Bon Iver
by When this scruffy fellow opens his gob, something high and mighty emanates. His music is great for long drives, in cold places and long nights in warm places. We speak of Bon Iver, who we interviewed recently. No frills, just acoustics and gentle melodies. Your music is beautiful. Yet there’s a dark undercurrent to it, in the minor key chord changes in particular. Is there really such thing as a good happy song? ‘I think there is joy in a sad song: the alleviation. The pain being instantaneously discovered, and pushed out. It gives a sense of welling up. I think the firing in the brain for emotions, all happen in pathways nearby, or the same tracks or something, because they seem so eerily similar’. ‘Good Winter’: does this speak for your appreciation of the colder climes? Or is it a passing reference to one winter in particular? ‘It’s more about the sacred quality of winter for me, in general. Every season, every first snow. Every center of winter’. I like the double tracked vocals on the album — very John Lennony. Is it hard to get that falsetto up there without it? ‘The double vocals were a way to mask ego, I think, on the record and the vocals. I could be expressive without being so obtuse’. If you were to play us a cover song right now, on your acoustic, what would it be and could we sing backing vocals? ‘Umbrella, by Rhiana or Bleeding Love, by Leonna Lewis. You pick. I would love to have a choir behind me’.
Tagged: folk music, pop music
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From the moment you hear her voice, you’ll be hooked. July Flame is the seventh album for Laura Veirs — a former guest contributor to Lost At E Minor — and an album you must have in your collection. Her beautiful voice is so familiar and comforting. Veirs has come a long way from the punk band she was once a part of. The title track, in particular, will make you feel like you’re not alone if you find yourself falling in love with a Peach.
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Findlay Brown’s Love You Will Find You
A former bare-knuckle boxer from Yorkshire, England (for real), Findlay Brown was heralded by many as the UK’s answer to Jose Gonzales when his debut album, Separated By The Sea, was released on Peacefrog Records in 2007. Love Will Find You moves beyond his earlier folk sound to a more ambitious — and soulful — place. Produced by Bernard Butler (Suede), the album features songs that are lush and intimate, influenced as much by Phil Spector and Ennio Morricone as by Roy Orbison or The Beatles. The album came together while Brown was stuck on his sister’s couch nursing a broken leg, having been run over by a cab driver: ‘I’d already started going back and listening to a lot of records I’d grown up on, like Elvis Presley, soul music, doo wop, Phil Spector, The Righteous Brothers and the like. I had an idea about making a modern record influenced by the songwriting of the late 50s and early 60s. I just started writing, trying to work out what made a universally great song, like Stand By Me. These new songs are the first part of that process’. You can download his new single, Holding Back The Night, for free in our Music Download section.
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Cellist Ben Sollee is like Andrew Bird with a little more soul, or Arthur Russell with a bit more bounce. Read more
Also by JULIA HENNOCK
The tightly-wound compact fluorescent light bulbs we’ve welcomed into our homes have a little sister. Plumen is low-energy, yet she’s trendy, twisted and a designer’s dream. Not yet in production, you can see Plumen hanging alone in MOMA.
Fancy a fern in the face? The Sky Planter will fulfill your greenest fantasies. It is designed to conserve water, save floor space and puzzle visitors. An internal reservoir system to feeds water directly to the roots, so no water evaporates or drips. And somehow the soil is ‘locked in’. Woo!
A brick of any other kind would look as sweet, believes artist Jan Vormann. She began filling crumbling walls with multi-coloured Lego bricks in Bocchignano, a little village close to Rome, and was then invited to continue her rainbow reparations in Tel Aviv and Yaffo. Beautiful appropriation or ugly sacrilege?
YOU'RE SAYING (3)
Ajo Mike said | 26 June, 2008
Forever Emma, Forever Ago is the best album of the year. Possibly the best album of the decade.
Mike said | 6 December, 2008
Great article on Bon Iver here:
http://volumeone.org/magazine/articles/280/JUSTIN_VERNON_br_Anywhere_from_Here.html
HAVE YOUR SAY
I’ve known the New York-based artist Jordan Awan for quite a long time now. Since he was in high school in fact. So I have had the privilege of watching his art truly evolve into something amazing. Read more
Dear Miss Helena, one time host of children’s show Romper Room, you have a lot to answer for. Yes, squeaky clean Miss Helena of wholesome blouse and values, I have not forgotten those childhood years spent patiently glued to the television waiting for you to call out my name through the magic ‘looking glass’ — that portal to ‘good’ children everywhere. Read more
Micah P. Hinson is like every rustic, broken down, and pieced back together country great that’s ever been. Only hipper and slightly less sombre. This track, Diggin’ A Grave, is a button-up hoe down with a classic pop chorus and a jangly banjo accompaniment. Yup, some folk have all the fun.
There’s something quite captivating about the muted tones and soft textures of Anna Fraser’s photographs. The Australian designer has a very precise sense of framing, which is reflected in the slightly insidery, but beautifully balanced perspective that her work provides on places and scenery that only few people ever get to experience. By her own admission, Fraser ‘prefers things that are not usually very fashionable. Like beige, lots of beige and maybe a bit of taupe’. We think she might be onto something. Read more
This is a simple, fun interactive website that lets you play and construct your own models that follow simple physical laws. It’s very immediate and fun to start throwing the models around and enjoy hours of wasted time.
Listening to Mum’s fourth album — Go Go Smear the Poison Ivy — for the first time, I was awash with sentimentalism. Amidst carnival trumpets and burlesque beats, there’s a sense of this being a bohemian rhapsody. Perhaps it’s the mix of cello and brass with experimental electronica. Or maybe it’s just the soft vocals that cascade over playful, imaginative sounds. Whatever it is, it’s totally brilliant. [see also Sigur Ros' Heima]
Listen to Mum’s track, The Amateur Show.
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The fashion brand Jack Spade created a new concept in winter fashion: the moustache gloves. Available in red, blue, grey and yellow, they are recommended for putting right below your nose. Enjoy! Read more
WE'RE POSTING / SOME OF THE BEST
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Michelle Blade’s psychedelic artwork
Michelle Blade’s washed out paintings are deceptively simple, her washy acrylics creating psychedelic textures and conjuring ghostly figures from the past. Read more
Get lost in a daydream or a craving for something sweet while gazing at these cool sculptures by Brooklyn-based WiNK WiNK PONY. Made using clay, tree bark, wood, and mossy moss.
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Francis said | 18 June, 2008
this guy’s album is AWESOME, nothing more, nothing less…