An Alternative History of "Pop" Music: Part 3, 2004 -

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Sacred Paws - Everyday

Sacred Paws are a Scottish rock band comprising Rachel Aggs (guitar, bass, vocals) and Eilidh Rodgers (drums, vocals), who met as members of the band Golden Grrrls. Their debut album Strike a Match won the 2017 Scottish Album of the Year Award. They released their second album, Run Around the Sun, in 2019.

Aggs is known for her distinctive guitar work, which is influenced by both West African highlife and post-punk.

[Norton Canes]

All getting a bit up to date now, sadly - looking through my 2017 folder and seeing bands like Bicep and Idles.

Still, let's stick this banger up:

SOFI TUKKER - Fuck They

[Norton Canes]

And this lovely sweeping new age tribal shit from 4AD's Pixx

A Big Cloud To Float Upon

[Norton Canes]

Oh and how could we forget, the best Eurovision song ever

Blanche - City Lights

[Brundle-Fly]

Fruit Falls From The Apple Tree - Cobalt Chapel. Released on Klove in 2017.



If Amicus Productions ran a record label as well as making portmanteau horror films, they may well have signed this eerie duo back in 1970.

Cobalt Chapel are a psychedelic band featuring Cecilia Fage (Matt Berry & The Maypoles) and Jarrod Gosling (I Monster, Regal Worm). Based in Hebden Bridge and Sheffield.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Four Tet - Two Thousand and Seventeen

A track whose title gives you a handy reminder of what year to post it in.

Four Tet is the name used by Kieran Hebden, a sometime member of the band Fridge, for the electronic music made in his solo career. The distinctive 'eastern' sounding instrument heard on this track is apparently a santoor (or santur), a type of Indian hammered dulcimer, sampled from a record by Indian Hindu devotional singer Hari Om Sharan.

[jamiefairlie]

David Kitt - There Will Always Be This Love

https://youtu.be/AeAgof6pbOA




Singer-songwriter from Dublin

From "Yous "

"In the nine years since his last album, The Nightsaver, David Kitt has thrown himself into house and techno music under his New Jackson moniker. But on Yous, the crunch of techno quietens down to a whisper, with Kitt thumbing a guitar and Margie Lewis on violin playing a crucial role, lifting the songs as she goes"

[jamiefairlie]

Diagrams - Under The Graphite Sky

https://youtu.be/NktLaFU_iCU




From "Dorothy "

"An album full of gorgeous electronic folk and psych-pop, with Trogdon's observations of the minutiae of life, love and nature ("the kindness of rain"; "everything on its way to being something else") sitting perfectly in the mix. And it's great"

[jamiefairlie]

Faeland - All my swim

https://youtu.be/V0ZqQ26gHpA



Bristol duo Rebecca Nelson and Jacob Morrison

From "All my swim "

"Full of songs you long to return to – because there's certain to be a gorgeous detail that passed you by on the first listen. Throughout, Faeland exhibit a soft, measured assurance in the performances and a rich, inviting warmth in the production. All My Swim is a debut that does far more than impress, it delights."

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Grandaddy - Evermore

Sounding new but instantly familiar at the same time, a track from Last Place, Grandaddy's first album in eleven years (although main man Jason Lytle had of course released several solo albums during the hiatus).

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Johnny Jewel - The Flame

Johnny Jewel is an American musician, record producer, composer, and visual artist. He is a multi-instrumentalist who is known for using all-analog equipment. In 2006, Jewel founded the independent Portland-based record label Italians Do It Better, which features an array of artists and groups that produce disco, electronic, and synth-based music. Among the label's artists are Glass Candy, Chromatics and Desire, all of whom Jewel wrote, recorded, and performed with.

In 2008, Jewel made his debut as a film score composer, writing and performing the score for Nicolas Winding Refn's film Bronson. He was subsequently hired by Refn to compose the score for his subsequent film, Drive (2011). Tracks by Chromatics and Desire also appeared on the film's soundtrack.

In 2017, Jewel appeared with Chromatics in David Lynch's Twin Peaks: The Return, a revival of the original 1990s series, in which the band performs in a bar. The Flame, from his 2017 solo album Windswept, was also used in the series.

Jewel actually composed several pieces of music for Twin Peaks: The Return, but very little of it was ultimately used. He released that material as an album, Themes for Television, in 2018.

[jamiefairlie]

I wouldn't trust a man who's got dirt on his face but tries to clean it by having a bath with his clothes on.

[jamiefairlie]

Hater - Penthouse

https://youtu.be/H6a73POtc8o



Malmo based 4 piece consisting of Caroline Landahl, Mans Leonartsson, Adam Agace and Lukas Thomasson who formed in early 2016

From "Red Blinders "

"an exceptional blend of crystalline shoegaze pop; songs carved from the same idyllic ice as Cocteau Twins as they find the space between the ethereal moments of their infectious melodies and winding, drifting music that pulls you into a dream state"

[jamiefairlie]

John Maus - Walls Of Silence

https://youtu.be/GQ3luOmFy6A




From "Screen Memories"

"A common pattern on this record? A feeling of positivity and amusement that shines through in almost every song, while still preserving a solemn mood."

