Who? Jomi Massage: "Jomi is for music lovers who have no need of control or needs [sic] to learn a lesson or two about it"

"in 1995 i bought a bag, it was blue and shaped in soft curves that made me think of a female body. inside it i found one of the first electric massagedevices, made in the early 60's and at that time it must have been considered very daring.

it was called jomi massage.

the manual showed me pictures of naked women, nipples and skin."

So goes the story, in her own words, of naming the alter ego of Danish singer Signe Hoirup Wille-Jorgenson. Assuming the moniker Jomi Massage because a "massagedevice" [sic] is intended to, ahem, relieve tension and this is what she hopes to do with her musical output, the name really is just the beginning of her often controversial and always thought-provoking 'stunts'.

A pretty persuasive example of this would be the time she opened at Danish festival Spot in 2005. Signe had placed microphones in her clothing and shocked the entire audience by ending up naked on stage in front of them. The reason for this? She wanted, as she undressed, the audience to hear the sounds of the textiles and fabrics (the piece is entitled Undressing Aloud). She ended the set by playing a few songs on her acoustic guitar...still naked.

Or how about her album Skandinaviske Klagesange (Scandinavian Elegies)? This was due for release in 2006, but Morningstar Records decided against it amidst the Danish political crisis resulting from the Jyllands Posten controversy. Why? Jomi Massage appears on the cover garbed in a burqa made of the Danish flag.

So what about the music? Can it live up to all these 'artsy' capers?

Well, in the main, yes. The music of Jomi Massage is fairly experimental; often minimalistic, sometimes electronic, sometimes verging on noise-pop, with definite punk influences, but imbued with trenchant melancholy (this is not as oxymoronic as it sounds when you actually have a listen!) and fragility. Definitely hard to pigeonhole, it works better in some places than others, but this music is certainly worth a listen...just don't get too hung up on its pretentious ideals. In her up-swings and down-swings, Wille-Jorgenson can sound like Beth Gibbons of Portishead (Like Weather), Amy Lee of Evanescence (I See Those Who Died) and even Adult (A Meeting). She says that she draws inspiration from the likes of Patti Smith and John Cage.

Starting out in a band called Murmur after hearing the Breeders' album Pod and being amazed by hearing such rock music being played by women, she has worked with various people and acts since then. Wille-Jorgenson is currently one quarter of Copenhagen band Speaker Bite Me (you can view some of their videos at the band's website) and also frequently plays with big bands (as in orchestras, not referring to levels of fame) and classically-trained musicians.

30-something Jomi Massage's first full-length album in English, From Where No One Belongs, I Will Sing, was first recorded in 2005. It was then re-recorded two years later and will be released on February 18th 2008. True, it is unlikely to cause major waves, but I do think that the ripples will be worth sticking around for.

mp3: A Meeting

mp3: The Last And Saddest Way

mp3: Redwinelips

mp3: Det Ukendte

mp3: Like Weather

Visit Jomi Massage at MySpace or at her own website.

Want to read about some more Danish music? Check out my previous post on Heidi Mortenson.

Music video: The Mamas and the Papas with 'Creeque Alley'

This post is essentially just an excuse to share with you this video of The Mamas and the Papas' Creeque Alley. I love this! The video has been on both my MySpace and Facebook profiles almost as long as I've had them, and I never tire of listening to The Mamas and the Papas' beautiful pop harmonies.

The song tells the story of the band's formation and time together; you can read more about it at this lovingly crafted site. Whilst you're at it, why not read more about the amazing Mama Cass over at Wikipedia.

And have you seen her in Pufnstuf The Movie?:

...I then got to thinking about another of The Mamas and Papas' hits, and probably the best known of their songs, California Dreaming, and how this is much more than just a lovely hum-along-able pop ditty. Have you ever stopped to think about what it means? Listen to it and you realise that this is a song of wistful longing for home...being on the road and missing what is familiar to you.

Have another listen:
The Mamas and the Papas - California Dreaming (mp3)

And so off I trotted on a tangent of thinking about other songs that fit this theme of being homesick, and there are plenty. But amongst the very best has to be:
Simon and Garfunkel - Homeward Bound (mp3)

The story goes that this was written at Widnes train station...not a place, I'm sure, where many have been so inspired...but definitely a place to get you wishing to be somewhere else instead!

An honourable mention, because it doesn't really have anything to do with missing home, it is just a great song, goes to:
Bob Dylan - Subterranean Homesick Blues (mp3)

And how about, in the spirit of fairness, including the anthithesis...a song of longing for the road?:
Willie Nelson - On The Road Again (mp3)

Well, it would be unlike me just to have posted a video and left, wouldn't it?

Only 3 days left to enter my CD giveaway, so get your answer in before it ends!

More free music!! Cassettes Won't Listen 'One Alternative' EP

I'm a month late in reporting this one, as it was released on December 11th 2007; but it really is worth a listen, so I thought I'd give it a quick mention anyhow.

Cassettes Won't Listen is Jason Drake from Brooklyn, New York. He makes indie-electronic boom-blip sounds and on this free EP, One Alternative, gives us covers of five 90s songs (the title being an homage to the 1993 compilation No Alternative). All of his releases to date have been digital (although not all free!) and he has remixed for some big names, including Midlake, Asobi Seksu and Morcheeba. His first CD release will be Small Time Machine, coming out on March 11th this year.

The track listing for One Alternative is as follows:

1. Cut Your Hair

2. Butter Of 69

3. Fuck and Run

4. The Freed Pig

5. Change

And just because I am nice, here are the originals for comparison:

mp3 download: Cut Your Hair - Pavement

Butter Of 69 - Butter 08: I didn't have, and couldn't find, this one, so how's about a video of it instead?

mp3 download: Fuck and Run - Liz Phair

mp3 download: The Freed Pig - Sebadoh

mp3 download: Change - Blind Melon

Just as an extra little FYI...Change was the first song written by Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, and lyrics from it adorn his grave stone,

"I know we can't all stay here forever
So I want to write my words on the face of today
And they'll paint it"

Betcha didn't know that! Another one of those sad 'what a silly young man...what a waste' stories. You can read about him here if you wish.

