Straight-laced, well-spoken, sweater-wearing Englishmen might not seem like Kanye West’s type, but the infamous award speech-interrupting rapper has a thing — a musical thing, that is — for Mr. Hudson. He signed the soulful singer-songwriter to his label late last year and helped produce Mr. Hudson’s solo debut, Straight No Chaser, which is slated for a Dec. 1 U.S. release.
Mr. Hudson got his mainstream musical start as Mr. Hudson and The Library, a laid-back band whose chill, lush sound falls into a genre somewhere between R&B, reggae and British pop. In a delightfully witty move, the band launched a 12-stop U.K. library — yes, library — tour in 2007. But Mr. Hudson dropped the books and his band and signed with West a year later, embracing a synthesized new sound in the process. Since then, he’s been featured on a number of major hip-hop albums, including Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3.
On Straight No Chaser, Mr. Hudson blends the slick digitally-enhanced punch of modern hip-hop with the smooth, sing-along sensibility of indie-rock and R&B. On “Everything Is Broken,” a swelling track that features Kid Cudi and a Lady Gaga-worthy beat, Mr. Hudson sings, “I was just a token, token, token” above unintelligible whispers.
But Mr. Hudson hasn’t completely forgone the organic sound he crafted with The Library. That sound, captured most beautifully on the band’s old radio hit, “Picture of You,” which opens with an infectious beat-beat-clap, can be heard in slivers of the sensual “Anyone But Him.”
As much as we all might hate to admit it, West knows a thing or two about music, and his protégé’s clever lyricism and versatility undoubtedly could propel him to into the American spotlight. After all, West himself told MTV that Mr. Hudson has “the potential to be bigger than me.” Coming from such notoriously egotistical lips, that’s really saying something.
Often, a musical work’s concept can overwhelm its content. Take Bon Iver: critics fell hard for the artist’s story — composer Justin Vernon’s hibernation in the woods of Wisconsin to meditate and create groovy tunes — until his journey and his music became inextricably linked. The correlation was both a gift and curse, unfairly tying Vernon’s voice and music to feelings of isolation and desperation.
Similarly, Peter Silberman, vocalist and guitarist behind the up-and-coming band The Antlers, wrote much of his sophomore album Hospice in two years of isolation from friends and family. Once emerging, Silberman recruited a full band to bring his idea to life.
Hospice is a post-rock masterpiece, a concept album of both complex metaphors and simplistic narration. Its scope is both nostalgic and heartbreaking: the album tells the story of a man watching his loved one pass away from bone cancer in the Sloan Kettering Cancer Ward. Hospice is told from the woman’s bedside, accentuating the narrator’s grief and mourning. The setting alternates between deep, brooding tracks in the hospital and more upbeat, instrumentally-diverse songs that take place in flashback. The result is an album which is immediate and catchy, yet tonally eerie and sparse.
The opening track “Prologue” transitions into “Kettering,” which explicitly narrates the basic plotline -— a man has become a resident of the hospital ward where his hopelessly dying love lies.
“Bear” stands out as a dark and lyrically powerful character arc about two lovers choosing to abort their child. Silberman’s choice to combine the album’s most hauntingly beautiful reverberated guitars with its most depressing content illustrates his notions on the duality of love and hope versus fear and reality.
Undoubtedly fans and critics alike will question the story: Who are these mysterious characters? Is this a true story? Was Silberman the true narrator? The real question, however, should be: With music this beautiful, does it really matter?
There are plenty of good things to say about those buzzy bands out of Brooklyn. You know, the ones that get the synth just right, make some dance-your-ass-off music and are usually led by some skinny lad in even skinnier jeans. But there is something about a timeless, classy sound that just can’t be beat — and Vandaveer has this sound nearly perfected.
Vandaveer, which consists of Mark Charles Heidinger and backing vocalist Rose Guerin, makes the kind of music that sounds like it should be enjoyed with a snifter of brandy in a room with dark wood paneling. Everything about Vandaveer is steeped in tradition; the name has been passed down for generations — both on birth certificates and an engraved pocket watch — in Heidinger’s family and songs are more likely to reference classic books than pop-culture icons.
Vandaveer’s sophomore album, Divide & Conquer, has 10 songs featuring simple instrumentation — mainly guitar, piano and drums — that provides an elegant backdrop to the voices of Heidinger and Guerin. Heidinger has the rare kind of voice that is smooth and soothing, but still crackling with energy. Guerin’s voice provides a haunting complement to his — at some times sweet and at other times, seductive.
