Sally Seltmann - Heart That's Pounding

Over jaunty guitars and sprightly keys, sometime Fiest collobarator Sally Seltmann sings earnestly about being in love, being happy, becoming a better person, and...well, several thinly-veiled variations on those themes.

It's interesting and somewhat refreshing to hear someone avoid the common topics of depression and loneliness and instead focus on overwhelming positives, but - and maybe I just have a penchant for melancholy- over the length of a whole album, it gets old, and you keep hoping for some darkness to creep up to provide a change of pace.

'Heart That's Pounding' represents an interesting, but not unexpected twist Seltmann, who formerly released very textured and dreamlike, confessional music under the moniker New Buffalo.

Her debut under her own name is more straightforward, more generic-indie sounding- but she's still a talented songwriter and imbues every track with a clever hook, a catchy chorus, or an interesting little moment that keeps the album moving along. I was wholly un-surprised to discover she'd co-written '1234' after hearing this- that song could exist on 'Heart That's Pounding' as easily as it does on 'The Reminder.'

Ultimately though, this will prove to be a pretty divisive release. Just as some will find her fresh-faced lyrics and delivery empowering, others will see it as naive and annoying- and it's hard not to take issue with the sheer number of times the phrase 'hold me tightly' crops up on track after track. You could design a very effective drinking game based solely around that idea and a shuffle button.

When it comes down to it, though, it's hard to knock 'Heart That's Pounding' too much, since it becomes really obvious after a few listens that she's poured her unshakeably happy soul into the CD. It may not be something I'll personally listen too again- aside from the albums gospel-tinged closer and my personal favorite, 'Dark Blue Angel'- but for those swept up by the irrepressibly buoyant singer-songwriters charms, you probably couldn't do much better.

Daedulus - Righteous Fists of Harmony

Daedulus has been making expiremental and genre-bending electronic music for almost a decade, and 'Righteous Fists of Harmony,' his 10th release and first for Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder label, is an intriguing concept EP- a sound track to the Chinese Boxer Rebellion- that may inititially underwhelm, but proves itself upon repeated listens.

It opens with 'An Armada Approaches,' a curious and ominous track composed of two slow building, dread inducing sections. The cynic in me wonders if he wrote two openings and couldn't decide which one he liked better, as both parts serve the same purpose, but in the end they go together quite well.

From there on out, it's an interesting mash of sounds and styles, unified by the constant presence and intrusion of cinematic, nostalgic strings, and skittering drum loops.
There's the airy and pleasant, samba-esque 'Order of the Golden Dawn', the reverb-laden and unsettlingly romantic 'Stampede Me,' the enveloping, and comparitevly conventional 'The Open Hand Avows'.

What's curious is, for how disjointed many of these songs are from each other, and sometimes, from themselves, the album still manages to maintain some sort of overarching continuity.

Partly, this is due to a handful of tracks that bracket the album and the more adventurous songs. Though sonically interesting, they do little but help us transition between the varying styles and provide a sort of anchor, which brings us to 'the problem' with 'Righteous Fists of Harmony'- it's less of an album and more of a 26-minute composition.

It absolutely demands to be listened to in it's entirety. With the exception of 'Order of the Golden Dawn' and perhaps one or two others, it's hard to imagine listening to many of these songs on their own. Which isn't to say that they're bad, but without the framework and context of the album as a whole, they're just not necessarily terribly interesting.

Ultimately, 'Righteous Fists of Harmony' will probably go down as a solid and thoroughly creative addition to Daedulus' discography, but not an essential release. It's good, but it's more of an engaging novelty then an album on its own.

Alex B - Moments

'Moments', the self-released (on his own label, Elm&Oak) debut album from Pnuma Trio bassist and dj/producer Alex B, comes off more like a demo reel or a mix-tape then a full album.

It hits all the necessary notes- there's the obligatory rap collaboration, the song that samples dialogue from a sci-fi flick, the laid back, step-tinged track with females vocals- even a few repetitive beats just begging to be looped from a boom-box and free-styled over.

Now, this isn't to say that 'Moments' is bad, or conventional- there is a lot to like, from the shuffling bass and staccato vocal stabs on 'You and I Both Know' to the engagingly off-beat, introspective 'Talk it Out.'

But aside from those, and a handful of other tracks, most of the 17 songs on 'Moments' barely have time to develop. A beat is introduced, tweaked a little, and just when you expect it to evolve further, it cuts out. Few songs take off like you want them to, and far too many breeze by with hardly an impact.

Partly, this may be due to design. As the title suggests, most of 'Moments' songs are short little electro-vignettes, with the bulk clocking in around the 2:30 mark. But whether intentional or not, the end result is a CD containing a lot of interesting, but half-formed, ideas. It's no surprise that the best songs- like the aforementioned 'You and I Both Know'- are also the ones that feel like they've been given the most attention.

It's undeniable that Alex B knows how to make beats- the question for the future is whether he knows where to go with them.

