EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints (2011)

Looks like Pitchfork knew about this back in December but I just came across it on a blog recently – and her album, Past Life Martyred Saints (Spotify link) was released on Souterrain Transmissions in May of this year.

She’s a cross, for me, between Anika‘s dirty, underground rock and CoCoRosie, who are also on Souterrain, eeriness.

EMA – The Grey Ship

EMA is solo artist Erika Anderson and she’s from South Dakota.

This song, especially, could be the soundtrack to the final battle in Braveheart if they ever needed a vocal version (!!) – the build, supported by the strings, sounds like the backdrop to an epic battle scene. It doesn’t go where you think it will from the start.

She’s going to be at Cargo in September. Reckon it’s worth checking it out.

Abbe May - Design Desire (2011)

Received the album from a PR company (thank you!) and it reminded me I found this track on a blog a while back – been meaning to post it, so here it is:

Getting back into the rock lately – from this song alone Abbe May exhibits the sass of “Trick Pony” by Charlotte Gainsbourg or “Get Some” by Lykke Li – in a similar fuzzy sultry-rock style, with a soft edge on the vocal.

Abbe May – Mammalian Locmotion

She’s Australian, from Perth, and her full length, Design Desire, was released on 8th July on Source Music.

Funnily, her Myspace says she was influenced by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins!

Lead single from the album is “Taurus Chorus”, which has a similar swing to it to this track, and “Carolina” is a little more sinister.

Taking me back to proper rock.

Looking out for news of London gigs…official site here.

Shutter Island (2010)

I wanted to try and expand the content of this blog a little – so first up: Shutter Island.

I was reluctant to give this a shot as I’m not so great with films that I’d rather not watch by myself in the dark during a thunderstorm – but Leonardo DiCaprio, Martin Scorsese and the “psychological thriller” genre classification led me to try last night.

The film takes place on an island that houses an asylum for the criminally insane. US Marshall Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) is called there to investigate the disappearance of a patient and, in the course of his encounters with the other residents during his exploration of the facility, begins to question his own sanity.

I’m someone who needs to know that traumatic fiction turns out ok – I hated The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo intensely but had to read to the end to make sure the conclusion was sufficiently benign – and about 15 minutes from the climax of this particular film I Googled the ending to ensure it was something I wanted to see. If you haven’t seen the film, don’t click here.

It’s a heartbreaking story – I’m not sure that’s the first term that would come to most minds but all the suspense and mystery, the sinister soundtrack and the eerie cinematography throughout are an ornate and elaborate cloak for a movie that, for me, is about perception and human fallibility. It left me a little scared – realism always does – but also incredibly sad.

I don’t want this to become a movie review blog – as well as not wanting to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn’t seen it, I’d much rather write about my experience of the film than critique it – so I’m going to maintain the music element in every post. This could have been on the soundtrack (but wasn’t):

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Red Right Hand (1994)

Similarly eerie, from the opening bell chime to the menacing vocal, the quiet suspense punctuated by organ chords would fit just as well with a silent movie horror (minus the vocals!) as a film noir detective mystery. Or in this case, a psychological thriller. Previous uses include Songs in the Key of X: Music From and Inspired by the X-Files and the Scream Trilogy.

As well as Leonardo DiCaprio who we all know has developed into a widely respected and mature actor since the Titanic blip, Michelle Williams is surprising me with every film I see – Brokeback Mountain, Deception, Blue Valentine, Shutter Island, I’m excited to see where both of them will go next…

Stateless – Ariel

Stateless - Matilda (2011)

This is from their second album, Matilda, a 2CD + mp3 release on Ninja Tune (21/02/2011).

It’s a mix of dubsteppy bass, pop/singer-songwriter vocal and classical guitar with glitchy electronica – could be off-kilter but is more of a slow-burn simmer.

They were part of the line-up supporting Little Dragon duringthis year’s  HMV’s Next Big Thing Festival that ran across various London venues earlier in February but I missed them – back on 13th May at the Jazz Cafe.

Deerhoof - Deerhoof Vs. Evil (2011)

It starts with a Dirty Projectors “Stillness Is The Move”-style riff and then drops into a determined and measured movement – alternating between harmless innocence and a bit menacing so you’re not quite sure where it’ll go next.

Deerhoof – Qui Dorm, Només Somia

The song is the opener to the latest and 11th album from experimental rock band, Deerhoof.

