Veronica
Falls have a new single
released this week. It is the title track for their new album Waiting ForSomething To Happen. The B side is only found with this single. You can get it
in 7” record or download.
Family Force 5 have a new remix album called Reanimated out this week as well.
The CD is in limited quaintly but you can download it now!
The preorder is up at Slumberland Records for the new
Weekend album called Jinx. The limited vinyl color is clear blue with solid
blue splatter. The standard version is going to be clear yellow with solid
yellow splatter. Both are very pretty.
Also, with every order at Slumberland Records you will get a
CD version of the summer sampler. I am very excited because there are a few
singles that have been released that I haven’t been too sure I wanted to get
and they are on this comp. It will probably help me spend some more money with
them.
Here we go...
This is the groups seventh album. It is their second album
as a trio, Von being their first as a trio. It was released this week (June
2013) around the world. It is also their first released fully through XL
Recordings since the band left EMI/Parlophone during the labels acpuisition by
Universal Music Group in 2012. The album has been released with an additional
10” called The Expanded Edition for a few more dollars. There is not a special
edition of this album this time. The group takes a new direction with this
album both musically and thematicly. The group has described the album as more
aggressive than past efforts. I find this to be true for the most part.
The 10” record contains a ten minute remix of the first
single, Brennisteinn (Blanck Mass Instrumental Remix), on the A side. This
remix is a very slow build but considering it is a ten minute track I can deal
with that. The two B sides from the EP released for Brennisteinn see a physical
release on the B side of this extra 10”.
There have been two singles released from the album so far.
The first is called Brennisteinn.
From Vol. 4 Episode 13, “The track clocks in at a whopping 7 minutes and 56
seconds. This song has a different sound than what I am use to hearing from
them. The big interesting change is the electronic sounding thunder of the bass
in the first part of the track. I have slowly been getting into Dub Step music
and this bass sound is like something pulled from that genre. About half way
this sound dies off and becomes something a bit more rock influenced. There is
a lot of percussion through out the track that makes the song so interesting.
They are not cymbal hits but more like metallic noises, similar to that of
Jonsi’s Go album. The song then dives off into atmospheric sounds until fade
out. I think it is really cool to hear the group go through its basic range in
one grand song.”
The second single, Ísjaki, is a more delicate song. It is
slower and has a beautiful beat. It is a very nice combination of Jónsis’ solo
work and Sigur Rós as a group. The strings in the background bring out the
emotions behind the vocals perfectly. The electronic noises in the quiet spots
help to keep the song in line with the feel for the overall album. The feel for
the song seems to be disheartening but not sad. It comes off as more
introspective in my opinion.
I think the album is a great new direction for the group. It
is also a departure from all of their past efforts. It is a really great album
and possibly a way to introduce or reintroduce people to the group if they have
not heard or did not like them in the past.
This is Herb Alperts’ twenty-fifth album. It was released in
1979 after the success of the single Rise. The construction of rise was with
the A side being original material and the B side being cover songs. The A side
has the famous title track plus the track 1980. 1980 was commissioned by NBC
sports to be used in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The guitar echo sound was sampled by
The Notorious B.I.G. and helped to make the song Hypnotize so recognizable.
Alpert is credited on both the single and in the album Life After Death by The Notorious
B.I.G. The B side included a cover of Street Life, originally recorded by The
Jazz Crusaders, a version of the Bill Withers song Love Is featuring Alpert's
vocals, as well as a dance rendition of Joaquín Rodrigo's Aranjuez classical
composition.
The first single for the album was the title track, Rise.
The song features Herb Alpert on lead trumpet. It is a great disco track that
is a super cool dance track. It is completely different from what everyone
knows about his work, which is mainly Whipped Cream & Other Delights. I
think the inclusion of the electric guitar helps differentiate this work from
the past.
The second single released from the album is called
Rotation. The song starts off with a cool bongo beat that leads into the song
with Alpert leading on trumpet. It is a very nice cool jazz track that is easy
to listen to.
