Play | The Rhapsody Editorial Music Blog

Dig This! School of Seven Bells

FREE DOWNLOAD: School of Seven Bells, "Connjur"

Rhythm and harmony! They’re the first things you hear on “Iamundernodisguise,” the opening track on School of Seven Bells’ debut, Alpinisms: a rolling drumbeat marshals a hint of rhumba in the bassline, while sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza speak-sing the word-sounds like a two-part Eastern Orthodox choir. Soon enough, the chorus brings the hook and the result is left-field electronic pop; but it’s the confident mix of beats and voices that defines the song.

[Click the "Continue Reading..." link to listen to a playlist featuring the music discussed in this post.]

Dig This! The Dutchess & The Duke

Folk-rock that harkens back to the mid-‘60s isn’t a new direction for music. But Seattle duo, the Dutchess & the Duke, aren’t all that predisposed to the glow of the new. Lifelong friends Jesse Lortz and Kimberly Morrisson lived through their twenties chasing a youthful energy in a long line of surf, garage and punk-rock bands. They have also come out on the other side of 30 with an expertise in two-part harmonies, acoustic guitar- and tambourine-driven songs that bear the tight construction of Stones and Dylan classics, and personal biographies that make for some interesting points and counterpoints. In under 30 relatively lo-fi recorded minutes, their debut, She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke, shows off songwriting chops and an empathetic vision of life gained from experience. And while experience isn’t necessarily a new direction, it’s always worth gaining. This was the undercurrent to the conversation Rhapsody began with Lortz and Morrisson in Seattle and finished in New York, soon after the Dutchess & the Duke played the Rhapsody Rocks NYC party earlier this October.

Dig This! Lykke Li, the Dutchess & the Duke, the Mole

Welcome to the October 2008 version of Dig This! Every month, Rhapsody’s editorial staff will introduce you to some artists you may not know, give you a chance to check out their music, and present them in their own words -- watch this space for upcoming features on the individual artists. Oh, and we’ll throw you some free downloads from them, too.

This month in Dig This!:
The Dutchess & the Duke, a couple of kids from Seattle, Washington, who play acoustic guitars and harmonize on tunes that evoke classic mid-‘60s folk-rock, even as they sound utterly modern.

Lykke Li, a young woman from Stockholm, Sweden, whose modern indie-pop is by turns futuristic (dig those electronics), retro (listen to those girl-group song-structures) and quirky as all get-out.

The Mole, an electronic-music producer who came to prominence on Canada’s west coast, but whose melodic yet minimal dance music now fits in perfectly with his adopted hometown of Berlin.

Video: Bruce Springsteen, "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (Live)

by Piotr Orlov

Bruce Springsteen takes the stage at Giants Stadium

The Boss!
The E Street Band!
Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey!
Sunday night (July 27)!
First tune of the U.S. tour!
AWESOME!
(Thanks NJ Star-Ledger!)

Further Viewing:
"Radio Nowhere" and "Lonesome Day," Giants Stadium, 7.27.08 (NJ.com)

Rhap Session: J. Spaceman of Spiritualized

by Piotr Orlov

(photo by Kate Glicksberg)

If you want to deconstruct the territory that Jason Pierce probes with his music, look no further than his sometime-sobriquet: J. Spaceman. Exploring the starry, simple, ancient and mysterious has always been his calling -- whether as co-founder with Peter “Sonic Boom” Kember of influential drone-gazers Spacemen 3, or as the principal player in the outward-bound Britpop group Spiritualized. That he’s turned free-jazz-influenced experimental leanings into relatively popular rock is a testament to the breadth of his vision. This vision became physically impaired during the prolonged recording of Spiritualized's eighth album, Songs in A&E, first when Pierce developed a creative block, and then when he was struck by pneumonia which almost killed him in 2006. When he emerged from this experience, he had not only found a new, traditional side of Spiritualized, but had also created music for the Harmony Korine film Mr. Lonely. When Rhapsody spoke to him in May 2008, Pierce was less interested in discussing the specifics of his sickness (full details in another interview here), and more about the creative process that bookended it. Though we, of course, forced the obligatory “Spacemen 3 reunion” question on him as well.

