Well done to 5FM, and especially to Gareth Cliff.
Your mix of news, views, memories and music was just right yesterday morning.
I’ve shared it on here before, but this was the first song I heard when I switched on yesterday, and will now always be inescapably linked to the events of the last 48 hours.
Song and coverage, both wonderfully appropriate.
Good news from the former a-ha frontman is that:
Morten Harkets «Brother» får verdenspremiere under Spellemannprisen den 18. januar
All of which means that the new single Brother (following on from the recently released There Is A Place) will be premiered at the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammies i Stavanger konserthus next month. From there, the album will be released in March and then there’s a European tour starting in May. Other dates will follow later in the year, but there’s no mention of Cape Town just yet (nor will there be).
The album will only be finished this month, meaning that the release in March is some five months behind schedule. This also means that it is now ineligible for the 6000 miles… 2013 Album Of The Year Award, although it has an infinitely higher chance of being selected for the 2014 version.
I guess we need an a-ha video to pass the time:
Forever Not Yours from the Lifelines album of 2002. Almost 12 years ago *weeps quietly*. Bit of a bizarre Socialist Noah’s Ark theme to this one, with an interesting twist at the end. Not quite sure what message the boys were trying to put across here, but if it was anything important, I haven’t got it. Sorry.
The new album Repent. Replenish. Repeat. from Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip is good, but the last track You Will See Me is outstanding. Now they’re releasing it and thankfully there’s an outstanding video to go with it:
Warning! Contains some naughty language!
It’s dark, angry, passionate, mocking, inspired and inspiring – but by all the wrong emotions – it’s gritty and it’s thought-provoking. It’s also been playing on repeat on my iPod for the last month. This is really good stuff, with more to hear and understand each time you listen to it, and it also demonstrates amazing Pip’s lyrical fluency. While the likes of Tinie Tempah are reliably informing us that:
I got so many clothes, I keeps some in my aunt’s house.
Pip is sharing lines like:
I will use you to cruise through any writer’s block,
Any lazy days when a glazed gaze invades my mind’s cave of creativity.
and warning us:
I will wipe out entire races,
I will erase faces and displace with great haste and no graces.
All in all, it’s a spectacular work of art and passion. Although you may note that it does lack the festive feel of certain other Christmas singles.
Yes, we’ve all heard the fantastic acoustic version of Bastille’s Pompeii already – a version augmented by the… er… acoustic qualities of the venue, the Petit Palais dans le Musée des Beaux-Arts de le Ville de Paris, no less. Mais oui.
But there’s no problem with hearing it again and marveling at Dan Smith’s soaring voice echoing around les belles salles, now is there?
Beautiful, although as Scroobius Pip would say of Kyle “J” Simmons (far left) “I’d rarely seen someone look quite so uncomfortable in their own skin”. Hopefully there will be a bit more energy from him when they come over here in January, and it won’t turn into another lifeless Alt-J set. Colour me worried.
Incidentally, you may also enjoy Hannah Reid and London Grammar‘s acoustic version of Wasting My Young Years (and indeed, Hannah Reid), done for the same people, but in a different (sadly less echoey) room, here.
Bastille (coming to Cape Town in just about two months, although we’ve got quite a bit to fit in in the intervening period) have only gone and covered DeBarge’s 1985 hit Rhythm Of The Night (see also Corona, 1993). And I’m really not sure what they bring to it.
For me, it’s a bit of a nothing version of a bit of a nothing song. Rather disappointing. Even the video never really takes off.
Thoughts, Bastille fans and ticket holders?