Tourist History
February 26, 2010 Posted by Eva at 10:31 am
In this day and age, a record that defies you to spot what music its makers have been listening to is a rare beast – especially one that makes you dance and sing as well. The fact they’re still so young – and, by definition, inexperienced – makes it even more extraordinary. Northern Ireland’s Two Door Cinema Club are a music-mad trio and their debut album – fizzes with invention and sparkling tunes. It’s undeniably pop, and it draws on electronica/electro, rock and Afro-beats without ever recalling hopeful dilettantes, but the sum is greater than any ‘indie electro pop’ parts. The album also re-defines short, sharp and sweet – 10 songs, 32 minutes and no wastage whatsoever – as classic debut albums should be.
Their story begins with three 15-year olds at school in Bangor, Northern Ireland. Vocalist/ guitarist Alex Trimble and bassist Kevin Baird studied music together; guitarist Sam Halliday was a mate of Alex’s. Their name was a happy accident. A few days after they’d all visited The Tudor Cinema, which specialised in ‘50s/‘60s B movies, Sam suggested Two Door Cinema Club, which the others thought was really cool. “We asked him how he came up with the name,” Kev recalls, “and it turned out he thought ‘Tudor’ was pronounced two-door’!”
By this point, the boys’ tastes had gravitated toward alt.pop, such as Death Cab For Cutie, Architecture In Helsinki, Bloc Party and Modest Mouse, whose collectively leaner, rhythmic and melodic approach spilled over into their own music. Gigs were quickly secured on the back of two songs (neither of which they play anymore) posted to myspace, followed by a deal with Kitsuné, the release of their debut single Something Good Can Work in March ’09, and immediate support from radio (especially Radio 1’s Steve Lamacq).
The album simply multiplies the single’s surfeit of ideas and sounds. Take the opening Cigarettes In The Theatre, which instantly nails the band’s light-footed, but hard-driving, energy. It begins with an ambient rumble, then adds a niggling guitar (or it could be a synth) line, which develops a siren-like insistence over a nervy beat pattern before a telling pause and a newer, deliciously – almost deliriously – danceable song kicks in. The icing is Alex’s vocal melody, with its almost dreamy brand of urgency, and his bare-boned narrative of meeting his last girlfriend (“We’ll pass the burning light / we’ll just keep talking on / tell me your favourite things”). And then there’s the exhilarating trumpet coda. Brilliant.
The album, Alex explains, has two general themes – ‘love’ songs (“but not in a typical sense; I’m adamant about avoiding clichés”) and songs that chart, “our progression over this past 18 months. Where we’ve come from to where we are now with this album.” The trio were faced with choosing between the security of university/potential career and the uncertainty and thrill of the band; we all know which won out, but Something Good Will Work is a self-explanatory lyric by Alex to the other two, likewise Do You Want It All?, “a song of hope, to keep us going, with the thought that if we try hard enough, then we’re gonna do well.”
Do You Want It All also shows the subtler side of TDCC despite the high bpm and the escalating switch into an exhilarating sprint, led by Sam’s dizzy, brilliantly simple guitar. “He’s a massively versatile guitar player,” Alex says of TDCC’s more interview-shy member. “He has a great ear for what sounds good, and incorporates a lot of different styles, which provides a nice variation throughout songs.”
From the Afro-pop lilt of Something Good Can Work (imagine Vampire Weekend with an acute pop sensibility) to the smooth/jittery combo of Eat That Up It’s Good For You [about the rise of women emulating men’s worst boozing-and-cruising habits: “that’s me venting my anger, in a happy pop song,” Alex grins), there are TDCC favourites all over the shop.
If they can make such a mature album this early on, think of what they can do next time and the next album after that.
Tourist History is out now on etcetc.
Tracklist:
1. Cigarettes in the Theater
2. Come Back Home
3. Do You Want it All
4. This is the Life
5. Something Good Can
Work
6. I Can Talk
7. Undercover Martyn
8. What You Know
9. Eat that Up, it’s Good for
You
10. You’re Not Stubborn
See Lost Valentinos LIVE for FREE…
February 19, 2010 Posted by Eva at 12:31 pm
Head over to Lost Valentinos’ Myspace for all the details of a special FREE show they’re performing Saturday 20 February, before they head off to the Playground Weekender.
