After their rave SXSW show back in 2012, the buzz began to build for the Portland, Oregon dream-pop band simply named Blouse. Headed by Charlie Hilton, who is a modern day Nico look-alike with a distinctively dreamy voice to match her sexy looks, this three-piece band has all the classic sounds of synth-oriented ‘80s pop down to a structured science. And with enviable results too.
To call Blouse a retro band with all the right stuff is to ignore the art of taking popular music and infusing it with new things to make it stand out further, make it pop off the record and into your consciousness where it’s supposed to stay (if it has done its job).
With a full-length, self-titled album already in circulation since late 2011, Blouse has set the stage for a good future. The album is loaded. Ten songs in a span of about a half hour brings back a magic of the past that relied on awesome content, not so much the cram of many half-assed tracks that seem to permeate so many albums these days. Quality is the reason we fall in love with music, not quantity.
If you like any of the synth-pop from the ‘80s, then you’ll be immediately intrigued by this fresh band that takes a familiar sound and reshapes it into a twangy, ethereal gorgeousness.
The eponymous debut from Blouse contains contagious gems like “Into Black” (check out their stunning video for the song at the end of this piece), “Videotapes,” the perfection of “White,” and the quirky “Time Travel” with the interesting lyrics. You can stream the entire album below, thanks to the band and SoundCloud.
If ‘80s-styled pop — a little on the dark side — sounds like something you might be interested in, I highly encourage you to investigate Blouse. The name might be a generic oddity, but their music is memorable, deserving of a place in your playlist, or your library, or whatever it is that you use to listen to your music these days.
Mellonta Tauta is an interesting term to be adopted by a band as its name. It means “things of the future”. It is also a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. I knew the latter as I’m a Poe fan (Just ask my HS English teacher. She’ll tell ya!). The former I had to look up. Still, it’s an interesting term. And still an interesting band name.
Mellonta Tauta have their geographcal roots in Argentina, comprised of three very versatile musicans that include Daniel López Quiroga (guitars/bass), Federico Aldaz (drums), and the vocally talented Karina Altamiranda, who also writes the songs found on Rainbow Melodies. As the history of this band goes, Mellonta Tauta began in 1994 at a time when the Gothic music of the ’80s began to become a genre all its own with multiple spikes in various directions in style.
Fast forward some 20 years later, this band reassembles, as luck will have it, via the communicative powers of Facebook. The result is the excellent neo-classical hybrid album that is Rainbow Melodies.
Rainbow Melodies is a collection of songs that skate from one side of the genre to another. Cue the first song, “Love Is Happiness”, and you get a richly textured layer of sound, with Karina’s ghostly vocals providing the shimmer of the track. But move over into the second track, “Twenty Years Later”, obviously a reference to the re-emergence of the band, you get something entirely different. With a steady drum track, and vocals sounding like the alien operatic in The Fifth Element (and I truly mean that in a good way as I adored that part of the film), the song is an immediate favorite.
Rainbow Melodies has within its parts, songs that incorporate a highly enjoyable jazz element with excellent saxophone blended in. On the lengthy and electric, “Travel To The End”, the sax is mournful and, when it meets Karina’s operatically talented voice, it offers an emotion of a different kind. The sax is also heard in the equally lengthy folllow-up track, “Live Here Forever” but not before Karina has you travelling on a melancholy road.
“Paris Noir” gets a little psychedelically electric, and jazzy. Karina handles it well because she has a voice that can do miracles with every style she embraces. Her two musical partners, Daniel, and Federico supply no lack of expert musicianship to make the album what it is, one to pay attention to and to enjoy. There’s not a whole lot of bands like them out there.
Rainbow Melodies is an excellent album. After 20 years, it’s clear that Mellonta Tauta is destined to be together. With its bold blending of jazz, neo-classical music, electric psychedelia, and heavenly voices, sometimes all in the same song (“Rainbow Melodies”), this album is one to be enjoyed. So, call the music what you want – Shoegaze, Darkwave, Dreampop. I’m going to call it refreshing and worth my time.
Release Date: April 16, 2013 Label: Projekt Records, Twilight Records Website Availability: CD, DD
Last week, we asked the question (and discussed) whether too many songs on an album encourages the failure of an album, or discourages the inclination for a listener to buy a copy of the complete set as opposed to farming for a song. I suggested that the band (or artist) could concentrate more artistically on a smaller set of songs for inclusion on an album so as to make for a more compelling set.
The discussion was interesting, and, as usual, with arguments for both sides of the coin. One thing that I got from the thread was an interesting one, that many previous bands and artists had plenty of “filler” in their album.
