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Hot Chip //
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
If there’s one thing you can bet your house on in 2010, it’s that Hot Chip are going to be massive…again. Following on from ‘Coming on Strong’, ‘The Warning’ and ‘Made in the Dark’ comes ‘One Life Stand‘, an album that, if the two leaked tracks are anything to go by, promises to be their best yet.
Hot Chip – One Life Stand (MySpace Exclusive)
Hot Chip | MySpace Music Videos
Both tracks are sumptuously built on a solid base of electronic funk, working their way along before bursting into life with vocals to chill your bones and bump your geese. It’s perhaps Hot Chip’s ability to surprise and improvise that makes them so compelling, drawing you in with every extra listen.
‘Don’t Dance’ is another prime example of the way they can take a simple and quirky piece of music and make it burst into life with tones, rhythms, stabs and vocals that mesh together in such a way that you can’t imagine they were ever supposed to sound any different.
Alongside the regular band members, Hot Chip collaborated on several of the album tracks for ‘One Life Stand’ with the drummer Charles Hayward from This Heat and Camberwell Now, the Trinidadian steel pan player Fimber Bravo and Leo Taylor, drummer from The Invisible, who are also great…check out ‘Constant‘. The mainstays and current line up includes Owen Clarke, Felix Martin, Al Doyle, the distinctive voice of Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard. Joe has recently released a solo project called ‘Harvest‘. We really liked it, especially the arpegiatted loop in ‘Apple Bobbing’, so much so that we decided to do our own version…hope you like it…
Joe Goddard – Apple Bobbing (Frogs in Socks Snap Apple Remix) by FrogsInSocks
One Life Stand will be released on February 1st 2010, and a new world tour has been announced…I will most definitely be at the party in Manchester in February.
Oli
Original Beats with Real Live MC’s //
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Everybody knows Jurassic 5. Ask most people to recount the lyrics to Concrete Schoolyard and they will glee nearly as much as if you asked them to join in a sing-a-long account of the opening credits for the Fresh Prince of Bell Air. That’s to take nothing away from J5 who in truth have always been a phenomenal live act. Their most recent Album, Feedback was not as well received as such offerings as the Jurassic 5 LP and Quality Control and preceded some time apart to pursue solo projects. This was mostly put down to the most distinctive member of the group Chali 2na wanting to go solo. 2na has done some touring but it has all been relatively quiet so it was as of some surprise to learn of Akil the MC’s world tour for his as yet to be completed album Soundcheck taking him as far from Cali to such hip hop spots as New Zealand and specifically the capital Wellington.
In a very intimate venue Akil delivered a great performance of tight vocals and a youthful exuberance culminating in some local talent taking the stage with the LA born rapper to himself throwing out some B-boy moves in amongst the crowd. He commented on whether the five-some would again be reunited by saying “I don’t know shit” but finished off with a J5 melody with the entire venue joining in for Concrete Schoolyard. He said he was taking it back to how J5 used to do shows and called it a “golden time”. In truth it was a very accomplished performance and proved that Akil the MC deserves his mantle of MC without the need of 2na, Mark 7even, Za-akir and DJ Nu-mark.
The album, expected early next year, is called Soundcheck and that’s exactly what the tour was for, to Soundcheck his new material before releasing the album. Live it was good but the real acid test will come when released. There is no doubting the tightness of the lyrics in past J5 albums with the four Mc’s bouncing off each other in perfect harmony but it remains whether to be seen is whether one of the lesser known members can prove it was as much down to him as the others. Akil you’ve proved you can do it live, now let’s see what the album brings.
Swayzle
MANORHOUSE //
Monday, December 7th, 2009
