I Am The Crime
A Fine Mess
Verdicts
Jen Wood – “Finds You In Love”
Mar 11th
I’ll admit to being a bit unsure about Jen Wood at first. Granted that I haven’t heard any of her previous works, but Find You In Love’s opening track (and promotional mp3) “Pills” has far too much teen-angst for me to take it seriously. Fact is it gives me the image of a 17-year old girl sitting in her room, writing the dear diary-like lyrics in a pretty note book while looking out the window now and then to ponder over why she can’t seem relate to other people her age. And Jen Wood is not in her teens any more.
Luckily the vacuous “Pills” is rather lonely at the very bottom of the barrel as other tracks manage to float higher, some even reaching the surface. “Zeppelin”, for instance is rather nice with it’s autumn-like beauty, as is “Red Sun”, but neither songs are particularly memorable. “Beautiful”, “Trust” and “People Like Us” on the other hand have a more intricate touch to them, sometimes both lyric- as well as melody wise.
The best tracks however are the introspective ballad “Flight”, and the slightly more playful “Beautiful Morning” which actually offers the listener some surprise with its shifts in mood and tempo. But I’m afraid the overall impression I get of Finds You In Love is “girl with guitar feels sorry for herself and sings a bit about it”.
~ “Pills” , “Zeppelin” ~
Uniform Motion – “Life”
Feb 13th
Uniform Motion’s soft acoustic pop is something you can bundle up in like a blanket on a cold day. Or simply put on in the background while you tinker around the house. Either way, it’s nice, in a drinking tea and thinking “hey things are pretty good” on a sunny Sunday afternoon kind of a way. Perhaps even a bit too much so at times as some songs, while perfectly pretty, are rather anonymous and don’t leave much of an impression other than being just “nice”. But for a hazy lazy afternoon, Uniform Motion’s sublimly soft sophomore album Life is great company.
Best tracks: “Saving Up For Sundays”, “Back Up Your Soul”, “Roll Over”, and “The Black Box”.
You can stream and share tracks from the album here. For purchase, head over to their Bandcamp site.
~ “Roll Over” ~
Fragments Of Winter – “Skyrockets”
Jan 22nd
It could very well be the season of winter or simply my melancholic mood, but lately I’ve had a craving for cold, instrumental electro-pop. The American Dollar’s latest album Atlas seemingly being the catalyst, one-man project Fragments Of Winter (real name Tristan Irvine) has now also joined my current musical rotation of chilly cold pop.
Although it borders on a Jean Michel Jarre-sound a few times, Skyrockets is a very enjoyable album. The songs do indeed sound as if they are made out of winter fragments with its cold, snow-clad soundscape, but also of sparkling colours and fireworks. I think Tristan puts it best himself though:
“The songs are mainly surreal and visual, defined by a melancholic, cold and often despairing sound; at the same time, on top of it, everything is so full of colour, bright lights and loud noises, just like fireworks in a night sky.”
Best tracks: “Astonishing”, “In The Dead Of Night”, “Bitter Colours”, “Sweet Implosions”, “Five Hundred Thousand Feet Below Ice”, “A Flower, Smashed” … basically mostly the first half of the album, not that the other half isn’t good, just not quite as memorable. A track-by-track documentary by Tristan himself can be found here.
Parlour Steps – “The Hidden Names”
Sep 30th
The latest album by Palour Steps proved to be a good example of why I shouldn’t dismiss music too fast. During the first listen I basically thought “meh” and figured I wouldn’t bother with it again. I was admittedly in a rather poor mood during that listen though so once I cheered up and gave it another chance, I thankfully realized how good it actually is.
While The Hidden Names is my introduction to the band, it is no less than their fifth album since debuting in 2000. Packed with richly layered indie-pop, good lyrics and coy melodies, its charm has completely won me over. The male/female vocals blend perfectly and I simply cannot resist the combination of rhythmic guitars and a sophisticated plonking piano. But there’s more in there, much more.
Best tracks: “As The World Turned Out”, “Miraculous” (personal favorite), “Soft Lies”, “Sleeping City”, “Ring That Bell”, “Bleeding Hearts”, “Cluttered”… Yeah, basically all of them. I can’t help it, I love this album.
The Hidden Names will be out in October 2009 via Nine Mile Records.
~ “Little Pieces” ~
Little Dragon
Sep 1st
Little Dragon’s soulful electronic pop only caught my attention recently, but when it did, it grabbed it. Currently on their second album, Little Dragon debuted in 2007 with a self-titled record and had their double-A single “Twice/Test” dubbed as “Single of the Week” by Rough Trade.
Made up of Gothenburg-natives Yukimi Nagano (vocals), Erik Bodin (drums), Fredrik Wallin (bass) and Håkan Wirenstrand (keyboards), Little Dragon list everything from Depeche Mode to Prince, LCD Soundsystem to James Holden, dancehall to R&B, jazz and soul as inspirations, a combination which is quite evident on their new album Machine Dreams.
