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“I don't really have any favourite books like I have favourite songs, because my favourite songs I replay and I've never been able to reread that many books with pleasure. I know it happens for others but not for me,” laments The National’s drummer, Bryan Devendorf, while on tour with R.E.M. and Modest Mouse in June 2008. The National began as a five-piece in Cincinnati, Ohio, composed of two sets of brothers on instruments and a lyricist on the mic. The last nine years for The National has seen four full-length releases, a variety of EPs, and a variety of tours in clubs all across the world. The band moved to Brooklyn a number of years ago and in 2005 released Alligator, which was quickly touted in the blogosphere and given praise by critics and celebrities alike. In 2007, The National released Boxer, an album that topped many “albums of the year” lists and eventually caught the ear of Michael Stipe and the R.E.M. team, getting Devendorf and the band invited on an arena-sized tour. The National...[read more] The Week That Was, written and recorded in late 2007 at Field Music’s 8 Studio in Sunderland, emerged from an imagined crime thriller dreamt up by Peter and inspired by Paul Auster’s labyrinthine storytelling. Peter started writing the songs as if they were moments, instances of perspectives within this story. The story was left to fall away, leaving a puzzle of musical snapshots. The songs are the evidence in this particular mystery and the victims, perpetrators and onlookers raise questions with concerns familiar to us all. How do we deal with the fragments of information we receive through the television, radio, the internet? How do we balance the distrust we feel for mass media with our dependence on it? How does this relationship influence our hopes and actions in our real lives? And finally, what would happen if we decided not to deal with it anymore and switched off the information flow by throwing away our TVs, radios and newspapers? The anger, confusion and sorrow details the week of Peter’s own enforced switch off. This m...[read more] Singer/songwriter, designer and actor David Wiley Rennick, best known for producing two internationally celebrated albums as part of Dappled Cities, has turned his hand to a blend of myth, music and storytelling with his least democratic work to date, The Curse of Company. The land occupied by The Curse of Company is eerily embodied in the debut record, Leo Magnets joins a gang, and for it’s creation Rennick collaborated with the equally enigmatic talents of the redsunband’s Sarah Kelly (vocals), Mr Bungle / Secret Chiefs 3’s Danny Heifetz (drums, percussion), Tim “Jack Ladder” Rogers (bass guitar), and Gerling’s Burke Reid (co-producer, engineer). The gang extends to involve other prolific and committed artists (including photographer Glen “Wilk” Wilkie and film director Zane Pearson), seeing the entire alliance reminiscent of that momentous Australian era that spawned the likes of The Dirty Three and The Bad Seeds. The music draws on Rennick’s multi-platform artistic practices to convey story on a massive...[read more] There is a specific feeling of isolated dreariness wrought throughout the recordings of Boduf Songs that seem to speak directly from an old farm house in the country-side of England. The rolling hills, the quiet and simple lifestyle has a warm and calming feeling but at the same time shares an underlying sense of lonely dreariness. Through his recordings as Boduf Songs, Mat Sweet paints a picture of such an existence once prevalent in his homeland England. The listener is made aware of a certain beauty in the simplicity of rural nature and simultaneously to the utter detachment and a lurking uncertainty of what lies beyond the shadows in the forest. The compositions follow the same trend, a carefully plucked guitar over Sweet’s hushed voice lulls one into a day-dream while he speaks of things mysterious and discerning. His recordings are much his own, there is little to be used as a musical benchmark outside a seeming connection to folk ballads of old. Sweet recorded several entirely home made demos for Kranky records...[read more] |
FAVOURITE BOOKS
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The online magazine that delves into the reading habits and preferred literary works of your favourite musicians, authors, and activists.
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