The term “filler” can be construed as a strong word to an artist, who likely considers everything they’ve recorded as worthy of the wax, aluminum, and bits they take resident on and within. Nevertheless, many bands in the history of Rock and Roll (and before) made albums with a few strong songs (or some with every song bad), and the rest less interesting.
It could also be said that the songs are strong but some overshadow the acceptance of the rest. How would a song follow “Black Dog”", “Rock and Roll”, and “Stairway To Heaven” on IV? Well, the answer to that is from a purist’s standpoint, the album was solid beginning to end. But to the other less tolerant listeners, the rest were filler to some degree or another. (I know, bad choice as an illustration, but…!)
So, to continue the thread that we started, I thought I would ask the inevitable question, and see what popular albums out there had “filler” inside. Since there are so many to choose from, feel free to add as many examples and declarations as you feel you should.
I have always made the classic argument that Bruce Springsteen created a 2LP hopeful with The River (right, Bill B? ;- )). I have always felt that for The River to become classic through and through, like its predecessors, the unbeatable Born To Run, and the perfect Darkness On The Edge Of Town, it needed to become a single LP. (Now, this is just an example for the sake of this article as I’ve long been beaten to internet pulp too many times to want to go through this again as a stand-alone topic.)
I have others. And so do you. Let us hear your selection of albums with “filler”, and check to see if the mass agree.
Sometimes, an album comes to my attention that you just can’t seem to find all the right words for it. Of course, I mean this in a good way (we just don’t do reviews of bad albums here because, who has the time?!). You listen, and feel compelled to listen again. Then again. Good music has its way of sneaking inside of you, and taking up a strange sort of residence. Great music files for permanent residency. That’s the case for the eponymous first album from Adam Green and Binki Shapiro.
Adam Green has a massive list of achievements in his background that includes involvement with The Moldy Peaches (a duo that helped shepherd the “anti-folk” movement, which is, essentially, folk not as a serious vehicle of political and social disenfranchisement, but rather, folk as an element not beholden to anger and frustrations, hence ‘anti-folk’. After Moldy Peaches, Green released a series of good solo efforts.
Binki Shapiro has enjoyed her own brand of success. During her career, she was part of Little Joy, a band formed with Rodrigo Amarante (Los Hermanos), and Fabrizio Moretti (The Strokes). Additionally, she has worked with Beck.
In January (2013), Rounder Records released the pairing of Adam Green and Binki Shapiro in what is easily one of the best albums of the year. The self-titled work is an album with ten radio-friendly songs, or, as I can easily say, a collection of A and B-side singles. A best of collection, if you will. Of course, this debut by the duo isn’t a best of, but it sure sounds like it. I like this so much, I’m shelling out for an LP version.
The best way to explain the sound of Adam Green & Binki Shapiro, is that there is a charming connection between these two singer/songwriters. Using folk as a kind of guide, a hint of country (folk), this album has all the feel of an alternative styled album with the heart of rock at its core. A strange thing, that, but what else can I say other than it works, and works well.
The opening track (heard below in the embedded video), “Here I Am” offers a strong song for you to slip into (visit website for a free MP3 download of this track). Its melodic brand of melancholy is followed by a different sense of it, but just as potent all the same with “Just To Make Me Feel Good”.
“Casanova”, the Green (front and center) sung, “Pity Love”, and six other excellent songs from this electrically charged duo with some kind of music chemistry make up this ten track album. It’s still hard to come up with the right words for something as good as this duo’s excellent debut, but I did try.
If you like folk with hints of other musical styles of influence, and you like the video that you may have already played (or intend to play), then this album is a no-brainer. It spins often in several of my players, and is one that I don’t leave the house without.
I hope this duo stays together and gives us another album, and hopefully more than that. They’re on a roll!!
Release Date: January 29, 2013 Label: Rounder Records Band Website Availability: CD, LP, DD
There are several important releases that are coming down the road that should be addressed apart from the normal soup of 2 liner notations that we do here. The three in mind are:
1) The Best of Fridays:
This series arrived way back in 1980 as ABC TV’s counter to NBC’s wildly popular Saturday Night Live. Surprisingly, Fridays not only entertained heavily, the borrowed formula of musical acts and hilarious skits gained a mass of fans that, to this day, still talk lovingly about the show and its stellar cast of comedians that included Michael Richards (Seinfeld), Melanie Chartoff (Parker Lewis Can’t Lose), and Larry David (Curb Your Enthusiasm). Even so, the rest of the cast were equally as entertaining.
Not only were there great hosts like Andy Kaufman (with an interesting incident), Billy Crystal, and William Shatner, there were a superb selection of musical guests that included Devo, Graham Parker and The Rumour, KISS, The Clash, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, and others.
