First up is Dirty Projectors (artist name of Brooklyn-based musician Dave Longstreth). It was announced sometime last week that Dirty Projectors would be replacing Liars for the support slot of the ATP-curated Battles date in May. Whilst I'm still in mourning of Liars having pulled out, boy I am I excited about seeing Dirty Projectors. For some reason unknown to me, I ignored DP's superb 2007 offering Rise Above, an album consisting of covers of tracks taken from Black Flag's seminal 1981 album Damaged as reimagined from memory. Longstreth replaces Black Flag's hardcore punk sound with a mix of classical orchestration, samples and skewed rhythms, creating something rather special in the process.
Next up is another act who too for reasons beyond my control passed me by in 2007. The delightfully-named Psychedelic Horseshit are a three-piece from Columbus, Ohio, who make music they themselves describe as 'shitgaze'. Their raw, jumbled fusion of fuzzy guitars, synth organs and brittled drums make them sound like Times New Viking's rougher little brother. Their first full-length Magic Flowers Droned came out on Slitbreeze Records at the end of the last year, it's really fucking good. Here is an mp3 for you to enjoy, my pick of the post.
My third pick is Graveyard Girl, the second single to be taken from French electronic musician M83 (real name Anthony Gonzales) new record Saturdays = Youth, which is out now on Mute. You may know M83 for his remix work, which includes tracks for Bloc Party and Goldfrapp to name but a few, however, it is his shoegaze (not to be confused with our new favourite genre shitgaze peeps) inspired solo work that stands out for me the most. Saturdays = Youth has a different kind of heft to his previous records, yet it still rich in M83 conventions such as heavy usage of reverb effects and softly spoken vocals. Check it out.
mp3: M83 - Graveyard Girl
I won't pretend to you that I know loads of shit about African music, because I don't. However, I do know that the new album from Malian kora player Toumani Diabaté is great stuff. Toumani comes from a long family tradition of kora players and has been playing music for over 20 years now. Just like Konono N°1, he collaborated with Björk on her 2007 album Volta and is currently the opening act on her tour of the UK. The Mande Variations is Toumani's second solo offering, as well as his first since 1988. The album is just the man and his unadorned kora, recorded with maximum clarity as he pays tribute to his roots and peers. Defo recommended.
My last offering to you is the latest single to be taken from Why?'s highly-recommended third album Alopecia, which I first wrote about as one of my favourite albums released back in March. I seriously cannot get enough of Song Of The Sad Assassin, the line "Billy the kid did what he did and he died" is fantastic in its own right and the video for the single is directed by animator Mike L. Mayfield, known for his work on American Dad and Family Guy. What more could you possibly want?
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