Athlete are a band that I'm cool with. Not in terms of knowing them or anything... It's just sometimes I think "oh, I'd like to hear that Athlete song" and I dig though my 150 gigs of music and find their cover of "God Only Knows" or one of the songs off their last album (which was quite good I thought) and usually end up playing it on my radio show. Outside of that I don't know a ton about them... I can tell you their press blurb does though!
Athlete have been busily attaching foam strips to walls and building glass cubes to imprison singers in. Yes they’ve built their own studio, locked their producers in a cupboard downstairs, thrown away the key, and are doing it all themselves. 'Beyond The Neighbourhood' is the fruit of these endeavors. Louder, stronger, bigger and altogether more powerful than anything they’ve done before, it sounds like a band who have settled into what they really enjoy doing. They also did two totally different videos for the first single off the album, 'Hurricane', and I've got the links to them here...
Hurricane (normal video)
Hurricane (alt video)
Here's an interesting blurb from Wiki...
"Their second album, Tourist, reached Number One in the UK Album Charts in its first week, following the huge success of single Wires, which, in 2006, won them the Ivor Novello Award for "Best Contemporary Song". In the UK charts, the band has frequently been frustrated by singles just missing out on top 40 placings, due to inconsistent support by music television channels and radio stations. For instance, certain songs, such as "Wires" and "Half light", were played up to 10 times a day on larger UK radio stations, yet other singles such as Westside and Tourist received little to no radio play whatsoever, fueling talk of radio stations deciding who becomes a major player in the pop music franchise."
Well I certainly hope they 'make it' this time... I actually really dig this tune... and hopefully you will too... so ignore the impulse to steal it and go off and buy it yeah?
Athlete- "Airport Disco"
Here's some tour dates for you lucky British bastards...
Nottingham Rock City: Tuesday October 2
Leeds University: Wednesday October 3
Birmingham Academy: Thursday October 4
Glasgow Barrowlands: Saturday October 6
Newcastle Academy: Sunday October 7
Bristol Academy: Monday October 8
Southampton Guildhall: Wednesday October 10
London Shepherds Bush: Thursday October 11
London Shepherds Bush: Friday October 12
Manchester Academy: Sunday October 14
Liverpool Academy: Monday October 15
Norwich UEA: Wednesday October 17
Lincoln Engine Shed: Thursday October 18
Check out more at:
www.athlete.mu
www.myspace.com/athlete
www.bebo.com/athlete
Envelopes I could tell you even less about... but they seem to be fun! Their mixtape is a mish mash of their album which I promise you is worth a listen... here's their press blurb...
'There'll be no stopping them' – The Guardian
'Effortlessly cool and packed with chutzpah' – Music Week, Feb 2007
"Skewed post-punk pop genius" – Artrocker, April 2007
""First class sun-dried indie" – NME , May 2007
Envelopes return this summer with brilliant new single 'Life on the Beach'. This is the sound of a solar eclipse, as filtered through a mescaline soaked B52s and some pretty surreal imagery. The groove is obese. Henrik and Audrey tell this tale of decadence and denial in tropical setting, surrounded by the swampiest drums and guitars you've ever heard. The single will be a limited edition 7" backed by new track 'Calypso'. 'Calypso' is sweet experimental pop without any lifelines. Ambulance sirens, stirring guitar lines and a middle eight sung in French, it's perfectly formed, bristling pop.
Envelopes are a five piece who have made their homes all across Europe. Brought together by a shared love of skewed, lo-fi pop, they sound like all your favourite bands put together, whilst also sounding like none but themselves. Living in Stockholm, Malmo and Paris the band fought geography, and won: spending enough time together during school holidays to home-record their truly special debut album 'Demon', released very quietly on the newly formed Brille Records in late 2005. 'Demon' which means 'demo' in Sweden, suggested Envelopes were certainly the coolest band to emerge out of Sweden and France via York, where they subsequently moved to rehearse and begin work on their album proper.
To coincide with the release of 'Life On The Beach' on 17th September, the band have made a full mp3 (over 30 mins worth!!) of a mish-mash of Envelopes and their favourite tracks available to all on their website -
http://www.envelopes.se/mp3/asoupofgerms.mp3
VIDEO
Streams:
http://www.bangonpr.com/media/envelopes/envelopes_beach_450k.asx
http://www.bangonpr.com/media/envelopes/envelopes_beach_56k.asx
Videos to download:
http://www.bangonpr.com/media/envelopes/wmv/envelopes_beach_450k.wmv
http://www.bangonpr.com/media/envelopes/wmv/envelopes_beach_56k.wmv
(right click, save to computer)
Envelopes- "A Soup Of Germs Mixtape"
So yeah, go to town with that... Usually I'd have more energy to post even more music but... I don't... I don't... I've been spending so much time doing State Crime stuff that I haven't had a moment to really dig in and do the blog... but trust me, that time is just around the corner!
SPEAKING OF STATE CRIME: Palms Out Sounds just posted the mash-up that Curt Autobot from Flosstradamus and I did (quite a few years ago... shhhhhhh don't tell anyone) called Timbaland vs Shakedown- "Drop it At Night (State Crime vs Flosstradamus)". I'm not going to post it here, so go over there and indulge in Remix Sunday!
I'll be back. In the mean time make me some money at eMusic lol...
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