A Time For Lions is the new album from the Portland based trio Stars of Track and Field. The album was produced by John King of the Dust Brothers (Beastie Boys, Beck, Linkin Park, Carlos Santana), along with Stars of Track and Field who co-produced 5 of the 11 tracks.
TV on the Radio / Family Tree Beautiful expansive music. The melody is engaging and the lyrics are visually compelling. Adebimpe’s got such a powerful voice, which this song features out front. Enjoy the falsetto doubles and the deep rhythmic building of the outro.
For their latest album, Stuck In Lalaland, French duo, The Penelopes, left their home studio for that of Arnaud Rebotini, the man behind Zend Avesta and Blackstrobe. They cover Statik Dancin, the original anthem praised by James Murphy, and revisit the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage. Their friend Chloe Delaume takes vocals on the songs Stains and 4′47.
Slowdive / When The Sun Hits We’re big fans of shoegazing tunes. While everyone tends to mention My Bloody Valentine, we actually prefer Ride and Slowdive. In general, we like songs with a real pop music approach. These bands have the perfect balance between pop music and noise.
Los Angeles-based band Divisible, consisting of singer Shola and drummer Albert Sadia, released their debut album Less Than Lion recently, a collection of songs which includes a reinterpretation of Radiohead’s Exit Music [For A Film]) and explores Shola’s journey from the halls of Harvard to a West African reconciliation with her father, who lives in Ghana via a propulsive mixture of rock, electronica, and world music sounds.
Kate Bush / Cloudbusting When you’re working on a new record, you have to seek out new sources of inspiration. I had never listened to Kate Bush before, even though all my musical heroes referenced her. Now, I can’t believe what I was missing all these years.
After twelve years, five albums, hundreds of shows, festival appearances, and a string of gold and platinum awards, Something For Kate front man Paul Dempsey is spending 2009 stepping out on his own to release his first solo album in the middle of the year. Recorded at a friend’s house on the NSW central coast, with producer Wayne Connolly and mixed in LA with Doug Boehm, the album is a departure from the heavier, more intense Something For Kate sound. Dempsey plays every instrument on the record, and uses space and atmosphere in every song.
TV on the Radio / Dancing Choose This track has so much manic energy: buzzsaw synth-bass, mad shuffling drums and a rapid-fire lyrical rant that sounds like some kind of crazed public service announcement. Guaranteed to shake you from your mid-morning malaise.
Tom Hespe, Xavier Naughton, Jai Pyne and Ivan Lisyak are Sydney band, The Paper Scissors. They play rock music, taking particular notes from funk, hip hop production, Bowie, and Talking Heads. They sometimes pay homage to folk stylings, country music and Film Soundtracks, dabbling in gigabytes worth of music.
Broken Social Scene / 7/4 (shoreline) This tune blows me away every time. Broken Social Scene really personify an amazing mix of artfulness and pop genius, being able to do a tune in an obscure time signature (7/4) complete with hooks and a beat that perfectly soundtracks highway driving. Killer! The way Kevin Drew and guest Feist sing together is beautiful — you can tell they were singing it at maximum lung volume with a tenacity not found in many vocalists.
Formed in 2003 outside of Phoenix, Arizona, Lydia went through a few line-up changes before settling on its current roster. In 2004, they won a contest with Blink–182 owned Atticus Clothing, which resulted in their track, Your Taste is My Attention, being included on the Atticus compilation, Drag the Lake, Volume 3. To date, Lydia has over 54,000 friends on their MySpace page and over 3.9 million total plays to date — a strong indicator of the power of their connection with their fans.
The Avett Brothers / Weight Of Lies This song and band are awesome, point blank. Both lyrically and melodically, this song draws you in as soon as they strum their first chord. It’s a journey of reflection and realization; meant to be understood, and felt.
East Hundred is a five-piece band from Philadelphia whose sound has been likened to Denali and Death Cab For Cutie. Their debut album Passenger features nine lushly produced tracks and moves through a haunting landscape of loss, regret and, ultimately, hope. East Hundred began as a basement recording project in 2004 when brothers Brooke and Will Blair invited Beril Guceri, Brooke’s then-girlfriend, to add vocals to their heavily-synthed downtempo tracks. ‘Of course there were hesitations in working seriously and creatively with my boyfriend and his brother,’ Guceri says. ‘Singing leaves you so vulnerable, but it was Brooke’s support that made it comfortable’.
WHAM! / Last Christmas Guilty as charged. But let me explain: it ended up on a Christmas Mixtape I was given as a gift. It was meant to be a joke, but there’s something about it I can’t get out of my head. Maybe it’s the sleigh bells or the ridiculously catchy hook. I’ll be over it in a few days, though.
Back in the day, Australian singer-songwriter Alex Lloyd was the frontman for the awesome blues rock band, Mother Hubbard, who released one amazing album and then imploded. Since then, he’s reinvented himself as a mellow, melodic, and beautifully introspective solo artist, with a new album — Good In The Face Of A Stranger — to be released on November 1 through Inertia Distribution.
The Good The Bad and The Queen / Green Fields I love this track. In saying that though, I’m usually always blown away with anything Damon Albarn does. He seems to have his finger on the pulse and I admire his constant recreation of himself, not to take anything away from Tony Allen, Paul Simonon and Simon Tong making a very interesting, collaborative sound.
So, we have a wickedly talented and creative producer and DJ laying down what’s good and what’s, well, not so good. Yes it’s, wait for it, just a little longer, nearly there. Ok, it’s Moby, from some otherworldly universe.
John Lee Hooker / I Hated The Day I Was Born ‘If I could sing, I’d love to sing like John Lee Hooker. Him or David Bowie. I don’t have a beautiful singing voice, so I really appreciate the deep and gravelly voice that Hooker possesses. I really like everything about John Lee Hooker’s music. I’m a big fan of old blues anyway, especially music from the pre-war era. It was so much simpler back in the day. You plugged in and you played. Studios are like instruments now. This song is one of my all-time favorites. “I love depressing music”: that was a quote in my high school yearbook’.
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.