Free MP3s: Fania Meets Ashley Beedle

by Piotr Orlov

Dance music's 21st century rhythmic globetrotting is simply a new-destination update of past travels. There is, for instance, the trip that New York’s Fania label took ‘70s dance-music on, the one that began with a variety of Afro-Cuban- and Caribbean-influenced styles (rumba, mambo and boogaloo, among many); and after mutating into salsa, injected Latin tinges into disco and much of what followed. As is the norm nowadays, anything that was once great is ripe for a remake, and so too is the Fania catalog, on I Like It Like That. But if you want a quick taste, here’s an unreleased remix by Ashley Beedle, adding some bottom to the smooth disco-salsa come-on of Ricardo Marrero’s “Feel Like Making Love.” It’s a late-night thing, once perfect only for the Bronx, but now accepted 'round the world.

Further Downloading:
Ricardo Marrero, "Feel Like Making Love (Ashley Beedle Remix)"
Rhapsody Free MP3s

Rhap Session: Four Tet

by Piotr Orlov

It was inevitable that Four Tet would find the dance floor. Since he began recording in the mid-'90s, you could hear the man born Kieran Hebden admiring the beat, at home with rhythms as different as Dilla's, Pole's and Badly Drawn Boy's. He's hinted at grooves inside the post-rock made as a member of Fridge, built them in the Kosmiche techno-jazz duets with drummer Steve Reid, explored them in Four Tet's laptop sampledelia. And since mid-'07, there's been explicit evidence of his embrace of the club-beat -- in a remix for Battles' "Tonto," and, now, in a four-song Four Tet EP entitled Ringer. Hearing Hebden talk about it, the spirit of the techno-house internationale has brought a charge of inspiration to his creative process, in the form of a DJ residency in London, and in a renewed vigor to make solo electronic recordings. Which is exactly what our Rhap Session, conducted in mid-April was about.

Free MP3s: Architecture in Helsinki, El Guincho

by Piotr Orlov

God bless Architecture in Helsinki! The Aussie indie-pop collective is completely unafraid to go into sonic k-holes most of its peers actively avoid. And, boy, did they stumble into one with this El Guincho remix of "Like It or Not," a track from AIH's '07 album Places Like This. Originally a baroque fanfare that mutates into one of those Aztec Camera/Talking Heads '77-type pop moments that make you jump around in your pajamas, the tune gets chopped, screwed and shipped to the Bahia-meets-Morocco polyglot beatscape that the Barcelona producer is increasingly a master of. From bedroom twee to the global market. If you like Animal Collective, Ricardo Villalobos and/or post-modern Braziliana, you can't do better than that. And for free no less. 

Oh, and if you're in the market for more free music, check out Rhapsody's Free Weekly MP3s page for tracks by The Sword, Tapes 'n Tapes and others.

Further Listening:
Architecture in Helsinki, "Like It or Not (El Guincho Remix)"
Rhapsody Free Weekly MP3s

Video: When Al Green Went to Chicago

by Piotr Orlov

Warning -- mild historical revisionism follows: for soul music aficionados in the 21st century, the Rev. Al Green and Chicago do not belong in the same sentence (much less YouTube clip). And after all those Peter Cetera ballads in the '80s, they may have a point. But there was a time, when the Chicago Transit Authority (as they were once known) was a powerful funk-jazz-rock locomotive (check out the engine on "25 or 6 to 4"), good enough to make War and Rare Earth stop playing with their hair picks and listen to the chug. They certainly must have made an impression on the good Reverend Green, or else he would not have participated in this staged-to-within-an-inch-of-a-bellbottom pairing for an early '70s Chicago TV special. Hear "Tired of Being Alone" in a whole new way on what my friend Sean dubbed "the night Chicago earned its ghetto pass."

WMC 2008: Scenes From a Last Daze

by Piotr Orlov

This is the year I hit a wall at the Winter Music Conference! The house beat loop finally ran out, there really was such a thing as a ‘last drink,’ and the morning sun drowned the deadeye gaze behind the sunglasses. Is it the onset of age or a half-full tank, I asked myself? Or is it that the attraction’s worth was finally overtaken by its toll? Had techno heaven turned into a hell?

No, never. Admit that, and Miami will never let you live it down.