The Magnetic Fields Get ‘Real’
The Magnetic Fields are their own worst enemy. Beginning with 1991’s Distant Plastic Trees and ascending through classic albums Holiday and The Charm of the Highway Strip, the quality of the band’s output finally crescendoed to dizzying heights with 1999’s ambitious, unparalleled opus 69 Love Songs.
The monstrous album was so brilliantly exhaustive, and set the bar so impossibly high, that any followup from the band was destined to feel inconsequential by comparison. Songwriter Stephin Merrit sidestepped that problem by making his post-69 works, 2004’s I and 2008’s Distortion, intentionally microscopic. Whether starting all of his song titles with the same letter or dousing his compositions in uncharacteristic amounts of fuzz, Merrit has relied on thematic gimmicks to help neutralize high expectations. Continue reading
Charlotte Gainsbourg – “Heaven Can Wait” (Video)
It’s hard not to love Charlotte Gainsbourg. Even the film Antichrist, with its disturbing imagery, rampant misogyny, and charming genital mutilation couldn’t lessen our affection for her. She may not be the only indie musician/actress out there, but she is the only one who does both things well (take that, Deschanel). The ambidextrous Gainsbourg has once again put on her songwriter’s cap for her forthcoming album IRM. Her gorgeous debut, 5:55, was produced by none other than the great Nigel Godrich, but this time around Gainsbourg has enlisted Beck to produce and cowrite all the songs.
The star-crossed pairing has just yielded its first video, the Keith Schofield-directed “Heaven Can Wait”. Beck’s vocals feature strongly in the song, lending further weight to the idea that the record is a Gainsbourg solo album in name only. In the surreal clip, mundane interactions between people and bizarre creatures are interrupted by bizarre bouts of food fetishism and sudden acts of violence. IRM will be available stateside on January 26th via Elektra, and the smart money says it’ll be a good one.
Ólafur Arnalds – “Ljósið” (Video)
Ólafur Arnalds is a Neo-Classical multi-instrumentalist from Iceland who creates orchestral compositions with electronic undertones. Neo-classical isn’t exactly a fan fave these days, but Arnalds cannot be ignored. Last April, he created an album entitled Found Songs, a one week project during which he created a new track every day and made it available on a special page on the Erased Tapes website. Arnalds then asked fans to post photos that they felt best matched the music.
The resulting songs are full of delicate layers that bleed emotion and reach heights usually reserved for his friends Sigur Rós, with whom he’s toured extensively. Poetic, cinematic and downright gorgeous, the music stays with you and raises the hair on the back of your neck. Check out the graceful video (above) for the Found Songs track “Ljósið”, and keep an eye out for his currently untitled new album in the near future.
Cloud Cult Reissue Two Albums, Record New One (MP3)
Cloud Cult have been riding high lately. Their two most recent albums, The Meaning of 8 and Owl&Bear favorite Feel Good Ghosts (Tea Partying Through Tornadoes), have marked a creative peak for the band, the hard-won result of ten years of touring, seemingly insurmountable hardships, and a recorded output far too large to shake a stick at. The Minnesota band even took a victory lap with last year’s No One Said It Would Be Easy, a documentary that chronicled the ebbs and flows of the group’s career.
It seems that Cloud Cult haven’t quite finished turning their collective eye toward the past, because they’re re-envisioning, remixing, remastering, rearranging, and finally rereleasing two of their older albums. On December 8th, the previously out-of-print They Live On The Sun (2003) and Aurora Borealis (2004) will be reborn, Siamese twin-style, as a double disc reissue with bonus tracks. The home-recorded albums have been given a welcome shot in the arm thanks to the remixing and remastering process, and fans of the band’s more recent output will be well served to find out how the band got to be so darn good. Here’s some info: Continue reading