So, in case you didn’t know, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine is kind of ridiculous, not in a “She’s ridiculous. I don’t like her” way, but in a “Holy crud! She is so incredible that she is kind of ridiculous!” I think that at least in my case, the first song I ever heard of hers was “Kiss With a Fist”, which, while it’s a good song, does NOTHING to showcase how talented she is at all. Yeah, it’s fun and catchy, but wow, there’s so much more she can do. And I think “Cosmic Love” might possibly be the perfect example of that. Our friend Tsururadio perhaps said it best when he questioned why people like Ke$ha and Gaga are so much more famous than her. Not knocking them or anything, but I think it’s hard to deny that Florence really has got the goods. Make sure to check out this video too. It has some of the best lighting throughout the whole video that I’ve seen in a while.
We are pretty excited to hear that she’s going to begin working on her follow up to 2009′s Lungs later this year. I’m super depressed that I did not catch her at Coachella. I hear it was pretty incredible.
If you don’t believe that she’s really got the set of pipes you’re hearing here, check out this acoustic version of the same song. It’s all real. No audio manipulation here, folks.
another week begins and i think ive got some good tunes in store for this week, some new and some old. building upon the momentum created by fridays party time remix, i figured it would be best to post another rockin tune thats pretty much all electronic except for a…violin? yes, todays track is by berlin group im not a band, created by stephan j. he played a few instruments including violin and according to their myspace, began “playing laptop” a few years back. its really a pretty cool combination of classical sounds over kickin electronics.
the track “this is it” is sort of unassuming and even sounds happy, but as the track progresses, the intensity builds into minor mayhem. throw in some classic violin and you are thrown into some serious sonic bliss. i also like the change form the beginning to the end of the track. this song reminds me of pieces of so many other songs too, many of which ive posted in the past. the beginning is reminscent of beiruts “my night with a prostitute from marseille” or faunts “feel.love.thinking.of”, then theres a transition from major to minor that reminds me of the horrors “sea within a sea”. and finally, the second half of the song makes me think of what would happen if you were to take the knifes “silent shout’ and make it way more electronic than it already is. but of course this song still sounds like something thats all its own. ba-da-bah bah bah im lovin it.
if you are not familiar with devotchka and have any interest in anything even remotely european, then you are really missing out. i never knew where these guys and gals were from until just now, and i have to say im extremely surprised that they are from denver, colorado and not some distant european land 40 years ago. while the band is american, its easy to hear the international influence in most of their work, and thats part of whats so exciting about listening to their albums. one minute you feel like youre in the middle of a raucous eastern european wedding, and the next youre taken away on a seven minute mariachi-influenced ballad. id like to take this opportunity to make my first ever reference to a book. listening to their albums (especially how it ends) kind of reminds me of ernest hemingway’s “the sun also rises”. ok, enough of that book talk. it felt weird and unfamiliar.
the other interesting thing i just learned from wikipedia, and something that makes a whole lot of sense, is that devotchka started out as a band that played at burlesque shows and even toured for a bit with dita von teese, the queen of modern burlesque (whose name i always thought was dita von tesse, and who i just discovered is from rochester, michigan!). i guess that explains the sound of a lot of their stuff.
so i guess its funny that after that introduction full of references to far away lands that i chose to feature “transliterator”, the song which probably sounds the least like what ive described above of any of their songs. but it definitely still gives a nod to international music. singer nick uratas voice is just unique enough that you cant quite place where he may be from, though the vibrato definitely conjures images of beirut’s zach condon. devotchka and beirut both remind me a whole lot of europe but in very different ways that i cant describe outside of the pictures in my head. what i love about this song, aside from the obvious over the top catchiness of the chorus, is the insanely excellent rhyming. “beautifully mutilated/insanely antiquated/i must admit i almost always underestimate it” has got to be one of the best 4+ syllable word rhyming sequences out there.
last night was day 3 of the movement festival in detroit (day 2 for me). it was, without a doubt, way more awesome than the previous day. the plan was to see tiga at 630, then a yet to be determined 8PM act, followed by benny benassi at 930. in true fashion, the group started talking at 6pm about we had to leave right now to make it downtown by 630. at 745, we finally found ourselves at the stage where tiga was performing. the 5 minutes we were there were pretty great and made us all wish we hadnt dragged ass for so long so we could have gotten there earlier. luckily in that 5 minutes we also ran into the other crew that we were trying to meet up with, and they informed us they were heading across hart plaza to see busy p, and lucky for us, we followed.
i had never heard of busy p, but from what i was told, he was the former manager of daft punk who started his own record label. eventually his label became so popular that he dropped daft punk as a client. how cool must it be to tell people that you dropped daft punk as a client? daft punk! his set could only be described as exactly the kind of electronic music i love. kickin beats, obscure songs ive never heard of all genres, and the occasional “song that everyone knows” that really gets the crowd going, just for good measure. a recommendation that definitely paid off. we also coincidentally ran into tribecalledjon, my partner in crime here on dailybeatz (i swear hes going to start posting soon) and all was well. it was my second time seeing benny benassi, i had actually seen him at the same festival the year before, but for some reason this time was much crazier and more enjoyable. i dont know most of his stuff, but i guess he played most of his big hits, but it was all new to me and i loved it. we also may have snuck our friends parents into the show, which was equally hilarious and extremely weird.
as i mentioned yesterday, all this electronic music has me really interested in trying it out for myself. thats why i chose todays track, as its part of beirut’s (zach condon’s?) first dabble in the world of music made without instruments (in their case, sans a full brass section, and under the name “realpeople”). i dont know what the consensus is on this new sound and if it will be further explored, but i for one approve. while the “holland” half of the latest album doesnt have that eastern european old world feel that so many have grown to know and love, its certainly a valiant effort at a complete departure from what has worked so well in the past. while the horns may have disappeared, the deep and haunting voice of condon still does what it do. kinda makes you want to spend the evening with a disease-ridden french lady of the night, dont it?
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