Rocktober

Spring is here! – which means spring-cleaning, old Bruce Springsteen records and a bit more spring in your step. Here are some of the more optimistic releases currently tickling my ear buds, says Theo Sangster…

October music

Spring is here! Which means spring-cleaning, old Bruce Springsteen records and a bit more spring in your step. Here are some of the more optimistic releases currently tickling my ear buds.

Beirut – The Rip Tide

Before venturing off to Eastern Europe to immerse and ultimately marinate in the folk music of the region (incorporated and reflected in his first two records, Gulag Orkestar and Flying Club Cup), Zach Condon (Beirut) was a dab-hand at creating bedroom-based electronic music.

Beirut’s latest release The Rip Tide is a salubrious mixture of these two otherwise-disparate influences, slotting in piano accordions and Balkan-based brass between home-built synthesised beats, creating something which is ultimately quite unique. The amalgamation is directly noticeable in quasi-pop potential hit ‘Sante Fe’ (currently my favourite track), adding an element of pizzaz and pomp to the record.

The whole album is really nice; it’s not a classic, more a continuation of what has come before. The Rip Tide is definitely worth multiple listens.

Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo

Channelling the likes of Neil Young and/or Bob Dylan (or some other folk hero of old), Kurt Vile’s latest record is as it sounds: the vulnerable transparency of a heartbroken man brooding (not sulking); half-hidden in a wreath of cigarette smoke in some back alley bar, with only the dishcloth-toting barman to listen to his woes.

“There has but one true love in my baby’s arms, and I get the hint to hold on to him”, he pines in the opening track, and so starts a lonely discourse wandering through the depths of the male heart. The enchanting sojourn is bringing him halfway around the world to Auckland very soon (Thursday December 1st), at the King’s Arms, which makes perfect sense – the gritty rock-and-roll venue ideal for an underrated but truly gifted artist.

Memory Tapes – Piano Player

Dayve Hawke (Memory Tapes) wrote my favourite glo-fi record of 2009 through sleeper hit Seek Magic.

Falling into the vaguely-defined genre known as “chillwave”, his follow up LP, Piano Player continues to play on the easy-like-Sunday-morning atmosphere, with well-thought-out instrumentation and samples aplenty. Hawke is the quintessential bedroom musician/producer, recording and producing everything on the record himself (not just playing piano!)

It’s a lovely record; lulling you into that ‘everything is gonna be alright’ attitude. If this turns out to be your cup of tea, then I would also suggest similar artists such as Toro y Moi and Washed Out.

Written by Theo Sangster, 7 October 2011