As for Cassettes Won't Listen and One Alternative...download it here. And here's a link to his MySpace just in case you need that too.

Who? Dear August, my dear friend...and a rant about mp3s

The available information about Dear August on t'interweb is scant, but this is a great shame, as their album Come In, Keep Dry is simply lovely. I really don't know why more people (read: any people) aren't blogging about these folks.

This is Americana/alt-country in the vein of Lucinda Williams, The Byrds, The Band or The Geraldine Fibbers (sounding particularly like the latter on Girl Up The Road, Lamplight and Dressed In Blue).

The band hail from Madison, Wisconsin and were formerly known as Box Elder, releasing one album (Come Visit Soon) under that name. Upon finding out that this name was already in use by someone else, they plumped instead for Dear August, which was taken from their song Born On Ice.

Lead vocals come from Adrienne Cole, who was also handed primary songwriting duties on Come In, Keep Dry. She has a straight-up, but very pretty, corner-of-the-bar type alto voice...no messing, and you can almost hear the beer stains. Fellow band member Dan O'Brien also contributes vocals and the two sound great together; but Dear August shine most brightly when it is Cole who takes centre stage.

I'm not sure exactly when this album was released, but I do know that it was recorded at DNA Studios in Madison and that they finished it on July 18th 2007.

This really is good, and has featured heavily on my playlist the past couple of days. The songs are catchy, but bittersweet, e.g. "I never liked your sweet smile anyhow" on Don't Go To Town. I would highly recommend this album, and all of its tracks are great, but initial standouts are Jasper, Butchers Grove, Slack Black Jacket, Girl Up The Road and No Pining. That's five initial standout tracks from a 13 track album! I defy you to hear Jasper and not be won over! You can try to prove me wrong by heading over for a listen at their MySpace.

And then you can buy their CD from Miles Of Music (which is where I heard about these guys), CD Baby (where you can listen to two minute long sections of each song) or download the album as mp3s from Great Indie.

Which is where my rant begins (you have my permission to stop reading now if you wish...the album review and band introduction are over!).

I opted for the download route, crossing my fingers that money from that would actually go to the artist. I am a very poor Divinyl at the moment, and it was simply much cheaper than getting a CD shipped across from the US of A (in fact, the entire CD was just $8.99...or £4.72!).

I love mp3s for checking stuff out (of course I do), but I much prefer to own an album. By this I mean physically be able to hold it...smell it if I wish! I like it to be tangible, pick-up-able, and not just swamped by all the other mp3 files I have, lost and forgotten. I like liner notes...I like having the real thing goddamnit!

Never mind, this was my only route to own this album immediately (i.e. without saving up...never mind having to wait for it to arrive), so in I jumped. And whilst it was cheap, it really was a proper arse on. No shit, it took me more than an hour (1 hour, 4 minutes, to be exact) of dedicated sit-by-computering between paying for and having downloaded the full album.

Each track had to be downloaded separately, and each took a jolly long time. On top of this, not one of the tracks was properly named in the download file; it was all 01, 02 etc. This annoyed me because, not only did I have to type out the name of each (flicking between two web pages so that I had the names of each song) when the download box came up (in order to have any chance of ever being able to find it on my computer again, should I need to), I then had to fiddle about renaming in iTunes as well upon opening it. Grrr!

Furthermore, the tracks do not display in iTunes in the correct playing order, therefore I had to make a playlist where I could put them in the correct order.

All of this irked me a great deal. Thank goodness, then, for the end result and the beautifully mollifying tones of Adrienne Cole. Well worth all the hassle!

Free album preview: Xiu Xiu 'Women as Lovers'

Just a very brief post, on this occasion, to let you know that Xiu Xiu are streaming, in full, their forthcoming album Women As Lovers on MySpace. The album will be released on January 29th and is available to pre-order from KRS/Buy Olympia. The reason that I am not hanging about to post a wordy music review is that the streaming only promises to be there for a couple of days, so you'll have to jump in quickly! Here's hoping it's a good'un!

Here's (part of) what Kill Rock Stars have to say:

"This will be a famous album. To hear it is to remember music's native purpose, a howl against the gloom.

.....

With a heart too sensitive to accept humanity's darker side yet also unable to flinch from it, Xiu Xiu is a way of "owning your own shadow." Jamie Stewart has a novelist's eye for juicy details, and a poet's ability to wring impossible emotions out of the English language, finding black humor where there is usually horror, finding horror where there is usually apathy. And Stewart's history-spanning visions of birth and death have never come across more clearly.

.....

Make no mistake. No other Xiu Xiu album has ever been more approachable or communicative on a basic human level. What people sometimes fail to recognize is that Stewart is writing about all of us, not a freak writing about freakish things. He voices what the rest of us have a hard time voicing and the feelings in the music are ones that we can all relate to."

That all sounds a bit wanky to me, but I do quite like Xiu Xiu, so am quite looking forward to listening to what promises to be a very varied collection of tunes...if you could ever really call a Xiu Xiu song a 'tune'!

mp3: I Do What I Want, When I Want

In appreciation of the fuller-figured lady...

Hey Fatty Bum Bum, you sweet sugar dumpling, hey Fatty Bum Bum, let me tell you something...here we have 10 free music downloads of songs recognising the general wonderfulness of a woman with some curves! Free music? Fat women? Yes please!

