Formerly known as Opanoni and The Raindrops, Circle have been described as many things, including ‘Australia’s answer to the Flaming Lips’, as well as ‘Cat Stevens at 15 walking through a candy store’.
Bill Callahan / Eid Ma Clack Shaw What? What the fuck did he just say? Huh? Wah? Yeah, well only Billy boy could get away with a song like this and come out the other side even cooler. He’s a storyteller better than most, and his world view is drenched in empathy, love, hate, colour, dark and light. I didn’t stop laughing the first couple of times I heard this song, and although the subject matter is clearly a heavy one, it still makes me smile. Listen out for the horse connections.
Todd Goldstein spent the last few years playing guitar in the Brooklyn indie-pop band, Harlem Shakes. To those who were listening closely, though, Goldstein has always also been ARMS, a persona he’s been crafting since 2004. As ARMS, Todd takes up a decidedly slower, sweeter, sloppier endeavor, working alone and singing in a sad, idiosyncratic baritone. ARMS’ debut full-length, Kids Aflame is a labor of love by an artist with an ear for the beauty in noise, the primacy of melody, and the timelessness of melancholy pop music.
Thom Yorke / All For The Best The very early ’90s Nickelodeon live-action ‘kids’ show, Pete & Pete, more or less defined (and, to be honest, still defines) my early sense of the funny, beautiful, strange qualities of youth. The theme song still gets me a little misty — it’s called Hey Sandy, by a band called Polaris. That band’s lead songwriter, Mark Mulcahy, was recently the subject of a pretty star-studded tribute album (it’s got The National, Michael Stipe, Thom Yorke, and others) in the wake of his wife’s tragic death. Thom Yorke’s cover of Mulcahy’s song, All for the Best, sounds like the his own solo stuff — minimal electronic beats, scary-sounding samples, a buzzy electric guitar that plops in out of nowhere — but is a little sadder than anything he could have written on his own. It suits him.
David Sheppard has received critical acclaim for his work with the group Phelan Sheppard. He is also a founder member of Ellis Island Sound and a member of Smile Down Upon Us, The Wisdom Of Harry, and Continental Film Night. Phelan Sheppard released the album Harps Old Master on The Leaf Label in 2006. A collaborative single with Niandra Ladies was released on Static Caravan in 2007. On Some Faraway Beach, David’s rather large biography of Brian Eno, is out now in the US through the Chicago Review Press.
Tenniscoats / Ichnichi The Japanese duo of Saya and Ueno recorded their album Temporacha in a miscellany of outdoor locations, allowing the musique concrète of the world to become a legitimate component of their sound. Ichnichi is constructed from little more than wheezing accordion bellows, guitar harmonics and the surround-sound of birdsong. It may sound studiedly naïve and somewhat contrived on paper, but it works: music as total sensual seduction.
It’s been an action packed journey for Tiny Masters Of Today. Almost overnight, the band went from a few homemade recordings on a MySpace page to collaborating with Karen O and Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fred Schneider (B-52s) and Gibby Haynes, being remixed by CSS and Liars, and touring the world. David Bowie even praised their first homemade single as ‘Genius’. Not bad for a band that double as full-time students in the New York Public School System. Their new album, Skeletons, has just been released on Mute.
Green Day / 2000 Light Years Away My favorite Green Day love song. I have a Green Day pillow case of this album cover.
The Duke Spirit are one of the UK’s most exciting and dynamic rock bands. Their second studio album, Neptune, was produced by the Godfather of Stoner rock, Chris Goss, (Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age and Soulwax), and was released almost two years after their debut album, Cuts Across the Land, which belonged more to the illustrious British lineage of My Bloody Valentine and Jesus And Mary Chain than to any contemporary ‘rock’ scene.
Bo Diddley / Who Do You Love? Still a pure statement of rock and roll intention. Gunslingin’ Bo marshaling an awesome collection of imagery into his persona, a rattlesnake-hide house with a skull chimney. A black ex-boxer, hard as nails, female guitarist, stand up drums, all in the late 50s, proper rock n’ roll pissing upon Elvis, Buddy Holly and the rest.
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.
