Download: We Are The Dead – Does It Offend You, Yeah?

 

Does It Offend You, Yeah? are serious contenders for My Favourite Band^© at the moment and that is all down to their amazing set at Exit Festival this year.  I had always liked DIOYY but I absolutely love them after seeing that 3am set on the Saturday morning at Novi Sad.

They have released their first new single “We Are The Dead” today as a peace offering to their fans for taking so freaking long in releasing their new album Don't Say We Didn't Warn You.  I must admit that I was pretty offended when I learned that their new album was not in fact being released in October 2010 but had been pushed back to January 2011.  The release of this song today might just satisfy me until I see them in concert on 9 October 2010 at The Palace.

This is what the band had to say on the  Does It Offend You, Yeah? website today:

Hey! We've been writing an album for nearly two years, whilst trying to fit in touring as well. It's been a rollercoaster ride for us with ups and downs (as well as lefts and rights). We're just in the final processes of putting the album to bed, so as a treat to you guys who've supported us at clubs and festivals all over the world we're going to give this track + remix parts away for free.. (Shhh don't tell our label). All we've got to do now is wait on a few sample clearences and go to mastering.

…

This track is called We Are The Dead. It's been through more re-writes than the "Ghostbusters 3" script. We hope you like it, we'll post more details on our new album "Don't Say We Didn't Warn You" soon.

Thanks,

DIOYY / JAMESDANROBMATTCHLOE

I clearly remember them playing this song at Exit Festival.  I’d been awake for nearly 24 hours and was already bouncing around to every single song but when this song came on… well, I just went absolutely ballistic.  As did the whole crowd by the way and by the end of the weekend, everyone was talking about the now legendary DIOYY set.

 

 

We Are The Dead by Does It Offend You, Yeah?

You can download the new song my clicking on the down arrow (below “info”)above.

DIOYY are inviting people to remix the song so you can visit the Does It Offend You, Yeah? Soundcloud page to download 19 remix parts of the song.  I cannot wait to hear all of the remixes!!!

DIOYY, I’d just like to say that today I love you long time.

Music Monday ~ 30: Niskarastaman - Kawasaki 3P

 

Wow.  What a difference six weeks can make!  When I began posting the Top Ten Songs on My iPod back in May, I had no idea that I would discover a band that would change everything.  Six weeks ago, I went to Exit Festival in Serbia and I saw the most incredible band live.  That was Kawasaki 3P and you can read about the concert in my Exit Festival 2010 review.

I bought the two Kawasaki 3P albums when I returned from Serbia and in six short weeks, I have listened to those two albums more than I have listened to Cranes, Klaxons or The Faint in the past five years.  I kid you not! Check out my Last.fm page:

I think it is safe to say that I am obsessed and I haven’t experienced this level of obsession with a band in years. 

“Niskarastaman” was my favourite song last week and I have taken the trumpet section from 2.41 to 3.24 and made it the ring tone on my phone.  Normally I’d be somewhat embarrassed admitting this level of obsession but really, you’d just have to see Kawasaki 3P live to understand why. 

Kawasaki 3P are an  punk/ska band from Zagreb, Croatia.  Both their 2003 album Kawasaki 3P and their 2009 album Idu Bugari won Porin awards for Best Alternative Album.  The band has eight members with three members on trumpet and they have the most incredible brass sections in their songs. 

Photos: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1

They have released new photos for the latest instalment of the Harry Potter films.  In my least charitable moments I start to think that is because they need to sustain interest in a series that perhaps hit its peak two or three years ago and then I remember what a massive Harry Potter fan I am.  Any misgivings I might have are pure fear that it won’t be a fitting end to the phenomena that took the world by storm.  I’ve consumed the books, audio books and films with ferocious greed and it is hard to imagine that I once picked up Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and put it back on the bookshelf, dismissing it as a children’s story.  I loved all of the films except for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.  Perhaps I should watch the film again to see if I still feel the same way?  After all, I did go to see the film immediately after finishing all of the books (again).  Perhaps it would be best to judge the film on its own merits and not based on the books?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I will be released on 19 November 2010 in the USA and UK.  It has just occurred to me that perhaps the most responsible thing to do will be to take the day off work so that I can go to a morning show.  I’m quite certain my colleagues wouldn’t appreciate me moping around all day while I obsess about the fact that the rest of the world will be watching the film before me.

