Under The Influence

All of a sudden I've been completely swamped by music that really does it for me. When I last wrote about Spoon I was surprised by them secretly becoming my favourite band. Since then I've completely accepted them as one of the greatest indie bands of all time. Their latest offering is just helping to cement that position.

Don't You Evah is great bit of radio friendly perfection. That the funny thing with these guys - every song is a top indie radio hit, but it's not like everything else. Fundamentally it's quite simple I guess - good pop always gives the appearance of being simple... though I guess if it was actually that simple there would be more good stuff around.

Come on world, pay attention this time, this really is some seriously good stuff that deserves to push everything else off the charts.

Umm... drop everything right now. Nothing else matters... get down on your knees and worship Fog.

Got hold of a copy of this (even though it's not out until August) just before going away on my trip last week - stayed up listening to it even when i needed to sleep because I was so enraptured. Several times during my trip I stopped to think about how much I was looking forward to getting back home to give it another listen.

These are pop masterpieces... they must be, I'm on the second listen (the first being over a week ago) and I already know lots of the hooks. Here's the thing though - it twists and turns so much that everything takes me by surprise.

Is the old Fog work as good as this? Should be able to tell you soon - just purchased the entire back catalogue. Man, I can't wait to catch these guys at the Goldmund Festival.

As Fog themselves put it -

"There are people in the world that like weird noises and there are people in the world that like pop songs and then there are some people that like both... and we're those people."

See, I'm those people too. Now it all makes sense.

Truthfully, I'm not sure what to think of this. Maybe I'm missing something but it just felt a bit safe. Parts of I Will Wait For You sound like a rip of a old White Stripes track (from the Blood Cells days).

Kinda country-pop-rock - generally a bit too happy - though I guess it's fun. Interestingly the song I liked the most, Hemsworth Hallway, was actually the happiest sounding of the bunch. It's got the catchiest hook on the album... "You know, we don't know what goes though your little miiiiiiiiiiiiind"

If nothing else it definitely sounds like it's derived from a different era.

When I was first alerted to this album I was enthralled - their previous effort, Late Night Tales, has been one of my favourite mixes of late (excuse the pun). So, try to imagine my joy on discovering that it's all covers. That's right, every last track on here is a cover, two cds worth!

Thankfully I'm only familiar with a couple of them (I'm all about the new tunes). In particular Devo's Satisfaction has been high on my list of years (I actually had the pleasure of seeing them play it live recently).

Obviously the sound is completely new wave. Highlights for me include Jet Boy Jet Girl (Elton Motello), If You Want Me To Stay (Ronny) and Route Nationale 7 (The Honeymoon Killers). Though of course it's all really good.

Joy Division finish the album off with their live rendition of Sister Ray... and who better to get the last word on this one?

No, Harris isn't some deluded 23 year-old who really thinks he created disco, but he has done a damn fine job of redressing it in slinky electro.

It's like Riton, but disco! Instant pop appeal. Merrymaking At My Place is such a loveable bit of drug taking music.

Acceptable In The 80's is the breakthrough track on here - apparently it did some time on the charts recently. Killer groove. Stuff like this makes me want to get off my ass and do some DJing again.

I get the feeling there's not much to explore here, oh well - just soak up the sexy fun dance vibe in the meantime.

I was very lucky on Saturday when I chose to walk into that unassuming little record store (Sax) in Leuven. The guy behind the counter was understandably sceptical about my taste in music when he noticed the Rock Werchter armband I was wearing. I asked for something local and this is what I got - what a treat.

I'm glad I sacked off the festival to head back to Leuven to see them play that night. The performance was fantastic. Great energy, great fun, great act - gypsy ska at its best. Jos from the record store proved to be wonderful company with fine taste in music.

A wonderful experience - the memory of which I'll treasure all my life.

Stomping electro beats, filthy beats, distorted, twisted beats. They've definitely gone for the big noise approach, and it really works. It's German I believe. The vocals are definitely German - though the overall sound is a strange hard European/ Brit-rock hybrid.

We get a deconstruction of The Cure's Fire In Cairo (hence the covers classification... though it's a bit iffy) - stuttering so brutally that it's almost hard to take (the following Departure From Cairo mellows us out again).

Very infectious sounds.

When I first purchased this I was put off listening to it because it sounded a bit too happy, I was worried that it would simply be a novelty. Imagine how very pleased I was when I finally did listen to it through and discovered that it's darker than I'd previously judged it to be.

Not only that but it features a few bits but one of my favourite French artists, Fred Avril. Not only do they use his wonderful Urban Serenade, he also does the production work on their new cover, Come On Eileen.

There are too many beautiful tracks on here to name... I just tried to pick a few but couldn't. Gah! It's all great.

I got this the day it came out and then only listened to it once. That's pretty stupid of me considering how much I liked her last album (and everything she's ever done). There was something about the fact that it's Timbaland produced that put me off. Not that I don't like his work, it's just that I know his sound and I just didn't want to hear Björk like that.

Declare Indepndence is the song that jumped out at me on this one. It crescendos into such a great rolling sea bound swell. I also predict that it's probably the track I'd get sick of first.

Flicking through the tracks again I can hear that it's good. This girl really knows how to turn out a great pop work.

The UK's new kings of production. Everyone wants these guys to go to work remixing their tracks - and with good reason. They know how to sculpt a poptastic dance hit. Not like the cheesy hits we normally get bombarded with at this time of year.

Super high energy dance goodness. I believe the album was created on analogue synths, hence the Attack Decay Sustain Release.

I feel in love with these guys back when they were an indie rock band and I'm falling in love with them all over again. Just as well, no doubt we're going to be hearing this a lot over the next few months.