Passion Pit to play Lowlands 2009

Ha! It pays to scour the endless corners of the musicweb, I found myself a little nugget of news! Passion Pit have Lowlands listed in their tour dates for this summer! Now this is worth getting excited about. I was positively addicted to their psychedelic trip song Sleepyhead:

This Cambridge, Massachussettes outfit consists of mastermind Michael Angelakos, accompanied by Ian Hultquist, Ayad Al Adhamy, Jeff Apruzzese and Nate Donmoyer. They should definitely satisfy all the MGMT, Empire Of The Sun and Black Kids aficionados (like me basically).

While we’re on the hunt for Lowlands names, if any programmers happen to stop by annoyed with my discovery, might you kindly look into my little wish list? Here’t goes:

Thunderheist
Clues
Little Boots
La Roux
DM Stith
Antony & The Johnsons
Discovery
Daniel Merriweather
Friendly Fires
Ra Ra Riot
The Helio Sequence

Woke up in Beijing

Pictures thanks to Toofonky

It’s no secret, I’m a bit of a Patrick Watsonite (as can be read here and here). I’ll refrain from an all out gush-post, although it is quite tempting as tonight was the best I’ve seen them yet. I was expecting a regular here’s-our-new-material gig with some of their tried and tested numbers mixed in. I was however treated to a surprise, because low and behold, when the screen with the tauntingly repetitive cartoon show lifted, it revealed the band was considerably bigger than usual.

Enter the Wooden Arms (incidentally the title of their 2009 album release), a string quartet with violin, viola and cello. Their fusion with the band made the new material sparkle all the brighter, a warm glow reaching all the way to the back of Melkweg’s captivated audience. This glow was enhanced by some great (low) lighting, making it all feel very intimate.

When time came for their tried and tested acapella song amidst the audience the set-up was different: Watson dons a Terry Gilliam-esque structure of megaphones towering over his head and we are treated to a bare version of The Storm rather than Man Under The Sea. It still works a charm.

All of the new material really worked well, with Kuster’s awe inspiring percussion at it’s vigorously beating heart, as could clearly be heard during his solo in Beijing. Other memorable moments included the intrumental Hommage, Where The Wild Things Are (with a tongue in cheek battle between the original band and the stringplayers), Machinery of the Heavens and oldies Luscious Life and Drifters.

On the down side I really missed the female vocals, particularly on Big Bird in a Small Cage. Maybe Dolly would be up for some guest performances?

Remember severed head

Great news for all the Montreal indie scenesters who have been quietly wheeping since the split of their beloved Unicorns; welcome Clues! Clues consists of Alden Penner (ex-Unicorns), Brandon Reed (ex-Arcade Fire) and Ben Borden, Lisa Gamble, and Nick Scribner “from the Montreal art and music scenes” (according to the bio on Constellation Records’ website). Dirty guitars, weird lyrics, great drums, unconventional songs, catchy hooks, Montreal quirkiness, it’s all rather exciting.

They’ve taken a decidedly old school approach to promotion, gigging their way around the place to get the word out in stead of myspace viral marketing. Their self titled album came out last week and they’re touring North America in May and June.

Here’s hoping festival programmers have taken notice and a small European leg will be added to the tour dates over the summer!

Download two of their album tracks here:

Clues – Remember Severed Head
Clues – Perfect Fit

Watch the video for Haarp on the Constellation website and see the band  perform Perfect Fit in LA last February:

You don’t know if I can draw at all or what records I am into

As I lay whimpering on my sofa in root canal agony last night, suddenly there was a light at the end of the tunnel. Instant pain relief came in the shape of the fabulous Jools Holland, how I do love that show.

Last night’s edition was particularly brimming with musical delicacies, some I’d never heard of before (Asher Roth), some current favourites (Little Boots, Lisa Hannigan, Daniel Merriweather) and a treat in the form of Annie Lennox to top it all off.

Without further ado, here are the clips for your enjoyment. Three cheers for Jools!

Little Boots – New In Town
London based electropop princess and critic’s pet shows a new boy around town.

Asher Roth – La Di Da
Pennsylvania frat boy surprises with sharp and witty rap skills.

Lisa Hannigan – I Don’t Know
Forever “the girl who used to sing with Damien Rice”, but utterly irrisistible in her own right.

Daniel Merriweather – Change
Soulful Australian singer songwriter, you know, that guy from Mark Ronsons’ delicious version of ‘Stop Me’.

Annie Lennox – Little Bird
The amazing Annie Lennox needs no introduction. Fabulous piano driven version of her 1992 song Little Bird.

Damn you for being so easygoing

Pictures thanks to m-gem

You might have notived brokenbranches’ recently rekindled affections for stadium rock bands of the nineties (I was very happy to score some tickets for Pearl Jam’s August show yesterday), and I can’t help but wonder: am I getting on a bit? I recently read that your music choices in life have pretty much been determined by the age of 30, after that people don’t really absorb new music anymore. This theory leaves me with 5 months to do my last discoveries, and so it was I ended up in Paradiso last night to whitness Adrew Bird in action.

