Whatever your beliefs or be they none, these gospel recordings are uplifting and worth hearing!
Edwin Hawkins singers -O Happy Day’
You’ll Never Walk Alone is one of those somg that is both a tear-jerker and uplifting. If this song does not move you in some way, then tere’s no hope for you. FACT. Originally written for the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel in 1945, it has been a hit single, a football chant and a reminiscence song, but I have yet to hear a version top this:
Aretha Franklin -’You’ll Never Walk Alone.’
To describe this as Gospel would be wrong - but this excerpt of a Congolese Mass, sung in Latin, is brief but very effective, and became popularised after being featured in If… amongst other things.
I’ve never been to the Southern States of America (not a snub to anyone, just never got further than New Jersey so far), but I guess I do have an idea of what consitutes lot of southern music: rock that’s dirty in a different way to New York or LA, with blues, soul, gospel and country thrown in for good measure (I have now idea whether people from Alabama see Grime as being ‘East London’ and Dubstep as being ‘South London.’ But hey.) And Alabama Shakes tick a lot of those boxes in a mighty fine way.
The thing that draws you in most to Alabama Shakes is the vocals of frontperson and guitarist Brittany Howard. Recent single ‘Hold On’ (currently picking up a fair bit of radio play, and rightly so) is like a manifesto for what they are as a band. In fact, Ms. Howard’s vocals are so strong, that you wonder if in a repetition of the blokes from Blondie whether there will a ‘Alabama Shakes is a band’ t-shirt (anything for them to end up being tagged ‘Sleeper-blokes -go and ask your Mum). She’s cetainly got a bright future ahead of her. Her vocals genuinely comparable to the likes of Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone - and I don’t make that comparison lightly.
It’s a strong debut, with other very strong tracks in the form of the beuatiful ‘You Ain’t Alone’, ‘Rise to the sun’ and ‘Be Mine’. It’s a wonderful antidote to so much of the dross that’s out there. What I’d love to hear them do is a really, raw soul album, with someone like Steve Albini at the controls. I think they have it in them to make a jaw-dropping record -but this is a fine starting-point.
Watch closely.
***1/2
Boys & Girls is released by Rough Trade on April 9.
I remember my Mum telling me that there were certain things that made for the perfect headline grabbers. To the extent that she reckoned the all-time perfect headline would be something along the lines of ‘Teenage Sex-change Priest in Motorcycle Mercy Dash to Palace.’ I still think it sounds like the best song title for a Fall song.
Along those lines, I remember Smash Hits (of all magazines) saying that Atari Teenage Riot was perhaps the most perfect name for a band. Certainly, it gives you an idea of how long it has been since the ‘Digital Hardcore’ band formed , back in Berlin in 1992.
This track ‘The Collapse Of History’ combines the best of Chicks On Speed and The Prodigy and sounds like an anthem. If I was young enough, I’d dance to this in a club or drive around with it pumping out of my car. As it is, it’s taken hours to get the wee man to get to sleep tonight (serious respect to Mrs. 17 Seconds) so I will crank it up on the headphones.
Main ATR man Alec Empire has modestly described it as ‘An anthem for our generation.’ He may have a point.
The video was apparently filmed in a mental instituion in the Parisian Suburbs. This will hopefully unnerve Daily Mail readers.
The Futureheads aren’t daft. Five albums and nearly ten years into their career, they’re aware -probably all too painfully so-that the majority of people remember them for their cover of Kate Bush’s ‘the Hounds Of Love.’ But the thing is: they put their own spin on it. And one of the most electrifying things about that was the opening which was completely a capella.
As indeed is this album. Entirely a capella, if you haven’t yet caught on. See, the things is that The Futureheads have got on with creating their own brilliant strand of guitar pop even if the fickle finger of fatal fame (it can play hideous tricks on the brain) may not have them currently in the spotlight. Though the prospect of an album of reworkings of older songs of their own and cover versions may often smack of at best a ‘holding operation’ and at worst ’seriously run out of ideas’ the concept here works.
So as well as takes on tracks like ‘Meantime’ ‘Robot’ and ‘Man Ray’ they also offer up seriously different takes on other songs. Including covers of The Black Eyes Peas (’Meet Me Halfway’), The Sparks (’Number One Song In Heaven’) and Kelis’ umm, ‘A capella’), and some traditional numbers ‘Summer Is Icumen In’ (yes, the one from The Wicker Man) and ‘The Keeper.’
