Under his Quantic Soul Orchestra moniker, Will Holland moves away from the sampled beats that he uses as Quantic and into the ‘real instrument’ arena. His mission is to make the sort of music that the next generation of producers and crate diggers can utilise.
But Holland’s Soul Orchestra is about far more than just makingDJ tools.In the same way as the likes of Sharon Jones &the Dap Kings go about replicating the vintage sound of Muscle Shoals, QSO assembles a gang of musicians so tight that you could bounce a quarter off their collective ass.The remit is soul for soul’s sake; the only rule is to keep it funky.
The stoop is where it started and your rump is where it ends. That’s Cadillac Jones for you. Standing on the shoulders of giants like Herbie Hancock, the Crusaders, and John Coltrane, Cadillac Jones’ sound is one part jazz, one part funk, and three sheets to the wind. The band combines driving rythms, tight melodies, and improvisational jams to create a sound that grinds the hips and tickles the mind.
Stop pretending to do work and watch the video for the Charlotte Gainsbourg/Beck duet “Heaven Can Wait” right this minute. (Please.)
It’s a Dada brainfuck directed by Keith Schofield that features a dinosaur in a wig (in a bathtub), a giant rat getting held up at knife point, a dude in a SpongeBob costume getting tackled by the fuzz, an astronaut with pancakes for a head, a guy racing a flying axe, a dude chilling on the street with a giant walnut, and one more guy with half a beard.
So when you’re waiting in line at 4 am to bum rush the Best Buy to snatch up a flat screen TV (rabbit punching anyone who stands in your way), let this be your theme song. Of course this song is actually referring to the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression, not the insane shopping extravaganza the day after Thanksgiving that I was alluding to.
Probably one of the most cerebral band names of all time, Steely Dan, for those of you who don’t know, derived it’s moniker from a dildo featured in Naked Lunch which was written by the inimitable William S. Burroughs. That particular piece of literature continues to disturb me to this day. But not in a particularly bad way.
“Let go of the old ones/We’ve got some new ones,” sings Scott McMicken on “The Old Days,” a woozy parlor-room piano-rock reverie. The Philadelphia band’s albums have always sounded like they should be filed alongside “old ones” like the Band, the Beach Boys, the Beatles and the Bonzo Dog Band, but Fate feels less like a straight tribute to Dr. Dog’s elders and more like a finely tuned collage.
Yes, I admit this interview is more than a bit contrived, but is also hilarious. Jack White is at the heart of yet another phenomenal band.
The Dead Weather consists of two members of Jack White’s sideline combo, the Raconteurs as well as Alison Mosshart from The Kills. As Andrew Perry wrote in his review for the Telegraph: “The interplay between Mosshart and White is intriguing: whether moaning or shrieking, they’re often all but indistinguishable from each other.”
I have to admit… the first time I heard “Treat Me Like Your Mother,” I couldn’t tell their voices apart.
If you haven’t heard of The Kills, then come out from under your rock. And, yes, I was listening to them before Alison Mosshart, who happens to be at the top of my “cool rock chicks” list, began collaborating with Jack White. As an NME reviewer put it, “The kills eat, drink, shag and possibly intravenously inject rock’n'roll.”
This song is one of my favourites (for obvious reasons).
No new band connects the dots better than Passion Pit, a Boston-area quintet with a giddy melodic sense and an unabashed love for synth pop.
Their sparkling debut album, Manners, is—like the band’s live show—a keyboard bonanza. Beats tend to pulse. Melodies and voices tend to squeal. The 1980s provide a sonic touchstone, but (refreshingly) not in a campy way. Pop bliss is the goal here, just as it was for Ric Ocasek back in the day. Passion Pit will do whatever it takes to reach our pleasure centers—more than once, the band utilizes what sounds like a kids’ choir. A hackneyed trick? Yep. Still effective? Definitely.
The album’s best song is probably “Sleepyhead,” the squiggly jam that had earned more than 1.6 million MySpace hits by press time. But the band seems ready to move on—“Sleepyhead” is buried as the ninth of 11 tracks, and earlier cuts are almost as good. “Make Light” skitters, whomps and screeches to excellent effect, and “Moth’s Wings” is the new soundtrack for human beings running in slo-mo.