BBWW - Big Beautiful Wonder Woman

As an admirer of the more rotund and zaftig kind of gal, I thought I would compile a list of 10 fat positive songs...those extolling the virtues of a nice rounded shape and some meat on the bone. And so, to the downloads:

1. Baby Got Back - Sir Mix-A-Lot

2. You're The One For Me, Fatty - Morrissey

3. Fat Bottomed Girls - Queen

4. Fat Mama - Tito Puente and His Orchestra

5. I Like 'Em Fat Like That - Louis Jordan

6. Big Girl (You Are Beautiful) - Mika

7. Spit - Kiss

8. Big Fat Mamas Are Back In Style - Dana Gillespie

9. Fatty Bum Bum - Carl Malcolm

10. Big Girls Are Best - U2


And as a special bonus treat...Spinal Tap with Big Bottom:

Check out my Christmas CD for two further tracks - Renegade Rail with Fat Girls And Weed and KD Lang's Big Boned Gal. Perhaps you can add to the list in the comments? There are plenty more out there. Remember, fat positive songs only please.

Only one week left until my competition to win a CD closes...have you entered yet?

Free music! Brooke Waggoner 'Fresh Pair Of Eyes' EP

Oh I do like free music! Whilst I am a big CD-buyer and find that there's something much more lovely about actually owning the piece of plastic (and don't get me started on vinyl...even better!), the internet and mp3s is such a great way to check out new stuff. I particularly love it when the artist themself has released free music for us all to enjoy.

In this case, the reason I am having my mini-rant (i.e. support the artists...BUY the music!) is that Louisianaian Brooke Waggoner has released her EP Fresh Pair Of Eyes online for absolutely nada! And it really is rather good, which puts it head and shoulders above most of the rest of the free EPs/albums being offered out there.

Ok, so it adds little new to the pool...more folk-lite female singer-songwriting...but the songs are well written and nice to listen to, and therefore worth acquainting yourself with and adding to your playlist seeing as you can explore it for free!

To download your own copy, go to Brooke Waggoner's website (you will need to enter your details...including a US zip code, so that may require some slight bending of the truth...I just typed my UK address with '90210' and it worked. Snigger). The songs download as a zip file...6 of 'em. Hush If You Must is a pleasing opener, which incorporates handclaps...which is a great start in my book...and the rest are good too. I will not go into bios and such, as I would only be rehashing it from the one on the page that I have just linked to...so you can read it for yourselves!

If you would like to have a listen to her music before deciding to download, you could visit her MySpace page. Four of the songs there are from this EP, plus there is a track called Christmas Moon.

For more free music, you could check out Danish band Dynamoe. I must admit that I don't like their stuff as much as Brooke Waggoner, but it is still of a higher standard than the majority. It's kind of shoegaze-y electronica type stuff...which I know doesn't elucidate the matter a great deal! They are offering up their whole album In The Wake Of Time for free download here. And again you can check them out on MySpace first, before deciding whether to clutter your computer!

Free album preview: Sia 'Some People Have Real Problems'

Sia Furler's latest album Some People Have Real Problems is released today in the US (us UK peeps have to wait until the 14th...bah!). If you use MySpace, you will no doubt have seen the ads on their site, but just in case you don't...you are able to preview the entire album over at Sia's page (you don't need to have an account to listen). I'm currently, as I write, enjoying my first listen-through, so don't have a lot to say just yet, but may return when I have familiarised myself further to post something of an album review. Thus far it is as expected from Sia...high quality white soul. Although I like her music, I can't help but find her slightly annoying...not that I can put my finger on why! She's made up a little bit of ground, however, by covering one of my favourite Pretenders songs, I Go To Sleep.

Anyway, for now I shall leave you with a downloadable mp3 of her song Breathe Me (from the album Colour The Small One); a beautiful, sweeping song that I never tire of listening to.


mp3: Breathe Me

Ones to watch in 2008: Basia Bulat

In The Night

I am not someone who claims to be one of the cool kids, or who has my finger so firmly on the pulse that my knuckle is white, therefore I have only recently heard of Basia Bulat. This is something of a travesty, but is actually rather well timed, seeing as she will be releasing her album Oh My Darling globally on 5th February (it was released, by Rough Trade, in Europe in April 2007, but Bulat has finally got herself a Canadian label).

What is it with the Canadian music scene at the moment? There's SO much great music coming out of there. Ok, so it's a big country, but 2007 saw more 'breakthrough' artists than certainly I have ever known about before...at long last proving that the country is not 'past' its Leonard Cohens, Joni Mitchells and Neil Youngs, and still has more to offer than Bryan Adams!

So, as you may have guessed by now, Basia Bulat (the name is Polish) is another one; she grew up in Toronto (Etobicoke to be precise) and is now based in London (Ontario, that is, not UK). She grew up listening to the local 'oldies' radio station, imbibing Stax and Motown, The Beatles and The Beach Boys. And in some ways her music does sound a little as if it's from another time. By another token, this sits merrily in amongst the recent swash of female singer-songwriters (think Laura Veirs gorged on happy pills)...but still manages to add something new to the field.

24 year old Bulat released her first, self-titled, EP in 2005 and when recording her most recent offering never intended for it to become a formal release. Whilst this is more throaty-voiced, vibrato, female folk-pop, lumping her in with 'the rest' may not be fair...Ms Bulat can play the piano, banjo, autoharp, double bass, guitar, ukelele, saxophone and flute...she is definitely not without talent, and I reckon that she is set to become a Feist-esque household name.

mp3: I Was A Daughter (anything with handclaps has got to be good, right?)
mp3: The Pilgriming Vine


Website

MySpace

The Seven Ages Of Man

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms;
Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin'd,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav'd, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

William Shakespeare - As You Like It
Jaques (Act II, Scene VII, lines 139-166)






B-A-B-Y - Carla Thomas

Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby - Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and Alison Krauss








I Feel Just Like A Child - Devendra Banhart

Song Of Being A Child - Van Morrison










Puberty - Belly

Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus









Young Blood - The Coasters

Get A Job - The Silhouettes









All Grown Up - Holly Golightly

Middle Age Crazy - Jerry Lee Lewis









Old Man Time - Kate Rusby

Hurt - Johnny Cash









In My Time Of Dying - The Be Good Tanyas

When I Die - The Waifs

Albums that you have forgotten you love: Becoming X by Sneaker Pimps

N.B. If you are in the US, it looks like this instead.