[jamiefairlie]

Laucan - Symptom

https://youtu.be/a1mX-0UjS38



British folk artist Laurence Galpin

From "FramesPerSecond "

"What sets his debut apart from other similar singer-songwriters are the cinematic, electronic textures that he weaves around his work, but also the off-kilter material"

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Krafty Kuts & Chali 2na - Hands High

Krafty Kuts is an English producer and DJ of electronic music and breakbeat. Chali 2na is an American painter and rapper, associated with the groups Jurassic 5 and Ozomatli. He is known for his bass-baritone and quick delivery rapping style.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Sinkane - Telephone

A nice bit of disco-funk from the album Life and Livin' It.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

The Clientele - The Neighbour

The Clientele have featured here before. This piece of loveliness is the opening track on Music for the Age of Miracles.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Sun Seeker - Won't Keep Me Up At Night

Nashville band Sun Seeker released this track as part of their Biddeford mini-album/EP on Jack White's Third Man Records, although, on the face of it, its jangly early Shins-esque sound doesn't seem to have much in common with Mr White's usual tastes.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

The Cornshed Sisters - The Message

The Cornshed Sisters are a lushly harmonious folkish pop group from Tyne and Wear. One of their members, Marie Nixon, used to be in Kenickie (when she was known as Marie du Santiago). This is the opening track from their second album, Honey & Tar. 

[jamiefairlie]

Look Blue Go Purple - As Does The Sun

https://youtu.be/XlfGbYfaXJI



Alternative pop/rock band from Dunedin, New Zealand

From "Still Bewitched"

"informed by the Byrds' jangling guitars, 60s pop melodies and particularly the messy, light/dark dynamics of the Velvet Underground."

[jamiefairlie]

Lost Horizons - She Led Me Away

https://youtu.be/fp4Rz5x86wI



Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde and former Dif Juz drummer Richie Thomas

From "Ojalá "

"Elegant from the first minute to its 70th, Ojalá is an essential album for fans of Raymonde-affiliated projects like Snowbird and This Mortal Coil, and is among his and the year-in-indie's most exquisite works"

[jamiefairlie]

Mark Olson - Mary Francis

https://youtu.be/hnZYjkKFTCw



American musician previously of The Jayhawks

From "Spokeswoman of the Bright Sun"

"It's a lyrical and poetic exercise accompanied by this unusual array of instruments: acoustic/electric guitar, dulcimer, mellotron, chamberlin, bass and drums with often stunning string arrangements"

[Brundle-Fly]

The Spider and Me - King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard & Mild High Club. Released on Flightless in 2017.



KG&TLW


MHC


I'm struggling to find contemporary artists from my collection for these threads these days. You can tell this by a nomination of yet another retro sounding outfit.

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard are an Australian rock band formed in 2010 in Melbourne, Victoria. The band consists of Stu Mackenzie (vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards, flute, sitar), Ambrose Kenny-Smith (vocals, harmonica, keyboards), Cook Craig (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals), Joey Walker (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals), Lucas Harwood (bass, keyboards), and Michael Cavanagh (drums, percussion). They are known for exploring multiple genres, staging energetic live shows and building a prolific discography, having released twenty studio albums, ten live albums, two compilations and three EPs.

Mild High Club is an psychedelic pop group from Chicago, Illinois led by the musician, Alexander Brettin.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I'm struggling to find contemporary artists from my collection for these threads these days. You can tell this by a nomination of yet another retro sounding outfit.

Likewise, hence...

Curtis Harding - Need Your Love

Curtis Harding is an American singer and songwriter. Primarily a soul artist, his self-described "slop 'n' soul" style carries the influence of genres including blues, gospel, psychedelia, R&B and rock. His first album, Soul Power (2014), was followed by Face Your Fear in 2017, with production from Danger Mouse and Sam Cohen.

[jamiefairlie]

Marker - Classic II

https://youtu.be/oP7wWBX2y2I




New Orleans-based project helmed by Mike Wilkinson

From their self-titled debut album

"At times claustrophobic, at others sonically vast.  This is imagination and immersion both in a nostalgic as well as a forward-looking sense.  Marker is a suspended state of sonic delight.  We certainly look forward to what Marker creates next.  For now, Marker leaves us with a great impression."

[jamiefairlie]

Midlake - The Fairest Way

https://youtu.be/SnGMznz2mtM




Previously unreleased track from their aborted follow-up to "The Courage Of Others"

[jamiefairlie]

Mogwai - Party in the Dark

https://youtu.be/lF4KJ-T8yAI




From "Every Country's Sun"

"This album shows that there's plenty of life in this band yet, and they're changing and developing whilst also addressing the past. But most importantly, they're still creating interesting, vital albums"

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Hannah Peel - Sunrise Through the Dusty Nebula

Hannah Peel is a British artist, music producer, Emmy-nominated composer and BBC Radio 3 broadcaster. Her solo music is primarily electronic, synthesiser-based and often includes classical scoring and sound design, with references to the links between science, nature and music. She has scored music for television, film, theatre and dance.

This stirring piece is taken from Mary Casio: Journey to Cassiopeia, which is an odyssey in seven movements composed for analogue synths and a 29-piece colliery brass band. The entire suite was recorded live in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

[jamiefairlie]

Mount Eerie - Toothbrush/Trash

https://youtu.be/Hj_MSA11WWE



The musical project of Anacortes, Washington-based songwriter and producer Phil Elverum

From "A Crow Looked at Me"

"A Crow Looked at Me is a masterpiece in the manner of A Grief Observed and "She Will Find What is Lost". All of these works create a special communion between creator and observer, artistic experiences that join individual circumstances of loss with whatever the listener/reader/viewer brings to the work."