Clive Onion Presents Week 4

From the stunningly beautiful snowy wastes of yesterday to the grays and browns of the city today I bring thee week 4. Slightly later than billed due to being generally quite festive and escaping to snowy mountains. I am sure the mass panic that this lateness has caused is filling the streets with angry protesters, but lay down your banners, the onion is back.

With no work and no massive commute, the musical listening intensity was somewhat diluted over the xmas period, but still I have 4 true gems for you to dig your hands into the virtual dirt and unearth like a pixelated Indy. A bit of a label shout on this blog being that Hidden Shoal have been great support to me and also to Erased Tapes where I have plundered Robert’s mind for a couple of this weeks choice choices. Both of these labels have free samplers available on their websites and are well worth downloading. The Erased Tapes one is a totally amazing album in its own right and even though by suggesting you get these I am giving you the keys to several of my next blog posts, it is more important that you are listening to the tunes than I am sitting on some self-imposed throne of musical exclusivity.

And so to the picks this week. Again, a track from each are available to listen to on the RATHER NICE PLAYLIST and you can click on any of the band pictures to get straight to somewhere to buy them from.

First off I am going Hidden Shoal Records and giving you a bit of Morgen Wieder Lustig by Sankt Otten

Since starting this blog, several lovely bands have been in touch through myspace and though listening to them all is pretty tough to do, some grab me with just a few seconds worth of music. Sankt Otten are a German duo who were the first to have this effect on me which prompted me to get hold of their album and see if the long play matched up with the love at first listen. Short answer, yes it did.

The Album is a total soundscape type affair. Minimalist and floaty, but backed with a really precise and thorough production job. It plays like a soundtrack to a remake of Blade Runner, almost an extension of that soundtrack which opened my eyes to a whole load of different musical styles in my youth. Minimalist strings and drums occasionally put in an appearance to join the meaty Vangelis style synths which dominate this album. It seems like I am getting quite good at sterotyping, not advised kids, but there is something uniquely Germanic about the flow of the album, perhaps the hints of Kraftwerk that pop up now and then, perhaps the very subliminal industrial element to the record, but it is there. honest. I would wholeheartedly recommend a listen to this and again available to download for much cheapness.

Next on this weeks newly crowned best blog of 2010 comes Alight of Night by Crystal Stilts

This album, though a couple of months old, I checked out after having the name written down in my black book of death for ages. I have a penchant for bands with crystal in the title and am trying to collect the full set as you will find out in the years to come.

How to explain Alight of Night? Imagine a group of happy go lucky surfers who make music of an evening, drowning on one of their happy go lucky outings yet still managing to make music from beyond. It is like Dick Dale fighting a horde of zombie Fonzies or the Pixies making music from the bottom of a jar of jam. It really does have a sound like you are listening to music via a séance and if that were the case you would be pretty desperate to be dead and join the party. There is a real infectious nature about this music, something phosphorescent that continually draws you in to the droning sound.

It is very much the production of this album that differentiates it from anything else. Whether intentional or not you feel like you are enveloped by a thick fog when listening to this and it is a very unique feeling. There is a certain shimmying 80′s to the whole creation, but it is the set back production that gives it the energy to wish it on constant rotation. The eponymous track on the playlist is the soundtrack for a future night out, its combination of up-tempo fiasco blended with gothic self loathe makes for a bizarrely interesting experience.

On a totally different mental line comes my next choice Mi Pieza Esta Llena De Cosas by Ricardo Tobar.

This ep is a marvel. A blissed out, electronica house type of offering, but with a genuine feeling of love and joy permeating from every tune. It starts of fierce and combatative, but always spacey and there are so many layers effortlessly dropping in and out that each song is an interstellar journey rather than a simple tune. There is a massive element of the cinematic in all of his work, not just this ep, but the previous couple that he has had out, all of which I recommend you spend a few pennies on by clicking on the picture above.

We Met at the Party, which you will find on the playlist is simply one of the most beautiful tunes I have heard in a long time. It was the first thing I listened to on return from New Year revelry and its all consuming, smile inducing beauty guided me into an ecstatic end to a great night. Without a doubt the most cinematic of all the tunes, even though it, by nature, is repetitive, you could whack this on repeat for a day and not get sick of it. Genuinely excited to find Señor Tobar and can’t wait to see what the future holds for him.

My last choice this week also operates on the cinematic side of sound. A constant on the headphones has been the delightful Nils Frahm with The Bells.

The Bells is one of two releases from Frahm late last year. Wintermusik, the other release, I am saving for a rainy day, trying not to overdose myself on his music, but get into each album individually and absorb what he is doing. What is he doing? Well, he is playing the piano and that’s it. A nicely arranged set of innovative and moving pieces of pure piano music very much in the New Classical vibe. (or is it Nu Classical?) The fact of the matter is that the label doesn’t matter, this kind of music shouldn’t be boxed up and told what it is, all you need to know is that there is an extremely talented man who is putting his heart and soul into doing what he loves and this devotion really comes across in The Bells.

Moving from blood-pumping raucousness to the heart-felt gentile in an unnoticeable sweeping second, both of his hands working independently evoking different emotions, layering the song, but layering your feelings about it at the same time. It is music to let your imagination run wild to, a blank slate of thought, sountracked by deeply thought provoking music. Like so many of my favourite albums, you could watch grass grow listening to The Bells and enjoy every second of doing so.

Cool. Hope there is something in there for someone and as ever any questions or points in any direction you are needing, just give me a shout.