Forty minutes of a capella can seem a real shock when you’re not necessarily used to it (and let’s face it, most of us aren’t). But as a concept, it’s unusual. As an album, it actually works. Sure I love them with guitar and drums. But there’s something brilliant about doing this -a sure sign that they’re happier putting out stuff on their own label, I cannot see a major ever having agreed to this- and it’s a joy. Whether people will cherry pick tracks is another matter. But this album should be heard-and bought in its entirety.
This is their first album in eight years, although they came off ‘indefinite hiatus’ in 2009. They had a fearsome reputation as a live act, made some brilliant albums that were thought-provoking and danceable, and enjoyed a number of hit singles.
Wonky is a great album, period. It pretty much picks up where they left off to the ears of this listener, no desperate attempts to appear dahn wiv der kids, or sounding like they’re flogging any dead horses going to pay the mortgage. It sounds like Classic Orbital and current at the same time. The album features contributions from Zola Jesus (on the single ‘New France’) and Lady Leshur on the title track.
If I said this was business as usual for Orbital, it would probably come across as if I was being dismissive. But the awesome work that characterized their great albums back in the 1990s is here in spades. It may seem that the album takes a while to get going the first time you hear it - but by the second or third time you are hooked. So great to be able to report that they are retreading past glories or offering this up as an exercise in nostalgia. Will we really be able to say the same when the yawningly inevitable Oasis reunion happens?
Advice to those people trying to get featured on a blog (not just 17 Seconds): try and do it with something interesting in the initial e-mail.
Safe Barracks simply put ‘Shine Your Shoes?’ in the subject box. They also said that if featured, they promised to disclose one fantastic joke. If it’s a good write up, they would up that to two jokes.
Well, as well as offering the possibility of jokes (how could I refuse that?), Safe Barracks are an Irish-Iranian project based in Hackney, East London. They write, perform and produce what they call (rightly) cinematic pop in their own studio; combining orchestral elements with big beats, synths and vocals. They are Kaveh Ayati and Patrick O’ Keeffe, I am not going to assume which is Irish and which is Iranian, that would lead me open to accusations of stereotyping. Although you may be interested to learn that according to their Soundcloud Kaveh was raised by wolves in the mountains of Iran. While learning to howl, he found his life path in music. Patrick heard these howls. He trekked many days and nights across deserts and ice and found Kaveh, in a cave, shredding on the bass.” It is also possible this is not the truth, but it is possible that this is more exciting than the truth (By the way, the description abut how Belle & Sebastian came together on the back of Tigermilk is fictitions. Stevie Jackson told me>)
There are five tracks on their soundcloud page at the moment, all of which can be downloaded. They are working on a new album, which they hope to release in late May or early June.
Although it’s not their debut album, this is Ceremony’s first album on the legendary indie label Matador, which will no doubt give their presence an important boost.
Ceremony can definitely be described as punk, although what kind of punk is harder to pin down. Not so much posturing, but certainly maximum riffage. More American than British (as you’d probably expect from a band from California) although one that seems to owe as much to the approach that Wire took on their first album as to American hardcore. One that does not follow the kiddie-punk model, without being po-faced.
Oh, and lots of songs. As you’d hope. Songs to mosh and jump up and down to like ‘Adult,’ ‘Hysteria’ and ‘Ordinary People’ with some more atmospheric numbers like ‘Hotel’ and ‘Nosebleed.’ Now, I’m going to have to hold a hand up here and confess that I hadn’t heard Ceremony (to the best of my knowledge) before Zoo came out. So, invariably there will be those who can point to the ways in which they have changed, and whether that’s for better or worse. For a face value approach though, this is a strong, solid album. Not ground-breaking, but proof that punk certainly isn’t generic, if you really needed that pointing out to you.
So…pop songs stopped being political a long time ago, apparently.
…really? ‘Common People’ by Pulp was one of the 90s anthems, and it dealt with the subject matter of those who don’t understand what it is to be poor. And now, nearly twenty years later, as a Tory government set out to destroy everything they didn’t destroy last time round, Plan B’s latest single combines a party anthem with an articulate response on those who refuse to take responsibility for what happened.
It starts with those urgent violins, and then the vocals kick in.
Last summer, as England succumbed to horrific riots, initially as a result of the shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham, North London, and then spread across England, people asked where was our ‘Ghost Town?’ Famously, The Specials’ track topped the charts in 1981, at the time of riots then. An unpopular Tory government, a widespread treatment of the underclass as scum, a feeling that the government weren’t listening. 1981 or 2011?
