Audiopleasures: Bonnie 'Prince' Billy

Showing posts with label Bonnie 'Prince' Billy. Show all posts

Wednesday, 4 June 2008

Let's Dance, Padded Cell, Au, Beneva/Clark Nova, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Blindness, Joseph Hoback , Oded Ezer, Marcelo Pombo, These New Puritans, Green

" Night Must Fall " - Dc Recordings - 2008
Psychedelic / Disco House / Post punk

Padded Cell, Drawing inspiration from bands as diverse as Goblin, The Velvet Underground, Arthur Russell, Material, Bush Tetras, and Carl Craig, this duo's analogue fetishism is tinged with creeping psychosis but makes for a sound that is as soulful and emotional as it is dark and narcotic. The making of "Night Must Fall" has involved a list of collaborators that hints at this rich diversity: Dennis Young (Liquid Liquid) plays percussion and marimba, Chloe Battant from London punk funk band Battant (Kill The Dj) delivers vocals; guitars and synths come from sonic necromancer Giallos Flame (Analogue Screams / DC Recordings), and Italian producers The Diaphanoids (Bearfunk) deliver strings, synths and vocals.

Mp3 | Padded Cell - Savage Skulls
Mp3 | Padded Cel l - Konkorde Lafayette

" Verbs " - Aagoo - 2008
Indie / Experimental

Au Verbs is the elated realization of those many asymmetrical pop diamonds that shone so brightly throughout Au's artful debut (whose warm, Appalachia-informed gems found many favorable comparisons to the far-reaching likes of Arnold Dreyblatt, Animal Collective, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and Grizzly Bear)—its many swift and unexpected evolutions shepherded confidently by Wyland's competent, classically-trained hand. As surprising as it is immediate, Verbs is infused with all of the earnest and palpable joy of its creation—the delightfully enveloping whole of which demands to be heard. Aagoo

Mp3 | Au - All Myself
Mp3 | Au - Two Seasons

" Sombunall " - Fenetre - 2008
Electronic / Experimental / Glitch

Working together with the up-and-coming Norwegian vocalist Therese Aune, who sings on “His Freefloating Affection” and “With Love, Etc.” (duet with Rudi), the duo Beneva vs. Clark Nova could be compared to the off the wall pop sound of Hanne Hukkelberg and Silje Nes. Mix this with the electro-acoustic world of Four Tet, the complex rhythms of Autechre, the indietronica of Broadcast, plus a good dose of charm, melodic oddity and some introverted enthusiasm, and you’ll maybe get a grasp of what Sombunall is all about. Tracks like “88 Kilos of Excrement” and “Thora’s Inferno”, with their catchy rhythms and melodies, have been small ‘hits’ on the duo’s Myspace site. The uplifting “Nothing, Only Worthwhile” rounds off the album, which we believe is one of the most exciting releases of 2008. Fenetre Records

Mp3 | Beneva vs. Clark Nova - 88 Kilos of Excrement
Mp3 | Beneva vs. Clark Nova - His Freefloating Affection

" Superwolf " - Dragcity - 2005
Indie / Folk

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney
No matter who or what he calls himself, Will Oldham has always been uniquely capable of making colossal leaps in tone between breaths, and from track to track Superwolf nobly maintains that practice, drifting gracefully from classic-rock stomps to whispery dirges. Consequently, Oldham followers may recognize Superwolf as a welcome midway point between Oldham's past aliases, as it hops from shambling, Viva Last Blues-ish, Palace Music-era shakes to dark, Master and Everyone haunts. "Beast for Thee" matches a gorgeous, barely-there melody with self-deflating lyrics ("Why are you kind to me?/ You could so easily take me in your arms and see/ A donkey"), Oldham's quivering pipes and Sweeney's fragile guitar coalescing into a soft, droning, and tremendously pretty whole. The equally excellent "Blood Embrace" features some of Oldham's heartiest vocals, each word strong and full, floating above dark electric guitar swirls, dodging film samples of a faithless woman whispering to an unnamed lover, crafting an atmosphere so tense and ominous that you almost can't help twisting your face around to peep over your shoulder. Amanda Petrusich - Pitchforkmedia

Mp3 | Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - What Are You_
Mp3 | Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - Beast for Thee

First trailer for Fernando Meirelles's latest film, 'Blindness'. The film stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Don McKellar, Gael Garcia Bernal, Sandra Oh, and Danny Glover.

When a sudden plague of blindness devastates a city, a small group of the afflicted band together to triumphantly overcome the horrific conditions of their imposed quarantine.

Watch | Blindness

Awesome animation by Joseph Hoback

Watch | Creature Mover

The Finger - Oded Ezer new typo art project, is an imaginary landscape of Hebrew letters. It was originally created as a homage to the Israeli poet, choreographer and art critic Hezi Leskley (1952-1994), echoing the title of his first book, published in 1986.

Watch | The Finger

Argentinean artist Marcelo Pombo creates large, colorful paintings that are rooted in a surrealist vocabulary and contain abstracted landscapes, architecture and figurative elements. The artist approaches his paint application through pointillism, employing thousands of small dots to assemble this primitive yet deliberate imagery. Pombo, who currently lives and works in Buenos Aires, is a prominent artistic figure within South American contemporary art. Daily Serving

Click here to watch the whole concert!

The Green Man Festival in the UK, is looking for one last band to open the festival. We want your help and the music loving public's help us discover this band. So we started a search called Green Poll.

