Webmail
Tracks
01. The Postmarks - No-one Said This Would Be Easy (3:34)
02. Mavis feat. Kurt Wagner - Gangs of Rome (5:00)
03. A Fine Frenzy - New Heights (4:13)
04. The Watson Twins - Harpeth River (2:55)
05. Ali Fara Toure & Toumani Diabate - Sabu Yerkoy (4:07)
06. Codeine Velvet Club - The Black Roses (3:27)
07. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM (2:37)
08. Clare & The Reasons - That's All (2:59)
09. The Features - The Drawing Board (2:29)
10. Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land (4:22)
11. The Rich Morton Sound - Storm The Embassy (1:36)
12. Thomas White - The Last Blast (3:44)
13. Diane Birch - Ariel (3:56)
14. Duncan Maitland - Horror Stories (4:00)
15. Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures - Things Ain't What They Used To Be (4:32)
Total time: 53m 31s
What's on the CD with the March issue
1. The Postmarks - No-one Said This Would Be Easy
Florida is not necessarily the first place you look for pristine recreations of Ready Steady Go!-era modpop. But it’s where you’ll find The Postmarks, the “Anglophile-Francophile” trio who kick off this month’s CD with a Bacharach-ian rush of unfurling strings. San Franciscan film composer Jonathan Wilkins and Bronx-born producer Christopher Moll bonded over a love of movie themes – especially the Lee-Cushing gorefest Horror Express – and recruited Israeli-born singer Tim Yehezkely (a girl called Tim? amazing) after an open-mike night in Florida. Memoirs At The End Of The World is their second album proper. “It’s Phil Spector on a budget,” says a self-deprecating Moll, not entirely fairly considering the album’s grand, expansive sound and cinema-scale ambitions. What else? They’ve guested on psychedelic children’s show Yo Gabba Gabba! and Tim – a full-time pharmacy student who’s taking a year off – wrote her lyrics in a treehouse. More of this sort of thing, please.
From the album Memoirs At The End Of The World
2. Mavis feat. Kurt Wagner
The Mavis we’re talking about here is Mavis Staples – legendary R&B singer, civil rights campaigner, gospel artist and linchpin of her family’s band The Staple Singers. But she doesn’t appear on the album and nor is this a conventional covers record. Instead it’s a rich, unique tribute to a giant of music, steered by house DJ Ashley Beedle and collaborator Darren Morris. It uses Mavis Staples as a jump-off point for 11 rapturous musical fantasies. Gangs Of Rome, featuring Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, sets out the store, with glimpses of Mavis’s life story refracted through a strangely appropriate male voice. Elsewhere Candi Staton, Cerys Matthews, Edwyn Collins and Ed Harcourt draw inspiration from Mavis Staples. “The album started with one instrumental,” explains Beedle, “which each singer got so they could do their own interpretation. Then we changed the music on each track to fit each singer’s lyrics.” The result is modern soul of the most beguiling kind.
From the album Mavis: Presented By Ashley Beedle And Darren Morris
3. A Fine Frenzy - New Heights
Californian Alison Sudol acts (CSI: New York), models (Anna Sui, Prada) and writes children’s books as well as performing as A Fine Frenzy. How does she fit it all in? From her second album, this is subtle and sophisticated grown-up pop. The album Bomb In A Birdcage comes out on 15 March.
From the album Bomb In A Birdcage
4. The Watson Twins - Harpeth River
You may recognise identical twins Chandra and Leigh Watson from when they backed Rilo Kiley’s Jenny Lewis on her solo album Rabbit Fur Coat in 2006. Now the sisters – born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1975, transplanted to Los Angeles – make several dazzling sideways leaps for their third album. The track we’ve chosen, Harpeth River, has all the brooding atmosphere of prime Portishead; elsewhere they encompass devotional pop, soul flavours and gently hypnotic grooves. The result unites the best of country and indie music while magically leaving out all the bad bits. The Watsons sketched out Talking To You, Talking To Me last June in a four-day retreat to a remote cabin in the High Sierras near Yosemite National Park. There were no phones, no television and nobody else’s music to listen to, which perhaps accounts for the album’s assured tone and self-possessedness. “We wanted your body to move with every song,” says Leigh. No mean ambition, but they achieved it.
From the album Talking To You, Talking To Me
5. Ali Farka Touré & Toumani Diabaté
One of Africa’s greatest contemporary musicians, Ali Farka Touré was the Malian guitarist credited with connecting his country’s traditional music to its American cousin the blues. Many knew him simply as the African John Lee Hooker. In The Heart Of The Moon, the record he made in 2005 with kora player and fellow Malian Toumani Diabaté, won the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album. Now, almost four years since Touré’s death from bone cancer, comes a second collection of Touré-Diabaté recordings. The duo made the songs that would become Ali & Toumani just a few months before Touré died but you’d never suspect that the guitarist was ill at the time. The record sparkles with youthful energy, never more than in the track we’ve chosen, the Cuban-inflected Sabu Yerkoy. It’s often said that world music is hard to get into and requires the holding hand of a Damon Albarn or a Peter Gabriel to help the western listener along. This beautiful album should persuade you otherwise.
