Posts in Record Covers

You may know Tellier from the Lost In Translation soundtrack or his CD being the only album available to purchase at every American Apparel retailer which probably are the 2 best ways(soundtracks and lifestyle shops) to get a record heard these days. If you haven’t already take a moment and at least listen to La Ritournelle, the first half is early Coldplay-ish but the second half when he starts singing i think of it being one of the best licensable tracks out there if edited right to video.

Sébastien Tellier – La Ritournelle

Sébastien Tellier – Look

Beautiful images and beautiful music, they don’t make either like this anymore. Bitches Brew ranks up there as one of my all time favorite album covers.

Miles Davis – So What

Some images via Sleevery

My first interest into Krautrock beyond Kraftwerk. I found NEU! ’75 (1975, duh) when I was 17 and have yet to stop listening to it eight years later.

NEU! was the brainchild of Kraftwerk’s Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother. Anything Rother touches, I like; which you will see in future posts.

This track is off of NEU! 2 (1973) and is a fine example of Rother’s melting guitar melodies, and (along with almost every other NEU! song) displays Dinger’s self-invented Motorik beat.

NEU! – Neuschnee (1973)

Last night I was working on a poster for the upcoming Terrabyte 3 show (L.A. Sept. 14). I had the MP3s on shuffle and Ladytron’s Mu-Tron came up. It prompted me to go back and play the rest of their 2001 release 604 in it’s entirety. It’s not that I really forgot about Ladytron, I guess I just forgot how good they are. Maybe I played them out back when Light and Magic was in full swing. They have a new album out entitled Velocifero which is in the vein of their previous record Witching Hour. Both albums are a departure from the 80’s inspired electro sound of 604 and Light And Magic. It’s good that they evolved (the two latest albums are superb in their own rights), it’s just sad that we won’t be getting any more gems along these lines:

Ladytron – Playgirl

Ladytron – Mu-Tron

This is part 2 of what was posted the other day about a few other producers that make some of the best hip hop instrumentals.

J Dilla – Airworks

Madlib – Mystic Bounce

Metal Fingers – White Willow Bark

Madvillian – Monkey Suite

Bullion – Untitled (Beach Boys?)

Jaylib – The Official (Instrumental)

So I’ve been really getting into Mike Oldfield lately. This album is his second follow up to the wildly successful Tubular Bells, but has a slightly more “world” sound.

Since each of the two tracks is almost 20 minutes long, I pulled a 2:00 excerpt.

Mike Oldfield – Ommadawn

Everybody’s got a little soft spot for some Italo Disco, and you really can’t miss with Kano.

Unfortunately it’s a little hard tracking down his (or any Italo Disco) original singles without paying a small fortune, but luckily Unidisc compiled the duo’s best stuff onto CD.

It took me 10 minutes to pick which track to put on here. I still haven’t decided, but I’m throwing this one up. Luckily there’s a great video for It’s a War, so you get a double dose. Lucky you.

Kano – Now Baby Now

Kano – It’s a War

The new French Kicks album Swimming has been out for a couple months now and I’ve had a chance to give it some proper listening time. I thought Songs From 2000 set the bar pretty high so anything coming after that would need to be pretty good to surpass it. While Swimming is a great collection of songs, I don’t think it really lives up to the previous release. Although being subdued is sort of the Kicks’ hallmark, this offering just seems a bit overly subdued for my taste.

The band apparently recorded and mixed this record themselves, which is a pretty commendable feat; it really does sound great and the overall vibe is pretty unique. From a technical perspective the record is interesting, most of the parts sound like they are room recordings, big and airy with a lot of ambience. The album opens with what I think is the strongest track, you can really hear the recording style shine here with the big boomy bass, it almost sounds like a really good live take.

I am not sure what’s going on with this album cover. I’m definitely not a fan of the style or execution; just seems rather boring. Looks like some stock art from an Ikea wall hanging or something.

French Kicks – Abandon

I posted on the new Wolf Parade album a while back so after letting that sink in I thought I’d post some tracks from their first album, Apologies To The Queen Mary. I do love the Queen Mary album, although I have to say I am partial to the new one, At Mount Zoomer. I ran into the guys from Better Propaganda last weekend and we got to talking about bands we’re currently listening to. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t convince them that Mt. Zoomer was a better record than Apologies. They actually seemed indignant at the mere suggestion that this new one could be better. I then ran that same crazy idea by another friend who knows a lot about music and got the same response. So apparently I’m crazy, but I feel like Zoomer has a decidedly darker tone, it sounds like the product of a maturing band finding their way out of the somewhat crowded category that I felt Apologies placed them squarely in. Apologies is a brighter, more energetic album to be certain, but I guess I’m not really looking for bright or energetic from this band.

At any rate, they are both classic albums in my book with a razor thin margin separating the two in regards to their relative quality. The beauty of the set is that they make such good companions to each other; play them back to back and you have a very fulfilling listening session.

Wolf Parade – Grounds For Divorce

Shine A Light

Bernard Gérard "Tempo: musique pour l’éducation psychomotrice"
Via Sleevery