Track listing:

1. Low Place Like Home
2. Tesko Suicide
3. 6 Underground
4. Becoming X
5. Spin Spin Sugar
6. Post-Modern Sleaze
7. Waterbaby
8. Roll On
9. Wasted Early Sunday Morning
10. Walking Zero
11. How Do

Becoming X is undoubtedly very 90s-sounding, but it really does still sound great...so good that I wanted to include a download of almost every song, but I have limited myself! After this album, Sneaker Pimps (who took their name from an article in which The Beastie Boys were talking about hiring someone to find classic trainers for them) parted ways with singer Kelli Dayton (also known as Kelli Ali), which may have been their biggest mistake. The only track that I have found to my liking since her departure is Blacksheep.

The first half of the album is better than the second, but it is all good; and it brings back such memories for me when I listen. From the beaty, but aloof and phlegmatic, Tesko Suicide, to the sublime 6 Underground (which has to be a classic 90s song...it was even featured on that most seminal, in various senses of the word, of 90s dramas This Life) and the clubby sleaze of Spin Spin Sugar, the styles on this album are varied, but generally sound quite spaced out and dispassionate...although that is not a criticism. This is electronica, trip-hop, guitar-based indie, it even flirts with rock (as Sneaker Pimps explicitly did on Long Hard Road Out Of Hell with Marilyn Manson, for which the video is below), but above all this is pop music, largely as a result of Dayton's bubblegum voice.

It all culminates with How Do. You know that scene in The Wicker Man where a naked Britt Ekland is pressed up against, and seductively pawing, a wall, distracting the virginal Edward Woodward from his thoughts of Christian chastity? Yep? Well, this is that song, covered here very nicely (but I still can't listen to it without visualising that scene).

N.B. Make sure you buy the original 1996 album if you can, and not the reissue; the latter features different (read: inferior) versions of several of the tracks.


Sneaker Pimps - Spin Spin Sugar
(This video totally reminds me of the film 'Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas')

Marilyn Manson and Sneaker Pimps - Long Hard Road Out Of Hell
(From the 'Spawn' soundtrack. It seems they didn't exactly 'click' - read about that here and here)

The Long and Winding Road

Hello all, and apologies for my prolonged hiatus...it was unintentionally extended (good intentions yadda yadda). I hope to get back to normal (well, at least more regular!) posting now, and even have lists upon lists of what to write about...in other words, more jottings that I will likely never get around to turning into actual posts!

I hope that you had a lovely holiday season replete with love, laughter and libation (and not too much loose-lipped lock-horning). I had an unusually calm and convivial time...and was spoiled rotten! Without going into detail re: gift lists, suffice to say that I got eight CDs (actually nine, although I already had one of them, so that's to be returned), and that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. Amongst them were the excellent Raising Sand (Robert Plant and Alison Krauss), Clare and The Reasons (The Movie), St Vincent, Bettye Lavette's most recent and some Aretha rareties. Jolly good!

I also used the opportunity to pillage my dad's CD collection (which is huge and varied) and smuggle some of it away on my iPod...mostly older country stuff that I've somehow never got around to owning, and indeed some with which I have been tardy in acquainting myself. So I have tonnes more music (yippee!), only I neglected to make a list of what I'd stolen, so finding it all again on my iPod will provide hours of fun...or frustration!

Speaking of my iPod, I placed my listening in the hands of the gods and opted for 'shuffle' for the drive home (which, sadly, was not as beautiful as the picture above, nor winding...just long!), and was extremely pleased that I did. I sometimes find that it gets itself into some kind of 'groove', not exemplifying fully the range of music that I have, playing oodles of songs that I somehow don't know, even though I obviously own them on an album somewhere, and over-representing certain artists. For example, my iTunes on my computer, in shuffle mode, seems to have a particular fondness for Ella Fitzgerald. Joni Mitchell was especially abundant on this occasion, so all was well with the world and my 96 track journey was a good'un.

The trip started on an incredibly promising note with Muddy Waters and Mannish Boy. I shall not bore you with a list of the entire 96 songs (nor could I, as I didn't write them all down and have 'shuffled' again since), but the best consecutive ten song run was:

I Wanna Be Where You Are - Michael Jackson
The Burrow - Throwing Muses
Wardrope - Hoover
Something Changed - Pulp (could've done without this one, but it's forgivable)
Jason's Basement - Gossip
When Heroes Go Down - Suzanne Vega
Sail Away - Kirsty MacColl
All I Could Do Is Cry - Etta James
Both Sides Now - Joni Mitchell
Overpower Thee - Auf der Maur

The next most promising run was:

Papa Was A Rollin' Stone - The Temptations
Jacky The Ripper - The Need
Let Me Kiss You - Morrissey
Hockey Skates - Kathleen Edwards
Down By The River - Neil Young and Crazy Horse
The Band Played Waltzing Matilda - The Pogues
Carry Me - The Levellers (perhaps a bit of a weak link here, but I have such a fondness for them because of my teenage years)
There's More To Life Than This - Bjork

...but then it was all spoilt by throwing up Tom Jones and What's New Pussycat!

My favourites that were played, that I haven't heard for some time were Jefferson Airplane and Volunteers, Miss Kittin Let Me Hear The DJ and L.J. Johnson with Your Magic Put A Spell On Me; however Paul Davidson's Midnight Rider had me searching anxiously in my mirrors for a wailing Police car (due to those pesky sirens in the intro!).