“Fistful of Swoon” highlights Vandaveer at its best. In the opening lines, Heidinger and Guerin are nearly whispering, sharing secrets with lines such as, “You’ve got lust in your veins.” Their voices swell during the chorus, then drop back again to hint at some kind of trepidation, some caution that will be thrown to the wind a few lines later. A simple snare and the occasional piano chord add to the anxious feeling of the track, as it always seems as if the song could explode at any second.
Most other songs are less fiery and more charming. “Beverly Cleary’s 115th Dream,” for example, pays homage to the kid-lit author, especially her Ramona-Quimby series. The music, which sounds as if it could have been taken out of a music box, is fitting without being juvenile.
Vandaveer should appeal to anyone who has a soft spot for the likes of Audrey Hepburn and Frank Sinatra. There is something sophisticated, yet fresh, about its sound that makes it apparent that it’s not going anywhere any time soon.
There’s something inexplicably pleasant about circus-inspired instrumentalism. It worked for Panic! at the Disco and, on the second single off its 2007 debut, The Trick to Life, it more than works for indie-pop trio The Hoosiers. “Goodbye Mr. A,” a boppy commentary about real-life comic book hero Mr. A, who is both too stoic and too logical for his own good, kicks off with the delightful bounce of piano keys. The sound instantly drags up happy-go-lucky memories of funnel cakes, clowns and childhood simplicity.
A few seconds into the song, the guys quickly introduce some rollicking guitar, a swelling bass and lead singer Irwin Sparkes’ impeccable falsetto. Sparkes sings, “You had all the answers / But no human touch / If life is subtraction / Your number is up / Your love is a fraction / It’s not adding up.” With straightforward lyricism that (gasp) doesn’t revolve solely around failing relationships and unrequited love and a musical sound worthy of a charming little carnival, “Goodbye Mr. A” effectively sums up The Hoosiers’ appeal: simple and upbeat.
The Hoosiers — composed of sweater vest-wearing frontman Sparkes, bassist Martin Skarendahl and mustachioed drummer Alfonso Sharland — first formed when Sparkes and Sharland, who are both from the United Kingdom, secured soccer scholarships to a university in Indiana. While there, where the locals are commonly referred to as hoosiers, the guys gathered not only a band name but enough compelling material to record an album, which they released after returning to London and hooking up with Swedish musician Skarendahl.
The resulting debut, which eventually reached No. 1 on the UK charts, was a collection of 12 weird, infectious tracks. Standout track “Cops and Robbers” utilizes heavy synthesizers and a hodge-podge of everyday sounds that range from clashes and bangs to space ship noises.
In the end, The Hoosiers are a deliciously unique addition to a genre sadly bloated with musical clones, and the band’s sound is more lighthearted than a trip to Six Flags.
On paper, it might seems as if Welsh group Los Campesinos! simply adopted and tweaked the schtick of Panic! at the Disco. There’s the obvious punctuation similarity (even if Panic! did drop its exclamation point for a year), and the groups share a penchant for giving songs long, odd titles. Case in point: Panic!’s 2005 debut, A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out, has tracks such as “Lying Is the Most Fun a Girl Can Have Without Taking Her Clothes Off” and LC!’s debut Hold On Now, Youngster…, released three years later, has songs with titles such as “Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math(S).”
But comparisons between the groups can stop there. LC! doesn’t have the same pop polish that Panic! does. Rather, the seven-member, coed group excels with frenetic tracks that sound like collective catharsis or crazed parties, depending on the subject matter. Some tracks, such as “This Is How You Spell ‘HAHAHA, We Destroyed The Hopes and The Dreams of a Generation of Faux-Romantics,’” blend these two categories. It has a hurried spoken-word solo as well as several members chiming in on the near-malicious, taunting chorus.
This sense of childishness is a common trend for LC!, which has created a blend of twee and punk, two of the most youthful musical genres. Members tend to play their instruments as loud and fast as they can, and rush to sing-scream over their bandmates. But the dissonance works thanks to some smart, sharp lyrics (the narrator of “Death to Los Campesinos!” is “broken down like a war economy,” for example) that keep the group from sounding immature.
