Crystal Clear

(This pic is from Crystal Castles MySpace page. It is one of many reasons why they are awesome)

So often nowadays I read about a band in pretty much every music mag, see them on every blog and hear their name bandied about like their the best thing since sliced Ben & Jerry’s. And far too often, after getting all excited from all the hype, the band turn out to be, well, shite (Foals being the most recent offender).

Crystal Castles, however, manage to deliver. Their weirdly dark, somewhat-ambient-but-still-upbeat, low-fi sound is rather intriguing, and probably has most music journalists sweating in a panic as they try to invent another genre to box them in to.

I’m not sure if their sound could stretch to a full-length album but, with all good poppy dance groups, they should be a cracking singles band.

The track of their’s I’m currently hooked on is “Crimewave”, which apparently is a collboration with Health, who have such a common name I can’t find anything about them. Oh well. The track was released as a limited 7″ earlier this year, and it’s relative unattainability leads me to assume that I can post this, free of reprieve. hurrah!

Download “Crimewave”

Crystal Castles on MySpace
Crystal Castles remixes on MySpace
“Crimewave” video on YouTube

Once and Never Again

After the travesty of the Brit Awards, finally, someone who deserves to win something…well, wins.

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova’s song, “Falling Slowly”, from the really rather good independent Irish musical Once won the Oscar for Best Original song this past week - and thank God for that, seeing as all but one of the other nominated songs was from fucking Enchanted. Whatever happened to the heady days of 2000? (Artists nominated: Bob Dylan, Björk, Thom Yorke, Randy Newman and, er, Sting).

Apparently the song almost didn’t get nominated, since it was apparently not originally meant for the film - which, after a bit of research it, uh, wasn’t (Hansard recorded a version with his bad, The Frames, which appeared on their 2006 album, The Cost; Hansard and Irglova also did a version for their Swell Season album).

But you didn’t want Enchanted to win, did you?

Anyway, the song is a beautiful, wistful, lovelorn ballad; but despite that description, which makes it sound like James Blunt/Morrisson/etc, it is very good. As is Once, so expect a review on that other, more popular blog, since the DVD has just come out.

Download it!

Weekend Mix #8 - Names

Hey hey, it’s your, er, weekly Weekend Mix! And on time, this time!

All the songs on this weekend’s mix are about, no matter how trivially, people - hence, all the songs are, or contain, people’s names - hence, Names!

I’m seriously addicted to that Art Brut song at the minute - I’ve still not got round to getting their second album.

Tracklisting
1.Art Brut - Emily Kane
2.Spoon - Jonathon Fisk
3.Air - Mike Mills
4.Bat For Lashes - Prescilla
5.Weezer - Buddy Holly
6.Beastie Boys - Johnny Ryall
7.CSS - Meeting Paris Hilton
8.The Postal Service - Clark Gable
9.Ramones - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
10.The Brian Jonestown Massacre - The Ballad Of Jim Jones

Download it!