And the skits: I still laugh about The Transphibians, Richards as an eccentric “ladies’ man”, and a wildly explosive kid in a sandbox infatuated with the war games of a military.
On August 6, Shout! Factory will release a collection of skits from the sixteen episodes that aired from 1980-1982. The DVD will include bonus features like a cast reunion, a look at the Kaufman incident, and photos. This has been a long time coming.
2)The RCA Album Collection – Harry Nilsson:
Harry Nilsson was a diamond among many precious stones. His work, both accepted within the tall walls of Top40, and by the lovers of FM music, and especially by the genuine fans (who will splurge to acquire this elaborate 17CD Box) is timeless. If you’re one of these fans, here’s what the Box will contain (and why you SHOULD get it!):
All fourteen of Nilsson’s albums are remastered and available here along with a wealth of bonus tracks, 65 in all, 26 of which are previously unreleased tracks. Those three newly compiled discs (Nilsson Sessions: 1967-1968, Nilsson Sessions: 1968-1971, Nilsson Sessions: 1971-1974) represent the hidden treasures of this massive Box containing 58 bonus tracks, 29 of them previously unreleased.
Each of the fourteen Nilsson albums here will not only include the Stereo versions but will include Mono cuts, and other bonus inclusions. This set is slated for release on July 30.
[To view the extensive track-listing of this set, click here and input 'Nilsson' as the password. Otherwise, those who DIDN'T care to see the lengthy listings would be endlessly scrolling.]
3) Wings Over America – Paul McCartney and Wings:
Not long from now, fans of the already expansive Wings Over America album, will be given the opportunity to pick up a new issue of the album with remastering and bonus materials. On May 28, Hear Music will reissue the set in several formats including a massive, and definitive 3CD/1DVD Deluxe Edition with a massive 100-page leatherette bound book. In that set, 2 CDs represent the original album, 1 CD contains a live set from The Cow Palace (San Francisco), and the DVD containing the 75-minute television special, Wings Over The World. And there’s more there for you (check Amazon for the complete list if you’re interested).
The set will also be made available in standard 2CD sets and vinyl LP.
4) Rockshow – Paul McCartney and Wings:
After a brief run in the theatres, Rockshow will be made available to fans on DVD and BD via Eagle Rock. This set will be fully restored and remastered, with an available 5.1 mix that should please everyone. This previously released show, filmed at the Kingdome in Seattle was originally released in truncated form but will now be featured as the complete show. Rockshow is slated for release on June 11.
5) Legend Remixed – Bob Marley and The Wailers:
On June 25, Island will reissue Legend from Bob Marley and The Wailers in a Remixed Edition. The set will be known as Legend Remixed and will be made available as a CD, DD, and an LP. More information as it emerges for this title. But I know that you’re excited.
6) The Joker (40th Anniversary Edition) – Steve Miller Band:
On June 25, Capitol Records will reissue a timeless classic in the Steve Miller catalog, his incredible The Joker, originally released in October of 1973. I can still remember hearing “The Joker” on WLS-AM and being absolutely wowed by this great song. Needless to say, I went to work right away to gain the money to purchase this album. This is one set that I’m waiting for. It releases in both CD and LP formats. This 40th Anniversary set also releases in the UK on June 4.
7) Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Hot Rocks 1964-1971 clear vinyl LPs – The Rolling Stones:
On May 28, Abkco Records will reissue three prominent Abkco Stones titles (Beggars Banquet (1968), Let It Bleed (1969), and Hot Rocks 1964-1971 (1971), a collection of 21 Stones hits. All LPs will be pressed in 180g-weight clear vinyl, with Hot Rocks a 2LP set. BONUS: UMe will issue HD recordings (96k/24-bit) of Exile On Main Street, and Emotional Rescue, on June 11.
And to close out this day with some brief, emerging collectibles, we have two classic LPs coming that might be of interest to a few of you:
8) Five Leaves Left – Nick Drake:
Island Records will reissue Five Leaves Left on vinyl LP scheduled for July 2.
9) Nevermind – Nirvana:
Geffen Records have the landmark Nirvana album, Nevermind scheduled for LP reissue on July 9.
After their rave SXSW show back in 2012, the buzz began to build for the Portland, Oregon dream-pop band simply named Blouse. Headed by Charlie Hilton, who is a modern day Nico look-alike with a distinctively dreamy voice to match her sexy looks, this three-piece band has all the classic sounds of synth-oriented ‘80s pop down to a structured science. And with enviable results too.
If you like any of the synth-pop from the ‘80s, then you’ll be immediately intrigued by this fresh band that takes a familiar sound and reshapes it into a twangy, ethereal gorgeousness.
