Song of the Week - 22/05/13 - Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are

Miles Kane - Don't Forget Who You Are

Miles Kane first came to my attention when he was part of the collaborative project, The Last Shadow Puppets along with the Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner and James Ford of Simian Mobile Disco. Their style was effortlessly cool, distinctively British modern indie meets more classic rock and roll with some grandiose orchestral backing put in for good measure. The dual vocals of both Kane and Turner seems to really strike a chord and they complement each other brilliantly. I was lucky enough to see them live at Reading festival 2008, which was an excellent performance as they were accompanied by a live orchestra.

  

It is clear to see that this project with Miles Kane influenced Alex Turner's style that has seen the musical genre and style of the Arctic Monkeys evolve from the lively indie rock from the initial I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor era to the more mellow and classy vintage rock sound as in the newest albums Humbug and Suck it and See.

Despite only having released the one album The Age of the Understatement (2008), there is the possibility of more in future with the collaboration seemingly only on hiatus. Although this seems unlikely considering the continued success of the Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane's new solo album out soon I'd be sure to watch this space in future. Youtube video here

After coming across The Last Shadow Puppets, I did go back to explore Kane's previous band The Rascals that is quite enjoyable in its rawness and unrefined beauty. Looking back at this early work of Mile Kane's you can really see the progression he has made.
Kane's first proper solo album 2011's Colour of the Trap, was somewhat understated and perhaps unsung (so to speak) but a half decent record in my opinion. His subsequent work seems to be much more focused and polished, I was particularly impressed with 2012's First of My Kind EP, especially the title track that I am a big fan of. Check out First of My Kind here!

The new full studio album Don't Forget Who You Are is set for release on the 3rd June.  The title track is this weeks song, it is quite a banger and I will be eagerly anticipating the album if the rest of the songs are up to this standard!

Tracklist:
1. Taking Over
2. Don’t Forget Who You Are
3. Better Than That
4. Out Of Control
5. Bomb Shells
6. Tonight
7. What Condition Am I In?
8. Fire In My Heart
9. You’re Gonna Get It
10. Give Up
11. Darkness In Our Hearts
Bonus Tracks:
12. Start of Something Big
13. Caught In The Act
14. First Of My Kind

Check it out below, enjoy!

[Sources - Wikipedia, Youtube, MilesKane.com]

Song of the Week - 16/05/13 - Seasick Steve - Freedom Road / Hubcap Music

Seasick Steve - Freedom Road

Carrying on from a point I began to make back in my last post, about the great source of new music that is the The Jools Holland Show on BBC. The Jools Holland show presents a great mix of genres with mainstream artists grouped together with more niche and diverse ones. The show was launched the careers of many of these small upcoming artists, giving them some valuable TV coverage for the first time for many. One good example is that of Seasick Steve, the former hobo and now acoustic folk/blues man and UK music festival favourite after appearing on the new years eve hootenanny. It is commendable that these fresh new artists are given the chance to show what they can be on national TV.

Check out the original Seasick Steve performance here from the New Year's Eve special 2006, the brilliant Dog House.

An extraordinary man, who has lived a turbulent life; has managed to make the remarkable transformation from sleeping rough and hopping trains to make it big in the music industry. His life story would certainly make an excellent autobiography. He is made all the more likeable due to his modesty at his recent success and his simple kind hearted nature. His success can be shown by his numerous award nominations, frequent music festival appearances and having had the opportunity to play live with the likes of Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones. Since 2006 he has had 3 albums go gold and one, I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most Of It Left (2008) went platinum in the UK.

His new album Hubcap Music was released the end of last month. This is probably my favourite song from the new album although there are plenty of good tracks to choose from, some nice chilled country styled tracks to some more fast paced, toe-tapping tunes like this one. The album is definitely recommended.

Also check out the full album on spotify below

[Info Sources - Wikipedia, Youtube]

Song of the Week - 08/05/13 - AlunaGeorge - Attracting Flies

AlunaGeorge - Attracting Flies

Electronic duo AlunaGeorge (no space intentional) first came on to the scene last year with the single 'Your Drums, Your Love' released in September to a modest chart ranking of number fifty. They followed up with the much more notable single 'White Noise', a collaboration with Disclosure as a featured artist (according to wikipedia) which reached a lofty no.2 in the UK singles chart.

Their new single Attracting Flies is this week's song of the week. I caught this song while watching Later with Jools Holland last week, which has always been a great source of new music for me. (more on that in my next post)

On first hearing this song on TV the other night, I couldn't help but think that it would be very easy to make your own song (at least in theory). All you really need is a catchy little electronic beat like the one at the beginning of this song and featured throughout. You could probably cook up one of these playing around with an little online synthesiser or an app on your phone. And from there you can mix in some vocals and backing music and voila! Of course it undoubtedly is probably much harder than that but I still think that in principle it does come down to this initial little electro beat, especially for this song. For me it was enough for me to want to carry on listening when I could have quite easily changed channel and watched something else. It provides the hook to entice the listener in. 

A début album Body Music is set for release in the summer on the 8th July.

[Sources - Wikipedia, Youtube]