Back to the images that appeared in EW magazine.  What I love most about these photos is the costumes.  I love Hermione’s witchy attire the best; it looks so authentic!  My favourite photos are the first one of Hermione and the last one with the Malfoys and Beatrix Lestrange.

Click on any of the photos for larger enlargements

 

Photo credit: Jaap Buitendijk

Music Monday ~ 29: Avalon – Juliet

#1: “Avalon” by Juliet

Finally! After several weeks (with a break here and there for summer holidays) we have arrived at the most played song on my iPod.  I absolutely love this song by Juliet and the version in this video is the closest to the version I have.  I’d really recommend that you watch the official version of the song on YouTube but they have disabled embedding.

 

What are the most played songs on your iPods?

Download: Sunset – White Noise Sound

White Noise Sound are a seven-piece band from Swansea, Wales and they describe their sound as psychedelic / alternative / experimental on their MySpace page.  They sound like a cross between The Doors and The Jesus and Mary Chain and they have a sweeping, dramatic sound.  Their bio states the following:

'White Noise Sound' is hypnotic, metronomic rhythms and feedback-drenched melodies.
'White Noise Sound' is vociferous, psychotic noise and dream-piece psychedelia.
'White Noise Sound' is not for every body.

I’m sorry, I don't mean to be contrary but that is rubbish.  I can’t see any reason why White Noise Sound shouldn’t be for everybody as their music is just plain great.  I got shivers down my spine listening to “There Is No Tomorrow” and “(In Both) Dreams & Ecstasies” is simply epic.  Listening to these songs reminds me of the first time I listened to Cranes; they just have this other-worldly, blissed-out sound that just sounds incredible.

White Noise Sound’s self-titled debut album is due for release on 21 September and I am going to do everything I can to get hold of a review copy.  This is the track listing:

 

1. Sunset
2. It Is There For You
3. Fires In The Still Sea
4. There Is No Tomorrow
5. Blood
6. Blood (Reprise)
7. No Place To Hide
8. Don’t Wait For Me
9. (In Both) Dreams & Ecstasies

 

 

You can listen to the first single “Sunset” and the nice people from the PR company have given the track to share as well:

Sunset (mp3) *

 

White Noise Sound links:

White Noise Sound MySpace

White Noise Sound official website

 

You can buy White Noise Sound at Amazon.co.uk

 

* This is a legal downloads provided by the PR company for us to post and share. If there is any question of an infringement of copyright, please contact me at missus dot emm at gmail dot com and I will remove links immediately.

Music Review: Kele – The Boxer

Artist: Kele Album: The Boxer Label: Wichita / Polydor Release date: 22 June 2010 Genre: Indie Electronic  Rating:  2.5/5

 

After several years of touring with Bloc Party following their meteoric rise to fame, Kele Okereke and the rest of the band said that they were going to take off some much needed time to rest and recover.  The allure of the recording studio proved too much for the creative genius behind Bloc Party though and Kele Okereke soon found himself back in the in the EMI recording studios.  ‘It was just me and an engineer’, says Kele.  ‘I plugged in synths that I had no idea what they would do. I began programming drum beats, which I had never done before. It was completely back to the drawing board. It was exciting and terrifying. In most cases I sat down, pulled a drum beat out of nowhere and arranged stuff around that. This was as exciting to me as the first time I picked up a guitar.’  What started off as experimentation and a jam session has resulted in Kele's first solo album The Boxer.

 

Even with the more electronic sounds of their 2009 album Intimacy, Bloc Party seem to fall safely into the indie or alternative genres.  In The Boxer Kele courts more dance and house music sounds and the boundaries between indie and dance music are completely blurred.  Deep basslines and synthesiser beats abound and the result is unique yet unmistakably Kele. 

