Jack White doesn’t see a White Stripes reunion happening.
Back in September we shared Fanfarlo’s video for Replicate, which served as a very advance first taste of the UK-based indie-pop act’s sophomore album Rooms Filled With Light, which will be
Last year Bjork put out easily her most ambitious and dynamic project to date, with the release of the Biophilia. The album, who’s title refers to a love of all
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is the title track from the 1998 Neutral Milk Hotel indie classic. Such a classic that Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10.0. Well, they gave the reissue a perfect 10. Some call it the most important indie album of all-time, only a select few super-hip fans of the genre wouldn’t put it in a Top 5 list, though saying that Neutral Milk Hotel is overrated is also popular. Point is, if you didn’t know of this band, album or song until Phish covered it last week – go buy it and listen to it over and over again.
The Contestants:
Fanfarlo: This London-based ensemble released this video on their official YouTube page for something they have called their “laptop sessions”.
READ ON for the scoop on the rest of this week’s contestants…
While I’d venture to guess that most of our readers are a bit too old for the whole Twilight phenomenon, there is a reason to get excited about the vampire-loving
This year at Hidden Track, we concocted a little experiment for our year-end Best Albums of 2009 list. Instead of picking the old fashioned way – subjectively – we opted for something a little different: a collaborative, collective list that incorporates the opinions of everybody here at HT.
To begin, we devised an all-encompassing list of around 100 nominees and populated it in a Google spreadsheet – essentially anything that anybody who writes for Hidden Track liked at all, made the list. Then we invited our crew of writers to independently vote on the whole list (omitting anything unfamiliar) on a scale of 1 to 20 (20 = five stars). We ended up with 33 voters with varying degrees of familiarity with the nominees; some folks voted on just about everything, while some just a few. From there, we eliminated anything that did not receive at least three votes, calculated the average scores, and sorted it. We took the top 25 scores and presto: the Hidden Track 25 Best Albums of 2009. No bullshit, no big opinions; just the results.
Let’s check out numbers 10 through 6 and see what made the cut…
Key Tracks: Good Morning Midnight, The Walls Are Coming Down, Comets
Sounds Like: Arcade Fire, Frightened Rabbit, Andrew Bird
Skinny: Reservoir showed in Fanfarlo a number of immensely talented musicians who swap instruments, successfully incorporate unconventional tackle like the clarinet, trumpet, violin, melodica, even the saw, and write some amazing orchestral indie rock/pop songs. While all of the material comes across easy and beautiful, perhaps the best indication of what’s to come from this young juggernaut band is the album’s instrumental closing lullaby, Good Morning Midnight, which in a mere 1:26, could put both mom and baby to sleep.
READ ON for the next four album in our week long countdown…
As we continue our year end house cleaning around these parts, I thought I’d chime in once again with a list of my own. As has become the half yearly tradition around these parts, in lieu of a traditional top ten list we opt to do something a little different with our Top 6 of both halves of the year.
While my Top 6 Of The First 6 seemed to have some pretty obvious choices, the second half of the year’s list is mostly dominated by debut records – so let’s get on with it…
I’ve had Fanfarlo’s debut album for so long, that I almost forgot that it officially got released this September. Loaded with orchestral folk-rock that has become all the rage in recent years, the album features everything from saws and clarinets to cellos and ukuleles to melodicas and thermins that all combine with lead singers Simon Balthazar’s booming vocals to produce a cacophony of melodic noise that doesn’t fall far from the Neutral Milk Hotel/Arcade Fire tree.
READ ON for the rest of my Top 6 Of The Last 6…
After lying in a private collection for over 40 years, some extremely rare footage of Syd Barrett performing with Pink Floyd has been unearthed and restored and will be screened
Earlier this year Chali 2na, the former front man for the much beloved – but now defunct – hip hop act Jurassic 5, released his long awaited solo debut, Fish
Among the blur of bands that I caught at SXSW back in March, the one that I’ve been meaning to sit down and write about is Fanfarlo since catching a