Something to look forward to... Antony and the Johnsons

As has been much talked about lately, Antony and the Johnsons are set to release a 5 track EP called Another World on October 7th under Secretly Canadian, followed by a new album (at last!) in January next year. It's been three years since the band's second full-length, I am a Bird Now hit the stores and became a Mercury Music Prize winner (woot!) and fans of the warbley-one are in for a treat if recent side-projects are anything to go by.

I know I'm not the only one whose been spinning Hercules & Love Affair's stomping Blind non-stop since it leaked, hooked on the funky drag-esque vocals of Antony Hegarty himself, coupled with a stabbing bass-line and brass section that spills sonorously away into the air like a samba as Mr. H urges us to feel it.

While we're on horns, Bjork's latest single from last year's Volta is scheduled to be The Dull Flame of Desire, a brooding duet with Antony Hegarty. The track is a bold coupling of two unique voices against an almost militant brass orchestra and tribal drum which at over 7 minutes long displays the dextrous tonality of Antony's voice brilliantly. The track comes out on September 29th, but you can hear it here, courtesy of The Selector:

Bjork featuring Antony Hegarty - The Dull Flame of Desire

Now for a real treat, give Antony's I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy a listen. This track is a sublime exercise in subtlety as Antony's restrained vocals are gently backed by a melancholy piano that carries on some seriously intimate lyrics dealing with a truly impossible love:

Antony and the Johnsons - I Fell in Love With a Dead Boy

P.S. By now you really ought to have I am a Bird Now and for the sweet cool-fire of Icelandic desire, why not grab Bjork's Volta while you're at it?

Regina Watch...

As you all may know, I took the name of this blog, Dance Anthem of the 80s from a little known Regina Spektor song, in which Ms. Spektor goes walking, through this city, like a drunk but not. In honour of that fact, I thought I'd see what everyone's favourite Russian New Yoiker was up to these days...

It's been two years since the last album, Begin to Hope was released, and we've all been patiently waiting, going through the live sets to wonder what favourite misc track might eventually get committed to analogue and kick off a new album. However, following a collapse on stage late last year and subsequent development of vertigo, it seems we may have a little longer to go before that dream gets realised. However, with the only up-coming show scheduled this week for the 23rd at San Francisco's Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival perhaps we can begin to hope some studio time is being booked? (Excuse the pun).

Until then I point you to this fantastic website which includes a vast catalogue of live recordings and demo's for those of you too eager to await any real news. My personal favourite among these live rarities has to be 'Aquarius' which isn't actually available at the ReSpekt site mentioned, so I shall post it here. The pause where she gets the song slightly wrong and says 'sorry' is completely adorable, and totally what I love about live music.

Born of a sign that carries vessels
But in a month that brings just ice
I know I question things too quickly
But I've never wondered if I've loved

Regina Spektor - Aquarius (Live)

Five For Freaking Good Writing

In a nod to my band, and because it's a Saturday and I should be doing other things but my girlfriend is off doing doing her thing for the festival of Rakhri, I am presenting you with a choice selection of five songs with quite simply excellent song-writing. From my man Craig Finn to the excellent Joanna Newsom and the mythically minded Laura Veirs, this is an exercise in song writing genius, to inspire, delight and generally fill up your ears with.

We Speak in the store, I'm a sensitive bore,
You seem markedly more, and I'm oozing surprise.
But it's late in the day, and you're well on your way,
What was golden went grey, and I'm suddenly shy..

Joanna Newsom - Peach Plum Pear (Live at Bottletree)

I had a thought while I was sleeping
And I dreamed about a place for us to rest
Eternity under the old oak tree
But I go too far, I guess..

Eels - Ugly Love

Now she's pinned and way too shaky.
She don't wanna tell the doctor everything she's taken
The paramedics hovered over her like a somber mourning family
They gave her activating charcoal, they flooded her with saline..

The Hold Steady - The Chillout Tent

Dreaming we were stones in black stillness
Dreaming of the death of the sun
Waking to a world of white blindness
Painted eyes of the holy ones.

Laura Veirs - Don't Lose Yourself

And we'll undress beside the ashes of the fire
Both our tender bellies wound in baling wire
All the more a pair of underwater pearls
Than the oak tree and its resurrection fern .

Iron & Wine - Resurrection Fern (For more on this excellent track, see this entry from Tha Bomb Shelter)

I feel like this feature is probably likely to become a regular, because if there's one thing I love it's a lyric that tells a complete story from start to finish. Regular readers might wonder why I didn't add any Death Cab, but to be perfectly honest with you Ben Gibbard writes so prolifically and so presciently it would be hard for me to choose just one track. I highly recommend checking out Company Calls Epilogue from the We Have the Facts... album. This song painfully explores a spurned lover on hearing the love of his life is marrying someone else, a concept repeated in much of Gibbards' work (check out the video for new song Cath... for more on this). You can't get more lyrically touching than his work on this song as his antihero charges into the wedding, too late to do anything about it:

Crashing through the parlor doors,
What was your first reaction?
Screaming, drunk, disorderly, I'll tell you mine:
You were the one, but I can't spit it out when the date's been set.
The white routine, to be ingested inaccurately.

