We are loving Mike Skinner at the moment. His last album was brilliant (pity not many people listened), and now he’s just giving away his music, and a lot of it is pretty great.
But his new song is the best yet. It’s called ‘He’s Behind You, He’s Got Swine Flu’. It’s fun, it’s hilarious and it taps right into that strange end-of-the-world-in-a-sci-fi-way of this epidemic. There’s also a great clip to go with it that is taken from old Zombie movies.
Skinner has gone some way to say that these releases have nothing to do with his label.
We are loving this. And it sounds like Skinner is loving this as well, after two albums pretty much devoid of fun. Not sure if there is another album around the corner, but as long as he keeps giving us cool tracks like this, we’re not sure it matters.
We are pretty excited about the upcoming, 7th studio album by Wilco – called Wilco (The Album). We loved their last, Sky Blue Sky and their new one is due from Nonesuch in June.
The official Wilco site has posted a new mp3, but it’s not from the new album. It’s the cover of a Woody Guthrie track, and their is an option to donate money to the Woody Guthrie Foundation And Archives. Wilco’s association with Guthrie goes back ten years to the Mermaid Avenue albums, where the band recorded new music for existing but forgotten Guthrie lyrics.
It’s a laid-back, lo-fi recording by Wilco standards. We can’t imagine it allows us any hints to what their new record sounds like. But we love the donation idea – much better than Radiohead’s self serving indie-ism.
Technology is moving forward so quickly, and so many bands and artists are trying new things. It’s why this site exists. Our new favourite oddity is the latest video from Empire Of the Sun.
For their We Are The People video, the band have created an Interactive Video. It lives here – once it finally loads. It seems to take a while.
Links is video have started to take hold. They are all over embedded videos on Youtube, with links to outside sites, to buy CDs or other items. Big ugly banners covering the poor resolution video. Sound quality doesn’t matter. Why should video?
But Empire Of the Sun have made something creative out of this idea. The Australian duo are starting to become hot property worldwide. For their new video for We Are The People, little orbs appear throughout the clip. Clicking on the orbs lead you to extended footage, behind the scene stuff, and goodies to enter a competition. One link even leads you to an MP3 of their last single, Walking On A Dream, remixed by Van She.
It sounds slightly better than it is. The orbs look to be tacked into the clip, and not a part of it. The video player lacks any controls, meaning once you click on something, you’re out of that page. It doesn’t make for a very good viewing experience. The film clip itself is pretty wow. The band have a great image, and set in the backdrop of Spain – it’s just weird and looks great.
So is this the future, a new trend, or a one off? It’s a pretty cool gimmick, but we can’t imagine this setting a new bar for music videos. Maybe we’re wrong. Right now though, we’re going to watch the clip again, make sure we didn’t miss anything.
Empire Of the Sun Official site – http://empireofthesunsound.com/ – there is yet another free Walking On A Dream remix on offer.
God Help the Girl is the new project by Belle & Sebastian frontman Stuart Murdoch. It has been in the works for quite a few years – in fact it was made concurrently with B&S’s 2006 album the Life Pursuit.
The key change here is the vocalists. Murdoch himself said that their last album was lacking a girl vocal. With God Help the Girl, it’s an almost all girl affair.
The history goes something like this; Murdoch had some songs that he felt would be better if sung by female singers. So in the modern day and age, he basically put the word out far and wide. A good old fashioned audition process led to a set of new female voices, mostly backed by Belle And Sebastian. It’s a very 21st century way of making an album.
The final part of the story has not happened yet, which is a Murdoch penned film which ties all the songs together. It is due to start filming next year.
Pretentious? Of course it is. But Murdoch is such a nice, self depreciating guy, it’s tough to hold it against him sometimes. Having been such a long time since the last B&S album, we’re eagerly awaiting this album.
Jarvis Cocker - 'Further Complications' out 18th May
Here at TGLF, we loved Pulp. If we had a say, we would have cast their former frontman, Jarvis Cocker, as the 12th Doctor. And although his first solo album, 2006’s ‘Jarvis’, was not quite what we expected from him, we grew to love it.
With that in mind, Cocker is offering a new track on his website, http://jarviscocker.net. Just sign up to get the free MP3.
It’s once again, not what we expected from Mr Cocker. It’s a brashy, messy, punky, punchy number. The measured, critical lyrics have been replaced by a bit of yelping. Is this a new direction? It was recorded by hardcore/grunge legend Steve Albini.
Cocker has slowly made a name for himself since Pulp broke up. Palling around with Wes Anderson in Paris, he curated the Meltdown Festival and even salied to the Arctic.
The new record is called ‘Further Complications’ and is out through Rough Trade on 18th May.