Bands like Groove Armada and Hot Chip have given definite nods to new wave and synth pop genres in their latest albums and it seems that Kele has taken The Boxer in the opposite direction and released a tribute to early house, garage and drum and bass sounds.  What sets this album apart from standard popular dance fare are Kele’s searching and intelligent lyrics and his distinctive vocals.

 

The album begins with the military beats of “Walk Tall” and introduces Kele’s unmistakable London-town vocals.  It certain feels familiar but the song soon progresses into driving synthesizer mayhem that immediately sets the album apart from Kele’s work with Bloc Party.  Kele mixes up his vocals through a distorter in “On the Lam” which takes me back to the early drum and bass sounds and his vocals are back in the anthemic “Tenderoni” which is the first single of the album.  This sets the tone for an uplifting album that might be more likely to get airplay on dance radio stations than alternative ones.  It is driving and energetic at times and downbeat and searching at others.

 

 

The problem that I had with the album is that none of the songs really stood out for me.  I listened to the album several times and rather than picking up one or two clear favourites, I simply found that the songs blended together into an unremarkable package.  I know that many people will disagree with me and this album is certain to appeal to many Bloc Party fans as well as new listeners but it is not my cup of tea.  I prefer my dance or indie electronic music to be bolder, more banging or more progressive; perhaps if Kele had taken more risks or aimed for a bolder style it would have made the difference but this album is not a keeper for me.

Kele links:

Official website: iamkele.com
Twitter: @keleokereke
MySpace: iamkele
Facebook: keleokereke

You can buy The Boxer from Amazon.co.uk and you can also listen to previews and buy the tracks you like at Amazon’s mp3 download store.

Article first published as Music Review: Kele – The Boxer on Blogcritics.

Music Monday ~ 28: June – Moonbootica

#2: “June” by Moonbootica

We’re almost at the end of this little series “The Top Ten Most Played Songs on my iPod”.  The songs in the first and second position were clearly at the top with three times more plays than any other songs in my collection.  In other words: I played them to death.  Over and over and over again, on repeat, one after the other. 

I usually like posting the original videos but I couldn’t find one for this song and the actual version in this video is the one I love so much.  I can’t really explain why I fell so deeply in love with this song but it is a fabulous dance song. 

Rediscovering Cassette Tapes

I feel like I just bumped into my first boyfriend after twenty-four years and realised I am still in love with him.  I was doing a bit of spring late summer cleaning and came across a random box of cassette tapes.  Now I have moved house 7 times in the past ten years and one of those moves was to another continent so the chances of me finding a random box of anything is pretty slim as we were really liberal with throwing stuff away over the years.  Yet there it was, this magical box.

I don’t know how long it is since I’ve listened to a cassette tape.  I can quite confidently say that it has been at least fifteen years, if not twenty.  The only cassette tapes remaining in this box were those that I hadn’t already splashed out on CDs for and I know that I wanted to keep them until I had a chance to sort through them.

I rarely bought albums on cassette.  I used to buy the LPs and then record them onto a cassette so that the LP quality could remain intact and not get scratched from repeated listening.  It was a rather useless and pedantic habit that I learned from my parents and one that certainly didn’t stand the test of time.  My LP’s have been in a sealed box for at least twenty years now and I am quite certain that they will have warped and been damaged from our constant moves.

I also used to record songs from the radio on to cassette tapes.  Many a Saturday afternoon was spent waiting by my tape recorder waiting for that song to come on the radio so that I could record it.  Those were the real “mix tapes”  and certainly the hardest to replace over the years.  There are certain albums which you’d inevitably replace, such as Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon or U2’s Joshua Tree but what about that single song that you were crazy about in 1987?  I was crazy about “Ship of Fools” by World Party, for example, but not crazy enough to splash out on the entire album.  All I can say is thank goodness for the digital age and the ability to buy single mp3s from Amazon.com.

