Tag: Singer/Songwriter

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2011: #24 Lykke Li “Love out of lust”

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Lykke Li is the stage name (one based on a derivative of her birth name) of Swedish singer/songwriter Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson. She released her critically acclaimed debut album, “Youth novels”, at 22 years of age, and followed it up with “Wounded rhymes” three years later, an album most have agreed was an improvement on the debut. I really liked both of her first two albums, loving both the quirky and the macabre feel of the tunes, music that traverses a taut tightrope, just this side of pop. With each successive album afterwards, however, it sounds to me like she has fallen victim to the lure of the mighty pop dollar and I’ve liked each of them less to a greater degree.

Her sophomore release, though, was a delight. She went to California to record it, admitting, herself, that she wanted to escape the dreariness of Stockholm winters and find some sunshine. Also, there were journeys to the desert in search of the ghostly channels of her heroes in Jim Morrison and Joni Mitchell. It’s not at all Haight Ashbury or Laurel Canyon, though, still very much keeping to the blueprint of the debut, a percussive and atmospheric canvas for her to paint her childlike, haunting vocals upon.

“Love out of lust” was actually not one of the three singles released off the album but I cannot understand for the life of me why it wasn’t. It’s so freaking beautiful and it’s damned catchy. Lykke Li is pleading her case for love while the world shimmers around her, tribal drummers beating upon large bass toms and gigantic brass gongs and pixies whisper and flit, posing as synthesizers and samples. It is a song for slow dancing in the ephemera.

“We will live longer than I will
We will be better than I was
We can cross rivers with our will
We can do better than I can
So dance while you can
Dance ’cause you must.”

Indeed. Dance because you must.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2011 list, click here.

Categories
Live music galleries

Live music galleries: Father John Misty [2012]

(I got the idea for this series while sifting through the ‘piles’ of digital photos on my laptop. It occurred to me to share some of these great pics from some of my favourite concert sets from time to time. Until I get around to the next one, I invite you to peruse my ever-growing list of concerts page.)

Father John Misty @ Bluesfest

Artist: Father John Misty
When: July 11th, 2012
Where: River Stage, Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa
Context: Josh Tillman left his post as drummer for Fleet Foxes in 2012 and released his debut album under the moniker Father John Misty in April. I loved the psych folk extravaganza of “Fear fun” (and still consider it my favourite of his albums) but wasn’t at all expecting how great he’d be when I saw him live three months later. His touring band was also very good but unfortunately, I could not find out much about them online (and so could only provide the names of the few I could identify). Josh Tillman was particularly hilarious between songs, spouting random zingers, like when he pointed out a volunteer holding a question mark placard denoting “Information” and quipped that he loved the kid’s existential sign. It was a short set in all but I’ve seen him twice more since and am looking forward to seeing him a fourth time this coming weekend.
Point of reference song: “I’m writing a novel”

Josh Tillman aka Father John Misty
Jeffertitti Moon and Benji Lysaght
unknown touring drummer for Father John Misty
Josh Tillman and Benji Lysaght
unknown touring guitarist and keyboard player for Father John Misty
Josh Tillman on the tambourine
Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2001: #19 Richard Hawley “Long black train”

<< #20    |    #18 >>

You may not be familiar with the name Richard Hawley, nor his music, but you might have heard of the short-lived 90s post-Britpop band, Longpigs. And if not them, surely Pulp. Hawley was a guitarist for both of these bands, lead for the former, touring and session performer for the latter. And though I can’t remember exactly when I decided to sample some of his solo material, it was definitely because of his work with those two bands (both of whom, I love) that I did so. However, all you have to do is listen to the first two seconds of the song below to determine that his solo work sounds nothing like the music by his former bands.

At first, I enjoyed quite a bit of his debut long player, “Late night final”, whenever I listened to it, especially “Long black train”. However, after a month or so of spins, I forgot all about the album until around 2008 when I recognized his song “Baby, you’re my light” in the film, “Nick and Norah’s infinite playlist”. (It’s a great film, if you haven’t seen it, though I’m a sucker for any film about music.) Then, I went on a huge Richard Hawley kick, rediscovering the debut and exploring the rest of his output up to that point.

My wife Victoria was not a huge fan of “Long black train” when I played it for her, saying it sounds too much like a Christmas song. She’s not exactly wrong in this. What she knows as the Christmas classics were usually sung by the crooners of the thirties, forties, and fifties. And Richard Hawley certainly sings like a crooner, channelling Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. Indeed, his smooth baritone vocals negate any need at all for complex instrumentation.

For me, “Long black train” is slow burning number, like a cigarette left unattended in an overflowing ashtray, nearly since the point of lighting, the length of it ash, threatening to disintegrate to nothing with one misdirected deep breath. It is a gentle tug at the acoustic, a hint of the slide, the pretence of the xylophone, and Hawley’s deep voice rumbling over it all. It is the time of night of the album’s title, when any respectable person is already asleep and misery reigns.

It’s not at all a song for your morning commute. If I were you, I’d wait until the sun goes down later on today and then, turn it up.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2001 list, click here.