Welcome, one and all, to
No, I am not opening a trendy nightspot where you can go to meet available members of the opposite --- or same --- sex for discreet nighttime trysts. I’m talking about singles in respect of tracks off albums, you know the ones. The hits, or the ones released from an album which the label (and I guess artiste) hope will become hits. Or the herald of the album, the lead single which is put out before the album is available and so is your only clue as to whether or not it’s going to be something that’s worth waiting for.
It’s probably been twenty or more years since I bought a physical single. Back in those days, when itunes was still a mere glint in the eye of Steve Jobs and the guys from YouTube were still at college wondering what they were going to do with their lives, singles populated the planet like a companion lifeform to man. You could just go into a record shop and ask for a single and they would probably have it, providing it was in the charts or “bubbling under”, ie just lurking outside the top forty, waiting for its chance to impress. Some of the more serious shops could of course order in a special song if you wanted it, but generally in those times people bought the singles as they came out --- as these were generally what you would hear on the radio --- and then, if they liked what they heard, the album would be next. I used to have a huge collection of singles, now I have none. Unlike my albums, I gave them away in a moment of madness, but never felt the need or desire to buy them again, especially not on CD. I could never see the point of a CD single. A vinyl one was cheap, a CD one was maybe half the price of an old vinyl album and often had a lot of pointless remixes and special editions clogging up the disc, presumably to justify the rather stiff price tag.
I gave up collecting singles once I had moved away from the chart music and honed in on my own particular favourite genres, which lent themselves far more easily to the album format. I haven’t bought one since. But I thought it might be fun to try a few again, so in this section I’m going to be listening to some new singles --- well, at least released in the last year or so --- and see whether they make me want to check out, or anticipate the arrival of, the album. I’ll be looking at singles by artistes I don’t know, so in some ways this will be a smaller, leaner version of “Rolling the dice”, but not quite as in-depth. Basically I’ll be talking about the single, what it sounds like and what I think of it, anything I know or can find out about the artiste, and whether in the end it makes me want to proceed on to the album.
To do this right I’m going to my favourite music online vendor, choosing a date or dates and just picking every single that I see. If I hate it I’ll say so, if it’s just ok or boring I’ll tell you and if it makes me think about the artiste or affects me in any way you’ll read about that here too. The good, the bad and the meh, so to speak.
Lessons --- SOHN --- 2013
Okay, so this is the first one I’m listening to, totally out of the blue. And it turns out I’ve already missed the boat. How surprising. Goofle11 probably knows this artiste inside out. I don’t know the guy’s real name, but he goes under the name of SOHN and is apparently a one-man show; though he has yet to release his first album he has already worked with people like Lana del Rey and is becoming very respected in the music business apparently. I liked the sixty-second preview I heard of this, his second single after having been snapped up by the 4AD label, so now I’m going to listen to the whole thing.
I really like(d) the hypnotic synth beat that opens the song, almost Alan Parsons Project in ways, and the guy’s voice is certainly what you’d call soulful. Nice sort of dour piano line joins the synth, which runs weirdly at a much faster pace than the piano. Percussion cutting in now and some sample-y synth joining in with a sort of organ sound; the vocal is quite incongruous really, as the music sort of seems to want to take you in an “up” direction whereas the vocal is distinctly mournful and doleful. Very catchy though and very memorable. I’m not sure what genre this would fit into: at times it almost reminds me of Jean-Michel Jarre’s “Oxygene”, and then at other times there’s a real sense of soul in it.
Must say I’m quite impressed with this and I really like it. His album is due out next month and I think I may be one of those now waiting to catch it. Perhaps the rest of his music is nothing like this but even so I reckon I’ll be taking a listen soon as it pops its head up. Nice.
Rating: 8/10
Seninle --- Yukset Sadakat --- 2013
Time for a Eurovision joke. According to my research (yeah, yeah, Wiki I know! Sue me!) this rock band from Turkey were slated to represent their country at that august competition but failed to get to the final, making it the first time Turkey was NOT stuffed at the Eurovision! Oh ho ho ho! How very droll!
Seriously, these guys have been around since 1997 and have released, um, three albums in that time. Although to be fair, they seem to have kicked around for almost ten years before releasing their debut in 2006, don’t ask me why it took so long. These crazy Turks eh? This single, which I keep thinking is called “Senile”, is from their latest and, I guess, fourth album, which Wiki has not yet got round to updating their page for yet. I say must be because their previous album was in 2011, and this single was released last year, so I’m assuming it’s a new one from an album as yet not shown on the page. So what’s it like?