For me, it's a terribly personal song but thankfully, my hero(ine) saved me eventually, crashing through my parlor doors to whisk me off to... sunny Shepherds Bush! But that's a whole other story. P.S. Liking it? Loving it? Pop over to Amazon and by yourself some albums then go see a show, check out the MySpace pages, and generally be supportive!

The Latest Obsession: One For the Cutters - The Hold Steady

Today marks the start of a new feature around the blog; The Latest Obsession will showcase any track, blisteringly new or time-worn and rough around the edges, that is being played on repeat in my headphones at the moment, with a brief explanation to why you need to hear this. Today we begin with One For the Cutters by The Hold Steady.

What is it about this dark fairy tale track that holds me in such a tight grip? From the ever brooding drawl of Craig Finn to the complex story of a rich college girl's downfall, I'm hooked from start to finish. Couple the lyrical brilliance with instrumentation that majestically echoes the climaxes and troughs in the tale and you have a timeless song to swoon over.

Backed by a sparse 60s influenced harpsichord which swirls gleefully out of control as the song builds, One For the Cutters is littered with the raw dirt of travellers, bar-fights and illicit sex. With arpeggiated chords twinkling like the sounds of a carnival, the atmosphere for a murder on the outskirts of town is set. My favourite part of the song happens as we learn our heroine's townie lover is a wanted killer. As Finn rasps out "He didn't look that different, except for the blood on his jacket", lead guitarist Tad Kubler storms in with a screeching guitar wail that pins a crescendo onto the very backbone of the song.

Still not convinced? Check this awesome couplet that details the sordid truth of the Ivy elite:

Sniffin' at crystal in cute little cars,
Gettin' nailed against dumpsters behind townie bars

I could go on and on, but if you're anything like me you'll be wanting to check it out for yourself. If you're ready for your latest obsession, get the song here:

The Hold Steady - One For the Cutters

P.S. You know the drill: if you like what you hear, go buy that shizzle!!

Metal Wednesdays: 13th August 2008

A while back, before my girlfriend and I had moved house three times in 6 months, before our kitten could talk (stay with me on this) and long before Believer magazine published a very informative article on black metal, the idea of 'Metal Wednesdays' was thrown around. This idea never really came to fruition until this afternoon, when sat at my desk surrounded by boxes of unpacked belongings, the strains of a highly miserable country ballad poured through our walls from the eccentric Frenchman upstairs. My friends, it is time.

Symphonic, or 'operatic' metal will be our first port of call this series, mostly to give me an opportunity to voice my opinion on the great Anette vs. Tarja Nightwish debate.

Oh, Nightwish. How I have loved thee. Formed in 1996 in wintry Finland, it took me a full 11 years to actually like Nightwish, and by this point the band had cast long-suffering soprano Tarja Turunen into solo-record oblivion. For me, this major league sucked, because it wasn't until I was idling my days away at the porn emporium, ipod on shuffle, that the moody, melodic Sleeping Sun crept into my earphones, awaking me from over a decade of ignorance and forming a lifelong (let's assume) love for power metal coupled with opera that knows no bounds. Or, knew no bounds. This was before Anette.

In October 2005, after a concert in Helsinki widely regarded as a triumph, the band presented Tarja with an open letter asking her to leave the band, effectively blaming her general 'Diva-ish ways' for the split. Thus began a frenetic search for a replacement singer which ended in Sweden, with the slight, pop-ish Anette Olzon. We saw the newly formed band play their latest album Dark Passion Play at the soon to be bulldozed Astoria in London in March this year and despite a splattering of old tunes getting the crowd excited, I am reliably informed by my expert girlfriend that the atmosphere was most definitely lacking. Anette is different to Tarja in every way; her vocals are high pitched but lack the timbre of Tarja's rich operatic voice. Her stage presence is slightly awkward but not in Tarja's endearing shy manner. She is a bit, well, Abba-ish.

My main gripe with the band, however, is that in my opinion, they didn't need to replace Tarja at all. Having become accomplished musicians, and helmed by the mysterious and probably a bit crazy lyricist and orchestrator Tuomas Holopainen, the band was well-loved and respected in its class. With the growling, Viking-esque Marco Hietala as bassist and vocalist, the band had a perfectly capable frontman (as is more than demonstrated by Hietala's work with Northern Kings). But alas, who are we to judge? If you ask me, Turunen was a fantastic presence to the band, and her departure has changed Nightwish fairly insurmountably. Anette, well, she hasn't really added anything besides a pop overture to the band's overall sound. Marco, he's a sexy beast and still going strong at 42. I leave you with three songs; the fantastic "She is My Sin" with Tarja Turunen on lead vocals, the poppy but fun "The Escapist" from latest album Dark Passion Play (fronted by Anette) and lastly the dark and sombre "While your lips are still Red", tenderly performed by Marco Hietala.

She is My Sin
The Escapist
While Your Lips are Still Red

P.S. As always, if you like what you hear, go buy the vast back catalogue or at least get Once It's totally freaking awesome.