The Arcs - Yours, Dreamily - 2015

Dan Auerbach is quite an interesting guy. When he is not fronting one of the biggest bands on the planet the Black Keys, he is producing for other artists, recording with hip hop artists, and now he is releasing the first album under his new side project the Arcs, “Yours, Dreamily”.

Music fans have had a taste of the likely sound of this album for a while, with pre-released tracks “Stay in My Corner”, “Put a Flower in Your Pocket”, and “Outta My Mind”. And, right from the get go these tracks hinted at a swirling blusey/soulful record to come. But, has the actual album delivered on the early promise of those tracks?

Well, overall, I would say yes. In terms of the “new’ tracks which were not put out into the music sphere pre-release, most of them do stack up and see Auerbach and his band, a band that includes the very talented Lee Michels from El Michel’s Affair and Truth & Soul Records on drums exploring different blusey, psychedelic and soulful sounds. Although similar in nature to recent Black Key’s records such as “Brothers” and “Turn Blue”, there is still a lot going on in these new bunch of tracks that shows Auerbach is willing to experiment with what is quickly becoming his stock-standard mix of soul, blues and psychedelia.

“Pistol Made of Bones” is a southern stomper complete with horns, a barking dog and plenty of swagger, while on “Cold Companion”, Auerbach heads into what I would describe as progressive blues territory, with the backing vocals sounding very 70's progressive rock-like. I say that in a good way of course. “The Arc” is a grungy blues rocker, not to dissimilar to the material seen on Auerbach’s debut solo album. And, although not as good as some of the more psychedelic moments on “Yours, Dreamily”, it does its job as the sort of token stadium rocker track on the album nicely. On “Nature’s Child”, Auerbach and the band have a John Lennon moment circa early-70's, which is pleasant enough without being amazing, while “Velvet Ditch” has a smooth, contemporary R&B feel to it, as well as featuring two funky sax and guitar solos. The album then moves to its finale with one of the standout tracks “Chains of Love”, which has some stellar female backing vocals and an infectious rhythmic groove to boot. A great track, and very different to Auerbach’s more traditional material. The album then winds down with tracks such as the simplistically sweet R&B of “Rosie (Ooh la la)”, and album closer “Searching the Blue” which is a very nice Stax-sounding soul ballad.

On the whole, this is not unusual territory for Auerbach, but at the same time this is definitely not a Black Keys replica album by any stretch. The added presence of other musicians I would say gave the tracks more groove, and allowed Auerbach to play around more with different textures and rhythms. Something he might be more limited to with the Black Keys. On listening to this album you can certainly hear Auerbach playing with new sounds and musical ideas, and “Yours, Dreamily”, all in all really is a very solid contemporary, but at the same time authentic soul record. Well worth a listen I would say. 

B+

- Sam 

Genre of the Week 1: Synthpop

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#GenreoftheWeek Synthpop

Over the past week on the facebook page I've been posting about Synthpop to kick off the first week in our new feature genre of the week. The above image contains the artists and albums of the songs I've been posting, and should really just be seen as a starting point for listening, by no means a definitive list. Here's a list of all the songs I've posted. Any of these would be a great addition to an 80s party playlist, and are guaranteed to inspire twitchy, robotic dancing (or maybe that's just me)

Kraftwerk - "Das Modell" (Die Mensch-Maschine, 1978)

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Firecracker" (Yellow Magic Orchestra, 1978)

Tubeway Army - "Are 'Friends' Electric?" (Replicas, 1978)

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Rydeen" (Solid State Survivor, 1979)

Gary Numan - "Cars" (The Pleasure Principle, 1979)

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Electricity" (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 1979)

Soft Cell - "Tainted Love" (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1981)

The Human League - "Don't You Want Me" (Dare, 1981)

Depeche Mode - "New Life" (Speak & Spell, 1981)

Yazoo - "Don't Go" (Upstairs at Eric's, 1982)

New Order - "Blue Monday" (Blue Monday/Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983)*

Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), 1983)

Talk Talk - "It's My Life" (It's My Life, 1984)

Pet Shop Boys - "West End Girls" (Please, 1984)

a-ha - "Take On Me" (Hunting High and Low, 1984)

New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle" (Bizarre Love Triangle/Low-Life, 1986)*

Pet Shop Boys - "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" (Actually, 1987)

Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence" (Violator, 1990)

The Knife - "Heartbeats" (Deep Cuts, 2002)

Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" (The Suburbs, 2012)

Future Islands - "Seasons (Waiting on You)" (Singles, 2014)

*Neither of these singles were released on an LP so I've instead suggested albums which were released around the same time and contain equally great synthpop songs.

Be sure to also check out the youtube and spotify playlists which contain these songs as well as a few extras.