I can't finish this post without mentioning the three most satifying segues (generally because they were entirely incongruous and this appeals to me in an "Oh, how very wry" kind of way), the first of which was Birmingham Jail by Peggy Lee straight into Le Tigre with Let's Run. Even better was Samuel L. Jackson, from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, and his Ezekiel 25:17 into Blur's Advert ("And you will know my name is The Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee...BANG BANG BANG" -> "Food processors are great!"). The third was just as I was arriving at my destination and featured Sam Cooke with I'll Come Running Back To You adjacent to Metallica and Blackened.

See, don't you feel like you've been on the six hour journey with me now??

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ruing the January anti-climax and general lack of presents? You still have time to enter my competition to win a CD...winner decided 17th January.

My Christmas present to you...

...is a hand-picked mix CD. What could be better? Sick of the Christmas song complilations and end of year lists at all the other music blogs? Well, this one shuns all that and is country all the way! 20 modern country (and country-influenced/-tinged) songs that you can download and burn to a CD.

I'm still very much learning here, and have spent two days (!) figuring out how to do streamings (so that you can preview it in Windows Media Player, should you want to, before downloading to your hard drive), convert file types, and host mp3s. I am yet to learn how to make a 'play' button here in the blog, or how to host mp3s myself (i.e. not using a third party programme), but I'm getting there. Any tips from those in the know would be great...and if there are any problems with the stuff below, please let me know, because it will also help me to learn (and of course to rectify it)!

Other than that, just enjoy y'all...Happy Holidays!

Divinyl's Devilishly Good Country Christmas:

1. Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel

Streaming (wma)

mp3 download

2. Cherryholmes - How Long?

Streaming

mp3 download

3. Jesse Dayton and Brennen Leigh - Let's Run Away

Streaming

mp3 download

4. Devon Sproule - Old Virginia Block

Streaming

mp3 download

5. Uncle Earl - Drinker Born

Streaming

mp3 download

6. Adam Hood - Play Something We Know
Streaming

mp3 download

7. Lucinda Williams - Metal Firecracker

Streaming

mp3 download

8. Renegade Rail - Fat Girls And Weed

Streaming

mp3 download

9. The Geraldine Fibbers - Outside Of Town
Streaming
mp3 download

10. blacktopGYPSY - Ain't Your Mama
Streaming
mp3 download

11. Sam Baker - Sweetly Undone
Streaming
mp3 download

12. The Be Good Tanyas - Lakes Of Pontchartrain

Streaming

mp3 download

13. Gillian Welch - Caleb Mayer
Streaming
mp3 download

14. Sunny Sweeney - Mama's Opry
Streaming
mp3 download

15. Walt Wilkins and The Mystiqueros - Trains I Missed
Streaming
mp3 download

16. Eilen Jewell - Rich Man's World
Streaming
mp3 download

17. Jolie Holland - Sascha
Streaming
mp3 download

18. Stacey Earle - Promise You Anything
Streaming
mp3 download

19. KD Lang - Big Boned Gal
Streaming
mp3 download

20. Laura Cantrell - Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine (Live)
Streaming
mp3 download

And don't forget that you can still enter my competition to win a real CD where you don't have to do any work downloading and burning and such!

Sam Baker interview with Bob Harris

This is just a brief post to let you know that Sam Baker has posted the interview he did with Bob Harris, whilst he was in the UK, over on his website. For any not familiar, Bob Harris is a total country music guru, who hosts a weekly country radio programme over here. He plays some really great stuff, and it's an awesome way to come across artists that are new to you...he really does have good taste, and it's none of this godawful 'Nashpop' that is the only thing that gets played on country radio over in the States (well, unless you listen to http://www.radiofreetexas.org/ online that is!).

You can, of course, listen to Bob's Radio 2 show online here (new show every Thursday and it's available to listen to for the following week...and where you can also, if you scroll down a little bit, currently listen to a brief interview with Sunny Sweeney about her love of Merle Haggard...check out that darling accent!). He also hosts a Saturday show, which is here (where you can also read a bit of a bio). And if you go to his own website you can have a gander at his playlists.

To listen to Bob's interview with Sam Baker, just go to Sam's website (FYI, if you don't already know, the picture on this page is of Harris and not Baker), where you can stream it in the page; there are three songs performed for the show - Orphan, Broken Fingers and Angels - so you get a bit of a chance to listen to his music too.

Video = Sam Baker singing Truale onstage with Romi Mayes and the amazing Gurf Morlix at the Great Northern Picnic in August this year.

Video = Bible with Romi Mayes taking the lead (same date - August 11th 2007).

Birdie Busch 'Penny Arcade' and many others on Apollo Audio

Indubitably, this will not be the first place you have read about Birdie Busch and her latest (second) album Penny Arcade, released on Bar/None Records on September 25th this year. Forgive me the 'just in case' intro. Don't be put off by the rather silly moniker, as this album is a a corker.

Emily "Birdie" Busch sounds old-timey and young and modern at the same time. As per many of my ramblings, this is folky female singer-songwriter territory, but Busch is a cut above most of the mob. Her songs are not over-produced and sound like she has just picked up a guitar and is strumming for a circle of friends. This sounds like a laid back afternoon sitting laughing in a sunny field, a piece of grass in the side of your mouth, a picnic (complete with home made lemonade) on the blanket beside you, kids in the periphery frolicking by a lake...no, really it does, as flowery and girlish as that description may be.

Busch grew up in Collingswood, New Jersey, and is now based in Philadelphia but, to my mind, location is not important to this sound. All the songs here are good and eminently listenable, including a great cover of The Steve Miller Band's Wild Mountain Honey. The intro to the song Heel To Toe sounds like Loves Me Like A Rock (which is a very good thing indeed) and children of the 80s will be pleased with Go Go Gadget Heart.

Listen if you like: Jenny Lewis and The Watson Twins, Laura Cantrell, Neko Case, Kelly Hogan.

