Metric - Synthetica

I'm looking forward to the new single (Youth Without Youth, due 1 May), and album (Synthetica, due 12 June) by Metric, so I'm posting what we have so far...

The band's website has a mini-game, where you can unlock parts of the new song's lyrics and video. The band also encourage fans to download the sheet music and post their own renditions of the song! :)



And here's a soundcloud from the site for a commentary from Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw:

Youth Without Youth

Emily Haines wrote a letter on the bands website in which she said:

"These are exponential times!", someone shouted at me on this topic. For a while I thought it was only my own life that was speeding by. Then I asked around and the consensus is that pretty much everybody is falling over themselves to match the ever quickening pace. What a relief. I'm so happy I asked! The things you consider ordinary or only related to you will be the most challenging to clearly express and also the most universally true. When I wrote the song "Help I'm Alive", I had no idea how many people would relate to the way I was feeling. I put it out there as a personal statement and ended up finding out that a lot of people understood where I was coming from for the first time.

I agree so much with this feeling - especially having just seen '24 Hour Party People' I share Emily's sense of awareness of being immersed in history, the ever-quickening pace and the sometimes overwhelming excitement at living in the times we are living in.

One of those songs...

...that can brighten up a day.

And it's such a  great cover.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJiC6cA3dUA&w=420&h=315]

x

Keep your eyes ahead baby...

Been thinking about certain bands i could mention on here and this one is definitely worth it.

The Helio Sequence - the not so new one on Sub Pop.

Their records are wonderful, warm baths of electro-indie-pop, equal parts organic and synthetic.

Brandon Summer's voice is honeyed and his melodies float like cotton-candy clouds.

Oh and Benjamin Weikel is a machine on the drums - in a good way. Excellent!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HiEcI3tE0TM&w=420&h=315]

The album 'Keep Your Eyes Ahead' was released in 2008 and remains my favourite.

It keeps you listening and is very appealing at first attempt.

You should give it a try :)

Agnes

The OK Social Club-The Shape of Things to Come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCKSdQ1w2io

Still Enough to Hold

Nalamusic comes from my antipodes, somewhere...I mean, Australia.
Song: Restless Embrace/Still Enough to Hold
Instructions: Pick your player/earphones, a bottle of red wine* and go outside. Look for grass and lay on it...Now look up, what do you see? It doesn't matter, close your eyes and listen to this demo:

[soundcloud url="http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/42545461" params="auto_play=false&show_artwork=true&color=90d434" width="100%" height="166" iframe="true" /]

*If you don't have a red wine bottle, just grab a Teddy bear...It's still enough to hold.

The Hacienda Must be Built

I'm posting this for Sero.

I just wanted to say - thanks for building the Hacienda, and educating me - and us in that piece of music history. I was so glad to step inside and take part. When I DJed at the Hacienda in SL, I didn't know the history til later - and now it's gone again, I feel it's loss too.

For those who don't know, Sero got the plans from one of the real life Hacienda's building managers, used the plans to build a 3D model of the club, and then opened it up as a club in Secondlife. Art, history and music all fused in one place.

A tip of the hat to Sero, and thank you.

A Map Of The Floating City

Thomas Dolby has released his first NEW album in about 15 years.... And it is fantastic. He pulls from several musical styles, but then he is the son of an archaelogist, so the exposure is evident in everything he's done. I really can't compare this properly to any of his previous work, the closest would be Flat Earth in my opinion, his second album.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbNTQFO9gYI&w=560&h=315]


It runs the gambit from Mediterranean to Cajun and soft jazz... You tell me... It isn't jumbled, it's assembled. Each track has a feel, but you never think that they don't belong together.

I'll be running this tonight for an album review if you want to listen. There will be Flat Earth for comparison, and some of the "12 x 12" remixes, 7pm SLT. Cheers!

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Petruchio/128/146/1502