Don’t fuck with Me, Don’t fuck with Me

Jai Paul - BTSTU

It’s been a strange month on [edit] radio, for the first time in a while I’ve had numerous requests to record podcasts for the site. This has left me with many new tracks that I’d like to share with you but no podcast to share it on. So with all of my new found time and a move to university to study music journalism looming, I’ve decided to make an effort to share more of my thoughts through the blogsite.

First under the microscope is pop artist Jai Paul’s track ‘BTSTU’ The song was released to a fair bit of fanfare to the bloggosphere over a year ago and the subsequent buzz was enough to earn him a nomination on the BBC’s Sound of 2011. It’s easy to hear why the industry was so excited about this young lad from Rayners Lane in London as this three and half minute pop song shows more daring invention than most pop artists entire careers.

The production is lush and complex, layered with industrial synth’s, saxophone and various other sonic embellishments that recall a DJ playing around with all the effects tricks at his disposal. However it’s the interplay of vocal recordings that really’s sets the track apart from it’s contemporaries. His falsetto voice is ghostly and delivered so tenderly that’d it’d be easy to miss brooding menace at the core of the lyrics if the opening lines weren’t “Don’t fuck with me, don’t fuck with me” The track picks up pace as his tone lowers and layers making this more of an exceptional one man duet. It’s a starling debut track and one that’ll be hard for him match. We’ll find out if this Londoner is up to the task soon enough.

Jai Paul - BTSTU (Edit) by Jai Paul

FESTIVAL SEASON (Oh the horror!) by Laurence Piddock

Be afraid people, be very afraid! Especially if you’re a music fan, even more so if you’re a music fan of a nervous disposition. It’s pretty likely that if you haven’t already heard it, you’ll soon be hearing the following phrase...

“Going to any festivals this year?”

It would be both prudent and wise for me to say that going to a festival is probably one of those things you should do at least a couple of times. You’ll encounter all sorts of conditions; meet assorted numpties and decent folk of various creeds and tackle a multitude of obstacles which, as my Dad would put it “build character”. However, if you don’t want to end up like me, spending your impending old age blogging like a less wishy-washy Jon Gaunt whilst polishing your Zimmer frame, take heed and listen.

I'd surely lie if I said that I was sure that it might work out

Panda Bear – Alsatian Darn

It normally takes me about ten listens before I start to really appreciate the depths of a new Panda Bear album, however on his newest effort ‘Tomboy’ the densely layered avant-garde chillwave tracks were an instant joy to my ears and for my money is easily his most accessible release to date.

My favourite song (but not necessarily the best) from the album is “Alsatian Darn”. Camouflaged against the tracks sonic haze the lyrics can be difficult to decipher, but when read closely are a testament to Panda Bear’s ability to vocalise the most complex emotions with deft skill and craft.

This time he tackles the personal doubt that comes when you want to make changes to your life, knowing deep down (despite your own self belief) the outcomes of the changes are uncertain. He poses the question of how this change will affect himself and the people he cares for, allowing the question to circle the song without resolution. Instead he encapsulates his dilemma perfectly by repeating:

“Can I make a bad mistake?
Say what it is I want to say to you
Say what?”

The actual resolution isn’t important; it differs depending on the situation and people involved. The question is what counts and knowing that I’m not the only one letting it keep me awake at night makes me feel less lonely.

Alsatian Darn by editradio

Whilst my wife softly sings to herself

Jim Lockey - Warriors (live)

Back in January during the show at Cheltenham's excellent Slak bar, the audience was treated to a vintage solo performance by Jim Lockey. That night he opened his set with a new song called "Warriors" which I was lucky enough to record on my H2 Zoom microphone. It catches the man at his melodic best passionately delivering another politically charged gem. It's been stuck in my head for months now so I thought it was about time I shared it with you.


Jim lockey Warriors Live by editradio

Support Local Music #3

It's that time again. Where I  ask you to dip into your pockets to support the act's from or associated with the Reading area. As you can imagine music making isn't  cheap business so please all go out and buy one or two copies of the following releases:

Oxygen Thief - Destroy It Yourself (Broken Tail Records/Josaka)

It's the début Album from Bristolian OXYGEN THIEF who's sound is the literally the loudest thing that one man an acoustic guitar can produce. His sound is hard to pigeon hole, it's essentially a mix of Metal, folk with lots clever nods to popular culture. It's being released by local label Broken Tail Records and I cannot recommend it highly enough, so please get out there and buy it:

Physical Copy - Banquet Records £9.99
Digital Copy - iTunes £7.99

You can get the excellent Single 'Terry Nutkins Salute' free from the man's Bandcamp.



Here is a great video of Barry performing live at Kingston excellent Banquet Records

Spotify to limit free streaming accounts

There has been some HUGE news today about Spotify's music service. The company that have delighted consumers by offering ad supported, free music streaming over the past few years are changing the parameters of their this service.

Here’s an overview of  the changes:

• New Spotify users will be able to enjoy our unrivalled free service as it is today for the first 6 months.

• As of May 1st, any user who signed up to the free service on or before November 1st 2010 will be able to play each track for free up to a total of 5 times. Users who signed up after the beginning of November will see these changes applied 6 months after the time they set up their Spotify account.

• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

These changes don't come as a surprise to me. Recently I looked into the cost of creating my own online music store (it's expensive) and was told from all of my sources of information that Spotify had been running at a huge loss. That only it's angel investors (which include all the major record labels) had kept it afloat.