Buy this album (and her previous CD The Ways We Try) here...or have a scout about elsewhere, as I'm sure it must come cheaper than that!

Check her out on MySpace (she does have her own website, but it doesn't appear to be very up-to-date).

Or...and this is the most exciting bit (and essentially the reason I decided to post this)...head over to Apollo Audio to listen to a full, free streaming of the album!

I only discovered Apollo Audio recently, but my what a website! It can be temperamental (certainly on my PC), e.g. you are supposed to be able to embed the album streamings elsewhere, as I was planning to do here, but it didn't work consistently enough to include it in the post. Still, when it works, you have access to loads of great album streamings, and all for free, which is a brilliant way to try out new music.

There are some big names over there:

Richard Hawley, Jack Penate, Devendra Banhart, Nicole Atkins, Ulrich Schnauss, Mark Ronson, Electrelane, Jarvis Cocker, Yo La Tengo, M. Ward, Midlake, Peaches, Thom Yorke, Mojave 3, Regina Spektor, Espers, Gnarls Barkley.

There are also plenty that you are unlikely to have heard of, so it's ripe for some exploration!


Download: Go Go Gadget Heart

Download: Huff Singers (North Philly)

(Oops, apologies kids, this one doesn't work...but it is a great song worth checking out...all the more reason to listen to the streaming and then buy the album!)

P.s. Have you entered my competition to win a CD yet?

COMPETITION: My favourite soundtrack - Stealing Beauty...something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue

Whilst I can take or leave the film itself, the soundtrack to Stealing Beauty, released in 1996, is a total winner. It features an eclectic mix of songs old and (at the time) new, which complement each other fabulously.

It all kicks off with Hoover's 2 Wicky, which was enough to send me out to buy their album A New Stereophonic Sound Spectacular, which I picked up at a record fair for something ridiculous like 20p...those were the days! Great album, by the way; you might find it by Hooverphonic, as opposed to simply Hoover...they have released under both names. Something to do with copyright and such I presume. The OST liner notes inform me that this one was written by Burt Bacharach, Hal David and others, although it really doesn't sound like it! It also features a sample from Isaac Hayes' Walk On By. We are greeted with a beaty, but downtempo treat...ethereal vocals over some fairly insistent bass and a refrain of "Wa wa" which, somehow, is not annoying in the least. This is a great song; listen if you like: Lamb, Mazzy Star (who show their faces later on here), Euro trip hop.

Next, sticking with the lazy Sunday afternoon chillout feel, we get Portishead's Glory Box. One of their better known tracks, this is lush strings, catchy backing beats and Beth Gibbons' distinctive voice. Glory Box is gorgeous, breathy and almost perfect...a song that could almost define the time in music (1994) in which it was released. Wistful, lonely, pining, ultimately defiant, and lovely throughout. Listen if you like: Everything But The Girl, Massive Attack.

Next up are Axiom Funk featuring Bootsy Collins with If 6 Was 9. This song was, of course, written by Jimi Hendrix but here, produced by Bill Laswell (who you may have heard with Sacred System), it is given a very 90s makeover. There are some pleasing guitar licks (as one would hope for with a cover of a Hendrix song), still present are the funky drumbeats, as with the soundtrack so far and this, in places, borders on psychadelic. There are also some nice Stevie Wonder-esque 'talky bits'. Listen if you like: Galliano, Morcheeba, perhaps even a stoned Lenny Kravitz, or that song Underwater Love by Smoke City.

For Track 4, we move into 'classic' territory with John Lee Hooker and Annie Mae. I'm sure there is little that I need to tell you about this song. The piano work is corking and totally makes the song. And of course the voice ain't half bad either! To me, on this track Hooker sounds (purposefully) confused and disorientated, like someone lost and searching for the woman for whom he is pining; when he sings "I can't live without you" I definitely believe him. Listen if you like: John Lee Hooker! Oh, ok, or Ray Charles, Dr John or Howlin' Wolf.

Cranking things up a notch, next we have Liz Phair's Rocket Boy, which served as my introduction to her music (she's great if you are not already familiar with her, particularly her lyrics, although her back catalogue can be a little patchy). This is great teenage music which, after all, is what the film itself is about (the film, although that is not what I am here to talk about, is worth seeing for the beautiful, sun-drenched Tuscan landscapes, but it is not a brilliant film in and of itself). Rocket Boy is all loud guitars and angsty female vocals, which is absolutely fine by me, and strangely fits in rather well here. Listen if you like: The Breeders, Aimee Mann, Fiona Apple.

Up next is a song which really needs no introduction - Stevie Wonder with Superstition. Was there ever a more captivating riff? This is funk mode Wonder at his very best. If this song was the only legacy that he left behind, it would be a remarkable legacy. As it is, this isn't even the tip of the iceberg...Wonder is a definite inclusion in my top five recording artists list (should I make one), and that is saying something! His wonderful soulful voice and superlative songwriting are enough for me to forgive him for the 80s. You know this one, so I'm not going to bother with a 'listen if you like'. This song should never end.

Well, except that the album then segues into Nina Simone and My Baby Just Cares For Me. Another song that it is really not necessary for me to be telling you about. Just a cracking song...and you know it. My personal favourite bit being the risque "and even Liberace's style". Where can this soundtrack go from here??

Billie Holiday of course! I'm in heaven! Here we have her singing I'll Be Seeing You. Bliss. I just can never get enough of her voice and dazzlingly idiosyncratic phrasing, her inbuilt feel for music. If you have never read a biography of Lady Day you really must (try Billie's Blues written by John Chilton); it adds such context to listening to that old voice, surely one of the best ever? Again this song is wistful, longing, pining...and just beautiful.

