VAMPIRE WEEKEND - Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa
LISTEN WITH SARAH - Duelling DJs: Peel vs. Harris (Cuntry Music Peeled)
THE KILLS - U R A Fever
BATTLES - Atlas
ELEANOORA ROSENHOLM - Musta Ruusu
THE HAPPY HOLLOWS - Monster Room
ENON - Dr. Freeze
If you're wondering what we're doing these days, we're compiling our annual list of the superbestest records of 2007. Which doesn't mean we don't have time to discover new music. No, because those two sadly go hand in hand.
Take Vampire Weekend, whose "Oxford Comma" we were going to put in our list, but who were taken off the list when we discovered their album was due for release in January 2008.
There is a chance however, you might find Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa in the list because that was pre-released in August of this year. They even were nice enough to put an MP3 of the song on their site, so download away.
Vampire Weekend are from New York, but love using African genres (i.e. the Congolese Kwassa Kwassa). The result is a wonderful and pretty unique mix of African music and the hecticness of New York. (Feel free to visit their MySpace, stream "Oxford Comma" and lament it won't be in our 2007 list.)
Speaking of lists, every year the Kurtodrome site compiles such a list we cannot help but think of John Peel, whose Festive 50 was often an inspiration and occasionally the only other list that would feature similar tracks (speaking of which, we've browsed the net for similar lists, but found our nrs. 1 and 2 aren't very well represented in other lists - which only proves the need for us to compile a list). But John Peel is no more, which is why we were pleasantly surprised to find the Listen with Sarah track "Duelling DJs". Did we save it for this final update of 2007 because of that reason? Yes, we did. So why this track, Sarah? "This is a track I was creating when John died. I wanted to make him giggle like a schoolboy. He never got to hear it, so may you guffaw in his honour. It features the voices of John Peel and Bob Harris, with a touch of Derek & Clive. You'll hear John and Bob debate Country Music.
The result? Duelling DJs - Peel vs Harris (Cuntry Music Peeled)
The Kills will return in 2008 with a new album. The single "U R A Fever" (don't you just love abbreviations?) will be released in January in order to make you drool for a couple of months. The video is already finished and we managed to find it. Plus, since we're in a sharing mood...
Battles may end up in our list, but - oh, aren't we mischevous? - we're not going to select of the singles from the Mirrored album. "Atlas" is the name of the track and once again it's time for us to complain that the single and the album track do not match: the single is roughly two minutes shorter and takes longer to build up. Yes, those record companies... they don't care about people liking the single and ending up being bitterly disappointed when they've bought an album which contains a different version of the song. (Yeah, I'm talking about , Von Südenfed!) Anyway, here is the video for the "Atlas" single.
Next up, Eleanoora Rosenholm. Ladies and gentlemen, it's official: the 80s are more than back. More proof than needed comes from Finland, where Fonal Records released Vainajan Muotokuva, Eleanoora Rosenholm's record. The band is a project by Noora Tommila, Pasi Salmi and Mika Rättö. "They crafted a genius pop album with murderous lyrics inside the dark stonewalls that surround SS-Palace studio. Time came to get the show on the road and the band evolved into a full 8 piece. Mika Rättö is not a part of the band but is working as a background godfather and often watching the band as a part of the audience. With Noora's amazing vocal work and the genius backing band they create a disco any housewife serial killer would be proud to dance to." (Fonal Records)
Sadly no MP3 of "Musta Ruusu" to be found, but we did found these:
- If you follow this link, the first track you should hear is "Musta Ruusu".
- Online for a couple of days/weeks, the full album in streaming flash goodness (with many thanks to the VPRO)
- Oh, and there's a MySpace. Of course, there's a MySpace!
- And, last but not least, a 50 second MP3 excerpt of another track: Maailmanloppu (we are much indebted to the wonderful people Hea Uus Heli from Estland).
These days you need to log into MySpace to be able to download music, which is a shame really. Still, people without MySpace can at least stream the tracks, which is still better than some similar sites where non-members are left to listen to silence only. So whether you'll stream or download "Monster Room" by The Happy Hollows does depend on your (un)willingness to join MySpace. But do listen to the song, a track the Californian band has offered for free to their fans as a prelude to the Happy Hollows album which will appear somewhere in 2008.
Why not call an album Grass Geysers...Carbon Clouds? Sure, it'll take the fans longer to memorize than, let's say, 12 New Super Duper Tracks, but let those fans make an effort. Enon were in Belgium recently to support the wonderful Fiery Furnaces (and will return in January 2008 with a concert in Brussels) and to play tracks from their new album.
Because Touch and Go prefer showing videos in a Quicktime setting that'll make our crash, we decided to see if the video for "Dr. Freeze" wasn't available on YouTube. And, lo and behold...
Well, that's it for this edition of Radio Kurtodrome. We'll inform you when our Democratische 99 (that's how our annual list is called) will be upped on the site. For now, enjoy the music and the final days of 2007.
Happy New Year!
