Good Weather For Airstrikes

Check it out: Most of you have probably noticed that I pay a lot of attention to presentation around here, trying to keep things as clean and aesthetically pleasing as possible. For a while now I’ve been photoshopping all photos on here so as to have them appear with rounded black borders. To be honest though, the fiddly process of making sure each one of them is just right has gotten pretty old, and I can’t say that I prefer the rounded look enough to justify the inconvenience. Thus, all images will appear with basic black borders from this point on; hope that’s cool. If you guys vastly prefer it the other way get at me in the comments and I can suck it up and continue on like that, but I doubt anyone really cares that much in the first place.

Wowwww. Where the fuck did this come from? Seriously, Maps are the perfect example of why I love music - somehow this dude James Chapman has been making and releasing incredible music for over a year now without me having any knowledge of it whatsoever. Thus, this is just another reminder that there’s always something incredible out there just waiting to be found - it could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be ten years from now - but it’s out there whether I know about it or not. In this case though, I’m glad I found Maps debut EP when I did, as it’s a late, but completely deserving entry to my Top Albums of ‘06 list (coming, y’know, soon).

While the Start Something EP merely compiles the A-and-B-sides of his two previously-released limited edition singles, “Lost My Soul” and “Start Something”, (plus two new tracks) it’s all new to me and it’s all, well, unbelievable. Crafted entirely on a laptop in the bedroom of his Northampton flat, Start Something is just an incredibly rewarding listening experience, impossibly expansive and beautiful considering the means of its creation. It is an EP where the sum nearly outweighs the parts, a lofty task considering how phenomenal the individual tracks are, and the CD is every bit as rewarding to listen to as a whole than in individual songs. It’s not that it’s hard to cull a favorite from the album - two songs have presented themselves to me as undeniable highlights - it’s just that it’s easier to appreciate them in the greater context of the EP and doing so will expediate the acclimation period and yield quicker returns in the Wow, I’m Really Loving This department.

All this talk probably has you curious about their sound, so let’s get into that. Technically speaking, Maps are firmly rooted in chilled-out electro-pop, but have a penchant for electronic ambiance as well. And while comparisons to a more electronic Sigur Ros are inevitable whenever the “ambient” tag is in play, more conventionally-structured electro-pop would yield more appropriate comparisons, as Chapman keeps his songs focused by tying the ethereal instrumentation to a traditional vocal structure often featuring impossibly catchy choruses rarely found in the company of such grandiose arrangements. Furthermore, the songs are ambitious without overdoing it, courteously maintaining manageable run times with only one song (barely) straying past the six-minute mark. Getting back to the issue of establishing appropriate reference points for their sound though, I’d have to say Maps compare more favorably with the Notwist than anyone else. A lofty comparison, considering the Notwist’s last release, 2002’s Neon Golden, ranks among the most remarkable albums of the last decade, but the promise shown on the Start Something EP indicates that Maps just might be able to validate such a comparison, if not surpass it. Maps will also draw inevitable Postal Service comparisons due to the precise cleanliness of his beats and the saccharine melancholy of his vocals, but Start Something manages to access the same intangible place inhabited by Neon Golden that no other record has seemed to be able to get back to since.

Oddly enough, my two favorite tracks are the two songs on the EP relegated to B-side status on their respective single releases. “To The Sky” backed the single release of the EP’s title track and Maps’ 2005 debut, “Start Something”, and features a simplistic acoustic guitar riff dressed up in atmospheric synths and vocals reminiscent of the Album Leaf’s recent work. The other standout - a term to be used loosely considering the high standard of every track on this EP - is “Sparks In The Snow”, which originally stole the spotlight on the “Lost My Soul” 7″ and features one of the most beautiful moments in music this year when the entire arrangement swells before bursting into a breathtaking chorus. These two tracks are the best examples of Maps’ limitless potential, but there really is not a weak track to be found on this EP. Thus, Maps will be making a serious dent in my Top Albums of ‘06 list (despite this releases EP status) and can officially be considered the band to get excited about in 2007.

