Henric De La Cour - Grenade

Grenade takes some heavy heavy Depeche Mode inspiration and runs it through a shoegazing filter to stunning results. Simply a great single. The B-side, a punky goth'ed up cover of black metal legends Venom's Harmony Dies is also cool. This delivered on clear vinyl with a great cover? Me gusta.

But the best thing is the video. It's a real contender for video of the year and takes one part corpsepainted synth-king and mixes him with some of Sweden's best beach-volleyball players for an epic standoff in Portugal. The result is brilliant.

The School - Never Thought I'd See The Day

Finally The School released their comeback single. I'm a huge fan of their first album, Loveless Unbeliever, which offers shimmering indiepop that draws heavily on Northern Soul and 60s girlpop while still sounding fresh. Never Thought I'd See The Day sounds familiar to anyone who heard their first album, yet more assured. While none of the four tracks are a match for the best Loveless Unbeliever tracks the EP offers 4 slices of cute, retro indie pop that is guaranteed to leave a smile on your face.

EP highlight Where Does Your Heart Belong also got a nice b&w video! 

She grew so lonely in the end, the angels picked her for their friend

Fact 1. 60s girlbands has some of the best pop ever recorded.
Fact 2. The Shangri-Las could make the most camp subject sound like a matter of life and death.
Fact 3. Out On The Streets is better than most of The Beatles work.

So buying this nicely packaged double CD wasn't a choice. It was something I had to do in order to complete my life. I'm now one step closer to nirvana. 

 

(better than A Day In The Life)

Don't be stupid, be a smarty...

C'mon join the Nazi party! 

This is hands down the funniest vinyl I own. To Be Or Not To Be (The Hitler Rap), a novelty rap-tune by the great Mel Brooks, released in the early 80s. Mel Brooks owe his career to the Nazi-spoofing The Producers so it only made sense that he'd return to the subject someday. And what a return!

From the back-up vocalists breathlessly singing "Sieg Heil" in the intro, the incredibly cheesy disco-rap sounds, the fact that the lyrics actually are a pretty decent rundown of Hitlers rise to power and the entire WW2 to the simple fact that this is Mel Brooks. Rapping. In character. As Hitler.
Madness.

Here's a taste of the lyrics for you!
"Like humpty dumpty offa that wall all the little countries they began to fall
Holland Belgium Denmark Poland -- the troops were rockin' and the tanks were rollin'
We were swingin' along with a song in our hearts.
And "Deutschland uber alles" was making the charts"

The video is "classic" as well. Female dancers straight out of Cabaret and leather-clad male dancers straight out of the nearest gay club. All with Third Reich regalia. And Mel Brooks breakdancing. It will blow your mind. And possible scar you for the rest of your life, but that is the sacrifice we have to make.

This was actually a sizeable hit. #12 in both the US and UK, #3 in Australia and a #2 in Sweden! Insanity. But a good reason to debut my "from the vault" tag. For those posts when I feel like digging up something old from my collection.

Evil. Sparkly evil.

Oh Nick Cave. Your sense of humour is one of the more appealing things with you. But you also got a keen sense of design. Take a look at this Record Store Day exclusive 12" of Evil, from the latest Grinderman album. The cover looks soo good. Matte black and then reflective big red EVIL. Nothing else on the front, just some tiny label-info on the back. The vinyl kept in another matte black cover sleeve.

The vinyl itself? Red. But not just red. SPARKLY red. Is this Nick Cave taking a subtle dig at Twilight? Very possible. Photos can't capture the full sparkliness of it, but trust me when I say it sparkles like Bowie in the morning sun.

And the the final touch is the catalogue number. 12MUTE666. Because what other number could it be? None, I tell you. None. And a bonus CD with all the tracks is included as well. Good consumer service, goood consumer service.

The video is cool too. Very very simple. There is a vampire squid (yes, that is a real species) and a yellow bird. That is all needed for Evil.

Nasha - Narsha!

Narsha's debut EP is a prime example of k-pop packaging going above and beyond the norm. Narsha is a member of Brown Eyed Girls, one of the biggest girlbands not associated to the three main Korean talent agencies (think "major labels"). She went solo last summer with a 7 track EP which came in an extravagant 7" sized package.

The bottom third is actually a slip-over that can be taken off in order to access the disc and booklet. Once opened up and the disc removed, this is what meets the eye. One golden booklet for lyrics/credits and one additional booklet for the photographic concepts.