The first cassette that I pulled out of the box today was The Call’s 1986 album Reconciled.  I was quite surprised to see it as this was a massive favourite of mine, oh, twenty-four years ago and I hadn’t thought about it for years.  Not many people know about this band but you might recognise the song “I Still Believe” from The Lost Boys soundtrack.  I wasn’t exaggerating in my opening paragraph of this post.  It is like the years haven’t made one bit of difference and I am as much in love with this album as I have ever been.  It is amazing to hear it again.

Of course, I spent the rest of the afternoon going through the tapes and spent a small fortune on old new music.  Quite frankly, you’d think I would have noticed before now that my music collection was missing Hothouse Flowers’ Home and several Waterboys and Dire Straits albums.  How I survived without the soundtracks to The Piano and The Doors I will never know and not having the 1989 Texas album Southside was just madness.  Now that equilibrium has been restored in my music collection and my iPod is completely full, I’m going to sit back and propose a toast to the digital age. 

I know it is not cool or trendy to admit that I prefer digital music over LP quality but I am thankful every day that I don’t have to muck about with cassette tapes and record players any more.  I can get any song I want and I don’t have to pay exorbitant prices for full albums or countless remixes of a song that I neither want nor like.  It was lovely meeting up with my old cassettes today and wonderful listening to a much-loved and almost forgotten album but I am more than happy to carry the tunes with me into the future while leaving behind the hassle.

Article first published as Rediscovering Cassette Tapes on Blogcritics.

DVD Review: Shelter (2010)

The notion of dissociative identity disorder (also known as multiple personality disorder) is a controversial one and many mental health professionals now believe that it does not exist.  Shelter begins with psychiatrist Dr Cara Jessup (played by Julianne Moore) giving expert evidence in a court room to the effect that the defendant was not in fact suffering from dissociative identity disorder but was completely aware of his actions as he raped and murdered a woman.

A deeply religious woman, Dr Jessup is clearly not comfortable as she is aware of the power of her testimony and that, as it happened in the past, it is likely to result in a death sentence.  As she downs shots of tequila while watching the execution, the ethical dilemma raging inside of her is clear.

Returning from this stressful case, Dr Jessup receives a call from her father Dr Harding (Jeffrey DeMunn) who wants to introduce her to his interesting new patient Adam (Jonathan Rhys Meyers).  On a professional level, Dr Jessup often disagrees wildly with her father but knowing that he often presents her with professional gems, she agrees to see the patient. At first, it does seem to be a rather convincing case of dissociative identity disorder but as the full extent of Adam's condition becomes clear, Dr Jessup finds her own life and the lives of her loved ones in danger as her faith is dramatically put to the test.

Shelter is directed by Swedish duo Mans Marlind and Bjorne Stein. This is a complex film that explores themes of mental illness, trauma, religion, faith, folklore and the supernatural but the directors’ technique is so subtle that at no point do the themes feel forced or protracted.  Instead, the directors reveal small pieces of the puzzle as the tension escalates and the film hurtles towards a startling climax.  Marlind and Stein make use of sweeping cinematography complemented by dark,edgy filming techniques and Michael Cooney (Identity) has done a fantastic job in piecing together the story in his screenplay.

Julianna Moore is an actress of exceptional range and this is demonstrated within the opening scenes of the film.  Her nervousness during the hearing is contrasted sharply with her steely resolve during the execution and her competent professionalism in the remainder of the film.  Special mention must go to Jonathan Rhys Meyers for his superb performance in this film.  He plays several distinct characters as his character flits through different personalities and he certainly steals the show.  I would certainly say that Rhys Meyers is an actor to look out for in the future.

Shelter is a really enjoyable film that will keep you guessing from the beginning and the escalating tension will keep you glued to the edge of your seat.  The only downside of watching it on DVD is that the cinematography is beautiful and I would certainly recommend this one on Blu-ray.  The extra features on the DVD include the theatrical trailer and some interesting interviews with Julianne Moore, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, and directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein.