MP3s:
“Sparks In The Snow” - Maps ((highly recommended))
“To The Sky” - Maps

And I never like to reference another band in describing a group’s sound without having posted any of their material in this space before, so here’s one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s called “Consequence”, by the Notwist, and it’s about as close to chilled-out electro-pop perfection as you can possibly get.

MP3: “Consequence” - The Notwist ((HIGHLY recommended))

I’m not exactly sure why, but I’ve been coming across some seriously amazing covers recently. It’s like all of a sudden some higher power decided that Derek Davies needed some great covers in his life and that he should discover them all within one two-week period. It started with Placebo’s incredible take on “Running Up That Hill” a little while back and just hasn’t stopped; below are some of the best covers I’ve heard in a long time.

MP3: “Float On” - Goldspot

The big news in the world of covers is the recent leak of the sixth installment of the OC mixes, a special edition titled Covering Our Tracks that - you guessed it - features a bunch of the OC producers’ favorite bands covering their favorite indie rock jams. I’ve only just acquired the mix itself, but Goldspot’s cover of “Float On” is looking like the best thing on this album. I played it for my roommate last night, who might just be the biggest Modest Mouse fan ever, and he loved it, commenting that it had all the greatness of Modest Mouse only without all the tragic nihilism that underlies all their songs. I don’t know - I guess that’s a good thing, he seemed to think so. I’ll let you decide for yourself though; get at the mp3 above.

MP3: “Cars” - Katzenjammers ((HOW IS THIS SO GOOD))
Wow. This is the best thing I’ve heard in a longggg time. Unfortunately, there’s really no way to say “I found this amazing and ridiculously obscure cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ recorded in 1981 by this funky steel drum band from Tobago” without sounding like the snobbiest indie douchebag ever, but… I found this amazing and ridiculously obscure cover of Gary Numan’s “Cars” recorded in 1981 by this funky steel drum band from Tobago. Seriously though, it’s SO good; just wait for those steel drums to hit and you’ll know what I mean.

MP3: “Banquet” - Slowbear The Great

I’ve already praised this cover in this space once before, but it’s definitely good enough to deserve a second posting. “Banquet” was my #1 song of 2005 and was without a doubt the party anthem of last year, so it’s a bit curious to come across a chilled-out acoustic cover of the song. Even more surprising is the fact that Slowbear The Great actually makes it work - really well in fact. Taking a completely different approach from the orginal, Slowbear combines his acoustic fingerpicking and smokey, double-tracked vocals to reinvent the dancefloor banger with his own brilliant interpretation.

ELSEWHERE:
BBC Radio 1’s got the new Bloc Party video for “The Prayer” available for viewing here. It’s just too bad it sucks; I really expected better from Walter Stern’s “comeback video”. Apparently it gets better upon repeated viewings, but I’ve gone through it a couple times and I’m still not terribly impressed.

I won’t pretend like I was terribly familiar with the work of Patrick Wolf before “Accident & Emergency” graced my speakers a month or so ago, but the few tracks that had been passed my way by friends and acquaintances embodied a dark intimacy and morbidity that failed to spark my interest. With new single “Accident & Emergency” (off his upcoming Magic Positions LP), however, Wolf has won me over completely. The poppiest thing I’ve yet to hear from him, “Accident” possesses a downright sprightly quality and an electronic bounce about it that’s noticeably absent in much of his earlier work. One might be surprised to find these qualities in a song that examines life in a society plagued by terror, but repeated listens reveals the song’s ultimate message to be a celebration of resilience rather than a resignation to paranoia and uncertainty.

The instrumentation further reflects the struggle between the severe subject matter and Wolf’s unrestrained optimism, as all-too-real sirens jostle for position in the mix alongside buoyant brass lines and stuttering electronic beeps and whooshes. Despite the underlying conflict, Wolf perseveres with confidence and a newfound pop sensibility, and the track even goes so far as to air on the anthemic side of things with a rousing refrain like “Accident/Emergency/Bringing out the best in me”. Perhaps it’s my obsessive listens to A Weekend In The City that has me so inclined to view a song examining life in modern society in such a favorable light, but Wolf has done a masterful job of finding the perfect balance between social awareness and sprightly pop sensibility, and you can’t ask for much more from a song than that.

