More exciting music for 2010

stephen-malkmus

Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus looks ahead to 2010

January can often seem like a fairly dead month for new music. Part of the reason for this is that people invariably have less money and aren’t going out. I’d be willing to bet that for many whilst resolutions about losing weight, drinking/smoking less etc.. go by the wayside fairly quickly, the money-spending stays low because, well, there isn’t much of it.

There’s been a handful of releases so far this year -both Delphic and Vampire Weekend have already cracked the UK album chart top 10 with their new releases (good, if not amazing), and there’s many more releases that will hopefully keep the Wolf from the door of your local independent record shop. Future weeks will bring forward releases from Massive Attack, The Futureheads, Liars, The Soft Pack, Kathryn Williams, The Dawn Chorus, Shearwater, Paul Vickers and the Leg, and Efterklang. Hell it’s even rumoured that the White Stripes will be releasing a new album this year. (Not to mention 17 Seconds Records coming into the album releasing fray). I was also privileged to hear the rough mixes of the new Aberfeldy album the other day, a mere 12 hours after completion was finished. It sounds awesome.

Domino Records are also extremely busy too, having released Owen Pallett’s Heartland already in January (AKA Final Fantasy), there are forthcoming releases from Quasi, To Rococo Rot, Lightspeed Champion, Four Tet, to say nothing of a Pavement best-of, which they have been running a competition to let fans guess the tracklisting. And they’ve also made the Dirty projectors 7″ available as a free download. Respect.

So feast your ears on this…

Quasi -‘Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouller.’ mp3

To Rococo Rot -‘Working Against Time.’ mp3

Owen Pallett -‘Lewis Takes Action.’ mp3

Dirty Projectors -‘Ascending Melody.’ mp3

Dirty Projectors -‘Emblem Of The World.’ mp3

Pavement -‘Gold Soundz.’ mp3

Ipod fun with Quasi

As you will have guessed from the slightly irregular posting over the last couple of weeks, I’m now back teaching and not having the time to post every day. It doesn’t mean that I have given up on the blog, or indeed music. Having been given a new Ipod a couple of months back, and spent a lot of time downloading stuff onto it, I’m quite frequently re-familiarising myself with stuff I had downloaded, and sometimes almost forgotten about.

A case in point would be these four tracks from Quasi. Taken from the wonderful sites that are Insound and Epitonic, Quasi are formerly married couple Janet Weiss (who played with Sleater-Kinney) and Sam Coomes. I am not an authority on this band, but boy am I now smitten. Sometimes they even remind me of Ben Folds Five in their mental jazz wig-outs.

Anyway, try these for size, hope they give you as much enjoyment as they have given me…

Quasi-‘The Rhino.’ mp3

Quasi-‘Drunken Tears.’ mp3

Quasi-‘It’s Raining.’ mp3

Quasi-‘Mammon.’ mp3

NB This post is now over a week old. If you want to hear Quasi…
…then as ever, go and buy Quasi, at Amazon (UK) or Ampcamp (US)

Quasi on MySpace

Quasi’s record label Touch and Go