Tag Archive: NPR


Aldous Harding – singing in tongues

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August 23, 2017

Aldous Harding live at Hana-Bi, Ravenna – August 22nd 2017

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Aldous Harding at Hana-Bi

The striking stage presence and breathtaking vocal dexterity of New Zealand’s Aldous Harding is a thrill to behold.

The assured body language and the way she makes eye contact with members of the audience is in equal measures flirty and defiant. She is warm and genial between songs but then is like a woman possessed while singing. The focus and feeling this generated gave me goosebumps.

Her one hour set,accompanied by Invisible Familiars (Jared Samuel) on keyboards, begins where the new album, Party, ends.

In her song by song guide on NPR, she talks of ‘Swell Does The Skull’ as having the same “archaic fume” that fired the gothic folk songs on her self titled debut album but the baseball cap wearing Indie Girl who graced the cover of that record has evidently grown up and moved on. Continue reading →

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FUTURE ISLANDS – SEASONS AND SINGLES

Filed under: Music, Television — Leave a comment
March 17, 2014

futureislandsAnyone who witnessed Samuel Herring’s manic dancing on the David Letterman show should be eagerly anticipating the release of Future Islands‘ new album Singles which is out on 25th March.

A sneak preview can be found on NPR’s First Listen slot.

The recorded version of Seasons, the song they performed on Letterman, is slightly more restrained with none of the Waitsian growls that Herring specialises in but it’s still a great song.

The boppy 80s synch pop backing  is quite at odds with his passionate, soulful vocals but somehow it works brilliantly.

I’ve a feeling I’ll be streaming this to death in the coming weeks.

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INSIDE PAUL AUSTER

Filed under: Books, Movies — Leave a comment
January 17, 2014

REPORT FROM THE INTERIOR by Paul Auster (Faber & Faber, 2013).

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Given that this is the fifth autobiographical work Paul Auster has written, he is surely being a tad disingenuous when, in a recent NPR interview, he said: “I really have no interest in myself, I find it a very boring topic”.

He sought to explain this paradox by saying “what I’m interested in is trying to remember things from my life that will somehow connect with things that other people have experienced”.

In the first, and best, section of this book Auster, who was born in 1947, takes a mental journey back to his early years up to the age of 12. This cut off point is chosen because after that age, he maintains, you are no longer a child but moving, albeit tentatively, into the world of adulthood.

A curiosity is that Auster writes in the second person singular as though to distance himself from the person he once was as he attempts to “explore the internal geography of your boyhood”. His aim is to dredge up some notion of when his own personality was forged. This includes trying to locate the moment when he first realized that he was American and how this knowledge affected his character. The growing awareness that he was also Jewish was another crucial and uncomfortable part of his identity.

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ÓLÖF ARNALDS : NOT GRIM AT ALL

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April 21, 2013

I thought I posted a video of Ólöf Arnalds at the time of writing a review of her Sudden Elevation album but it seems not; so, I’ll make amends now.

Some have criticised her for not singing in her native Icelandic but the words are so kooky, I don’t think it really matters what language she is using.

I’m not too sure about the kaleidoscopic effects on the video but the effect of the song is still mesmerizing.

She seems to be within her own world and takes the listener there with her.

The album from which this song comes, on One Little Indian records, is high on my list of favourites of the year

if you like this, you should also watch her NPR Tiny Desk performance.

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DEVENDRA BANHART’S MALA : FIRST LISTEN – FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Filed under: Music — 1 Comment
March 5, 2013

Until 8am this morning that I didn’t even know that a new Devendra Banhart was about to drop (on 12th March).

The excellent NPR first listen allows a sneak preview. It’s called Mala and is released on Nonesuch Records

I decided to try an experiment. I made a point of not reading any pre-publicity and listened to the whole album from start to finish without even checking what the tracks were called – the titles are the only words I added later. it’s not a proper review – just a series of impressions. Continue reading →

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