MP3: “Accident & Emergency” - Patrick Wolf ((highly recommended))

In somewhat related news, I’ve found myself completely in love with “Running Up That Hill”, thanks to Placebo’s incredible cover of the track, my review of which some of you may have noticed I upgraded from a 7 to a much more deserving 8. Thus, I was delighted to find this Patrick Wolf cover of the track from a recent live show, which is available below along with the aforementioned Placebo cover that’s been owning my iPod lately.

Bonus MP3s:
“Running Up That Hill” (Live @ Islington) - Patrick Wolf
“Running Up That Hill” - Placebo ((highly recommended))

I’m definitely thirsting for more goodness from Mr. Wolf now, so if anyone’s got anything by him to suggest for me don’t hesitate to get at me in the comments.

And so the march of unrelenting electronic hotness continues. Hailing not from France but the UK, Does It Offend You, Yeah? are a pastiche of Everything That’s Great About French Dance Music, taking the vocoded choruses of Daft Punk, the frenzied samples of SebastiAn and the the grimy glitchtronica of Justice and bringing it together in a most holy union of dancey electronica. In simpler terms, they sound like they’ve “been eating Daft Punk and Justice tunes for three days and just took a giant electro shit”, as the “Sounds Like” section of their MySpace puts it. They also liken themselves to an “electro Bloc Party”*, and while that’s sure to grab my attention I can’t draw any similarities between the two outside of the fact that they share the same manager.

Despite the obvious influences, Does It Offend still manage a hint of originality and a decidedly-UK feel with their music. Without a formal release to their name (but a newly-signed deal with Virgin in the UK), the band are generating serious hype solely from a few circulating mp3s and word of mouth at this point. And for good reason too - “We Are Rockstars” might be the best thing to come out of the UK electronica scene since Simian Mobile Disco burst onto the scene with “Hustler” early this year. The track opens with a muffled synth line, which bursts through the speakers in all its glory one bar later before the four-to-the-floor beat drops and the track really gets going. The highlight, though, is the vocoded “We are rockstars now” verse that drops by around the halfway mark, and the catchy-ass refrain comes around again to seal the deal late in the song’s second half. A few well-timed silences followed by synth explosions don’t hurt it either, and all this adds up to make me very very excited to see what the duo can do in 2007 with some major label backing.

In the immediate future, Does It Offend will get some exposure with the upcoming release of Bloc Party’s new single, “The Prayer”, as they’ve been handed remix duties on the download-only bundle of the single release, the news of which is actually what prompted me to check them out in the first place. Download two of their tracks below so this time next year you can just smirk at your hipster peers and say you knew the lengthily-named duo way back when.

MP3s:
“We Are Rockstars” - Does It Offend You, Yeah? ((highly recommended))
“Weird Science” - Does It Offend You, Yeah?

And since I used SebastiAn as a primary reference point for their sound without ever having posted on him before, here’s some fire from the hottest Parisian DJ not named Gaspard or Xavier. Fucking loving this track.

MP3: “Ross Ross Ross” - SebastiAn ((highly recommended))

UPDATE: Gorilla vs Bear appears to be every bit as pumped about Does It Offend as I am and was nice enough to hook us up with a shout out in his post on the band. He’s also got a sweet mix from the band’s most recent appearance on XFM, which you should head over there and grab at your earliest convenience.

Yeah, I still watch The OC. Deal with it. I figure I’ve come this far, why not ride it out to see how bad it can actually get. And why not, especially if it continues to feed me awesome songs like this Placebo cover of Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”, which was prominently featured in the first episode of the new season of The OC.

