Music

Japandroids

ALARM Dispatches: Japandroids

Four years since its first show, Japandroids played back-to-back shows, on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, in Chicago. The duo sat down with photo journalist Brian Leli to take stock of its progress and revel in the moment.

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: Gorillaz’ The Fall

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

Gorillaz: The FallGorillaz: The Fall (EMI, 12/25/10)

Gorillaz: “Phoner to Arizona”
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Morrow: Over Christmas, Damon Albarn of Gorillaz (as well as Blur and The Good, The Bad & The Queen, et al) released a free album of material called The Fall for paying Gorillaz fan-club members.  Recorded on the road during the American portion of the group’s recent Plastic Beach tour, the material (which can be streamed for free by non-paying mailing-list members) is most noteworthy for being entirely recorded and produced on an iPad.

The music isn’t the high-water mark that was Plastic Beach, which benefited from virtuosic performances by The Lebanese National Orchestra for Oriental Arabic Music and others and which featured high-profile guests such as Lou Reed, Mos Def, De La Soul, and many others.  But the songs are fun, dance-y little electronic numbers (with Albarn singing over some of them), and there isn’t much in the production that would tip it as being recorded on an iPad.  There are “legit” electronic instruments in the mix — Moogs, Korgs, etc. — as well as accents from traditional instruments, including a beautiful ukulele loop on “Revolving Doors.”

The Groove Seeker: Beep’s City of the Future

On a weekly basis, The Groove Seeker goes in search of killer grooves across rock, funk, hip hop, soul, electronic music, jazz, fusion, and more.

Beep: City of the Future (Third Culture Records, 1/18/11)

Beep: “Robo Pup”
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San Francisco-based trio Beep has tapped into a fresh vanguard with its upcoming release City of the Future. The indie-rock-meets-experimental-jazz trio is commanding without being loud, making the dynamics and improvisational strategies of jazz accessible to a whole new audience. City of the Future contains pieces that advance rather than deconstruct in an accomplished style that forgoes any art-school tropes narrowly associated with the experimental tag.

Produced by Eli Crews (producer for Deerhoof and Why?), the record is marked by passionate percussion and a broad sense of what a melody can sound like. Making avant garde sound closer than ever to the present, Beep has found a sound that mixes the vibrancy of the modern rock recording with the experimental subtleties of a jazz record.

Slow Boat Records

Behind the Counter: Slow Boat Records (Wellington, New Zealand)

Each Tuesday, Behind the Counter speaks to an independent record store to ask about its recent favorites, best sellers, and noteworthy trends.

Slow Boat Records in Wellington, New Zealand is one of the record stores of yore, owned and operated by Dennis O’Brien for more than 25 years in the heart of the downtown area. The store sells both new and used records and places an emphasis on local and harder-to-find bands. Over time, it has expanded its Internet presence and now sells online as well as in store. We spoke to Slow Boat’s Jeremy Taylor to get the scoop on this Kiwi “mom and pop” record shop.

Which albums has your store sold the most over the past month?

We have sold a whole bunch of vinyl copies of local indie band The Phoenix Foundation’s latest album Buffalo; we had 300 copies pressed and have sold them exclusively through the shop and through the band’s own website. Big sellers over X-mas were Soul Jazz’s Deutsche Electronique Musique compilation, the new Robert Plant LP Band Of Joy, Mavis Staples‘ You Are Not Alone… and I never cease to be amazed by how many copies of The Velvet Underground & Nico we sell on LP.

What is the musical community like in Wellington?

Wellington has a strong musical community; we are regularly visited by musicians from some of the more popular bands from the local scene such as The Phoenix Foundation, Fat Freddys Drop, and Trinity Roots, and we have also hosted some impressive in-store performances.

Slow Boat Records