Well there are two versions, one called the “Kirmzi version” and one the “Mavi version”, but don’t ask me the difference. It’s a pretty okay rock song with AOR overtones but a nice sort of semi-acoustic feel to it too. No idea what it’s about as it’s sung in their native Turkish. To be honest it’s good until it gets to the chorus, which is generic and really lets the song down. But of all the Turkish rock bands I’ve ever heard --- none --- this is pretty good. Misspoptart may be able to shed some light on these guys. Wiki says their name is a translation of “High fidelity”, which anyone old as me will remember used to be what record players came labelled as.
Yeah it’s good, but would it make me go looking for their album? Um. Good guitar solo there, but really if it wasn’t for the chorus I’d like this a lot more. It’s just too obviously a bunch of guys trying to sound like an American rock group, or how they think one should sound. Which is a pity, as they have a pretty decent sound of their own and don’t I think need to go emulating anyone.
Rating: 7/10 (would be higher if not for the chorus being so disappointing)
A perfect day --- Standing Egg --- 2012
Now these are harder to get information on, but I found out they’re an indie pop band from Korea, and apparently someone called Windy features on this single from 2012, my guess being that she’s the vocalist here but I could be wrong. This is in fact from an album called “Ballad with Windy”, but when I look at the tracklisting every single track bar this is in Korean, so I have no idea what else is on it. I’m going to assume --- perhaps wrongly, but I’m going to do it anyway --- that this is one of those girl groups that have sprung up all over Asia, particularly in Japan. They seem to have a decent discography, with albums stretching back to 2010, so they’re not new. Neither is this single, but I liked what I heard. Let’s have a closer listen.
Nice soft female acapella vocal before the acoustic guitar comes in almost unobtrusively, then takes in soft percussion as the guitar itself gets a little more forceful, though not much. I don’t think this is meant to be forceful music. Quite an entrancing voice, whether this is one of Standing Egg or the mysterious Windy. Lyric slips into what I guess is Korean about halfway through, then back to English for the chorus. Very pleasant. Nothing terrific but very nice. Quite long for a single at over four minutes, but with a voice like that you really don’t mind that it’s basically just repeating the same phrases and chords over and over.
Lovely little vocal harmony there in the third minute, and it stays through the chorus. I like that there are no other instruments other than the guitar and a little percussion. Very stripped down and yet it manages not to sound barebones. Just the sort of thing to relax or drift off to.
Rating: 8/10
En esch, mona mur --- Eintagsfleigen --- 2012
This one confuses me. I know nothing about this band or artiste, and sadly Spotify ain’t got them so I go YouTubing and come across something similar but not exactly the same. I get the feeling this is two tracks (“En esch” and “Mona mur”) but I’m not sure. At any rate it appears to be EDM or some electronic stuff that I’m not really into. I’m assuming the band/artiste is/are German, though of course they could be Dutch, Danish or any other similar-sounding nationality. But my guess would be German.
Anyway, this one involves a female singer who kind of reminds me of yer wan from Propaganda, with buzzy synths and sort of clanging, crashing drums, no real melody I can discern and seems to be that sort of thing that you will hear endlessly pumped out of techno dance clubs, not that I’ve ever been in one. The vocal is okay once it gets going, and the guitar, well in the background, weirdly reminds me of that Belle Stars hit, “Sign of the times”. Go figure, huh?
Rating: 3/10
Turquoise hotel --- Fungi Girls --- 2010 (No picture available)
And finally … yeah I know it’s reaching back a little but I told myself I’d grab one more before heading for the door and this is it. Another band who believe everyone who goes to their Bandcamp page should know who they are --- no profile, guys? So I had to trawl Pitchfork (my first ever visit) to find out who these lads are, and it turns out they’re from the Republic of Texas, and all very young: preteen, says the reviewer but I wonder? Can you legally publish and/or play music live if you’re under the working age? Maybe in Texas you can.
I guess this was their debut single four years ago, as in 2011 their debut album had the B-side, “Doldrums”, on it, but not this strangely. Anyway to be perfectly honest I was not impressed by what I heard in the preview. Let’s see if that changes with a full listen. Hmm. Clangy, muddy guitar with a sort of fifties rock sound to it, then it speeds up into what I would almost call a punk rhythm, and as in the sample I find the vocal completely subdued, almost indecipherable. Whether that’s down to the prowess --- or lack of --- of the singer, or the production I don’t know, but when you can hear him he seems to have little or no emotion or inflection in his voice, almost as if he’s singing off an autocue or something. Rhythm is rocky enough and uptempo, and maybe it’s the shoegaze thing again, where you’re not really supposed to hear the vocalist or make out the lyrics, but it annoys me.
No, I don’t like this. Does nothing for me. Very amateurish and doesn’t really seem like they’re even trying. Maybe that’s the curse of youth, maybe it’s lack of experience, or even talent. I certainly wouldn’t bother listening to this again though. Mind you, I said that about My Bloody Valentine, so what do I know? But this is definitely not my cup of poison. Pass.
Rating: 2/10