Looking at the list of bands who cite them as an influence on their Wikipedia page – Sleigh Bells, Grizzly Bear, St. Vincent, Autolux…Dirty Projectors – and they’re lined up with The Flaming Lips at Alexandra Palace in July. It’s no wonder this has come up.

This isn’t actually the first one I heard from the new album, Deerhoof Vs. Evil, which was released track by track through various online means on ATP Recordings in the UK. The first was The Merry Barracks - equally frenzied and fuzzy.

Oddly hypnotic.

Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See (1993)

9am on a Saturday morning I could hear music coming from my flatmate’s room above me. I thought it was this:

Mazzy Star – Into Dust

Turns out it wasn’t, but I wanted to post it anyway.

It’s from the album “So Tonight That I Might See” which was originally released in 1993 but I don’t know it from then. Apparently Virgin Media used it on this ad 15 years later but I don’t think I remember it from then. It’s possible I first heard it on The O.C. “Pilot” but I don’t think that’s where I found it either.

Who knows…wherever I first heard it – it’s by 90s U.S. Alternative Rock band, Mazzy Star and it’s deeply pensive, stripped back and imagines, for me, a tragic love story between a human and a ghost…or maybe an angel…whose brief but intense time together reaches and inevitable end as she fades into oblivion when her limited time on this plane is exhausted as she serves the purpose for which she returned.

I think I might watch too many teen vampire/ghost/alien movies/TV shows.

VAST - Visual Sensory Audio Theater (1998)

I’ve recently discovered Nikita.

Some of you may remember the secret government assassins of La Femme Nikita (Dark Angel took it a step further with genetic modification) – this is effectively a follow-up after Nikita’s escape from Division and season one has just been picked up by Living TV.

I had just finished watching episode 2 when a trailer came on for the next episode, soundtracked by this song:

VAST – Touched

I’ve written about VAST before, “Please Don’t Take Your Love Away” from their 2004 album, Nude, but this one is taken from their 1998 album, Visual Audio Sensory Theater. I did not remember this, but it also featured in the soundtrack for one of my other favourite TV shows, Angel (Joss Whedon = Legend).

It’s the sample that I love this song for – a choral sample – and I think it was the perfect choice for the trailer.

Power and purpose soundtracking a mission to bring down Division.

If you’re a fan of spies and conspiracies, you may well become a fan of Nikita.

My Toys Like Me – Bats

My Toys Like Me - Where We Are (2009)

We’ve had the album in the office for a good long while but I hadn’t gotten around to listening to it until a few months ago and unfortunately it was bright and sunny a lot of the time around then. It’s become an album for when things are a little strange…quiet, dark and most definitely by myself.

Haunting and eerie yet playful and quirky at the same time – the ghouls and goblins to Esben & the Witch’s vampires and werewolves – with song titles like Grin & Wiggle, Superpowers and Young Lovers (note the flute in this track) their last.fm biog describes them as “beautiful freaks”.

I could, and do, listen to Where We Are over and over and every time I do it transports me to a fantastical land of magic and mystery…but not one I’d send children to, toys or no toys.

The album was released on Dumb Angel Records in May of last year and I really hope they play live soon.

Grant Lee Buffalo - In My Room (Friends Soundtrack, 1995)

There isn’t an obvious lyrical reference to rain, no rain sound effects, it doesn’t even mention water (unless you count crying)… but as I’m sitting here watching 4od distracted by the tapping…no…pounding torrential rain against my window this evening, it’s the one I can’t get out of my head:

Grant Lee Buffalo – In My Room

It’s a great cover of an old track by The Beach Boys.

What’s the relevance? It was used at the end of Friends Series 2 Episode 8: The One With The List. The song was played by the radio station after Rachel with the “chubby ankles” calls to tell them what Ross did to her. It was raining.

They don’t want to play his song anymore.

I can’t even remember exactly where I was when I took it. I think it might be the intersection between Broadway and Fifth Avenue, but I’m not 100% sure.

I wanted to include it, though, because it was unexpected. I didn’t go to a specific place, or do a specific thing, and take pictures while I was doing it – I was just out walking. A couple stopped me in the street and asked me to take a picture for them facing in the other direction and after I had, as I turned around to show them the photo on their camera, I saw this scene, in front of me.

So the song:

Green Day – Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)

Just because.