Posts Tagged ‘raphael hall’

Damon Albarn is the British version of Jack White.

His endless indulgence in random musical enterprises seems to suggest that he is still – twenty years on from fronting Brtipop legends Blur - searching for the ultimate musical calling in life.

Unlike the former White Stripes frontman however, Albarn is yet to lose our attention, and ‘Dr Dee‘, the soundtrack to the English Opera of the same name, is the newest addition to his eclectic repertoire.

Whilst the likes of Adele and Lily Allen have spearheaded the evolution of a new kind of femme fatale; a convoy of women who fiercely resent the sexually manufactured agendas that have plagued record labels for years, Laura Marling, the most graceful and divine English singer-songwriter to emerge since Kate Bush, seems content on sidling into her own state of semi-oblivion, where she does her own thing, her own way, in a classical style that could flourish in any era.

A bold folk centurion for the internet age, unnerved by both decadence and posterity, Marling, at just twenty-two years (judging by frequent call-outs of “Happy birthday Laura!”, she only hit that age recently), has already carved her own place amongst the highest echelon of modern songwriters. With three albums and a unique legacy rapidly forming under her name, a packed house at Melbourne’s Forum Theatre greeted her arrival as if she were a songstress sent from the gods. And judging by the classical Greek architecture that coats the sides of the stage, it was hard to think otherwise.

It should only seem fitting that upon venturing within ear-shot of Melbourne’s Festival Hall – a venue famous for housing the Fab Four a half century ago – the mighty guitar racket of none-other than NME indie-rock flag-bearers The Vaccines could be heard blaring through the doors at full volume; their ragged guitar anthems cosily nestling against the gritty working-class surroundings that form the landscape around the arena.

The Vaccines were here to precede the mighty Kasabian, whom they would soon no doubt be trying to dethrone as Britain’s premier rock band of the current era.

The Big Pink are perhaps every guitar band’s worst nightmare.

Belonging to a select group of electro-pop artists that have recently found success through pragmatic, business like methods of networking as opposed to the more traditional rock n roll rite of passage (starting at the very bottom, playing the most vile clubs imaginable and getting ‘discovered’ at some mythical venue), they write huge, super catchy pop songs at ease whilst maintaining experimental progression in a strangely affecting way, peculiarly refusing to nestle into the context of any single genre.

And as they pull the curtain down on the ever fading ‘indie landfill’ phenomenon along with the likes of Cut Copy and Foster the People, you can’t help but wonder if this is where music is inevitably headed, relying not on the pluck of a string, but on the push of a button.

In The Guardian’s review of The Maccabees‘ third LP ‘Given to the Wild‘, Alex Petridis entertained a peculiar notion; that despite the simmering success that The Maccabees have had over the past five years, they remain somewhat anonymous and faceless amongst their more outspoken peers in the modern indie landscape.

It’s been a full decade since the world’s most famous virtual band burst onto the scene at the dawn of the century, born from two like-minded experimentalists and a set of crafty oil pastels.

But few could have predicted the heights to which Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s project would soar – somehow managing to satisfy the Blur star’s lust for venturing into the unknown with a sustained sky-rocketing level of commercial success. It’s not lost on Albarn that Gorillaz, for all intents and purposes, have far outstripped Blur commercially and arguably creatively.

London… the cultural and economic bastion of the western world from which some of the globe’s most coveted artists have emerged and from which some of the most famous songs have been inspired.

If the riveting sleeve notes of ‘London: Songs to Define the City’ are anything to go by, it is a place in which ‘memories are made and dreams are fulfilled’. Maybe, but can a textbook tourist-guide like compilation really be enough to convince us accordingly? It’s a long shot.

No-one in their right mind expects Snow Patrol to make a generation-defining album, but we oft-expect them to make a disappointing record either.

The alternative Irish outfit have been suspended rather awkwardly in the sky since the one-two punch of 2004’s ‘Final Straw‘ and 2006’s multi-format smash ‘Eyes Open‘. For instance, although the group’s last release, ‘A Hundred Millions Suns‘, should have incited the wellspring of anticipation that usually awaits a follow-up of a multi-platinum selling record, it was greeted rather expectantly and nostalgically – as if the band had been around for countless eons beforehand.

The Slow Show are not your average Manchester band; they sound as though they could flourish in any era and could exist in any place.

Recently formed by five acoustic folk pop enthusiasts from the heart of the industrial city, The Slow Show, whose music aptly fits the group’s name, have been making significant waves on the British indie scene. Their debut EP ‘Midnight Waltz‘ has drawn considerable acclaim from contemporary critics and has even earned the group a support slot for the hugely popular Elbow, a rather impressive feat this early in the band’s career.

The Chakras didn’t come out of nowhere, but even in this age of global inter-connectivity, to an Australian Ireland can still seem like a mystical isolated nation state at the edge of the world, or ‘the land of U2’ to the less-intellectually enriched.

Thus, The Chakras find haven in this realm, mystical without being beside the point, atmospheric without being self-indulgent, and indebted to those that have come before them without actually ripping anyone off.