It was both. And here is one man’s response. He’s using irony - and if your response on hearing the track or watching the draw-dropping video is one of disgust, perhaps this is because this is how YOU always react to the stereotypes depicted within.
” The world, and this country especially, is full of contradictions. I’m just highlighting them, I’m not condoning anything. I aired my feelings about the riots very publicly when they happened and I still feel the same way.
What happened in Tottenham in some ways I can understand but what happened everywhere else in the country was opportunism. I won’t justify it because I don’t agree with it. In fact it upset me so much I want to change it, so I wrote this song to bring the issue back to the forefront of public conversation. I feel it has been swept under the carpet and forgotten about, and it still needs to be properly addressed.
Since the riots happened I haven’t heard enough people within the public sector asking the two most important questions; ‘why did it happen and how can we prevent it from happening again?’ I do have a theory as to why and how but first I need to make my point. And I’ve chosen satire to do so.
The point being made in my song ‘ill Manors’ is that society needs to take some responsibility for the cause of these riots. Why are there so many kids in this country that don’t feel they have a future, or care about having a criminal record?
I think one of the reasons is that there is a very public prejudice in this country towards the underclass. These kids are ridiculed in the press as they aren’t as educated as others, because they talk and dress in a certain way… but they’re not as stupid as people think. They are aware of the ill feelings towards them and that makes them feel alienated. I know because I felt it myself growing up. These kids have been beaten into apathy. They don’t care about society because society has made it very clear that it doesn’t care about them.
An example of this is the word ‘chav’ that means council housed and violent, a derogatory phrase that is openly used by certain sectors of middle England to label and define people from poor backgrounds. It’s a derogatory phrase no different in my opinion to the ones concerning race or sex. The difference is that the papers use it publicly. If they did the same with racial or sexist derogatory terms it would be deemed, and rightly so, as offensive and politically incorrect.
That in my opinion is hypocrisy.
If you’re born into a family that’s has enough money to educate you properly, you are privileged. You’re not better than anyone else you’re just lucky. Certain sectors of middle England, not all of them, but the ignorant ones need to wake up and realise that …and stop ridiculing the poor and less fortunate. That is what this song is about.”
It’s funny to think how long Los Campesinos! have been around for. As my +1 for the gig comments, they still seem like they’re a new band on the scene -until you realise that actually, with the release of Hello Sadness last year, they are now actually on their fourth album.
And while the Liquid Rooms isn’t sold out, nevertheless, there’s a pretty decent-sized crowd at the Liquid Rooms tonight. And watching the quite young crowd, it’s clear that Los Campesinos! do inspire devotion in fans, that there are most certaonly a number of people who do know all the words.
The reception to the title track of their new album demonstrates not just what high regard the band are held in, but also how good the band are at writing anthems. Anthems in their own image, perhaps, but anthems, none the less. And there’s a huge number of songs in their back catalogue (get yourself over to Spotify before heading off to your local record store) that you ought to know, dammit. ‘Letters From Me To Charlotte.’ ‘We are beautiful, we are doomed.’ ‘Songs about your girlfriend,’ their current single, inspires another massclapalong. ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ perhaps their best known song threatens to raise the roof.
And when Gareth Campesinos! (they all take the same surname) launches himself into the crowd during the encore of ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’, security may be shimmering with displeasure but the crowd love it.
Although still seen by many as a twee-pop act -and there’s still enough of that element to their music in 2012 -there’s a sense in which Los Campesinos! are continuing to grow -and getting ever cheekier. A great deal of fun for one night out.
ED
The rantings and ravings of a thirty-something music fan, from Edinburgh, Scotland.
I've been writing this blog since July 2006. I also write for Is This Music?. I've had my own show on Fresh Air radio, DJed in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and in 2008 set up 17 Seconds Records.
The best way is by this blog's own email address: seventeensecondsblog@hotmail.co.uk
I'm always up for featuring bands or artists on here, so get in touch. And if you represent one of the artists involved and would like me to remove the track, that's fine too (you will just lose some free publicity, as well as looking like Goliath picking on David). The mp3s posted here are for a short time only, a maximum of two weeks and are intended for people to evaluate the music, and not as a replacement for buying music. If you like what you hear, support the artists involved by buying the music, and going to shows, buying T-shirts etc.
Please note: I receive a lot of emails every day encouraging me to check out new bands, but it does take a while to get through them all.
Some music I love - and think you should check out too