Back to a more contemporary selection, next up and with some big shoes to fill are Mazzy Star and their song Rhymes Of An Hour. I love the lazy ebb and flow of Hope Sandoval's voice, the laid back, even soporific, sounds that ooze into you and seep inside you head. This, whilst still a very good track, is not one of their better numbers in my opinion. Still, Mazzy Star fit the general lo-fi feel of this soundtrack perfectly. Listen if you like: Cat Power in her quieter moments, The Wailing Jennys, The Sundays.

Cocteau Twins and Alice are next. I love the Cocteau Twins...the floaty vocals, ethereal soundscapes, the harmonies. They are not for everybody, but the voice here is pitch perfect and crystal clear, almost operatic in places. The lyrics (as with much of their music) are almost entirely unintelligible, save for "Alice Alice Alice Alice". That suits me fine when it sounds this lovely, but others may prefer something a bit more structured-feeling. Alice, like many others on this OST, for some reason, makes me think of water...the song washes over you and leaves you semi-submerged, buoyant and floating, eyes closed, the sun on your face, with no external sounds to interrupt the reverie. Although quite a few of the tracks here are yearnful and plaintive, the overall feel is of a cohesive summertime chillout album.

The penultimate track is You Won't Fall by Lori Carson. I have to admit that I know nothing of Carson beyond this song, but it fits well here, particularly as a follow-up to the Cocteau Twins. Another female vocal, this time the backing a little more upbeat to provide a bit of a lift as we approach the end. This song is not particularly remarkable, but her voice is good and it is nice enough...just not one of the best here. Still worth a listen though...there really isn't a dud on this soundtrack. Listen if you like: Any number of female singer-songwriters!

Finally, we are bid adieu with Sam Phillips' I Need Love, which is less 'chillout' than a great proportion of the album (although we did get the upbeat respite of Superstition and Rocket Boy in the middle there), and which finishes off the playlist in a nice rosy way. Phillips, although you never really hear her mentioned anywhere, writes some great songs and some canny lyrics too...try her album A Boot And A Shoe.

These tracks work together surprisingly well and it's 51 and a half minutes that I reckon you will want to replay again and again...especially if you like (predominanantly) female singers. Which is why I suggest that you enter my Christmas competition to win your very own copy.

To be in with a chance, leave a comment telling me what is your favourite film soundtrack and why (a couple of sentences will suffice, it doesn't have to be a big long post like this...unless, of course, that is what you want to do!). You could even write a post over at your own blog, and provide me with a link to check it out. My favourite will get a shiny new Stealing Beauty CD (a real one, not a copy!) sent chez them!

I will judge and announce a winner in one month, so make sure you check back. This, of course, means that if you run a blog, you will get a little bit of free publicity if you are the winner. And if you don't, well, that's no reason not to enter now, is it?

UK readers: Stealing Beauty is on Film 4 tomorrow (Monday 17th December) at 11.10pm.

She Talks To Rainbows Part 6: Dripping Indigo/In Violet Light

Excerpt from 'The Purple Hat (Beautiful Women)':

Age 3: She looks at herself and sees a Queen.

Age 8: She looks at herself and sees Cinderella.

Age 15: She looks at herself and sees an Ugly Sister (Mom, I can't go to school looking like this!)

Age 20: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly"- but decides she's going out anyway.

Age 30: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly"-but decides she doesn't have time to fix it so she's going out anyway.

Age 40: She looks at herself and sees "too fat/too thin, too short/too tall, too straight/too curly"-but says, "At least, I am 'clean"and goes out anyway.

Age 50: She looks at herself and sees "I am" and goes wherever she wants to go.

Age 60: She looks at herself and reminds herself of all the people who can't even see themselves in the mirror anymore. Goes out and conquers the world.

Age 70: She looks at herself & sees wisdom, laughter and ability, goes out and enjoys life.

Age 80: Doesn't bother to look. Just puts on a purple hat and goes out to have fun with the world.

Ok, so it's not actually purple that I am here to talk about...but near enough! I had completely, in my general garrulous way, forgotten to get to indigo and violet and complete my rainbow...and so here we are! I have aggregated the two, as, as I'm sure you can imagine, the lists for these two were relatively short. The entries are not purposefully obscure...I haven't heard a lot of these songs...I had a good browse through Amazon in order to beef up the lists a little!

INDIGO

Go Indigo - Indigo Dying

Indigo - Francois Feldman

Indigo - Jim Donovan

Indigo - Moloko

Indigo - Peter Gabriel

Indigo Blue - David Cullen

Indigo Blue - Hank Crawford

Indigo Blues - Llorca

Indigo Child - Cachoa

Indigo Girl - Watershed

Indigo Sky - Tom Webber

Mood Indigo - Nina Simone (/Duke Ellington and scores of others)

Moods Of Indigo - Danny Wright

Moog Indigo - Jean Jacques Perry

Mother Indigo - Terry Clarke

Night Is Indigo - Natural Calamity

Shades Of Indigo - Carol Ames

Turbulent Indigo - Joni Mitchell

VIOLET

13 Violets - Mother Superior

Seasons Of Violet - Rim Banna

Shrinking Violet - LA Guns

Shrinking Violets - Geoff Byrd

The Violet Hour - Clientele

Ultra Violet - Pascal Device

Ultra-Violet - FreeBass

Ultraviolet (Light My Way) - U2

Under A Violet Moon - Blackmore's Night

Violet - Boy In Static

Violet - Circulation

Violet - Hole

Violet - Seal

Violet - The Birthday Massacre

Violet - Violet Says

Violet 19 (The Angel's Song) - Cecelia

Violet Club Sandwich - Greenfield

Violet Flame - Henriette Kat

Violet High - Cyclefly

Violet Sauce - Namie Amuro

Violet Skies - Matt Silver

Violet Sky - Homer and Lazon

Violet Sunset - Manfred Trendel

Violets For Your Furs - Shirley Horn

Violets Of Dawn - Chad Mitchell

When Violets Meet - Soft Parade

And that's me done with this game! The rainbow is complete...but I may return at some point to cover non-rainbow colours, such as pink, purple, gold, silver, black, white etc. etc. Bored of it for now though! Altogether..."I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow toooooo".