New Jump Jump Dance Dance video in living colour + free download…
February 18, 2010 Posted by Eva at 2:58 pm
From the desk of Claire Carré, the brilliant director whose name you might recognise from this breathtaking Sia video, comes a brand new hyper-colour, psychedelic, four-dimensional video for Jump Jump Dance Dance’s Show Me the Night:
Also for your entertainment is this FREE JUMP JUMP DANCE DANCE DOWNLOAD! And make sure you check them out at the Future Music Festival in your city.
Pre-Order new The Knife album and recieve instant digital download…
February 11, 2010 Posted by Eva at 5:42 pm
Fans of The Knife rejoice: when you order a physical copy of their brand new album Tomorrow, in a Year (in collaboration with Mt Sims and Planningtorock), JB Hifi will also throw in the entire digital album via instant download! That means that even though it’s not out physically until March 5, you’ll be able to listen to all of the tracks from this 2CD set straight away!
To pre-order the album from JB Hifi, click here. And for more info on the release, click here.
Tomorrow, in a Year
February 11, 2010 Posted by Eva at 5:34 pm
The Knife, in collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock, are to release their new album “Tomorrow, In A Year”, the studio version of their opera based on the works of Charles Darwin.
Commissioned by Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma to write the music for their opera based on Charles Darwin and his book ‘On the Origin of the Species’, The Knife decided to make this a collaborative process, working with
artists Mt. Sims and Planningtorock for the first time, to capture the huge width of the Darwin and evolution theme.
They extensively researched Darwin related literature and articles, with Olof attending a field recording workshop in the Amazon to find inspiration and to record sounds.
‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ is a unique musical project. Richard Dawkins’s gene trees have formed the basis of some of the
musical composition, artificial sounds have been mixed with field recordings, with the music inspired by everything from the different stages of a bird learning its melody, to a song based on Darwin’s loving letters about his daughter Anne. These are compositions that challenge the conventional conception of opera music.
Pushing the experimental process further still, composer, choreographer, costume designer and set designer worked separately, only coming together 3 and a half months before the first performance of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ in Copenhagen on the 2nd September 2009. Described as “shifting the position of operartic art in a single leap”, future performances of ‘Tomorrow, In A Year’ are confirmed to take place in Athens (8-9 Jan), Stockholm (29 Jan-1 Feb), and Munster (5 June), with further dates to be announced.
Olof Dreijer says: “At first it was very difficult as we really didn’t know anything about opera. We’d never been to one. I didn’t even know what the word libretto meant. But after some studying, and just getting used to opera’s essence of pretentious and dramatic gestures, I found that there is a lot to learn and play with. In fact, our ignorance gave us a positive respectless approach to making opera. It took me about a year to become emotionally moved by an opera singer and now I really do. I really like the basic theatrical values of opera and the easy way it brings forward a narrative. We’ve approached this before in The Knife but never in such a clear way.”
Album ‘Tomorrow, in a Year’ is out 5th February digitally and 5th March physically on etcetc. Pre-order the physical album here and receive it via instant digital download.
Tracklist:
CD 1
01. Intro
02. Epochs
03. Geology
04. Upheaved
05. Minerals
06. Ebb Tide Explorer
07. Variation of Birds
08. Letter to Henslow
09. Schoal Swarm Orchestra
CD 2
01. Annie’s Box
02. Tumult
03. Colouring of Pigeons
04. Seeds
05. Tomorrow in a Year
06. The Height of Summer
Bonus track
07. Annie’s Box (alt. vocal)
Bigstereo loves Jump Jump Dance Dance…
February 1, 2010 Posted by Eva at 11:53 am
Bigstereo have nothing but nice things to say about the hot, hot, hot new Grum Remix of Jump Jump Dance Dance’s upcoming Show Me the Night. “We love JJDD, You love JJDD”. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. To hear what the rest of the internet thinks, click here.