A new MGMT video “Flash Delirium” - preceding their album Congratulations.

After watching top 10 Genesis on VH1 last weekend, and after reading about best concept albums in history on Wired, I want to listen to Genesis all the time. Not necessarily in their old-school sound. For example, here is a good mash-up with the new Hot Chip.

Marc Johnce - I Can’t Stand [Hot Chip Vs. Genesis] on Hypem

[mp3]

Bonobo - Black Sands
[Ninja Tune, 2010]

The fourth album by Simon Green gives the world the best of him. I’ve never followed him closely, having only a general awareness that Bonobo is quite a good artist on Ninja Tune. My attention was drawn the most when he wrote a soundtrack to JPod TV show (based on the book by Douglas Coupland), his Flutter became my perfect ringtone.

Now, Black Sands is firmly in my playlist. It’s so glycerine, soft, flowing, pliant… A gorgeous Eyesdown with Andreya Triana. She also appears on The Keeper - a bit reminding of Thievery Corporation with its mellowness. All In Forms, a pure chill, somewhat Moby-like. The album as a whole is the highest standard for downtempo without getting too cliche-like and repetition. Dark satin lake surface - there are inhabitants there, movements hidden under the mirror of the lake. Chill out zone that stretches around you like a shell, wherever you are.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace

Bonobo by joaopereira

The Radio Dept. – Clinging To A Scheme
[Labrador, 2010]

Their music can only go in headphones. Then you get it truly intimate, then you really listen. With The Radio Dept., you have to be alone with them. The third album of the Swedish band only confirms the rule. I look forward to each album and each track (like many other fans) with huge impatience. Every time it makes me worried a bit – what if they’re “spoiled” this time? And each release makes me happy, because with years (and they’ve been around since mid-90s) the heart of their music stays warm and shoegazy, never getting boring.

The preceding EP “David” confirmed that The Radio Dept. didn’t expire. And now the album itself makes me fall in love again with this music. It rhymes perfectly with the fog of the early morning, with the transparent blue sky in the sun. Clinging To A Scheme is really a scheme to follow. Crystal keyboards, broad guitar strokes, half-shaded vocals of Johan Duncanson – plush, soft and home-like. The album is great for both indoors and outdoors, it fits perfectly with vigorous step and with numb dreamlike state with a throw pillow.

Clinging To A Scheme has been awaited since 2008 – it was announced for release first in the spring or fall. It wasn’t easy to wait, but not too hard either – thanks to a line of singles (remember marvelous Freddy & The Trojan Horse?), and when you’re waiting for something amazing, it’s sweet to wait.

You recognize The Radio Dept. from the first seconds of Domestic Scene. Then Heaven’s On Fire – light, spring-like and agile. I really love Never Follow Suit – it’d make a good single (I hope there’s a video), it sets me “going your way” and at the same time walking on the grass. Everything about Clinging To A Scheme makes you feel good and clean. It’s not a loud festival, but an intimate, inner holiday. Just for you. Slow A Token Of Gratitude, Memory Loss, You Stopped Making Sense, with more uptempo (they can’t be called fast) and at the same time soft David (already with a place in my heart), The Video Dept., Never Follow Suit – all this together forms a kind of special glass through which to look at the world. And the world starts shining, not very brightly, but from the inside, with a shimmering light.

It seems I’ve written many words, all of them around the essence. I’ll probably never be able to explain what makes The Radio Dept. my favorite band of all times. They are not very significant in the huge, multi-faceted music scene. But I’m never bored with their music, and nothing else gets so deep inside me, staying unfussy and pure.