The band’s second album, We Are Beautiful We Are Doomed, which was released just a few months after its debut, has all these same elements, but an overall darker tone, presumably paving the way for its upcoming album (the details of which are still fuzzy). If its first single, “The Sea Is a Good Place to Think of the Future,” is any indication, the group has spent the past year doing some considerable growing up, as the song features some of the band’s most somber, reflective lyrics and music to date. Despite this, there are still glimpses of the frantic energy seen on previous albums, showing that although LC! may be growing up, it isn’t outgrowing the excellent elements that have defined the group since day one.
There’s something about minimalistic art that gets me every time: The way Piet Mondrian turns four vibrant squares of color into a complex and thoroughly satisfying artistic expression, the way Samuel Beckett transforms the bare essence of a play into transcendence or how Philip Glass makes spacey music oddly effecting.
The xx, the latest schoolboy-turned-rockstar graduates of England’s famous Elliot School for performing arts, employs minimalistic beauty in its debut album, xx. The four 20-year-old kids exhibit startling maturity and elegance in their work, all while using only a few masterful brush strokes. Lead vocalists Romy Madley Croft and Oliver Sim sing with sultry descants. The pair’s intoxicating and smooth vocals harmonize like two lovers in bed — there is something dark and deeply “sexxual” hidden between their quiet table manners. On the track “Basic Space,” Croft and Sim’s vocals parallel changes in simple instrumentation to create a slowly evolving pop song. Like Romeo and Juliet forced to sit next to each other at a dark dinner table amongst their families, the sexual tension on xx is palpable.
The xx has a clear affinity for American R&B. The album opens with “Intro” and “VCR,” which provide listeners with the rare glimpse at guitar and keyboard solos — the rest of the album emphasizes romantic lyricism, mutually abstract and poppy spaciousness and the basic beauty of the human voice. The xx presents its music graciously, allowing room for the songs to breathe and take on lives of their own.
Some especially heartbroken lovers out there in Valentine Land pine over the scenic summer days spent with their inamorato — the restless nights, the breathless moments, all the high times they could have spent together after a now-broken relationship.
Neon Indian, on the other hand, seems to have only one regret for the summer — quite a different kind of longing for “high times.” In “Should Have Taken Acid With You,” the absolutely quirky and instantly unforgettable breakup song, singer Alan Palomo combines drug-induced melancholy with euphoric nostalgia to create low-fi gold. The two-minute song wears its New Order and The Magnetic Fields influences on its sleeves, integrates cartoonish instrumentals to the palette, yet still finds ways to stay poppy and fresh. What separates Neon Indian from its influences is the intricacy of its minute propensities. With complex layers of synthesizers and warped computer instruments, Neon Indian buries hook after hook into intricate harmonies.
Palomo, the one-man show behind the Austin, Texas project, is now based in Brooklyn, performing numerous shows there. Neon Indian’s first LP, Psychic Chasms, drops Oct. 13, and is set to include Palomo’s trademark relaxed vocals and bizarre keyboards.
Neon Indian’s other songs maintain the same utterly chill sense of pop, as with blogosphere favorite “Deadbeat Summer.” Palomo celebrates staying in and drugging out, riding a hallucinogenic wave toward a Ferris Bueller-esque chorus, which makes doing nothing seem like a groovy and epochal triumph.
In “Terminally Chill,” one of the best introductions to Neon Indian’s laidback sentimentalism, Palomo experiments with electronica and simplistic drums, making the tune a headphone-ready trip.
Neon Indian songs jive like MGMT jams, but without all the rush to live fast and die young with cocaine and model wives. Palomo has tried harder than any artist in recent memory to turn “not trying” into an art form.
Prior to a few weeks ago, if you had asked me when was the last time I had either seen a Whoopee cushion or eaten Pop Rocks, I would have guessed 1996. I was 8 then, and that seems like it was probably about the time when boys in my class would have outgrown slipping one onto girls’ chairs and finally tired of trying to prove that the other could be mixed with Coca-Cola without any lethal side effects.
But one Friday afternoon last summer while I was interning at music mag Paste, the press kits that came through the office were particularly playful; one included Whoopee cushions with a group’s name stamped across the front and another had several packages of Pop Rocks.
So when Simon Felice (of previous Playlist band The Felice Brothers and now also of The Duke & The King) wandered into the office looking for our studio, he found me with my elbow propped up next to a Whoopie cushion while Pop Rocks crackled in my mouth. He shook my hand while I attempted to swallow the candy and stammer my name.