If you want to request a genre for us to focus on, leave a comment here or on the facebook page. Next week Sam will take the helm, so look forward to that! 

-Karl

How Music Got Free - Stephen Witt (2015)

How Music Got Free: What happens when an entire generation commits the same crime, is one of the most intriguing and thrilling reads I have had in a while. Written by Stephen Witt, this book (a first for the author) explores the history of music piracy, where it started, who was involved and how they did it, as well as what their motivations were. Now most people, including myself believed the piracy era began with Napster, but Witt takes things back even further to the invention of the MP3 by a German professor, and the actions of one man in a town called Shelby in North Carolina. This is the story of the MP3, its invention and who pirated the first MP3 music files.

By the mid-90s, music obsessives from small towns across America were rising up against the music industry which by the late-90s had reached its zenith financially under the leadership of Universal Records Doug Morris, the CEO of the largest and richest music label on the planet. Thanks to the success of the compact disc, the industry was booming, but this was about to come crashing down as a man by the name of Dell Glover began an operation smuggling albums out of the Polygram CD pressing plant where he worked. Glover used co-workers hiding CDs under their belts to break past a heavily secured facility. He then proceeded to upload the compact discs, many of which were yet to be released albums by the likes of Jay Z, Eminem and Tupac to an online secretive piracy group called Rabid Neurosis, or RNS for short. This was a network of people online who used pseudonyms and encrypted software to share music online in the form of the then much maligned mp3. It is believed 1500 CDs were smuggled out of the plant and uploaded to the internet, while over a decade RNS helped leak 20,000 albums. Forget Napster, these guys were the epicentre of music piracy in the late-90s and early-2000s. What started as a hobby, became a significant money-earner for Glover, and when it was at its most profitable, he earned upwards of around $1500 a week.

In the book, Witt also explores the invention of the MP3 in Germany by a professor called Karlheinz Brandenburg. The MP3 was designed as a way of compressing audio files to make digital storage easier. However, as Witt points out in the book, no one in the tech or music industry was interested in the MP3 and it lost out to the MP2, hence why music pirates ended up taking advantage of it for their own ends. The book shows Brandenburg, a highly intelligent man, to have been treated harshly by both the tech and music industries as he tried to get both the MP3 and MP3 player he designed patented. Phillips declined his MP3 player design, the first of its kind, while the music industry turned down the opportunity to embrace the MP3 in 1997. When Brandenburg recommended they adopt a copy-protected version of the file, the industries response was that they did not believe in electronic music distribution. Ultimately this decision would cost them an estimated $21 billion. The story behind the MP3 and the man who invented it is a fascinating and essential component of the book and the overall piracy story, simply because the decision of both the tech and music industry to not embrace MP3 led to music pirates getting their hands on the technology first.

The book also explores the rise of BitTorrenting and in particular the story of one of the first and most successful torrent sites Oink in the UK. The brainchild of Alan Ellis, at its peak, Oink had 100,000 users, while contained in its library was around one million albums. Ellis was again one of those music enthusiasts whose hobby got bigger than intended. He would later be put on trial for conspiracy to defraud and was found not guilty. The book ends with the music industry’s response to piracy and their operations to go after the pirates themselves, operations that initially involved targeting college students and children, not the main conspirators such as the members of RNS. By the time Glover and other members of RNS were caught and put on trial, it was too late for the music industry and the statistics offered up what was a grim reality for an industry in decline. Between 1996 and 2010, 100 billion files were shared, 21 billion dollars were lost, there were 50 million active down loaders online, 300,000 songs were ripped, and 25,000 albums leaked. Out of all of this, the music industry charged 150 people, and the man responsible for smuggling 1500 albums from the pressing plant he worked served only a three-month jail sentence.

“How music got free” is a fantastic read and is a must for anyone interested in the history of music piracy, the music industry, or how a culture of downloading bought the music industry to its knees, which incidentally it has never recovered from. This book is very well researched and incredibly detailed, while at times read like a fictional thriller. The further you get into the book, the more and more compelled you feel to keep reading and cannot wait to find out what happens next as the members of RNS plot their next leak. This is not a book about debating whether music downloading is good or not, or the pros and cons of piracy, this debate has been done to death and thankfully Witt goes down a completely different path with great success. For a first book this one will be hard to beat for Witt and is in fact a bit of a scoop for him. The thing is Glover has never been interviewed before on his life as a music pirate and his involvement in one of the biggest shifts the music industry has ever seen. When Witt asked Glover why he had never told anybody any of his story before, Glover responded “no one ever asked”. 

