Saturday, July 15, 2006

Introducing...Mew

For some of you, Mew probably need no introduction, but here's a little article for the uninitiated. Mew will be supporting Bloc Party on their upcoming U.S. tour.

Sean Richardson writes...

Mew are a Danish band, who I had heard of but didn't actually know a great deal about. The only band from Denmark I'd heard of in recent years were Aqua - maybe not the best representative of Danish music (ok, The Raveonettes are a pretty cool little Danish band but for the purpose of this piece, we'll just say we forgot about them!).

Now thankfully, one lazy Friday evening, I stayed up so late that I ended up watching one of those 15 minute '4Play' programmes on Channel Four (a UK T.V. channel), which happened to feature Mew. I was intrigued, especially after hearing the gravelly voice of guest vocalist J Mascis from Dinosaur Jr. juxtaposed with the ethereal beauty of lead singer's Jonas Bierre on the beautiful 'Why Are You Looking So Grave?'.

So eventually, after sparing myself a little money, I bought Mew's most recent and only second full album, 'And The Glass Handed Kites'. After one listen I was one happy chappy – it really is a special album, from the apocalyptic instrumental opener 'Circuitry of the Wolf', through the beauty of the epic sounding singles 'Special' and 'The Zookeeper's Boy', to the Dark Side of the Moon-esque 'White Lips Kissed'.

As with any album you discover to be great and deeply satisfying, I remembered why I loved music so much. And for those wondering what type of sound a band from Denmark called Mew creates…well, attempting to compare, there's a nice helping of Sigur Ros, a splash of Spiritualized, a spoonful of Mercury Rev and a dash or two of Pink Floyd.

Well I think I better spare myself some more pennies to buy previous album 'Frengers'. Better than Aqua then. Better than most I reckon. Bloc are in good company…

S. Richardson

¶ 9:26 PM 2 comments links to this post

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

'Something Glorious' interviews Kele

SomethingGlorious.com, a blog inspired by a song well known around this neck of the woods, managed to secure an exclusive interview with Kele just before Bloc Party's headlining appearance at Chicago's Intonation Festival last month.

As is usually the case with independent blogs, the interview is both insightful and original, focusing on the music and giving Kele plenty of time to lay out his vision for album number two. Read it here. This interview also adds weight to the growing movement that suspects Kele of working for Amerie's record company, after Mr. Okereke delivers yet another speech on the merits of '1 Thing'. (Note: the movement currently consists of me, my Dad and the bloke from across the road who smells of wee. To sign up, contact i_believe_in_the_amerie_conspiracy@gullible.com).

Also, there's an interview with Kele and Matt in the current issue of 'Relevant' magazine, kindly transcribed for your reading pleasure.

¶ 10:40 PM 2 comments links to this post

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

To tide you over...a new 'Uniform' recording

¶ 6:18 PM 2 comments links to this post

Friday, June 30, 2006

Russell interview

A rare Russell interview on LiveDaily: linkage

¶ 11:50 PM 3 comments links to this post

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Eggshell-thin fragility and trouser-flapping hugeness...

...can both be expected on the new album, according to a new post by Gordy on the 'Marshals' fan space, along with:

Matt and Gordy playing drums simultaneously
R'n'B-styled beats
Russell's guitar put through a 'Big Muff' pedal
The sound of a guitar amp being thrown off a first-storey balcony (!)
An unplayable guitar solo
Piano
Glockenspiel
Strings

My appetite for the new material has definitely been whetted by that news!

Go to 'Marshals' to read the post in full.

¶ 11:43 PM 3 comments links to this post

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Happy 30th Birthday Gordy!

¶ 11:06 PM 6 comments links to this post

"We've pretty much nearly recorded all of the backing tracks"

A Toronto Star article/interview with some more hints about the sound of the new album...

The main aim in writing, he says, was "to distance ourselves from the sound that people assumed we had" and he enthuses about basing songs around samples and sound effects.

"That was always the intention, to be in a rock band that alluded to more than just the Velvet Underground or Led Zeppelin," he says. "For me, this band is about mixing ideas from contemporary dance music and contemporary R&B; and electronica and somehow trying to find a happy medium because that really is a lot of the music that really inspires me. It's not your big rock bands. So with this record I'm trying to make that clearer because I'm not quite sure how clear that was on the first record."

Read the full article here.

¶ 1:26 PM 0 comments links to this post

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Transatlantic Bloc

Bloc Party return to the live scene this coming weekend, crossing the pond for a very special Olympic Island show on Saturday and a headline appearance at Chicago's Intonation Music Festival on Sunday.

Here's the schedule for the Olympic Island mini-festival:

Gates: 1:00pm
Raising The Fawn: 3:00pm
J Mascis: 4:15pm
Feist: 5:45pm
Bloc Party: 7:15pm
Broken Social Scene: 8:45pm - 10:45pm

On Sunday, Bloc will rock the Intonation Festival at 9:05pm (local time). For the full line-up, follow me.

¶ 1:12 PM 2 comments links to this post

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