Narsha plays around with gothic and religious themes in her artwork. One spread has her dressed up as a stylish nun, another as an enchantress who literally has feathers for hair (with smoke coming out her eyes), one as an innocent sultry redhead. The album-cover goes for an Alice In Wonderland vibe. She is a tempting witch or a white clad madonna. And one is just a feral birdlike creature. I wish I had a scanner so I could properly share more of the artwork, it really captures a gothic feel and sense of mystery, bewitchment and magic.

The feathers are a theme that goes through the entire design, in the video to lead track Bbi-Ri Bop-A Narsha even sprouts wings. Versions of other characters from the booklet also show up. Bbi-Ri Bop-A is my favourite k-pop single of last year, it's such a simple track but filled with atmosphere and small tweaks to keep it interesting. And of course the hook that sounds like someone casting a spell on you. It's an uplifting tale that lets us know that all our memories, all our sorrows can be erased. We just need to give Narsha our soul first... a cheap price to pay, if you ask me. If there wasn't a goth r'n'b-pop subgenre before, there is now!

Day 6: The wonders of Mishindie

Many years ago I got to know an Australian named Misha. We connected over love for music, old movies and quirky stuff. Since then we've been in contact, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a lot, but we really reconnected during the spring this year. And part of that was sending tonnes of music back and forth. Misha, being an indie queen, sent me all sorts of indiepop and I sent her more electronic things. And while it is a tad unnerving how much better than me she knows Swedish indiepopbands, I've found myself loving a lot of her recommendations.



My favourite Mishindie comes in three distinct flavours. There is the updated 60s girlpop, there's the fuzzy shoegaze/noisepop and then there's the 80s flavoured variety. My Favourite (who obviously formed pre-Google) goes for all out 80s love. New Order and The Smiths meet under the burning mushroom cloud of Hiroshima. Insanely strong song, amazing lyrics and there are at least 4-5 other My Favourite tunes of this calibre.



The School (whose Loveless Unbeliever will rank very high on my Best Albums of ´10 list) go for updated 60s girlband. And do is splendidly. I Want You Back might have my favourite chorus of the year.



So logically the third song would come from the noisepop. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart aren't that noisy though, despite loads of layers, feedback they're more like a John Huges movie than anything else. Dreamy recollections of teenage joy and life.



The Blanche Hudson Weekend is both proper noisepop *and* 60s girlband revival! One of the better mutations of the "Be My Baby" beat and the simple line "I could have been your baby, but now I want you dead" would make this a perfect soundtrack to some 60s exploitation flick. Preferably in black and white.



Speaking of movies, Linda Linda Linda is the kind of film that makes me believe in life, music, happiness and Ramones-inspired punkpop! It might, in fact, be my favourite music movie. Some of that comes how deftly it avoids the cliches but also from the 4 actresses actually playing the songs themselves, and doing a pretty decent job of it. Like this Ramonesy popsong.



And finally Wild Nothing's dreamy dreamy "Live In Dreams". For some reason I keep thinking of a kent song every time I hear this. Odd, as kent could never be this light and breezy. So that'd be my six favorite Mishindie songs. Even though Trailer Trash Tracys deserve an honorary mention.

Lykke Li and the correct pronunciation of Paris

Of all the stuff released during my time at EMI Lykke Li's debut, Youth Novels, was the most exciting. There was something unique to her, her mixture of vulnerability, femininity and toughness stood out. It was clear she was a future star in the making. And she played superb liveshows where her confidence and control grew stronger and stronger for each time I saw her. Something that reflects on her latest single, in a glorious (but not exactly photofriendly) reflecting silver sleeve.

Thanks to being a "randomly" chosen winner of a Facebook contest the very first mail that arrived to my new address was a brand new, shiny 7". There are worse ways to inaugurate a new mail box, no? The single is great because it works as a single, revealing two very different sides of Lykke Li. The two tracks complements each other, each would be lesser on its own. Get Some, the A-side, is a take-no-prisoners declaration of sexual control, driven by heavy percussion and broken surf guitars. But the B-side Paris Blues is a sublime track filled with heartache and showcases just how much Lykke Li's voice developed in the last years. And she pronounces Paris in the French way (I got a francophile streak), making me wish for a version sung in French.

Get Some got a good hypnotic video too. Hard to imagine it's the same woman who nervously presented her album all those years ago. Then, shy indie girl. Now menacing cult leader on a mission to capture men. Progress?