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Blue

Indigo/Violet - you're looking at it!

Heidi Mortenson: "Every time I see her I get the tiger fever"

Danish-born, Berlin-based Heidi Mortenson produces some interesting sounds. Not all of her output is, for me, 100% successful, but when it works it really works. This is playful, cacophonous electroclash, which was dubbed by one promoter as "tomboytronica". Mortenson is androgynous, flirting with trans imagery and lyrics which fall outside of the sexual mainstream. She released her second album Don't Lonely Me in July this year (you can listen to a one minute sample of each song at Juno), after setting up Wired Records in 2005 and using it to release her debut Wired Stuff, which she wrote, played, mixed and produced singlehanded.

In addition to this, Mortenson works as a producer for other bands and is one quarter of "bearded band" The Uncontrollables.

Mortenson grew up listening to the clangings and clankings of her father working in the garage, and was impressed by the metallic rhythms. Her mother played the organ. Moving from her native Denmark to Barcelona as a teenager, she began her musical career as a flyer girl at the first electronica bar there. She used the money to buy dj equipment. By 2004 she had moved to Berlin, finding a home in the booming electronica scene there.

I have read that she listens to Ani DiFranco, Cat Power and Nina Simone when at home, but her bleeps and blips are a long haul flight across the ocean from any of those sounds. My favourite track is Tiger, which has a sleepy sounding vocal and infectious repetition. You can listen to Tiger (and a few other songs) over at her MySpace page, and you can check her out further at her very own website.

Give Heidi Mortenson a whirl if you like: Peaches, Miss Kittin, Scream Club, Kevin Blechdom, Ellen Alien.

Video: Don't Lonely Me

"Loving is highly addictive, don't start"...but I love Laura Hocking!

Thanks to Another Form Of Relief for introducing me to Laura Hocking/Laura Sings Liver/Leonie Lauder...this girl has so many monikers and MySpace pages that it simply baffles! I believe that she is called Laura Hocking, her musical alias Laura Sings Liver and...no, I really have no idea where Leonie Lauder comes in! (Edit: I have since found a comment by Laura that elucidated on this a little; Leonie Lauder was the central character in a screenplay she started writing).

But whatever we call her, her music is really worth checking out. I haven't instantly liked something this much since...well, since I first heard Jesca Hoop a couple of weeks ago! Tee hee. This one is British and sounds a bit like...hmmm...Erin McKeown springs to mind, but it's not really jazzy like that. Perhaps Joanna Newsom? I'm sure, after listening to her, that you will be able to think of some better comparisons, as I am rubbish at all that.

I can tell you that she is 22 and based in Cambridge (at the university, no less), but beyond that I'm stuck, as there are really no details on any of her multiple MySpace pages. But there is plenty of music...in total (across the three) there are 14 tracks available to download! My favourite on first listen through is Strongmen and Acrobats, but I plan to listen repeatedly, so I'm sure that will change!

There are clever lyrics galore, such as "I am cold as obsidian arrowheads", posh girl enunciation and colloquialisms aplenty...strangely, none of these things are annoying in the least! This is no Kate Nash (thank goodness!).

You can visit her on MySpace here (which appears to be the main one of the three), but also here and here...knock yourselves out!

Oh, and should you care to join her group on Facebook, you can do that here...and you can also listen to some live recordings over at esnips, which is where I got the nifty widget below. This girl is definitely generous!

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Update 11/12/07: Laura has confimed that she will be releasing her first EP in April...Yip-EP!

The Ting Tings - a promising band with a godawful name!

The Tings Tings come from Salford/Manchester and are Katie White (vocals, guitar, bass drum) and Jules De Martino (drums, vocals). It would be easy to dismiss them for having such a dreadful name, but this is some catchy stuff...bratty electro-pop a la New Young Pony Club, CSS or Robots In Disguise. Although Katie and Jules were previously signed to major label Mercury Records as part of the three-piece Dear Eskimo, The Ting Tings are, as yet, unsigned. And this, apparently, is by choice. They are renowned in their vicinity for throwing some huge house parties to which, in recent times, music biz execs and A&R men have been turning up by the score.

They released double A-side That's Not My Name/Great DJ earlier this year and this, to date, remains their only release (on Manchester's Switchflicker), save for the song Fruit Machine, of which there was a limited pressing of 500 seven inch singles, which was only available at three of their gigs. Prior to the release of Fruit Machine, The Ting Tings, at four shows, stuck 100 blank 7-inch sleeves to the wall as a makeshift canvas, which they then invited their fans to 'decorate'. This 'artwork' then became the sleeves for the single. An interesting idea...and one which you can have a bit of a squizz at here.

That's Not My Name is ridiculously catchy, and really caught on when they played their (fourth ever!) show at Glastonbury earlier this year. The most obvious comparison is to Toni Basil's Mickey...hand claps and all! The flip-side of the single, Great DJ, sounds more like New Young Pony Club's Ice Cream, which is a good thing, save for the fact that I have simply heard that song so many times that I never need to hear it again (which is a shame, as it is really rather good).

They have 8000+ friends on their MySpace page; not bad for an unsigned act eh? Ones to watch it would seem.

Download: The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name

Visit The Ting Tings on MySpace to hear more songs.

Whilst we are on the subject of Manchester-based acts, I shall use this opportunity to give a brief plug to my mates' band Random Pam. Again they are quite electro, but this time a bit more DJ/club-based. Their music isn't (yet) perfect, but they are all very talented, with a sound understanding of music (e.g. Charlie attended music college, where she trained in opera) and I reckon that they will continue to get better and better. Give them a listen here.