only heard their most recent, probably most popular album (apart from the juggernaut that was ‘Hounds of Love’)

Icarus Himself

A new album that I’ve been sent recently and have really enjoyed is this, the solo debut of Nicholas Whetro, from National Beekeepers Society. I’ve put this off a bit as I’ve been rather busy recently and now have the time to squeeze in a review. It’s something that I whole-heartedly recommends, definitely in my opinion left-of-centre acoustic indie-pop that warms the heart.

It’s pretty acoustic-folk styled, containing some actually beautiful music. It’s definitely hard to actually wordily describe without listening to it at the same time. The minimalistic structure of the songs only goes to make them even more amazing i think. It’s such a great collection of songs, which although you could probably perceive as entirely similar with each track, there are a couple of amazing stand out songs as well as qualities to each track that make them sound unique.

Well, go out and buy it, try and find it somewhere, it’s indeed the type of music that makes you yearn for more, much in the same way that singer-songwriter Jamie T’s debut made me feel after listening to it. Listen to my current favourite; Flatwoods, WV and also another great track 35 to Life

Icarus Himself on myspace

The death of Ska?

AHAHAHAHHAHAHHAhahahahahahHAahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahHA. That was my first reaction to seeing this;

The Wiggles, I admit are geniuses, they have the child market pretty much conquered and got the actually amazingly good singer KYLIE MINOGUE on this! Yet then I pondered it, this exploitation of a brilliant song, originally by Toots and The Maytals, the best version done by Coventry’s own, The Specials. That band have recently reformed to tour but is it really for their love of music or just for money? Ska is a more than 40 years old genre, it’s past its prime in some ways, not exactly a major part of music nowadays. More recent bands like The Dead 60s (good) and the Ordinary Boys (not so good) have attempted at incorporating Ska-like sound into their music but this hasn’t impacted their success (or lack thereof). Now I’m drifting off. Enjoy the Specials version of Monkey Man below;
The Specials – Monkey Man
:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::