For some reason I’d never really looked into Mr. Bird, I had heard a few songs, but they didn’t really stick. However, music friend C assured me he was well worth going to see live, and that’s enough for me. Paradiso was jam packed and temperatures had already reached tropical levels when second support act Laura Marling took to the stage. I really like her music, but her acoustic set sadly all but drowned in the noisy venue.

As a newbie to the Andrew Bird live experience it was great to see how he builds up each song on the spot. In under a minute he’ll easily record six loops to accompany himself, anything from a whistled melody to hand clap rhythms to a violin plucked tune, very impressive indeed.

It struck me as a kind of musical paint by numbers, with all the different elements in place amounting to great compositions. Andrew’s vocals seem more like one of the many elements of the composition than the main focus of the songs, which I found very refreshing.

A few of the songs that really struck me were Why?, Anonanimal and A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left, but I will be definitely looking into more of his material. Luckily there were some committed youtubers out there to relive some of the evening, check out the clips below thanks to StartBeginning:

A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left

Dr. Stringz / Fake Palindromes

Why?

Everytime she sneezes I think it’s love

I recently indulged in my listmania by making a brokenbranches “gigography”. If I can’t be a band with tour dates, I’ll make do with compiling a complete list of all the shows I’ve ever been to! It borders on OCD, but it’s also quite educational. For instance, I realised that I was about to have my sixth encounter with Adam Duritz & co tonight: Counting Crows.

Trusty CC concert friend MBr remarked that one of the first things we always talk about after their shows is  “Adam seemed very [insert mood] tonight!” and I had to agree. The atmosphere of a CC show can vary significantly depending on the particular state of being of frontman Duritz on the night. And tonight we were in luck!

Adam and the other Crows all seemed in high spirits, which made for a very lively and energetic gig. It was the first date in a limited set of European tour dates and they were up for it. Cowboys is one of my favourite songs off their latest album Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings and a perfect set opener.

Soon after followed one of Hard Candy’s highlights, Miami, which Adam took his time introducing. “This song is about crushing the people you love. You can have everything and nothing all at the same time and if you make the wrong choice it all goes away”.

We were treated to a sturdy rocking version of Angels of the Silences, but towards the middle of the set there was a bit of a lull with Time And Time Again and a somewhat strained Mr. Jones. The beautiful Colorblind more than made up for this, although this song is almost too delicate for the vastness of Ahoy.

About half way through Adam greets the crowd, “It took me nine songs to say hello!”, and explains how he had a nasty fall just before the show, watching support act The Hold Steady, taking the skin right off the inside of one leg. “Now it hurts like fuck, and I do not give a damn! I’m not having my ass blown off stage by The Hold Steady (who’s praises he sang earlier), we are gonna fukcing rock!”, this was received by a massive roar from the audience.

The remainder of the set contained a few gems, Anna Begins springs to mind, and also Washington Square in the encore. Holiday In Spain was the other song in the encore, in which Adam managed to sing one sentence in Dutch (“Ik neem Spanje als besluit” in stead of “Take a holiday in Spain”), referring to the collaboration with Dutch band and friends Blof. He even said the Dutch Edison music award is the only award that sits in his bedroom and means anything to him “because my friends gave it to me”.

As the band stayed on stage when the end-of-gig tune California Dreaming came on and encouraged a singalong, I decided I’d be more than happy to give Counting Crows a seventh date on the brokenbranches gigography in the not too distant future.

Here are some great pictures of the show thanks to Hans Kreutzer, scroll further down for the complete setlist.

SETLIST
01 Cowboys
02 Children in Bloom
03 Miami
04 Up All Night
05 Angels of the Silences
06 Catapult
07 Time And Time Again
08 Mr. Jones
09 Colorblind
10 On Almost Any Sunday Morning
11 Anna Begins
12 New Frontier
13 Hanging Tree
14 A Long December
15 Come Around
———————-
16 Washington Square
17 Holiday in Spain

I wanna tell you a story

Yes she’s young (21), her lyrics may still be a bit basic and her vocal delivery can be a bit all over the place at times, but Karima Francis has a voice that deserves a bit of blog hype as far as I’m concerned.

I must admit I mistook her for a boy when I first caught a glimpse of her on Jools Holland the other night. She’s an unassuming androgynous bit of a thing, except for that triumphant head of hair. And that voice of course!

She sang Francis, a song how about how she left her Blackpool home to pursue her music career in Manchester. Her debut album The Author is out now, check out title track The Author and lead single Again :

Karima Francis – The Author

Karima Francis – Again

I have been sleeping with the lights on ever since I left you

Take Patrick Watson’s soundscapy experiments, add some falsetto Antony Hegarty come Jeff Buckey vocals, warm strings, electronic glitches and bells,  slightly unsettling multi layered vocal arrangements and you might get an idea of what DM Stith’s debut album Heavy Ghost sounds like. I am entirely seduced.

