DEAN BLUNT

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I only really blog now when I’m frothing at the mouth about something, so please believe me when I tell you that my heart did backflips when I heard 100, the new song from Dean Blunt.

Here’s the video (because I can’t find it on Soundcloud.)

Yes, that Dean Blunt, who was one half of the amazing and amazingly mysterious Hype Williams.

The same Dean Blunt who thoroughly pranked an oblivious NME when he won an NME award — and then didn’t tell them that the man he’d sent in his place wasn’t, in fact, him.

That Dean Blunt. He’s just released the best song he’s ever written (or its video at least). 100 is almost too gorgeous to bear. It’s like slowly lowering your body into molten chocolate, but better.

Simple, sweet, husky and weirdly intimate, this is simply dripping with nonchalent brilliance. It sounds like a song that someone would write for Roy Orbison, if he was still alive.

PS – If you care about “beef”, the video starts with a half-negative quote from Idris Elba, who’s going to be the next James Bond but it seems that we have to wait for a number of people to come to terms with his skin colour first.

Maybe Idris should send Dean in his place.

LUSTS

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A good friend sent me an email frothing wildly about Lusts. These are always — always — the best, most accurate recommendations.

In the Music Blog World™, clicking on a new band’s Soundcloud link is almost always a trepidatious affair, but this time, the click was deep-fried GOLD.

 

You can figure out their musical touchstones within a minute, and that’s fine, because Lusts sound like all those bands which you love that you’ve somehow forgotten about, or thought would never be heard of again, or thought no-one would ever care about again.

If you ever hear anyone moaning about the dearth of Guitar Bands These Days, wordlessly point them at Lusts and observe their joy.

And those guitars! There are amazing, spidery guitars, huge, whooshing guitars, and guitar noises that sound like they have gone through a magical FX pedal that doubles mellifluousness.

Brilliant. So happy.

PS: According to Facebook, the band are signed to 1965 Records, which kind-of makes sense, because owner James Endeacott signed a bunch of great bands, and also kind-of doesn’t make sense, because Wikipedia says 1965 Records are “defunct,” and their website looks that way too.

I guess it all sorts of makes *actual* sense, in context.

ERIKA GLÜCK

 

I guess I’ve written endlessly about my listening habits skewing towards music produced in the most basic of fashions.

My drive for Simple Music Done Dirt Cheap™ has accelerated at about the same pace as the general adoption of laptop DAWs as the primary music making resource. There’s just so much going in in music that doesn’t need to be there.

This life-affirming video of A Guy Called Gerald fiddling with analogue boxes in his studio and creating – off-the-cuff, on-the-fly – some huge tunes, cemented my point of view.

Anyway, Erika Glück’s Caress is a seven minute, simple-as-possible workout: all thump, no flimflam. It’s a song to get lost in; a terrific, meditative reminder that simple isn’t scary.

BRUTISH C POWERS

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The temptation to plump for a British Sea Powers headline pun was too hard to resist. I am but a flawed individual, forgive me.

C Powers is also known as CC Powers and is quite possibly releasing stuff under a plethora of pseudonyms for all I know, but in an age of meta-nom-de-plumes, who cares?

Anyway, Shit Remix is, indeed, a remix of Shit by Future, and is so overwhelmingly more fun than the original, there’s no need to listen to it any more, should you have been inclined.

It’s also a reminder of the power of simplicity: this remix doesn’t add or remove much at all: C Powers just sticks in the bits that always needed to be there.

ATTIC SPACE: ATIC ATAC

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Here are the tags that accompany Attic Space‘s music:

ambient chillwave christian drone electronic experimental Millersville

Thought: Maybe Ambient Christian Chillwave is a sub-genre I can fully buy into, for once.

Anyway. Attic Space‘s music is right up my street, as it’s pieced together out of nibbles of this, kibbles of that, and big swathes of the other.


My main attraction to this kind of music is that it’s usually the vision of a solo performer: this doesn’t mean it’s automatically any good, but it does mean that the music is unsullied by outsiders, or surly drummers, or what-have-you.

Spring Tides is, however, very good: Attic Space has assembled a true collage of lo-fi sounds and made a song of quiet, odd beauty.

Most lo-fi anything is tripe; this is good, simply because I get the feeling it’s lo-fi out of necessity, as opposed to some dreary attempt at nostalgist revivalism.

So when the drums sound a bit like a cardboard box being hit by a wooden spoon – it really probably was exactly that, and was done so because there were no actual drums to hand. I like that a lot.

PS: For those of you who didn’t get the Atic Atac reference

KRISTA PAPISTA: THEY DON’T MAKE ‘EM LIKE THEY USED TO

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There’s something about Krista Papista’s rough ‘n’ ready, cut ‘n’ paste, chop ‘n’ change pop that is deeply satisfying, deeply jarring and deeply un-now.

By being all those things, Bad F is also 100% now. And yet it sounds like daring music of the past. Argh.

There’s something in the attitude, the delivery, the lyrics and the snarl that bypasses the tedium of Tumblr-first Image-House™ music and drags her songs straight up to the edge.

It’s so odd to hear something even slightly out of step with the banality of most new ‘edgy’ music, that this song made me sit up in my seat. Good stuff.

I ALMOST KILLED ANBAD, BUT THEN DIDN’T

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You’ve possibly noticed that I don’t blog every day any more. (The smart-arses amongst you will note that I never have done.)

It’s not the end, merely a lobotomy. Here’s why: terelinck.com/why-i-almost-killed-my-music-blog

There will still be new bands on here. Just not as many. But that’s the point :)

Here’s to the next six years of ANBAD!

Abraços, Joe x

ILL

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Well, this is like being punched in the face by brilliantly carefree fury. Smart, fun and more interesting than a million bands with a “∆” in their name.

 

CALUMMA AMBER; VOWELS AND CONSONANTS

 

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Well, what are your initial reactions to a song titled Lielielielielielielielow?

Mine – which were, “hmm, this is probably going to be either heinous or excellent” – were compounded by the first few, odd, ephemeral bars.

And then it became clear that Calumma Amber‘s song met the latter expectation.

Lielielielielielielielow is the kind of song Kate Bush has been making at home for the last twenty years, but has never dared release. It’s almost all vowels, with no clear lyrical points of reference to cling onto.

Instead, much like David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, we’re subtly encouraged to look beyond prosaic things like words and notes, and to connect to something much less tangible: feelings, emotions and the base meaning of sound itself.

Whoah. But it’s really brilliant and dashing. Trust me.

POPOBAWA: NO PHOTO, NO NAMES, NO FAIR

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Popobawa are one of those pleasing bands that tick every box that make me not want to feature them, and yet, well, here they are, slopped all over ANBAD.

Here’s why they shouldn’t be here:

Popobawa say they make psychedelic rock (anti-tick), didn’t put a link to their music in their email (anti-tick) and when I did find a song online, it is listed as a demo (anti-tick).

And yet… to my ears, Appetite is neither psyche-rock, or a demo: it’s in fact a kind of pretty, sunny, blissed-out guitar pop that has a couple of neat, slo-mo hooks. The song doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously either, which is such a rarity nowadays I actually cracked a tiny, painful grin.

Oh, and the song isn’t really a demo – it is well produced, and good enough for ‘release’, if people actually release songs any more (they don’t).

The band are from Gosport, which I always thought was in Wales. It’s not.

Popobawa didn’t send any photos of themselves either, but a little Googling reveals that they are merely normal human beings which look like you and I. Excellent news. Good stuff.