Once I realised that Shelter had a supernatural element, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it but it was really well done and I give it five out of five stars.

Buy Shelter on Amazon.co.uk.

Photo credits: © Icon Film Distribution

Click on the photos for higher resolution shots

Article first published as DVD Review: Shelter on Blogcritics.

Download: All I Want – Sarah Blasko

Wow.  I’ve been a Sarah Blasko fan for a long time but I have to say that her new single is amazing!  It doesn’t hurt that she is absolutely beautiful either and this promo photo is just gorgeous.  Some people are just blessed with flawless skin and amazing bone structure!

Sarah Blasko hails from Sydney, Australia and she performed at the closing ceremony of Sydney’s Commonwealth Games. As Day Follows Night is her third studio album and it has received rave reviews in Australia.  It was released in July 2009 and was named  “Album Of The Year” by Triple J Radio, Australia’s largest radio network. 

It was finally released in the UK in April 2010 and Sarah said on her blog that she would be remaining in England for the rest of the year to promote the album.  She will be performing at both V Festival sites on 21 and 22 August.

 

The lovely people from Sarah’s PR company have given us a free track to share:

All I Want (mp3) *

 

I’m pretty impressed with this video too:

 

Sarah Blasko links:

Sarah Blasko MySpace
Sarah Blasko Official Site

Buy As Day Follows Night on Amazon.co.uk ¦ Amazon.com

 

* These are legal downloads provided by the PR company for us to post and share. If there is any question of an infringement of copyright, please contact me and I will remove links immediately.

Download: Justine – Unicycle Loves You

Unicycle Love You are a trio from Chicago, Illinois and they have been playing together since 2006.  They are made up of Jim Carroll on vocals and guitar, Nicole Vitale on bass and vocals and J. T. Baker on drums.  Their new album Mirror Mirror is due out for release on September 7, 2010 and I must say, the album sounds pretty appealing:

“Heavily influenced by cult horror films and science fiction, Mirror, Mirror manages to retain the playful energy the band is known for while putting the listener into some darker territory. From the opening moments of the introduction, the sound of scraping metal and a ghostly chorus hint at the mischievous world that hides behind the looking glass. Things are never quite as they seem however, and in an instant the band plunges into "Quagga" a glistening pop tune lead by bassist Nichole Vitale, who takes the reins on several tracks, including the single and title track "Mirror, Mirror" this time around.

The twists and turns of Mirror, Mirror continue along like a heartbeat and sprints off in a frenzy as the tone of each track shifts. The Gallop of "Justine" races into the fever of "Mountain Lungs" and then slinks down into summertime haziness of the title track. Carroll adds additional percussion and fluttering keys to further embellish upon each of these distinctive tunes, which result in a lush and haunting adventure”.

 

The lovely people from the PR company have given us two free tracks to share:

Mirror Mirror (.mp3) *

Justine (.mp3) *

 

“Mirror Mirror” sounds okay, I think but I really like “Justine”.  I love the baseline and I think Jim’s vocals sound like a male version of Tegan and Sara. 

 

 

Unicycle Loves You links:

Unicycle Loves You Official Site
Unicycle Loves You on MySpace
Unicycle Loves you on Facebook
Unicycle Loves You on Twitter

* These are legal downloads provided by the PR company for us to post and share. If there is any question of an infringement of copyright, please contact me and I will remove links immediately.

Music Monday ~ 27: Atlantis to Interzone – Klaxons

I love Klaxons and they have been my favourite band since early 2008.  Their first album Myths of the Near Future blew me away and I can’t wait for their new album to come out later this month.  You can pre-order Surfing the Void on Amazon.co.uk.

#3: “Atlantis to Interzone” by Klaxons

I listened to Klaxons obsessively for several months and while “Magick” was my favourite Klaxons song, I actually listened to “Atlantis to Interzone” many more times.  That is probably because of the competition Klaxons held to remix the song and the scores of versions you can find online.  This video is the original version but my favourite remix is the Metronomy remix.