Fun Stuff > BAND
The M/F Thread 2009: The Quickening
the_pied_piper:
Here is the rest of what i promised plus a bonus
Rosie Thomas - These Friends Of Mine
--- Quote ---These Friends of Mine doesn’t feel quite as hurried as her last two records, especially 2003’s Only with Laughter Can You Win. “Whether you are a musician, painter, or whatever, there is a passion that sometimes gets lost because all of the sudden you have to clock-in or have deadlines”, she says in her press literature. “I sort of wanted to get back to that time when I played music for nothing”. She seems to have found the right vibe: there’s a lot of joking between tracks, and the songs have a very pleasant, comfortable air that works well with Thomas’ childlike voice and the spare instrumentation. Stevens’ banjo shows up on “Why Waste More Time” to great effect and there are a lot of songs built around simple, finger-picked guitar. Thomas is in fine form, and songs like “Kite” and “Much Farther to Go” and “If This City Never Sleeps” are as good as anything she’s done.
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Rosie Thomas - If Songs Could Be Held
--- Quote ---When Rosie Thomas isn’t careening through adorable acoustic songs, she’s a stand-up comic. Her alter ego is named Sheila. This, along with her previous album title (Only With Laughter Can You Win), leads us to believe comedy plays an important role in her artistic existence. On her latest musical venture, If Songs Could Be Held, we find her music is no laughing matter. No chuckles, giggles, cackles, or guffaws.
As Rosie Thomas grows older, it seems her main struggle remains in the department of love. Her songs reflect her frustration, lost and rediscovered hope, and desire to find companionship and reliability. The songs on this album are full of remorse and regret, as well as a shot or two of encouragement. Thomas, through her simple and clean arrangements, aims to make sense of her problematic relations. As she presses on, trying to keep cheerful, we think back to Sheila. A sad clown situation comes to mind. The victims in Rosie Thomas’ songs are pained but try to mask grief with unconvincing hope. Her vulnerability pries through the gentle instrumentation and gains our sympathy.
Unlike her labelmate Sam Beam, Rosie Thomas suffers from a lack of mysticism, folklore, and grit, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing; but her safe approach and noble pursuits of happiness may keep her in the coffee house. There is obviously something deeper brewing here. Behind the funny girl and simple, cozy-sweater ballads, there must be some sort of filth or corruption. Granted, Thomas does handle her songs well — the nursery rhyme innocence of "Pretty Dress" and the airy rendition of "Let It Be Me" are both intriguing and captivating. But with the bare bones approach of song and singer, there must always be an additional "something." An error, a secret, a myth. Rosie Thomas is just a little too ordinary, despite her concealed alter ago.
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Rosie Thomas - When We Were Small
--- Quote ---I stand steadfast. I will not be shifted. It may have taken six months for this undeniable feeling to bloom, but now it's here and will not budge. If you told me a debut concept album about childhood, written and performed by a female stand up comic would be my favourite, most dearly loved album of the year at the beginning of 2002, I would have laughed and sneered at you. With derision. But then again life isn't a linear path, shaped by your own solid rock sense of predestination. It constantly surprises, shocks and disappoints. When We Were Small is a beautiful surprise.
Rosie Thomas was born into a family of musicians in Detroit, yet she first gained some popular currency as a stand up comic in the guise of a neck braced uber-geek called Sheila. She started playing her solo scripted songs (she served time in a Detroit band called Velour 100) to live audiences as well as starting an association with fellow troubador Damien Jurado. Jonathan Poneman of Sub Pop, a man not known for his appreciation of melancholic folk pop, caught her act and signed her up without due hesitation. Set free in the studio she was told she could do what she wanted. Well, as long as it was the same array of affecting delicate songs he had seen her hypnotise audiences with.
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Rosie Thomas - Only With Laughter Can You Win
--- Quote ---Mostly, the contradictions that Thomas deals in are still the contradictions that have pained—and secretly pleased—knowingly sensitive souls with instruments since the 1970s. Though narcissism from the likes of Joni Mitchell (from whom the album title is drawn) leaves Thomas’s own feeble self-involvement eating dirt, there remains the faint hint at times of someone pleased at finding out what delightful playthings her own emotions make. When that happens, and it happens too often, the album is reduced to mere prettiness, perfect music for self-reflecting—cup of tea in hand, of course—at the end of a tiring day.
In theory, I believe that art should do more than simply giving its audience that easy, reassuring feeling. But for those who have no problem with art doing “only” that, they could do much worse than making a home for Rosie Thomas’s humane, unsmug optimism. And even if you agree that art should inspire more than a nice, toasty feeling, “Sell All My Things” and “Red Rover” (and “Tell Me How” in its lines about death and God) make a compelling case for this album indeed doing more.
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Bonus of solo album from lead singer of Idlewild
Roddy Woomble - My Secret Is My Silence
--- Quote ---When Idlewild lead singer Roddy Woomble turned up on Kate Rusby's last album, his low tones jarred with her sweet singing, so it comes as a surprise to find that when it's Kate supplying the harmonies, it works brilliantly.
With due respect to Woomble's songwriting, it's the harmonies of Rusby, along with the production and violin of her husband John McCusker, that make the solid bed to build his beautiful songs on.
That said, it's a close call whether the epic "Waverley Steps", sung with Rusby, or the heart-bursting title track, which sees the fantastic Karine Polwart on harmony duties, is the real show-stealer.
Tender and epic, enormous yet touching, Woomble's secret may not be his silence, but the brilliance of his musical friends.
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Tyler:
Try to remember to add descriptions for your albums.
the_pied_piper:
Sorry. All previous albums now contain reviews.
toxic shock:
--- Quote from: eddie on 17 Jan 2009, 07:18 ---
--- Quote from: toxic shock on 17 Jan 2009, 06:23 ---
--- Quote from: medicatesleep on 16 Jan 2009, 20:38 ---Oh and here is a Fucked Up album I have been meaning to post for sometime.
Epics In Minutes
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Listen to the song "Generations" and try to tell me punk is dead.
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pretty hot compilation. colour removal's the best track on there though. everyone should check out career suicide - the drummer from FU is the guitarist, and as FU have got worse CS have got better. i'll upload one of their records later when i have full use of my bandwidth.
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How the hell have FU got worse? Oh generations has no meaning whatsoever the band wrote it as a joke. Smiam is punk rock for old people
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progressionally not as good live and on record really really fuckin disappointing with the most recent one. who gives whether generations has no meaning? isn't it obvious from the lyrics. irrespective it's still a really good song.
Tom:
--- Quote from: toxic shock on 17 Jan 2009, 18:10 ---progressionally not as good live and on record really really fuckin disappointing with the most recent one.
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How so?
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