Whilst Amazon procrastinates¹ on sending me Eisley’s second album, Combinations, out this month, I’m making do with their debut, Room Noises, released in 2005. This five piece group from Texas (four siblings and their cousin) makes charming friendly music which borrows from Belly, second generation Throwing Muses and touches the outer reaches of Concrete Blonde. Most songs are dominated by the DuPree sisters’ perfect (and imperfect) harmonies. None more than this delightful track, which cuts back on the instrumentation to let their voices do magic.

Room Noises – Amazon UK Import
Eisley – Official Website

¹ Update: It’s just despatched!

This project by Rhys Fulber, former member of Front Line Assembly and Delerium is known mostly to the dance crowd as the writer of the Sinéad O’Connor vocalled Tears From The Moon which featured on their 2003 self-titled debut. Pilgrimage comes from the follow-up Extraordinary Ways.

Initially screwing totally with the ‘stick your best track third on the album’ philosophy, Pilgrimage features wordless vocals from Leah Randi and Joanna Stevens, but introduces itself with a piano and pad intro under which a slow pitched down drum loop beats mysteriously. So, yes, it starts like one for the Dead Can Dance fans. Then it changes into an almost epic-house piano track, pinned by soaring strings and acoustic guitars, plus those fabulous voices.

Extraordinary Ways – Amazon UK
Extraordinary Ways – iTunes UK

Charlotte Martin’s Something Like a DVD was released in 2005. Intended as a “thank you” to fans who hadn’t yet seen her live, it was re-released in May this year. The DVD is a relatively intimate performance recorded at The Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles on 17 November 2005. As such, it bridges between 2004’s On Your Shore and last year’s Stromata album. The re-release adds a CD with seven new songs and a solemn studio reworking of Four Walls.

Whilst the majority of the live songs are simply accompanied by piano and synth (the latter sometimes mixed way too high), Four Walls also employs the breakbeat backing track that propels the song as it appears on the Veins EP and Stromata. The physicality of Charlotte’s live performance rejuvenates this song, making it one of the best on the DVD.

Something Like a Trailer:

Something Like a DVD – Amazon UK
Charlotte Martin

Apparently this stuff gets marketed as classical. Which in today’s brain-lite society is an attribute assigned to anything sing-songy with an orchestral background. Prayer is, inevitably, a cover, because we all know that classical singers don’t write their own material. (Co-writing doesn’t count BTW.) It presses all the right buttons: a lovely clear voice, which tracks the notes properly, although because of it’s so refined there’s a considerable lack of character within it (compare with Shara Worden); understated plinky-plonky piano, and the aforementioned strings and things.

Did I mention it is utterly gorgeous?

Bugger.

[iTunes UK]

Fi-na-lly!

The general opinion of Stylus Magazine was such that it was rated No. 4 in their albums of 2005. Two years on, Robyn is released in the UK, a whole 10 years after the arrival of Show Me Love, and sparkling with some extra tracks – including the previously-blogged-about and yes-it’s-magnificently-shimmeringly-aching With Every Heartbeat. Robyn’s album bursts with the all knowing pizazz that a pop diva should have. The vocals, the lyrics, the zaps, stabs, beats and arrangements combine to tell us two things: that love hurts, sometimes, and that pop music is crucial to the successful evolution of the human race.

[Amazon UK]
[Cobrastyle – from The Rakamonie EP – iTunes UK]
[Robyn – Stylus Magazine Review]
[Robyn – Pitchfork Review]

Spooky. Not this song, you understand. But many weeks and months ago, for some reason that I cannot recall, I put Anna Nalick’s Wreck of the Day album on my Amazon wishlist. I probably put it there during some random link clicking on Last.fm. Anyway, today I find a remix of the opening track turned up on A State of Trance’s Top 20 of 2006.

[Amazon UK – Import]

Established in Brighton in 1998, Electrelane is a predominantly instrumental group, taking the post-rock style of Stereolab and enfusing it with a more organic, guitar-oriented sound, although in recent years, more vocals have been added. Suitcase is an opulent Gregorian-shoegazing track, taken from their patchy 2005 album, Axes. Their new album, No Shouts, No Calls is scheduled for release in April 2007.

[iTunes UK]

If you think Peaches is too rude and Miss Kittin is too retro-chic, but you’re still intrigued by them, Cansei De Ser Sexy may be for you. If however you love the glamour of Ladytron and Client, they’ll definitely be your bag. They’re more playful and naughty than a box of new born puppies.

Alala is taken from the Brazilian band’s debut eponymous album. It rocks.

[Cansei de Ser Sexy]
[Stylus Magazine Review]
[Pitchfork Review]
[Amazon UK]
[iTunes UK]