Mr. Stith’s social circle includes the Asthmatic Kitty family, with its delightful head honcho Sufjan Stevens being responsible for getting him into the lime light.You could easily mistake this startling debut for a mere side project, as he is also a prolific graphic designer. You can admire his work accompanying his blog entries, as well as many cookery tips.

Do do do go and stream the entire album Heavy Ghost for free through Muxtape. At this moment I’m lapping up every track, but keep a definite ear out for Pigs, Morning Glory Cloud and first single Pity Dance.

DM Stith – Pity Dance

DM Stith – Isaac’s Song

State of love and trust

If you look back on your acquired music collection, is there one album that you can pin point as being the quintessential Big Bang? One album that gave you a whopping kick up the back side and determinded your outlook on music from that moment onwards? Today I am reliving that very moment.

My earliest music memories are a bizarre brew with The Beatles and Paul & Art as main ingredients (thanks to my mom) and smaller helpings of Carpenters, Linda Rondstadt, and Neil Diamond (and thank you dad…). For whatever reason this resulted in Whitney Houston’s 1990 release I’m Your Baby Tonight being the first official tape I bought at the tender age of 11.

For a long time after that I got stuck in a nondespcript swamp of R&B drivel, with a quite intense phase of Mariah Carey dedication around the age of 12 (yes, it’s confession time), and an interest in the likes of Boys II Men and Jade (click for youtube links if you are also in the mood for reminiscing by the way).

After all this sublimely slick, over produced and sickly sweet input I was ready for something with a bit more of an edge. When I hit 13 I veered towards Mary J. Blige, Naughty By Nature and ultimately A Tribe Called Quest, who I still love to this day.

But then around came 1993, and everything changed. I was late to sign up for the grunge movement at that time, considering Nevermind was released in 1991, but I guess it took reaching the age of 14 before I could fully ingest the Seattle wave. Suddenly all things R&B were of no significance whatsoever.

Soon after I fell head over heels in love with a green Doc Martens wearing grunge boy and he gave me the cd that awakened the music-hungry monster in me: Pearl Jam’s Ten. I don’t think I listened to anything else for at least a solid month. Nothing I heard before had ever had such a profound effect on me. I can recall the intoxicating excitement of hearing songs like Once, Black, Porch and State of Love and Trust for the first time.

As I look at my cd collection and iTunes library spanning the fifteen years that have passed since first hearing Ten, it’s influence is omnipresent. It brought me straight to Counting Crows‘ August And Everything After, and opened my ears to know instantly that Radiohead was to be the love of my life upon hearing Killer Cars. Eddie Vedder’s songwriting ignited a long standing passion for singer songwriters, from Jeff Buckley to Elliott Smith and on to Bright Eyes. Thank you Pearl Jam (and thank you grunge boy)!

Which brings me to the main reason for writing this post: the 2009 reissue of Ten! Coming up to the band’s 20th anniversary, Pearl Jam have kicked off festivities by releasing 4 deluxe versions of Ten, most notably with a (less worked, cleaner) remix of the original album and previously unreleased bonus tracks.

I walked out of the music store today anxiously holding the 2-cd and dvd package, feeling 14 all over again. I popped in the band’s 1992 MTV Unplugged session the moment I got home and vigorously banged my 29 year old head with Eddie to the ever awesome Porch:

You wanna shake it right down

Photos thanks to Woes van Haaften

That’s basically all there is to do at a Friendly Fires gig: shake it right down. The fiery four piece live band from St. Albans, England definitely had all the indie kids shaking what their moma’s gave them in the Melkweg tonight.

Delightfully disco, synthesizingly danceable, hysterically eighties but right at home in the naughties, Friendly Fires’ self titled debut album packs a powerful pop punch in under 40 minutes. Sadly this meant they left the crowd wanting with their equally short set, but what’s to complain when you’ve been treated to the likes of Lovesick, Jump In The Pool, new single Skeleton Boy, Fotobooth, On Board, the awesome White Diamonds and well chosen set closer Paris.

Lead singer Ed Macfarlane infectiously girates his way across the stage in a Prince-come-Pelle-Almqvist fashion, all the while managing to deliver the vocals in tune. The band as a whole seemed really into the concert and gave a very energetic performance, which was copied by the first few rows of the audience by bouncing all over the place.

The encore Ex Lover was probably the weakest song of the night, but it was the only one off the album left to play. What a shame they didn’t take the opportunity to play the irresistible Bring Out Your Dead from their 2007 Cross The Line EP, then it would have been sheer perfection.

Check out some excellent shots of the Friendly Fires and their support act Heartbreak in action, thanks to Woes van Haaften.