Placebo have been trying to make it in the US for almost a decade now, and what better way to do so than to be featured in the season premiere of one of the biggest television phenomena of the past five years. The track was previously available only on the bonus disc that accompanied the limited edition release of the band’s 2003 singles collection, Sleeping With Ghosts, but now sees a US-only re-release as an iTunes exclusive single. This is undeniably a brilliant move for a band whose been trying to gain exposure in the US market, even if it doesn’t exactly do wonders for their cred. Then again, Placebo aren’t exactly new to this territory, having soundtracked the opening shots of Cruel Intentions with “Every You, Every Me” off of their 1998 sophomore LP, Without You I’m Nothing.

Onto the song itself though. Cover songs generally work best when they approach the original from an entirely different perspective (see: “Heartbeats”), and Placebo do just that, forgoing the organic intensity of Bush’s version for a chilled-out, minimalist electronic reworking wrought with emotion and tangible melodrama. The original was the first single off of Bush’s inimitable Hounds of Love LP in 1985 and is thought to have paved the way for experimentation in British rock music popularized in the 90’s by UK bands like Radiohead and, well, Placebo. Replacing Bush’s strings flourishes with a haunting piano riff and dressing the track up in atmospheric synths, a chugging drum beat and vocoded backing vocals, Placebo’s interpretation of the track caters perfectly to the dark subject matter of the lyrics and manages to match the melodramatic emotional intensity and musical surrealism of the original. Bush has described the song as being about “the power of love, in that it can create such intense emotion that all rational thought is overpowered” (thanks Wikipedia), and the emotional intensity that Placebo bring to the track suits this theme flawlessly. While it doesn’t surpass the original - though it’s hard to judge when the two versions take such different approaches - Placebo certainly do justice to the Kate Bush classic here and pull off one of the best covers in recent memory.

MP3: “Running Up That Hill” - Placebo ((highly recommended))

For those who haven’t heard the original and want a point of reference for comparison’s sake, here’s Kate Bush’s version for download as well.

Bonus MP3: “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” - Kate Bush

While we’re dealing with “Running Up That Hill”, I figure it’s as good a time as any to post the new Snowfight In The City Centre single, which blatantly apes the rolling drums from the Kate Bush original. Like, we’re talking identical here, people. That’s not to take away from the track itself though, it’s great, just maybe they could rip off a less infamous percussion section next time. It doesn’t come anywhere close to the soaring pop perfection of their debut single, “No Light Left”, though, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless and good enough that I’m still expecting very big things from this band.

MP3: “Listen” - Snowfight In The City Centre

IN OTHER NEWS:
As lame as it may be to admit it, James was pretty much spot-on when he wrote that the feeling one gets upon discovering that they’ll be the first to break a band to the blogosphere (i.e. when the Hype Machine turns up 0 results for your band query) is “about as close to good drugs as mp3 blogging ever gets”. So imagine my excitement when the Machine turned up a blank slate when I checked to see if anyone had posted on WinterKids yet. Thus, I immediately ordered their two singles from Rough Trade (their shit isn’t available for download - legal or otherwise - anywhere) and paced back and forth for the next two weeks until they arrived yesterday. This morning I rise, eager to unleash their joyous indie pop on the masses, and do a quick perusal of the blogs I regularly check only to find that, yep - James Headphonesex posted on them YESTERDAY. So yes, get over their NOW and download “Tape It”; it’s at least fifteen different kinds of wonderful.

My selfish disappointment was quickly replaced with excitement, however, as the post proved to be one of his best ever, with new hotness from Pull Tiger Tail and I Was A Cub Scout, two of the young British bands I’ve been most excited about as of late. I’ve been meaning to get around to posting on both, but it looks like James has got things covered pretty well. He’s got the new single from Pull Tiger Tail, “Mr. 100 Percent”, and while he seems to prefer it to their previous offering, I’ll take their debut, “Animator” (that chorus!), over it any day.

MP3: “Animator” - Pull Tiger Tail ((highly recommended))

He’s also got I Was A Cub Scout’s debut single, “Pink Squares”, available for download there too. They’re doing this fun keyboards/drums combo thing that I’m really into right now, and the more danceable b-side is definitely worth getting excited about as well.

MP3: “Teenage Skin” - I Was A Cub Scout