The harsh truth that consumers have to face is the music industry IS a business and it DOES need your money to stay afloat. So I'm sure the musician's/record labels around the globe will rejoice at this news. Your average consumer is likely to meet this news with a drastically different view and many have already called it "the death of Spotify".

But for everyone it's a question  of how much you value music. Is £9.99 a month too much to pay to have 10 million songs on tap? It's your decision.

Click here to see the blog post from Spotify

Discovering New Music on the Internet #1

In the summer of 2003, I received a tax rebate. The sum I received was enough to pay for a new pair of glasses, a holiday and a third generation iPod. So I excitedly ordered the Jonathon Ive designed wonder through Apple’s website, downloaded iTunes and set to work digitizing my entire CD collection. A few days later I would be able to jettison my portable discman and carry around my entire back catalogue with me. I became feverishly excited, it was going to be great! In the first few months my fervent enthusiasm meant I convinced myself I loved the iPod experience.

In hindsight I’m not so sure that my feelings of elation were justified as having my entire record collection ‘on tap’ meant that I had too much choice. Whenever I bought a new record that didn’t instantly gratify me I’d quickly revert to my old favourites out of habit. Looking back on it, I ended up ignoring some records that were initially challenging (The Rapture’s ‘Echoes’ comes to mind) but all the more rewarding when they finally clicked.

Fast forward to January 2009 when I started planning the launch of [edit] radio. It was then that I became acutely aware of my own listening habits. As I’d be committing myself to creating fortnightly podcasts I would need a large variety of great songs to share with my listeners. I felt confident that my musical taste was diverse and up to date enough to cope. I was wrong. I found that after planning the tracks for the first four episodes (they were an hour an a half each back then) I was beginning to repeat the bands/albums I wanted to play. It came as a shock. It was apparent to me that 6 years of having any music I wanted had made me less adventurous and even a little indifferent to some of the newer music out there. I decided that a change was required, as not only did I need to find more music that I’d want to share, I needed to find it fast. So what did I do next? I searched the web for answers.

This will be the first in an ongoing series of articles about the best ways to discover site’s featuring music you’ll love on the net (that aren’t [edit] radio). I hope you’ll find it useful.

Last FM

I’m sure most of you have heard of Last FM but I’m not sure how many of you have accounts that you make the most of. For the uninitiated, Last FM is a social network based around music recommendations that uses the music library imported from your computer (or added manually) and offers great suggestions about bands that are similar or related to your favourites that you may be interested in. Based on what you enter, it will create a radio station tailored to your existing tastes that can be accessed via the web or a smart-phone, and it’s suggestions are normally second to none. The service also provides a function called “Scrobbling” which records every track you play on your MP3 player, computer or various other services. This information is then collated into an RSS feed and statistics which can be viewed by your friends or added to personal blogs, or just offer some revealing information about how addicted to certain musicians or albums you are. My love affair with Bon Iver’s first album stretched a lot further than I had imagined!

Best For - Personalised radio stations accessible anywhere, finding new music related to or similar to your tastes, ‘scrobbling’ and seeing what music your friends are listening to.

Hype Machine

Every day, thousands of people around the world write about music they love. The Hype Machine keeps track of what music bloggers write about. They handpick a set of amazing music blogs (that we hope to be part of one day) and via a simple user interface allow you to play (and Scrobble) the tracks directly from the webpage. Once you create an account you can also subscribe to your favourite blogs and create a personalised feed of new music that you’ll enjoy. There’s also a selection of real time charts that show the most talked about songs/remixes/artists from the past few days. Another great aspect is that by navigating directly to the blog post, you often find tracks being given away free. For me its the best tool to find new music that’s best suited to your current tendencies.

Best For - Finding new music that suits your own personal tastes and keeping up to date with the latest music trends.

The Sixty One/Aweditorium

Named after Highway 61, the notorious U.S highway that runs along the Mississippi River and marks the origin of American music culture, The Sixty One is like a musical adventure game, setting it’s users quests to lead you out of your musical comfort zone. It’s interface can be daunting and would benefit from some refinement but it’s an extremely fun way to discover new music. The sites code also powers popular iPad app Aweditorium


Best For - Having some fun whilst discovering new music

Bandcamp

Bandcamp is a net based music store that’s a great place to find unsigned musicians. It’s allowing artists to regain/retain their independence and recoup more of the money from their recordings. The site gives bands their own mini web-site where they can upload and sell all of their albums, EP’s and tracks directly to you. The best part is that you can stream all the music free before you decide to make a purchase. Bandcamp takes 10-15% of every sale to support the platform. As they grow I can see them offering a raft of services to bands and with a few tweaks can imagine it becoming a business model for record labels of the future.

Best For - Finding unsigned/emerging acts before they become famous

Soundcloud

The Soundcloud platform is fast becoming the preferred way to share music/sound on the web. It works in a similar way to You Tube and has the potential to become as ubiquitous. It offers it’s users a virtual space to upload and share music with friends publicly or privately; to embed sound across websites, social networks, blogs and receive comments on the tracks. The service offers free accounts to amateur users with the option to upgrade to a premium account for advanced features like statistics, controlled distribution and custom branding. Lots of music blogs are using the service to reduce their server storage costs and the amount of music they give away for free. This is helping Soundcloud to create a huge library of songs that can be searched for and played from your computer or via a smart-phone application. It’s a service that’s on the rise and one to watch.

Best For - Sharing music with your friends via social networks or on websites

That’s it for now, there are more that I could mention but this article is already excessively long!

Happy listening.