My Five Favourite Up-and-Coming Songstresses

1. Beach House

Beach House makes atmospheric, reverb-laden music from another time- the 1960's. 
Honestly, you could probably throw a few of Beach House's songs on a Jefferson Airplane and Dusty Springfield mix cd and pass them off as from the era. 
Victoria Legrand, the bands singer, comes from music royalty stock- her family tree contains many famous and not-so-famous musician and singers from the decade her music so beautifully invokes. 
Though both critically lauded, and occasionally lambasted, for staying more or less within the same soundscape over the course of multiple albums, I personally have no issue with that. 
She can write as many of these songs as she wants, and I'll just keep putting them all on shuffle.


2. Lyyke Li.

Lyyke Li's debut album Youth Novels has been out for a little more then a year, and though it's been a slow go commercially, she's racked up a whole host of fellow musicians as supporters.
Her quirky Swedish style and unique voice- combined with her rare ability to sound live almost exactly as she does in the studio- has made her a critical darling, and it's only a matter time before goes big. 
Or, at least, bigger.


3. St Vincent.

I saw St Vincent at Bumbershoot before I really knew who she was, and either didn't pay as much attention as I should, or her debut CD didn't take me like her second release, 'Actor', has.
Either way, I've fallen in love with her music pretty hard. 
I must admit, I'm a sucker for things that are a bit odd, and her detuned, beautifully ugly solos and consistently unsettling lyrics strike all the rights chords for me.
Though she's been performing for years, with the prolific Sufjan Stevens, and as a member of the Polyphonic Spree, it was only with Actor that she started to earn any sort of critical or commercial success.
With her music getting more confident, and shifting towards the darker and more personal as opposed to the pleasant but glossy folk-pop of her debut, I expect good things from her in the future.


4. The Heartless Bastards

They've been around for a while now- I think almost seven years- and flitted at the edges of fame but never quite made that final leap.
Why that is I'm not quite sure- lead singer/songwriter Erika Wennerstron is one of the most soulful and authentic voices in rock, and her lyrics masterfully elicit timeless themes that rockers have tread for years, whilst still sounding new.
Whatever reason, it can hardly be said that the Heartless Bastards are doing poorly- they have a rabid, and rabidly growing fan base, consistent critical acclaim, are touring with the newly reformed and reshuffled Wolfmother, whose throwback stoner rock will compliment them nicely.


5. Viva Voce

Viva Voce play charming and disarming roots tinged pop- that is, until Guitarist and singer Anita Robinson decides to go crazy and bust out a face-melting solo that'll make even the narrowest of rock or metal fans stand up and take notice.
Though a girl masterfully playing guitar can occasionally become a gimmick, it's the strength of Viva Voces music and songwriting that sell the band- and the variety of their catalog, combined with the frenetic energy of their live shows, that have earned them their steadily growing reputation.

The Unexpected Fallout from Hot Chip's New Video.

Hot Chip : Not Male Models.

Quirky electro-dance act Hot Chip released probably the most bizarrely amazing music video of all time a few days ago. It almost instantly went viral all over the net, and has probably brought them more exposure in three days then they've gotten with all three of their previous CDs combined.

If you haven't seen it, it's the video for 'I Feel Better' from their new album 'One Life Stand,' and can be viewed here. Go watch it.

So, you and me both know, that the four boy-band-looking model types playing Hot Chip in the video are not, in fact, Hot Chip, just a satire of over-produced boy bands, and apparently, a direct dig at British group JLS. Even if we didn't know what Hot Chip looked like, the sheer absurdity of the video and the constant pans to the nerdy-looking fellows in the crowd would tip us off.

But for some people, a giant, disembodied black man who shoots lasers out of his eyes is not a good enough give away that something is up.

All over the internet, on music gossip sites, forums, places like youtube and vimeo, and even in places that cater to a generally more 'in-the-know' crowd such as digg and reddit- people are coming away with from this video with the idea that Hot Chip are some terrible new English boy-band.


You know, it's not terribly surprising, if you really consider the video.

The whole thing is played extraordinarily straight. Up until the so called 'cancer jesus' starts spitting lasers, at almost a minute and a half, almost nothing truly weird has happened. If I hadn't been in on the joke the whole time, I probably would have backspaced out not long after the intro.

I'm sure the song itself has some impact. I'm an avid Hot Chip fan, and it took me several listens to get into 'I Feel Better' and not wonder if I accidentally turned on some millennial club mix. Expecting someone for whom this is not their type of music, to listen to it for nearly two minutes with very little payoff, is expecting a lot.

It's hard to tell what, exactly, the fall-out of this will be. Undoubtedly it's brought Hot Chip a lot of new fans, and those who are confused by the video probably don't matter much because they probably wouldn't like Hot Chip in the first place.

But it's an interesting case study in marketing gone wrong- I can't imagine any band wanting to achieve a few fleeting moments of internet fame, only to be mistaken for a bunch of prancing male models. Somehow, though, it rather fits Hot Chip's absurd nature.