This is how it works:
- Bands register for Green Poll on our site greenpoll
- The public vote for the bands they like and get a chance to win a pair of tickets
- Band with most votes plays Green Man attended by 10,000 people and they also get 6 extra tickets

15th, 16th and 17th August 2008
Super Furry Animals / Spiritualized / Pentangle / Richard Thompson / Iron and Wine / The National / Black Mountain / Drive By Truckers / Howlin' Rain / King Creosote / Caribou / Damien Jurado and lots more

for more info The Green Man Festival

Saturday, 17 May 2008

Let's Dance, Tindersticks, Morgan Packard, Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, The Books, Sigur Rós, Sea Hyun lee, Fons Scheidon, Vinicius Costa

" The Hungry Saw " - Beggars - 2008
Alternative

Nottingham’s Tindersticks draw on a broad range of influences (from Nick Drake and Scott Walker to Dusty In Memphis and Barry White) with poignant depth, cinematic sweep and enviable perfectionism. That’s great and all, but doesn’t quite explain what has made the band (active since 1994 and always seemingly on the verge of disappearing) so eccentric and endearing. Tindersticks have always stood out from the attention-deficient British music scene by virtue of their humanism. They echo their heroes’ pop classicism without directly striving for their stylish detachment. Tindersticks aren’t afraid to bleed on their wrinkle-free tuxedoes. Their fragile ballads linger like half-forgotten dreams, deeply romantic yet always tinged with regret. Their lush arrangements are often intentionally awkward and sour, transcending OST utility with a nerve that won’t be ignored. There exists no Tindersticks song with a simple, unclouded theme. No filler, no relief. Emerson Dameron - Dusted Magazine

Mp3 | Tindersticks - Yesterday Tomorrows
Mp3 | Tindersticks - Feel The Sun

" Airships Fill The Sky " - Anticipate - 2007
Electronic / IDM / Experimental

Morgan Packard
Sounding both referential and unique at the same time, "Airships Fill The Sky" is an album that I just keep on going back to - and if this isn't enough for our tiny minds to handle, there's another full album in DVD format, 'Unsimulatable' which sees Packard's audio experiments set to equally moving visuals by Joshue Ott. These intricate and somewhat polar-looking meshes of computer generated lines and textures are weirdly alluring and should have you in a James Woods-style state in no time - trust me. Packard has created a truly captivating album here which we're totally passionate about, we implore you to investigate, it's one of the year's finest. Essential purchase. Boomkat

Mp3 | Morgan Packard - Kelp Sway
Mp3 | Morgan Packard - They Will Rise Forever

" Lie Down In The Light " - Domino - 2008
Alternative / Indie / Folk

Bonnie 'Prince' Billy returns with a brand new album - not a covers album (like the recent Ask Forgiveness) and not a sketched collection of demos (like the even more recent Wai Notes), but a proper studio-recorded follow-up to 2006's The Letting Go. Musically, Lie Down In The Light is a lot less flashy and polished than its Valgeir Sigurdsson-produced predecessor, dropping the string sections and carefully sculpted electronic elements in favour of a more traditional country sound, the most recent precedent for which would be Master & Everyone. Overall you'd have to view this newie as a generally more upbeat affair than that 2003 LP, but both albums benefit from the bright, unfussy production of Lambchop's Mark Nevers. Boomkat

Mp3 | Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Missing One
Mp3 | Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Willow Trees Bend

" Lost and Safe " - Tomlab - 2005
Alternative / Indie / Experimental

One thing's for sure. The Books make their particular brand of musical genius seem perfectly effortless. Their playful yet intricate sound collages on third album 'Lost And Safe' have the feel of a genuinely happy accident. It's as if they couldn't have possibly planned it to be this way, the sounds fell out of the machine just like that. But of course they must have engaged brains. Despite The Books endearingly child-clumsy (yet sophisticated) sound, or cheeky humour (witness the distinctly silly "I am the angel of death" sample on 'If Not Now, Whenever') a set of tuned plastic drain pipes or a vintage clavinet requires at least some forethought, albeit originating from a slightly unusual kind of thinking. playlouder

Mp3 | The Books - It Never Changes To Stop
Mp3 | The Books - Smells Like Content

Last year, in the endless magic hour of the Icelandic summer, Sigur Rós played a series of concerts around their homeland. Combining both the biggest and smallest shows of their career, the entire tour was filmed, and now provides a unique insight into one of the world’s shyest and least understood bands captured live in their natural habitat.

The culmination of more than a year spent promoting their hugely successful ‘Takk…’ album around the world, the Icelandic tour was free to all-comers and went largely unannounced. Playing in deserted fish factories, outsider art follies, far-flung community halls, sylvan fields, darkened caves and the hoofprint of Odin’s horse, Sleipnir*, the band reached an entirely new spectrum of the Icelandic population; young and old, ardent and merely quizzical, entirely by word-of-mouth.

Watch | Heima

Sea Hyun lee paintings are a constant and obsessive shuffling of recurring fragments. His unmistakable series of landscapes are rendered in delicate but pervasive washes of red - large swaths of unmarked white meandering between islands of crimson land. The blank spaces are harshly set against the carefully detailed fragments in red yet cohering into the flawless totality that is created by each painting.

This body of work endlessly revisits and reconstitutes the landscape of the DMZ - The Demilitarized Zone cutting across the Korean Peninsula that acts as a buffer zone between North and South Korea. Reworking fragments of terrain, blocks of land and water, Lee creates a world functioning according to the logic of its own terms. In this sense, it is a world that is entirely hermetic - appropriately so, considering that the territory Lee depicts is defined by the very impregnability of its borders. Creativ Europe

Fons Scheidon is one of those unique voices that comes jetting down from the mesosphere every so often with a project that could only come from his delightfully odd mind. For his latest gig, a music video for Voicst’s “Feel Like a Rocket,” Fons teamed up with some of the same crew that worked on the MTV Asia MobSquad series, including the bad-ass character animators at Brazilian studio Birdo. Motionographer

Watch | Voicst - Feel Like A Rocket

Amazing work form Vinicius Costa , graphic designer from Brasil