Read & Listen:
Official website
Myspace
Heaven’s On Fire mp3

(The album is beautiful)

Sambassadeur - European
[Labrador, 2010]

This is the music that never grows in America, this is the most european music of all. A signature style of the swedish town of Gothenburg that you hear every second of the album. The third Sambassadeur album makes me believe that the line of songs that tend to appear out of nowhere in your mind every now and then is about to get a couple of new additions. What’s interesting that there’s not too much to say about the album. Sweet, but not too sugary songs. You’re exactly where you want to be - as it goes in the opening track, Stranded. Simple, melodic, with Anna Persson’s beautiful vocals, these are the songs as if from the other side of the film screen, of an arthouse romantic movie. They create spring around you, get through the window with warm sunlight, like firefoxes light up the grass at night. This is the music to take with you for a weekend by the sea or lake, with a picnic with friends. Or when you’re walking alone, it still creates the feeling of a warm company.

A few glimpses: Cheerful and one of the “friendliest” songs, Days, thoughtful Forward is All, melodic Albatross - a gem of the album, with the purity of lyrics and melody, about losing and finding your way.

I was happier alone
Cut my hair just like a boy.

A beautiful, smart, but not abstruse, album. European makes life a bit more simple and full of light.

Read & Listen:
Myspace
Official website

Icelandic electronic musician Ruxpin’s new album is made available for everyone’s enjoyment by n5MD.

Ulrich Schnauss – Missing Deadlines (A Collection of Remixes)
[Rocket Girl, 2010]

Ulrich Schnauss is a talented German musician and producer, whose labels recently sued Guns N’ Roses for using his melodies in their album. Meanwhile, Schnauss has been releasing own albums or EPs (like a very interesting release with A Shoreline Dream), and remixing others. This time, let’s take a look at his new collection of remixes, Missing Deadlines.

This is the essence of shoegaze, concentrated of 14 tracks of artists that could be stylistically united, but would sound awkward and boring put together in a compilation. At the same time, drawn together by Ulrich Schnauss, they started sounding “in tune”. Here we have Howling Bells and Slowdive vocalist Rachel Goswell, separately Howling Bells, Aus, Asobi Seksu, Mojave 3… Schnauss seems to have plunged into the molecular structure of each song, isolating a shoegaze stream from each and every one of them, and building his own structures around them. The result is like everything coming from Schnauss, electronic shoegaze folding around you like a cloud.

Read & Listen:
Ulrich Schauss website
Ulrich Schnauss Myspace

As a small (micro) addition to this blog, I created a Twitter account, twitter.com/readandlisten. There’s lots and lots of music that I miss writing about at length, but I’d still like to say a couple of words. So everything that fits into 140 symbols.

A current question: should this be English or Russian? Please vote here, you can really help me decide.

http://twtpoll.com/uc0c8l

The Go Find - Everybody Knows It’s Gonna Happen Only Not Tonight
[Morr Music, 2010]

I fell in love with the Belgian band The Go Find from the very first album, from the cover (Soviet-kindergarten-like paintings with boats and palms) and most certainly to the music. Naive and beautiful simplicity, hot summer in December and stuff like that… On the third album, the picture changes from summer-water landscapes to the same type of drawing, winter-mountains, but the essence of the sound stays the same. Electronic guitar pop and mellow sound, with the vocals that sound like melted butter. Dieter Sermeus sounds a bit sad at times, and always calm. And the soothing (but pretty fast) rhythms keeps on throughout the album.

The lyrics are as sad as the voice (sometimes joined by female vocals). Like on “Love Will Break Us Up” (don’t tell me you haven’t thought instantly of Joy Division), “You always full of life / Me, always ten steps behind.” I especially liked a merry “One Hundred Percent” (featuring Karolien Van Ransbeeck of Few Bit), a simple and sweet “Cherry Pie” and “It’s Automatic”, reminding the most of the old works… Yet, the whole album sounds very… together’y, very beautiful and composed, and it’s hard to mentally stress one song over another.

The label’s website describes “Everybody Knows…” as the following metaphor: “Imagine the sound of cereal hit by milk in the morning, only heard if you listen closely. A sound that is comforting and addictive.” Little less can be said. A nice and casual sound, home-like, very warm and simple.

Read & Listen:
Official website
The Go Find Myspace