The third single from the album is from the covers side of the
album. The single is called Street Life. this song is originally recorded by The
Jazz Crusaders. It is another funk/disco track that works very well with Alpert
on the lead trumpet again.
If you like the funk and disco sounds this is a good one to
get your hands on.
This is a compilation released in 1989. This is just songs
released from their first three albums (Only A Lad, Nothing To Fear and Good
For Your Soul). Fans call this time period The A&M Years. There is nothing
new on this record. I take that back. I have the original LP version of Nothing
To Fear so the version of Private Life on this compilation is slightly
different than the one that I am use to hearing. The version on this
compilation can be found on CD, cassette or the re-issues of this LP.
When I listened to this album for the first time I thought
that tracks three and four were original to this compilation. They are very
good tracks (On The Outside and Nasty Habits). I haven’t listened to the album
Only A Lad for a while now. I must have omitted them from my memory because
when I looked up the album there they were. I knew all of the other tracks very
well but those two I couldn’t remember listening to in the past. All of the
tracks on the album are very good.
If you want to get a good idea of what Oingo Boingo was like
in the early 80s but don’t want to spend a bunch of money doing it then this
compilation is the way to go.
I have done reviews of each of the albums that this
compilation covers. You can read them here:
Only A Lad from Vol. 2 Episode 23"The first single, Only A Lad, was actually released on the preceding EP.
This song gained popularity with the help of the KROQ radio station.
The next single from the album is Little Girls. There was a video made
for this song. The video is just as vague as the lyrics are. If you read
into the lyrics you could think that he is singing about a character
that likes to have sex with little girls. I can’t prove that this is the
truth but the music is fun if you can get over that little thought."
Nothing To Fear from Vol. 2 Episode 22 "There was only a couple singles from this album. I remember hearing the
big single on the radio. That song is called Private Life. The song did
not get much radio play but just enough that I remember hearing it. The
lyrics did not get through my head at that young age. Now that I hear it
being at an age where I can understand what is being said the song has
new meaning. He is singing about things that he has hidden in his life
and that he doesn’t want to have them in his life any more. I can
understand that but at the same time I would not give up or change
anything that I have done in my life. The other single is Wild Sex (In
The Working Class). It was not as much a single as it was a song that
was used in the John Hughes film Sixteen Candles. It was during a scene
in the dance sequence. I did not realize it when I saw the movie the
first time, I did not see it when I was a kid, I was too young. I did
buy the movie in the mid 00s. It was then that I realized that the song
was theirs. I came to love the movies that John Hughes made though. At
one point I thought that they were singing, “Want sex in the working
class.” This was when I did not know the song or the band. When I found
out what the title of the song was it made more sense but was still just
as bad."
Good For Your Soul from Vol. 2 Episode 43 "Who Do You Want To Be. The song basically asks the question, “Who do you want
to be when you grow up?” It is more specific about time though, replacing “when
you grow up?” with “today.” The lyrics then go on to offer some ideas of what
you may want to be to day, such as someone on TV or a stranger in a strange
strange land. The next song, called Good For Your Soul (The title track), is
about trying new things to see if they should be things that you are doing. The
full line goes, “Once or twice is good for your soul.” I think that for the
most part it is an interesting way to live life, finding out the things that
you should and should not be doing in life. The next song, No Spill Blood, is
an interesting song based on the H.G. Wells novel The Island of Dr. Moreau. It
would seem that they are taking lines from the 1933 movie adaptation of the novel
called Island of Lost Souls. I have not seen this movie
but would be interested to for this reference alone. The next song that I like
is Wake Up (It’s 1984). This song is obviously a direct reference to the George
Orwell novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. There are references to Big Brother and that
everyone is watching you. I had to read this book in high school (I am sure
that everyone did) and I thought that it was an interesting concept. To have a
song reference the song makes a link to that time in high school and of course
to the book."
That is all I have for now...
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