GlastonTVbury

You may have missed it due to lack of advertising or broadcasting, but over the last weekend a surprisingly sunny Somerset field was taken over by Glastonbury. I was lucky enough to be able to watch it all on the television, living the same highs and lows as the crowd with the bonus of a daily shower.

The BBC, to their credit, gave pretty thorough coverage, even if every other performance shown seemed to include Florence Fucking Welch (her parents were very prescient). Along with the actual live sets themselves, there was a treat for all those stuck at home in the form of exclusive acoustic performances. These were performances conducted in a carefully designed and constructed studio that made the between-music links resemble coverage of the Chelsea flower show. I ain't dissin' the flower show, but i imagine there are better models to copy from when covering a festival such as Glastonbury. To continue the parallels however, Mark Radcliffe proved an Alan Titchmarsh-esque figure, providing a nice level-headed maturity in contrast to the puppy-dog eagerness of Reggie Yates and crew. The presenters proved perhaps the biggest irritant (especially Jo Whiley and her search for the next Glastonbury "moment"), but fortunately it was never too long before the next musical performance, or not musical, as was the case with the brilliant ping pong juggler and whip-cracking cowboy.

Now i have to admit that i didn't watch as much as i'd first intended, the combination of a beautiful sunny weekend and the depression arising from realising you're not actually there (again) proving too much at points. As such, i'm in no real position to pick out any of my own "moments", but the Flaming Lips looked and sounded pretty spectacular, and it would have been great to have caught LCD as they wind down their wonderful career. It was sad to witness the apparent failure of Gorillaz, particularly after the hugely sentimental success of Blur last year, and it was nice to see a beefed-up (and seemingly chavved-up) Kele performing with what looked suspiciously like a smile on his face. Snoop Dogg followed successfully and entertainingly in the footsteps of Jay-Z, Radiohead (well half of them) played a secret show which would surely have been amazing, and i was disappointed not to see any of what was apparantly a brilliant set by Hot Chip.

The impression from those who were there seems to be entirely positive, the baking sun and the great music taking the edge off a hilariously shit English football performance and adding as further incentive (if it were needed) that i need to get down there myself.

Oh My Gaze

I love me a bit of shoegaze from time to time, be it My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive, and i've made it known before that i'm a fan of bands such as School of Seven Bells who offer a modern take on the sound.

However, the new-gaze (or nu-gaze if you're a fucking twat) revival may have gone a little too far, or at least have been taken too far by journalists in their attempts to come up with new labels and to further atomise the genre.

I was having a browse of Pitchfork's Forkcast section today when bands that fell into the following categories were given a mention:

1. synth-gaze
2. haze-gaze
3. sky-gaze
4. shoegazed indie-pop

This is along with at least three bands described as dream-pop and innumerable others as dreamy and/or lazy.

I listened to all the stuff they chatted about and yeah, you can hear the shoegazey sounds, the swirling effects-laden guitars soundtracking mumbled vocals telling tales of middle-class angst, but the new tags seem largely ridiculous and unnecessary.

Anyway, having waded through the crashing waves of guitars and noise, the best song to emerge from my Forkcast trawling was this:
Gyptian- Hold Yuh (Major Lazer Remix)

Another blog post about summer

It's been a while, i know, but get off my case. I've been 'toff my head' the past week, and this serves as partial excuse for my lax blogging. However, now that my summer holidays have begun (it's so far comprised watching too much football and cricket: Living the Dream 2010), i foresee a more fruitful and bountiful period of writing.

To keep my hand in until this period of bountiful posting, i've lazily selected some songs i'm currently "diggin'", a process that consisted of trawling through my most recently added and most recently played playlists on iTunes. I use the word "trawling" entirely incorrectly, it makes it sound as if it took some effort.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the George Moore Summer Jamz Playlist 2010:

1. Hudson Mohawke- Ooops (Oh My)  A banging remix of the song by Tweet

2. Blonde Redhead- Here Sometimes  New Song

3. James Blake- CMYK  Summer club chooon

4. Summer Camp- Ghost Train   Already mentioned it before, but more appropriate than ever

5. Japandroids- Younger Us   As above, go and make some summer memories that you can then reminisce and write a catchy song about when you're a few years older in a moderately successful rock band.

6. Florrie- Come Back to Mine(Elite Gymnastics Remix)   Sounds like it should soundtrack a montage scene that looks back over all the good times with your buddies, preferably around dusk, a little like the beginning of the trailer for Kids (but maybe not the second half). Here's the original (not as good).

7. Jape- Floating   From a few years back, but still fun and cool and just a darn good song

8. Small Black- Despicable Dogs   My favourite song of last summer, good times

9. Memory Tapes- Bicycle (Tanlines remix)  (this one's an MP3 BTW)  I swear Memory Tapes has remixed and been remixed by just about every cool hip band, but this one's good. Tanlines (who hail from Brooklyn, obv) do a good impression of the kind of Scandinavian pop i'm such a fan of.

10. Serani- Playing Games   Irresistable

This took longer than expected. Maybe i'm not so lazy after all. Maybe.
I leave with one final message:

I didn't know you could, or indeed needed to, shorten the word 'enjoy', but why not.

Summerdroids

As summer shines the fun goes up and the posts go down, so soz about that, but you should all be outside anyway, not reading (albeit brilliant) blogs like this. To keep things in line with the summer vybz, i'll serve up some good old fashioned reminiscence and nostalgia.

As has been shown before, the sunshine seems to stir up all those good-time memories of summers gone by. Japandroid's latest single, Younger Us, is no exception, as it remembers all the things that they used to be able to do when they were younger, such as "that night you were already in bed, said fuck it, got up to drink with me instead". It's a pretty great track that channels the kind of passion and emotion rarely heard in modern 'indie' or whatever, with its preference for insouciance over heart. In this respect the band share a fraternal bond with the likes of Titus Andronicus and The Gaslight Anthem, bands unafraid to raise their voice above a coo and a whisper and to wear their hearts on their sleeves as they say. 


From looking at pictures of Japandroids it seems rather premature for them to already be harking back to their younger selves and their reckless ways, but when the results are so thrilling i'm not gonna argue.


Download Younger Us

Back to the Cave

The final remix of Cold Cave's Life Magazine has just been released. It's the work of Prurient, who delivers a drone-tastic take on the song, adding to the already diverse set, details of which can be found in the post below.

Cold Cave- Life Magazine (Prurient remix)

A slightly warmer Cave

I think I may have written about Cold Cave before, but i can't really remember. if not, i should have, as their last album, Love Comes Close, was good. One of the stand out tracks from the album, Life Magazine, has since been subjected to the remix treatment on multiple occasions, each new version being accompanied by exclusive artwork. The remixes are set to appear together on an EP released on June 8th, but one such remix that hasn't found its way on there is this one by Spanish group Delorean. It also happens to be my favourite of the reworkings done so far, which includes the one by Pantha du Prince, a previous favourite of mine. Delorean strip away the gothic edge that pervades all of Cold Cave's tracks, along with the high drama of the vocals and synths, transforming it into a suitably summery, Balearic-tinged shimmering pop number.

Download: Cold Cave- Life Magazine (Delorean Remix)