From the album Ali & Toumani
6. Codeine Velvet Club - The Black Roses
Judging by this and some of the other tracks on this month’s CD, here’s something about 2010 that’s terribly 1966. While Scots urchins The Fratellis prepare for their third album, frontman Jon Lawler has recruited female singer Lou Hickey for what he describes as “John Barry playing with a rock and roll band”. We are extremely taken with it.
From the album Codeine Velvet Club
7. Charlotte Gainsbourg - IRM
IRM is French for MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging. The technique, whereby medics can look inside the body without invasive surgery, is no idle curiosity to actress and singer Gainsbourg. In late 2007, six months after what she thought was a minor water-skiing accident, she found herself suffering from a “seven day headache”. An MRI scan revealed that her skull had filled with blood, her brain was under pressure and she could have died. Surgery and therapy rectified the problem, which inspired much of her third album, recorded with Beck and her second since a Nigel Godrich/Jarvis Cocker-sponsored comeback, 5:55, in 2006. On IRM, Gainsbourg, daughter of the infamous Serge and star of Lars von Trier’s equally notorious Antichrist last year, turns a brush with death into something as emotional as it is detached. There’s even a recording of an MRI machine on the album. But if you’re in any doubt of its life-affirming character, there’s a cosmic-disco dance mix, by Norwegian DJ diskJokke, of this track available too.
From the album IRM
8. Clare & The Reasons - That's All
Brooklyn-based but buzzingly bucolic, Claire Muldaur Manchon and her band have won the endorsement of Van Dyke Parks and Sufjan Stevens. Here they take a Genesis song and wrap it round the Maypole – in a good way. Tubas plus a gentle vocal – listen up, Phil Collins!
From the album Arrow
9. The Features - The Drawing Board
Endorsement alert: the Kings Of Leon have signed this Sparta, Tennessee quartet to their own record label and appear highly pleased with The Features’ punk-soul pugnacity. We like it too.
From the album Some Kind Of Salvation
10. Frightened Rabbit - Swim Until You Can't See Land
“It’s about losing your mind in order to reset the mind and body,” offers singer Scott Hutchinson of this emblematic track from the courageous Selkirk band. We’re good with that.
From the album The Winter Of Mixed Drinks
11. The Rich Morton Sound - Storm The Embassy
There’s not a lot to complain about in today’s TV, except for one thing: the weedy theme tunes. Where is the deranged brio of The Champions, the thuggish swagger of The Professionals, the otherwordliness of The Tomorrow People? Rich Morton, former member of comedy duo The Panic Brothers, felt the same way. He’s crafted a suite of themes for imaginary shows that could have been broadcast between 1966 to 1973. “It was a real labour of love,” he says. “I never expected them to become an album. I just wanted to pay tribute to the spirit of John Barry and the other greats.” And there are pressing reasons to buy the physical CD instead of a download. For each movie or show – Code Name: Carnaby, Once Upon A Thames or From Rush Hour With Love – Morton has created a synopsis and fantasy cast list that is at least as much fun as the music. Pour a Campari and soda, play Storm The Embassy and it’ll all become clear. You can read more and order the CD at www.therichmortonsound.com
From the album The Theme That Never Was
12. Thomas White - The Last Blast
With his brother Alex, Thomas is the core of Brighton’s psychedelic rockers The Electric Soft Parade, but he’s a prolific solo artist too – as well as an associate of fellow South Coasters The Brakes. This is a fiery selection from his second solo record. Note: includes reference to Sven Hassel.
From the forthcoming album Maximalist
13. Diane Birch - Ariel
After all that excitement it’s probably time for a Carole King moment, which Michigan-born, Zimbabwe-raised Diane Birch provides in this plangent, piano-led tune. Diane grew up in a strongly religious family – hence the album title – who travelled the world before returning to the USA. There she discovered Joy Division and goth music and… well, here we are.
From the album Bible Belt
14. Duncan Maitland - Horror Stories
An associate member of Word favourites Pugwash, Duncan Maitland is a veteran who’s supported The Corrs and Bon Jovi in his time. At long last his solo album’s ready and this is a prime cut from it.
From the album Lullabies For The 21st Century
15. Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures - Things Ain't What They Used To Be
If you were Swedish-Moroccan and your real name was Andre Herman Dune, perhaps you’d think “Stanley Brinks” was an exotic pseudonym too. The anti-folk cult hero closes this month’s CD with a broadside against the 21st century. Yeah!
From the album Stanley Brinks & The Wave Pictures
http://rapidshare.co...66569/TWM85.rar Pass: we1937
Volver arriba
