Saint Etienne’s “This Is Tomorrow” isn’t exactly a new song. It was composed for their film This Is Tomorrow, was streaming off their MySpace page for a while, and was released as a freebie 7″ with a 2007 issue of magazine The Illustrated Ape. But it wasn’t particularly easy to get your hands on a copy until the release of retrospective London Conversations
Thematically, the song is very much in the vein of 2002’s “Finisterre” (title track to the album of the same name
This has actually been up for a while, but I really like it: a new track called “Boy” has been streaming off Mix Market’s MySpace page for the past six weeks. Usually Mix Market plays ska-inflected pop-punk (like the other new track currently streaming, “Joy To The World”), but this song has a strong disco thump and some heavy guitar flanging. Strong disco thump is always way okay with me, so I love it. Sadly it’s not the full track, it fades out after a minute and a half.
I first encountered this track a few weeks ago, and had actually vainly looked for the CD it was off of while I was in Tokyo, not realizing that it was new (or anyway, I’m assuming now that it’s new …). Hopefully it will be coming out soon?
The quartet was Ellis Marsalis (father of Wynton and Branford) on piano, son Jason Marsalis on drums, Jason Stewart on bass, and Derek Douget on saxophone. The show was actually advertised as being the Ellis Marsalis Trio, so we got 33% more jazz musician for no extra charge.
I didn’t really know a lot about Marsalis Sr. going in, and assumed that we’d see a set of fairly straightforward old-school jazz. As it turned out, the quartet was touring their new collection of Thelonious Monk songs, An Open Letter to Thelonious
The only downer of the night was the new seating policy at Yoshi’s, which went into effect recently. Previously, all seats were assigned, and you reserved a seat when you bought your ticket. Now, seating is open, unless you either pay a surcharge when buying the ticket, or you eat at the restaurant before the show. Presumably this was a business decision to get more people to eat at the restaurant, but the seating process was rather hectic and ill-tempered as a result. We heard a fair amount of grumbling while we were in line, and even some arguing over seats. It didn’t matter once the group came on stage and started playing, but the usual happy pre-show vibe that I expect at Yoshi’s was missing.
Anyway, none of that distracted from a great show.
Via Stereogum, there’s a collaboration between 100 Suns — AKA Massive Attack’s 3D — and Snoop Dogg called “Calling Mumia” streaming from Massive’s website right now. I’m not a big hip hop listener, but there was a time when it seemed like I listened to Massive’s Mezzanine all day, every day. Not surprisingly, the track is highlighted by a deep, dubby bassline, and a deep aura of paranoia. Very cool.
I mentioned a few days ago that, of all the CD’s I bought on my Tokyo record shopping trip, the one that I was most excited about was Swinging Of Eden [TOKYO STYLE], by Swinging Popsicle. There’s no mystery to that – in the year since I first discovered them, the Japanese indie pop trio have become one of my favorite bands.
One of the things I like about them is that I never know quite what I’m going to get with one of their releases — they’ve recorded everything from spiky guitar pop to retro-60’s soul to dance pop. Whatever they try, they seem to always do it well.
Running at about 35 minutes with nine tracks, Swinging Of Eden turns out to be a collection of lush, pastoral pop songs. What it really reminds me of, weirdly, is my other favorite (currently recording) band, Saint Etienne — specifically the chilly electronic soundscapes of Sound Of Water, though the bouncy retro-60’s pop of “Appleholic” would have fit perfectly on Good Humour. This isn’t a bad thing — the songs are all wonderful, catchy, low-key pop music, with dense, detailed production.
Highlights include singer Fujishima Mineoko’s cooing vocals on “Kitty’s Affair”, the aforementioned mod pop of “Appleholic”, and the mournful “Eve’s Love”. “Room Service” is built on a gently swinging electronic percussion rhythm, and features vocals by guitarist Shimada Osamu, singing a call-and-response duet with Fujishima. Four minutes in, the song unexpectedly descends into a pop-psychedelic sound collage, giving it a very Beatlesque feel (the band would do something similar five years later with the title track of their 2007 album Go On). Less successful is a cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows”, largely stripped down to an acoustic guitar and voice, with little attempt to recreate the lush vocal arrangements of the original. It’s grown on me a fair bit since my first listen, but it still falls far short of the amazing original.
The album is well sequenced, bookended by vaguely ambient instrumentals and featuring another instrumental, “Kona Coast” (which follows “God Only Knows” and hints at surf music itself), as its centerpiece. The songs flow easily between one another, and despite the mini-album’s relative brevity, it feels very well-rounded and complete. Well worth my ¥2100.
(Well, one review down, on my ten to go …)
After getting through the glut of post-travel posts, I’m coming up pretty empty tonight. But the Verve have a new video out for “Rather Be”, so enjoy:
I described this song as “Verve-by-the-numbers” when I reviewed the album here, but perhaps that was just comparing it unfavorably to the two towering tracks that preceded it on the record, and the song’s relative lack of fireworks — listening to it in isolation, I find it to be quite good, with a very nice vocal by Ashcroft, and a shimmering sense of melancholy.
My wife and I decided that we should catch a show at the Blue Note while we were in Tokyo last week, and after looking over the week’s schedule, settled on seeing the Nicola Conte Jazz Combo on October 13th. Neither of us really knew anything about him, but we listened to the MySpace pages of several of the acts and decided that his sounded the most promising. I actually like picking jazz shows to go to under fairly arbitrary circumstances like this, because my knowledge of current jazz is basically non-existent, and it forces me to give a shot to something new.
It was a bit of a walk from the Omotesandou metro stop to the venue, in a rather quiet corner of town that looks like it’s probably a lot busier during the business day (this particular Monday was a holiday). We got to the club perhaps 45 minutes before the show, and were surprised by how crowded it already was.
Doll by Scandal
I mentioned here about Japanese girl rock band Scandal. Their debut single “Doll” comes out in Japan tomorrow (the 22nd). I haven’t had a chance to hear it yet, but I’m really hoping to get a chance – I really like their debut EP, Yah! Yah! Yah! Hello Scandal, four really fun pop punk tracks with crunchy guitars and big, catchy choruses (actually, “Kagerou” is a bit weaker than the others, but not bad).
In addition to the title track, the single features two B-sides, “S.L. Magic” and an instrumental (karaoke) version of the A-side.
Asobi Seksu have posted a new song, “Me and Mary”, to their MySpace page. It’s the A-side of a new single they have coming out in November, as well as being on their forthcoming album.
The song sounds quite a bit more sprightly and direct than their usual droning guitar dream pop – perhaps the band’s recent cover of a Phil Spector track has made an impression (listen to those ooh-ooh background vocals!) – though there are spacey interludes and the guitars finally start piling on midway through the track. I’ve given this one a few spins now and I like it. I’ll be bummed if everything off the record is like this, but I can imagine it making a nice break amongst spacier tracks. And I’m really looking forward to that new album – along with the new Doves record that’s supposedly being polished up right now, Asobi Seksu’s new one is probably the new release that I’m most looking forward to right now.
The single B-side will be a non-album track called “Breathe Into Glass”, which certainly sounds like a dream pop song title. The single’s out on November 17 in Europe and on the 18th in the US. You can read a bit more about it, and their current tour, here.
Random stuff I’ve been enjoying off eMusic lately:
on MP3 from Amazon.
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