Catching up on my letter writing

[koganbot]

Dear male dudes in the Black Eyed Peas,

There is only one person in your group who can sing, and you are not she.

Sincerely,

A Fan


Dear male singer dude in the xx,

There may not be anyone in your group who can sing, but if there were, it would most assuredly never be you.

Sincerely,

Frank

Comments

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't played most of these for a few months, so they're not necessarily recommendations per se'. And replaying a couple of them this afternoon, the Caspa ("dubstep," supposedly, but more dub than step to my ears, and with soulish songs and rappish raps mixed in) sounded much better than I'd remembered, and the Joakim (electro eclecticism including sludge-metal parts) sounds much duller. Slaraffenland (post-Radiohead Euro-prog that actually sounds good!!??? w/ definite minimalist stillness tendencies) were perhaps more manageable on their EP last year whereon they covered "Paranoid Android" and A-Ha. My mixed feelings about King Khan et. al. have been expressed on ILM. Crocodiles are probably more likeable if you think of them as a Jesus and Mary Chain clone than a No Age clone. And the only thing I remember about (Austinites) The Laughing is that their album sounded better than I've come to expect for an indie rock band; whether that means its worthwhile in the long run is still to be determined. Much preferred them all to the xx, though. (Among the less marginal first batch: Quiero Club are Monterrey synth-poppers who might appeal to CSS lovers; Rhett Frazier Inc are early Funkadelic obsessives from I believe California who understand that part of what made Funkadelic so great is how beautiful they could sound; Baroness are atmospheric metal guys from the lower Atlantic coast whose occasionally gorgeous Southern rock guitar solos are helping them win year-end polls at all the metal magazines despite not necessarily having many memorable songs per se'; Shally Shapiro might have better Annie songs than Annie has lately.)

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

Uh, not that anybody is paying attention to this anymore probably, but it turns out the Laughing basically sound...like Vampire Weekend (who I don't hate but don't love). Anglophilic Afrophilic nerd-rock. [i]Maybe[/i] with more going on rhythmically than VW, though I wouldn't swear to that, and probably with as little going on vocally and less going on lyrically. So, not recommeneded, not even close, but maybe some potential there. They're from here in Austin, so maybe I'll try to go catch them live sometime.

[chuckeddy.livejournal.com]

They don't have VW's sense of melody, either -- and yeah, defintely no evidence of "clever worldplay" on a VW level, though mainly the words are just hard to make out. Still, sometimes they slip into a goth moodiness I don't mind. And a track or two (#7) seem to have more kick to them than VW do.

The publicity sticker on the cover of my promo copy compares them to, get this, Harry Nillson, Os Mutantes, Silver Apples, Love, Roxy Music, Sonic Youth, 13th Floor Elevators (pretty much all wishful thinking, as far as I can tell, but a pretty neat list) and Animal Collective (which might well be a clue.)

Replayed the '09 Slarrafenland CD yesterday, though, and once again thought it was really beautiful, in some weird convoluted way I can't put my finger on. "Post-Radiohead" might not be right -- more likely they sound closer to some obscure '70s progresssive rock band from, uh, Canterbury or somewhere I've never heard. (They're Danish themselves.)