HAIM

Once again I'm sitting at the airport in Dubai. This time on my way to China for the first time in a year. Very excited about the people (friends, not the locals...) and the food. Not so excited about the work. Very much not so excited about the weather.

As it turns out, I'm here at the airport for about 8 hours. I thought it was going to be 3, but no such luck. Which means I get to shower. But it also means there is a very high risk that I'm going to go buy a watch just to kill time. Not that I'm ever opposed to buying watches, but I should maybe not buy it after spending so much money in the US and Mexico over the last 3 weeks. We'll see. I make no promises.

In order to put off the watch buying, I'll blog. And maybe upload photos to Facebook, which I'm about 9 months behind on.

One of my favorite sources of new music is the BBC's "Sound of..." series. They announced the shortlist of 15 artists a few weeks ago. I had a listen to a few, liked some, others not so much. But now they've announced the winners and I'm pretty excited about some of them. The top 5 is actually the most exciting top 5 I've seen in the "Sound of..." series. The longlist and shortlist always contain artists from all across the board, and this year is no exception, but this year's artists are all ones I've been waiting to hear more from for a while now. And the top artist is no exception.

The winner this year is Haim, a group of 3 sisters who are awesome. Really freaking awesome. And they're form L.A. And they've toured with Florence & The Machine. And actually, I think they could be Jewish. They haven't released an album yet, but they've got a couple EPs and a few awesome songs. And Forever is definitely the best.





Surprisingly, all of the artists who I'd heard of in the longlist were the ones chosen for the top 5. I've been waiting a long time for more AlunaGeorge also. And recently blogged about Laura Mvula, who's pretty fantastic and has an album coming out in the next few months.

Top 10 Albums of 2012

It's that time of year again. Finally narrowed this down to just 10. I want to say this is the order they should be in, but aside from the top 3 staying the top 3, the other ones all switch around depending on what I'm listening to. Anyway, go purchase and support these artists, cause they're all amazing albums.

10. Dirty Projectors - Swing Lo Magellan

Favorite Tracks: Dance For You
                        See What She Seeing







9. Gary Clark, Jr. - Blak and Blu

Favorite Tracks: Bright Lights
                        Numb









8. Santigold - Master of My Make-Believe

Favorite Tracks: Freak Like Me
                        The Riot's Gone








7. Lianne La Havas - Is Your Love Big Enough?

Favorite Tracks: They Could Be Wrong
                         Au Cinéma








6. First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar

Favorite Tracks: The Lion's Roar
                         King of the World









5. Lord Huron - Lonesome Dream

Favorite Tracks: She Lit A Fire
                        The Stranger








4. Alabama Shakes - Boys & Girls

Favorite Tracks: Rise to the Sun
                        On Your Way








3. Hiatus Kaiyote - Tawk Tomahawk

Favorite Tracks - The World It Softly Lulls
                          Mobius Streak








2. Grizzly Bear - Shields

Favorite Tracks: Sun In Your Eyes
                        Sleeping Ute









1. Alt-j (Δ) - An Awesome Wave

Favorite Tracks: Dissolve Me
                        Tesselate

Laura Mvula

Just like my last blog, here's someone else I know barely anything about. Also like my last blog, I've barely heard anything by this lady. But what I have heard is enough to catch my attention. All I know about Laura Mvula is that she's from London and has released her first EP, She. Sadly it's not available on US iTunes yet, only UK iTunes, so I don't even know what songs to look for.

Out of the three songs that I've heard, She, the title track off the EP and the song that turned me on to her, is by far the best. Reminds me a bit of Lianne Le Havas, one of my favorite new artists of the year. Anyway, it's a beautiful song, especially once it really gets going about 2 minutes in. I'm just waiting until I can actually buy it on iTunes for myself. And until she releases a full album.

 

Kwabena Adjepong (Kwabs)

There isn't very much known about this guy from what I can tell. All I really know is that Kwabena Ajdepong (better known as Kwabs) gained everyone's attention with the following video, which apparently he performed at Buckingham Palace in front of the Queen.




After watching that I'm sure you can see why he gained so much attention, and why he started making the rounds on all the blogs. I've found a few more covers by him, but nothing of his own yet. My favorite is probably this cover of The Wilhelm Scream by James Blake (who you should absolutely go listen to. Ridiculously good debut album). Very different from the original, and he adds his own lyrics and stuff in.




I also know that he's apparently Ghanaian, even though he was raised in the UK, and still has tons of family there. So maybe I can count him as another African musician for the list.

RAC Remixes

One of the blogs I listen to has a lot of remix tracks on it. While I enjoy a good remix, they're not generally something I seek out. With a few exceptions of course (i.e. My Brightest Diamond, whose remix albums I look forward to just as much as her original albums. Cause she's brilliant.).

Anyway, so this blog has lots of remixes. Particularly lots of remixes by RAC. I'd taken notice of them but never sought to find more. Until today, that is. Was listening to the blog in question, and two amazing remixes came on, both of which were by RAC. So I learned that they are a cooperative of 3 guys who make remixes for lots of artists that I like. That's enough to know, I guess.

Anyway, first song I heard was an awesome remix of We Come Running by Youngblood Hawke. I like the original a lot, but I think I like this remix even more. And apparently these guys are popular and on the radio and stuff? Is this true? Anyway, this song is great from the first note. And then the second verse comes in and it gets even better. Fucking awesome.





The second was a remix of one of my favorites, Home by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. If you haven't heard the original, you must. The song is incredible. And this remix is also amazing. Luckily this one can be found on RAC's album Chapter One, along with remixes of plenty of other awesome bands.




And in case you need more, they have like a bajillion songs on their SoundCloud.

Because I like long songs

So sometimes I love an extremely long song. I especially love when a regular length song is played out to ridiculous lengths at a concert. That's always fun.

I got two new albums this week, both of which are great, and both of which contain songs of around 9 minutes. Both of which songs are fantastic.

The first one is Troubleman, off Mondo, the debut album from Electric Guest. I'm a bit partial to this band since they're from LA, but they also make excellent music. They're produced by Danger Mouse, which is always a good sign, and at times remind me of Graffiti6, which is also a good thing.




Then there is Gary Clark, Jr. This is one guy you should absolutely know about. I first heard him earlier this year with his song Bright Lights. That's probably still my favorite song by him, so even though only a measly 5:25, I will still share it with you.





This guy is pretty freaking awesome. Some have even called him the saviour of the blues. Great vocals, great music, and excellent songs of ridiculous length. Which brings me to another of my favorites from his major label debut album, Blak and Blu. This song is not only almost 10 minutes long, it also has a crazy long name: Third Stone from the Sun/If You Love Me Like You Say. And he doesn't even start singing until like three and a half minutes in. This is one of those tracks that, even though it's already stupid long, I don't want it to end. And I can only imagine how amazing it is live. Apparently it's a double cover, starting off with Jimi Hendrix and moving into Albert Collins.

 

Joe Purdy

Joe Purdy has been one of my favorites for years now. But he's one of those favorites that I haven't kept up with very well. Of course, it's hard with him. I just checked and he's apparently got 13 albums. And as it turns out, I kept up better than I thought with him. There was a time where he realsed like 3 albums a year, but I guess the last I heard was 2009's Last Clock On The Wall, after which he's only released two more. I guess I'll go buy them.

Anyway, my favorite track by him, and one of my favorite songs, is I Love the Rain the Most off the Julie Blue album. Julie Blue is a collection of acoustic tracks that he recorded in a river cabin in like a week with a friend. It's great. I've heard this song performed live with a full band, and it's still great, but there's something about the original acoustic version that is very special.