All-star karaoke

Sometimes, here at Musick, we have some friends round, drink some wine, put on a song and sing along and it all sounds pretty terrible. Beck does the same thing only without the wine and the bit about it sounding terrible and his friends are people like St Vincent and the guys from Liars. For the past few months, Beck's been hitting the Rolodex hard and calling in amigos to help him record whole albums in a day and this month it was the turn of INXS' '80s behemoth, Kick, to get the faithful treatment. Here's a great little video showing the recording of the album's opening track, 'Guns In The Sky':

 

Two things; the drums sound amazing and Beck's got some lovely knitwear on.

New Musick Monday

Last week was a bit of a rocky one. Two big releases in the shape of the Gorillaz album and the Goldfrapp single had decidedly mixed weeks, with the former sitting pretty at number 1 in the album charts for most of the week before being deposed by a grieving Boyzone at the last minute, whilst the latter single missed the Top 40 altogether thanks to a dearth of airplay. The terrifying Liars album missed out completely, which is how it should be really. We're not sure how society would benefit from having kids exposed to such a racket! This week is a pretty slow one all things considered.

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Under Great White Northern Lights by The White Stripes

Everyone's favourite 'sibling' duo return with their first ever live album, which also comes with a brilliant documentary filmed during their 2007 tour of Canada. The album features some brilliant selections, from the opening 'Let's Shake Hands' to the joyous 'Seven Nation Army', via lacerating versions of 'The Union Forver' and their last big single, 'Icky Thump'. There's a tinge of sadness that runs throughout the album and that's because it simultaneously reminds you of how good they are and makes you question whether either Jack or Meg have the desire to carry it on seeing as Jack's got his fingers in every conceivable pie and Meg had to quit the tour due to anxiety. Still, it's a worthy testament to a band who are missed more than ever.

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Sweet 7 by Sugababes

We know that some of you might just say, "well, we weren't going to anyway" and that's fine of course, but this is a message to the people who think, "yeah, I like Sugababes, they make brilliant pop songs with a slight edge that show personality and have a certain something about them". NOT ANYMORE THEY DON'T. The FHM-esque cover shot tells you all you need to know about a pop group with no remaining original members, no ounce of originality and no hope of ever reclaiming the sense of excitement that you get from hearing tracks like 'Overload', 'Push The Button' and 'About You Know'. Remember those moody-looking, fully-dressed young women? They've been replaced with three personality vacums.

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'Devil's Spoke' by Laura Marling

The timing couldn't be better for a new Laura Marling album seeing as her former backing band, Mumford & Sons, are currently sitting pretty in the UK Top 10. But where as they can easily be dismissed as a kind of Burtons version of folk, Marling appears to be the real deal and her second album, I Speak Because I Can, is a genuinely exciting leap forward from her debut, Alas I Cannot Swim. 'Devil's Spoke' may not be the most immediate track on the album, but it does feature this lyric, which can't help but conjure some very odd imagery; "Ripping off each others clothes in the most perculiar way". In what way is it perculiar? Are they both dressed as clowns and they're only allowed to tear garments off using their teeth? Or, with one hand behind their backs? WE NEED ANSWERS.

Cheque's in the Post

As a little aside, we've been listening to a lot of old Björk albums lately and the one that we keep coming back to is Post. So, it seems fateful that the excellent Stereogum have assembled quite a cast to record a special tribute to it. Acts including Liars, Atlas Sound, Dirty Projectors and Xiu Xiu have all attempted a track each and you can download the whole thing for free form here.

Dave Longstreth has this to say about why his band, Dirty Projectors, picked the amazing 'Hyperballad':
“I think what I took from Björk when I was obsessed with her in high school was her way with deconstruction. She writes these classic melodies but breaks them apart so that it’s sort of up to you as the listener to put them back together. The song ends up meaning so much more because of the effort you have to give to it. Out of a perverse habit, I tried to do the opposite with this recording: present the song like the unbroken stone it might have been. But I think I probably just arrived at a new deconstruction: Björk’s essence remains elusive!”

Amen to that!

New Musick Monday

So, last week we got a bit morose about how no one reads this blog but we've seen the light and realised that if no one reads it, well, it's their loss. How else will anyone know what new albums and singles are out this week? It's not as if there are adverts or reviews or billboard posters or virals or...you get the picture. Last week was pretty successful, what with Ellie Goulding's debut flying in at number 1 and Joanna Newsom's triple album sauntering elegantly in at number 28. Unsurprisingly, Perfume Genius didn't dent the Top 75, but hey, who buys vinyl these days? Seeing as we downloaded it for free, we can hardly complain.

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Plastic Beach by Gorillaz



It's funny, when Britpop was raging all those years ago, we assumed it would be Liam Gallagher who'd cast off the shackles of his main band and experiment with Chinese pop music, hip-hop, African rhythms and the Venezuelan nose flute. Instead, it's Damon Albarn who has quietly gone about proving himself to be a bit of a genius (OK, not so quietly). Plastic Beach is the third Gorillaz album and it's a sprawling, 16-track opus taking in a loose concept about the environment and features guests as diverse as Lou Reed, Kano, Snoop Dogg and Bobby Womack. In short, it's all over the place, but in a very good way. 'Empire Ants' is possibly the best thing we've heard all year.

BUY THIS AND GET A BIT OF A HEADACHE

Sisterworld by Liars



Again, it's time for a confession. We have this album, in fact it's on the arm of the chair as we type, but we've yet to enter Sisterworld in its entirety. What we do know is that it's a dense, frankly quite terrifying listen, that ranges from the sporadic meltdown of 'Scissor' to the violent convulsions of 'Scarecrows On A Killer Slant'. If you buy the deluxe, 3D artwork version you get an extra CD with remixes of every track by people such as Thom Yorke, Devendra Banhart and one of TV On The Radio.

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'Rocket' by Goldfrapp



So, that folky reinvention didn't last long did it? Everyones second favourite female-fronted synth pop duo (La Roux is number one, right?) are back with their forthcoming album, Head First, and 'Rocket' is the Van Halen-aping first single. Allison Goldfrapp was always more suited to the rush of electro than the gentle strum of an acoustic guitar and though 'Rocket' isn't vintage Goldfrapp it certainly beats roughly 78% of everything else in the charts.