Sisterworld is the follow up to Liars‘ self-titled (2007) and was written and recorded in Los Angeles by Liars and Tom Biller (Kanye West, Beck). It’s the first Liars album to be recorded entirely in the US since 2004’s They Were Wrong, So We Drowned and sees Angus Andrew, Aaron Hemphill and Julian Gross taking inspiration from fringe characters lured to Los Angeles and the resulting subcultures and alternate spaces that they generate.
Clarence Carter / Patches The more song-oriented Liars’ albums become, the more a song that tells a literal story like this seems the ultimate challenge to produce. For me, writing lyrics that are bare and clear with their meaning is such a scary thing. I have to try and overcome this fear anew with every song.
Mean Everything To Nothing is the second album from Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra. It’s everything you want a rock record to be: raw, urgent, emotional, and 100 percent authentic: ‘There is nothing fake about this record’, says frontman and lyricist, Andy Hull. ‘There’s not one fake sound on it. We recorded it live because we wanted it to sound like a band, and I think it does: live and loud!’
Neil Young / Revolution Blues From On The Beach, this song totally wraps your body in its groove. And the lyrics are stellar: ‘I hear that Laurel Canyon is filled with famous stars but I hate them worse than leppers and I’ll kill them in their cars’.
The Shout Out Louds are working on a new album, titled Work, and the first single off it is called Walls. The band is have been oled up in a Seattle studio with Phil Ek (Fleet Foxes, The Shins, Modest Mouse).
Bob Dylan / She Belongs To Me Great lyrics. A different kind of love song. A portrait.
London rock band, Young Guns, have a new album — Winter Kiss — out now.
Thrice / Stare At The Sun Thrice are my all-time favourite band. They’re catchy but still super heavy when they need to be. Stare At The Sun has one of the best intros to a song ever and the whole thing has got such a good feel to it. From the bassline to the lyrics, everything fits perfectly where it should be.
After four million albums sold worldwide, a number one and nine times platinum selling album in Australia with Get Born, four Top Ten Modern Rock and Rock hits in the US, Jet have returned to form with their third album Shaka Rock, which has spent three weeks in the Top 15 of the Australian charts since its release
Fela Kuti / Water Get No Enemy Amazing arrangement, mean ass horns, this track bristles it’s so tight, then it knocks you down like a rhino charge. My mind was blown the first time I heard it.
Two Dancers is the second Wild Beasts album. Co-produced by the band and northern enigma Richard Formby in remote Norfolk earlier this year, it follows 2008’s widely celebrated debut Limbo, Panto. The result is a record of tightrope-high drama, a sound that shimmers and sways in the band’s own mercurial fashion.
Talk Talk / I Believe In You The backing vocals in this track are astonishing, they are so cold and eerie, Plus, the organ sound is what you hear as you go to heaven. Apparently the track was arranged from hours and hours of recorded improv. I’m a big ambient fan, so discovering this track was like stumbling across Music For Airports all over again.
Australian rockers Powderfinger’s new album Golden Rule was again recorded with Nick DiDia, who was responsible for their massively successful Internationalist, Odyssey Number Five, and Vulture Street albums. The band are the headliners for the Big Day Out and Homebake, and are also curating a festival in Brisbane.
Rolling Stones / Gimme Shelter From the guitar intro solo genius and riffing, through Mick’s insightful lyric, to when Mary Clayton’s spine chilling vocals break at the peak of the song, it is a benchmark for me as to how a song can have restraint and be heavy at the same time. It wreaks of a band in fine form. I’m also a sucker for a dirty harmonica. Give me dirty harmonica!
As The Pinx stand facing a sold-out crowd of 1800 at the Variety Playhouse, Atlanta’s hardest-working power trio have little time to dissect how they’ve reached this moment in one short year. After proving themselves in dives and at festivals across the country and living on the road, The Pinx now find themselves collecting accolades from a certain Grammy-award winning band that chooses to remain anonymous (but is identified as any of several very large, extinct proboscidian mammals of the genus Mammut), airing live performances on television, and debuting an album that led Ben Harper to personally book them on his tour. On stage, The Pinx are known for their violent performances, opening veins, pushing limits and reassuring the crowd that Rock and Roll at its best is sexy, snarky, dark and sweet.
The Knack / Good Girls Don’t First, yes they do. And second, The Knack were way better musicians than people gave them credit for.
UK band Flood Of Red have recently released their debut album Leaving Everything Behind on their own label Dark City. Produced by Brian McTernan (Cave In, Thrice, Converge), Leaving Everything Behind sees the band making a leap into new territories. Toned-down and refined, Flood of Red now paint from a broader musical palette, incorporating the ambient and soundscape elements that earlier recordings hinted at, but without ever compromising the heavy blow they’ve been praised for.
Coconut / Fever Ray This is a song I can listen to anytime, anywhere, and it will send me to a totally different place. The line ‘Take me anywhere, take me there’, sums up how I feel when I’m listening to it. It has an incredibly powerful atmosphere for just one woman to create. The different sounds used, the vocal production and the slow progression of the song all combine to create an eerie, yet refreshing masterpiece.
With a blend of old-school punk, world beat and modern pop influences, Chicago-based AM Taxi combine experience with exuberance on their Virgin Records debut, We Don’t Stand A Chance due out early 2010.
The Sonics / Have Love, Will Travel Adam: Of all the garage bands forming in the Pacific Northwest around the early to mid-1960s, The Sonics had the most fuel. They were louder and faster, yet they somehow had more soul than their peers. Have Love, Will Travel is ideal for any impromptu three A.M. wake up calls. You’ll be a hit with the neighbors.
My Secret Playlist is a music discovery website and weekly email publication. We invite our favourite bands and musicians to give us the rundown on their eight favourite songs right now. These are their words on the music that inspires them.