Their songs are calm as well as danceable: the smooth intro track “A New” is followed by the more upbeat “Looking Glass” and “My Step”, which lead to the gorgeously languid single “Feather”, creating a bit of a pattern that is pretty much consistent throughout the album.
Besides the already aforementioned, best tracks are: “Runabout”, “Swimming”, “Blinking Pigs”, and “Fortune”.
Machine Dreams is out now.
~ “Feather” ~
Amanda Blank – “I Love You”
Aug 11th
It wasn’t just my friend Keath who was surprised when I said that I love Amanda Blank’s debut album – I surprised myself! Any kind of hip hop usually goes straight over my head but Amanda’s added mixture of electronica and catchy hooks won me over.
It wasn’t immediate though; the first proper listen of I Love You didn’t impress me much at all but after giving it another chance (and challenging my “I-never-like-hip-hop” perception) I finally discovered what a fun album it really is. I even kinda want this t-shirt now!
I’ll admit that the more straightforward dance/pop oriented songs such as “DJ” and “Shame On Me” are my favorites but I do like the others as well – even the cheesy LL Cool J homage “A Love Song” (which also has a small guest appearance by Santigold). However, opening track “Make It Take It” as well as single “Might Like You Better” both show a good balance between the pop and hip hop sounds. She even adds a little indie-pop spin to it all by having Lykke Li appear on the very last track, “Leaving You Behind”.
I Love You is available on iTunes now.
~ “DJ” ~
Polynya
Jul 22nd
I might as well start off by admitting that I had no idea what Polynya meant at first, so in case there’s anyone else as uneducated as me out there:
“A polynya (common US spelling) or polynia (common UK spelling) (pronounced /pəˈlɪnjə/) is an area of an area of open water surrounded by sea ice. It is now used as geographical term for areas of sea in Arctic or Antarctic regions which remain unfrozen for much of the year. It is a loanword from Russian: полынья, which means a natural ice hole, and was adopted in the 19th century by polar explorers to describe navigable portions of the sea.”
What I did know from the start though was that Polynya is also the name of a band, a great band even. They hail from Carrboro/Chapel Hill/Durham, NC and are the following four sea creatures: Andrea, Luke, Pat, and Thom. Their sweet, keyboard-layered indie-pop has so far resulted in two albums: the self-titled debut, and the brand new Crop Rotation. It’s a pleasant little record with cute melodies, boy-girl vocals and a chilly electronic veil. Personally I also get a little twee and sometimes even shoegaze feeling when listening to it, which is always more than welcome around these parts.
~ “Orlando” ~
The Danks – “Are You Afraid Of The Danks?”
Jul 15th
When I received the sample EP by The Danks a little over a year ago I admittedly wasn’t too impressed. All the songs pretty much went in one ear and out the other. Therefor I wasn’t too eager to give their full length debut Are You Afraid Of The Danks a listen, but still decided to give it a try. And yes, as it turned out, I liked it.
Some of the songs on the album appear on the EP as well but I suppose their overall sound just didn’t suit my taste at the time back then. They’re still pretty much just a another rock band but there’s nothing wrong with that as long as you have good tunes. The Danks aren’t revolutionary in other words, but still enjoyable which I’m guessing was their goal to begin with.
And no, I’m not afraid of them and neither should you be. You’d risk missing out on a good album otherwise.
~ “Die Young” ~
The Wind Whistles – “Animals Are People Too”
Jun 29th
I’ll be honest: at first, I didn’t think I would like The Wind Whistles. They seemed a bit too folk-pop cutesy, in a we-knit-our-own-sweaters-and-play-spontaneous-tributes-to-mother-nature-while-out-walking kind of a way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but I personally can’t knit to save my life and am currently hating mother nature for making it so damn hot. (Although I guess the human race have a part in that as well.)
Anyway, the point is I was so sure I wouldn’t like them, only to end up having their latest album Animals Are People Too on repeat for a week. Not every song speaks to me and Liza’s voice feels a bit too thin at times but overall it’s a very good record. Sweet without being sickly and rather catchy at times. Best tracks: “Turtle”, “House For a Mouse”, “The Fish and The Worm”, “The Sun”, and “After All”. (Although “Judo” has the biggest tendency to get stuck in my head, even if I don’t like it very much.)
~ “After All” ~
Light In Your Life
Jun 2nd
Despite their name, Swedish Light In Your Life are far from a chipper group of young men. Formerly known as Sleazy Romance, Light In Your Life makes brooding indie pop that can be just as depressing as it is comforting. Either way, there’s no denying the beauty of this album. Perhaps being Swedish myself makes me prone to like this kind of Scandinavian sadness. According to the band their music is the result of:
“…too many beers in the company of good friends, lonely nights in front of crappy television, the will to feel like you’re in a movie, the will to feel something real for once, girlfriends that just want to be friends, the joy of creating the best mixtape in the world and a thousand other things that finally made us get our shit together and record an album.”
I honestly don’t think I can describe the album any better than that myself, so I’ll just round things off by underlining the best tracks: “We Could Be There”, “Geldof”, “Song About Love”, “Smile That Smile”, and “Christian”.
The self-titled debut by Light In Your Life will be out June 19.