A+

- Sam 

The Wrecking Crew - Dir Denny Tedesco (2015)

The 2015 New Zealand International Film Festival has just wrapped up and there was a plethora of good music documentaries on show. One of these was the long-awaited and much heralded film “The Wrecking Crew”. Directed by Denny Tedesco, the film which was originally made for release in 2008, but had its release delayed due to distribution issues is about a group of Los Angeles-based musicians who made up the session group from the late 50s and 60s called the Wrecking Crew. This collective of session players which totalled over fifty musicians played on all the big hits of the period, including those by the Beach Boys, Frank and Nancy Sinatra and the “Wall of Sound” records produced by Phil Spector. At that time big name American pop artists wanted the best musicians backing them on their records and in the form of the Wrecking Crew they knew they were getting the case. In the process this often led as was the case with the Beach Boys to bands ditching their own members for the Wrecking Crew to play on their records.

You might not know the names of the musicians, but you will definitely have heard some of the music they played on, with songs like “Good Vibrations”, “The Beat Goes On” and “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” coming to mind. And, this is one of the things the film sells itself on, the idea that these musicians stories have been left untold for too long, while the superstar singers and bands whose records they played on have gained all the fame and fortune. Session musician groups such as the Wrecking Crew are now a thing of the past, and that is one if the sad facts of this story in that once the 70s came, many of these musicians had no more work and simply vanished from the industry as work became scarcer. Some fortunately such as Leon Russell and Glen Campbell were able to get gigs with other big acts, or in the case of Campbell carve out successful solo career. But other interesting personalities such as bass player Carol Kaye and guitarist Tommy Tedesco, both highly influential players struggled to maintain work in an industry which was undergoing significant change as the decades moved on. Session players were out as more and more acts picked up their own instruments. A shame really as these players are talented and extremely gifted players, with the ability to play any style of music, play it more than competently and read music to boot, something which in itself is becoming rarer and rarer amongst pop and rock acts today.

“The Wrecking Crew” is a truly beautiful story which was actually quite a touching watch at times, as these musicians sat with one another yarning and reminiscing of the good times had in the studio. And, although many of them have long since had much to do with the industry, this film was a fitting reminder that they once carved out a place at the centre of the music industry and made their mark well and truly in the process. Thankfully the distribution problems which have prevented the release of this film were able to be sold and the opportunity for these musicians to tell their story has come about. A great rockumentary film which anyone with an interest in popular music history should see if given the opportunity.

A

- Sam 

Taking Stock: 2015 (halfway mark) Playlist

We are half way through the year, and what a year it has been so far for new music with some great albums released, as well as some great tunes. So I thought it would be a good time to take stock and list what has impressed me so far in 2015 both album-wise and song-wise. Along with my 2015 album and song list, I will also mention what is coming up in 2015 album-wise.

Albums

Chasing Yesterday – Noel Gallaher’s High Flying Birds

Coming Home – Leon Bridges

Currents – Tame Impala

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful – Florence and the Machine

The Magic Whip – Blur

Multi-Love – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Saturn’s Pattern – Paul Weller

Sound & Colour – Alabama Shakes

Songs

Ballad of the Almighty I – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Can’t Keep Checking My Phone – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Coming Home – Leon Bridges

Delilah – Florence and the Machine

Do The Damage – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Don’t Wanna Fight – Alabama Shakes

Extreme Wealth and Casual Cruelty – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Ghost Ship – Blur

Go Out – Blur

Got It Bad – Leisure 

Gunja Din – The Libertines

Hot Love – Leisure

I’m Where I Should Be – Paul Weller

Let It Happen – Tame Impala

Like-Acid Rain – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Little Boys With Shiny Toys – Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

Lonesome Street – Blur

Loud Places – Jamie XX

Mirrorball – Blur

My Terracotta Heart – Blur

Necessary Evil – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Ong Ong – Blur

Over My Head – Alabama Shakes

Phoenix – Paul Weller

Pick It Up – Paul Weller

Pyongyang – Blur

Queen Of Peace – Florence and the Machine

Reality in Motion – Tame Impala

River – Leon Bridges

Scumbag City Blues – The Strypes

Ship To Wreck – Florence and the Machine

Smooth Sailing – Leon Bridges

So Good At Being In Trouble – Tyra Hammond

Sound & Colour – Alabama Shakes

The Less I Know the Better – Tame Impala

The Mexican – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

The Right Stuff – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds

Thought I Was a Spaceman – Blur

Ur Life One Night – Unknown Mortal Orchestra

Written in The Water – Gin Wigmore

What’s to come in 2015

The Strypes – Little Victories (July)

The Arcs – Yours, Dreamily (September)

St Germain – St Germain (October)

Fat Freddy’s Drop – Unknown Title (October)

The Libertines – Anthems For Doomed Youth (TBA)

Leisure (hopefully an album) 

- Sam