I shouldn’t have been too concerned about what kind of first impression I made. Felice and the rest of The Duke & The King are as unpretentious as they come, and the group’s debut album, Nothing Gold Can Stay, certainly reflects of this. Its 10 folksy tracks jump from charming looks at love (“Water Spider,” “Summer Morning Rain”) to more poignant subjects. “If You Ever Get Famous” is a warning to always remember what’s important in life regardless of what may get in the way. The band shows its darker side on “Union Street,” a fond yet pointed look at growing up that blends into the grating music of “Lose My Self,” which features the echoing, repeated line, “It makes me want to lose myself.”
Despite the various tones embodied by the group’s songs, Felice’s voice is always smooth and clear and his lyrics are straightforward. The band’s name pays homage to the con men in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and this is a fitting tribute, as each of its songs have a comforting, old-fashioned feel with just the right amount of creativity and adventure to make it a classic.
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart – “Come Saturday”
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart is not content with happiness. No, this band is a straight-up, completely legal hit of pure ecstasy, rocking exhuberantly with their influences on their sleeves, combining ’80s notions of electropop with ’60s lyrical storytelling.
The New York based-band succeeds on its mix of jovial amatuerism and pop chops. Its songs are well-crafted shoegaze gems in the same vein as My Bloody Valentine, but also contain sloppy, low-fi instrumentals like any great start-up garage band. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart plays simple, hook-filled songs that could easily fit in the yet-to-be-filmed “High School Musical 4.” Appropriately, the band stole its name from an unpublished children’s story of the same name.
The group’s self-titled debut album boasts sugary pop hits that the listener can simply rock out to. “Come Saturday” is a teen ode to hanging out with your sweetheart on the weekend: “Who cares if there’s a party somewhere? / We’re gonna stay in.” Lead singer Kip Berman’s excited, baritone vocals harmonize wonderfully with keyboardist Peggy Wang’s airy, fragile voice, as if they are simulaneously singing to one another and discovering true love.
Yet, the group is not just twee pop and dreamy lyrics — The Pains match substance with its style. The noisy instruments demand to be heard, yet blend perfectly together. On “Young Adult Friction,” the band is firing on all cylinders, merging innumerable production tracks together to create a multi-layed, giddy tune.
The Pains of Being Pure At Heart is a promising, gleeful band — hopefully, it will mature while keeping the heart of a kid.
New York City’s Guggenheim Museum is recognized for its diverse collection of fine art, running the gamut from traditional Impressionist paintings to more eclectic contemporary pieces. The Guggenheim Foundation has museums across the globe, each boasting works at least as varied as those in New York, nearly making the Foundation’s name a metonymy for myriad artistic influences and styles.
Dublin-based folk-pop duo The Guggenheim Grotto, made up of Kevin May and Mick Lynch, has taken the ideology of its namesake to heart. At times, May and Lynch sound like they are channeling a thoughtful, “The Sounds of Silence”-era Simon and Garfunkel. At other points on its sophomore album, Happy the Man, the duo relies on bubbly, foot-tapping-inducing pop beats. And every now and then, TGG adds an element of surprise, like the a tinge of electronica and female harmony that appear on “Fa Da Da Dee.”
Even TGG’s fun, seemingly mindless songs boast philosophical lyrics, setting the duo apart from the more superficial pop outfits circulating radio airwaves. “Her Beautiful Thoughts” could fall into the trap of a trite song about post-break-up depression (toward the end of the song, the repeated lines of, “She used to say / ‘Let’s get naked and get under the sheets’” is directly followed by, “I just can’t seem to get out of bed anymore”), draws upon some deeper ideas. The song’s protagonist recounts what he misses about his ex, which, in addition to the aforementioned naked bed time, includes her titular “beautiful ideas.” “She used to say that magic was the edge / And science and God, they were the sides of a copper penny piece,” May and Lynch sing.
On the other end of the aural spectrum is “Philosophia,” a folksy and aptly titled look at life. Velvety vocals croon lines such as, “Perhaps no perfect way exists at all, just many different kinds.” Musically, the song has an ethereal feel and includes the distant sound of running water, as if the singers are sitting in the woods next to a babbling brook, contemplating ancient thinkers.
The one-line chorus of “Philosophia” reflects the sound and ideology of TGG: “Oh, to be a work of art.”
Editors at The Emory Wheel, Emory University's student newspaper, sound off on their favorite albums and artists of the moment. You can find more info here.
