Music as conversation

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

New Pitchfork column by me on answer records, fan fiction, music as conversation... thanks to piratemoggy for her help putting this one together!

http://pitchfork.com/features/poptimist/7635-poptimist-21/

Defend Moscow, or, "a friend's band that you might or might not like"

[infov0re.livejournal.com]

So, a friend of mine from university runs a record label called Kids. It's a small, 7" label that's put out lots of good stuff, and he's got a good nose for tunes. I also know him as a rather good musician.

Anyhow, his new band, Defend Moscow, have put out their first single on Kids last week. You can hear it at the Myspace link above - it's called "Manifesto", and, you know, it's quite good, in a big-eighties-pop way. Complaints: not sure about the male singer's solo stuff, it's a bit Alphabeat, but it has a thumping bassline and an indulgently silly guitar solo. And, you know, they're trying to do Pop with a capital P.

Anyhow! Thought you might like it. You can get the 7" with free download from Kids, or the digital alone from iTunes and a bunch of places.

Enough pimping, but I enjoyed it quite a bit, and this felt like an appropriate avenue.

making patterns of colour on the tissue paper page

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I very much like this song at the minute, it's a bit like (BEAR WITH ME, HERE) 'Idiotheque' by Radiohead being covered by Cut Copy. It was hidden down the back of the Kitsune Maison compilation that I downloaded so I could deafen myself with 'Want U' by Lo Fi Fnk four hundred times a morning and came up on shuffle t'other day, to my sudden, revelatory joy and my fellow commuters' probable despair, given how leaky my earphones are.

See? Jolly nice. I am a particular sucker for those kind of flicky-beat synth noises but I'd hypothesise that it'd take a heart even colder and blacker than mine to not quite like that.

On a flicky-beat note, there's also the really-quite-extraordinary 'Lions, Tigers and Bears' by Jazmine Sullivan, which is a sort of baroque'n'b MASSIVE BALLAD BLOWOUT with a huge Mercury Rev (NO COME BACK) bit in the last third-or-so that takes it all to a new and even more epic level. Go here and listen to it now. (I can't remember if we've talked about that before, tbh but it bears repeating)

Heard any good music recently, poptimists? I mean aside from all the REALLY AMAZING MUSIC you're going to all hear at POPTIMISM IN THE HORSE BAR, WESTMINSTER 7-12 TONITE WITH FREE ENTRY & TASTY BEER, obv.