Not many music recommendations in recent times. But here’s an album I’ve been enjoying for a couple of months. Speech Debelle’s, Speech Therapy.
To pretty much everyone’s surprise, this won the Mercury Prize in September.
It’s also the perfect support for my argument that good hip-hop is really just folk music without the sandals.
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Categories: Music
Tagged: Speech DeBelle, Speech Therapy
I understand that no one else is going to find this as funny as I do.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the chances of hip-hop, banjos, blazers, cravates and pipe-smoking ever meeting in one place are marginal at best (at least outside my criminally unsuccessful 2006 audition for Australian Idol). And yet here they are.
I give you Mr B, The Gentleman Rhymer.
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Categories: Diversion · Music
Tagged: Chap-Hop, Mr B, The Gentleman Rhymer
This is a great album. And I get the sense probably a great story too.
It’s on iTunes or from the band’s website. This really is a fantastic album. A bit country, a bit 70’s singer/songwriter, a bit tongue-in-cheek and a bit brilliant.
Do something good for music in this country and buy this today. He’s also playing the King’s Arms on October 23rd. Go.
Categories: Music
Tagged: Isolation is the new party, Tommy and the Fallen Horses
I’m entirely unsure what Incredibox is for but it’s brilliant. Essentially you make your own music from the components presented. It’s completely addictive, and the illustrations are a bonus. A really simple, hugely satisfying experience.
Categories: Diversion · Music
Tagged: Incredibox
This is about the most relaxing thing I’ve ever watched or heard. It’s like falling asleep in a basket of sponges.
Olafur Arnalds is from Mosfellsbær, near Reykjavík. I want him to be a massive, angry looking guy, festooned with tattoos and piercings, ideally suffering from Tourette’s. But I bet he’s not.
Categories: Music
Tagged: Ljosio, Olafur Arnalds
Wireless ‘birdcage’ speakers, designed by the Japanese company Nendo. I’ve no idea what they sound like, but they look fantastic. They plug into a wall socket and are either ceiling or stand mounted.
My two favourite musical genres are Country and Hip Hop. I’ve always maintained that this makes perfect sense. They’re actually enormously similar. As I prefer them, they both tend to be lyrically driven, storytelling genres. They have been the music of choice for people struggling for a voice. And as a result they’ve given us the best ‘protest’ songs (as well, unfortunately, as some painfully well-known novelty acts, which might just undermine my point a little).
Anyway, someone asked me the other day what my favourite albums are. I go for De La Soul’s, Three Feet High and Rising at number one, followed by John Prine’s eponymous album at number two. Both were debut albums and both were probably best known for songs that dealt with drug addiction. John Prine produced his in 1969, while De La Soul produced theirs in 1989, so while both touched on it in the language of their time, both also did it in such a way that the language was pretty timeless.
John Prine’s, Sam Stone tells the story of a Vietnam Vet who returns to his family with a morphine addiction, his battle captured perfectly in the line ‘there’s a hole in Daddy’s arm, where all the money goes. Jesus Christ died for nothing, I suppose’.
De La Soul’s, Say No Go describes a drug-addicted mother giving birth to a baby that’s ‘brought into a world of pits, and if it could’ve talked that soon in the delivery room, it would’ve asked the nurse for a hit’.
Both were dealing with a subject (or at least using an example) that certainly wasn’t being tackled in mainstream music. Bob Dylan famously never wrote a song about Vietnam and De La Soul certainly ran counter to the prevailing glorification of drug taking. Same subject, different voice but an enormous amount in common.
Nathan Rabin does an infinitely better job of exploring this than me. He’s a hip-hop writer for A.V Club who decided to spend a year listening to nothing but country music. He’s written a great series of articles that are here.
I can’t recommend this guy highly enough. If, like me, the sound of an acoustic guitar and a lone voice are your kind of thing, it doesn’t get better than this. Buy this album if you find it.
A day in the life of Harvey & Gilmot
